Sorry, our last meeting was running late. Okay, let's see. Got Shannon. Looks like maybe we're just waiting on Katrina. I'm just going to give us another minute
here. And an There's an otter trying to get into the room. Not again. Jeremy's noteaker. Um before we get started, I um this is related to the last meeting. Um,
regarding the question about stuff for deletion, I found in my notes the two policies that we brought to school committee for deletion. So, I can just make the edit in the in the notes um for June 12th, but I'll share it with the
group too when we talk about it. Thank you. Well, it looks like we have everybody here that we need to have here. So, I am going to call this meeting to order. at let's say 7:05.
Um, looking through the list of folks that are here, I don't see any public for public hearings. If there is any public, please make yourself known. [Music] All right, hearing none, we'll move on to the next piece, which is um well,
first off, welcome back. I know we've seen each other, many of us have seen each other a few times this summer. It's been a pretty busy summer, but at the same time, uh, welcome back to another school year. Um, we are supposed to start off here by, uh, a review of the
agenda and the perpetual calendar. I've trust that we've all kind of looked at the agenda. Um, in terms of September, the things that we have in our list, um, uh, budget, we're going to begin to review the capital planning needs by principal, staff, and the school
committee. Um it looks like on this list at least there's an all boards meeting town report which I'm not sure about. Maybe Susie somebody can say if that's something that needs to happen right about now. Um the Shan Elementary School open house principal and school uh the
superintendent supposed to be setting their annual goals uh school council elections and uh I guess school goals would be something that Amorest regional is working on as well. Um, yeah. So, and I have down here in my notes from last
year, superintendent announces evaluation under the union 28 piece, but I think that's really just the same setting your annual goals. Um, so that's what I have here. Is there an all boards meeting coming up at any point? I know nothing about this.
Nope, not scheduled. Okay, thank you. So, we'll let that one ride. All right. Um, so moving on, uh, gifts and grants, warrants.
Hi. So, I have a bunch of, uh, warrants because it dates back to our last meeting in June. For accounts payable, I have two from FY25, 3026 from June 24th for $23,12241 and 3027 from June 30th for $38,5269.
And then a bunch going from July to up to where we are now. Uh 30001 from July 1st for $11,6823. 302 from July 22nd for $8,75744. 303 from August 5th for $37,63355. 304 from August 19th for $7,89.96.
305 from September 2nd for $14,539.58. 30006 from September 16th for $19,888.71. 30007 from September 30th for $59,25210. And then 308 also from September 30th for $800. Those are all of the AP
warrants. For payroll, we have one from FY25. That was payroll 326 from June 23rd for $91,892.90. And then starting FY26, 301 from July
7th for $81,14847. 302 from July 21st for $76,6191. 303 from August 4th for $79,7271. 304 from August 18th for $78,3766. 304.1 from uh August 21st for $1,440.
305 from September 1st for $89,460.81 and 306 from September 15th for $89,67.72. That's the the longest lift I'll give you all year because usually it'll just be two AP, two payroll, but since we're catching up since June, that's a long
list. And I do have a grant for you to vote to accept. Um, if you would like the Rural Education Achievement Program or REAp, this is a federal award. Uh, we were emailed our award letter for REAp's small rural school achievement SRSA
program grant funding a week ago. Our award this year is for $18,73, an increase from our award last year of $15,932. Uh we'd only budgeted for $16,397. Um it's nice increase over what we had
budgeted. So that did get does give us a little bit of of more wiggle room in our operating budget. So, if you would like to vote to um accept the REAp grant for $18,73,
that would be great. Do I have a second? Second that. All right. All in favor? May you? Catalan. Hi her eye.
Jack eye long pie. Passed this unanimously. That was a lot of numbers. I just want to say how much better this committee has gotten at the whole I thing with the last name. It was smooth. Well done. Don't jinx us. I always Now that you've said that, it
won't happen again for the rest of the meeting. I just I was like, "Wow, we really got this going on now." I wish that we could just follow a list, but I assume that maybe all of our lists and placements of people are not the same, so it becomes a little bit difficult. Um, all right. So, we're moving on to the approval of the
minutes. We have two approval of minutes. And in the interest of full disclosure, both of these were made up after the fact by me um and my friend AI. Um, and it I so I hope that people at least looked through them and made
sure that there wasn't any glaring um things that were missing. I did look over both videos and put it through AI just to try to make sure that I knew who first, seconded, and all the rest of it. Um, but you know, it's not our normal
professional job. So, I uh to approve the Do I need to do them separately or can I do them together? I think we can do them together. um to approve the minutes from June 12th and
July uh was it 29th? 29th. Yep. 29th. Uh 2025. Second. All right. All in favor? Mayui. Adelano. Her eye.
Jack. I kai. Damn. All right. Nice job, guys. um passes unanimously. Unfinished business and updates capital. It's become my favorite new part of this uh these agendas. Capital projects, building
process update, tank maintenance. Um weren't we supposed to have discussion? Oh, were we Oh, I'm sorry. Approval minutes. Well, we just voted on it. I know. We just Did you have something? Okay, we can go back. Are there things? Oh, because you need to add something into the
Well, yeah, the stuff for deletion. I was just going to clarify, but I can just update it in the notes. I just want to let people know we voted to delete um we voted to delete IHMR
and KCB um at June the June meeting. So, I'll just make that update. Was that And that wasn't Was that not in the minutes? I thought I had captured that. Um it's the wrong polic Yeah. And it's only one. Yeah. So, what was the what were the letters on
that, Leah? Because I HHMR is on our first read later in the agenda. Um, I have that we were voting to Oh, uh, oh, I am AM1. Sorry, not R.
