like to call the meeting of February 10th, 2026 to order at 11:02. First first thing is the review improve the minutes from January 2nd or January 7th. >> Move to approve.
>> I'll second it. All in favor? I do. We do anything with Henry's vote. Is it like two steps? Okay. >> So, it's just two. >> Um, you're next or do you want to >> I can just quickly talk about 26. So, uh, 14 warrants were signed
electronically since the last meeting totaling $100,685.86. The only item that I want to mention um that I'm keeping an eye on is the utility bill here in the building. So, um, delivery charges are up for
Eversource and our supply usage is also up, which we think is probably attributed to the mini splits. So, the combination of those two things has our bills presenting significantly higher than prior years. So, I'm just watching the budget to make sure we're going to have adequate funds to take care of that.
>> Piggy bank. >> Piggy bank. Yeah. >> Do we use the mini splits for heat? >> No, we're using the building heat. >> Okay. it. >> I didn't know if somebody got cold at >> Well, there have been >> times >> the way that the heat works, that wind
gets good heat and that wind does not. So, there may have been some of those colder mornings where one of the classrooms down there put on the the heat as a as a supplement. >> That's why >> and you can see in the kilowatts used when we look at the um data like you
know late August, September, October the kilowatt usage was higher. November it drops down because we weren't running mini splits, right? So no AC was needed in November. So you can see that significant drop. Um and I think the other side of it is delivery charges are just way up. I mean
I've looked at the bills. We're locked into our kilowatt hours or um cost because we contract. So we put that out to bid, but we can't control the delivery fees. So those are regulated by the state and the feds and Eversource can make changes. >> What is the uh I didn't think about this
ask you earlier, but the gas Is gas gone up or down? >> Um, so >> I know the price is I know the price is going to go up eventually, but the the usage because one of the other thing about the mini splits is is that we can run them through October without firing up the boiler. >> Right. >> So, I didn't know if any of that was
occurring. >> I haven't looked at >> that. Okay. >> The gas consumption here >> um to see if we're down at all. I'll put it on the list of things to take a peek at. We are locked into a rate for that as well, so at least the rate won't fluctuate.
Um, but I can look and see what >> because part of the problem was that we have to fire up the boiler on the cold October days and then by mid morning it's warm outside and then you got to open up the windows. The boiler's been boiling all day long. So hopefully that you we're trying to move away from that. >> I'll take a look and see. Maybe the gas is down and the electricity's up and you
know they'll somewhat offset each other but >> no but I saw western mass gas was going to go up 23% or something like that so next year. So everybody's fighting for that. >> Yeah. >> Terrible. I'll let you continue. >> No, that was all that I had. I just
wanted to make you aware that I was keeping an eye an eye on that expensive house. >> Okay. Principal's report. >> Um, >> since last month. >> Sure. Not a whole lot. We had I had spoken about the Mass Cultural Council grant that we had gotten to bring
Playful Engineers here. Um, so the the man who runs Playful Engineers is Jay Manita and he was here for about two weeks. Um and every class had two sessions, either the morning session or the afternoon session. Um and they
received a little instruction um all things mechanical and then they were set loose to sort of build um artful mechanisms is what it was called. They had kids had a good time and it was a good thing to have in January when we
had several days when we couldn't go outside. Um, on January 2nd, I took all the students kindergarten through grade six up to Jaduk to see the performance of Frozen Jr. This was the first time bringing the
whole school. I wasn't sure how the fifth and sixth graders would um >> behave. >> Well, no, not behave. They they were great. Everyone was great. Just I didn't know if seeing Frozen would be kind of a bummer for them, but um they seem to enjoy it like from the
performance perspective and there's a fifth grader who was in it. So, >> Oh, wow. >> that helped too. >> Wow. Where did you go for that? >> Um, Jaduk Performing Arts Center. >> Okay. >> Um, and because I felt horrible that I was bringing kindergarten through sixth grade and leaving the preschoolers behind, um, it's difficult to take them
on field trips because we get into transportation issue and car seats and all that. So, I brought a puppet show into to school. So, Talking Heads Theater came and put on a puppet show for them here in the library. >> Nice. Um, and lastly, I want to thank Garrett Barry and his team at the Wheatley Highway Department for donating
their time to build a sledding hill for our kids in the in the field across the island. >> That was pretty cool. >> Yeah, >> the kids were up there when I when I pulled in there. They were up there playing. >> Yeah, we don't have a whole lot in the way of hills around here. So, >> yeah, I remember one year the uh when I
was on the uh Lions Club, we bought a dozen [clears throat] slits. I'm not sure if they were plastic. I think there were plastic ones and they would use them on the little hill out the door over there a little bit, but that would be even better over over there now. So, >> yeah. Well, we had a parent who donated
sleds and >> that was sort of what >> Lola was saying, you know, a long time ago they came and they built a hill and like we've got plenty of snow now. So, >> Oh, yeah. >> Garrett came right down and asked what we wanted and the next morning they were here building a mountain.
