good evening the school committee Workshop business session of March 11th 2024 will now come to order secretary will you please call the role Ryan daglio yeah presid Lori Keegan present Kristen Maxwell present Daniel shabila present Kenneth wette present mayor Neil Perry mayor Neil Perry did you hear can you hear me y thank you may I have a motion in a second to accept the agenda as presented so moved second moved by memb bilia second by member wette yes Lori Keegan yes Christen Maxwell yes Daniel shabila yes Kenneth wette yes mayil Perry yes superintendent would you please introduce our student for tonight's flag salute I would love to I'd like to call up Finn mcminniman up to the podium and we have I believe Mr reev and Mrs Laro here and family uh for the flag salute today fourth grader from the timy um good evening I am proud to present Finn McManaman to lead the Pledge of Allegiance this evening Finn is a fourth grader in Miss Tully's class who was also here to see Finn he lives with his mom and dad carara and Tom his brother Noah who is an eighth grader at the timy his grandmother and the family's golden rich revers Max and Scout Finn has attended the timy grammar school since kindergarten where his mom is a school resource officer while it can be convenient to have a parent in the building Finn also finds it hard because his friends can easily rat him out when he makes the occasional unwise Choice as all children do his favorite things about timony are the great teachers being with good friends Wellness class and fun fridays Finn likes reading and is a fan of the hang zipser book series by Henry Winkler the Humphrey hamster series by Betty Bernie and he is currently reading falling short and you might have finished that by now by Ernesto cisos as you can tell from this book selection Finn has a great sense of humor and a positive attitude Miss Tully and Mrs Galant his third grade teacher offered the following thoughts Finn is a fun charismatic young man he loves to play and watch sports like football basketball and boxing also works hard with his academics recently getting an above standard on his Southeast test no matter where he goes he can always find a friend Finn Finn is a great friend always willing to help on the playground or in the classroom I love having Finn in my class especially our conversations waiting for the bus we'll talk about that uh and Mrs Gant says Finn was one of the shining stars of our classroom he has a determined will and a love for learning his optimistic spirit and his positive attitude were a model for others to see how you could work through your challenges to improve your skills Finn displayed a tick charge attitude and enjoyed the times when he got to lead the class his cheerful silly nature was contagious often making us smile and laugh in his Spare Time Finn enjoys playing video games and eating his favorite foods which are bacon and Nitro Takis hopefully not at the same time he plays basketball flag football and his favorite lacrosse which keeps keeps his parents busy he loves to travel with his family especially to the beautiful beaches and clear waters of the Bahamas which he said is his favorite but Disney World is also a frequent vacation spot in the future Finn is considering a career in the military possibly as an Air Force pilot or Navy SEAL both of which are admirable goals and require a lot of hard work he might consider a second career in law enforcement like his parents but he'll wait and see how he feels at the time Finn is looking forward to having some new specials in upper school next year but I think he's feeling a little sentimental about leaving lower school I know that I am going to miss seeing him wear shorts to school every day regardless of the temperature without any complaints of being cold it amazes me it is a pleasure to have Finn represent our school in leading the Pledge of Allegiance tonight please stand hand over I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America into the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for [Applause] all this there It Go yeah superintendent would you please introduce our sore award recipient again it would be my pleasure I'd like to have Laura enri join us she's the World Language department chair and student kimly Vasquez to join her up at the podium tonight good evening the World Language department is extremely proud to present Kimberly natareno Vasquez as our 2024 sore Award winner for her commitment and achievements in Spanish and the community at large over her four years at MHS Kimberly has tackled the challenge of a demanding honors and AP course load she has maintained a 4291 GPA overall and a 4.67 GPA in her Spanish coursework she completed Our Heritage speaker program in 2 years passed the AP language exam with a five and earned or is qualified to earn the Seal of B literacy with distinction by her junior year her AP teacher Tracy McNichols shares that the first words that come to mind when I think of her are inquisitive open-minded and focused she has developed a growth mindset that prompted her to increase the level of her advanced coursework and also enjoy the numerous opportunities that methan high school offers she enjoyed her Heritage larner programs but also flourished in history classes because as she noted learning from mistakes leads to a more tolerant World following graduation Kimberly plans to pursue a degree in pre-law and hopefully a minor in Spanish as she continues her studies at the undergraduate level Beyond her academic achievements Kimberly is truly committed to enriching methan high school and her community as a whole she is a natural leader and even with her demanding academic schedule makes time for adopt a grandparent Key Club film and video club and working with children at St Mary's Church she is also our Spanish club president and most recently an outstanding Master of Ceremonies at our Kea ball Maria figero the Spanish club adviser had this to share Kim was dedicated to making the kin ball happen this year as president of the Spanish club she demonstrates her communication skills and displays her talents in bringing out the best in others Kimberly is also a member of the National Honor Society and a representative to the Massachusetts State student advisory Council for all these reasons and more Kimberly is held in in the highest regard by methan High School faculty uh for her genuine passion and commitment to learning self-improvement and community service and so it was with great pleasure that we honor her as our sore award recipient tonight um I just wanted to thank my parents and everybody here tonight miss en Miss Figo and Miss McNichols thank [Applause] you [Music] is the veteran essayist is not available this evening so superintendent would you please introduce the bipac African-Americans and the Arts presentation yes so I I want to yep come on up I want to welcome yah and her uh Pier to come on up and to share with you their bipac presentation that they did at City Hall last month for Black History Month is it green the light yourselves okay great hi my name is Crystal Castro and I'm a junior here at MHS I've been a part of the bipa club since my freshman year and I became an officer last year hi my name is yah I'm a senior at methu high school and I've been a part of bipox and sophomore year and I've became an officer this year um this year bipo has collaborated with the adopted grandparent Club to hold a black historyman celebration and a viewing of the color purple and we also held our lunch and learn at methan City Hall and presented our Black History Month African-American African-Americans in the Arts presentation this year's Black History Month focused on the art of resistance and how black Trailblazers revolutionized their fields by pioneering new new techniques in music Visual Arts and poetry and we really wanted to hone in on how art has been used historically to preserve underrepresented stories for example during the Harlem Renaissance which was an intellectual and cultural Revival of African-American music and dance and art in Harlem New York in the 1920s um poetry became a big mode to resist oppression um Claude Mckay is a was a Jamaican writer and poet born in September of 1890 who passed away in May of 1948 he paved the way during the Harlem Renaissance for um poets to discuss racism in poetry and one of his most notable poems were if we must die here is what it is if we must die let it not be like Hogs hunted and penned and an glorious Spot while around us bark the mad and hungry dogs making their mock at our accursed lot if we must die oh let us nobly die so that our Precious Blood may not be shed in vain then even the monsters we defy shall be constrained to honor us through Dead Oh Kinsmen we must meet the common foe though far outnumbered let us show us Brave and for their thousand blows deal one death blow what though before us lies the Open Grave like men we will face the murderous cowardly pack press to the wall dying but fighting back Visual Arts was also a really um key sorry you can this this is thank you um Visual Arts is also a key factor in um resisting oppression um within the black community neoexpressionism is an example of this it developed as a reaction against conceptual um and minimal art during the 1970s it portrayed recognizable objects in a rough and emotional way using Vivid colors and it was used um by social activists to combat oppressive practices Jean Michelle Basia was a contemporary artist born December 1960 in Brooklyn New York and sadly passed away August of 1988 um he started out as a graffiti artist and used symbols and interpretations to Showcase themes such as racism classism and Colonial colonialism through Art thank [Applause] you thank you yeah we're wondering if there's any updates for the [Music] committee um there's a small update uh next week we are having a school spirit week the theme is decades week and we're looking forward to seeing everyone dress up and show their school spirit thank you thank you the student advisory committee is not present tonight um may I have a motion in a second to approve the MHS J rzi to attend the Army academic bull Championship so move sove moved by member dolio seconded by the mayor um yes discussion I'm GNA ask uh Tim flarity I flatter oh my gosh I'm so sorry it's okay do it's been a long day it's okay when I to come on up and and talk about the program this on yeah oh that's how it works okay you got to be 5% smarter in the equipment you're working with I guess yeah don't don't worry about mispronouncing the name in the Army everyone left off the and I was like oh I can get out of this deployment they think it's a flarity anyway so uh good evening everybody I'm really um I'm I'm honored to be here I was not expecting this first of all so I'm very uh grateful that uh you're taking time out of your busy schedules to to hear the uh proposal um a little bit of background we through the spring semester we do this thing called map and it's our Marksmanship our athletic and our our physical fitness contest in which we compete across what's called col Mall second Brigade all across basically New England and uh I was as surprised as all you were I've been pushing my Cadets and we were honored and uh we we actually placed and uh because of its accomplishments during these winter competitions the United States Army Cadet command has invited the methu high school's JTC academic team to participate in this year's annual 2024 Army jotc academic bow championship now this event is a great honor for our Cadets I I I cannot stress that enough um and will take place on the campus of Catholic University uh in Washington DC um who goes we're only authorized to bring four Cadets um and with the appropriate chaperons myself um for the male jotc Cadets of which I'll have two and I also have Enlisted the assistance of my colleague Sergeant First classus Bell she's one of the jotc assistant instructor is from Lawrence High School in fact I spoke with her this weekend about it and she's got permission from her school to accompany as our female shaer room now for safety reason all Cadets and cadres stay in gender segregated dorms on the Catholic University campus uh we arrive and register no later than 5:00 p.m. on Friday June 21st and we depart the following Tuesday morning on the 25th at 10: a.m. sharp our mode of transportation will be a minivan rental capable of transporting myself Sergeant First Class Bell and most importantly our Cadets to and from this event the United States Army Cadet command will bear the cost of the rental vehicle to include all other competition costs lodging and meals in other words it won't cost our district anything if the school board gives its permission to attend I must register our jotc Cadets no later than close the business March 31st 2023 of this month for safety purposes the JTC academic Bowl registration must include the following full names of all the participants as stated on their official School IDs the birth dates of all the attendees any dietary Andor medical restrictions of the attendees mobile numbers of all the adult members Andor chaperons signed photo releases medical releases Cod forms for each Cadet and adult and travel preferences the reason why we need the photo release is this thing's going to be t uh uh broadcast nationally the official competition starts officially after the completion of Saturday and Sunday morning preliminary rounds on Sunday June 23rd at 4M followed by the joint service academic Bowl immediately following the Army championship at 5:00 pm on Sunday the winning team for the Army jotc will then face off and compete against the Air Force the United States Navy the United States Marine Corps jotc programs in a four-way competition please note that the championship and other evening programs will be live streamed until uh I guess a winter is declared let me get my place here so that other members of the of the um methan public school and their families in the district can watch the MHS Cadets uh compete that's concludes my presentation thank you Dr Kwang school committee and members uh for considering this proposal awesome thank you thank you thank you member deluglio thank you um Madam Vice chair as right now now um so um I just want to say thank you for your presentation and as a Cadet here for four years under the colonel Stansbury um I just want like this is a great opportunity for cadetes um I wish we had those competitions we had like in state but to go to Nationals uh this is a great opportunity for our Cadets so you will have my full support thank you all right can we get a roll call vote please Martha Ryan daglio yes Lori Keegan yes Kristen Maxwell yes Daniel shilia yes Kenneth wette yes may Neil Perry emphatically yes unanimous that's great thank you be inappropriate to say Beat Navy is that how that works kind thank you so much we have two people signed up for public participation um one is an email and one is a is present here today would Jade jalbert like to come up and state your name and address hey guys uh uh my name is j jelbert my address is six Lady Slipper Lane um I'm here to speak to you about some items that were on the agenda in past meetings that I just don't want forgotten about um the first is school libraries this was discussed at the January 23rd meeting to me the meet the discussion was less than satisfactory it seemed like this project was going to start off underfunded and underst staffed um there was talk at that at that January meeting