[Music] [Music] recording in [Music] progress good evening everyone welcome to today's school committee meeting it is Thursday March 14th and we will be jumping right into to presentations and discussions of current issues the FY 2025 budget update and discussion and staff presentation of possible FY 2025 programmatic adjustments gillary thank you chair Perman good evening everyone so great to be here with you all tonight when I presented the fy2 5 budget to the school committee in January I shared that this was going to be a tough budget season and the committee would be faced with complex and difficult decisions these challenges have necess necessitated a thorough reassessment of our programs and services while also providing the opportunity to realign resources to student needs to that end our adopted budget guidelines strategic plan as well as our commitment to the core priorities of high quality teaching and learning the foundation of Equity improving our time on learning and a commitment to enhance Literacy for all serve as the beacons for this budget cycle during the bud during the development of our educational plan which drives our budget development we had many more requests than we had Financial Resources to cover for FY 25 we submitted an operating budget of approximately $38.64 cost assessments utilities tuition and special education Transportation thanks to an operating override last year our district allocation increased to $137.1 million we are not immune to the economic difficulties faced by many municipalities and school districts across the state shortly after our budget presentation in January we were informed of an additional financial obligation of a million dollar for other operating costs this increased our total initial deficit to around $2.5 million the challenges the challenging realities regarding our school district's operating budget are pressing over the past several months our administrative team worked diligently to build a budget that aligns with our Mission Vision core values and we thank them for their hard work we realize that our year-over-year operating costs are outpacing our projected budget allotments furthermore we continue to shift our operating budget away from onetime resources to cover recurring costs after careful consideration evaluation of our available options IE reducing non-personnel costs attrition retirements we cannot address our financial challenges without impacting staff these recommendations will unfortunately involve difficult decisions and choices including programmatic adjustments shifts in services and staff layoffs I understand that this news is distressing and unsettling the budget currently stands at a $2 million deficit and Dr given will walk us through that a little bit more this afternoon the school committee asked the administration to bring forth $3 million in options to consider at tonight's school committee meeting we will walk through the committee through the various options that total $3 million and may discuss others beyond that the school committee anticipates voting the final budget either March 28th or April 11th the suggested reductions focus in the following areas additional reductions in supplies materials and services special education Transportation K5 World Language literacy coaches educational technology Specialists Visa secretaries BHS Staffing administrative position and the Pierce uh campus Staffing we are recommending funding through project cost if at all possible as we move forward we uh understand that you may have questions or concerns and I encourage you to reach out to me directly ly or to uh your uh staff supervisors additionally I want to assure you that we will do everything possible to support those affected by these changes and minimize any disruptions to our educational programs and services thank you for your understanding your resilience and your ongoing support as we work through these difficult budgetary decisions and with that I am going to share our screen and invite Dr given and Dr Fortuna up I think Dr given is up first to walk us through where we currently stand so our agenda where we'll walk through again the directive that was shared our budget Journey directions our reductions to date budget reductions and data regarding the various buckets um again the committee asks the administration to bring forth $3 million in options and that's what we'll walk you through tonight Dr given see sorry I can't hear in we can't hear on Zoom than microne can you hear me now yes thank you okay sorry the mic was off uh I'll start over now um so as we uh contemplated this uh big challenge that uh you know we face and how do we close this gap between what we have available for revenues and what our uh budget proposal is uh you know we grounded ourselves in the Strategic plan and and what matters right what are we trying to accomplish um and what has really driven uh uh the development of this particular educational plan which is of course funded by this budget and so we looked uh at our strategic plan um and some of the ways in which we wanted to be able to move the school district forward um with um an eye to providing high quality teaching and learning experiences for kids um creating a foundation of equity uh improving time on learning and of course enhancing Literacy for all and it's just really important to start off this conversation with these priorities um because it this is not a math equation it's not simply a matter of oh we can cut this and then this over here and no we're an interconnected system that when one change is made it has a ripple effect on others and so um we strove as a team to try try to um keep our focus on the instructional minute um our our core focus on you know uh quality teaching and learning and how do we preserve as much of that as we can and where we can uh look at it through the lens of equity so with that in mind I'm going to walk us through some numbers even though in my humble opinion this is not about numbers um to just ground Us in where we um where we are here for the broader viewing audience I know the committee is well aware of of of the of the challenge we are facing right now so I wanted to start off with reminding everybody that the budget development process begins in October and um and it's a grounds up approach where um administrators and coordinators and and folks look you know uh at their programs and they look at their School Improvement plans and we look at the Strategic plan and based on the goals we're trying to achieve put together a a list of requests and uh the initial request was about $5 million higher than the proposal that was brought before the board and as part of um our process of winnowing down to the 138 million there was a lot that did not get moved forward and budget adjustments that were made including a reduction of an FTE at the central office level and I wanted to point that out because as we look at this next layer of reductions it's on the back of a bunch of other reductions and um and if you only look at the current reductions that we're about to discuss you don't have the broader context that other things have already been let go of and um and so if you look and you say uh why aren't we trimming in this particular area or why aren't we trimming in that way it's because there's been an awful lot of trimming and we want to make sure that our core and essential programs continue in the upcoming year so um The Proposal that was brought forward uh by the superintendent the initial budget proposal was 138,139 189 the town budget allocation which is essentially the revenue to support uh the school side of the Town budget is 136 million $413 uh 400 413 okay, uh $421 uh creating an initial gap of 2.29 million okay and again I just I know the school board is well aware of that I just feel like if there's other people that are just joining the conversation that having some of this context would be important better yes okay I know I'm a little soft spoken so so that's that's where we began our journey a couple of weeks ago and uh we reduced from five million another another round so if you can go to the next slide uh here is some of the reductions that we had uh noted at the last meeting that uh we reduced the cleaning contract by 134,000 and we shifted some of these expenses uh from the teaching and learning um area of the operating budget in the office of educational Equity over to Grants so what that means is that the money that is in the budget proposal for the equity leads is no longer in the budget proposal it means that um the ideas membership that was in the original budget proposal that you looked at is no longer in the proposal it's funded out of a grant um and then the conference the standards conference uh which was originally in the operating budget is now being funded out of a grant so that uh created a reduction of about $25,000 uh and so um The Gap now is about $2 million as the superintendent mentioned so we begin there with um uh honoring the requests to bring forward $3 million worth of cuts um this has taken an awful lot of uh um effort um to really thoughtfully think through the impact and the ripple effect of different um options and choices and what we have before you um is the recommendation um from the administrative team um and it's in order of priority so the first item listed would be our first uh the first thing that we would reduce and the item that's last is the last item we would recommend reducing so um as you know from the last meeting uh we were waiting for the budget or for the bids to come in for transportation and the bids uh came in and um uh thankfully uh they were favorable for us so we're able to reduce the uh line item for special education Transportation which is still going up a significant amount of money so I don't want to minimize that but it's going up uh $100,000 less so we can reduce uh the number by 100,000 just because uh we got some good news on the bids when they came in also um I learned and uh I'm thankful for this learning thank you Andy uh that uh the beu president's salary uh in the collective bargaining agreement uh and I I didn't catch this um and I'm glad Andy did um we receive reimbursement for that so um so what you see here is the offset um and when I uh adjust the budget and its final um iteration once it's approved um then this line uh will be reduced significantly from from what it is now and that's in the office of the superintendent and school committee area next uh we looked at again trying to stay away from um our staff at at General supplies and online subscriptions here uh we also took into consideration the uh the the missing piece of the ELA program so we were $20,000 short and so when we looked at this line uh we would reduce it by 220 but adding back in of the 20,000 we need for the ELA curriculum so this would be um the net the the net effect of that so um and and also just um as we looked at this General supplies categorically went up $140,000 from the current year and so uh a significant amount of money there is is going to level fund our general Supply accounts and then also during the budget process uh as a group um we we were looking at um online subscriptions and we noticed that there was an awful lot of investment made during covid for obvious reasons on on subscriptions and uh we've been having a dialogue around what of those uh tools are ones that um that we're currently using and to what degree and how effective are they and we feel that uh there's some redundancy in some of the uh tools that we're using and we felt pretty strongly that as a group uh this leadership team could review that and make some um good choices uh uh without compromising um the education of kids so that's the 220 and next there were two items that were um noted that were part of that reduction of $5 million that we wanted to call out and at least bring to the attention of the the committee and one was um the winthrip house now there was planning that the winthrip house at the middle school level would be introduced when uh the peer School came online that's my understanding um but the thought was you know perhaps if we could introduce a little earlier if we have space at the Driscoll school since you know there's there's uh a need that maybe we'd be able to introduce the winr house earlier and there was conversation about that at the last meeting um but as uh was before that would not be prioritized over other things that we move forward in the base of the budget this time but we all do support that and if we can get funding from other Frant sources um or any other source that you know certainly we would all support that yeah can I ask a followup on that sure um when we met last time um we talked about for winra house looking at the net of the transportation costs is the two I can't remember how much was presented to us last time for the cost is the 235 like was that calculation taken or it wasn't able to be investigated when we were looking at it holistically we didn't go down that because this was so high in it was so much of a difference it wouldn't have actually sorted it out um well no it's it's the order in which these were prioritized and the time we spent um evaluating that so Lisa did not um have the opportunity to provide us with any adjusted information so the 235,000 was in fact the number that was presented to