>> Wow. That's good. Got a lot of snow to build that. >> Yeah. And that's it. >> Okay. Uh public comment. >> Okay. Uh unfinished business.
We'll continue discussion. >> All right. >> I'm sorry. One second. Unfort Did you print the Is this a revised one from the last time? This is new. Did we Wait. Did we print any or? >> No. Okay. >> No. So, I'm gonna email it out to the
group after the meeting and then I will have Raquel print one that you can have for yourself. Do you want a print copy, too? >> That would be great. Thank you. >> Yeah, that's fine. >> Perfect. Thanks. >> Okay. So, some of this is repeat from last month. I'm going to go over what we talked about in January and then we're going to talk about um what the changes
potentially are. Oops. Why isn't it There we go. All right. So, in January, we talked about the level service budget first. So, we're going to review that now. Uh with the level service budget, we're basically taking all of the programming, staffing, and services we
provide to our students in the current year and putting it into the new year to start with. Uh we take into consideration any increased costs that are based on level services, which is primarily related to wages. So any contractual wage obligations as well as
adjustments for non-wage expenditures that we anticipate. Um insurance in particular is going to come up this year as a topic, but also looking at our transportation contracts and things like that to um ensure that we have adequate funding. So that put us at an initial
discussion of 8.96% for level service going into fiscal year 27. You can see the budget total for general fund is 2.4. 4 almost 2.5 million and about $23,000 increase over fiscal year 26. We're
going to break that down a little bit further in the next few slides and take a closer look at what's that that is comprised of. Last month in January, I talked about these expense categories. So, these are classified by Desi. They put each of our expenditures into these
different pots. um this column that says FY26 shows the total of each of those categories from the prior year and then what we're proposing in the new year and then you can see the budget growth here. Um all of these categories with the exception of benefits and insurance has
some type of wage associated with it. Benefits and insurance is exactly what it sounds like. There really shouldn't be any wages there. [clears throat] Looking at that a little bit closer, um non-wage growth presents in the budget, uh which again is about a
$23,000 overall increase. So about 67,000 of that is not wage is not wage related. So $37,000 increase on transportation, which is not actually an increase on our costs outside of our
cola, which is only 2 and a.5% on our current contract. However, when we look at level services, we look at revolving funds and grants. And rural aid is not a stable funding source for us. In the current year of 26, we are using rural aid to help offset our transportation
costs. So, when I do that first pass of the budget, we add that back in as if that funding source didn't exist. The benefits and insurance is a true increase in the new year. So, our health insurance for the town of Wheatley, which is not taken into consideration here, but the town also saw that
increase. Um, and Frontier's insurance went up as of October 1st as well. There was a 20% change and we have budgeted a 20% increase for fiscal year 27. So, these are true costs and it's hitting double in the budget in 27 because it's
unbudgeted in fiscal year 26. So, we're going to have to recoup that money in the current year and then it gets added to the new budget. So, that is an actual increased expenditure. So, the remaining percentage um comes into wages. So, wage growth is about
$100,000 of the 203,000. You can see the breakdown here of non-union to union. So, non-union staff um is anyone that's building base that's not on a contract. So, secretaries, uh, cafeteria, custodial, um, anyone that falls in those sort of hourly positions
and then administrative contracts as well. And that considers anyone who's on a stated contract or anyone who's up for renewal um, to be negotiated. It also includes central office administrators and then your principal in this building. Um so it could be you know
facilities directors taken into consideration IT superintendent business office um principal and so on. On the right hand side of this slide you can see the union increase which is primarily stemming from uh unit A
changes. Uh unit C are down although that's really because we're not taking advantage of an IIA that we added last year. We ended up not needing that extra position. So that's been removed from the budget. um which is why they're seeing a decrease. But you can see the breakdown of the cola. Top step gets 4%
in the new year. Everyone else who's not stepping is seeing 3% plus their step. And then we have teachers who have advanced their degree. So they're going to see column movement which changes their overall percentage increase. All of our IAS are moving up. Uh we added a
new step is 2 and a half and then the step equals 3%. And we did add in $10,000 for summer stipens. Um, I think we talked about this a little bit last month, but just as a quick refresher, Weightley has not had summer programming here at the school in several years.
