##VIDEO ID:sWBGkQgolmw## [Music] all right so calling the meeting to order this meeting is being recorded if anyone is intending to make an audio or video recording of this meeting they should notify me at this time and with that do we have any public participation okay verify it over in the public all right we will move on to the approval of meeting minutes from December the 12th okay is there any further discussion seeing none all in favor I don't think there are any opposed so um all right let's go to the principal's reports Miss quet hi everyone I put two things in your folders um the handbook and the program of studies um first things for the handbook there are just two edits that we made um and this was also reviewed by legal council and the School counsel page 43 has an addition to the code of conduct regarding closing or tampering with the hallway fire doors middle schoolers love to touch those it's really hard to put them back up my arm is guine enough to get in there um and page 62 there's additional language on school election expectations like we're not to barter for votes like give out candy bars and things like that so um we had our legal council help with the language on those two and there will also be future updates to Title 9 language um that will be coming in our future but that's going to go through subcommittee so I just wanted to let you know about that and that link is in the memo that I sent earlier last week in regards to the program of studies um you so gratefully helped us finalizing the exploratory classes for grade seven in the past and we have been thinking about ways we can pilot new elective opport unities for grade 8 of course this would all have to um be part of not just the budget process but how a schedule may or may not have to be changed depending on what happens in our future with the budget um due to Staffing and class enrollment eth graders generally currently right now enroll in a world language course and then they're able to take an elective with the art staff we would like to Pilot some new 45-day electives that our core teachers our classroom teachers would um pil so students have other opportunities to work with core content staff that would introduce them to Connected High School offerings um some of which I know you might be interested in is money and metrics some Finance um related courses intro to oceanography there's also a course like this at the high school journalism intro to environmental science and current events so that's a portion of what we're adding to the program studies we don't know yet if we will be able to run those but want to put them in there for your approval so you have time to read them and think about them um like I said it will be all be determined by our final budget but I want to present it today to you and lastly we would like to continue to honor our accelerated math program as we utilize pre-algebra and algebra curricula we know there's research to support a positive correlation and achievement in mathematics um this course pathway is the only way to guarantee access to Advanced mathematic courses in high school for example AP Calculus without having to collapse or combine courses in high school or double up courses we don't have the same constraints in ela so we would like to take a step back from having accelerated Ela because our data is not showing a correlation to Higher Achievement nor is there current research to support this type of tracking in e8th grade the curriculum is not significantly different the classes are open to all students and we know that removing tracking to the best of our ability can also have a positive effect on the entire School body students who demonstrate Readiness for more advanced Ela course offerings will still have the opportunity to do this in high school to take honors and at courses in the high school with this step back from having accelerated Ela in the Middle School yes so those are the few changes that we're hopeful for but those would need your approval um on the handbook changes noted future updates Title 9 language to be reviewed by appropriate subcommittee are we actually in a position to vote that that if we still changing title [Music] n no um Becky was just alerting you that once the subcommittee is ready to make formal presentations to the Committees it should the Committees approve the policy changes she will then need to update that section with whatever the approvement policy is that will be the only additional update without me coming back to this table okay um is it will have been approved as a policy if you agree that she doesn't have to come back once the policy is approved just to add it okay so you're looking for approval on the other two lines okay um I feel like we should put those separately the handbook and the sure program of study um so committee members do you have questions or thoughts about um what principal has said in preference to both these um have you um we whether or not we can do these in terms of the proposed that are that we'll be reviewing tonight so it will all depend on what schedule we utilize um because these additional courses are going to be held by um teachers that we already have in the building that have expertise in these areas there wouldn't be any impact to the budget and my second question is it all in terms of if we approve all of these would you only Implement them if there's room for all of them to go that's a great question I don't have that answer I I'm hoping to work with all of them but if there's budget constraint should schedule constraints okay um any other questions I do think it'd be better to separate the votes on these um so I'd be looking for a motion first about the handbook and then second about the program of studies I'll make a motion that we approve the um additions to the SCH handb as presented by I have a second all right any further discussion see none all in favor all right any further discussion seeing none all in favor I no negative okay thank you um did you have something miss squit about the donations or anything nope I'm all set that's just a stand item all right so miss Gil thank you good evening everyone uh my first update is to provide you with one on our 8 period schedule feasibility um unfortunately given the unpredictability of the budget and potential cuts um because our course selection process does begin next month um we have made the executive decision to put that schedule change on hold at this time so um next school year we will plan at this time on having a seven period schedule no block scheduling um I have two requests for your approval today the first is for an out of-state field trip our art teachers would like to bring our art classes to the met in New York City on April 11th they're working on um final costs they're waiting to hear back from a couple different bus companies um but of course Assistance or fundraising would be available to students who wish to go but cannot afford the trip on their own okay I'll make are you looking for a motion right now I will make a motion to approve the art field trip to the Met on April 11th sorry any further discussion see none all in favor thank you noos and then my last item is a donation request on behalf of the bedau family in memory of Jeremy bedau who's a 2015 graduate of ours um the family would like to donate $33,000 to our carpentry program which Jeremy was a part of and $3,000 to our special education department for our um two programs to use as they see fit for programming or Supply or extracurriculars materials projects things like that again in his memory um Jeremy was a beloved student of ours those of us who've been around for a little while remember him fondly um he unfortunately passed um in an accident a couple years ago okay I have a motion to accept the donations I make motion that we accept the $3,000 carpentry donation $3,000 donation on behalf of and just ask that good thanks always have a second okay any further discussion seeing none all in favor thank you and I'll turn it over to Chrissa for our student updates all right um first off I'd like to say thank for approving the field trip I'm going on that with my art class so that's going to be fun um we had a lot of things that happened over holidays like we did holidays and Halifax also winter sports have been going on for a while coming up we have SE the next C mass that a lot of our students are attending which is exciting we're not hosting it this time though and then we also have midterms coming up so everyone's a little stressed but we are doing tutoring um to help with any students that need extra help cuz those are half days so we're staying after for like an extra hour to help tutor and kids that need it so we don't have a lot cuz of the holidays but short update but what did you do with holidays and H what what did you all do at holidays and HPR people help set up like put all like the bags on the street and other things like that cool and help clean too very good thank you for that course thank you CH yeah that's all thank you all right Sarah we're on to finance and operations thank you very much Mr chair um in your packets for tonight was the financial report I'm going to run through the financial report on the top of page two you'll see that there's a new line for special ed settlements budgeted they were budgeted for in the legal line previously and um and so we're paying them out of an appropriate line now um they were comingled with the regular with regular Ed funds were separate reading that out halfway down the page you can see the prek clerical budget is overspent but that's budgeted as part of the clerical line on page 11 on page three the Middle School long-term Subs were budgeted for in the regular sub line but are paid out of the appropriate line on page four the high school long-term sublines are the same as middle school again I budgeted it as one number last year but there're being being paid out of the appropriate line um there's new payroll lines for the extended school year that's on the bottom of page four and the top of page five those numbers were budgeted for in the tuition line but paid out of the extended school year uh salary lines on page six we're move I was moving instructional Hardware to the correct line on page eight I moved Act after school supervision to a new line on page nine high school grounds we are paying that it was budgeted in the maintenance of buildings account but it's actually the ground so we're paying it out of a grounds line on page 10 the health and health and life insurance this is something um that I explained last spring that there was an issue with the um an issue with the SST our our financial system when we moved to an in-house payroll and it was double counting the health and the life insurance um we believe two things one is that we're well after this report was printed and submitted to you uh I fixed the the July to December um double costs and then we believe we have fixed the problem and I will know as of the January 4 14th payroll whether we were successful in that so I will update you on that um at our next meeting on the rest of page 10 was moving things into the correct lines as it is spent on page 12 and 13 for special ed cost there's a lot of moving parts and the special ed bookkeeper maintains a separate spreadsheet tracking special ed contracted services tuitions and transportation the spreadsheet that she up dated today shows an overall surface surplus of about $550,000 at this time can we go back to the health insurance um so right now I'm if I'm reading correctly we're theoretically in the whole 700 Grand right on the health insurance is that related to the double cting that is Rel that is the double