to the flag of the United States of America and to theic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all this meeting is being live streamed by chancelor tele media and posted to the chancelor public schools website for interested community members to access and watch in-person public participation will be taking place tonight in in accordance with the chumford school committee public participation guidelines anyone speaking tonight during the public input portion of the meeting has notified the superintendent's office of their desire to speak and has provide been provided with these guidelines upon request written comments received no later than 12: p.m. on the day of this meeting will also be read and made a part of the record of the meeting during the second public comment session I don't believe we have any members of the uh press present uh welcome to tonight's meeting and I'm going to turn it over to Dennis King yep um so as many of you are probably aware a longtime teacher and coach in Council of public schools Tom KO passed away recently I was fortunate enough to have had coach KO as both a teacher and a football coach I also got the chance to work at him as member of the athletic department when I was starting my own coaching career in all situations at all times coach KO not only carried himself with the utmost professionalism but with a level of caring not typically found with people on his profession it didn't matter who you were whether you were the starting quarterback on the varsity football team with a team manager bringing water out to the players during practice coach KO treated you with respect and he never forgot who you were you could come back to a game 10 years after graduation and if he saw you he would greet You by name Shake your hand and ask you how things were going coach Ko's influence on people is such that players 40 plus years out of school would call him on a regular basis to check in on him Coach K will be solely missed by many in the chel community and what I would like is is just to ask if we could do a moment of science but before I think Donna would also like to mention something yes um and at this point I'm going to ask John mes to speak yeah for people in the community uh that don't know Emily Dilworth passed away um this weekend and uh I've known Emily as a parent and uh she was a recess Aid and one of the things about Emily that was always uh upfront was her really unique style the way she dressed the way she stood out her sense of humor um and I got as I got to know her over quite some time um she was the person that I would when I would go to like school events we would sit off to the side and we would tell inappropriate jokes and have a great time because em was really great at that um or we would go to you know run into each other in our parents circles and she was always the person causing trouble with me and she was just this really unique soul that people loved uh at the PTO um at the biome um my son really loved her um and it's just uh it's a real tragedy to lose somebody so young so um that would be the moment of silence for Emily so at this point I'd like to take a moment of silence both for Coach KO and for Emily DOR thank you everybody okay our first order of business tonight is uh to approve our uh minutes from uh March 12th yep I make a motion to approve the minutes for our meeting on March 12th 2024 second all right does anybody have any questions or concerns I just noticed um a name that needs to be corrected toward on page four that that it um it I believe that should say Sam pton from The nishoba Valley school committee stated there be a debate and his name is spelled wrong it's um right at the very end how should it be spelled how do you spell his name p o u l t o I thought it I guess I should have looked it up before i p o u l t n yeah Susan I want to let you know that was our first error all year thanks for getting it on the last thank you first error all year not bad was just a spelling it wasn't just a spelling so uh we'll amend the uh motion to um address the error is that all right y all right um all those in favor I I anybody opposed abstain thank you 5 Z in favor okay next up we'll hear from our chensford high school representatives and I again want to congratulate you on being chosen as a tennis team captain thank you yeah so on Saturday March 2nd the chamford High School of Science team attended the Massachusetts state Science Olympiad which is a nationwide competition hosted by the Wentworth Institute of Technology with 64 participating schools chumford plays 46th overall um and in the science quiz b event Anisha dantam hasia carthik and Jaden Pacho plac eth in the Optics event Nazareth a gazarian soan miani placed third and they received bronze medals congratulations of the chord High School science team the high school's two AC capella teams placed at I HSA the International Championship of high school AC capella they made it to semifinals the Thursdays got third and are eligible for the Wild Card round and the crescendos got first so they the Northeast Champions are moving on to finals so congrats to both groups and congrats to the senior elected class officers class president Juda Stacy Vice Nate Hart treasur pavri and secretary Jessica Jus so great and I want to thank both of you uh it's been a pleasure working with you uh very dedicated very responsible and excellent reports so uh best of luck to you in the future a thank you all right um do we have any good news y um pece good news and a couple of announcements so our several of our elementary middle school students performed in the Massachusetts music educators Association I wrote it down because it's very long All State treble choir f Festival a little bit of a mouthful so they were in Worcester this weekend and they did a really nice job and had a good time um two pieces of um information just to keep in mind is tomorrow night is the CPAC meeting at 7M that is a virtual meeting if you would like a link um you can email Amy Reese um at reesea chord. k12.us it's also on the CPAC website and on Thursday night we're holding the Parker Middle School informational uh session for the building project and that's at the mcarthy middle school at 700 p.m. great any other good news all right do we any of you registered for a public comment tonight we don't okay so we'll move on to new business thank you uh yeah we're going to jump right into the agenda we have a bunch of different items tonight we have a couple of presentations um the first we'll invite up um Christine Clancy our DPW director and um this is to provide um a c an update to the uh Town's Paving and sidewalk master plan um So Christine thank thank you for coming and I'll help you uh Advance through the slides thank you uh thank you for having me tonight um I did provide a similar presentation last year I think last year was a little more in- depth because last year we did um uh that was the first year we had the sidewalk assessment Pro um assessment put together now moving forward we use both the pavement assessment plan um and the sidewalk master plan to really create a um a conclus or a a combined um Paving and sidewalk updat so what I want to do is show you where we are uh now we're KN going out of the snow season and headed into Paving um so uh the first slide thank you um so in 2012 we have our pavement management system in 2021 that system was updated this is really how we rate all the we have all the roads in town we rate them we also um use this system to really plan for our Outlook looking at really a three-year look ahead what we do is we publish our annual Paving list because conditions change over the year it's not just the conditions of the roadway we look at um you know trying sometimes trying to combine projects in a certain area of town um also we look at utility needs you know does the gas company have to provide up upgrades to the area or is water m going in so there's a lot of um a lot of different uh considerations when putting together the pavement plan and we use this considering different treatment options we can do we have preventative maintenance and all all the way to structural Rehabilitation um also the roadway system has different ratings for arterial roads versus you know the local roads so we use we use this system and we update it annually as we uh as we update the uh as we re upgrade the roads so the pavement conduction pavement condition Index this is really the rating that goes into a road a rating of zero is a road that's gravel you know very bumpy a rating of 100 is a newly paved road so we use that as an indicator and what roads we have to treat and also what type type of treatment should be considered um next slide please so this just goes into some of the treatment systems and these just this is a guideline this is what we use so going down to routine maintenance is when you start to consider maybe some cracked ceiling potentially um then we get into preventative maintenance this is where we do some more in-depth crack cealing just this last year we did a micro sealing pilot which that's essentially a driveway similar to what you would put as a driveway sealant we did that on on roadway surfaces um and then continuing that then you get into more in-depth uh re Rehabilitation Mill and overlay and then beyond that is really getting to the structural in the subbase of the road and that's in roadway uh Reclamation is what it's called so here so we we we want to look at an average of our roads obviously closer to 100 is is you know the most desired um last year we our number was 76.9 so that ranks in a uh you know fair condition which is I think in comparing to the neighboring towns or in the community that is a pretty good rating we you know we're in New England we do get potholes annually um with all the paving and I will get into that all the paving we did last year that number actually went up consider it's a pretty big jump to 78.3 so it really shows you know the paving the money that we put into the paving program and this isn't meant to to go through each but just to show you this is the amount of Paving that we did last year um what we do is what we we update the database to show the name the the segments of the road um and the treatment option uh and in the Mya so this is part this is all in our database and updated next slide please so that that amounts to 13.6 miles of pave last year I think that might have been an unprecedented amount of Paving that we put into the the town but also um three miles of that was mass do so North Road and gron road that was completed by mass do so that was included in our um pavement management update or our index update uh in terms of funds spent $1.26 million of town funds spent that includes Capital chapter 90 also we had some free cash from last year that we used uh and then we also just under 57,000 in crack ceiling that we used um there's some examples here Pine Hill Road that's a Reclamation so that's really the not just the pavement needs to be reability itated but the subbase needs to be rehabilitated then micro ceiling that was on sandard drive that was our pilot um and really that's more of a preventative maintenance but something a little bit beyond a crack seiling treatment um we were really happy how that came out so when we get it when I go over this year's plan we want to continue that program this year uh and then Erland road we also still do a lot of Mill and overlay um throughout town and that is really where you're kind of taking off the first the top two inches and putting back that surface so that's an example that we completed oh sorry uh next yeah next slide perfect thank you so uh 22 or then this Paving year so what we're still is a a big year of um 3.3 million 9.7 miles that cost is is higher than last year just because as you get into um some more intense Rehabilitation Reclamation the cost does go up so based on the current construction cost and we've already started to award some of those projects um starting construction really in the next couple weeks um so there will be notices going out this is a list and actually on the next page it does continue uh and um so the First Column is the street the next two columns are the you know from from a location to another location we have the PCI index and the um the treatment so it's Mill and overlay Reclamation and we are doing micro sealing just some highlights on here Drum Hill that is getting it is being paved um dun Bull Road and um uh Parkers those are some you know more arterial roads that we were looking at uh Summer Street that is uh one of our candidates that we are uh for micro sealing so micro sealing is a treatment that is really um like I said we just did the pilot it is only recommended on certain a limit of vehicles per day so example Drum Hill we wouldn't reckon M would wouldn't recommend micro cealing it's too many vehicles on the road the limit of vehicles is really at Summer Street so this we want to try this out we think it might be a good treatment for Summer Street um and we'll see how that goes um and just we're yeah we're finalizing that contract those contracts right now uh so sidewalk so for last year for sidewalk we completed 1,200 linear feet of sidewalk on Church Street just over 12200 linear feet of sidewalk on Main Street between the Town Line and School Street Wilson Street just outside town offices that was had uh essentially the street was replaced Central Square uh that's where we have the brick sidewalk we did some miscellaneous repairs 270 linear feet um and also and I'll get into it in a little bit but we also have to we we our goal is to uh throughout Town miscellaneous curb ramps replace throughout town so every year we try to Target at least 20 and those are 20 outside the areas that we're working so outside of any Paving or sidewalk we try Target some of those areas so that was 6 miles replaced uh for just over $466,000 spent a lot of that uh chapter 90 your previous Capital example here is 44 Central Square the before condition uh you can see the ponding at that curb ramp or that pedestrian ramp and then the after so we address that ponding and also we bring those ramps up to be ada8 compliant so for looking at next year we are planning more sidewalk uh old Westward road that is a new sidewalk segment so in terms of new sidewalk segments we try to pair that more with um with our Paving program um so that is proposed in the sections of new where we're missing sidewalk Cushing placed in the center that is a new that roadway is uh proposed for uh Rehabilitation so that we'll have a new brick section on one side Parker Street there is a section missing as well and then we have some streets here long spur Road Clyde stale Road Windsor Street that's really where we have just coincide with the paving program this repair of those or replacement of those sidewalks um this next one here is a