--------- Yeah. And I've got it here. Perfect. We have it just on this. Oh, there it is. And I agree with that. Nine through 12? Sure. Because when I did it, I did it twice. Giving me the choice. I can do the- So I printed it out, but did a quick check. Just eight, Mike? Oh. Yeah. 6:15. Do you want to read all those? I will certainly do it. For school committee. Give some donations to- So then I was on that. Hey, great. Good call. Good call.
Yep. You ready to go? Yep. Where it says- Sure. Him and I were the only school committee members there. Yeah. I just want to make sure you're ready. That's the regulation. It's funny because the people are like, "Oh, there's no school committee members here." And I'm like- Yep. Okay. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome. I'd like to call the special school committee meeting of... What's today? April 6th, 2026 to order. Attendance, Mr. Sullivan.
Jeff Goslin? Here. Jeff Gunther? Here. Kathleen Hillman? Here. Bo Sullivan here. Kick Sullivan? Here. Mike Terrell? Here. Chairman McCabe, absent tonight. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, as is customary at this time, we will open up public participation for anybody in the audience that would like to address the committee for up to three minutes, and we'll open it up for
15 minutes. Would anybody like to address the committee? Seeing none, we'll close public participation, and we'll move on to item number four, the FY27 proposed budget presentation. Mr. Barry. Good evening, school committee. Shannon Barry, Director of Finance, presenting the FY27 proposed budget. So this year, when we looked at our budget priorities, we came up with four. Again, this year, increasing academic achievement. So we will continue to improve our tier one instruction and maintain tier two and three interventions and supports. We want to maintain class sizes, so that goes along with school committee
recommendations, which is grades K through 2, 20 students per class, and grades 3 through 12, 25 students. As you are aware, we are moving some special education programs to 390 Southampton Road. So one of our goals in this budget is to ensure a successful transition for those students. We are moving two classes from Paper Mill, one class from Westfield River, and the whole transition program to 390 Southampton. And again, we're focusing on attendance and continuing to keep high attendance levels.
So when we look at our student enrollment, it has been trending downward. Back in the FY21 school year, we were at 4,931 students. This year, we are at 4,725. That is based on our October reporting to the state. So you can see our students with disabilities number continues to creep up. 26% of our students are students with disabilities. Our high needs students are at 60.1%. And to define high needs, DESE defines that as students that are either low income, English learners or former English learners, or students that
identified for special education services. And our low-income enrollment is 46.9% of our population.So as we develop the budget, there's key considerations to keep in mind. The budget process is a very fluid one, and it reflects our needs at the time and our goals in that moment. So those needs are constantly changing. So we are planning a budget in winter, spring, that is a budget for the following year. A lot of things happen with the school
department budget in between those times. A good example was last year, in August, we had a huge enrollment in kindergarten numbers at Southampton Road School. In August, we had to add a kindergarten teacher that was unbudgeted. And that's just one example. Things happen, students move in, students have changes to their IEPs. Things happen where the budget needs to shift and be constantly changing. When looking at positions and expenses, we always try to prioritize reallocation before we add anything new. So we're constantly looking at what we're budgeting in different categories and
how we can make adjustments based on past spending before we add any new expenditures. And we look at every single line. So as I am creating the budget, I go through every single line. I look at every single employee of the school district's salary, and those are the exact numbers that are entered into the budget. There's no estimating. It's exact numbers going onto each of these lines. And there's no contingencies or buffers built in. So, that becomes an issue if we have students that move in and require a one-to-one paraprofessional. We're not adding five additional paraprofessionals in the budget
with the assumption we may get some children. That's not how we do the budgeting. So those are things that when they happen, we have to try to find ways to be able to fund those positions. Same thing if we have a huge maintenance problem. A couple of years ago, we had a water heater go at the technical academy. That's not an expense our maintenance budget can handle. So those are things we have to find ways to be able to fund. So just in general, when we look at funding the budget, there's the general funds, which is our Chapter 70 aid from the state, and also the contribution the city makes to our budget. There's also special revenue accounts, which as you see, as we go through this
budget, they're a big part of the offsets to our budget. So we have federal grants, we have state grants, and then revolving funds such as circuit breaker, school choice, athletics. The technical academy has a bunch of their own revolving funds for shops. And food service, but food services operates completely outside of the regular school department budget. They have their own budgeting. So just digging a little deeper into Chapter 70, which again is our state aid. The goal of the Chapter 70 formula is to ensure that every district has sufficient resources to meet its foundation budget spending level through an equitable
combination of local property taxes and state aid. So each year, the state creates a foundation budget for each district, which takes into account enrollment factors, programs, and the demographics of the students. Based on that foundation budget, they determine how much each city can contribute to the foundation budget, and then the balance is what we received in Chapter 70 aid. There's a lot of things going around about the Chapter 70 formula this year and some flaws, and I do want to mention them because they specifically impact our district. So one of the enrollment categories in the Chapter 70 formula is special
education and special education tuitioned-out students. So what the state does is use an assumed rate. So they assume for our enrollment that 4% of students in K through 12 are special education and 5% of vocational students are special education. Now, we just saw on the previous slide that 26% of our students are receiving special education services. So while the state has in our foundation budget that we have 187 special education students, and that's the number they used as enrollment, the actual number is
1,249 students. And again, when you look at special education tuitioned-out students, they use an assumed 1%. So for us, that means 40 students, when really this year, what we reported in the October SIMS was 71 students. So you can see when those enrollment factors are part of what is multiplied to create that foundation budget, we're really being shortchanged in our special education numbers. And the other factor I wanted to point out is our preschool students. The state has had a real push to us going to full-day
preschool and has provided some grant resources competitively that we have applied for and received. But they are only crediting us half a student for every preschool student. What? So even though we have full-day preschool students, and we know that cost to educate that student is very similar to any other elementary student, we're only receiving half in the foundation budget for each of those students. So I did want to talk about circuit breaker quickly this year because this is a large budget offset for us, and it's a little complicated. But the whole goal was to help districts with high-cost special
education students. So we're talking about our students that attend out-of-district special education placements. So we can apply for reimbursement for the instructional and tuition costs and also the related out-of-district transportation. So right now we're receiving our FY26 reimbursements. Those are based on our FY25 claims. So we use circuit breaker a year behind. So what we are receiving now in FY26, we'll use to offset the FY27 budget. But it's not just a straight reimbursement where we apply and get all the money back for the
students. So there's a threshold, which in FY25 was $52,419. So while all of the schools we send students to are well above that figure, if you have a student that starts, say, partway through the year and doesn't meet that threshold, you're not going to be able to apply for reimbursement for them.So once you reach the threshold, right now in FY25, the reimbursement rate was 75% of tuition cost, but it was only 61.36% of our out-of-district transportation cost.
