okay so regular meeting of the Minuteman school committee is called to order at 6:32 pm on Thursday April 25th um Jeff is uh otherwise occupied this evening so I'll run the meeting and hopefully it will go smoothly help me out if I get into trouble um so we need a motion to adopt remote participation so moved second and we'll do the roll call vote as required Hamner saon yes Sarah montigue Arlington yes Erica LZ Bolton yes St Leo conquered yes Maggie Sharon do yes Charlene here yes I just don't see myself but oh now it's changed my name completely all right sorry all right Sharon must Lexington yes Aliso yes um uh Mr superintendent have we had any public comment no public comment has been submitted thank you um we have a consent agenda we are not going to be dealing with the December 12th minutes at this time um the December and January minutes will come back to us later we're going to look at the February 5th February 6th and February 7th um 2024 minutes and approval of a list of monthly donations we get a motion on those four things so moved second okay any comments on that is item no hearing none let's take a vote okay pamar s yes Sarah monu Arlington yes Erica Elie Bolton yes Steve Leo conquered yes Maggie Sharon do yes oh you're on mute L yes Sharon must Lexington yes Alo yes thank you very much so we have a chair's report for the good of the organization um we have does anyone have anything for the good of the organization this was something that was added to our agenda by um former member of the school committee many years ago Sharon um I know that Katie is going to go into it further but I would just say that there were a couple of great things happening at minan recently like that play um I saw Sarah and Charlene there incredible um and then I'll let Katie get into the whole mock crash which was also incredible but big shout out to um uh Mr tilsley for Katie can get into details but there was a little snafu the morning of the mock crash and Mr tilsley for the win donated his car that he was going to get rid of to be trashed so they could do the crash so big wow well don't don't take all of Katie's special don't worry fun stuff with that so okay so thank you for that anything else I brought a I brought a prospective future Minuteman student to 12 Angry Men with with me um a young young person who's actually still in middle school but I've known her parents for quite a long time she's a Lexington resident right now and she she enjoyed the play so that was kind of fun great anything else no okay hearing none the next item is possible school committee superintendent Retreat um either superintendent Mahoney or superintendent elect Driscoll would you like to speak to that uh I'll start I believe there was a suggestion by the chair about trying to schedule a retreat um with the uh incoming superintendent uh myself and in school committee uh in in part to discuss what the open issues are that the uh that superintendent trisco will be um having to deal with coming into the into the district and perhaps uh a session on um setting goals so that when we prepare for our administrative Retreat this summer uh superintendent um Drisco will be able to frame those topics with our administrators around uh the goals that were established by the school committee um we I have not I am not aware of any um discussions around specific dates scheduling that um so I can't talk to to that perhaps Heidi can add a little bit more perspective to it but um that that's the gist of it from the comments that I recall the chair making at the office I think it was at the office thank you uh superintendent elect jisco did you have anything you wanted to add um I do think it would be wonderful to have an annual Retreat I think it's an excellent practice and um typically that would happen around July um but we have a large committee with lots of schedules the other option would be to wait until the joint I'm not sure how many of you went last November to the um joint um superintend organization and school committee organization training um sometimes School committees with their superintendent combine that um training event and um spend time in the evenings um planning um so it's really for the uh for all of you to think about okay so if there is something to be scheduled for July that would have to happen pretty soon being that it's end of April um last year one person from this committee went to the November meeting um and we typically have had between one and three people go it would be unusual for the whole committee to go to that um just because that's how it's been I won't say that we won't do it it just hasn't happened before um so I don't know um do you uh Kevin and Heidi do you want to like figure out with Julia about putting out a scheduling email so that we can get the V rolling or we we certainly can um we'll reach out to the chair to get his thoughts um uh uh about um time and uh maybe some agenda topics but we can certainly start the uh the scheduling process uh and we'll be uh Julie will follow up with that after touching base with Jeff okay great um anything more on that topic no uh we're on to the principal's report Katie bashard great thank you share the screen all right um so tonight uh Riley is not able to join us uh but river is nice enough to step in and cover some of her sections so River will be presenting on this prom decorating committee the prom updates the first robotics Club updates and some senior projects so take it away River uh Hey everybody uh so prom prom is approaching very quickly I still have no suit but we'll figure that out um so it is again Friday me May 10th from 6:00 to 10 at Sky metal Country Club in NWA uh so far we have sold 247 tickets and that was until our April 19th deadline uh some people are reaching out hoping to get some more so we will open uh one more opportunity to buy tickets uh this Friday from 8 to midnight and now we have a prom decorating committee uh with some help from Miss Bordeaux that that started this All Out hosted in the art room which gets students involved with the process and allows everyone to be included in the decoration of prom so today they worked on some feather center pieces uh excuse me and uh are putting together many champagne flute towers that have little pearls inside that we have planned out and then they're going to host another meeting next Thursday to finish up other decorations and then F FRC team uh 86 Alpha sentor uh they absolutely killed it at competitions at R I'm somewhere in that picture um so we went in to R in WPI at Riv we ranked uh 29th which was a little unfortunate due to some circumstances uh but we did really well so we were very proud of ourselves and excited for the next weekend at WPI Where We R 16th uh much better and got picked for an alliance with Team 157 in 3323 funny enough 157 uh Mr scums our math teacher's son was in it so kind of got to join in on that uh that's our robot right there um no resale Val is it its name um and yeah uh we like to thank our mentors they were super great help this year and everybody's super excited for next year great and then Senior projects uh seniors uh began presenting their senior projects this week uh I don't know click one more times to see if the video is going to play it might have sound with it um so that's me writing the famous go-kart that's the only video I had with it um so there over there with the flowers that's arya's uh from dbc's senior project beautiful artwork that's out out in our hallway then there's uh will Flanigan over there presenting today for robotics um yeah I presented last Tuesday and now now it's glad it's glad it's done glad it's over excellent um any questions uh for River on either the your project or the prom or the um FRC I have one question Katie Sarah to you River I'm curious what does it mean you were asked to become uh an alliance what does that mean so throughout our competition you go through 12 qual one team your team goes through 12 qualification uh matches and within all those qualification matches depending on your wins and losses um you're going to be ranked in some place and then at the end of the qualification matches uh we the first eight teams they get to pick uh two other teams to be um teams with them for the next like playoff um matches and then we were um some so we picked down they picked down down down and we got to be paired with a a first pick for the seventh uh Team great thank you a question I have a question for you I would like to know how much fun was that riding that car oh I had a blast um I personally I grew up writing um go-karts and everything so I was I was waiting to get a chance to write it it was it was great okay very fast that's great great anything else for River all right thank you very much River appreciate it um we also had a couple weeks ago we celebrated minute band's 2024 outstanding vocational student uh so this is a yearly event uh for um a whole bunch of schools they send their their outstanding students as well it's held at mechanics Hall in Worcester um so our student of the year was Lorissa Maya she's from culinary um she has a fantastic GPA uh she takes numerous AP and honors classes uh he's a member of our culinary arts um Advisory Board she is a student who is out on Co-op um at Pine Brook Country Club um she has held different positions in the school such as a student ambassador a member of the GSA and also competes at skills USA um in her spare time she volunteers um her postsecondary plans uh she's planning to go to The Culinary Institute of America um in Hyde Park um so we were so happy to have a reception that could celebrate her and a lot of other students that are doing great things in vocational education so it's always a great night um to celebrate with the students we have staff go and then members of our family go as well so it's a great night of celebrations any questions yep it's not a question but that's a fabulous Hall and if anyone hasn't ever been to the music concerts there they have some of the world's most famous musicians playing there for the half the price you would go to in Boston and the Acoustics are almost perfect absolutely unbelievable I grew up there very just amazing and a lot of history there too Charles Charles dickan Le lectured there Freud lectured there just it's an amazing Hall yeah that's very cool great um the next one is a bonus add-on uh because this just happened yesterday um so we had Mrs Christine Grady and members from hansum Air Force Base we've been doing uh quite a few little collaboration can scum which has been great over the past couple of months um she is the spouse of the 12th Vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff admal Christopher W Grady uh so it was a great honor to have her visit minute man um they were on a tour um of some different stem locations in Boston's companies and schools um when she was at mman specifically uh we had her tour Advanced manufacturing our welding programs engineering Robotics and culinary um so our students typically put on some some uh demonstrations for our visitors uh we also had some senior projects out uh the go-kart was out um I did want her to Brien it but it didn't work out but I did try um just to show her how cool it was um and then you know the prog the programs and the students um per usual uh just shined when she was there um she loved L Lov talking to our students and just getting to know our instructors and the program and everything that we offer at Minuteman so it's nice to have her and some members of the the force uh visitor that day cool um and then the next up uh is the approval of the 2024 to 2025 school calendar um so this would require a vote okay let's get a motion on the table first thing so moved approve the 20242 school calendar that's was that uh Sarah yes okay second Steve any discussion no questions for principal bashard okay let's take a vote Hur s yes Sarah monu Arlington yes Erica Elie Bolton yes Steve Leo conquered yes Maggie Sharon do yes charl cabal lter yes Sharon M Lexington yes AO yes and we're getting very good at that vote which is important because we have a few you coming later okay next thing sure um so I'm not going to go into too much detail about the M car crash because unfortunately our students that were most involved in planning this are actually at skills USA uh competing tonight um but I did want to give just a brief overview and a shout out to everyone who was involved um this happened earlier in April the amount of collaboration in planning it was student driven so it was awesome to see um our health instructors and our health department worked with our um assistant principal to help coordinate uh we reached out to the town of Lincoln the town of Lexington the medf flight was actually from hansam Air Force Base um so we collaborated with them as well um as it was mentioned Mr tilsley donated his van for the jaws of life um so it was like you know even though we had a little bit of a hiccup in the morning uh we were still able to make it happen the students not only planned it they also starred in it um so they were actors um throughout the morning um we had presentations prior to the event um we had videos that we showed the kids and let them know what was going to be happening we went outside we saw the event unfold we came back in we debriefed the event with the kids and also the First Responders that were there um it was just a great morning it was about an hour and a half all together um we had our Juniors and senior students participate um and we typically would do something like this in the fall um just because we have a lot of celebratory events coming up from and graduation just want to bring to attention you know the importance of safe driving and undistracted driving whether that's alcohol or drugs or texting or anything like that so it was just a fantastic day the students absolutely Shine the staff did a fantastic job um as Sharon was mentioning her her son was very involved as well um and it was just a great um day for a minute man that's great any questions for Katie on that Sharon Katie the only thing that I would add is like I was so impressed by the students in general who were watching like they were outside for quite a while I mean and there was a little delay in the helicopter arriving and like you would have thought that they would have gotten a little antsy but they really I was so impressed with how serious they all took the whole event too and they weren't like joking around and playing but it was just a really incredible thing to watch and like knowing how much work has gone into that was really cool to see it come to fruition they did an an excellent job yeah they