you at your last meeting thank you yep I don't think it I don't believe that number included Transportation I think it was just for the this part is just for the staffing aspect of it if I understood right but the idea was that um if students were coming from out of District in right that there would be a net the offset right the offset exactly okay can I ask a followup as well so I just want to be clear Susan this item and the the next item so about 275k no sorry 375 that's not current in the budget right these were just things we discussed as potential ads these are not true I I just want to understand what we're talking about the these are things that were never officially added is that right that's right okay y thank you well it was unclear it was awful late the other night um as you know and uh there wasn't really any I didn't walk away and see any true consensus around what would be added or not rather it was you know let's go up to $3 million and then we can have the discussion tonight that was my recollection but my recollection is that we added winthrip but not Pierce so I guess I'm just wondering how these are reductions if I mean did other people remember that I thought we okay that's what we did I thought we went up to 2.5 and that wi th up was part of that and now we're taking that out on this chart so but we're adding Pierce but we didn't right but but that this represents a true SA from where we were at the last meeting winr house does but Pierce doesn't right that's my recollection as well okay well in both cases in both cases as we put together as we thought about $3 million and tried to take into consideration all of those factors um this is the order that that we felt uh we would reduce um and PRI prioritize the uh the dollar values I think what what Val is saying is if I can Val when she's looking at the subtotal she's wondering if that subtotal reduces represents true savings correct or whether or whether that from the $2.5 million it would no I'm talking about from from from our budget from our from our budget document our last budget document is that would this represent a true Savings of 935,000 or of some other number so there's two numbers one is the 2.5 million so this would be reducing part of the reduction of that versus the $2 million with no ads does that but we never added Pierce we never added Pierce so that one shouldn't be up here we only added winther po Pierce removing Pierce doesn't actually reduce anything because we didn't add it okay yeah I apologize can I just for those who are in the audience at home just to help explain win house is a special ed program special education program a substantially separate one that we've had at the high school for 25 years or longer and um which we are now planning to move down to the uh uh K through 8s uh for sixth seventh and eth grade so that people should understand is uh this is a program that I imagine we will also get reimbursed for from um the circuit breaker because it's an expensive program to run and if kids have an IEP and we can show the amount that we're spending on it we can we can get some State reimbursement for it yeah I think those factors were taken into consideration because it's about 450,000 to actually add the program okay thank you that's helpful okay um so next is uh you know a reduction in the administrative not necessarily administ minator but between um some secretarial and a coordinator we would be reducing 1.5 FTE there and I just totaled the slide because I figured you know save you from having to do that so this is a just a little less than a million on this slide next pardon yes so it's uh one secretarial position and a half uh a half of a coordinator a reduction of a halftime from a full-time to halftime coordinator in one area which we'll get to next okay um so the next um item is um really uh focusing the introduction um of world languages at the middle school and high school level uh and reducing that programming at the K5 level and that would uh uh be a reduction of 12.6 um and about a little over a million dollars uh for that and Jody's going to talk uh after I go through the list to to talk to you about the data and the rationale behind some of these um items that are up here of course that gets you to about uh $2 million there and then the next three items um would be um uh the the items uh we move forward from there so four literacy coaches so I believe there's 26 literacy coaches Specialists this is the coaches the Specialists are are um uh located in the schools and are uh working directly with students the coaches Provide support to staff Jody can talk more about that um and so it be a reduction of four so you know we want to make sure that people understand that it's not eliminating all of our um literacy supports it's prioritizing um uh you know the the school facing work student work um and then the next is uh educational technology Specialists again this would be at the elementary level um it's not eliminating um a full-time person from each School rather uh sharing one uh specialist between two schools as opposed to having a full-time in each school um and then last would be and this is a little undefined because of course the schedule we had a lot of conversation about different options um uh for for how positions might be um modified or reduced at the high school but without having the um course selection and scheduling master schedule Set uh it it's a it's a nod and a recognition that at the high school uh some some cost reductions would be borne there but we would feel it would be more educationally sound to do so when we had um uh real data um when we're making that decision um a little further down um the line so uh together the these two slides total to three million and I'll turn the mic over to jod to can I ask one question on that a question from Valerie and Susanne yeah thanks um on the BHS positions are those student facing or could they be student facing I'm sorry are are the BHS position student facing positions that are contemplated it's I'll let V it's Anthony um from the high school I think um the answer is as Susan said to be determined but the idea would be to not we understand um the need to address class size and the priority to address class size so it would be within our sectioning process trying to find reductions um outside of certainly outside of core academic um but student facing positions in general thank you and can you remind me do we land at five or seven additions Anthony for staff believe five five was the answer right now this would reduce from the five so you not necessarily if it's not if it's taken out of for example administrative positions and not educator positions right then it's okay true wait and that's entirely possible as well hold on at the last meeting we had agreed to go up to 2.5 and one of the ads was an additional 2 FTE based on how's uh recommendation that we go up to seven to fully staff BHS so with mying that the 2.5 uh the the 2.5 included BHS at seven so then so I just want to make sure in that case then then we'd need to add you know you'd have to select from the other buckets of the money here in order to so does that mean that the BHS line represents the two additional BHS if you're again if you're going from 2.5 million or two million and I think that's where my orientation is from the from the $2 million but but I hear you saying you're processing this from the two and a half I see yeah I see yeah so when I'm talking I'm I'm my orientation is just I'm trying to recalibrate either way these would would be the reductions um so then so then this doesn't for whatever tradeoffs I see yeah Suzanne well I think those were my questions I was just wondering if we are at a plus five or a plus seven for BHS so we're at a plus so if we're trying to balance at a as at a cut of two to make the cut two and a half million then you'd have a half a million dollars here that you'd have to allocate for that but but in terms of the half million we're saying half million not just from the additional two FTE for the high school but also some of those Pierce related increases that's what encapsulates the 500,000 yes okay right so if it's just the two FTE sorry David you're gonna ask this go ahead I was just going to say that then the BHS line of positions to be determined I think the direction of the committee would be that that be on the administrative side so it's not coming from the SE if if that ends up being a bucket we elect at all so yeah either way there's so there's three million if you're trying to get it down to two and a half in order to these are the these are the things if you're trying to get it down to the two million then you have a million dollars of of of other options or however you want to slice it up Natalia uh I know we're going to walk through in a little bit of detail the rationale of the K through five to come in but I had asked is it possible to get the numbers for what a k through three would look like like you know K through 5 to me seems very radical so if it was to focus K through 3 I know they have less instruction minutes and that's why it's not so simple it's not like cut in half do you have those numbers I do so um and these are in slides that we were going to oh okay okay okay so grades uh three through five adds five T back at a half a million looks like 536,000 inclusive thank you I'll wait for the rest five inclusive grade inclusive of grade three three through five7 FTE can you hear me now I doing right yes um thank you uh back in at $337,000 and what if it's just grade five we'd have we'll have to yeah shall we at least go through the rationale part or just one more okay Stephen go ahead uh first of all thank you for breaking this down for us just so we have the complete picture can we just list out also the extra the extra half million that we discussed last time W it down can we just can we just say it out loud so we have it so that we have the full list do you wanted to say it what you've got I'm in the middle of it so can you give me like five minutes and then I'll yes yes all right Helen so my back of the envelope if I add this number with the other number and subtract the Pierce uh piece and take out VHS you've managed to reduce the budget by two approximately 2.7 million in that is that correct sounds about right if you add Pierce to that that's what Pier is 138 so 138 and what we have to reduce is 2.2 no I I'm hearing 2.5 let let Mariah get can I well either way I think it's better I think it's better than I think it's better than 2.5 because as I'm doing this math the Gap last week and I'm just confused you said 2.2 on the slide tonight but I I have last 2.29 was the original Gap oh right okay so 2024 571 was the two we and then we reduced yeah 205 yep and then we were adding in the ELA curriculum at 19,1 157 and then we were adding in the two FTE at the high school at 16396 the other we talked about there was multiple bullets on the list and what we talked about was um putting the first four on if we could so that was the ELA the high school teachers the peer school campus and then the wind thri house so um those were I already said the high school teachers too so so if we're does it make sense for me to add in the total of the other the peer school and the and the um winrep house because then it will be apples and apples with what's on this slide does that make sense I think it does okay give me a moment and then while Mariah is calculating that a question I have for Helen some of these Pierce related items any possibility of those being part of the uh debt exclusion budget so I think there's only one uh which is the uh an extra administrator to help out with the two campuses and I think there is um I don't know for a fact but we have done that in the past on other projects so it's not unusual um I'm pretty sure we did it out of the um the Ridley School budget when when we had an administrator there when we move to two sites the same as this uh project so um that's something I we can explore uh very quickly and get an answer back because in that case that that potentially opens up up to another 200,000 in our operating side oh oh for not for one year it's only I think it was how much 138,000 yeah 138 but that's I I can you put a special education teacher in in the building it's not special education oh no the the money there was for three items it was for uh 40,000 for can you toggle back to the other slide so we can see back because I thought it was just it's in the the prior the prior presentation oh I I there's a whole slide on it uh so it's one uh special education teacher no that we couldn't 40 yeah that's what I thought 40,000 for administrator and an intern so we have one intern which is really uh a good bargain for um the money like I think let's look into it and see what is feasible yeah I don't think I don't think you can Bond money for a teacher I I don't think you can I I know you can't do that you can't use Bond money for for that all right Mariah's ready yeah so um adding back in the ELA curriculum the two FTE for a total of seven ft at the high school the um 138,000 for the pier and the um it's listed as 235 this week but it was listed as 225 in the previous one so I'm going to go with 235 since that will be again parity with these numbers so it equals 2,439 th000 my handwriting is messy 124 yeah the number that's the