e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e welcome to the Monday June 17th 2024 meeting of the dentist yth Regional school committee please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all it's sad that we only have one student representative as one has left us but we're very appreciative of you of coming today Isabella if you can give give us your yeah of course thank you guys so much for having me thank you for having me throughout this whole year I'm excited for next year I feel like I've learned so much like just getting to observe and obviously Rosanna has been like the best mentor of all time for me and I'm so incredibly grateful for the friendship that this is kind of built for us but as for Dy we had our graduation last weekend which I know I saw a lot of you guys there it was it was a lovely day and it was so nice and I think the ceremony was like the perfect length too and people had their whole days after and it was just definitely a Bittersweet moment but one of the best graduations I've ever seen at DIY uh we also had our senior last assembly which took place on Friday which for students I think sometimes is a little bit more impactful than graduation just because like the whole school gathers and we give out senior superlatives and things like that so like yeah me do educator of the year and it's a lot of like personal things about our seniors that you just don't really get at like a districtwide celebration I would say so that was absolutely amazing as underclassman we have one more day left of finals which is tomorrow we have about half days all week half day on Friday I'm so excited for finals to be over we usually have our step-up day on Thursday which is our last day of school but this year it's switching around a little bit just due to some scheduling problem so we're just going to have a normal day we get to say goodbye to all of our teachers which is exciting and our kind of last thing for me is that we have our boys and girls State conferences this weekend so I think that we sent either three or four junior girls and three or four junior boys to these events and as you know I don't know if you guys know actually but Rosanna attended this last year and went on to girls nation which is a where she was representing Massachusetts to the entire country so it looks great for dy I know everybody's there is having a great time thank you thank you so much for a great year we're excited uh to have you back next year I know you guys have already elected another person so we look forward to welcoming them and we thank you for probably the best part of our meetings when we get to hear about all the all the fun stuff that's going on you know a lot of stuff we do you know as policy and procedures but hearing what we allow the students to do is always great so we wish you a wonderful summer and thank you than and I'll pass it over to Dr Smith for discussion of our summer workshop thank you very much uh so just wanted to update the committee we had talked about planning a summer workshop so we've got a little bit of information what we've been able to confirm with Jim Hardy uh so for the members that were on the committee at the time Jim is who came and did the workshop well he's our field rep but he's and also the gentleman who came and did the workshop on superintendent evaluation so uh We've confirmed Jim for July 15th at 4 o'clock Monday July 15th uh we'll do it in the conference room here so it'll be scheduled uh as a workshop session and then the main purpose of that will be to be working on school committee goals uh fortunate or I I think it's good timing in that we'll have the leadership team will meet the week before that uh for our two days of our four days of retreat we have two days scheduled in July two days scheduled in August and really the purpose of the Leadership Retreat is in July anyways we're going to be developing the Strate our Strate strategic objectives that was easy for me to say our strategic objetive objec and the key initiatives that you know coming out of Entry planning or all the entry work that I did and the report of Entry findings it's now flowing into okay so now what are we going to do with all that information so I think we'll have all that information to bring to you all as a committee or I'll have that information to bring to you all as a committee and really what I'm I have the sort of the question for you all as a group so that's like scheduling Logistics my Wonder for you is in helping prepare for that 15th July 15th is there anything that committee wants me to have prepared for that meeting to help you all in your preparation of school committee goals you know if you think about the way you know from the Department of Ed's literature and just sort of good practice like all of these things should like really line up if we're all going to be moving in the same direction we want to have the school committee goals a strategic plan and then the district well the Strategic plan is the district's Improvement plan but then the I'll be then working with the schools to have their school Improvement plan all lined up and we're all kind of rowing in the same direction so what my question to you all is to help you all as a committee in your goal setting how can I help I guess is really sort of the the phrase or my question Mr Glenn yes so as you and David and Tomas know I'm really hot on the School Safety and Security thing and I think we all are but um so i' would like to have that I know that we've already kind of established that and in your evaluation we were it was it wasn't complete because it was it wasn't all you know ready yet um but one of the things that I would like to see and I'd like to get feedback or could be part of our discussion is to have a school committee subc commmittee um of Safety and Security and then in the event of any situation we have a person that is in with that group the P the police department the fire department the the school administration all of those people that are the stakeholders we would be in the room but if you think about it we are the liaison to the community and whenever there's been these issues you know serious issues with with uh incidents at other places one of the big things is the communication you know if you're dealing with you know parents and situations we don't want parents rushing to the school the more people that we have in that Command Center at the time the earliest that we can do it the better it's going to be for all of us so I I'd like to just I'd like to have the subcommittee but it's of course up to the chair and and the rest of the committee but um I'd like to have these conversations at least in that Workshop um to to Hash it out I can't see I can't think of a reason myself why we wouldn't do it um but sometimes I don't think things true so um but I got my three Finley here to support our SRO but I don't need just one I need three to protect me but um yeah so that's that's one of the main things that I would like to talk about and we can ask Jim if he can find out best practices security wise that we can include because I know that's was one of your goals was the Safety Committee but maybe find out what other goalwise that is common or that he would think would be benefit to us yeah the other thing I just want to add so part of that discussion too is funding because that's always the big thing you we'd love to do everything but we got to get funding for it especially you know with our budget situations but um there is other funding and and federal funding and I think not only could we be the state model I think we could be the national model uh on this and i' I'd like to be able to do that you know but if we don't get the funding we can't do it we're not the richest District in the world um but if we can get the funding let's go for it anyone else have any questions about the workshop or ideas or topics that they'd like to learn more about yes Marilyn I guess I'm I'm looking for the bridge or the connection between uh your summit of report that was great and sort of identified where we should go uh whether or not there's a tentative uh looking at past School Improvement plans and strategic plans whether you see a rollover or we going in a New Direction sort of just an understanding of that draft um and then looking at what Des is looking um I'm very secure I have a good understanding of where we're going um and helping students in math uh but I'm looking for more information on literacy standards and where that direction is going and perhaps a little bit on civic education as well since that's a new initiative Mr new Mr Martin I know it was new to you but uh the workshop you know kind of gives us a way to have an expert in the room and you know Mr Hardy's an expert and his whole team is and then there's a convention in November that we have that we were able to attend that has individual classes too so there's variety of ways for us to continue to learn and educate ourselves so this is one of them I think it will'll be a great start for us um and the only thing I think just a discussion of you know the goals you know how we can I think it's you gave us what goals you were going to do I think again if we work together on the the goals of the superintendent um but I think the way that it was laid out and I think the constant updates and the way that we had a folder that we can view the documents was great so I def like to continue that but if we can you know have a little more input on what they will be or come up them together would be great okay yeah so you saying you want me to come prepared with a draft idea of my types of goals or you want to have that as all part of the same conversation all part of the same conversation ideas not necessarily we make them but kind of what what criteria and what what what we'll be doing and then work from there yeah no I think that's that works I just plenty to close up the year and to worry about in three weeks have your goals if we just evaluated you last week I work well with the deadline if that's what you wanted I would have I would have had it done great so that's on the the ideas for the workshop and then we have a discussion on the school year calendar for next year which starts in a couple weeks n weeks away so in your pack we have a couple of couple of things so there's two there's next year's calendar and then there's um the following calendar but so uh I don't know if it was last meeting or maybe it was a couple meetings ago uh Jenny Landers had raised a uh I don't know I don't know if I would raise the whole word concern but she just let's say she raised a point uh so this year we have have this situation let's call it with the calendar where we're going to have the juneth holiday splits our end of the school so we we're going to come back on the 20th for half a day this was a product of the superintendent calling a single snow day so we did have the last day of school was prior to juneth snow day kicked it after next year's calendar it's going to happen regardless of a snow day uh regardless of a snow day we were split on the juneth holiday we will uh the students will come have to come back on the 20th so Jenny had asked to look at options for adjusting that so I looked at some options and I have some options for the committee to consider you can consider it it's your calendar do you decide whether or not you um want to make these adjustments so that's the first thing for us to look at so if you what you have in front of you is the approved excuse me that was a little the approved 2024 2025 calendar so a couple of ways we could get there is one would be that sort of I looked at what do other school districts do so one would be to look at the Wednesday before Thanksgiving a lot of school districts that is a half