they did a great job and it's funny the helicopter ride 30 seconds it was from handgum to midan that's how long it took any other questions all right um and then last up um as we mentioned minute man had their annual uh spring play uh 12 Angry Men uh it consisted of over 15 we had 15 actors we had over 20 students that were working behind the scenes um if you've never been to Minute Man and seen their theater before it is a technical theater it's a theater it has so many cool features um that the students get to learn how to use you know from the lighting boards to the different sound switches and everything in between um it's really a whole integration of having this play unfold we have our carpentry Department located right next to our theater um so they can build the set and wheel it in and just have easy access so you can see the first picture on the left you can see the background of the um actual backdrop of the all the wood panels that they put up they created a whole courtroom scene and the table actually came out into the audience uh which was super cool um so you were extremely close to the actors they did a wonderful job I don't know how they memorize so many lines um but you know some of them had very very long emotional intense monologues um and it was very impressive so kudos to everyone who was involved in the play um Mr Donovan uh we had uh Mr anthon Bradley as well um and a bunch of other teachers assisted cosmetology helps out every year with the costumes and the hair and the makeup um but it was just a great night uh it was pretty much a full house both nights uh there's a lot of parents there a lot of students there and a lot of Staff around cool some of the best plays I've ever seen have been at Minute Man amazingly yeah any questions all right then the principal's report is complete thank you hand was raised sorry Darlene's hand was raised oh sorry Charlene I could see you that's okay it's it's catches catch can how many people are actually on your screen I don't have a question I just wanted to commend the students um I watched the play too and I just wanted to tell them that I was very impressed and uh uh don't know how they did it because I'd be like I could not remember all of this that's great thank you okay we're moving on this is um this is where we're really going to get to show how we can vote because um the finance report is up and Mr Leo take it away hey thank you um finance committee uh met on April 1st and 18th um in addition to our usual approval of Bill warrants um we had a presentation on the 18th of our uh uh 2 U 23 audit uh done by uh Markham and those of you who have been on the committee before will say well who's Markham don't we usually use the Lance and Heath well they they have merged uh with Markham and makes them a little more diverse and and uh add some of their it abilities during the audit and another reason they merge is uh a young people in college are not going into the accounting um field anymore so probably be a lot more merges as time goes on so any rate uh I I think the game plan is for uh U Scott McIntyre the principal who who did the audit to make a presentation at our May meeting uh and I I I could just say on behalf of our our finance committee that there was no uh nothing glaring in in the audit and uh it it just appears that we have a our house is in order and and we have a real fine Financial team uh the rest of the the items we we looked at and reviewed will be um um discussed just now uh as we go through it and I'm assuming Nikki is going to uh um talk about some of these things and and I can talk about the uh uh Finance committee's recommendations okay so when we get to all the things that have to be voted on we'll get the vote on the table before discussion just so you know so next item is Town meetings update all right um so I will take it away if that's okay Mr L um so we have Town meetings upon us um starting next week we have already attended Lexington um which was our first back in March on March 20th um we have some upcoming meetings on Monday we have conquered and on Wednesday we have Arlington and then we have five Town meetings on May 6 so um we will be dividing and conquering um you know Kevin will be presenting at at one of our towns um I'll be um attending a town to answer questions and um a big shout out to Michelle rendes for um offering to help us out with another town as well um and then we'll also have a sto's meeting um the following Saturday May 11th so um you know just a refresher for anybody um or any of the new members we do need to have uh two-thirds votes of all of our member Towns at town meeting so um any of the towns that have requested us to make a presentation at a finance or um town meeting we have coordinated and put together presentations and we've worked together with the school committee members so uh we'll certainly keep you updated at the next um meeting as to um Which towns have approved and not and the status of our budget thank you any questions for Nikki about that none okay next thing is the Minuteman Retirement Board Co memorandum all right I'm going to share my screen so everyone can see the memo I'll set Nikki wonderful um so this is a memo from the Minuteman Retirement Board um the Minuteman Retirement Board covers members of Minuteman that aren't part of the teachers retirement system um so this was just uh informational doesn't require a vote that the Minuteman Retirement Board which I am one of the appointed members on voted today a 3% Cola increase um it's very um consistent with the Social Security increase of 3.2% it's on the first $14,000 of um the retirees uh amount so it's certainly not a a huge number but you know helps every year um for the retirees to get um up to 3% so we voted today the the 3% um in just in relation to the budget it is factored into the perak funding schedules so it won't change change necessarily any of the contributions in the budget going forward as it's already factored in um the minim Retirement Board is 99.7% funded um as of January 1st 2023 so um this is a very well funded plan um and you know we're confident in the the 3% increase for our retiring members I have a quick question for you um many many years ago we had we used to have a number of people whose only retirement was like $14,000 they were very low paid from they had retired a long time ago and I was wondering like how many people are still on our books that are in that category um I don't know if hand that category I can certainly get that information for you but there are about 30 to 40 members currently in the okay yeah I and Alice I remember when I when I first started working in the state some uh 40 years ago um that uh not only uh uh uh individuals who retired were actually their their income was capped at like $25,000 so if you made 50,000 you weren't getting any retirement benefit off that Delta but that law changed kind of in the late 80s early 90s where everybody's three highest years count towards the retirement now right okay thank you yeah so there is 37 members I just calculated it out and if there was ever a decision to um change the $14,000 that would be a vote that would come um back to the school committee thank you welome next thing is prior your invoice we've got yeah prior year invoice and let me just say before I turn this into Nikki that U the finance committee was very confused by this and we we ended up discussing this over two meetings and I think we we finally got it but well we'll let Nikki explain it a little I've learned a lot about solar um so this prior invoice was brought to us um from Direct Energy um it is dated back from 2021 um when our former director um of Finance Bob gerardi um was in charge of the finance office um we did see um a signed contract as well so certainly a valid invoice that we never received um but what it is in relation to is the school building project so it was the purchase of a 10year renewable energy uh certificate which they call a wreck um and this was facilitated by um Beth greenblat who works um with Beacon Integrated Solutions she's one of our energy consultants and um Greg joint um who was one of the Architects um for the school so um solar has two different um things there's energy savings and then um there's also uh how it affects the building um so the intention of the school building project was for the building to run partially on solar um so when they were looking at that and how it related to the msba project um the purchasing of these wrecks um increased um the reimbursement rate if we were lead silver certified um and that's leadership and energy and environmental design so with the purchase of these wrecks which was approximately $99,000 it got the building lead silver certified and that also increased um our msba reimbursement rate which gave us an approximately uh $2 million increase um so this is certainly um a great benefit for the school um and you know important to the msba project once we signed that contract they actually submitted the documents to the msba project um and it will be part of the close out that will receive that uh additional funding so um due to that we're requesting um the approval of this invoice to Pay Direct Energy um the second part of um the document was a request from Mr stolin there's a lot of numbers and information so um he was was wondering in relation to the solar on the building are we seeing some Energy savings um so what we did was an analysis over the past two years which is our billing period here and the total actual demand and um how that reflects our usage and our energy so we buy some energy from ever source and then we also generate um energy from our solar on the building and we buy that from so select at a decreased rate so um we buy that at 05 versus um eversource which is 08 for their supply um and then we have the total kilowatts and estimated savings so where I want to bring you is the the net annual savings here um if you compare 2022 to 2021 when we didn't have solar we um are seeing a 23 ,000 savings and then if you compare 2023 to 2021 we're seeing a $51,000 saving so over the last two years we've seen a $75,000 savings due to having solar and um it's actually a locked price for the next 20 years um this deal that was um negotiated so um in relation to is has solar been working is it beneficial for the school it certainly has been and I certainly um anticipate more increased savings because they locked in at such a great rate um over the next 18 years and in total we're seeing demand savings and energy cost savings um so in addition to the um reimbursement from the msba project we're also seeing um some great savings um by having solar on the build so maybe we can have a motion to approve the prior your in voice from Direct Energy as presented is there any problem with inserting from direct energy into the motion some moved I uh yeah I I I would just add that the the finance committee um recommends approval of this prior year bill and I think just simply put uh $99,000 gained us two million in the building project okay so we have a motion from from Sharon and I second from sh and a second from Charlene okay any discussion on the motion I think Steve hit the nail on the head with that one spend save to get two million is great anybody else no okay let's take a vote ham nor yes Sarah msku Arlington yes Erica Elie Bolton yes Steve will do conquered yes Magie Sharon Dober yes Carling cabal Lancaster yes Sharon must Lexington yes houseo yes the motion passes the next thing is the third quarter general fund report well I'll try to increase this a bit um so as you know we present quarterly our general fund report as well as our revolving Fund in our Student Activities our general fund is what the school committee oversees um and they oversee it by function code so on the left hand side you'll see our uh row labels which are our function codes the those are our Desi um State function codes that we have to do external reporting based on so that's why you see um the breakout the way it is our chart of accounts is made to um function this way so our external reporting to Desi um is made more simply so if you look at this first budget it's the sum of our budget as you voted it originally um we have a sum of adjustments so we do make some budget transfers throughout the year anything $10,000 and more is presented to the school committee and that will be the next vote that you'll see in the next item on the agenda um the third column is the sum of the budget with the adjustments so it's our current budget some of YTD YTD year-to date those are our transactions those are the amount that we've um spent so far so of our $30 million budget we have spent um just over around 21 million the next column is our encumbrances those are anticipated expenditures um or purchase orders that we've maybe placed the order for or anticipating having those um expenses through June 30th but we haven't actually paid them out yet so you'll see here almost $7.8 million that leaves us with just about over $1 million in our ending balance column um so what you'll see here is we really look at the function codes to ensure that there isn't anything in a deficit and anything that's in a deficit I will address um tonight in the reason for it so the first item is function code 2451 it's classroom instru instructional technology um what you will see here is that in the past um we have coded our onetoone student laptops in districtwide informational management function code 1450 um desie has come up with a new function code that reclassifies any onetoone laptops to this classroom instructional technology line so we have the money sitting in a different line this is strictly a reclassification to properly classify under des's State function codes the the on toone student laptops for our external reporting um function code 3300 is our student transportation um we have had uh a number of foster care um transportation that have been needed that were unexpected and unbudgeted um so this um transfer we are requesting is to cover those um unanticipated um Transportation needs from our um health insurance line which as we have discussed um in Prior meetings we have been seeing a savings in that line while we budgeted a 10% increase in our fy2 24 budget uh the Health Trust actually voted at 0% so we do have some excess there that's allowing us to transfer and cover these unexpected foster care um costs our final line um is down below function 7300 um we have seen an increase in copy use um and for our contract we pay an additional amount per print or per copy um that in that amount is exceeding what we had originally budgeted for we've been seeing an increase