meeting of um May 9th uh thank you Tara uh to order and we'll lead off with the um Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of Allegiance the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for stop driving in okay thank you we'll start off with uh introduction of members starting with our student representative I'm Maya G I'm the student council treasurer at Blackstone milville Regional High School uh Matt calano milville Chuck dunon Blackstone Tara scobby Blackstone Tara Lin milville Harry godette Blackstone Dan Keefe Blackstone Joe spagner Director of Finance and operations Jill pill gallerani assistant superintendent director of student services and Jason DeFalco superintendent okay and I'll hand over the floor to you Maya as a student representative report so I have some updates and happenings at the high school so first just a brief announcement there's going to be an mcast math boot camp held for all 10th grade students next week to prep for mcast testing and today there was an assembly held today which was a pre-prom assembly which educated students about distracted driving which was presented by think fast last week we had our National Honor Society induction ceremony where new members and officers for the 2024 2025 school year were inducted next up I've got sports update girls tennis the record is 5- six for softball seven and seven baseball had their second win of the Season against NMU on Monday it's a really good win that was a great game and for track they had a DVC meet at Douglas on 514 our Powderpuff game which was canceled in November because of the rain and bad weather conditions has been scheduled for May 20th and prom is actually tomorrow in menden and 179 students in guests will be in attendance at prom our student council this year has been attending some conferences we went to the state conference in hyanis and then we most recently went to a spring conference at which I was elected Ed the Central District Massachusetts Association of Student Council secretary and I'm very honored to be assuming that position and starting to rebuild our student council more and next year we're going to be curating our book of Excellence so to hopefully be recognized as a gold Council of Excellence at hyenes next year congratulations thank you and that is all I have for you guys you thank you very much any questions for our representative well thank you thank you for your hard work have a lovely evening you too thanks all right next on the agenda Cent agender a warrants and minutes from April 11th 2024 I will entertain a motion to approve the warrants in the minutes of that meeting second motion made by Carrie seconded by Chuck any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I I any oppose the eyes have it it's unanimous public forum would anybody like to come up and address the school committee all right moving on to school committee agenda student recognition Mass wer County student scholar Mr superintendent yes thank you Mr chairman um good evening everybody nice to see all of you and uh to our friends in the audience um I'd like to introduce uh this year's uh [Music] 2024 um Massachusetts Association is superintendence wester County scholar recipient and I'm goingon to ask Aubrey rucci to join us and if Mom wants to come and Miss FAS I'd love to have you join uh Aubrey as well I don't think Aubrey knew when she got this award that she was going to be recognized repeatedly for this but if you want to take a seat at the table there that'd be great um so Aubrey um we're very excited that she's here tonight and I'm really excited to introduce you to her if you if you haven't had the pleasure of meeting her yet and I'm sure miss fallis will have some fabulous words to share about Aubrey as well um but I have to tell you not only is she um our representative from Bomar and we had a chance to honor Aubrey and her peers um in March at Holy Cross uh with a with a really big lunch and and a and a just a tremendous celebration but Aubrey actually did the program for the entire event so she organized all of the scholars all of their remarks she put it all into um the actual program printed it um and as you can imagine um I can be a little meticulous about something so Aubrey had to go back a few times to do some revisions uh I had the opportunity to actually go over and and work with Aubrey in class on some of the feedback um and the program was just Stellar so it went out to all of the districts across Worcester County with all of the scholars their names their favorite quote um and it was just like what a blessing that one of our kids actually put that together for the entire event I think we sent out almost 300 um and it says and it's printed right there made by The Print Shop blackone mville Regional High School so it went across the entire um blackone Valley it was the first um or wer County it was the first time we did it uh BBT has always done them in the past and uh when we took it over we decided we're going to do it ourselves and so Aubrey it just congratulations on the recognition but a huge huge thank you for putting up with me um and actually putting together a program that was just Stellar so thank you for that Miss Fallas I'm sure you'll have some uh I would want to say um you know we've been talking about the remarks at graduation but Aubrey just uh was at uh NHS inductions you're the treasure treasure um and uh did a lovely job so I'm looking forward to that and we had some we had some laughs at the at the meeting that's at the event so it was fun it was fun getting to know her a little bit more she's a little quiet but um super personality so we're very lucky so we don't want to put you on the spot but I'll put you on the spot is there anything you is there anything you want to add or say or do you want to kind of gear up for your address for graduation um I'm super excited to be able to go up there and thank everybody who helped me get here and wish everybody the best of luck to the next step of their journey and your plans for the fall I will be attending Bryant University and business business yes congratulations yes thank you thank and we're going to bother you again at the awards night thank you so much thank you congratulations good job thank you thanks okay next um up is accept uni bank donation of 2500 for BMR seniors Mr T uh Mr superintendent yes um through uh Miss fess's hard work and Mr jub's hard work um they were able to get the senior signs covered um uh through UniBank um we may have a UniBank person on our school committee I'm not sure I won't disclose that but a big thank you to to that individual as well um Matt thank you so much for any support um I'm sure you provided a lot through that but this is such a great thing and honestly we weren't we were thinking we were going to do them it was kind of a CO thing we didn't think there was a lot of interest um until we weren't going to do them and then we had so much feedback of people expressing just how much they enjoy them that uh we found a way so thank you uh Matt very much Jill thank you and to Mark Juba for making sure that we can celebrate our students and always way possible at the end of their journey and did I miss the feedback where people said how much they enjoyed them or how much they would wanted to see themal okay that's okay want to make sure we're reading the same feedback I'm glad thank you very much for all involved to make that uh keep that up and running uh next on the agenda is the e oh I'm sorry we got to accept this H I gotta probably keep my glasses on more often uh so accept a motion to accept the donation for 2500 from uni bank so moved second motion made by Tara seconded by Tara any other discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I any oppose the eyes have it thank you Matt thank you for the rec that Matt abstained let the record show you um special thanks to uni bank and all efforts put into that uh that matter next on the agenda is endd 2024 minig Grant Office of district attorney Joseph early for $1,200 Mr uh Mr superintendent do you would you like to yeah just it's a grant that um this high school again Jill Keith uh I believe Joe nimic have gone after um you know year after year uh we're very pleased that da early has awarded us Grant again this year and I believe it's post prom postgraduation celebratory events and activities so that's what the $1,200 will go to okay any further discussion on any to add I'll I'll take a motion to accept the uh Grant from district attorney Jo Joseph early for $1,200 so moved second motion made by Chuck seconded by Carrie any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I any oppose the eyes have it uh Mr superintendent revise school committee calendar for 2024 2025 calendar yes there is one error on the calendar that we reviewed at our last meeting so in your packet you have the updated uh calendar the change there was only one uh was to remove the second meeting in April uh because it had fallen on a um the school vacation week so there will be one meeting in April and it will be April 10th um any comments take a motion to approve the revised 2024 2025 school committee calendar so moved second Tara seconded by Chuck any discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I hi the oppos the eyes have it uh msba update vote to construct an OPM selection subcommittee um so in your package you have um and ter is do do you want me to run through that is it okay okay thank you sure uh in your packet you have um two things uh two msba documents um the first is um the close out on the milville boiler project uh so we just wanted to make sure that you had all the documentation for that this Project's been long done and closed but just so the school committee has a record of the official close out and the msba just approved that at their April 24th meeting um so that's just for your uh for your paperwork um underneath the OPM selection um behind the closeout for the milville boiler project you have uh an additional packet um there are two separate pieces of information in there the first or that cover page is titled OPM selection subcommittee uh which we'll talk about in one minute the packet just or the piece just behind that the second document is the request for owners project manager uh Management Services so the OPM as our school committee is aware is the firm that will end up leading us through the feasibility uh study and then should the uh overall project and approved will lead us through uh the construction uh phase of the project as well um so this is as you would imagine is a really important um uh selection process um so right now we do have a um OPM selection subcommittee that has been approved by the school building committee that is that first page um and um before any action is taken on that the job of this subcommittee is to create the request for services proposal um so we have had one meeting we uh met Monday it was a virtual meeting uh and have started working through um reviewing other resses and requests for service proposals that other school building projects have have put forward um so we all have our homework between our last meeting and our next meeting which is this upcoming Monday um which is to essentially go through um the Criterion that is given to us from the mass School building authority and essentially assigned points so we have to determine you know how important is each one of these criteria and then um establish a point system um that's important because when we put out the RFS it will show the firms what we value and what we're looking for in an OPM um we will then use a similar process when we're interviewing the different firms once we