day so November 27th if you were to make that a half day that would gain you uh the 20th would move to the 18th and then you'd have now again if there's a snow day all bets are off but I'm just trying to get you to where this this without a snow day you're not having the school calendar split around the 20th as that was the request another option would be uh as a school district we still take the full Good Friday off we don't take any other religious holiday off like we don't take Passover off we don't take yum kapore off but we do Take Good Friday off as School District um so another option would be some other districts again they take either a half day that day or they're not off at all that day um so that would be another option that the school committee could consider or you could consider both if you can take consider both and that gains you two days and it gives it option for a snow day in there and you're still not split over the juneth holiday at the end of the year so those are for the school committee to consider again it's your calendar uh and those are the two that I saw that were the sort of the least disruptive to the calendar uh didn't get us in trouble with any of our contracts and it's for your consideration or we could just keep it as it is and not have to make any adjustments and then there's then we have the the the 25 26 Calendar would be the next conversation Smith are we looking for a discussion and a vote today or just conversation or I mean I kind of feel like the sooner you can get the information to the families the better and then I can put it out I I have sort of a communication timeline as far as I based upon something else in my superintendent report you know I want to I I have a plan to communicate to families before the end of the school year here so if you made a if you made a vote this would be included in that um if you didn't if you took no action I probably wouldn't include a no action change in in my messaging but okay so I guess we'll look for some feedback from the members and discussion then we can if someone makes a motion from there we'll start with Mr Glenn at the end we can go down the do you want the motion first or no just discussion okay um so let me get it straight so the 27th the the Thanksgiving what what what day were we we were going to so the 27th is currently a full day off so my recommendation would be to or one option I guess I would say is you could make that a half day but isn't 27th Thanksgiving no 27th is the Wednesday Thanksgiving is the 28th oh am I looking at the wrong one uh you might be on the 25 26 calendar yeah you're on the 25 26 Calendar okay I'm sorry all right I got you sorry Mr Martin I would be um I would be okay because I I I I also find you it a little awkward to be off on the juneth holiday and come back for a half day provided that there's no um there's no snow days um would be in favor of attending a full day of school on uh Good Friday um and uh the half day on November 27th just to kind of give us what would would that give us the last day of school being the 17th without the snow days or would that give us the 18th the 17th if you did both if he did both it would be the 17 the 17 with no snow days yeah so uh so that would also so give us a little bit of a buffer in case we ran into a situation like we did this year where we had one snow day um I would be in favor of uh going to school on April 18th and a half day on November 27th marily um it still could be if you had enough hours that the 18th and the 20th is a full school day even though it gets out say at noonish we're well we're we're well over the 990 and yeah so both of them potentially could be half days yes I can't see Mr n down there but I'm going to see if you have questions I'm personally not in favor of being in school on the 18th I think that presents a multitude of problems I don't believe that uh any of the faculty will have to be here because it's a religious holiday is that in the contract Mark I mean anybody who can take a religious ex but again the same thing for Passover same thing for Yam kapor same thing for corre any of the Arab holidays so like my question is why the one Christian holiday I understand that I'm just saying my experience when the district has done that that is that uh there was sparse attendance and there were a number of Faculty that were out and I'm not sure maybe coverage is not an issue on a day like that if you've got 50 faculty members out in the district I again I I I know we're I don't know the practicing Catholic percentage in our district off the top of my head now right but I understand all that I'm just I'm just putting it out there yeah that if we do have school on that day it potentially could provide for a issue with the principles in the various schools both uh attendance from the faculty and the students and yes anything is possible Marilyn um I'm going to offer something as the other former educator in the room so I worked for a number of years in a system that always had Good Friday off uh but did not have any other religious holidays off and over time uh other groups was looking for that adjustment as well rightfully so so what we ended up was doing is making Good Friday a half day um anyone who felt that uh for religious reasons could ask for a personal day um that happened perhaps the first year because it was an adjustment but then after all because and I happen to be of that that particular Faith um we individuals looked at it and realized that whatever service you may want to go to would be afternoon anyways so it became the custom it became very comfortable and it allowed all faves to then request their uh day for religious reasons as well so it was a successful adjustment Mr Glenn yeah so just from a practical standpoint because we're not going to be taking attendance to who's going to a service if you know whether the person is celebrating yam kapor we understand you know or Good Friday or whatever the religious holiday is that they are allowed to take a day off but given that what Mr new said that you know people might take a day off from a practical standpoint both of those days just before Thanksgiving and before um the school vacation people will parents teachers they might want to get start their vacation early so the religious portion of it from the the teachers perspective they say all right we want to go skiing or we want to go start our vacation um our school uh April vacation or Thanksgiving same thing um you know people want to get on the road the day before um so from a practical standpoint is it a a problem for the the the half day on juneth um is is this just a a a matter of fairness that we're looking at this or it the the the juneth date is this time of year and it's you know we're kind of winding down and you know parents can decide whether to keep their kids out teachers you know it see just seems like this is the less impactful for the most amount of people but being fair to everyone you know in other words I don't want to deny anybody their religious rights no matter what their circumstances is and I want to respect those holidays but you know it's like veterans days and other days that people don't get off on um you know there's there's other considerations so I'm I I don't I don't understand if we have if it's a big impact like we're saying a lot of people are offended by this um than I understand but the other two practical senses of Thanksgiving and and the April school vacation that seems to will affect a lot more people in my opinion yeah I mean again I was asked to to come up with some solutions so I just presented some options the days prior to the it it comes down to where do you think the most instruction you're going to get like so as as you said you know how many instructional days and what are going to be the most beneficial instructional days coming back for a half day after at the end of June after you've had a break you know you could make the argument that there's you're losing an instructional day there um and then the only other thing that I would say and is some of the pieces so like the the all the contracts have language in them just uh if it's prior to a school V any long vacation or a school vacation week so like Thanksgiving would qualify and the April school vacation week would qualify to use utilize a personal day across all three contracts actually all four contracts including the assistant principal's contract uh they need special uh permission from the superintendent uh so there is some there are some guard rails uh there um I not since I've been here that Lang so and that's a very short Runway but um that language exists um there was something about a holiday where we we were discussing it I don't know yeah I again I I've got very short life spand this is with us but yeah my my memory has a shorter life spand but um I I I can I think that for this year since it's already been printed I think there would be a benefit to changing it to a half day um I think people are going to do whatever they want to do I can tell you that there's probably a large percentage that won't be there on Thursday um because they won't want to come back uh but I I think it is a I think it is a benefit to have the possibility of being out by the 17th of next year versus the 20th of next year um based on feedback from parents for this year and then we can eat then moving it to the next calendar which I know we'll talk about then the possibility of maybe removing it but I'm not turning the page as of yet but uh but I'll take a motion if someone wants on what on a recommendation uh I move that we designate uh the 27th November and the 18th of April um as half days a motion do we have a second second any discussion seeing none we'll take a vote all in favor say I I any opposed no so we have three to two we have a majority so it passes all right thank you so then then sorry on my agenda AG then we'll move to the next one is the 2025 2026 agenda the school calendar so then the next calendar is uh a first reading so no vote required tonight uh on the 2526 calendar and uh we uh mapped out some potential uh again just sort of roughed out the uh calendar here what we I did talk with my uh central office team around looking at some dates for the um about how to maybe do some of the um early release days a little bit differently for next year we did we've run into some challenges with uh with like the mcast stes as an example so we've talked about and and I know like that I've gotten some questions at least from Individual committee members like why don't why isn't there an early release day for example in March one of the reasons why we don't do an early release day in March is because that's like mcast Central uh almost all the mcast testing and a lot of the mandatory dates happen in March so what we did discuss was doing uh the mcast dates across uh or or switching to doing the early release dates starting in October uh in the on the first Wednesdays of the month uh and and carrying those through October oober through so it would be one October November not in December then January February April and May not having one in June like we do this year uh that's uh most beneficial to our needs for the early release days having professional learning opportunities for staff in June uh it's hard to you know provide new learning to somebody and then then you have several months off for the summer um so really trying to make a couple of adjustments there as well and then you the sort of the next caveat is do we carry forward the same idea of what the committee just voted here uh do we carry that forward into into the 20 this doesn't have that because obviously the committee hadn't made any decisions so we didn't make any presumptions in putting this calendar together if the committee would