and emotional well-being help you strengthen your own mental health and impact your community for the good according to research completed by the Ad Council about 50% of the population site having a mental health condition and less than half are engaged in getting helped speaking directly to Faith leaders we realized that pastors youth pastors deacons priests and lay leaders are often the first point of contact for individuals seeking help and we wanted to provide them with the resources and tools they need first to support their own mental health to better support their congregants and communities how are you today and what do we say too blessed to be stressed all right I'm blessed and highly favored however while people may feel blessed they could indeed feel very stressed God reminds us that whatever you can't take a rest from you are ultimately a slave too you can't pour into other people's cup if yours is empty what if God cares more about who you are becoming than what you are accomplishing mental health professionals are healers that God uses to help restore our minds to wholeness together let us break the stigma around mental health and create a space for our congregations to thrive both spiritually and emotionally this Learning Hub is brought to you by the Ad Council Huntsman Mental Health Institute and Val values [Music] Partnerships you guys all one moment please uhoh this is one that gets exciting we got a lot going on here now you said you shared it with me or you emailed it okay yeah okay um Jam's coming late Julie's virtual Mary's virtu oh Z I haven't heard from oh that's right they were both on the other one you doing folks we're just waiting for a a Corum of the school committee to join us meaning we have to have a certain uh number of committee members to start the meeting officially so bear with us and we'll be we'll be right with you um she said yeah if you could read that' be awesome yeah sure perfect thank you st go if either of you are up for making motions through the night as well sometimes it's trickier for the folks at home to do that but oh we've got Mary that's four is she Mary can you hear us all right Mary can you hear us all right yes thank you perfect all right Brian we're good whenever you guys are thank you 4 3 2 1 good evening and welcome to the Tuesday March 12th 2024 school committee meeting um School committees and other public bodies may continue to hold remote meetings through March 31st 20 25 I'm pretty sure right okay thank you under legislation enacted in July of 2022 the statute chapter 107 of the acts of 2022 extends Quorum reductions for remote meetings all votes while there is remote participation must be made by roll call vote this meeting is being recorded and aired live on lctv we will begin with the Pledge of Allegiance let's do it to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and Justice well done folks the best that really was well very well done all right we're going to open with correspondents we'll turn that over to you Michaela the f correspondence will be recorded a letter from Miss Jennifer grer and Miss Elizabeth Ray dated February 27th 2024 regarding the fy2 school budget a memo from Mr Donald Donald Jarvis director of Occupational education at the lower P Pioneer Valley Career and Technical education center regarding the Walter E Quigley Jr student of the month award for February 2024 long medal student honored this month is Evan Hart Advanced manufacturing all right well done Mr Hart um we have a motion for approval of minutes I move that the school committee approve the minutes to the February 27th 2024 school committee meeting as presented we have a motion do we have a second oh we have a second all right any discussion seeing none we'll move to a roll call vote Adam yay Michaela yes Mary yes and yes for me as well all right right we are opening our public speak portion if there's anybody here that would like to speak related to any public concerns we mostly have families for Center school but just triple checking and nobody at home all right school committee um business with guests we are headed into two things I'm guessing that we're reversing the order of these in Center School yes all right perfect Center school is here tonight to share with us information about their vision of The Graduate and they have a whole thing planned and we welcome you to come on up I know that we have so we have our our two administrators Mrs Hutton and M schmidlin are here and uh the adviser to the Green Team uh Val Brown and she's going to join us up here so she can advance the slides and and coordinate the students so still on the all right slide this over here full screen if you need all right we proud proud introduc ourselves as the green club we are 43 passionate students dedicated to making positive changes and making the earth a better place for all life on our planet this year due to overwhelming interest we divided into two clubs our GC leadership team is made up of 23 fourth and fifth graders most of us were in the green club last year additionally we have our regular green Club consisting of 203rd and fourth graders Weck off each year with brainstorming sessions to generate ideas and select committees to contribute to the plastic wearing committee is a Conant committee with our green Club activities for several years we've been actively engaged in the trck challenge a SP a contest sponsored by the comp composite decking company tracks participating schools collect plastic bags and fil submitting the weight to tracks at every Green club meeting we weigh the plastic collected over a 2E period preparing it for transport to Big Y which our parents help us when they pick us up here is a time- lapse video of us weighing the plastic all together some of our members have reached out to businesses we have gotten plastic from Mercy Hospital Costco Petco ton country J crew and weekly from atleta did you know that every piece of clothing come from most stores come wrapped in plastic stick sorry it goes to the end not a [Music] aot whoa there we go from their trucks collects the plastic and brings it to their facility to manufacture trucks fors the company generously rewards first and second place winners with benches made out of the trucks material two years ago we just missed out on winning a bench by just one lb this fed our determination for the next year last year our perserverance paid off as we proudly won second place here's a glimpse into our ecstatic reaction Center place in the Northeast region of the T challenge with 5,000 207 lb congratul we have won three benches since they changed the rules every school year and any school that recycles at least 1,000 lbs will receive one of these high quality benches blueberry may get one next year since Mrs kobella has started a green Club there we are hoping other long middle schools join us especially Middle School since many of us will be there next year since we started we prevented 9,685 lb of plastic for many up in land scales just shy of 5 tons here's a picture of our work future in last year's reminder showing us with 316 lbs now imagine that picture 30 times it's like the weight of five elephants additionally we have participated in other recycling initiatives such as trick or trash where we bring in our candy wrappers to be recycled we also have recycled pens GL sticks mechanical penss toothpaste soups toothbrushes and 10, markers over the years we send in our broken CR to a facility where they have stried their paper and remoted for children in hospitals these programs come and go so if you hear of anything we might be interested in please let us know last year when we learned that reusing was better than recycling we decided to do a blanket dress it was winter so we knew we could help many homeless people get one we collected gently used blankets sheets and pillowcases we donated almost 200 items to the Springfield Rescue Mission this year we had a book swap committee before the holidays and the book faar we as families to clean up a gently use books for a book swap it's more environmental friendly to swap out with another than to buy a new we we collected boxes and boxes of books we sorted and organized them and hosted a book swop in January every student at Center School was able to bring home a book some chose one for themselves and others chose to pick one as a gift for a family member at the end we still had quite a few boxes and books over vacation we brought them to Itsy Bitsy daycare at Holio Community College this is a free dayare for single parents going back to school they offered a closet where families can go pick out whatever they need we are happy to contribute to their collection the bus and toward the daycare on college campus the neighborhood green Club started because we knew a lot about helping the environment in our own neighborhoods and we wanted to share that with others we draw colorful posters to put up around our streets to remind everyone to be green we asked our neighbors to help us collect plastic so we can recycle it and we even made bookmarks with cool f it's about saving their to hand out to everyone you can also upcycle something old into something new we have made juice pouch bags and wallets we also made a solar oven to take home to make s'mores powered by the sun we have some committees in the middle of projects right now they recycle display committees in the process of creating display so everyone knows what can and can't be recycle at Center School we hope to spread the word and make everyone excited to recycle the compost committee has been hard at work they threatened L to Mrs Hutton seeking permission to Kickstart composting in our cafeteria they've also collaborated with Mr Russ our custodian who on board to helping cafeteria announcements have been written and posters have been created to spread the word excitingly Mrs bone has free to join us providing containers necessary for collecting food scraps to be composted marked your calendars for March 29th as that's when the composting officially Begins the seed Library committee is busy preparing for the launch of a seed Library this spring they're organizing various seeds into and storing them in containers here how it works students can check out seeds to plant at home once the plants grow they'll return with new seeds ensuring the cycle continues the goal is to improve air quality as plants produce oxy oxygen and purify the air we've recently arked on a mission to reduce waste in our cafeteria our goal is to replace single use utensils and trays with additional metal Silver wear and reusable plastic trays Shila a student from the LHS attended one of our meeting meetings and shared her team's success story making this change at the high school she generously provided C with vable research and we reached out to miss H and Fa approval to Kickstart this initiative while we're still in this initial face do o expect to hear from us soon to arrange a meeting and discuss further plans you got it we would like to end our presentation with this do thing we video we created last [Applause] year we are the green CL and we an important message wait just what do one and as individual invite you to make a personal commitment today we challenge every adult and child to Jo we have many ideas or you make a fun of your own do one thing you the instance every day and brushing teeth two [Music] one idea I think I can put my rubbish in right I can take AER do one thing I can turn offing I can turn off the lights when I leave the room one we are sight as much as we can but we know that recycling is not the real solution over 90% of the plastic ever made has not been recycled instead it ins something landfill the environment or leasing toxic pollution we cannot simply recycle our way through this crisis do one thing we asking you to make commitment to do one thing do one thing thank you for help do [Music] [Applause] one we want to leave you with a gift to show how much we care about our planet remember every little thing we do affects the world around us so let's be peace Builders to the for the Earth you made a special dishwasher detergent just for you it's way better than the ones you bought in the store it doesn't have any harsh chemicals plus we are giving you a plant clipping that you can plant at home it will help make the air cleaner and Greener any questions that away yet hold on you guys we got stuff give you PL do you want you can we'll do that let them ask questions and make comments and then you can hand out can we leave something for the the members that are here okay great we'll bring them to them you guys that was fantastic that was incredibly impressive in a lot of ways um uh you're