[Applause] [Music] good afternoon we're going to call today's meeting to order today's Tuesday May 7th 2024 this meeting is being audio video recorded for future broadcast please silence all cell phones for the duration of meeting and we'll start with the pledge ofi United States of America the of stands one nation God indivisible andice agenda is our consent agenda which includes the minutes of April 9th 2024 as well as payroll and Warren those are both included in your packet so if I could have a motion of approval oh sorry we have to roll call sorry Mrs dowy yes Mrs bones yes Mr Hood yes Mr yes M yes thank you so if I could have a motion please to approve the minutes of April 9 2024 and warrant agenda make that motion approve second all those in favor all right and doesn't look like we have anyone on delegation this evening so we pass that item get no old business tonight we we get to new business and I'll pass it to um first up we want to discuss the Middle School Civic Action project and I would just ask Mrs syia to come to the podium thank you mad chair members of the school committee Dr Bailey so it is I just we had some students in the volleyball volleyball game one I had some students who I listed who played volleyball today other students who are listed are playing baseball today so it is just me today um but on the agenda we have the students Civics action projects each eighth grader is required to do the student showcase at Bridge State University May 28th we have about seven or eight students attending with Miss Bentley I will be going and Mr Gary will be going as well and then on the 31st we're going to have our own student showcase here at Ford it aligns to the district strategy oh so by completing the student Leed Civics project students will all of those bullet points develop and practice Civic skills become more AC academically engaged develop and practice social emotional skills conduct inquiries and determine next steps there a few others the project will help them understand how do you effectively Foster Civic agency what does democratic citizenship look like in action what does it mean to be an informed thoughtful and active citizen so desie was excited to work with the 8th through 12th graders there are three science ffic showcases the closest to us was Bridgewater State College you did have to apply and we were accepted at first they only wanted us to bring one team of two but misly pushed them and I think we're bringing four teams of two or three teams of two a team of three um so local community advisers will be there will receive feedback on their work and be recognized for their civic engagement miles Kyle Tyler Giana brilland Augusta Norland and Alexis will be there miles Tyler and Kyla are presented on the food in Security in bristell County BR and Augusta problems of intolerance and incivility as determined by online discussions I I put the little definition there and the platform that you can hide behind a keyboard and be a keyboard Warrior and what you say may not hurt somebody but in the end it may hurt mental health awareness gaana safety and public spaces for women and girls norn and Alexis will be presenting on that so our of showcase May 31st it will be in the morning after drop off parents will be um will be invited to come in and walk around our seventh graders will also tour and ask questions so we have some other topics by catch awareness is where there is fishing you may accidentally catch something else dangers of electric caruse abolish homework veteran homelessness antiv vapen amending the dress code PL plastic pollution within our oceans the potholes in a cush Road Safety in a cush more student voice and choice inhumanity to animals and I do believe one of them is about maybe it's the extracurricular that um I know Patrick McIntyre was asked uh for his feedback on that and his his um is part in all they collecting information questions great so you're all invited on May 31st you are invited also to Bridge State University as a community advisor if you can attend I did send an email out to you about that but we are extremely proud of our students and the work that they are doing on in this project um so I want to thank you for presenting on this no thank you thank you so [Music] okay um next I want to go to the adoption of the fy2 budget and I would ask you to refer to the business manager report um which is section one but really on page two tonight I will be looking for a motion um for you to adopt and vote on the FY 25 budget we're looking for a 2.09% increase for and it's a total of 16 million 93,6 63 um and you'll see on that second page there are some changes based on the fact that we did have some tuitions come up that we had to account for um and some other deductions um but overall we have a level service budget and we're really proud of that in these times we've worked really hard and I want to thank Mr sces and Mr H for their work on this budget we put in quite a bit of hours to be sure that um we have level services for our students for next year so I don't know if anybody has any questions but tonight I would need a vote to adopt the FY 25 budget for 16, 393,000 um and that's a decrease from 23651 that was presented at the most recent public appearing based on these things that I just mentioned so can you give that number one more time the actual number yes please yeah 16, 393,000 $663 and do you want the previous figure no I okay that reflects the increase of 2.09% questions or comments on the budget I guess I would maybe I don't know if Mr Coles or Mrs go how wanted this common did you were part of that so basically to make things short and sweet we realized that there were um needs that the town we need to meet the town needs and so we worked very hard with um the leadership team and Dr Al and and Patrick McIntyre and getting it to a place where the town could accept it for us and hopefully we can we're staying label serviced and our kids should strive with this budget and hoping that next year we have a little bit more funds to work with um so next year we can get the things that we really want in our budget as we weren't able to get it this year and I just want to mention to the principles were very involved in this you know they get the information from their teachers and staff and then we get it from them and we work together on that so this is where we're at um but I think in these tough times I think the fact that we're able to provide level services at this point if the town agrees would be great CRS I was confident with bu be confident that it will fulfill the educational needs you know students see the gaps that you know caus us to be you know have some real concerns I think that we're really you know moving ahead and uh you know in for efficiency know have quality in structure area so I very confident with this and if we felt the need that we needed to push harder because of the things that we need we absolutely we will always advocate even even if things change I mean this is a snapshot in time at the moment but as you know tuition's changed there's many variables with the school budget so we will always advocate for the needs of the students um and the staff in our district and just to add one more thing we are approving hopefully we will approve this budget as a committee however we still have time before town meeting so like Dr Bailey says if things change if funds become available or anything like that we are able will be able to adjust at town meeting with