Students that needed services were going over to Deerfield. That changed this past summer and we did have students and staff on the ground. So, we need to account for that in the new budget year. There's one more piece of the puzzle for Weightley that we've separated out into a different slide and that is our sick
buyback which is a contractual obligation for anyone who's being paid out retirement payments. Um, and that is estimated at about 40,000 for next year. That equals 1.77% of the 8.96 growth that we're seeing.
Historically, the town has funded this type of expenditure under a separate warrant article or with an alternative funding source. When the town was receiving ARPA money which was related to COVID, they helped us in those years pay for this expenditure out of that type of funding. Um, but as a starting
point, we do look at it because if the town didn't have another pot of money to pull that from, uh, we would have to incorporate it and it is technically a school expense. However, they pay for it. It's still a cost for school expenditures. [clears throat]
So, just to bring us back and recap, um about 203,000 over the current year, uh just shy of 9% level service budget increase. Breaking that down, non-wage expense, wage expense, and then that additional 40,000 for sick buyback. So,
that's what's comprising the 8.96. Any questions before I keep going? Great. So we're going to look at our total budget which will include revolving funds and grants and then what the cost to educate based on our current enrollment. So grants and revolving
funds here you can see there's actually demonstrating in this slide a decrease from fiscal year 26 and that is because we're not using rural aid yet in this level service budget. So you can see rural aid is in here at zero. Um whoops I went I had to I don't know if I can go
backwards. Can I Darius? Yes, I can. You've been controlling this for me. So, I know I know I jumped right on. >> Um, [clears throat] so all of the other increases in these funding sources is strictly uh wage related. So, you can
see there's minimal growth in each of the categories. That just accounts for any staff that are paying from those other funding sources and their cola or step increases. So, what does that look like for our total budget? So top line shows general fund, then we have revolving funds, and
then our overall total budget, which is that $2.95 million. Breaking that down per student at 141 students, which does include our school choice enrollment, we're just shy of $21,000 per student on our level service
budget. Next, we're going to talk about principal requests. So each of our principles as part of the budgeting process gets to have input as to new needs or initiatives in the building. Uh the request is minimal at Weightley when you look at the dollar
amount of 12,000, but it's also at the same time a half a percentage point. So it does have some impact on our budget. So uh we are requesting $3,000 additional for the current uh certified occupational therapy assistant to increase OT services for our students.
That bumps that position up from 5 hours a week to seven hours a week, which is one full day. So, it's currently not one full day a week. And then we had a request for $9,000 under general supplies and textbooks, which is primarily consumables. Um, one in part
because of our new curriculum. Um, and then also the cost of supplies is going up. So, we added some increased funds there. Uh, you can see that brought our total budget to 9.49% 49% or almost $215,000 over >> the textbook specific subject area like
replacing >> ELA and math geta >> they've got consumables for both of those. >> All right. So from here the next piece that we're going to talk about are administrative recommendations to reduce the budget. It feels like um 9.49% 49%.
While we have some minimal needs, the level service budget really needed some attention to try to bring down those numbers. Um, we brought in a pretty high budget last year and a little bit high budget the year before, which we're going to review a in a few slides moving
forward. Um, but we felt like to be fiscally responsible and try to balance the town's uh various pots of money and how much the school is being funded with town funds that we wanted to make some recommendations to reduce the budget at this point.