year-over-year since we've got back from covid um so we have factored that into the fy2 budget um along with the foster care and the technology ology line so that the fy2 budget um should really be in a good place and not see any of these um deficits going forward so overall um we are sitting with just over a million dollars um as we're going into the fourth quarter and we'll continue to talk about that as we go into the budget transfers and the um following agenda item which is our preliminary end where we're proposing some transfers for um your end okay um so does anyone have any questions about the third quarter general f after that will be the transfers vote but you have any questions for Nikki about this fund report it doesn't look like we have any questions for you about this Nikki okay so we're move on to the next thing we're going to put a motion on the table for we have the presentation and discussion we're going to move to approve the third quarter general fund budget transfers as presented so move and the finance committee recommends so that's Mr Leto who made the motion and who was the second second Pam okay go ahead um so the first three um transfers we have already um discussed as part of the general fund report uh the first being our it reclassification the second our unbudgeted um Foster Care Transportation uh the third is our copiers and that the excess um printing um that's coming from our utilities line we are seeing um anticipated Savings in our utilities line um as you know we've discussed the solar has certainly been helping um see seeing some decrease in utilities um the fourth transfer is the only one we haven't talked about um unfortunately our utility allterrain vehicle um needs replacement it was um uh vehicle that was used during the school building project um and it pulls the equipment onto the synthetic field so they need a specific um vehicle because of the synthetic field um they have the funding in the maintenance of ground function code however because it's over $5,000 it needs to be classified as a capital asset um or and equipment so it needs to be uh classified in the 7300 function code so this is just a reclassification in order for them to get this um replacement vehicle uh to help um pull the equipment onto the field any questions for Nikki I don't see any questions you've been so clear Nikki nobody has any questions thank you way to go okay so let's uh take a vote and um let's for the record and the minutes show that we're talking about $288,300 ham no haon yes Sarah monu Arlington yes Erica Elie Bolton yes Steve will du conquered yes hi Sharon Dober yes Charlie cabal Lancaster yes Sharon mustow Lexington yes Alis lucao yes yet another miraculous unanimous decision by the Min man school committee because of the excellent work of the step okay we're on to just for the record also it's 7:14 preliminary 2024 excess and deficiency end D all right um so as missca noted um e and d means excess and deficiency and when you think about what excess and deficiency is um if you think about any company uh your personal um bank account um or your paycheck it's you know how much money or Revenue that you've received less the expenses um you have a net number right so that's really what we're talking about is that bottom number Revenue minus expenses is our excess and deficiency the excess um of what what we anticipated so um where Minuteman started up here was about $1.5 million is where we started from last year was the funding we had um compared when our Revenue less our expenses that was our net last year uh what we voted on for the budget was of that 1.5 million to give back to the town 650,000 out of the certified excess and deficiency when we voted the budget um so that really brings us down um a little bit as to where we want to be uh statutorily our excess and deficiency fund can't be more than 5% um so we really are trying to in this calculation get a sense of where we're going to end up at year end um our school committee has recommended to try to stay between three and 5% so when you look at this amount um this $771,000 Governor's budget coming out um in March and we vote us voting our budget in January so what we have proposed um to the town managers the finance committee and now the school committee um was a plan to pay off our anticipated uh remaining debt um of the msba project that we're not anticipating being reimbursed by the msba to finally close out um the project as you know we have a $2.8 million ban so that would bring us down to about 2.2 $2.3 million um and when we close out the project um which is slated for the fall of 2024 um our reimbursement should be able to pay off that ban um and we should be able to finally be done with the msba project so what we're be what we're proposing with this excess funding is to pay down some debt and interest um um and additionally transfer money into the capital stabilization fund to Total the 771 th000 um so when you calculate that amount down um you know the 650 and the 771 we uh that we're proposing we're bringing our you know funding and our end down to um a much smaller number having about $150,000 left but that's just counting last year so now we're adding in any excess Revenue that we've seen this year so we have seen excess Revenue in our chapter 71 Regional Transportation as well as interest income um you know interest rates have been increasing um compared to the the last few years we've seen very minimal interest um as well as um some Medicaid that was unbudgeted and miscellaneous Revenue that was unbudgeted so if you take out the 77 1,000 we've really seen an excess of Revenue over our budget of about you know 500,000 um so that almost kind of takes away what we've given back to our member towns and then um we also did a preliminary estimate of what we're seeing as far as the budget and as you know we mentioned before our general fund budget was about um $1 million as of um March 31st this number was a little more updated so we're anticipating approximately a million dollar excess at the end of the year when you do that calculation uh in relation to the 5% what we're proposing is any of the unallocated monies um from our current budget in FY 24 be transferred to our Capital stabilization fund as well as our OPB trust fund we feel as though those are responsible decisions um in relation to Minute Man's campus um and any future Capital needs of the campus as well as um trying to fund our OPB um other post employment benefits uh we currently have a liability of around 23 million um in our trust fund um is closer to a million dollar so um our plan in the school committee's recommendation is to um be more responsible in funding that and you'll see that in our fy2 budgets going forward um but this will certainly help to get there um with this transfer all of this calculation it gets us down to what we anticipate our ending balance is going to be just around 1.5 million which is 4.97% of our budget um so with these transfers and our estimates for a year end um um these transfers proposed transfers in relation to the excess Chapter 70 and to Capital stabilization in OPB will um put us just slightly under the 5% 4.97% so that was a lot of numbers we did put together um a letter to the school committee explaining all of that um and the Motions that were recommended um these motions do have to go to our towns um in relation to amending the budget so what we're proposing is amending the budget by the 771 to1 increasing the budget and what we'll be doing is we'll be voting um to use 771 to1 of our certified excess and deficiency so um it will not have any effect on any of our member Town assessments it's just um reallocating um you know the budget increase and then our excess and Def deficiency increase um and that does have to go to our member towns as well as the transfers to our Capital stabilization in opep trust funds so that's what we're proposing to you tonight and I'm happy to answer any questions um anyone has any questions I I have one question for you Nikki the letter the the wording in the letter the Motions they're different than the ones in the agenda slightly different so which ones do you want us to vote um which whichever you'd prefer uh they both essentially say the same thing I think probably the agenda is more straightforward um not as wordy as the the amounts um the Motions in the letter we just wanted to make sure we were very clear for the committee since it is a very big topic with a lot of different numbers okay all right well we'll stick with what's in the agenda um do I don't see any hands up for questions that was very thorough um so let's move on to approving the Motions to amend the 20 the FY 24 budget so we're gonna take four votes in a row okay uh Alice I'll um move the first one and the finance committee has recommended all four so I move to approve the amendment to the FY 24 budget to 31 milon 87536 as presented is there a second second there were several seconds okay any questions about that hearing none um let's take a vote Hamner saon yes Sarah monteu Arlington yes Erica Elie Bolton yes Steve Leo conquered yes hi Sharon over yes cab yes Sharon Musto Lexington yes and thank you Nikki for making this all make sense Alis Lucas doe yes M leud do you want to make make the next motion yes um I would uh like to move to authorize $771,000 from the certified excess and deficiency fund to reduce member Town assessments for the FY 24 budget and the finance committee unanimously recommends there a second second um mon was a second let's take a vote Ham N yes Sarah monteu Arlington yes Erica Elie Bolton yes Steve will do conquered yes na shover yes Charlie and cabal Lancaster yes Ken Musto Lexington yes Alice lucao yes Mr Leo take it away thank you um I will move to transfer $463,500 finance committee unanimously recommends there a second second it was Miss cabal let's vote Hammer saon yes Sarah monu Earlington yes Erica Elie Bolton yes Steve wo conquered yes Sharon over yes Al cab Lancaster yes Aaron mus Lexington yes Al luo yes Mr Leo and finally I moveed to transfer $400,000 to the OPB trust funds and the finance committee unanimously recommends second second by cabal any questions let's take a vote ham saon yes Sarah monu Arlington yes Erica Elie Bolton yes steil do conquered yes Sharon do yes charene cabal Lancaster yes Aon must Lexington yes aluco yes we are on to the third quarter revolving fund report um I just wanted to give a quick shout out to uh Michelle rendez who actually gave us the idea of the um utilizing um the EXs chapter um 70 or excess Revenue budget to um actually pay down the debt and and bring that to our town managers and our finance committee um as well as Kevin Mahoney um having his uh great you know Finance mind um has been such a blessing this year um to be able to to bounce ideas off of and talk things through and and assist um with everything so um big shout out to them certainly couldn't have um put this all together without them so oh sorry was did was anyone gonna say something no okay perfect um our revolving report so these are our revolving funds um the general fund is what the school committee um you know votes in overseas are revolving funds uh are different funds and why they're called revolving fund is the ending balance each year rolls over to be the beginning balance in the next year um so we certainly have different funds um and this report is very similar to our general fund Report with our beginning balance the revenues we've received this year in the projected revenues through June 30th what we've expended or paid this year and then our encumbrances again those anticipated expenses or the purchase orders that we're waiting on the order to come in that haven't been paid yet to have a projected ending balance and so what we really want to see here is that all of our funds um are positive and not in a deficit position I'll explain which um funds they are and a little bit about each one our community ed fund um really uh is mostly just summer school now um what we will see is that we've had some revenues um coming in all ready for summer school um you know in July and August um which will be our next fiscal year um but you know great turnout we've also received um grants over the past two years which have helped um keep the cost down and assist in paying some of our instructors so um this you know balance is in certainly a great position our MTI program is our next fund fund 16 it's our postsecondary program um those are the tuition B based um programs that we run at night uh MTI also um has received numerous CTI grants um and those are tuition free programs um so those are not included here but are additional adult um programs that our director um Nancy Paladino um runs and we've gotten a great amount of money um to run those programs so what you'll see here is the tuition based programs um you'll see the beginning balance with our anticipated revenues throughout the year and expenses um we are projecting um to be almost broke even you know just a little bit over um we'll certainly be keeping an eye on this as we move forward to ensure this doesn't slip into a deficit position um but the programs that are running are Auto Cosmo electrical in plumbing so um certainly um you know some great programs um to help um the adults you know really get back into the workforce um our facilties is revolving is our fund 13 um the school committee has asked for the athletic fields to be broken out so you'll see here our projection for just the athletic fields this is um a question that's often asked um you know of our towns and um you'll see we do have some great projected um Revenue throughout the year um and then our expenses our big expense um or encumbrance here is that we're planning to reserve money um as we've discussed to pay for um to put in a stabilization account to pay for the future um maintenance um or replacement of the turf um we've also seen some great rentals um you know for our general rental fund whether it's our gym our Paul River Room our theater has seen a lot of great action so um you know the the new building has certainly um attracted a lot of people to come um see what we have to offer in in rent our space our um 14 um function is our trade accounts and those are all in great um position no deficit Balan is there um our Capital fee is um is set by the state we um bring it to the school committee for transparency um but as far as the calculation goes but this um is an additional fee that any outof District students pay um to help offset the capital costs of the building um so this remaining balance is what we project to put into the FY 25 budget um to offset um the the capital