Okay. So, we have that later on because, um, we didn't have those notes. So, Robin has it added. So, we can just, she has it on this agenda. Thank you guys for catching that. Appreciate it. This is super minor. I didn't see this
when I first opened it, but I was at the June meeting and it says I was not at the June meeting. Okay. Can I add my name in? Yes, you can totally add your name in. Please do. I'm sorry. I was going that was definitely going off of the AI. I think I'm so offended now. I also had to change a lot of people's
last names through that, too. It actually only had people's first names. That was the other thing. So, I had to go through and like there were some funny pieces in there that I had to fix up. Um, honestly, the hardest the hardest part was just going back through because it doesn't record who's speaking. So,
you have to figure out who was seconding something and who was moving and all of that. Um, so I don't know in the end if it was easier or not. So, if anyone else notices anything, we can go back and go back and fix it. I'm sorry for rushing
the vote. Um, can I move on from unfinished business at this point? No. Still looking. Okay. I think you're good to move on, Jeremy. Okay. So, the unfinished business updates talking about uh capital
projects, building process update, tank maintenance. Um, do you want to take the lead on that, Nate? Sure. Um we were supposed to have a capital planning meeting um at the beginning of September, but technical difficulties
ensued and we didn't have that meeting. Um but uh we do have some money. Um thank you all for responding. Um there is about 25,000
24 something um dollars that is uh already allotted to us for sidewalk and driveway maintenance. So, I've called out to see about um I did go to the the
buildings committee this summer and talk to them a little bit about the driveway project and they suggested first step to contact uh um a landscape architect and to try to find somebody locally. So, I've reached out to some folks in
Northampton um and there's the one in Con there's the school in Conway. So, I haven't heard back from anybody, but that's kind of the next step. Um, I do think that the tank issue uh is part of that picture and uh you
know, knowing that that tank oil tank is maybe at the last end of its life. It's I think it was put in in uh the late 80s or early 90s and it's a about 30 some odd year 35 40 year old or the lifespan
of the tank is about 40 years and we're reaching that. So we will probably have to discuss what to do regardless of um the water in the tank um and we can figure out what to do with the tank and
the driveway and all that. um at some point in the future hopefully. Um but other than that, you know, we did uh you know, it's I seem seems like Frank is doing a great job um looking into
this uh water issue. And maybe Ann has more to speak on that. I saw an email today of a little confusion with a uh a bill that was sent to us that was supposed to go to Sunderland. Um, but it went to us and there's a little confusion about that. Um, so
yeah, it's, you know, moving along. And do you want to add anything? Sure. I mean, it was definitely a summer of learning and people know that we've um now hopefully made it so the cone is not going to be on top of the building
much longer. that the deal that has been worked out with Frank and the company that's going to come clean out the tank and test it and then make sure all the water does not go back into the tank. Um, also said they were going to throw in a cap to go on top of that. So, it'll
be a little bit fancier. But now without that water coming in, there isn't the um the huge, you know, the the huge rush at this point that we have to do anything else beyond that. It's just like a futuristic idea to have the oil tank that's closer to the building um and
have that for a future for a future plan. Um so yeah, I'm pretty excited because I feel like now that we know sort of what's been going on that we can we're going to be able to avoid that and we should just have a regular knock on wood year with the with the um oil tank.
So, um I don't know. I doubt that if if people aren't I didn't um stay tuned all summer. The valves that were getting clogged by the water coming into the tank, that shouldn't be an issue anymore because once they do the final clean out of the tank, there's no more water in
the tank. The valves that the um that all the oil passes through should be clear and we shouldn't have that that issue because everything else in that system is is relatively new and works really well. So, we're glad to get this under control before heating season has is upon us.
Who knew? All we needed was a Home Depot bucket and it was all set. Listen, and the steel the nerves of steel on Frank climbing up there to to fix that just so I mean, you should drive by. It's definitely a thing. So, Leah, do you have a question or a
comment? Yeah, it was um related to Ann's update on the tank. Um I it sounds like it's all resolved. One of my neighbors brought up how um there was a ton of
water in the tank. Um it there was like a lot of water in the tank or I thought it was just like a little bit. Um but whatever however much water there was it sounds like with this next cleaning it will be resolved and cleared out. It's
it's was like this much water which is a lot of water but it's also not the it's not it's not like they can't fix this. This is something that's really solvable because once they pump that out and the big thing was having the environmental people come in to really double check
and make sure that nothing bad is coming out of it and going into it. So, it was actually a relief to find out it was coming in the problem was in the in the house, you know, that it was coming in into the the system from rainwater and it wasn't coming in any other way. So,
um yeah, once that's all that that's all treated and they go through the tank and get that cleaned out to and they what they said they could do is they actually can clean the oil that's there and see if it's see if it's okay and then if it's okay, they can still use it.
So, we did not We purposely didn't get another oil delivery. So, we don't we don't have as much oil as we normally might at this time of year. Yeah. What I read was it was like about 3 in of water across the whole tank. And then there's another um layer of sort of solution, which is what they have to do
the I forget what it's called, but the process that they'll do to kind of separate that and haul off the contaminated water as opposed to just kind of pouring it out. So, right, the sludge will be taken care of. Yes. Yeah. Susie. And are you saying when you're saying the company, is that the roofing
company? Are they taking responsibility? No, but Frank is involved with them as well. Stay tuned for that drama as that unfolds. But um yeah, that's that's a tale to be told soon. I think Frank is was working with them as well. It's it's
a that's a little that's been a little tricky. But um the company that we're talking about doing the clean out of the tank is a different company. Um it was um the name of it is escaping me, but um yeah, we have three companies look at it,
right? Like we had Jamrog and two other companies I think look at it. You might have had four. Yeah, there was a lot. And do we know how much it costs for that service? 6,500. And just one more question. So Jamrog wasn't the company that realized the cap
needed to be replaced, right? Like it was Frank McInness realized it. Frank um really liked the shape of the mushroom that was on the end the cap that was supposed to keep the rain out. And then he said, "Hey guys, where's the cap that was supposed to be there after they had
the roof?" So then it unraveled the whole story of, "Oh my gosh, that's how the water is has been getting in." So, um, yeah, it wasn't the it wasn't the roofing company that discovered it. It was it was Frank and his love for coal caps. So,
and and Jamber Rock charged us a lot of money for this particular thing, right? And none of it really did anything. I don't know. But, it it highlighted a huge problem. And
then um luckily you have a principal that knows your building better than I know my own house. And I was so obsessed with figuring this out because I couldn't I couldn't sleep. I'm like we are not going to blow a budget or cannibalize our budget because of something that's going on in a boiler tank which of being in in an
administration for 10 years I've never had to deal with an oil tank. So but everything else is so great it's worth it you know. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Um, yeah. So,
okay. So, we'll figure out uh when we'll get a real cap there at some point and who's responsible for that, but we're going to move forward with um with fixing um with getting the tank sorted out so that this year we don't have the nozzle issues and that we don't have we
just clean up the mess that from last year and we start fresh and new. Okay. Um, any other questions or discussion around uh capital projects and building? I I have a quick one. Um, Nate, did the
tractor come up by any chance? Um, it has. Um, but like I said, we haven't had that meeting. We're supposed to have that meeting in early September and it's going to be early October. So, I'm going to bring it up to them and we're going to talk about it and that's going to be part of I don't know if we
can use the 24,000, you know, from the sidewalk maintenance to throw towards a tractor, too. I mean, that's usually maintaining this sidewalks. Yeah. Isn't Isn't the $25,000 is that earmarked for the engineer or is it
earmarked for maintenance? That is earmarked for sidewalk. It just says sidewalk repair and maintenance. I think was that Jeremy and I think Susie was gonna say something too. Yeah, Susie.
Yeah, I I don't um I don't know don't remember the thread of this, but I don't think it was for engineering. I think it was part of a project that was done when the gutters were causing the great big sidewalk problem.
