like to call the weight Le school committee to order on February 4th 2025 first thing on the agenda is to approve the minutes from January 8th I move to approve the minutes from January
8th I will second it all in favor um my initial statement okay um eight warrants were signed electronically since the last meeting totaling six 8,663 57 the only thing I want to point out on
the extens reports series that's in the message to you all about this already but we did have um an unforeseen expenditure with the fire panel um the total replacement with like some electrical work the panel itself and then some construction type work we had
to do was just slightly over $99,000 so if you look at the building General repairs line right now it's over by 4,400 um not concerned at this point because we do have funds remaining in the budget to cover that but it is an unforeseen expenditure that did need a good chunk
of our budget so I just wanted to get that publicly known and I do not have anything else on this here unless someone has a question um do we remember the last time that panel was
replaced mention are differ I think I thought we changed it when we when Ralph was still here um there was problems and I thought we replaced it because it wasn't compliant to the
standards that it was and I'm just you know I'm not PR okay I'm just I'm just asking out that was my that that was my only question and the only thing I want to say is that we are the blinking of the computer screen is
um we don't know why it's going sorry for viewers at you you're in trouble with the I think it's me actually yeah Hing on here chissy what do you have for us uh not a whole lot um some field trips grade five
students from weighty and Conway went to Smith college and visited the art museum and Botanical Gardens and when they came back the thing that most impressed them all were the bathrooms the artist design ones in the basement of the AR Museum yes yeah they are aight to be but it took me a minute
to get two three and four went to juk to see a production of Lion King Jor there are three weightly students who were in the performance congratulations toan ches s Ashman and cl pilly out standing performance I'd also like to commend our students for
being such engaged and respectful audience grades two and four went to with the neski Museum of Natural History at amush college and an upcoming event I Terry Anderson who retired from here last year um is currently in Tanzania spending time at theant sa
which is the school we partner with for um virtual educational exchanges and the fundraising R do is for assant S the proceeds of our annual spring plant Sor donated door and a Been instrumental purchasing furniture and technology for the school this Friday our students in
grades 46 will be having a video call with students at a Sant s students on both sides of the exchange have been working on activities under the theme of sh during the call and Terry's over there to she'll be yeah on her so that's
kind of cool taking to Tanzania it's not gonna take a big and that's it what kind of money are we talking about when we donate money to them um okay you know people are very
generous you know you get a plan you do some money and um it's great because the kids have been able to see what whates we put in some work we earned some money we donated it and this is what it buys and in this world it's
hard for kids to see that connection between donating money and what it do for so kind of a kind of a big deal and all over there campus are weightly banners and their Furniture says on it
don't wow that'd be interesting Terry comes back is she gonna come back and talk to the kids at all probably yeah she just came off of safari and then she retirement anybody have any
questions uh public comment okay um I'm Sally rice the building representative for the um Union 38 Educators Association and um I've been asked to read a statement um so it starts with um a quote from the
National Association president Becky Pringle um a statement that she made about uh reported executive actions that hurt students public schools and communities and she says most Americans believe that every student deserves opportunity resources and support to
reach their full potential no matter where they live the color of their skin or how much their family earns parents and Educators agree our students need more learning opportunities not less they need smaller class sizes to get more individualized attention they need
nutritious School meals so that they can pay attention in class rather than um to their stomachs and they need access to mental health supports they need to be respected for who they are no matter their race Place background sexual orientation or gender identity and our
students need to learn the good and bad of our history to be prepared to succeed in our diverse and interdependent world um the next quote comes from Max um MTA president Max page and vice president Deb McCarthy this is their statement
they say we condemn in the strongest possible terms the directive that would allow ice agents to raid and arrest students in our Public Schools it is repulsive to our shared common values and this cruel policy shatters the trust that families place in our Educators and
our Public Schools as safe havens and inflicts Lasting trauma on innocent children as Educators we stand in solidarity with immigrant Advocates Community allies and all who fight for justice and Humanity we will fight against this policy with every tool and
our at our disposal and remain committed to ensure our public schools are spaces of learning belonging and safety for all students Darius Modesto um our superintendent released two statements regarding immigrant immigration policies and revisions to Title Nine or
challenges to lgbtq plus rights um Union 38 Educators Association fully supports all of these statements that have been made and appreciates that our superintendent sent these out to ensure that our students are supported and protected we know that not all
superintendents have come out with statements supporting these marginalized communities and we feel fortunate to be in a district and community that values all of its members thank you thank you do you you could share with me you can have it it's
on my computer vir like digitally you would like it digitally that' be awesome I cop ande thank you so much um I guess it's time to talk about the budget again all right are you up for it I'm ready let's talk about it I'm
gonna share my screen I'm on week three of coughing so I will try not to do that all right what it is it's not blinking meaning like so I'm watching onl now it's not BL so people so it's
the interface between the the camera I've seen The Matrix okay so uh this is a little bit longer and more detailed report that I provided for you although the information is the same as last month um I am giving you a draft one which is the
January draft compared to where we are today um and then we'll talk about next steps moving forward how we continue to make progress on the budget because as we go through this you will will see that we are still at a higher than typical level and likely higher than um
the town can afford to fund this year so um let's talk about the starting point so 1% general fund budget increase is just over $20,000 um and one of our most significant challenges this fiscal year is the deficit in Grant and revolving
funds which led to almost a 3% increase before we applied any salary increases or non wage expense adjustments so almost 3% with just those two factors is really a hard hit for a small school to take um and as a reminder the reason
that we're in that spot uh is because we did use $40,000 of Esser funds to help offset the general fund last year Esser is no longer available but the expenses remain so we moved them onto Esser off of general fund last year and now we're putting them back so that's starting us
off in a $40,000 deficit um and then we're going to talk about Early Childhood a little bit so the revolving fund has experienced a revenue shortfall and recent years uh that is due to Rising student uh resident needs um I want to make that
really clear it's not because of any students that are coming from outside the district uh we occasionally although I don't think weightly does that some of our other schools do take residents from outside of the community um but this is for Resident student needs so when that
happens um early interventions are really great our students need them they help us keep those children moving through the levels um and and a lot of times prevent out of District placements but it results in fewer families paying tuition because we're providing free services for special education needs so