There um reductions that don't have a significant impact on the budget. So, we are recommending applying rural aid. Our rural aid did come down slightly from the prior year, but it's about $32,000, which is over one percentage point. So,
we have added that into the um configuration of our revolving funds and grants. We are recommending that we pull off the $9,000 for curriculum needs that we requested, but that we keep in the 3,000 for KOD because that is student
specific and we need to meet the needs of our IEPs. And then we are recommending that we propose the sick buyback be paid under a separate warrant request by the town. So none [clears throat] of these recommendations at this point have any
changes to um staffing, student services, or programming. It's really just looking at our other pots of money and where we can sort of tighten things up a little bit. So with those changes, it's about a 3% change. So it would bring our general fund budget which still is essentially level service
funded to 5.95% which is about 135,000 over the prior year questions about that. Okay. So next we're going to look at some historical information and then just some uh timelines and things like
that. So historically um outside of 2020 our budgets in the years following that you can see were you [clears throat] know what I think is reasonable that 2.5 to 3.5% um about a 50 to $60,000 increase a year
for the town that felt like you know we were in a good spot. Towns didn't ask us to reduce and we were getting what we needed. >> Um 25 and 26 the story is a little bit different. Uh we had a level service increase in 25 but our transportation
contract went out for bid and renewal and there was significant growth there. So you can see we came out at 5.57% in fiscal year 25. You can see the big jump what that means dollar-wise. Sometimes the dollar dollars are more important to look at than the percentage
um because the town doesn't necessarily have a lot of new revenue growth to help us cover this expense. Last year we went in with a 10.11% budget and it was um supported by the select board and finance committee and did get through annual town meeting. You can see it's
about $28,000 over fiscal year 25. There were many factors attributing here. It was a level service budget. We added an IIA based on anticipated one-to-one needs for students in the building. And then uh in
the prior year we had added a half-time math interventionist position and used esser funding which was available during co uh esser funding closed out and that was no longer available. So that added $40,000 to our budget because we wanted to continue on with that position.
>> How long is the transportation contract for? >> It's a 5-year renewal. Um currently the only growth would be 2 and a half% based on cola. So [clears throat] we won't see that big. >> They did a bump in the first year and then two and a half after that. So we got hit in the first year.
>> Yeah. Wheatly I mean all the elementarymentaries got hit where the high school really didn't get hit with the new transportation. >> I mean we it was significant for us. I mean >> it was significant for [clears throat] pretty much everybody outside of
Frontier. Frontier had >> um [clears throat] >> is there much competition with contracts or >> No. Zero. I was going to say >> one. Yeah. I mean, we put it out, but >> um Grio was the only bid received, >> but to be fair, they are at market
value. So, you know, it's not like they're um we're still less than our northern Franklin County what they're paying per day per bus. >> Um but so when they made a market adjustment, it was a fair market adjustment of what other people are paying in the area. So, um, so they're
not you're not take I don't want to put a bad name out there for them in the sense of that they're not gouging us because they can. They're keeping it at what is reasonable, but their costs are going up and so Okay. Yeah. So, >> I would say it's fair. I mean, we always wanted to be cheaper and make it more
fair for us, but it was a fair overall on their end. >> Yep. [clears throat] >> Um, the next slide and shows you enrollment data. This is just based on projected kindergarten and preschooler estimates. You can see the total there at the bottom, 138, roughly the same
amount of students. We're at 141. We could hit that same number depending on what happens with school choice. So, um, we're seeing, you know, sort of stagnant enrollment, not growth or decline at this point. >> And >> how many how many applications did we get for kindergarten
>> so far? It's early. Um, >> yeah, I I was curious curious. I mean that >> we have um five applications and six anticipated openings for school choice for kindergarten [clears throat]
>> and you know your number is going out I mean it's next year so what's the number going out for school choice? >> Oh for your sixth graders >> to pull that number are we paying for someone >> No what is our sixth graders going out >> eight. So [snorts] we're going to take a
small loss there. No, it's always been my goal to try and >> You try to keep it level. Yeah. >> Yeah, we'll try to keep it level because we really don't want to lose any more school choice um revenue or students, but it'll just be a matter of what other grade levels you get applications for? >> Yeah.
>> You don't have any projections on birth rates and >> survival or anything like that? >> We do. Um >> down the road. So based on the census um we can look and see that there are 12 weight residents who will be eligible to
come to kindergarten. So that's >> for next for next year. >> For next year that's where my um my number of six uh school choice openings comes from. Okay. >> That we wouldn't want to make that class much larger than 18. But
>> but can you look beyond that? Say two years down the road, three years. Do they have that data? >> Yeah. accuracy by the time they they get here is a little bit off. Last year it was quite a bit off. The census um did not include [clears throat] there were five or six surprises. >> Yeah. >> Good surprises.
>> A small number. It wouldn't take much to shift it. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It's exactly that. It just hasn't been dependable because it's the numbers are so small. >> You know what I mean? Like you know when >> a couple feeling go you know they want to go to private or if they you moved in town, moved out of town, you know that
you know we just don't have that. Okay. So, >> all right. So, the last slide uh just is sort of next steps and some reminders. Uh 1% budget increase is almost $23,000.