number of the the deficit and the number that we would be looking to reduce okay shall we continue then yes please do so I want to Echo what Susan said that these are very difficult discussions and were very difficult topics to discuss with each other and we realize the impact of what we're suggesting tonight our suggestion for World Language is to offer World languages in grades 6 through eight at our K through 8s only so we would have a 6 through 12 program grade six would continue to meet as they are and grade seven and eight would continue to meet five days a week it comes down to this recommendation is there's not enough time in the day the week the year um that to do everything that the Brookline Community wants to see happen in our schools if we offer World languages in grades 6 through 8 we would be able to recoup 36 hours of early literacy instruction in K through 2 over the course of the year and 54 hours of Science in social studies instruction in grades three four and five I'm confused by that wording is it accurate to reward this that um if we don't offer World language in grades K through 5 we will be able to do this okay so offering World language in grade 6 through doesn't actually affect what happens in K through 5 that's true okay thank you thanks Mariah and as we know being able to read write and speak are essential for full participation in our society in across the state of Massachusetts and nationally many students do not have the opportunity to develop the full range of literacy skills in prek through three next slide please L us this fact grade one if a child longitudinal Studies have shown that a child that does not develop grade level word reading skills by the end of first grade almost never catches up to reading in later Elementary School there's also been a new fairly new 2020 quasi experimental study that's was done by The forom Institute and what they found was that students who receive an additional 30 minutes of social studies instruction per day in grades one through five outperformed to students who did not receive the extra instruction uh even when controlling for the students kindergarten reading ability and other demographic and school factors so what we're learning is that social studies in particular develops foundational skills of analyzing text and context for students which helps to make them better readers in grade five so that was the rationale and some of the justification behind the World Language um reduction and just a follow-up question I have on that so based upon there being finite minutes in the day and wanting to be able to enhance our programming around literacy and social studies in particular with this with these findings this would be a decision you would support irrespective of whether we had this financial crunch or not because it's the best path forward for our students correct correct I believe it is in the best interest of our youngest learners for this course of action um our 2023 re World language review also showed us that our students whether they start language in sixth grade or they have the whole K to6 sequence are progressing at the same level as our students who start at kindergarten and it's about a difference of 3% achieving the intermediate advanced level in high school which would make them eligible for the seal ofi literacy our next recommendation were our literacy coaches last year we also cut some literacy coaches we had 3.8 FTE remaining and literacy coaches that are deployed across our eight K to8 schools this is not a sufficient dosage to offer impactful literacy coaching for teachers there's just simply not enough time so along with this re reduction we would redeploy our literacy specialist across our eight schools and a number to provide parody at a ratio of one literacy specialist to approximately every 200 students we would be able to do that that would mean some schools for example Pierce would get a slight increase in the amount of reading support that they have from what they have currently educational technology Specialists this proposed cut would leave us with four educational technology Specialists that we would deploy across our eight schools we would prare a larger school with a smaller school for the purposes of doing this and part of the reason that these were part of our discussion is that the ets's time isn't a special for students it's not built in to the student schedule therefore the students would not um experience the loss of a special subject and then to help with our technological issues we have a strong partnership with the town help desk to help assist us with those and that's the end of our presentation because the high school positions are still TBD or the high school shaving that 134 um th000 is still TBD so another world language related question I have I see that the recommendation is for it to begin in grade six and I'm just wondering if we could have some further explanation about as to why grade six as opposed to grade five for example and the reason I ask specifically about grade five is because when we think about transitions that our students go through so in grade four they start Conservatory grade six they're starting the Middle School model so grade five might seem like a place where there could be another transition and I'm not saying I'm wedded to that concept but I just like to hear the rationale about why grade six the rationale is because grade six is the L the year that we start offering language choice for our students and the timing it's when our students start to have World Language um more no actually not grade six that's grade seven but um it fits more in with our Middle School model than it actually does with our elementary model and it would allow us to provide those students at grade five with that extra social studies time which research shows is beneficial for them has there been any exploration of offering some kind of supplemental language program either after school or as part of a summer school offering there has been I haven't been able to find one as such but that is something that we are exploring oh a supplemental provider somebody that could help in the summer um for our younger students Suzanne thank you so just um Jody if we go to one FTE literacy specialist for every 200 students are we increasing the total number of FTE we are not we're just redeploying them they haven't been done in a manner that would provide parody um between schools in support um so we're trying to create that okay thank you Andy yeah so um a topic that had come up several times um earlier on was the idea of um consolidating classrooms in the elementary schools um and that has completely disappeared from today's proposal so could you provide some background as to know the thinking there because that that that that had been the other biggest item along with World Language that had come up before so enrollment fluctuations have actually made some of those quite impossible to do it would push us over the class limit and we were really considering the heterogeneous grouping of our classrooms and the variety of needs when we discussed it as an entire administrative team and the feeling that pushing our class sizes right up to the limit of 24 25 a wouldn't give us any flexibility in enrollment and B it also um would take away from the quality of experience that students had um so we felt that if we could make the cuts that we could hit the 3 million in other ways that we would present those ideas to you as well and I believe you received some enrollment updates um from us earlier today Valerie no I think they just I'm just answering that question they just came in um after the meeting started or just before the meeting started um my question is about the educational technology folks and you said they aren't student facing or they don't have classroom time but I'm wondering do they do any work on curriculum on social media use or or things like that or are they truly tech support they their job description says that they're truly um tech support however um over the years the position has morphed and they do do some student um facing work on um technology skills with our students Mariah I have a couple questions but I'm going to um piggy back off of that one to start and my question is um if the edtech Specialists were eliminated can can someone speak to how this would affect the K8 student and teacher experience so I what would happen is we would lose some of that support that teachers are getting in classrooms and deploying some of our um computer technology programs we would lose that support for students um we would lose some having somebody in the building like right on hand that can help with technology issues as a teacher is doing a lesson um we could lose some co- teing opportunities that happen right now okay um my next question is does the World Language reduction include a reduction in the reduction that would be I assume they're in non-personnel materials and supplies it would include that it also includes the .5 um administrator position we would no longer require a full-time curriculum coordinator for that position so that position would be reduced to a05 position I thought that was in the OTL administrative it is she comes under our budget okay so it's not in the K5 World Language it's in the OTL part okay yes um how was the $133,400 at the high school calculated if no positions have been identified the balance it's the what I balanc it oh okay so it's just okay um were the other Transportation bids favorable I thought we were bidding for not just special education Transportation but also like you still contract for your regular education yeah before so it was only the special education okay yeah um sorry I just want to like some of my questions were asked I just want to make sure I catch so just so I understand when you say they the budget reductions are prioritized you mean that you recommend taking them in order where the first one like the transportation bid is the one you most recommend and then the last two here the Ed Tech Specialists and the BHS TBD are the least recommended yes okay so then I just want to make a comment that we said that our Gap was 2,439 1124 and less those last two which are the highest priority retain it's 2,446 th000 and some number I can't read which is like seven it's like a $7,000 difference so I know we're not voting tonight I'm just noting that alignment Suzanne yeah I think this is for Jody I just would like a a few thoughts about the edtech position so we're not eliminating all of them or we are no no we're eliminating half of them we're going from eight down to four so every school we have some correct some tech Specialists every two schools would have one they would share one and then do I Tech Specialists do maker space uh one of them does even though that's not his assigned role okay so the maker space I'm just curious how we're using it these days it's up to the classroom teacher I take it and yeah there's some really great projects um for example over at Hayes um we saw the spotlight on Excellence earlier this year of the great project that came out of their maker space so um that is the yet Tech specialist that is Manning that particular maker space okay but if we reduce the tech specialist positions we won't necessarily reduce the use of the maker space correct so I just I just kind of want to have a feel about that okay thank you Natalia is it okay to add a comment rather than a question David sure go ahead yeah I mean I think the the language um the the K through five I I I find it to I I understand what you presented jod but I feel that the minutes of time doesn't make sense to me because you could cut minutes of art time you could cut minutes of Music time like to say that we need social studies time um that I don't know we should think about how we invest our our time overall but for me that doesn't seem Fair um as an argument for for cutting at least in the third to fifth grade um and so I just wanted to to express that to the group that I feel that it's cutting the full K through five to me seems uh like a huge change and a lot of Brooklyn families are multilingual a lot of families want to have so I would like to see the numbers I know you said them to me verbally my last question but what would it look like for keeping fourth and fifth grade what would it look like for keeping third fourth and fifth and you know I understand that there will have to be some reductions it's a huge bucket for it not to be reduced but I just think that K through five um for me it seems like it's a lot and I and I heard you Jody also say that uh the assessment showed that you know sixth graders didn't do any better but I do think that's because of you know we don't we haven't invested enough so I would want if we did have you know a fifth grade or a fourth grade to really think about how many minutes are needed you know adequate thinking about instruction and I looked really quickly at the literature and it does there is evidence that you know if you start a language before the age of 10 to 12 which you know borderline fourth or fifth grade that you you do have a likely you know this kind of critical age literature but more importantly the the notion of uh growth mindset in languages like being exposed younger you're more likely to believe that you can learn languages if that experience