Now, the year before, they had funded us at 75%, so this was a decrease in FY25 on what they're giving us back for transportation cost. So again, we're fortunate that we receive a lot of grants due to the hard work of our grants manager. I'm just pointing out some of the major ones that we use to offset the budget. CPPI is our preschool grant. It's a million dollars. It's providing many services that you can see up there, but the main budget offset is salaries for paraprofessionals and teachers in our preschool programs, our full-day preschool
programs. The 240 Special Education grant, again, also provides salaries and special education out-of-district tuition. So those are the major offsets for that grant into the budget. And Title I, we've been fortunate to be able to use Title I for our reading and math interventionists throughout the district. Some are funded through the general fund, but the majority are funded through Title I. And then Title IIA is our professional development grant. So teacher mentoring, other district professional development goes through this grant.
So a school committee member had asked us to look into the potential of implementing a bus fee to help offset the budget. So the law requires us to provide transportation for students in grades K through six that live two miles or more from school. There is no mandate that we have to provide transportation to students in grades seven through 12. So we obviously do. We provide transportation for students seven through 12 who live two miles or more from school, and we actually provide transportation for students K through six that are 1.5 miles or more from school.
So I contacted a fellow business manager in another district who's local, and they have bus fees. So she was able to tell me that their bus fee is $1.50 per day times 180 days, so $270, with a family cap of $540. But anyone who qualifies as a low-income student, their fee would be waived. So I just quickly got ridership numbers from our transportation manager to try to do a quick calculation to see what this would look like for us. So ridership currently in grades seven and eight is about 301
students, in nine through 12, 473. So we're looking at 774 riders. If we remove the students, that's 46.9%, that are low income, we're left with 411 paying students times $270, so we're estimating around $110,970. Now, we have to remember, I didn't dive deep into how many people would have multiple family members and all that. So obviously, if we were going to do a family cap, that number would be lower. I don't know how it would affect ridership if students had to start paying. Are parents going to choose to bring their children
to school instead of putting them on the bus? So it's a consideration, but we also have to realize we would need to hire another staff member in the transportation department to handle the revenue coming in and the follow-up with parents. So I'm not sure if it's as worthwhile as it might seem from the outside. Thank you. So budget drivers. Every year, there's a few predictable reoccurring cost drivers, and it's the same three things I present every single year. So again, increased cost of providing special education services. So through the personnel and expense budgets, $1.9 million in
increases this year for special education services. Contractual increases in both in and out-of-district transportation costs, $773,500... $773,536. And those are rates we're all locked into contractually. And then union contractual increases are a major part of the personnel budget. That's about $2 million. I do want to indicate that does not include Unit B for our assistant principals and supervisors, as that still is in negotiations currently and not resolved. So some budget challenges that we are facing is definitely an
increased difficulty in recruiting staff, especially special education staff. I know you have listened to me throughout the year talk about our contracted services lines for special education. So many of our related service providers for speech and OT are going through a contracted service because we cannot find people to hire in-district, and the contracted services just cost so much more than being able to hire someone on the personnel side. Our annual cost driver budget increases leave no room for growth in general education.
Further reductions to the budget would translate directly into staffing and program impacts. And there is no funding in the budget to support capital projects or larger maintenance needs. This is not new to the FY27 budget, but continues to be a problem. We have a capital plan with no funding to address it. For example, in FY26, I'm able to address some of our maintenance and capital project needs because we didn't end up using all of our regular transportation and in-district special education buses, which left us surplus of funds in those lines.
So I'm able to use it to do some capital projects. But again, we don't have a specific budget set aside for capital projects. So when we look at out-of-district tuitions, you can see the trend has definitely been upward. We were at 49 students in FY21We have 71 this current year, and we are budgeting for 79 students for FY27. And you can see our highest rate for next year is $337,070. So that's our highest student. Our lowest school is $65,610. And
these placements vary. Students can attend some programs that are 180 days. We have other students that are attending 365 residential programs. And then these rates are set by a division called the Operational Services Division. So each year, they set an inflation rate of how much we can expect to see these tuitions going up, and this year it was 3.04%. I do have to say, the programs can file for restructuring, which really impacted us two years ago, and it actually impacted us mid-year this year when we got notified in February for one school and March for another that the
rates were just all of a sudden increasing. So again, this is just a five-year comparison of where we have been and where we are now with our budget. You can see that our personnel budget this year is the main cost driver, going up almost $3 million. Expenses about $354,000. So we're looking at an overall increase to the budget of $3.3 million, and only a fraction of that is coming from Chapter 70 because our increase was under a million dollars this year for Chapter 70 increases. So again, if we look at the overall budget, the proposed
budget is $78,883,443, which is a 4.39% increase from FY26. This graph here is pretty significant, too. As you can see, 70.8% of the budget is personnel and 29.2 is expenses. That has been a shift over the years. We used to have a much higher percentage of personnel in the budget, and it's gone down. And here, this is just the actual count of the different units and the number of members they have. So Unit A is our teachers, our adjustment counselors, our psychologists,
a whole large group of people. And you can see they're obviously the majority of our staffing at 56.3%. Unit B is our supervisors and assistant principals, so they're about 3%. And then Unit D is our paraprofessionals, so 26.1%. Custodians make up another 6.6%. Secretaries... You can't even see that on there. But PSA, the personal service agreements, and non-contract are 4.9%. I think the secretaries were somewhere around 1%, 2%. So there's always a lot of talk through many districts about districts
being top-heavy with administration. So we just saw personal service agreements and non-contract was just 4.9% of our overall staffing, and that's not even all administration. There's personal service agreements and non-contract staff that are not considered administrative. So, when we think about it, it's actually a lower number than 4.9%. But as you can see, this is expenditures per pupil. This is the most recent data from DESE, which was from FY24. But you can see that Westfield's compared to surrounding communities is significantly lower. If you look at Chicopee, they're at
$1,110 per student, and we're spending $444 on administrative cost per student. And even Southwick, that one really stood out to me. Southwick's right next door to us. They're spending $700 per student on administrative cost. And this is just our expense budget laid out as a percent of the overall cost. And as you can see, no surprise, we talk about our cost drivers. The main budget for expenses is transportation and special education on the expense side. So these are the actual budget offsets that I've referred to throughout the presentation, and I just wanted to go through what we
are planning to use as offsets for this year's budget. So, school choice, and just a little background on school choice. We do not receive Chapter 70 funds for the school choice children we take into the district. We receive Chapter 70 funds for the students we actually send out of the district, because those are the students we're fiscally responsible for. So school choice funding is the mechanism where we get funding for the students we're taking in. So for every student that we receive school choice, we receive $5,000. And then if a student has an
IEP, there's an increment that we receive based on the services on a student's IEP grid. So that's really how we're getting school choice money, which is usually about $1.2 million each year. Last year, we used $2 million to offset the budget. In this current budget, we're looking at $1,610,000, and that would be used to offset technology purchases, curriculum materials, contracted services, and salaries. Circuit breaker, which we just discussed, that can only be used to support tuitions for out-of-district students.