count it is the double counting so from July to December it has charged the health insurance to the health insurance line twice and it won't let us reverse those no I reversing it is a process I have to print out reports and then change it and do a journal entry in the system and upload and it takes time and I quite honestly don't have a lot of time so last week I actually did the reversals and we fixed the what we believe is the issue in the account and so on your next report you will see the the better numbers the actual accurate numbers and we won't be creating that going that issue going forward okay but again we believe we fixed it for the January 14th payroll I will let you know if we were successful okay any questions about the finance report uh moving on to Grants you have in your packet a list of Grants um Mass General Law chapter 44 section 53a says that we can accept grants or gifts given for educational purposes with the approval of school committee so in order for us to spend the money we're supposed to record that we've approved it by school committee so in your packet was a print out of a spreadsheet at the top of the spreadsheet were the grants that I brought to you already this year that you approved on October 17 um there's a list of Grants would you like me to read through them I don't think so okay there is a list of Grants totaling 2,367 5844 for your approval all right does anybody want to discuss that or can to get a motion I'll make a motion to accept the grants all right second all right any further discussion seeing none all in favor I I and any opposed no okay uh moving on to the next item first student is our transportation vendor uh my predecessor Christine Healey went out to bid in the spring of 2020 and Silver Lake Regional uh came to a an agreement with first student who was the low bidder for a fiveyear contract and the 5year contract has two two option years and option year six and year seven one of the things I will say about this is it was just an absolute Stroke of Luck timing that the contract happened during the co uh the beginning of Co and and that the rates that were locked in um were the rates that were locked in so if you take a look we had uh 3.5 1% increase or a 3.5% increase across the first 5 years of the contract that a lot of districts that are going out to bid for transportation contracts are seeing things in double digigit increases from year toe because um because our prop the proposed year six number is such a small increase I would recommend that the school committee exercise the option the contract option to contract with first student for year six which is next year half% is a good deal question how does this compare to other vendors um I can send you a newspaper article where Dartmouth um signed a contract with different vendor and they were shocked at a 26% increase so uh other vendor there's two things she's not going to have the answer to that because we've not formally bit it so she's taken the temperature based on the deal she seen but I'm just curious like I know that percentage is 4 and a half% but what is the like how much we're paying per route or anything like that you know like we have almost 3 million for the bus routes but a similar size district is that we typical if no this is better than what districts are seeing and it's better because the contract went out to bid before the pandemic and was signed in the early days of the pandemic the increase in transportation costs across the state has been outrageous and we are super lucky to have had the numbers that we have had for five years so um with Transportation contracts it is a contract that we are required to go out to bid for in my understanding was first student was the only company that bid on the contract last time it was Gordon man we can extend yes would we be voting to extend for just year six year six all right and then we' vote again next year and I would caution that we extend it longer than one year because one of the things that we had negotiated 5 years ago was the new busing there was some new buses that were added to um the fleet if you would um but I guess my question regarding um if we were to make any changes for instance tier 2 eliminating late buses are any of those things um items that need to be negotiated with the bus company further or do we just have a contract with them that they will provide our busing for the business I'm I'm going to use the agricultural school bus runs as an example as part of the bid um there is built into the bid three different bus runs one for nor fork County Agricultural one for Plymouth County Agricultural and one for Southshore Road Tech that was built into the bid but we don't use three buses we use one bus and that bus um does both nor fork and Bristol AGI thank you so Mark to clarify that question though um if we elect in the future budget to eliminate one of the services say late buses is it going to affect the bid so for example last year we reduced the number of days the late buses came it is just part of the contract in the contract yes it should be and the last question is what was our reimbursement rate for this year from the state for transportation hasn't come out yet no for the last for the current I can pull that up it'll take me a minute okay 65% it was approximately 75% 657 okay thank that's close now I'll make a motion that we approve year six of the optional bus contract with first student I have a second lookas all right any further discussion see none all in favor all right then no opposed all right Sarah um FY 23 so the next thing on my the agenda for me is the corrective action plan the FY 23 audit was complete I wrote the cor corrective action plan to the FY 23 audit it we had the same issues with the fi23 audit that we did with the fy22 audit there was no time for me to correct things that happened a year and a half before I got here and so when I wrote the corrective action plan and submitted that it was I'm going to use the word rejected I don't think it's that's the technical term I was asked for additional information one of the things I was asked for was uh a copy of the Silver Lake Regional School District federal grants Manual of which none existed when I got the letter uh back in September the me and my team and I have written a federal grants manual and submitted it to desie by the December 23rd deadline and I'm just waiting a response on where we are with the corrective action plan okay all right um I think with that Dr cler hi um two things tonight one is a curriculum and assessment and instruction update and also an Mass update so I will start with the curriculum instruction and assessment update the first piece is that um I'll talk about district-wide information secondary information and Elementary information so as far as districtwide information um as part of the K through2 curriculum review cycle we have formed a math steering committee that's K through2 the math steering committee is made up of two groups a k through6 core review team and a 7 through2 core review team the k k through6 core review team um is conducting a core review looking um comprehensively at different um high quality instructional material that's K through 6 they had their first meeting Tuesday we have a 7 through 12 core review team which will discuss and determine curriculum instruction and assessment topics to review including reviewing and selecting high quality materials for grades seven and 8 specifically and that group met for the first time today so K through six we're looking for um reviewing programs um to um adopt for next year as we are for seven and eight the map um steering committee which is the larger over overarch group um meets two more times this spring and the K through 6 group as I mentioned started meeting for the first time Tuesday and will meet uh several times during the Spring as well as 7 through 12 group um and we'll present a school committee um end of May beginning of June the second piece districtwide is a lit literacy needs assessment update um all focus groups inventories and surveys have been completed by all four districts and a report from the Hill from literacy will be discussed with the the district literacy leadership team on January 23rd and on March 6th the that group will meet to draft a district literacy plan based on on the report and other pieces of information so those are updates districtwide updates secondary information Secondary School information um student competency determination as we all have heard mcast is not a requirement students must Meet The Local District graduation requirements participation on mcast is required by federal and state law the Adams C and seal by literacy will still continue and use mcast scores for qualifying Elementary information just to give a quick update on what's happening at the elementary level writing um benchmarks have been um completed meaning students have completed um common assessments and writing K through six they' had a a a beginning of year meeting among the grade level teachers to look at that information calibrate and use that information to inform instruction star reading in math and Dibbles assessments happened for beginning of year and then now are happening for middle of year and data meetings are happening happening throughout the schools uh will happen between January 27th and February 7th mcast Windows have been um created as far as the calendar for mcast assessments at the K 6 level and also as I spoke about at this meeting um about the multilingual newcomer and homeless support Grant which Silver Lake was awarded funds for that um Kingston was also awarded uh funds for that and approved at their school committee meeting um that Grant includes funding for translation and interpretation fees professional development for faculty staff and also um Outreach to families instructional materials to help support multilingual Learners and math and early literacy so that is my um presentation for tonight and I'd like to turn it over let me pause you and ask u a couple of questions if I recall correctly when we were reviewing mcast scores and we were talking about reading and literacy um I may get this wrong but I feel like I recall that we thought our curriculum in grade three from years prior um had not been as effective or as strong and that that was paying negative dividends down the line am I number one remembering that correctly and if I am remembering that correctly um where do we stand on that curriculum good question yes your me your memory is correct um so as part of the curriculum review cycle which I talked about in the fall with the committee um the first year we're looking at math or this year we're looking at math um because our envisions um contract is expires and so next year we need a math curriculum but next year we'll begin the first year for the English language arts piece so next year um in September we'll begin a a curriculum review process for English language arts where we'll do a similar process to what we're doing this year as far as looking at a core program review where we're look at um high quality instructional materials that based on uh the state database called curate has um programs they recommend that meet across um all categories so we'll begin a similar process with that next next year so if we don't love the curriculum right now but we're not address beginning to address it till next year are we doing anything in the meantime to deal with the uh shortfalls yes so we're doing several things um many of the things I mentioned previously professional development around Orton Gillingham which is um phonics based um instruction around literacy K through three other professional development