cost to Our member town our outof district tuition again set by the state this is the outof district tuition um that any outof District students pay uh again this is what we will plan to offset the fy2 budget but as we've discussed as more member Town students continue to take up our incoming freshman classes we are going to see these numbers continue to decrease and our budgets will um in the next few years if the trend continues um be solely with our member towns and last but not least our food service um program fresh picks um we have seen um some you know some great revenues um from this compared to um prior years you know we are seeing that there's been um quite an increase um because of the free meals um and we've also gotten some um supply chain assistance uh grants that have helped offset some of um the food costs so um I don't anticipate seeing um this amount of um growth year-over-year but certainly um you know the students have been happy with the the product that has been um here at Min so that about wraps up the revolving report and I happy to answer any questions any questions for Nikki I don't see any I'm shout if I missed you nope okay moving on to the third quarter Student Activity fund report I just wanted to make one remark on the revolving funds because if Jeff were here he would say I I don't think he's GNA watch the video so Jeff this is for you so it used to be pretty ugly picture in the revolving accounts it was totally cleaned up very nice picture now thank you for everybody who cleaned it up that's it okay on to the third and Jeff Jeff says that at every one of our pincon meetings when we review this okay well that's it Jeff we're that's it okay so third quarter Student Activity fund report all right um these are our Student Activity funds um and they the Auditors uh recommended we show this um to school committee for transparency and then send it to our advisers quarterly as well um so what you know they're tracking their balance um you can be matched up um you know what we're seeing here is any of the um whether it's Athletics or clubs um if they do fundraising and again you know very same similar um setup the beginning balance revenues projected revenues expenses incumbrances and end balance um again we're not seeing any deficits here as far as the Student Activities it goes through the same process as any of our other warrants um there are additional controls when it's relating to the Student Activities that there needs to be at least three sign offs from the students as well as the advisor um and our business office and it goes through the approval process in our warrants of going to finance committee and being approved so um you know there are certainly great controls around this money and um it's particularly sensitive because it is um those of the students so just wanted to show this report um and happy to answer any questions any questions on these I'll make a historical note about this there was a time not decades ago but maybe a decade ago and the around the state there was a huge problem with these and um it's really nice to see this clear accounting of it they used to have budget versus actuals that they would show in some school districts and it really didn't tell you anything and um it was it was really pretty sad so we're very lucky to have this very clear accounting of what's happening with the students money and a course it is required but it is great to see it such a good job thank you thank you um so that's the Student Activity fund report so the next thing is the interim superintendent report um we're going at a good clip here so it's now 7:35 and that leaves plenty of time for the interesting reports coming coming up well uh thank you madam chair I'd like to start with the uh principal search process and um superintendent elect uh Heidi dristol has joined us and has been coordinating a very thorough U process that I believe has brought in a number of stakeholders in the minute man Community for input and we want to give the committee an update uh on that process so um Heidi I'll refer to you to brief the committee thank you Kevin I appreciate it um I'm so happy to be here um the committee and the community has been absolutely wonderful to work with clearly everybody's very excited and invested in the process um just so you know I'm sure you saw um the communication that was sent out with the tentative timeline of activities that was shared with the staff that was shared with parents students um we did have informational sessions uh to the with the community on zoom and in person with the staff um so that we could explain um what our tentative process was um we had many applicants um in order to support the interview committee um the survey that went out um asked everyone um what they're looking for in a principal so that we could get information to enhance the job description those things that are unique to Minuteman um so we created a candidate profile and the candidate profile I want to say we probably had upwards of 60 people contribute um very thoughtful contributions um Peter kellerer who is the president of the Union actually sat with me and we looked at every single submission to make sure that our candidate Prof profile um did in fact match what the majority of um people shared in that um in the survey me just look at my little screen here um the big picture key themes that came out in the candidate profile were communication consensus building Um passion for CTE high expectations loves kids um and supports diverse populations um and specialized program programming like um e special ed and so forth me get back to the zoom so I can look at e um I think she must have had a technical difficulty yeah sometimes if you turn your video off it improves the audio on Zoom there she is no idea where I went but I'm glad to be back can you hear me yeah okay um so we where did where was I that was so strange Drew did you do that um we came together they reviewed the folders um and then based on their feedback as individuals um we came up with which candidates we wanted to interview um so we had invited six candidates to be interviewed um oh one more thing we Al also contributed to creating um some consistent questions based on those six key themes as well um we did not interview six people two people um back out of the interviews accepted jobs other places one got um ended up staying in their current District so we interviewed um four candidates they were absolutely wonderful um and the interview committee then provided um incredibly thorough feedback which leads us to where we are now um we are not sharing names yet because all of the um candidates have not been informed but we it looks look like we are down to two finalists who will be interviewed by the eboard um next week and separately by Kevin and and by me together um and I do want to give a shout out to um everyone on the committee if you don't mind um the committee was a wonderful um representation of our community I feel like um people were very respectful they felt able with each other um and um they were in the very capable hands of Amy peral um who managed the evening of interviews and of course Julia um made sure everyone was taken care of um in uh in the uh in the meeting uh someone on iPhone said Dr peralt I think I'm not sure who iPhone is um okay um so let me read the committee names here okay um first rose Romano who's the administrative assistant to the principal um Jamie Donahue who's our freshman student representative Matilda trudell our student representative who's a sophomore Riley trusel who's our um our student school committee representative also our Junior representative um Erin Palmer who is our minute man parent representative Regina O'Brien um who's another Minuteman parent representative Diane Dempsey she's our guidance lead she's also from the MFA Patrick rafter a biotechnology teacher also from the MFA um Chris Danielson who's an English teacher also represent selected by the MFA and Matt McLean facilities coordinator Brian tilsley the assistant principal Alice Duca as you know um school committee and um the group um was led by um interm assistant superintendent of student student services Dr Amy peral who I am very thankful for um does anyone have any questions about the process okay we're hoping um that within the next two weeks um we'll be able to um come forward with our uh next minute man principal thank you any uh questions for for Heidi just Sarah just a comment sounds like a great collaborative and inclusive process so thank you we've been uh really happy with uh the way that uh again everyone stepped up to participate it's kept everything moving along along quite nicely so um we'll continue to update the committee as we progress wanted to at least let you know where we are in the process so with that um we wanted to also provide a an update on our Athletic program I think we had an update back in the fall when we shared with you the uh participation numbers that that we had back in and how we had such a high level participation so we thought we'd bring the athletic uh director Mr fesco back um to give you an update on what's happened over the winter and now that we're into the midpoint pretty much of the uh spring season so Mr fesco thank you Mr Mahoney and H good evening everybody um I thought you guys just wanted me back because you enjoyed having me back that too John okay thank you thank you so yeah so I'm just gonna kind of touch upon a few things that uh is still going in a in really positive direction with Athletics um the winter sport wrap up uh the spring Sports have begun uh exciting news that we hired uh a an athletic trainer Jesse Warren very excited uh to have him on board and he is has started this week and he's already he's already H worth his waste um and Michelle Rend as a talk about the wait room and also we had the coaching staff completed uh some CPR certification done um late late winter early spring so our coaches are getting uh up to date with their CPI certifications which is also very um I wanted to make some notes that uh we're still increasing in our participation winter was up by 12% and um you'll see some slides coming up about each one of those individual sports and how that um our spring Sports is increased by 7% but I think we could be looking at um a much higher percentage in the future as there are there is some interest on adding other uh Sports and activities for us in athletics and you know tennis is something that's been brought up track and field a possible boys volleyball there and there are you know are some options and there are could be others uh winter season wrapup uh hocky had a great I considered it what was was a great season um and and what it can't be marked by um the the record because uh they played every single game and every single game was very close and uh they competed um every of the uh home Anway games which was amazing a great uh shining spot was that Shane Carter was recognized at ruins game this year as one of the MIAA sponsored sportsmanship Awards so that was very U very ex that's a very exciting commit we had with the hockey program they also had three League All Stars and one thing that I think is important for them is uh a few folks that you know just kind of think about is is there is a need for more time practices for these these these these young men so um that's something to probably consider um swimming had their own uh trials and tribulations this year but they persevered through Renovations hansin pool and swam at metric High uh during tough hours Saturday uh evenings and Sunday mornings were the only times they could get in the pool but coach farus really uh persevered by getting them working on on land and doing exercises working in the weight room and it shows you know the girls came in fourth in the CAC meet the boys finished second and Abby pan set a School record in the 200 individual medley and the 500 freestyle we had two all STS this 20 girls basketball another Stell Stellar year um they had 20 athletes for Varsity JV and they finished the season 15 and five um they were leak Champs third year in a row qualified for the state tournament won a home game and as you can see uh our league MVP in the picture Muji Vader who's only a sophomore also was featured by the Boston Globe um in an article this year and we look for for many more great things there um boys basketball uh I as as coach I will just say this one of the most most enjoyable Seasons I've ever had um had a great group of kids who did some great things um we finished 15 Anda qualified for the State tourament won two games UPS upset a very very challenging Man team to advaned to the Sweet 16 round um and it sparked a lot of interest and had a fan bust to go play Boston English into Boston and they filled a fan bus and had the fans were great and we had two League All Stars U with with the CAC chair was probably one of the big surprises we had a a big increase uh they're up to 22 athletes this year um they cheered at both home games for boys and girls basketball and one of the things that we're hoping is that you know they're they're building a program with the new coach and we can see the enthusiasm by the number of athletes that they're starting to regain and we're looking to see them get back to doing Sher competitions next year and we're also um looking into they have a need for new uniforms because the the numbers are increasing so if anyone has any questions I'd love to answer I'm Mr Fusco I I just had a few questions um you said the the ice hockey the team is in need of more ice time what what could we do as a committee to um make that happen well I I mean unfortunately hockey is probably the uh most expensive sport that we have due to the ice time so having you know getting more funding for it would be probably the first thing I could say um and and um then the along with that comes trying to find a local of of ice Rings you know but knowing that you know knowing what the budget constraints are I mean how much can we we look for so it's something that I think would absolutely help the hockey program um in numbers and I think and success in terms of of of their wins and losses because they're they're right there at coach Balu did such a wonderful job this year um but it it is difficult um to try to get ready for games when you're practicing one hour a couple times a week and it would be you know but we would really have to start you know venturing into looking into ranks and coming up with times and in in feasible location yeah thank you and um could you speak to the situation with the pool also um like is there maybe solution to that for yeah no that was so I'm