So we'll be using all that funding we're receiving in FY26 to offset the FY27 budget. The 240 Grant also allows us to cover out-of-district tuitions there, a portion of them. So we're setting aside for the FY27 grant, $600,000 for that. And then grants in general. Again, we're using the 240 Grant, the Title I grant, the CBBI grant to offset salaries for needed positions.And then finally, prepaid tuitions. You may remember, those who were here last year, that we were
not able to prepay any tuitions when I was presenting the budget for FY26. I am going to be able to gather unused funds from this year to prepay $700,000 of tuitions for next year, which is a huge help in our tuition line. And then finally, so this budget is our budget of need with modifications. We understand, Steph and I have understood the financial situation of the city. And so we did make some reductions to the budget that we are proposing and what all my slides were just based on.
So the additions in this scenario that I just presented is one custodial position, three Unit A positions, two Unit D positions, two Unit B, and one personal service agreement. We would be reducing 9.5 Unit A positions and three Unit B positions. Scenario two is based on the number the mayor has given us that the city-- he is telling us that the city can actually afford, which is the $78,027,093. So in order to reach that number, we would need to reduce an additional 11 Unit A
positions, and take additional funding from school choice to be able to reach that number. And that is all I have for tonight. Thank you. No questions now. Now we pick a date and time for the- Yeah. For the n- Monday the 13th. So in case, for folks at home or folks in the room. Yeah. That's good. So we generally use this meeting as a presentation only. And this is the first time we've been able to see this, as a committee. And we will take our notes and our thoughts here from tonight. And thank you, Ms. Berry, and Superintendent Zaparowski, for your work on this. We will take those notes away and
prepare for a meeting that I believe we're thinking about next week. Next Monday the 13th. At 6:00, at Westfield Technical Academy. That's up to you guys. We were looking for an auditorium. One, two, three. Whose auditorium can we use? Well, so we've used yours, all three of you. Yeah. We haven't used Westfield Tech. That's fine. And given the vote Thursday, I thought it'd be a nice place for you to see. That's fine. Okay. So Monday the 13th of April at 6:00 PM. At WTA. At Westfield Technical Academy in the auditorium. And this will be a meeting of the whole.
Yeah. It usually goes right to finance, but I would like to make the finance committee meeting a meeting of the whole, which means everybody. That being said, is there a motion? I would make... So moved. You just- Second ... made a motion. Motion's been made and seconded by Jeff Gunther. Any discussion on the motion to refer to subcommittee, which will be a meeting of the whole? Seeing none. Mr. Sullivan? Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Moe Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. Is there another motion? Motion to adjourn. Second. Motion has been made and seconded by Ms. Hillman.
Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Seeing none, we are adjourned. Thank you. Part: 2
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the April 6th, regular school committee meeting. Mr. Sullivan. Jeff Goslin. Here. Jeff Guthier. Here. Kathleen Hillman. Here. O. Sullivan, here. Tick Sullivan. Here. Mike Terrell. Here. Chairman McCabe is absent tonight. All right. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. Mr. Chairman, if you'll give me a minute here. Sure. Folks, we do this from time to time, and before we start the meeting, this committee lost a friend in the last few weeks, and I just want to make sure that people know that Chairman Terrell tonight lost his mom a couple of weeks ago. There was many a times where I stood out on a sidewalk, a parking lot, a street corner, whatever you want to call it, holding a
lawn sign right next to Mike's mom, and it was always good luck. There was no "We're going to beat you every time." It was always, "We both can win," right? I was like, "Sure, we both can win." Not on the street, anyway. Well, she may have told you different stories- ... but that's what she always said to me and family members that did that. So I would like to have a moment of silence right now for Mike's mom. Thank you. Thank you. That's incredible. At this point, we will open up public participation, excluding personnel,
for up to 15 minutes, three minutes per person. Is there anybody in the audience that would like to address the committee this evening? Seeing none, we'll close public participation. We'll move on to number four, Westfield Technical Academy student representative. Welcome. Hello, good evening. Hope all of you had a nice Easter. And I'll just get right into it. So in March, WTA students from 11 shops participated in the SkillsUSA district competition against some of the area's best career technical students. SkillsUSA in Massachusetts is the largest chapter
in the nation, with more than 32,000 members. Westfield Tech students earned 31 medals total, which included 15 gold, eight silver, and eight bronze. These students will be competing in the state competition in May in Marlborough. Tiger Pride's restaurant will be closed this week. The students in culinary this week will be competing in the annual Chef Showdown competition. The students pair up and make selected dishes and compete against each other. The graphic art students will conduct interviews and film all the
happenings in the kitchen and when the judges give out their scores. Look for the finished videos to be put up on YouTube to follow along, see who is named top chefs for 2026. Westfield Tech has started MCAS testing. All sophomores have recently completed the two-day English language portion of the state testing. Sophomores will be called on again to complete the math MCAS test in May. Our freshman class is slated to take the science MCAS in June. Now that the winter has passed, it is great to have our athletic teams
able to get outside and start their seasons. Our baseball and softball teams have both gotten into gameplay.Thanks to co-op agreements with Westfield High School, WTA students athletes have joined boys and girls lacrosse, as well as boys and girls tennis. Thanks also goes out to South Lake High School. WTA boys are able to play volleyball for the first time ever as part of that co-op team. Check out the teams' schedules and get out to cheer on our athletes. The junior class has been very busy learning some lifelong lessons.
They recently attended the career fair hosted at Westfield State University. On Wednesday, so this Wednesday, April 18th, they will be attending the Credit for Life event at Westfield High School. The third annual staff rock, paper, scissors tournament has reached the sweet 16. 75 staff signed up this year, and the field has been whittled down to the last 16 contestants. Our defending champion, Ms. Lucranski from the front office, is still live and looking to repeat. Mr. Baquet, our soon-to-be new principal, is the first administrator in the
history of the event to make it out of the first round and is still competing. Officer Turgeon and former Officer Plouffe were both eliminated early on. Applicants for the class of 2030 have closed. WTA recently held our very first admissions lottery. Acceptance letters will be headed out to the 165 students for the ninth grade class that will be entering WTA in the fall of 2026. Once again, there were well over 200 applicants, all wanting to attend Westfield Technical Academy.
Our annual Rob Alari Staff versus Student basketball game was held on March 12th. The game is played mainly as a fundraiser for the scholarship named after our dear friend, Rob Alari. As the age of the staff increases every year, so does the difficulty to being victorious. But despite the aging problem and the sore knees and aching backs, the staff came out as the winner in a tightly contested game. It was by one point, may I add. I wasn't playing in that game. Our ringer, Dr. Morris, will be invited back next year as is...