Okay. Yeah. I mean, we got a list from the town of projects. They were like, "What's the deal with this? which ones of these are completed and which ones aren't. Um, and that's kind of what we've been going off of, which begs a question of why the town side isn't checking off things when they're done and we're spending the
money. Um, but whatever. I like that we gave their gave it, you know, our report back was that everything came under budget. You know, every project that we had completed was under budget. So that's, you know,
that's Yeah, thumbs up to that. And there's some money going back to the town out of those accounts hopefully. Yeah. Um the other thing, Susie, just as a finance committee kind of um person here, like we did have the doc when we did our when we had to come up with the money in the middle of the summer to pay
Jamrog for the bills that they saddled us with at the end of the budget year. um we were able to find ways to kind of fund that out of our budget cuz we realized that we had gone you know before you guys twice and uh we feel but like there was a real sense that like
we're going to take this on and we're going to find a way to make this work within the money but two things that I just want to keep in mind going forward into this year is that the elementary school did not have any technology upgrades last year because we had to use that money at the end of the year to pay Jamrog
and then these little excesses that we would have been able to kind of transer elsewhere we had to do other games with in order to pay for the Jamrock bills again. So, we've taken that on, but and hopefully this last thing here, this thing with the tank is the last piece, but that's a lot of money going to what
is really a building issue and not a budget or school issue. So, I just kind of want to let you know that so you can kind of carry that back as well um to the finance committee that we really appreciate you guys going to bat for us last year and that unfortunately uh the
money we ended up short on was maybe more twice than twice what we came to you know asking for in the end. So, um, we're trying, we know the town is facing some financial difficulties and we're trying to do our part to keep it together, but in the future, these are really building issues and we need to
figure out how to make that a a thing with the building committee or whatever. Anna, yes. So, it's my understanding that this cap got removed when the roof got replaced.
That's unclear. That's unclear at the moment. Ah, okay. We just know that it disappeared sometime sometime between before and after the roof was done. Um, yeah, we're not really there's
some theories on that and I guess that's still being dug into a little bit. So, if it seems like the roofers removed it and didn't replace it, can we get any money from them or is that just kind of like It may have also been, as I understand,
it may have also been too late that we discovered it. That's what I heard. That's what they said at the building committee meeting this. There's a certain amount of time you have to find their malfeasants and if you didn't find it, they're not responsible for it. That's what they said. But that won't happen again ever. Yeah. stinks in a situation like this
because a vent stack like that, you know, it's not like it's like, you know, if that was going down into your uh water heater, if that was going down into a million other things, you would know about it because it'd be putting out your pilot light or whatever. This one was putting inches of water into our tank, which we knew it was getting there, but we had no idea how. Like I
never would have if you I don't know a lot about oil tanks, but if you told me that there was a vent coming out of that up through the roof of the school, I'd be like, that's crazy. Why would you do that? Um, so yeah, we have to wait and see on that. And there is some question about whether it disappeared prior to
the roofers being there um or if it was wind. I don't think it was I don't understand how something like a cap like having worked in the trades for a long time. I've very rarely had caps disappear off of anything. That's not really a thing that happens very often.
Um so who knows, whatever. Moving on uh to new business and discussion. So, uh, one piece of new business that I wanted to bring up was we Susie had sent out a, uh, email to us, which I forwarded on to you all today. I think I actually got around to it. But about the town, um,
birthday celebration up at the town common that we have for people who are like ending in fives or tens. Is that what it is? I think right. Well, it's really for everybody, but the initial idea started around people that were turning a decade, 60, 50, 40. but about whether we wanted
to have some, you know, some sort of document, some sort of something for people up there kind of, you know, uh, expressing what we do, what the what's going on at the school, something along those lines. Um, and so that's one piece of new business that we wanted to talk about
tonight. Does anybody else have other business that they would like to add in here? All right. So, I leave that on the table um to discuss this. I think my immediate thoughts were similar to town meeting um you know a nice little document that
just kind of talks about the school and some of the highlights of this kind of past year uh for people to kind of pick up and know especially people who aren't necessarily involved in the school but just sort of a little brag sheet of sorts um would be really kind of cool. I
don't know um who would take the lead on that, but Susie, go ahead. And there was one presented at annual town meeting and a lot of people never come to annual town meeting. So, I think you can just roll that out again. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. It's already done.
All right. Has pictures. Good call, Susie. Perfect. That was the easiest piece of new business ever. Um so, we just need somebody to have to bring it up uh to We have to have it up there. I'm happy to take care of that. I'm sure one of us on
the committee can take care of that. So, um, and let me know where I can grab them and I'll grab them. We'll get them there. All right. Um, okay. So, that's new business and discussion. We go on to reports and Shannon is first.
All righty. Welcome back everybody. Um, so some uh SCES updates. Uh, started school on August 25th. Shootsbury Elementary staff participated in opening day activities alongside colleagues from all the other Union 28 districts at
Irving Elementary. The day began with opening remarks, a overview of district-wide focus areas for the coming school year and several required beginning of the year training sessions. Just two days later on August 27th, students were welcomed back to the classroom and building that were both
inviting and ready for a great year ahead. The building looked great. The classrooms looked great. It was a a a great opening. Um DESIE has released students performance data um and district accountability information. Uh we're diving into that data to develop
plans to build on our strengths of which there are many and address areas for growth. Uh principal an will be sharing a presentation at the October meeting um just sort of giving a state of this is this is how we performed this year. um
that we can't be more direct because that um data is still embargoed right now. So we will be looking to present that in October. Um some union 28 updates. Uh we had the um upcom the joint supervisory committee meeting
earlier this week um on Monday and the JSC budget and personnel committee met prior to that. Um I as is law the public um the superintendent's evaluation in this union is done by the JSC and so
that was presented in public. Um thank you all for your thoughtful feedback and um I will be presenting my goals at the next meeting. Um, I will say, and I I didn't say this earlier, as I've been thinking more about it, the
superintendent's timeline, there was a lot of discussion during um the JSC about um it's a little cumbersome. It wasn't smooth. And I think because we have our JSC doing it, which I'm fine with, but they only meet six times a
year, so it doesn't lend itself to the Desi calendar because we have half as many meetings. Um, so I was chatting about that with my mentor and I am going to bring up to the JSC. They can choose to do a two-year evaluation cycle, which
might work better for them as members. It doesn't really matter to me, but that would give you the same 12 months for an evaluation system that a committee who met every month was getting. Um, so that's that's something I'll I'll bring up when I share my goals about what that
might look like. And it really doesn't matter to me. it will be something for the the committee to decide if that works better for their timelines. Um, as we prepare because we had the the budget and personnel committee um meeting before then, as we prepare for
what we expect to be a challenging fiscal year on all levels, um, we are committed to working proactively and collaboratively with all of our communities to continue providing highquality education and support for all students. Um we are very happy to
say that the entire Union 28 leadership team returned intact this year. Um over the summer the team worked really hard um and diligently to plan for the year ahead and to identify opportunities to more effectively and efficiently
leverage our collective resources. Um so that was really great. There was a lot of hiring to be done last year and to have them all return. Um, three or four principles, a director of pupil services, uh, Robin is new to the role.