really exciting Road uh parkerville Road and I know this is advocated a lot here by the school committee members of the school committee um to have additional sidewalk or have new sidewalk put on parkerville and that was identified in in um previous um in looking at our sidewalk master plan is potentially especially proximity to schools um and potentially you know missing really missing connection from our our uh Network so we are happy to report that we just received notice that um the federal government is we did receive that Grant um we're still waiting for the funds to come in but we're moving forward with design all these other sidewalks here those are going into our current sidewalk project that's actually hitting the streets I think it's next week the week after or part of the paving program so those will happen soon this spring this summer The parkerville will lag behind that but at least it will be you know it's great to move forward with that so it will be probably this fall potentially next spring I you know I hope this fall um but that's 3500 linear feet right there of sidewalk new sidewalk as part of that Federal grant um the next couple streets are uh coincide actually coincide with last year's Paving plan with all the rain we had we did have there was some work that was pushed off so that was that being two streets again miscellaneous curb ramps we do Target miscellaneous curb ramps throughout Town um and then lastly Tings Boro Road um again that was a project planned last year but by mass do that is scheduled to start this spring so in to Total a lot more sidewalk this year 2.5 M 2.5 miles proposed $1.1 million in estimated construction um that doesn't include the massot cost but that does include the um earmark for the $350,000 $350,000 and just to provide an overview I did go in more in depth last year about the sidewalk master plan but we used this database um collaboratively with our pavement master plan so we do have a very uh now a very great great inventory of our sidewalks we have lengths width the condition the type material type any structural issues as point you know Point issues um that's all in GIS we also have a complete inventory of our curb ramps the materials and that's what we use to as we plan our annual Paving and sidewalk master plan um next slide please so 46 46.5 total miles of sidewalk um in in terms so we have 756 curb ramps so of the 756 curb ramps 500 are need some type of reconstruction whether it be a condition based or ADA compliance based so that's is a large number a backlog of $2.2 million trying to Target at least 20 this I mean if we can maybe another year look um look at maybe doing more than 20 but right now we're just trying to chip away at it uh in terms of a backlog of overall sidewalk Replacements not new sidewalk is $22 million and that's separate from our um our Paving program which is probably three times that amount in terms of a backlog so a significant backlog and I mean it's great that we're continuing to put more money in a Paving sidewalk program but there are a lot of needs and this also shows a a breakdown of our conditions of our sidewalk so the good news is I guess the majority of it fall within good condition or you know above Fair it's a very small amount that are in poor replace condition and I just want to highlight this this um is a snapshot from our master plan database um in GIS uh the the conditions here excellent all the way to repair are highlighted but the purple are the missing segments and this is what was presented last year I think we we spent some more detail looking at each School location um 14.1 miles of sidewalk are proposed $13 million is roughly that cost to add those sections this would better connect the network throughout town uh one priority being the schools making better connections near schools um these highlighted areas so Drum Hill or Park curse that is one connection that will be added uh that was previously identified also here old Westford Road in the parkerville so for in terms of proximity to school the old Westford and Bome are within those miles that were recommended um so it is good that we are able to you know make those connections um we do have like I said a large backlog so we're focusing on repairs but with this year we are able to make some good connections and especially in proximity to schools and that's that's it so we'll yeah we'll be on we'll be soon starting f focus on Paving first um sidewalk is going out to bid now but we'll be starting you know probably by may I would say by on the sidewalks are there any questions I just have one quick question so first of all thank you for doing all that work that's an incredible amount of work and I don't think people realize like how important and how much backlog you have it's just all a lot to manage um one question I had on these sidewalk projects do you do anything with um safety as well as it I mean I know you're doing the sidewalk piece but are there going to be um other crosswalks or anything or is that a different type of project like so there are we do look at intersections and cross existing crosswalks I will say I know that um Raymond and Mill was the intersection or proposal and so we are able to get that into the contracts as well I'm not sure which contract I think it might fall in our mail and overlay so that is an improvement we're making um we don't look to add too many crosswalks but more refresh crosswalks but I guess that is a consideration that we would look at um I don't know if there's any particular requests but that that's what we if there's any anything that pops into mind or I think generally walkability requires any anytime a driver sees nothing but pavement for a long period they think they they own the pavement right and so breaking it up with things like crosswalks like downtown you have the the Brick piece right that automatically slows people down and I just think that parkerville road some of these big roads these long straight points just I think it would benefit the communities to have more more crosswalks it's paint and you know it's less expensive than somebody driving 60 miles an hour on sure yeah we could yeah we for parkerville that might be difficult I guess we have to be careful about adding midblock crosswalks because that could without doing like rapid flashing beacons and then you also want to look at how many rapid Flash and beacons you add um but it's something that we I guess walkability look I do think for parkerville the sidewalk you know make and we want to make sure these sidewalks are five feet at least um so that we can we can clear and maintain them in the the winter um so having that vertical barrier is is help is helpful any ask any other questions I just had uh two um that I've received you know um questions about over the years uh one is and I think you've already addressed it Mill Road at Raymond or across from Murphy field that's where That Sidewalk Ends is there any plan to extend it down Mill Road so the sidewalk I um I have to go back at the paving plan so we do have limit there's a lot of there's three culverts I think in that section extending it all the way down so they're um we're not proposing all extension all the way down Mill Road but right there at Raymond and Mill we are proposing to do improvements right at that intersection and then I have to go back and look at the plan if it's adding side but it's really just making sure that it's safe for crossing uh as far as adding sidewalk on Mill Road I think wherever it is it's just a small um addition extending it all the way down Mill did I remember we because I think it was originally proposed in a previous master plan going back to 2008 when we looked at it it's just the right of way with is is it's a narrow road Winding Road um the edge of road to some of the um the topography that would make it very challenging and also the culs so when you have those culverts you're looking at building essentially a bridge over each of those culs um and one one sidewalk I didn't put on here but it's what worth mentioning too is the Turnpike Road I know that was requested so um and we do have funding for it the funding though is for um has to be spent by the end of next year that is a permitting obstacle just because we have to build a bridge on at one of those uh locations right at River Meadow so that isn't on this year's sidewalk list but likely will be next year's sidewalk list so I think it's yes it's a combination of those obstacles that prevent us from putting it on and it's not in that 13.1 m one mile count right now is that the same issue on on Boston Road Where the Sidewalk Ends at alter's gate church yes there is there is issues with a culvert there as well okay all right all right can I ask this this is sounds I live on Parkers road is there a Parkers Street in town Parker Street oh this is Rose oh it says Parker Street so sorry it's is Parker Street I apologize so that's incorrect so it's Parker Street is the what we're Paving this year okay so there are two there's a Parker Street and a Parker Road no no well this is over by Drum Hill yes par road road It's Road okay I I apologize that's all right no I just want to selfish of we would just would have been interested if there was another Parkers that we didn't know about I'm wondering I apologize and I there was but this is good because it's right near the schools here I we always refer to as Parkers I guess I when then I apologize I I do try to go through because that is a pet peeve of mine to call it Street Road ever so thank you we'll make it's right here near the street the school so this is good yes all good stuff all right are there any further questions well thank you very much for coming in tonight it's always great to get an update it is something that we do get a lot of questions about um so having this information is incredibly helpful okay thank you well thank you for having me thank you thank you Christine um second item on the agenda this evening we're going to um transition I just need to see if our um guest can hear um Karen you can hear me okay perfect I'm getting an A+ for technology tonight so far so um so our second item that we're going to hear from this is um Karen leuk who works with New England School Development Council nzq is the report um this is a group that we've contracted with previously to help us with um longterm student Anda projections this one is called the demographic study around 2015 to 16 nzda worked with us to do a kind of a full-blown projection of our district enrollment to help us as we're doing our forecasting for um future construction projects or School enrollment needs and things along those lines as part of the service um annually they then take our October 1 numbers and update enrollments for us but where we knew um the impending uh discussion was going to be occurring with regard to the Middle School um construction process with msba uh one of the elements that we have to do uh through the eligibility period is to have a discussion with the msba about kind of right sizing our school if we're going to be building a new uh potential School in town um we wanted to have NASDAQ come back and actually do the full-blown demographic study again not just the annual update um so we contracted with NASDAQ and Karen was the individual that um helped us with that so um Karen is actually going to review the findings tonight and then answer any questions you have I think this is good information to just kind of set the um one of the discussion points for ex why we need um additional space within the schools and this potential new school building project will help us so um Karen welcome um just to let you know you are projecting into the school committee room and then chel for tele media is the group that actually covers the uh the meetings for us so you will um see me in a couple of different screens one is because you're actually coming through my computer the second one is the broadcast uh that the community is saving is seeing but um welcome tonight I gave you sh uh screen sharing rights so you can actually um share your screen and presentation and we very much look forward to hearing from you about your findings thank you very much for that wonderful introduction has been part of public schools for over 75 years um we um have done enrolling projections and I'm sharing my screen I'm trying to um just right at the top of the slideshow okay perfect we've been around for over 75 years we I belong with a team uh Christopher Malone is my consultant on this project and the executive director is Dr Dave deusi um and nzc has collaborated with with districts for over 75 years with demographic studies best educational useth studies professional development um but we've been asked to prepare in a demographic study um and that entails looking at um district and Municipal records data provided by the chelster public schools the census Bureau Trends and birth rates State birth data the warrant Group which will uh which reviews uh real estate transactions Housing and Urban Development and the town planner who is extremely helpful to us in this process and local Realtors so first we'll go over pertaining Trends pertaining to population and those factors that influence School enrollments and then the updated projection reports and then any expected student yield from any proposed residential construction so the demographic information goes from large to small so we look at the United States overall and we know that births have been trending births are important because that's your future students for chalford public schools then we'll look at Massachusetts I mean New England and Massachusetts as it relates to the New England states and and since 22 2022 to 20 um 31 we will see a 7.2% reduction in um the pk2 enrollments which is similar to what you see in some of the surrounding communities um less than Connecticut and um certainly less than Vermont chelsford population is what is most important to you right now and you can see the the population has increased and remained stable the past three years it's been in the low 3600s and from 2000 to 2020 the population increased by 7.5% that's unusual a lot of places are declining Chels is stable um the median age of the population in chelmford um in comparison to Massachusetts which is at 39.6 uh 39.6 in the billx county where you belong 38.5 chelp is uh age median age is 43.3 and it's increased 11% over the past 20 years the reason why we look at this is because it could be a factor in an aging population we then look at the school AED populations because that's what you're most interested in so for school age populations the ages 5 through n have stabilized to the 2012 levels and I'll show you a chart in the second that um exemplifies this ages 10- 14 and 15 through 19 have had a slight decline but over the past 20 years the population under 18 has decreased slightly