uh revenues have gone down but expenses have not changed you know we haven't we don't have a decrease in Revenue because we have less kids so we still need the same Staffing we still have the same expenditures um I'm going to show you a chart that outlines that just so that we can have a little bit more detail there
but ultimately it was a net uh change of $22,000 that we transferred from the early childhood revolving fund over to the general fund um we don't have to get into great detail here but what I did want to show you in this chart is that
you can see back in 2019 our tuition Revenue was almost $94,000 our expenses were slightly less and we were building up our reserves 2020 hit uh programs changed dramatically especially in 21 we had
very limited population that we were charging tuition for yet we again still had to maintain our expenses so you can see in 21 our end ofe balance we nearly ate up our entire Surplus we had talked about this at the time it's something we did districtwide everyone's funds sort
of look this way too soing for tuition we weren't here yeah um from there you can see Revenue comes back up slightly but not entirely so 22 when programs after covid were
starting to really get back into shape we went from you know 93,000 just prior years before to 67,000 and that really has been maintained if you look at the um next two years of actuals and then the 25 and 26 projections our revenues
really are not getting above that 60 $65,000 Mark yet our expenses are are staying pretty consistent um the growth and expenses just to point out from you know here for example in 23 to 24 25 that is only salary increases for
whatever staff we're paying out of there so it's not like we've added expenses it's just the counting for the COA growth of any staff members that are paid from this fund so you can see here in 25 what this projection by the end of the year we're only projecting right now
to have about $1,000 left at the end of the year that's not a huge concern unless something comes up where we have an out of District placement that suddenly we have to fund which would really be a much larger problem um we probably wouldn't quite have enough to fund that even if we had $50,000 in this
fund however with $ 11,000 remaining and 62 coming in we can't continue to fund 880,000 in expenditures which is where the $22,000 adjustment is coming in so you can see I'm recommending dropping in 25 from 880,000 to
58,000 for revolving fund expense which gives us about 15,000 at the end of next year I ask a question about the tuition I know you said uh it's partially due to you know kids coming in who need services and they're not paying tuition I understand that but when you look at
you know $330,000 difference between now and back in 2019 like how many kids does that account for um I don't have those details in front of me but I can tell you that we did look really closely at it when 22 came back uh around and we
were only seeing that 65 66,000 Mark um there may be a few less kids in the program which is often also a result of having kids with more needs you know you try to balance your classroom out but you only have so many resources within the program and stuff so I can get some
more details on that and we can look at enrollment numbers yeah I think that' be good that's just a huge I mean it's probably if it were a full paying student um let me look up what it w if you had a Fed day kid
that was full day for five days I know Fridays are still half days right but they would be considered um still a full day kid I think the tuition is like $99,000 if you're full pay um for five days um so you could only be looking at
you know three or four kids potentially full yeah um but I'll take a closer look at the numbers with Kim again and then I can follow up with you guys so uh we're really at a point where you know this isn't something that we can um
negotiate we still need the Staffing we have to cover the expenditure so the only option is to move it to another funding source that funding source happens to be the general fund because weit doesn't have um you know any other special education accounts they do have school choice but those numbers are also
dwindling which we're going to continue to talk about as well so that gives you some details on where that $22,000 shift is coming from any other questions before I keep going okay the other thing to keep in mind that people might not know is that if students who have have
special needs don't come to school here because they're not yet school age um we still have to provide services so even if they didn't come to our preva this they're still entitled to the services so I just think it's a important pie of information I don't think a lot of
people know that um so if they go to a Private Preschool you're saying Private Preschool or no preschool miss a lot of lot of friends that come in from other places to getes spe
so all right so uh other level service expenditures um are included in the next chart so we talked about the Esser adjustment already we talked about the Early Childhood adjustment in draft one we talked about weight lease sick
buyback retirement expense for next year um which will be paid out in July that's roughly $660,000 that was presented in draft one at level Services we have taken it off because we're going to propose that we request that the town pay for that under separate warrant
article or with other funding source um so we' backed that out of the budget uh salary increases are included in draft one and draft two and what I want to point out um draft one shows 101,000 draft two say 40 shows 45,000 we didn't
actually decrease wages we're just using supplemental funding which I'm going to talk about a little bit further um when we did the first draft we did not apply rural Aid I have applied that in here so that's automatically going to help offset those salaries we have a cola in
the contract for our busing so that's been accounted for we talked a little bit about the water usage invoice that is new to us that's $2,000 and then uh there was an adjustment propos for almost $5,000 to cover software and
Hardware expenditures based on actuals we pulled that out in draft two um just because you know $5,000 saves us $5,000 and it's a tiny percentage Point um the original draft at level services in January was presented at
11.07% with the uh sick buyback being pulled out and removing the hardware and software and then using rural Aid we've been able to bring level services down to 5.26% it's a pretty significant decrease
however it's still a pretty large percentage for growth for the for the towns good job getting it down yeah what did we ask for last year what was the percentage increase um I think I yeah uh five
5.57 um so while while Henry asked that question the average budget increase in the last six budget Cycles has been 3.42% last year it was 5.5 seven but I did want to point out that 2% of that was just for the transportation contract because we had that big change so if we hadn't had such a significant growth
there we would have been about three and a half all right so coming back up um so I did just talk about this a little bit the table above shows that we reduced the budget level services in draft one by 5.81% to draft two we Ed 35,000 of rural
Aid oh I didn't mention this this is um obviously up for discussion this is an administrative recommendation we had a lot of conversation internally about it um if you recall we added a 0.5 full-time equivalent math interventionist position in last year's
budget we did do zesser funds to fund that um we had talked about that being a one-year position the original draft in January included that and we are recommending that we pull that out at this point strictly for the fact that we did talk about it being one year and we
literally cannot afford it um so that reduces the budget by 33,000 and then the sick buyback so those three pieces help account for that 5.81% reduction which is primarily reflected here in salaries and wages because we've pulled the 33,000 off and
then we've applied the RO that all makes sense how we got to where we are at 5.26 y okay great job um so I did just want to quickly point out two things uh removing sick buyback from the budget doesn't eliminate the town's
expense we're still going to ask them to fund it separately so that it would be another 2% if if we did have it in the budget but they are going to have to try to help us figure out how to fund that I just want to have that publicly stated we're not dropping it we're just trying to shift it to another funding source
