All right, welcome everyone to the North Middlesex Regional School District School Committee meeting. It is June 23rd, 2026. It is 6:02 p.m. In attendance, we have Jackie White,
Keenan Francois, Michael Labossiere, Chris Sloan, Lisa Bloom, Alexander Bancoult, Kim Craven, and myself as school committee members. Um in administration, we have Robin Ivy,
uh Dr. Reese, Superintendent Morgan, um Dr. Cormier, Principal Lori Smith, um and teacher Kevin Lonstrohm, and Principal Olmstead. Did I get everyone on the screen?
>> If you did, all right. >> All right, we have a consent agenda. May I take a motion? We are going to take out the April 14th minutes. Um those are not ready quite yet, so those are coming off the consent agenda
for tonight. So, does somebody want to make a motion for the consent agenda? >> I move to accept the consent agenda as presented excluding the April 14th, 2026 minutes. >> That is Keenan Francois on the motion. Do I have a second?
>> I second. >> And Michael Labossiere on a second. Anyone have any comments or questions about the consent agenda? >> I think the plan here, since we're voting on the whole thing, is I I still abstain from this, right?
>> Until same payroll. >> yeah. Okay. >> Same payroll. And Alexander probably as well. >> Yeah, okay. >> Unless we want to exclude. Next time, we'll rearrange the agenda and have those in a separate area so that you guys can vote on the
agenda except for the payroll. >> Okay. >> All right, if that's okay with everyone. All right. Um Jackie Wait. >> Yes. >> Keena Francois. >> Yes. >> Michael Labossiere. Michael Labossiere.
>> Yes. >> Uh Chris Lowe. >> I'm staying. >> Lisa Bloom. Lisa Bloom. >> Sorry, yes. >> [snorts] >> Alexander Bankoti. >> Abstain. >> Kim Craven. >> Yes.
>> And myself, yes. All right, moving on to public comment. I think we do have two public comments. Yeah, hold on one minute for me. We had a Alan Leo. Uh if Alan is on the call, could he raise his hand, please?
He just joined in. Oh, here he goes. Okay, Alan, you should be all set to talk. Alan. >> Can you hear me? >> You give Yes, we can hear you. Would you give your address and your name, please? >> Sure. >> For the record. >> Alan Leo, Jr.
14 Main Street in the wonderful town of Pepperell, Massachusetts in the county of Middlesex in the nation of the United States of America. >> All right, thank you, Alan. >> All right. >> All right, go ahead. >> Oh, so I was I had learned [clears throat]
about the NFC proposal for the uh by social media. And the only thing that I was concerned about was that the town of Townsend already has the equipment themselves. From what I understand, so I didn't know
my So my concern is are we duplicating what has already been invested for Townsend, the town of Townsend for the district. That was cuz cuz we were looking at it, too. The the recreation commission the Pepperell has been
looking at it as well. So that was that was just my my comment, my takeaway because a town of Townsend at this the size of of a town like Townsend having two NFCs probably doesn't make the best of sense
in my humble opinion, but that's just my own opinion and I leave you with that, but that was just that was something I wanted to share with you cuz I and I didn't know if the NFC had told you that Townsend had had that. And that that Emmy has supposedly has
the equipment in storage. So that's just something just adding my two cents. >> Thank you, Alan. >> All right, thank you. >> All right. And I think Randy Rush has
a public comment she wants to make as well. >> You're all set, Randy. You can talk. >> Hello everyone. Nice to see you. Um So um I wanted to quickly try and just make some comments to you about the
agenda one item on the agenda tonight. And that is the draft that is out for policy BE on the school committee meetings. I wanted first provide a little bit of history as far as having one meeting a week or a month rather. That is something new that
got instituted in 2024. so we've only been through um two years of doing one meeting per month. Before that, we were meeting every 3 weeks with, I believe, two meetings in February for budget. At that time, for many, many years, we
did not have a lot of meetings that went to the lengths that they do now. When we had voted in going to one meeting a month to reduce the number of meetings, it was discussed that the meetings would get longer. So, knowing that, and also knowing that the amount of
business that the school committee needs to conduct within the year has not changed. If it has, it has probably gotten a little bit more. I would >> [clears throat] >> suggest and hope that instead of just artificially putting a time limit on
your meetings, that you actually dive into why you are having longer meetings and longer meetings than you would like. Find out what the issues are and try and solve those issues, because that will help make your meetings more productive, getting all of
your work done, and have the length of meeting that you are seeking out. It could be that there's just too much work for the number of meetings that you've cut it down by, cuz I think it's cut down by about five meetings a year, four or five. It could be that members
aren't getting enough information ahead of time, and so there's a lot more discussion in the meetings on some of these topics. It could be something else entirely, but until someone starts to look into why the meetings are this long, um I think that's that should be what you're looking at versus just an
artificial time limit. Um and that's all I have. Thank you. >> Thank you, Randy. Anyone else have any comments, anyone signed up? More? >> No.
>> All right. All right, moving on. Chairperson's report. Um in the folder or in the document, you guys will see a letter that went out to legislators on more funding and um
development of the commission. That is something that is important for our school funding and um >> [clears throat] >> looking for support there from legislators as we move forward with that. The CORI authorization form,
I ask that everyone fill out a CORI. That is so that you can be in the schools um and your background check is clear and it's good for 3 years. So, I ask that all school committee members fill that out. >> I I And Robin
>> that's posted. >> I emailed um all the members that either need a CORI or have an outdated CORI. So, if um if you could just get that information in as soon as possible. If you have any um questions, feel free to reach out to me or or Charlene um from HR.
>> Yeah, I I emailed mine in um earlier, so you can check mine off on the tracker. I I did it a while ago, but I didn't I didn't mention it, so. >> Okay, thank you, Michael. Um and something else is there's some training with MASC that everyone should
be um taking and it's the introductory course and I think most people have taken it. Just making sure that you guys are up to date on that. And also your ethics training. Make sure that that's filed with your towns as well.
Um and we will be getting to um conflict of interest things down below later in the agenda that we will discuss as well. All right, and Oh, and I want to congratulate the graduates of 2026. It was a beautiful
ceremony and I hope that everyone is enjoying their summer and going forward with that. All right, Superintendent Morgan. >> I just have a real quick announcement right now and then I have more later in the meeting as part of my report, but do
just want to let the public know and there will be something going out before the end of the week >> [clears throat] >> that includes having the track being open. So, the track um opened yesterday at 5:30 a.m. It's going to be open from 5:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
every day um until later on in August when the preseason starts and then the time will be modified somewhat. Not sure of the of the fall preseason schedule at this point, but as of now Monday to Friday the track is open from 5:30 a.m. to
10:00 a.m. every day for the public use. >> And Brad, that's a change, right? That's new for us this summer? >> Um it's it's been open before. Um it was open last year for a period of time as well and I believe the year before that as well. Um so, we do try to get it open. We just
have to have it The key is making sure that we have somebody in the area only because along with the track comes the turf field which um has a warranty that that could be easily voided if things are brought on or into the
facility that should not be there um such as um you know, a a certain type of cleat or spike, um certain types of drinks, uh tobacco products, animals. Um those are all things that we we have had issues with before. Um bicycles on
the track um could void that warranty. So, just making sure that somebody is just in the area to make sure that neither the track or the turf field are damaged. And we do have that um in the morning with our outside maintenance crew now and in the kids being out for the
summer. >> Great. >> All right. All right, moving on to assistant superintendent Dr. Reese. >> Good evening everyone. Um Uh Robin, I'm going to send a share request.
>> Oh, yep. You should be all set. >> Thank you. So, this evening I wanted to address update the school committee and the community on um the outcomes of two of the grants that we had received this year. The first
being our arts and cultural vitality self-evaluation grant. And this was through uh DESE. And really the goal of the grant was to look at what our arts and cultural programming is in the district to identify our areas of strength, to identify areas that we can
continue to grow, and then the final step, as you'll see at the end of the slide presentation, is really around action planning up what do we do with this information and how do we move forward to ensure that we're providing arts a strong arts and cultural program here in the district.
So, there are four parts to the arts and culture cultural vitality evaluation. The first looked at infrastructure, what are the structures we have in place in the district to support a strong programming, what opportunities do we have make available for our students and
for the community to be part of a strong cultural arts and cultural programming, what's the level of participation, and then what's the impact of the programming that we do provide. So, within those four areas, each each area had indicators and they
we had a team that was representative of members of the elementary, medical, middle, and high school arts programming um >> [clears throat] >> teachers. And what we did was we sat down and we looked at each of the indicators and evaluated whether if we
were this was an area of strength or an area of challenge for our district or somewhere in the middle. What was interesting when we first started this process and the goal of this tool initially was to do it globally and come up with one score for the district, but what we found was
within the different levers and on specific indicators, the elementary staff saw something as a strength, whereas the high school staff might have seen it not so much a strength. And so we consulted with DESI around that and came to the agreement that it would be
better for us to evaluate this from an elementary, middle, and high school perspective to really be able to hone in on what the strengths and what the areas of challenges are for the district. So overall, here's what it looks like. Um, as you can see, here's the four
levers and the scores that came up for elementary, middle, and high school. Um, and anywhere that was in the lower range, 0% to 25% is considered what's untapped vitality. It's something that we just were not there yet, but we have
the opportunity and we know how to grow all the way up to strong vitality. So those are the ratings. Um, and you can see it was interesting, you can see the real distinctions between the different levels and why averaging wouldn't have met been as meaningful for for us to
look at. Overall, and this is what I'm going to go through these really quickly, but these are just the four different levers and it shows us what some of the strengths were. Um, for uh the rating one, um,
elementary and high school saw this as strong, middle school saw it as more of a challenge, and really what some of the things that came up around this were some challenges that we need to look at around scheduling, around how what happens on snow days in terms of opportunities for students to be able to
receive arts programming. Class sizes came up as a topic and an issue of concern. Um some of the strengths were all of elementary middle school students participate in arts and music and have the opportunity be involved in band and chorus. Whereas when you get up to the
high school level, it's more while there is some graduation requirements around taking an arts elective course, there's not as much of a requirement that everyone take it all the time. This goes into
our second indicator. Um we we saw it was developing for all three levels. Um you can see here some of the issues that came up. Again, you see some of the same topics about all students being able to participate. There's a variety of high school offerings.
Some limitations in terms of what students are be able to be offered at the elementary and middle school level as compared to the high school programming. And then a lack of diversity. Um so really we're looking at, you know, how are and this is where I would we might
start to really look at our action planning. What can we do to ensure that all students have equal access and opportunity and awareness of the the rich programming that the district does offer. And then the other piece that came up throughout all four levels was levers
was around the PD offerings and just being able to strengthen that both for art arts performing and fine arts teachers as well as arts programming and PD for our general teacher population. The third indicator or third lever, um
high elementary saw this as a strength. Middle and high school saw this and this was really one that had a huge gap. They saw this at at the beginning level versus a strength for the elementary level. And I think what played into that was really the level of parental involvement
and engagement and attendance when you have when you have activities at the elementary level versus what happens when you get up to the middle and high school level. And then the final area, um, lever all three saw this as an area of development and, um,
this was really around what are we using around data, how we collecting data, what are we doing with the type of data that helps inform both student learning as well as opportunities to grow and the professional development. So that's where, um, this was kind of a lower area
across all three levels. Here and and I've talked about this within the different areas, but you see from the elementary perspective, really some things that came up as strengths as well as some opportunities for growth, um, and you're going to see a through line
when we look at some of these opportunities for growth when we go to the middle school, again you're seeing for opportunities, professional development, expansion of electives, flexibility within the art curriculum,
um, as well as at the high school, opportunities for professional development and looking at how do we get families and the community involved during the school day with arts programming. So what do we do with all this? The next step, and hopefully we received a grant
this year, hopefully there's going to be some grant funding for for next year for us to go into phase two, which would really be taking what we learned from the about self-evaluation and developing an action plan. And then
in year two and possibly year three looking at implementing that action plan, but really focusing next year on identifying some goals and how we're going to continue to grow and improve the arts programming. Um, so I I wanted to share that and then
the other grant that we had received this year was around or one of the other grants we received this year was for our ADA self-evaluation, which really gave us an opportunity to look at our six school buildings and have an outside
consultant come in and evaluate accessibility for individuals, whether it be students or community with disabilities. We're at the final stage of that. They came in during the April vacation. They did tours of the building. They spent a day in each of the buildings really
digging in. They've identified some preliminary areas for us, but we'll get the final report by June 30th. We're I think we're meeting June 29th or 30th next week with the committee or with the group where they're going to present their final
report of findings. Again, we're hoping and we did apply for a grant for next year, which would allow us and we applied for a $250,000 grant, which would allow us to address some of the areas that are being going to be
identified in the final report. So, I apologize I went longer than I anticipated, but I wanted to give you a sense of what happens when we get grants and what's the work that we we have as outcomes. >> Thank you, Dr. Reese.
Um I'll ask if the committee has any questions or if they do have questions, they can of course email you and we would gladly answer those. Um Kim. >> Thank you. That was really interesting
to see. Um you mentioned the um >> [clears throat] >> the process of getting grant money to implement action plan for the findings. If you don't get the grant funding, what would the action plan be
to try to you know, I don't want to say make corrections, but but to work on those areas that you identified. >> Absolutely, that's a great question. So, what we would have to look at is our long-range capital planning and identifying with the outside consultant,
what are the areas of priority and kind of ranking them in terms of cost and looking at over our multi-years being able to address all of the the aspects of that plan. So, that's kind of the second step of there's a self-evaluation and then the transition plan and the
transition plan starts to look at what's the long-range plan for um addressing those deficiencies or concerns. >> And being unfamiliar, um what is the cost of a typical implementation plan? Do Do you know offhand or is that something that you might be able to
research for us over the summer? >> In terms of um developing a plan or the actual action steps within it? >> Sort of both. Like just what what does that look like for us over the you know, foreseeable future? >> So, there there's no real cost associated with like the development of
the plan. That's part of the work that the outside consultant is going is helping with in terms of that transition piece. What we'll have to look at is sitting down with the buildings and grounds, sitting down with facilities and starting to identify are there any
like low-hanging priorities that we can address with minimal cost? What are the things that have more extensive cost and then working out with the school committee over a multiple-year plan of what does that look like in terms of the capital improvement requests and how does that
fit in? Um they've identified they'll be identifying some areas that they see as more critical like needs that we have to address right away versus those ones that are important but may not be as as concerning in terms of just
ensuring safety and accessibility. >> Thank you. Dr. Commier. >> Uh and again also um say that on some of the other projects we're kind of working what we anticipate some of the findings into them. So for example, there's a
curbing project that's about to start at Spaulding and we knew that the trough on the ramp was going to be cited. So we included that in the project. So that's not something that we're going to need to wait for uh Dr. Reese's grant to do. Like we've already sort of eyeballed
that and said, "This is going to be a problem. We have somebody coming in to fix this area anyway. Let's address that." So we can we can kind of chip away at some of the findings over the next couple of years through other projects that happen to be addressing those same areas as well. >> Thank you. Anyone else? All right. We are going to move on into
the next item on the agenda, which is the student handbook. We are pulling this until the next meeting um due to legal not returning it to us in a timely manner. Um out of state and international
student travel, this is Principal Smith. And she's going to discuss and her team. I think Kevin Lundstrom is on as well. Um about what this entails and get the
feeling of how the committee feels about international travel. It's not an approval tonight. It's just a discussion. All right. >> Thanks. >> Principal Smith. >> Yep. Can you hear me? >> Yes. >> So um I have a couple of staff members
that would like to propose an international trip to get our students uh more involved in getting out of the country and just seeing what other cultures are like. And the original proposal was to look at it for August of 2020 um 27. However, just due to the time frame
and how much it might cost, they're really looking off to push it to August of 2028 so they can kind of put a survey out to see about the what where students would like to go and then how much you know that people are looking at they could spend and then giving them enough time to get that money together um and
we're just looking for approval for us to be able to start that process. >> Is does anyone have any questions? Or any concerns about this? >> So I and I took a look at uh the policy regarding this and as far as I can tell
we there's no need for approval for there's no need for the school committee to approve that sort of exploratory like doing a survey, trying to get an idea of what would be wanted to be done. As far as I can tell we only need to approve
once there's an actual proposed trip with specific dates and all of that stuff and then there's a whole bunch of information that the policy requires but that I don't think we're at that point yet, right? Like we're not anywhere close to that point as far as I can tell. >> Of course we do it's just a lot of legwork for the the two teachers to do
so we just wanted to make sure that this was something that was even going to be considered um before we get specific dates and specific places and and times and like what what it's going to cost. >> So let me give you a little background um sometimes districts have gone away from
international travel because of the hassles that it creates. >> Mhm. >> Um some school districts like to have them for the kids experience, some school districts want to stay away from them because of legal issues.
So, I think what Principal Smith is asking is is this an area where the school committee is comfortable and pursue having them pursue this and do the legwork behind it. Jackie, I did see your hand up and I did
see Keenan's hand up. >> Yeah, so I mean, initially I'm all for this. I think it would be an an amazing value add to our students to be able to experience something like this. Um Lisa, I don't know if you have history or if anyone on our meeting has history of if
we've done this in the past and if we did run into the hassle of legal issues or what may have been the reason for us discontinuing them. >> I do know that this was in um during COVID, we had issues with the Washington D.C. That's not
international travel, but we did have money that was paid out by some parents and they did not get it back. Um these services um Superintendent Morgan and um Principal Smith may be able to update me. These um
companies may have improved their policies around this um due to different issues. Um I do know that uh the chaperones, when they do go on these trips, take a huge chunk of
responsibility um for the kids and they're going international, which it's not as easy flight back. And there could be problems. >> So, when you're looking at going through
um agency who does have travel insurance that they're looking to purchase through that, so that will can that will take care of trip cancellation, any kind of medical emergencies, that type of thing. Um we have had international trips before in the past that um that have gone through different tour
companies, but weren't necessarily school sponsored. We're looking for this international trip to be school sponsored um just so we can make sure that everything is, you know, on the up and up and everything is all set and that's what but they're just looking to do it in the summer time.
>> Mhm. But is it but it would it would be school sponsored, but it would be operated by this uh tour company would be the idea? >> They'll set up the logistics and I can let you know Kevin and Christian are on here. They're our two teachers that are putting this forward. They're also both
of the the people that have been doing the Nola trip and the New York service learning trip for the last few years. So they're well versed in in traveling um not necessarily internationally with our students, but within the country. So Kevin and or Christian, I don't know if you want to chime in on this.