slightly while the population over 65 has increased by almost the same amount so a possible indicator again of an aging population when you look at this chart you can see just the school age populations and then the other age breakouts important to noce the stabilization of the under five so for 2022 5.2% of the population is under five and those are your future students and we'll talk a lot about births in a minute but that's important to see and you can see how 65 has increased and 18 18 under 18 has decreased and those are your school age populations another important factor to think about is the K12 students per household in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts which is the top box you see a declining percentage of students K12 students per household and you also see a similar decline in Chelmsford so over the past 30 years the percentage of K2 students per household has declined by 9% so kindergarten enrollments rely on those live birth counts as they're reported to um the the USA the the state um chelster currently is experienced an increase in births which could lead to an increase in kindergarten enrollments and enrollments enrollments going forward births increased 20 by an average of 26 from the previous 10year average of 330 to a projected average of 356 that's a class size actual and provisional bursts um we we average those together between 334 and 381 and increase of the 2010 to 2020 span and we estimate the births for the 5 years where we don't have any data based on the five years previous data so we're looking at an estimated birth St you know stabilizing the 354 to 362 range and this this chart shows you how the births have ebbed and flowed over the past years but typically in the in the low 300s um the last three years uh 356 for um 2020 381 for 2021 and 356 for 2022 and we take these five years in order to average to think about what the births will be so Trends in and real estate are an important component of any demographic study we know that um there are a lot of mature citizens who are planning to downsize giving up their three and four bedroom homes that will most likely be purchased by families with children um over our my I've been at nezda for six years and prior to that we've recognized how important the real estate market is to a community thinking about the how to uh what how their schools will enroll and it's sometimes it's four or five times larger than the number of building permits although you'll see um chel has a lot going on um but the fluct reality of the real estate market is an important component to consider so the Warren group um between 2000 and 2007 before the last economic downturn chelsford a averaged 325 single family homes and the average median sale price was in the in the low 320s from 2008 to 2012 the number of home sales dipped to 263 and average median sales price dipped a little bit more but from 2013 to 2023 chelsford saw 346 uh single family units sold with a median sales price up to over $460,000 so in the last 15 years the average median sales price has increased 43% and home sales have increased by 31% so people are moving to chelsford so here are the the home and con sales just the the data that we use from the Warren group and then we interviewed uh several area Realtors who who supported the the information from the Warren group The Common selling price is between 550,000 and 750,000 for smaller single family homes and 800,000 Plus for larger single family homes the inventory is low that boomers are downsizing and selling their two and three bedroom home homes and families with children are often buyers and many Millennials who grew up in chelsford are moving back much of the time with children and that the easy access to routs 3 and 495 the recent revamp downtown area and of course the schools are attractive to home buyers so we we then look at any new residential construction that's happening in chalford we look at approved projects currently under construction approved projects not currently under construction construction and projects in the approval pipeline we will project student yield only for the approved projects currently under construction but we will give you an insight into a potential student yield for Approved projects not currently under constructions or projects in the approval pipeline because our experience tells us sometimes these are not built or are delayed significantly so some factors to consider when we're reviewing the number of bedrooms per unit we have some many community members who said oh that huge development just went up but sometimes those huge developments only have you know many one-bedrooms and many two-bedrooms and they typically do not have a huge impact on impact on student enrollment it's the three-bedroom units that we know will have an impact on student enrollment um the the density of the area is important if it's close to the highway there are fewer children housing costs make a difference for people when they move with family amilies and to know our past experience indicates that 70% of any potential student yield could be Elementary age students 20% Middle School aged and 10% High School aged because families move when their children are younger so we um was Mr balansky who did a great job of putting this information together for us so these are approved projects currently under construction alexen which um he also shared a report that was prepared for chelsford um that we looked at there are 394 Apartments total Studio 20 units one bedroom 161 units one bedroom affordable three units Choice one bedroom 54 units two bedrooms there are 128 units two bedroom affordable three units and three bedrooms there are 15 units three-bedroom duplex 10 units and you can see the projected student eel and I'll show you the comparison to what we project for CHS for with this added depending on the timeline of project completion this is supposed to be done by Spring of 2026 to to 4 we see um a projected student yield of 23 to 26 students grades 5 to8 n to 10 students and grades 9 to 12 3 to four students the next project approved project currently under construction was nine Acton Road there are 18 three-bedroom Condominiums Mary Avenue a 2024 completion is 10 three-bedroom duplexes Jackson Road 2024 completion 12 three-bedroom units 73 Dalton road which is completed as five apartments one one bedroom and 42 bedroom and this projected student yel the impact of the enrollment over three years again dependent on the timeline of the completion of the project K to 4 16 to 21 students grades 5 to8 7 to8 students and grades 9 through 12 two to three students now these are approved projects not under construction three meeting house which is eight one-bedroom apartments and projects in the approval pipeline uh 39 North Road there are 12 Apartments 7 two-bedroom 5 three-bedroom in 47 Boston roads 16 Apartments 12 two-bedroom four three-bedroom and remember we calculate potential students yield because these are currently not under construction and have not been approved or permitted and this will have minimal impact to enrollment so the potential student yield um to grades K to four is five to six students grades 5 to8 one to two students and grades 9 through 12 one students so there are other local Regional factors that we asked Mr balance to speak about um and he felt as though the mbta's owning not expected to result in in any short or intermediate instruction um he sees a continued Trend in two families or duplexes and while the demand continues from multifam existing restriction to sewer connections for multif family housing remains so here are the residential building permits as permitted as uh reported to the Housing and Urban Development and may not necessarily reflect all that you that I just spoke about or you might know because it's there's a delay in reporting but we think it's important because you can look at past Trends um here and shord I took this right from your website it was so well well spoken about it's a Scenic Community it has Trails beaches Pathways a small town field um the history is alive embraced and and proudly preserved founded in 1655 um it's an enthusiastic sense of volunteerism engagement uh exhibited through our residents and local business it's an important um I think it attracts families to come to chelsford so the bedrooms per household we've just added this because I think it's important to think about the potential so um you can see that four bedrooms and five bedrooms the um adds up to about 68% of the homes in Chelmsford are three to five bedrooms which could house families with children so there's a potential um if those um uh mature citizens start to downsize and also important to note is the um number of owner occupied units um and so you can see here the percentage of uh owner occupied uh units um I'll just show you in the 2022 is 82% been consistent over all of these years rent are occupied consistent and they're it's the percentage of um vacant is really very or for seasonal use is pretty small so these um are an important uh characteristic to think about for chelsford because it indicates the stability in the housing market so now we'll go into the enrollment projections these are just the enrollment projections that um superintendent Lang had mentioned at the beginning that we um send to the district and then I'll show you that um uh comparison to if you do have all the those students who come because of the new residential construction our process is a modified cohort component or survival Technique we look at births as they relate to kindergarten enrollments we look at student migration in and out we look at the review of the stability of grades 1 through eight so we'll look at grades 1 through eight and track how many of those students transition to grades two through uh 1 through 7 excuse me and how many of those trans transition to grades 2 through eight and then the single family so we calculate percentages based on the enrollment data and look at the increase or decrease in enrollment between any two grades and we look at the ratio between each peer of grades or years in the school after we take all of that into account we choose a ratio based on the key factors and the reliability of the projections assuming the validity of the data at the starting point and the districts have always been very good at sending um accurate data based on October one reports so to know the first three to four years of an inoma projection are the most reliable and projections 6 to 10 years out May ser as a guide for future enrollments and for planning purposes because we know that things can change so this is just the historical envir enrollment and over the past 10 years if you look here K12 enrollment has declined slightly by 1.4% of note over the past three years K12 has increased from 4,817 students to 4,930 students averaging a 1.2% increase so even though it's declined by 1.4 it's increasing and you can see here this chart shows you the grade spans of the chelsford schools and up here is the historical data by grade span this bar chart also shows you um the stability of the um past 10 years and then to look forward I mention the birth because here you'll see the birth year the births and then the enrollments as it goes forward Ward so in 2018 there were 343 births but you enrolled 375 kindergarteners what we know um and I'll show you this in another chart is that um chelsford enrolls more kindergarteners than there are births which tells us students are moving in so over the next three years K to2 enrollments are projected to increase by 236 students or 4.7% by grade span K to four enrollments are projected to increase by 117 grades 5 to six over the next three years are projected to increase by 48 grades seven to8 are projected to increase by um 30 uh 36 students and grades 9 through 12 are projected increase by 35 students as students move through the grades and here's a chart to show that increased enrollment and also a line graph and this just shows you the historical and projected enrollments and grade combinations and also um we enumerated what the the population is for each of those grade spans here's the birth to kindergarten enrollment it's a positive indicator of overall growth so so from 2020 to 21 school year you've enrolled the same or more kindergarteners than there were births which indicates movein movein here it was the same here it was below so things have increased for the number of kindergardeners uh people moving in with kindergarten students so we look at the stability of grades 1 through 7 um over the past eight years the chord has seen movein from grades 1 to 7 who transition to grades 2 to8 averaging about 32 students per year which indicates an immigration of families of children moving to chelsford and over the past three years chelsford has increased grades 1 to8 enrollment by range or 1 to 3% over the previous years's enrollment also suggesting an immigration of students so an example then the school year 2223 there were 370 grade 3 students who transitioned to 381 grade four students the subsequent year an increase of 2.9 um so this inmigration of students to charford is yet another indicator of families moving to CH to child with school AG children we look at some additional data that we keep um the number of uh non-public schools that students attend and choiced in choiced out so just to summarize the uh demographic analysis before I show you the um differences in the potential uh projected student enrollments over the next the again the K12 enrollment will increase over the next three years by 2 36 students births are increasing there's an immigration of students in grades 1 to 7 transitioning to 2 to8 the population has decreased slightly um and the over 65 population has increased your Realtors tell us there's a robust real estate market which indicates that Chelmsford is viable Community for new residents and new residential construction under uh excuse me new res yeah currently under construction will have an impact on enrollments and approved projects not curling under construction and those projects in the approval pipeline will have an impact on student enol so we we do an enrollment forecast different from the last pro project that we did for chelsford we feel this is clearer so we look at the public school enrollment of the past 10 years and we look at that student yield considering the potential number of school age children as I said and if you look here this chart shows the current enrollment projection as it relates to the enrollment forecast so here's the projection for 2425 and only refects the approved projects are currently under construction we assign the student yield to grade level spans without certainly of the actual age of the potential students so here we're saying K to 4 for 2425 we are projecting 1,976 and the forecast is 1,989 for 2526 1,9 988 to 2001 and so on so