So, there were a lot of moving pieces and so it feels a lot a lot uh, calmer heading into to the second year. Uh, Amy Langden, the director of student support and I attended the Connecticut Valley Superintendent Roundt on September 5th. During the event, we had the opportunity
to hear directly from Massachusetts Secretary of Education Patrick Tutweiler and the newly appointed Desi Commissioner Pedro Martinez. Not the Pedro Martinez of I was I get so excited every time. I know it's false advertising. Um they
shared their vision for public education in the Commonwealth as well as addressed the potential impacts of an increasingly volatile uh educational um budget on the uh federal level. Commissioner Martinez will visit Swift River School on October 3rd as part of his tour through Western
Massachusetts. Um we look forward to sharing with him the unique opportunities and challenges that are posed by rural education. Um and some other updates on August 25th, and you've probably seen this in the news. The Trump administration reversed its freeze and agreed to
restore federal funding that supports teacher prep program services for English language learners and mental health services uh for lowincome communities. The funding freeze uh was uh challenged by a multi-state lawsuit that did include Massachusetts and 21
other states. The Massachusetts cuts were estimated to be $320 million. Um and so we're glad to see that. We don't know. The the crux of their suit was that that funding had already been approved through Congress and so that he
could not hold it. So that leads a lot of questions about what does it look like next year. Um so you know we'll have to have to wait and see. Um MASC and MASS are holding their joint conference um in Hyannis on November
12th through the 14th. And that is all I have tonight. Any questions? All right. Thank you, Shannon. Um, next up is Caitlyn. Okay. So, I'm mixing my agenda item, my little items
up a little bit. So, I'm going to start with the FY25 closeout. So, over the summer, we worked with the town to close out FY25. In the end, we only used um the remaining $9,762
in circuit breaker and only $2,31266 cents in school choice to cover our deficit. So, we really kind of whittleled that down. Last year was exceptionally hard with um with the contract that didn't meet our budget and
with all of the obstacles with um the fixes to the boiler. So we are really happy that that was the only amount that we needed to cover the deficit. It was like last year we were kind of
swimming or running with drag and we had so many budget obstacles and so this year it feels so much better. Just our budget meets our our needs for the for the contract and hopefully there's no
more there's not $40,000 worth of fixes. And um what I'd like to do is show you kind of our budget for this year as we stand right now. And this is what I'd like to do. And give me a moment to see if I can Oh, it says sharing is not
turned on. I'll see what I can do. Give me a second. Okay. Just one participant can share at a time. I'm gonna say multiple. Let's see. Does that do anything? No. Let's see. I mean, I still have my
old last name on my Zoom right now, so I know that that's a Is that a thing? It's not my friend tonight. Yeah. Here we go. Okay. Okay. Can you see that? Yes. Great. So, this is what I'd like to do
for every month during my report. It's going to show you what the budget looks like with our manual incumbrances. So the expenditure reports you get can um sometimes be a little bit not user friendly but this is going to give you
kind of a better perspective of what we kind of do in the background and where where we're looking. So um the manual encumbrance column F that is where if we know that we're going to have to spend something. So let's say
line six, legal counsel, we're going to have to spend every month for the legal council. So I'm manually encumbering that for things that have zeros, especially these grayed out areas. Those are for payroll where we won't have to.
Everything's already been encumbered. So in this line, principal, salary, it's all encumbered. There's no more that isn't in that remaining balance. And some of them because we have um some shared positions where it doesn't come
out of the Shootsberry payroll. It actually comes out of Swift River payroll who's our our fiscal agent and then it gets reimbursed through Shootesberry. Those I've manually encumbered for our MLL teacher and our
PT substitute salary. We know that we're going to have to expend the substitute salary. It's not just a a piece of, you know, a line that's not going to get untouched. It will. We will have the need for substitutes. Um, you know, cold, flu, COVID season's going to hit.
So, I've manually encumbered this through this spreadsheet. The supplies, the um field trips, I don't know what's going to happen. I leave those blank so that it is um we're
not going to overrun those lines, but I don't know how much is going to be there. So, it's kind of in in September not a great idea to make a projection of what those are going to be. For doctor's contracted services, we pay that in June. I know we're going to pay
it, so it's manually encumbered. Then after this line are the union 28 lines. And this is where it really be comes in handy because we're able to I'm able to manually encumber what salaries are coming out that we can't do in the system.
So that means that right now there's 144,200 or $2541 if all spending shut down for supplies, materials, custodial supplies, all of those things. And um we
try to encumber as much as we can. Uh, but there's always going to be things that come up, things need to be fixed, stuff like that. Some of the um the lines, so like line
13, teacher salaries, we're waiting for $12,000 to move to rural aid. So that line is under right now by $11,129. That's because when we receive rural aid, our plan is to move that portion of
a salary into relay aid and that will release that $12,000 from the operating budget. Same thing for line 14, teacher special regular education 16,000 should move to
title one. So that's why that line is under right now is because that salary amount will move to title one. And also for instructional assistance, um 40,000 will be budgeted to come from related. But you'll notice that as of
right now, we are only $6,91 in a um under that line. So 40,000 will really put that line over. This is a a great place to start the year. We are we
have some room if there's additional um special education or student needs that come up that will require more money. We're going into this year in a much better way than we were going into last year.
This is good news. And it unless we get I mean we could always get another 40,000 in Jamrock bills. Who knows for something else? No, no, no, no. That's not going in the universe. No.
Uh, but from a September perspective, we're in a we're in good shape. Okay. We're in a very healthy place with our budget that meets the contract and meets the needs of the students right now. Great.
That's amazing. Thank you, Caitlyn. Thank you. It's a powerful encumber. So, I've been going over a lot of budgets recently because the regional school
committee is like always in a fight. Full stop. Yeah. And so I've been looking at like budget trends over time and it's really confusing because the operating budget
is not actually the operating budget. It's the operating budget minus certain revenues that we get from different sources. And it would really help for someone trying to look at actual trends to know what the actual full operating
budget requires and then subtract out the additional revenues that fund portions of that budget that somehow get taken out of the operating budget. because that's taking stuff out of the operating budget because it's funded from a somehow
different way is really confusing when you're trying to track expenses and I don't know if there's any solution to that. I'm just telling you that that's the way it is. Yeah, I understand that. I think that's that's why I tried
to you know at this point in the year we can't have salaries coming out of grants we haven't received yet. So, right now they're coming out of our operating budget and then when we receive them, we'll see them push over to to grants
and rural aid. And so, we're a little bit of that tricky time of year. Um we're but there's no way to like have rural aid and other sources of income be more
reflected in the operating budget. No, because we budgeted for them to coming out of rural aid or title one or IDA. And so when we are when we go to the
town meeting and we have our operating budget ask it's what we're we're looking for from the town for operating budget and then the grants are are separate from that. And then for just for my personal
information, sorry. Um when when the the state is calculating sending tuition for different schools, the portion of
the the money that we spend on students that is coming from rural aid and coming from other sources of income is also not counted towards um
addition additional expendit whatever above foundation spending. So when we when I do the end of year reports I have to report on all spending. So operating budget in every
single grant circuit breaker rural aid reap everything. So it already needs to be sused out of what's coming from the operating budget from the town and what's coming from grants. So that all gets released to the state.