Uh level service plus principal was 9.49. The reduced budget, which is actually not reducing any programs or staffing, but instead looking at other funding sources for some of our expenditures, brought us down to 5.95. and we will request that sick buyback on
a separate warrant for the town. And then I just listed out future meetings so that you can see what the timeline looks like. And what I will say is that Wheatly has time to make decisions. Um the town did request a meeting with us. Is that just with finance or is it
finance and select board? >> It's joint. Yeah. >> Okay. [clears throat] So that is on the 25th at 5:00 pm at the town office with town officials. >> So we will post that because it's a joint meeting. So we'll post that for you folks as well. So >> technically we are scheduled for the
public hearing on March 7th and then our budget vote on March 26th. However, if we weren't ready for either of those pieces, meetings could be changed and you know we could continue discussion into April given that town meeting is not until June. So that's a hugely beneficial move I think in regards to
the elementary budget for us to have more time um >> between the 7th and the 26th. Is that what you're thinking? more time for >> well I'm just saying if we needed to continue talking in April we could do that we don't have to be set to >> what's when how many days ahead do we
have to put the warrant >> so that's what I was about to say so Dave the way it works in in there sorry but the is that the um whatever you put on the public hearing you can't go up from that number so whatever number we go to public hearing
on in March you can reduce the bud budget actual public hearing, but you can't increase it. That's the way the Massachusetts law works. Or you have to repost the public hearing and have another public hearing. Um, which is, you know, it's a small fee because you got to put in the paper and that kind of stuff. So, it's not the end of the world if we had to do that. But, so we might
go to public hearing with this higher number >> and have basically have the same conversation we just had right now as a public hearing. And then if the town's saying you need to reduce that, then we reduce that afterwards. So, um, but we do have more time. Um when we go into
frontier are you about the Woodies? >> I only to wrap up I just wanted to make sure that everyone um school committee wise was okay with the 5.95% going into the meeting with the town um and the reductions that we've made. So pulling off the 40,000 of the sick buyback to
warrant applying our rural aid and then eliminating the 9,000 for consumables for curriculum and textbooks. It's your budget. So we've made the recommendations. I've done the math, but I want to make sure that we're comfortable with that number. >> Is there any grants out [clears throat]
there for textbooks? >> Yeah, I mean, we're going to look into it. >> Okay. I'm just >> We're always >> If we need them, we, you know, >> Yeah, we It's not as if taking those off means that we're not going to get them. We just have to look at what's available.
>> Okay. Um it is one of those things if you're having a reoccurring expense every year now with a new curriculum it's best to put it in the budget as best practice rather than stealing or depending on those other things but um you know we do have some other pools grant monies that we could use for curriculum stuff you know um that we've
used for other things. So um for example we have a um what am I thinking of rural it's not rural aid it's >> ree which comes from the federal government for rural schools from at the federal level and we usually use that toward PD and then we'll take a couple thousand
out of that PD line from there and then have to change what we're doing for program to pay for those material. So there's other ways of moving it around. It's just it's best practices is put in the budget what you're spending. A >> and alternatively, if we felt like we wanted to make that shift, it is if it is going to be a recurring expense, we
could add the 9,000 back in and present that to >> to the town. >> Yeah. I try to keep that number under six, though. >> That's right. That putting that in [clears throat] >> it will put us over six. So, it'll be like >> 6.02 or 6
08. you know, it's not huge, but I think the, you know, just optics of it, >> the uh 20 uh March 20 Yeah, March 26 meeting, is that just a vote? >> Yeah, >> as it stands right now, yes, it is just
a vote. >> Can we do it? I know Frontier last year, we did it a day apart from our public hearing and voting on the budget. >> So, so Frontier is very different. So, Frontier has to vote the budget 45 days out from the first town meeting. And the
first town meeting is in Sunderland during vacation week. It's the only way I know what week it is. Is that like really? >> Friday of vacation. >> The Friday of vacation week. Um, so it's like the 22nd or something like that. >> 28th, I think. >> Or is it later than that? It's the 24th.