this is arbitrarily taking the the totals of the projected enrollments from those projects that I mentioned and applying it over three years to what we saw as our projections arbitrary it could be that some of the students that we see here in this 13 student increase only seven could enroll and the other six could be here we don't know but it's just a way for districts to look at what are you what are we thinking and what might happen and we thank you very much for the opportunity to provide this work on a demographic study with you and certainly um it could engage in any questions you might have thank you very much uh does anybody have any questions um when I read through this it you consider only the house the buildup in real estate the households that will have um three bedrooms is that right when you do these projections for the um enrollment forast yes it's anything three bedrooms or more okay so is there any impact that we've seen over the last few years in the increase in number of single parent households where those two bedrooms really do have an impact on communities more than in in past years actually it doesn't necessarily have to be a single parent it could be a single child home right and over the past um two years the research that we have done we have not seen an increase in the number of with children in two bedroom homes okay continue to monitor thank you anybody else I'm just and I probably can't answer it but that Alex and I assume is West Campus on page 23 is that's that's what it's called now because that's the biggest one it's in the books okay um I had a question on page 36 um when we were talking about the grades 9 to 12 um projected enrollment um by 35 students um this is actually probably more for Dr Lang that does not incl INE our school choice students correct um I don't have page 36 up in front of me however the um and Karen please correct me if I'm wrong any of the school choice students that we currently have enrolled in the district would be included in this number but not say new new to be enrolled okay all right so they wouldn't be they wouldn't be included in our projected uh numbers okay correct only kids that are physically here okay right and then um the other question I had um that there's you know one category that I noticed uh that wasn't included um but that has become a concern I think not only for Cher but um many cities in towns in U Massachusetts is how to uh calculate the um increase in enrollment due to um um homeless families um so I that's kind of a moving number is is that fair to say Jay um yes and Karen you can certainly um jump in as well uh I homeless families who are like included in our our numbers our October one numbers um would be included in these the projections and I assume the forecast um if we were to receive additional homeless families um they would not be included U because they wouldn't be currently being in educated here so they wouldn't be included in the projections but Karen please correct me if I'm wrong that's exactly right and um we're assuming in the projections that those homeless families remain residents in cheler okay great so I I I would take to that and I don't know if to chop my head the exact number but let's just say we had 50 homeless students in the district currently included on numbers if we maintained about that 50 whether they were the same 50 or a different 50 that would be included in the projection but if all of a sudden we went up to 100 you know there'd be an extra 50 students that wouldn't be so we'd be over even that all right all right are there any other questions just just bottom line um it appears that our enrollment is going up and particularly at the the K to four level is it safe to say that mhm um karon yes so when when we do are you referring to the new residential construction no I'm just talking overall just overall big picture it seems like over the next three to five years our overall School enrollment is going to go up um a decent amount and particularly at the the k 4 level exactly yes okay yeah the big takeaway from me I mean we we've seen this because on numbers have been increasing each year so we certainly have seen um an increase even as Cameron and Ne indicated you know the closer Years Years 1 to 3 1 to four um are more accurate and I think as you get into years you know four five six up to 10 um that's why we do the annual reports just to make sure that we're actually staying on top of these numbers but you I believe it was 236 students you know over the next three years in particular we're going to be added and again we've actually seen that over the last two and just based on the numbers the majority are coming in at the elementary grade levels and they'll be obviously filtering up to middle school so that's where we see our biggest U number of students over the next at least three years uh but this I am also looking at the projection at least 10 years out because that does come into play when we're talking about the potential new school building project and the need to find not only short-term but longer term um space in our buildings for um the population I I also just want to comment you're talking looking out 10 years there's all this talk about the new development but we can't Overlook what they found that the population is aging if I look at my street alone in chelsford from one corner to another of say about 30 houses at least three qus of them are now occupied by people who are already retired soon to retire and their children have been out of chumford schools for a long time these are houses that are going to be sold within the next 10 years and most likely because they're all three four and five bedroom houses families are going to be moving into them so even without this new enrollment we're going to have quite a few people selling their houses to new families and we have to be prepared and the thing that's going to be happening concurrently is is our buildings will continue to age and you know need uh repairs and things like that so um yeah I think this is very helpful in terms of you know uh putting together a plan for how it is that we need to move forward as a district yeah no and I um I definitely want to thank Karen and um the team in nezda for doing this work as she mentioned um Evan balansky the town uh planner provided all the information on the current developments that are underway as well as even the projections that was super helpful to us as we were looking at this and um three or four local Realtors also um just sheded their experiences with the housing market and again I think this is really a good news story for chumford it's a desirable Community to live in um in general I do think people are attracted to U the schools and a safe community and Public Safety and and where the the town is expending it funds it's geographically in a great location where you get 495 and Route three there's just a lot of attraction to the town and I think that definitely is going to um keep us you know thriving and to Susan's Point um we are starting to see because the um um I believe you call it the mature population you know as a percent of the town is higher than in the area so you are going to start to see some of those U those homes turn over and again three and four family homes when they do turn over lead to more kids in in the school system so not only the Axion or whatever that development at West Campus is called but um just the turnover of our current stock is going of increase uh student population so um Cameron thank you very much um for sharing that with us tonight um and being able to present and give us that data it's going to be important as we're beginning the discussions in the community about potential new school building projects and um having that data when we do talk to the msba around um our enrollments and what we should be actually planning for in the future um not only middle school wise but elementary school wise as well so I personally want to thank you and your team and all the folks from the town that helped provide data to this um so it could all be taken into consideration thank you very much for allowing us to collaborate with you it's been a pleasure and we look forward to our continued collaboration thank you thank you Karen have a good night thank you okay I just need one minute to um you're getting to be a zoom expert now I have to say it went incredibly smooth U we we did do a little practice before the meeting but uh I just have to make sure I'm out of this bye everyone byebye do you need to take a break no I'm just trying to find my I know I did I did so good getting it to work how do I get out of this I cursed him I saw him he got all nervous his hands got sweaty that yeah so why don't she do kindergarten while we do well because I can't see my agenda because I hi it's thank you L will help can I meeting and uh I don't think it's funny I did very good getting that first thing up that was almost seamless okay so moving on ripped said then the seam ripped well listen at least it wasn't you know a broadcast po so I'm still pretty happy with myself tonight uh moving on with the agenda on a new business item number three tonight um is just an update for you or reminder for our families who might be watching we held um kindergarten registration previously this winter and we all always have a spring registration so Joanna do you want to just kind of share the dates for that and talk a little bit about um that's upcoming it's really important to us that we uh reach out to families and if you have someone in the neighborhood or if you participate in a club or an activity where someone it's like their first child coming to the school system um you know kind of share with them that we do have the enrollment because we'd love to go through the process get the child enrolled do all the screening so that it just goes smoothly for them when they come to school in September um so we do have the April dates coming up and I'll turn that over to Joanna thank you so the next kindergarten registration date is April 25th from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. here at the central office and families um can uh reach out and you get a little 15minute um appointment and you the school clerks come here too again with also with our Central regist and um register their child for kindergarten like the superintendent said we encourage you to please come at this uh big date or you can come anytime as a walk-in and uh please don't wait um till August um it's just we just do so much better if um the enrollments come sooner and it also helps us plan uh for the space do we have enough teachers what our class size is going to be so if uh you're out there please uh register April 25th 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. 15minute appointments thank you great uh next item on the agenda this evening uh um Dr H is going to provide just an update on the student Opportunity Act submission um we had to submit a student Opportunity Act three years ago when the new legislation uh went into effect and it's time to do a uh an update uh so I'll turn that over to Linda thank you um so yes in your packets you have a draft copy that needs to be voted on um in order for it to be reviewed by the commissioner and like Dr Lang said back in 2019 the student Opportunity Act came into play and we had submitted one back in 201 20 in the middle of covid and that was the funding that was given to the state to help with um some of the greatest needs that we have you'll probably remember them as the Esser grants so we're still on Esser 3 right now and this allowed us to basically come up with some strategies and back then we called them commitments so you had a five-page document that you had voted on that was then submitted to the state to be approved for the district to be using those funds so this act is still in place and so now is the 20 24 act and we are to then again to submit another three-year plan the good thing about these is that they've actually been in the same alignment as our strategic plan so we just took the work that we were doing from our strategic planning shifted it over in the desie format so the format that you see tonight with the plan in front of you is what actually goes into the Department of Education they have um what they call the gems program which is really where our grants go into and we'll be submitting that way so we pulled the actual plan itself to put the information in so it has five parts to it obviously the overview of what your plan looks like the data analysis that was done by the district using the heat maps that the that Desi put together for us to look for the biggest disparities these are kind of these um persistent disparities that we're seeing for our students which we saw in the DM group when we work together in our um subgroups and then obviously our agreement to use mcast data I don't know how we would un agree to that but we will agree to use mcast data to monitor our students as well as our internal benchmarks um what we do as a district for family engagement so all of our different committees that are out there and then we have two Focus areas for desie for um the evidence-based programs one of them is to continue to support curriculum implementation we did a big push for our literacy as you know back for the past four years we haven't forgotten about literacy it's still happening but now we're moving forward into the implementation of math so we'd like to continue with the funding around that and then um obviously the second Focus area is students with disabilities um you will see that we have some disparities with some of our El students as well some of those students may be students with disabilities or economically disadvantaged students as well so when we dig deeper into the data we know who the students are um it's important to notice that these numbers that you see are not in addition to our budget they're part of our current operating budget so the FY 25 budget that you're looking at it's bits and pieces of it we're not looking for additional funding for it the numbers look uh very large because instead of just saying what it would be in one year you had to multiply it by three years so that is a threeyear number that you're seeing based on what's currently in our budgets not in addition to so um questions that you might have about this plan that we have and it does need to be voted on so that we can update it so if there's changes that we have to make we'd have to make them prior to when it's due so I know this was put in place to get extra money to help schools um meet the needs of students how much money are we getting from student Opportunity Act we are not getting money for the student Opportunity Act we're getting our chapter 7s money plus the additional bump which was how much for chumford yeah um so this ended up happening for us we ended up getting