Okay. Whether we had budgeted the way that we do now or previously, it all needs to be organized into all of the the funding sources. Okay. Thanks.
Uh Susie, so we've been around about this um and we had members of the FinCom get irritated. Um so so uh Anna when you read the
budget that um Shootsberry put out and it has the last page with all the grants and all the categories that spending is does that answer your questions or you're asking for the state to make to make sure that the state understands those numbers? No, it's just for me just for me.
Okay. So do you use do you use that um form? Do you read that report the budget request? It's that the town put I was taking I was taking the information from state reports. No, I was taking the information from the
regional stuff. I wasn't looking specifically at Shootsberry data. So, I don't know exactly how the region it it doesn't seem like it seems like they might not be including some of the
other funding in the budget book that we look at for the region's region's budget. Yeah. So, I feel like the uh town Caitlyn has made it very clear on our budget and it's that addendum sheet and it identifies each area that those grant
monies are being spent and like she said until the grant money comes in, it comes out of the budget and then it switches over to those grants. you could ask uh Shannon um at the regional budget
office if this format makes sense to her um or they have another way. But what I think was really important to me to hear was Caitlyn said at the end of the year they roll it out in a report where everything is accounted for including grant funded expenditures. I mean things
like in Shootsbury our transportation is down at through the region. So I there's it's endless how it becomes tangled but I I feel like we um Caitlyn made a big effort to make it clear and it's
clear to me but I know there are people who still object to it on they're gone on they're not on our fincom anymore so that should be easier. Oh good now. Excellent. Thanks. Thanks, Kaitlin. Thanks. It'll it'll be easier to see year-over-year now that we've made the
transition to um last year was like that I knew that was going to be the the big hurdle is going from one um one format to the next, but now I think it's it's clear this is our operating budget. These are our grants and
y we can move forward. And it was so much easier budget like going into this year with having this is our operating budget and these are the things and I had to move. So if we have a if we are pretty sure
that we are going to get rural aid funding and it's going to this position we can't hold off from hiring or continuing that position until we actually receive the funding. So it's moved into the operating budget until we actually receive it. So, it's been
actually it's been kind of great this year looking at it's here now. It'll go there this line. And I I like the the format that I'm using. But if anyone has any feedback on on what the those um budget sheets look like or if you prefer
anything different or want to add to it, I'm I'm happy to make adjustments because it's it's still sort of new in presenting them. Awesome. Thanks, Any other questions for Caitlyn? All right. Thank you, Caitlyn. Um, next
up is Ann. Good evening. Hello. Hi, everyone. Sure. Um, so we have had an absolutely wonderful start to the year. I think um, Caitlyn and I definitely and Shannon sleep a lot sounder knowing that we are we don't
have the budget hurdles that we have that we faced last year. But um just to give you um some brief updates, this summer I was able to attend the Massachusetts literacy conference. That conference included representatives from the state, from BESIE, and from educators around the state in various
capacities when um Shannon was my my partner in crime there as well to uh build a shared commitment to literacy. It truly matters to have everyone working together to support literacy as legacy work. The conference we used that we attended focused on evidence-based
practices for literacy to help move the needle for our most marginalized students to learn how to read. In September, we were so fortunate to start the year off fully staffed and ready to roll. We welcomed um our new preschool students. We have um three preK3
students this year. Um added to 17 preK4 students. So, we have a very robust prek4 population. Not sure what that was going on a couple years prior, but um a very nice crowd of of preschool students and um we have welcomed 10 kindergarten
students, 17 first grade students, 15 grade twos, um 13 grade threes, 18 grade four students, 11 grade five, and 16 grade six. our school choice numbers went from um 20 and we had six of our
students moved on to middle school and we are now at 14 school choice students. So um just to give you an idea where those are. Um we have some interesting music updates. We have launched band and chorus and strings. Um the band and
chorus is for students in grades four to six and the string lessons are for interested students in grades two to six. A bravo to all the caregivers that are taking in the new instruments with our with our learners because in learning music is just so important. Students have an opportunity to play a
wide variety of instruments. So it's wonderful when they take advantage of that. Every week our teachers are participating in professional learning communities. They did that last year and they've done that for years and years before and the teachers are able to use
that time to take a look at the curriculum and pedagogy and looking at actually analyzing student work. So that's been an an incredible part of what makes so great. Um we just began to use some benchmark testing with the STAR
testing for ELA and math. It is um data that we'll be able to see that is based on the standards and goes across the entire it's a nationalized national the norm is nationally normed. We'll use this data to help ensure a continued student success at Shootsbury. Um the
stat the testing is is pretty brief and the students seem to enjoy getting to show what they know. The younger students were wondering if they were mini MCCAST. They're not. They're just it's a much shorter uh assessment and the um the kids I I actually got to have
a couple of students testing in my office just because of um they were absent the day that we did it and it was uh they were excited to do it. Um the PTO has secured a mass cultural grant to have an Amaya performance. They're a West African drum group and they're
going to do a a drum and dance residency for the month of October. all students in the whole school will be able to participate and they're going to launch it with a performance and they're going to end it with a performance that includes some of our students. So, we'll let you know when that is scheduled to
um to happen. Um building update we have completely gone through at another half paragraph of the boiler, but uh we definitely don't have to go through that. The um like um like Jeremy was saying, we do have an upcoming open house which coincides with the town meeting, so hopefully everyone can
attend. We have picture day next week, which you know is always good for some fun. We have some individual pictures on Monday. And then um we'll have class pictures on Thursday. And I think that Oh, and also we've had some CPR and
first aid training that just recently happened for staff. So I think that is it for me. If anybody has any questions, happy to field those. Any questions for Ann?