that's not the general fund and then rural Aid is is a slight risk um you know we don't like to use onetime funds Esser is a perfect example of that however uh the state has made a commitment to continue to attempt to
fund rural Aid um I think 15 million is their goal right if it were to be fully funded the other thing is that not only is it subject to State appropriation it's based on a formula which includes enrollment numbers so that could fluctuate and it actually did for
weightly this year last year it was closer to 40,000 this year it's only 35 could go back up if you know there's a change in the population because it's based on student density um and the size of your town but those are just things that I want us to be mindful as as we go through a budget
process that if we did not get real Aid next year we'd be in the same position we're having right now where we're starting off with a $35,000 deficit because we don't have that funding it's here we should use it we're recommending that I just want to make sure everyone understands that it is a bit of a
risk um new initiatives so we talked about funding two new IA positions based on student needs and IEP requirements uh we did look at the outgoing students so
sixth grade class or you know perhaps anyone that Chrissy may know is not returning next year to see if there was anyone with one to one support in the current year that maybe we could just go through over that's not the case we're going to need all of the IAS that are in the building to support the students as it stands um so we cannot reallocate any
existing staff um of course one of the opt for discussion is not funding these two positions and using the existing staff anyway um or it could be existing resources so do we cut salaries from somewhere else um if we had a retirement
which we do have um one next year right that you know that could potentially free up funds to cover the IAS because we have to meet IEP requirements if a student is required have one to one what are we um like are we legally
bound these two positions is yes fund it here like your suggest suggesting or we take two current IAS and put them with these students meaning they're teachers without these IAS so
you have to be right you're technically making reductions to support those you know the services out yeah yeah it's a tough position to be in you don't you never want to cut
resources you know and it doesn't necessarily have to be IAS either you know there could be other things that we consider nobody wants to talk about specials but that is definitely one area that typically schools are in this type of position that's one of the first places that they go to um library media
center those kind of things but that would be some of the hard conversations that we're having if we decided that we cannot afford um two new IAS which is $66,000 somewhere between and 66 depending where they fall on the salary schedule we could also you know do
refund one position and then use internal resources to F to take care of the other re is it something looking down the road where the graduating class this year doesn't have anybody that can transition but fifth grade might have an moved so that you can again sort of
think of it as a one-year commitment and maybe make that more marketable for the town I mean we certainly could look at it but you never know who's going to come in for residen either whether it's you know preschool or kindergarten or another you know move in that we're not expecting so and know these two
positions um the first six years they going to be their entire career regularly reevaluate I and one you you should plan it that way yours
can change and we got to be careful not to if you're such a small school that we can't go a student's IEP right students can come in off IEPs their services can be reduced um in a sense that you know can be shared in other ways and that kind of thing but
um not you're not to see you're not gonna have one year need one to one next year you don't you usually it's going to be for a little while um is are are both the kids local kids at our and weight Le or is one of them if they weren't if any
students that are school choice that need a one to one get build back to their school sing District who wouldn't show up here they AR residents they res yeah so just like people know because you know what school choice and what's that you know that expense that we pass that expense back to the district and so
and that district has the right to sit at the table while you're discussing the I and sometimes does so um was accountability to those kind of things but and I think you know one of the I think one of the conversations that I'm starting to hear from you know
different town folks in different towns I'm not saying it's coming from whey but it's like wow you know you're educating the same number of students and the price keeps going up and up and up but the needs have gone up and our level of intervention has is is improved so we're getting students you know you know off
IEPs and into um you know greater um you know inclusion and options when they reach high school and po high school plans and so we are making progress to the students as well so it's kind of a dual thing there their higher needs and
we're addressing them even better than we ever have and so yes it costs more to educate kids today than it did 20 years ago because we're doing I would say we're doing a better job and it takes resources yeah and I mean the way I look
at it I I would ask the town to help us fund that because I mean if you you have to hire the onet to ones you have happen but I wouldn't want to take away resources from the rest of the kids for
these two students at the I want to have that discuss well I want to have that discussion like that goes to like what is the next step right because you're making exactly no statements that are you you to have a plan what this commune wants to do but that let's get through
make sure we have all the yeah exes and O's on so this has been on the screen for a minute and people have probably already read it but just to say it for the record too I I'm really encouraging us to look at the whole picture of what the cost is for our towns and just to be aware that adding two new full-time
positions means that there's more potential label labor burden for the towns as well so that could increase their health insurance Budget Insurance exactly um so where does that put us so draft one of the budget with the two new IAS was a
14.28% increase with the changes that we put in place reducing by 5.81% we're at 8.48 if we were to fund everything that's been presented today sorry so two the the second draft the February draft that
has not renewing the interventionist correct and applying the rural Aid the interventionist is about a percentage and a half so you'd be around 10 if you funded the two new IAS had the interventionists retirement the
retirement the town would pick up pick up the retirement you know you're back up to the 14% we're pretty much at 14 it looks prettier sh but you don't have decimal points all right so next steps um you
know there's some options that we can talk about and I do think we need some direction especially going into the finance and select board meeting um barius and I have talked a lot about yes we we have to present the budget to the town but this really isn't
about a need this is about or this isn't about a want it is about a need this is what we need to meet the students needs in our community whether they're residents or whether they're choosing to come here um from school choice so I
think yeah so you know we're gonna obviously it says that we're g to start after this meeting we're going to start having conversations with the formal conversations coming in February but you know we will um we're in a public meeting so these numbers not shared
publicly about where we're at so we want the you know the finance Community select board um and such to start to be digest those numbers that are coming um and start having conversations about what is the town's capability that's what we don't know we
can read the Cherry sheets and make guesses but we don't know what the town's plans are for their personnel in other departments um and I'm goinging like that it just kids and when we had to do this you know we had one budget we could we could
do that Daya do and have an idea where things that we just don't have that that level so um you know we've sent out I've sent out a message to the select board and chair of the finance committee to say listen we're talking about it tonight and we're going to have you know we're g to have some kind of heavier
discussions later on the you have to remember the way um Elementary your school is set up the way the state sets up is that you guys get to choose what your number is that you put forward right so we're going to talk with the town but you guys also have