>> Yeah, uh I can jump on briefly. Um Kevin Lonstrom, nice to meet everybody if I've not met you before. Um so in our conversations throughout this um spring, we've been speaking with EF Tours. That's not a commitment to EF Tours as we're now speaking with you. Um but just
in the preliminary um sort of seeing what this might entail and what it might look like. Uh it would be run through EF Tours. They essentially plan the elements of the trip in terms of where the lodging is, where students would be uh eating, where students would
be uh traveling to see different things. Um and then our side of it with it being a school uh approved trip would be that we are able to advertise to students in our school. We're able to sort of use the um elements of the district to to promote
this as something that is school sponsored. And hopefully that gets uh more buy-in from students and it keeps it focused on students of North Middlesex rather than it being a community trip where we don't have as much of a a say in who is taking part in
the trip and it invites people from the outside in. >> Jackie White. Um Thanks Kevin. I'm I'm familiar with Nola and the New York service learning trips. Those models seem to work really great where we have some parents who chaperone
and then also nurse that joins the trip as well. Do you think it would be the same model that we would follow for the international trip and if so um like would it require budget money for us to set aside for us being able to send teachers to chaperone and nursing
staff or how would how would that work? >> So EF Tours operates at a I believe it's 6 to 1 ratio for students to chaperones for the chaperones to be covered. That being said, there is a set price that more chaperones can buy in at to be a part of the trip. Uh
but when we're looking at what is covered by EF Tours, it is that within that ratio of students. Um there is no requirement from EF Tours to have a nurse on the trip. If that is something that the district would prefer to feel more comfortable with the trip then that is something that we could certainly
work around and discuss the logistics of. From the EF Tours side of things, this trip could be as small as six students with one teacher. It could be you know, they can accommodate if it was 30 students with five teachers. Um parents are also eligible as adult
chaperones. It would be at the discretion of the trip coordinators at that point. Um just with the comparison to the New York and the New Orleans trips, those are slightly different just in the sense that we are planning the details of the trip,
the transportation, what we're doing when we're there. It's easier for us to have control over the the price point because of that. We cook for ourselves, we transport ourselves. This would be organized through EF Tours, which takes a huge burden off in terms of the
planning. Um but it does have the impact of less uh lateral movement on our end in terms of what the final price looks like. >> Any further questions? >> So, we don't need to solve this now, but I know we had previously had discussions
vis-à-vis international trips and nurses, and I honestly cannot remember what the end state of that conversation was. So, we probably need to take another look at that. Um but I I I don't remember whether the policy
requires like our policy requires a nurse on international trips or not, but I know there was an issue around licensing and nurses and international trips, and um so, yeah, that's I just wanted to make sure that we check on that and make sure that that's addressed
adequately. And now I'm trying to find a policy really quick, but I I I don't think I'm going to be able to find it that quickly. So, let's not let's not hold up the discussion on that. >> Any Anyone else? >> I guess the second point though, broadly
speaking, I totally am on board with this. I I would I fully support this as long as all of the like legal stuff and logistical stuff can be worked out, and like if the policy requires adjusting in order to make this work, you know, we would have
to talk about that obviously, but um you know, that I want to make sure that if we're going to if this is going to happen that it like everything is done according to the policy, and if that means that the policy needs to be adjusted to the reality of the current situation of how this trip is going to
work, then we should make sure we do that. >> I second what Mike just said. I I think this is a great idea. Thank you um uh Kevin and Lori for bringing this forward. >> All right. So, if everyone is okay with it,
um we will assign the policy committee to look at the traveling international policy and make sure that that is up and legal. Does that sound okay with everyone? >> Yes. >> Yes.
>> All right. So, that's a good consensus. I don't think we need a formal vote on it. I think we'll just assign it to the policy committee and they can bring it back. All right. >> Thank you. >> Yes, thank you for your time.
All right. Moving on to the appointment of a new treasurer. Um Michael Hartnett, after 35 years, has decided to retire. And so, um I we will be inviting him to our next
meeting to give him a formal thank you and um wish him the best in his retirement. But tonight, Superintendent Morgan and Dr. Cormier and Ms. Haynes are bringing back
an appointment for treasury or treasurer and so I'm going to let them discuss this. Whoever wants to take the lead, go ahead. >> I can turn it over to uh to Nancy and Dr. Cormier. >> Nancy, you're on mute.
>> It's okay. I think I get that one of these right one of these times. Um so we had put out an advertisement based on our job description, which I noticed the job description is in the packet. And that's been in place for quite some time. Um we did did get a
couple of inquiries um and we interviewed um Katie and um we're pleased um that she um is also a district treasurer or a town treasurer collector for the town of
Groton. And she applied for the position and we had an interview I think Kevin uh myself and Lisa um met with her and felt really comfortable with her qualifications to the job. She would be new to being a regional school district
treasurer but was um fantastic has fantastic experience that can be applied. So I we made a recommendation to the superintendent um to consider her appointment. >> Dr. Comeau, do you have anything to add? >> Uh just that she has a familiarity with
Mike. Uh Mike is staying on until July 18th and we're already working on that, you know, should she get the appointment tonight that he is going to be able to transition her in and do some training with her, get her up to speed. Uh just not necessarily with the job as much as just getting her used to how the you know, the district
does things. Um so we we sort of have a plan in place and and we'd love to to have the appointment to move forward with. >> All right, any questions from the committee? >> No questions but having worked um and knew of her work in Townsend, fully support it and very
pleased and excited that she applied for the job. >> And just a character vouch for me. I think I only had a 20-minute interaction with her about probably a year ago now when I was selling her a phone. I don't know if if me but she's a wonderful
person. Had a great conversation. So. >> All right. Jackie White. >> Can you say her name one more time? Sorry. >> Kazanjian. Katie Kazanjian. >> Got it. Thank you. >> It took me a while to get that, too, Jackie.
I practiced before the call to make sure I had it correct. All right. So, there is a motion on the agenda if somebody would like to make that motion. We can >> There's There's two motions, it looks
like. There's one for the job description, and then there's one for the appointment. Do we need to do both of those? >> Let's do both of them. Has everyone read the job description? All right. >> All right. >> Is somebody ready for the motion? >> Yes. I move to approve the district
check district treasurer job description as presented. >> Second. >> That is a That is Michael Labossiere with the motion and Keenan Francois with the second. It is a roll call vote. Does
anyone have any questions about the description of treasurer? All right. Sorry. Um Jackie White. >> Yes. >> Keenan Francois.
>> Yes. >> Michael Labossiere. >> Yes. >> Chris Long. >> Yes. >> Lisa Bloom. >> Yes. >> Michael or Alexander Van Coudy. >> Yes. >> [clears throat] >> Ken Craven. >> Yes.
>> And myself, yes. The next motion for appointment of Katie Kazanjian to district treasurer. >> I move to appoint Katie Kazanjian as district treasurer for the 2026-2027
school year with a salary of and I'm sorry I don't have that right in front of me. >> 12 629 >> 12 629 >> per month, right? >> 12 629
>> is $12,629. >> Oh, okay. Oh, okay. I got it. >> Not per month. >> Okay, not per month. >> I was going to say. >> Okay, it said it said monthly basis and I'm like hang on a second. I'm like, oh, wait, that means divide it up on okay, yep, I got it. Sorry.
>> All right, that is Jackie White with the motion. A second. >> Who was the second? Oh, Kim Craven with the second. All right, it's a roll call vote. Jackie White? >> Yes. >> Keenan Francois? >> Yes.
>> Michael Labossiere? >> Yes. >> Bloom? >> Yes. >> Lisa Bloom? >> Yes. >> Alexander Benckendorf? >> Yes. >> Kim Craven? >> Yes. >> And myself, yes.
All right. Congratulations, Ms. Kazanjian. And I see that she is on the call as well. All right, moving on to the NMRSH fitness court, Dr. Reese and
Superintendent Morgan. >> Thank you. Good evening again everyone. Um so what we wanted to do this morning was share an update um and have a conversation around the proposed outdoor fitness court. Um wanted to give some background information at first and then Dr.
Cormier is going to actually walk through what we're looking for in terms of proposed motions. Um should the committee want to move forward with it. So as you may recall back in um the early May school committee meeting, I let the committee know that we had um
pursued and were awarded a grant um in the amount of $40,000 through Blue Cross Blue Shield um for a fitness court through this National Fitness Campaign program. And at that time I was going to be exploring some additional funding sources to see if
there was something that we wanted to propose to the committee to move forward with. Um at that time the conversation with the um National Fitness Campaign which actually is used in these pictures as a sample of what the
uh fitness court might look like, uh we realized that under Chapter 30B for procurement of equipment that while they had said that um other districts and um communities had gone under sole source, um after consultation with our
attorneys, they felt that we really needed to go out to a bid um for the procurement of a fitness court um that it didn't fit under the criteria for uh sole source for fitness court. We were exploring it initially though
because we saw some real benefits in terms of our physical education programming up the high school to be able to offer an outdoor court for families or for our students that had both um circuit training
areas as well as an open court area for more functional fitness training and also that could be used for classroom space outside. Additionally, um as you know, we've been talking this year about exploring career and technical education programming. Uh
we have submitted for a couple grants through the state to be able to offer um public safety and construction craft trade laborer. Um um CT career and technical education programs that we we we haven't heard
back from the state yet whether those have moved forward, but we saw that this court could also serve a dual benefit not only for our physical education, our science courses, but also for the potential of career and technical education programming. Particularly
around the public safety where they would be able to use the circuit area for training, physical training, and the other side for both their functional fitness as well as other routines and um
instruction that goes along with being a firefighter, that goes along with being a police officer. Um different different training that they could do outside that So, that would meet that requirement for our career and technical education program. And finally, we also saw this as a good opportunity for our
communities to have access to to a court and be able to use this and um these courts come with um applications or some way that people can get training on how to use it appropriately so that they can actually
be um safe while they're they're using the courts. Um so, that was kind of where we went at the time. Like I said, we thought that it was a sole source, but then because of conversations with our attorneys, we did put out a bid for this. Um
so, we I'm presenting this evening for um the grant through Blue Cross Blue Shield because we'd have to wait to see if that were First of all, if the committee wants to move forward with this. Secondly, if we do move forward with it, they would have to be the the vendor that we would select, and then we
would look to the grant funding um that goes along with that. Um what we're looking for here, and again, this is the what you see in terms of the pictures of the court, that's a National Fitness Campaign court, but it's not necessarily
who we will select as the vendor if we move forward. The we would go through the complete the RFP process and award it to a vendor that uh provided the best best option at the best price. But, the location that we're looking at is right
outside the high school, the gym. Um that space uh Principal Smith has let us know that that space does not have any type of um um sprinklers. Sorry. Loss of words. Uh sprinkler system or anything underneath
the ground so that we would be able to install the the concrete block without um interrupting anything around electrical or sprinklers. And then, we would be looking to work with the selected vendor to provide a fitness area that had both
the circuit and the functional training area. So, I'm going to ask Dr. Cormier to walk through first just so that you have an understanding. There's there's [clears throat] a number of motions that if we do move forward, we would need to take tonight. Um And it just to give you a sense, the reason this has this
timeline is we're really looking at being able to get this in place this summer, both the construction associated with it as well as having people on site. The time to get this done is during the summer, and we've
we've tried to outline through the RFP process a timeline that gets this done and in place by the end of August, so that when students come back, it's it's there and available for students to use. So, again, um what we're looking for at this evening
is there's a series of votes for you to consider after asking some questions around it. We have put out an RFP, again, just so that if we are moving forward with it, we can move forward in a timely process and have that accepted by June 30th. Um
the the site work and court installation would happen during the summer uh with a projected opening in September. So, Dr. Cormier, do you want to walk through these two pages? So, I'll have Dr. Cormier go through these, we'll answer any questions, and then we'll go
back to them for the committee um in terms of the motions. >> Thank you, Dr. Reese. So, I'll do my best here cuz it's it is still uh because we're we're in the middle of it right now. Um and as Dr. Reese mentioned, we have sort of two timelines
to to to work with. One is for the construction installation procurement to be done for school to open in the fall, but also because we're trying to get some of this into the FY26 budget, and so we really want to be able to get um you know, invoices out and have money
encumbered and everything ready to go by June 30th. So, as the previous slide uh indicated, the the bid process will close June 30th. It is open right now. We had a a pre-bid conference. We've had 12 firms pull bid papers. One did get
back to us right away and said they didn't do this kind of work. So, we theoretically have 11. Um as we've seen in some of the the recent projects, you know, we've we've had upwards of 20 and gotten three bids, so we don't expect to see 12 bids. Um
so, there will be three sources of funding ultimately, but not immediately. And I'll I'll explain this for you. So, Dr. Reese was talking about the $40,000 grant from Blue Cross Blue Shield. Um there are two ways in this which this could go
depending on the vendor. Either we accept it and use it as part of our funding or a vendor could just take it directly and just knock $40,000 off the final price. In that way you don't actually have to vote on accepting a grant. It's just sort of it's like a coupon almost.
Um so that would be $40,000 of it. We also received word uh early last week that the $150,000 earmark that Senator Cronauer had procured for the district for
physical um I guess rehab you know so a project of of a physical construction nature did get accepted. The governor has not yet signed the budget yet so we're still you
know but we're all indications are that we will be getting $150,000 that we will put towards this. But we will not get it by June 30th. We will get it in FY27. And then the remaining it comes out to around $115,000
would be funds that when we spoke with the finance subcommittee about using some of the funds so they don't close to END that was one of the one of the routes that we we chose to take. So if I'm saying this correctly and uh
Nancy if you can chime in if I'm getting something wrong here. I believe what we would need is the approval to move the $264,750 out of our general fund so we can write the POs, we can do the processes
and then when the money comes in from the grant and from the state that money would move back out of that account and either then be used elsewhere, close to END, you know we we we have options at that point. We can expand um, the overall project from that grant line
from that that funding line. Um, but because of the June 30th of it all, that's where it's a it looks like a bigger ask than it will actually cost the district in the end. So, that's kind of the best way to explain it. I think Nancy did I
how did that sound? >> Yes, and I think um, actually this fair share grant was accepted. I had heard that it's been accepted. So, I'm hoping um, we would we would know that for for sure um, very soon.
>> I did speak to Senator Cronin yesterday um, via text and it it appears as though that $150,000 is is going to be appropriated to North Middlesex. >> Yeah, it's it's sounding like that from everything I read too. I just didn't want to make a 100% commitment when I wasn't totally sure. Yes, I think odds
are it will. >> Um, yes, and I just can I just jump on for 1 second? Um, please. So, I think the intention here is because it's a bigger project with multiple funding sources that tonight's approval um, would would involve transferring funds
to the capital project for this for an outside fitness classroom. Um, the other funding uh, grants would go into that eventually when they come in and and the fair share money would go in. So, we'd have one location for in the accounting system for this project. So, tonight
would be the transfer of um, the part of the FY26 budget funding that we think we would use for it. Again, we could still hold if we didn't like any of the options. It wouldn't force us into purchasing anything particular, but we
would end up with it sitting in a capital project fund for that purpose until the school committee would do something different with the funding. >> Tim Craven >> Thank you. I'm going to have a bunch of questions, but let me start with one in particular.
The fair share grant was there a specific ask for a specific project for that with Senator Cronin? >> So when Senator Cronin reached out, he had mentioned that there would be that there would be money available. And he was originally asking, you know, did
we have any idea as to how we would use it? Within a a few weeks of that initial call I've been going back and forth with with Senator Cronin. And Dr. Reese came forward with this
idea. And again, in looking at the idea of having the additional class classroom space potential for >> to interrupt, but I'm going to going to interrupt. So the the fair share grant is you asked for specific for this project.
>> I I did not ask a specific for the project. I was made aware that we would potentially have between 150 and 200,000 dollars at our disposal. And I was basically asked how we would use it. I did not give him an answer right away. I just told him that we would be
interested, obviously, in that money. >> Okay. Do you know about when, give or take, not going to hold you to a particular day, but about when did you tell him that it might be for this? >> As as soon as I I I can't say for sure. I
I would say probably I think we probably started having these these discussions in end of March, April. That time frame, but I can't say for certain. >> Okay. Thank you, Superintendent. I appreciate that.
I'm going to tell you my angst now this project um as one of the community members pointed out this equipment is sitting in the garage in Townsend paid for.
They're looking for the last mile for installation. Back in 2019 um our town and recreation director approached the school. I know had meetings with you, Superintendent, and I know had meetings
with then the athletic director Cam Fiske um and had actually walked the grounds of the high school and asked to locate it at the high school. Was interested in having a partnership with the school
to have the equipment there. Um for whatever reason, we can't unwrite history. It it didn't work out. So then our recreation director put it in a location that wasn't her for first choice um [clears throat]
to to put it behind town hall. Now for our recreation director, that doesn't really help her with the bulk of the programming that she does. Not speaking for her, but it's it's not useful to her after-school program because it can't be used with
kids under 14. She thought the highest and best use for the equipment would be at the high school for the high school kids um for community use for all communities, not just for Townsend.
So we have a project that's funded and I'm I'm astounded um >> [clears throat] >> but not surprised two different things that the funders of this project would come in to
a small community and propose to ask these communities to spend more money. You know, they talk about the grant. Um and I'll I'll try to be mindful of my words, but they call it a grant. But they force you into uh
sole source to buy from who they say you must buy for and design for what you might not really want to design. So, in my eyes, which I think are all
legal, said it's really not it's it's not your choice. Right? You you are being forced into this project of what they say you will purchase with a grant. So,
I have some angst over that. To be clear, I had angst over it when Townsend did it. Uh I have huge angst have been being 100% honest here that we are 70 days before the end of the year
and this was out there. Now, granted I could not go to the meeting in person in May, but it was also not on the agenda in May. The assistant you know, Harris report,
assistant superintendent's report was on the agenda, but there was no video of the meeting um cuz it was off-site. So, there was no way to be informed that this that this was on. So, I hate bringing up things in the 11th hour,
but I have talked to the town the board chair, the TA and the rec director, and they're all willing to work with the school still um to have the equipment installed at the high school,
which would eliminate all of this grant, all of this last-minute frenzy to get votes and transfer of funds. Um then you would have more use of the fair share grant for other things
by just using some of that for the installation. Um still accomplishing your goals, accomplishing the goals of the community um for having this recreation equipment there. You said yourself you want it to be used by community, too.
