e e e e e e e welcome to the Wednesday March 13 2024 meeting of the dentist Regal school committee please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America repu for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liy and justice for all first item on the agenda is the superintendent award for academic Excellence all right thank you so the uh Massachusetts Association of school superintendant uh provides award each year for the superintendent's uh award for for uh academic excellence in this year uh I am honored to be able to uh uh give this very award to our very own Rosanna zashin and so you know I've gotten to know Rosanna a little bit on with her time here on school committee but uh I don't know her as well as uh those who work with her every single day at the High school so I was Fort I reached out to our guidance counselor and there's a um an award dinner or that goes along with this as well which uh we'll attend together but in preparation for that her guidance counselor prepared uh some information to help us understand uh I think as a committee we understand but to help even deepen our understanding and to help um PR prepare for that prepare for that dinner as well as to let the public know um what a great uh individual Rosanna is so I'd just like to read what um uh what the her guidance councel are put together so uh Rosanna washon has proven to be a devoted strong and committed indivi individual who does not shy away from hard work earning her a 4.17 GPA and a ranking of third in her senior class she's been accepted to Yale University Rosanna Endeavors to study political science and she wants to connect with a profession where she can make an impact on society and influence others in a positive way Rosanna has volunteered a great deal of time to crocheting and donating items including hats blankets and mats to raise money for those in need she also teaches Haitians to students over Skype these activities all have allowed her to connect with different communities and make a positive impact on the lives of others she feels a deep sense of responsibility and has the belief that everyone should have equal access to Opportunities despite their circumstance ances these init initiatives have enabled her to provide resources and educational support to those less fortunate Rosanna is not content with simply recognizing injustices she purposefully does her part to help others living in poverty Rosanna is dedicated to her school's track team focusing on hurdles and Sprints her coach values rosanna's for being observant and noticing the small things that make a significant difference in their team and in her life Rosanna has a Comm poised way about her and is known for her reliable consistent and personable approach to situations it is for such reasons that she was designated shift manager at Dairy Queen She also serves as a student liaison for the school committee she holds she holds her own and is comfortable taking a stand on topics that are important to her and her peers along with being the president of her class as a along with being the president of the class as the president of the Executive Board of her our school's student council she is is the voice of the daily announcements greeting our school Community each morning over the loudspeaker with her positive Ed energy and presenting to our student body the goings on around uh the school in a live broadcast of the dolphin news each Friday Al together Rosanna can be counted on for her ability to delegate her passion and her work e work ethic she's a faithful young lady who knows the right thing to do setting an example and staying grounded in the process so it is my honor to pres present uh Rosanna with the superintendent's academic Excellence [Applause] award thank [Applause] you congratulations Rosanna that is I mean how impressive uh we've seen firsthand here um you know how poised and thoughtful you are and now we all know everything that's going on behind the scenes and I don't know how you're doing it all um really impressive congratulations on from everyone I'm sure so huge yeah and while we're on the while we have you on the spot here do you have a report tonight yes I do have a report tonight so next week on Monday we have our spring sports starting out we've already had had a couple sports that have started with Captain's practices and a couple after school things but officially spring Sports start on the 18th and I know everyone's excited that season we also have our little mermaid musical rehearsals going on after school so we're waiting for them to publish the date for their musical but otherwise they are working hard students are practicing their singing dancing and I know it's going to be a good show as always we also have our National Honors Society blood drive on Friday so we have lots of students and teachers come donate blood and all the blood that's donated at Dy stays on the cape so it's a really good initiative to help out the cap clot hospital and we have Clay cot Hospital volunteers who come down here and they help out and they take the blood so everything's very safe and then we also have the National Honor Society students day and they will sit by beside you after giving blood and we give them juice and cookies so it's a nice way to also connect the students um we have the Japan trip coming up soon in April so I know they're excited for that and they're doing a lot of fundraising efforts still just to make sure that everyone can have an equal and fun time while they're there in terms of financials we also have our language National Honor Society induction going on right now I know I just saw Dr Smith over there um so it's going on in the high school in the library right now so we're seeing students from French German and Spanish get inducted into their honor societies which is a really big deal so we're proud of all of them we also have our schnitzel Fest coming up tomorrow which is a big German fundraiser which is really exciting um they come with also singing dancing cheers and good food and it's um it raises money for the German exchange in terms of when students go to Germany and then also when the German students come to visit us so it's a really big fun initiative we also have the DC trip going on this week so we have the students there right now I've heard a lot of good things they've been to the Lincoln Memorial um they've been to to like Arlington Memorial they've been a whole lot of places so far and so I think they have another day tomorrow and then they come back um and then we also had our Spring Showcase last Wednesday which went really well we had lots of families come with their young students and give tours to the school that happened alongside the food festival which we