sorry I guess I didn't really explain that yeah unfortunately hansum and and they're doing the right thing they had maintenance on their pool and we thought we might be getting it in but they started in September and we weren't going to be able to use the pool so we we we kind of knew that ahead and and Nicki Deo and I searched high and low to find pools and we contacted District uh facilities and hotels and we tried everywhere and um you know we ended up the Medford the Medford High uh athletic director uh and and the pool director kind of worked with us and they they found us a couple spots that we could get the kids into pools so they at least we had them swim so we should be I I I'm you know I'm I'm I'm under the understanding we should be back at Hen pool next next year okay thank you you're welcome thank you any other questions the athletic director Sharon Sharon um just regarding the the cheerleading outfits I know there was some oh I feel like my computer whoops I think you froze yeah Sharon we lost you okay can you hear me now we can now yes gotta okay now I'm going to turn my camera off and see if that helps because you guys are all freezing um regarding the cheerleading um uniforms I know there was some talk among some parents that I had seen some people that I knew that it was unfortunate for the kids that they a lot of PE a lot of the students didn't have matching uniforms is that accurate yes yes so that is that's one of the we are work anything else thank you okay if there's nothing else perhaps we can move on to the next items thank you very much John appreciate the report thank you folks thanks um item C and D will be covered by uh Michelle rendez um she'll be talking about our wellness and fitness center in the uh recycling program roll shelle all yours good evening everybody I'm gonna uh share my screen now you guys see my full screen yes okay so I'm gonna be talking about our Wellness room and our recycling program two very exciting things that are happening minute man um as we speak okay can you see the wellness room I don't know what you're looking at right now we're seeing your title title slide it looks like there we go now do you see the wellness room yes yes okay perfect so this is the current status of our Wellness room a lot of our equipment was outdated um we really didn't have the necessary equipment to properly train our student athletes as well as our um visad um physical education um students so what we did is that um we kind of made this a priority this year and we're able to secure funding um to replace uh the equipment in the wellness room using our sr3 grant um which it falls right into the category of um health and well-being of students um and um you know physical support um for our students so this is the current status of our Wellness room this is our um new design and if you take a look at it you can see that there is um three different half racks um we have a couple of treadmills a sled Mill uh two rowers a bike um and some additional equipment um this is a little example of the new equipment that we will be receiving in the wellness room um we also secured additional um flooring for the wellness room which will be installed um and this was because we had we worked with um John our athletic director um Heather plater and Sophia Sophia Papa Christos our physical education teachers um as well as um um one of our um staff members who is extremely um into health and well-being and very well-versed in what students need um in order to properly train for their Sports so um the flooring was a big um was a big addition for us um and that's because the the thickness of the floor that we have in the wellness room right now um isn't conducive to actually working out on it it's not really thick enough um and it could caused a bunch of different injuries for our students uh we made sure when we were choosing this equipment that um we talked with a couple of the different coaches and had an idea on what training equipment would best help um their student athletes for example one of them is we have a um this one right here is a ski trainer um and that actually is is beneficial for swimmers as well um working that part of body um and like you can see here here's your rower this right here is a sled Mill um which is an upgrade on a treadmill and it's generally used um it's like uh almost like the M the piece of equipment that they take out onto the fields that football players push forward as they run through the fields um this is what that uh piece of equipment is supposed to simulate um we have some additional bands and balls um not feed on here because I just didn't have the space for it we have upgraded um to some kettle bells as well as some additional free weights um and then you see here is that we have these multi-purpose multi-person um uh pieces of equipment that allow for you know m a multitude of different um strength training um exercises that's that's pretty much the update on the Wellness room uh we are have already received the flooring um it's expected to be installed we are selling off um which you'll receive in a little while um probably at the next school committee meeting we're selling off some of the equipment that's in the room right now uh and then once that is gone we will be installing the floor and then the additional equipment that we've secured will be coming in in July to be installed in Late July so it will be um fully furnished and ready to go for the start of our fall season the other exciting thing that's going on at Minute Man is um we've kind of um revamped the recycling Club um and one of the things that came along with this was you know uh we had a teacher um Jennifer um I'm blanking on her last name right now G gainley gley yeah and um she was really great she got in touch with um some State um organizations that helped us secure some additional bins and um that you can see in the picture right there uh they also helped us step through the process on how to you know properly uh create a club as well as you know to move away from where we were previously so just a little back history there has been a um recycling club or a green Club um previously but the the burden of collecting the recycling was more was what the focus of the club was more so so we in an order effort to step away from it being um purely a club about walking around and picking up recycling um their focus is going to be on sustainability and other ideas and helping the environment as well as they're you know getting together right now to start um planning for a more exensive program uh next year for our Recycling and in in order to do that what we did is that we worked with our cleaning companies uh company as well as our maintenance staff um to um secure that they would be the ones that would be collecting the bins and um disposing of the recyclable material we also um received another um Matt mle worked extremely hard and we um signed another contract with a dumpster for just the recycling so there's a designated spot for it um we are hoping that that will be a wash um the cost of that dumpster um minus the weight of those recycling items in our regular trash um cycle so we're predicting that that would be a complete wash um and so it would be a real benefit for a minute man because we'll be recycling at no cost um just this is a kind of a view of the dumpster day one um so that really shows the dedication and commitment I think from minute man to get this started not only the students we had um Jennifer and Matt were really spearheading this but miss Bordeaux um was uh a part of this as well but we really got buyin from our cafeteria as well as our culinary um staff and you know they're they're going as far as breaking down their stuff and disposing it um during at their day at the end of their day um since they have such large amounts they thought that that would be um a better uh approach when it came to those two areas um our pilot program is single stream right at this moment and um we have bins as the one that's pictured right in the superintendent uh business office right there but we have them in the main office the dean office special education office the superintendent business office it DBC Cosmo environmental and then in culinary and cafet uh the plan for next year is to roll out that there will be something in every single shop to be collected um that way we're making sure that we're hitting all areas of the school and and really um diving into the consumer product that we have that can be recycled um the items that we're recycling right now is empty plastic metal glass containers clean aluminum foil mixed paper and flattened carbo so um that's all does anybody have any questions go Ahad Alice it's not a question really I just remarked that this has been something that's have been of interest to many many members of the Minuteman Community for a long time and I'm really glad to see it's um come to for wish and thank you no problem I mean really it's Jen and Matt worked extremely hard on this uh great any other questions from Michelle either on the recycling program or the wellness center all right good good reports thank you thanks thanks Michelle um we've been doing an awful lot of work uh on um cyber security and infrastructure related uh issues um Drew con is Our IT director and I have had numerous discussions about it he's taken the ball and really uh run run with it and um he'd like to give a report on the work that he's done so far and the status to date so um Drew uh yeah happy to uh share some of the work that we've been doing um I'm just going to share my screen and this one okay um so I'm going to give you a little bit of a technology update um specifically around cyber security and some uh Capital planning and infrastructure work that we have been doing um so cyber security these are the kind of the big buckets that we worry about um fishing it's constant and we are constantly trying to provide training um we were selected um as one of the um districts that is participating in the 2024 uh Municipal cyber security training Grant um so that provides uh cyber security training mostly around fishing um to our staff members uh teach teachers um are eligible for 10 pdps this year which is great and that I'm hoping that that will uh increase uh participation uh we're going to roll that out soon I'm just waiting for the uh the portal to be set up by the state um ransomware is another thing that we worry about quite a bit um that's when you know someone comes in and encrypts all your data and then asks for a ton of money to give it back um there's a survey that I can share with the school committee if they would like to see it um it was done by SOS which is um our um cyber security vendor of choice um and of the the 3,000 people that they surveyed they surveyed about 3,000 it professionals um globally um about 500 of those were um K12 districts and about 80% of those schools uh said that they experienced some kind of ransomware attack last year um data exfiltration is also a scary thing especially when we're talking about uh student data specifically around like um IEP data 504 data the Civil Rights stuff um we had an issue there was an issue not we did not have an issue um there was an issue in uh Los Angeles Unified School District a couple years ago uh someone got a whole bunch of uh student IEP data testing data um and then threatened to release it and I think they did actually release some of it um because la refuse to pay the ransom which is the standard now we don't really pay the ransoms because then they just keep coming back for more um I wanted to make sure that we were clear on uh the difference between a cyber security incident and a cyber security breach um uh a breach um has uh legal ramifications um so if someone were to say the word breach um then we have to have a much different conversation than if we had an incident um uh we do have cyber security Insurance uh it is part of our um umbrella policy um some districts have a separate cyber security policy I think that we are okay with um the coverage that we have right now um and then another thing that we have to worry about is a vocational school um we have several um as you know student run Services those student run Services um take credit cards um so we have to worry about PCI compliance which is um uh what does the p stand for it's card uh it's about credit cards I always forget what the acronym is I apologize uh we are fully PCI Compliant in uh the ones that I manage are the website uh Cosmo and culinary um and then Automotive is actually going to get a new card reader soon and then we'll take that over too um we had a cyber security audit done uh in December of 2023 at Kevin's recommendation um thankfully there were no external vulnerabilities found uh we did have some internal vulnerabilities which I'm not going to go into uh in a public meeting um but happy to talk to anyone I can give a copy of the report um to you if you would like to look at it um most of them were abated immediately um some of them we are still working on a little bit um and we'll probably have that done by the end of the summer um we as you know we're a Microsoft District so Microsoft has the called the secure score um and it's a representation of your organization security posture and your opportunities to approve it uh improve it I apologize currently we're at 36.114655 um a lot of that was because we didn't have the appropriate licensing uh to address the issues um we did acquire uh those higher tier licenses for the IT staff uh so now we can start to push out um some of those fixes um obviously you know they want you to buy their product to raise your score but a lot of it is good stuff as well um so we're working on that as well um thank you Sharon I appreciate it payment card industry compliance um we also applied uh in March for the municipal cyber security Grant um so they had four buckets of things that they were really willing to fund we were hoping that it would cover some of um our cyber security proposals for next year um the federal government and the the state aren't really covering those specific things um but the things that we applied for are um an incident response plan of which we currently don't have uh we don't have one um so uh that would if we had an incident you know it's a step-by-step response we have it printed out somewhere just in case the computer stop working um so we we have a hard copy of it somewhere and uh all of the steps that we would need to go through contacting you know the massach the fusion Center which is run by uh the state police uh contact the multi-state um uh security uh uh it's Ms ISAC and I again