Um Townsend wants it to be used by community. It was going to be an open source, you know, no one was going to track who comes from where. Um you know, as these are, they're they're open. So, my recommendation to my peers and to
you, Superintendent, is to not move forward with this at this time. Um these grants are open all the time. Blue Cross Blue Shield is always doling these out. Um we have hundreds of thousand dollars
of equipment that you want sitting in a garage that our community of Townsend doesn't have the money to install. You're going to get a grant, you can install it. Your goals would be accomplished as would our communities.
I hope that we can consider that um take the grant off the table, but move forward with what the the high school wants to do. >> I'm able to respond to that. >> Mhm. Yes. And then Jackie, I'll take yours
next if that's okay. >> Sure. Go ahead, Superintendent Morgan. Just a couple of things just um I I guess it's a little confusion on my part, too. Um Um, first and foremost, it was not on the May agenda because we did not have
an answer from legal counsel on whether or not um, it was single source or not. And we could not bring um, any type of a vote to the committee without knowing what the vote was on. So, we did end up being somewhat last minute. Um, and we have been asked by
finance to try to um, come in with the come in with our R&D number being a little bit more manageable for next year, which we are trying to do. Um, second piece is, again, this was going back um, seven years ago. I do remember the conversations with the
Towson Rec Department. Um, I guess I'm just very confused as to um, how it came to be unless I'm misremembering that the high school was not interested. Um, that is not what I recall. Um, but do want to put that out there
where it was shared um, that the high school um, did not appear interested. I I I remember those meetings. And um, I I thought that there was definitely a possibility. So, of of moving forward with the project. So, I just wanted to share that. I'm not
sure um, again, where there were meetings with people other than myself if that came into being, but either way, it still should have come back to me and I do not believe that occurred. So, um, I don't again, just to clarify, have any recollection of saying the district
was not um, interested in a project like this because I I definitely see value in it as an additional um, instructional piece during the school day. Um, knowing that um, you know, I look at my own town for instance that has a very similar project that is not located on
school grounds that is I have never seen a person at the facility. Um, I think having it on school grounds, especially at at the high school would be key because I think it would be used on a regular basis as an additional instructional space. Never mind the other benefits that would go with that.
So, that's it. Thank you. >> Um If if I can just clarify that um >> Yeah. >> while it was not on the agenda it appeared in the minutes was a little bit of my angst. >> Mhm.
>> Um and and again, you were waiting on information, but there we had many and and I don't want to believe or this, but we had many meetings as you know with finance of talking about things to make sure that you had the best budget possible
for the things that you wanted from an instructional perspective for FY 27. And this never came up. And I understand that things do come up last minute, but it appears that this had been in the works for a bit. Which,
you know, I love innovation. Um I love that you're looking for different ways to enhance the environment for the students, for the athletes, for the community. But this is where we just need to have more conversation.
Um cuz had it come up in any meeting because I'm always talking to other groups in the town and aware that Rec was looking for their last mile funding for installation they would have said, "Hey, Rec is still looking for last mile installation and
they had to go with a less desirable location for installation behind town hall instead of on school grounds." Like we we could have worked a little bit better on this and I just I hope that we can find a really good solution for it tonight and not have to, you know, dig
into what did or didn't happen, but we've got to lay it out there that you we have a good solution for everybody, I think at a much lower cost. >> Jackie White >> Thank you. Um, could we get some clarity on the the state state fair share grant
money that 150k? Is that like we can use it for anything? Does it have to be specifically fitness related? I'm just thinking through like some of the costs that we know our students are are facing like for parking which is really high, activities and so forth.
Like can that money be used to offset some of those costs? >> It can only be used for capital expenses. Um, it cannot be used for teachers, it cannot be used for any additional staffing. Um, it it is pretty restrictive and can only be used for capital um, things and
again we're looking at this because it seems somewhat manageable as far as getting a project done where $150,000 doesn't always um, go a long way towards getting something done. It's usually far more expensive than that as we're seeing with our paving projects right now.
>> Lisa Bloom >> Okay, thank you. Um, also I'm just wondering also um, who's going to be teaching um, participants all the training for these for this? Um,
and what will the costs be or will they just um, open to everybody in the community? >> So, um, can I can I answer that? >> Yeah, go ahead. >> Sorry. Um, so depending on who we end up going with if we move forward with a
different a vendor, I know this particular company does provide training, ongoing training. It's part of their package for the educators to be able to utilize the equipment safely with students. But they also do have um,
QR codes associated with the different stations where I believe for this particular product, um, there's thousands of different trainings that people can have and it shows how to use the equipment safely and it shows
the different types of training that you can do on each piece of equipment. But there would be with this again, depending on the selected vendor, there would be specific training for uh, teachers to be able to use it safely with students.
>> Okay. Um, also, um, where we have Planet Fitness right across the street from the high school, um, they give a they offer, um, a free enrollment to all um, high school students during the summer.
Um, I mean, how many kids are going to go over and use it through the summer time even? >> Yeah, yeah, I I don't think we're we're really asking for the students to use it during the summer time. We're asking students and and giving our our physical education and wellness staff an an additional instructional space. That was
that's what we saw it as being an additional space during the day that our physical education staff could utilize. But in addition to that, um, if the district does receive funding for, um, career and technical education and we do
get approved for public safety, we are absolutely going to need space, um, for that program for some type of physical fitness and with having one gym, um, and a school full of students would make it
difficult to do that without potentially having to ask, um, for additional work to be done in order to make that program happen if we get the grant. But above and beyond that, it it it would be an additional space which some of our physical education staff have been asking for
since the school opened. They've been asking for additional outdoor space. >> So, this isn't going to be open to the community? >> Well, yeah, that wasn't the question. The question was on whether or not the students use. It is going to be open It is going to be open to the community
after school hours. It's not going to be It's going to be an open facility that the that community members can use from all three communities. >> Okay. Okay. And so, do you Don't you think that
um putting the money towards this project, I mean, after the past few years when we had to cut teachers repeatedly, don't you think it'd be better for our district just to save the money for a rainy day?
>> We we can't save the 150. And we wouldn't get the $40,000 grant. So, we'd be We'd be saving about $75,000 that that we are trying to um utilize anyway due to E&D, which is what we've been asked to do.
>> Those grants aren't guaranteed. And right now we have to up front the money before we get the grants. >> So, Lisa, with the fair share grant, that is money that is allotted from the state and that we have to use for what
they earmarked that money for. And so, this money is not available to use towards teachers or towards other nice It's for It has to be used for a fitness center or capital projects. That's what
this 150 has to be. It's earmarked. >> So, just to clarify, we're not actually like up fronting any money. We're just moving it to where it could be used. We're not actually spending a dime tonight. We're just moving it into a different fund. >> I mean, we're towns and already has the
equipment, I totally am against this. >> So, something I do want to bring up about the equipment, I know that they have the equipment, but is the equipment outdated? Some of it they could have changed. Some of the health codes and things on the
equipment could have changed since that was done in 2019. I don't know when the equipment was delivered. That's something that I think the committee has to think about, too. Just a clarifying point there. Alexander
Bancoult. >> Yeah. Um so, I'm going to kind of echo uh what Kim was saying. Um I'm all for this type of project. I think this is an awesome idea. Um however, if Townsend has this equipment, I don't [snorts] feel comfortable moving
forward with this without seeing if that's an option for us to go forward with because um you know, I you know, if I I just hate to think of that First of all, I hate to spend the money if we don't need to, and second of all, I hate to see it kind of
sitting there. And I know like this grant is contingent on it, but you know, um if we can save money elsewhere, you know, if we have more money at the end of the day, you know, we don't really need the grant. So, I mean I
This is a This is a great idea, but I would like to see what we can make of the situation with the town of Townsend. Cuz if they have the equipment, and what we need to do is like pay to move it and install it on the high school grounds, and the high school teachers can use it,
you know, during the school day, and the community can use it when the school when school's not in session, you know, I think that's a win-win for everybody. But if that's not possible, this can be an option, you know. >> Uh Keenan Francois. >> On the next slide of this slideshow, um
I see some specifications for site work and installation work. Um Are Are we able to just get some clarity on what those motions are? Are those just no longer relevant? >> No, we can't. So, what what happens is we had a uh we broke it into what will
be three different bids, but if if you decide to not go forward with the project, then we don't need to do bids two and three quite yet. We can We can uh we can rework that. Essentially, there's one bid for the actual equipment, the
the fitness court itself, all of the, you know, it's it's the painting and and all the the physical equipment for it. That equipment will all be sitting upon a concrete slab. Um very few companies do both, so we would put a second bid
out for who would provide the concrete slab on which the um the equipment would sit. And then, the third bid would be then once the uh the concrete has been been put in place, then that equipment needs to be installed. And so, there are
um most I I can't say all, but most of the equipment that we've seen or the vendors of equipment we've seen have specific uh warranty-related issues around the installation. Basically, they say that if you buy our product, if we don't put
it in, the warranty's no good. Um so, there's there's that aspect to it. That's and that's not unique to any one. We've seen that with two or three different companies so far. It's probably just a sound business practice on their part. They don't want to warranty something that they didn't the work that they didn't do. Um but just because of the sequencing of it, uh
we decided to do it in three um three pieces. But, like I said, if if the first one fails, then there's really no need to go through the second or third one unless that's what we decide to do. >> Okay. Um and as a sort of follow-up, um,
I I understand, um, that Townsend might have the equipment. What I fail to understand thus far, I'm not I have no objection to working with the town of Townsend to move forward with anything. I have no objection to us doing our own thing.
What I don't understand is why hasn't the town of Townsend reached out to us or at least me. I am the Townsend liaison. No one has talked to me. As I hear, no one has talked to administration from the town of Townsend. That's why I'm sort of confused.
The other problem that I imagine would happen with using Townsend equipment is that is not our equipment, so we can not do what we see fit with the equipment. We would have to buy the equipment from Townsend,
transfer it. That requires a whole lot of legal process that might not even be worth it if this equipment has been sitting in a garage for 6 years. Is there liability problems with that? Does it have warranty? I can see a whole lot of problems with that based on what Mr. Dr. Cormier just said.
Moving forward, hypothetically, would it be possible, say, could we move forward with say the site work? So, get a proposal for a bid for concrete slab. Not necessarily put down the slab, but
put down or get the necessary information for the concrete slab whilst we hold pattern and potentially talk to Townsend? I'm not saying that that's what we should do. I'm just saying is that a hypothetical possibility? Is that something that could happen?
>> So, having worked on projects before, Keenan, what we have done is we have said, "This, up to this amount, you can spend on a project. And then you need to come back to the school committee.
And we've divided projects before like they do one section like you're saying they do the cement work first. So they could do the cement work and get that completed you know, by July and get that bid all done. Then they can add on to it
as things are discovered and add on. Does that make sense? >> Yes. >> And I see that Dr. Reese >> Yeah. >> raised his hand so I'm going to let him answer as well. >> Well, no. I actually had a I was thinking the same thing about the site work and the installation, but I also
was wondering and Kim you may know this or they not know I don't know in terms of what Townsend has purchased. There's two components to at least for this particular product. There's the fitness court side which has the seven
stations and then there's the fitness studio side which is the open classroom space. I don't know if Townsend has both sides or just the fitness court side. So that would be a question I would have because one thing that would be important for me
and for the high school I think is to have both sides and that might be something we just need to clarify and figure out if it didn't and we were trying to work together with Townsend how would we go about just getting the other side? >> So a few things
Dr. Reese. So first it is national fitness court. It is still under their warranty. There was an email that went out today from national fitness court talking to them about trying to figure out how to get it installed during this installation season. So they're playing
both sides as well. Um the town I I believe they're in talking with all three, the rec director, the town administrator, and the select
board, it's already been procured. It's staying within the town of Townsend. It would still be open for use by folks in the town of Townsend. It was paid for with grant funds. No one indicated that the school would
have to pay for it. So, there's no um worry about the warranty or things of that from what I can see because the email that I'm looking at shows that they're still actively working with National Fitness Court.
I just inquired to see whether they they did have the studio site or not. I'm trying to recall from the pictures that I saw of what they got. I believe it's like the pictures that yours are, but they all look so similar like the one in Fitchburg that that you guys had. So,
but I'm sure that it would be doable to figure out all of your needs with it with the base there, but it would obviously between the 75 that you were asking for in capital money and the 150 grant, seems like it could be done.
And seems like there would be additional capital money from the well, from Cronin grant to do other capital work because in all the lists that I saw of capital projects, this was never on it. There was other things that needed to be done.
What What I would suggest is a motion to say we table this, that we ask the superintendent to meet with the town administrator, the select board, and the rec director,
and figure it out. And then if we have to have a quick meeting to approve the site work, then so be it. We we do that. But I'm not sure
trying to do all that now is prudent. I think we need to know when the grant would be coming in um if that is the source of the site work. But also, that's a point moot point.
Someone said, you know when him being snarky, this might be when I'm being snarky. You already put the bid out there for the site work. Am I not mistaken about that or is that just the equipment that's up there? >> No, we only put the bid out for the equipment. >> Okay. Well, one of them was out there.
>> Well, we don't we we don't have to award it. We just we just got the process moving. >> But that was on an assumption that we're awarding money and we haven't. So, that as someone that does public bids granted this is a little bit different cuz
it's sole source not sole source, so they already have the bid done. But you know, as as a general rule of thumb, I don't encourage anybody to put out bids that you know that you're not going to award because it's from the vendor perspective, that's
it's a lot of work. And poor Mike had his hand up, Madam Chair. >> Uh it's fine. Basically, after listening to all the discussion on this, I do I do agree with the idea that I think rather than moving
forward with this as proposed, I do agree that it makes sense to I think try to work out an arrangement where that equipment that Townsend already has is installed at the high school using I I presume that that um fair share
grant money would be usable for that because that would be considered a capital project. So, you know, paying for installing, you know, also the pad obviously. You'd have to pay for the pad and the installation, but then you get the equipment, you know, for free in the
sense that towns and is already gotten the money to pay for it either through get grants or from their taxpayers. And if they are willing to in fact to just give it to the school to install on the school grounds, then I think that that is the best solution for everybody. So, I think that's what that's what should
be pursued. >> Can I ask Nancy and Kevin a question or Dr. Commire a question? With the fair share money, um this has to be used before June 30th. Is that correct? Or we don't have to, we can hold it. [clears throat]
>> No. No, we because there's going to be more money, that's why we wanted to try and get it um on to FY22. So, we're not going to actually get the fair share money until FY27. >> So, are we able to spend some of this
down so it does not flow back into E&D? That's another question. >> Uh we have Well, let me we do have a pretty long list. It's it's just a matter of timing, right? It's what what can we get done in 6 days? >> Mhm.
>> That doesn't put in cuz one of the things we were trying to do with some of this money is we have limited staffing in technology and buildings and grounds. So, we're trying to find projects that wouldn't require much of our staffing to do. So, I mean like we can still do that, but that's that that's what the limit
that we kind of put on ourselves is. I mean there's all sorts of things we could do if we had three times the staff. We don't. So, you know, what what can we do efficiently in using outside labor basically to do for us. So, we I mean we can look, um but that's that's
where we that's where that's sort of the thought process that went into a lot of the decisions we made about what to do to try and spend down some of this money. >> I I think the other challenge is too that in order to spend down money most of it most of what we do has to go out to bid.
So, if we don't put things out to bid when we're in the at this time in the school year, it's we're not going to meet the deadline for June 30th. Um so so that's kind of the challenge that we're up against is that we are trying to spend down money
that is at our disposal, but we have to spend it before June 30th and most of what we do has to go out to bid. So, if we don't get it out to bid then we can't spend the money. >> Understood, Superintendent, and
respectfully, we started having these conversations in February when we knew that you were going to have a good amount of money left over. In finance >> Yeah, we didn't we didn't have definitive numbers though, for sure. We were still waiting to see what was going to happen with special education as well
as some other things. So, we had an idea and then as we got into April, we had a really good idea and that's when we really started looking once we knew we were okay with special >> But but I I I also suggested that we didn't cancel the the 13th of June meeting and I understand it was really hard time, but
I get it. It's it's difficult when we have 7 days left, but spending it on this I just don't think it's a good idea. You know, principal. >> Um going back to my question earlier, um I know Kevin you or um Dr. Cormier,
sorry. Um you you mentioned that um that we're we're going in or that at least you've laid out um these motions in an order um logically. So, if we don't get past if we don't, you know, get past equipment, then you know, what's the point of everything else?
Based on what I'm hearing, it sounds like we want to talk to Townsend, which is fine, I suppose. Um could we so as to still make this money available to you, um could we move forward with say,
regardless, we're going to need a concrete slab? Can we just give you that and you can move forward with that if regardless you're going to need it in the end? I'm I just want to
clarify just cuz I don't I don't I'm not familiar with the process. >> not here, Keenan. We can't obligate money we don't have. >> Oh, sure, but >> I I understand what Keenan's saying. And the motion is really just to, you know, to give us the opportunity, you know, the the authority to move forward that.
And And so, Keenan, to kind of answer your your question, we had put the our, you know, we had put these in this order. I can say personally myself, I didn't wasn't have equipment. Um so, in in my timeline, it was well, we have to have the equipment before we have a place to
put it before we can put it in. If it turns out that step one is actually taken care of by by town of Townsend stuff, then yeah, we can just go right on to figuring out how to, we know, where to put it and how to put it in. Um this is I this is not something that that uh I was personally aware of, you
know, 48 hours ago. >> Well, >> Oh, sorry. I I haven't I don't have my hand up. >> So, before I go on, everyone is interested in doing this work. Is that correct? Is that the sense I'm getting from the committee? That we want something like this to go into this
school district. >> Jackie's shaking her head. >> Okay. I'll come back to you, Jackie, but is that the consensus of other people that we want to pursue this given maybe we use Townsend equipment or
others. >> Yeah, I think just like we should pursue the town's adoption before we you know, go for something else. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah, I I I I agree and I think and I while I appreciate that you know, one of the goals of this was to spend down some so we'd have less going into
E&D. I don't think that that's really practical given the time constraints. So, I think we maybe need to set aside that as as one of the goals of this, but if it we can do something that's beneficial for towns and and the district, I still think that's worth >> pursuing.