like to carry that type of an idea forward then we could come back with a with a second draft that would have U so this is obviously very preliminary wanted to get a sense of what the committee thought about those ideas and then we can firm some of this stuff up and bring back a a a I don't know more detailed draft uh for the committee to look at and potentially take a vote on in July when we next meet so there would be seven seven of the months would have an ear release so would be October 1st is it November 6 I think it's 6 so maybe I miscounted one so six so October 1st November 5th January 7th February 4th April Fool's Day and then May 6th is it the first Wednesday was it continuing or is it yeah I think I might yes okay it just wasn't highlighted on here so I was just trying to figure out four five six yeah okay and then this one does not have good Friday currently on it uh it does it's just it happens to be April 3rd it's it's uh oh it doesn't back back up yeah so this would be the 26th and that's with snow days yes so with no snow days would be the 18th so again if you take if you do a similar approach to what you did just on the last calendar then you're back to the 16th so you have a couple days of a buffer you're not into the next week if you have snow days CU all you all you have is one snow day and then you're into the week of the 22nd any any comments we're not taking any vote tonight but does anyone have any comments or questions Marilyn my only comment is again the the former educator kids are always ready to come back back to school in the end of August and September and they're dying to get out in June so the more we can make the uh calendar advantageous to their Prime learning time is a a good idea in my my estim Mr new I would Echo that I think uh the days of Old Cape Cod and students needing to work past Labor Day are over for the most part and and uh I taught for six years in a district that my first day was always uh the third week of August and I never went to school I never was in school past Memorial Day and we never had a week off for February um so I think it would be beneficial to the district and the educational uh education of the students in the district that if we look at starting earlier in August I agree with Marilyn this students are ready to come back and and playing around with uh the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and Good Friday and trying to facilitate a schedule that doesn't go late into June and I've taught here on Cape Cod all the way till June 30th so it's miserable so I think we should look seriously at having the first student day that fourth week in August Mr Glenn so although I respect the Educators in the room I uh not being an educator I looking at it from a parents perspective um you know kids might be ready to come back but the parents might not be ready to come back and uh and it it it you know the tradition in the especially here in the cape after Labor Day you know there's a whole psyche um with it to starting the the new um school year um and then really what are we what are we getting that first week and by the same token that last week you know there's field days and you know other stuff that we do which I think is important um socially and and uh emotionally for the kids at the end of the year because how much in ruction are we really doing that last half day or that you know th those days um and that's where really the rubber meets the road for me is you know those mcast results and those academic achievements of where I'm at about it but I always we always got to keep the parents in mind because you know if they're real upset that they have to come back in August uh we're going to hear it so that's my two sense i' I've always liked the idea of school in September to June and being off July and August I think I've always liked that whole idea of it I also think about our buildings and sometimes it's pretty hot the last week of August and I think the the hextra week of humidity and heat not all the students have the luxury of this building which is which is air conditioned I think uh a we could make a big difference so I like the whole idea of the you know September to June um I don't love how late it sometimes falls on the calendar but as in the the first the the previous calendar for next year I I like the idea um of of the possibility of maybe doing the half days again on Wednesday the 26th and Friday the 3 um but when I'm looking at um looking at where the projected first day of school would be that would be September third um looking at the last week in August and last week in August has three teacher professional days where there would be no school anyway so would we if if it was to get moved back to the last week in August would those teacher professional days need to they'll need to be moved other yeah otherwise you know they'll be coming back to school on the 25th having three days off then you know and that doesn't that doesn't really make much sense I think um it would be it would be my opinion that um yeah I I do think that that the buildings don't have the uh uh especially the the ones that are a little bit older they don't have the climate control that is necessary to accommodate the kids in August um um you know as it is you know my oldest daughter in a special needs program uh goes during the summer time and they have to relocate her from one school to another in order to give give her any sort of climate control whatsoever um and August is disgustingly hot and humid um starting in September um it seems more logical to me um it seems more traditional to me it seems like um you know starting in August it the last week in August you would run into you would run into to Labor Day anyway and then you have on the second you have a teacher professional day so you would have a long weekend a 4-day weekend there anyway which I never understood starting and starting before and then having a bunch of days off and then picking up again um I would say I would I would vote for having the start of school right where it is on September third and I would uh I would actually look at um mimicking what we did on the um 2425 calendar which would be look at April 3rd and November 26th um as potential half days yeah and going back to you know the uh wanting to get on the road and wanting to start your vacation early and you know that's that's fine but there's a good portion of the district that isn't going to go anywhere you know and is going to is going to stay put and it's not going to make much of a difference so I think that it would be kind of a wash and I think you would find the same sort of the same sort of um attitude of you know well we're just going to take the day and and go and start a vacation early or you know you would find the same sort of well we're just going to take the day as far as you know if it's snowing but they hav't called school you know if the if you know if it's if they feel it's a safety issue if they feel that they want to go somewhere if they they're going to take the day anyway so I think you know having that option of having November 26th and uh April 3D as half days um benefits the calendar and lets us you know let school ends um at a reasonable time mid June instead of late June especially if we don't have any uh any snow days I would be more in favor of that than the alternative of starting school earlier thank you and I know that yep Mr new has there ever been thought given to um shortening the February vacation I know in the past there's been discussion when we've had used snow days um but from my recollection there hasn't been discussion about cutting any of the April or February vacations prior to a need due to snow days and I would expect the same why does that vacation currently exist I would argue tradition okay so the same as in Good Friday um not for the same reason but similar yeah Trad yeah we're trying to play with with the front end and the back end of the calendar when we have four days that are smack dab in the February that impact MK F preparation and all the rest of the educational process that goes so um as we Ponder this maybe we could open the door for that thought Mr Martin my only um my only counter to that um would be is that as you look at the calendar as it's currently comprised without obviously the one and a half hour early release you the the pink blocks and such um you're looking at a nove uh November uh for uh what a 4 Day weekend um for Thanksgiving um you have your first school vacation in December around the Christmas and New Year's holidays uh and then you pretty much have nothing again until the April vacation it looks like the vacations are you know December skip a month February skip a month April um while I mean February I guess would be the most disposable of the vacations I suppose if I'm going to go that route but um but I would say that you can't that I wouldn't put such a huge um swath of time of constant you know that the the kids you know need some sort of a break in there somewhere you know and I think um you know obviously we're not going to do anything with December for obvious reasons and then you know um I guess you know February vacation would kind of fall under the same category as April vacation in that in that line of thinking you know one could you know but um I'd say that there were that the vacations the full week vacations um families plan considerable amount in advance you know I mean you probably you have I'm sure that you have some families not all but some um that are already starting to think of vacations for the 25 26 school year you know in anticipation knowing that February vacation is going to be the third week of of the month um I feel like it's better to Tinker with the individual days as opposed to the full weeks uh because that would I think that would be more um that would be more damaging to the to Family Planning and family you know vacation planning and time off and visiting you know and all of that so um I think that would be more of a a bigger rug to pull out from underneath and than it would be just uh you know kind of go with individual days on the calendar yeah and I I agree the same I you know adjusting two off days uh on the current schedule two half days would be very different than removing an entire what would be four days cuz there's still holidays on those weeks but um I think if we can put together a draft based on some of these we can take a look at it um and you know try to get a final calendar as best as we can because again I think to to Glenn's point I know parents who are saving now for next year's trip right so they try to book it out so they can spread it out over a year two years to pay and some people work in I know Glenn works in the medical field that you need to book your time off 6 months to a year BAS that's just how they do it you know not everyone has the luxury of being able to request a day off two weeks in advance because they have a specific schedule or if they're in you know in a unit or something and they have to request it out 6 months to a year so you know they base their day off requests based on their child school calendar so um and those are their only opportunities to take time they may not be able to take it off during the summer so as a lot of people do so I think if we go Dr Smith yes so uh know I would if the committee wants wants to there there isn't because you all do plan so far ahead with your calendars you do have a little bit of Runway to get some input if you want and we do have the new mechanism we used it for the um the transportation survey you know if there's a few things that you want to get some feedback from E from because there's a Workforce piece on this too right which is where where you know if we do you know go down Mr news pathway here and