collect their proposals to assign points uh to those individual firms um and of course the firm of the highest you know number of points would be the one that we would we would recommend moving forward with um this is all really important important because this subcommittee is going to work through the process of not just the RFS but collecting all the proposals themselves reviewing the proposals um interviewing the firms the school building committee will be part of that process as well um but the uh OPM selection subcommittee will be doing a you know for lack of a better terms just like a lot of the grunt work to get all of this done and all of this in place um that uh firm will have an opportunity or the school committee will have an opportunity to meet with that firm as well well we'll certainly bring the OPM in front of the school committee to for discussion and questions and um this is all uh really important because we're working on a timeline that the mass School building authority has put forward um regarding their approval of our OPM selection msba has to approve the OPM um and they only meet um on a very kind of strict calendar for this particular purpose there's a meeting August 5th and the meeting after that uh for OPM approval is on September 9th so we are going to be um shooting for the September 9th meeting and we have a timeline uh all very well laid out to make sure that we meet that uh you know barring any situation that you know we were not aware of or is out of our control but that's that's the target we're looking for um terar did I miss anything on or any of the other school boarding committee members um so what we are looking to do is have the school committee um approve the OPM selection subcommittee that has been approved already by the school building committee and my apologies there are a lot of committees in all of this work so forgive me for all of the terminology um but that's where that sits I'll make a motion to approve the OPM selection subcommittee Mary BSO Matthew plant Sarah Peters Joseph spagna and Jason DeFalco motion made by Chuck second seconded by Tara any other discussion well I'll just say it's a lot of work and I thank these people for stepping up because there's a lot to do and it's generally in a tight tight crunch timeline so um with that being said um Al those in favor signify by saying I I uh any oppose the eyes have it I I got to go back to school committee agenda item e thank you Tara that I skipped right over a vote to reappoint the superintendent to the bico board of directors so moved a motion made by Tara second seconded by Chuck any other discussion thank you Jason for uh keeping an eye on that portion of the uh District well um all those in favor signify by saying I I any oppose the eyes have it and moving on to authorize the Director of Finance and operations as signatory for Rockland Trust OPB in your uh packet there are two um this is really just procedural but there are two Rockland Trust uh handouts the first are the current signator signatories um and the second is just uh will be the page where we'll update adding um Joe uh so that Joe can do all of the work and the interactions and the you know the essentially the account management uh on all of that which I think to date we have somewhere around 380,000 I believe the last roughly around there yeah that I saw so we can't do that without the school Community yes any other discussion on that um okay I'll entertain a motion to authorize the Director of Finance and operations Joseph spagna as signatory on the Rockland Trust OPB so moved motion made by Tara second seconded by Matt and chuck all those in favor signify by saying I I I any opposed the eyes have it we appoint long Depetro Gonzalez LLP as District legal counsel a motion made by Tara second seconded by Carri any other discussion this is a standard annual appointment of a current legal council all those in favor signify by saying I I I I any opposed the eyes have it uh discussion on excess and deficiency overview Mr to uh Mr superintendent yes um in your packet uh you will uh see a handout that's just titled exess deficiency calculation fiscal year 2024 um and if you look at the total unencumbered excess and deficiency funds we're around $225,300 copy of these correct annually so the the the towns are well aware of what we have um in excess and deficiency annually that's right and the town administrators also get the um uh same notification as well to that point although sometimes they may have a bit ofure receiving that information but they they do they do get it uh report of the superintendent is next on the agenda great thank you um so uh very exciting tonight we have um some really great updates to share the first is a review of our program of study for BMR so I will ask Mrs FIS to join us and uh walk through um and you might want to get cozy Mrs FIS I think you have a couple of items up here tonight uh but the first is um a handout that is also in your packet that is titled bmrs program of study changes for 2425 and uh Jill will walk us through that first first sure um I was here before and I mentioned a couple of um new AP courses AP offerings coming uh soon but we have um our enrollment we've got um our AP prekel I believe there are 22 students enrolled in AP pre- for next year um again this is a new course but um in a equity piece um now if students are not in advanced math they still could take an AP course in math at the uh at the end of this at their senior year so they could take Algebra 1 geometry Algebra 2 and they could take AP pre-cal if they would like to so you wouldn't feel like okay I'm already missed the boat because I can't take the only math was AP Calculus um we actually have three AP math courses we'll be offering AP stats uh AP Kelk and AP Pre-K so that's three in the math department um we also have the AP seminar which is going to eventually will is is basically our honors English 10 um it is a skills-based class there are I want to say 21 20 yes uh already enrolled and projected to enroll in that um next year so we're really excited about this um we're also offering four new elective courses um which is you've got a little screenshot of the flyer that's around school um so we're still pushing the increase in um in enrollment for that that that is going to be a couple more weeks for that but um nutritional science that helps us because um Jill Cole will be coming in our reconfiguration once the budget is passed we we U will have Jill Cole have the opportunity to do that she's already sent me amazing work on that so we're excited for that a manufacturing four which is civil engineering and architecture which is a pltw course um we're very fortunate that this is the last year of our grant and there's a chunk of money that we haven't spent yet and we'll be able to spend I'm spending lots of money it's all grant money I promise Joe and that um it'll be it'll be ready to go for that also looking at an alternative for mindfulness as a PE requirement um Mrs du is looking into um developing that um as well as the independent study and so the independent study which came directly out of the next piece that we'll talk about this actually came out of a topic that um we'll be talking about the grant study but um if there is something that we are not offering that you would like an opportunity to offer it is a student generated course so they would actually work with me personally I have one student who is interested in studying and learning more about real estate and so it'll be a combination of interviewing some people doing some major projects but creating your own rubrics and things like that and I actually had a student yesterday ask that he'd like to and I don't know the proper word but he'd like to learn about more of the embalming Mortuary type business I said that's definitely not something we have on VHS viral high school so um I'm going to be learning a lot um as far as that is concerned on the back side of that paper um just to let you know uh next Wednesday the 15th from 5: to 600 we'll have our uh incoming eighth graders uh coming into the coming into school and I just wanted to give you an update on what they will uh the horse offering that they will have um obviously you've got your math science socialized English and a half year of PE they will also have ful year elective opportunities of Van chorus in Spanish halfe options are art stem and a music appreciation course but more importantly I've found a way and we're very excited that they will there will be um if you are not taking two full year courses you will take an exploratory and the exploratory are going to be 10we courses all a quarter courses and those are the four things that we're exposing the to um a career exploration so looking at um doing some of the early work with um career inventories and interest inventories and what does that mean and where might I want to go and we're going to be starting again coming from uh something that we learned in our grant that you'll be hearing from soon um starting a who am I page and tracing your um your Evolution from 8th grade until your senior year and how your career interests are changing and your interests are moving and evolving um we'll have Lego robotics uh a manufacturing and uh a creative writing to work on and improve our our writing without it feeling like we're doing noun verb adjective all of that good stuff so lots of good stuff I'll be presenting this to our um families next week any questions great I believe it's mortium is what you look yes but it's he had this like word something Aly it was anology thing and I was like I have no idea what you're talking about and he was like yeah I want to I want to be an embalmer I was like okay I love it so I I think I'm going to be learning a lot I I'm not sure if we'll find I'm sure we can find somebody to let him visit I did write down a job shadowing send you there you go thank you I appreciate that I appreciate that I met that a business that yes these are some great additional offerings for next year and I know the high school has been really hard at work putting together the um the schedule for the eighth graders to come up so um it's really great to see that we'll be adding the eth grade courses to the program of study yes um I it kind of it it's symbolic but it's also really important and it shows the direction we're moving in so um I appreciate that and and the additional courses that we're going to have to offer our students uh our high school is second to none in the region really excited and and the teachers who have stepped up are like super excited and energized so I just love that all right so we just need a motion to approve the changes so make a motion sorry yeah I uh I'll make the motion to approve the BMR s 2425 program of study as presented motion made by uh Matt second by Tara any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I and oppose the eyes have it thank you so much uh nice work Miss fallis to you and your team on that um our second is an update on our learning excursions that uh actually some of our folks around the table have been on too so this has been a of a really interesting um year I started out last year um after a conversation with um with Jason um and oh thank you um you might have to do that so I forget I'm really bad at that um multitasking um I I we started I started off with a conversation of what makes us unique and What Makes Us special and uh it was a conversation with our leadership team and and wanting to do you know what how does do BMR stand out against other schools um in the area what makes us special um and it was a great conversations we had with a number