pieces of writing as I mentioned the writing pieces that we're looking at the common assessments um so those are just some quick and simple um things that we're doing but we are um looking at literacy and um changing our um curriculum based on what we find that the data is telling us and instructional practices that we need to change but also keeping in mind um both financially and um with with implementing curriculum reviews um what I what I want to do is keep an eye on how we can make improvements but at the same time not asking teachers to implement several curriculums at at the same time that are all new so um we're doing that but we definitely are making sure that we make changes are we not phonics based in our early reading we are but um overall we need more I think more um focus on making sure that um we're we're teaching things that are um include all the phic awareness and all those things and we're doing that um throughout all three schools and doing the um assessments to that but we are but we I think ongoing professional development is something that all districts could use and we could use here too okay so anybody else have any questions before we move on to the science discussion I would just ask to make a point of clarification mcast is not required for competency determination mcast is still going to be administered um and participation is still the expectation of the State uh and we will still be required to make sure students participate in the mcast test yeah I would uh further back that up with um however you want to look at it the school is going to get evaluated based on mcast scores so just because uh students will not have mcast as a determining factor in their graduation does not mean that there won't be rankings there won't be discussions that there won't be funding tie-ups that there won't be uh the potential of State interven ition or oversight B based on those scores etc etc so um the only thing that was at stake in that um was whether a very small handful of students who um were not passing the test would have uh other means whereby to graduate but not much else has changed okay should we go to the science discussion thank you all right I'd like to turn it over to Scott Scot good evening everybody thank you um so I'll start off uh with the first two points on this memo which deal with the middle school there's a lot going on at the middle school as you know the middle school mcast is transitioning it's going to be a more performance-based uh type of assessment so a really a big jump in in how we look at uh kids performing on mcast so one of the things that we've done started in sixth grade and seventh and eighth grade jumped on board is we're we're transitioning to the open SED curriculum um we have a lot of grant funding to support that at at all those three years uh specifically in seventh and eth which I oversee uh it's it's a big shift it's a big shift in instructional strategies and in instructional moves for teachers so it is something that requires a lot of support so each year six teachers take four days of professional development training uh over that course of the three years so that they get really Adept at what they're the expectations ensure that they are assessing students properly ensure that they're they're moving towards the the intended outcomes of the curriculum so um and in addition to that we have uh the U uh osc Community which is funded through the 1 18 Foundation they do on-site uh uh uh visits to our teachers our classrooms provide them with feedback provide me with feedback about how the program is running and the people who come in are all individuals teachers who have taught this curriculum in the past so they know well what are some of the hurdles and what are some of the high points and low points of it so they give us a lot of great feedback in in that way uh and then again obviously the the the minutia but really some of the important parts is instructional resources as we move towards this we do need new instructional resources there's a lot of consumables there's also a lot of durable goods so those are paid for out of the grant those support the specific activities that they're re we're realigning our instructional strategies towards um so this this in um this new curriculum is uh on the curate website so it is validated by the Mass Department of Elementary and secondary education in addition Desi has put together a bunch of crosswalk documents to help support the transition to say because osc is based off of ngss our state standards are a little different uh the state has put out some ways of looking at how to make sure that you're meeting all the state standards if you're teaching osc but aside from that Massachusetts is really pushing schools to go with the open side curriculum uh so the U and then additionally and this was a little harder this year because Massachusetts did not release any of the eighth grade questions so teachers did do a deep dive into Data analysis of this the eighth grade uh test uh without questions it's a little vague as to what were some of the outcomes and why but nonetheless we could look at standards where we didn't perform well assess whether or not those were things that we missed during this transition cuz part of the transition there there are some things that may get sure changed a little bit other things that get covered in more depth as we move towards this but that's well known uh throughout the OS implementation with all schools who are going through it so part of the support we get is an understanding of how are you how are you building out this this this transition are you assuring that you're covering everything you're covering uh and so the feedback we get and the support we get from the 18 and the osc community ensures that we're we're we're doing the best we can to ensure we're getting everything uh in in the in the years that we're teaching um so we're doing that and then the second one in u the for the former k6 curriculum coordinator and I last year took a training through desie on the new state assessment that we're moving towards in fifth and eth grade so this year it's a hybrid it's going to be half old mcast half new mcast and next year it'll be a full transition uh and so what I did is I brought together the teachers 3 through 8 on November 5th for a half day uh we went over what this means what this looks like uh most of these teachers hadn't seen this yet some of them had I know uh the former k6 coordinator had done some initial training with them uh basically what it was is sort of we started off with the reason of why we're moving towards this what did it look like why is this going there and then we practiced some ways of looking at it online so the teachers got a sense of what does this uh what does this new assessment look like how do we practice with it how do we play with it uh and then I gave them the resources that they could access for both the online versions as well as paper based versions that they should give in class to help prepare students for again just a whole different uh modality of test taking uh and so hopefully teachers are starting to work on that I know in seventh and eth grade our plan is sometime in the end of January beginning February to do an actual uh paper-based performance task inside the classroom which mirrors the U the expectations on the new mcast so when you when you say half old half new are you referring to every student taking the test will have 50% of the assessment is the soon to be past way of doing it and 50% is the soon to be new way of doing it my understanding I don't know if it's if it's exactly split but they are going to be given some of the new questions I believe it's one of the new questions cuz they're a little they're time consuming uh and then the rest of the test is going to be older type of of questions the uh you know the old school not the multiple choice but the the the the technology enhanced multiple choice questions okay so in the newer test they're going to be doing performance assessment on a in a handwritten it's all on the computer I was going to say i' would be shocked if they were going back to handwritten so what they actually will do is they'll get a scenario and the scenario is fairly unique and it's it's almost like a scene out of something where they'll have students like hey Billy I noticed you got a new scooter and Billy like yeah I did it's got a rechargeable battery and it talk okay now we have to look at the how much energy does it take to to run the bike and how long is the battery going to last and the students will then go into an actual um U uh lab based scenario in which they'll do some tests on that gather data from the data they gather they'll then go and answer specific questions um using the data they actually got have they articulated how they're grading this that's a good question uh that that's still in its infancy as well and that's why they're doing the pilot so they piloted it this in the past and they're looking at the metrics behind that and how it what what are the outcomes what does it look like how do we grade it uh and so they're continuing to hone that it's been pil they haven't told you what's that they haven't really told you they haven't really told me no I haven't heard fantastic yeah uh so that was again like I said that was given through uh 3 through uh third through eighth grade um so they have all these tools now they have my PowerPoint all the access to the different links and and the like the nice thing is and what was kind of weird uh is when we went to the training with the state of Massachusetts act some of the actual practice questions are open side practice question or open sight questions so there was I mean it's just it's like Blended together it did look like one thing so it's it's it's a good feeling to know that what we're doing with open S is mirroring what we're going to see on the mcast for that grade uh and then in the High School uh our physics teachers um one of the great things about that that happened is we got back our what was called old age elastic as a pair assessment it's a tool in which we build off uh assessments uh we build all of our common assessments our midterm uh our final assessment on that and nice thing about it uh it's uh it's supported via an alignment to the standards so that any questions we develop on that have a standard base to them and so the outcome of the day rather than teachers just making up questions and assuming their are standards aligned these are vetted uh behind the scenes by pair assessment to be standards aligned to be good quality questions the teachers build out their assessments uh and then they get a chance to look at the data uh they'll individually look at the data and then having the uh subscription uh districtwide I get a chance to look at the data individually throughout classes and across all my teachers uh and that way we get to see the areas of strength and weakness are how are different classes working how are different teachers working what and in from that feedback we then again obviously make our adjustments the the difficulty is is that the high school teachers don't have a lot of time to do this so we we fit it in as best we can but they do meet uh fairly regularly to look at those uh uh those common assessments I think we've given two already uh and we have our our big midterm one coming up in a couple of weeks which we'll do a really deep dive on is this the second year we're doing common assessments so it's I guess the second formal year in a way I mean science teachers had some prior to this uh again not say they were they were good or bad having the edge elastic platform this par I hate using the