doing so much great work and I love how involved you are in your community and how many things you are doing um I see Miss drwick is standing over here and she is one of the assistant principles over at the high school who's here to talk to us about student advisory Council and I feel like I see your next generation of kids like getting ready to go right so many impressive things I love that you have all these different committees in your group you're you're using your time together to really do impressive work and I love that you're working and doing so many awesome things there um and a lot of great stuff that you told us about today I'm going to open and let other people say things too because I know they've got a lot of great compliments to give you on the great work you're doing who would like to go first oh Andrew [Applause] um I just want to say how impressed I was with the detail and your guys' presentation I thought it was really fantastic it was so informative and I think once you guys get to the high school you guys are going to have some a awesome opportunities within student government and with the LHS climate change club and maybe I'd recommend reaching out to them I think you guys could do some really awesome stuff working together between our two schools wow definitely that all right next up go for it Adam now uh uh I don't know I try to keep it sweet um history is is written by those who show up and at such a young age for you guys to be you know participating actively in this is is great you should never doubt that a small group of people can change the world cuz they're the only people who do so just keep it up this is fantastic really well done thank you guys so much you guys are little rock stars and you could teach a lot of adults lessons on how to make the world a better place and you're not stopping at your school you're making the whole Community a better place and so thank you so much and you guys are all amazing public speakers incredible did a great job you practiced you're here in town anybody at home oh Mary's hand is up so we'll let her go too hi everyone this was fun to watch on a computer I couldn't decide if I wanted to look at the video recordings or the kids presenting so I kept changing my view um you did an excellent job while speaking in person and also with all of the video clips and artwork you included in the prepared presentation uh thank you so much for coming to share I always say this when students come but it's the best part of the meetings by far so thank you so much for being there you did a great job always always definitely true that is our favorite part and just really commendable work you guys have five tons five tons of plastic that's amazing um and hundreds of blankets and books and so many great things so keep doing all this wonderful work and just as your superintendent I'm so proud of you and you've made your school proud and your families proud and and just give yourselves a big pat on the back um Mrs Brown might be able to refresh our memory but it was um several years ago that we had a a similar presentation from the Green Team when it was just getting started I'd say and it's grown one of our Originals was here John lca's sister she was they're seniors now there you go so they this this this group that are now seniors came to the school committee years ago and and presented some of the early activities of the Green Team and now it is it's grown and how about a round of applause for Mrs Brown he's created these opportunities for all of you it's it's amazing and and I know as Andrew said I know the high school folks are eager to have you join even opportunities will grow as you move through long met public school so so impressive thank you so you so they have the gift for you and if there's extras just put them on the table and look at them to the numers here thank you so [Music] much Wonder oh thank you so much thank you very much it oh lovely you can read the extras right here we get them to some of the other all right all right thank you thank you so much for coming out tonight you guys and thank you so much for the work you guys are all doing with them well done have a good rest of your [Applause] night impressive awesome thank you so much all the parents for coming out it all right thank you both for being here too appreciate your time tonight and all your support for the club we have another student thing tonight which is exciting we got lots of time with our students tonight um our student advisory committe uh Council rather is here from the high school and ready to uh share us an update about what's going on at Longman oh high welcome them in you guys can p chair [Music] back we um I know we're not supposed to close the door but I'll close the door okay thanks all right welcome student advisory Council we are looking forward to hearing what's going on sorry so we got the chance to go to hyanis to a Convention Center there and we share we were there with I think 1200 other student council members from across the state um we heard lots of keynote speakers Did lots of work shops um and ran uh did an election as well my favorite part of it personally was just the confidence that it brings me being around a lot of like-minded individuals you know you're walking down the hall and you just look at someone you're like oh I love your hair or oh hi like you don't even have to know them and I've made tons of friends through it and the keynote speakers especially kind of give me the confidence to bring that energy back to Long Meadow and be able to walk through the halls and just like bring people together um and I want to especially thank M drwick for bringing it bringing us there and bringing this environment to our school and really like brightening it and also shout out to Zab who is just always holds yourself with such Grace and bring such a positive light to everywhere thank you guys for letting us go as well um yeah so I'll start off with just saying thank you as well for approving it um we had such an amazing time there um I reconnected with people that I had met at previous conferences which was so great and I met so many new people um it was just an amazing experience to bring back more um workshops and more events to our school which is so fun because um our student council is developing a little bit more since Miss drack has been here because we haven't really focused on that um a bunch but it's so great to be able to um talk to other students about what they do and how well it works at their schools and just kind of put it in action here I agree with what cc and Franchesca both said I'm a senior at LHS so thank you guys so much for giving us permission to go on this trip it was really nice to do this my last year at LHS um and I hope that you guys keep we keep continuing to do this in the future uh like CC said we were like packed with doing so many things personally my favorite things were the workshops CU we got to collaborate with other students from other schools and learn what they were doing and my favorite Workshop was our Special Olympics Workshop I just joined unified basketball this year and we've never or with my knowledge we've never had the LHS so it was really cool so I'm hoping that later we can incorporate that more in our school system um but thank you again so much and we also won an award look at that way to go this award was presented in recognition of our student council's involvement and support in All Phases of the Massachusetts student council state Statewide so we've been doing like conferences right so we held a conference here I don't know if you guys knew about that but that was super fun and we've been going to them from February right yeah February 1 last year to now and so since we're like officially like a part of the Massachusetts State student council we won this award so thank you guys so much congratulations congratulations um hi my name is zanaa I'm a junior here at long midle high school I again also want to Second Bley statement and just thank start off by thanking all you guys because this truly would not have been possible without your permission and then of course Miss DY for everything she has done um I was running for the position of vice president on the State Board uh first time Long Meadow has ever been represented or will be represented on the State Board um I was a regional delegate this year so I worked on the western Mass board so I didn't get the vice president position but we did make it on to the State Board I'm the delegate for um western Mass on the massachusett state board so long wow is now represented and hopefully in the future we will have someone running for president which I'm super excited to see where all of this takes us um yeah I agree with everything the workshops were amazing I it feels weird to say that I made lifelong friends cuz it was in the span of 3 days like you know how how many connections can you make in 3DS but the environment over there is truly just it's a different world and I really did feel like I made lifelong connections over there and I feel like those connections are so valuable and will be valuable just networking in general and my favorite Workshop was also the Special Olympics Workshop I think inclusive inclusivity in all aspects is so important and it can just make one school it can make such a diff big difference in one school and long bow has been an inclusive place but I think by working attending that Workshop I can bring back what we learned and I just have a better understanding of what inclusivity is and um how we can add that to our school and make it better um I also just want to say thank you to my delegation to every single person who went on this trip with me 14 other people it would not have I would not even have been on the state board if it weren't for all the campaigning they did with me and um I think we all represented Long Meadow really really well at this confence conference congratulations congratulations on your looking forward to having you represent us for next year I'm going to take a moment and just and before you do that I know that I kind of we already a lot of us know everybody already so I I just want to give everybody a minute to just for the whole Community who might be watching at home um introduce yourselves yes um I'm Z I'm Junior here I'm Bri Ley I'm a senior I'm CeCe I'm a senior and I'm Fran jesica and I'm am a junior all right go for it we are very humble student leaders yes um quick shout out to Betsy Mitchell and Mariel gross uh art Department who really helped us kind of formulate we might not be the most creative folks but they helped us um and we had students working over February vacation helping us kind of get all of this stuff done we had such a beautiful delegation going and in all my years of doing this we've truly had an insync delegation that whose purpose was they truly believe that zanaa was a great leader for the state and they supported her 110% there was a lot of stress those week those days feels like weeks um because she was running against four other people we were The Underdogs um because they don't quite know us yet they do now um and then at 10:00 at night on Thursday night they announced a runoff election which means she didn't get over 50% but she got the top two votes um from the initial election so at that point we knew she was on the state board but we were going against Middleboro High School which that's where the state director's from so we knew that that so we knew that that was that was going to be um a big feat to win but um it wasn't a landslide vote I'm just so proud of the delegation they also ran a workshop um about how to create different types of leaders and bring different strengths to a team um so zanab Adel and Kate Adele and Kate couldn't make it today but they also ran a workshop and it was one of the best ranked workshops because kids got to bring stuff home um and they it was a wonderful experience so thank you again for supporting them um I know they they're saying permission but first your support um because student leadership is such an important skill for them to learn and to grow um we have two students here who are going to be going to college next year um and it's so important and this is their second year going um Zena did a great job on the regional board and now she's going to be leading us on the State Board which there are going to be right now there's eight students on it there'll be a total of 12 um so she's going to be one of the 12 students in the whole state leading us so that's incredible um it it was just a great time so thank you so much um I always say that they wear their superhero capes under their clothes because they