I'm really B I should have written see the next slide I wrote down the what the uh acronym stand for because I knew I was going to forget um we also applied for some tabletop exercises so that would be for uh the administrative staff and it to work through um what we would do in case there was an event so kind of practicing it um complete our multiactor authentication roll out which is one of the biggest things that's going to bump up our Microsoft secure score um not everyone currently has multiactor authentication on um and the the version of MFA from Microsoft that we are using is actually being deprecated by them pretty soon um they're not going to allow a text message code anymore because of the MFA options um that is the least secure um because it's very easy for someone to clone your phone number and get the code sent to them instead of you um so we would we're either looking towards um you know like through the Outlook app on on someone's phone uh you get a a number pops up on your screen you type it into the thing it scans your face or it uses your fingerprint or whatever else how whatever biometric you have on your phone and then it lets you into your account um we also have some other options um uh for um staff members who might not want to install something on their phone we can give them like a physical key uh that they have to plug into their laptop they won't be able to sign into their uh stuff on their phones so you know that's a conversation if we get the grant if not we'll just go with the Microsoft products which are fine um and then the other thing is MFA for non-user devices uh which include like the security cameras the point of sale systems The View Board the projectors everything in the building that is connected to the internet um that doesn't necessarily require someone to sign into is kind of like a a security black hole um so we applied for that we're hoping that we'll hear in May um it was about um the cap was $200,000 um and I think our grant proposal came in somewhere around $198,000 um we also the same company that did um our cyber security audit we are partnering with them to do um a review of our practices and procedures in it um based on some of the the Frameworks the nist cyber security framework which is the National Institute of Standards and Technology cyber security framework I wrote down the acronym um the center for internet Securities CIS and kobit which is the control objectives for uh information and related technology so that we're basically going to work through all of those Frameworks and standards with the company and write um practi best practices and procedures and have like all of that documented for the IT department um on May 14th Minuteman is hosting an event in partnership with sofos um for neighboring districts um it directors superintendent business managers the people who are going to get um called in if we do have some kind of incident um and it's called sock versus the clock sock is security operations center um so it's basically like if there wasn't an incident what is the security operations center doing how are we tracking it how are we finding it and then what would we do afterwards to uh remediate it um so that's going to be a cool event uh I think as of right now we we shared it with you know the districts in the area um and we have I think about 14 people coming from 10 different schools uh signed up so far and we still have about two weeks left for people to sign up so that should be a good event um and we do have uh MDR budgeted for next year um uh that is um managed detection and response um so that would cover um all of our endpoints and our online environment so if there's any kind of incident ever they're watching at 247 they'll usually just remediate it and then send us an a an action report afterwards and say these are the things that we did um if it's a bigger issue they'll call us um but it's nice to have um a piece of mind that some someone is always watching um and I I thank you for U supporting that in the budget for next year um next slide Drew oh um on top of that I do want to say that um we did have a small incident today um and we did remediate it quite quickly we had a a fishing attempt that um got through and many people probably got an email asking if someone wanted to review an RFP it was just a a a fake PDF um that copied your uh your address book and then sent itself to a million other people um so that person's account did not have MFA turned on uh it will tomorrow and uh we should be good but we caught it in about two hours and turned it off so folks probably would have caught that in about five minutes um and notified us immediately it's not a huge deal fishing happens all the time um um it didn't nothing else really was affected except for a lot of people got an email um some other Capital planning things that we've been talking about and Jeff um has asked us to start developing a long-term plan for technology Replacements um as you know we've started to um budget for the student laptops annually as Nikki said uh tonight in the correct account code we're starting a staff laptop replacement for fy2 um but then we need to start talking about all of the other things uh some of this is included in uh what Alice will probably speak about in the um the capital planning subcommittee report I spoke to Michelle earlier today and the security systems of the building and all of that is covered but um you know the class we had our first classroom projector die um a couple of weeks ago and we thankfully had one that we could replace it with but that's not going to be the first one that goes um uh access points Wi-Fi access points typically have a life of about 7 or eight years this is year six um the point of Sal systems haven't been updated I think the point of Sal systems in the cafeteria came from the old building um so that's something that we should probably look at um the switching equipment right um the stuff that you know all of the ethernet ports all around the building the cable isn't fine but eventually we'll have to replace the stuff in the the network closets um Access Control security cameras digital signage and more there's you know there's no Sage short of things to replace um so I'll have a better plan to present and we can you can tell me where we want to have that go first probably makes sense for it to go through the capital planning subcommittee but that's totally up to you um another thing that we discovered when we moved in we moved animal science into uh 20 mil Street um was that 911 was working um but the e911 and the um the the what we have report to the um the dispatcher right was not totally correct in Massachusetts um I believe we discovered is that you're required to report down to the room um where the person is calling 911 from and we were just giving the address um so we've gone through and for every classroom phone uh it now reports uh wing of the the building add address building Wing uh floor and classroom um so the uh the fer would see all of that if someone were to call 911 uh we changed our e911 call back number um because they were um very generic numbers that got misdialed a lot as people who are on the e911 call back Q know um we get a lot of we got a couple in a row somebody was trying to turn off the gas at their house um because the number was one digit off and the numbers were 781 274 1,000 and 1,1 which are very easily misdialed and it caused a lot of panic so we changed to things that are a little bit harder to dial um we also um we fixed so we fixed that and then we fixed the the 911 locations uh we also did some overbreak we did some updates to the firewall uh to make things a little bit more secure and that was my very short presentation as promised but I hope it gave you the information that you are looking for and I'm happy to take any questions you're mute Sarah thank you yep thank you just got myself off mute thank you drew that's that's a pretty thorough report and this is a subject that keeps me up at night for sure and one of the things I'm wondering about is um in your work with Microsoft do they provide um T tips that you can pass along to staff and students around the fishing that's happening through mobile texting now um because that's a point of vulnerability particularly if the students are accessing Wi-Fi through their phones and the school and and all of that there seems to be more and more of that going on now and really bright people are getting scammed for a lot of money now um thinking that their bank is texting them when it's not their bank and so forth and so on so sure um Microsoft doesn't I'm sure SOS does um and one of the things that I'm thinking about bringing back we used to have the tech TI Tech tip Tuesdays um that might come back and then maybe we'll have like cyber tip Thursday I don't know something um just you know telling all of the the all of our stakeholders student staff and um just giving tips every once in a while I I believe uh Anthony can correct me if I'm wrong I'm gonna have some time at the the faculty meeting next week and we're going to talk through um some of the changes that have happened um specifically around the phones um but also uh the fishing that we're seeing coming more and more U we do already do fishing training um but it's tough um you know people are busy and I'm hoping with the incentive of pdps then we can get more staff members on board to actually complete it but I will look into um some tips around the the cell phone fishing that's that's great SAR thank you maybe they have something that just makes it easy for you to pass along so you don't have to reinvent the wheel sure any other questions from school PR members if not thank you drew I appreciate your work on this inter a related topic uh is the final uh agenda item under the interim superintendence report is the subject of artificial intelligence which is quite prevalent School F Society have asked Mr cherell to do some work on that um so he can report it to the uh school committee so yield the floor to Anthony all right thank you Mr Mahoney good evening everyone let's get my screen here sure it's gonna do the display see if I can remember what to do here true hit display settings and then sorry I just have to move the bar first there we go that work yes awesome all right good evening everyone so I mean we can talk about artificial intelligence for hours as it is 8:30 at night we will not talk about it for hours um and we're going to try to focus you know on Ai and education so obviously artificial intelligence is everywhere now U but we kind of narrow our Focus for this evening on uh Ai and education I will just do a quick kind of like let me see why isn't that advancing there we go uh overview of AI I don't know where all of you all stand on your understanding of AI um talk very briefly about the national perspective and the um Statewide perspective in terms of any kind of information that's come out from Desi or the state um regarding Ai and education and then we we conducted a survey of our staff um and we want to just kind of share where we're at with AI um and maybe some things to consider um as a school committee with developing potentially policy I know there's that's definitely something the teachers would like to see is just some guidelines um and expectations so just real quick is AI itself is not new uh it's been around since the 1950s um in terms of defining what it was trying to move you guys out of the way so I can see this too um you know you would start to probably recognize some of these things depending on just pop culture um with deep blue which defeated um the chess champion um Google search uses AI um in the 2010 you started seeing things like Siri um so those are virtual assistants on smartphones um so that's deep learning transforming AI capabilities um then you start seeing it more recently in autonomous uh systems and everyday devices so you know self-driving cars but really where the floodgates opened was with the rise of generative AI um and this is where you know really in education where we kind of want to start our Focus so there's all different kinds of AI and like I said generative AI is the one that can create content that's text that's images it's code um it's music I don't know if you they can like create songs that it sounds like you know Kurt Cobain wrote right so I heard that one recently um lots of deep fakes and things like that there's also a whole another level of AI that doesn't exist yet that's the stuff that uh you actually should be scared of um this stuff is you know just concerning on on a number of different levels when we talk about generative Ai and we talk about generative AI just some kind of things that you may have heard of so uh chat GPT which is through open AI um that's the the symbol in the middle like co-pilot which if you go on your edge browser will come up uh Google's products Gemini was formerly bought barred claw and then Alpha code this is obviously just a small snippet of all the different generative AI programs that exist now and so a lot of these pull from GPT um and the interesting thing about that is it is cut at like 2021 so if you win and try to research something that's happened more recently and excuse me went to go ask you know chat GPT about something more recently and the 3.5 version it wouldn't know what you were talking about because it's not connected to the internet uh Google's is connected to the internet um and some of the other ones operate most of them operate off the GPT system um so in education there are obviously a number of pros and cons this is obviously just a general overview um it can help with content development and differentiation assessment design uh feedback uh personalized tutoring it can be kind of a a partner in creativity and collaboration um it can really help with some operational efficiencies however and this is the biggest one and you'll see this in the survey is the concerns around plagiarism and academic dishonesty um you know accountability for students and teachers uh there's definitely some issues with privacy and unauthorized data collection this is something that Drew and I have already been working on um uh through one of the organizations he belongs to in terms of their uh um what do you call it recommendation in terms of working with chat GPT with students um as they will they have refused to sign any data privacy agreements um over Alliance in the uh loss of critical thinking and perpetuating societal bias so one thing you have to remember is that whether it's live connected to um the internet or connected to you know uh a large language model that was developed prior to using