word par PA assessment sounds weird having the PA assessment platform has made it I just in my mind that more valid so I think like over the past two years I think I've gotten better data and a better at how things are moving okay all right any questions from Mr farell folks all right I think you're up thank you so our first item tonight um in your packet you'll see um an update from Chief Holmes in particular he's asking us to consider um putting the uh full-time uh the middle school resource officers salary into the budget um in and in fact he he and jul here tonight um that we would support uh a a full-time resource officer at the middle school um so I wanted you to be aware of that Chief Holmes uh and the town administrative will be here at our joint meeting to answer any questions you may have but I wanted you to be aware of that um that request okay that's not currently in tonight's level service is that correct just no to clarify thank you it is not so um if I may go on to the preliminary budget I will begin um by saying this was a group effort uh the principles uh started by soliciting input from their staff in terms of needs uh the principles put together their uh preliminary budgets uh Sarah worked on a number of line items um based upon sometimes Trends based upon contractual obligations things of that nature move those over we met uh a few times to refine that and to um to make sure that uh it was truly a level Services budget in addition um we already have made some tier one cuts to that level Services budget primarily in the form of um things supplies you'll see that I'm going to ask that um that the committee uh please try to hold questions until the end in case we're going to answer those questions as we go along in order to save time and to make sure that we give all of this um budget information the attention that it it it needs and deserves um with the level Services budget I can say that that we make efforts to make sure that we're supporting our students needs we would uh be able to maintain class sizes and student teacher ratios to a certain extent in in many areas um and the level service budget would allow us to continue to try to support the strategy for district Improvement interestingly enough a 2% increase is not going to allow us to do those things even though we're talking about a 2% increase the level service budget as you'll find out is more than 2% and so while these are our goals we recognize that um what we're going to present to you tonight at the 2% in increase that the school committee asked us to prepare is is not going to allow us to do that and it would require um Staffing Cuts as well so uh we have presented to you both a level Services budget which we believe is responsible and appropriate and helps us to serve our students and our communities and we have also presented to you a what potential um a potential 2% increased budget would look like and we also have um we have tiered those uh proposed reductions if in fact we must uh decrease our budget to 2% I going to Y just before you go into it I'm just going to ask one question to have you hopefully answer it as you go along um I previewed this obviously ahead of time um if I understand correctly the level Services budget would constitute an 11 1.5% increase um and if I'm correct about that at some point I'd like you to address um what are the major buckets constituting the 11 1.2% yes we'll do okay that's coming up all right so if you look through the line item budget that I put in the the school committee folder you'll notice that it looks dramatically different from last year um I'm creating a new Silver Lake chart of accounts for a number of Reason reasons one is to be in alignment with the Department of Elementary and secondary education uh chart of accounts the other reason is with a new chart of accounts it'll allow me to fully utilize our financial software and pick out um pick out budget lines based on all sorts of criterias uh criteria based on the the pieces of the account numbers uh this is a multi-step process so I've created we've created the FY 26 budget with the new budget lines that took from October through now I will need to enter the new budget lines into our financial software I expect that to take place in February through May I need to upload the approved budget into the financial software in June and we would go live on July 1st um I started with the principles and directors by uh giving a primer about uh spending money in schools there are six ways a school district can spend money we can spend money on professional salaries clerical salaries and other salaries I apologize that it says custodians in there twice uh other salaries are custodians substitutes Paris things like that um you'll see that there's a line right through the middle of the the list everything above the line is payroll and comes out of the business office everything below the line is accounts payable and so when I spoke to the principes and directors about this I said when you put in budget requests you're budgeting for contracted services for supplies and materials and for other expenditures so these are the only ways that we can spend money as a school district and then the sorry thought I clicked and I didn't click um the other change is the department of Elementary and secondary education chart of accounts has broad categories I spoke about these last Mar I I speak about them whenever I can to you um the broad categories for expenditures are district leadership and administration we call those the 1,000 accounts 2,000s are instructional Services 3,000 are other school Services 4,000 operations and maintenance of physical plant 5,000 are the fixed charges that's where there are um benefits and uh benefits go in so insurance is in there 6000s are Community Services very few school districts in Massachusetts used 6,000 accounts 7,000 are the acquisition Improvement and replacement of fixed assets so that's um generally we would use that for purchases of instructional non-instructional equipment over $5,000 uh the 8,000 accounts are debt retirement we don't use those we don't budget those lines and 9,000 are programs with other schools so it previously in Silver Lake the 9,000 accounts were all of special ed and uh 9,000 accounts are only supposed to be tuitions tuitions paid to other schools and so our FY 26 budget does that um Jill had asked me to add this slide to the presentation for you if you take a look at this there are four uh four different um quadrants on this Slide the top leftand corner is the FY 26 budget broken down by the one by the thousands by those broad categories on the left hand side and across the top by uh whether it's a regular education expense a special education expense or a vocational education expense on the bottom left hand qu quadrant is the fy2 budget set up in that exact same way the top right hand quadrant is the percent increase from FY 26 fy2 to FY 26 and in the bottom right hand quadrant is the amount of the increase from FY 25 to FY 26 so in our preliminary level service budget for FY 26 the substitutes were increased based on our FY 24 actuals the estimate includes uh funds for the building based Subs the Middle School Subs line have been subl lines have been increased by $330,000 and the high school sublines have been increased by $30,000 to match what our past spending has been our utilities were up updated based on a 4-year average the shared costs have been included but have not been voted and homeless Foster Transportation last year Silver Lake spent approximately 24,000 on homeless and Foster Care Transportation so I have put 255,000 in the proposed FY 26 budget so uh a summary the school committee asked for a 2% increase for the Silver Lake Regional School District for FY 26 a 2% increase on the fi25 budget would be 4,564 440 the Silver Lake Regional School District level service budget for FY 26 is $ 4,244 7 I'm sorry $244,700 after deducting anticipated circuit breaker reimbursement of $2.5 million there's a difference of 2,180 343 that the administrative team met numerous times to address and um on the following slides you can see for tier one cuts um the tier one Cuts were $ 15,792 these Cuts have been already made and are reflected in the budget spreadsheet that I uploaded into the um into the school committee packet in the tier one cuts the technology budget was reduced by $50,000 the curriculum budget was reduced $8,750 uh new gym music and art equipment at $3,000 was eliminated from the budget Supply lines were reduced by $14,500 and we reduced some subscriptions by $2,500 keeping in mind in the bottom leftand corner of this slide we're heading towards a 2% increase goal which is $2.18 million in cuts for tier two we eliminated 600 $ 38,40 from the budget in order to do that late buses were eliminated at $3 36,7 180 safe safety supervisor positions were eliminated for $24,000 data coaches $144,000 High School athletic stipend for $331,000 freshman Athletics $60,000 High School extracurricular stien $77 $1,000 Middle School athletic stip $10,600 Middle School extracurricular stiens $1,110 and the athletic trainer contract for [Music] $75,000 if if I may just jump in before you get to the next slide we haven't we have not eliminated them in the budget that's in your folder these are just projected reductions so the budgets in the folder is the level service budget tier three $1,580 this is where you see a reduction in force um on this is four full-time equivalent slea support service positions for $23,000 2300 $230,000 I'm sorry I've been in meeting since 8:30 this morning my brains bride um three full-time equivalent SLE AIDS $70,000 16 FTE Unit A Faculty $975,000 two FTE slaa members $240,000 I put a note at the bottom of this this will require an increase to unemployment which is estimated at up to $144,000 per eligible staff member um this the increase in unemployment costs may be offset by reduction in insurance cost I can't make any um judgments about whether that's going to be a break even or or until I would know who the people are and whether they uh who the people are what they make how much we expect them to get in UN in unemployment and whether they take benefits or not [Music] [Applause] um this is for the special education office in the integrated preschool um we have some decreases that we have cut we have cut uh another full-time teacher a par professional we've taken out all the subscriptions and memberships special education tech support licenses um the figures that go along with those cuts are over there um we do have some professional development facilitators that we have a focus on prek curriculum that we're using which is free from Boston Public Schools but we do need facilitators for that bilingual IEP Services there are some expenses for interpretation and translations for our students that um are elll students as well as our bilingual students whose Heritage language is not English as a Beyond 2% budget request we were asked to put in the neck partnership classroom and also the chair the shared cost for the IEP team chairs realizing that we're in a very tight budget season these are highly unlikely but they're put in mainly for the vision and the strategic planning as we move forward as a district so again I would just reiterate that these are not currently in a level service budget they are just here to show you under different circumstances what we would have recommended so at the middle school um the budget was really slim down last year because of our budget conversation so I don't have many decreases in that area um of course staff salary is the biggest um place where we increase we need an increase in funds we don't have any confirmed