about getting student input how to stock the libraries there's so much new material since they Clos in 2020 that just pulling them out isn't pulling out the old books isn't going to work and how to fund them um if you wouldn't allow uncertified teachers why would it even be considered to open a Library without at least one CER certified librarian at each location well I realize these discussions take time and I am con sorry while I realize these discussions take time I will say I'm concerned about the fact that I've heard nothing from the committee since that meeting in January I'm hopefully I'm hopeful that it is still a priority to this committee fun in schools this was recently discussed as Valentine's Day um I realized that holiday is over that holiday it's not a real holiday that holiday is over but it's annual as is Halloween um I use these as markers for just how much fun has been eliminated in the school over the years um the most recent thing that we had around Valentine's Day was Spirit Week the I brought copies of the Spirit Week um dress up for each day the first day was wear polka dot stripes or patterns in other words wear clothes the second was wear sweats or a hoodie everyday wear wear red and do not bring in cards wear your best smile and dress like an inspirational or influential person person days your you'll not there's no fun there's no inspiration nothing out of the ordinary even the hero day didn't say dress like a superhero it said dress like a person the one day where something specific was asked we red it was followed by a negative don't bring in cards no it wasn't worded like that it was worded nicely um I'm Pro fun in schools I'm Pro making school is the kind of place kids want to be not one where I have to drag them out of bed to go every single day will most most days be mundane absolutely however there are so many lessons that can be incorporated in making the school day fun if you don't want kids to celebrate Valentine's Day why not teach them what an actual heart looks like and what the difference is between the representation that we see and have them design a card based on a heart an actual human heart that's a lesson it has nothing about St Valentine's in there by the way I hate Valentine's Day I'm just going to throw that out there right now hate it um the next thing is the dress code um I had planned to note how great the weather has been but you know it's New England and hey that slapped me in the face today um but it is March and spring is nearly here in the beginning of the year one of my children was chastised in front of her grade for showing off a sliver of her stomach after some confusion over tank tops and whether or not they are allowed my child asked me Point Blank and this is a direct quote why does my belly but what does my belly button have to do with anybody's education and so before spring comes and this is an issue is upon us again I pose the same question to you what does a child's midsection have to do with any student or teacher's ability to do what they need to do in school why is that even part of the policy I would appreciate the the school committee looking into this policy yet again I know that has been looked at in the past and recently in the past I would also like the committee to figure out a way to uphold the first part of the policy all students should be able to address comfort for school without fear of or actual unnecessary discipline or body shaming I can tell you with 100% certainty this was not my daughter's experience she in fact came home from school and said she was called out in front of the entire grade my daughter does exaggerate quite a bit my cooking is not actually killing her this experience has been told to me time and time again from many students and many parents it's not okay bullying and fighting this is going to take some time because I wrote it down and now I'm switching all around um this was discussed fighting was discussed a few years ago and I was a few sorry meetings ago and um I was shocked to learn that a fight is when only when both parties are physically involved not when it's just one um I recently learned that one of my children has been the target of a group of bullies for more than one school year there have been physical threats bullying harassing messages and derogatory comments All reported to both staff and administration when a child stood up for themselves after the staff and administration did nothing they were punished while the aggressor was not when it was brought to the administration's attention lunch seats were assigned that's it so what is done to the constant bullies when their aggression is only mental and or emotional which is also huge or when the target does not fight back besides being swept under the rug and having a single antib buing enrichment program which is not followed up in any way this is ongoing in my child school and other schools that I've heard of all in methan I have a lot to say but I know that the time is limited um as one of my friends said I have eight and a half children and they all have stuff to do so I do have to leave um I appreciate your time and I do hope that this is all taken under advisement and listened to so thank you all for your time this evening have a good night thank you thank you our next public comment comes from Alysa cararo um with no address for public participation good evening my name is Alyssa cararo I'm a graduate of methan public schools a teacher in a neighboring community and will have a kindergarten at the timy in the fall I have seen all over social media the outcry and disappointment that many families feel regarding the lack of celebrations at MPS I am here to Echo the sentiment and how frustrating it is to hear of a community that I love and specifically moved back to has essentially eliminated anything fun for our children as an educator myself I find this so disheartening we constantly complain about how children grow up so fast especially in a time of social media and so many influences yet as an entire district and the decision has been made to eliminate any way to make school fun or any way to make kids feel like kids I heard a lot about how the district continues to cater to the one the single child or family who may be upset by these celebrations the reality is that every every and all celebrations can be optional there is a way to cater to all children if you look at communities made up of the same demographics and socioeconomic wethu these communities allow these celebrations they allow kids to be kids please consider figuring out how to allow these things in schools I worry that we will continue to lose families to private schools and other options because they still allow their kids to be kids I don't want to be one of those families I hope you take this email as well as other parents concerns into consideration to make changes to the district we all want our CH our students to still have the opportunities to be kids they deserve that sincerely Alysa cararo at this time we will close public participation Madame Vice chair yes if I could for a minute please um I struggle way to I'd like the committee to join me and take a m moment of silence please um this past week we lost a very prominent resident uh who he and his wife have been all about methan since the day they they moved to methan and so um uh we lost Alan mclenon who's a big supporter for scholarship funds whose wife Janet is a real estate agent who who supports all of these initiatives in our public schools in our you Arlington neighborhood uh they're just tremendous folks and he passed away um March 8th uh please join me in a moment of silence if you would thank you very much appreciate it thank you if you cannot make the meeting in person for public participation you can send an email to Martha s at Mao meu. k12.us before 3M on the day of the school committee meeting may I have a motion in a second to approve the minutes of October 10th 2023 so moved second moved by member wette second by member shilia discussion I need a roll call vote Martha can we just bulk do them so we can only do one roll call vote M shilia good Martha are we able to do them all as one batch so we can roll call vote them once instead of doing eight of them sure no we no we we've I'm sorry I didn't mean to do that that quickly but okay um we should not vote on them all together as a batch because there were different people attending and some people not present and there might be some an error on one and not the other we've always put them so that you do uh vote on each one in case of those issues I do know that we might have an issue tonight with the same issue we had last time so we're invoking the rule of necessity correct yes yes so that might have to happen I'm not sure how that happens just invoke the rule of necessity okay was a magic one as we just do it yeah so someone needs to because we don't have the members here for a quorum for the first five um I think it was the first five right Martha I think if we identify this is under the rule of necessity okay does that have to be voted on or that's just I think you have to vote on we'll vote invoking the rule of necessity is a motion yeah second roll call roll call just cover the B I'm sorry who second that I um members of Zio thank you yes Lor Keegan yes Christen Maxwell yes Daniel shilia yes Kenneth wet yes may an Neil Perry yes um so now we need a roll call vote on October 23d 2023 oh I'm sorry October 10th 2023 I apologize so moved we already have this we already did it we just need the roll call yep a roll call for all of them is um for October 10th okay so ran doio yes Lori Keegan yes Kristen Maxwell presid right I I right but I'm not sure where you invoked the we invoked that you can vote Yes No I'm going to vote no Daniel shabila yes Kenneth wette yes mayel Perry present four yeses don't understand that may I have a motion in a second to approve the minutes of October 2023 um I'm sorry October 23rd 2023 so moved moved by member wette second by member dolio Ryan daglio yes Lori Keegan yes assant Maxwell president Daniel shabila yes Kenneth wette yes may Neil Perry president pass may I have a motion in a second to approve the minutes of November 13 20123 so move second move by member wette second by member daglio and roll call Ryan daglio yes Lori Keegan yes Christ Maxwell present Daniel shabila yes Kenneth wette yes Mayan Neil Perry yes may I have a motion in a second to approve the minutes of November 27th 2023 so moved move by member wette second second by member daglio right R aglio yes Lori Keegan Kristen Maxwell present Daniel shilia yes Kenneth wette yes may Neil Terry yes passes may I have a motion in a second to approve the minutes of December 11th 2023 so moved moved by member dolio second second by member shabila any discussion Brian daglio yes Lor Keegan yes Kristen Maxwell present Daniel shabila yes can wette yes may Neil Perry yes may I have a motion in a second to approve the minutes of January 10th 2024 so moved second moved by member wette second by member daglio discussion Ryan daglio Yes Lor Keegan yes CHR Maxwell yes Daniel shilia yes Kenneth wette yes may Neil Perry yes may I have a motion in a second to approve the minutes of January 22nd 2024 so moved moved by member wette second second by member shabila any discussion roll call Rano I'm going to vote present okay Lori Keegan yes Christ Maxwell yes Daniel shabila yes K wette yes may Neil Perry yes may I have a motion and a second to approve the minutes of February 12th 2024 so moved second moved by member wette second by member shabila discussion AIO yes Lori Keegan yes Kristen Maxwell yes Daniel trilia yes Kenneth wette yes may Neil Perry yes passes may I have a motion in a second to approve the minutes of February 26 2024 so moved second second move by member wette second by member dolio discussion ran dolio yes Lor Keegan yes Christen Maxwell yes Daniel shabila yes flette yes may Neil Perry yes superintendent would you please start the discussion on the fiscal year 25 budget update yes thank you um so in your packet there's a a memo and there's a couple of different pieces to this so I'll go through this um there's not a great level of detail this is mostly an overview to set the stage for our budget preparation conversations in April um and also uh just sort of a fresh reminder of how uh the budget is generated what comes from the state what comes from the city and what our role is in the next uh couple of months here as we go through the budget process so um just on the front page there three pretty critical factors when we're talking about our school-based budget a foundation budget the Chapter 70 program which is the Highlight there the chapter 78 is what we're looking for for how much the state is going to uh provide for methu public schools uh School operating budget um and that is based on the foundation budget which is the top part of this based on uh all of that is based on and some of you may have heard me say this uh time and time again but our October 1st enrollment so our October 1st excuse me enrollment of October 1 2023 dictates what our uh chapter 78 what our foundation budget will be for the following fiscal year so if you if you do recall uh last year we were challenged and we're continuously challenged by the fact that we had an influx of families at the days in all of that happened after October 1st so the state none of those students were uh accounted for in our October 1st enrollment numbers the previous school year so the state has continuously supported us financially and giv us funds for those students because they were not part of our budget and part of our chapter 78 so we have been very fortunate that way uh I know the mayor will comment the city has not received the kind of funding that the schools have received for the students uh that we have uh enrolled in Methuen and uh I know we've had these conversations with Miss bac's uh memos updating you as well on the homeless family so there's a lot that goes into that um and the third uh large large priority for us that you'll hear us talk about uh in the coming weeks as we prepare the budget is the circuit breaker circuit breaker is an account specifically designed to reimburse school districts for a proportion of their uh special education costs and it's a very defined number that the state sets on what that return will be uh we are always looking for uh the highest percentage of reimbursement right now it is at 75 % so that's what we will prepare our budget for uh so you'll see some of that again we'll talk about this in more detail as we present our budget um but that is an account that we can actually carry forward uh year toe a certain amount and again when we get into the budget Mr gin will explain that as we start seeing those different pockets of money in the budget reports when we go through what we are um what we are projecting what we are budgeting how much we have in the circuit breaker how much we will carry forward next year how much we are allowed to carry forward what we can use to offset the budget um for out of district tuitions and any contracted services so those three uh again highlighted there's some links there that might help if you have questions I would certainly say uh for any member new or returning members if there's questions about the budget any of the information in here to certainly reach out to uh Mr Goslin or myself with questions uh it's it's a complicated process and we don't calculate the numbers uh we trust