the internet prior to 2020 one it's all coming from the internet right and we know that the internet is an incredibly biased resource um so um this is something that we need to be super careful with with AI everywhere but especially in education so just nationally so the um office of educational technology through the United States government did a um report in May of 2023 on artificial intelligence and the future of teaching and learning I will share this all out with you if if you haven't had a chance to read through it yourselves um and it kind of goes through some key insights some like the positives obviously how it can support Educators it can be a good feedback loop um can address student variability learning variability but of course there are risks um some of which we know about and some of which we have yet to predict um and then making some recommendations and I think some of the most important ones that I would put to is that you know we want to inform and involve our Educators um in terms of learning about these different tools what they're capable of um so that we can help our students learn about them um and you know also developing those guardrails and guidelines um for protecting our students uh their privacy and how they to protect academic Integrity as well and then from the state so I tried to do some research um on the desie website to see if I could find anything U where they've you know made any statements about this and at least in the Board of Education meetings it it hasn't come up in the last year it's come up meaning like they've mentioned the words but not in any um extensive um discussion but the um digital learning uh advisory Council um which is kind of like the VCT advisory Council so it's a group of different stakeholders who you know focus on one specific area in this case digital learning and then make recommendations to the board of education so the last time the meeting notes were posted was from the December 20th meeting they did have a meeting on March 20th um but they don't post the meeting notes until the following meeting which I believe is in June um but from desie in quotes from the meeting minutes was that desie has not come out with any formal guidelines uh related to new developments in AI It's Quickly evolving difficult to create a policy and recommendations that is relevant to all stakeholders so um they're not coming out with a policy yet but it is certainly something they're talking about and they you can see that kind of the areas that they want to make sure are kept at the Forefront are um you know cyber security security and data privacy leveraging it um in the computer science standards um and you know kind of teaching students how to use this in a safe way the other thing is this idea of digital Equity so ensuring that students regardless of where they're you know their uh their zip code that have the same access to learn about and to make sure everybody's on mute please um so that's kind of where desie is right now so we'll see it was on the agenda for the the March meeting but we'll it'll be interesting to see what they kind of discussed um when the meeting minutes are posted and then just from like a state level um the state is of is of course you know at the Forefront of uh studying generative AI however I will say that it's mostly geared towards industry and business it's not uh at least this task force that was developed um at the beginning of this year um wasn't focused on K12 education um it was really about like how to kind of you know use AI not how to kind of regulate it so I just that's kind of where the the state stands with AI at the moment um sorry whyn't this moving forward so we conducted a survey of AI just so we could give you all uh some perspective on where our staff stands with the use of AI how they feel about AI how they're using it if they're using it with the students um we did do a tech PD carel um at the end of March where our teachers do micro professional developments for their colleagues and two of the sessions were on artificial intelligence one how teachers can use it and one how students could potentially use it those were run by Bruce Gerard who's an English teacher and uh Corey Dolan who's in one of our Advanced manufacturing teachers that was the most attended those two PDS were the most attended out of all the professional development sessions that were offered that day um so people are interested in it so we Sarah art our interim CTE director and I put together a survey um about 75% of the staff responded which is a pretty good response rate uh 50 so a higher percentage were kind of from the academic side then the CTE side um and then obviously from um some of the other areas our guidance counselors our technical assistants and our nurses so this we kind of asked you know how do you feel about AI how do you use it um so we had um there was one category that no one responded Yes which I I guess is good which is that I'm terrified of it and want nothing to do with it so 0% of the respondents said that um uh 15% I know said I know about it but don't use it 33% said I'm apprehensive about it but have been cautiously experimenting with it 18% said they're embracing embracing it and using it themselves but not with their students and 22 oh I got my numbers wrong here I'm sorry I'm writing it on reading on the side uh and 12% said I'm embracing it and using it both myself and with my students so this kind of if anyone's familiar with like um a diffusion of innovation curve this is pretty much how that typically lines up where you have a small amount of innovators who are going to use it whether you're talking about it or not um then your early adopter who really just need some guidelines and will start kind of using it whether for themselves or with their students then you have early adopters who need like they need a little proof of concept before they're going to kind of take it on your late adopters um who are going to need a lot more you know support and and maybe forced to use it but will and they're they're they're prepared to do that and then you have what are called laggards and those are folks who aren't going to use it they're just not going to use it um and in different Innovation situations those folks might you know leave the profession they might leave their organization you know I don't see that happening with AI and U minut man but that's just how that particular curve works and I would say that based on this initial survey we kind of fall into that div that diffusion of innovation curve which I think is uh good um so we kind of talked just we kind of gave them a list of things that they might be concerned about like I mentioned nationally this is the issue this is the issue here people are concerned about cheating I think I have another side that just specifically about cheating um the majority are not sure how this is going to play out in education whether it's going to have a positive or negative impact um although I will say that so they could select they could select they didn't have to choose between positive and negative so they said they're not sure but in a three to one ratio they feel like it's going to have a negative impact on uh the on education K12 education um 50% feel it can make them more uh efficient professionally about a third feel it could support student learning and but our teachers are they get it they understand what's going on and they know that our students need to learn how to use it effectively and ethically um which kind of goes back to that academic Integrity piece excuse me so how are our stud how are our teachers who are using it professionally using it uh they're using it to create discussion questions quiz questions um as kind of a writing assistant for themselves uh leveling readings which you know if folks are familiar with programs like newella or news newella that will do it for you but chat GPT has the ability where you can kind of say like can you write this at a 1,000 Lexile level and it'll kind of rewrite it for students just kind of creating greater level of access um things like clarifying assignments creating images just brainstorming ideas for You Know lesson ideas objectives vocabulary creating procedures so you know teachers are finding kind of ways that those things that take a long time to do often um but chat GPT or whatever they're using um can kind of speed that process up I will say and this is the key with AI this is just a editorial or my own personal opinion is that if you don't actually know how to do any of these things yourself then the stuff isn't always good so you really need to be able to like take it it's a good way to speed the process up but you need to always go through edit see if those questions are good um so it's a good productivity tool um but I would tell you that if you don't know how to lesson plan and it gives you a lesson plan it is not necessarily going to be a good lesson plan um and that just kind of goes for most things I think with generative AI so not many teachers very very few are using it with students um so far in terms of like the the generative aips um there are some programs that do use generative AI I know like inei will help create a format for you um which will kind of again speed up a little bit of the proc it doesn't create the content which is which is good but it will kind of help with you with the formatting um in DVC which is a place where excuse me G of AI I think they might be most nervous about it as they're learning how to use it um as like a model and how AI does it versus how you might do it manually so kind of learning learning from it uh I sat in on a discussion in DBC one day and they were doing like the different Trends in uh design for the for 2024 and one of the things was Ai and you know so they're they're talking about it but AI imagery is kind of it looks the a lot of it looks the same it's not really that great um so it's it's a certain style but as we know with design Styles change um so it's just an interesting it is definitely a big part of the conversation in that industry and I'm sure in programming web development it's going to be a huge piece as well um they're using it to generate images for presentations generate outlines for writing um some of it will actually use it to like see if it's right right so you have ai generate something and then you'll kind of go and correct correct that content um using it to interrogate readings and kind of as a tutor uh for test and quizzes so this is happening not at really a super high level at this at this point some of our innovator teachers are are playing around with it with their students um but also trying to teach them all the pitfalls that go along with it as well like people have heard that the term that we use with generative AI is that it hallucinates so it will give you incorrect information um and it what what AI wants to do is it wants it wants to give you an answer right even if it's wrong so it will give you incorrect answers um which is why you really need to fact check it so cheating like I said cheating is probably the biggest concern right now with AI or we'll get to some of the other concerns but um with AI and the truth is that AI detectors like it doesn't they don't work yes you can ask chat PGT chat GPT if it wrote it it might say yes it might say no even that's not accurate there are different tools obviously that keep coming out the best one I think I saw is accurate at like a 18% rate which is obviously not good um for those of us who have been like history or English teachers we used to use like turnit in.com um and that would flag all the different places from the internet kids had copy and pasted from that just doesn't work with uh generative AI because what it's doing is it's predicting it's using a predictive model where it predicts what the next word is and that's drawing from a much larger the whole internet not just one particular site um so how are our teachers kind of combating this to to the best of their ability um one is they're using the traditional me methods that we would use to catch plagiarism right plagiarism so we are familiar with how our students right so when something comes to us that seems drastically different we can often identify that it may or may not be you know um their work so we'll have conversations with them um you might ask them a question about the assignment and see if they can answer it you might ask them the right part of it um of course we're teaching explicitly about academic honor Y and integrity and plagiarism um in math we're asking students to show their work we know that photo maath which is not new actually that's that's not generative AI That's Just AI um has been able to solve math problems for a long time so we need them to show their work um and just having discussions with students so we have to kind of almost take an old school approach to a new school problem um in terms of addressing uh cheating with uh generative AI there was a study that came out from Stanford recently uh by a I forget the name of the professor I apologize um but his whole study what he studies is cheating um and from this from his survey and his research so far and this is obviously early again cat GPT was just released in November of 2020 what year is this 2022 um so it's it's not it's still new uh but cheating had not gone up dramatically um as a result of these things and the the findings there are essentially people who were going to cheat before are going to just use this new tool to cheat and that most folks know it's the wrong thing to do and and don't do it um again and but there are different schools that are approaching it differently and what I mean schools like universities right now where they might instruct people to use AI they might instruct them not to use it they might have to site how they used it um one of our English teachers had students doing an assignment and this the one of the kids in his class uh did this really interesting thing she wrote her essay and then she plugged it into and put that in and then she plugged it into J chat TPT asked for some feedback on it and then she reflected wrote down her reflection on the feedback she got right um so it was just interesting to see how she used that as like a tool um she had her original piece you know she still she submitted the original piece she didn't submit the chat GPT part but she showed the teacher how she kind of like went through the process so there's you know there's some she that's a class where they're kind of learning more about how to use it so um it's encouraging to see people using it the right way but we always know people will you know