Um Ann, I just had um one question regarding um prek. Um I was talking with another neighbor and they had mentioned something about um there only being one prek classroom and there might have been
desire for more than one, but I hadn't really heard of that as as being a thing. Um, I hadn't heard of us having to like turn away any prek um for classrooms. So, I was wondering if or for spots in our program. So, I was
wondering if you could clarify. Sure. There's been a wait list in the past and we don't take school choice for preschool because we want to make sure that we have staffing is is right. We don't want to um have, you know, have it be like an unsafe situation where we
take in all too many students. So what we do is we have um e some students come multiple days a week, some come five days a week, but it just depends on on the needs of the students. But we um I'm not sure where the weight list ended at
the end of the at the end of the summer. Did were they saying that they had a student that was three that wasn't able to come in or they just the weight list? their their child is in the program, but um they made it seem like the program was
limited in a way, but they're like a Shootsberry resident, so it doesn't sound like the program would have been limited for them or for any other Shootsberry resident. It's just like school choice. Oh, yeah. We don't take school choice
just because we have we have such a high demand. And um even though our numbers for preK3 is only three, that's offsetting with with 17 other um other other students that are in the preK4 program. So our um what we what we do is
we're actually if a student is is receiving EI assistance, the minute they turn three, they're eligible to come. That's a there it's a they're going to be able to access the public school special education program. and make it um a student that has has been typically
developing. We just have them fill out the paperwork and then we make the we make our best guess and and um fill the classrooms and that process starts. We're actually we're talking about starting a little bit, you know, even earlier this year to make sure everybody
knows where their where their students will be and we'll know what the need is. I think a very long time ago, I've heard that they had a second classroom, but um they just didn't have the numbers to make it have another full-time staff to run the classroom because it's not like
adding a a second grade that's, you know, you're looking at a second grade teacher. When you're adding a preschool program, a lot comes with it to make sure that it's has everything that it needs, but the most important thing are the adults are the people. So, highly trained people that are able to work with um our preschool population. So, I
don't know. D uh doubling the program, having a second room. I'm I don't know that that's um that would be something that we would definitely have to plan for years in advance to make sure that we had the space and the and uh to be able to accommodate that. Okay.
Anybody else questions? Okay. But that's great. Keep listening to the neighborhoods because you know it's good to know what they're what's going on. Oh, Anna, is there any interest in developing like a totally separate prek3
room so that you have prek3 and prek4 um I when I was in DC there was a prek3 and a prek4 fully funded program for kids and I know that that's not how
Massachusetts works but um uh I just I was wondering what the if there's been talk about prek. It's a great question. So, I got to tell you um what I've had conversations with um the teachers about about that very thing. And what I've learned is when
you're talking about the developmental needs of prek and and four, the threes and the fours, when they're combined, there's so many incredible things that happen because your younger students are learning from older students and they become so proud of being those role
models and really help the help everybody develop and move because if we just did all the preK3s to have I don't know if you've hung out with a lot of three-year-olds before, but there's a lot of language development that needs to happen and it's hard when you're not hearing the modeling when if everybody's
kind of struggling in the same boat. But in the um prek classroom, they really provide so many opportunities to really develop their oral language. And it's because they're they're working together. The students are working together and it's unbelievable how much they blossom between when they first
enter as um three-year-olds and then looking at them when they go to off to kindergarten. It's like a whole different thing. It's a too fast, isn't it, Nate? It's too fast. It goes too fast. Yeah. But that if you had like a full So, I know right now you have like 20 kids total,
which is a lot. Yes. But if you had like a full prek 3 and a full prek 4, then when they move into kindergarten, you would have a full kindergarten moving from prek to kindergarten. Um, and you can still combine the
classrooms with threes and fours. Have two separate classrooms for threes and fours, but essentially full fill enough to have full classes of threes, full classes of fours, so that when they move into kindergarten, they're just moving on up.
But I don't, you know, if there's a lot of kids that are opting out of prek, then that maybe doesn't make sense. Yeah, I'm I'm just going to chime in. I think that's something we could look at with the numbers, but I don't think and Ann and I were just going over the
numbers. Shootesberry by itself, none of our classes are sustaining with just Shootsberry residents that we rely on school choice to make, you know, I don't want to say normal, but to make
sustainable class sizes, even taking the finance piece out of it, but some of the classes would be really small. And so, if we did that with preK, it does open up. How would we bill? What would that look like for out of out of district students? Because they wouldn't be
covered under school choice where if we have someone who comes to kindergarten or first grade, we just we build that through school choice and that's how they are contributing to our revenue if that makes sense. So I don't not that I want to shoot the idea down. I think it
has I think the biggest question would be like how many three-year-olds do we have in Shootsberry? Are we meeting their needs? And if we brought in and did a separate class, right, but that's a separate teacher and we incur those
costs, how many out of school placements would we have to get at a tuition rate to make that sustainable? So, I think that's probably been the biggest prohibitive factor in looking at that, if that makes sense. Um, sure. Yeah. No, that makes sense. But
just like with 17 preK4s, you're like, "Oh, that's a lot of kids. That's a lot of kids, right? That's a lot of kids. And sometimes you have like where in in Irving and we talked about this in their public session, they have like five four year olds that live in Irving, but they
have 22 2-year-olds that are coming through Irving that are Irving residents that they've identified. So that's really hard like and I think Shootsbury probably has those same patterns, right? Um, Irvings is just on the top of my head because we just were
diving into it like what do we do with a class of five five year olds, right? You have to get some school choice in there. Susie, um the other thing is that there are many families that don't want their three-year-olds in full week and so that
population is not as saturated in school as say six year olds. So, um that's that's another factor that is for three-year-olds. Good point. That's a good point. And and it just if we build it doesn't necessarily mean it will come either because a lot of people So with the same
token of not wanting their three-year-old to come, we have people that want them to be in full-time daycare where they're getting cared for from 8 in the morning until you know 5 at night. So it it's I think it's a hard thing to predict and I would hate to see us like invest a ton of money in
something that um you know wasn't sustainable with Shootsbury residents. So, but that's an excellent question. It's a it's a it's a it's definitely an interesting it's a different classroom when you are looking at a three four combined group and when you're looking at a only threes and only fours.
I think that combined is a is a great idea and that's what they did in DC as well where they had they just had twice as many classrooms because it was twice two grades essentially. Sure. And like we were saying too, if it's a full day program and everybody's doing full day, I would hate to see that
like around two o'clock. Those poor little guys get so tired. I mean, they just got to they get nap time. I mean, I'm just talking about the teachers. I'm just talking about teachers. I want I mean I know. No. No. Exactly. The kids are definitely tired. They do get a nap. I don't know how much of them actually really solidly sleep, but
but yeah, that's definitely interesting. Is there anything else that you that any other birding questions? Okay. All right. I think we lost a fearless lead there. Oh, is it is it my turn?
It is. Okay. Report. So, I'll I'll go ahead with my report. um without uh um Jeremy. Um so
normally the regional school committee is able to take at least a month off in the summer, but this year we just met all summer long. So we just really never took a break. Um one of the last I feel like one of the last things we did in
June was hear about the track and field. um which is like right on budget. Um so which is and and so many of the sort of like potential issues has um have been
taken h have happened already. So that the the likelihood that we need to dip into the contingency fees um or the contingency allowances um has reduced substantially. and so they feel like they can use that
contingency aotment to fund actual projects. So, we're going to add add some of the ad alternate ideas um from the original plan and we're going to be able to do some additional drainage work and
irrigation work in some of the adjacent fields, not just the brand new internal track field. Um, we're going to be able to, um, put some work into the stairs that go down to the field and work on the
sidewalks that connect the field to the street. Um, so that'll make it a little bit more easily ADA compliant and better for people who have um, additional needs to get to the field. Um, so that's
really encouraging. That's really exciting that we're going to be able to do a little bit more with the same amount of money. So, that was very exciting. Um, I am now on the budget coordinating committee. Um, so I get to go to additional meetings with Ammerst.