the state to calculate the numbers for us uh so we can present present those to you so the other piece that is really important that you're going to hear us talk about and we be presenting to all of you the next uh Workshop meeting is the student Opportunity Act so 5 years ago in 2019 legislation was passed uh called the student Opportunity Act that uh put set forth a six-year plan to recalculate the foundation budget formula and I hope I'm saying all this right Mr gin will will look at me if I if I'm not saying all this right but uh we have said this a lot in the past five years so I do think I have a pretty good handle on this um but the student Opportunity Act uh really was a recalculation uh to support the most underfunded districts which are primarily your gateway cities so the foundation formula now states that that English Learners lowincome students will get an additional amount of funds to support uh their needs in school because they do come with a lot um a lot of additional support needed when they're in school than our non-english-speaking students and often are non- low-income students and so uh what we have seen the the legislation also States very clearly that this was going to take full effect full implementation would happen over a course of seven years uh Co messed that up a little bit so we've got six years 2027 we will see full implementation of the student Opportunity Act so right now uh the governor has touted that she has fully funded 46th of the student Opportunity Act of what she was supposed to fund by law which is true all right so so we'll talk about that in a second but so so with the student Opportunity Act comes um some different levels of accountability through the department of Elementary and secondary education and also school districts right all the way up so when it first came out we were we were um tasked with providing a three-year student Opportunity Act plan that said you're going to get additional funds how are you going to spend those funds uh in what categories that are very targeted this isn't just us decision we can decide how we're going to spend those monies it is how are you going to focus your attention on your lowest performing students who are um also in the category of English Learners multilanguage Learners lowincome um special education is also subgroup that has a high focus so this isn't just us getting to choose there's a very set um format and a very uh distinguished set of rules that we have to follow to create these s SOA plans more so this year than the first year we did it um so again Dr glovsky and I are working on that right now we're presenting that plan for feedback to school councils over the next two weeks uh and District teams uh school-based teams and then then we'll be presenting that whole plan to you all uh at the March Workshop meeting um that is something that we are required to present to you uh I'm required to also send in the minutes from the meeting that there was an official vote taken before we submitt it to the state this spring so we'll go through that whole process then um so the the good news is that I'm going to I'm going to just take your eyes to the chart with the red bars so the governor's budget typically comes out at the end of January which it did this year uh and so uh we have folks all over the state who are you know doing analyses to determine what this Governor's budget means in my time here in methan definitely a superintendent uh I have not seen our budget change from the governor's budget even though it goes through the process it goes through the house the Senate um The Joint Committee I we just haven't seen much change to our our budget so we uh always plan our budget based on the governor's numbers if it goes higher that's great right we have we have places to move in the budget um again it's just not something we've experienced so we will always plan our budget based on what the Chapter 70 numbers are based on the governor's budget in January it's really the only Target that we have that is concrete at this time so what happened this year is that uh when we were initially told and learned about the student Opportunity Act uh for urban districts like ours is that we would see a linear projection uh increase over the six years until it started to Plateau with funding as we were fully funded by the student Opportunity Act so this chart here in red is a is really a true indication of what methan has experienced uh in the past three years uh we did see uh although this isn't Methuen so let me just preface the red chart you're looking at is is the whole state not just Methuen but it really could I could actually just implant this and have it be um methan uh what we've experienced so year one we received a slight increase over the previous year's chapter 78 uh which was great it wasn't a huge you know we couldn't make huge gains in any particular area wasn't significant enough to uh add a lot of Staff uh think about programming differently materials instruction uh year one again was a nice uh bump for us but wasn't quite as significant as years two and three uh years two and three of implementation of the student Opportunity Act um as I indicated which is a summary from Roger hatch he is a financial analyst with the Massachusetts Association of school superintendent so that's where this information is coming from his analysis that we get very quickly uh from the state level which is great um you can see there that the the the real issue with what's happening is that the foundation budget uh has been set based on an inflation rate that the state sets and desie cannot change that inflation rate um so what we were promised four years ago with the student Opportunity Act was this you know incremental increase for seven years until we plateaued um basically that we were finally given the funds from the state that could help serve our population uh that did not happen this year and the sole reason why is because the inflation rate was set at 1.35% um and uh in the previous years was capped it was set at the highest amount that they set it which was 4 .5% even though the inflation rate was even higher than that so there's some argument right now about what's happening with the fact that the last 2 years that formula was capped with that inflation rate even though the actual inflation rate in the state was higher right so we have a lot of people advocating right now for this uh and having this be a problem because the inconsistency that it is causing us is is not how this was presented to us when the S SOA legislation was communicated pasted and how it would support urban districts over the course of time and really give us the funds we need to support our students so those those light red bars are exactly what's happening last in 2023 we received just under it was about $7 million increase $7.5 million increase over the previous year last year we we saw just about $8 million increase oh that's in the next chart uh over 22 uh I'm sorry in 23 so this year uh we were expecting it to again continuously incrementally go up so we were expecting it to be somewhere between 8 and 9 million over last year uh that linear projection upward and as you can see by the next chart on the next page uh our Chapter 70 increase while it increased so I don't want to Mis I just don't want to misrepresent this it did increase over last year it increased by $3.8 million uh which is a significant drop in what the expectation was am I making sense to everybody all right so so while we're very happy of the increase right we're always happy to get an increase that increase does not hold with even level funding what our current budget budget is carrying it all forward uh you know contractual obligations the amount of Aid uh didn't come this year for us to be able to significantly do the work and continue to do the work that we're doing um so this year uh there's just a lot more conversation that we have to have and calculations of how is the city then uh the city contribution going to make up that difference which is astronomical right so how how are we going to build the budget this year that is going to be fiscally responsible but also not go backwards in this District which is a huge concern of mine because the past five years we have spent so much time and energy making sure that we have really good class sizes and core academic subjects districtwide which we do it's around 20 in across the board uh in our core academic subjects at the High High School level in the grammar schools less than that in in some of our K2 classrooms right we have support staff that we need in special education and English learner um Staffing uh which we weren't able to provide we also have the staff that we uh have increased over the past four years in our guidance and school mental health so we've we've put all these things forward much of all of that aligned with our original s SOA plan but also our strategy for Improvement plan which is a larger um lens if that makes sense right our SOA uh as you'll see next time it's very fine-tuned and focused and definitely a part of our larger Improvement plans um but the SOA plan is meant to be very targeted right how are you going to Target uh these particular populations what evidence-based practices are you going to use that's the accountability on us that we have to provide for desie because we're getting this increased funding does that make sense everybody so we'll be presenting that I think in more detail not I think we'll be presenting that in more detail at the March meeting so so what we're up against here the challenges that we're facing so I'm I'm being very uh forthright I think with all of you and the community there are two very large challenges one I just described in a little more detail the fact that we did not receive the level of State funding that we anticipated which is is causing us um pause at this time and then the second piece of our challenge is that we are negotiating right we will be negotiating all of our units um this year and so uh that poses a challenge right because I don't have the contractual numbers to even carry forward right now because we're in the midst of negotiating with a few and starting to negotiate with the others this spring and so it poses the challenge right of me presenting a balance budget to the school committee and the city um we're going to do everything we can to do that but it's just I thought this would be really important to share tonight so that the facts of uh you know what what Chapter 70 funds we do have are out there you know the work that um the mayor and the cafo and myself and Mr golin we have a lot of work to do together uh which we plan on doing to see sort of you know where what our projections are uh for next year uh in the years to come um but you know I just I've spoke now for I've been speaking now for about 20 minutes straight so uh I'm very passionate about this I I feel strongly about the direction of our district and I'm going to do everything I can to try to maintain that direction uh it's just there are going to be significant challenges here to do that so I will open it up for questions comments before we move on member Willet um thank you madam chair uh really appreciate the the comprehensive overview of the budget situation uh definitely is necessary for us to be informed as school committee members I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the inflation rate because back in 2023 the Coler for Social Security recipients was 88.7% so that was above the 4.5% that you highlighted in both fiscal year 2023 and fiscal year 2024 then it uh was reduced for Social Security recipients to 3.2% for the the current uh year and the CPI which is a consumer price index is currently 3.1% so I can't derive how they reach the 1.35% unless they're going into the next year for Social Security recipients but even that with the Coler adjustment is 1.75% so even at that stage they're below that now if anybody's gone to Market Basket anybody who's purchased oil for example um they're still experiencing double digit increases in food costs and fuel costs um and also health care costs um and there certain items that are not considered part of the the CPI so I'm trying to reconcile how if Social Security recipients duly received 8.7% increase because of the reality of inflation back in 2023 and that was the 4.5% was below that and then the the current amount of 4.5% from the state um still doesn't take into account food cost and fuel costs and I can understand that so but still 3.2% even if you look at the Consumer Price Index at 3.1% it's still way below that so I don't know if Mr gelin or anybody can explain how they derived that number because to me it's out of air and that's my opinion so I don't know how that got reconciled I think we're all asking that question thank you member will I I I is that something that it's I know um a lot of the regulations and and chap the laws they go into a formula and it's very complicated yeah but we don't have a sense of how that 1.35% which has no relationship to reality of inflation right now right um so I think they're short changing the government is short changing the school system and also the school systems across the state um I think the 4.5% would have been reasonable to take into account um I'm not really witnessing the soft Landing of inflation it might be reflected in the Social Security benefits going into the next uh fiscal year but it's not currently materializing here and it's even below the CPI so it's just a big disservice to the residents of methan and to the students as a whole I just wanted to say that Federal record yeah because they going to be very tough sailing for us and I don't think it's fair thank you yeah thank you and and we do have uh I am fortunate uh we are we have our legislators uh who are aware our area legislators who are aware of the impact that this has had on us uh so I am working directly with them um and we also have some really strong advocacy from our our organization the mass the massachusett association of school superintendents they actually did go to a hearing and and really argue member Willette what you just said of this doesn't make sense to us right how how are you um calculating this and what would be a fair increase at this point to actually you know write this wrong if you would uh so we do have some ad advocacy groups out there again I am I am 100% behind it I will work with everybody I can work with to try to change this but then our reality also is you know we work with the governor's budget that we have so that's those are the numbers that are concretely in front of us that we're going our team so we're we're trying to you know Advocate but also uh work with our team to make sure we still have to go through the budget process and present a budget to the committee and the city council and have a budget by June 30th because because even the CPI is a red herring because it doesn't fully take into account certain inflationary measures um but even that was was 3.1% so that's way below even the CPI so how are they gauging it I have no idea but I needed to present my thoughts to the committee on it thank you yep you member chilia so while I agree with member wette in the fact that this is nonsense I think that we have to focus on what we do have control over and you're right we need to hope that our delegation can pull a rabbit out of the hat or that some of our advocacy groups can make something happen but in the current time right now