are the heroes of the school um and the inclusivity we are now a un IFI Champion school um which means that we are doing unified Bachi we did the Polar Plunge that was on Wednesday it was fun it was cold in the ocean but we raised money for Special Olympics and then we also um did the unified basketball and that was a group of teachers um who we also celebrate with them because that was a great program that we had and hopefully we'll continue so again thank you for all your support um Andrew was wanted to go but school was tough for him to miss but I think that the students just really kind of un they didn't know what they were going into and they just embraced it I always say participate don't anticipate um and they did and they represented longto high school and the public school system really well with poise with Grace and with courage so thank you for and thank you to all Elementary Middle School teachers for teaching them how to lead that way um because that is learn Behavior so and thanks to the families because we couldn't do another so thank you very much wonderful thank you so much wow yeah so [Applause] all right we'll open up for questions comments feedback Mary well that was applauding but I'll also just say that's great I'm so happy it was such a positive experience for the students and Mrs drack thanks for your leadership um with this leadership group it's great thank you all right thank you um great work guys can't wait to hear what next year brings us from our two who will still be here as seniors next year I'm confident that your leadership will carry forward the next class um and for our seniors just you've been invaluable resource over the last few years so keep leading as you head on to your next next challenges all right thank you so much congratulations thank you a very proud parents there right we left one at home we can leave that open now to oh it might keep swinging itself close cing up thank you so much all right we are headed towards the athletic budget one more business with guests moment um welcoming our athletic director Mike capaso today um and Dr Shay and Mr Maza and Mr kasto we'll be walking us through a little bit of an overview of the longm High School athletics budget all right I'll uh I'll kick us off and um we'll share a brief slide deck that we have prepared for you uh at least once a year we bring a presentation to the school committee on uh High School athletics and this sort of compliments and supplements regular reports that are given to the finance subcommittee that um Mike regularly shows up at and uh that that Tom leads us through so I think the the intention here tonight is to provide you with um an overview of the mechanics of the athletic budget to give us a sort of Baseline understanding of the receipts and expenditures that are associated with that budget and Mike was kind enough to come along to answer any questions that you might have so uh give me a minute I'll just pull up the the presentation and um with you shortly par in the delay here take there we go there we go all right exciting all right um so again just meant to be a sort of highlevel overview of the athletic budget and um I know there's annually there's decisions that the committee needs to make relative to fees relative to relations with the booster club um relative to the general fund expenditures uh etc etc and so hopefully this will give you some information that will help you make informed uh decisions this is a it's a huge program I arguably the the largest in the area given our given our size sort of on a on a per pupil basis I'd say we run the most expansive Athletic program in the area given the number of participants and the number of programs that we run and so with each of the the uh 50 total teams um that's you know well over that's probably close to 100 coaches that we work with and volunteers and uh there's programs across all three seasons and about 66% of our students participate in at least one sport so it's a it's an expansive program that is under the leadership of Mr capotasto um at the at the highest level um a uh overview of the revenue and expenditures associated with the program uh on succeeding slides will break down the uh makeup of the revenue categories and the expenses but you just get a sense that you'll see that Revenue has grown modestly I think it's safe to say expenses have grown significantly uh and you'll from the next couple of slides you'll get a sense of why that is uh inside the revenue line is the in FY 23 the $180,000 that is that the school committee commits to the athletic budget from the general fund so that's in that in that Topline Revenue uh line that you see it is annually necessary to uh commit additional general fund support to close the uh G gap between expenditures and revenue so breaking that down you'll see the sources of revenue that we enjoy uh to run the program uh user fees in FY 23 generated $234,600 this school year um the reason that we're showing just up to FY 23 is because you know sort of the uh the books are more or less closed on on that fiscal year so it gives us a full complete picture so user fees um uh generate a significant amount of revenue for the program uh gate receipts you'll see uh $80,000 in FY 23 um the fy21 would have been and really even fy22 would have been affected by by uh by covid so that 79,000 I defer to Tom and Mike as to whether or not that's sort of um historically more in line with what we've seen uh the general fund commitment from the school committee since at least fy19 has been 180,000 I can say that when I joined the district in FY 177 that amount was Far Below that $180,000 I won't put Mr M on the spot to tell us what that might have been but 75,000 75,000 so the the committee has recognized the the regular increase in expenses associated with the program and has made a uh a concerted effort in recent years to increase the general fund commitment to the athletic program um we found it fiscally uh wise and efficient to hire a dedicated athletic trainer in the 2122 school year and so that uh expense was added in fy22 uh and so you'll see that that $545,000 figure uh is the the revenue that we've received and again we've had to the committee has had to commit additional funds from the general fund to make up the gap between that 545 and actual expenses so actual expenditures um are depicted on this slide uh you'll see uh that expenses in some categories have remained stable but expenses in many categories have jumped considerably the one that probably stands out to you is the increases associated with Transportation uh and certainly we're open to your questions on on that but largely that relates to fuel costs it relates to labor costs it relates to the shortage of buses available able to us so sometimes we have to contract out uh with bus companies outside of the lower Pioneer Valley educational collaborative um and it also relates to changes in the playoff structure which have in some cases required our students to travel greater distances for either playoff competition or even inseason competition so that that transportation number is one that um we are keeping our eyes on we do anticipate that that number will come down uh modestly in FY 24 uh other line items other expenditures you'll see are are are more sort of self-explanatory coaching salaries have increased mostly relative to um Collective margeting agreements and other categories are again uh if you have any questions on any of those we're happy to answer um the again the the FY 21 numbers are were significantly affected by covid we weren't traveling to games in fy21 most of the competition was in in local pods with local teams can I ask when it says membership dues what yeah is that is that us paying membership dues to organizations or yeah yeah correct yeah yeah so pbic uh and the MIAA we pay about 5 to six grand to each membership uh and then we also uh hockey boys ice hockey we part of the big nine so we pay membership due there so what impacted FY 23 being quite as low as it I think we re we restructured some of our uh okay we put it in through um the particular sport we restructured some of this stuff the uh Finance subcommittee uh had asked us to convey how the total expenditures relate to the overall budget and so if you were to look at all of our expenditures from all the sources that you see on this slide uh that represents $77,400 of the general fund the other way of thinking about this is to think about the um Commitment if you take out all sources and just look at general fund commitments it's a commitment in FY 23 of 411 514 $4,513 which is 1.1% of the general fund so moving on um oh looks like uh Julie has a question if you want to oh yep jul is is now a good time to ask a question I can't go yeah go for it keep going oh okay Marty I was just going to ask you to to or Tom to just like tell us a little bit more about like what it means or like how we think about it from a budgeting perspective that we budget 180,000 but we end up paying out of the general fund more than 400,000 like how why don't we account for it do you know what I mean like how how do we think about that as a budgetary matter G to take it or um I think Julie you know this year in terms of developing the FY 25 budget there was a when we proposed increasing user fees last spring also a desire to look at that allocation in the general fund and a hope to increase it I think looking at the challenge that we've been we faced in terms of coming up with a balanced budget it would have forced us to identify additional places where reductions could occur to incorporate a higher number what happens is I think Athletics ends up benefiting from savings that occur throughout the year that aren't known at the time that the budgeting process happens whether it be attrition or um people on leave of absences that do not receive compensation that afford US the opportunity to provide that additional support to the program I think you so just like like I guess as a practical matter though that means we every year we know that we're not budgeting as much as we're going to spend and then every year we're kind of like hoping that we have savings that covers what we spend on Athletics is that is that like the fair way of putting it I'm just trying to like wrap my head around the way we think about it I think it's a fair way to to put it I think back to the third slide where it's the overview is the dollar amount is definitely been unpredictable and has increased significantly postco and again I think a number of factors but transportation being one of them that those related expenses more than doubled in less than a a 5year period so trying to keep up with it from a budgeting perspective of not knowing what that number is going to be a lot of a lot of the costs are associated with the number of students that participate the number of programs in terms of levels or teams we're offering in each sport how deep and a postseason each program is successful in terms of the competitions which all add varying degrees of expenses that can change from year to year just based on success and the number of students that that makes sense Nicole is it okay if I absolutely yep I'm just I'm just trying to understand how that um compares to like the way that we approach other types of programs like if you think about like say the music programs I've seen there's a similar like we're not really sure what the enrollment is going to look like from year to year or whatever so do those program do other programs have a comparable kind of dynamic Where We Are sort of like chronically under under budgeting and then spending more or are the other programs we sort of like spend within try to spend within what we're budgeting if that makes sense I think of what's a little unique with Athletics is that it is somewhat relying on user fees the only other program that I can think of that might be similar would be a summer enrichment program where we don't know how many kids are going to sign up um it is ryant on fees that participants are paying the difference with I think that program is that we will be more inclined to not offer an opportunity if there aren't sufficient signups to support the cost of the program whereas with Athletics we don't know what the total cost will be at the beginning of the season some of it is dependent again on postseason and you know how where we're traveling with the new format of the power rankings and how postseason state tournaments operate so you know you can you can make a an assessment based on the number of students or players that are paying the fee and how much of the allocation from the general fund would be available but by the the time we signed