of people and so I went on this kind of Excursion this year of how do we do school differently what does High School look like um you know the co gave us a an opportunity and a gift to do things differently and I feel like the farther we get away from it the more people want to go back to normal but it's not normal so um and echoing and pairing that with the um where everyone is welcome and belongs is uh what we were looking for so um I was a part of four actually um learning opportunity thank you four learning this is why I have you four learning opportunities um this year and three of them are are in here one of them was with um Dr deelo in our equity and action piece but this first one is um was from the discovery the 18 it's part of a pltw program um I we got to go to these five schools um I went with Carol KY who is a history teacher and uh Team lead and Nicole sacko um we got to visit um Plymouth North uh two schools in Boston and then we traveled to Washington DC um to see Columbia Heights educational campus and Dunbar High School um the graphic that you have here is a um large sticky that we were going through and looking at applied um learning and what does applied learning look like and it's talking about those Five Pillars of real world learning some of the soft skills that we have or we call them transferable skills um collaboration and communication which are part of our portrait of The Graduate um and uh professional practice and how do we how can we bring more Hands-On learning to our St students to increase engagement um and that has been a that's been a focus we've been looking at other departments have been looking at that um and it's been part of a professional practice goal so this was a wonderful EXP experience to uh see to see all of these uh different schools and how they're doing things and how they're doing things differently a number of things that we learned from here transferred into what you'll be hearing shortly um so BMR then went to Vermont we were there the 9th through the 12th um I'm very fortunate to be joined Carrie was there these lovely women two ladies in the back also joined me along with um Carol KY and CHR Shanahan from our our school but I'm going to let the ladies so tell them about the experience school was very different in its own way and each had many takeaways and whether that was O we want to bring this back or o we do not want to bring this back true um so our first takeaway ready ready oh oh one more there's our title slide there we go all right this is part this is the presentation that we did for the group at the end so this is coming right from our quarter the quarter turns was what we were talking about so each pitcher has on the left what we currently do at BMR and then on the right what our quarter turn will be and what we want to do so our first is mentoring and currently we connect our incoming eighth graders with the student leadership team and we also pair incoming eighth grade El students with an El mentor and then after our experience up in Vermont we want to form a better partnership between the student leadership team and Elementary classrooms and then also for our advisory we currently have student voice to increase whoa we use more student voice to increase engagement and then we also Implement am I reading this wrong yeah what we want to see this is what we want to see this is the second this is the second slide my apologies so in the original you're right I didn't tell you that in the original slide it was one slide of what we do and then the second slide is what we want to do so these are the what we want to do all right my apologies bad editing on my part so for advisory we want to use more student voice to increase engagement and then also Implement onetoone conversations for connections and data points and feedback and then we also want to incorporate more team building exercises to develop a sense of community around BMR okay so she's good currently at BMR we have um student no no this is the new one the program that I mentioned y okay this is the new pilot program the new program so um what we got out of Vermont is that we want to have a student and teacher collaboration on um independent student centered uh curriculums so one big thing is the student choice and voice which was a big part of the ver Vermont schools because they had a lot of um student leadership programs and we just right now like we have a lot more but they had um many that were unique and even if they were smaller they like all had kind of a niche that was really cool to see um we want to create more goals and connections that um correlate to the portrait of a graduate and we want to create a rubric for Success research and Hands-On learning feedback and reflection and um then also we want to explore more interest and passions of the world around us which internships yeah which is for internships and the independent study that we're adding maybe MH and this was relas seen in Vermont with the Renaissance program at twinfield high school they were a really small school they had 400 kids K through 12 but so they obviously didn't have a lot of courses that met each and every student's need so they had a Renaissance teacher who would um basically take whatever a student wanted to learn or um skill education whatever that may be and would find a way to make that possible so we met one girl who who they only offered Spanish and she wanted to learn Chinese or Japanese I think Japanese mandin and Mandarin both of them so they found a way and a tutor for her um to learn that and then also we had another boy that said that he was learning psychology and dog training so I thought that was pretty cool so that was a really interesting it was um anybody else want to add anything we're good um anything else it was long this like our brains hurt we were exhausted we thought we were going to hit Ben and Jerry's and be all like we were like it was nonstop we also though there were a lot of times where we got to do breakout groups where like I was in a panel with other school committee members and you know Jill was off with other principles and you would hear what schools like in Massachusetts were doing and I would be like oh we have portrait of GRA you already have that like already have that we've had that for a while and just to hear how far ahead we are on some things but to get little ideas that we could take and tweak and make our own and of course the girls can attest that as soon as they would find out from someone they be like that's your principle we love your principal I'm very shy so no we had we it was it was great it was a great it was a great mix of of it was a great learning opportunity I would take these guys anywhere in additionally I will say student leadership and student voice has been something that they have been thinking about and they are taking action and I cannot say enough about these two and I'm so happy I have them for two more years they're not seniors they're not Juniors you know and um you know Izzy and grace are already looking at how are we going to make an impact tomorrow so I am blessed to I couldn't have picked two better people and the whole the whole team but we were we were tired we were very tired and then to to wrap this all up this next piece is the the mycap piece which is out comes out of the counseling department but our counseling team it's not just our counseling team our team lead um Lisa rounds is on this um we also have Rachel bloomed who serves on this Council who is one of our special education teachers um Cassie lirin who is our um English teacher but also does our advisory program um uh Lindsay Carrera is another counselor um and myself you are respon you do have to have an administrator sitting on this piece we've done four workshops for the myap um and it is a Desi initiative in looking at career and college readiness um and we have been uh fast at work throw the next one um I just there's an example of one of the things this was this was again echoing kind of what Carrie said this was really um very gratifying because I can't tell you how many people I think every single group that was there took a picture of what we're what we're already doing um my cap has three pillars in and that's the uh personal social Career Development education and then the academic career in College Planning um and they were amazed at all of the things that we're already doing so um and then uh the other picture of that is our scope and sequence that uh we will actually have a um advisory curriculum scope and sequence curriculum uh starting with the eighth grade so we will be ready to welcome them and they will be ready to go um One new thing that we have with another Grant um that uh Jill has um spearheaded is allowing us to have um it's not navigate 360 now it's navate 36 it is still navigate 360 is a social emotional program that has built in lessons that we can already include um they're meeting there they will continue this group will continue to meet till the end of June um to work on how are we going to have we're going to have a clear scope and sequence from 8th grade and 8th 9th and 10th will be more of a career exploration uh 11th and 12th will be the actual implementation of what are we doing and hopefully culminating I mean the pie in the sky is that every senior would um graduate with an internship experience that's our forward Vision um so this all wrapped up into this one nice little education of Jill FIS and um some of the moves that you're seeing are happening right from that we've been having conversations that came out of Vermont about um what do we do with um college prep and honors classes and if we want honors students to be independent thinkers and motivated um you know can we include them in the same and give kids opportunities to take and earn honors credit for students that might not even think that they could um or want to think oh I can't take an honors class but really the honors programs are extensions of the learning that they're already doing and they're going to be um student proposed learning I ideas like okay we're doing psychology I would like to earn the honors credit so we're studying the brain what's something what's what's some aspect I'd like to know I I want to do a research on I want to do a research project on um um visualization in sports and how the brain helps you perform better by visualizing before I'm looking thinking high jump because I used to do that oh I'm looking great at you so you're my my target audience you know and so you would be able to go and dive deep into that it's not something that the teacher is going to say here pick three here's three options you pick three so we're really that that student voice was so evident in all of my visits and this would have been I visited now uh nine nine schools in this this year and I'm just we're ready I'm inspired that's it all right thank you very much any uh follow-up questions from the Comm you can ask har she was there than sat absolutely I I would love to thank the parents and the students and our staff that went on you that was a lot of time you all put a lot of time into this but there was the there was the work before the trip there was the trip the work after the trip learning walk they did a learning walk which is tremendous um and so um I particularly to our students and I think I said this to Izzy in an email last night like we need really good leaders in all facets of of all of the work that we are doing so um keep that Visionary perspective and bring it to everything that you do um because and and one of the things that I noticed that is is and it's kind of threaded through all of this is the idea