retirements which I also know you know makes that line difficult sometimes to balance um but beyond level Services beyond the 2% I do have 10 nine possibly 10 um students coming up in the developmental Learning Center that I do not currently have a classroom for or a another special education student for so those are coming from um the three elementary schools and there would need to be some power professionals to help service those students um and I know that you so blessing gave me you know the option of having my adjustment counselor there for those types of students um for this year um and I would be remiss not to continue to advocate for that person advocate for that person if we do continue sorry you can move the slide if we do continue um with this 2% level service budget um and these tiered cuts are general core classes um that may be increased in class size and also there would be reduction of the team model at the middle school um there could be possibly um a density concern in regards to students special education students in regular education classes and inclusion classes that ratio may be over 50% meaning that there may be more special ed students in those classes than general education students and that is not best practice um there could be possible elimination of course Pathways to the high school especially in regards to World Language if any world language teachers would be um Rift in regards to electives and programming like I said and when I talked about the program of studies there could be a new schedule right now we have eight periods which allows many students all students to have a diverse um program of studies their middle school experience we would have to cut that down probably to seven periods we would have to reduce the course offerings and the class sizes in those types of classes would um increase upwards of 32 25 to 32 students um we also talked about late buses and late night supports that would also be reduced so at the high school much like the middle school we don't have any notable decreases because we cut a significant amount of things from our budget last year that we didn't look to restore this year given the budget uncertainty um there was a little bit of a decrease in our textbook requests um and as anybody who has purchased groceries or any other living expenses in the last several months the cost of goods has just has gone up extraordinarily so athletic expenses related to rentals Transportation officials those prices have gone up and we'll speak later to a recommendation um for some Revenue sources there the cost of General teaching supplies materials subscriptions to programs to support our curriculum as well as organizations for staff development um all of those those prices have increased um if we were looking beyond beyond the 2% um just to give you an idea of the costs of restoring our special education teacher position um something that uh chrisan Ari is recommending at this time and for school committee's request we looked at adding a new program for CT the salary alone would be $85,000 and we haven't even talked about the addition of supplies materials or textbooks to run that program and then within two to three years we'd have to add a second staff member um next slide to try to help paint a little bit of a picture um of what this type of a cut would look like uh because it requires more teaching positions we would not be able to run the eight period schedule as I mentioned earlier tonight we will have less flexibility in scheduling and students May face challenges fitting required or desired courses into their schedules core classes such as math science Ela and social studies must be prioritized which would leave little room for electives special programs or our historically low enrollment courses as a result student schedules become more rigid with fewer choices and less opportunity for personalized Pathways we risk being able to offer advanced classes as there will be limited ability to offer AP or honors courses in order to remain compliant with student IEPs more than 50% of students on a class roster cannot have an IEP as a result we'd have to run more cp1 level courses in Li of AP and honors to ensure we remain in compliance cutting staff will also make it more difficult to support the co-top model we'd see a reduction in extracurricular support fewer teachers would be available to lead or support clubs teams and other after school programs assuming we have the money to run them we would also need to discuss the real possibility of changing local graduation requirements so just to give you an example of this and purely an example there's been no discussion of what's being cut or what would be cut um but we have some graduation requirements in art classes we have graduation requirements in computer classes and if we're not able to run those programs we would have to make a change through our local grad requirements because students are expected to have those in order to get their diploma next slide please Sarah Staffing Cuts would mean fewer class sections can be offered which would lead to overcrowding and additional schedule conflicts the average student to teacher ratio would increase exceeding the optimal learning environments and we would see core content classes at more than 30 students per class we would see reduced individual attention it would be harder to respond to unexpected needs such as accommodating students who need remediation enrichment or intervention there'll be little flexibility to adjust student classes midyear contractually we cannot require teachers to take on more classes or additional duties but the increase to class sizes would limit their nominal time they already have have for planning grading and collaboration existing classes would need to accommodate more students which in many cases can increase the complexity of classroom management differentiation and providing individualized feedback certain courses require teachers with specific certifications staff cuts of this nature could result in not having the certified Personnel to meet our needs so multi-level or multi-grade classes would become necessary affecting the quality of instruction larger class sizes and fewer course options will negatively impact student learning and achievement as well as well as their overall High School experience fewer Advanced or specialized courses will limit opportunities for students to prepare for higher education or specific career paths as an example of what these Cuts would mean on paper if we lost eight teachers at five sections each we'd have up to 160 schedule holes per period that's over a thousand holes in our student schedules over the course of a schedule day at an average of 25 students per section currently students would have multiple directed studies in their schedule because we will not have a class to offer them we wouldn't be able to run electives or the class doesn't fit given the constraints of the schedule not bulleted but worth noting is that the cut to supplies and materials would require some families to provide their own learning supplies and art classes such as paper paint sketchbooks or art sheet music for band lab equipment for science Etc and finally Silver Lake Regional High School would no longer stand stand out as a school of Distinction in our area cuts of this significance would compromise the overall quality of education for our students and the ability for us to retain highly qualified motivated educators I think that's all for my slides so the slide is a a summary of costs beyond the 2% so the level Service uh budget that is in your packet the line item budget these are on the leftand side is a list of things that are not included in there that were asked for tonight and uh so that's the marketing teacher an additional special ed teacher at the high school increasing the adjustment counsel at the middle school to full-time an additional special ed teacher at the middle school and power professionals to accommodate the students coming from sixth grade into 7th also what is not in the the preliminary budget is uh we are putting air conditioning into the middle school and that will incre increase the electric bill by approximately $75,000 I estimate over the course of the year that cost isn't in there because it's a level service budget so that would be an addition you would need to consider if we would like to turn the air conditioning on and uh the $80,000 the8 SRO it's 8 they would be full-time for 10 months out of the 12 months of the year so that's why it's it's point here with us and2 they would be with Kingston so that's a total of $54,000 that would be asked beyond the level service budget that you have in your folders um there are asks for prek and special education of $431,000 for the NECC partnership specialized autism classroom for $155,000 and shared cost team chairs for $276 ,000 and then sh um shared Cost needs and this is a repeat from last year uh finance and operation support of $250,000 we are under resourced in the business office for the four districts that we run and I am asking for an accountant and a school business manager so um our next steps are for you to begin uh reviewing the numbers that we presented with you tonight answer any questions with regards to this pre presentation or the uh budgetary numbers that Sarah has put it in your in your packet um we uh will will also continue to work with safer to review the capital plan priorities um and consider how we are going to engage with Community stakeholders in terms of what budget will the school committee propose and we'll also be looking for you uh for dire is in terms of what uh additional information you may need or next steps that you would like us to take prior to our next school committee meeting can we go back to the uh grid slide page six I think so remind me what constitutes other services the 3,000 the 3,000 lines are um the 3,000 lines are student services which is nursing extracurricular activities um the dramatic increase in the 3,000 lines is because Athletics previously had been budgeted and paid out of an instruction line and so and all of the coaches and all of the extracurricular stipend were paid out of an instruction line they don't belong there they belong in the 3,000 accounts and that's the dramatic increase from fy2 to FY 26 in the 3000s which then is suppressing what the increase in the 2000s line would have looked like if they were done Apples to Apples Apples to Apples are um because they were in the instruction line PR right so Apples to Apples comparisons are extremely difficult with the way the budget was previously done in this District because sometimes even within a budget line there were multiple different things in the line that were unrelated the majority I mean 2000 under regular Ed um a 1.4 in% increase mhm is not close to what the um escalators would be in the teacher contract and the regular kind of other salary contracts correct and so the fact that that is not accurate the ma the vast majority of that money has wound up in 3,000 is what it looks like to me m I agree okay so just for clarity the like I said I kind of wanted the the big buckets um the first big bucket is uh annual increases the second big bucket would be $800,000 in special ed and then the third I would say would be like sundrees kind of everything else ACC can you explain the $800,000 in special ed um where is that number coming from maybe I did the math wrong in my mind the difference between 47 and 54 it's uh let's see the special 2,000 accounts it's the difference between the 4 I'm looking at the 4.3 and the 5.8 and the 5 yeah sorry that's 1.3 right I was looking over the I was I mess up messed up the lines but