>> And I wanted to a point of clarification. I'm not interested in spending the existing funds. But if there's new money coming in, that's how it becomes palatable.
The the fitness courts from my perspective is not something that I become enamored with. But but the equipment is here, the school wants it. In a sort of olive branch, if Cronin's
office has money to do the installation that is not coming out of existing school funds, that's how it how I would support it. Not taking the 75 of existing school funds. >> I agree with Kim.
>> Okay. Jackie. >> I agree wholeheartedly with what you just said, Kim. All I'm going to say is that I'm disheartened we've spent 20 minutes of an agenda talking about a fitness court when I feel like we have so many more pressing things for us as a
committee to talk through. So, I think this is where we get into our our our consideration of agendas and how we're just miss judging how much time a particular agenda item is going to take. We've got to get better at that. And
whether we I agree we shouldn't put a a false cap on total meeting time length. Certain agenda items and going on and on about things is just not serving anybody well. That's all. >> I agree. That's why I want to table this and move on. That's what I said. I want
to make a a motion. I want to make a motion to get away from this and get to our other work. >> All right. Would you like to make a motion, Kim? >> Yes. >> Well, no motion has been made. We can just say to bring it back. There's no vote taken or anything. We can just say
to bring it back. We don't have to take a formal vote to table it. >> Right. >> Am I correct? In that, Kim, there was no motion made. >> Yes. So, we move move on the agenda, take no action. >> Yep. Right.
>> All right. Moving on. All right. And then we got him. Conflict of interest disclosures. Chris Sloan and Alex and Coody. Um Chris, I know that you filed yours with
um the town clerk of Pepperell. >> Yes. >> Can you just state for the record what you had to do and why you have a conflict of interest? >> Sure. Um so, my wife is a teacher in the
district. Um so, I had discussed with the ethics team um about what kind of goes into that. And part of that is, you know, for anything that's directly related to financial, you know, I just have to abstain from you know, that's just I can't participate there.
Um for anything else, basically the disclosure states that I will um fairly and you know, I will do my job objectively and fairly and not just take that into consideration. >> All right. Thank you, Chris. Now,
Alexander Van Coody, the same thing. >> Yeah, I have not yet filed it with I shared it with you. I haven't yet filed it with the town clerk, but I I'll I'll do that tomorrow. Um my sister Cassie is a custodian in the district and um so I
can't vote on anything involving her income custodial pay. Um and I will recuse myself from any of those um any of those votes. Um you know, and which is all we already established kind of when I
came in, but um we just didn't formalize it with a document. >> All right. So, they had to disclose it public publicly. That's one of the conflict of interest rules. Um anyone else that has a member that works for the school
committee or not the school committee, works for the school district, also will have to file anything. This includes if your kids are working um a custodial job or any department within the school district. Or substitute, any
anything like that. All right. Moving on, superintendent goals. Um Brad, I think or Superintendent Morgan, I'm trying to be formal. I think everyone deserves their title.
Um Superintendent Morgan, I ask you just to give us an update since your goals are 2 years. So, go ahead and give us an update. >> So, I did share with the committee. I'm just bringing it up now. Um just kind of a midpoint review of where
I am with my goals. Just give me 1 second. Okay, so um for my first goal, first goal was by 2027, central office team will participate in a series of workshops and coaching sessions hosted by the
Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in the education resource strategy resource use network on how to look at budget challenges, revenue uncertainty, declining enrollment, increasing student needs, and educator turnover, um as well as
reduced central office capacity. And I just provided the school committee with um a list of the meetings we attended. They were both in person at um at the College of the Holy Cross as well as um remote and it was something that I
participated participated in with with Dr. Reese, Dr. Cormier, Ms. Haynes, um Mr. Hammond, and I know on occasion we had a a school committee member present as well as a town official present as well. And they really helped
us organize our budget. Uh in addition to that, we were able to sit with representatives of school districts Gloucester, Salem, Monson, Uxbridge, Agawam, and Sharon, and kind of get ideas as to what they were looking at for their budgets. We discussed staff
compensation, class size, master scheduling, uh special populations, and then school size and per pupil costs, and that really led us to our current um budget message and really helped facilitate some of the discussions that we had with
the towns during our budget summits and helped put together again our overall budget message. Uh the second goal was on establishing an AI integration framework. Um Dr. Reese and myself are working on that together and
then begin the process of training um both staff and students, and that is something we'll be discussed later on this evening as we have sent forth a list of AI procedures that we would like the district and the
committee to consider. It's really difficult and uh for us to move forward with any staff and student training without having protocols and procedures in place and even having a school committee policy aligned to that. And that is something
that was asked of the committee that we do put something in writing first just so that we have some safeguards in place and I do think that we have a good document to work from as far as that goes. So I think we're making effective progress there.
And I just lost my screen. Give me 1 second so I can go back to the third goal. And the third goal was on um myself, the assistant superintendent and director of special education conducting monthly visits at each school, going to
each school, visiting a minimum of eight times over the course of the year. That is something that was very challenging. We were able to probably get to about 75% of that this year. But the challenge was
where listed all all of us in the goal was making sure that none of us had conflicts. And that was at times an issue because things do come up and where all three of us are in central office, sometimes it became impossible for all
three of us to go on those visits together, which was the ultimate goal. So we will continue on with that next year and try to improve. But in addition to that, I personally I'm going to try to work myself out of buildings on
Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays for a portion of the day so that I am at minimum visible to staff, available to staff and also available to the administration in that building. Plan to be working in a centrally located visible space so that the staff
again has access to me on a regular basis and I'm putting together a schedule for that in addition to the continued work that myself, Dr. Reese, and Ms. Upton are going to do. So, that certainly partially met this year, but room for
improvement in hopes that our schedules will better align next year. >> Thank you for the update, Superintendent Morgan. Anybody have any questions? All right. Seeing none, moving on to school committee member
term limits, Lisa Bloom. You had asked for this. >> Um yes, thank you. Um I did ask for this to be put on after our organization meeting. Um and I also asked to have the
organizational meeting um looked at. Um only because um just being the fourth meeting that I was involved in as a school committee member, I just felt that it's really
rushed, especially for new members coming on. Um and they don't have they don't know how the voting goes. Um and the fast pace of it, like um
we don't get a chance to talk about, you know, who's interested in being the chair, the vice chair, and uh all the chairs of each policy or each I'm sorry, subcommittee. Um
so, and I started looking at some some other some other districts are doing it, too. Um is limiting the school committee terms and also limiting the School Committee Chair terms.
Um, there's a lot of benefits to this. Um, it will it allows for turnover for elected officials, potentially increasing new ideas, nurturing new community leaders and community involvement. Um, likely encourages more
people to run for election because open seats more often draw multiple candidates. Often incumbent seats are not contested. Um, it may encourage diversity by enabling more opportunities for women
and minorities. Uh, potentially focuses elected officials to plan an agenda and accomplish initiatives within certain timelines. The School Committee's term limits may increase the likelihood that members
have children that are active in the school system. So, um, I believe it is uh, Newton Public Schools in Methuen. They have um, you know, Newton and
maybe Lexington. The the um, mayor of their towns is actually the chair of their towns. Um, and then there's also um, Methuen and and Newton, yeah. Um, so
then they also limit um, the term of School Committee members. So, um, they have three consecutive terms that a person can run
and then they have to take a year off and then they can run again. Um, and the same with the chair. So, there's um, the um, Dover and public schools and Lexington public schools. Um, for the chair, the
chair can run two consecutive term uh, two consecutive years, then they have to take a year off and then they can run again. And this actually gives other school committee members opportunity to run for a chair >> [clears throat] >> or bring in different ideas to the
school committee as well. So, um, I think it would be um, a really good idea for our district to have in place. And I don't know if anybody has any questions or >> Jackie, would you like
Thank you, Lisa. Um, I think Randy might have been an anomaly for a while. Do we have anyone that sticks around for more than three consecutive terms? Like I almost feel like we struggle to get people to run for positions more than anything else. I don't know.
>> So, my term, this is cuz I did have a year off. I lost an election, and so I did have a year off. So, this is my third consecutive term this time. This time.
Um, but I have been on This will be my 10th year overall, but I did have a time off in between. Um, I do find term limits tough because a committee does change and people move
off the committee. Um, and it is hard to find people to run for school committee, especially being a regional district. Um, that is the feeling. I mean, Newton and some of the bigger districts that Lisa had talked about are are not regional.
And so, the mayor does oversee their school committee as the chair. There are districts that do that. Um So, just wanted to put a point of clarification on that. Michael Labossiere. >> Yeah, my my main question is um
So, I like I understand that we can set whatever rules we want for the like the chair and whatnot. So, we could have term limits for the chair, but can we actually impose term limits for committee membership, or is that something that would have to be done at
the town {slash} district charter level? >> No, it does say that we can. There are no uh state-wide limits in Massachusetts that impose term limits on school committee or school committee board chairs because
Massachusetts public schools governance is a decentralized uh term limits are governed locally and individual cities' charters and local school committee bylaws. >> Correct. So, so so So, by what you just
said, towns could be in control of that. So, us as the committee may not be in control of that. So, we would have to check with the towns to see which What does the town charters say for each of the three towns, or what does the
district uh you know, the regionalization agreement say? Do like the this gets into a question of do we have the legal authority to do that? Is my question. And I would say that we would need a lawyer to answer that question.
So, basically, I'm not I'm not willing to make any decision on this before we know whether we have the authority to do that. >> Lisa, we didn't hear you talking. >> Sorry, I was I was going to say we would have to have legal look at the information to make sure
that it is correct that you can do that. >> Yeah. Cuz I feel like it it we could spend a whole lot of time debating the merits of it and then find out oh we're not legally allowed to do it and all that discussion is wasted. So. >> And like you had pointed out it could be
something in the regional agreement that you have to do. And um so I don't think you can set a policy necessarily it or the towns have to decide it >> But we should find out is the point is is that that's something that we should
find out and that should probably be an action item for someone to find that out before the next meeting so we can we can then have the discussion knowing for sure whether we are in fact allowed to do that.
>> Oh um another [clears throat] um to answer another question Jackie of yours um so the first year when I ran for school committee my first term there was eight candidates running. So it like each year can be so
different. >> Yeah. >> How many candidates run? >> Wow, that's a lot eight from um towns or was it an at-large position I forget. Sorry. >> an at-large position. >> Yep. >> So. >> Yeah, there there were three positions
three of the at-large positions are open at the same time Jackie. >> Mhm. >> Anyone else have any comments? Uh Lisa do you want to check um I can give you contact to Nick. All right.
>> Okay. >> And you can come back to the committee with information about it. >> Okay. Yep. That would be great. Thank you. >> All right. Moving on to the community Oh, first anyone else have any more
questions before I Okay, moving on. Community programming announcements calendar, um Kim K- Ms. Craven. >> Thank you. Um I wanted to bring this up as a topic
for the whole committee to explore how we might work collaboratively with community-based organizations. It would certainly be something that would have to go through policy, I believe. I did send a draft, um cuz I
failed uh Google Docs 101, to um to Robin and the chair. But basically for us to look at how we can work with any educational, recreational, cultural, civic, or family support groups within
the district. And I also included um Mashoba Board of Health. Um that would be nonprofits, a municipal department, a government entity, community organizations, youth serving that offer food assistance, clothes,
shelter, mental health services, things that kids would be doing in the community that wouldn't involve passing out paper, but PDF or JPEG, um so that we could distribute them. You know, not every
student is participating in after-school activities or things on school grounds, and there's opportunities for them within the community. I know that it was um from what I hear, anyhow, a tedious process, um
with lots of papers um that had to be photocopied and divided up and put out. I did look into one um sort of online distribution network. Quite honestly, I could not figure out
their pricing model. Um they said it was like $50 a school and I was trying to ask like every flyer or a year cuz a year to that pretty cheap for an online portal. So, I haven't really cracked that code yet. Um,
but I'd like to get the feel of the the community on, you know, where we could stand with that. I don't want to put a ton of work on Robin, but to figure out a process that would make it shareable. Um, you know, I'll put on one of my other hats like the
TEO. There's a lot of families that just don't know that we're out there that have food and clothing available for them and when we have the opportunity have other grants that might be able to, you know, pay a living expense for somebody um, or direct them to other resources.
Um, there's youth sports or recreation, you know, the town recreation for a week is, you know, like $300. Um, there's activities going on, you know, the just this weekend in Townsend was the bicycle parade for kids that was free for them to participate in.
Just thinking of a mechanism of how we could get these things posted and um, you know, say that we have a vetting process, you know, is it um, soccer, baseball, scouts, uh, things that are vetted community youth groups
that we can have a spot on the calendar. Um, you know, we can shoot. Again, I'm not really 100% that that would look like, but just wanted to talk to folks about what they think about it. >> Yeah.
So, I'm going to weigh in on this as um, the a policy was developed a few years ago that the school would not do outside advertising for um, groups because we did run into a legal issue.
And we could run into a legal issue if we give one group priority over another. And um what happened was some pamphlets were dropped off at one of our schools. They said they had the superintendent's approval. Um they were distributed.
Um and they were distributed and it was a government um vote. And so it made it very difficult. Um and so that's when we said no more flyers going out.
It does put a lot of time on our secretaries at our schools and a lot of time on Robin and Brad or Superintendent Morgan to approve these before they go out. And when I say to approve them you can't
put one agency over another. Everyone if anyone would come in, any church group, any non-religious group, anybody, you have to approve all. You can't discriminate against any of them. So that being said, that's why the school
has taken a stance on not um distributing things. And I get the point of like organizations within the community wanting to use the schools, but the true reason why the school exists is for the
education and not as an advertising agency. So that's my stand on it and I'm pretty strong on this one. Sorry, Kim. >> So I'm going to I'm going to come back strong with you. We're not an advertising agency yet we are collecting sponsorship money to
advertise private companies. I actually sent you one that was sent that um a third party solicitor was soliciting businesses which they were keeping all
the funds but giving our athletic director a hundred t-shirts. So, that is allowing unvetted businesses of any kind to put their name on a t-shirt that gets thrown out into the crowd. So, that's actually
direct advertising in the schools with no funds being kept by the school itself. So, Shrewsbury School Committee policy allows qualifying organizations to distribute information electronically through a
community bulletin board and post PDF flyers to the district website. Swampscott Public Schools allows community related education, school related nonprofit flyers to be submitted for approval and posted. Wilmington Public Schools maintains a community flyer process and post approved flyers for
nonprofit organizations and schools related program. Framingham Public Schools, Brockton Public Schools Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education expressly recognizes that a school committee may establish a policy allowing nonprofit and
civic organizations serving youth to post notices and distribute flyers. DESE refers to this as creating a limited public forum. Once created, the district must apply the policy consistently and can't pick and choose based on a
viewpoint. However, you can cite examples such as nonprofit charitable organizations, civic groups providing programs or services to young people, community organizations. So, there's very specific ways that you can limit it to libraries, parks and
recreation, youth sports leagues, scouting, food pantries, clothing closets, housing assistance, family shelters, community health organizations. So, while you don't have a pick and choose policy,
you can say Where is all this coming from? Um >> That's me. I'm sharing cuz I think it's helpful to see a visual of what you're talking about, too. >> Yeah. Um so, all of these schools have figured out how to do these policies.
I believe that we can be just as good as them as being partners with our communities and sitting down and putting our heads together to say, "Who are the youth serving organizations in our community?" And creating a pre-approved list of
those, just like DESE recommends. >> Robin. >> So, I would say There's a couple of things um with this and my feeling um the I was happy when um when it went away. I can honestly tell you that there was an
incredible amount of time uh from me, my resources placed on this. From uh you get a phone call, an inquiry about the um the flyer, the information they you know, they want to share. And then I
I share it with um the administration or superintendent. It then goes to our legal team. Uh then I have to wait to hear back from the legal team. It comes back from the legal team. And then I have very specific um it you know, it needs to be go to the high
school students or it should just go to elementary students. Um and I can I don't have enough fingers on my hands to tell you how many times I got um phone calls, people yelling, upset that their uh flyer wasn't shared or wasn't shared the way they wanted it to be
shared, those types of things. So, um I was happy that I no longer had to deal with that. And to be honest with you, I I just don't have the time. Um every day is more and more responsibility, you know, falling on our plate. So, um
you know, I I want us to be good um good neighbors and support our community um especially our feeder program. So, I completely agree with that. Uh you know, we do have an outlet, I believe, on our website. Jeremy is is on our call tonight and he can speak to it where we
do share um there's a uh a a community page, if you will. And Jeremy, please correct me if I'm wrong. So, you know, may I suggest that I don't know if it's okay with administration and with how they would feel about this. Um I know we'd have to go to legal because one of
the issues we did have, and there were many meetings over this, was you have to say yes to all. You can't cannot pick and choose. Um it's there's discrimination. But, um if we're able to just share it on our website
and and I don't know what the logistics of this is. Uh and you know, and it's included, you know, the community knows that if you have interest in any community organizations, you go to this part of our website. >> So,
I just want to stop you there to be clear. That's what I'm asking for, that there's a portal spot for it. I don't want you to be pushing them out in paper form. I want it to be like a portal-based pre-approved
um Peachjar was the the one kind of software that I looked at that people had pre-approved logins. Like I said, I I couldn't quite figure out their their pricing model on it. But, you know, when was this policy enacted? When when is it
updated? You know, um >> [clears throat] >> from what I can hear from community groups, it's been a while. >> It it has been a while and um, you know, and I can honestly say as well, you know, we have we've been really trying over the past
number of years to to communicate better. And so now our principals have newsletters, you know, the superintendent has a newsletter. Our you know, so there's lots of communications happening
and what we also found that when we include within those newsletters, when we were including outside information that the district's messaging was getting lost. And you know, there is a lot of noise out there
in you know, our digital media and and so that was one of the the reasons I was happy about it as well because I felt that our messaging was getting lost. What and and we had some feedback that way back when that said, I don't even scroll down
because the at the end there's too much information has nothing to do with me. I don't have time for that. So you know, I I think that posting it and we do have it on our website where community organizations can post, but I don't know what the rules are. I just
I know the resources in my office are thin. So if I had to take that on, you know, it would be difficult and and I'm being honest. So I don't know what the logistics would be to add it, you know,
taking on more and adding it to the website. I don't exactly know how that happens now. But Jeremy has his hands up. Let's hear what Jeremy has to say. Mr. Hammond. >> Just took me a second. Um, so the only portion we have on our
website right now is essentially what was displayed. And that's an area for community groups to provide us with some information that they want put on our site with a link to their site and a brief description of what they are, how they're,
you know, involved in the community. We did at one point in time have a community calendar of events that we allowed community groups to contribute to directly. We ended up taking that down eventually because no one was updating it
and it was it become an empty calendar. And I was trying to reach out to the groups periodically, the ones that I knew of and ask them to provide updates, to put them in, but it just simply was not happening.