there were a lot of districts in the state that got the minimum $30 per student for us that that end up being $52 per student so um the student Opportunity Act uh again when the legislation changed to kind of tweak the Chapter 70 formula um it did actually we got a um a decent increase last year which we we hadn't traditionally received we had always been like one of the minimum Aid districts um I do think we got instead of the 30 the 52 because our enrollment did go up so there was some type of an adjustment for that but um it didn't quite pan out for us the way long long term that we thought it was going to um quite honestly it's a little frustrating I'm not the only person that feels that way where um we have the Strategic plan and we that our document that guides our work um districts that are basically getting say the minimum eight or whatnot um I'm not really happy with the fact that we have to now kind of put our whole plan into this Desi document and put it through for approval because we're not getting the funding that was promised through the student Opportunity Act but uh it is something we still have to um go through and do but um for us we had the plan we're following the plan implementing it as Linder indicated we're just kind of tweaking it and putting it into their format that all districts are responding to so um I guess you could say for us um you know it was about $263 odd, thousand is what our Chapter 70 increase uh for this coming year was um that's under the student Opportunity Act with the twe West not the millions that we were hoping for lame that's all I got yeah just a question this is a three-year plan um we're not like stuck with this plan in in other words one of the things that concerns me about the plan and one of the things that has been concerning me about our strategic plan overall is that we're focusing a lot on the math but we're not focusing a lot on the literacy thing and I've brought this up already and I think that's something we have to look forwards in this coming year is revisit um the literacy part of it especially in the early years and make sure that what we've got is really going to get good results for us um that's not addressed here at all and that would be over the next 2 or 3 years because we've got to plan out the money and everything else for it so this mean what does this mean for us with this plan well if you look at the different pieces and they feel like the investment it's not just curriculum because we have the materials the materials are here it's you're seeing the um difference of like the addition of Staff right so special ed staff so they're going to address we're not nobody not addressing Ela it's just our focus is on some of those math areas um so those special teachers teach math and Ela um an L teacher right we do have the Specialists for mathematics that are going in there but if you look at a lot of the things that we pulled to help support with these evidence-based practices it's a lot of it is Staffing and then using our online platforms that we use for both Ela and math so Ela hasn't gone away it's just we know that we have to focus a little bit more math because they have a brand new math program and what does that look like for our students so there's nothing in here about purchasing new curriculum products because we have them so it's not like you're going to be you're not precluding yourself from getting new products down the road during an adoption process and if I can just add like when it comes to say like the literacy piece um like we have the the staff itself like we've we've had reading teachers in the buildings we haven't had the math specialists in the buildings so regardless of what the reading teachers are kind of implementing as a curriculum they're already there what we're doing is adding in math as the focus and that was really because our Focus prior the math initiative had been on Ela um so we're trying to get the math you know kind of up to um par that was the focus um the report um we do have to provide you know kind of annual updates on the report and I would honestly defer back to our strategic plan because I think that's really kind of our guiding document to talk about where we're putting our resources it to our funding um and that is an annual document that we look into and we need to prioritize what's going to be our Focus area in those um cases and for us you know going into next year and um when it comes to the academic focus it was mathematics and when we looked at um special education in particular was really trying to address and Target that achievement gra gap for those students and that is in the budget document where we included our new uh funding um so this really does you know kind of align to that um but it will always be part of the broader conversation about what we do with the planning going forward I just don't think we want to have two separate plans you know we have the Strategic plan that's guiding our work we're incorporating that into the template that Des is requiring because all districts are required to do that you know believe it or not some districts don't have a strategic plan you know they're just kind of working but we have that and we don't want to have two different competing things going on so that's why um we took this act okay doesn't preclude us from Over the this next coming year looking at that and and fine-tuning it or doing anything else and then amending this every year I say what we would be doing no and again not it's not that I'm not concerned with this document but we're not really getting the funding to support us going through the Hoops to to do this student Opportunity Act I'm more concerned about our strategic plan and making sure that we're making um decisions that make sense for our district and we're actually backing up those decisions with our funding and our budget and that is all in alignment and this is more of a compliance tool you know we're going to comply and we're going to insert the information but if we were to make some type of a tweak or you know we do have to talk talk about like what our targets and focus area for next year is going to be even as we um complete some of the tasks for this year so there's going to have to be a shift in our strategic plan in certain areas for next year that work is always going to be updated annually you'll notice the metrics in here are like the broad metrics that we're going to increase the Proficiency in SBG for the students we're not going to it's not saying we have to doy this out that's the work that we would change in the Strategic plan they're not looking for exact numbers in this they just want to know that we have a a metric to be able to um you know review what we've been doing so I have a kind of similar question to that I have no problem with this document I understand that this is what Desi requires for this piece and it describes a three-year plan and I certainly see the overlap with our strategic plan but I've been so busy focusing on this year's strategic plan not having been involved in the development of it so this year the focus was very much on math in the Strategic plan is that going to just carry forward with math like say next year or is that still up in the air what the academic portion of that will be for next year no I mean the acade so there's the five different areas right under academics mathematics was a key component of the five-year initiative because a 5ye strategic plan so the first year we actually had to um do the sample programs we had to identify which we were going to adopt year two we actually you know adopted it we provided the professional development training and then you move into like the implementation phase so the math work is going to continue but as now you don't kind of have the ramp up to getting the program in place and getting it up speed we are going to look to see what additionally we need to be focused on in is three four and five and we're going to be doing that in all the areas so there'll be like this year in the um and I know getting a report on it but in the special ed group you know we worked a lot around the roles and responsibilities of Paris and how to best um help instruction as that gets implemented we're then going to have another Focus area for special education next year as we're rolling that out so no it's a multi-tiered um multi-year approach um and there are going to be different Focus areas in each of the five uh areas over the course of the five years but the intention of the academic piece was really at least in this short term to see now that the new math program's been implemented to see how effective it is to close those gaps so I imagine we're still going to look at that it's the whole progress monitoring piece and actually seeing about everything that we put into place are we really getting that new program is it all working the way we want right yeah but I do know we have to look at our Ela things because there's just some things I think need reviewing too but and I me and Linda can certainly speak to this but even on Ela I know the focus was mathematics but we also have Ela and literacy goals and we have different benchmarks so it's not that we're forgetting about it it's just we had spent a lot of time with the ramp up of that and math was the focus but we still had the the reading um goals and there's still obviously a big focus and obviously we can't drop the math one because we didn't need the we didn't close the gap I understand that we're closing the gap for grade eight so yeah if you look at the metrics that are in there the metrics have the ELA and the math so the ELA is hasn't been forgotten but this year's action steps and previous years and we'll need a third year because you don't just do it in one year and it's done you're going to have to focus on the math and then make your adjustments as that year goes through okay any other questions I just wanted to kind of back things back out to more of a a macro um type of perspective so the first question I have is I know that we have these disparities and but we also know that one of the things that has happened since covid is attendance has dropped off are we looking at any of the root causes like as attendance maybe one of the issues that may be causing some of these um you know areas of need like in mathematics and things like that yeah if you look at both the heat map and even just our benchmarks our chronic absenteeism is not one of our major areas right do we have pockets of it here and there for certain students maybe a grade level here but it's not enough to put a full um group in there I do know that um Amy's group has been working with the high school to talk a little bit about attendance like how do you increase it more but we if in the eyes of desie or even our benchmarks I mean I'm sorry our dashboards we don't show that this is a a larger issue in chall what our students are coming to school green across the board all right can I just even like individually can you just speak to like um if they were particular Pockets or even particular students that is getting flagged in uh Panorama yes in Panorama and that is what they do they put together like an intervention plan on how they're going to work either with the family the students depending on the age group on getting the students to come to school more often okay and then um the student Opportunity Act is focusing on these disparities okay um but one of the other things that's kind of become a Hot Topic um in the state is just the cost of providing an education to any student and so like at what point is it's getting more and more expensive to educate any student okay and um especially students who need extra help is is there anything you know uh in the legislature on the drawing board for being able to address this issue we were promised funding we didn't get it and and I don't I don't I guess this is my frustration is going to leak out I don't understand how they can expect us to be able to maintain or catch up if we're not getting the money that we need m is there anything out there I I share your I share your no I share your concerns um I think the what the legislature would say is that their charge um was basically and you know the different groups are pushing them to continue to um fund and live up to the commitment to fund the student Opportunity Act for I forget if it was six or seven years but whatever that implementation was and we're in year four right so through the Chapter 70 um formula and funding you know the student Opportunity Act is fully funded for fiscal year 25 the coming year yeah and there's at least two or three years after that where they're going to need to fully fund it the communities that really made out with the uh student Opportunity Act are more of your Urban centers um it's always right but they but they were the groups that really U the Gateway cities and things like that are the ones that really uh benefited um I'd love to tell you Donna that you know we're going to receive more funding I think we did last year was we do a deeper dive into the formula largely because of um the inflation rate being so high it just it helped most communities I mean like Drake itar just is another like town but I mean Drake it's been struggling financially as well they saw a big increase last year in Chapter 70 you know we normally would get 150 to $300,000 you know we got close to $2 million um you know so we did see that I really thought and hoped that that was going to continue but where the Chapter 70 formula even with the student Opportunity Act you know kind of tweaks to it um was so um tied to the inflation rate that's just unfortunately not going to help us so I don't want to tell you next year all of a sudden we're going to go back to 2 million I think uh unless something significant changed formula wise um there you know there has been a push on with the super tenant association I know the school uh committee Association to um take a look at that inflation Factor because in the in the statute it's um capped at like 4.5% in prior to last year we were seeing like two or three years in a row where inflation was much higher than that what have happened under the old Chapter 70 formula is even though it was cap at 4 and a half% for argument sake say that particular year was 6 and a half% that extra 2% would be added to the following years um as a catchup because obviously when things go up in cost they don't just come down because inflation they they just might increase at a lower rate um but the student Opportunity Act formula basically didn't account for that or didn't uh keep that little tweak in there and that has been something that the superintendent association association of school committees has been kind of pushing with the legislature to go back in and make some type of a correction to the formula where at least that um kind of longer term