your own power of what do you think the school needs and you work with the town to come up with a number that the town can afford you can reach a point where the town can't afford okay so and we're going to be close I think I I think
we're going to see Frontier is also up which means the town has more Revenue we can't really a frontier hasn't done publicly yet but um we're guessing that it's going to be up but it also means to how may have more Revenue but because Frontiers numbers assessment
numbers are based on the amount of Revenue the town takes in it looks at how much money you have and then your percentage of students that attend so we found over the years that if your numbers went up your Revenue went up in the town but we we don't have all those details it's still going to be pretty significant between the two it's going
to be a lot and so the question is you know there's a couple things one do they have free cash to cover this year so they have savings from previous years that they can apply to next year's budget and so a they take they can pay that um that
retirement out and they can cover the difference um and sometimes that's what they did our my first year here we had we were in a budget crisis but they had enough free C for they they kind of they they said they bailed out the school
um they the next thing is that they do an over you know and people cringe when they hear it it is a normal adjustment to the market because you you can only grow 2 and a half percent if you have contracts that are bigger than two and a half percent if you have insurance rates that are bigger
than in the town within the town none of those things really it's a madeup number they pass a law on that every now and then the town has to adjust and make a greater thing so they would ask for something called an override which they would increase the amount of Taxation and You' have to get that people to
agree to it okay is a mixed bag on that you know I mean you'd have to make sure that people really understood what they were voting for um and you know because what they'd be voting for is the third option is they could say we can't afford it you
need to reduce your budget okay and what is that number right so we can remove the two IAS and say okay we're going to adjust you know IIA that kind of thing that may not be enough we don't know what that number is um and every single
one of those hurts are what we provide to students right we say it's a need if we remove a need then it hurts what we give so um it's part of our thing so we gotta be you know they they outside groups do
not get to choose how cuts are made in fact school committee really doesn't get to choose how cuts are made they go to the administration the administration gives proposals the school Comm then approves those proposals so we're not there's not going to be a debate the whether or not we cut um I don't want to
even say that I say I'll say something that we don't do um you know cut farming or fing elective um because you know that you know you know that kind of thing that will not be a public debate it'll be this the proposal and then just we agreed upon so that it's not it's not
done that way so that's essentially how it all works so the next phase that how I see it now is to start having conversations with the town um to be able to communicate there's not a surprised that we're here we were very clear last year at least we
thought we were very clear um that we used s money and that's money was going away and we were starting events so we hav we said that um the finance committee heard us say that and you know they remember or not you know we'll find out but um we knew this year was GNA be
a bad year I I talked to New Town Administrator in July and I said we'll see you during budget season you're going to have a tough year we knew back then there's nothing we can do right we we used fun that we kind of push forward and um you know we obviously the two
instructional assistance is not a need that we knew was coming um you know you never know what kind of money comes and goes you just kind of have to play it out so um but those are the big things for us to continue having conversation about the map interventionists the two
IAS um making sure that the sick buyback can be funded separately um and then do you want to talk about the other thing that we stuff today cor we could also you go and you do it's bad news you should say so the other thing you can do is also look look
at our expenditures this year in in Frieza so budget freezes right and the I call it I make up this term Through The Years a hard freeze and a soft freeze you know hard freeze means you freeze everything a soft freeze means you try to find areas that you can um do without
this year um examples of that would be um you know reduced expensive professional development that hasn't been signed up for yet you know I mean say get your your professional development and anything that's happening from April on if you haven't signed up we're going to ask you not to
do that um outside of which contract out um the um other kind of things from supplies that technology you know if we can go without buying smart board or something like that you know there's a couple thousand there a couple thousand there they start to add up and if we can get up to 20,000 it's percentage right
and so we could probably in a soft free save 20,000 right um you know hard freeze probably you could do more but again dropping if that means next year that we can keep the Staffing at full because we've saved
this year that's important um yeah I think we could easily pull a percentage point from this year's funding just by looking at some of the expense reports I mean you guys have the expense reports you can see the things that still have larger balances the hardware account is a prime example
like do we really really have to replace equipment this year and if there's something that has to be replaced then we have a conversation about it but can we hold off because that would save in itself almost $15,000 I mean ideally so you say the
other question is like how do you how do you stop this tail spining is you need an in you need over and that's when that's when towns do it is um I say you need an override or you need to bail out bailing out the non you know the non
union you know I mean so like we did the Esser overpay one year so that the following year you're not starting in deficit you know so that if they can do that that kind of thing that's how you pull out of the cycle just to be able to put more money in than normally the
schools would get in a single year I do see a cycle of several years of challenges though and I think we started talking about this last year you know revolving fund I think we're probably going to need another small adjustment next year just to keep that afloat for early childhood
and then school choice is going to be a problem next year as well because we have more outgoing sixth graders than we have space for um in kindergarten for applicants so we're not we're not going to be swapping dollar forar the weird thing to say there are too many weightly
kids in kindergarten so we're losing school choice kids that are part of the sixth grade class that were giving some extra money and replacing them in incoming class is full of weekly kids yeah are there not um school choice
kids applying to other grades we we do have some that are applying to other grades um the tricky part is a lot of times they have a kindergarten sibling or they have a sibling we have a number you have to take a no I can offer I can offer you
can offer one and typically we we've had people leave one in one school and yeah I know people bring like we had a sibling preferred policy so if you have a sibling so you
as a school to me you can open up school choice to which classes if you open up school choice to a class there's a lottery let's say you there's more than let's you're open up one slot siblings get first priority to either a the lottery if there's multiple
siblings you're only doing one spot or you take siblings first and then um you do a lot of the remaining people um so sometimes we're kind of like well we have you know Chris probably say it's on the agenda we're talking about school choice tonight so we
we but even if we have applications in other it may not be a grade level that we can bring in someone who's not within the district already like if the composition of the class is already more challenging we may not accept a school
choice student even if we have an application so the older grades don't necessarily translate in the same way as right I think you need to look at it yeah yeah oh yeah looking at everything um can I ask before you jump into that