today I'm looking at this and it tells me that the total school budget next year is projected to be $4 million4 million in change short of 24 so I mean I don't see how we keep current status and do is it six unions seven unions in the school side seven going into these conversations $4.2 million short how I mean I understand wanting to keep class sizes the same way but the the the math doesn't drive yeah I agree I agree in response to so I think member shilia and member wette are both 100% correct so don't get me wrong but I go I gota be honest super then I'm looking here and I'm scrambling through my numbers is I don't recognize the 119 million we presented 101 million to city council last year as the school budget and that was 52 cents of every tax dollar raised in the city of meor so do I um do I foresee the city um going up in its contribution absolutely um but I got to be honest you is it going to be enough to offset um what's projected here to remember should be like a $4 million loss I don't see that right and I know be and so this is where we have to be very careful and sharpen our pencils so we've got to take a look at you know does that 119 represent you know employees that were hired on grants um and various other you know Revenue sources that were available to us uh not a bad thing um but that we talked about four years ago saying you know we're going to have to be careful if we put employees if we hire employees on grants because we may not be able to afford to keep them right and so uh I don't want to you know sound like negative Neil you know speaking of the school committee do I anticipate that 55 million number from the city going up yes I do absolutely do um but I I I I just want to you know make sure that the committee is on board that we're going to have to look at every every employee of public schools and how they're funded what pays for them um because you know right now we we've got to balance you know what the tax pay can afford and I I said a minute ago 52 cents of every dollar in the general fund goes to M Public Schools um and that's not that it shouldn't be that way I'm just telling you that's that's the line share of what comes out of the general fund so we try very hard and we all make sure we stay within the the foundation budget as a superintendent would tell you because we're required to do that by law um so um you know there's going to be some um the need to do some really intense dive-ins into all the Personnel that we have um uh and you know not withstanding the cbas you know I I think you know we've already as you know superintendent told the capital you know know um stop preparing for these kind of numbers right and so that itself is going to be a significant impact to the city contribution but I I just want to make sure everybody's on the same page the city will not be able to make up the difference between um you know 8 million and three million that's a big chunk do I anticipate it going up two to three million probably yeah honestly and I you know I'm not giving you numbers the cap would probably bring me if you me say that but um you know this is where we've got some difficult work we've still got a to the point that member Willet members really May we've got to work our advocacy and say you know this isn't right but by the same to we've got to do the hard work that's required to take a look at all the positions that are funded how they're funded and you know what opportunities Li in front of us um and I just want to kind of make sure there's a sense of realism because when we presented the 101 million budget to city council last year those of you that watched know that it was not well received right and uh you know that spawned the request for an audit which I I've just finished M for ask me to draft our Fe and I'm ready to send that out for people to take a look at um but you know before then we're going to have to go through and this schols do a great job a great job of you know putting out a budget workbook that shows you um by school by grade by class you know how many people there are um how many teachers there are Etc how many administrators there are and so we're gon we're gonna have to take a hard look at that yep thank you and this Mr gin mayor I do want to point out that 1119 million does does not include grants um but it does include Municipal chargebacks which is usually not discussed when we're doing the operating budget so includes the insurance and DPW and um the police so that's the difference between the 100,000 100 million you were talking about and the 19 119 y member toogo thank you madam Vice chair and thank you Mr Mayor for pointing that out because I was actually going to ask that question because if I recall going back when we got Sesser money and all that we tried to avoid staff members to be on Sesser so a lot of we have few we have few if I'm correct with grants with s sir all right so that's that's that's that was one of my main concerns was because I remember pointing that out last time I think it either one or two years ago I said I do not want a lot on the grants because just in case if the budget right came back so I think the last school committee uh made sure that wasn't much of a problem with if I recall yes we have a few we do have a few few um and we have some that we know uh you know we have some K8 lit CPAs that we actually had on S 2 but we carried them one more year on S 3 but they know they won't be in those you know positions next year um we do have some classroom teacher staff that we have for class sizes so we we know we have a few and we're doing exactly what the mayor just said you know we're sharpening our pencils and figuring out retirements and where class sizes can be um where we have really small class sizes uh because enrollment isn't going up everywhere around the district either uh that we can fill some positions so we're doing all of that work as we speak yeah thank you you're welcome I I do want to and I don't know if anybody else has questions I do want to just also say on the last part of this um there was a live link on here so I'm hoping that you guys were able to look at that if not I can certainly provide it for you in hard copy um but this is something that uh you know I've had conversations about year after year I think it's important to say because we hear it sometimes and again on this committee uh you know we we H all have our own understandings of how City and Municipal budgets work um but I do think it's important to just mention you know the the city has worked hard to get the free cash um account and I'm not going to speak for the mayor so I'm not going to speak long but I I did think was worth putting it in here because uh that free cash money that the city has uh you know as I stated here at the end of this this memo um that's not typically uh that's not something you would use for contractual um bargaining agreements collective bargaining agreements so you know th those funds are typically used for Capital Improvement projects onetime costs right you have an emergency and we need to uh you know pay fix for something in the city uh that's typically when those funds are um are used and so it's just it's something that I thought was important to also say here tonight um you know because that that will play into you know we don't when when Mr gosin and I meet with the mayor and Maggie you know the conversation of free cash is not part of that conversation it's really what is the revenue coming into the city that we can afford over time that we look at the collective baring agreement ments so that's why I added that here because that is sometimes asked during the process um or asked by the community and again I thought it was important again just kind of defining terms and what we have to use um again challenges for us challenges for the city moving forward so I did just want to point that out there don't know if there are other questions I just have one um I just want to be clear that I heard you say this but I just want to make it very clear yes that with the money that we're getting right now in the in the governor's budget we do not have enough money to level fund the district as it is right now today is that correct yes but let me add to that statement okay so with the city contribution not increasing significantly and the current chapter 7 Aid that statement is correct thank you is that how I would would I add anything to that statement Mr golin I would say it's pretty close I mean the big the big issue is going to be our collective bargaining agreements yeah um if we didn't have those hanging out there thatd feel a lot better um but the fact that we know that we're going to there's going to be a a cost of living increase of some sort that's the part that's we don't have a number the tricky part yeah thank you and I just want to go back on superintendent just said so right up front so I don't see us getting through the cbas this year without dipping into some level of free cash it's just not you know I'm I'm good at budgets I'm good at math uh just ain't going to happen right um and part of that is um what member wette and member shabila highlighted when they spoke earlier right you you cannot look at people um you know when inflation is you tell me you know anywhere between 3.1 and you know I I still get mesmerized when I look at the exit market cap um you know you can't you can't go back to them and recently expect them to accept pay raises of 1% that's not going to happen um so what that's going to cause is it's going to cause the city to use some of the free cash um you know to to do any retroactive or back pays or things like that once contract to negotiate right and so that's a definite um you know um in my mind that we're going to have to dip into it a little bit and um you know I'll need to work with city council to kind of make sure they understand that we do not want to always do that but this is definitely a time when um you know for you know after we after we go through the whole school budget and we're agreed on a budget and you know that's a number that comes from the committee not just from the mayor and the superintendent when we're agreed on what that number is going to be then then the direction for me is to go find out how to fund it right and work with the c and do that um and so I I think you know um we're not going to shrink away from that challenge but you know the the the hard look at the budget book and and I'll say it again that the schools put out they put out a great budget book um uh is going to be incumbent upon all of us to make sure we understand you know what money is going to wear and to be used for what um and I do foresee some free cash having to be used right um we we built some back we're still barely at the level that the state says you should be at all right so the state best practices say you should be at 5% of your general fund city methan has a general fund of over 200 million and U as as you can see 100 plus of that goes to the schools so um it's it's in upon us to make sure that we you know negotiate fairly um that we you know make sure that what we carry forward as a budget is realistic and achievable um and that we all agree to right and it it may involve some painful decisions you know I can't lie to you on both ends on the city side and you know I'm already I'm already given the um the message out to department heads that there won't be any headcount heads right and that's you you know that you had a discussion with Council the other night you know where they were talking about you know we really need to add some firefighters um you know to because we could keep four ambulances going fulltime um that's how busy they are and the reality is we've got to kind of balance that between what the what the taxpayer can absorb we we did a you know our budget last year was I won't say minimalistic it was it did not have a lot of ads in it and it resulted in um a $200 increase per household on average right um and that was with leaving a million dollars of taxable income on the table so a million dollars that prop two and a half says we could tax we did not because we recognize between inflation and all these other things you know how much it was hurting you know residents of the city so I I just you know I went on longwinded I want to make sure you understand I do foresee using some some level of cash um you know not huge amounts but we're going to have to use some of it because there's no other place to go to to generate some of the funds that will be needed to support some of these cbas ex thank you for adding that thank you you are there any other questions member wette and again just to give the context of the situation is that when the governor was sworn in and started to review the budget there was a commitment not to do nine SE cuts and that was on record then what she did was 9C Cuts then she was to present her first budget and it should have been a stabilizing budget instead it's impacting harmfully local communities and I can't understand if the state has a rainy day account which is designed to handle stabilization situations and even the the house Ways and Means chair indicated that winter is here in Massachusetts from a fiscal standpoint why leadership at the state level is not recognizing that you do not go from 4.5% downward to 1.35% and not realize you're impacting classrooms teachers and services that we pledge to assist so that's the dynamic and that was within you know when the time she was sworn into to now it's it's very very disturbing trajectory and that's it thank you thank you anything else all right does the committee have any questions about the assistant superintendent of student services update I I had a quick question Madam chair remember wette yeah in terms of there was one person person that was given a waiver a non-resident to maintain within the system without going into detail and preserving privacy laws is that because of mcken or is that because of something else so on The Residency front so so typically if we have eighth graders or 12th graders this time of year uh we I make the decision not to exclude them so they can graduate with their peers and it doesn't impact our funding okay that was an agreement that the previous residency subcommittee also agreed to oh boy so you'll see some of those from this point forward just to to kick a senior out with two months left of school is just a rough and it's only exclusive the seniors eighth grade and seniors are typically those two so they could graduate from the eighth grade and and their seniors okay thank you yeah I have one more question sure go ahead May Ian this Ian uh do we anticipate any more money from desie so we've got I forget what the numbers are we got some late last fall um for the transportation and then I thought we were getting a second tracked um in the spring I don't know if we did or not you just do we anticipate anymore yes we do we anticipate um some more we just got an email last week um saying that is going to be another round of the $104 per head per student and uh we're getting those numbers together to get them to the state so we can get another check and Bak how much would they give us here um to date it's about $700,000 a little bit more total yeah total okay can I just absolutely I just want to make sure that um I speak about it publicly too um a message had gone out districtwide but I also wanted to just bring it up here that at the end of March we will have our uh Focus monitoring review with the Department