of lifting others so right leading is really about lifting others and I can see clearly that that is the vision here in terms of how do we lift and Lead others to to Aspire to things that are greater than probably ever imagin so um keep up the good work keep that Focus um we really need good like critical thinking right good leadership so a big thank you to both of you and to miss phis for continuing to find these opportunities and then bring them back right we're not just sitting and getting this PD or these experiences we're actually taking them and mobilizing it into our next steps and I think we're seeing that here tonight to any of our families or friends watching at home and thinking about that you know what type of high school experience you want for your individual child um again I will say it there is not a high school that I think is even close to the work that BMR is doing they's just not um they might look fancy they might have fancy titles or one particular good team or one but you look at the core of everything that we're doing and we are lifting every facet of that High School uh whether it's instruction whether it's this type of you know um postsecondary work whether it's Athletics we just had important interviews today um you know for our athletic Student Life director um the high school is absolutely on the move and moving in an incredible Direction so thank you to everybody for your work on that and we can't wait for the eighth grade to join us just to kind of Follow that up one of the neatest Parts about all this was like watching the staff who comes to present to us here and we would go into these schools and immediately they'd be talking to each other we'd get back on the bus and they'd be laying out like well if we take this advisory block and we change it like this and we tweak the schedule like this I mean they it was a constant conversation where they were trying to figure out how the bright spots that we were seeing how do we add those to what we were already doing so and I know you've told us many times like take you up on a learning walk going through the high school with Jill and her team to see what's actually being done in the school was amazing like I don't think enough people outside know what we do there send me an email I'd love to have you come walk through anytime I ask the uh program study changes that was before you went on this these were being proposed before you went on this visit or um so the majority of them yes with the exception of the student learning experience I added that late um the last one the uh Extended Learning Experience that came directly out of that came directly out of this um and then the onetoone um uh interviews so I have a really strong leadership team in fact the leadership team was um kind of uh hijacked by Officer nimic um he has he's like next thing I hear they're like can the leadership team student ilt come I'm like wait a second that's are my kids um they're going to be presenting and coming down and doing programming at the middle school about um vaping and they've done an amazing job and so this this idea of the um we're going to train these guys to go out and um have they call them empathy interviews but just what's going on how is your how was your day what is it look like how can this what does it look like to be more engaged you know do you know what it means to be a charger and um and we're going to do that but that that specifically came through and I'm I am going to carve out time to be the adviser I want to see this done right and so I'm gonna I'm going to take these kids learn about uling and uh and go with that right anyone else well thank you and congratulations on all your hard work and looking forward to see the results over the next couple of years yes thank you thanks everybody um next I'd like to invite Mary colino our Lee coach Mary's going to uh just give a brief update on our summer programming um talk a little bit about what we are offering for our BMR for our charger nation in summer 24 hello hi um I know that you have this already in your packet um so the the elementary school will be having two sessions and it's going to be um math and literacy enrichment and also um summer safety again uh with for grades one and two we're going to keep three four and five together because of um because of the grant so they will be doing the 24 Century Grant and that will go from July 15th to August 8th and again um we'll have credit recovery for the middle school and um the ex the um High School also and that will be at the high school um an extended uh school year will be at the complex as well and we will have enrichment camps too so far we have uh music art and um and fad we're looking for some more um I have the coaches and and um Patrick Rosendale will be running the program so he's coming up with some ideas we're meeting next week for some some more um hopefully some more things that kids can get involved in um I'm going to also do the elll enrichment again this summer it was pretty successful last summer so we're going to do that for our elll students again for a language acquisition and um we're going to try to do a uh stem summer Science Program either bring people in um from like an like an organization or or or if we can't do that maybe um I've talked to Jill fallis maybe having um some of our science teachers run it but it would be a like for fun not it's not summer school so it would be Hands-On activities so those are current seventh graders yes just for the um so yes so the yeah incoming eighth graders and um we still will have our ongoing ground services and athletic CL clinics throughout the summer and the complex is going to be a very busy place our special education extended school year or it's a smaller program but that will be there as well so it's going to be a very busy place um and once we um determine our next steps with our athletic and Student Life director we'll be talking about the summer clinics and things for athletics and I know the captains always do a great job of setting up you know Captain's practices and um and um one of the lovely individuals that just spoke with the committee has a great idea uh Izzy of how to get our fall um athletic leaders to run essentially some athletic camps with the middle school kids before the school year is out she actually mentioned that when we were in Vermont yeah she's really so we're meeting next week um we're going to have a a Google Hangout jail myself Mary and Izzy to lay out all the details for it um set up dates times schedule help get the kids organized so that we can actually and I think the gist of it is showing the kids like you know you may maybe you've never played soccer before or you know volleyball or football or whatever but it's okay like come on like let's work with the upper classman they're going to you know train the kids and do these workshops and uh kind of clinics during the school day to get some interest hopefully that'll drum up some interest so that when we set up these other captains clinics and Captain's practices we'll get more kids that will come out so we're excited about um Izzy taking that on great leadership there so we'll be a busy summer busy summer any other questions oh thank you very much you're welcome um Jill's going to do an overview of our grade reconfiguration um work if you uh um were one of the audience members last night although Joe was the only one one of us two I think a lot of you were zooming a lot of you are watching the yeah watching the live stream um so to the yeah if you didn't have a chance to tune in we had the um public forum last night to give updates on all the grade reconfiguration work we did an inperson and a live stream uh so the the in-person audience was Joe and Jenny yes and uh everybody else stream so it's totally fine so we're going to we actually have the link we're going to send out to families tomorrow and staff tomorrow night so people can tune in over the weekend if they want but Jo just some of the highlights of that evening because you could watch the video um but just as a reminder we are going from four administrative teams for school based teams down to three so again we have our pre through 3 which is milville elementary school at the complex we have our 4 through 7 which is now our middle school and our 8 through 12 at the high school um and just some of the things we talked about is all staff notification all staff have been notified those who will not be returning as a result of uh uh the reconfiguration and those who are returning and those who may be going to a different spot um as well as the entire staff building meetings to discuss those um changes um the building organizations the principles have organized where things will be going um classrooms specials and staff has been involved and and made aware of that um one of the big things that our principles are doing now um um especially where the I think our the school that has the most I would say um transition of Staff new staff coming together at our middle school I know Jenny has been working with the that group of teachers there was a actually we had a full meeting at one point with all the staff that was going to be involved of what's working what they like to see the Middle School look like um but bringing them together through ilt meetings at a 4: through 7 to bring them together it could be at staff meetings during PLC so all of those things are ongoing I know Jill has mentioned and she's mentioned several times she's been chomping at the bit to get those eighth graders with us um up here at the up up at the high school so she's gone down she's gone down to the middle school she's got to visit meet the teachers who were there already making her presence known with all the students so there's not going to be absolutely no who the principal Mrs phus is when they hit the high school so she's ready to go and with Christina basically she has her kiddos and she'll be taking in keeping her students there and bringing in the new preschool um staff hiring that is something that is ongoing and as I mentioned I think last night that we are looking for a candidate that fits we just don't look for bodies uh goal is to get them done before the school year ends but um if we don't have that right fit we will continue to look um we talked a little bit about the proposed bus times as I mentioned last night we listened to all stakeholders including families there was some concerns about the busing how is that going to happen so we were able to work with our bus company to come up with again totally budget neutral using you know um the same amount of buses um or actually less buses but the roots have three different Roots so our prek through our actually K through three will have one route and then our four through seven in our high school and I did mention the times last night but as a reminder it was our high school is 725 to 152 our Middle School is 807 to 232 and milville is um at the complex is 855 to 310 at this point we did talk about the fact that there may be just a little bit of wiggle room in that middle because we did do some adjustments at the beginning and the end but it's all going to depend on how the bus the bus runs go um so we had those out there courses and students we currently have our student management system in Aspen which is X2 um courses have been added in there in the build our students have been transitioned over so those things are all um working and staff as well and we also have a moving timeline that's been sent out to the staff I know our uh facilities director Scott put that all together it's been Central to the staff um and we have a pretty tight timeline