Okay, I'm just going to skip that. Congratulations to Mr. Wilson, our lead aviation instructor, for being named FAA Technician of the Northeast for 2026. Mr. Wilson is now one of eight folks up for the FAA Technician of the Year for the entire United States. As Westfield Tech enters our last marking period, the students are looking forward to summer. There are many exciting events left in the year, including field trips, shop celebrations, the senior prom, and graduation, just to name a few. WTA continues to have a high attendance rate as
our students keep showing they want to be here. The students would like to thank the school committee for supporting Superintendent Zebrowski in his quest... Sorry if I butchered your name. That's all right. In his quest to build a brand new school for us. Even though our building is quite old, a new building would make WTA an even better place to be. Thank you. Thanks, Jen. Thank you. Item number 5, Mr. Gosselin. I'd like to make a motion to approve the March 16th, 2026, school committee meeting minutes.
Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Seeing none, motion passes. Item number six, we will actually move item number six to a future meeting. As the mayor's not here tonight, we want him to be able to weigh in his thoughts on that item as well. So we'll move past item number six. Go to item number seven. Ms. Hillman. Thank you. The Human Resources and Policy subcommittee of the Westfield School Committee was held on Monday, March 16th, 2026, at 5:00, and we had
seven policies that we discussed. The first one was the IMG, animals in schools, and I'd like to make a motion for a first reading by title only. Motion's been made. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Do we usually do these as a group or do we do them individually? One at a time. One at a time. Okay. Any discussion? Any discussion? Yep. This is a policy that has an update. It's an updated policy. The last time that was updated was Okay. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Ms. Hillman.
The next one is I'd like to make a motion for first reading by title only of file policy INGA, service animals in schools. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Discussion? Yes. This is a new policy, and it refers to all service animals. So it goes into much length about the different animals and how schools approach how we take care of them during the school day. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Seeing none, motion passes. Thank you, Ms. Hillman.
The next one is I'd like to make a motion for a first reading by title only of school policies, file IJL, library material selection and adoptions. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Discussion? This is an updated policy.The last time it was updated was 2014 in MASC vote. During our vote, everybody voted for it. There was only Jeff and myself that was there. So we would like to bring this policy forward with an approval.
Okay. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Item E. The next one is, I would like to bring a motion for a first reading by title only of school policy number file IJLA, Library Resources. And it was all in favor. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Any discussion? This is just a resource policy, so it describes all the resources that the library... And it clarifies the policy. Okay. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Seeing none, motion passes. Item E.
The next one, I'd like to make a motion for a first reading by title only of School Committee Policy file KI, Visitors to the Schools. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Discussion? Yes. This is an updated policy. The last time it was updated was 2019. And we will discuss in following subcommittee, the KFKF and KFR. We do not have these policies, but we hope to adopt them from the MASC policy.
Okay. And everybody was in favor. Okay. Any additional discussion on file KI? Seeing none, all those in favor for item E, file KI? Aye. Opposed? Seeing none, motion passes. The next one is, I'd like to make a motion for a first reading by title only of School Committee Policy file KF, Community Use of School Facilities. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Discussion from someone? This is a new MASC recommendation to adopt this policy, and the committee
voted in favor. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Seeing none, motion passes. And the last one, I would like to table. During the meeting, I brought forth I needed some legal reference, so I went to the lawyer and they gave us a recommendation. So I would like to table it tonight so we could bring it up during a subcommittee meeting to discuss it again. So you will see this policy again. Okay. Motion to table? Second. Okay. Any further discussion?
Can't have any. Can't have it. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? All right. Seeing none, motion passes. Thank you, Ms. Hillman. Number eight, Mr. Sullivan. I'll make a motion for approval of homeschool application number 195 for the 2025/2026 school year. Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Any additional discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. I'd like to make a motion for the approval of Westfield Education Association Unit A teacher's request to voluntarily recognize the athletic trainer as part of the Westfield Education Association Unit A collective bargaining unit.
Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Any discussion? Yeah. We talked about this in executive session. We don't think this is the spot for the athletic trainer to be part of this bargaining unit. We're not saying that the trainer doesn't deserve to have a sit down and conversation about the ramifications of the job, the responsibilities of the job, and obviously the income and salary of the job, but a Unit A bargaining
section is not where this, at least I feel, is where this position stands or should be. There's another way for conversations with HR, the superintendent. There's other remedies for this position besides Unit A. So I will be a no on this, but realize that there will be future conversations between people in the school district about where this one goes and how we can settle this issue so everybody's happy. Further discussion? I would just say for my part, and I would reiterate Mr. Sullivan's comments,
there is an absolute interest in improving the terms of the agreement for this particular position. But like Mr. Sullivan, I do not think it is within Unit A. I think there are other solutions that we can employ here in order to fix the situation. So that's just for my two cents. Any additional discussion? Seeing none, Mr. Sullivan? Jeff Goslin? No. Jeff Gunther? No. Kathleen Hillman? No. Bo Sullivan, no. Kick Sullivan? No. Mike Terrell? No. Item number 10, Dr. Gunther.
I'd like to make a motion to approve the Westfield Education Association Unit D paraprofessionals request to voluntarily recognize the licensed pra- Practical nurses of PN as part of the Westfield Education Association Unit D Collective Bargaining Unit. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Any discussion? This actually will help us fill in nurses using LPNs instead of RNs. I'm going to let you do the technical part of it, but this is something that is really going to help the school district out. Yeah. The way I would frame it is, it's complementary roles,
and many school districts in Western Mass across the state use both RNs and LPNs, and the intent would be to do the same. Not that there wouldn't be RNs in the district, that's not at all what we're saying. But they often can fulfill and meet the needs of students, and working in a complementary fashion. Provides us with flexibility. It does. It really does. Additional discussion? Seeing none. Mr. Sullivan. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan? Abstain. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. Okay. Item number 11, Dr. Gunther. Make a motion to approve the Memorandum of Understanding between Westfield School
Committee and Westfield Education Association, Unit A teachers, regarding an alternate site for certain special education programs opening at 390 Southampton Road in Fall 2026. Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none. Mr. Sullivan. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. Do I need to make a second? I think we have two different- Yeah. Yes. Okay. I'd like to make a motion for the approval of the Memorandum of Understanding between Westfield School Committee and Westfield Education Association, Unit A
teachers, regarding alternate sites for certain special education programs opening at 390 Southampton Road in Fall 2026, regarding one-time bonuses for special education teachers appointed for the 2026/2027 school year. Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Any additional discussion? Seeing none, Mr. Sullivan. Second. Oh, sorry. I think this is very appropriate because a lot of these teachers are going to be moving from one building to another, and they need time to pack up, and they should be paid for the work that they're doing. Additional discussion? Seeing none. Mr. Sullivan.
Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. Item number 12. I'd like to make a motion to approve the Memorandum of Agreement between Westfield School Committee and AFSCME Council 93, Local Number 346, Westfield Clerical Association, to amend Article 18, Section 4, and to authorize the mayor to sign on behalf of the committee. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none, Mr. Sullivan. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Kathleen Hillman?
Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Mike Terrell? Abstain. Oh. Sorry, Cindy. You got caught on that twice. I did. I got caught twice. Number 13. Oh, okay. I'd like to make a motion for a budget transfer in the amount of $122,330.24 from account 56523920-532003, tuition to out-of-state schools, to account 56523910-532001, tuition in-state. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Discussion? So this transfer and the one below it are to move leftover funds in both of those lines to the tuition line
so we can use it to pre-pay tuitions for FY27. Additional questions? We're comfortable with out-of-state tuitions for this year? Yes. So I forecasted everyone out. There's a few students that might be still going, so there's a little buffer in there, so we're good. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Additional discussion? Seeing none. Mr. Sullivan. I just- Oh, sorry. I want to ask the same question on, because I know the transportation has been- Yes ... a little bumpy- Yes ... in terms of forecasting, but we're also feeling similarly confident on the transportation forecast. Yes. I've asked our transportation manager to look and re-look and make sure- ... about 1,000 times now.
Great. So I feel comfortable taking it. Thank you. Anything else? We're glad you feel comfortable. Anything else? Seeing none, Mr. Sullivan. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. I'd like to make a motion for a budget transfer in the amount of $300,000 from account 57223330-533010, special services transportation sped in-district transportation, to account 5653910-532001, tuition in-state. Second. Motion has been made and seconded.
Any further discussion? Seeing none, Mr. Sullivan. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. I'd like to make a motion for the following budget transfer in the amount of $61,995 from account 57284330-533000, regular transportation, pupil transportation, to account 50082750-585001, acquisition of motor vehicles. Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Discussion? So, the next few transfers involve regular
transportation. So again, the funding is available there to transfer because we are not using all of our buses for regular transportation this year. And this purchase is to buy a transit van for WTA. So we purchased one for the high school. WTA is in similar need, so this would allow them to have another new van, too. It'll be getting rid of the last 1998. Yay. We're in this century now. It was a good year. It was a good... Yeah, back then. Obviously. Additional discussion? Seeing none. Mr. Sullivan. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan?
Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. I'd like to make a motion for a budget transfer in the amount of $20,798.77 from account 57284330-533000, Regular Transportation, Pupil Transportation, to account 55482422-540000, Maintenance of Building Supplies. Second. Second. Motion has been made and seconded. So, this purchase is to buy a new orbital scrubber for Westfield High School to replace some seriously old equipment. Any other additional questions?
Pre-1998. Seeing none. Mr. Sullivan? Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. I'd like to make a motion for a budget transfer in the amount of $29,702.73 from account 57284330-533000, Regular Transportation, Pupil Transportation, to account 55482421-540000, Maintenance of Ground Supplies. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Discussion? So, this will be to purchase a snow tractor for the maintenance department, which
will help- Yeah ... with the clearing of sidewalks. Our director of safety and maintenance has indicated that this would be a huge help for his department. So, it's a purchase we are wanting to make. Excellent. Additional discussion? No, I won't do it. Seeing none. Mr. Sullivan? Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. I'd like to make a motion to approve a budget transfer in the amount of $62,503.50 from account 57284330-533000, Regular Transportation, Pupil Transportation, to account
55482422-520000, Maintenance of Building, Other Contract Services. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Discussion? So, this transfer and the one below are both for some projects at the high school that I'm actually very excited about. We are going to repainting all of the lockers within the high school. Oh, yeah. So, if you have seen them recently, they are in rough shape. I think it's going to make a world of difference. It's going to look great. And then we are going to paint the walls in the pool area, which are also in desperate need of a coat of paint.
That's good. What color? I get to pick it. Black and red. Black walls? Black? Black and red, those are the school colors. Okay, we'll talk about it. Any additional discussion? Purple and yellow? Or what? Just don't go mad. Seeing none. Mr. Sullivan. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. I'd like to make a motion for the approval of a budget transfer in the amount of $20,569.46 from account 57284330-548001, Regular Transportation, Gasoline/Diesel, to account
55482422-520000, Maintenance of Building, Other Contract Services. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Additional discussion? Just a question on this one. Sure. And we're sort of previewing all the next thing, I know. But the gasoline diesel, I know we've been good on that all this year. Yes. Is there any concern with the rise? So, I mean, there is concern, but I had him reserve a good chunk of money, $25,000- Okay ... to carry us through the end of the year, guaranteeing that we're probably going to start owing money to- Yep ... Bukrensky, so.
Got it. Thanks. Additional discussion? Seeing none. Mr. Sullivan? Jeff Gunther? Yes. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. Need some water? No. I'd like to thank you for doing all of them one night. Sure. Make the motion for a budget transfer in the amount of $118,657.28 from account 56523232-531000, Special Education, Professional Contractual Services, to account 56523244-531000, Teaching, Other Expenditures, Contractual Services.
Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Any discussion? Okay, this one is just two contract services lines within the Special Education department, and they just need to move funding they have remaining in one contract services line to the line that they're actually going to need to use it in. Okay. Anything from the committee? Seeing none. Mr. Sullivan? Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. I'd like to make a motion for a budget transfer in the amount of $115,044 from account 50081230-514200,
System Negotiation, Longevity, Out of Grade, to account 55482421-520000, Maintenance of Ground, Purchase of Services. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Any discussion? So this funding will be used to mill and pave two of the back parking lots at Westfield Technical Academy that are in really, really rough shape. I had other funding that I used. There's a large tree right outside the building that's doing a lot of damage to the sidewalk that leads to the actual parking lot, and it's my understanding that they
use that as handicap access a lot of the times. So, the branches are just going to continually cause issues, the roots with the paving. So it was recommended that we take the tree out. So we're going to do that, and then we are going to do the paving. Yay. Additional discussion? Seeing none. Mr. Sullivan. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan. Yes. Jeff Goslin. Yes. Jeff Gunther. Yes. Kathleen Hillman. Definitely yes. Mike Tirrell. Yes. I'd like to make a motion for a budget transfer in the amount of $20,000 from account 50029239-511400, professional development substitutes, to account
50029236-510000, professional development payroll. Second. Second. Motion's been made- Kathleen ... and seconded, but I think Ms. Hillman edged out. Oh, by a nudge. Discussion? So this is the funding for the unit A, B, and D professional development lines, and they just need to move funding based on what applications came in and where they need the funding. Additional questions from the committee? Seeing none. Mr. Sullivan. Kick Sullivan. Yes. Jeff Goslin. Yes. Jeff Gunther. Yes. Kathleen Hillman. Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Mike Tirrell. Yes. I'd like to make a motion for a budget transfer amount of $20,277
from account 52723230-511200, senior teaching professional special education full-time teachers. I don't know what that SR stands for. Southampton Road. Huh? Southampton Road. Whatever. To account, teaching professional special education full-time hourly employees, which is account 52723232-511100. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Discussion? So, this is just transfers within the lines at Southampton Road. They hired a registered behavior technician, which was not originally in the budget, so we're moving funding from personnel lines
that's not needed at Southampton Road to cover the position. Anything else from the committee? Seeing none. Mr. Sullivan. Jeff Goslin. Yes. Jeff Gunther. Yes. Kathleen Hillman. Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan. Yes. Mike Tirrell. Yes. I'd like to make a motion for a budget transfer amount of $25,712 from account 52723233-511100, Southampton Road teaching other special education full-time hourly employees, to account 52723232-511100, Southampton Road teaching professional special education full-time hourly employees.
Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Discussion? Same reason. Seeing none. Mr. Sullivan. Jeff Gunther. Yes. Kathleen Hillman. Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan. Yes. Jeff Goslin. Yes. Mike Tirrell. Yes. I'd like to make a motion for a budget transfer amount of $37,926 from account no number. System negotiation longevity out of grade. I can find it if you want me to read it. It's on here. Under- It's up above. The $115,000- Yeah ... one has the number on it. Yeah. 50081230-514200 to account 52772233-511100,
paraprofessional aides full-time hourly employee. Second. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Discussion? And this was a position we needed to hire for the preschool program, a paraprofessional, so we're moving funds to cover that position. Jeff. Is this from the FY26, this 83,000? Was it from FY26? Uh- Oh, we're not on that. No. Are you looking at the one below? That's the next one, Jeff. Yeah. We're on the one above. Oh, okay. Additional questions? No. Seeing none. Mr. Sullivan. Kathleen Hillman. Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan. Yes. Jeff Goslin. Yes. Jeff Gunther. Yes. Mike Tirrell. Yes. I'd like to make a motion for a budget transfer in the amount of $83,801
from account 55623233-511100, Westfield River SPED paraprofessional full-time hourly employees, to account 55623232-5111100, Westfield River special education speech assistant full-time hourly employee. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Any discussion? Same question. So, yeah. So just real quickly, too, the speech assistant line is actually inclusive of RBTs, too. It was named a while ago, and it's not as inclusive as it
needs to be. But it's the correct line where RBTs are charged to. So Principal Phelan at Westfield River decided that she would rather have RBTs versus paraprofessionals, because the RBTs are more skill-trained. So what we did is just take positions that were unfilled in the paras and flipped them over to cover the cost of the RBTs that she preferred. So it's moving from the line where the money was to the line where we need it to pay them. And yes, it's all FY26 funds. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Additional questions? Seeing none. Mr. Sullivan. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan.
Yes. Jeff Goslin. Yes. Jeff Gunther. Yes. Kathleen Hillman. Yes. Mike Tirrell. Yes. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion for the acceptance of the Westfield Public School financial statements as presented. Second. Motion's been made and seconded.Ms. Berry Oh, I'm sorry, did you say discussion? Yeah. Go ahead. And I missed it. Okay. So actually, I really don't have any other further discussion. My whole point with some of the transfers that I was doing this week were to address the issues that I was seeing through the budget that needed to be fixed. So I don't really have any additional comments. Talked enough tonight. Questions from the
committee? I would just like to thank you for doing all this. Mm-hmm. Sure. Because that takes a lot of work figuring out how much is going where, and to make sure we have staff that is the accurate staff for those students. Thank you. I guess the only question I have is, you got what? Three more months with the school year. Do you foresee anything coming down the line that is going to be a bump in the road anywhere? No, I really don't. Special education services do always make me nervous. We have money in the line right now. It's, again, that unknown. If we find out we have to do an
outside evaluation for a student, or something happens and an unplanned kid needs to go to an out-of-district 45-day placement. There's just things that I can't predict that might happen. I'm hoping that we have left enough funding in that line that anything that could come up at this point, we'd have enough money to cover in just the few months left. But that's always an area of concern. Gas and electricity, I feel good. Electricity is coming in right at what we budgeted. Gas, even if there was a fluctuation in pricing, our last estimates were $100,000 lower than what we budgeted.
So, even if we saw them creep up for the last few heating season bills, I'm not concerned because I think we have enough of a buffer there. Good. So any additional... Okay. I was just going to ask, you covered most of them in the transfers, but I know you set a deadline for trying to get things in. Yep. I can't quite track against all the transfers, but do you have a sense of how much will, when we look at this again next month, is still unencumbered after we go through all those transfers? So on the personnel side-
Sorry, on the ex- On the expense side, how much will be left unencumbered? Yeah. I don't- Are we getting pretty close down to zero? Yeah, I don't think very much at all. Yeah. Yeah. Personnel side's a different story, and there's other projects that I would like to do. Since it's only the beginning of April, I'm taking a pause just to make sure no surprises come my way. Got it. Thanks. Anything additional? Seeing none, Mr. Sullivan? Kick Sullivan. Yes. Jeff Goslin. Yes. Jeff Gunther. Yes. Kathleen Hellman. Yes. O. Sullivan, yes. Mike Torell. Yes. Item number 15, Ms. Hellman. Report of the weekly signed warrants. March 13th, 2026, we had 22 batches
totaling $322,887.56. March 20th, 2026, 19 batches totaling $775,441.17. And March 27th, 2026, 21 batches totaling $561,960.68. Thank you, Ms. Hellman. Item 16A. Mr. Sullivan. I'll make the motion to accept the following gift/donations.