of the longitudinal inflation will get Incorporated back in like that would have helped us so if if inflation you know had um and I believe it was below 1% you can correct me but it was below 1. but if it ended up being 34% we may have seen because again we do have the student enrollment increase a more significant and substantial Chapter 70 number um but absent that no I don't I don't want to tell you something's going to change I don't see it changing m concern is is we're already below the state average in per people spending right and I think we do a great job MH my concern is is that eventually it's going to catch up with us right that just you know things get more and more expensive and that you know I mean I don't I worry about maintaining right you know no we we are below State average as far as the average per pupil spending um when you look at our peer communities or our comparable communities were're right in the in the middle um there's certainly some that spend more there's certainly some that spend less um you we're going to be in that mid-range because those communities also didn't benefit from the student optioning act now the only thing that uh this is my last thing on Chapter 70 is if I'm not mistaken they're not due for a review for for 10 years from when it was implemented I believe a full review full review yes so I concur with you I I I agree um however what's been talked about lately over the last say two or three months as the governor's budget came out and this kind of inequity if you want want to call it in the formula was raised um this certainly has been a little bit of a push to say yes we're not looking for a whole rescale uh you know re redo of the formula but could you at least go in and acknowledge that under the old formula this provision would have been in there to account more for the inflation rate um was it intentionally left out you know was it not I absolutely can see from the legislative perspective needing to have some type of a cap because if you didn't you know they wouldn't have a funding mechanism to to fund what they did but I do also think there needs to be some kind of acknowledgement that if you have the cap and again it's at 4.5% and you know you have two or three years where it's above that you need to eventually when it goes under 4.5% still keep it at 4.5% to to over time kind of build you back up right um and I'm hoping I mean that wouldn't be a wholesale change to the formula that wouldn't require like a whole commission um that could just be hopefully acknowledgement on the legislates PO that intentionally or not intentionally when they implemented the student Opportunity Act and tweaked the chapter 7 formula that there was a hopefully an Omission or something that um should have been caught that didn't get caught all right thank you Dennis I'll take a motion I make motion to approve the new three-year student student Opportunity Act District plan as presented second all right are there any further questions or discussion all those in favor I I 5 Z in favor thank you thank you um next couple of items this evening I'm going to ask um Joanna to begin to review for us so this is the time of year that we typically um get a look at the budget projection so as the third quarter is coming to a close we start talking about some of the funds that were comfortable um saying that at the end of the fiscal year we're going to have a surplus and we traditionally have uh taken a multifaceted approach to how to um expend some of those funds um first thing that we've done is traditionally asked all of our schools and departments if they have one-time um requests for funding things that they couldn't fund to the local budget that they would like to fund to enhance or um uh augment some of the the uh services that they're providing these are related to one-time costs so that they're costs that you know would not have a recurring um cost in outlier years um so we have that we'll also eventually again we're not recommending spending the the complete amount of the projection at this point we're still working with uh several schools and departments to refine some of the quotes um that were recommended um over the last couple of years we also haven't f expended all of our available funds we've uh prepaid tuitions which basically allows us to carry some money into the following year in case something comes up that we um we want to Target additional funding for um but tonight Joan is going to review uh the very preliminary uh budget projection and then the first list of recommended one-time expenditures again that have come from schools and departments we'll review that with you and ultimately if you approve that then there is a list of budget transfers that accompany that so three uh three kind of reports in a row but I'll turn over of Joanna to um um to walk us through that okay thank you so the first of the three items is the budget projection so the second page of the the memo is a onepage summary with the Desy categories on the left and are what's been budgeted the 7,700 th000 and then there's a column that shows if we're projecting to be lower or uh higher than the budget in that category and then um where uh the total of that column is what I want to point out uh the projection is that we're going to be 2866 million under in uh these Des categories uh primarily in we've been talking about these in the quarterly reports um some of the labor came in under because we hired it less than Master step three we have um approved unpaid leaves of absence um we also have a couple um recent vacancies that um we're not going to fill with a full-time person coming in in March it's tough to fill um so that's all Incorporated in the adjustment column so I'm going to um pause there and see if anybody has any any questions on the 2.8 million um just an overall picture the only item that's a little over is the transportation that because the homeless transportation is over uh it's homeless it's Foster and it's special it okay none of which we can do anything about it so uh no you can't with homeless and Foster um and special ed you know with the routes the way they are and the times and the number of students we're doing the best we can to have an efficient cost effective route um and and that's the best we can do there there's truly not a lot of discretion in that in that one account that's over and the the extra funds and to wishes because we prepaid the end of last year for this year that's right okay you're exactly right it was um about I had the exact number I think it's 1.5 okay and so even though we prepaid uh we have had a few you know I think Amy Reese does a great job with her budget um but you know she can't predict every single tuition for every single student especially a movein so with the new movein there are going to be a couple that are higher than what she uh budgeted for 24 the other number that's kind of large but in the other way is the per line to 330 and and that was what's the reason for that so some of it is um you know not hiring Paras on day one you know back in August so filling it a little bit later um and then when in order to meet the students need sometimes uh we have to contract uh with some paas and a lot of that contract cost is going on the grant um so we are meeting the needs of the students but it's not all hitting uh the local budget but there are still some PA of vacancies uh in you know of the whatever 171 Paras we're we're not at the 171 not full any other questions okay and I would just say I think this is a conservative uh number at this point I'm not concerned that this would be an overreach at this point so when it comes to the recommendations of spending we'll still obviously continue to to refine that but um I'm very comfortable with this being the um the minimal that'll be available sorry Donna no I just was going to include an asct and mention something that has nothing to do with anything that we're talking about right now oh okay um but I I did want to say this because I can it's my last meeting um that when we uh talk about homeless we often talk about them like it seems like an entity right but and I don't want it to uh sound to anybody that may be listening um that we don't consider them um human beings and part of our community and our school district you know we refer to it as homeless because we're often talking about Transportation or funding or things like this but you know they're very real people to us and uh I always cringe a little bit when we say homeless because it it doesn't always sound so nice because you know they're uh people who deserve our our our Grace and our compassion so that's my Aster for this so no I I don't disagree um I think the from a budgeting standpoint the difficulty is just the um the length of stay sometimes uh folks are with us um obviously we welcome them into this welcome into the community welcome them into the schools um it's it's just unpredictable um so you may have families that are with us um you know for multiple years you might also have families that are just here um intermittently and you know they've been relocated because they lost housing somewhere else and then they're ending up going maybe back to that District if something worked out for them so there's just extra costs associated um with the grouping it's just how we also have to just report it from a budgetary standpoint um but no we we definitely have um uh under that category families our district that we serve and we consider our families um it's really more from an accounting standpoint that we just use that title absolutely and I think we had mentioned it maybe two or three times throughout the meeting and I was just thinking to myself that you know I think no I get you I think that they deserve to be recognized as members of our community so I'm sorry Joanne that was my uh you know little left turn there so um okay so that's the projection the next um two pages are recommended one-time purchases which total 1. 611 million so not the full 2.8 as the superintendent said it this is sorted by school and um these are meant to be um you know not baked into our base where we'd have to fund them in fiscal year 25 or forward that's the our definition of one time and then um so there's a dollar amount a little description the school and then um the last four columns are to lead into the the next um segment of the budget transfer of where we'd be favorable we take funds from the favorable category on the projection and we'd want to record the expense uh where they belong in the Desy category for uh reporting so any questions on the list of onetime purchases is any of the capital I know there's a lot of Art yeah say there is um just maybe like high level so again we do start by asking all the schools and all the Departments to give input to this list and these are things that uh again qualify as like one time they're not recurring um they're things that have come up often times like if it's a school type request it may have come up through uh staff in the buildings it may have come up through the School site Council as things that they would like to see um individual departments um you know have different uh concerns and areas that they would like to focus on um a couple kind of highlevel uh needs we always do take a look at the town's Capital plan and the school Department's um contributions to that plan because each year we're able to um accomplish a lot of projects but we aren't able to always do everything so like one of the items that we weren't able to accomplish um but it was like next in our list was the renovation of some of the art classrooms at the high school that was an area that we uh we couldn't do so um this actually would kind of Kickstart uh some of that work where even when we presented to the uh Town Capital committee it was a pretty significant number I want to say it was in the three or $350,000 range in total but that was to upgrade the five classrooms including um different curriculum materials even like some computers things along those lines um but what this would allow us to do is at least go in and um foundationally uh you know there's one of the rooms that needs to have like a wall added so that we can better separate the space um this would include new flooring in all the rooms so there's a consistent floor upgrade um um the lighting in the room still like new LED lights the um drop ceilings in the room a lot of the Cosmetic and structural elements and then we would come back at it again uh working with the our teachers to see you know now we're getting into Furnishings because that was a bigger cost you know are there some Furnishings maybe in a later round that we could add once we have all of the work done or if we're not able to do that and we have to go back to town Capital next year we can say originally this was a three I'm just gonna say 475 it was 475 you know but we've been able to on our own you know kind of fund these elements of it so now we're down to this number this is the new number that we're going to submit so um I definitely like the idea of beginning the um kind of foundational work with the the Art Labs another big number that's going to jump out to you about Midway through the page is over almost a half a million dollars and this tied to some of our discussions previously and an executive session around school um security and Communications and so this is the actual will um cost to install the new uh two-way radio system within the schools um again tied in with the schools tied in with the police um this would be to move to uh more of a digital uh Communication System instead of the analog radios that we have um and obviously that's a big number so we anticipate that being a significant onetime cost yes you're always going to have to replace like a oneoff radio or battery or something like that but this actually would include the installation of the repeaters the towers and the schools so that all the connectivity can happen you have to do the FCC licensing on the new system um the full-blown implementation so that is a big number but that's why it's kind of a onetime um cost we also just as an example like asked um different departments like our music department because um now obviously I'm just going to say at the middle school level you know five and six are all together seven or eight are all together so you know do they have all the different equipment that they need to really make their program successful and each year they try to upgrade some of the um musical instruments things like that and they're very expensive um musical instruments the kids use so um that's something that we um we asked we have included within here um chump Tel meteor is another example is a very good partner of us and they do a lot of work in the pack at the high school the Performing Art Center um but like their light board and even some of their LED well they