up students and created a schedule we're we're already past that point of being able to scale back on the cost Associated to the program so we're kind of committed to operating it at a certain level if that makes sense Julie okay yeah that makes sense so questions Adam four questions related to the slide is now the right time yes so uh question um number one just going down kind of the columns um as far as uh the equipment entry fee and ice time you know we see these increases in in the fees are these numbers keeping up with the the needs of the programs as far as like the equipment is concerned for example I mean are we are are we keeping you know tracked like doing any safety checks on the equipment you know do you feel like it is an adequate um you know uh number as we keep going year to year or do you feel like we're we're either under or overshooting on that as well um yeah I mean that's great question like like for example football we have to send out helmets every year to be reconditioned uh that's that's that's law that's that's uh so uh and those costs go up you know but that's that's we also send out the shoulder pads and and so I do think um again take out fy21 we've been pretty consistent with with uh equipment um again track hurdles trying to replace them not all at once you know 10 or 12 one season 10 or 12 the next season same thing with helmets when we repurchase helmets so uh I do think uh we're we're we we we have been very supportive of when uh things have come up need especially around safety uh that's about our number one priority and we do uh I don't know if um it's going to continue to jump uh dramatically but um equipment fees are going up every year and and and things like that when we do do the order uh for the fall winter and spring so that that does play into it but overall I think uh uh our safety is never wavered so we're beating those dis okay good all right um number two just looking at the uh comparisons in the uh amounts for the home game Services you know it's it's kind of hard with a spread we don't you know have uh uh some consistent data and kind of committing fy21 as an outlier if you compare FY 29 to 22 it's it's like an 18% jump and uh from 22 to 23 is like a 26% jump um do we is it just like utilities is accounting for that increase or do we know what are the drivers of that so uh I great question um so 22 fy22 is the start of the state tournament that is the new format new format okay for all sports for All Sports so um if you have a team that does very well that's potentially five home games they're going to get at the end of the year two in western Mass and three in the playoffs M and um for every round that we have we are mandated to have so much support staff at those games per the Mia rules and your uh official fees uh go up okay and your officials uh you for volleyball for example you go from two officials to four officials so uh U there have been some increases in that and then uh some of that is for example uh we were just talking about it I said well football we went from we're in a stuck in a rut right now with our schedule we we had three home games in fy22 and six in FY 23 so uh contest management went up $7,000 just from from that sport in particular okay so uh a lot has to vary I think uh you'll probably see um we might come down a little bit in contest management this year because it depends how well a team does okay um so there's some some of those factors played into our home game Services because those are also uh officials as well as uh a clock operator or whatever it may be okay um but uh I think Public Safety Public Safety as well police officers involved in that and uh extra EMT if we had needed one but we have moved to the online ticketing to the the um and know it could be that that could generate some some yeah perh this year but there's been a almost a lengthening of the season and we have to meet the needs of that correct and so I think in another hopefully we'll have two years of data and then we're going this is our third year so we'll start to see where the trend really is okay yeah so then question number three looking at the insurance um line and and miscellaneous there's a lot of variability there um is that more with the insurance or with the miscellaneous uh it's it's we restructured how we're labeling some of this stuff too so uh um um you know uh in in the past you know three or four teams benefited from a particular item so we just put it in miscellaneous so now we're splitting that so that you'll be see some of that in there okay and then lastly do do we have any data comparing ourselves to other school districts of comparable size or participation to see how we're meeting the needs of our students as compared to other districts when you you say is as far as revenue or like money as far as uh if there is any way that you know the the Commonwealth keeps tabs on these things to uh make sure that you know needs are being met and that you know no one's you know spending a ridiculous amount creating an unfair advantage or anything is there any data on that or you're talking participation levels generally or no as far as you know uh I didn't know if there was any reporting that was required as far as Athletics to mandate regulations or anything we would report in total the amount that is spent on Athletics both in the general fund and funds that are taken in through user fees or other gate receipts and miscellaneous Revenue they're not broken out though by by any category just in total okay so each district annually would report the amount but I don't know that there's any I haven't seen anywhere where it's collected and compared yeah per student how much each district spends or anything like or the breakdown even general fund allocation versus other sources in terms of Revenue okay just curious thank you thank you great questions other questions mayor Mar um I was just curious about the difference in athletic trainer salary also between F22 and FY 23 is it a different person or so she came uh we we hired that person mid mid midy year so that's why it's fy22 is the first year we hired it as a staff position and it took us uh some time to find a candidate to the role so we went through all of fall and into the winter season before we were able to bring get somebody on board okay thank you all right I think we're good to keep keep going okay um so next uh to the end is is just uh for your information our our current uh user fees these were updated for this school year 23 24 school year um we do have uh a family cap and there are subsidies available through the business office um as noted earlier these fees generate you know over $230,000 and FY generated over $230,000 and FY 23 and um I think it's something that you know to go back to the earlier part of this conversation if I think if you'd ask me in the fall of 23 uh would we be able you know it was I think it was one of our hopes was to increase the general fund commitment so that we wouldn't have to look for that additional General support that we talked about uh earlier but um with the FY 25 budget shaping up the way it did it it became impossible to do that um the fees for the 25 2425 school year have not yet been set by the school committee of course um can I ask while we're on that last one um it talks about there being a subsidy available and I'm assuming that is tied to um school lunch do school lunch is there what what is the setup for that how well publicized how accessible part of the process would be to submit a lunch application but the criteria is based on family size and then there are thresholds of income that will then change the rate by sport okay so depending upon income and household size will then determine eligibility for a possible reduce rate okay and do we have any subsidies that are available for kind of all the extras that go along with playing a sport you're going to play X Sport which means you'll need these five pieces of equipment potentially um do we offer any subsidies or do we have any programs where student athlet leetes that might be in need of that are able to access the supplies they need not that I can think of there is um the Nico Sierra Foundation which is available for subsidy for the actual user fee uh it's been around for two years now um I believe there's information on the athletic website Associated to that programs for families to reach out directly uh for consideration for possible assistance with the user fee but to your question not not off of the top of my head I can't think of any funding or source of assistance related to the equipment needed to participate in a program okay that might be something worth looking at as we move forward to make sure it's accessible for everybody okay and then you really can't talk about the true cost of running an athletic program without thinking about the contribution that we receive from our booster club so we're very fortunate that we have a very active and supportive booster clubs across um all three seasons and across nearly all of the sports um we try we like to emphasize to parents that this is that participation in the booster clubs is purely voluntary uh we work collaboratively with the head coach and the heads of the booster organizations to identify needs that can be met by the booster club but the the funds that are generated by the booster club stretch out into a lot of many important areas uh including uniforms uh Transportation supplemental coaching uh field ice or Court rental senior gifts meals Banquets uh you name it uh back in the fall at the direction of the finance subcommittee we had uh reached out to the booster clubs to ask them to give us some accounting of the financial support they were committing in all of these areas and that's a spreadsheet that I've shared with the committee uh in the past it gives us some rough idea of the the commitment that the boosters are making in all of these areas um and I think that's something that we'll want to make part of our practice regularly going forward just to really get an idea just to how much um how much Financial benefit we receive from the booster clubs and because it really ties into the true costs of running our athletic program because they the boosters do provide um you know in many respects the boosters provide the types of support that let's say uh Leaf provides us the long meow educational Excellence Foundation or PTO or ptas provide it's it provides uh support and areas that enrich the experience for our student athletes but the truth that so that is true but but it's also true that um the booster provides some critical support in some areas that you know frankly we probably ought to think about providing through the regular through the regular budget um and so um it's important that you know we we keep that communication uh going with the booster clubs few years back we produced this um booster club advisory it's available on our website and it lays out the role and function of the booster clubs and it's also an attempt to convey what our hopes and expectations are of the boosters so that um while we enjoy their support we also want to make sure that they're not you know putting undue or un reasonable expectations among parents to contribute to booster club fundraisers so um you know all told the the amount that the boosters add to the program is um probably our our the report that we generated back in the fall showed about $80,000 in addition support that the boosters provide and uh it frankly it may be even beyond that but that was what our report generated so um so that again I think when we're talking about the true cost of running the athletic program it is important to think about um the booster fund contributions and the support we've received from it so um Julie um yeah Marty I had a question I you sort of um alluded to it there like what are the what are the costs that the boosters are covering that you that stand out to you as kind of like essential parts of the athletic program you know that like we couldn't operate our Athletics program without uh I might defer to Mr capotasto on that or or Tom but I I I think when it it we always want to make sure that we are providing uniforms for example on a cyclical basis that kids are wearing clean upto-date uniforms that meet the regulations of the Mia you know um so that needs to happen we I think have tried to convey to the to the boosters what we see as a sort of a reasonable uh optimal amount of coaching that is sort of affordable and tied to our general fund but sometimes the boosters might feel that there's some supplemental coaching needs I think what jumps out to me is probably that category supplemental coaching uh Transportation we've