we want to explore February like how does that affect our Workforce if we're on a different school calendar schedule than you know our our our staff who have kids in other school systems like you know how how would that affect their you know if as a high school Age kid that's one thing but if they've got Young Elementary I I just don't know off the top of my head how many of our Educators have Young Elementary age kids and what would be the effect of them being on a different you know vacation schedule as you know Barnstable or nsid or whatever um and um but anyways so if if the committee wants to get some feedback we could put something together and put it out to the families and put it out to the staff um you just would want to give me some direction on what it was you wanted to wanted to get feedback around and then I could easily put that together and put it out Mr Glenn yes I was just going to suggest that because because all of that stuff is like all of these things are Traditions but you know whether someone has to plan because of work like Glenn said or anything if we surprise the people some people aren't you know not going to see this meeting and then all of a sudden they're going to say wait a second and and some parents may have kids in other districts you know they might have a kid in a different District they have one in each um and so we we don't know but it is all about tradition but it's like um the February school vacation I was MLK day and president day or you know there are reasons behind all them but those Traditions everybody kind of is expecting it and as soon as as soon as we change it they're not going to say nothing they're not going to say nothing they're not going to say nothing and then all of a sudden there's going to be an uproar wait we Barn's got school and got the day off and we're in you know that's when you're going to going to have a problem but if we do a survey now we've got the input we've given it to the community we've got some answers from them and then we let them decide Mr Martin um yeah uh superintendent I think that it would be a good idea to to kind of pull the the community and test the waters and see what uh what the thought is from the families um and I would uh I would say that um we would pose the November 26th April 3D option uh and we would pose uh Mr new's option of uh potentially either doing away with uh all four days or partial day uh partial vacation of the February vacation um or if uh and the third option essentially would be leaving the calendar as is and how they felt about having June off and coming back the next day I think that that would be uh I think that would pretty much give us what we what we want to know and and just about make our decision for us um I don't think you know I I think I think the February vacation you uh Joe was talking about uh you know traditions and such but and and it and it was but I remember going to school and it and Washington's birthday and Lincoln's birthday were two completely separate days and that's kind of where it you know piggybacked in between and and now it's just President's Day so um so obviously Traditions can change you know I mean so it it's a viable option I just don't know if the community would be behind it so I think um I think doing a poll like that you know would give us the benefit of testing the waters and see where the community is at as well as giving us the option to present you know transparency and inclusion with the community and bringing them on board to make this decision since it affects everybody Marilyn I'm just wondering about procedure here because we voted on as a committee um to change to the day before Thanksgiving and uh Good Friday is half dayss for next year and then we're going to send out a survey asking them for some of the feedback on that so uh if it's in the order of the group you know and this meeting is still in session we can sort of take back perhaps that original motion that passed or are we confusing too many things with a survey and which now contradicts the vote we took for next school year and that was that was going to be my point um we've taken a vote for next year's calendar and in a proposition for the following year calendar I would in essence say we mimic what we're doing next year um and I think if you're talking about communication when the change does go out we say this is to ensure an earlier um release in the year um I think if you want to propose options to get out even earlier um we can get we can discuss that we've looked at it options about removing part of the February vacation and get feedback on that before we make a decision on the 25 26 Calendar but uh to Marilyn's Point as as we've already voted for that I would expect that 2025 2026 would would mirror that for the draft Mr chair point of order um so I I agree with Marilyn we should we could easily just withdraw that motion whoever made a motion and seconded it um because it didn't come up as an option to do the survey on the first vote and it makes sense to seems like all of us that we should do the survey so we should do this survey for the other one if the the members were willing to withdraw their motion um then we should do it consistently but the the point of order is is that do we want to withdraw the motion and and and start over that would be up to the person who made the motion right was it you marijan or but I threw it out with not knowing the answer in my head the answer is now in my head I I am not going to withdraw the motion I think we can try it out and have discussions next year about how it's gone and give ample time to make a decision about the following school year yeah I I think since we've already to that point since it wasn't withdrawn we' we voted on the changes for next year I think we can put together a draft and get feedback about how early people were looking to get out um and let them know that would be a reduction in days after in the February break um I think that's would be the best way based on what we've gone through and I know uh you had something back about the 24 25 calendar fall upon on but just before we leave the 25 26 so am I just asking about early release or am I ALS I mean sorry am I just asking about the February vacation and leave as is or do we and I actually have to go back and I'll have to dig into the contract all the contracts and make sure there isn't some contract language that prohibits or because there's there is the professional days too so I just have to go look and see what options we would even have for before Labor Day start am is that all part of the conversation or am I just exploring the February vacation with the communities I would say just the February vacation with the communities all right um okay so then there was one other thing on the 24 25 calendar that I missed which is um procedure well not procedural it does affect one of the early release days it conflicts with and it happened this year we had to use the alternate test I think it was for the science mcast in May um the state sets certain High School Dates like for a lot of the intermediate and elementary schools they give you a window they give you like a twoe window in which you or three-week window in which you can take the test for but for several of the high school tests they say it has to happen on this date and it's only the date and then you get a makeup date well we've hit the lottery twice now uh in this year current Year's C calendar we did it I think it was the biology test uh we hit the the our early release date in May was that day so we didn't want to Short change the kids on the test so then we ended up having all of our kids had to use the makeup day uh which is a challenge because then if they're not there on the makeup day you got no other day right so just by happen stance the 2425 calendar it's also early release day is on this day for again it might be the biology might be the physics but it's one of the science ones so uh what we need is just a motion to move the early release day on the calendar uh from May 21st to May 7th Mr Martin um I'll make that motion uh motion to uh amend the 2024 2025 school calendar to reflect the early release day currently scheduled on May 21st to move that day instead to May 7th second all in favor I any opposed motion carried thank you a lot of great stuff on the calendar that's good um next we have David Flynn with a recommend for a building project good evening asie if you read the memo that we include in the packet essentially on the building project everything is tracked separately for this new building building the new fund including the cash associated with it so when we get the cash from the msba when we do the borrowing when we do the short-term borrowing it's all put into a separate fund to track the building so with interest rates being good for investors this past year or two we've actually been making quite a bit of interest on the funds we hold while doing this project most notably you know you bond for a year at a time not Bond ban bonded anticipation over year at a time say all $28 million comes in but it takes pretty much the whole next year to spend that $28 million so then it sits in the bank accumulating interest we made a little over $300,000 in interest last year on funds from this project so on the advice of our banking rep in the bond Council they said you can leave it in that fund and then in the end when you do your final borrowing when the project is all done that's cash that you don't need to borrow in essence you're not asking the 210 to contribute that and it lowers the final amount borrowed on the project so that's what I made the decision last year so that sounds like a good idea to me it makes sense I left I accounted for the interest in the fund so then the outside auditor was looking at it he's like well not that it's wrong but I don't see anything that says specifically that you can do that and it's more a decision of the committee so we felt that if we did it he's not saying that it's wrong but he does suggested that we have an affirmative vote of the school committee that you agree with that decision that that's what we want to do with the interest earned on this project itself is to keep the funds with the project and ultimately lower the amount that we need to borrow in the end so you can vote either way but it's really just a recommendation that the auditor wants the school committee to make that decision and not me or me and or mark on our own making that decision so that's why I put that in front of you today okay do we have a motion yes I'll make the motion uh moved at the school committee vote to maintain the interest earnings from the Dy IMS construction project with within the project fund and that upon final completion of the project that these funds be used to offset the amount to be permanently financed second any questions or comments do we need a roll call Vote for This for that or just I think that's a standard vote okay so all those in favor say I I I any opposed motion carries okay thank you then we're back to Mr Flynn with end of year financial report yes I want to do know I know June's not over yet we've got a bit but as we rapidly approaching closing out the year and I can project mostly what we need for June I just wanted to give you guys an update so the first page is the revenue update for the year we've received all of the assessments from the towns we haven't received the June chapter 78 payment from the state but there's no reason to think that we wouldn't receive it when you look in the middle section Aid transportation that comes the other AIDS all come monthly Transportation Aid comes in one lump sum for the year the state has not made the payment yet however I've got received no indication that they won't make the payment