we we are you know people are already starting to look through those closets that probably housed years and years and years of stuff that no one has seen in a while so kind of sorting through that so stuff as stuff moves out new stuff can come in our open house uh celebrations are still on that was a big uh concern well of course we'll be starting that off with our graduation but I know we have our eighth grade celebration our fifth grade celebration and then we have our kindergarten graduation that are still being scheduled um open houses I'm going to bring that up because I believe I had that on our phone my phone um our nights that are coming up I know we have on the 21st um the current grade three going into 4 there's a family night um from 6:00 to 7:00 here at the middle school for our current grade three on the 22nd it's the current grade four and on the 23rd it's the current grade 5 and those times on those days are all from 600 to here um and then we also have our high school which I think Jill mentioned earlier the 15th yep um from 5: to 6 at the auditorium so we really encourage anyone to be able to come out meet the staff get a sense of the building you know um Administration um and hear about what's going to move forward for next year um and I think I can't think of anything else I may have forgotten from last night some of the highlights anything else was it okay great and again we'll send the link out tomorrow so if you it's about a half hour if you have some time and you want to check it out um moving on to FY 25 uh budget update just a couple of quick headlines um we had a milville finance subcommittee uh committee meeting excuse me uh a week ago uh Monday I believe um and uh happy to uh share that uh they did the finance committee of milville did support the uh certified School distri budget um you might remember there was uh a recommendation from the board of selectman of milville uh to reduce our budget $100,000 uh the finance committee did not support that recommendation uh they supported the full um requested amount um so uh we're very pleased um about that um we had an opportunity uh this Monday this past Monday to meet with the Blackstone uh finance committee and um it was not the public hearing that public hearing heing is uh the up this upcoming Monday May 13th um but we had a chance to answer any questions that the finance committee had um about our fy2 budget uh it was a very productive um positive conversation so we we were really pleased about that um and then um as you know on Monday the 13th we have millville's annual town meeting um and then on the agenda there is a tenative meeting uh school committee meeting scheduled for Tuesday the 14th um if necessary um and um so so far so good I think everything's moving um forward um the best it can with all of the uh reconfiguration and consolidation plans um I think one of the things um that has been most helpful in this wholey budget cycle is just the constant communication with the Boards of Selectmen the town administrators the finance committees the community um you know even thinking about last night um you know it it's it's not a bad thing that we didn't have a huge turnout right if usually people come to things if they have a ton of questions they don't know what's happening um so I don't see that as a as a as a bad sign at all um so um I think as we continue to move through uh the last couple of pieces of our budget process um that being millville's meeting on Monday and then ston annual town meeting on May 28th um I'm hopeful that that those budgets will go through if I could just add uh Mr superintendent um unrelated to our school budget the the board of Selectmen in U in milville had a a a a warrant article for the 90 thou additional 90,000 to for the water maintenance as well as a budget item for it and so they had it out of the budget as a warrant article that got shot down um by three the the chairman and the vice chairman of the school committee uh Board of selectman were in favor of it but it didn't pass it had to be a separate warrant article but the finance committee on that Monday night did vote to put it into the the operating budget um you know so that'll be the motion a town meeting so they are that is a step in the right direction for consistency and and um funding the maintenance of the water operation thank you for yeah thank you for adding that sorry I missed it well had nothing to do with the school budget really yes and no so definitely happy that was put put back um and then just lastly uh in your packet you also have an overview of the class of 24 end of year events there's a lot so um I didn't you know we didn't want folks to have to uh kind of dig for any of this information so um everything is listed here for our seniors and I have to say have I have a senior right now um and uh our our um Town's High School doesn't really do anything um for them so it it's really remarkable the way that our high school sends off um our senior class I mean it it really is um we really do a stellar job of making sure that our seniors know just how valued and how special um they are and how um you know proud of them we are and excited and excited we are to see them take that next step right as much as it's always a bit sad um but a big thank you to everybody who works to put this all together and uh to our school committee just to reminder that class breakfast is something that um all of you sponsor which is always a really great uh event so thank you so much for for sponsoring that and putting that on so just so you have it sticking on fridge I know that's what this is going for me this a lot and uh my last item for my report is actually uh Jill is going to give an update on our elll uh audit so we had I think I mentioned this at a a previous meeting um we had tiered Focus monitoring um with special education I gave you that little update but we also had um our tiered Focus monitoring as part of our English language learner program so this is our final the the couple of pages that you have here if you flip over to the second page you'll see the areas called eles it goes from one all the way to 18 those are the specific areas that they come out they ask us for data for that we have to submit um not only our procedures and protocols but work samples and student samples and progress reports so all of that was submitted to them at we did our self assessment and they verified all of that um and gave us our um a final I would say rating which is either implemented implementation and progress partially implemented not or not applicable so if you look on page five of n you'll see that almost all but one were fully implemented and the one that wasn't had to do with certifications so all teachers now require an um SEI which is sheltered English immersion it's like a um it's yeah it's an indorsements on a certification so you can get that by either taking a course take or taking an assessment so at that point um we had I think there were four or five teachers we have one right now and we just give them progress updates so that individual is actually you you know in process of getting that taken care of so we write progress updates so um that was the only thing that they had um some feedback on um so we were very happy that we did um did really well on that and what came out of that and Mary I don't know if you have a minute to come up again I just wanted to share I I mentioned that we were because of this um shered focus monitoring we were um our liaison reached out to us and asked us um because of the work that we shared with them and what we're doing as what we're considered a low incident District they wanted us to share the work that we're doing as part of their um off office for language acquisition Ola um yearly presentation I think they had over 200 people who attended this event it was all virtual and um when we looked at the agenda we notic the other schools that were presenting we had Brockton and Springfield and Chelsea like these really large schools and it was just little Blackstone yeah Boston um so it was really nice um to be able to do this and um they entitled our um presentation as making great strides in a small District so we were able to present to him them and represent little Blackstone milville which was really great to do um the things that we're doing here in our district so I this is a copy of the presentation that the our slides shows which are actually up on their site now we had a nice little group that came to our presentation and then we had a follow-up question and answer that more came to that one it was really nice to see um so we were able to tell them about our district just to give them an overview of population we focused our presentation on them that our district blueprint and we tried to say to them what we do for our English we do for all kids it really truly we do it's all means all there's every single subgroup all the time every day and we kind of pulled that out for them and of course we had to include some pictures of our kiddos of our why um so we were able to show that and then we kind of went into our what and we again focused it on the blueprint our how how are we doing these things and we went into that all you know with them and we tried to stress to the schools that were there um because when we heard some of what the bigger schools are doing we're even doing a little bit beyond that you know we're taking that extra step um some of the things that we're doing and you can look through those I'm not going to read them all um so we talked about the things that we do and the big thing we tried to focus on is also our families our English language on our families and not only they wanted us to focus on the families but we talked about how we're preparing our staff as best possible to work with our families as well it's not just the ESL team the elll team it's everyone doing that together um and we ended it off actually when we did our um presentation when we had a TED Talks we had TED Talks at the end of one of our PDS which was really great the tech department set up the stage beautifully I know it's it's out there for you to watch but one of our um our El students actually was one of our speakers and we were able to share that um at the Ola conference that day and out of that we had districts reach out to hust said I'd love to come and visit your District how are you doing this you know how are you supported um and I I think when I we had jumped into one of the rooms I had missed the first couple of minutes because you know the technology trying to figure out what room I was going into um they started saying that yes our superintendent wants us to do this and we stress the fact to them that's great that you're doing that but do you have the support it's not just do you you roll out a PD it's is there followup is there follow through and you're supported by others and I know Mary had that conversation with them as well so yeah I was actually in the room before Jill got in there and a lot of the teachers was saying they were all from small districts as well and they they said how do you get to do all like how do you do all this and I I said because it starts at the top and that we are superintendent our assistant superintendent model this it then you know it goes down to the district leadership and then down into the schools and that's why it works because there's support and then Jill came in yes so and I didn't realize she had said that Prett much said the exact same thing um but we also stress to them that there is we get title monies and one of the titles is called title three and if you have a large population of English language you