of Elementary and secondary education so they'll be on site for a few days um at the end of March doing some walkthroughs um throughout the district as um interviewing some staff as well as parents but there's also going to be a survey going out to parents um of students with disabilities to just get some feedback um so for families to be on the lookout for that survey great thank you yes M what's the date of desie coming again I'm sorry sure they'll be here March 26th 27th and 28th and that will be a mix between onsite as well as virtual thank you you're welcome and then if I could just add because it's it's part of but in addition to so I just want to make sure we don't miss it um member shabil I think had asked uh last business me business meeting maybe even the first one in January I'm it's I'm kind of getting blurry uh so maybe it's January um where we did announce our director of Health Services uh had resigned uh due to personal reasons um and there was a request for comps you know uh you know so miss boak did provide those uh this evening we did not uh receive a replacement for that we are Consulting out still with Miss Galant she is doing the things to help us oversee and get through the rest of this year so we have an agreement with her to do those things um and then we also have a nurse leader which I think Miss boak put in her Memo uh one of our teachers is is uh has stepped up and agreed to be our nurse leader so that if we have day-to-day problems we have somebody the nurses need to contact uh she is doing that work and getting a stip in for that one of our School nurses what did I say teacher oh no not our teacher I'm so sorry uh one of our School nurses has stepped up to be the nurse leader I apologize that could be very confusing for those listening thank you for the correction remember Maxwell um what are the student surveys that you said or the parent surveys rather sorry no that's okay um so the Department of Elementary and secondary education will send out surveys um to parents of students with disabilities um that will just ask some feedback questions um regarding you know um their participation their satisfaction with um communication involvement that type of thing how do they know um the list of we have to provide have to provide a list of our kids gotcha so we ran a report from Infinite Campus we've submitted that information um to the state and then the state will also provide opportunities that parents that may not be able to participate in the survey online they'll also um offer opportunities for a phone call um if needed okay and when is that survey supposed to go out it's supposed to be going out this week I submitted the list to them last week upon their request so um the survey should be going out okay any other questions all right does the committee have any questions about the Director of Human Resources report member shilia so I look through this and it's vacancies retirements resignations it doesn't look like we've hired anybody it's I no but it's that that's my takeaway here is our open spots are growing and our hiring seems to be non-existent that's not incorrect it's it's we're focused on contracted Services more than ever uh to try to fill you know we have six or seven I think seven at this point contracted service providers that we're working with to fill some of our vacancies um but you are correct you know we also have you know unexpected leave of absences that are happening uh and there are just that unexpected uh we're having trouble even when we post for long-term substitutes even getting folks who are willing to do long-term classroom program assistant positions at this point it's it's a a huge struggle all the way around so building on that given our relatively Bleak budget allotment should we maybe stop hiring until we get things finalized Union settled I worry that anybody we hire by Locker happen stance between now and June 30th yeah may not make a cut come July 1 because of circumstances well beyond all of our control yep great point and so uh a couple things are in provision already provisioned for already so the program assistants were not allowed to hire permanent by contract so any program assistants that we do hire would be long-term Subs so they would not automatically carry forward to next year so that's something that has H after a certain date in the fall it we stop being able to hire uh permanently uh so that's one of the pieces so any we do have some long-term Subs in our program assistant positions but again those aren't automatically carried forward those folks in those positions aren't automatically carried forward um our staffing right now I I uh we don't have many permanent openings that we are looking to hire permanently we are trying to fill those with long-term Subs right now and uh We've we've exhausted our postings for permanency probably around Christmas time so so we we have you know some of those positions we just there's a few maybe that are in the works that we're hiring for permanently that we know we wouldn't be able to eliminate uh in the future and anything that we post we do have some positions that I would not ever recommend eliminating from the budget anything that we post this spring would be anticipated you know contingent upon the budget so there are some postings that I would you know some retirements that I just I don't know how we would those wouldn't be position I that would be something that our principles would eliminate um again they would be posted as anticipated for that reason to protect ourselves in case all right thank you so yeah it's not positive any other questions all right does the committee have any questions about the facilities report so I'm just going to make one comment that the the and you tell me if you want me to eliminate it we didn't change much about the last two pieces the IAC so you could see the projects we don't have much movement on those two and the districtwide repairs the main part that was updated or changed is where it says the general monthly that's what we're focused on each month updating or changing or adding to um just so you you're not looking for any kind of new information at this point in those last two pages if that makes sense to everybody body we'll know a little bit more about the ivac uh we have uh six projects right now out to bid uh these on this sheet here with ivac so we'll know at the end of the month what we will be able to afford uh if anything with our ivac grant money uh any potential sr3 money that has to be spent by September 30th and then what we would have to put on the capital Improvement plan which we have a a deadline of actually this Friday to submit to Maggie the sort of what the projects could be and how much the estimated cost would be that Makia so this past Friday member Maxwell and I were invited to go to the civics class at the marsh the eth graders Y which was awesome I'm a little disappointed none of them were here though they said they were going to be but I get it um in that discussion they shared that the upper school gym the big gym at the marsh is perpetually leaking and I didn't see that on the roof project repairs so I just want to make sure that is out there um the students were saying that yeah all of them collectively we're well aware of the lower school gym issues because of the placement because it's underneath the roof that has not been repaired and that's what I noticed that this one on the districtwide roof project repairs yeah is the lower second grade Wing which I was say yeah so I would just I'd have to ask that is not something that we have yeah that we has been brought to our attention the upper school gym um yeah they they really liked to talk and tell us things the ones that were chatty and the other ones just wanted to pretend we weren't there um there's a couple of items throughout these Pages um one for example here in the high school you got pricing for new water heaters and a few others are we are we that stuff is all budgeted through Grant right now correct no which which which items are you looking the HVAC I thought there was some uh a grant going right now for HVAC Improvement that we discussed so some so so on the HVAC projects you'll see next to it if we if we've already encumbered the funds or paid for the project was e s 3 I did indicate that on this sheet are you looking at that sheet members that says current HVAC projects yes yes so anything that that we're we're looking at uh Esser three that says funded that means it's already been done and encumbered there's some here that say ivac and we I say funded that was probably premature because we haven't gotten the bids back but we're I eyeing uh the ivac grant for some of these projects and again unfortunately the estimates are coming back in astronomically so I'm not I I what we thought the ivac could probably support two of these projects it looks like that's not going to happen so that's why we have to be very uh detailed when we submit our Capital Improvement projects to the city to to prioritize these projects because these these have to get done uh you know just it's what funding sources do we have that we can get them done now and what do we have to put on the capital Improvement plan for fy2 and then likely some of these are going to have to move to fy20 this is a lot of money I mean this is millions of dollars on these two pages here um so uh yeah so that's our hope here that we're going to be busying the next two weeks trying to organize these open bids make sure that we have our grant funding spent to zero is our goal so just know that uh we will spend our Esser funds and our ivac grants down to zero on the appropriate projects and then what we have to ask the city for on the capital Improvement plan thank you you're welcome member to thank you madam Vice chair um I did not see what the handicap parcking um situation mhm uh oh to sa sorry um um part of the project how is that going right now because I don't see it on yeah so great question and I probably should have put it on here somewhere um so we have uh all of the bids right now are out to bid for the main entrance parking structure to be ADA Compliant uh the Bus Loop ice rink entrance to be changed with ADA Compliant parking at the new entrance and the Fieldhouse and the field and then the tennis court project so all three of those bids were done by the same engineering firm and all three of those projects are earmarked to be uh completed by different fund sources right so arpa is the tennis court project right now under Steve Angelo Sesser 3 is our ice rink entrance and parking lot Lo parking lot uh project and then the main entrance is CIP so Capital Improvement through the city so we're just we're basically what March is all about waiting we're waiting because until those bids come back and we see uh how much those you know it's just we just we already talked about increased costs uh some of the estimates that we've gotten not for the parking projects but the HVAC I think threw us a little bit off of what the initial estimates were six months ago even so we'll see how the bids come back for all of those but those are all out and ready to go thank you you're welcome any other questions does the committee have any questions about the out of school suspensions and other disciplinary actions report member shilia uh the only request I have is going forward if we could break them out something Lan and I were talking about before she left was breaking out the drug related suspensions versus things for you know violence or fighting um stuff that may be Gang Related or whatever the the causes are I think that would help to better focus when budget time comes and we're focusing on what programs need the most investment any other questions all right may I have a motion and a second to approve the policy Bea notification of school committee meetings final read so moved second moved by member Willette second by member doolo discussion Madam chair yes um through the chair to the superintendent once this policy is hopefully approved and finalized tonight can we get an assurance internally about the accessibility provision and the policy because I I'm very concerned about that I don't want that to come back to us that we do not provide accessibility under the documentation for the disability Comm Community yep all right thank you you're welcome any other questions all right we need a roll call Ryan daglio yes got really loud Lori Keegan yes Kristen Maxwell yes Daniel shilia yes Kenneth wette yes maniel Perry yes all right superintendent would you please start the discussion on the cell phone protocol yes so the next two items uh the cell phone phone discussion and the parking discussions those also were topics that came up I think in January and we said because we have these are hand these are not Standalone policies they don't exist as policies they exist as protocols in the handbook which you all vote on as an entire policy that makes any sense that's how it was always described to me by masc um but there are thing there are actual Standalone policies in the handbook that you would have to vote on and that we've had to revise Standalone policies um but a lot of what the handbook is uh much like what you guys did with the program of studies if that makes sense right it's it's still there's a lot of information there protocols how we do our business uh but they're not Standalone policies that the school committee would vote on so these two act similarly to that um both of these are in the handbook and they're in the handbook as I attached in the memo uh on the bottom of that and there was also uh a request I Believe by member wette to have um for the parking protocol the current balance and then you know recent expenses you know what we have used those funds for so we added that to that memo as well um so I think we're just looking for uh a discussion tonight uh you know about this if and I can share with you the conversation I had with the building principles and that was a conversation I had with um member wette uh about this uh and then any other conversation that you guys want to have for this this you know we wouldn't be looking at changing anything uh I would I would not advocate for changing anything right now the handbook is in place we're we're moving forward this would be changes that that we would any changes that would come to these would be for the 2425 school year um so so initially our conversation uh between member Willette and I I think we actually started the conversation here in January but again that seemed like a really long time ago so um you know was you know do we do we do we want to look at other protocols for misuse of cell phones using cell phones pouches there's a lot of conversation right now in the public about uh cell phone use in schools right you see high schools are trying things taking things back trying it taking it back um so there's just a lot of conversation out there I might have shared with all of you that desie put out a grant uh and piloted with school districts who wanted to apply for it the pouches um you know so we weren't sure where this was headed at a state level uh or not I don't I don't I still don't know the answer where that's headed uh the current commissioner is leaving so I don't know how much he had to do with this movement of the cell phones but um I did I did bring the idea of pouches up with the principles uh and I actually uh requested a few samples of the pouches so I could see what they look like um there