that's listed on their website from a few months ago which is a 1,743 th000 figure in the projected column so I'm still assuming we're going to receive very close to that figure and then you know last Charter School payment Aid payment the state actually reduced our aid from what they thought in the beginning of the year to what we're actually receiving this year so we have projected more in transportation projected Less in Char of school they almost offset each other exactly and then looking at our miscellaneous Revenue that's primarily the biggest driver of miscellaneous revenue is the solar revenue from the solar panels on the various schools that's actually been doing well they upped the rate that they pay on some of those projects so we've received a little bit more than in the past and then as we were just speaking about earnings on investments for the interest earned on this project we also invest our funds for just the funds that we have on hand on a daily basis I was working with the assistant Treasurer Jane to look at what is the minimum amount we ever actually have to have in our bank account at any one point in time and then in essence taking the remainder of the cash we have on hand at any point in time putting it into a more higher yield earning account so it's still there but it's earning higher interest while we don't need it and then periodically we'll transfer funds back so watching our actual cash flow has allowed us to put even more money in a higher yield savings account on our general depository so we've made through May you know $767,000 in interest this year which is also if anybody was paying attention to our projections for next year I upped that by a couple hundred thousand for next year based on a couple years history of still seeing pretty good interest rates on our deposits so if the June revenue and the transportation Aid comes in as projected we actually end up taking in about $900,000 more than projected for the year which is great and then the second page is just where do we fall on the expense side of the budget as you would imagine being in June most areas are largely already expended encumbered is the amount projected to get us through the end of June in any one of these categories and then the remaining amount and as of right now we're down to really only about $113,000 as unexpended and unencumbered now again a part of the encumbrance with not knowing things such as the June utility bills you know especially right now going these last few weeks until we get it I aim high because I don't last thing I want to do is making up number $60,000 for the month and then the bill comes in at65 and we don't have it put aside so if anything for the fluctuating bills this time of year I'll aim a little bit High more than likely they'll come in low and then that balance is closes out once the invoice comes in anyway but we've got it down to right about 13,000 remaining and if looking at some of the pluses and minuses in that last column and the remaining the biggest driver of the netive 475,000 in instruction which on a percentage basis is only about 1 and a half% is quite honestly if you look at the line above it Administration remaining 150,000 well we have a technology line item under a 1,000 account and it's really in the budget for part of our iPad replacement program but when we buy those accounting for properly into the department of Ed that's really an instructional Supply so it's a 2,000 expense so when we bought the next round of iPads this past year I made sure the purchas order was in the correct accounting line which is 2,000 even though there's still over $100,000 sitting in a technology line item within Ross's budget in the 1,000 account so the money was spent on what the line item was for it's just the coding as it reports to the state I wanted to make sure I put it in the right line item and the same thing Falls with you know the 7,000 fixed assets that's really more of our catchall for Extraordinary repairs or things like that so when you know an unexpect truly unexpected $30,000 repair needs to be done at the high school to account for that repair is a 4,000 expense building and maintenance but the part of money that we're holding for the truly extraordinary things we just put in 7,000 at the beginning of the year so the money is held there but when the expense occurs I track it in the exact line where the department of Ed wants to see the expense projected so all in all we're having a good year with the revenue coming in about $900,000 un projected and the expense side the slight varies of pluses and minuses be right down to about spending the entire budget by the end of the month Mr Glenn so David uh through you Mr chair um roughly what is the someone got there someone got their mic on um the um roughly what's the percentage of Regional Transportation money that is different than last year because this is where we run into problems especially during budget times because the state is putting out and the legislator is putting out oh we're giving more money for schools and so the public gets that in their head and then when we're doing our budget because we don't get the amount that we expected basically an unfunded mandate that we're we have to do certain things the public just sees well they they didn't have a sharp pencil the school committee didn't have a sharp pencil or something else didn't happen when it's really we lost significant amount of money and that state is telling us oh we're giving you more money and so to my question is the percentage of Regional Transportation money if we're supposed to get by mandate uh by law the 75% and we're only getting 65% like was there a big change from last year and then um and the same thing goes for enrollment and tuition to other schools people when the Public's looking at it and they say oh well we've added more students to our our district that should be a good thing because now we have more students we get more State funding but if we're not getting that funding for whatever reason the same thing with Transportation we're not getting the funding we're not getting the funding and and the public needs to understand that so I I just would like to know so that we can put it out to our state legis Lors you know hey we're not getting this money we need you to to and we're a regional district you know so our regional transportation rules are different than single District um participants and so we fall under a different category we can't charge our students for not that we'd want to do that anyway but we can't charge so we we need to put it out but I want the public to know we're losing money than we that we were supposed to get compared to last year so on the Transportation first and I know it looks like a negative number but it's Revenue coming in so that negative 358 is actually positive to us because the budget for transportation was estimated a, 499,000 we go by what the govern's version of the budget is when it's released in January when you're voting and setting on your budget and then by the time the state does all their machinations and they come out with the final percentage that they reimburse we're sated to get a milion 743 so we actually going to receive 358,000 more in transportation than what we budgeted for but that's just our projections well right we'll have to see if the check comes in this week and next week but there's been nothing online to indicate that we won't receive a million 743 this year you're right in that in years past the state has used that as a convenient line item because it says subject to appropriation that maybe they give you 71% or 68% but that's should be fully funding us at the million 743 because for this year at least I've not seen any the indication that they will not honor that figure it is something you're right though in years past that's something that the state can fluctuate they'll tell you one figure in a year prior February think of think of it that figure that we estimated the million 4.99 was from February 2023 when we were talking about that and voting on it now here we are in June 2024 and we still haven't actually received the payment yet so it's that that crystal ball is we have to go by what we think the state saying at that point in time and then what do we really receive a year and four months later could be plus or minus from what they said way back then right and so this year we're a beneficiary of it but you're right Jo there's been other years where we've been on the short end of it but the the other thing is that the public doesn't understand is these are our projections and you know like that e that argument that's always there well we're we're making projections and we're good at it you're good at it um we're good at making projections conservatively so that we don't get in the D side of it and we get more in the E side of it um then we have that money but those are just good projections by you not by what the state's supposed to be giving us they're supposed to be giving us what they say they're supposed to be giving us and they're not thank you and then real quick if you want on the with the charter school aid there's two sides of the coin there's a charter school payment that were assessed and then the charter school aid well quite honestly the charter school aid is less because the charter school assessment also ended up being less so the expense is less and correspondingly so then the aid is left they're not going to give you the originally projected amount of Aid if the actual number of kids going to char of schools is less and the bill is less then the amount of Aid which is a percentage of that total is going to go down as well so did they change the 20 the it was like a six-year period where you where they gave money back to the losing District did they change that rule no they haven't changed that rule it's it's a sliding scale year first year out if there's a bump in enrollment you get 100% of the difference back and then over the next five years you get a sliding amount lower back each year but what they have done is the same Aid factors that we've talked about in ourselves what contributes to us getting Aid they apply those same factors to Charter Schools as well so that has made some charter school tuitions go up more than others depending on where you are in the state and what students go to those schools great thank you and thank you for the great job you do okay we move next to our subcommittee representative liazon report first is the school committee Leon to the boards of Selectmen does anyone have anything from the town of Yarmouth Glen yeah yes um so actually I I just want to kind of go to that I see Tracy Post the liazon for the school committee and I want to commend her for being here because we haven't had someone since Tracy was last here as theis on and I think that's important but by the same token I think we need to have we've been doing and I understood why we did it we've been doing a rotating schedule and it it it makes it to you know all right I chime in or Phil chimes in or Joe Tanny at the time chimes in but then if we don't that doesn't mean that something wasn't going on that was important you know I might not have been able to attend or whatever but if we had someone designated to do it and they wanted to do it um then we should do it that way we shouldn't do the rotating um schedule because it's kind of a cropout that we we couldn't get someone to do it and Marilyn has been doing it mostly for Dennis um so you know I think we should designate that but you know we we need to get that communication we know is such an important thing with the towns and you know our our meetings on Monday their's on Tuesday so it makes it for a better communication but we're not utilizing that because we're kind of in limbo