Donated to Westfield Public Schools, credit for life gift account from Berkshire Bank in the amount of $1,000. Use, credit for life gift account. Donated to Westfield Public Schools MassHousing from MassHousing $2,000. Use, credit for life gift account. Donated to Westfield Public Schools, East Hampton Savings, $1,100 for the use of Westfield Public Schools' gift account, general purposes. To Westfield Technical Academy, DRT Falcon LLC,
$4,000. Use, aviation gift account, purchase of uniforms. To the Westfield Technical Academy in memory of Gary Turnbull, the following donors and amounts: Titan Roofing Inc., $100, JR Sweeping Service LLC, $100, EV Wright Tool, $200, Anastasios Karathanopoulos, $50, Goodless Electric Co., $25, John and Ann Kudlick, $200, Donna Hackett and Dino Lagodinis, $100, Maple Corner Farm, $100,
Louis Rama and Jodi Belmore, $100, Lori and William Foss, $50, Janice Shewchuk and Alison Vander Laan, $50, Lisa Chapman and James Baldis, $200, Cheryl Panik, $50, Ronald Lamb, $100, Agawam Admin Division Union Dues, $250, Hampden County Farm Bureau, $100, Thomas and Carol Allard, $50, Jay and Evelyn Pelley, $100, Nancy Cannata, $50, Esther and James Wright, $25,
Deborah and Michael Karalis, $75, Linda and Dennis Demaris, $100, Cheryl Turnbull, $50, Robert and Ruth Solik, $25, Michael Pietruszka and Emily Broscot, $50, Community Fair Association of Chester, $100, Hampden County 4-H Youth Fair, $100, Michael and Mary Grimaldi, $25 Cash Turnbull Family, various donors, $100 to the use of Westfield Technical Academy electrical wire and gift account. Second.
Motion's been made and second. Any discussion? Obviously, thank everybody for their donations in memory of Mr. Turnbull. So, he obviously had a lot of friends out there. So, we appreciate everything that everybody steps up and does. The only thing that I had was on that last one, I don't know if you said 100 or 120, but it's 120 on my sheet. Yeah. Other than that, just like to thank all the donors as always. Motion's been made and seconded. Mr. Sullivan? Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Mike Terrell?
Yes. Item 16-B. Is that you? I don't know. Is that you? I'd like to make a motion to accept the Project Lead the Way grant in the amount of $10,000. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Discussion? Welcome. Hello. I'm actually going to turn it over to Christina. Okay. Thank you. Hi, my name is Chrissy Smith. I'm the supervisor of science, technology, and engineering for grades five through 12. And this fall, I submitted an application to the One8 Foundation for an expansion grant for our
engineering manufacturing pathway at Westfield High School. So, that application was accepted. They've awarded us $10,000, which will allow us to provide professional development for John Rimas, our teacher, who's going to get trained in this course. You have the course resume there that tells you a little bit about it. So, Computer Integrated Manufacturing is the final course to complete our engineering manufacturing innovation career pathway. So, it's not the course that kids will take last. They'll take it junior year, but it's the last piece of the puzzle to
complete the four-year program. Nice. All right. Well done. Any questions? No. Well done. Seeing none. Mr. Sullivan. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. Nice job. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to accept the Investigating History Magnify grants in the amount of $47,800, allocated as follows: Highland $12,300, Munger Hill $8,500, Paper Mill $9,100, Southampton Road School $8,800, Westfield River $9,100.
Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Discussion? So, these grants are actually three-year grants, and the amounts listed are the total amount over the course of the three years. These funds are going to be used to further expand and implement our Investigating History curriculum and provide PD and resources for our teachers. Nice. Questions? Just one quick question. How do they arrive at the individual numbers for each school? There's a formula with the number of students and the teachers- Okay ... and the programming that we do. I don't know if Susan has- So, it's a weighted number somehow. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anything else? Seeing none, Mr. Sullivan. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. Nice job. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to accept the Investigating History Magnify grants in the amount of $47,800, allocated as follows: Highland $12,300, Munger Hill $8,500, Paper Mill $9,100, Southampton Road School $8,800, Westfield River $9,100. Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Discussion? So, these grants are actually three-year grants, and the amounts listed are the total amount over the course of the three years. These funds are going to be used to further expand and implement our Investigating History curriculum and provide PD and resources for our teachers. Nice. Questions? Just one quick question. How do they arrive at the individual numbers for each school? There's a formula with the number of students and the teachers- Okay ... and the programming that we do. I don't know if Susan has- So, it's a weighted number somehow. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anything else? Seeing none, Mr. Sullivan. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan?
Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. Nice job. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to accept the Investigating History Magnify grants in the amount of $47,800, allocated as follows: Highland $12,300, Munger Hill $8,500, Paper Mill $9,100, Southampton Road School $8,800, Westfield River $9,100. Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Discussion? So, these grants are actually three-year grants, and the amounts listed are the total amount over the course of the three years. These funds are going to be used to further expand and implement our Investigating History curriculum and provide PD and resources for our teachers. Nice. Questions? Just one quick question. How do they arrive at the individual numbers for each school? There's a formula with the number of students and the teachers-
Okay ... and the programming that we do. I don't know if Susan has-
So, it's a weighted number somehow. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anything else?
Seeing none, Mr. Sullivan. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. Nice job. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to accept the Investigating History Magnify grants in the amount of $47,800, allocated as follows: Highland $12,300, Munger Hill $8,500, Paper Mill $9,100, Southampton Road School $8,800, Westfield River $9,100. Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Discussion? So, these grants are actually three-year grants, and the amounts listed are the total amount over the course of the three years. These funds are going to be used to further expand and implement our Investigating History curriculum and provide PD and resources for our teachers. Nice. Questions? Just one quick question. How do they arrive at the individual numbers for each school? There's a formula with the number of students and the teachers- Okay ... and the programming that we do. I don't know if Susan has- So, it's a weighted number somehow. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anything else? Seeing none, Mr. Sullivan. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. Nice job. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to accept the Investigating History Magnify grants in the amount of $47,800, allocated as follows: Highland $12,300, Munger Hill $8,500, Paper Mill $9,100, Southampton Road School $8,800, Westfield River $9,100. Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Discussion? So, these grants are actually three-year grants, and the amounts listed are the total amount over the course of the three years. These funds are going to be used to further expand and implement our Investigating History curriculum and provide PD and resources for our teachers. Nice. Questions? Just one quick question. How do they arrive at the individual numbers for each school? There's a formula with the number of students and the teachers- Okay ... and the programming that we do. I don't know if Susan has- So, it's a weighted number somehow. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anything else? Seeing none, Mr. Sullivan. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. Nice job. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to accept the Investigating History Magnify grants in the amount of $47,800, allocated as follows: Highland $12,300, Munger Hill $8,500, Paper Mill $9,100, Southampton Road School $8,800, Westfield River $9,100. Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Discussion? So, these grants are actually three-year grants, and the amounts listed are the total amount over the course of the three years. These funds are going to be used to further expand and implement our Investigating History curriculum and provide PD and resources for our teachers. Nice. Questions? Just one quick question. How do they arrive at the individual numbers for each school? There's a formula with the number of students and the teachers- Okay ... and the programming that we do. I don't know if Susan has- So, it's a weighted number somehow. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anything else? Seeing none, Mr. Sullivan. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. Nice job. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to accept the Investigating History Magnify grants in the amount of $47,800, allocated as follows: Highland $12,300, Munger Hill $8,500, Paper Mill $9,100, Southampton Road School $8,800, Westfield River $9,100. Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Discussion? So, these grants are actually three-year grants, and the amounts listed are the total amount over the course of the three years. These funds are going to be used to further expand and implement our Investigating History curriculum and provide PD and resources for our teachers. Nice. Questions? Just one quick question. How do they arrive at the individual numbers for each school? There's a formula with the number of students and the teachers- Okay ... and the programming that we do. I don't know if Susan has- So, it's a weighted number somehow. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anything else? Seeing none, Mr. Sullivan. Kathleen Hillman? Yes. Bo Sullivan, yes. Kick Sullivan? Yes. Jeff Goslin? Yes. Jeff Gunther? Yes. Mike Terrell? Yes. Nice job. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to accept the Investigating History Magnify grants in the amount of $47,800, allocated as follows: Highland $12,300, Munger Hill $8,500, Paper Mill $9,100, Southampton Road School $8,800, Westfield River $9,100. Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Discussion? So, these grants are actually three-year grants, and the amounts listed are the total amount over the course of the three years. These funds are going to be used to further expand and implement our Investigating History curriculum and provide PD and resources for our teachers. Nice. Questions? Just one quick question. How do they arrive at the individual numbers for each school? There's a formula with the number of students and the teachers- Okay ... and the programming that we do. I don't know if Susan has- So, it's a weighted number somehow. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anything else? Saturday from 10:00 to 2:00, and Bandtastic starts at 1:00. But if you want a good seat, I would get there at 12:30. It's just my advice. Got it. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Item 17, mayor is not in attendance tonight. We will skip that. Item number 18, school committee update. Mr. Sullivan. I just want to
piggyback what the superintendent said about the city council meeting. Ms. Hillman and I were also in attendance with the superintendent, and the finance director, and everybody else- The whole crew. Yeah ... on the coaching that was there. Thank you for being there. But I appreciate what the council did. They had very good comments. They had very good questions, and like the superintendent said, this is the, I guess, second step in a long process. Getting it in and then finding out what they say next is where we'll be. But I appreciate everything that the superintendent did that night,
answering all the questions and making sure everybody knew what this vote meant, to the Tech Academy, to the city of Westfield, and to the public schools here in the city of Westfield. As you know, where I stand on this is that that building needs to be replaced last year. But, I appreciate everybody here who voted and everybody that was on the council. So far we're undefeated. What are we? 19 and 0? Yeah. Which is great. So onward and upward. Anybody else? Ms. Hillman. It was just so nice to see the city councilors being so supportive of our public schools and our students. It was fantastic.
I even got up and cheered. She did. She did. Yeah. She did. Anybody else? Mr. Sullivan. I'd like to make a motion, a formal declaration of opposition to the establishment of a 40-bed re-entry facility by Community Resource for Justice, CRJ, at the proposed location of 182-184 Southampton Road. The grounds for the opposition are safety and proximity to schools. Proposed site is less than 1,000 feet from Southampton Road Elementary School, Westfield Intermediate School, and proposed additional Westfield Public School classrooms to be located in the current Head Start building. Placement of a residential re-entry facility for formal inmates in
such close proximity to vulnerable student populations presents an unacceptable safety risk. The two, the lack of transparency. CRJ has failed to engage in proactive, meaningful communication with the Westfield community or local law enforcement prior to securing a five-year lease. Three, inappropriate site characterization. Facilities being cited as educational to trigger Dover amendment protections. I contend that the primary use of facility is high density residential corrections, which should not bypass local municipal oversight. Four, burden on Westfield Police force and Westfield Public Schools.
Both agencies would have to spend additional unbudgeted dollars to employ increased surveillance and security measures at the expense of taxpayers for the city of Westfield unaided by the CRJ. I would like to request the Mass Probation Service and CRJ immediately suspend all renovations and plans to open at this location. Two, initiate a formal site reevaluation to identify alternate locations further removed from school zones. And three, host a mandatory series of public forums to address specific security protocols and resident concerns. Second. Motion has been made and seconded.
Any additional discussion? Mr. Cupit. I'll share. I appreciate Mr. Sullivan bringing this here, and all those members of the public that we've heard from around this. I think the lack of transparency particularly resonates with me. I'm interested in making sure that the community's able to support this sort of a facility in an appropriate location, and the fact that so many of us on the school committee continue to have questions. I know I personally have a bunch of questions about this, and wish we'd been deeper engaged. And so would support this for primarily the transparency
reason in particular. Any additional discussion? I think we should say that, although I appreciate the motion, I agree with the motion, I will vote in favor of the motion. This is a non-binding vote. It just shows that we as a school committee, and I believe farther out as a school department, think that this is a terrible spot to put this. It is way too close, as Mr. Sullivan said, to two existing schools and a third program that is gonna be right next door. So I appreciate the motion being made.
Like I said, I will be in favor of the motion, but just so everybody knows, it's not like this is gonna end because we say it should end. That's out of our pay grade, and we'll move forward with that too. But again, I'll be a yes on the motion. Ms. Hillman. I will also be in favor of yes. I attended the information meeting, and I felt like the people who were presenting really were in self-interest and not looking out for our community. And I also attended one day when they were demonstrating up there, so I wanted to show my support in
opposition to this facility going in. Thank you. Mr. Sullivan. Yeah, I just wanted to add, to further piggyback on some of the comments. The reason I made the motion, obviously non-binding in nature, but just to vocalize, I myself attended the information meeting. My wife and three children attended the first protest. I attended the second protest. I just wanted to bring these concerns to light and help further the discussions. Additional discussion?I would just like to say thank you for putting this together. I think you captured it very well. Reiterate Mr.
Sullivan's comments about this being obviously a non-binding motion, but certainly a vote in support of the opposition for the project. Okay. Do we need a roll call for this, Mr. Sullivan? If everybody wants to have their voice heard, I would do a roll call. Yeah. Okay, let's call the roll. Jeff Goslin. Yes. Jeff Gunther. Yes. Kathleen Hillman. Yes. Bo Sullivan. Yes. Kick Sullivan. Yes. Mike Terrell. Yes. Thank you. Yes. What are you now, the mayor? Item 19- Just wanted to get it out there ... subcommittee reports and recommendations. We have no reports. Minutes for human resources and policy, Ms. Hillman.
I'd like to make a motion to accept the minutes of the human resource and policy subcommittee meeting that took place on March 16th, Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Seeing none, motion passes. The next regular school committee meeting will be held May 4th, 2026. However, there will be a special meeting of the school committee next Monday, April 13th at 6:00 PM at the Westfield Technical Academy. Budget meeting. For the budget, yeah. Right. To discuss the budget. So I got all the relevant items except
the most important. Motion to adjourn. Motion has been made to adjourn. Second. And seconded by Ms. Hillman. Assuming there's no discussion, all those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Motion passes. Thank you. Nice job, Mike. Thank you