are some that are $40 which I don't think we could fiscally manage um and there are some that are $10 and so I have a couple of those in my office um and uh the $10 are just that they're $10 they would break in two seconds and they're clear and kids would be looking at them with their phones having alerts through the clear plastic so not something I think would be worth our while but the princi and I had a conversation about it and right now uh you know there they are thinking that the pouches would probably just as much if not more work for them to police the pouches it would be one more thing that our staff would have to try to figure out pouches magnetics who who is accountable for that and who isn't um some of the systems that are in place now which which would lead to maybe some more conversations about more widespread use of that is some of our classroom teachers have been very successful it is not something that we dictate that they do they don't have to do it um but some of our teachers use bins or pouches that in the beginning of class kids put their cell phones in a bin or pouch so that it's not disrupting classroom instruction in that classroom when they leave they take it back out um so it it deters what we wanted to deter which is classroom disruption however uh kids will still have their phones in the hallways in at lunchtime um which we are you know trying to deter misuse of that at this point also recognizing we don't want kids not to have their cell phones in case of emergencies it's a Lifeline we totally get it um you know some of that comes with the honor System right if you have a bin or a pouch kids actually have to tell us they have their phone and willingly put that in we're not going to go searching for that cell phone right uh where it is um so that was one thing and then uh they also have systems I think what was really part of our longer conversation was that they have um some Fairly reliable systems of students who are misusing phones as part of the infraction that they're getting in trouble for um they do have systems in place to check in turn in phones child can get the phone at the end of the day child can check in at lunchtime um so they already have like a pouch system if you would they just we not using a pouch and trying to keep track of that um for any of the and I mean like you know um repeat serious offenders of that they they all really kind of openly shared what their system would be for that um so they're not looking to change this at this point uh it's cell phones are hard enough uh and we're never going to get them out of the schools and I don't think that's what we also we may not want them out of schools um it's a challenge and we're just we're trying to figure out how to best meet that challenge so kids are not using them inappropriately in school violating privacy of other students um you know there's just there's a lot of that and and the misuse we're trying to handle through the student handbook you know how it's organized so I don't know if that makes sense it was it was a general conversation again something that member wette and I had a conversation about probably a month or so ago uh in more detail and so I was able to share that with the principles to see what they thought like how was this going you know we had a lot of conversation about this particular part of the book uh in the fall and so I just think it's important that we have the conversation revisit keep it change it you know I think they're the ones living it every day as well so their input was important M toag Leo um thank you madam Vice chair so one of the things I was thinking about this I I know we're talking to the principles and seeing the policy but I would love to know what the teachers inputs are um and they if they want they maybe we could get a survey out um to them to kind of see where they feel like that cell phone policy is is it working is it do they see um do they see that it's still a distraction in their classroom um and that's one of the things I I I really think we should look look at as a educator um in a middle school where we have no cell cell phone use they had to put it in the bag and and if not we confiscate it um it's worked very well in that but obviously it's a middle school it's totally different compared to a high school um but one of the things I I I did appreciate my Administration saying is how is it that without the cell phone use um if it works and obviously we voted yes it's perfect um so I would love to see the feedback from the lower school middle school and high school and see where the areas that we need to work on I know we try to change the policy differently and that was a disaster um but I would love to see the areas of focus that maybe we can I don't know not change the policy but see where they need y fair enough we have time to do that so that's helpful member Maxwell um I would just like to comment M on it I think that the cell phone policy we have now is great I think that you know taking something else away for the kids that don't abuse their phones and don't abuse their privileges I think you know and instead of assuming everybody's going to do bad we assume they do good and the kids that are repeat offenders then you know you take them away or you put them in bags or whatever but I I would not be in support of bags or kids having their phone taken away unless they're repeat offenders or they're not doing right by their their phones so um I just wanted to put that out there yeah thank you if I could build Madam Vice chair off what member Maxwell just said yes so um you'll know with the last school committee I kind of stood alone on this um and um you know I can't help I know that cell phones can be a pain in the butt but while students are in school you know we're educated we have an a responsibility to educate them and to me that includes social responsibility and that includes you know appropriate and and sometimes inappropriate uses of cell phones right and so to what member Maxwell said which I support 1,000% for the people that violate the policy you know we should be dealing with that right for the people that aren't um you know you're I think we're sending a bad message by firing that shot across the bow and so I just you know I I think when we start to discuss this again um I think we need to consider all aspects and whatever the will of the school committee is what I'll go with as I did last time uh but I just wanted to you know you know put my two cents in and say that I think you know we've got an obligation to kind of make sure that our our youth understand before they become adults know that there's you know because it isn't just children that are misusing cell phone right so you got you got um you know fights you know between adults that are being filmed by other adults that could be breaking up the fight and and I guess that's a long you know discussion whether you want them to get involved or not but you know I guess you know teaching them just to put it on cell phone or video is it's not the message we want to send so I think we we you know just need to be careful here how far we go down the path thank you thank you member Vette thank you and we had long discussions the superintendent and myself and my mission was not to reinvent the wheel was not to encroach upon the instruction of with the teachers or the managerial approach of the principles or the day-to-day education of the students and we have to separate the academics and that mission and the social landscape of kids will be using cell phones and I concur with the mayor that if it's for nefarious purposes we will clamp down on it and if it's illegal the police will be involved in a situation um I like personally the idea of giving the discretion to the teachers to use the bin I'm not sure if that needs to be an addendum to the policy just to reflect that and codify it that the teachers do have the authority um during testing times and examinations or even classroom instructions at their discretion to revert to a bin and I think that will solve the situation because we need to be focused on academics the repeat serious offenders we need to clamp down on that um we have a policy already in place and if it becomes nefarious and legal then the police will investigate uh those matters um I was looking at the low public schools and I thought it was the wrong approach I thought the pouches might be a solution but they're flimsy and you know either expensive or shy and it's not going to be effective and if it's seethrough what exactly is the purpose of that and plus um the state fundings already be exhausted even if we did a pilot program so the only thing I think a lot of thought already went into the cell phone policy I can see it the only thing I would recommend is that based on the discretion of each teacher and that might solve what member do zoglio is saying leave the discretion of the teacher to use the bin based on his or her interpretation of what's happening in the classroom um so it's to me that would be a lazzy fair approach to it and not Reinventing the whe thank you maybe that's how I can word the survey too to see if that's an option that they want to have at each of their discretion member Maxwell do we have a cell phone policy for staff or just students so no there's a cell phone use expectation remember these aren't policies right there there are protocols and practices but yes okay are there any other questions I just have one other comment um I know one of the problems with cell phones is that things get fights get recorded and other things get recorded and I think we need to be really careful about our policy in limiting it to just cell phones and now smart watches um and I only mention this because for Christmas my daughter received from her dad um glasses that now can record anything you're looking at um and it's amazing and it it works with your phone and it's phenomenal but if you have somebody with these prescription glasses on you can't tell them they can't wear their prescription but we do need I think we need a recording policy that's very clear about what's allowed and what's not with digital devices so I'm just throwing that out there stay one step ahead I think Madam chair I think it already says it says cell phone or other electronic device that disrupts so if it's if it already says uh you might have to add the but if it says cell phone or other electron elic device use so maybe just add or other electronic device oh yeah so maybe add that to the what the first sentence would be uh and that might elay the chairwoman's concerns about because you have technological advances and then we have to Leap Frog and catch up to those advances so if we take or other electronic device and put that also or where it needs to be placed that might be helpful that might solve that issue and I I agree with you it's like kind of James Bond stuff so it is thank you did you have another no not at this time uh I I'm gonna I'm GNA push back on that I do I have a little um question so with the cell phones and smart watches and any other smart device we we provide iPads that have the exact same capability as cell phones you can make calls you can take videos you can take cameras so are we take iPads away and if we're taking iPads away then how are they getting their education so no and most of those have been turned off for the kids kids can't text on their their iPads we don't we don't have those turned on for the kids to be able to use that they can email they can email and we have that throughout the district all of our grammar school kids can email as well and we can take pictures and video even on the Chromebooks we can do that we do the same thing so it's the same it's once we get alerted we have systems in place on the iPad and Chromebook so so often the director of technology and Tech staff will get an alert that something inappropriate has come across this device and so that alerts the principles in the building to go then look at the device same thing and we'll handle it the same way through the its inappropriate use of school property right it's a little different than the cell phone but it's still inappropriate use of school property we'll go through the Huck and consequences is that way that just um no that just also remind thank uh thank you mad Vice chair um do I don't know what the program is called but a teacher can see yes yeah what's it called Guardian go Guardian M all right that on the Chromebook not the iPad but yeah go Guardian on the Chromebooks all right thank you you're welcome yeah go and the the other part of that member Maxwell is that the Chromebooks and iPads are on our Network and the cell phones are not right so the cell phones are just on cellular uh you know networking they're not on our Wi-Fi so we can't control what the kids see on the cell phones and what they do with so we'll never we'll never get alerted if those things are happening on a privately you know owned cell phone so all right um will you will you please start the discussion on the MHS parking protocols and fees so same idea the the the language on the bottom that starts with student parking is what's currently in the high school handbook right so this obviously only pertains to our high school kids it's not in the K gr uh handbook um and there was some conversation about um you know potentially altering this looking at a different fee schedule um so that is just open for conversation again we have time so that the time is actually on our side with these because you know we don't have to the only thing that's on our side uh with these right now is is time just because we don't typically have those final handbooks until the summer but I'll open the conversation I think this was asked you know member wette I think asked for this but there was some other conversation about this by other members in January for the current balance bance in that revolving account are there any restrictions on what that revolving account can be used for yes it has to be spent on the parking lot period could be used for plowing could be used for any upkeep maintenance or fixing anything of the parking lot security if it's for the parking lot yes do we have any projections for what we intend to use that 56 Grand I had envisioned using a a chunk of it that's I was kind of letting it a little bit to take down the trees in the island and asphalt that but now that's going to be part of the asa3 project I believe um so I was hoping to use that for any overages in that area but other than that there's nothing locked down right now but that that's what I had in mind because inevitably something will they'll find stump somewhere that they need to we need to pay an extra 30 grand to get rid of it You' be amazed when they start digging the stuff they find and then we we're already there so we have to take care of it so that's what I had in mind but I'm open to uh suggestions member Willette thank you originally I was in favor of eliminating the fee and I think in consultation on an individual basis with some members I think they believe the fee is excessive but I think there also is a sentiment to maintain pain the fee at some level and I prefer to have it more in concept with the neighboring community of North Andover which is a wealthier community than us and also havil so for instance North Andover is $40 not $100 and havil is is $10 not $100 and is it when someone does the parking application does that cover the entire years so if let's say a junior gets their license