had to rely and lean on the boosters more heavily in recent years as well I'd say um but maybe Tom and Mike if is there anything in that those would be the top two uh uniforms and um additional coaches uh that they you know whether it's a specialty goalie coach or whatever it may be they bringing in uh but for the program but those would be the top two um I other questions I mean we we've got a a great overview and I want to thank you guys for putting together these these numbers it's it's uh really helps kind of get a handle on what's going on I mean looking at these numbers and and seeing where we're at what are your goals for this next budget is there something that you're looking for to see added or reallocated I'll answer for him because he's too he's to I think any athletic director would would uh would want to advocate for the program for additional coaching uniforms equipment you know you name it um so I I think Mike's Mike's really good about identifying the needs to us I I think overall Mr ma is great I mean him and I talk on a daily basis of needs again you know you see the general fund and and you know we say we only support 180,000 but in reality we cover a lot more than that but again we talk about need and safety and priority and knowing that um um it you know we're going to have to figure it out on the other side of things but uh yeah just constant support of you know you know if there's any additional funds or again just constant how we're doing it it's again it's not ideal it's not you know how we're doing it up front but I think overall we're we're we're we're providing a good experience for student athletes with what we're working with with everybody body's working with it I think I I'd add you know obviously we're in the just coming off a tough a tough budget um series of budget discussions and I think we've had to evaluate many cost centers and I think that's something that Mike and Tom have been talking about is there you know are there efficiencies to be gained um can we take a look at Transportation can we take a look at game management uh to see if there are savings to be made in those areas in a way that doesn't compr the the student athlete experience um and I but stepping back more broadly it's always been my opinion that Athletics is one of the biggest bangs for the buck that you're going to get in terms of the number of students that you keep engaged at really critical hours in their day um is is very significant and you know I think when you talk about 777 ,000 in expenditures from a variety of sources seems to me that's a great investment when you're talking about engaging 66% of our long mle high students um and our coaches are in it for their their passion and love of the sport and uh and but it's a in some in some cases it's a 30 40 hour job you know on top of their on top of their day jobs so um we're really grateful for to to our coaches and how much time and commitment they give to the program and it's it's a the whole Athletic program is is a significant bang for our buck I'd say yeah thank you for coming out tonight I I would agree with that as a person who works in a high school um having and has had high school students in my family um but just knowing that you have a team that you're accountable to that you have other adults in the building who are watching ing out for you specifically um there are real social and academic benefits to that as well so appreciate you guys taking the time to come in and and talk to us a little bit um and help us get a bit more of a handle on how the Athletics budget Works um and thank you to you and all of our coaches thank you I'm so sorry Julie's hand is up it's hard to see just like really tiny questions if that's okay s i just um Marty's point about efficiencies I think that we would love to see um the results of your efforts there to me like I don't have a particular sense that we're spending too much on Athletics but I think that like the defus different like sources of funding and the way that we kind of um think about the school's contributions to the budget um makes it hard we're not necessarily having the same conversations that we're having about other parts of the school's budget so I think it it's important for us to kind of see that here too I think I would be curious I think Adam said this but um to see the per students spent on Athletics compared to other areas around here just kind of get a ballp part sense of where we are but I actually I was wondering like you could just go through for a minute like the like how do we how do we decide where we have freshman JB varsity and and where we don't and like who who makes the decision about that is it like a decision we make year to year or is it kind of static and then I was hoping we could maybe go over a little bit on the um like the differences between different sports in terms of the cost of equipment and transportation those are my questions um so I I think uh yeah it's it's for example girls soccer um you know we advertise for a freshman position if numbers are you know weren't the the having a freshman soccer team so I I think we look at that based off of we also look at it based off of past history um you know uh we've had a JV team for x amount of years we don't anticipate us having freshman or whatever it may be so um some of that we're we're probably haven't added a ton recently um I I so I think the numbers are probably where we are uh as far as levels goes um m is it's safe to say that if there's if there's interest at the Freshman level and if there are other schools to play against we run the program pretty much is that correct it's it's uh so right now um we we're on the borderline of interest for freshman baseball um we we think we're going to end up having enough uh numbers um but right now there's two other freshman teams to play you know but we'll play some smaller JVS and and things like that so we will build we won't build out a whole game schedule we'll build out about 12 to 14 games uh modified schedule based off of uh who we can participate but a lot of it's based off of need and um again conversations if it's anything new um that's a ation that all of us are probably involved in uh if we're going to add a new um new subar level um and we we wouldn't add a coach without bringing that to the committee is that I mean that's been our unless it's a reallocation or a movement time is that well I mean that the salary schedule ex has certain uh levels of coaching already identified so if it doesn't exist we would have to bring it forward to school committee for uh a memorandum of agreement at it so and then uh Julie you asked about equipment I think and I would say you know some of it's year-to year the ice hockey programs obviously the cost Associated which are reflected in that equipment line are uh probably the highest or close to the highest in terms of all of the sports some years there might be some higher related one-time cost to certain programs like when we had to buy mats Associated to the track and field program you know those can run 10 to 15,000 but they're needed once every 5 to 10 years so so you know it can be skewed in terms of the individual year and the specific needs outside of the every year purchases of ball pox and you know assoc iated equipment I would I would just add in the packet is also a more detailed Financial breakdown of related cost by sport by the categories that we showed in the overview um also we would Mike will uh we put the financial and the presentation onto the high school's website uh once it we're done presenting it here to school committee so that it's available for community members to also see can you Tom can you talk about the um the differences in the transportation costs too because I think they vary fairly significantly by team right yeah I would I would agree yeah Julie I mean again I think some of that is I think there are a number of factors and Mike can jump in based on the number of athletes there are by sport uh based on the length of their season in terms of postseason competition and based on the type of schedule they have so if they're playing a predominantly you know greater Pioneer Valley schedule compared to Independent games against districts or schools from the uh eastern part of the state or from New England then that will contribute to the cost of Transportation but and again then depending upon the size of the vehicle we need sometimes we're able to get away with a smaller vehicle for some of the sports that have less participants than say a football program are we coupling together on that note teams where we can if we have say a JV and a varsity playing and the same they're going on the same bus even if their games are not right when we when we few years ago um we also heard you know from for example volleyball volleyball uh freshman JB and varsity all played the same site so we also heard that's a long day yeah when we were all traveling together so we did uh and it was tight to get all three teams on one bus I mean so uh you know hearing that we you know we are sending um uh an example like that we are sending two buses okay um because we don't want a kid sitting there for seven hours U that is not participating um so but when we can yes we are uh we also at the uh mercy of busing so uh we we cannot get a bus before 3:45 from lpbc so we are automatically going out to our second vendor um which is contracted out um so we are um we also handcuffed in what we can use uh at certain times uh and that that adds to Transportation um cost and we are one of the late later uh uh we were one of the schools that ends later so when we get off a run at 4:00 I can't even ask for 4:30 start time you know some of these other schools that are getting out at 1:45 you know bump it back a half hour that's still it's it's good you know we're asking for an hour you know you know because we're getting a bus at 4 4:15 when they're off their run so um so we are handcuffed into certain uh cost expenses uh when we have uh four o00 games times okay so that adds to some of the cost can't break the laws of physics um did that answer Julie all of your questions I feel like we might have left some Andor J I think I think that was it that was all thank you yep Jamie yep just I can't agree more you want more people participating in sports that's kind of my backdrop to this whole thing the more kids we can actually get involved and active this is a great thing that in mind though you do got to be cost sensitive on this so my question is when do we have to make these Fe when do we have to publish the fees associated with these programs forget when that is um like when would we open up is it by July ideally we'd like to post uh before we head off to the summer so if anybody has any questions we can help out so sometime early June we we would like to start the registration process to um you know start posting for and I know we're not planning on shatting about this now this is more supposedly just the framework where we are Level Set uh but just to kind of refresh everybody on whenever we chatted about this last year we we went and kind of went through this in detail and we hadn't made an adjustment for a a long time like a decade um so we were the poor uh school committee that basically said okay we adjusted and then we obviously had all this happening as well so we didn't adjust for a decade and then it's not up there anymore uh then we had covid and we had Mia change it's like a whole big whammy to where okay we just we didn't mean that to happen it happened it was outside of our kind of purview whenever that was made um whenever we chatted about last year we looked at it sport by sport um so as we look at this we should probably bring that back and kind of show everybody hey cross country didn't get a big jump but ice hockey got it hurt you know soccer got more and we looked at it costs by by each individual Center so it was appropriate that we weren't just going go up on every single one I think we should look at that um the last year too that we also talked about we had very long debates on it just to kind of give is whether we peg this to a general front increase from the town do we make it a policy that if if the town is going up by 3% we're going up by 3 we we we were throwing out ideas I don't know what the right decision or idea is but if we're not keeping up either with lowering our cost by 3% which is 22 $23,000 or increasing our fees by that amount or some combination you know we're basically just taking kind of from Peter the Ty Paul it doesn't you don't feel it unless you don't go and change your fees for a decade um you know where we didn't change them and this is very common everyone