has been good so I do want to make sure that you know that I don't know I I I want to make sure that just because our students were not performing well that we don't blame that entirely on a system that clearly was not set up necessarily to work if they're only getting 40 minutes or 30 minutes or a lot of substitute teachers you know so I'm just voicing my concern with a full K through five I would feel quite uncomfortable with that David may I respond to a couple of things unfortunately um contractually we can't reduce the amount of not unfortunately contractually we can't reduce the amount of time for art music um physical education because it's required teacher contractual preparation time and um the other um the other pieces Natalia that you were bringing up is um without adding more time or more money and we've been funding World link through overrides which is automatically producing a structural deficit in our budget so while I understand that we value it I value it it's something that we really need to consider as a community right I I agree with what you just said my my concern is of course we Value World Language of course it's important to develop those uh linguistic skills and a second even third language if you can but to me it's not worth having a program in the lower grades if we can't do it well and the reason we can't do it well is because there not enough minutes in the day and we can't balance uh that with other priorities around literacy and social studies instruction so it's a difficult decision but I don't see this necessarily as I know we're having it as a discussion in the context of our budgetary Gap but I think this is something we were going to likely move toward anyway because it makes the most sense for what's in the best interest of our students I would rather have fewer programs but do them really well than try to do everything mediocre and that's why I was also asking earlier about the potential for some kind of supplementary program that could be after school or during the summer so that we can quickly try to explore creative ways to fill that Gap but not during the school day which is already so limited Stephen then Suzanne thanks um I want to push back against the argument that it's minutes in the day that's keeping us from implementing a successful World language program I I think um when we when we explored before you got here Jody when we explored the decline in science and social studies minutes we saw that they were reduced over a decade by 50% and we saw that that followed the adoption of the world language program and it happened largely as as a result of the expansion of uh literacy and math minutes and um that I think spurred in large part our consideration of how exactly it is that we teach math and literacy and whether literacy could be integrated into into other subject learning so I think if we need to make cuts for budgetary reasons that's one thing but I think we can make different choices um that's part one of what I want to say about world languages the other thing is the the world language review made specific recommendations about how we could strengthen the world language program um and to my knowledge we we haven't really adopted those those recommendations so I think we could be strengthening it and it could be a more impactful program so I I I recognize that cuts need to be made I accept that cuts to the world language program likely are going to be among the cuts I I would like to see though as has been requested um the price tag for cuts at different levels if it starts at grade three four five and six because I could see different permutations of these Cuts being um being different packages that the school committee might consider so I can give you those numbers if you want to write them down great so if we start in grades three we'd have to add five FTE back into the budget for a total of $536,000 added back into into the budget if we started at grade four we'd be adding 2.7 FTE back into the budget for a total of $337,000 and I don't have the dollar amount but if we started just at grade five we'd have to add 1.4 positions back into the budget so that would probably be at 110 120 yeah you think Master's five um okay yeah okay and I just want to uh ask a different question Dr Giller if would you mind giving us your read on all this what does does the level do these priorities reflect your priorities as well do you have any any recommendations on how the school committee should proceed and evaluating the options in the table so again I want to thank the team and thank the U the building administrators for their uh partnership in looking through this I think our our building leaders and they are here um tonight um and I think a show of solidarity around the work that's been happening here and I think for a number of years I think sort of I think what David was alluding to this notion of and I think jod said it very succinctly this notion of we're attempting to do a lot of things but we're not necessarily doing them extremely well and I like the idea of giving kids exposure um to various um subjects and those types of things as well but then we get to the point of at what point do we um either we get enough money to do everything and enough time to do everything or we say given the limitations that we have what can we do extremely well um or and how then do we evaluate this to say that it's actually giving us what we intended to do and I think in each of those cases um we come back to this spot this is now my um ending the third year in the district and I get frustrated that every time we go through the budgeting process it's here Betsy and I were having a conversation a little bit earlier and she brought back some historical documents but it seems to be that this is our yearly occurrence that every year we're in a budget deficit and in an organization a high class High performing organization I don't believe it's not my belief that we should be operating this way so how then do we get ourselves to a point where we can clear the slate and then be very deliberate and proactive about what we're doing and not just adding for the sake of adding and it's not to say that um our our staff don't work hard our Educators don't work hard it's not it's not a a judgment against them or an indictment against them but it's saying the reality of it is with a 6 and 1 half hour day we have programming for at least 7 7 and a half hours and we're trying to shoehorn that in so with those considerations I'm I'm in support of what our leadership team has put together um for this reason this again it's not to say that we are against any of these types of things but it's this notion that we find ourselves in every year of being in a structural deficit the principles will tell you they made some requests and I said no you're adding back staff to a budget that's already hard and so I got the evil sta from them uh in that regard but again it's it's having to say no to some of these things because then it just pushes again against the limits here and so how then do we get ourselves uh out of this and then in a methodical Way start saying well if we want to add this what are all the components that go along with it it's sort of this notion of unfunded mandates uh often times you know desie does this to us and we see this notion of well we're going to put this constraint on you but we're not going to give you the support of the resources to make it happen uh with Fidelity so I hope that answers are your question there something else I would just add to that we often talk about in other meetings how we would like to see more in the way of Wellness education and health and Civics and we haven't added much of that yet but we talk about wanting to do so we can't always add and not take away and it's it's it's painful to do that sometimes but I go back to that mindset of if we're going to do something let's do it well and if we can't do it well then it's probably not uh the best idea to keep something just for the sake of having it which again isn't to say we can't explore ways to supplement the that vacuum that gets created either after school or during the summer and that's something that I'm very much interested in if we could develop some kind of uh immersion program that would benefit uh students so that they're really in a position to truly learn the language rather than just having very brief exposures that are of questionable uh value from a a learning perspective in terms of actually being able to speak the language Suzanne yeah I was going to speak a little while ago but I'll bring it back up and Stephen I think minutes do count in our day um I'm confused when you said that um the the truth is is that uh we have guidelines maybe mandates from the state for a particular number of minutes in a year on the core the four core subjects and we aren't meeting all of those minutes and unfortunately or fortunately World Language is now a mandated course subject and so um we would have difficulty fitting all of that in there's too much in the day as Dr Giller said we have about seven and a half hours seven hours of content and we only have six six and a half hours to teach and so uh I do think uh it it does come down a little bit not just to budget but also to you know again how well we're doing the programs and are we meeting our uh obligations in terms of minutes uh for those core subjects okay so just to clarify yeah I I'm not sure what's controversial about what I'm saying the minutes that we lost to social studies and science did not come at the expense of of the world language program it came at the expense of the expansion of literacy and math well some did because no it all did and this was documented at length and I'm and I've shared this materials with the school committee and with Dr gillery and I and we we've all seen this stuff so I'm not disagreeing with the decision I I recognize the fiscal reality and I'm not I'm not opposing it I I just am pushing back against the argument that it's minutes that's forcing us to make this decision if we're not able to implement a highquality world language program then we should cut it but we shouldn't make this decision based on the argument that we don't have enough minutes in the day when when the the what what started CH what started freezing out our social studies and science minutes was not World language in the first place I just I reject that argument because it's factually false right with apologies to the presentation in my opinion it's factually false Stephen but I I think where the minutes still matter is you're you're saying that the uh history indicates that the minutes came from math and literacy but we are hearing and I believe you share literacy is a priority and so unless we would be taking back away from math and literacy it where are we going to find these minutes to have a robust enough World language program I'm just saying that these are these are choices that we're making absolutely I agree these are choices but I think that the most prudent choice is because to have a strong World language program we would need to be adding minute even more minutes than what we already have now that would have to come from core content areas and we're hearing loud and clear from the community and from this committee that we strongly value literacy I believe we strongly value math as well so I'm not sure where it would come from that wouldn't harm students in uh core areas so it it's certainly a tough decision and it is a choice but I think it's the most prudent choice at least in my opinion oh sorry Mariah and then Helen Jody can I ask you one more question um for now um for the K5 World Language proposal could you just uh clarify or confirm that REM that removing that would not negatively impact our ability to provide preps and it would positively impact the ability to schedule in buildings I can confirm that World Language isn't currently a prep the classroom teacher is expected to stay in the room with the language teacher okay and about the scheduling would it would it at least not negatively impact scheduling it would positively it would positively impact scheduling and actually help our building leaders schedule their building more easily without the shared staff that they have now thank you Helen and then Sarah so I I would first like to thank our administrators our principles uh for working so hard on on getting us numbers that that at least get us to or close close enough to where we need to get to I think that's that's that's not easy and I know that it it was probably heart-wrenching for many people uh to do that um and I if I ruled the world we'd have a bigger pie and so that would solve the problem we wouldn't have to take from one to to give to the other we don't have that right now hopefully sometime in the future we will I so there there's one thing that I would like to ask and one comment U I guess um I'll first comment on world language for me I think this was one of the best things we ever brought into Brookline I think it went downhill after a while and so it was harder and harder whatever happened there was enthusiasm in the beginning and it did have an impact on the high school what we have now from our report is that it doesn't um so something happened in between um I would hope that it sometime in the future we would have more time and be