have still the old lights in the theater and um you the old light bulbs burn out quite frequently the LED lights when you put them in will last you know by past High Time and uh you know they don't uh don't burn out all the time so we've included funding in here to be able to um change out that old light bulb system to like an LED light bulb system and for Tom and the and the kids in the TV Production Studio to add a new light and sound board um so those are the kind of things that we would would have had on the capital project list um but if we can actually accomplish them here that allows us to then do something else afterward you're also doing a uh curriculum adoption for World languages that's new yes uh Linda worked with the uh the World Language uh department on that you certainly can address it if you like um just to try to have there be some um consistency in the program for the now that again all the world languages in two schools it's at McCarthy and the high school um we don't have the fifth six anymore for the time being um so that was something that she worked on they just have they have new standards um that they have and they've been implementing it but um I when I went through a lot of the stuff that they were doing especially even through like the nas process they were putting together um curriculum units where people were giving the information based on what they were doing and the need really came out of they actually needed a program to help them go through that to give those kids that vertical alignment rather than the teachers creating it themselves and using Google Classroom so I reached out to a few of our vendors which is actually very difficult to do nowadays A lot of the vendors have walked away from the World Language um uh Publications but we found two of them that were able to give us some information and um I've been going through that whole adoption process with the teachers and after they've had a chance to look at the materials they'd like to move forward with one of them that's interesting so they're getting away more from that is it's a trend towards another method of yeah there's a couple of things like there's because we have the French and Spanish um the Publishers the two Publishers that have the French and span well the the world languages only one of them has French and Spanish and other languages that's Wayside publishing um very good group um but your bigger groups like mcra Hill hot Mi H Mifflin didn't even answer me back so they they don't even have it they've we have their old materials and their old materials they're just not republishing so mcra Hill was the second one and they're only doing Spanish interesting [Music] Trend World language teachers have already had a chance to look at the options and and kind of picked out we did with math and right uh French didn't have that much of a choice because there's only one Publishers that's doing French but Spanish had two options to look at are they using the same publisher they both they would like to use the same publisher it makes more sense yeah okay and again just from my perspective I this has always been I think very well received um you know we don't typically come back over the course of the school year and recommend a lot of budget adjustments and changes because you know we put a plan in effect for the school year it is aligned with our strategic plan work and um I've always just taken the position you don't want to go making a lot of changes unless something important emerges that you have to address immediately um because that really Alters your base for the following year I'd much rather have that discussion about where the budget for the following year should go and then any of the funds that become available buy some of these things and knock off some of these projects that we just couldn't get done so really over the last five or six years we've accomplished a lot by doing this um strategy in these onetime purchases the Departments and schools very much appreciate it and um we get very as you can see we get very good input from them and um I think it goes a long way one last question for me um what was our prepayment on tuitions last year how much did we prepaid five was 1, 523,000 okay thank you you sure it wasn't 22 I was just sitting there going pull the number out yeah she's little human computer and because she's human computer I've said this before and I want to say it again I really really appreciate how thorough all the financial reports always are and for us to see this line by line where this money is spent is just so helpful as we have oversight of the budget and the finances to get all this information um is really really helpful and I very much appreciate it that I don't have to ask a lot of questions because it's always right here thank you all right are there any other questions all right then with that jennice I'll take a motion and make a motion to approve the FY 2024 local operating budget transfers totaling $1,611 733 for the Council of public schools is presented this budget transfer is shifting from 12 Desi categories that are favorable to 10 Desi categories where the items should be purchased second all right any further questions or discussion all right Dennis hi Susan hi John I Maria I I 5 in favor thank you great thank you very much um moving on to the eighth item on the agenda this evening this is the Personnel report for the M uh month of February again just um details a couple of new hires we have a couple of resignations that we have and uh no retirements or assignment changes um over the course of this um um this period I'll just take a quick notes noticed a lot of people um obviously worked with and I know Bernie battle who had been the longtime dean of the high school and he had stayed on and helped us coordinate our facilities he has um decided to kind of well fully retire from that particular position we'll still see him around uh the district but um uh we were able to hire a new individual uh Kelly Hayes to help us coordinate those activities so Bernie is still being instrumental and kind of helping Kelly transition on board but um just you know in particular thank Bernie for all of his service to the town and again I he'll still be around uh but Kelly will be starting to coordinate some of that service which I think is good for the district as well so she seems very eager to uh to get going in the job and we look forward to working with her as well are we into the hiring season for next year already or we well into the hiring season yes so I one of the um things that honestly and I didn't have this experience when I worked in um an urban District so as much as they get the money they get the money late uh so you can't really do your budgeting in a city until like later in the springtime but um here so our advantage is we do the recommended budget in early February the school committee adopts at the end of February and then um before March 1st we actually advertise all of the gnome positions that we have open for next year internally to our staff to see if there's anyone that like to transfer around and then we're also simultaneously posting externally to try to bring in a candidate pool for those jobs um so we're already in the second round of uh postings uh for those jobs and interviews are taking place people are being offered positions um I'm happy to report back to you maybe towards the um give it a month or so towards the end of April early may but um we're already well into the hiring season all of our positions have rtiz again internally and externally at the same time which I think is good because um you know if we don't have internal candidates who are the um either interested or really the right fit for the particular position we're already bringing in people from the outside um I know some of our staff Diana HR and shanon Bishoff last weekend were at a job fair um trying to attract some candidates so they're on the kind of the job fair circuit talking a little bit about the district we've got some key positions to fill this year so I am happy that we're out early doing it um you know sometimes we have um and it's hard to find you know one one clinical psychologist we actually have three uh this year to fill because of retirement so that's that's a big thing for us um to be able to do um we have a number of special education positions that we're trying to fill that we just add it to the budget um so you know often times those are external hires um we've got those Avatar where were sding to interview so that we can really kind of get the cream of the crop and get some people in while a lot of other districts in our area are still either struggling with budget or trying to um get their budgets passed uh we're really making a push even with the different graduate schools in the area to let them know that we have positions open we're hiring um we want it to be the first out of the gates so yeah it's well under way any other questions or comments all right no so again that's more just free information there's no necessary um Vote or anything like that um next on the item for me is number nine uh this is just a school committee uh policy update that we're recommending I'm not sure uh this so this would be adopting uh policy AC it's a non-discrimination and harassment uh policy um as you were leaving or as you were coming in you may have seen uh attorney Joyce uh leaving um so as you know we have two different legal councils that help um the district uh Andy W who is our primary attorney general counsel is through Murphy hessy Tumi lane and then we have um Tom nuttle and Mike Joyce Michael Joyce who are the attorneys through um nut McAvoy and Joyce and they really handle all of our student uh service type um issues in the district so uh we actually had attorney Joyce in doing a uh training this afternoon for our district administrators around um dist investigations and different school committee policies and discrimination and harassment and whatnot and and in doing the uh in prepping for the training he always takes a look at our district policies and handbooks and he noted that uh some updates needed to be made to the policy AC the non-discrimination policy there were certain new uh classifications of IND individuals that fall within it um so he sent along a draft for us to um to look at um we obviously conferred with uh Andy and Felicia at Murphy Hy Tomy Hae because they're the ones that typically do the policy reviews for us and again we're attorney Joyce and his office so the ones that handle student services they deferred to um to attorney Joyce because he'd be the one representing us and um so you do have the policy um before you this evening um it has been reviewed by both councils and is recommended for um for approval and again it ties to the training that the administrators did because we kind of want to have everyone on the same page when it comes to the policies and procedures um so we'd like to have that be uh reviewed and approved and then Incorporated um by practice into our work there any questions yes um not with the document itself but just about do so do we have a compliance officer for um the non-discrimination policies yet or would that be someone who gets hired after this is adopted no so typically that would fall there are two individuals in the district that most of these fall to um most of them either fall to D with Diane Cary at this point who's our director of Human Resources um uh Title Nine different special education procedures would fall to Amy Reese the director of student supports Services one of the other things that would trying to get away from is actually naming like individual people in the policies because when the policy changes has to get updated you have to go in and change the person's name so and again attorney Joy recommends you just list the titles of the people as opposed to the individual in the role um but uh no that would you know who they are right well you know who the people are but just in case someone left and then new person come you don't have to go back and redo all your policies but uh in that particular case like discrimination harassment things along those lines would be Diane Carri our H director yeah and the other question I just have where it talks about the process for [Music] um I guess students and families who might or even employees who might want to file something where is that available to people so that they would know how to do that if they needed to sure so again this is another recommendation from the attorneys is that you know we have our actual policies that the school committee approves and then as like AC accompanying document which would be in like student handbooks and in the employee handbook for staff you would actually have the procedures be a hyperlink procedures change more frequently than policies change if there's updates to the law and things along those lines so um he has also provided uh procedures that tie into the policy but the procedures aren't um approved by school committee it's the policy that is so um once you would were to do this he would then give us the procedures he recommends so for parents and staff it would be up um included and updated in the um student handbooks okay and then for personnel it would be in the staff employee handbook handbook and those would the procedure links would be right there okay good thank you and I'm happy to email them to you just so you can see them right on the website I just want to make sure anyone who's listening knows that Y no we both a place for them to find this information should they need to right yeah it would just be someplace we wouldn't have to necessarily update um because again a procedure can change but the policy wouldn't okay thank you so do you know like what were the major change I didn't have time to look at our old policy what were the major changes between this and what we had before um off the top of my head it's in the first paragraph there were like certain um classifications of individuals that needed to be spelled out I forget exactly which one but when it gets into like you know race color creed there were different what's that well a couple of them I know okay so there were a couple that just weren't in the policy that had to be added as a protected class under state and federal law so we have that and then the other thing that attorney Joyce did again is kind of separate out what's the policy from the procedure so this is really the policy piece very little else it's the classifications up there great all right are there any other questions comments all right Dennis I'll take make a motion to accept the updated policy AC non-discrimination and harassment as presented second okay I think I do a roll call vote because it's a policy sure yes okay um so uh Dennis I Susan I John i r i i 5 Z in favor you just wanted to get another roll call I did wait till