Uh it sounds like part of what Kim is proposing is if we were to move forward, she it sounded to me like she's looking to implement something where the community groups would manage it themselves. Uh so that it wouldn't be much of a lift to the district beyond
approval. Uh I appreciate that. I will say that between the experience with the calendar and my experience trying to work with community groups for our facility use, where they're supposed to enter their own requests uh
I am skeptical about how consistently well they would manage it. Uh but I suppose at that point that's up to them and uh the downside is their stuff doesn't get advertised. >> So absolutely, Jeremy. I'm trying to again find a happy medium between
nothing and something a little bit more than what it is. And like you said, I looked into that one software to see and maybe there's others. You're way more technically advanced than I am that you
might have like a solution. Like do they have code that you know, it's these groups that are approved? And then there's a code that they could post onto their site. Like, I know I can give permissions on websites for things that I volunteer for, and people have limited
access to what they can do. I don't know how the district sites does. Um that it's something that's that's the one that I was looking at. Um that, you know, it's something that I that is
not going to put more responsibility on Robin or school, you know, individual schools, that it's something an offering from the district to make community and the schools
sort of more complimentary of one another when it comes to community-based activities. And so, my my whole thing is to kind of explore is the school committee interested in this? I don't want to invest a whole ton
more time to find out other solutions if I'm going to come back and everyone's going to be like, "No, we don't want to do this at all." >> Dean and Franzen. >> Um I'm sure if Mr. Hammond could you probably not immediately, but see
the analytics of the individual um community whatever what page we have uh on currently. Um and I would take a I'd take a pretty good bet that it's probably close to like two people a month. Um
but that's regardless of the point. Um at the end of the day, this sounds like it's going to be administrative overhead, and we just heard from the person managing the administrative overhead that it is too much, and it will result in a deterioration of other important things
that need to happen. Um social media exists and whilst I do appreciate the fact that the schools are an excellent avenue to reach you know, target audiences of some of these groups, um like youth sports leagues,
um ultimately at the end of the day, um the the kids are not the I I can tell you that any full piece of paper, whilst I know that's not what we're talking about, any piece of paper that I got when I was in elementary school um went straight in
the trash can. Um and if we're losing valuable, um you know, marketing space in our, you know, newsletters and our emails and any direct communications that people are just scrolling past it because they don't care, um
then we're losing messages, um that are important, that do need to get to parents, do need to get to students. Um so >> I'm not asking for space in the newsletter, I'm asking for a space. And may maybe maybe I'll correct myself,
maybe it's one space in the newsletter that says, check the community group for, you know, updated listings, maybe it's one line. I'm not asking for Robin to do the work. I'm not asking for all the announcements to be in the newsletter. I'm asking for
a community based space or something that is tied to the district for the community. And if you're not interested, you're not interested. I can certainly get that back to the community groups. But if if we don't have this conversation, I
don't know where the rest of the committee sits. >> So, I like we do have that space available that they can do their, um little shot of what the group is and display their, uh website. Kim, so we do have that
space available and I think that's just a Google Doc. Correct, Jeremy? That they have to just put a little Yeah, what what the >> What they're looking for is this is this spot to post events. >> To post events. Well,
would Because there comes a cost with it, and are the towns going to put a cost in it and pay for the cost to host the event or host the site or buy the application? Or are they asking the school to do it?
Because that would be spending on our side for an advertising type mechanism. >> So, what what does what does the site cost right now? That page that it's on. >> What we're doing right now costs nothing.
>> So, that would be with a little blur and give them a link to their website. >> Yeah, and they the way they get added to that is they just email me. Most of these groups I'm in regular conver- communication with anyways due to the
facility use element. Uh but everything that's up there is just they email me what they want put up. >> And and what would it look like to have live like a link to flyers on there? >> Somebody would have to work to store
them in a location. >> I would say well, storage could be in the site. It could not it could be done without cost. Uh what it would look like beyond that, uh I think I would have to spend some time troubleshooting trying to figure out a
process for that. Um if we are doing it with out direct cost, uh, I'd say the more free from a licensing standpoint it is,
the more likely that it's going to be a manpower cost. Uh, cuz the free that I do right now is the cost is the time that I put that information up. Uh, currently it's kind of a one-and-done.
So, the manpower cost for what we're currently doing is practically zero at this point. It's very very minimal. Uh, if we are doing regular ongoing advertising for them, uh, that becomes a very different thing. >> Say 30 events a year.
30 30 flyers to post a year. I'd say assuming that they all come in at separate times, it's probably call it 5 10 minutes per. Mostly for the, you know, if they're all being done individually. From posting 30 at once, that's a different time frame.
>> Yeah, I think that they would on individual. >> And who and who's going to approve these? I mean, it would take going to the superintendent cuz it is our North Middlesex website if we're using that as a hosting site. I mean, we can't have everyone just put
a flyer out there and be like not monitored by us cuz then anyone could update anything to the site. So, it does need some management behind it. And then we're asking the school
department to do that management. >> I think I think it's >> If >> But, sorry. >> Go ahead, Blake. I I think in the end whatever form this were to take would involve some level of commitment. What It could be small, but it will involve
some level of commitment on the part of the district either financial or manpower and I'm not sure that a as I feel like the sort of calendar slash
calendar concept was one that may was sort of more relevant at an earlier time of the internet. I think now people aren't going to community calendars to look for updates on things like that. They're going to social media. They're looking at Facebook. They're looking at whatever.
Um and I think I feel like part of the reason why like as as Mr. Hammond said that the previous calendar kind of fizzled out and went away probably, you know, I mean people weren't updating it, but my guess is people weren't updating it because they
weren't getting conversion rates. They weren't getting people showing up to their events because they saw it on the calendar. So they stopped bothering to update the calendar. That's my theory anyways. So I I I feel like it might not be achieve might not achieve the the the
goals anyways unless you somehow got managed to get people to actually go and visit it on a regular basis to see what was on there. >> So before I let Tina speak, I'm going to give it an example is like recently
someone posted out there. I didn't know anything about a concert. It had been posted several times in the newsletters for a school several times. So putting the information out there does
not mean that people are going to go to read it. They're going to go to Facebook or some kind of medium. Send a text to someone say, "When is this event?" And that's where a lot of people are getting their information. They're not reading the documents we're putting out anymore. People
People just are not reading it. I mean, we can put it out 10 times and nobody's reading it. That's That's what's happening and I notice it all the time with things. Keenan. >> Yeah, I think um this I think somewhat
to the fitness court topic, I think we're kind of exhausting the um the discussion here. Um so, I I just propose that we either I don't think necessarily any kind of vote is needed, but if we either defer this back to
policy or you know, come to a consensus here and now um and move on. Um we're already 15 minutes overtime of what this meeting is and we have I think eight items to get to. Um and I think we're
going to already need to start chopping off this meeting. So, >> All right. Uh about the >> follow that Keenan, what Keenan said is what I really wanted to find out from the group is are you interested in looking at some sort of solutions? I'll look at what the other schools are doing in a little more depth, but I did not
want to do that if no one's interested in finding a newer modern solution. Like I don't want to make all those calls and find out all kinds of information if no one's interested at all. If you're interested in finding out more information that kind of follows the path of that policy, I'm happy to do
more legwork if people want to hear it, but if nobody wants to hear it, I don't want to do the legwork. >> I think general consensus >> I think it's a good idea, Ken. >> Okay. I I think it it it could be it could be
something nice to have, but I feel like expending district resources on it probably isn't particularly worth it. That that's kind of my standpoint on it. >> Yeah, I think it wouldn't hurt to get information, but um if Yeah, I mean if
it seemed like everyone's or most people aren't going to be super into it, yeah, again, I'd save yourself the save yourself the time. But I I don't know. It might be a good idea. Um it wouldn't hurt to get information. >> Okay. >> So a non-answer for me.
>> So So based on based on what Jeremy said of 5 minutes a flyer, um to me that's like low impact. I'll look at some of these other resources. I'll talk to some of the other districts. Might not get a lot of information over the summer, but I'll see what I can find out.
>> Um Jeremy, you had raised your hand. Oops, you're on mute. >> Uh first point of clarification, it was 5 to 10 minutes really, kind of depends. Uh and that's not including any vetting process. That's just sent to me as an
approved thing. That's the time to put it up. Um I would honestly recommend we first I you said you had heard from a few community groups. Uh in that I'm in fairly regular conversation with a number of them. Uh
I don't know which ones you're talking to, so it might be separate conversations. Uh but I have not heard requests put things on our website so much as requests for the traditional flyers going out to backpacks. Uh so I would suggest that first we get
clarification on what kind of solution meets the um meets the prompt effectively. Because if what they're looking for is not to add it to our website, then it's not worth you spending your time
exploring that. >> Okay. I'll do a quick survey to them and and get some background from them first. >> All right. Is everyone keyed in? >> Sorry. Um, just in in the interest of time, can I propose that we
skip nine, uh, the the workshop and move straight to old business? Um, >> Okay, well, I just have a fast update on that. >> Oh, sure. And it's the super quick one. >> quick. What I'm going to do is I'm working with Groton Dunstable
and possibly getting a workshop put together. They are having Tony Bent come in on that first part uh, and do what he did for us last year and then we may combine and do something. So, look for
details to come out about that, um, and working on a workshop. All right, that's about the community or the school committee workshop proposal for now. And then once that gets rolling, we can talk about more workshops in the future.
All right, moving on to old business. Um, 2026-2027 school committee calendar. Did everyone have a chance to look at the calendar that's being presented? Any questions? Right now, we do not have the July 21st.
Um, I think everyone would like their summer off, but if we feel like we need a July 21st, we can have that meeting. [clears throat] Thoughts? >> In light of the fitness court, we might want to have a short meeting on it.
>> Or sooner. We could do a sooner one, too. Depending on if >> I would leave that to the discretion of you and the superintendent as soon as he gets to talk to the town. >> I know that [clears throat] there are some um vacations of people, so that's where we
might collide with some stuff. So, we just But, we'll keep the 21st as a tentative. All right, any other questions? Jackie White. >> So, did we kind of move I know there's a few in-person dates here.
Most are virtual. Do we all kind of move away from the idea of trying to get together in person? >> Um I think we can integrate some of our workshops to in person. Cuz we do have a lot of work to do in some workshops. Um and maybe set some other dates in
here. Um after talking with Groton-Dunstable's chair, um we would like to do some training together. Um to work with another school committee and maybe possibly even reach out to
Lunenburg, since we're all here. Um that's a proposal coming forward. And I'll have more details probably at the August 11th meeting. If people want to pursue more workshops. But, those would be more in person
instead of having the business meetings. >> Yeah. I think opportunities to gather and sit across the table from each other are important. Um and I'd hate to see us go all fall without having the chance to do that.
Um also, I'm intrigued by um what Randy mentioned earlier about how we used to meet every 3 weeks instead of just once a month. Just curious if that might help us with um staying on agenda a little bit more
effectively, but just a thought. Anyone else? Lisa Bloom. >> Yeah, I totally agree with in-person meetings. So and I think it was um
more effective like every three weeks. Thank you. >> I can agree with that. >> Um in-person meetings are hard for me. Um but I do think the cadence of meetings is important. I don't know if every three weeks
or just like every other month in additional meeting like on a date certain. I don't know if every three weeks messes with people's schedules or not that need more consistency. Um but like I mentioned earlier in the meeting, I was much more in favor of keeping the
additional meeting in June, adding a meeting, not moving the meeting back cuz I do think that that makes it harder for us to get through all of our material. You know, like do we just set a meeting even twice a year to just go over policies instead of I feel like we push
policies down the road a lot. Like that might be helpful um to keep us focused on something. >> And Kim, that's where I was thinking about the workshops, too. Is doing a policy workshop so that we can push a lot of the policies that are
you know, easily done that don't need a lot of the updates, um but they still need some community input. So doing like a total policy one. Possibly and that's what and I think that that's where like doing
a workshop with Groton, Dunstable, and Lunenburg, figuring out how they do their meetings sometimes and how they run their policies. I know that Groton just updated their entire policy book um with MASC.
Um and she they have told me some concerns that happened with that. Um so I think it'd be an opportunity and I think if tentatively we just approved this calendar tonight and then come back with those workshops
and some in-person meetings, that would be great for everyone to move forward. Um Jackie. >> I don't know if this is allowed, but I'm pretty sure we can all attend any other district school committee meeting, right? Just as an observer.
Um I'm going to challenge myself >> Several are recorded, too. >> myself to to try to listen to another meeting. And just to come back and bring some good ideas, things that we saw that we think work well. I would just open that up to any of us if you have time to
perhaps do that cuz I know there's all things that we wish we could do a little bit better. Um so, just an idea. >> Thank you, Jackie. Anyone else? Can I take a motion on the calendar? >> I make a motion to move the 2027
uh 26-27 calendar. >> School Committee calendar. >> School Committee calendar. Thank you, Lisa. >> Yeah, I second that. >> Okay, so we have Lisa Bloom with a motion and Michael Labossiere with the second.
Um any questions? All right, roll call vote. Jackie White. >> Yes. >> Michael Labossiere. >> Yes. >> Rayburn. >> Yes. >> Uh Alexander Bancudi. >> Yes. >> Lisa Bloom.
>> Yes. >> Evelyn Francois. >> Yes. >> Chris Sloan? >> Yes. >> And Lisa Martin, yes. All right. Moving on. Um any updates, Dr. Commier, on the um
solar panels for Ashby? >> No, we still have not heard back from them, and I was going to uh sort of tap Carla tonight if she were here to maybe use some of her face-to-face time with the town administrator to sort of
prod, but nothing yet. >> Cuz is it our lawyer has to speak with their lawyer and to figure out the agreement? >> I mean, that's the best um course that we were told to take, but we haven't even found out who their lawyer is to even set that meeting up.
>> Okay. All right. Um Okay. Um All right. We'll continue going with that, and I'll I can send it um email to
as well, Kevin, and I'll CC you and Superintendent Morgan on getting information from Ashby. Let's see, the warrant signature appointment. Um Carla Lima and Lisa Bloom both stepped down
from signing warrants. Is there any Right now, I have been signing the warrants um for the time being. Is anyone interested in taking on signing the warrants or being the alternative? >> Is it Is it just you get the email and
sign them? >> You get the email, you review them, and you sign them. >> Yeah. >> You get the email, you review you you you you you skim through the document, you sign the you sign the document, you know, you have to >> And you can Yeah. And you can ask
questions back um about different things on it. You can you know, >> Yeah, cuz it's got like an AI summary thing on there, too. Like Yeah. >> It's a It's an electronic signature thing, so you just go in there and you sign it. Okay. >> Sure. If If you need someone to sign it,
I'll sign them. >> And I can I can be the secondary. >> Well, it Keenan, I can keep signing them if everyone's okay if I keep signing them and we Michael, if you want to be the secondary. >> Oh, yeah. I mean, that's fine if you want to do that. I can I can be the
backup. >> Oh, thank you, Michael, for absolving me of this. >> [laughter] >> Um they just have to be done and I know that Keenan, you can get busy and you're and there has to be a timely manner that these are done cuz payroll
>> I'm on I'm on the computer all day, so that should be pretty easy for me. >> Awesome. All right, moving on. Oh, whoops, we need to make a motion. >> We need to do the motion. >> We have a motion that This is Michael, you probably can't make the motion. Keenan or someone else have to make the motion.
>> I move to appoint Lisa Martin as primary signatory and Michael Labossiere as secondary signatory for the warrants. >> I second the motion. >> All right, that was Keenan Francois
and Alexander Bancoude with the second. Um any questions? Any concerns? All right, we'll call vote. Jackie White. >> Yes. >> Michael Labossiere. >> Yes. >> Kim Craven. >> Yes. >> Alexander Bancoude.
>> Yeah. >> Lisa Bloom. >> Yes. >> Keena Francois. >> Yes. >> Chris Sloan. >> Yes. >> And myself, yes. Um finance committee.
Um there has not been an appointment to the chairperson. The It is on the agenda if you wanted to elect the chairperson tonight. If not, you guys can organize a meeting and have your election. >> Do we
>> Feelings among the finance committee? >> Mike are you up for it? >> Yeah, I'm up for it. I'll I'll do I'll do the I'll do this finance subcommittee. >> All right. >> [laughter] >> I move I move we elect Michael Labossiere as chair of the finance
committee. >> Do I have a second? Okay, so that is Kim Craven and Jackie White with the second. Um any questions, concerns? All right. Kim Craven. >> Yes. >> Jackie White.
>> Yes. >> Michael Labossiere. >> Yes. >> Alexander Bankuti. >> Yes. >> Lisa Bloom. >> Yes. >> Chris Sloan. >> Yes. >> Keena Francois. >> Yes. >> Myself, yes. All right, congratulations Michael.
>> Hooray. >> All right. Um we have a budget transfer. Dr. Comeau or Nancy. Or does Nancy want to do this one since it's her last budget transfer? >> [laughter]
>> Can fight over it. I guess I'll take it. Uh so, this is a the accumulation of this this is a summary accumulation of all the detailed transfers for the entire school year. Um we will need to make a I believe based on the earlier discussions, make a
change for the fitness court funding which was in the original motion. Um, and I could share my screen with the new numbers. Um, my recommendation would be to take that funding and unless there's a difference of opinion, take that funding
and leave it um, in the facilities um, plant facilities operations uh, area of the budget. Um, I It It's got to be left somewhere. It
could be left in um, out of district placements or something like that which is essentially where basically we pulled a lot of the funding from. >> Nancy, when when that happens and we close out the year, does it automatically drop into E&D?