talked about last week and I'm also recognizing a senior Molly gudis who earned second place at the regional science fair and she received the Emer Environmental Protection Agency award so congratulations to Molly I know she worked very hard on her project and she cares very deeply she was she came last year and she spoke to the board she gave her seven minute speech that she won um at the Lions uh Lions Club so very proud of her that was amazing you can care she you can tell she really cares about the environment and we also have Pi Day tomorrow which is March 14th so the math National Honor Society will be selling baked goods we also have like a pie sculpture downstairs in the math wing um so the math department is really excited for that and last but not least we have an eighth grade dance coming up this Friday so dii doesn't do anything in terms of dances for eighth graders because we have homecoming and prom but that excludes eighth graders throughout so the eighth grade student government took it upon themselves to organize a dance because they thought it would be fun for them and their friends so they did all the fundraising they did all the organizing they wrote proposals and had it approved by the Admin so they worked really hard and we're going to see all their work come to fre tuition on Friday which is really exciting for them there is a lot going on that's huge never a dull moment thank you for that really complete report um what is next the budget all right thank you so we've had lots of Conversation Over what feels like an eternity uh but probably definitely over the last three months two and a half months anyways um when we've been giving you the same largely the same growing presentation over and over uh but David and I really felt like we've we've really given you a bunch of bunch of detail over the last several presentations and really felt like at this point especially after coming to some consensus at the last meeting that we really just wanted to summarize where we are and then give the committee a sense of the vote uh and then let you all obviously have discussion and ask us any final questions so we're going to show you a much truncated version of the presentation that we've been going through over the last several uh meetings so obviously here's our budget timeline and here we are today on the 13th where the committee needs to take a a decision or make a final budget adoption vote in order for us to stay in line with our timelines to meet uh the 45-day requirement prior to the first town meeting as you know we've been working with this overarching goal since the very beginning of the process in order to maintain a level Educational Service budget while also trying to be as effective and efficient as possible to ensure that our students are empowered to achieve Excellence which is the district's uh Mission we've talked about these major factors that came all pushing together at this the same time time this year uh which gave us a real big push in the budget process at the very beginning really pushed the that very initial budget that we were talking about in the beginning of January to be over a 9% budget increase and we've done a lot of work to get that that budget number down to where we're the budget that you're going to be determining and make taking a vote on tonight and again we've gone over these I'm not sure I need to review them again I can if we want to talk about them again but the actions that we've taken since then uh would we've got revised information on the state aid as well as the choice and Charter in in information we've looked at additional ways to offset with some projected local Revenue information that David's taken some real close looks at we've done a lot of the work we which we've discussed in detail around how to right size the district which has led to overall Staffing reductions the LA very last time we were here we talked about how we've looked uh really closely at the supply lines and we were able to find an additional $100,000 in savings uh to reduce what we needed the the total cost of what we needed in the budget in order to move some curricular expenditure forward C curricular expenditures forward in order to move those expend expenditures forward which was we were able to find out another $100,000 in savings there the school school committee voted at the last meeting to use 500,000 in end towards the operating assessment utilizing that plan over the next three years to step down 500,000 this year 250 in the following year and then zero in the third year and that has gotten us down to from where we started in January to a revised operating budget of 76 almost 77 milon 76 89501 which is again a reduction of over $2 million from where we started in January I'll let David just break that down for you um for the assessments right so just a quick recap of how the assessments to the towns do get calculated from that operating budget of the 76 m890 th000 so the first step is the state aid that comes directly to us which is mainly Chapter 70 in transportation Aid is 14,775 3,000 any the additional local receipts that come directly to us including the um the use of $500,000 of end to offset the assessments for next year the rest of that million dollars is interest earnings on our money that's in the bank Medicaid claims that we put in through the federal government that come straight back to us and just miscellaneous other random pools of money that we might happen to apply for solar credits things like that that's a, 57 ,000 leaving 6,546 th000 to be assessed to the Two Towns there's two steps to the assessment on the operating side first step is what do the state set as the minimum requirement for each community that required minimum for Dennis next year is 13, 209,000 required minimum for Yarmouth is 27,37 18,000 so those two together 40, 588,000 so that still leaves 19 9958 th000 to be assessed to the two towns and as we've gone through before this is where that part of the formula of the 5-year average enrollment of the foundation enrollment over the preceding five years gets applied to this last portion so that 3.99% to Dennis for another 6,1 168,000 and the 69.0 191% to Yarmouth for the 13 mil 789 for grand total operating budget to dennis1 million $378,500 grand total of the 6,546 785 then the line at the bottom is the debt assessments to the two communities the only outstanding debt we have remaining is the Dy high school there are two payments left fiscal 25 and 26 and then just the new Bonds on this building here so that's a million 420 for Dennis and 2, 588,000 vth so just like any Community or Regional School we do have to have a balanced budget so to meet the required budget we also have to show that we have the revenue