Yay. Um, I'm going to be on the APA negotiating committee, which is the assistant principles union negotiations. Apparently, this is the like this is the tiny union and it's one of the easier negotiations. Um, we're still dealing with a lot of
lawsuits. Um, I think everybody heard about Dela Dykes arbitration, um, who got reinstated. She's currently on administrative paid administrative leave because we had to reinstate her. Um, but, uh, there's a desire to keep
her away from the students while we still figure this out. Um, so the district is appealing the arbitration decision and she's on paid leave pending the appeal. Um,
we got our um our fourth quarter budget report. Um, and we're on target for spending, which is really exciting that we didn't have any unexpected uh overruns. So, that's good. Um some of
our overruns were with like student support services were balanced with unexpected savings for things like um employee health insurance and some other stuff. So that worked out. Um
with all of this budget fighting and uh discussion between four towns in the region, the school committee commissioned a report by Mars. I I don't remember what the acronym stands are. Massachusetts
Association for Regional Schools. Yeah. So, they create they create these fiscal reports for towns and they seem really really boilerplate, but we received the reports for all four towns in the region
and uh something came up and they couldn't present it to us uh um when we got the report. So, we had a short discussion about it, but they're going to come back October 2nd and um actually do their presentation where we can ask some questions. So, we're sort of
preparing some questions for them. Um, but that's also part of the sort of like looking at all the numbers. Uh, when I was looking asking Shannon or um, Caitlyn some of the questions about budgets because I you're trying to compare these trends from different
school districts and all of the different financial information and the year-over-year spending from even the region and looking at how how the trends work and it's a little bit complicated. Um
but uh what I did note just FYI is that Shootsberry spends about 62% of the town budget on education and that is best of the four towns.
Yeah, it's uh higher than most towns. At the same time, the growth in spending for education in Shootsbury is about 12% from what is it 200
n to now or 200 wait I think it's 2009 until now and the growth in spending for the general administration is like 44%.
And so the conclusion is that spending on education is not growing as fast as sort of the general Shootsbury town overall budget is growing. So there might be some room to
juggle things. Um so general administration has a a large growth and um safety has a relatively um slightly larger growth. Oh well it's
like in the 20 20 some high 20% increases or something like that over the several years. um public safety and it was interesting to sort of like compare it to other towns where um Pelm
Pelum like has like some very crazy growth like their I think their maybe their general budget was not as big but their safety budget like more than doubled and it went from lower than Shootsbury's to higher than
Shootsberry's spend total dollar spend. Um, so it was just like looking at different town budgets is really interesting and it's uh it is it does make you question like what gets included in each category for each town and is it the same for each town because
it's quite variable but that's all. Any questions? Oh, one more. We have some policy, sorry. We had some policy discussions where we we had like a special meeting
just to go over a new policy around um uh treatment of uh non-discrimination against gender identity and um some other stuff is um because it's becoming a thing.
That's it. Susie, your hand. Susie, did you have a comment? Yeah. Um, that Mars report is very initial. Yes. It's interesting the way it doesn't have certain factors. It's also a little bit upsetting to see towns sort of begin to
take positions on the information that's in those reports when they're really very not complete. Shootsberry has a PAS cost that has expanded our general government costs. Nobody else is dealing with it yet. They might have to, but um
that's the sort of the apples and oranges issue about looking at a report like this. Um I had down on my calendar that they were coming on the 25th of September, but you said October 2nd is the date. Um and is it 25th? Are they coming on the 25th?
That's what I had. The reschedule was for the 25th, but I'm not it might not be up to date. They might have moved it again. Um that would be that's when our next meeting is, but I thought um we were going to go over
uh financial sustainability subcommittee report before the Mars report. So I don't But the other piece of this is that um you know, so we got a report. We're busy trying to line up our FY27 start, which
is and this is a this is still an incredibly hard time. So, you know, plowing through a bunch of other town numbers and our numbers is not where we're at. And and you know, AJ said we got to begin to say what are the elements that are really in our budget, not so much by numbers. What is the
elements that Shootsberry is dealing with? And you know, you could just come out here and see there's no luxury liners out here. So um so I wish there would be just a level of trust that in fact people are doing the best they can and then we just had the health
insurance debacle and not all towns had that same hit. We went up 44% in one year in health insurance. It's why we're having a special town meeting. It's driving our budget. Um that is not in our school budget and yet a lot of it
are the school employees. So apples and oranges getting ready for it. Some people had MIA insurance and they went up more gradually. We just went bam. So um I it's it's not going to be a simple
numbers thing. It's got to really be sort of the intent and how we're meeting it and what the factors at each town are dealing with honestly, you know, not not sort of by number. Thank you, Susie.
Susie, maybe you you and I can have a a quick conversation about the Mars report later. Yeah. Yeah. I I have looked at it some. I have thought about it some, but I'm also getting ready for the FY27 proposals. Yeah. And I have time. I I'd
be happy to talk to you, but I'm I'm just saying all the towns right now are getting ready. And so this work is important, but it's coming in the middle of a big flow. And you just spent your whole summer doing it. So the regional
school is gonna have a hard time wrestling all this down. Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. I'd be happy to talk to you, Anna. It's always a ride, you know. Oh, so much fun. So, uh, next up is our joint supervisory
committee report. I had, uh, a family thing come up. I was not able to attend, but I think Nate was there and maybe Katrina. Um, yeah. So, if one of you guys could report out on that, that would be great. I can do that. I have the auto report
right here, my cheat sheet that I can go. Perfect. Um, we uh reelected uh Steve and Mandy. Um, Steve seems like a great leader. He's very even keeled and just runs a
very smooth his voice is smooth like you should be have a radio show or something pretty honestly. It's amazing. Um Shannon uh I actually think the even piece is the most important of him. He is so even.
Yeah, for sure. Shannon uh shared a report the rising uh costs of insurance. Uh we talked about the Hampshire the health insurance costs going up. Um she also talked about securing uh $317,000
in prism grants for liter literacy programs. Um I don't know is that the one does shoot participate in that program? The prism Shootesberry does not. Yeah I didn't think um yeah Shootsberry does not
participate. um to apply there were some certain criteria. One being that you had enough participants that shared a curriculum for English language arts. Shootsbury has a curriculum with EL that they are very vested in, trained in,
very attached to, and they're getting good results in it. The other three schools within the union um all use a different curriculum. So they applied as a consortium um and that is why Shootsberry was not a
part of that. Ian has um part of that training is that there's going to be a literacy council. We have got permission from Desi to include shoots a Shootsberry representative on that. They'll be paid through the grant. Um
but for the big you know dollars and cents piece that did not impact Shootsberry. Um we did get included in on the the Frontiers GEMS grant GM. It's a Massachusetts grant that's going to be working with um Smith College and
utilizing their resources and combining with people that are training teachers and teachers that are in practice and looking at a deeper dive in in literacy. So, we are excited about that work and it goes along with our current curriculum.