>> Whatever funding is left at after the we close the year after the June 30th date or actually after the final warrants are paid for for June, that number would roll into E&D. >> Okay. >> So right now with this with the way this
vote was structured was to transfer that 115,000 to a capital project account. We did the similar thing when we did the um, the crosswalk uh, I I tried I modeled it after that project. So we did a project in Pepperell with a crosswalks and we
transferred the funding out of the general fund to a set up a capital project which means it basically rolls over. Um, we could we could put it in a capital project um, the the section of the budget that has capital projects, but of course that's
again the June 30th deadline. I I don't know. Is there a feel feeling for it? I just felt like maybe it go back to the facilities area. Again, this is there's a lot of moving parts to this budget uh, transfers because we still have a fair amount of
POs open that are bills are coming in and I'm doing my very best to get the funding in the places it belongs so that we can have have it in the appropriate line items. As we close the year out. If we end up with a July meeting that'll
make our life a little easier in the sense that we could have a final a final transfer at the very end. >> We can call a July meeting Nancy if Nancy and Kevin if that's necessary to do that. All we would have to do is have make
sure that there's a quorum of people for that meeting. Uh Kim Craven. >> My question was for Nancy on that. Do we Does that need to be within 15 days of the close of the fiscal year?
>> Um really any spending that we're going to do before June 30th should be obligated before June 30th. All that happens between you know, July 1st and the 15th is the bills roll in. So we have the final bills for the obligations that we made
prior to June 30th. So the the the approval of the transfer at that point would be somewhat after the fact in the sense that we'd already obligated the funding. Um then we just be cleaning up and making sure that the school committee has can
see all the transfers that occurred but we usually share the final spending of where it all worked out you know, where all the spending ended um at some point through the summer when we get the closeouts and any final adjustments. >> I knew we could do it after June 30th. I
just wasn't sure if there was a very specific time timeline cuz I knew you have a ton of work to do to to close it out but that that that it is customary. So, uh I'm I'm certainly willing to make sure that I'm available according to your timeline to make sure that all that
can happen cuz I know you have to >> Sure. >> do all that. >> I mean, this is our very best guesses to where we're going to end and where we need those budget transfers. There's probably still changes that'll be happening and we would just update the committee. I wouldn't think anything major from this point forward. But, um
unless unless we have a special meeting. And so. >> Lisa Bloom. >> Um can we just go ahead and plan a meeting for the 21st after our policy meeting since we have it then? And then everyone then it's not a
surprise in trying to get it organized with everyone. >> We can. It's tentative tentatively on there. >> Okay. >> All right. So, is the feeling not to put the
115,000 out of capital projects? >> I I could share my screen so you can see the the transfer amounts and we could talk about that if that's okay. >> I see. Thank you. >> And let me know if that's visible for everybody.
>> That is visible. >> So, originally this this was the 115,000. And what I was proposed and this was the 454 that's in the proposed um transfer. But my suggestion was to take
this 115 for now, at least for this moment, and say let's leave it in operations, maintenance, and technology area, um facilities, and I'm leaning it towards the capital side, so therefore that those capital things
can other capital things could be purchased before June 30th. It'd be great. Um then it's available there. If not, it closes out. So, it would look like it would look like this for the vote.
Taking $125,053.99 adding that to instructional support, um adding 569,155 to operations, maintenance, and technology, adding 36,891
to interest debt service, uh transferring from the insurance, retirement programs, and other area, and transferring out of um out of district um tuition and assessments. And again, this is this is the summary
version of it. You're in your packet, the detail has the column that's highlighted has every single line item change that kind of rolls into these transfers. If somebody wants to look at the detail lines. >> Um Jackie White.
Um just thinking about the ADA compliance updates that we may do, and I know we're still going after some funding for that help as well, but I mean, those would count as capital projects, no? Like, is there anything potentially that might come to us in the next week that we could say
let's send that over there? >> Well, we don't have the exact like the detailed um the the firm did give uh Dr. Reese sort of like a high-level summary of where some of the areas we need to look at are so we could we could you
know potentially take a look at what what are nice I don't want to say quick fixes cuz if they were quick we would have done them but something that that's manageable for us in the in the time we had that's that's probably something we could take a look at at the B. >> And I think there was signage
related things in there as well that's fairly easy order generally. >> They're like bathroom fixtures was a big one I think that was like $600,000 so we could just take a couple of schools and take some bathroom fixtures and just buy a bunch of them and put them in over the summer.
>> Um All right. Are people okay with this? Any questions from the committee? All right. Somebody does have to read all of the numbers. >> Okay. We're doing as presented, right? >> Uh
you have to read each number cuz it's money. >> Yeah, I think the only the only change from what's in the agenda is the operations maintenance technology section is 569 155. If you just make a quick note of that and obviously leaving out that 115
transfer for now. 115,000 for the transfer to capital. >> Operations maintenance is what not? 569 >> 569 155 >> And we are not doing the 115 of capital project.
>> Yeah. >> Correct. >> Okay. I move that the committee vote to approve the FY26-2 budget transfer as follows. 125,000 $53.99 added to instructional support equipment. 454
Sorry, 569,000 dollars added to operations maintenance technology. 36,981 added to debt service interest. Those funds will be transferred from 71,701 dollars and 28 cents from insurance
retirement programs and other. 659,488 dollars and 94 cents from payment to out of district and assessments for a total transfer of whatever that number is. >> Same number.
>> Same number. 731,1922. >> I second. That was Keenan Francois with the motion and a second from Lisa Bloom. It's a roll call vote. Any questions? All right. Michael Labossiere.
>> Yes. >> Becky White. >> Yes. >> Kim Craven. Kim. >> Are you hear me? Yes. >> Lisa Bloom. >> Yes. >> Chris Long. >> Yes. >> Keenan Francois.
>> Yes. >> Lisa Lisa Bankole Alexander Bankole. >> Yes. >> Lisa Martin. Yes. All right. Continuing on to negotiations. There's no update from the negotiations at this time.
Policy um um I was elected the chairperson of policy and we are moving forward. We had a policy meeting tonight where we reviewed our tracker system and how we are going to handle some of the policies going forward. We are starting
this um summer we're going to be doing the B section, which is our governance section. Each one of us has been assigned that's in the policy committee 10 policies to update and bring back to the subcommittee and then we will bring
them forward for the meeting. Um Now we have policy BE, duration of school committee meetings. Um you guys did see the update and how um
to limit the time of committee meetings. Um we do not have to update this one tonight. Um we can review it, we can chat about it, or it can be put off to another time. Thoughts? Okay, seeing no thoughts, I think we
will push this to our next meeting um since it is being reviewed by the sub committee at this time. Um going on to number three, the policy of artificial intelligence. Um I am going to hand this to Michael in the
last year cuz he's worked a lot on this and so has um Superintendent Morgan. He can give the update as well. >> Yeah. Yeah, I'll I'll I'll start and then Superintendent Morgan and I'll hand it off to you. But basically, you know, the district needs um
you know, a policy regarding AI. It's obviously a very very sort of disruptive technology. There's a lot happening with it right now. It's all over the news. There's lots of So, we need at least a baseline policy to work from and um
I've been looking a lot at what um Boston Public Schools has been doing because they had a recent meeting, I think it was in May, where they uh presented a draft version of their what they have uh uh for an AI policy moving forward. They
had a great There was a presentation and everything. Lots of research has been done in They did a bunch of research on it and they have what I think is a good framework to work from for us to look at and like a lot of things that maybe we would have missed if we had tried to
like do it all ourselves. So, we have some great sort of starting point to work from, but this is not something that we're going to um do it once and then be completely done with it forever, but I feel like we need something in place that gives us a
framework to work with, but flexibility to sort of change things in the future and also giving the administration enough flexibility to sort of deal with the changing uh landscape of AI and and
basically the fact that it is completely unavoidable at this point in the world where even if we, you know, we could try to set a policy policy that says no AI ever, but that's basically unenforceable. So, we need something a little more considered um and a little bit more uh
you know, acknowledging the reality of of the world. And so, I think that Boston's does a good job of balancing that and making clear that AI should not be used as a substitute for brains, um but you know, it it
um basically I think that um what we need to do is we need to work uh from that as a starting point and get ourselves a policy that will work for the district and uh so, uh
Superintendent Morgan, like what are your thoughts on where to go forward with this? >> Sure. So, I I I agree. I think that that we're at a point where we do have to put something into place. I did reach out to Boston and and got their permission to
utilize whatever I I saw fit as being applicable to North Middlesex with regard to their set of procedures. And they And they are procedures. It's Just to be clear, they're going to implement a policy that basically says "We will follow the procedures that the
school district has that the school district and school committee has approved." So, it's a very simple policy. But the procedures talk about developing promoting literacy, professional development, responsible use, um
used by educators, school leaders and staff, students, successful implementation of schools, prohibited tools, and academic integrity. So, in addition to the Boston document, I looked at some other documents that are currently in use. They've all been legally vetted and I have shared with
the committee a set of um artificial intelligence guidelines that I think will work for North Middlesex. You know, we've we've fully vetted them. We've had our legal counsel vet them as well. Myself, Dr. Beau Reese, and some
other central office staff have gone over these and think we're in a really good place. But the reality is is that we we can't move forward with AI until we have something in place so that we're able to remain grounded in making sure that we're doing what we need to do for
our staff and students. Um to be to be honest, I view this very much like our student handbook, um which is something that is going to have to be reviewed annually um by the committee because it is constantly changing. There may be situations where over the course of this
year, which has happened with the handbook as well, where we have to make a change to these guidelines because something has happened or we have new information that we have to act on to make sure that again our staff and students are protected. So, I do think
that the document that has been shared with school committee gives us a good framework. I I think it puts us in a position to make sure that that you know, the students have some access to it, but not too much access. The reality is is that
they're going to need some level of education on this if they're going to move forward after high school, whether it be entering the workforce or going off to college. Um so, I do think the procedures and guidelines leave us with
a good framework that will be enough. We'll be doing just enough for our students so that so again, they're prepared in making sure that our staff are prepared to responsibly work with the students using AI.
>> Um Superintendent Morgan, this is something that will be distributed out to families when the handbook is delivered to them and things like that. Yes. >> Yes. It'll It'll go out to families. It's something that It's something that we are going to have
to enforce because there are you know, there's the responsible use aspect of it for staff and for students. There's the academic integrity component for students. So, there are things in this document
that will have to be enforced if um if there's a violation. But that being said, there are schools out there that outright say you cannot use AI. But in reality, if a you know, in an email if as you're emailing someone, if you have Grammarly or something like
that, that's AI. So, any type of correction that's coming up or anything, um you're getting AI. You're getting AI when you use your cell phone. Um sometimes automatically it's just happening and students don't always know it. It's It just occurs.
Um you know, usually if you look something up on the internet now, one of the first responses is something from generative AI. So, it's it's making sure that I I again, we want to make sure the students are protected. But also, we want to make sure that they're not in the dark.
Um >> Is is this document something that will be used in a professional development and handed out to staff? >> So, yeah yes. So, it's something that the staff um will have. It will be covered with staff, but it
will also allow us because it did come up in school committee meetings, you know, the we had the school committee members and I and I agree saying that we should not be moving forward with AI until we have something concrete in place for AI. So,
I feel very strongly that we need something like the these guidelines, which again have been legally vetted by our attorneys. Um you know, we've used a good amount of what Boston had. But this allows us the ability to now move forward and work with the staff on
it. So, they can address issues with the students. It's happening It's happening whether we do it or not. I mean, one way or the other, there are things that, you know, we're not in every classroom every day. Students Staff are using it on some level.
Students are using it on some level. But we have not been able to give them guidance up to this point. And this will allow us to give them the necessary guidance. >> Alexander Bankhead I will say these are generally This is
generally a reasonable framework. Um you know, uh I do think just to be brutally honest, um yeah, you can't keep students from using AI if you assign something at home. If you assign something on a computer. Um you know, I think you know, in order to get them to use
those critical thinking skills and to get them to actually think for themselves, we are going to and to get them to actually learn how to do, you know, how to interpret and find information on their own. Um you know, I think we will have to be
moving more towards a lot of pen and paper and a more towards a lot of stuff out of books. Um that's also been shown uh recently that, you know, using those physical resources are is better for memory retention.
Um it's just, you know, generally better. Um so, I think this is a reasonably good framework and I and I think I I'm glad that um I'm glad that Michael was on the team because I know he has his suspicions AI here and there, too. So,
I, you know, appreciate that he his eyes were on this. So, um yeah, this is a reasonable framework, but I think at the end of the day, um speaking as a teacher myself, there's a lot of changes we're going to have to make because in the last 20 years, we've really come to rely
on computers in the classroom and they because they've really like increased a lot of our workflow and stuff, you know? It's so much easier to have like everything turned in on Google Classroom if you're like the type of teacher who's like on the computer all the time. Um but I think we're going to have to change the way some things work and that's going to
require there's going to be growing pains in that. There's going to be a lot of reinvestment in that and having us more keeping us flexible and having it renewed frequently is a very good idea because, you know, just like when cell phones get like smartphones came in, things
um things moved at a rapid clip and some ideas we thought were good at first were turned out to be bad. Some ideas we thought were bad turned out to be good and, you know, you always have to make adjustments. So, I'm glad we're open to renewing this and revising this.
>> Thank you, Alexander. [clears throat] Any other questions about this? I Oh, Kim. >> Kim Kim >> Sorry, you were hidden behind my my screen. Kim, you're on mute. >> I appreciate all the effort that went into this. Um I had worked on something
similar for for my own work. I know how complicated it can be um and that balance that Alexander just talked about of the critical thinking skills and what to do should the internet go down. Um you know, how to find out
information is really important and then balancing it with some of the new job um descriptions that come out there that say, you know, necessary to know how to use AI tools. Um creating that balance is really critical. So, you know, I I took a look at what you
put together and I think it looks really good and I think it's going to be a challenge going I had just keeping up with all of the challenge. So, you know, really great work. I appreciate um that um collecting the information and looking at what others are doing. So,
thanks for being prepared and it for our for our students. And and stuff. >> Um Mike or Michael, is your hand down? >> No, I I I accidentally clicked it again, but I just wanted to say that that So, having looked [clears throat] at the the
guidelines and you know, both the the original the ones from Boston and then the ones that that uh Superintendent Morgan provided, I think that what we can do moving forward um is I think that we can basically devise a policy which
is something to the effect of the the district shall develop AI guidelines and update them on a regular basis, basically, because right now making a policy that has a lot of detail seems like a fool's errand because it is going to have to change a bunch. So, I
think as a first pass we essentially say we're going like the district administration will develop guidelines and implement them etc. etc. And then using these sort of this sort of initial batch of guidelines that that that the superintendent has provided that can
be our sort of first set of guidelines that will then be sort of distributed out to to the district then used for professional development, but part of the new policy should be I think a revisit at least annually I think of
of the of the guidelines so that the committee can look at them, provide feedback, they can get updated, or if necessary we could add provisions to the policy directly to say like the like you know basically the guidelines must do X, Y, and Z, but
I think as a first pass we just say we have guidelines and they get implemented and then from there we can sort of work on them further. >> Michael, I'm going to add to that. I think MASC will be coming out with something with artificial intelligence,
but I do think for the time being we do need that placeholder policy that says this is here's go to our guidelines. These are our guidelines for artificial intelligence and not build that into the policy directly because we know that
this is something that's going to be changing quickly. >> Yeah, exactly. So, this get this gets us something and then we can refine it as we find more things out and learn more things or MASC comes out with some guidelines and then we can update the
policy and if necessary also update the guidelines and just kind of we know that this is going to be a rolling thing because stuff is changing and new information is coming out. >> Exactly. All right, Chris Sloan. >> Um one statement and then one question.
Um, just kind of looking through some of these, I do agree that we're covering a lot of good areas here, and I would just say, based on what I'm seeing in like my day job, you know, software development, these are some of the things we're hitting with, you know, new hires coming
out of college as well, you know, highlighting these limitations, considerations, the risks, um, and making sure that, you know, we're using these as tools and not just as a, you know, a replacement for thinking. So, it was good to see some of that. Um, and even in, you know, the
development world, we're we're looking at this training annually, as well. So, I think that's something we'll need to replicate here. Um, and then I guess just logistically, I think the agenda we're voting to do a first reading of these.
Are we going to put this whole This guideline out there, or is this separate from >> necessarily a policy, Chris. This is guidelines. >> Yeah. >> And so, we haven't actually put a policy together, >> Mhm. >> um, yet. It will be in our meeting, our
next meeting we'll >> Yeah. >> put a artificial intelligence policy in. This is just guidelines. >> Yeah, and I think that the simplest thing is just like a one paragraph policy that basically says we're going to have we're going to have guidelines, and the ad- and the admin is going to
produce them and implement them, and here's where they're going to be, and that will be our first pass. And I'm happy to write that, or, yeah, Superintendent Morgan, if you just want to throw something together, like I I don't think it needs to be complicated. I think it just needs to basically be a reference to the guidelines, and then
that will be our starting point, and we can add to it from there. >> We can bring that back on the subcommittee policy next meeting, and approve that, and then get it to the school committee. >> Yeah. >> But tonight, do does the committee want to move and approve the guidelines that
were presented? I think that that's the vote that we should take. All right. Michael, you get to make >> Yeah, I can All right. So, I move that the school committee accepts the artificial intelligence guidelines as presented.
>> [clears throat] >> I second. And that was Michael Labossiere and Lisa Bloom with the second. All right. Uh roll call vote. Jackie White. >> Yes. >> Lisa um Michael Labossiere.
>> Yes. >> Kim Craven. And yes, I think she said yes. Alexander Bancoudi. >> Yes. >> Lisa Bloom. >> Yes. >> Sloan. >> Yes. >> And myself, yes.
>> Thank you. >> All right. Going on to cell phone use. Were people able to read the policy? And see the strikes or the >> The changes. >> The changes.