and they didn't even know who their liaison was uh before so it's great to see and Dennis has been great you know they've had their finance committee here they've had their uh other things so I My Town Yarmouth you know I was kind of ashamed of them and that that we weren't having that kind of dialogue because then you can't say later on well we're not communicating with you well you either watch our meetings come to our meetings or communicate with us um so I think we should do the same but that's my two cents on the liais on portion yep and the Committees were just discussed last week with Dr Smith and I I have haven't sent out the assignments as of yet so I'll take that under advis and again we don't have control of what each committee or subcommittee in the towns do or not do we appreciate any of that anytime that we have members from any of our elected officials or committees but um more to come on the Committees you should see assignment soon um and know from the finals from that anything from Dennis needs to be added okay and school building committee any updates from David or Mark no really the only update would be potentially our school committee meeting executive session for a week from today to discuss the ongoing saga of the fields outside everything else is are going well we did we have some things that need to be fixed that really just don't want people in the building but we're getting a scheduled to be done as soon as the kids get out out this week next week we'll have some more final final work hopefully being done in the building and things finally wrapped up perfect Mr chair um just two things on that one um I noted still our truck on the top of the flag pole is missing um and I don't think that's a building thing but more of a repair thing but the one thing that I kind of been hot on from the beginning and since we're still open to to making uh you know in other words a contract still open I would like to see that the area where the handicap ramps the the bubble there it's kind of even already rusted over but most places they have them identified in yellow they're they're just painted over I think we were trying to save a few bucks but handicapped people might not be able to see it it actually could stumble over it um you know if you were you know and I've I've noticed it more recently now than I did when I was more able-bodied but um if we could I think there's like a plastic thing or a paint but you know I see it all in Boston and all around usually they're in yellow so they can see because if you're far away you don't know where the ramp is but if it's in yellow you can okay negotiate your way to that place so those are just two things but the the flag pole one is uh um just my little pet peeve we we actually brought that up on Thursday's meeting about the truck on the top of the flag pole and it's really it's probably a $40 part they just haven't come down with it and our lift that we have on site isn't big enough to reach the top to do it ourselves so we're trying to just get the contract or whatever to come down with a 30 foot lift and get up there and put it on there so we discussed that Thursday speaking about the handicapped ramps that was actually a topic during construction the ones that you see in yellow are typically a heavy duty plastic right the color is baked into it so to speak for lack of a better ter our specifications called for the cast iron ones which they say hold up better over time because they're never going to crack and we were told that the yellow ones are yellow because they're yellow and they're plastic the cast iron ones if you paint them you're going to just have to paint them every single year not to say that you couldn't but the question was actually asked by the town and they said well once you spec out the cast iron ones you just take the natural color and they you're right they rust a little bit they look a redish color so you know the options could be if we felt we wanted them to stand out more to paint them but then just pre-prepared that probably a maintenance item every summer we'd have to do it every year because it's going to not last all that long they said if we wanted yellow ones we should have gotten the plastic ones but they by that point they'd already bought and delivered most of the um cast iron ones yeah but I mean a few coats of paint saves a lot of people a lot of things and and you might not necessarily have to do it every year it might wear down it might not be as yellow but you know I think it's I think it would be worth it just from the handicap point of view thank you Jo uh moves to superintendent report thank you very much all right starting with recognitions and acknowledgements so uh few weeks actually I think it was just the last meeting we had uh our retiree uh acknowledgement and uh nice little reception and unfortunately just with the timing we've got a C couple folks out in HR and just the timing for when one of our retirements came in we we missed somebody so I want to just take a minute here to acknowledge uh Patricia Molton who is retiring after 12 years of service to the district she is a par educator at Ezra Baker um and we'll get her the uh information or the acknowledgements from the state senator and the the House of Representatives Office but uh I want to make sure that she's acknowledged in front of school committee just like everybody else um like like I said she announced us a little bit late and then it like I said we're a little little down staff-wise in HR so it didn't get processed through HR as fast as we typically processed up through HR um the next I want to pass around uh Tomas mentioned uh The Joint masc Mass joint conference in November so we got to save the date I just wanted to pass it has the dates starts uh November 6th through 9th but I just wanted to pass that along to the committee in case folks are interested and may be going um and just be able to put that information into your uh respective calendars if you're interested in going there'll be more detailed information I'll come out but they they sent that to us uh just this week at the district so thought I'd pass that along on to everybody uh next uh Isabella mentioned it but you know graduation was already two weekends ago which is hard to believe it was beautiful day as is I said uh it was fabulous for me to be able to participate it participate in it to be able to see all the graduates see uh how excited they were just to beit like my seat to watch each graduate come across the stage just see their smiling faces see see their see the you know their beaming faces H it was just really an amazing experience I just want to thank and give a bunch of kudos to principal Bennett and to her entire team for putting together not only that event but just a whole amazing series of events for the seniors leading up to that day um Gan is Bella mentioned the senior last assembly but I also just want to highlight the scholarship and award assembly for the seniors and I know I know I'm like a like being a dead horse with this but our community the way they come for come through for our kids our students our seniors received over $650,000 in scholarships from our community Community is just unbelievable Community Support uh it was just absolutely amazing it's been amazing just to be a part of this experience you know going through it for the first time in my first year has just been amazing and that brings us to sort of the rest of the end of the year you know we're in the last week here uh a it's hard to imagine um that we're actually here at the end of the year for me anyways that we're actually in the last week it feels like yesterday that I was actually sitting here in the first school committee meeting uh but each of the schools are wrapping up uh Joe mentioned you know field days we've had the best weather for every single one of the field days at each of the schools but there's also a whole bunch of learning going on again as Bella mentioned you know finals at the high school uh it's a whole bunch of great learning continuing to go on some early signs which I'll be excited to bring to you all in the fall some early signs from our end of the year like map data really showing some some of some positive signs of all the hard work that both the leadership team and the teachers have been doing this year on a lot of our curriculum implementation I'm really excited uh that I'm really fingers crossed that it's going to pay dividends on our mcast um assessments as well all right and that brings me to my final topic which is transportation update so after much uh internal conversation the community survey which I mentioned uh having conversations with the transportation vendor as well as looking closely at our you know we manage seven um of our own buses for transportation after looking through all of that we've determined that we actually really can't change to a two-tier system that we really have to stay with the current three-tier system but we also heard loud and clear both through the budgeting process and through that survey tool that we uh that we mentioned that nobody has any interest in cutting any additional staff uh positions in order to make that work you know I mentioned originally to the committee that the original proposal from the Transportation Company was to add uh three to four more buses at roughly $85,000 a bus and that obviously would have been a significant budget Buster for us and would have uh cost us additional Staffing so as a result the what we've determined is that we're going to need to find a third option which is what we ultimately uh have determined and in working with a transportation company we've determined the way we can make a three-tier system work and not have to cut uh Staffing is to make some substantial changes to the way we route our buses and so right now uh Dy is very conveniently offers pretty much door-to-door service for almost all of our students and when you figure the average bus stop takes anywhere from 35 to 45 to maybe 60 seconds um that's a lot of it just adds up up it's a 1 minute per bus stop um and if you stop at every student's house and go down you know all the small little roads in town um it adds up to a lot of minutes for the bus rides there was another thing that we heard through the survey too was that folks were concerned that the bus trips were already long and if we went to a two-tier system that the bus trips would get even longer so what we're going to have to go to and I don't have details and this isn't exactly what the roots would look like so you'll see on the screen here um just to sort of give you an idea we have to work all the details still out with the bus company but essentially the concept is consistent with where we're going to have to transition to and I will plan on um sharing this out with the school Community here in the next day or so and I've been sort of talking about this idea a little bit in my messaging already but but this is the direction we are going to have to go it's been an option up until now and and at this point this is the way we're going to have to go which is routing our buses on our major bur fairs throughout the throughout the community so this is an example for Yarmouth so what you would see now is instead of we tend to go into a lot of the small neighborhoods with our buses and now we're going to have to transition to a system where we send our buses down the major road so you can see here like Forest Road Buck Island Road West Yarmouth Road Old Main Street Wood Road etc etc and putting bus stops at the corners of um like you know if you come down Long Pond I can't see well enough to see some of the cross streets but where these neighborhoods would come out and have walk zones where you know you might have to come quarter to maybe