I'm gonna go back to the map for a ask I mean I know we're going to save $33,000 by not having it was a one-year position but what's the teacher's position by having this person here that that things
happen I think yeah the the intervention is spoken to you and it's not a cut I want to make if that's what you're asking well so talk about a little bit done yeah I guess I'm sure the effect is actually measured next year more than it is this year because this year they're
doing the labor you see the results more next year but right but the immediate results have been to get a a real lens on what's going on with some kids that we've had that have been struggling um so I feel like we've gotten a lot of good information about what kids need
and um we had first Envision to the fourth fifth and six and we've been able to bring third grade along um she sees a group of kids in third grade and there have been instances where you know one
that I can think of where um she sort of spotted a a child who might need further evaluation based on starting to work with her and not seeing progress and it's a you know
we've got some kiddos who can look okay but are missing some foundational pieces so um I would say this year has been great in terms of identifying what's going on and I I do think we'll see some
results this year but it does take a few years of having something in order to see the the full benefit you know maybe before we say no all together on that map person maybe we should you know we're going to talk to talk to Paul
tomorrow right mean I mean he doesn't make decisions but he wants to what what we're talking about tonight with the budget so right you know if the finance Community look at our budget I just want to make sure that we have a problem no matter how you the numbers
and I want to make sure I get through slicing the numbers that's why I as PA sit down with us just to is should that he's comfortable with the data that we're giving him so that we can say we agree on the problem instead of any kind of conversation like you know where's
this money going and where's this money going let's get that all kind of settled up and we'll do it in a public meeting as well but I just want to make sure that we don't have the public meeting and we're we can't answer questions we're not prepared to line of it and so it's really about increasing that communication then say okay now we have
a problem how can we address the problem that's want to get more to um back good um sh really quick I you said it but I missed it the for the salary increases how are you funding that
because it's less than it what it was the first the 33,000 for the math interventionist was pulled out is going and then the 35,000 for okay and that those salary increases even though we're not done with
negotiations how did you figure that a place in the bud we don't know if it's going to be where we land which could be problematic could change you guess there um so it's not just teachers and IA
startas it's all staff School based staff central office staff everyone's Lo okay um and as you know B if you're uncomfortable with you know cutting the intervention position we can put it back in for the
place of discussion moving forward that number is going to have to go back you know what I mean and so it's you know um the position while there's a while there's a need for it you know we do also have to be one of the realities and it is it is
somebody who knew was going to be a oneye position it's not somebody who has been with us for years and we're kind of you know you know we're moving a family member so to speak um so so that's kind of why it was a little bit easier because it's you know we've been done
ring out before back to it um would we rather have been here yes but um you I kind I hate to take that person away because I think it's important but you know the two IAS that are one to one
those are halfth toos this is not unfortunately you know we'll see how the ball rolls I I brought it up I mean I know I want to get a point of view from
the teachers and the principal it's an important tool for us the person's very important well but no I agree and I think you know Bob if you're comfortable standing up in front of finance committee and saying that I think I would I mean you know there's
going to be so we'll have that conversation and the thing is the the amount that schools are going to be asking for between both and frontier's got a A Modest budget coming forward but it's assessment so you don't control I
mean they're coming in what we say we haven't presented it yet but it's it's it's well it's not well low but it's it's always where it's it's in the same kind of range of that three or four percentage you know I mean so rarely four right and so it's it's a good
normal growth there but the problem is the assessments come in so if wh's going to get hit with a higher assessments which we know they're going to get a little bit higher higher than they're not getting a reduction um and so between the two education pots together they only have so much revenue you I
mean and we could be eating most of it unless they have other ways of being paying for something how they have been move around so that's the there's going to be a reality talk about um that maybe they do have savings they did a few years ago and they were able to use it in that in that way and maybe they'll
say you know what you need to lower it a couple percent so that we can pay for this way then we'll come back we'll have a conversation and put things on the so it sounds like we should um present at least at the initial meeting with them in February on the
18th the it would be 8.48% which we just talked about plus I'll add the math interventionist back in so that we can see what that number looks like and talk to them about all of the needs so we're at about 10%
we're talking to them about that person um kind of put that into quantitative uh look you know look at it that way like how many kids is this person servicing um you know just to make
it numbers based for them that's what they're going to ask they're G to ask how many you know kids does this person see in a week um how many kids is this person going to help in the future what's it doing I mean I know we don't have test scores yet but have you seen
improvements with these kids like those are the questions that and I think if we can back that up by saying yes you know we've helped x amount of kids it's really helping the school our numbers are going to be up on mcast that kind of stuff I think bring
in more school choice kids if we can show that this person is important they have no room I was here I had a class of 27 kids I class of 27 we had one IIA and it was low Stone she runs a tight ship
SOB this has all the kids outside we do I don't know something in the we have some have one what's the biggest class you've had since you've been here 20
20 and in some of those I me but things have changed even since you've gone to school oh yes we probably had some kids in our class that needed nonm attention and didn't get it we like in current fifth
grade um it's half and half school choice and waight Resident so yeah i' have eight kids in there if it was just weight res right so it's interesting how now like kindergarten it's all is mostly seems to be
coming back up and I don't know if it's all P plan the states we're getting a lot of kids from from down there um but we've had full kindergarten classes last week which is which is great Hur our budget in choice I think
there's a there must be a baby boom from Co no's talking about I'm saying that because all four of all four of our elementary schools have we list for K so it's there's a lot
of words out to that group of kids or there's more of them yeah and we can't take them because you know in all of our schools mostly resents maybe one or two or trying to you know trying to play that guessing game of how many we're going to have don't
want you don't want to you know accept 2022 four kids move in the district that's out of town for that meeting right and you're out of town for the February 18th meeting join
from or maybe not if it's not war yes um the you a sense I know not all the numbers are public yet but roughly if we're using that 8.48% increase how that compares to the other schools are we going to stand out
as uh we're asking the most yeah you like to be over AI nothing but the best yeah we got a two up and two down yeah so you I can say you and Su are both struggling and comway is a little bit