able to teach children early all around the world kids learn in the by the fourth grade they start learning a second language if not earlier and if we want to be worldclass citizens as as we we state in our uh values and our core Mission um we need to know at least one more language if not more um so that's my Soliloquy about World Language and how I feel about it and my lament that we we are going to be cutting it um uh well anyway uh but at this point I don't see any other choice um I would like to see if we could at least keep fifth grade if that's an option if we see that the numbers come out a little better there are still numbers to come in from the state Etc uh my pie that I'm hoping might increase a bit um the other piece I would like to ask of the administrators uh all of you that I would feel that any I know that we're not touching classroom teachers however if there are class classes at 15 or under excepting beep that has to be that small but um if there are classes at 15 and under unless there's a real significant reason for not being able to um to consolidate I think we need to look at that seriously too I it's hard when I looked at some points in the in last year uh where there were some classes of 14 now there may be special cases and special reasons for that that's fine and you know we need to look at that but at the high school or at the elementary school I'm not just talking about the elementary school here I think it's in both cases we you know I as much as I'd love to be able to run classes at 15 kids I don't think we can afford it so that would be my only request and to that uh latter points do you have information in terms of what classroom consolidations would look like around those extreme levels that inited I do I do and this is based on uh I'm sorry Sarah was going to go first my apologies Sarah go ahead I sorry I did raise my hand earlier too so two times I've been overlooked so thank you so much to allow me to speak so um I wanted to make sure that we um really are still wanting to have an excellent World language program you know even though some of us have weighed in tonight to be a little bit critical we do have this review where we have a lot of good suggestions and I think that if we're going to to make this decision that we're going to cut back on some of the years hopefully still considering fourth and fifth which I think is important I think that we also want to be committed to Excellence in this department right so if we H we have a world language review that's already paid for with some really good um suggestions let's commit ourselves to making sure that that happens for the sixth through eth or four fourth and up um program that we're keeping and maybe also consider this a chance to get back to um five days a week for sixth grade to make our program really count because those additional minutes would go a long way so I really like that idea about grade six now my understanding is that grade six does have some open time available if maybe there's I don't want to put any of you on the spot but if there's a principle who' like to speak to that about how that time is being filled and whether there's a possibility of an expansion for sixth grade I would suggest that's micromanaging right now too much that let let's we put it out there let's let our principles figure that out and come back to us okay uh let's see Mariah is it still going to be about uh language related or are we're going to go to topic all right did you have any more Sarah sorry about that okay all right Susan Dr gillery if you can uh put this data up thank you so there's um it this is enrollment as of uh today and um we were looking at this you know kind of all along to see where are those class sizes now so when we developed the budget it was based on October 1 uh enrollments and then we rolled the cohorts forward uh the kindergarten number uh was estimated by our office of enrollment and registration based on their best uh their their historical knowledge of uh and current conditions on what that might be so that's where the kindergarten came from and as you can see in this chart we're just rolling forward from uh FY 24 to fy2 when we're doing our projections the other thing I I just want to note before I get into the data is that as we take away some of the support services for uh educational technology and literacy um it also puts additional burdens let's say on teachers and not that it's a burden to provide those but it's an adjustment that needs to be made in order for them to modify what they're doing uh to incorporate work that was then previously done maybe as a co- teing um Arrangement or some other um supports that they provided to the classroom teachers so that was also in our mind as we were thinking about these numbers so as you know when you had asked me um to uh to share with you how many co how many sections across the elementary schools that if we were to have collapsed would result in a still meeting guideline the answer to that question based on October 1 enrollments was 12 um enrollment as of today that number is not 12 they've shifted around and I know Dr gillery has shared with you that our Peak with enrollment happens you know in the wintertime and so what we're seeing here today as we're looking at this is some of some of the shifting or churning as we say of enrollments here in Brookline which um are actually higher than most school districts that I've been in and I think it has to do with the population of um uh uh students that are um engaged in in graduate level work um and in the the hospitals around us so um just to take a look at this then so uh I put it in the same format you saw in the budget so you know hopefully that that's uh provides you with an orientation the first uh line of course is is enrollments of today the next one I've explained fy2 projection would then be uh moving those cohorts up the number of classes represent the number of teachers that we currently have in the budget and I did make those Corrections in the two that I had noted previously that that were off by one and then I beneath that I I provided you again with the average class size uh the line below that is the guideline by grades um so K through or prek through two is 22 is your guideline and then 25 from grade three through 8 um so I I I just for orientation and then what I did is I collapsed every section by one so you could then compare uh what it what the class size would be if we collapsed each section each each grade level by one section and so what you can see here and as we go through the slides if it's highlighted in yellow that means that uh if we collapse we would be uh below what you're going to see so first of all before we go through each I want to give you a little bit of information that I think will be helpful four of sections that are over um or could be collaps or at the middle school level and at the middle school level it's much more complicated it's not a matter of just taking one teacher out right it's it's several teachers because they're teaching different subjects so it's not a matter if you can just reduce one person you would be in fact removing parts of multiples in order to get to that so it creates a a lot of uh complication at the middle school level also as we were thinking about the middle School level you know that there's a task force that's looking at middle school right now and so we realize that not only do we have to make these reductions but the committee's are also committed to another million dollars in reductions next year before we even start the budget process so we did think about the short-term Downstream impacts as well as as the Upstream impacts of making choices at this time knowing that we're going to have to um continue to have this dialogue moving forward so for the sections are Middle School um I believe it's two sections are two or three sections are three through five and and the remaining uh that are over and it's 10 in total now um are at the uh uh lower levels Early Childhood so at the baker school um the eighth grade if you reduced it but you can't just reduce one person these would be parts of of of several individuals um which then creates a whole host of scheduling uh challenges and keeping teachers um at less than full-time in multiple subject areas is is just uh and sharing even it's not really necessarily an option there either so that's the baker school at Driscoll um there are no sections at this point that um you could collapse so if we look again at the bottom line that says if collapsed you see that each of those um if collapsed would be at or over the guideline um so I should have yellowed the prek again at the early uh childhood level to have classes of 22 especially as we're introducing this new uh literacy curriculum it's just we don't feel it uh it you know we're such on on the margins um here we're not significantly over uh or under um guideline as you'll see so that's stral at the haze again um similarly there were no uh sex that could be collapsed um from my earlier uh report and that Still Remains the Same here there so the shift in total enrollment uh is three at this point between October and uh at this point in the year at the hay school at Lawrence there's three but as you can see again they're right there on the edge so um if there's any um shifting in any way that um that those would put them over and then again we don't want to be scrambling as we get enrollments coming in or shifting around depending on what happens with Pierce Lawrence is one of the uh bordering schools that could take some of those students so again we're trying to be mindful of of all of the contexts that we we um you know faced with or that we can imagine for the upcoming year might might present us with some some obstacles for making reductions in sections so there's although there's three here you know um grade one is at 22 uh at grade three it's at 24 the guidelines at 25 um at grade seven again Middle School you're at 24 versus uh 25 being the guideline when we look to uh Lincoln at Lincoln um and again this is another Middle School this was one of the sections that we were had an eye on um earlier and uh again if you collapse sections there um there would be one that would be at guideline and the rest would be over guideline even after collapsing so though again uh this one is highlighted um we're right on we're right on guideline here so there there's not and that was true even in the analysis uh that I provided you earlier there were uh number of them that were right there they're on the guideline they meet your guideline but they're not they're not over but they're they're not really under either so there's one there and then Pierce and again you know we have Early Childhood at uh an average class of 20 so that would probably be the lowest um also to to take into consideration that some of the schools have smaller actual physical space than others um so we tried to think about those things as well and Pierce is is a little tricky because of the uh building project and we're not really sure it could be in fact that we have some outmigration here and inmigration elsewhere and need to to do some shifting there so it Pierce there's three that don't quite um meet the guideline but again um not um classes that are they're super super tiny just a question I have about Pierce so Pierce 8th grade uh collapsing by a section would still be four under the guideline so I'm just wondering what the thinking is there is there some particular reason why that's not a potential option to look at yeah at the eighth grade right yeah again it's that same challenge if it's not one person reducing so it's pieces of different teachers and so uh the concern here is not being able to maintain the staff that we have right now because we'd have to actually be reducing multiple teachers in order to get to the guide in order to adjust for the guideline elementary schools it's a one forone situation so it's it's an easy math but when you uh go to a team model at a middle school then you're actually um uh multiple teachers are teaching uh the student in that Co in that in those cohorts so that's the challenge for all for in all cases at the middle school level and again with the middle school being reviewed it's it some of its timing you know we really want to better understand um you know um you know the implications of making these decisions in relation to the information we learn um from the from the U study that's taking place right now um so for those reasons we we all felt uh that that that would not be something that we would look at at this point in time given where we're at in in in looking at that particular uh um area of focus uh next we have Ridley and again here you see even if we collapse um we um 21 uh and 25 are not you know we're right we're right there we're right on the guideline now um and just one below in the first grade um again with with making some of these shifts with the supports um that we've we've put on the table doing both um at the same time we felt would be far more disruptive to kids um and teachers and so um again that's some of the re rationale we we used when we were thinking about um this if you want to go to uh rle that rle again here there wasn't any sections to collapse uh in the initial review and and and that remains even if we collapse here um you know uh