yeah so that's 1.3 and sorry go ahead Christine so you would want an explanation for that mhm so if we look at the students that are transitioning from grade six to grade 7 who are out of District that makes up 500 about $500,000 which is 11% of the increase that we're looking at and then if we look at the extraordinary pricing increasing that the state has authorized some of those a district schools it's a total of $212,000 which makes up 4% of that difference so we're looking at about 15% of that 177% increase actually being from the kids transitioning from grade six to grade seven as well as the extraordinary increases in special education tuitions by Amigo Cardinal Cushing and Ivy Street when I did the actual dollar for dollar and I use just the 3% um not what the state allows us for a of District tuitions which is 3.67 the actual money that I came up with was a decrease of 31,8 385 if we did not have transitioning students moving up but we do so that number is probably unless we have students transitioning out who are out of district and remember special education students go to gr age 22 that number we can expect to see increasing and that percentage is going to look a little wonky every single year but I can drill it down and let you know that again 500,000 of that is coming from grade six to grade 7 and 212,000 of that is coming from the state's authoriz ation for Extraordinary um higher tuitions ahead thank you thank you for the presentation I guess one of my questions um what have the principles considered in terms of increasing revenues um Sports fees when was the last time the $0000 um per student per year fee was increased um how many students participate in sports because just by math of 800 students if you increase to 150 um dollars would be a substantial increase to um tuition paid in um that might be able to offset some of those increases um not that I'm trying to recommend this on behalf of the committee it's just I think I'm trying to consider how to save some of this and then I think the answer is no but are we able to charge a CTE tuition no thank you we um at our safer meeting earlier tonight we discussed the potential increase to athletic registration fee and user fees U Mr Swanson and I presented the change um Mark was going to talk a little bit about it under his report this evening going to bring you those numbers in our next meeting um and we clarify some of the increased fees to match our fees with uh area towns the an overall increase it the total on the bottom line was $72,000 in Revenue sources from fees assessed to student could be more than that I think it no I actually think it would increase our Revenue by about $50,000 we got a 72 number based on what was presented but we need to finalize those numbers to bring them to the full committee next week okay next month if I may um one other thing I guess kind of tied in with that um and I guess it would have to be something that we'd all have to approve as well but I've heard recently that other schools um allow students that are participating in sports or Athletics to offset that gym requirement and I'm wondering if we did something like that then we'd have an increasing user fees which could offset some of these overall fees so not so Wellness is actually one of our graduation requirements it's it's also a state requirement so there's an actual health and wellness curriculum so it's not just about and and I will say the schools who do it we asked the principales how do you do this and they they just haven't been audited or reprimanded yet oh so yeah it's not it's not so it's possible it's just not legal yes oh get any brother sits her Town's in trouble but if I can jump in um so where I teach we did not we do not have that option but we were handing out gym wavers to kids who wanted to do elect basically like candy and we did get audited and we had to go in the other direction and increase GM moments so I don't want to get in trouble yeah can we add it as an elective after school I mean I know that sounds horrible can we ask our coaches to teach something well because it's not an elective technically they have to take it every year in curriculum and extra that answered like 16 questions in one I'm sorry gym is important health is important how how are other schools doing it that they don't do that but there's a state curric so if you don't get caught there's no ramifications but it's not the right thing to do and I I I couldn't endorse it I mean we just spent 2 years untangling our own problems that were done mistakenly I didn't know it was illegal can't Decades of inappropriate accounting fixed in two it was a good idea come maybe we can apply apply for a waiver from the state I can look into it thanks Amy go ahead um so kind of related to that um I noticed in the tier 2 cuts um a lot of the tier two cuts were related to stiens paid to I'm guessing extracurricular advisers and coaches and so I'm inferring here I could be way off Mark that that means you would be offering fewer Sports after school and fewer extracurriculars but then wouldn't that do the opposite in terms of increased user views if we're not offering these programs correct kids aren going to be paying for it right correct and to clarify that is all of our Sports not just some of them so then we would have to take has that loss of user fees been included in the class wait that all if you go back to I saw 3:31 and then I saw a freshman we separated out freshman from all because we did not know what ultimately the will of the committee would be so we wanted to have that number ready for you so that's saying we would not do sports extra exactly okay or can we get the public extracurricular activities at all that's what that's what slide 10 represents so that's that 3,000 accounts so the 2,000 is is instruction happens Bell to Bell within the school day that's we're a school we do instruction the 3,000 account other than nursing is um is pupil Services I thought there was another hand raised was there another hand raised over there I think it was Sarah oh I just I said it okay um Sarah a handful of clarifying questions that are sort of outside the um bounds here you noted that we don't budget uh debt retirement um can you explain that a little bit cuz we're absolutely paying debt and I think we retire it doesn't come out of the operating budget so we don't Bud we don't budget it as part of the operating budget okay so it's coming out of what theoretically realistic separate account how much is it the the I can get that number for you cuz I believe it's supposed to retire in 27 MH yes okay um and it's paid by the member it comes into us as the part of the assessment from the member towns it goes into an account and we pay it out that's what I remember I'd like to to know what that amount is um what's that what we have left in debt I'd like to know what we're paying I'd like to know what we have left in debt can we Finance the budget $5 million um the second question I had is we uh passed the so-called millionaires tax in Massachusetts allegedly to help the schools so I'm wondering where the money is the governor's budget hasn't come out and the Chapter 70 money hasn't come out so I don't know what um our Chapter 70 funding is I don't I believe we went somewhere around $1 million last year I don't know if it's going to be 11 million you know give or take or 15 or I I don't know so that I expect will be coming out uh to all schools as publicly uh at the end of January and and just another point to make sometimes people say why don't we come out with our budget sooner the reality is is there there Chapter 70 and the governor's budget are are big question marks especially in a year where you're looking at Cuts this steep so I I again just to reiterate and to um remind people the reason why this this the preliminary comes out now is because we don't even have real numbers in many of these areas until January I have one question y go ahead so you've presented the 2% budget and the level service budget and I assume the tiers one two and three are your choices of adding back in no no those are the reductions I I see them as reductions we work backwards to come up with T from the level service budget tier one two and three bring back down to 2% but tier one's already so at the administration we I believe asked to for 2% budget and we added adbs to bring us back in in a prioritized order of what was important what you're saying is that are the teers prioritize so that we bring first like tier three back in then tier two and then tier one or are they and these haven't been reduced yet we'd have to vote to reduce this I I I understand all the voting but I'm waiting for the administration to tell us what they would like to bring back in what order and I just want to understand tier three then basically is the priority of $1.6 million is your priority to bring back first um if we were going to go from the 2% back towards the Lev service budget if I may I believe the reason that tier 2 and I mean disrespectfully is considered the most priority right now is because it includes all of our staffing but I do believe that the school committee has autonomy over these tiers to say we can keep some of the say Athletics but then we would have to eliminate from somewhere else which would mean maybe taking some staffing away to keep things so not that I'm trying to Hur because athletic disappointing I didn't know I'm just saying of $1.6 million uh cut in tier three which would be what should add back I think it probably time to prioritize some of those back in the order that you would bring those back into the budget towards level Sur so umk you would like tier three to be prioritized is that what you're saying what I'm what I'm saying is that I I believe we were asking for things to bring back from Level we start at 2% we work our way back towards level service what would be your order of what you would consider important and I assume I assume that level three were the things you seem most important to bring back but about 1.6 million that's a fre broad spectrum bring back half a million dollars or not that as many teaches whatever and this is probably a thought process that will take more time we again we we don't we would prefer not to um to to do that unless we know that you're going to ask us to actually move forward with that budget because whatever your number is we will work with that but but the reality is is that number influences what can stay and what can go so if you don't have Athletics you don't need a trainer M but if you do have Athletics you do need a trainer so it becomes very difficult without another number for us to give you a prioritized list Dr Brew I think you guys have done a good job with the tier one two three in terms of like Mark just said if if we had all the money that we needed to bring this qu um I think more importantly because we don't have the Chapter 70 and the um other numbers that we're waiting on from the state at the end of the month pardon we never have a complete pict but I mean I know that last year we took our budget all the way into April before approving I don't think that's a good idea for any of the towns this year but I would personally like to hold off on any kind of votes tonight until a the P Public's waited on our public budget hearing on February 12th or 13th and then um also that we get more of a feel from the towns at the meeting on the 16th which is a joint meeting which is also going to be our um shared cost budget to see um if there's feelers out there for an override I think at this point um particularly with the way the Kingston's budget looked the other day and this I mean there would be no doubt that Kingston would need an