take some shortcuts in some cases so the overall takeaways from the survey were that teachers understand that AI is part of both the present and the future and it's not going away um what I think is most important I kind of alluded to this when I talked about like teachers and lesson planning and needing to know how to do it to make it really an effective tool is that we're really trying to find this balance between this incredibly powerful productivity tool with ensuring students have foundational literacy and writing skills across the curriculum as well as critical thinking and problem solving I mean the conversations we're having at the school level with myself and my colleagues is um if we just let the computers do all of our work for us then no one's going to know how to think anymore no one's going to know how to write um and these are critical pieces about being human right so a lot of what we need to ensure is that students have those foundational skills so they can use AI in a productive ethical and effective manner um and that's finding that balance is going to be tough and we're in this you know rapidly evolving ecosystem of technology and you know we're gonna teachers need to learn about it students need to learn about it um and we need to find that balance um the other piece is just excuse me wanting you know guidelines for ethical and appropriate use and consequences when those guidelines are not met so we're in this tricky situation where we can't actually tell if something has been written by AI unless a student admits to it um or we can really you know kind of go through those traditional methods but having some guidelines as well as students understanding what the consequences are for that um would be important and so just kind of and I know this has got a lot of information on this slide but Ed week did a survey and uh wrote put an article out in February of this year uh around AI policy and I know as a school committee policy is is you know obviously an important part of your role um and so these are just some things to consider as you you start to think about you know developing AI policy um for the district um and so like things to really keep in mind are like data privacy ethical use academic Integrity Equitable access educational standards alignment preparation for future Workforce and effective policies for a framework for responsible Equitable and effective use of a education so there's a bunch of different resources that I'll share with you all uh the public an analysis for California education or Pace has a lot of great resources on developing um AI policy Carnegie melon University their um Everly Center has some great examples of how to to um uh create like academic Integrity policies around Ai and that's whether you want to have like no AI we we don't believe in this or some you know hybrid of where it's appropriate so those are a couple of resources um AI for education and teach AI are also two great resources for folks to learn about uh Ai and education um there's only two states that I think started the year with AI policy which are California and Oregon I know that there's a lot of States who are looking at it right now um but it's not like it's not like we're super far behind it's just a rapidly evolving piece and it would be a policy you would need to revisit regularly not like yearly like by like you know every six months or so um because of the rapid I know Alice um because of the rapid evolution of the technology where your policy could become outdated you know very quickly um so that's um where we are with AI I claim to be an expert on AI I'm happy to answer any questions that I can um but hopefully this gives you guys a little picture into where we're at with uh the use of artificial intelligence at minute man stop the share yeah Alice I think you should keep this report um maybe even keep it with the minutes because it's a historical document this is the very beginning of the conversations about Ai and education and I am always sensitive to the future poor historian looking at what's going on and trying to understand what happened back then um I I feel like this is interesting because it's just a snapshot and a kind of reflection on where is minute man at this moment and those things are very hard to find in in the first sort of a primary source way the second thing I was thinking about is that you know we're all kind of passive users of AI whether we want to be or not because a lot of what's on the internet um some of it is pure nonsense but there's some of it that is generated by this stuff already you know and because chat GPT is just taking the next word they're taking the next word sometimes from things that were written by chat GPT so you know it's going to become very confusing pretty quickly and I agree with you Anthony about the about the um how fast it's going to change but I I think that report is very interesting just as a reflection of the moment and um I I do hope you'll keep it somewhere and it doesn't just disappear of course Anthony if you um forward that to me I can include it in the minutes for this meeting absolutely any uh other questions for Anthony thank you Anthony appreciate it that includes the interim superintendent report thank you we are on to interim assistant superintendent of Student Services report Dr Amy Perot peral and it is um 8:49 so just so anybody who's interested good evening everyone it is 8:49 so I'm going to talk quick and briefly but I do have two kind of exciting things that I wanted to share um from my world first is we're getting to to the end of the school year and I just wanted to give a little update on the CPAC that is our special education parent advisory Council um it's an organization to support parents with students really any parent but primarily Stu parents with students who have parents who have students that are served by an ieper 504 um historically it's been extremely difficult to get um parent participation in our cpacs I think um um it because we're spread out so far nobody wants to come to a meeting um now that we're doing it virtually the the participation has gone up um but at still at the same time I feel like when parents have students in high school they they've had experience with IEPs in special education for such a number of years I think they have a handle on it and maybe they feel they don't need as much support um but this year we had uh two great parent co-chairs um and we really had more participation than we've had in a really long time so that's exciting um we put on three presentations I did one on the overview of special education services at Minute Man with a Q&A and that was pretty well attended um we did a presentation um by the uh Federation for children with special needs which M an is a member of they came in and did a presentation on transition and students trans transitioning out of high school and then um as part of our tiered Focus monitoring review this year desie came in and did an overview for our parents on what that would look like um it's kind of like an audit of our special education services um and then we're looking to the Future to do one uh a presentation on the new IEP that's a big thing coming up for us for next year um again I talk about our two co-chairs which are amazing they get the word out we have a Facebook page for the CAC also sharing things on the Minuteman parent page again being part of um members of the Federation we on the list serve so they get all the updates and they share them out um so some good interaction going back and forth however our co-chairs both have Rising seniors so it would be great if we could get some more parents involved and then they could kind of do a year together and then take the Reigns um I feel like we got a tiny bit of momentum going and it would be great to keep it going um that's the ball the gist for CPAC any questions um just um thank you Amy I appreciate that just as an FYI as a member of um Mass pack the Federation is doing a whole series of parent trainings on the new IEP form which you are eligible for for free so just put that out there thank you other questions Char um andam forgive me if I'm wrong or correct me if I'm wrong but you can also go to the Federation website if you want to get you know um a head head start on these programs and not wait until next year um you can watch these digitally or on virtually online Okay um so and my second one is that I just wanted to talk about something that's near and dear to my heart um mental health and we received a mental health Grant um this year a continuation Grant from one we had last year and we trained seven staff to be trainers so it's a train the trainer model for mental health first aid which is an evidence-based um program that teaches participants about mental health and substance use and it's geared for any adult to gain some skills to be able to talk to any student um not a practitioner like just anybody that cares about a kid it'll give you skills to talk about mental health or substance use um so it's just fabulous and to have seven staff members trained as trainers to me is exciting um and it's a great cross-section we have counseling staff admin academic staff CTE staff like it it's a great cross-section um and what we're looking to do with the rest of the grant money we have is um luckily we get out a little early year so we have some time in June um to offer trainings for any of the staff members that want to come in it's a one-day training to just be trained in it and since we have uh seven trainers we can probably get a good number of people that want to come in and be trained and then you know we're going to grow it throughout the year like our certifications as long as we do two trainings a year we stay certified forever so as um you know we can look at different PDS or um if people are interested in doing like a Saturday class because they hear how awesome it is and they want to come in if the school committee wanted to be trained in Mental Health First Aid we could do that um we've the group of us have talked about talking with our member towns like if we could if they wanted to share and we would go and do staff there like there's a whole bunch of ways to share and increase the knowledge which is just exciting um I do want to give a shout out to Corey Nicholson and Kyla Callahan who are my wonderful social workers who are administrating this Grant and doing all the organizing and the setting up and the billing and the whole nine yards and they've just done a fabulous job um and again you can tell I'm really excited because this is a big deal um so I just wanted to share any questions oh got Sharon and then Sarah um I just want to say thanks for doing that because I think postco mental health issues have been so huge for our kids so the commitment that you're making to make sure that our faculty can help our kids is awesome so thank you I I wanted to Echo that also and it's a it's a national epidemic now it's not even just with with students um and I would be interested in participating in the training if there's other um school committee folks or I could join something that you might have in progress I could just take time off from work okay get that going else all right thank you okay the last thing um both of these are mine and very very short uh subcommittee report policy subcommittee so the policy subcommittee is um Sharon mustow me Dr peral is the administrative um coordinator of this and we sometimes have a visitor of Charlene cabal who um offers her legal sight too and just her thoughts um we have been working on Section I which is sort of instructional policies for since September and um we are just today finished with a second go round of reviewing section I and it's going to come back with revisions for in a couple of weeks and then hopefully we're going to get it to you guys by the end of the year cross your fingers it's a huge section so and it's complicated and the other thing that we're trying to fix is the duplication of documents that it causes headaches around the state for every school district where you have it in the handbook and you have it in the manual and every time you change one it's out of sync with the other and State Law changes and so forth so we're hoping to solve that problem as well that's the end of the policy report any questions about the policies you're going to have a huge amount of reading shortly just warning you you're going to be reading like War and Peace okay now next thing is the capital planning subcommittee and I actually wrote down what I had to say because I knew I would be tired hang on so we had a packed agenda we had our sort of second meeting of the capital planning subcommittee and let me just tell you who was there we had Kevin Mahoney Michelle rendis Maggie Chiron Fort Spalding me Julia and Heidi Driscoll and Jeff Stan sat in as U listening members of the sort of the school community so um the building opened in 2019 and that's so that's been 5 years almost and we all think about our responsibility to maintain and keep the school's assets and tiptop condition and many districts live let this slide they build a new building they breathe a big S of relief and then things don't happen for a number of years and then things are starting to go wrong and we are not going to be that District so we heard updates on the North building the capital skills Grant award future Capital skills Grant award opportunities the status of the East Building the new equipment in the wellness fitness center and progress on a 10-year Capital plan in the district's intention to enlist a consultant to gather the data for that plan we did not explicitly talk about um anything to do with um uh uh data equipment and cameras and stuff like that in the building at this meeting so we we determined that there really are two types of planning one is planning year-over-year maintenance and replacement schedules and projecting Financial impacts and the second is understanding how a district developed strategic plan that looks at the educational program plan and related space and Furnishing requirements will drive Capital planning and space usage needs which is a much different way to look at it and we will meet again on May 9th so that's my report on Capital planning um are there questions on that no so seeing n we have the adjournment motion so we have a motion to adjourn at 8:59 so moved second must and moniku we could take a vote Hamner sa yes Sarah monu Arlington yes Erica Elie Bolton yes D conquered yes n Sharon yes charl cab yes Aaron must Lexington yes aluca still Yes live long and prosper say hi to Jeff because he's gonna watch thank you thanks everybody