around here does this every District this isn't us but we kind of made a big adjustment so it was kind of painful last year certain Sports really got beat up but the thing I would say is I I don't know as a parent on this um number one I think we need to look at it by sport because I think it's only fair that certain Sports where if it cost more that I shouldn't be if I choose to play a particular sport I shouldn't subsidize other sports and vice versa um and my kids play one of the sports that are the most expensive um so they we're definitely subsidizing certain Sports um we should look at that and say is that appropriate is you know how we adjust that to keep up with the 21 Grand that we got to kind of keep up with or we're going negative every year if we go negative for 4 years it's 100 Grand you got to find that somewhere else in your 41 million so that's kind of what we talked about a lot last year and it was kind of a lot of moving Parts associated with it um so as we look at those fees I just wanted to kind of remind everybody kind that's what happened um we decided not to make it policy um just cuz it was it felt like a lot um we had a couple that went from I think $500 to $850 is what ice hockey went up I'm pretty sure that's what it went up went up a lot um so you know we we kind of didn't want to put all that out there um but we did chat about do we make this some sort of policy so we're not redoing this every single year and then it's a lot of guidance for parents so they know that we're not going to do that to them again because they prefer us not to kind of go up by $350 they prefer it to be $15 you know and make it more reasonable with what costs are going on so just a quick heads up on yeah y other questions I'm wondering if we look at the question of funding um and how we compare um what Adam had brought up earlier um relating to our funding our fees our Revenue Etc and comparing us to other districts um do you have do you speak to the athletic directors for other lpvc yeah so I have all that of what other District's user fees are um I just wouldn't have it per student okay but I I you know we we yes we we talk and we all share hey what's your using Fe from your general fund okay can I just add one comment to that um just for everybody who wasn't here for the conversation last year we are unlike every other town in this area so you can many towns don't have user fees that's our choice as a town we are not a commercial town you know if we start loading up William Street and we get rid of all the houses and put a bunch of commercial there we won't pay any user fees that's not the Mandate of this town so it gets hard to compare cuz even East Long Meadow very different than here it's very different west side it's like it's a different world right you know you know you go into jolio chapi you know they're not paying user fees because that's not this that's not how we're set up as a town we have very little commercial property we have very little expanding you know tax base so we're kind of limited but we did look at that I remember Mike brought it all in and kind of went through all the detail with Tom too and it was kind of like well that's not really compar you're you're not comparing like things um so no and I I get that for sorry I get that for user fees that totally you're right that's 100% uh makes sense I'm more curious about sort of yeah what are we spending compared to what other districts spend that per pupil rate that per you know athlete what where are we seeing that we compare expenditure wise and that was just what I was going to say I don't know if that bringing up that concept of how much we're spending for student is useful it was just an idea to see how we're doing to make sure that we're you know to your point getting as many kids involved as possible to to get them active showing as much support as we can for the athletic you know program here but that is a really good point that what you're both saying I mean like knowing okay mins where who cares where the money's coming from are they spending yeah half million dollars a million doll I I don't know at least knowing are we in the range we you know are we spending enough in this area yeah it's not a bad you know it's probably an easy number for them to get to too just have an idea well it's easy for us to ask for it yeah super could we do Nicole could we do um comparison of the the fees for athletes and then comparison of the overall per athlete spend that's inclusive of fees we could do we could do like what the fees are what the general fund spend is in comparable towns and then what the inclusive of user fees like per people or per athlete spend is yep is that on a purport basis is that I don't know that it has make complicated as just total just toal how many kids you have participating and how much you spending yeah I think an yeah average per a across Sports is one all right perfect other thoughts questions Andor comments do we have any clubs we we we have uh 70 so clubs but that's all run through M Strack in um yeah correct so uh there are a few athletic clubs involved in that but again that's all through uh M drwick uh until uh one of them become an MIA sanction Sport and then that's something that we have to decide do we support or not support like ultimate frisbee is always on the table there's always a few sports that are uh going through the process to add in into the Mia schedule is rugby one rugby is one correct yep that's new that's probably in the last five or six years they added it at the state level all right Mary Mary yeah I just wondering um going back to a comment that was made much earlier in this conversation um Mike do you feel like our boosters are funding um parts of our program that should be funed by the school district or is all of their funding considered supplemental because someone mentioned that they're funding coaches so shouldn't those be school district salaries in an idea yeah I mean and I think we should all answer I mean in an Ideal World yes in an ideal world uh appropriate levels of coaching are fully covered by the school budget and yeah I think it's important to acknowledge that all coaches are go through the background check whether volunteer or paid so that there aren't people there aren't individuals either on the sidelines or interacting with students that aren't part of the hiring process so where the compensation comes from is a different conversation I mean I think Mary partly your question too might be um somewhat sub objective Marty you're saying in an Ideal World all coaches salaries would be covered by our budget well what does an Ideal World look like is an Ideal World a coach and an assistant coach and are we paying those salaries and if we are then anything on top of that would be supplemental um to Mary's Point um as opposed to part of what we would expect to pay out of the regular school budget versus are there gaps in what is sort of maybe less an Ideal World and more of a standard world for high school sports um to Mary's question are are some of these expenditures supplemental as opposed to standard well how do you determine what is standard and what is supplemental exactly yeah I mean I I [Music] think I think that's been a conversation that's been debated for many years both internally and you know amongst communities what might be in my opinion appropriate and provide the necessary safety for participants might not be the same as what somebody else views so I think it I think it's going to be dependent upon who's making those decisions I trust you thank you is it consist across teams though so again I think Mary it depends on the nature of the sport um in terms of the per participant to coach ratio would I say it's equal across boards no I would not I wouldn't say that that ratio is exactly the same and again a lot of it has to do with cross country is very different than football and so the number of coaches track I mean so I think it's really dependent upon the specific sport that can drive what that number of coaches that is necessary or appropriate for that program I guess to play Devil's Advocate though someone might say um well you know in this sport we could also use um cross trainining coaches or we could also use strength coaches I I'm just pointing out that it sounds as though some of our coaching is being paid for outside of our school district and we're talking about School District budget for sports and so should we be funding the coaching positions that's it it's a tough one thank you thank you Mary Julie I see your hand too I know the more we talk about this the more dumb questions I'm gonna have I'm so sorry um but um I just want to I want to go back to the thing about how much we we put in the our budget versus how much we spend is it that we don't even put enough in the budget to cover the coach's Sal salaries like are we not even funding enough for the expenses that we know we're going to have setting aside the kind of like you know Things That Vary based on enrollment or cost of Transportation or things like that so for example when we look at that $180,000 is that meant to include coaches salaries or would that be a part of our a different line item in the budget that's more related to salaries and no I think the history has been that the general fund allocation has been used for salaries in the past few years we've had to charge all of the coach's salaries to the general fund plus some non-salary expenses to support the program so I think to your question does the current fy2 budget contain an allocation that will cover the expected fy2 athletic salaries my answer would be no based on the number of teams we've seen and the consistency of the offerings we've provided that the amount of salaries will be at least what was presented in the overview in 23 and probably higher just based on adjustments that are applied to the schedule so but what about um the allocation plus like kind of expected user fees based on yeah I mean does that cover like our core expenses I think part of what I'm trying to understand is like how much of our Athletics budget is dependent on like I hope things shake out and we lose some people and we gain some saving you know what I mean like I would say for the last two years it's been keeping my fingers crossed that would have the funds available I think again pointing to that overview slide and the the amount that that's changed from 19 to 23 it's been unpredictable and so um either way we you know we would have to address that shortfall if we didn't have fund within the budget to cover it at the end of the year and remember what we said earlier coaching levels are defined in our collective bargaining agreements across all sports correct and you know it really comes down to what we might think is an appropriate Staffing level for the student experience and for student safety others might have different opinions about that and you know we might think and then it comes down to the specialization that's required within that sport basketball is less specialized than football track and Field's more has more specialized need for more specialized coaching than cross country presumably um so these are decisions that I would want the committee to know the community to know that Mike has and Tom have a really good handle on the what we see as appropriate levels of coaching and a good handle on the adults that are working with our kids how many adults and who those adults are so um I think part of what is you know I think some of this is clarifying for me is that like the budget for athletics is more precarious than we would like it to be because we're not able to budget for it up front and it also means that when we're having a conversation about like a given fiscal Year's budget we're not able to fully think about think about what we're spending because it doesn't fully account for what we're spending on Athletics I just I was inspired by somebody's like in an Ideal World thing because I think in an Ideal World we would put we would fully fund our Athletics budget right through through the actual fiscal year budget process I know that we're far from there but I would absolutely agree ideally I would love to be able to present a budget that has the funding We Believe necessary to support the program it would require some difficult decisions but also I can't guarantee you what that number is from year to year I don't know that bottom line as you indicated Julie it's it's it's fluid from year to year it's really hard to pin down the exact amount that would be necessary it's yeah it's fluid from here to here but I think what I'm hearing is that in some cases like we're not even covering the fixed expenses