24th. So, we back our budget out. Frontier budget gets backed out 45 days. We put a couple buffer days in and then we made both the hearing and the voting that same week. And that's why we did that. So, >> okay. >> Realistically, what weight could do is
not do a double meeting in the month of March. >> Put it on the >> April. >> April. Well, April is a joint meeting. Um, you could even put on the May agenda, you know, especially if you know, especially if we're in communication with the town that we're not moving it.
You know what I mean? You understand what I'm saying? Like, >> but we won't be do we won't be doing anything different because we already had our public meeting. We can't go up. >> We can always go down, >> right? And so, as they figure out, the more time helps because we start to see
kindergarten enrollment starts to become more real. School choice enrollment starts to become more real. Although those numbers are not going to sometimes we're looking at enrollment, we're like, "Oh, we're going to have to do we have too many or we have to split a class or you know that you know those kind of things." That's not happening in this
budget. So it is >> you're right there's probably no reason to delay. Um but you do have that option is what I'm saying like and the most important thing is that the town knows where we're coming in at. [clears throat] And so after we have this meeting with them in two weeks, you know, we'll be able to see they'll be
able to show us hopefully, you know, what their revenues are. They're not going to look at percentage, they're going to look at their overall costs, right? They will also have Frontier's number at that time. So Frontier is a meeting tonight. You know, obviously Shel and I have, you know, information behind the scenes in the sense of what
we're going to be presenting um to where it could end up. If Frontier ends up to where we're kind of projecting it, Wheatly is not going to get a big hit. So they're going to have I would say an acceptable range for the for the secondary which will help with the
elementary being a slightly higher if that makes sense. But the frontier I mean I can't project I can't give you the numbers because they have to vote that out and they got to approve there's reductions involved and that kind of stuff. So they're going to have to approve that. But um the way it looks is that frontier will
not be um its assessment will not be be so high that it makes the elementary have to offset the is working and vice versa for this community. Other communities are [clears throat] different. So um because the assessment changes from community to community
>> if that makes sense. >> You want to do you have value thin outs? >> Nope. >> Oh I thought I thought something about frontier. I said I was just I was only saying that >> you know again Frontiers tonight and that you know that their assessment could be um you know if if it all they
follow recommendations to move forward on that >> which you'll be a part of um um it should it should help kind of balance out the overall schools budget. >> Sounds good. >> Okay. Some new business. Vote on some
school choice slots spaces. You said six. >> Um, no, six for kindergarten. >> Okay. >> And I think, don't we just vote whether or not we want to? >> So, essentially, so just again to um
keep David up to speed here. So, school school choice in Massachusetts, they require school committee to annually vote to be a school choice school. Okay. Some communities the the uh the uh school committee will get so much and approve what's going to happen, what
grade level. We basically ask for a school choice and then Chrissy gives the presentation of where she sees possibility um but leave some discretion to the principal because we get down to such finite numbers where I got two kids who left you know you know moved out can I
take two more you know so we we say based on the information provided at the discretion of the principal um to create those final numbers um and so and then it goes to a based on the amount of applicants will go to a lottery system um if a lottery system if it's the
demand is higher than the the placements. So um so tonight we are looking so I was going to try to bring up that so they can see that. Um >> do you have it? >> Did you bring it was a part of the packet? >> I don't think so. >> Can you just share it with me right now? Is on your screen?
>> Amy's got it. I'll have her share it. >> Okay. All right. So why don't you just kind of go through then just verbally give kind of an overview of what you're looking at. She shared this with me. >> There's some textbooks right there. That >> is true.
>> Could be used for that. I just sent it to you. >> [clears throat] >> Give me one second. We're moving files around. >> So, last year, um, we had to change our what we thought we were going to be able to accept for kindergarten school choice
because the census was so off, um, that we we ended up not being able to have any school choice in kindergarten. And that hurts because people typically are looking um >> long term. >> Yeah. To to make that um decision for
kindergarten. So they'd stay here throughout. >> Um so kindergarten remains the class that will have the biggest uh school choice openings. Um kindergarten can be tricky
because we also want to account for the level of need within any given class. um which is sort of how we get to the target size. Um first grade has no openings because that's the current kindergarten. Um then
we've got one to two openings in second, third, and fifth and sixth grade. Um the total anticipated would be 10 to 15 for the school. And as Darius mentioned, we've got eight sixth graders who are who are leaving.