override to pass any of these budgets this year um and we don't know if we have the support of the select board yet for that to bring something like that to town so we don't know to any unnes so Jean if I'm hearing you correctly you're saying you don't want to vote any direction yet until we've had the public hearing next week the numbers from the state the end of the month and the public weigh in because I do think that um similar to our art classes that are extremely important and our music classes that are extremely important and all of our electives that our say non-academic Learners come to school for and strive to do well in I think there's other kids that only come to school for athletics and I would hate to see an entire program go and kids absolutely hate coming to school school every day I just I don't want to prioritize Athletics over academics but I do think that there's a balance in high school and that's something that's part of culture Jill do you have any response to that on the not taking Direction tonight I I think that um I don't think there's I think that's fine I the only kind of Direction I I do think we do need tonight is if there's particular questions that we didn't answer for you tonight that you want us to present next time I guess would be my caveat like if if you want something in particular please let us know so that we can prepare it so what I would like to know I mean Jean stri we'd like to know what the state money is going to be but I would also like to know what is the that payment yeah I have that for you okay um so the May payment of 2025 for the middle school is $791,000 the May payment for the high school is $1,544 th000 $4 44,800 um in FY 26 I'm sorry in 2026 the May payment for the middle school is $772,000 100$ 72,1 125 the May payment for the high school in 2026 is $1,454 125 in 2027 there is no longer a payment for the middle school in May of 2027 the payment for the high school is $759,900 sorry what was the middle school before so there's 700 from the high school and one and tell me when the high school retires to you uh the High School's final payment is May of 2027 $759,900 have payment okay and the Middle School's retirement then is earlier than that is earlier and how much is their payment uh 72,1 125 in okay so right now we're paying $1.4 million per month for debt that is related to the building of the and the separation and the complex and everything like that okay and it's all gone precisely two years from the end of this fiscal year yes correct okay um and I know that there's some hope of using some slot so to speak of that money to be able to do things like the admin building and other things like that um but that's such a significant amount of money I think that we do have to come forward with all options so one of my questions would be uh are there any are there any possibilities of refinancing it um and possibly lowering it or extending it or something like that or um in lie of it in lie of doing that um you know do we have a way of doing something that is a get you by from for a year 18 months or whatever that keeps us um keeping on with um Athletics and a right-sized faculty it's a good idea bordon I I think I just think you I think you got to research that this is what I'm asking I don't expect speak with the treasurer about re refinancing the debt okay if we're taking a late fee every month what's that if we're taking a late fee every month to kind of defer it a little bit might be cheaper than I mean literally to Jean's point if you didn't pay it for two months we pay it as a lump sum every month oh May every May okay I think the total is about 2.2 million this year between the two is that correct we just don't have to take it so yeah so please explore that that's not something I would like to do I and I would like to um have sort of the core Capital involved for uh Administration and and some other things like that building projects that need to get done but um if we need to do something like rent a space separately or whatever I'm much more interested in programs and people than I am in um facilities so um we are close enough there and it just seems like it would be um utterly ridiculous to be 2 years out from a an increase that sizable of fre to cash and you know not just cut our not off to spite our face but disfigure our whole face entirely I do point out I believe if you're going to change the debt we have to go to all three town meetings get approval for that I mean they all appr but but think of what you're selling I'm not saying it's a problem I'm just it's a process I'm just saying think of what you're selling there we're about to tell the towns uh in an area where nobody wants to talk about raising taxes all right and keep in mind the taxes actually go up every year it's not a matter of them not going up they go up every year they just don't go up sufficiently to cover what we're talking about so if we go to the towns and we say um so uh your kids will have no after school activities they won't have any means of getting home on L buses um they're going to be in 32 people class rooms and um etc etc um or you can pay um an extra x amount or we can you know refinance what is a sliver of debt that is left or do something other with that I mean you know there's the like you could theoretically take a home equity line so to speak you know you could borrow against your theoretical Equity because it's there's equity in the in what you're pain so there are a number of different ways theoretically to do it I mean I'm much more familiar with consumer rules than I am with you know public buildings or something like that but theoretically you should be able to do something like borrow against your Equity or refinance your debt in such a way that you're not having to raise taxes and you meet your budgets and you're not really like hurting yourself terribly um um in not retiring that debt in time the debt was refinanced in 2015 and there were considerable savings at that time um it it's possible legal you know we can do it I will speak to the treasurer when I see him okay I'm sure that the interest rates were amazing and so we were probably able to basically hold um payments at the same level without um and and cut our interest cost so um so yes you could explore that what's that I don't think they were amazing in 2015 I think I think they were probably comparable to right now for interest rates okay there was a significant savings because of the refinance because of the refinance but I'm saying I like Gordon's idea I would second that I would also request that I'm sorry go ahead I was going to move on to something else so oh I was going to say I would um request that the principles look at other sources of revenue if we were to um retain Athletics ways to increase um users or athletes so that there's more fees coming in to offset those um deficits also um perhaps by sport or the annual increase by year so yeah and we'll we'll speak to that I think under Mark's report the recommendation for user fee increases right that and you know you might have to go to the public with you know save Silver Lake Athletics you got to raise $450,000 and uh you know between businesses and people and things like that it's a voluntary tax as opposed to um a required tax which theoretically is more fair but um you know that's the type of thing but we should at least look at what our debt situation is and if there is a way to again and not hurt ourselves in the long term it's a great thing to retire debt but we're just 2 years away from it so it seems crazy not to you know have something to do there all right anything else on this topic Sarah uh the only other thing I was going to say is that we have submitted end to do and I'm just waiting to hear back um hopefully next time we talk e and D will be certified and that will be something that we'll also have on the table in addition to the governor's numbers okay all right we need committee reports so Silver Lake Education Association you up first good evening my name is just drew I'm the president of the Silverlake Education Association over the past decade at least at over the past decade at least the school commit committee has asked our schools to cut faculty and staff positions either through Straight Out Cuts or through the school committee's decision to not fill a position year after year supplies have been cut consumables have been cut programs have been cut textbooks and databases have been cut all to the detriment of our students who no longer have access to these tools that they need to be successful in today's world some examples of areas that have been and will continue to be affected by these proposed Cuts include basic supplies like pencils paper tape and whiteboard markers textbooks Athletics programs clubs and activities research and analytical tools one-on-one support and more our children are directly paying the price while these Cuts have been occurring the school committee and District leaders have also required The Faculty staff and building level administrators to consistently do more with less Implement these new programs with less meet the goals that we have set for you without your input with less score higher with less keep our children safe for Less the slea recognizes that financial resources are finite and yet to ask administrators to see tier three cuts and to simultaneously question the efforts of our staff or the reason why goals are not being met is aedine the slea is also appalled by the fact that the central office is requesting several positions to be added at this time we recognize that there is a shared cost but the office has survived over a decade without these positions and is now and now is absolutely not the time to add them while putting student facing faculty and staff on the chopping block it is not only insensitive but it is out of touch these proposed Cuts have and will continue to gut our schools and our programs destabilizing our children's chances of gaining the skills and the knowledge that they need to be competitive and successful in their Futures proposed Cuts have and will continue to dilute faculty and staff's ability to ensure best practices in the classroom they have and will continue to erode our children's education we're not talking about one year of cuts here we have been asked to cut years year after year after year these there's only so much you can ask us to bleed and there is nothing left our schools cannot sustain staff Cuts especially as our towns continue to grow we are calling for the school committee to step up with their leadership despite there being a tumultuous relationship between the school committee and the teachers union in the past it is time that we collaborate and work together to help the community see that the request of our schools are not outrageous as elected officials please communicate to your constituents that this is not frivolous spending spending that supports education also lowers crime increases property value and has multiple other positive effects on the community please hold the line with the towns and do not let our children down by asking them to attend schools that have been decimated by the cuts that you're asking us to make thank [Applause] you any questions or thoughts or anything from I would Echo Mrs Drew's statements regarding um things that we need to advocate for on behalf of our students um we are elected to the committee to advocate for our students um also to represent the taxpayers but to advocate for our students and I think that um this budget does not do that as Dr crew outlined in her opening statement about it um this budget does not even meet the required needs of our students and as we all know that