to support it so again just recapping what was used on the assessment sheets there's a chapter 78 of 12 a. half million Transportation at 1.8 million Charter School reimbursement 427,000 we'll call it then there's the other local receipts Medicaid 475,000 earnings from the bank 320,000 miscellaneous 275,000 and the transfer from E of a half a million you WR in the operating assessments the debt assessments and is the total 80 mil 899,000 through 9,000 see the same toal toally 80 million 899 651 then it leads to the required vote that the school committee needs to take that would then be assuming that the vote's taken it'll be certified by Tomas as your Treasurer and I will forward that off to the Two Towns thank you for the presentation um would um would anyone like to make a motion it needs to be read exactly as printed up there Tomas I move that the school committee adopt an FY 2025 budget of 8,899 651 with a transfer from end of $500,000 towards the operating budget and a dentist operating assessment of 9,378 586 and a Debt Service of 1, 14207 182 for a total dentist assessment of 20 m799 368 and a Yarmouth operating assessment of 41 m168 1099 and a Debt Service of 2, 588,398 for a total Yarmouth assessment of 43 mil 75656 thank you motion has been made and seconded is there any discussion we've discussed this obviously all multiple times um at these meetings and also in meetings with the towns um uh there were presentations to both towns uh yesterday um so unless we have any further discussion or questions we'll do a roll call vote on this please Phil yes Tomas yes Joe yes Marilyn yes Jen yes and I vote Yes so thank you David thank you Maria thank you Mark thank you eileene thank you everyone this was a long and tedious process but I really we all appreciate the work that you have all put into this and um I'm feeling positive about the relationships with the towns and um moving forward so thank you very much and if I just can add the um I mentioned it I don't know one of the two meetings last night uh I know like David and I largely end up sort of being the face on the leadership side of this work you know I think I use the the expression that we're sort of the heads of the pyramid but there is was so much other work that was done to get this up here for us to bring to you right so I just want to recognize the work of so many and we'd be here for 20 minutes recognizing all the other people who fed us information or part of hard conversations to get us all the information here right the entire leadership team plus they worked with a whole bunch of other folks to get us all this information right so I know we end up sort of being the talking heads up here but there's so many other people that were part of that process thank you for that Joe Jenny just real quick I didn't want to um discuss it while we were voting on the budget because it wasn't pertaining to the budget but I think um I was impressed at I went to the meeting last night in yth um and two things rung out in in my mind two words were trust and confidence and um I think Dave and David and Mark and the whole team did a great job at starting to building that trust with the Selectmen on both towns um and I think that's going to go a long way down the road because now they feel that they can really um trust you know the the new guy coming in and trying to you know say we're going to do this and do that that's really difficult um and he did a really good job at explaining to everyone including the school committee um you know the right sizing and things like that nobody wants to lose jobs or people because those are those are people but um you know that's where we you know myself included you know need to trust and um be confident that this is the best school budget for our students so I thank you guys again I have a I have a personal observation having missed most of the budget discussions due to an illness so I had a chance to watch without being able to speak but I found that the quality of the information beat the quality of my hearing aids I really appreciated the work I saw before me and appreciated being on this committee as the years of practice and a commitment to the families and to the kids and to the taxpayers so thank you very much Joe do you have a building committee report I don't have anything unless David or Mark have anything um we're going to meet soon to discuss the fields and things like that and we'll get a report to you guys all right um Le on to the select boards um as I said in Dennis um we went to the select board meeting yesterday the finance committee was also invited um Mark and David uh presented to the select board um there were a few questions um I spoke for a moment but um fingers crossed you know um everybody does what they need to do to move this forward um elections are coming up in Dennis we will have uh one seat open for Denis so um and and Yarmouth elections are also coming up I don't know if any um you know the dates are available on the clerk's website but we will have one seat um for election in Yarmouth so um run for school committee anything on the armit side okay um superintendence report thank you very much uh so a couple things first uh just want to continuous theme of generosity from the community so want to thank uh two groups so first I want to thank Charlie and Jane Martin for their uh generous donation of a train set to our preschool program uh you'll see the the memo with some uh details but again just supporting our preschool program a great our community helps in so many different ways this is just a another unique uh donation that helps our students and then to the Ezra Baker School a donation from the Dy Women's Club uh which directly supporting or indirectly supporting our students by supporting our teachers by providing them with teaching supplies which again allows them to more effectively do their work and and supporting our students right so uh I say it all the time uh this is a very generous community that supports our schools in so many different ways this just continues to be another example of that uh Rosanna mentioned uh the World Language National Honor Society I was left there on two wheels to get here uh but it was just another I mentioned I you know prepared a short little speech in meeting with that group and one of the things that I talked about in that speech was well one I joked but it's true that I didn't even know there was such a thing as a world language National Honor Society before coming to Dennis yith uh but that led into a conversation around this continuous feeling that I keep having about my experiences here which is this sense of excitement and pride about the diverse opportunities that our students have to follow interests and passions