get extra funds we don't even get that we don't have the large funds and we're able to do this within our budget or we're very lucky like I know Mir right now actually it was this week you started Yeah Tuesday night we started here actually um when we had done a um the night that um that Jason met with um with all of the parents we had a separate one in um for first for the families so at that time they asked if they if we could provide any type of Elo services for them so we actually started last last uh Tuesday night we had 12 we have 12 um parents so far there's a few that want to come next week and um it was it was really it was a wonderful night so they were so thankful and um you know excited to come back and learn so again we were just very honored to be able to represent this district and kind of get our name out there and again we had we've had people now reach out and say I want to visit you how do you do this can you share this with us what's this bloop lake so it was really nice to know like you had said before well people say you're already doing this yes we are with you know with with actually no additional funding from from the state yeah yeah so putting a little BMR on the El mat for low incident District nice work yes great work Mary thank you thank you Mary that concludes my report Mr chairman thank you Mr superintendent next is the uh business office report starting with Personnel report yes that is just to be received and placed on file [Applause] and uh in your packet there is the updated expenditure report for you um it's dated the financial report general fund for period 7123 to 5724 I just want to take a moment and just run through the report just the outline of it and how it's working and and if you have questions I'd be happy to try to answer them for you this is a very different format than how we've seen it in the past essentially the same information comes directly from the system it's just laid out differently and group differently I think to how it's a little bit more relevant for you to see um so going across the top if you look it starts with the certified budget column that column is the budget that's been certified by the school department so that shouldn't change um but there may be movement if there's some budget journal entries that happen but you'll see that in the report as it goes the year-to date is basically the expenditures that have taken place right up to the date of the printing of this report and that date not only is it up top in the title but off to the upper left you'll see 5724 printed so everything that we've expended to date is in that column in each one of these Cal or whatever Revenue we've taken in up to that date is in that column too and gives you the adjusted um remaining budget balance in the next column encumbrances is anything that's encumbered which you know anything that's either in process of being uh process and approved for payment or waiting to be paid it's been ordered those are our open POS and things um the projected to year end column that's a column that I've added to the report this comes directly from the system but I manipulate it so I can put these other columns in that projected to year end is my projection from the date of the report to the end of the school year what we think we're either going to take in for revenues or what we may be expending or projecting to expend to the end of the end of the year in many cases like in revenues we know exactly what our assessments are going to be we know what our our chapter 70 is going to be so that's an easy easy column to fix um for expenditure purposes though sometimes we know exactly what our expenditures are going to be other times it's based on an average you'd have to look at what we've spent to date uh what's the average we're spending each month and even actually in a couple of these down to the the day what we're spending and then project that out for the remaining period so that'll all it'll fluctuate from month to month sometimes to the better sometimes so you know it might be a positive negative thing that we see um the next column is the total uh expected there a typo on the first page it should be total projected at revenue and then on the following Pages total projected expense which gets us to the final column projected budget balance positive is a surplus in that line a negative is a deficit in that line um just to go down the the left-hand column under income I just kind of broke the income up into into categories we have our assessments that we'll be able to see where we're standing from each town state aid Broken Out by Chapter 70 Pupil Transportation uh uh charter school reimbursements and choice re uh receiving tuitions the use of end that's actually built into the budget then we also have our Medicaid Revenue one thing that's not budgeted is the interest we receive on our bank accounts and our savings so I've added that line in there to bring us down to our totals um in the expense columns I pretty much did the same thing I broke it down and to salaries anything that we we process through payroll a group there our our benefits any any of the um benefits for health dental life Medicare comp all those other things that grouped into a separate grouping then we have our Professional Services which is our liability insurance our Legal Services we Contracting with the uh Transportation Company all those Professional Services that we Outsource for and the then the next column is the different um supplies that we are purchasing General supplies is kind of a larger category of everything but I did break out the textbooks custodial and nursing because I think it's relevant to see that then I brought down uh grouped into technology uh software and even the the um the contracts that we have out there I group that all together in one category uh then extracurricular which right now is Athletics and music that's funded through the local uh general fund b b uh building grounds all the management and utilities of the buildings the grounds and all and those areas are all grouped next uh the debt is on here that's actually going to be coming off that'll be that should actually be a hidden column it shouldn't even be showing up and you might not even see it because I'm I've got a a complete print out so yeah it's not on our side all right good that's good CU I me I intentionally hid that because debt shouldn't be on here it's a separate fund um so I'll make sure I take that off of mine too well head you just mean the like in the spreadsheet that's right just yeah that's correct just it should that's a scary word when we talk about budget take it off don't worry you just mean you you have it on a separate spreadsheet yes that's correct I'm tracking that separately from the it's not general fund activity this is just general fund uh then I have the tuitions uh both the choice and Charter sending tuitions that we pay out that's reducing our Chapter 70 um and then you know the other state tuitions non-public and collaboratives and then there's the other category with the miscellaneous stuff that we're doing like the moving expenses from the water issue with with the elementary school and some other miscellaneous stuff that goes through um the only two things I really would like to point out in this oh actually then we end at sorry at the end you've got your total that I project either a budget uh Surplus or deficit and we're about just over 541 th000 is projected as of this report as a surplus there were two large changes that you when you look at this if you look at the revenue line for Charter School reimbursement and uh Choice receiving tuition you see a large increase under the charter school and a large decrease under Choice my understanding and and as a full disclosure I think I'm in the week six here I'm getting as much of an understanding as I can my understanding is the state re-evaluates the students either coming or going from the district three times a year the initial when they set up the the their uh budget first again it looks like in December they do another evaluation to adjust the amount that we're either paying or receiving and they'll do it again at the close of the year just to make sure that the net at the end we're paying or receiving exactly what we should based on the students uh in December our Charter reimbursements increased from 2,273 per month to $5,080 a month so that's a that was a big that was a win for us but on the other end the choice receiving tuition in December decreased from $1,695 down to $4,690 so the net it was still netting uh better than we were but you know we saw that large decrease and same thing applies when you go down all the way to the tuition's line the expenses it's the same fundamental uh idea on the sending part on our which they reduce our Chapter 70 by we saw a drop in Choice sending from from 7 $ 73,3 a month to $68,700 see some changes either in the budge in line because we've moved money around or the reality of what we expect to happen towards the end may change our Surplus deficit projection but it at least it gives us a snapshot of where we are at point in time I'd be happy to answer any questions if anybody has any um I don't know if we have the answer right now but if we could get an answer on the athletic line yes it's pretty budget that one is in the deficit situation I reviewed that with um I think it's um is it Sam or Todd Sam Sam thank you uh and we looked at what was expended and what he has encumbered right now there's quite a bit in encumbered in that line he does feel that he's going to need to spend that for transport main category is transportation for the events and the sporting events that he's dealing with um there is some spending on supplies and materials for the baseball and things like that have already taken place these already took place before I got here um so there's not much I can do to say we can stop that spending and push it maybe get into next year's if we can do it because it's already been done um but we're I'm hopeful that that $882,000 encumbrance won't be a full 82,000 and that's mainly busing you said yeah mainly mainly it's with uh it's a tell it's tellstone right yeah that's mainly what it is there's a few other you know um stiens that have to be paid and things like that for some of the staff thank you uh and and just as full disclosure too I'm still getting an understanding of the chart of accounts it's it's a process so I may be readjusting what's in some of these buckets if I find that something's there that really doesn't belong there you might see movement that way too okay very good thank you thanks and National Grid lead lighting project yes that is a uh uh it's not really a grant to us the town of Blackstone has a $200,000 grant for weatherization in lighting Improvement upgrades and they're gracious enough to apply $93,000 of that Grant to uh upgrading all the lighting in our Middle School to LED lighting um on top of that a when they with that Grant the National Grid has also agreed to provide us uh with $5,850 of uh credits or uh incentives for doing that upgrade the total project is $26,250 about just under $116,000 that they consider a community contribution which means it's our responsibility but one thing I found when I was looking at this is in October of 2017 I believe the district signed a net me metering agreement for all the solar panels that are on the buildings well those that agreement has been generating a lot of credits in each one of these accounts and I even provided you the latest uh National Grid invoice for um delivery services for the middle school we have just under $16 $63,000 of credits on that that one account