when we do not provide services that our students need which is why I'm such a firm believer in keeping children busy with Athletics and after school activities then we're going to be pushing children into categories of not wanting to be at school requiring more services requiring perhaps um you know um other services to keep them engaged in the curriculum or to um even want to be here in the first place so it's going to be a higher expense down the road we' be kicking the can down the road and offering our students less and um one of my biggest frustrations during Co was amount of things that our children Lo lost out on that we had zero control over we were told no we were continually told that it was not legal to um the kids didn't even have sports in 2020 um the kids didn't have a high school graduation until August of 2020 thankfully because Mrs Gil provided one many schools did not um and I didn't even have a child in high school during the pandemic and I'm still heartbroken for all the things that those children missed out on and I would hate hate to see something like that happen that we have control over so sorry recognition from the chair yes I would ask the slea to refrain from divisive statements such as out of touch the reality is is that there were lots of positions presented tonight for the school committee to recognize that a level service doesn't even meet our needs when you say things like that you're dividing us and we are one we serve a purpose we also serve the children of this community and without an effective and appropriate and reliable budget those things don't happen so again I'm just asking you to keep that in mind we're not the enemy we don't want to see these Cuts but we don't have control over whether or not people can afford the this education that's out of our hands we need to appeal to the town not by pointing fingers but by explaining to them why we need these materials for the children and why it's important for kids and how it was provided to them it's part of our Democratic Society it's part of what keeps us free no one enjoys paying taxes but is Our obligation to our children to make sure it's done in order to remain free so again I'm going to ask you from the bottom of my heart to please consider that we are asked to present these numbers it doesn't mean that we're happy about it thank you okay um I appreciate what you said um I you know there one or two things I might quible with but I don't think it's worth the quibbling effort the one thing that I really kind of want to warn you about is I don't I don't have a problem making a case that we unitedly stand up and make a case for but I want you to I want you to be realistic about like the temperature in the community that I'm from we tried to pass a very small um adjustment to participate in the uh I don't know what they call it the community something or compact yeah and it was amounted to 80 bucks a I don't know a year or something like that I mean it was an absurdly small number um which with the money that goes into it plus whatever is matched from the state um has like an incredible repayment that would have spared um the community from having to come up with uh funds and things like that for you know when playgrounds go to hell and when uh you know when you've got to do things to up keep the beaches and everything like that and people ried around we not increasing the taxes no matter what and voted it down um I heard from some leadership that they were pleased that the vote was you know like 5446 or something like that or whatever but it wasn't terribly close and they voted it down with all kinds of you know Notions of it's going to be used to shoehorn affordable housing and things like that the town just voted down a redistricting of one area um that already has affordable housing in it and would not have required us to add affordable housing it just would have met the state requirement um it would have met the state requirement for having a district for affordable housing and the town voted it down uh voted to be uh you know out of compliance with the state mandate um which can get the town sued and can cause a loss of Grants and everything like that and the vote was 700 to 7 or something to that effect so changing all those Minds is a battle and um I just want you to be realistic about it I think there's been uh more demonstrable support in Kingston in particular um Halifax is a tough place to sell even a extra point although to counter that extra point for this year's budget I I almost wish that we had that extra percentage in Kingston for this year because it would make a huge difference for this budget so it might it might be beneficial in the short term to not have that yet in the long term absolutely please please have something this year okay um admin review don't know that we have anybody from admin review here Genie and I are on admin review we um we met we met we met on Tuesday we have um we'll be presenting it to the Joint 31 Union committee on the 16th and um on the 13 sorry next week next week next week 6 yes okay CTE no update no update okay I don't have any correspondents to report our legislative agent is not here um anything on negotiations I don't think we have anything active right now um there was no pack meeting this month okay policy we met yesterday and uh at the next meeting we're going to be presenting probably about a dozen policies okay safer uh we just met prior we'll be meeting again that's prior of the uh February 13th meeting um we've made some changes to our agenda try to get materials in um 48 hours prior when the meeting posted um so everybody has time to we presented we've added a business services report and a superintendent's report to our agenda to try to get clarity on the direction Administration would like to take regarding facilities and other related issues um we uh recommended some changes to the facilities uh building use facilities fees to uh an effort to generate some revenue and we'll be presenting those to you on February 13th uh with our refinements we'll discussed right before the meeting we've got um uh we looked at uh the user fees for athletic fields and I mean excuse me for uh Sports um to go up on those so that we're in the middle of the range right now maybe a little higher on the uh on some of the Sports to uh try to recover some revenue and the number we got on the Pres initial presentation was around $70,000 I just like to point out these are pretty low haying fruit but they all do count um for uh Revenue uh stream that could help offset some of the cuts we've got to make in other places it's a shame we can't offer everything free and we can't say to our communities they can all come in and use our school facilities we have to pay janitors custodians rather and uh and maintain and and everything down to the toilet paper so folks uh it's an expense and we have to cover those um going forward um we talked about the Middle School uh HVAC and we are going to put out some more bids to see if we got a cleer for the works that project's scheduled to start over the summer um you know hide and sight's always 2020 but um uh we should have probably Focus some of that hpac money that we're using for Middle School air conditioning uh especially based on what the business manager highlighted her presentation of that $75,000 external electricity uh perhaps to repair some of the units that we have existing that are on their uh 20year stip and and need to be uh replaced um but we are going to get an upgrade in the Middle School um units by putting the AC part in them we are going to get updated uh parts to keep the units up to date um and hopefully get some longevity out of it because those units are also involved in heating which I think is very um talked uh we got adult education did you want to talk about that michaa at all I did not but I can if you'd like me to yes would you that programs uh either in swing or on the way ADR yep so we just recently um not broadcast advertised um our our program of courses for this year's Adult Ed classes they range from knife cutting meal planning and prepping there's some real estate courses raising chickens there's yoga um working with metal fabrication there's a whole host of classes provided um by both staff members and community members some of those classes are free some have a nominal cost to cover supplies there like a wood carving class you can make a little duck or malard for your mantle um um so if you or community members are interested we encourage you to sign up for those courses it's a good opportunity for thank you and U one of those programs not at this time but on the next the future we're looking at John to uh provide some education on how to become a a uh wastewater treatment plant operator which is a high yield job for a lot of folks involves a lot of environmental science um and uh would be a great career choice for our students um and our adults in the community we have a facility here at the high school people probably don't know about it's behind the school that actually is uh set up to teach um in as a classroom and we've got some uh State and outside help looking at bringing a program here to uh Silver Lake that would allow folks to get certified and this could be a revenue maker not a big big item but certainly something basically we have a free classroom that we're not using that's out there that maybe we can use so and um other than that that's all I got from s okay Treasures report yeah that all right we have 19 vendor warrants for a total of 1,514 255 we have uh Middle School and High School activity uh totaling counts totaling a warrants totaling 29576 56 that is the accounts payable at 1 Point uh 1,898 19638 for a total of 3,392 $304 thank you okay okay um Union 31 I mentioned we're meeting on the 16th for the joint U meeting that's also meeting with all three towns um including the town administrators um and we do welcome um finance committee and board selectman to join those meetings so they can be brought up to speak um have you distributed that budget presentation to the towns yet the budget presentations and the line item budgets will be posted on the district website under the department of uh the business department there's a side tab for budgets once the budget is presented to the school committee you get first dibs on it it will then be posted so I'm going to be the Kingston budget and pres the presentation are already posted I'll be posting the Silver Lake budgets tomorrow and I will be posting the Halifax budgets after our meeting next Tuesday and then so if you go on the website the the presentation as well as the line item budgets are there okay thank you um single signature warrants yes hang on um we had a special warrant at the end of December for $16,839.23 motion what's that motion to so uh I'll send us off on uh just say you know I um these are just incredibly difficult discussions I just are what we are contemplating what we're contemplating is incredibly difficult and um you know there's a human aspect of it for all of us all of us have uh you know people directly affect and um I appreciate the Um passion on all sides of it I know everybody's got um really the the best for um kids and community and so forth in mind and um I don't I'm I'm okay with uh you know kind of the intensity of the feeling that folks have and um we're going to do our de best to um make something of it and and see if we can hang on by our fingernails and um get to a better day all right can I get a motion for adjournment so moved second all right a roll call Lucas yes yes Mike Mark yes Amy yes and I'm a yes thank you everyone thank you thanks for thanks for coming out too and spending the time [Music]