right where again I think there are expenses that are known I think it depends when you look at that the detailed Financial we break down we allocate the 180,000 by sport to kind of be fair I think we've debated back and forth whether it's by sport or by participant to kind of be uh adjusting or providing an equal allocation to calculate how based on the allocation from the general fund and the revenue that comes in how it compares to the costs associated to the program to look at are there certain sports that might be generating uh additional Revenue over their expenses versus any that are costing us more than what is being provided for similar to what Jamie was asking so I mean it's again it's you know when you take in user fees in the general fund allocation how you allocate that would it cover all over the cost I mean I I want to believe that the 700 plus thousand that's listed there are all necessary costs or else we wouldn't have them we wouldn't have incurred them if they weren't needed for the program's operation in 23 I mean I've got a dumb question if if we we've exhausted all the good ones um where did where did we get the 180 from because it seems like we're seeing that the costs are increasing and with a lot of the budget items we talked about how we're increasing those trying to be commensurate as the years go by and given that static number like was where did that number 180 come from I uh I think as superintendent indicated back in 17 I think there was a commitment to increase it so in 18 we went to 150 in 19 we went to 180 and then in subsequent years I think the idea would have been to try to continue to increase the appropriation during the budget process it I think is similar to the conversation we've had this year what what are the choices that we're going to be faced with to continuing to add additional funds to that line to the program um so I don't want to say it's arbitrary but I think we've been stuck there now now for a few years and during last Spring's conversation when uh an adjustment to the user fees was discussed part of that conversation was looking to increase that 180,000 by a dollar amount and continue to increase it knowing that Not only was there an increased amount needed to support the program because costs have been going up but I think as Jamie alluded to our revenues have not been increasing at a consistent equal rate as expenses have been but I just think the budget challenges from year to year have kind of restricted that increase I think the last bullet on the FY 24 budget presentation um called for an increase in the fy2 allocation towards Athletics you know we just said we weren't able to achieve that given the challenges that that we faced no easy decisions well and some of those expenses are are very um like you said earlier a little bit out of our control I mean I'm looking at fy19 and we only went a a little over 50,000 additional funds for the general uh fund by 2023 we were up $180,000 from that but 100,000 of that is transportation just just Transportation went up 100,000 ,000 from 19 to 23 that's a huge increase um so that's some of that is like you said stuff that we don't have maybe as much opportunity to address right now yeah and I mean earlier today a finance of Julie did ask to to pull some information together about the cost of Transportation related to local competition versus traveling to games in eastern part of the state I think as superintendent indicated I think there's a number of factors that contributed to the increase in transportation over those years yeah all right any last thoughts before we move forward I'll just say one thing yes um I noticed in the whatever you shared earlier 2018 for the history of the athletic department that there was about 700 student athletes and now there's a thousand and we went through a pandemic and the rising cost of safety and transportation um and it's you're still growing a successful program is to be commended so thank you high school sports I would be last without so thank you very true all right thank you very much have a lovely evening appreciate you coming by no problem and we are moving on to um other reports um we'll start with um chair report a couple of things of note um first off thank you to the um staff at Long Middle High School um for successful um spring conferences last week um it was good to get to see everybody and touch base and hear how all of our students were doing so appreciate the time that went into that I know Elementary is next week um so thank you in advance for the time they'll spend on that um we also have the senior play coming up this week Thursday through Saturday um High School Musical so that looks to be a fairly fun evening SLS Saturday afternoon um and a um shout out to everybody who is probably still at the um long metal Public School strings Festival tonight um the district-wide strings Festival it's always fun to have the um districtwide events and get to see all the way from fourth grade forward so um hope that is going well we are headed into the busy season of spring Sports and spring events and end of year events and I'm sure in a moment Andrew will have lots more of those to add in um but before we do that um give an opportunity for any other school committee members to make any announcements Andor recognitions from things over the last few weeks all right seeing none we're going to head into chair report or superintendent's report sorry sure um there's a a report in your electronic file um middle school project uh we're excited to announce on March 27th there'll be a kickoff visioning session uh that the entire Community is in invited to it'll be here in the central office the idea is to sort of launch the um conversation on crafting an educational plan for uh a new Middle School here in Long Meadow so very excited about that our Educators had an opportunity to meet with the um design team on Friday during our professional development day so they spent about an hour and a half um kind of crafting um ideas to contribute to that Vision as well so um we also have some of our administrators are headed out to rree they have a a brand new middle school and a recently renovated Middle School a Rena ad and so some uh administrators will be checking that out down in brain Tre so we'll we'll kindy of create those opportunities for uh staff and the building committee to get out to see some some uh exemplary new middle schools um the professional development day in general was was fantastic uh great opportunity for our middle through High School Educators to uh learn more about Universal Design we had a a keynote speaker in the auditorium that kicked off the day and then uh they met in discipline based teams to think about how to apply some of the concepts that they learned about um shout out to our central office admin who really put together a very detailed professional development plan for all bargaining units for all employees uh this past Friday our nurses were involved did stop the bleed training they were working on some poison lessons they were working in their in their snap software that's the snap the software that manages medical and health records uh PA professionals learned about executive functioning and how to um uh sort of ensure that students have opportunities to fade from the support that they get if it's necessary and needed uh and our clerical staff uh was involved in some training on munus the procurement software among many other activities um so it was a great day um appreciate the chance to to have that on Friday uh Elementary literacy review is underway the ccla uh pilot has been launched today our Educators met with met virtually with trainers from ccla to sort of debrief on the opening of that of that pilot so uh Lots going on tomorrow evening Mr Maza Miss Paris Crow and I will be visiting the special education Alliance of Long Meadow the seal organization to talk about the FY 25 budget and special education Staffing so looking forward to that opportunity that's it all right questions or anything related to that other administrative reports um anything to add Mr AA uh just briefly I wanted to inform the committee and the community that our food service provider Fresh Pick Cafe has have informed us that they were recently purchased by The witson Culinary Group which was the other company that bid in our recent uh procurement for Management Services um no indication yet whether or not the name will be changing at least early indications are they're going to continue going by Fresh Pick Cafe so no action is necessary at this time um but we look forward to their continued service and uh efforts to provide meals to our students uh also I think um we would look forward to working with the center Green Club in uh bringing forward reusable utensils at maybe all the elementary schools to help kind of begin the process of modifying that behavior at elementary level so that as they progress up through the secondary grades they'll have those habits learned as we continue to still work at the high school to uh change that behavior so um look forward to the superintendent's meeting with them to support that change all right wonderful thank you now Andrew student representative report uh so just to start a couple of reminders in terms of dates um spring Sports will begin on Monday March 18th and quarter 3 ends on Thursday March 28th Good Friday is that Friday so that's why it doesn't end on a Friday um um the seniors will hold three performances of High School Musical um in the LHS Auditorium this Thursday Friday and Saturday the Thursday and Friday shows are at 7:00 p.m. and the Saturday shows at 1:00 p.m. tickets are $10 each they can either selling them at the door or students were were able to buy tickets today and they can also buy them tomorrow before school um in front of the library um what else uh last week um Monday through Thursday students met with their teacher to discuss course recommendations for next year um and then on Thursday students will be able to enter their course request into power school and then March 19th through April 4th students will meet with their guidance counselors to discuss these course requests and then the class of 2025 will hold a little Lancers fundraiser on March 28th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the high school fifth graders will have a funfilled evening with um games activities run by Junior students um and I believe it is a no wait no I think oh tickets are $10 sorry all right thank you great thank you lots going on all right other reports lpvc Mary our meeting is next Wednesday night next Wednesday all right great thank you um energy and sustainability Adam uh the energy committee will be uh setting aside a certain amount of Gibs free energy to have a meeting on the 26 to talk about further energy needs in the long meow Community all right great thank you um seal michaa um as Marty was saying tomorrow night um there is a seal event um it's a first there's a coffee and connection at the Pioneer Yacht Club if anyone wants to come in person have some coffee and refreshments and connect with other parents um that's at 6:30 and then there'll be a zoom at 7 um where uh Tom Maza and Nicole per Crow will be presenting about the FY 25 budget all right got yeah all right um Middle School building committee we already talked about so there's nothing else to add there and we're on to subcommittee reports Finance subcommittee Jamie um so Finance subcommittee met this morning uh we did have uh some disc discussion about the athletic reports that we've discussed um we have in your packet two FY 24 budget documents uh kind of updates where we stand in terms of tracking the fy2 24 budget I would say the uh projections really have not shifted very much in either direction in the last two months but we continue to monitor that um there are some items I also discuss the fy2 budget Associated to uh school choice and Medco slots which is coming up a little later on the school committee agenda but for your consideration tonight there is a consent agenda which has I believe eight building use requests that Finance sub did approve and I don't know Nicole if you want to read them or you want me to list them off do you want to list them and then we can see if anybody has any they'd like to sure so there are eight building us requests there is a request by the um Long Meadow Park and wreck department for use of the high school for a uh dance recital dates are in April and May uh dance recital by Dance Inc for use of the High School auditorium and classrooms for date June 12th and a dance recital by the dance company on for the high school cafeteria Auditorium and classroom on June 7th and 8th