>> Yes. >> And I think that this was Jackie White. >> I was just going to say like I did see the email, I believe, that came from the superintendent maybe from um Miss Smith and her advocating for this policy change. Do you want to just walk us
through like why some of the strikes came and just how you arrived at this version that we're looking at. >> Sure. So, it essentially and and just to clarify, I I I I've been told multiple times that
this was going to be done at the state level um prior to the start of next school year and it still has not happened yet. Um I still think there's a very good chance it's going to happen, but the state is moving towards a full ban. Essentially, what happened at the high
school was um this past year um students were only allowed to use their cell phones during passing time in in the cafeteria at the high school level only. Um they were allowed to have one earbud in if they were walking in the hallway
or have one earbud in if they were in the cafeteria. Um and basically through uh polling the staff at the high school and surveying the staff staff still felt as though it was a problem um and the cell phones were a
problem with getting students to um turn them in um and you know and that still may be an issue with this particular case. But the overwhelming majority at the high school um the staff have asked for a a full ban
uh for the duration of the school day. Um and that would include um earphones as well. Um unless there is a health issue or a special education um individualized education plan or a or a health issue or a student is on a 504 or something along
those lines which are very very rare. Um but they still feel as though again it is um having a they're having a negative impact on education. Um there are still issues with um students uh using them or
hiding them or turning in a phone that isn't their real phone, but it's a backup phone. Um and just feel as though it's still taking away from the education of students. In addition to that, this policy would eliminate the use of AI
glasses which have become another issue at the high school. Um You know, those are essentially computers that students are wearing as glasses and they're able to do things that regular glasses are not. Um, the only thing that this does not
eliminate would be the use of cell phones on school buses because quite honestly, we don't have any any way of policing that. Um, the school bus drivers don't have any way of enforcing that. We would literally have to have at least one bus
monitor on every bus monitoring what the students are doing. Um, and there's simply there's simply no way. So, even though there are, you know, a lot of the issues that occur with cell phones such as pictures, videos, things of that nature where students may be engaged may
be engaging in inappropriate behavior, that is not something that that we're able to address at this point in time. But, we are able to look at um how they're being used in the school. And it really is only a change at the high school level. There's been a essentially a total ban in place K to 8
um, for years. So, it's really only a high school issue. What we have not determined yet is the storage component. Are we going to look at a pouch where the students have to put them in a pouch and they are basically, you know, they're not usable at that
point. They have no signal. I know that we are looking at grants for those. Um, or are we going to look at something else? There's the potential we're going to look at, you know, is there a way that we can create um, spots in the building such as bathrooms where cell phones can't be used because
there's no signal in the bathroom. Um, you know, those are all things that that other districts are utilizing and looking at. But, we also have to be fiscally responsible with how we go about this ban as well. So, we're going to do the best we can, look
at all of our options. We have a couple of months to put something in place. Um, and it comes down to what is going to be the best method for our students. And it may take a couple of years for us to get to where we want to be. Uh, but again, felt very strongly, um,
that all wireless communication devices, artificial intelligence, camera enabled devices, and headphones, um, cell phones should should essentially be banned pre-K to 12 during the school day. >> Uh, any questions? Alexander?
>> I'm just going to say as my from my experience as a teacher, I completely agree with these changes that that ramp it up to a full ban. At my work, we, you know, started with a full ban of cell phones at the beginning of the year. Then they crept into to lunch time, then
they crept into different like passing period times. The [snorts] headphones, too, it was none, and then they had them in. I I strongly believe you just got to flat out, you know, other than for like medical reasons or like IEP reasons, you
have to just flat out keep cell phones and AirPods away from students. Uh, you know, smart glasses, smart watches, keep them away from students the whole school day because, um, at best, they're depending on them to think. Um, at worst, they're
distracting themselves and everyone else around them. Um, like the best case scenarios are like being academically dishonest to get good grades with them. But a lot of kids are just playing videos. I I completely agree with these changes.
Um, you know, I I want the cell phones and the the AirPods out of the schools completely. >> All right. Um, Jackie, did you have your hand up? Jackie. >> I'm obviously not in the schools every
day like Alex, that's why I appreciate your perspective on this. I'm on the other side of the fence where I disagree with a full ban. I think my husband has a phrase that locks keep honest people honest. So I do worry that we're going to be punishing the students who are normal compliant
kids anyway with an inability to like communicate with parents during the day like logistically we don't have everything nailed down during the day. So it's always really helpful to be able to go back and forth with kids on schedules and driving and what's happening.
Um also having lived life with a student with social emotional issues and disregulation it provided me with an outlet for us to communicate and I could kind of talk him off the ledge when needed. And so it wouldn't escalate and bubble over into other areas in his day.
It just adds that other other way for him to communicate. So I just worry about those students who like it's it's like a safety mechanism and just a family help. Um again, I fully respect that I'm not in the
schools every day to see the horrible downsides of this but that's just my feeling. >> Yeah, I I mean I I understand that but at the same time it's like I understand like yeah that they're they're but at the same time
you know logistically a lot of parents can't call the school. Second of all, I think yeah there there are some kids a few kids that benefit but uh almost a hundred like 99.9% of them do not and even the kids who are
generally compliant um cell phones are extremely addictive on like on an order like similar to drugs, right? If you have that thing in your pocket and it's just infinite entertainment all the time, especially Instagram and TikTok.
They are designed to be addictive. They're designed to be like, you know, Skittles or M&M's. You just keep popping the things, right? You keep flipping through videos. You keep flipping through reels. You keep checking all your friends' posts. They're designed to be super, super addictive. And so even kids with
more self-control, I feel like succumb to like I have a lot of kids who are like have parents who push them you know, to work hard. They do all their homework. They do well on tests. They participate in the class discussions. They listen to the teacher. But even
they will get on the the phone and just start flipping through Instagram or flipping through TikTok. And I think there are benefits for some kids. I agree that with I'm sympathetic to that. But at the same time the the the harm outweighs the benefit for just the vast
majority of students. And um I really think we just need to clamp it down as much as possible because it has it it's it's rough out there. I'll say it's rough out there. >> why not like what's not working with the
model of like class by class? >> Because them having that it at all it creeps out in the class. They have in their pocket, it comes out in class. It's not it's a compulsion. And like we all do it. I'm guilty of it. We're all guilty of it. We're all addicted to our
devices, right? And teenagers with their underdeveloped brains are like even more susceptible to addiction. That's like why we don't like to let them like smoke tobacco or marijuana or drink alcohol, right? Cuz it's
one of those things they can be extremely susceptible to addiction. Um and it's you know it it's just I've seen it. I've seen it time and time again. I've just seen kids just like enthralled to the thing. And when you're
an adult, you can kind of separate, you can kind of like you know, be like, I got to be responsible now, or at least most of us can. But kids, it's just so much harder to take that step to be like, no, I got to put this down. I got to be honest, even though this is an easy way out,
this is a way to get an A on my test, or this is a way to entertain myself when I'm bored in history class. No, I just got to put this away, and I got to focus on what I got to do. It's so hard for kids to do that. The fewer distractions there are in a classroom, the better off kids will be. Uh and like
this is just from both from my experience as a teacher and from like relevant data I've seen because I look into that stuff cuz I'm I'm I'm a freak. All right, sorry. >> Thank you, Alexander. Um any other
questions or concerns? And Jackie, I understand about the emotional support for that device and everything, and the communication where it you want to communicate with your kid during the day and figure out the logistics. Um
And but again, this is a policy that we can bring back again and make an update to it. But this is a request um by administration and even the teachers saying that we would be better off if we
ban everything totally. And easier to probably control if it's a ban for everything. >> Yeah. >> If that makes sense. Cuz I do know that even the good kids that you don't think are going to cheat with the cell phone are cheating with
the cell phone. >> Do we think that this is going to be like a huge uptick in like administrative time on disciplinary sides, and are we prepared to handle that. >> So, again, this was really coming from the high school directly and and coming
from the staff. I I do know that Ms. Smith is supportive of it. Um as far as as far as an uptick an uptick in um issues, there wasn't really a huge uptick in issues this year. I mean, some
of the issues that we had, quite honestly, were with things not always being enforced consistently from classroom to classroom, which presented some issues. Um because some teachers made sure that, you know,
it the start of every class, those cell phone holders, like the shoe holders that were hanging in every single class, had a cell phone in it, and the cell phones weren't out, and it wasn't an issue. Um wasn't always the case, and it's not always the case. It's just it's like that everywhere, where you don't have
100% um compliance, but it really came down to less of an issue with um with it happening in class, but those issues still occurring in the hallway
and during lunch, um and in the bathrooms, because the students still had them on their person. Where under this policy, there is going to be some storage plan for them, so they won't have access to them um at all. >> And what were the issues that happened
during lunch and like non-structured class time? >> Um so social media, kids were going on to social media, kids were taking pictures of other students, videotaping other students without their permission. Um they were being used in the bathroom
for inappropriate things. Um I mean, I can certainly have Ms. Smith come to the next meeting and give and provide more detail. Um it was only an issue with the high school because it was the only school that allowed them. Um so she would be the best person to speak to, but um, the majority of the
issues were happening during those unstructured times when cell phones were allowed. >> And I do know, um, Jackie, that this was um, talked about in classes with students about taking a full ban on
um, cell phones next year. Cuz I mean, the state had been talking about it, and I know that several of our teachers and principals, cuz even my or my child came home and said, "Hey, is this really happening?" And I said, "Yes, it may happen because people are
violating rules that we've put in place. So, I know that some kids it has been vetted through some of the classrooms. Any other discussion? Kim Craven. >> You, um,
my only concern, sorry to have to bring it up, um, is that during critical events, sentinel events, cell phones are used to transmit information, critical information, and for, um,
reunification with families. That's my only worry about kids not having the phones. I know, obviously, when most of us were in school, we didn't have cell phones, um, but that's the only thing that I worry about. >> The only The only piece that I can speak
to for that, and again, I don't know if if the school of thought has changed on this. Um, I used to be a STARS member, um, and used to work with other schools when they were um emergencies. And
again, this may have changed, so I may be out of date on this, but originally the school of thought was was that when there was a critical event we did not want students to have their cell phones because generally speaking when parents got those phone calls, they only had one
thing um at the forefront of their mind, which was the safety of their own child, and that they would converge on the school and potentially create an even more unsafe situation. That was the school of thought then. I don't know if it's changed. As I said,
it very well could have changed. Um but I have not been um actively involved in that in that training for quite some time. So >> Exactly. >> That's been my understanding. Like as a um as a teacher like having gotten trainings on stuff like that, that's
been my understanding that generally you don't want students to be calling their parents if there is like um a huge emergency, right? That because you got kids parents will, you know, I mean most of us here are parents, right? You you just you just you just you just go. You just
go. It's nature. Like you just go. You help your kid. And sometimes that's not actually helpful, you know? And so um in trainings I've been in, they have said don't have the kids, you know, don't make a bunch of cell phone calls, you know? So
>> Yeah. >> Um >> In some of the in some of the shooting incidences the information has been invaluable uh with giving information to [clears throat] law enforcement. Um but just settling events, you know, storms, tornadoes,
which we're getting more of. That you know, that's the only thing. Um But otherwise, I'm not in a classroom either. But and I I don't have any other problems with it, but that's just the only consideration. >> I'm I'm just giving what I've heard, you
know. >> Um Superintendent Morgan, are you looking for adoption tonight or do we want to do first reading on this and come back? >> I I'll leave that up to the committee. I mean, um it it does sound like we're leaning towards
a July meeting. Um so that would certainly give us the time. Um I think waiting until not having a July meeting would would make it really really difficult um for us to implement this. Um but also waiting um it could impact our
ability to >> Yeah. >> It it would maybe be a solution. >> Yeah. >> Superintendent, you want need more time to socialize this with the family, so I don't have a problem approving it tonight. >> So, I think that we can do a first
reading on this. And if there's feedback and then approve it at the July 21st meeting, if that's okay with everyone. >> Do we need it back for the handbook to be voted in or no? >> We're not going to have the handbook until the until the 21st anyway. Um
just be So, that's the other piece with this, why a July meeting may be helpful because I was supposed to have the handbook in hand Thursday morning um and I did not. And I needed it Thursday morning in order to get it to you within the 48 hours because of Juneteenth.
>> So, I think we My suggestion to the committee is that we approve this tonight for a first reading. Let the community have feedback on it. Um we can invite um Principal Smith back to the next meeting and she can
give us more details if that's okay with everyone. All right. Would somebody >> one more comment? Sorry. So, as I'm thinking about this, too, like another thing at the high school level is that sometimes athletic coaches will
communicate with their teams on like buses and all of that really important stuff that's timely. Just throwing it out there. If the kids are cut off from that communication, that's another piece. >> I can mention that to Ms. Smith as well.
>> Yep. And again, I am in full favor of during class time. Yes, full day. >> So, they can the best way for that communication to happen, Jackie, is not through text messages. They shouldn't have the cell phone numbers of students. I think there's a policy with that. I think they're
supposed to communicate through email. That's how a coach should be communicating. >> Or they use their app. Like the >> Yeah, and I think the apps can be sent to where they get an email notification. >> Okay. >> And not a text message.
Cuz coaches can't directly there is a policy. Am I right, Brad? There is a policy where coaches can't directly >> I'm not sure if it's the school committee policy, but it is it's >> Safe sports. >> Yeah, it's in the handbook. >> And can the kids check their emails
during the day on the Chromebooks at school? >> Yes. Mhm. >> And that's a that's a way that um several communicate out, too. Is through their emails. >> And generally speaking, if this policy goes into place and there are holes with
it like that, if there's a significant hole then there's going to have to be announcements that are made. >> True. >> Um so, >> All right. So, can I take a motion from someone on the floor? >> I move that we
approve policy JB GBEF and JICJ use of cell phones and portable communication devices for first reading. >> I can. >> I second. >> That is Michael Labossiere with a motion and Lisa Bloom with the second. Any
discussion? >> Um >> What Did I miss something, Lisa? >> I think it was Kim. I think Kim said it second first. >> Right. >> Okay. So, Kim Craven with the second on that. All right. Roll call vote. Jackie White.
>> Yes. >> Michael Labossiere. >> Yes. >> Craven. >> Yes. >> The Bloom. >> Yes. >> Alexander Bancudi. >> Yes. >> Sloan. >> Yes. >> And myself, yes. All right.
Moving on to policy and we're going to jump to policy KFR1. And that's a community a community use of school facilities and the fee proposal one. So, I'm going
to hand this over to um Mr. Hammond and he's going to explain cuz he is um our facilities use person and sets up all our community members to use facilities and monitors that very
closely. >> So, KFR1 is the primary or sorry, E1 is the primary instigation of putting this on here. Uh because it is a fee schedule, it does require fair more regular
updates uh than most policies. The current official version that's out there is a version that I had worked on uh and it's a little bit more complicated. Part of it was that I had put pieces in place to help with the
transition uh into having more consistent pricing throughout. Uh can you just hold on a second? >> The June debates. >> Sorry, I had a side question. Um So, the draft that I put together
essentially pulls out the concept of the season camp uh that we had implemented in the current version. The idea is to make things again a little bit more consistent moving in that direction, and most groups are not particularly taking advantage of that at
this point. Some of the cost savings that were allowed specifically to the season camp grouping uh have been applied directly uh within all community groups. Uh the primary areas for that are for the
auditorium at the district, the performing arts center at the high school, and uh the turf field. Essentially, separating out the uh staffing element that had been built into it due to previous versions of the
policy. Uh and for the auditorium as well as performing arts center, allowing those spaces to be reserved for say a rehearsal or a practice when the commons is not needed uh without reserving the commons and
therefore allowing the price to be uh somewhat reduced since the four when they're not utilizing the commons as part of uh that reservation. There are a couple of iffy adjustments in here. Most of them are
I don't think there's anything really more than a $5 range. Uh and that's just rounding out a couple of things based on uh patterns I've been seeing and the fact that the prices themselves I don't believe have been updated in
probably eight years or so. I'd have to look up when the policy was initially created. Most of those adjustments are made at the high school level where quite honestly community groups aren't really renting the majority of those
spaces anyhow, certainly not the gymnasium due to use by district group by the district itself. It's just simply not available within the schedule. When we can, we do make it available. The other change that this makes
or more significant change that this makes is it allows for the Haffenreffer and Varnum Brook gyms to be rented as half gyms at a reduced cost. The reason for that, first of all, it matches some of the pricing for the season camp by doing the half gym. It's
also something that we frankly had to implement out of necessity because we have had more requests than we have gym space in the district. So there have been multiple occasions where groups have rented half of the gym, we pull a curtain across, and another group
is using the other half of the gym. So this just essentially allows that to be put in place. Now based on the direction of the policy committee from the more recent meetings, the direction of conversation
in case uh the school committee decided to move away from having the fee schedule itself be a policy as opposed to a district managed guideline, that is why I asked Robin to also
include policy KF and KFR 1 on the agenda just in case they need to be discussed. If we were to you essentially end KFE1 and replace it with a district managed guideline, uh really the only difference between
this policy and that, at least initially, would be formatting. Uh and then KF I had it jotted down. Let me verify. I believe it's KF self? Nope, sorry. KFR1
would need to be modified uh specifically on item 19, simply because item 19 on KFR1 specifically references that the fee schedule is in KFE1.
So, it'd just be a minor edit to that. The only reason why I asked her to include KF is cuz it's the base policy for that both of these are based off of. And in case they need to be discussed, I wanted to make sure they were on the agenda so you could do so.
Any questions? >> Uh Jackie White. Um thank you, Mr. Hammond. Um am I Can you repeat what you said at the outset that none of these fees are going up more than 5 to 10 dollars over what they had been previously?
>> I don't believe there's anything that's even 10 dollars. I'd have to point by point to verify, but uh really was not looking to make a lot of cost changes as part of it. >> Okay. >> I think the largest jumps are only to make sure that
uh staffing pay aligns with union contracts, but that's only on the staff pay side. >> In case they need like a custodian at the event or um supervision. I think that was the other one. Some of the other ones >> one was actually the AV technician,
which I forgot to mention when I gave my spiel, uh because right now that's uh in the current policy, the pay for AV technicians, which is generally a teacher, is actually less than what the teachers are supposed to make by their
union contract uh for additional hours in the district. It is not specifically called out, so it's not been a major problem, uh but where we're trying to get teachers interested in helping out as an AV technician, that's the primary place
where that's been a problem. No one's interested. >> And for like the Performing Arts Center and the turf, these are like a per event or a season, right? It's not like you'd incur $240 like every week that you're in
rehearsals or something. >> Those are per hour fees. >> Per hour? >> Uh they are per hour. >> Okay. >> but so which line are you referencing for 240? >> So like I'm looking at
um this table here. >> So that's the current version. That's not the what I'm proposing. Um but yes, and if you look at the headings at the top, that's other groups and organizations. So community groups never pay that 240
an hour. >> Got you. >> Uh the community groups in this, and this is where I'm trying to simplify it a little bit as well. You see there's a breakdown. Most of the community groups are paying under that town-based nonprofit groups column.