we would be over guideline so that's that's the most current data happy to share that this this slide um with you or this U PDF with you so you have it handy any questions or comments Sarah hopefully throughout the evening we've said Thank you to but thank you for that that was excellent and just so clear and you understand the Personnel implications of it so well so thank you anyone else all right are there any additional slides or explanations any other comments from school committee members about how to move forward here go ahead Helen so one piece that still is missing I think from our calculations is the amount of the um health insurance State health insurance I don't do you have that possibly so great question um Susan and I are meeting with the administrator and Deputy Administrator on Monday um the preliminary conversation that I had with him last Friday though was that the numbers weren't coming in good they were coming in at that 10% or higher range but he said you know for his side it wasn't looking as promising and I hope I'm not sharing his information before he shared it um but our side U he hasn't done he and Melissa hadn't looked at that as of yet but we'll get that information Monday get some insight to it the Assumption in giving us our numbers was a 10% increase right okay so I think his signal signaling at least that the preliminary look at that was that it was coming in around those numbers but they haven't looked at our side deeply yet and if the state were to because many as many people have read the the globe uh had a huge article about every District experiencing probably worse than what we are um in terms of cuts and and the amounts of U deficits that they have um I'm wondering if the legislature were to decide on more money are we going to I think one of the things we need to think about is where would we put back uh monies into the budget or would we hold those aside and wait to see where we need to if we get a sudden influx of students or something like that I mean those are things I think that you know I'm not sure when we're going to vote the budget it's not clear to me uh how long we wait do we wait till uh the the house budget came out or it's coming out we're supposed to vote on March 28th the house no no we will be voting on March 28th when does the House vote does B you know that yeah so the house budget will come out just before school vacation and then they'll debate it after school vacation so they won't vote it until close to the end of April in the end yeah but we had more sense of where it was going it's just yeah around school vacation will have a sense of where they're headed Stephen um two questions one just a a process question so our task is to think about Cuts totaling about 2.45 million from what's been presented to us correct okay uh I have a question Jody can can I ask you about the literacy coaches um so given that we're looking to potentially roll at new literacy curricula can you talk a bit about the anticipated professional development around that literacy curricula and the reason I'm asking is because I'm wondering if we don't essentially have a built-in training of trainers system with the literacy coaches and if that wouldn't offer us essentially a savings with what we have already so the most programs we haven't chosen a program yet that will be some work that we do later this spring and early this summer um but most programs come in with a builtin train the trainer model we would have our literacy Specialists participate in that literacy Specialists not our literacy coaches correct literacy coaches are the teacher facing correct and then maybe we would as we have more capacity um and we have better literacy materials for our teachers to use we could possibly reinstate some of the coaches from the literacy specialist pool because we would need Less Direct Services to students and the literacy coaches currently cover multiple schools correct correct it's roughly one per two schools yeah okay thank you you're welcome now a question I have for the committee and also Dr gillery or Jody or the or the principles if you want to opine on this uh we've heard some comments from Natalia and Sarah and Helen to some extent about whether we have to eliminate the full K5 group for World Language or whether it could start at grade four or whether it could start at grade five and so I'm just wondering if we could hear more about the rationale for why it should start in grade six we did have that study about grade students in grades 1 through five benefit from more social studies uh but is there anything beyond that again it's um there's some very practical opport operational pieces of this is that if we start at grade five we end up with more fractional pieces of people um and those positions are very hard to hire for which is one of the things that we've noticed this year um Stevens's point was well taken um and I think Sarah also made the point that our literacy and not our literacy review that's the review we're doing now our world language review had a lot of great suggestions in it we feel that we have the bandwidth to Implement those suggestions at grade six and Beyond where if we dilute um our area of focus we would not be able to do that so it's really the Practical aspects of hiring fractional people scheduling um people to teach those pieces which lead to the structural inequities that we've heard so much about from our um K to 5 um teaching staff in World Language and in addition we feel that this is the place that we can really make a difference and strengthen our program so that we have the strongest 6 through 12 program that we can possibly have all right Sarah the other answer to that of course is also when you're looking at where you're going to start your program is obviously how many hours of Total instruction a student has in their full sequence so anything that we can bring it down to is additive as long as in the elementary levels we always have 90 minutes minutes and then um in sixth grade I think that we really do much better if we have it every single day so if we're looking at a student who would be likely to take the same language 6 through 12 or 5 through 12 um the benefit is is that the student would have more hours of instruction if you bring it down lower and the other thing that Natalia was speaking about in terms of deciding where you start is that prior to age 12 if you start and get some real strong instruction like in you know not just you started yesterday before you turned 12 but that prior to turning 12 you you have some good instruction behind you that is shown as being beneficial to language learning so everybody likes to see younger um starts for World Language so how do you and this is a question to all of you not just you Sarah but if you have an answer that's fine uh so how do we balance in in your opinion or the opinion of anyone else these competing interests of the practicality of hiring fractional FTE to have a partial grade four Andor grade five program as opposed to making it a bit easier on the logistics and then having possibly a full grade six as you were talking about which very much interests me as well well I think that um Jody was speaking a little bit in the abstract right so she was sort of saying of course that will be hard to fit in but we could do an analysis of the actual people who we have in the buildings because our um teachers don't work out to be perfectly one FTE um for what we need right now right so we might be able to add to some people's positions and um and make them into a full-time person in order to accomplish this but it would be different building by building and theoretically it's tough but can it be done it might it might work out better than we um expect just because of the fact that we already have part-time people anyone else all right uh then I guess we are I guess I would just say that we would have to we would have to get that analysis fairly quickly right right because um for us to really weigh whether an additional year so you'd like to see what the program would look like with the specific students that we have and teachers that we have what would the program look like and what would the expense be if we had an additional level I think we have the expense I think the question is is it just Is it feasible from a human resources point of view especially bearing in mind that we've had a lot of criticism from World language teachers that there have been untenable positions this year so we wouldn't want to create positions that require running around like checking that ahead that's something that we could right might keep them from running around right that's something that we can it it's um it's not impossible to like to show you what that would look like with the staff that we currently have so we could do that Mariah if we decide to make a request like that for that level of analysis I would like the committee to take a vote on it because I think it's a lot of work and I want to be clear that there's a majority interested in receiving that analysis before we as opposed to like a minority of members um wanting that all right we could do that so it sounds like you're moving that I'm not moving anything someone who wants it should be moving whatever it is they want we're what we're moving is not the cuts yet that's going to come on the 28th what we're moving is whether we would like to have an analysis of the logistics around starting in grade four or starting in grade 5 it sounded to me at least that there's unanimity on the committee about not continuing for K3 that's sounds I think that covers everybody but some would like to start in grade four some would like to start in grade five some are probably okay with starting in grade six so the question is do we want to ask central office to perform that analysis about whether it would be feasible Andor practical to consider expanded programming at grades four Andor five or whether that would exacerbate the current situation where we have all these fractional people so they they did give us the money right and they did give us the FTE you just want to take a look at the existing at the actual schedules for actual teachers Personnel that we already have how difficult would it be to schedule that program may I ask a clarifying question are you asking us to schedule World language for each building now in grades four through five no to do an analysis and so I I appreciate Mariah saying that that would be a lot of work and I know that you can't schedule something say that we don't know what the rest of the schedule looks like next year I totally appreciate that I was talking about filling out FTE okay with existing personnel's um schedules I'm not sure how to do that without each building schedule um so can you give me more detail about what it is that you're looking for so if we have a teacher that's available to us so if once we staff sixth through 8th grade do we have just you know two FTE um teachers in that building or do we have like a two and a half situation and so if we put in a couple classes of fourth and fifth grade we would then have three FTE in that building to offer I'm not sure we can do that without looking at each individual school schedule but we will certainly if the committee votes this do our best to try sorry ask an additional question on that because this is sounding now really complicated so if we're adding fourth and fifth grade some schools have different languages in lower grades than they offer in middle school so I don't know if this is for Sarah or for jod how would we ever sort out what fractionals of which language we were adding that makes any sense so in our buildings we tend to know that each year we have well through fifth grade we only have one language I guess sorry that's the that's the answer no but through fifth grade we only have one language in each building so um that doesn't enter into what we're talking about well it does Sarah if you use Driscoll for an example because Mandarin drops off substantially in the sixth to eth grade calculation but it's the only language offered in K to 5 right so it's right that's the same for every building so we don't have language Choice K through five in every building so I guess I'm not understanding how the fractional would help in that circumstance right if you have say you have a fractional is is in Spanish at Driscoll how does that help if you're adding Mandarin fourth and fifth grade oh right so if if we had it in Spanish then that wouldn't work that would be what we would be looking into if we had the factional person in Mandarin and needed to add in Mandarin sections then that would work okay I'm not talking about scheduling teachers ahead of time I'm talking about FTE equaling one person it it's not actually complicated I'm I'm really sorry that I I brought it up but it's you don't have to schedule the the year in our schools like we tend to have the same number of sections every year for language and I'm not talking of about trying to figure out a teacher schedule prior to that year I'm talking about counting up FTE that are needed in order to add in fourth and fifth grade maybe we've already got to the point that we said we're not going to explore this because it doesn't make sense to anybody else well if you want to move it move it so Sarah how is that not already covered by what Jody