Sorry. >> Looking at one screen trying to use my mouse on it. >> Let's get [snorts] on the other one. So, >> so basically what it looks like on the right, we have eight openings probably for school choice. If that if it's 131
and you can do 139 number of kids. Now, that's the target size. And you know, when I was going through this with um >> Amy, we try and keep the lower grades at
18. Um, however, depending on how things shake out in other places, we may go up to 20. It would depend on the particular class and also um whether I'm getting close to that.
>> When do we have to let any of the school choice kids, you know, are they automatically in? If if you had openings, you are they automatically in or do you call them and say, "Yeah, you've been chosen for kindergarten or first grade or whatever grade?"
>> Yeah. So, we'll um the closing for the first round of applications is the last week in March and then we'll be sending out decisions on April 1st. Um [clears throat] what typically happens is if we have a spot and an application
then um the child gets the spot. If we have more applications than spots the PTO comes in and they um pull names. >> The uh and also understand that many school choice folks are choosing multiple elementary schools in our
district in the 38. So, so sometimes there's there's some shifting going around um you know depending on where they're um so they if they don't get picked up here they can maybe they get picked up in Deerfield or you know that >> the four elementary schools send out decisions on the same day. >> We do it on the same day so they we we
don't allow inner fighting. >> Well so so [laughter] a family has all the information right >> they need to make the decision. >> Right. And do they have to get back to you by a certain date too? >> Yes. >> Okay. All right. So, you're looking for a
approved to be a school choice school following those principal's recommendations. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor. >> Okay. Yankee candle donation. Did we hear about this last time? >> Yeah, I thought that was on there last time.
>> So, it was on the report last time, but we hadn't received the check yet. I don't think so. I don't think we voted on it. >> It was in her report. It was not on the agenda. So, it has to be on the agenda for you to formally accept it. So, that's what happened. So, you heard
about it, but and Chrissy gave a thank you at the meeting, but you formally have to accept it as the school. >> How much was it? Four >> 4,000. >> Here's some textbooks. >> Could be. >> Could be. >> So moved. >> Second.
>> All in favor? Okay. And we have policy KIB or K1B. >> KIB. >> Okay. >> So basically we do not have a policy about classroom visitation for non-special education for parents and
guardians. So, um, normally it doesn't happen a lot, but if you know, we would we've been using the special education, um, language for it, but, um, you know, through experience in in another school, we just really need to
have kind of clear guidelines of when parents can visit, how they can visit, how they get set up, and what they're allowed to do in the classroom. And so this policy kind of breaks down um you know it breaks down the
what they should be doing there how their behavior should be there you know they can't record they can't you know you know where they sit in the classroom how often they can do it and that kind of thing. So kind of just basically and I took um you know multiple ones from MASC's which you know policy would be found there and I did a this particular
one is spells it out very clearly because in this particular policy I have a feeling parents would be reading it more than so I took a little bit more time to kind of outline this is what you can and can't do in the classroom should you be observing um >> do all the elementarymentaries have the
same policy or >> exactly okay >> so what h and this is where kind of gets tricky in our district is that. So, I'm bringing this to all >> I'm bringing it to all five committees. If one committee wants to make a change, then I bring it back to all the other five do that kind of stuff. So, um and there's only like one or two in the
whole policy handbook where one school is different than the other. [clears throat] Um but for the most part, unless it's, you know, someone sees something that's why we so this today we're doing a reading. So, if you give me, so let's say you find error, you're like doesn't make sense there. Um you let me know and then I bring it to the next meeting and I say, "Oh, you know, I got feedback.
This the small changes we're making." So, we try to stay consistent across the board. Legally, you don't have to. You can do say, "No, we're going to do something different." But it >> makes operations so much easier. >> Exactly. Exactly. >> Okay. [clears throat] >> I don't have anything. Uh, how about the
collaborative? Anything new there yet? >> Are you the collaborative? >> Do we have you have to do a vote on the first reading or anything? >> No. No. Okay. >> No. So, you just >> Okay. Sorry. So Henry was a collaborative.
>> I don't know. Is Henry the collaborative? >> Well, neither one of you have a report then. He certainly knows. [laughter] >> Yeah, but I'm the guy who's not here. >> Yeah, Henry, [clears throat] how come? >> Um, I can just give you the update there is that they are in negotiations for a
new they've they got down to their finalists and they're in negotiations for a contract for a new um executive director. That's the most I know about because I hear it at all the other meetings. What's going on? >> Do you have anything for us today?
>> Um, nope. >> I don't. >> Okay. Make a motion to journ. >> A second. >> All in favor?