higher than normal too but not 8% or 10% and vehicles in good shape just because they've had larger capacity to reduce over the last few years so they haven't had to use um yeah because they're getting smaller too so like I mean if you were to say 10 years down
the road they're going to be the same spot as you in the sense of the way it's trending they just they don't they don't have the three sections with all the school choice kids and all that kind of stuff that's as well so and Conway does have the grant problem they use us their money to offset the current year okay
that's really their biggest challenge they don't have a revolving account issue currently um like we're having a thoroughly child he about that's good question I also wonder if there are other smaller schools like is hat field struggling and what
it in way other other elementary schools in County are definitely sh and they've been doing that for years while we've been doing we've been kind of ring along this fine you know and nobody no resident G want you know wey's cat is
excellent you know what I mean they don't want to hear I mean you look at these neighboring towns where they're paying you know 5% higher you know what I mean um to fund their Public Schools um and their other resources in town it's tough to do because no commercial it's going eventually eventually it's going to get
to that it's gonna get to a point where there have to raise that tax rate a little bit to meet up with the needs to they may not look like it nationally but the government is supposed to take care of it people and you're supposed to fun people it's usually how it's supposed to
work so on the 18th we're going to present the 8.48 increase and then what it looks like to keep math interventionist well I wonder if there's I don't know if this is a place to talk about strategy in presenting it like if
there are three here's 8.4 here's 10 here's the 14 again I've never been in the the meeting with the financial committee so I have no idea so there's a couple things one is they're just going to look at the lowest number because that's what I um I would say well you're showing two
other ones that if we can't afford the lowest number we're not looking at any number higher than that the other thing that to be careful of is that it's not their job to reduce your budget okay so we have to be we I think we got in there was it during time where we got kind of
like if you want cut our budget then tell you know I mean like it's their they can say that we are not going to be able to approve your budget it really should be cut and blank like behind the scenes they can say like you know this is where we like to get lined up basically they're going to say we're not going to recommend your budget to the
town get yourself your own kind of your own your own fight there as well you could say well we're going to bring our budget forward without your approval um and then you it's you versus the finance commun Tommy and FL um and
if you're in that position then you need an override which you really do need to I think it's have legal about I think L about that but um if you got into this kind of we don't want this relationship we want to work with them but if you got into this kind of thing like fun the school versus not fund the school you
know the residence with kids versus residence without kids kind of going I me you kind of see that when it comes to new buildings or you know kind taking on um but we don't know where that is yet that's jumping ahead but it's it's good to kind of understand how the how it plays the first thing to find out is you
know what can the town do what is it able to do and they go from there you know um you know when you look at the numbers if we're at 10% with the math interventionist plus another 60,000 per
SI buyback 12% is not anly it's not percent you look at the how much the actual CAU money is and you look at how much the new Municipal Revenue the town itself gets a year and that's the number I'm looking at and that's why I know it's going to be tight I just don't know
what they're savings right right what do they do because they did do a lot of exra money so that so many times when you you to spend on their the last of their arpa arpa thank same um their their ERS is at arpa um so they may have had savings because they
used that money and being used so they may be there and then there also has to be the willingness for people to spend savings on school so I mean those are all the the realities of where we're at and we do have a great younger
population in town we don't have all old folks like me I mean it's a it's a it's a healthy discuss like you know I know people it's you talk about you talk about money it's always emotional but it's a healthy discussion to have you know in the sense
of what is the what is the revenue source of town is it appropriate does it need to be adjusted does the town disagree with it Town disagrees with it then you know we're going to be in a spot of having new reductions right and that's just what it comes down to the question is how do we fight that battle if we have
to fight that battle moving forward so saying that another option is an override to be proposed but how quickly can to turnaround I don't make that decision right I or you don't make that decision you put a budget forward and the town says we are willing to do an override in this case so we've done two
overrides in sundland okay because they had it twice because it it's usually on the back of schools because we have a majority of the budget It's usually the school majority of personnel so therefore we have the majority of inflation found
um or call you know I guess more employees so the cost of keeping people employed goes up greater than two and a half percent and not just on you know with the contract it's not just contract it's all the other things
from insurances to um and so on and so forth and to keep market value that's why we got hit on Transportation which put us into this deficit to begin with and transportation still the best deal in Franklin like they were just doing a market thing they they were I think it was fair
business practices we don't like it but it's you know I mean it's they didn't gouge us what they gave us was the market price compared to what Mohawk's paying and what Gil Manu is paying and what you know all those other things and so so they didn't gouge it
they just said hey this is what it cost us to do business and we shouldn't be you know the town shouldn't be getting savings on us so okay did you want to talk about school choice at all are we all done it's on the agenda yeah oh I didn't know if you want
to piggy back that's the next thing on the agenda so you back either way before we got sorry can thank you um I just want to make sure understand what the next step is so by the end of
the meeting tonight we have a cemented number or we already agree on have to vote on that number that we're going to present or does it just we don't V do anything you would vote on it if you guys disagree you know I mean so we have a budget we're going to bring It Forward
in 18th I'm just saying like it's not your final number right you definitely have to vote your final number after the public hearing but if you were contentious about anything within the budget as a committee and so you said you know Bob saying we got we got have 10% who saying you you would have to
vote say this is the what we're moving forward but I think we all on the same page of what we're gonna bring forward just making sure that I wasn't missing procedure but eventually you do have to vote but yeah stamp going forward okay thank so like every year at this
time um you guys are going to need to vote whether or not we will take school choice and whether or not you will give me the power to decide how much slots in each CL I don't know if it would discuss
everyone I can tell you the numbers of what we have currently at this moment we have 36 school choice we have six who will be leaving us from sixth grade um unless we fill those other slots from
other grades we can't fill it with kindergarten next year at all so we're going to be at least six down from next year we're be down at 30 or 31 then right unless we try to fill it f with the other classes but is there any space in the other classes right
um second grade next year's second grade um potentially two um next year's fourth grade five to seven that's particularly small class and fifth grade two to four sixth grade
two to four I don't but you won't see that many applications in the no no I won't I do it'll be because they've got a kindergarten or the same not that is there any reason I'm asking the
board members here that we wouldn't approve school choice to the maximum amount that you feel comfortable filling in a class so can I make that motion yeah so motion to allow school choice for next year to the maximum I don't know what