a dance recital by Impressions Academy of Dance for use of the high school cafeteria and Auditorium on June 6th and June 9th artistics dance Conservatory again for a dance recital for the high school cafeteria Auditorium classroom for June 14th and 15th the um Indian Association of Greater Springfield for use of Glenbrook cafeteria Auditorium and classroom space for April 6th for a cultural event the national multiple scoliosis Society for use of Williams uh parking lot lot on Saturday May 4th and Sunday May 5th for a uh a run uh to register participants and then a request by the L Police Department for use of Blueberry Hill Elementary School um for a uh active threat training on April 16th and April 19th all right so um just as a reminder there are no discussions of items on a consent agenda so if you would like to remove one of these from the consent agenda we would vote to remove that if anybody would like to request a removal from the consent agenda now would be an excellent time and or make a motion related to the consent agenda can we vote to approve the consent agenda in aggregate yes that's exactly what it is okay perfect we only pull them if somebody does not want to yeah okay I'm listening hard at this point I move that the school committee approve the consent agenda for the March 12 2024 school committee as presented we have a motion do we have a second emphatically seconded there you go there is no discussion so we will move directly to a vote Adam yay Michaela yes Jamie yes Mary yes Julie yes and yes for me as well thank you um there's one more item on your agenda from Finance sub which is a request for approval for a FY 24 grants and special Revenue revision this would be our second revision in fy4 there are I believe seven or eight grants nine grants that are receiving either a modific a a revision to the distribution of the budget and or an increase in the allocation that was originally approved and accepted by the school committee back in the fall additionally there are four grants sorry three grants that are new to uh being added to the budget which I believe the superintendent has mentioned in previous reports but uh one is a grant theal grant and in the amount of 93,471 and a state grant for chronic absenteeism or addressing chronic absenteeism uh in the amount of $10,000 the total revision of all of the changes would increase the budget by $134,700 all right great thank you we have a possible recommended motion Andor discussion I move on the recommendation of the finance subcommittee of the school committee to approve the budget revision as specified in the document grants special revenues revision number two and dated March the 12th 2024 thank you we have a motion do we have a second second thank you any discussion seeing none we'll move to a vote Adam yay okay well yes Jamie Mary yes Julie yes and yes for me as well all right I think that's everything for finance sub yes thank you policy sub hi Kayla yes we met right before our school committee meeting um and uh we're working right now on um coming up with a plan for uh advertising in schools policy khb we've spent a lot of time um talking about it um looking at different policies working with um parents in the community and getting feedback from them it's been really interesting and we're really hoping to be able to craft a policy that um will help give money towards individual sports and help them meet their needs at at at and at the same time um being careful of Title Nine and making sure that things are Equitable so that's what we're working on all right thank you uh curriculum sub does not have a report today um evaluation sub we met on March 6 um and had the opportunity to go over a midyear review with superintendent OA um Lots going on in the district and we were able to get a little bit of an update on um each of those things and how they relate to both the professional practice goal um the student learning goal um that the superintendent has set for himself and also our district Improvement plan um did you want to give a little overview of that sure yeah um it was uh I appreciated the the conversation um good chance to sort of take inventory of of what we've started what I've started what what um is nearly done what is still in the uh starting blocks and um the the lot of great feedback from the evaluation subcommittee especially in the area around sort of sustainability um you know sustaining uh in retaining staff sustaining in retaining uh the administrative team and just making sure that um you know we're we're well positioned for the future and so we have a great team right now and I appreciated that subcommittee was thoughtful about that and thinking about how we can can uh sustain and grow in the future um couple couple highlights uh I think part of the focus for me this year has been on my own professional development uh particularly in the area of meeting the needs of 21st century Learners uh also in the area of sort of working effectively as a as a co-lead on any many of our Dei initiatives so made I think good progress on that uh one of the things that I'll continue to work on is developing Community feedback for the future development of a a new District Improvement plan so that is out of the gates uh via a stakeholder survey that has has been issued um and then continuing to enhance offerings as they relate to our vision The Graduate um leading that effort and uh finally leading the work uh associated with the Middle School building project that's been um it's becoming a heavier LIF it it goes in in cycles and there's quiet times and then there's times when we're very very busy and right now is one of those times when we're very very busy as we launch the visioning process uh also uh proud of the work we've done uh in relation to launching a um ka8 seal U program for all five of our schools at that level so lots going on uh some things that I still need to kind of get moving on and one of the things we talked about was a revised website to ensure that it is uh accessible for folks with disabilities and accessible for individuals whose first language is not English so that's a that's a something that you know we just haven't move the needle on but it's something that we ought to continue to um keep our eyes on because it's important that that website represents us as an inclusive District um um yeah that's it so there's a in your packet there's a a copy of my annual plan and I highlighted it in green yellow and red green meaning those things that are nearly done yellow meaning good progress red meaning uh still yet to be started so all right and we look forward to meeting again in a couple of months see where we are all right um naming subcommittee is meeting on Monday March 18th um so we'll look forward to hearing an update after that we have no ongoing business and that brings us to our new business beginning with the student Opportunity Act plan that back over sure yeah um so when the student Opportunity Act was passed in 2019 uh it what came with it was a significant increase in Chapter 70 funds although we didn't experience that this year but uh it did increase Chapter 70 funding across the Commonwealth but it came with some uh strings attached and one of the strings was that school districts had to annually have to annually develop a uh an SOA plan I shouldn't say annually uh it's every 3 years you have to develop a uh an SOA plan that is subject to approval by the school committee the SOA plan is in your packet it is very detailed uh but what I would say is that it really is truly a subset of existing District initiatives it is a subset of our existing budget there's nothing in here that will send us off frankly in New Directions it's it's there's nothing in here that um sends us off with new budget requirements but it's meant to be a a focused uh reflection of our commitment to uh raising student achievement and so I appreciate uh Dr Nelson our curriculum director for pulling this together and again I I hope as you read it you'll see that it is uh a reflection of ongoing existing initiatives so happy to answer any questions you might have about that student Opportunity Act plan all right this will be something we approve at our March 27th meeting um it has to be done by April 1st correct y you could bring it back from the 27th or okay um so any questions related to this opportunities for discussion all right see you n we will Circle back to that then um give everybody some time to read through thoroughly and if you have questions reach out to Dr K or um Nelson yep all right perfect um school choice that brings us to school choice what your view is uh I'll start it and and Tom help out please um so annually uh the school committee is required to decide if we will continue to participate uh in the school choice program uh and also whether or not we will open additional slots for students in the Meto program and so you'll see some enrollment data in your packet we are graduating seven school choice students so there are seven in 12th grade so our proposal for you tonight is to consider adding replacing those seven essentially with seven new school choice students at the ninth grade at long medal High School um as far as metco uh the recommendation tonight is we have two metco students are graduating uh our recommendation would be to add two additional students uh at the ninth grade but also to open two metco slots at kindergarten so an increase of uh a um four total metco slots for the 204 25 school year uh I would say that what we try to do in the in in making these decisions is to you know make sure that we're um not tipping our uh budget to a place where we would need to hire additional staff to welcome these new students uh we want to add in really thoughtful judicious ways the other caveat I'd say is that if you know if the committee wanted to consider levels beyond the numbers that we're recommending tonight we have that opportunity in other words we can come back to this and add additional Choice students or even add additional Medco students if that's something the committee is interested in so um seven Choice students at 9th grade two kindergarten metco Medco students and two 9th grade metco students is the recommendation before you tonight okay and if I recall correctly our enrollment kindergarten continues all the way up until basically when kindergarten begins um so we can continue adding um if we find ourselves with space we could AD school choice spots ideally probably by early summer at the latest yeah it's say I think the choice the cut off is sometime in June we have to certify our vote by June 1st thank you okay all right any thoughts related to this um do you add Meco students in preschool or it's you just start in kindergarten starts in kindergarten I've never had that question asked but I'm almost certain it doesn't um allow for preschool students but good question we we'll double check on that all right Adam no I just said zero thoughts okay any other thoughts questions and or if not possible motions I move on the recommendation of the finance subcommittee that the school committee accept students in the Meco program for the 2024 2025 school year in the following grade level and number of seats grade kindergarten number of seats two grade n number of seats two all right we have a motion from EO do we have a second seconded thank you any discussion n this one is the uh vote for the number of Meco students um seeing no discussion we'll move to roll call vote Adam yay michaa yes Jamie yes Mary yes Julie yes and yes for me as well we have one other possible motion related to school choice I move that the school committee approve opening seats for school choice students in the 20124 2025 in the following grades and number of seats per grade grade nine number of seats seven all right we have a motion do we have a second second thank you any discussion seeing none we'll move to a vote Adam yay Michaela yes Jamie yes Mary yes Julie yes and yes for me as well all right we have one more motion related to a um executive session before we head into that I will entertain a motion I move that the school committee meet in an executive session pursuant to mgl chapter 30A section 21A purpose to conduct a strategy session in preparation with collective bargaining with Unit A and purpose 7 consideration of release of executive session minutes of previous meetings not to reconvene into Open session we have a motion do we have a second second thank you any discussion seeing none we'll move to a vote Adam yay Michaela yes Jamie yes Mary yes Julie yes and yes for me as well um the Open session of the meeting is adjourned have a great evening and we will see you all in two weeks good night