in the summer they need the park and they have junior year senior year is that on an annual basis that application yes okay so over the course of uh two years we're going to charge someone $200 just to pocket methow in high school to me that's not acceptable I don't know about the sentiments of the committee I'd rather have that money spent on an AP examination or to save for college or to save for books or to do something else we already have parents and other people paying taxes in this community and again it's not in line with North Andover at $40 or havil at $10 I would be interested I'm going to toss it out to the committee for a discussion is having it at $20 so we we covered the administrative fees we're still building up the account I think it's more reasonable right and again if it's the major excavation and we working as part of the capital budget anyways so if there's something we want to do in terms of security which I advocated for without going into detail or something happens maybe with a little bit of drainage or removal of trees within reason we will be able to take the money out of the account and handle that situation and still build up the account over time but to have the mindset back when the policy was approved that this is a budget crisis and we're going to put it on the backs of kids we don't have user fees in methon we don't have it for athletics we don't have it for the bus we only have it for parking and I think it's out served its usefulness so that would be my suggestion to the committee I represent One Voice was one vote is they have it effective for 2024 2025 school year is they have it as $2 and then down the line if a future a committee wants to revisit it that's all the power to that committee but they have it $56,000 and we already did an expenditure of $1,000 I think that's an ample account and I don't want a piggyback on the backs of kids I write AP examination fee or saving for college or saving for books or going into the workforce and that's just my opinion thank you member Maxell the fee the fee is $100 if they get their license in September that's the beginning of the year and then there's a sliding scale for the rest of it correct so like if they got their license in June they'd only pay $10 so I I just I just want to make it known that I I fully support the $100 fee I think that all of the all of the money that we can the 56,000 if it's going towards the parking lot great we'll have well-kept parking lots for the high school it doesn't go to any other school it just goes to the high school correct um so I mean I would be I'm supporting the $100 fee with the sliding skill for the rest of it I just wanted to make that known M shilia over the last few years have you had any students come forward to seek assistance with the $100 fee that have more than just Baseline complained about paying the fee has there been any issues with kids not able to afford the fee be a question yeah that would be a question for the question I'd have to ask Mr B yeah we' have to ask Mr Bon not that I'm aware of but that I'm removed from the high school you know if we wanted to change the fee when do we need to make that determination to be go into effect for the next year anytime between now and June okay so that we can put it in the final um handbook uh and it can go out and the high school staff would know to start sending that out in August to families so we have some that's why I'm saying time is on our side with these two it's nice to have time we have time I know we have time on our side um so I mean I I Fall In The Middle on this one $100 is a lot I mean I fairly certain I paid $50 to park when I was in high school and that was almost 20 years ago now so I mean inflation we're going to talk about it everywhere else we have to talk about it in parking too but I also agree we shouldn't be riding on the backs of kids but I also look at it as a it's kind of like a little reality check anywhere I'm going to go as an adult if we go into Boston on Friday night I'm paying for parking if I go downtown low I'm in some places I'm paying for parking or if I'm in somewhere I'm putting money in a meter it's it's kind of that little nudge into adulthood so I I can I would entertain a reduction but I I don't think I could go as low I know I can't go as low as 20 bucks so I think we have we have time on our side remember to Leo oh oh okay thank you madam VI chair so I'm agreeing with um both members um I don't believe $100 should be that it shouldn't be that that high especially with taxpayers um paying a lot and an extra $100 so they could dve to school however I do not believe that it should be low as $20 especially when we are thinking about certain things that we want outside and I don't want to talk about um and Mr Mayor I don't knows that as well um and so we the question is can we use this type of funds for certain things that we want to do outside in the pocket lot um we're still waiting for that right Mr Mayor on that I'm sorry y i I don't know if I could say it so can you guys hear me yeah am I coming through yeah okay so um so I you know it depends on what you want do right so um I will say that I like the approach the schools have with it now um I also resonate with member shila's Point uh except I won't say it was 20 years ago it was almost 40 years ago I graduate high school and I paid $100 to bring a car to Central cathol and so the $100 was the privilege of being allowed to bring a car onto the property right um I think you know we've got 56 Grand in the account um I and I would defer to Ian on this there's no doubt in my mind that we're going to dip into that with some of this if if for nothing at all once the complete parking lot is paav you know we're going to have to paint it all right because it's going to have all all new spaces in different areas right and to his point of you know shrinking or minimizing the islands um and the trees to me that that you know that passes the the you know the audit scepter of you know we're doing it to kind of keep the park us I'm actually and I hate to say I'm kind of with member Maxwell on this one um and I think you know to me it's all about the privilege of being able to bring a vehicle on to school property right not just the the the paring Fe but if if the school committee decides in all good conscience to do something better because I I do like what number let's it right I you know I'd love to be able to fund some students taking AP exams uh but you know I don't see this right now as exorbitant I I do believe um you know that we we've got some time to take a look at it and thoroughly debate it and and make a decision um but I I also like the sliding scale and um the fact that you know a student who gets his or her license because remember most of the time you're talking Juniors and seniors here right and the Juniors um unless they're way more advanced than the mayor was you know are getting their license towards the latter half of their their junior year right that's when they become you know able to drive the vehicle and you know have a license and drive it um and then they they have you know their whole senior year so I don't know you know Ian I'd ask you if we have we received many complaints from parents about the the Pary fee I I have not personally but I would have to check with the high school to see um what kind of complaints they've received well let's just check on that before we have the full discussion right so because if people think it's exorbitant then we have to take that into account right but um I I I kind of stand on this with member Maxwell right now right but um open to open discussion unlike our national leaders so um yeah would like to say something um I sorry I [Music] personally thank you um I personally don't drive a car but I do have a lot of friends that um own um a license and they do park at the building and they have um complained about the um um the parking fee and they feel as though it's a little too high like I understand that the um money goes into the parking lot and I think that's very smart but I do think that the fee should at least be lowered somewhat because there are students who are lower income and $100 is just a bit too much in my opinion thank you and and just to give context before 2018 the parking fee was Zero not 10 years ago not 20 years ago right that they had a parking fee in methon it was zero before 2018 and the premise was we have to deal with the budget crisis and the budget crisis disappeared but that account still remained so I have a different philosophy than other people is that when you add a fee or you're at a service or you're at a charge it accumulates over time and then you lose the usefulness of that original purpose now member shabila brought up about lowering it and if if there's a motion at some point or a sense of the committee to have it at $40 I'm going to run with that because it's not $100 but any reduction of the parking fee is better than a $100 that did not exist prior to 2018 and it was based on a false premise we don't have it for buses we don't have it for athletics and maybe Forest Lake we have a a summer permit but for other services in methan do we charge people a fee you know like we do for this if someone parks at the Cs building do we charge do we have a meter there so like the the comparison to Boston and night on in a town these kids are obligated to have to go to methan high school and receive an education right and it's a disconnect that I'm receiving right now and ultimately it's the the committee but please please don't say we can't reduce it to maybe 40 North andov is a much wealthier Community than methan but then they have at 40 but we have to do $100 in meor I'm all with that thank you remember um I think a and and I agree with you and but however though they do have the option to take a bus I know when I was 18 19 years old even though I didn't need to pay a parking fee um I rode the bus to school um and that was because reducing in gas and and so depending on the situation though they still have that option but I agree with you I think $100 on a student that's getting ready for college shouldn't be paying so they can because you don't know they're going to work even though I worked after school too and I walked to Mar basket from here um but that's the thing we need to look at as well um I don't think that we can go as low as 20 I I I agree um but I I do believe that we should reduce it somewhat um but yeah M Maxwell my only concern with raising it to $40 would be or I mean lowering it to $40 or whatever the lowered fee would be would that be I mean if if somebody got their license in June would they pay the $40 and somebody that got their license in September also pay the $40 so you know it's not I just want to be like relative to and then as far as like it being a privilege to park yes it is a privilege um because we do offer busing so they can still get their Education Without driving their car to school freshman and sophomores at College don't even have that option so mat does it I have one thing to say yeah before remember Willette um if we took all the kids that were driving to school and we put them on buses how many more buses would we have to pay for because to me we're charging them for the quote privilege of parking but yet we're actually reducing our responsibility and the number of buses that we have and I would think that it would be at least one or two buses that we would have to add if all of those kids were to ride the bus so I feel like we're we're getting a free ride for couple buses which is way more expensive than the $100 that we're charging number one and number two we're then on top of that charging them to come to school so I I do feel that the $100 is excessive um eliminating all together I I would actually be in favor of because I feel like we while we do provide busing they're doing us a favor by not taking the bus by and we're reducing our budget by that much so that's my opinion if I could just add one thing I'm sorry remember let so I can add actually two things uh I was going to recommend that if it makes sense for us to have Mr Bon speak on this behalf at the next business meeting right he comes to all the business meetings with the sore Awards and such we can have him comment on some of the questions that you've asked that I don't you know unfortunately Mr go and I don't know the answers to that question um but I I believe the question about the busing is an interesting one because I do not believe our number of bus routes at methon high school has changed uh because of this so we had 23 rots 23 Roots before the parking fee was was um implemented and we have 23 routs today so I think it's just a matter of total number of kids on those routes around the community you know there's just less kids on the buses is what I think is happening um but me that's that's to your question we've never had to change the bus routes because of the number of kids driving we've always had kids drive and the fee or no fee hasn't changed the number of kids driving I guess is how I would look at it right I also want to make sure I know we presented this before but this the parking fee came 100% from the school committee requesting of this right this is not something that the administration presented and said we should do it was a much longer conversation uh about the why and us going through this and I think to member Maxwell's question one of the thing or comment uh one of the hardest parts when they presented it to us to say come up with a proposal what does it look like um one of the one of the conversations I know Mr B and I lengthy and multiple was the sliding part of it like well if kid gets it and do you do half half a year is this regardless of which month you get it in and half a year is this you know how do you do that so that it looks Fair uh and not you know astronomical and there's a system in place um so that was part of our original you know uh idea behind this that it's a $10 increment per the month so that I get it in March I'm paying a little bit but I'm not paying $100 of which somebody would pay if they had of the whole year it's just a little background on that one but and again this is this is 100% at the will of the committee I will certainly bring uh Mr Bon and you know hopefully he'll be able to answer some of your questions and what his thoughts are has it helped has it hurt you know I'm not sure how how the what the approach would be that mlet yeah um thank you madam chair I want to thank the student representative for voicing her comments it does help because they're the stakeholders um and I want to have that Outreach as well um also there was no indication even if we reduce it whether it's $40 or $20 um we probably would have to do some type of uh sliding scale fee just for Equity purposes and then the $100 it it doesn't have any consideration already in the application for someone who has uh lowincome status so it's straight out 100 $1 regardless if you do it a normal school year it's $100 for that person regardless of the household income so that should have been considered at that moment in time so we're talking about equity and income disparity and all those other factors that wasn't accomplished at that time either so I'm hoping that the stakeholders will be uh voice their opinions I'm hoping there's a reduction I hope that maybe it's a compromise and we start to resolve some of these issues because if you're going to still have $100 what's a sense there's been