the best word is discre principal discretion she know I mean plus plus must know every class even though we only have 13 in this class we might have four or five kids in there that
need we always think of needs needs oh yeah which is why I can PR the total number of kids has gone down because we have to consider the need class is this what all the other schools do as well all right so I made motion I a
second all in favor and we've done we're starting this process a little earlier just made just trying to get that opened up earlier are we G do any are we gonna do any at all um we haven't in the last
years the when we used to put it in the newspaper um when would come to us for school choice we would ask them like you know how to do and no one said they saw somewhere else do we have it on our website um oh sash around town put
something on social media to say you know but you can also put it in our website right can't you put it in you know SCH Choice openings and which doesn't cost us anything it's um the word of mouth is out there obviously we have the applications for
kindergarten so it's out there among the preschool programs um are all our preschool program um game across four schools are we all done with school choice
then yeah yeah I'd like to see it advertised on the the website like even if you only put accepting students in grades one through S you know kindergarten is not an option then leave it out but I think something on the
website would be because that's where someone's gonna go first they're gonna check out our school they're going to the website and not going to the that's a school good Administration no there's definitely Word of Mouth up there I mean I know people dissatisfied with the school you will go to the school website of the district
here c yeah they taking exactly Lal I don't know how our website works either but some of them even put like a popup you know so when you first open the website that screen pops up I don't know if that's something ours does
but donation yeah one I was trying to figure out how to somehow figure out the algorithm so that when someone locally school choice that like we would be doing
SEO all right uh I got some exciting news that we did work on Shell's new contract and she's gonna stay with us and all the chair DK probably will talk but all the chairs got together and
either Zoom I think we everybody was Zoom yeah because I was I was I was down North Carolina I was down North Carolina so we had a we had a great meeting and great results and we're here unless you have something else you wan
to so basically what the the committee did is extender contract so um she was going to be up PR as it was anyway so at the same time um they basically a three-year contract a four-year contract
they conclude this year um so the um she was given a salary adjustment for this year of Just Around uh just over three% and then
um had a market adjustment for next year to 150,000 and then we'll be following the col of unit a of of district for the following two years of contract um the committee looked at um
comparables in Franklin County which have gone up as the demand of business directors have gone up um and it puts her um in the upper half of where people are at in Frankton County
and the amount of money the amount of money that Shel deals with day and day out um the difference the increase there she can make in a single um she can make back in a single good decision that she brings to one of her me it's just really it is um it's five budgets it's
overwhelming it's it's a it's a lot and um yeah we're in a tough spot without somebody like her or with without her or somebody with her skills and that and it's hard to come back so um anyway so it is sometimes we do a joint meeting on
this it was decided by the chairs we're just going to do it during the regular meetings um going forward so you need to vote to accept the contract add Bob motion to approve that contract second all in favor congratulations congrats well
deserved thank a one two we got the next one all right so the next one was um immigration for in schools you know there was a lot of conversations about as you SE in the paper and the concerns about
um ice agents coming to school um and looking for enforcement of immigration in schools the um we did a training with our administrative staff at our last administrative meeting basically procedures for immigration officials
should they come to school and request to um take a studentet a student Tred find information on a student do any business with the school um we we put forth very very clear guidelines um that
um that front office people have all been trained on uh principles have been trained on but basically any um any immigration agents who come to school um must be processed to the superintendent's office okay one of the
biggest concerns is that um agents cannot come to the school there's a lot of misinformation that's out there there's a lot of fear based on misinformation um there's a right to have fear out there because there is a you I'm not trying to downplay that I'm
just talking about within schools in order for an nice agent to come to the school and even get acknowledgement that such student exists in the school they need to have a Judicial warrant and a Judicial warrant is a type of Warrant that is signed off by a judge there are
other types of warrants out there ice ice immigration um uh immigration enforcement has their own internal warrants so we're looking for the following people who have um broken their residency agreement or whatever the story may be and they will
print out their own warrants to go find these people that does not give them access to a public school a public school while it says the word public is not a public place we have we have we have um things that doesn't allow the public to come into our building um much like a private home so you have to have
a Judicial warrant um we've all the administration's all been trained to one what one looks like but we also are putting the cave out that we're going to use our legal counil should um a nice agent come to school or any agent from any government agency they don't have access
um um to the school and so um our local police you know they're talking about well they use local police local police don't have the right to V and take a student unless they also have a reason or immediate danger right so someone has a weapon or that kind of stuff that that changes the rules but you can't just
come to um the school do that um and so that includes all information students are protecting their fura and um and so forth and I think one of the big thing that's you know it was kind of talked about
um earlier s was talking about it um is that it's the law that students who are you know use the kind of the words here um in 1982 the Supreme Court you know case plyer versus do ruled that undocumented
children have the same right to attend public school as US citizens so that's the law that we are under and I think people are you know it's a time where laws are getting loose but um we've invited and told these students that
come here they are safe here the fact that they dropped the uh you know that they would leave schools alone and that kind of thing is just is just absolutely disgusting in my my opinion um that the fact that we're giving it we're giving a duel we're saying two things you know as a government where
we're saying that unate children and they have the right to attend public schools because it is in our best interest it's in those children's best interest no matter where they go in life that they get educated while you know they get educated here so to make them fearful of going to school is um I don't
know the the Diabolical thoughts that this Administration has you know concerns about immigrants that you know that discussion can be had but why they want to have that fight in schools is is ridiculous so um anyway so we will
protect students in our schools they will we'll make sure that they right they they upheld you know should an agent come with a Judicial warrant you know we will have to comply with a Judicial War um why a in an elementary school speaking of this group why a um a fourth grader would need a Judicial
warrant I just randomly pick a class um would be a never but you know maybe you know um you know that kind of thing so we don't have to vote on anything so again I did send you
um um I send you there's two things there's a policy and a resolution so um School communes around the state this is coming out from um I'm not sure if this was from nasc or if this was from um the