Uh and that's where I had previously broken out that season camp concept to try to provide a little bit more affordability. In the current version, what I've done instead is just combined it. I
added basically $5. I called the Performing Arts Center $100 an hour. Uh staffing is a separate thing and that is when you're including the commons. When you're not including the commons, uh then that one is actually I guess that's
where what is up 10 cuz that one's at $50. >> And you said this at the beginning. Sorry, I missed it. The version that you're proposing, which one is that? Where should we be looking for that? >> Uh the version I'm proposing
Let me look at your >> So is it the one that has draft in the name? >> uh draft in the name. >> It's Is it the one called draft for summer? >> Uh Yes, it probably says >> draft for summer 2023.
>> In the agenda, it just says >> Yeah, in the in the folder, the the policy folder, um in the meeting that that KFE1 draft for summer is the new one. >> Perfect. Thank you. >> So the new one is the one that has more kind of preamble, but the there's only
two columns for the pricing schedule. >> Uh Kim Craven. Just Sorry, I'm I've been kind of go back and forth cuz looking at it before the meeting, I wasn't 100% sure what I was supposed to be lining up. So
now like the Performing Arts Center complex, it it's $50 an hour. Am I correct on that? >> Without the commons. With the commons, it would be $100 an hour. >> So now now it's 50
without the comments. And it's going to save 50 without the comments. >> Uh currently it is 40 without the comments, but currently Uh no, sorry. Currently And this is part of where it gets
confusing. Currently it is 50 without the comments. I misspoke earlier. I was looking at the next line down. Um so in the current version, what's confusing me even is the next line below that is the AV technician fee, which I moved and just made it
uh staffing fees in the new version. Uh so it is currently $50 an hour in the current version. However, that is only accessible if you don't have the comments. That is only accessible in the current version if you are considered a season
or a camp, which would mean that you are uh renting more than much more than 100 hours. So for the majority groups for the Performing Arts Center, no one's
actually been at that $50 rate at the moment. The new version would make that accessible to all the groups. >> All right. So this is one of those things where I'm sorry, I I need like a info graph. I don't know a little line chart.
Um cuz I was having a hard time like figuring out like what what am I trying to compare here quickly and I was struggling a little bit. And so I definitely want to hear from like the folks that
normally rent these spaces and I'd love to know a little bit um cuz I don't I don't know that we have a a good idea or some people that have been on committee longer might Um you know of of how many times are we running You know, what is the demand for this
space? What does this kind of look like for us? And and just like I said a little bit clearer path. And in hearing you talk about it, might be easier for me to go back and look at it side by side. I think without your explanation, it was a little bit harder
for me. >> If there's a desire, I can probably run through a lot of it fairly quickly, but I don't want to hold up everyone if there's not a desire for that. >> I think I was looking for the line two like of like comparing. What are we
moving from and going to, right? And I think you've just answered that for us that it's very nominal, that it's not a huge increase. >> So I guess hearing silence, let me see if I can just kind of hit a few of the more specific comparisons because this
where part of this is difficult to line graph because it's somewhat based on what the reality of actual use has been. Uh so for instance, at the high school, the performing arts center
outside of the district itself has only been used by a few groups. The season camp portion has not actually come up at all. Uh so the comparison there is really for the performing arts center with commons.
It's really the $100 versus $95 for community organization versus town-based nonprofit groups. And part of that difference was separating out. There was previously a event supervisor line that was built
into that. Um and I separated that out uh cuz it was just causing confusion and we were basically using that to pay for a first custodian. So now there's no built-in first custodian.
For the Performing Arts Center without Commons, I'm basically making that option available to non uh season camp groups. But the price is the same. It is not actually applied to anyone
yet. The Commons itself, the price would go up effectively $5. Uh for community groups. The Commons Annex, same. It's exactly the same, no change.
Uh large group instruction room is up $5. And part of this is based on demand. Uh the gymnasium is up effectively $5, but the high school gymnasium it hasn't fit in the schedule for most anyone.
Uh just cuz it's in constant use by the district. Uh synthetic turf and track complex, again for most of this you're comparing really the middle column on the old one to the first column on the new. Uh but the difference in pricing there
is separating out that um essentially first custodian that was built in on the current version. And it was only built in for those spaces in the auditorium. So now I'm treating them like everywhere else. And the cost difference is the cost
difference for a custodian. Athenaeum Uh effectively no price difference other than making the no lobby option available to non uh
to non camp groups. And the gymnasium is no price difference. Lobby is also no price difference. For the indoor facilities, classrooms, uh base essentially no price difference.
Library is new uh and a library is not on the new one. That's probably just a miss on my part. Uh it's usually just treated same as classroom. Uh
kitchen is same. Cafeteria is effectively the same. Uh the difference is separating out some of the uh language uh for the free rate.
I just separated that out and it's part of the um seven asterisks at the bottom. The auditoriums for Haffenreffer Varnum Brook, same. Spaulding and Squannacook, the pricing is actually reduced for the gymnasiums.
Cuz they weren't really in use. Uh the Haffenreffer and Varnum Brook gyms, the only difference is creating that half gym option at a reduced price. And
natural turf field, same cost. No change. Uh the major the biggest changes are really just uh as I said under additional services, specifying the various uh staffing that could be hired, correcting the AV
technician rate to align more closely with the current uh union contract and kind of giving disclaimers on all of those that they may be adjusted to match uh contracts. I think custodial
adjusted on the weekday and weekend overtime by $5. Uh just cuz that we try to keep a line with the highest possible pay rate. >> All right. Uh Chris, you have your hand raised.
>> Yeah. Two questions. One at I think everything you just went through was all focused on the community organization column, right? Um >> Yep. >> I think you made some comments, things like the high school gym aren't really used
by other groups cuz it that's not really available. I guess is there any reason that went from like 75 to 100? And then I think the turf maybe went the opposite direction. It went from >> For the other groups? >> For the other groups, yeah. Um
>> yeah, and other groups only really applies to for-profit groups that have no uh district association or town association. They don't work with our students or anything of that nature. Um
I just tried to keep them somewhat in line. The other groups column, I'm respecting the intention of that column or trying to respect it to keep it in place. It is almost never used.
Uh it's only been used for like a couple of dance competitions that have been in the buildings, but we haven't even really been able to book those much lately. >> Okay. And then I guess the my second question is maybe more
for the school committee. Are we trying to vote to approve this today or just approve for a first reading? >> It's um I mean, it would be good to get this in place before July 1st so that the fees
can be applied, but we'll go with the feeling from the committee. If they need more time to look at it um or if they want community feedback. >> I feel I feel like these changes are
minor in large part, you know, mostly it seems like it's simplifying things a bit and the actual price changes are pretty minimal, so I'm comfortable voting on this tonight personally. >> Might want to wait. >> Might want to wait.
You guys might want to wait. Have a question. >> No, we're not voting yet, Kim. You can still still ask your question. What is your question? >> Um well, first is an easy one I think. I think I might have got it figured out. So, I'm going to use a real scenario. Um
um in the past towns and historic society has rented it for their like Irish dance. So, 3 hours um they use the performing arts center >> Mhm. >> and they have big goods in the common.
So, $100 for the performing arts center $50 for the common, $150 an hour $450 to do their show if it's 3 hours. It includes the bathrooms. Right? >> Does include the bathrooms, yes.
>> We're not So, I got the math right? >> I'm sorry, what was that? Last part? >> Got the math right? >> Yes. So, the difference using that scenario >> Yep. >> um the difference in that cost would be $5 an hour.
>> Perfect. Very helpful. So, one of the things I had chatted about, I think I think that I chatted about it with the superintendent at one point, is being able to rent the Performing Arts Center and the Commons to have like a fundraiser for a community event that
would involve the ability to serve alcohol, which I know some schools do, some libraries do. Um could we incorporate language into our policy for that, for over 21 events? Um on the
on the school grounds. Obviously, that would require getting permit the town as well, but it would need to be in our policy as well, which would not make it so that we could do it tonight. It would have to be a first reading and suggested
comments come back. >> If I may request, I think that it involves looking at local laws and a number of different elements that I'm not prepared certainly to speak to at this time.
Um where this policy probably needs to be revised a few times anyways, I'd be I would personally request uh that we treat that as a separate issue. That might also get more back into KFR 1 and KF a little bit
bit more deeply than uh what is currently in this. >> Yeah. >> And that might also entail some other policies of like no alcohol on premises that we'd have to ban and all of that. So, my suggestion is we take that off
the table right now, Kim, and we do discovery on that and figure it out and then bring it back, but get this one through on first reading. Does that make sense? >> Yes, there there is um
the ability to do it under the general courts. So, I'm happy to be the one to research it and bring it forward, but I'm happy to go forward with the read the first reading on this. Um just know everybody that I want to bring that back up. Um >> All right, is everyone okay with the
first reading for this tonight? All right. Please say if you have a question. >> What's Could I just add one thing? Uh just so that everyone's aware prior to voting, I was expecting the need for first reading. Uh July 1st would make
for a very clean cutover. Most of our community groups are not doing much of anything till school starts. Uh so, my hope was that we could have a resolution before the start of school. Uh but given the timing, I am realistic and I wasn't
particularly hoping for a July 1st. I think even if it's for the start of school, that gives me time to make sure that all the community groups are aware and are forewarned. >> That works. And then we can incorporate that it back into our July 21st meeting.
And you'll have it ready for the first >> That would be fine. >> beginning of school. All right. Motion. Oh, Kim, do you still have a question? >> Nope, sorry. >> Okay. All right.
Motion. >> All right. >> Michael, you're on. >> Yes, I I Yes, I I was about ready to say it. All right, I move that the committee uh vote to approve uh policy KFE1 as presented for first reading.
Or yeah, for first reading. >> Can we actually put all of them in there? >> Oh, we're going to do all >> all three of them because there are little tweaks that I think we have to do in a few of them if we
>> So so they all come as a package, got it. >> as a package. >> All right, so let me let me revise. All right, I move that the committee vote to approve policies KF, KFE1, and KFR1
as presented for a first reading. >> I second. >> That was Michael Labossiere on the motion and Lisa Bloom on the second. Any questions? All right. We'll call vote. Jackie White.
>> Yes. >> Alexander Bankoudi. >> Yes. >> Michael Labossiere. >> Yes. >> Lisa Bloom. >> Yes. >> Miss Sloan. >> Yes. >> And myself, yes. All right. Those in >> You forgot about me.
>> Oh. Oh, Kim Craven, sorry. You were >> Yes. >> Kim. All right. Sorry, Kim. All right. Um moving on to community outreach and liaisons.
Carla is not on the call tonight. Um payroll updates, Alexander >> nothing to report. >> All right. And Townsend, I know that Keenan had to jump off, but we can make the motion to appoint him as a Townsend
community outreach liaison. If that works, if somebody would read that motion. >> I second. >> I I I can do it. Um I move to appoint Keenan Francois as a uh
2026-2027 Townsend community outreach and town liaison. >> I second. >> I think it was Alexander Bankoudi and Michael Labossiere are the second. >> Wait, wait, no, Lisa got it. >> Oh, Lisa Bloom. All right, so Michael
Alexander Bancoult on the motion, Lisa Bloom on the second. Sorry about that, Robin. Um, Jackie, roll call vote, any questions? Roll call vote, Jackie White. >> Yes. >> Michael Labossiere. >> Yes. >> Craven.
Lisa Bloom. >> Yes. >> Alexander Bancoult. >> Yes. >> Sloan. >> Yes. >> Okay, yes. All right, um, anything else, any other business? >> I I I do. Sorry.
>> Superintendent Morgan. >> Yes, sorry. So, um, is the committee aware I did send off, um, a the some staffing information and unfortunately we did not have this information in time to get it posted within the 48 hours because we had admin
institute last Wednesday and Thursday and this was not prepared until relatively late on Thursday and Friday was Juneteenth. So, it did not give me enough time to post it, so I shared information as soon as I could. Um, so I do not believe this requires school
committee approval, but I do want to make you aware. Um, and if you feel otherwise and feel it needs a vote, um, that's fine. Also, um, but in looking at staff sizes at admin institute last week, we have had some some decent shifts in the district
over the course of the spring. Um, and we still have some questions in kindergarten, so the original hope of being able to utilize the extra kindergarten position we had in Townsend and the extra kindergarten position we had in Pepperell, um, into other areas, um, is not something we're going to be
able to do. We are going to have to create an additional, um, kindergarten section in both, uh, at both Varnum Brook and Squannacook. Um, numbers are quite high again. This will get them down and that's without any registrations over the course of the
summer. So, this will put us in a good position and those those positions were already in the budget for FY27. In addition to that, um we are adding a an additional grade one teacher at Squannacook and a grade three
teacher at Spaulding. Again, the hope was to use utilize those kindergarten teachers for those positions, but with registration, it was not happening it would not happen. Um and those are also being absorbed into the FY27 budget. What I do want to make the committee
aware of is that, um we had a change at the high school level where we have multiple sections um of English and social studies um in the low 30s. So, I am um
moving forward in asking for a um a 1.0 English social studies dual certified position at the high school. And in addition to that, there was a request from the administration
to go back to the COVID model that we had when we had one building-based substitute per building. Um we have had a very difficult time filling substitute positions. Many days we go without. Um actually, most days we go without and we
end up having to fill those positions with paraprofessionals. When we use paraprofessionals, we're pulling them from providing uh special education services. So, one of the obstacles we face is that there are districts out there that are paying $150 to $200 a
day. We're paying $100 a day. So, we're looking to add one building-based substitute per building at $150 per day and essentially guaranteeing them employment um for all 180 days.
Um this will I honestly don't know of any days where we didn't need a substitute in any building. Um so these are positions that will absolutely be utilized. They'll be able to cover uh for special education when needed. We won't be
pulling power professionals anymore and the hope is is that we will actually be able to fill these positions because instead of $100 a day these positions would pay $150 a day. But again, they would be guaranteed. Um the everyone would be assigned to a
particular building. So every building would get one. So So at this point in time the additional high school teacher and those six building-based subs would have to be used for revol- from revolving funds,
which we have the ability to do. The only time that I would ask for school committee approval and I may come back and ask for it is rather than using um preschool revolving or extended day, I may ask to potentially use school choice
because we have a lot of money in school choice, but I cannot use school choice without the school committee's approval. Um so again, I feel like I'm I'm asking um or providing you with information that I've been told to make sure that
class size is a priority for next year and that our coverage is a priority. Um and that's what this request is. Um I will say the building-based substitute was a piece that came up late and it was a request by um the administration, the building-based
administration at Admin Institute on Thursday. And quite honestly, from a budget standpoint, it makes a lot of sense um because we were unable to fill those substitute positions on most days um requiring us to fill from within, which is which is really a difficult
practice to follow because it could set us up for compensatory services. So, I don't know how the committee feels about it. Again, I I I I do not believe it requires a vote, um but it does address um our class size issues and some other deficiencies that we have in
the district. >> And for context, uh when I uh when I was subbing 13 years ago when I first got out of college, it was $100 a day. So, yeah. It's It's long overdue for an increase at this point. This is $100 a
day, you know, you know, uh literally 13 years ago. >> Yeah, we just increased to $100 a day a couple years ago. >> Yeah, it was $100 a day for college degree. I think it was 70 if you didn't. >> I think so. >> That's what I That's what I remember from Again, it was a long time ago,
though. >> It was low. >> Yeah. >> I can't go have my degree. I get 100. >> Kim Craven. So, the Got to go back to the transfers. The transfers that we just did
should essentially be freeing up the money in your FY27 budget, correct? >> I will let um Dr. Cormier answer the question on the transfers. >> Okay. >> I didn't or Nancy, either one. I didn't see Nancy was still on. >> Well,
in uh the detail line, we we did have to put a significant amount of money into the uh substitute lines to cover the overages from this year because um there's like one building had seven long-term subs. So, I mean, there was
it it at the at the end of it, it looks like we were like on track with our our sub, but it's not based what we're what we started FY26 thinking we would need. And it's gone up in the last 3 years, I think it's gone up like 20%. >> But these aren't the day-to-day subs
that we're running into issues with. These are long-term subs. So the issue that we what we can't fill are the day the people that call in sick on a particular day. >> Yeah. Um I have I've no problem whatsoever with hiring the staff. It's just sort of
where the the funding is coming from. And I didn't really have time when when we got your e- email to to dive in. And I know you were you were getting a link too, so I Sorry. >> It may come It may come to the point we
can cover it in in the the regular operating budget not need to go to any revolving fund, but we just wanted to make it known that it may have to happen. Um we we we I'll put it this way. We didn't want to not do it because it we couldn't guarantee it would be operating budget.
But if we get to the end of the year and we find that we have that we're able to cover it, then that's what we'll do. >> Thank you. >> You're just making making the committee aware that the funds are there. It just might be a different funding source.
>> Yes. And and to my knowledge right now I um this will take care of our class size issues that we had last year based on the reports I've received from building administrators. >> And I can um add more to what Superintendent Morgan
said about the building-based sub. That person will be in constant use the entire time. So it's a investment that's well worth it. Um that person will have a classroom every day. Or different duties, but probably a classroom every day.
>> Yeah, in essence we're going to spend that money anyway, but if if you have one consistent person you can count on every day to even build community with staff and with students, but it's probably better than just being able to who's available today to come in here and and plug a need, but if
you just know you have one person floating through a building and rotating, like that's probably a better use of the same money. >> They become a part of the community. >> Yeah, no, I think it's a great idea. I just remembering back to the budget, it seemed like you might have that
available to you without having to tap into the other ones. If you have to, it's fine. I like you finding the solution proactively, um, and and I like the idea that you have someone consistently because there's always going to be that opening.
So, I think it's great. >> All right. >> That's all I had to share. >> Okay. Does anyone else have any questions? All right, it is 10:03 p.m. I will take a motion to adjourn. >> I move to adjourn. >> Second. >> That was a second. That is Alexander Bancudi with the
motion, Michael Labossiere with the second. Any objections? No. All right, let's go. Jackie White. >> Yes. >> Michael Labossiere. >> Yes. >> Kreegan. Kim. >> Yes.
>> Okay, sorry. You You freeze a few times. >> Yep, yep, my the the internet's saying the meeting's over. >> All right, Lisa Bloom. Oh, you're on mute, Lisa Bloom. But I see that you said yes. Yes, she said yes. Alexander Bancudi.
>> Yes. >> Uh, Chris Sloan. >> Yes. >> Myself, yes. All right, good night, everyone. >> Night, everyone. >> See you.