nobody telling me what the purpose of this account is other than well maybe we might use it down the line for something or you might divert it for something else and that's not how government operates you have a line item and you should be using it for that line item only and if the fee is not serving as usefulness anymore you do away with the fee thank you any other questions all right moving on to does the committee have any questions on the expenditure report I will let you know that all the payrolls are posted up till the end of February I noticed that when I was looking at it the math the math outed to balance out so anything actually I do have one question M um on the AR report is there which report um the revolving the one with the ice rank on it revolving okay y to me it's an AI report because it has Revenue received to date okay um for things like the ice rink and the facilities rentals are those paid upfront or do we have outstanding receivables um there would be some outstanding receivables not a ton um our biggest renters uh well first of all the facility rental they always do a deposit UPF front and a security deposit as well that they get back if they don't destroy anything um and then once they're done we do invoice them and they pay us um ice rental we have two really large groups that uh methu and youth hockey as well as the valley league and they do pay after they rent cuz sometimes we end up cancelling Etc they don't pay ahead of time say the ink grow goes down uh but they are they are up to date so we have no aging receivables excuse me aging receivables nothing that's 6090 days no we we did um I think I mentioned it at one of the last meetings we were struggling with one of them who wasn't willing to pay the rate well they came around so they're up to date are there any other questions on the revolving funds um any questions on the grant report I have one Mr um Ian the homeless emergency line is that the money that des's pan it yes okay so but it shows the remaining Bel so does that not get um used for the transportation cost uh it will be yes we have um actually we have a couple um contracts in here for homeless that we'll be using that for and I just noticed it looks like a typo there I will get back to you on that because it looks like um oh no never mind we must have got some Revenue in never mind we started the year with 614 and we must got some Revenue in so now we're up to 656 yep thank you all right may I have a motion and a second to approve the Student Activities account reauthorization so second moved by member dolio second by member wette any discussion um I have a question how come and I know you say that you change they change so often um there how come there's so many differences between all of the schools and um like for instance the marsh has chorus and Marsh Marsh music yeah that that's up to the principles to request or request removal of um I believe the CGS a couple years ago asked to remove chorus because they they didn't need it or weren't using it and now they're it's reactivated and now they want it back so it's kind of a school by school um what activities they're doing and it's kind of at the principal's request and then do you know what the community programs Community programs is the before and after school program um that's pretty much in there for uh field trips over the summer um so that they can uh collect money put into that Student Activity and pay for field trip field trips and that's always um it's run out of the timy so that's where that's that account lives gotcha are there any other questions and roll call please Martha Ryan zoglio Yes Lorie Keegan yes Kristen Maxwell yes Daniel shabila yes Kenneth wette yes mayor Neil Perry yes thank you does the committee have any questions on the Food Services report done um may I have a motion in a second to approve the fy2 24 Massachusetts school buying group grocery product awarded to dis Driscoll Foods 6 West belt Wayne New Jersey 07470 so moved second moved by member wet second by member dolio discussion M shilia I expected to see some kind of price list product list UPC something and all I have is four pages of Municipal legal I will get you the bid dock that the U the group sent out I'm imagining it's extremely ex expensive but I will get that for you I mean I I don't I don't want a a book you know what I mean but I expected to see something because right now it just says $300,000 on grocery products now I get it I was at Market Basket yesterday I know it's not cheap but it doesn't tell me what we're looking to buy and it's just I gladly I gladly get you most specifics for the next meeting I I have no issue with that all right yeah it's just municiple Contracting is so vague yep and it drives me a little bit crazy does it come with do these contracts come with quality agreements I mean if we get a a I don't know a box of heads of lettuce and you know 30% of the box is bad are we able to send these things back yeah that would all be in that packet cuz there there Contracting not with us but with I believe it's like 37 different communities around the Boston area so that's the buying group a GP they yeah they they go out to bid as a group to get the lowest price and I'm sure they have those quality all right yeah any other questions roll call Ryan daglio yes Lori Keegan yes Kristen [Music] Maxwell I think I'm confused can I just vote present you can do whatever you want okay you just turn the mic off though presid Daniel shilia yes Kenneth wette yes mayanil Perry no passes four yes one no one present may I have a motion in a second to approve the fy2 24 homeless Transportation trip a awarded to Mar trans Inc 94 Newtonville a Fitchburg Mass 01 01420 not to exceed $100,000 so moved second motion by member wette second by member zoglio any questions member shilia so this is an amendment did the previous contract term out are we are we just adding new locations what exactly are we amending I believe the the original contract did not include certain things such as uh fingerprinting Etc so we made sure that we added that so none of these locations are prices are changing no so we're paying $100,000 for fingerprinting no no no no no no no no $100,000 for the transportation however the contract didn't say anything about fingerprinting so we we just added that okay so the old contract did expire we just went out to bid so we we had a bunch of kids and we have some in the Lawrence L area and we have some others in Framingham Etc kind of spread out so we went out kind of an emergency bid because we needed the transportation um rather quickly um so we did emergency procurement with the ig's office guiding way and we sent out two bids those are the winners of the two bids that's the estimated cost for that those transportations and we did amend it to add that they need to be fingerprinted Etc this amendment is to the current contract there's no like yeah I'm not sure we're making making this clear for you all there's nothing this is not a company we've used for this is a new contract for us but we wanted to make sure that we included the fingerprinting part of this uh for all the reasons I think the committee understands and so we added that to both of them we have another one in here that has the same Amendment M boac I just want to add that we have a current contract with nrt for homeless however they cannot meet all of our needs so we had to go out to bid to identify other companies that could assist us right do they have 34 more buses unless I miss yes right the money that come desie is paying for this plus whatever we pay nrt for transportation of homeless that's what I was trying to say before we'll be using that to offset yes the vast majority of this Transportation yes thank you so I know I'm going to start a fire here but I apologize superintendent so did we do we think of getting Marr to bid the whole the whole thing the whole deal I just asked the same question so member chilia might have asked that somewhat quietly with his microphone off if they have 34 more buses but uh I don't believe they do I think they're a smaller transportation company they had the opportunity to bid for both yeah um so they could have bid for both and if they were the low lowest bidder on both of them they would have they would have got both um I'd have to go back and look to see if they did bid on the other one and just lost it um but I don't think they have the number of vehicles necessary to do it yeah appreciate that as answer as well as the nice picture that look at the nice picture they put up of me that's nice that's beautiful oh yeah top roll call please Ryan daglio yes Lori Keegan yes Christen Maxwell yes Daniel shabila yes Kenneth wette yes may Neil Perry yes unanimous may I have a motion and a second to approve the FY 24 homeless Transportation trip B award to Big L Transportation LLC 35 Autumn Road rentham Mass 02093 not to exceed $100,000 so moved second motion by member wette second by member daglio that's the question D does Big Lou have 34 [Laughter] buses am unsure at this point but I do not believe they do how could they be big lure if they don't have small to me any other discussion roll call vote please Martha Ryan isogo yes Lori Keegan yes Kristen Maxwell yes Daniel shabila yes Kenneth wette yes mayil Perry yes I just want to add one thing before we go on the next thing Madam Vice chair so um so this must be making your life incrementally more difficult in you right we're we're piece mealing out you know the marrans the big Lou and then obvious a piece to nrt right but it it must be kind of like you know trying to catch a monkey with a cup because you're looking at multiple different vendors providing basically the same service right yep absolutely okay all right does the committee have a nomination to fill the school committee seat vacancy for the remainder of this school committee term due to the resignation of Vice chair Luan Santos member doag I nominate L uh member Keegan as the vice chair um not yet oh so move have a nomination to replace replace yeah this is to find a person to replace Lan we need another person sorry this is just discussion yeah so I think there is asks out I hope we have an answer we need to have something scheduled for the 19th as that'll be our 21 day um as was discussed with attorney Mao before he ran out of here after executive session um I hope to have I mean we hope to have something so so nothing at this time nothing at this time work in progress okay any other comments no I agree with what members shilia said wholehearted great Perfect all right does the committee have any nominations to fill the vacancy of the vice chairperson so so moved you have to say so move n nominate someone nominate Madam um keang as the vice chair second discussion move the closing nomination process congratulations M will let did it right right so we would have to ask if there are any other nominations and then if there are none you close the nomination process right so somebody else is interested now is the time to say it are there any other nominations no all right at this time we'll close the nomination so moved second move by member Willette second by member shilia roll call vote hang on one second sorry to do so you have to be asked and I'm sorry I'm not there you have to be asked are you willing to accept the nomination yes I am all right now go ahead roll call this is to close the nominations correct yes Lorie Keegan yes Kristen Maxwell present Daniel shabila yes Kenneth wette yes may an Neil Perry yes five yes one present it passes to close the nominations so now we need a sub roll call vote because we've already nominated you you've accepted okay no it's not um can I get a roll call vote for motion to appoint the mo is vice chair got it so I need a motion and a second to Appo no we already did that just do so we need now the roll call vote aoll to point lri Keegan as Vice chair Ryan deaglio yes Lori Keegan yes Kristen Maxwell no Daniel shabila yes Kenneth wette yes Mayan Neil Perry yes five yes one no passes I move down to ch um now we need a motion and a second for and no does the committee have any nominations to fill the vacancy of the secretary that has now just been vacated Madame chair would nominate member shabila for secretary if he accepts it I would second that you I accept are there any other nominations no then I need motion to close the nomination process um second um and I need a roll call vote to close the nominations Brian daglio yes Lori Keegan yes Kristen Maxwell yes Daniel shabila yes Kenneth wette yes may Neil Perry yes and now we need a roll call vote to appoint member shilia as the secretary Ryan deaglio yes Lori Keegan yes Kristen Maxwell yes Daniel shilia yes Kenneth wette yes mayel Perry yes unanimous good job you're here all right is there a policy subcommittee update so no the policy sub committee has not met yet um while waiting to schedule which we'll be scheduling this week for sometime next week I did look into MC's because I was there chatting the course on Saturday in chapi um they offer a policy review and rewrite service um where masc will come in for it's it's a little over 10 grand but it's $3,500 a year for three years and they will rewrite everything so that's what I intend to bring forth at the first policy meeting so hopefully my our next update will be what comes from that conversation excellent thank you are there any questions right is there a residency subcommittee update um we haven't uh met due to the fact that I was waiting for um formal um member um Santos to join but I will be talking to um Dr Kong uh meeting with Mr Officer Fleming um I'll be sending an email out to the committee members to see what any concerns they have on residency um to me to bring towards the subcommittee and so where I can work on Focus areas where we can improve Adam Vice chair yes does one person substitute a proper subcommittee you can you can't I don't know legitimate yeah I know you you can't just have one member but if anybody wants to join obviously oh I've already thrown myself on two them yeah so um that's why I'm also um the the matter obviously that because I'm one member um that's why I will be sending out emails to you guys to see what questions you have uh with residency so I can then focus on on that areas so when I do bring it back to the committee nobody's like shocked it's it's to answer your questions as well um but that's the thing is just scheduling who we can get into the subcommittee um and making sure everybody's located talk about the issues um I just want to remind you that any subcommittee meeting that you have you have to post it 48 hours in advance um Etc so um if you're meeting with people just remember that that's considered a subcommittee meeting yeah all right is there a transportation subcommittee update yes Transportation subcommittee met last week I don't remember what day it was offand Tuesday um yeah thank you long story short we are looking at options on how to encourage Cor corrective action with nrt um hopefully more to come on that soon um is there any other business from the committee all right with no further business to discuss may I have a motion in a second to adj the business Workshop meeting of March 11th 2024 so moved moved by member shil second by member toogo um discussion and roll call vote please Ryan deaglio yes Lori Keegan yes Kristen Maxwell yes Daniel shabila yes Kenneth wette May Neil Perry yes right the meeting is adjourned at 9:12 p.m. good night m [Music] [Applause] [Music] e