told us she said it was 5 FTE for grades 3 through 5 2.7 for grades 4 through five and 1. four for grade five alone so all you're talking about is of f across buildings so we can take that as an average you know okay I think I I think we're not interested I think we should move on all right so did someone want to move that request or are we moving on I I if I can I think it seems to me I'm in agreement that we need to know it but I think we could go by the amount of 1.5 it could be less if there was an ability to to use partial FTE and it would be less because there'd be less health care costs Etc because if you put somebody to 1.0 you're you're still paying the same health care costs as somebody who's 75 or I get I guess the part that's difficult is that's over different buildings right right the the concern being articulated by central office is it's much harder to hire a point three if that's what it is at each building as opposed to pulling it together and so I think Sarah wants to if we could perform an analysis to see whether what we currently have inh house building by building works out in such a fashion that you could cover an additional grade or two with what you already have the FTE count fulltime right the FTE counts that we have now are across the whole District so that part in and of itself doesn't really answer the question about the logistical challenge do do any our principles just know the answer off hand no Natalia I mean I'm I'm hearing this logistical Challenge and I wonder if it would require us uh having a single language like I think it's a logistical challenge in part because if in fifth grade like that 1.5 across five you know across many schools but it so it may require some rethinking of the whole program and I think fundamentally that's not up to us but I do still you know like I recognize it would be more work but I still feel strongly that we should consider on aggregate on our budget and and unless somebody says it's just impossible like completely impossible to rethink and and I'm serious that it might mean that we have fewer right now we have three or four languages across the K through 8s but so you you really are thinking about this the right way but if we're looking at adding in fourth and fifth to an existing sixth through eth model we're only talking about one language in each building because we don't offer two languages at fourth and fifth no but I'm saying one we may require that that whole school third fourth through eth would be one language so that the mixing up so that schools have that flexibility because if if Chinese is you know offered across all schools and then those F like the the logistics might I just I I think it may the logistical solution may be that the entire school has that one language that you don't have a choice but anyways I'm my my worry there Natalia would be that then we are effectively taking away choices for students when they get to the high school because if it's only one language at the K through a then realistically the student would probably continue with that language and if not then did it really serve them if they go in another Direction in grade nine Mariah um I think we heard from Jody that K through five would allow the ability of the buildings to schedule and and it sounds like it's sort of been considered as the strongest approach to this and so my feeling is just to um I don't I'm not interested in having a huge logistical Challenge and imagining that we're like all of a sudden blowing up all whole world Lang language programs across the district to me that feels like it's actually more disruptive to language in the world language program than um what's being proposed now and what's being supported by the building leaders so if that were even on the table I would not be voting for it anyone else Ellen yeah I'd like to request that maybe next year we look at it in curriculum and sort of examine what take that up as an issue and try and figure out is there a way to go to fifth grade rather than than trying to do it now when we know we have to cut and you know it just let let's get sixth grade settled and figure out how to move forward might be the way to go about it and do it in subcommittee this is not the place to try and figure this out unfortunately not that I you know don't agree with you but I think that if we were to go forward with starting in grade six would that mean that each building has at least Spanish and French would that also include Mandarin what would that look like do we know no the way that our program is currently is we have um in two of our buildings we have Mandarin in the middle school 6th through 8th in all of our buildings we have Spanish and then in the buildings where we don't have mandarin as the second choice we have French Pierce so if we have a 6 to8 program when the student gets to fifth grade they can choose between Spanish and French or they can choose between Spanish and Mandarin okay thank you all right any further discussion on World Language or on any aspect of the budget Mariah David will you be forecasting for the public our process from now through the 28th well we will certainly be soliciting public comment and also any of you who either want to sign up verbally for public comment or send us emails with your thoughts we will certainly review them and consider them and then on the uh 28th we will likely take a vote on the budget thank you Stephen I guess I just want to say um first thank you David for docketing this special edition of school committee where we can just focus on the budget and I also uh just want to say thank you to Jody and Susan for spending so much time going through the budget I I just want to say it um it's it's something the size of the world language program which I think um does provide a lot of value and potential value uh is it's hard to swallow a cut this size when when it's really only been discussed tonight but I also recognized that you didn't really have a choice because the budget season is what it is and so I certainly don't am not casting any blame whatsoever especially not to our presenters I just want to want to vent my frustration at the process that I know you said Helen that next year maybe we could talk about it in subcommittee but this I think is exactly one we have to talk about it this year because it's our only opportunity to talk about it so I think we all have to give it give each other a chance to air out what we can air out at this session so we can come to as as reasonable a decision as we can since this is our only chance to to Really deliberate on a decision that has some real significance to the district on on that point Stephen uh since it sounds to me I don't know for sure that a majority of us would go along with uh removing the K5 portion of World Language that's about a million I think that a majority or all of us were in agreement with the first slide we saw that would total 935,000 so that brings us to about 1.9 million so what are we thinking about literacy coaches education technology Specialists and the to be determin at the high school because we don't necessarily have to cut all three David two thoughts one is we just said we were going to let the community provide us feedback I don't think that we need to race ahead to the to the to this part of the conversation is my personal opinion um also I had another comment about something Stephen said but I'll hold for now but I just want to say that I don't I don't want us to get too far ahead I really think we should solicit Community feedback and before we make this final decisions all right anyone else yeah Ellen I I agree with Mariah in terms of that I think that we really do need to hear from the public and we will hear over the weeks too because this is just coming out and there'll be a lot of people who are just tuning in um the other thing I was hoping to request is can we vote on this on the 11th is there a reason we have to vote on the 28th I'm just going to add my two cents if I may yeah Miss um it's delaying our posting of positions because we don't know what's really open and as we know because there' be bumping there's potential bumping rights and things like that so it would delay our ability to post and hire which is something that I know our principles are very eager to do right now so that we can still have a chance at attracting the best candidates yeah okay thank you Mar um my other comment was I just want to correct what might be a perception from something you said Stephen which is just that we haven't been talking about the budget until tonight whereas we've been talking well but okay but you said the budget we haven't been talking about this until tonight I interpreted it as we haven't been talking about the budget and I wanted to make sure everyone okay yeah so that's all if I could just and Stephen we have been talking about World Language we have the world language review so it may not be at this level but we have been talking about it all through we we haven't been talking about major cuts to the world language program until today so far as I know did I miss something yeah so I think you're saying he's right yeah so I think the opportunity to deliberate openly and transparently like this is is appropriate to this meeting so no I'm not saying it's not inappropriate I'm just saying we it has been on the table for a while sorry if I if I misspoke I I agree with you completely Suzanne and I agree with you spah we've definitely been talking about the budget a lot all right uh this is not put anyone on the spot but I see that we have a lot of our principles here did any of you want to speak you don't have to I just want to give you the opportunity all right so with that we will move on to public comment and thank you very much again to our central office staff and to our principales and to uh Dr gillery uh these were very hard recommendations to make we understand that and we uh respect all the work and thought that you put into this process okay so for public comment first up we have Mr Ezra Klein bomb hello everybody nice to see you all um as our CIMB I'm a junior at Brookline High School um and there's something that I just sort of wanted to put on your radar tonight um many of you may be aware that fairly recently a student named next Benedict um was assaulted and killed at uh a student at a school in Oklahoma NEX was non-binary transgender um and was assaulted and died the next day uh in a girl's bathroom following um a fairly recent law in Oklahoma requiring students to uh use bathrooms associated with the sex they were assigned at Birth and last week there was a vigil at Cypress field organized by uh a number of Brookline High School students by an estimate from the Cypress there were at least 60 people there the vast majority of whom were students um and many students spoke many gender queer students spoke both um who are sort of scheduled to at the beginning and at an open mic afterwards I spoke um and the one thing that was just like a really consistent theme in what all the students were saying was that we need more gender neutral bathrooms at Brookline High School at the schools that the gender neutral bathrooms that we have are not sufficient they um for so many reasons there are always people well when they're open there's really only one per floor for the most most part and they're closed all the time um for vandalism um or because students VAP in them and it's not that those aren't problems with boys and girls bathrooms gendered bathrooms it's just that there are so few gender neutral bathrooms that when they're closed um like there's nowhere that students can go I I don't feel comfortable in a boy's bathroom I don't feel comfortable in a girl's bathroom so when I want to go to the bathroom um I want to go to a gender neutral bathroom and I mean according to surveys Brooklyn high school students 99.8% of Brooklyn high school students identify as transgender or non-binary so it's not like this is a minority or not like it's just a tiny number a tiny fraction of the student body there are a lot of students who need and want gender neutral bathrooms um and the facilities that we have are too few too often closed they're for the most part on one side of the school so if you have a class on the other side you can't realistically walk to the gender neutral bathrooms and back in between classes you have to go during class you're going to have to miss like 10 minutes of class to go to the bathroom um so I think it's really important that we start to look at adding more gender neutral bathrooms and I really hope that over the next couple of weeks or months that's something that we can start to work on thank you thank you next we have Miss Lisa stall hello hi my name is Lisa stall and I have two children at Brookline High School who went to pierce and I work as a social worker in the Somerville public schools and I've been very involved in equity work as a parent I'm going to read and expand on a statement that has been signed by 119 Brookline parents and will be Distributing um col will help me a copy of this letter and signatures to each of you um as as parents of Brookline public school students and members of the Brookline Community we are writing to reaffirm our values of diversity equity and inclusion as a priority for the 2024 and 2025 school year we believe that Equity is and