Awesome. Um, Caitlyn uh detail the budget schedule emphasizing the need to finalize the union 28 budget after individual district budgets are reviewed. Amy
Langden highlighted the transition um to the new IEP formats um and inclusion practices. and Lindy Lindseay Rodriguez discussed the implementation of the STAR assessment and benefits of the inclusion classroom.
Individual schools updated in uh gave updates including facility improvements and community engagement initiatives. That's my cheat sheet. Perfect. That was amazing. All right. Uh CES, do we have a report
from CES? Yes, we do. Um, we had a meeting at the end of June um that I was able to attend. The executive director for CES at the time um left the organization as of July 15th. Um so he's
going back to be a principal um at his local school district. and the inter the um interim executive director is the person who was the deputy director. Um we are doing a search committee to look
for a new executive director for CES with the hopes that that person would start in January. Um they also voted to approve their budget for FY26. So, I know I sent it to you all a little late, but I did send it um over the summer,
and I'll make sure to be better about sending you all um the documents that come from CES as I receive them. Oh, and the next meeting is next Wednesday. Oh, okay. Great. Thank you very much. Um
we'll try to get that added. Well, it doesn't matter to be added in this into this minutes uh into these this agenda, but thank you very much, Leah. All right, so CS is over. We're going into the policy review section of the night. Um we have a first read on IHMR
health education. um which uh we don't have to vote on but does anybody have anything they want to discuss about that or anything that they saw in that. All right, seeing none, I think
first vote for deletion of IHM1. Oh, you're breaking up my internet being laggy again. Yeah, go ahead. So, um I was noticing in the document um and maybe it's fine, but the it goes
straight from exemptions will be granted um to uh the request must state a particular conflict involved. the principal will confer with teachers to determine the
length of time a student will be exempt. I think there should be a sentence that describes the approval or the exemption granting granting process or something. So maybe a sentence like the principal will decide like who who makes the
decision whether the the exemption will be granted like it says this is how you submit a request but who decides whether that's a valid request like if someone just says I I don't want my my kid to learn that then and I'm
just oldfashioned I don't want you to do that that's not really a religious exemption and so there should be some at least you know some person who decides whether the request will be granted or not. And it's not just like any person can pull their kid
if they just say they need to. Um but so I I can respond a little bit to that. I think might be helpful. Um because of the new um guidelines that came about being right, you can exclude your kid
from anything. um except that there is a process and our council has worked with the other councils to have a sheet. So all of the union schools will be using the same sheet and um same criteria if
they fill it out and they you have to be very specific. What piece do you not want them to see? It puts a lot of burden on the parent to exclude their child. They cannot just make a blanket statement if they say for example I don't want my child to be in this SEAL
course with the counselor well what piece of the curriculum do you not want them to you know it's more cumbersome so we'll be using that if they meet all that and fill it out and can you know make a connection then they'll be granted it but it would be by
the principal but it's not subjective I guess is my feedback. Yeah, I think what the my suggested um language would be the principal will decide whether the exemption will be granted based on the conflict specified in MGL71.1
but we could be based on and then these specific criteria but just like I feel like there needs to be some statement in this policy that describes how the the decision will be made. We do provide a lot of additional
information to parents and we give the slides if parents are interested in seeing the slides if it's a a health sort of a talk and have a lot of open conversations with people and then if they still further want to disclude their child from it um we like we really
try to support them with with um yeah I just want to protect the district to say that you know if if we feel like the request quest is unreasonable that it gives us a way of handling that is that but if that's out of scope then that's
fine. I just thought that maybe an additional thing in that policy would be helpful. It's fine. Yeah. I think to be honest with the the new direction from the at the federal
level it's taking a lot of that um discretion away from the school. Um so I can I can add that language and we can I can look at um the form maybe there's some and I I was looking to see
if I had it in front of me. Um the form has sort of a narrative at the beginning and maybe we could add that to our policy um that came from the um uh a consortium of school attorneys across the Commonwealth.
Okay, I can do that and bring it back. I'm sorry. Okay, I am sorry. I don't know if you can hear me. My kids just got home and my internet's going all unstable. So, I'm just trying I'm trying to keep up with it. Um I've texted everyone and asked
people to go down to one device a piece, please. Um so, okay. So, that we have that ready for next meeting. Uh we move on to uh first vote for deletion IHAM1
um which is notification of an access to sex education curriculum and community involvement in decision KCB. Um we could do a move and a second and then discuss. I move to delete IHAM1
and KC U B uh from our policies as part of the first vote. Second. All right. Any discussion? I'm scarred now by my internet. I'm
like, is anybody going to jump in as I try to move this forward? All right. All in favor? May I Her eye I Jack I long coat eye. Okay. Is that everybody? Do we get
everybody? All right. Am I frozen again? All right. So second second read first vote on BA school committee operational goals. BAA evaluation of the school committee operational procedures. BB school
committee legal status. BBA school committee powers and duties. BBAA school committee member authority. Uh BBABB school committee member qualifications oath of office and BCA school committee
member ethics. So that's our second read first vote. Um we can move second and then discuss. I move to uh approve for the first vote all of the
mentioned policies. I second that. All the bees. All the bees. All right. Any discussions? Any discussion? All right. Uh let's vote then. Um all in
favor mayu I third eye I long co I unanimous. Awesome. Moving on to our final votes. Uh, we've got KA K, public complaints, KFR, community use of school
facilities, KHA, public solicitations in the schools, AA, school district legal status, and KF, community use of school facilities. Um, can we get a move in a second? Some moved.
Second. Awesome. Any discussion? I like that as we move through this, we've had the time to discuss many of these, so they're good at this point, I guess. Uh, all right. All in favor? May you? I
Jack I. Long co I. Awesome. That is unanimous as well. We've got future business. Shootes policy committee next October 16th at 6:30. Shootsbury School Committee is October 16th at 7. Uh there's a budget
and personnel committee Monday October 20th Union 28 joint joint supervisory our next one there is November 17th and as Leah said uh CES is meeting I think you said next Thursday is that correct next Wednesday Leah knows when the next CES meeting is
so um we can right on uh can we get a move to adjourn can I just one thing before you adjurnn Trevor I just clarify for your notes Trevor the um grant that Shootsberry is taking part of that is um Ann was referencing.
It's the Pioneer Valley um consortium grant. Awesome. Just so we get that right. I couldn't think of the exact name of it and I'm like, "Let me look it up." So, I wanted to get that right. Sorry. Don't worry. GEMS is really part of it. I didn't make that up.
No, it isn't. That is the That's the the place where we go to claim our money, but I wanted to make sure our notes reflected the name of the grant. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good. Thank you. Thank you, Shannon. All right. So, with that in, let's have a move to adjurnn if we could.
I move to journ. Awesome. All in favor. Thank you guys. I'll see you next. Thank you everyone. Bye. Bye. Bye everybody. Bye. Oh my god.