even in I actually I started to look I don't can't even imagine it being a half a mile because then you're sort of to another major road but where you would have to come out of the neighborhood to the major Crossroad and that's where the bus stop would be and you create these cluster SP stops so you know now maybe three or four kids are at that bus stop uh and three or four kids are loading at One Stop instead of an individual stop so instead of the bus having to stop four times for four minutes it stops one time for one minute and we can pick up a lot of time um and so we we've worked with a bus company and again we're going to work out the very specifics but roughly we're going to add about we're going to start the Elementary schedule roughly about 20 minutes earlier than it currently starts and add about five minutes to the end and that gets us you know again we have to add 27 minutes so roughly about 20 22 minutes early about five minutes after and that'll get us the 27 minutes that we need uh and and but the major time efficiency will come through this so this is an example in Yarmouth and then sort of looking at Dennis again the same idea so this is the West Dennis part of town right um and so again going down like Shad hole road going down Swan River Road going down lower County um going down old Warf Road but staying out of all the little major side streets um we'll still utilize the same policies we have for kindergarten in to second grade or I think it's third grade students we don't drop off without a parent but the parent will just have to come to the the bus stop right um so we'll still have all the same safety measures that we have in place but it won't be at the door stop at the house because that's it's just not efficient and we can't do it and um uh meet the other priorities that that we have as a district right now so that is the direction that we have planned um unless I get different direction from the committee that says that you would rather we provide the door too service and um but then like I said it's going to cost us additional buses I'm pretty sure we won't be able to find the drivers for those buses and um it's going to come at a cost to Staffing Mr Glenn so my my only concern is Major thoroughfares are faster there's more traffic is safety now we could still do the same thing but instead we turn onto that corner safer Street slower Street we're not going door too but we're not stopping traffic on the main roads and thus having you know those people who speed around buses because they do um and they you know God forbid someone gets hurt cuz you know someone gets hurt all best laid plans are gone um because then people would be upset but I think it could work also because a lot of the parents and and maybe their neighbors and you know these surveys are good because they gets them communicating with each other you know in the winter months you know the parents drive down the ones that are available with the neighborhood kids and they keep the car running and then the kids get on the bus and someone safely puts them on the bus um but my main concern is on those major thorough fars we got people driving and we're stopping the bus and we're stopping traffic and and I just don't want to see a safety issue but I don't want to pay for another bus either so however we could work it with that in mind I think we can work it but just to have that in mind thank you yeah I mean I think the you know I what try to remind myself is it is still Cape Cod right like our major thorough fars aren't major thorough fares and what I also try to remind myself is that um or what I think and we already I when I started looking at what I think there's things that we can do too and we've talked to the the bus company about is is you can do like uh same side of the road pickups right so where the kids don't have to cross and that helps with what so if you're going down Chad hole road or you're going down down Swan River Road or whatever that all the the bus goes down one I know you know they're all on that right side so you don't have to have the cross street and then you go down and you pick up on the other side or another bus goes and picks up on the other side of the road um and that way the kids aren't crossing the street which is where you have the worry about what you're talking about with somebody going around the bus um so yeah I think putting those you know two things in in the um in the context but I I uh and somebody can go zipping around uh in the neighborhoods too right so I mean so sorry that was those are my two thoughts Mr Martin do you have a question comment I did I just wanted to ask um there was uh discussion or there was uh it was brought up about um polling to see who would be utilizing the bus services and is that still option or if you're redoing the routes this way is that kind of off the table or are you still exploring that and another um obviously my wife works at Station Avenue and she uh she's involved in the daycare over there and she sees a number of children come back on the buses because the parents just aren't there to pick them up off the bus and so what is the obvious I mean so would we reasonably see an uptick of that because the because or or would that or are you anticipating kind of the numbers being about the same with the usual suspects or or may what are your thoughts on that as well taking your second question first I think it's it would be about the same you're going to be at the bus stop or you're not going to be at the bus stop um you know this is a similar pattern that a lot of districts utilize um we're one of the few districts that sort of provide this door to-door service um so I I think you know if you're going to be able to be at the dust bus stop you're going to be able to be at the the bus stop for whatever reason right you know I've when my kids were younger I've missed being at the bus stop it it sometimes it just happens um and then to your first question which I already lost what was your first question again sorry the um first question was about the ridership and who would be participating in being on the buses so it became it be that became more of a so we think think this the bus company felt like this would get us most of the way there and that's ultimately became a we're going to refine that into next year mostly because we don't currently have the proper infrastructure to do that the best way we tried to figure out the best way to do it we we tried one option through remind and it didn't quite Deliver us the way we wanted it to the best option for us to do it is through the parent portal in power school challenges are Elementary families don't utilize the parent portal in power school right now so then it became okay well how fast do we think we could really set all the families up in the parent portal in uh Power School and we just didn't have enough Runway left here at the end of the school year to get all the elementary families up through fifth grade into the parent portal get them all their passwords get them all set up then send them out a survey and get a good clean amount of data to the bus company and a way to do it so by creating stops that are based upon the neighborhoods where we typically send have kids um and then really you're just kind of tweak what it what we will probably still have is if you know David always talks about there's a couple of places in both the communities that are kind of we out and you know there's one place where we actually have to go in a couple places where we have to go into another town to actually get back into either Dennis or go into uh barnable to get back into Yarmouth and if we knew that those families weren't utilizing the bus yeah that would be that would be saving but um but we actually happen to know that those families do use the bus so that um uh you know in the future that would be helpful and might help cut down a couple of bus stops but this is going to significantly cut down our bus stops in a way that's going to save us the time that we need and then eventually we will use that for ridership in the future okay and um this obviously has no bearing on the special needs routes and the bus no that's completely done separate those this that that became well yeah no yeah just short answer no Mr new the proposal for the north side of the cape do you have that as well no I just grabbed two maps just again these aren't like hard fast this is just me just trying to get a concept out there this isn't the actual routing this is just a concept I do know it it's of great concern to the elementary school parents and Dennis what the schedule is going to be and what the pickups are going to be uh there's a lot of talk in the community concerning this so the sooner uh you have a concrete map the better uh because there there is a lot of talk in Dennis at this point so yeah we'll I know the you know we'll we'll we're currently working on it okay thank you for that yeah and to one of the points earlier about busy roads the buses are ready on or on the busy roads they're stopping already so it would just be including how many people are there I would assume because I'm behind a bus on every one of the roads in both towns that we're showing so yeah I live in Yarmouth and work in Dennis so I'm every one of the Yellow Roads I'm on at some point and there's a bus in front of me um so right it's about not you know if as an example coming down Station Avenue our buses go all into the captains right so instead having the captains come out to Station Avenue and having a stop or maybe Station Avenue would be a bad example but because they go W they wrap around what's the road that wraps around the back right the is it Forest that wraps around behind the captain's I actually I got a map I got another map I don't know why there numerous Forest is on one side yeah Forest on one side long P's on another but having and I I I just I can speak from personal experience right so I live down a long neighbor hood and everyone and I live off of 137 in Brewster and there's all these neighborhoods like this that run off of 137 the bus stops on 137 and everybody who lives off in one of these neighborhoods has to come out of the neighborhood and catch the bus on 137 um and that's and but then the because the bus has got to get all the way to Northeast am to get the kids to um from Brewster all the way to Northeast um and and it's then then I think it was Joe you mentioned right like then sometimes on rainy days in particular you know the the cars are all huddled down there and the kids are sitting in the car waiting for the waiting for the on the bus to arrive Mr new so has consideration been given to the amount of cars that will be at a particular stop if you have 10 children that are being picked up and each child is driven by a parent are you considering stops that will have parking available no it's going to be on the end of the road and it's again our other option is we could have uh four or five additional buses at $85,000 a bus no I'm just saying so parents will have to park wherever with their child in the car waiting for the bus yeah or the the kids can yeah or or what's going to end up happening now which is but the reality is about 60% of our families take the bus and that's ultimately we're going to get to um down the road I'd like well and by creating the cluster stops anyways we're we're not doing door to-door stops for families that aren't using door to- door stops anyways because roughly about 60% of our kids when we did the when we did the actual router ship counts you know we we route for 3,000 kids we had roughly actually probably 60 is probably an overestimate we probably had about 1,500 kids actually riding the bus total across the entire District I understand all that I'm just I'm concerned