should be Central to all the district's strategic goals joy in learning excellence in teaching culture of collaboration celebration of difference and ethic of Wellness We Stand United both parents of color and allies to acknowledge many of our community who have experienced racism cultural insensitivity and a lack of belonging here in P Brooklyn Public Schools this is Curr currently an unfortunate reality for many children and families in our community and it harms us all we must do our part to change that Equity means Excellence for all students biased treatment of students of color segregated classes and curriculum that that don't reflect all cultures and classes do not serve any students well recruiting and retaining faculty whose ethnicity and race mirror the diversity of our students is crucial their living experience is Illuminating and key to a great public education as parents we value diversity supporting and retaining teachers of color and training and educating teachers on how to thoughtfully navigate complex issues of racism bias and cross-cultural exchanges too many excellent teachers and leaders of color have left After experiencing tokenization isolation and expectations that they alone will shoulder the impact of racism the iic plan does an excellent job of incorporating this reality it rightly emphasizes issues of representation in faculty and curriculum disparities in outcomes and social emotional well-being and yet we believe Brookline can do much more to build on this we are asking the school committee and district for more substantial commitment to supporting Equity work in our schools and to expand that support in our upcoming I guess in this budget right now um discussion to place equity on a faster track as Jana utaro our former senior director of equity urged in her resignation letter equity and Justice must move from the margins to the center of the daily and hourly work in the Brookline Public Schools we urge you to allocate funding so that Equity can truly lead to Excellence fund the please fund the equity audit so that we know where we need to focus our priorities and we firmly back Equity specialists in each school so that we have teacher leaders ready to step in as problems around racism and cultural insensitivities arise fund programs such as leap which benefit many of our aapi students equity and Justice remains simply words on a strategic plan if they are not prioritized when allocating resources we believe there's a ground swell of support for doing the Deep dive towards Equity that Jana urged including an equity audit we can and we must all do our part thank you thank you Miss next we have Mr Colin Stokes if I may uh I'd like to um seed my three minutes to uh Ted Lewis that's fine and Mr Lewis hi everybody I'm uh Ted Lewis I have two kids at the high school um also the husband of Lisa stall uh the reason uh Colin SE time to me is because we're just finding out about these uh proposed cuts and of course we're very alarmed to hear about them and it was painful for you to discuss and it's painful for us to watch your discomfort and gaug in this Hunger Games kind of competition on on what to cut um and I want to present to you an alternative don't cut anything allow there to be a space for parents and the community and you to collectively stand up and properly fund education now for a full disclosure um I work for the Massachusetts Teachers Association I'm also a parent and part of my job is to review Municipal finances colleag came up to me uh today and says look Ted could you help me out I need to review brookline's finances they're contemplating cuts it came as a shock to me so I was reviewing Brookline finances and it's very obvious that this financial crisis is a manufactured crisis not manufactured by you but Brookline is an extremely financially healthy town by any objective measure and if you look at the increases to the Surplus that Brooklyn has enjoyed on average over the past five years in the free cash it's socked away 2,600 $1,000 on average the stabilization fund for the prior four years that we have data uh 2,100,000 you add up the reserve funds on average it's close to $5 million a year now how does this happen the town budgets very conservatively for example the revenue from local receipts last year they underes estimated those receipts by $1 million $10 million the year before there's an average underestimation of revenue from local receipts of about $8 million over the last five years why is a town like Brooklyn that is so financially healthy then giving you the charge of of making cuts are we are we going to cut you know World Language so we cut this we shouldn't be cutting anything you heard the presentation just minutes ago about the importance of equity and I I suspect this is a value that you share as well cutting World languages is going to have an inordinate impact on staff of color we're already reeling from the debacle of the last round of unnecessary layoffs um so this is my my plea to you work with the community to create a space if we have to put pressure on the town create a space for us to to do that go to the town and say we don't ex we don't accept the choices that you're giving us given the resources and the ability of the town of Brook line to to fund priorities and given that education Equity are priorities are Brook our priorities in Brookline let's stand behind our values and and put put our money and our resources and uh and live the values that we espouse so so um thank you for listening and I I hope that you can work with us the parents and the Greater Community to protect education in Brookline rather than have to struggle with this unnecessarily uh horrible process of figuring out what to cut thank you thank you Mr Lewis next we have Miss Erica Anderson thank you I have um two children in the sixth grade at Florida Ru and Ridley school and I have a ninth grader at the high school this year and I just want to thank my colleagues and fellow parents for what they said and Echo everything um that they said and if if you do follow don't remember his name but Lisa's husband what Lisa husband said in the words of my ninth grader we got you we are going to be there behind you as a school committee and and Lobby our town meeting members to tell them to fund our schools because we know that that's what makes this town great and what what really is is what is the funding behind this town and what makes it what gives it that monetary base is because our schools are so excellent and we will be there as parents what I came here to say though in addition to supporting my colleagues is in our District's new strategic plan diversity and Equity are included within each of the district's goals and that's exactly right it's not a bucket or a box that we've checked but it's threaded throughout everything within that plan because we know all of us in this room and particularly you as a committee know that an excellent education is a diverse education an excellent education is an inclusive one and an excellent education is an equitable education for all of our students but we have to take the steps to actually make those things become real we have to take the steps to make those strategic goals more than just nice platitudes and to make Dei more than just a box that that we check and that requires systemic change and systemic change requires knowing how the system currently functions and an equity audit will allow us to do that an equity audit will collect evidence to comprehensively assess student achievement from across all of our schools and we heard that at the last meeting when you were talking about the ninth grade leveling that we didn't know you know how does the Middle School recommend classes for these eighth graders we didn't know those things and whether the audit is going to get into that kind of level of detail it might not but those are the typ types of things that we just we don't have information about about how our instructional practices are happening quality of Educators programs at schools and those are the types of things that that an equity audit can give us that type of information and we'll also look at practices at the district level including our budget Human Resources Transportation we'll look at all of those types of issues one of the things I heard from you guys tonight is concern about when we have audits or reviews is why do we have those and I don't want to put words in your mouth but it's what I feel like I heard is why do we have these reviews when we don't we aren't then able to implement what we hear from the reviews and what are the recommendations from those reviews but if we don't even have that information to start with we can never take the steps to make the change without the information from the audit we don't even know what changes to make to start down those Paths of improvement to meet the goals that we have set in our strategic plan that's the first thing and why we need to have that audit as the very base level and secondly we need to have that information so that we can fine-tune our budget so that we have the Precision that we need to make our budget align with our values and with the goals that we have and we all know in this room in a personal level and also on a professional level that our values are known by our actions and we have to take actions like an equity audit to tell our community members and our students and our teachers that these are what our values are equity and diversity and inclusion for all of our students that's what our values are in the past we have had some Equity reviews but we've never had a full audit and this isn't the first time it's been asked for in this District but it is the time for us to do it it's time to conduct an equity audit and take the steps toward the systemic change that we need to achieve those goals that we've put in the Strategic plan let's make sure that this year is the budget that we have a budget that reflects those goals and our values to create an excellent Equitable education for each of our students thank you thank you Miss Anderson and next we have Miss Abby Erdman so it's me again um I'm uh reading on behalf of Abby Erdman uh good evening school committee friends Dr gillery and Brookline community friends I'm sorry not to be able to attend in person to stand with the Care Group but imagine me there with all of you thank you care folks for showing up and all the hard work you have done on the petition and the letter school committee members I consider many of you friends and allies I've worked on some of your campaigns and I have respect for all of your hard work I also see most of you as allies who want to move Brookline in the direction of justice and Equity so it is a little puzzling that I find myself thinking that some of your school committee decisions are not aligned with what you say and I believe and what I believe are your personal values as I saw in the decision about deleveling n9th grade English I want to take a moment to revisit this from I think a different angle I heard from a few of you before you made that decision that letters in favor of keeping levels were outnumbering those in favor of deleveling and I'm compelled to ask whose voices are you listening to many graduates of SWS where classes are unleveled and include three grades who went to Elite colleges like Harvard Yale and Williams wrote to say they were very well prepared by these untracked classes classes that included their whole time at Brooklyn not just 9th grade many wrote Malcolm cauthorne wrote about how his two very different daughters benefited from untrack classes lived experience is a term that gets tossed around a lot but I do feel it is relevant here these alums and this valued teacher among many others who wrote benefited from lived experience of no tracking and the other most relevant group that was firmly in favor of this change was the English Department is there a more qualified group to listen to these are the voices of experience and lived experience so I have to ask whose voices are you listening to and why and whose voices are you not hearing and heeding and why this morning I was talking to Lloyd gelano about the equity audit and he looked at me with surprise the schools haven't had an equity audit he said a bit stunned the town has and has benefited enormously with Equity officers in many oh the town has and has benefited enormously with Equity officers in many departments who are making change school committee friends you've made the decision about the nth grade but you can still make the right decision about the much-needed Equity audit for until we do the audit we cannot know what places and structures and habits must be challenged and changed so Brookline can as we all want move in the direction of justice and Equity you can make the right decision to fund the equity collaboration team and the equity leaders in all the schools funding the work of equity and social justice can be the Hallmark of this school committee it can align your personal values with the values of this school committee it is not too late thank you all right thank you Miss Erdman via Mr and uh that concludes public comment for this evening thank you everyone who participated next up new business is there any new business seeing none that con includes our meeting 10 minutes early recording stopped e e e e e e e for