so we have not been paying for delivery services uh we've been paying for the you know the the um the kilowatt usage and things through the through the other programs that we have but the delivery services we haven't been paying for because it's it's generating more than we're using um in talking to the the Grant D which is um energy conservation and with National Grid that we can utilize those credits to pay down this $116,000 liability to us they'll do that over I think it's 900900 9,664 180 each month will be on the bill uh for 12 months until it's paid in full so that you'll start to see those credits will come down on these bills but I do want to fully disclose I don't anticipate this happening because the way the generation's working it's far out seeding exceeding our usage there could be a rate increase there could be high usage there could be reasons why we absorb those credits faster than paying off the debt so there is there a possibility that I can come to you and say we ran out of credits and we still owe $50,000 or $20,000 that we have to pay for it is possible highly unlikely though you know these credits have been growing for quite some time we would put a mechanism in place I would imagine as a school committee right to to catch that if catch that if it were to yeah yeah yeah we get the uh we get these updates monthly uh for the the from National Grid from so we'll track the we'll track the credits that are being used each month I'm actually going back right now I I I dealt with the same situation down in Rhode Island with um wind turbines they purchased three wind turbines and we're watching those net metering credits too it did the same thing we just paying The Debt Service I'm going to build the same spreadsheet where I can see every month what the trending is for these credits how much we have there's something called the schedule Z also that once or twice a year you can reallocate credits from another account to another account if you needed to so my feeling is if we were to exceed the $163,000 of credits we'd request them to move some credits from another building over to this one um and this is this is also phase one it's I think think it's about half the school uh phase two they'll come forward probably offer the same thing but we'll have to re-evaluate phase two to make sure we have the same situation where there are credits to help us fund that instead of hitting our general fund or another fund for those expenses thank you to town of Blackstone by the way that's do we need to take any action on it doesn't say I mean I didn't think so but I wasn't we left it is an information arm but I mean it doesn't hurt either to I don't know if it's especially if we're going to be using rent money and um credits credits um it doesn't hurt to have the support of the school committee just in case you have an OP like these how these processes go it could be you you you up and running and we don't want to wait two weeks or three weeks for a vote to and we do have to sign something with National Grid saying where we understand that we're responsible for the 115,000 so okay I maybe like a um there is no agreement that you have to enter is there an agreement that there's an agreement uh that the town is entering into with the grant yeah our agreement is just to uh national grid for our account that states that we know we owe $115,000 yeah but they understand we're paying through credits yeah so I guess I'd take a motion to allow uh to allow the superintendent uh to uh take any action necessary um for the National Grid uh LED light lighting projects or to pursue opportunities for lighting improvements in the school yeah I I mean well this is specific we don't have enough information really to we need more uh so you're not sure the credits will pay or well there's a possibility that yeah I can't tell you I can guarantee you 100% that they will but so you would have our support to pursue you know whatever we don't we we would want to know like what the payback is if we had to pay the 115,000 and the credits weren't available M you know it would be like you know what's the we where do we get the savings for electricity usage you know is it really worth oh they they did a they did do a calculation on that and it does show a net positive cash flow with their estimated savings based on our current usage level you know cuz LED lighting obviously going to use up a less less energy so they did show an uh a net positive cash flow they felt that before I brought the credits to their attention they felt that we would be able to absorb even the the $10,000 a month in savings but I I couldn't tell you I fully trusted that you know 10,000 is a lot of money to say we're going to save that with LED lighting could we could we um look to approve the application of the credits that we've acquired so far to the $116,000 um debt that the project will um essentially cost and then if there are issues where um you know the credits won't be enough to absorb the cost we could bring back what the difference might be sure for discussion we could still send the information check that you want as far as the like the cash flow and what the cost of that would be I don't know if that would pH phase two of this project is uh phase two of the project will undergo a fiscal liability review before approval is that that's same thing I will come back to the board with that phase two before anything happens oh I mean I don't have any issue maybe of making a motion to um allowing to use the credits um for the purpose you know for the purposes of review and if the credits will cover the cost of um the project the the district S cost the project then uh we we you know to allow you to engage in that with also so that's my moot that's a motion that probably a good motion I'm sorry but they're going to do the lighting before it's completely paid right because it's looking like installments from the credit M but the lights will be changed over before then so if it if the credits do go down then we are liable for whatever's left from the 115 we are liable for the right okay and so that's the outside of the like we would have to have a plan yes that's what I that's that was going to be my next question was shouldn't we have a plan in case that happens and it has to be done in the monthly installments we can't just lump some credits it looks that way and I I would advise not just doing a lumpsum well either way if we did the lump some credit we'd still be paying a bill if if we exceeded them anyways I mean I guess it's 6 one half dozen the other I can can ask them that question maybe they'll accept that I don't know would you ask to accept the if we could kind lump some the credits onto it we can we go we can get an update next meeting on this you're still preliminarily working well they they the plan is for them to start work uh right at the end of the school year it all depends on when supplies can come in when they get the LED lighting if they come in sooner they want to start sooner they would just work second shift so they're not there when the kids are there um so well yeah I guess the bottom line is it's a $260,000 project that would cost us $116,000 and we have the highly like high likelihood that our credits will pay that's right for a good portion of that 16,000 if not 100% if not 100% so we're getting you know pretty much the town of black owners handed over half of their their their Grant to the to the huness cool it's the uh the our electricity is being paid for though by the generation so well the it's already covering the cost of the electricity so we it's covering the delivery get more credits because we use less electricity Y what will happen is the credits are applied on the delivery side which is with National Grid we have a broker that has brokered our uh supply side with M several different companies I haven't I haven't sat down with them yet that supply side we should see a reduction in the usage of of the supply of electricity because the LED lighting will will generate a savings for us so we still get a bill of for kilowatt we still do free deliveries yeah you know plus we're paying the um The Debt Service on the solar project that's a 20-year um agreement it's it's up to the committee if you want to authorize it or if you want to I'd like to have more information at our next meeting when's our next meeting it is June June 11th tell you right now oh June 13th on the page yeah that's right it's right on this June 13th thank you does that put us in a hard place though if National Grid is ready to um it it may I I'll have to talk to Scott because he's talked to about what the scheduling of this um they're ready to go they're just waiting on on this I told them I can't do anything without just put pressure on us so they can get the job to do it sure right we can be patient and so we rush into it if it's a heck of a deal and um you get F you know more information in the next week or so if we have to sort of a meeting a quick meeting to that would be good you're with May 14th as a tenative already too oh yeah yeah hopefully we won't need that meeting for that purpose yeah of what is it I'm sorry yep is it just as simple thing as changing the lights or is this is there a possibility that they turn and say well we wanted to do this but this needs to be upgraded first and then it's like there's nothing like literally going in and changing I think ballasts and things and putting in the new light bulbs okay from what I've experienced in my previous job that's exactly what it is we did this at I believe it was the complex yes right um we did that already yeah and I feel like we did the high school yeah sometimes they change the fixtures but it was yeah itronic B and all LED yeah blackstone's a green community so this is I think well partnering up with national grid for these we we've I haven't I don't know if we've done the street lights yet but there was discussion of if they're fully complete or not with the LED street lights and so but we can if you if the committee is comfortable getting more information we can if we have to throw a quick meeting together to get approved in a couple of weeks that's that's that's fine can I make a request um can I get a list of what the questions are and I'll make sure I have exactly what you need so I I answer everything yeah so if the the credits pay our debt y you know that's we could vote on it right now but it just seems like there's uncertainty both those credits we won't know until we like it's just it's as the credits are being used we might use to do it you know be helpful if I can if if I finish my schedule of how the credits have applied each month to see what the trending is so if it's a constant increase in credit I think we're going to we'll be fine but if it's an up and down we haven't been paying so I have to assume $163,000 credits goes right through and I'll also follow up on the schedule Z and ensure that if we do run out of credits here we have the the ability to move credits from another account because all the accounts show credit balances what do we have in here now it's never it's never been [Music] converted CFL bulbs or Allen or indescent I don't know that's okay I I think that a lot of the building would be led already you would think so yeah I didn't know there were that many types of light bulbs I bring my light bulb to the store and I wish words where you just said so I did I I worked for Mass Save for 10 years and lighting um so I I just can you tell by the aren't the LED ones like the like aren't those a long time bright the room's dark and all of a sudden look that one looks really bright daylight and soft light I don't know so