into different um Arenas and it's more than just their opportunities to pursue those passions it's also their opportunities to achieve Excellence within those within those areas right so this was another one of those examples to have I've seen National Honor Society before but to have a World Language National Honor Society it's an opportunity to pursue world language and then be able to show demonstrate excellence in it I talked about the criteria that the students have to and they're they're heavy criteria in order to be able to get that honor you know I've learned since that we also have a math National Honor study so there's again all these ways for students to pursue an interest and then also excel in that interest area so it's just something that I'm learning about one of the great strengths of the district and then the last thing it's already sort of been discussed a little bit I just wanted to update the committee we I David and I have debriefed a little bit I really thought the meetings with both towns went really well last night I think we got some positive feedback from from the Committees both committees actually kind were looking for a little bit of a different thing we had prepared the same presentation which I think ien provided for you in the packet we got some last minute feedback from Dennis that they were actually just looking for a much more truncated version so we actually ended up presenting very similar to what you all just saw tonight which ended up just being a summary of where we had been Yarmouth we gave a much more detailed presentation what you all have been seeing up to and through last week's presentation so they got a much more detailed version and that was what both committees wanted uh Yarmouth spoke to the fact that they were at least one particular select board member was thankful that we give them that level of detail and I actually got a phone call from a Community member today um and I thanked her for the fact that she came called and gave a positive you know I said I don't often get positive phone calls so thank you uh you know gave me positive feedback for all the level of detail that was in our presentation uh I guess what I took from both of the meetings was that both boards felt like they had what they needed and to make the decisions that they needed both talked about feeling that they uh they appreciated the open communication they appreciated that there was a level of trust there and I think I've learned from this Pro process that there's there's we we had this joint meeting that I've already talked about between some key players across both towns and I've talked with several people both on the school side and on the town side the one takeaway is we need to start that earlier in our budget building and their budget building process and I think that is just a learning opportunity to take into FY 26 now at this point and then and to use that for more both shortterm planning FY 26 and then also for long-term planning you know as we think about our needs for as related to strategic planning but also Capital needs etc etc so I I do think it was a great step for me as a thinking about my longevity here in the district and working with the two towns and sort of one of the select board members talked I don't even remember trying to keep track of which town it was at and but talked about essentially three points in a triangle that we are three points in a triangle when we're talking about this Budget Building process and that we have to be working in Partnership so I really there was I think about as reflecting around all the conversations that happened across both meetings I think there was a lot of synergy across both across all both sets of meetings that I'm I'm energized about moving forward thank you for that um consent agenda is the approval of the two donations that were just mentioned the both um one to Emy small the um and one to Ezra Baker uh thank you for those donations and the there's also um a surplus Memo from uh Steve foucher um about some air purifiers and the minutes of February 12th does anyone move the consent agenda is it seconded uh motion has been made and seconded all in favor I thank you very much everyone signed the bills calendars are included did Rosanna mention that there's a concert next week I don't remember if she Z has a concert next week on Wednesday night yep um would anyone like to address the committee tonight for public comment I'll take that as a no all right data something oh no no no the only thing I want to say oh oh sorry okay sorry is it green light on and tell us your name and then there we go sorry hi Jean Campbell I'm a um Yarmouth president and I'm also a teacher at Ezra Baker Innovation school I want to thank you all for all your hard work um but I just wanted to comment about um the cuts to the interventionists and um I know that the budget has been um you know you've agreed on it and we're moving forward on that but I guess my comment is to the public um I would really like to address everyone who's watching at home to please go to town meeting uh in both towns and um Vote for This override because we cannot have more cuts um this you know I know you had to be very thoughtful about where these cuts are coming from but um losing interventionists is really going to be devastating for our kids in our community we in a very high needs um Community with high needs students and um I know that um the reading teachers at our school um the interventionists they really um work hard and do the response to intervention to prevent those children from needing education plans so as a special educator um you know I love the children I work with but our case loads are big and we don't need more children needing IEPs because they couldn't get the early intervention that they needed from the interventionist so that's my comment so I'd just like to reach out to the public to please go to town meeting and please vote for the override thank you thank you so much would anyone else like to address the committee tonight okay David you had something don't I was going to say since there's a little bit of a break of a couple weeks just um I I just want to keep bills getting paid and things going on on so probably in a week or so it'll come out through docy sign to you guys just to be on the lookout for that I'll send an email just to make sure it goes through correctly but just so you know I'll make the cover sheet and do that we did that test a few weeks ago but since we have a three- week break I think it is I don't want to wait three weeks to hold vendor payments up so that's all perfect thank you anything else tonight all right that's all we have motion to adjourn all in favor I meeting adjourn thank you very much