bang the gabble at the end you're gonna love it um last item for me this evening is um just approval of field trip requests and um just want note for you uh up until this morning we just had the one on the docket but then as it came under good news earlier the um the crescendos were invited to uh New York at the end of the month I know we have one more school committee meeting later in April um but I just wanted for planning purposes for them to be able to get um approval earlier because I do think there's funding involved um so you have two trips before you this evening we'd already have the approval on the agenda so it was okay to add but you have two field trips the first is um students that would qualify for the DECA uh International career conference and that is held the last week in April in Garden City California and then secondly as I mentioned the crescendos um were invited to the ichsa which Lyon knows the acronym for uh finals in uh New York again also that last week in April so we'd recommend approval of these two field trips all right I make a motion to approve the CHS Deca trip to the international Career Development conference in Garden City California from April 26 to May 1st 2024 second okay any questions or concerns all those in favor I 5 Z in favor I make a motion to approve the CHS cresendo AC capella group to the CSA Final in New York New York from April 26 to April 28th 2024 second any other questions or concerns okay all those in favor I I 5 Z in favor and that's uh that was the last thing under a new business for me thank you very much all right do we have any liaison reports I do attend the cental school PTO meeting on the 13th of March and as usual uh they had very good attendance uh very well organized tremendous amount of work and one thing that I always appreciate about the center is the amount of um enrichment that they get done throughout a year is pretty incredible uh their fundraiser one of their primary fundraisers which is the Taste did quite well this year once again they have recycle day coming up jointly with mcarthy and that will be at the beginning of May great anybody else um um I am the liaison from the school committee to the town strategic plan steering committee and we've had quite a few meetings since January um I imagine it's very similar to the process you may have gone through before you chose the DM group but we've done a lot of meetings just talking about the overall general purpose of what developing a strategic plan is a lot of work on hammering out what the RFP would look like and the rfps did go out and we now have um seven proposals have been received from seven different groups that are interested in taking on the work to develop the Strategic plan tomorrow I'm going to be reading seven proposals because on Thursday night we have the first of our meetings to start selecting which groups we would then like to interview to select someone to then start the big project of how does the town develop this plan but the committee is great there's um myself someone from the select board someone from the planning board there's a clean energy person there's a open space people there's concerned citizens so it's it's quite a good cross-section of people from town who are looking at this and while the school of course already has its strategic plans everything we do has to fit Under the Umbrella of what the town does so um it's an important part for us to be part of too so it's moving along this we are going to start choosing someone very soon I think it's by the end of this a dirt date in April which we will make the um selection on who will be given the contract so it's coming up did they talk at all about how long the process will take once they actually select someone like is there a um time frame like how long the work would take to put it together so I don't remember the description in the RFP but it was pretty detailed and exactly what the group is looking for I just don't remember that particular detail yeah it the RFP is pretty specific about a lot of those things okay thank you for doing that mhm it's been very interesting it's good to talk to that cross-section of people in town thank you I've referred them all to look at the school commit strategic plan many times an example what it might look like that's that denn Lindon mentioned um CPAC is going to have a virtual meeting tomorrow night um probably the easiest way to get access they have a Facebook page if you just do uh chel CAC um the link is right there the zoom link uh it's at 7 o'clock tomorrow and uh everybody's welcome to attend and and learn about what's going on at Tac and special in The District in general so great and uh since our last meeting I attended the um bam uh PTO meeting and the Council of schools and um I just want to say that the um the amount of activities uh that um are carried out in all of our schools on a yearly basis by this group of parent volunteers is really quite outstanding and I know that we're coming up on elections for a lot of these boards and I would encourage you know families or parents uh to get involved in the pto's um even if you don't want to run for an office I think even just volunteering time on some of these activities that they have planned um it's just a great way to build community um and we had a chance to listen to um all of the um uh PTO reports at the Council of schools and it was a really good opportunity as I said to hear about everything that's going on it's also a good opportunity for them uh to ask questions of each other around um events and also um just questions around things like transportation and stuff like that so um it was a good meeting um I think um they are going to um again you know be looking volunteers uh for um their board as well so I would encourage as I said people to to consider doing that it's it's really a terrific um opportunity um to help out in the schools and continue the hard work that all of these groups have been doing over the years um do we have any I'm sorry is there any other uh liaison reports okay um action items so we have our community Forum on thur want to talk a little bit about that yes so anyone um in the community is invited um we did send an email out and um Jenny's been helping us put some social media posts out about Thursday night um to come for an information session to talk a little bit about the uh potential middle school project um we're going to do a timeline of kind of how we got to where we at to today and then what we have to uh look forward to as we go through this process I'll talk a little bit about working with the msba what the eligibility period entails ultimately if we get to feasibility what that would entail um and again I think just is an opportunity to kind of provide um context for why we're looking at what we're looking at um I do think you know I've heard a lot of questions about the project even when we had our superintendent coffee different individuals came to kind of talk about it because they um they heard about it so just want to give everyone an opportunity to to hear a little bit about um what we have coming up on the work I did email U because we'll have a town meeting article in April um to potentially uh fund the feasibility study so I emailed each of the to meeting Representatives just so that they're um aware of it and I invited them personally to it um Chums forel media is going to help us um record the session so uh it will be recorded and I think uh we'll get that obviously posted to our website but I'll also send a link out to each of the uh the meeting reps just so everyone if they're not able to come and I I totally get that Ru wise TimeWise um but can watch on their own uh the presentation and at least have uh the feedback if you do go to our website there is a new uh page dedicated specifically to the park and Middle School school building project and we've been just uploading all of our documents um on to that site so that'll be another place to kind of host the link to the meeting and we'll just keep um this kind of chronological um record of the project so no we're hoping people can come out Thursday night it's this Thursday the 28th at 7 o'clock in the auditorium at mcarthy Middle School um I'll do a presentation um question answer and again it'll be recorded for those who can't make it and we'll get the um the video pushed out shortly thereafter all right thank you uh do we have anybody for a public comment in our second session uh we don't I have one other open item and although you're trying to avoid it as much as you can so everybody at the table knows that this is Donna's last meeting um she'll be moving on so I just want to take an opportunity to thank her not just for work on the committee but everything she's she's done to help me out um people might not know that when I decided to run seven years ago um Don foolishly offered to be my campaign manager but even then her her knowledge about what goes on in the CH of schools and CH school committee were invaluable um so turn about fair play I kind of convinced her that this was really easy to do and didn't take any time and so she moved on to the committee herself and six years later I think she might forgive me I'm not sure but but honestly you know Donna has always been uh proven to be knowledgeable insightful prepared and above all thoroughly invested and making sure everybody's voice is heard um I don't think there's a s a phone call an email or text message that Donna received that she didn't respond to um she's truly been like the heart of this committee I mean tonight perfect evidence you know even though we we refer to homeless because that's how we you know it's it's in the budget and everything you know she's concerned that people feel respected and and listen to and and that's just how she is and that's you know I said she has really been the heart of this Committee in the whole six years been here um you know we didn't always agree on things but we always took the time to to discuss things so that we could make the best decisions we could um and know she won't be here physically uh every other Tuesday I know that she'll continue to be working in in ch fit in for the CHC public schools and I know I will really miss her and I'm sure the rest of the committee feels the same way so thank you jna for for everything well it's certainly been an honor um wait a minute we all got to say oh no no oh no we do point of privilege yes Sean you would I I mean I've only been on the committee a year but you've really really been helpful to me to to learn the ropes when I've about a question about anything that's going on you've always been available to talk to me and I just really appreciate your Insight your feedback and how open you've been to just make sure that everybody everything's transparent we all know how everything works so I really appreciate your helping to incorporate me into this group and feel very comfortable with what I'm doing here and meant to do so thank you thank you Donna Donna Donna so uh honestly uh I am I'm actually quite heartbroken that you're going to be gone but I understand why you're going to go and probably why I should stop running for office over and over again but um no we've been through a lot together we've been working together for a long time after Dennis brought you in uh we've gone through covid together we've uh agreed on a lot of things disagreed on a few things um have yelled hugged cried did all the things showed up for each other and um like everybody said uh there is always a undercurrent of um kindness right so you're very accepting and and helpful even that time I showed up at uh L high school and said I don't know anything about L High School can you come save me from the parking lot and you came down from class and saved me so that's a real Donna the one that shows up all the time when you need her thanks thank you well Donna going back to the beginning I remember coming out of a um meeting that both of us attended at some country club nearby and you were running for office and um I remember you said to me I really hope I get in because I really really want to be a part of chumford school committee and I love that encounter with you thinking wow Donna's commitment is deep to this she really really wants to do this and it was just so obvious how much your heart was in it and having joined the committee about a year later I realized that it wasn't just something you said it's something you were doing and have done all of these years you've been totally committed to it I personally want to thank you on behalf of all of the inhabitants of 19 parkar road because I know that my children benefited greatly from all of your service um but in general to everybody to all the children of chumford you have really served us well and um I want to wish you all because every time somebody gives this much service the amount that you have there is always some kind of sacrifice somewhere that you have to make in your own personal life in your commitment to your family and to the people that you love dearly so I appreciate that from you tremendously thank you thank you thank you very much so I get the last word yeah how it goes well it has been a it was a really interesting six years for a variety of different reasons and you know I think about covid and how um how we really had to come together and find a way for our district um you know through that whole process and it and it was not easy and it was actually downright ugly at times I think you know uh we um had some tough decisions to make public didn't always necessarily agree but I do believe that in that moment um what I saw in this committee was uh what we were really all about um although we disagreed on some things um we recognized that the decisions that we made and we've always made have come from a place um that has been in the service of the district um I've never worked on a committee before that has given so selflessly um and without uh ego or without another agenda it has truly been an honor to work with all of you um it's been an honor to work with all of the parents um who also volunteer in our district and the kids um and um I I definitely will miss it um and I look forward uh to the next chapter uh for the CH for school committee because I think you guys are going to do great things so thank you very much thank you so we just have a little token token you have a token too I'm gonna B to get you a new car but we couldn't afford it what here they said you could borrow the bus for a week though thank you very much thank you get flowers by this right here thank you very much you're welcome um I'll entertain a as quickly as possible yeah I'll entertain a motion to adjourn I'll make a slow motion to adjourn I don't know the second part of the I said second second it doesn't matter all those in favor own favor thank you everybody thank you very much pass my own joke