that's I I just would like to know more detail about you know exactly what we're getting into but if it's just really not going to cost us anything we're using the credits that then I think we should do it it's it's no-brainer right yeah yeah all right what I'll do is I'll put together a trending for you I'll find out about the schedule Z I think that'll be key because with the credits on the other accounts will never exceed all of those in one building um and I'll make sure that that can happen and I'll bring it back to you it might it might be like you said Dan that we need to do something maybe interim so to get them so they can get through the building and they didn't give you a deadline on this little deal no no they just wanted me to sign it Scott did that with them yes y you would like all our exterior that's just interior just interior there's actually a request and a it's not a grant there's no grant funding to it but there are the uh incentives that National Grids offering to do the exterior but I left that off the table until we get this final I see how this progresses I I think we didn't we do the complex exterior all LEDs uh I know we did the inside I I do remember that and it was recent couple years ago or something yep if it cost us barely anything yeah we should do it should cost us nothing I hope yeah just just keep in mind that the town of blackone selected specific buildings that with that Grant so y if they potentially don't see an interest in this they will find other buildings to that's why I think we should move a little quickly yeah I can promise you that because the there people recommend certain buildings for the purpose of saving the Y so I I don't want to be difficult I I would like to with your original motion to go ahead and improve I I think that I I have a more clear understanding of the credits and I would like to uh your motion to allow Jason to move forward with this lighting project um I would be for that a motion made by Chuck second seconded by Carrie and any further discussion and Mr superintendent can this be on the next agenda for an update absolutely absolutely on every agenda moving forward until we y so we can we'll do the trending and we'll do the um schedule Z as um uh Joe mentioned so we can see the credits on the other projects and then any additional information that the committee wants just you know shoot me a quick message we'll make sure everybody has it and we also have like a resource for a contingency just in case needed if the credits you know okay yeah um okay any other questions or discussion on that thank you thanks Chuck um all those in favor signify by saying I I I the oppos the eyes have it facilities report is that coming from you Mr s uh Joe is going to give it Scott's not here so um we won't talk about where he is cuz I'm a little jealous but uh I'll just read through the report that he put together for you at the high school um Liberty Gas replaced our old gas meter with a new meter on Wednesday April 17th this was just routine maintenance for of Liberty Gas uh the air in the heating system industrial burner came out to replace the faulty automatic water feed valve as well as a blocked air vent that was not allowing trap there to exit the system under baseball and softball field We have replaced an order for uh we have placed an order for more infield mix to fill the low spots on the softball field an update on this is the infield mix was delivered Thursday the 25th to be used on both boys and girls INF fields for repairs uh the tennis courts the fence needed repair along the bottom to stop the curling up to allow that allowed tennis balls to roll out of the courts his update is the stakes were driven into the ground over the April break and to pull the bottom of the fence down thus stopping the tennis balls from rolling out of the courts front steps uh the section of the front steps that was repaired several years ago is is lifting uh lifting up which caused a large chunk of concrete to come out we are in the process of getting an estimate to have this section repaired before graduation uh for the Middle School the spring break projects all rooftop Heating units have been have had will have their air filters changed belts checked bearings greased this includes the 35 exhaust fans his update is there are a few Motors on some of the exhaust fans that will need to be replaced our electrician will be addressing this um the middle school had a power surge which caused the Gen uh the generator to start up and run when the generator finished running multiple alarms were coming from the control panel FM generator diagnosed a bad circuit board which is currently on order in the in the event of a PO outage the generator will still function as normal U I believe this is a complex MH uh air compressor one of the compressors compressor heads was making a loud noise A&M compressor came out and shut one of the two compressor units down they have ordered the necessary parts to make the repairs still waiting on parts to come in though electrical issues there are a few outlets in various classrooms and a classroom light fixture that is occasionally work that occasionally Works our electrician will be making these repairs over the weekend and then at milville elementary school boiler and hot water tank on Saturday April 13th during a building check the custodian found that boiler number three in one of the two hot water tanks had lost power our electrician is looking into it an update on that is the electrician found a loose connection in the main electrical panel that feeds both of these units along with remote panel for Pro for the propane tank um timer for the outdoor lighting system does not work I had the electrician look into this while he was on site he recommended replacing the timer and is working on getting us a price for the past few years the custodians have manually been turning the lights on for events by going into the panel and turning the breakers on and off this timer controls parking lot lights street lights and outdoor building entrance lights and that concludes um Scott's report that is a great thing to fix there are many Little Critters and not so little critters out there leaving late evenings in the dark I'm grateful I'm a runner that I can Sprint in my car with my bag because there's coyotes and fox and all kinds of beavers we heard someone sent it at you though yes I may have been getting into the car and Jill came roaring past and her truck in sent a fox flushed Out of the Woods running me 100 miles hour I sent him that way may have been done intentionally PG I move very [Laughter] quickly so thank you for fixing the lights [Laughter] [Applause] Joe alrighty so we will move on to school committee Forum just the facilities did I miss something update oh request I have it right here in front of trying to move this meeting along apparently um we have a Mr superintendent we have a few here yeah just a couple French River they run this uh graduate uh courses um at the Middle School uh every summer so there's a request for that uh the dance step of Greater xxbridge um has also made a request uh for space um and they have their insurance attached to that as well so you can get a sense um the amount and the in uh their insurance coverage um that's actually a a nice request uh as far as the facilities uh expense there for or revenue for us and then uh just the uh Town Administrator um request for the auditorium the mees Auditorium for Monday so there were three I make a motion to approve the use of faili requests second motion made by uh Tara seconded by Carrie any further discussion all in favor signify by saying I I and he opposed the eyes have it now school committee for uh Matt I just remind everybody about the District of one Community uh event this weekend it's actually grown over the past few days um so just uh today I think uh Rema announced that she has a uh the Kung Fu dance team I you know with uh with the going to be doing a a display and a a routine and then we just found out um that we're going to have the 501st regiment which is a um if you're familiar with cosplay or you know laring and all that kind of stuff they do um Star Wars so there'll be probably about a half dozen to a dozen Star Wars characters roaming about to take pictures with along with the you know the state police horses and the the you know the buses and the fire engines and the helicopters and the what else do we have uh the K9 units the drones the there a lot and then we've got our ax throwing I got ax throwing coming yes inflatable say ax throwing we have liability insurance this is away from the ax so it's completely safe and uh non-harmful wow so uh we we're shaping up to have a quite an event so anybody out in the community I know I had a chance to uh hang out at the boys and girls club for a few minutes today and talking to some of the kids down there um they were super excited and making sure they go home and tell their parents so tell your friends tell your neighbors tell your enemies tell everybody aw it'll be great so I actually have something too um there's been a new Association put together for athletics adult athletics that'll happen in the area in the town Blackstone um it's going to be just recreational non-competitive whiffle ball kickball Ultimate Frisbee so if you moms and dads or anyone in the towns want to get together and have a little fun look out for um registrations for be pickle ball I wish get Mr get Hurley Silver on that he he he taught me how to play we'd have to have a pick ball court tennis court right make um it's it's different it's balls are rising incoming spray pain on the basketb Chucky you have anything to add or would you like to sign up for one of those events oh you're GNA play right be seemed like an ultimate Frisby good uh Carrie just congratulations to our seniors because they will have graduated before our next meeting yes exciting and Tara um just for as far as promotions and stuff I know we're talking about I know seventh grade is also getting promotion because they're not going to be eighth graders here so they will have um just a promotion ceremony on Monday the 17th um and then they're also getting a farewell dance and field day so just making sure that they leave here um well the middle school you know with a little something as well short stay what's it they had a short stay here at the m a short yeah yeah they had a quick but be good for them that's it okay thank you and I'd like to thank the administration and the school committee for it's all coming to a ahead now with the years's uh the next year's fiscal year budget we have coville's town meeting is Monday blackstone's finance committee hearing is the same day and um and with all the events for the seniors and and uh everything else that you guys just BL coming up it's a real busy time of the year so um um going to be busy so thank you to everybody and congratulations seniors I look hope to see everyone there on Saturday that's 1 to 4 1 to four yeah one four for now yeah for now yes and so with that we are going to be going into an executive session which and we will adjourn once we come out of executive session so our upcoming school committee meetings to tenative May 14th and then um hopefully we don't need that one and then June 13th would be our next one um with that I am gonna um ask for a motion to enter into into exe uh to uh to go into executive session uh to leave this meeting to go into executive session and I'll do a roll call vote so Move Motion made by Matt second seconded by carry um roll call Matt yes Chuck yes yes Tara Tara yes Carrie yes and I am a yes thank you very much folks and have a good night