National Association but basically filing resolutions um as a school committee saying that you know you're going to protect students in the school the policy is basically as you look at our procedure is the procedure you don't
need to do anything to protect students right now but long term you may want to consider um if you have it a policy that means if I leave and someone else comes in and has a different way of handling policies procedures rather around um ice
enforcement um they would have to follow your policy so I I bring this to you because um Missy chair Frontier said she sent it along to me she said I'd like to bring this to a frontier discussion and they're the meeting next week and so
they may put it on their agenda in March to be an official um you know become an official policy and discuss so um it sends a message out there that in agreement with our policy puts a little more strength into it um but like I said
you know our our procedur stand solid and then the resolution is is exactly that it's giving your um your beliefs on issues that are out there um that affect students so these aren't mine these are another
associations obviously I took a lot of our procedures from not just this policy but what's recommended out there across the state and Across the Nation um so I they want you to get behind in people talking about it so that's for you guys can discuss um I can also put it on March's
agenda um you can follow what you know other school comms are doing or if you guys um would like me to move forward and craft something or that kind of thing that's you know you want us to vote on on this or it wasn't on the agenda as a voting
policy um so you'd be kind of against your own rules there um I can put it on the next meetings I can put on the next meeting agenda to look at the policy I think the policy is the way to go resolution are great policies are that's how you running things it's kind of like it's kind of you know this
is kind of like this just makes this is a statement this is a speech this is theaction right this is unfolding the policy the motion to introduce that as a policy for the meeting so I yeah this would be something like this I can bring the March meeting to be a
first read you can also wave your double reading and you can you know that you go into that if you want to make this is very simar the north Anton schools as well yeah do all teachers or have all teachers or will all teachers get a copy of it
and the policy uh the policy as well as the like simple one we certainly can for this long let's been share with your staff and what not your office staff and stuff I think might teachers might want to know too just in case they're standing by by the front door or
something like that they're noing certainly move that along and then we'll what you know I'll put together whatever recommendations come to adding the word smithing this thing and TR to find the best you know policy there so it look something like this and
then we can read it through and um yeah cool okay um I have nothing uh anything new with the collaborative yes um I'll try and be quick about it but um it was a very bizarre meeting um
so the theme since I've been working with a collaborative has been optimistic the tone has been optimistic and then uh at the meeting the other day they sort of revealed that there were about $2 million uh in the red um which so I went
back through my notes and just nowhere had I jotted down even with a smiley face after it like $2 million deficit like it's browny face upside down yeah so um it um it was
they the reason it came on my radar even before the meeting is they shuttered their lure program and that was a big deal because it's leaving 60 people who enrolled in that lure program at a time when we're starting to get teachers um sort of out in the cold I think I think they're working hard to see if they can
transfer credits and doing everything they can um there are sever there three main drivers behind this deficit um and two one of them is how their their Dynamic with Desi and how they have to relate or
or budget uh uh some of their deficits is different now they are saying that the way that small uh smaller grants are being distributed to programs like the CES is no longer favoring them it's going to to different small
businesses and um the last part which was and all of these were sort of contested in the meeting is sort of like what you how did you not you know eer grants ran out we also had that and we also sort of embraced that that was coming down the roads and maybe what they didn't quite factor in is that as
Esser grants stalled in schools schools now are spending Less on things like professional development so there were sort of a a um a funding Cliff that they they Full Speed Ahead right off of um they are taking steps and again for someone who's been really admiring the
CES this is was sort of very sobering and disappointing meeting um so theyve let go staff is the biggest part of the budget so they've let go of I think it's 10 positions uh in their licensure program um which was a big deal and it again it seems like the staff was not
really told until when they got their letter that this was something they were considering um they've increased their rates for things like professional developments they've done some internal reorganization um it's a multi-year process they've already saved because of
these decisions about $800,000 they voted to eliminate vacation carryover which is going to save an extra $200,000 um and some of the higher level cabinet uh members are um are giving
back some of their uh their budget um for the positions that are running rants there's no change but it seems like like there was some optimism that was misleading and they've been hit really really hard and it's a big loss I think
for the community they do a lot for you again all the The Early Education Early Childhood um and developing curricula for students that are incarcerated me they do so much and so it's just a bummer um that this is happening the CEO
seemed optimistic that they could come out on top but I think it's going to be a lean three years for them welcome to the party just you know so like relative to them yeah I feel like we're doing okay the biggest issue people seem to
have was just like how did we not how did we and they talked about they use multiple programs that don't coordinate with each I don't know did they did correct me if I'm wrong didn't they also have somebody that stole money from their yes how much Mone they stole I think it was
$75,000 and they have gotten 20,000 of that back and there's a plan a restitution plan to get the rest back but that the M I thought it was more money but still5 that's a job right that's that's a
position so um you said raising rates so what we pay professional development rates might go up yeah yeah the services that they offer um so that was the the latest update I
think once the dust is settled next month's meeting will also be sort of interesting to see now that we've all processed it and sort of have new questions yeah we'll see where where they are and what the options are available to them I know that like Northampton we use them all the time and
they offer Us free credits even for teaching so they do a lot and I hope it's a it's a something we can recover thank you yeah Dar what do you got for us okay
see above no special announcements are we are we going exective S no I had a question about the homeschooling children being allowed to participate we never voted on
that I thought we were going to or something that so were just it's in limbo it's not one way or the other really affect the elementaries so it was voted on that Frontier voted down at or they Ted it officially whatever it didn't pass it
did not pass no the elementary schools Ted it after pass so it's if there are students that are homeschooled that are participa in the scores they still are allowed to because we haven't voted one way or the other does the town programs
not school programs there's no Sports at but what about Like Girls on the Run or something they could participate in that that's not a school programs all right cool I just wanted to make sure that we didn't I I coach the basketball the
fourth grade basketball and there's some homeo kids there and I want to make sure what it does my little note taking thing does say so we can go to Executive session for an update on negotiations you guys want yes I would like so um you would do a motion to go
ex we have to do both of them no just the top move to go in executive session we have just say we got a motion in a second section 21A to discuss strategy requests respect to colletive bargaining teachers
and instructional assistance they will not return to open Mee to conduct