with the members Town members votes I just don't anticipate that we a an email today from the state and it doesn't look as though we're getting any additional funding unfortunately but you're right if anything changes you will certainly bring it back to the committee I know the town is looking at a town meeting date now of June 17th um but you know if you vote to adopt this budget we can plan for things you know quoting all right so if I could uh request a motion please to approve the FY 25 budget in the amount of 16, 39366 as proposed so funds I'll second it and all those in favor I I thank you I do have a couple of other things that have come to light before the um uh after the agenda was passed um first I'd like to give a shout out to all of our teachers and staff we have our staff appreciation week this week and we're so um happy and proud to be celebrating that with them of course we appreciate our staff each and every day this is just a nice week to come together and show them how much and I also want to give a huge shout out to our PTO because they provide us with endless fo all week and I know it's very much appreciated by the staff so that was the first thing um also I want to make you aware we just got notified that we um are the recipients of another grant for the vacation acceleration Academy's grant for $69,000 total FY 24 award was 25,000 and FY 25 for the summer program is 44,000 so we'll be busy working on that again and the last thing and I don't know if you want to do it now during my report or if you want to do it during the school committee m reports but I do know that uh Mrs goes is leading Us in the charge for the regionalization study and I know she has some updates for us so if we want to do that now that's fine if not we can do it during school committee reports yeah no I think we should talk about it now yeah so I spoke with Jim Hardy from mask and U he was the gentleman that helped me nine years ago when we did our original potential regionalization study um and our first step is to create a with all stakeholders so the recommendation um just like it was uh a decade ago is to make sure that we have um parents teachers School administrators local government um students and community members at large so you have a form that I passed out or that Kathy passed out to you um my recommendations with talking with Jim um I had recommended for parents and Guardians two parents one from each school again this is all up for negotiation and discussion so sound still uh teachers at least one teacher from each school um School administrators um our superintendent of business manager uh local government either a selectman or a finance committee member or both whatever we see fit um and then for students um at least an eighth grade student I think would be good to um just have on there just so they can see um what we're talking about as well as an recushion high school student so do you want a current eighth grade student this year right and then it would just change every year to get their opinions you know because this is a big deal and this is going to be affecting them of course this probably won't come to fruition if it does at all five six years from now right so again it's just getting the students perspective like I said 8th grade and a high school student I think would be nice um and again that can be interchanging um right now we're just voting on the um the what's structure the structure of the committee yes um there's also uh business uh leaders that we can add on here if the committee sees fit um but I thought too many people are probably not going to be as effective so I'm thinking around 10 people total for this committee um so again the two parents the two teachers which is four superintendent and business manager and a school committee member right so seven and then a finance committee or Selectmen eight and then the two students um from a high school student in in an eth grader and if we want to add an extra space for the 11th because the students might not be able to make them you know that would be helpful so any comments anything you'd like to add I I think it's pretty well rounded what you have for representation I don't have any other suggestions and again what we'll happen is is once we agree to this structure I'll send out notification to everyone through the help of Dr Bailey um we can publish it on our Facebook pages and we'll get letters of intent we'll request letters of intent as well as possibly resumes depending on what the situation is um and then we will I'll come together choose the the top people and then come back to discuss it with the committee members for an official vote of of who's going to be on this committee and again it's it's a long-term commitment because it is going to take quite some years for it to come to fruition if it even does right now uh our first step is to find the schools that we'd like to um work with and then find a grant to pay for more the study to do it with to to work with whatever School District we decide to work so when we say two parents if they were two par if we didn't have a parent from each school could we just say ideally it's one parent from each school but right exactly flexibility we want to make sure parents are there we want to make sure that teachers and and staff mbers if it's not if we only have like one teacher and there's a staff member that wants to join um I feel like there will be a lot of people that want to be a part of this so um more the Maria to take a look at and then we can wle things down to a committee that's efficient and effective and when you said one school committee member that is an addition to correct in addition so two any because technically this is a school committee subcommittee so we can't have two members a vote tonight on the structure just on the structure structure M but it is important to note though that it it will be a formal subcommittee so that'll be you know will be required to be taking minutes it'll have to be need to be posed correct yep y all of this will have to have um we'll have to have a secretary to do the notes and and things like that and we'll have to have a forum as well for each meetings all right so the lots to do with this obviously first step is to to get the structure in place so um if I can request a motion please to approve the proposed stakeholder makeup of the uh Public Schools regionalization committee so all those and that's all I have tonight thank you all right um are there any other reports by school committee members have slly this time oh we have our business manager report sorry I think you to tonight it's up to you but over the I went over a lot of the information that's in his report um if you do want to hear any more about food service or facilities you can definitely go up to the podium it's up to you yeah okay yeah we have a lot of off we do also have your report though so um next time um all right so do you want to point out there's also a number of communications outlined in our packet so please make sure review those you have a moment and we do have executive session tonight um so um if I could W motion fre to adjourn into executive session and this will be not to return to open session and executive session tonight is to discuss uh the following conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with personel you have that motion please motion second second and we'll take a roll call vote Mrs yes Mrs yes Mr H yes Mr hro yes Mrs yes thank you [Music] [Music] oh