about element El School parents who are going to drive their children to the stop and is there going to be adequate parking and is it going to be a safe situation for their cars to be there while they're waiting for the bus to pick up their child because I don't think they're just going to drop their child off who's five six seven eight years old and leave them there so yeah we'll have to work with the bus company on where the appropriate stops are that's all I'm asking is that is there consideration going to be given for parking for the parents who are going to drop their children off and wait for the bus to pick them up or wait for the bus to drop them off at the end of the day right so like you know if I again if I go I'll just use the captains as an example right that's a quiet side road and you have the families will have to pull to the side there and wait for the bus to come up for the couple of minutes until the bus pulls up and then move along we're not going to pick like parking lots but it'll have to be like on on those quiet roads we're not going to have stick a bus stop on the corner of Winslow and Forest where nobody can park because that's a bus that's basically what I'm asking busy inter you're not going to have a stop on 28 you're not going to have to stop on 134 yeah if there's a house on the 28 that'll that family would probably have a there'll still be a few that will get an individual pick up because their house is on yeah on Route 28 or on yeah on yeah there's a few places where it'll require an individual stop yeah I think if we can get a better understanding of you know a more projected for both towns it'll be you know to the most people's Point sooner rather than later and I know this is the first time discussing with us but I know a lot of people want to know where it is I know the start times where people are we're talking about and obviously busing and now that we've said that we're not doing a multi-tiered system that we're going to be similar now we're do do the cluster I think as you said the communications are going out yeah of the idea of it maybe not the schedule yeah the big news is like for the high school and the intermediate and Middle School there'll be very little change to their start and end times and to the elementary school it'll be a shift of approximately 20 minutes earlier and approximately five minutes later at the end of the day so this changes won't be that much and then and then we're going to have to reroute the district you know but your bus stop isn't going to be across town it's going to be within your neighborhood but we are going to have to reroute the district that's going to take some time Mr Glen uh I know I just I brought this up before um and I know that we do a great job of not having athletic fees or music fees um but I'm looking to see what we can do to incentivize people not to take the bus um and you know you said like 60% I'm sure it's a lot less at the high school some of the kids are driving you know most of the kids are driving so however we can do to incentivize some of them might take the bus or might say they're going to take the bus and then never take it but if we can incentivize them because I don't I I don't really know do we have any fees that we could offset um do we have any fees we don't have athletic fees anymore right I don't think we have any fees from K to 7 so the majority of the people who would be riding the bus wouldn't have any incentive to not right no I I was just thinking fees are one of the ways to incentivize them but if we don't have any that's great because then no one's paying those but I'm thinking of other ways that we can kind of incentivize them I don't know if there is one but if we can think about that to reduce the number of people who are committing to the bus as opposed to maybe they're not going to take it that many times and we can incentivize them or at least find out early find out okay you you got are you going to take the bus well we kind of will we want to stay years and then you never do you know if you can tell us beforehand when we're making our schedule that yeah we're never going to take the bus so um it at least helps us out but I don't know how practical that is but that's why I think all these surveys and Communications with the parents they're going to know the best things to do that work for them you know whether it's safety issues whether it's parking you know because we don't want to find out afterwards that we made a stupid decision that we just didn't think about um and that's what you know that that could happen but if we go through all these scenarios um as much as we can then we say okay we we know we're keeping the kids saf as we could possibly do can't we can't vouch for or defend a crazy driver you know so something could happen but reasonably anything that we can do to keep the kids safe and to make it the the best available situation for the parents you know that's what we need to do yeah we we did want to originally match the kid like do a even a simple just you know are you do you plan to ride and we figured we'd at least capture eight you know even the folks who just knew you no I'm going to drive my kid every single day because I've had those conversations with families they just say no I'm planning on driving my kid every single day um The Challenge was being able to collect that in a way that we could actually match it back to the individual family right and and know and so like you know you could send out a Google form but then how do you get it back and and we've tried it in the past to do it and you know you're requiring families to fill in all the appropriate information in a way that you can then capture it in some way and get it back into our system and get it to the bus company in a way that they can utilize it um so then that's where we thought at first we were going to be be able to use remind where we already have all the families and so we when we tested it it didn't get it it didn't give us back the information in the way that was helpful so the way we know we can do it is through power school because power school we already have we have the kid buy their address with the parent but what we don't currently have set up yet in the district is Parent Portal access below the fifth grade starting in sixth grade the parents have access uh they start monitoring their kids grades in the sixth grade they can get in there well it doesn't help us because now it's only half the district that we get the bus information for so we just don't have the infrastructure yet set up to do it so that's we kind of abandon that part of the plan um and so next year we'll work on getting the proper infrastructure set up get our K through five families in there and then once we have K through 12 in the system then we'll work on that as sort of phase two um of this and we'll refine it I guess as sort of that's what I was trying to get to when I was talking to David about the regional transportation money a lot of people don't understand that if we could say to the people we're going to have a bus fee right we'd lose 30% of the people that use the bus I guarantee it that people you know people who have to use it they have no other up thing are going to use it but if you put a fee on it they they would say Well when not going to take the bus but we don't have that luxury as a regional uh District um that other districts do um and you know if you you could incentivize it that way too but there's no you know we're we're strapped in by the legislature to say oh we we got to play by these rules but we're not getting all that money that you're saying you're supposed to give us so that was that was kind of my point thinking about the the bus usage but we are where we are but you're doing a great job just my mind would be going crazy just trying to figure out these scenarios so thank you next we have our school committee business and enclosures the first one is the d y rsaa contract approval um so this was ratified Believe by DSA by DSA so we will take take a uh vote to approve the contract that is included um do you need a motion for us Mr chair I do need a motion for it first yes is there a language in here or no this is motion to approve the Dy RSA cont motion to approve the Dy rsaa contract second any questions all those in favor to approve second all those in favor to approve say I I all opposed any extensions okay the second is the SEIU contract approval also need a motion for that I'd like to make a motion for the committee to approve appr the SEIU contract second any questions all those in favor say I any opposed any extensions I think that one was unanimous also we have our consent agenda uh in our consent agenda we have uh a memo from principal croll at Station Avenue for declare a surplus of five boxes of outdated sufficiently warn library books at Station Avenue from his May 29th memo and he has a list of books attached and then we have the minutes from June 3D I believe that's a agenda move the consent agenda as printed second all those in favor I uh bills requisition and payrolls I think we have passed that calendars I know we talked a lot about the calendars for the next couple years coming up we have Wednesday June 19th is a holiday so there is no school and Saturday as mentioned is the last day of school which is a half day and then our committee will meet an executive session on the 24th at 5:00 p.m. at the Dennis Jou High School library uh next we have public comment um public comment or policy and public participation at meetings can be found at the podium with the agenda the public is reminded that a school committee meeting is a meeting of a governmental body at which members of the body deliberate over a public business we welcome your attendance and appreciate your interest in viewing your school committee as we conduct our regular business meeting the school committee believes that school district communities should have an opportunity to comment to the committee on issues that affect the school district and are within the scope of the committee's responsibilities is not a question and answer period some questions you may have may you may have may not be within the scope of the committee's responsibilities in that case I would suggest that you send or give your question in writing to the appropriate person so that your concern may be given to proper consideration individuals may address topics on the agenda items specific specified for public comment or items with the scope of responsibility of the school committee this is an opportunity for IND individuals to address the topics on the agenda each citizen will be allowed to speak for No More Than 3 minutes do have anyone like to address the committee Miss post thank you well I want to reintroduce myself to those there's a lot of new faces here my name is Tracy Post I'm um yarma select board member as was mentioned earlier in the meeting I was the liaison for many years to this committee before and I'm looking forward to doing it again please know that if I I do try to attend every meeting if I don't attend I am certain to be watching it at home um um but please feel free to reach out to me um at the Town email or otherwise uh any way you want really I think um communication is extremely important which has already been said and we need to keep the lines of communication open this time of year is always nice um but when we run up towards budgets I think it's really important for us to make sure we understand what's going on on the other side so that we can um all go forward together and I know you guys have done great work in the last couple of years and I hope to continue that so thank you thank you seeing no one else Martin I'd like to make a motion to adjourn second go Celtics all those in favor I I