##VIDEO ID:IC-hVhj9c2Y## please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all this meeting is being live streamed by chelon Tel media and posts a CPS website for interested community members to access and watch inperson public participation will be taking place tonight in accordance with the chumon school committee public participation policy anyone speaking tonight during our public input portion of this meeting has notified the superintendent's office of the desire to speak and has been provided with these guidelines upon request written comments received no later than 12: p.m. on the day of this meeting will also be read and made part of the record of the me meeting during a second public comment session so welcome to this meeting of the chumel school committee our first order of business is to approve our minutes from October 1st okay I make a motion that we approve the minutes of our meeting from October first I'll second okay any corrections okay all in favor hi I nice transition sorry all right next up we'll hear from our Chumps high school student representative all right so with Halloween coming up the senior class is going to be having their Halloween dance on November 1st at the high school uh the class of 2027 will be hosting a movie night uh showing the 1998 beatle juice at uh the Performing Art Center this will be on October 19th from 6:00 to 8 it also be candy snacks and Raffles uh the boys cross country team just had another great showing at one of their meets this time at the Manhattan Invitational they came in second for all School varsity um with Runner Xavier May taking first place overall and Marco Lombardo taking fourth additionally in the sophomore race Anthony mogin came in Ninth Place um on October 17th there'll be eighth grade parent night and on October 28th there will be a half day and last week the varsity football team beat L 32 to 14 and this week they're moving on to a tougher team of tuxbury on Friday nice great thank you wow and our brother is playing field hockey tonight she field hockey so she's in field hockey we'll see her in a couple weeks y all right any good news to share I'm amazed that the good news wasn't taken away from the student rep so I'm I'm so excited um so last week our um French exchange students came they were there's a of them they came and they're going to be with chsf high till what today Tuesday till tomorrow um I'm sorry excuse me till Friday we had a welcome dinner for them when I say we the um our new world language coordinator put together a nice welcome dinner for the the families the host families the students and the administration and all the teachers that wanted to show up at the establishment it was great Dr Lang and I were able to join them and it's just it's a great it's a great experience for everybody we had a couple parents come up to us tell us like they were so happy to to be able to have this experience and the kids are having a blast so far Chumps with high great from France yes oh great and this will be our exchange this year it will be our exchange this year a little different because we had a scheduling snafu on the France side but we've come up with a a French experience that's going to be happening in the spring for the students that are hosting families hosting students now and we Maria I think we get we're alternating now so one year we're having french then next year will be Spanish then French then Spanish we're not doing two at the same time anymore okay that's great great wonderful all right any other good news no okay all right we'll move on uh we don't have anybody for public comment we don't so we'll jump right into to the agenda um so we're going to continue our discussion tonight on um Capital plan uh Capital planning and prioritization for next year's submission um but wanted to take a minute after speaking with Dennis um because at the end of the summer we had gone out to actually look at some of the projects that weren't quite completed um but I want to just recap for you a couple of the things that we um um have been since completed just with some pictures so that we didn't actually have to um drive out to the schools to see them but one of the projects we accomplished over the course of the summer was the new uh gymnasium floor at Parker middle school so the old floor was taken up and this is a new uh Port floor um at Parker that gym gets a lot of use obviously during the school day but also for rentals after hours we have cybl basketball and a wrestling program um so they're really excited about their new space and it is is really came out nice it did um over at McCarthy um we talked about the new uh kind of secure entryway of the school um part of this so it's about 80% complete the secure entry piece is complete and actually um everything was located there today they're going to um open it tomorrow so um so that'll be nice the um if you look head on up the cement ramp we had to install a new cement ramp so everything was actually the same level coming out of the school and the doors headon are going to be replaced over the next couple of weekends we've just got to find two or three good days um but it is a little bit louder work so we need to do it over a weekend so we've just got a look at a forecast the uh company did let us know that the product came in last week so we just need to do some scheduling on that but the storefront windows I mean doors and windows are going to be replaced but on the left as you look at the um picture that's the new um kind of secure entryway to the school so when you walk up the ramp you take a little bit of a left you push the button like you want to come into the school and then there's an individual uh sitting in the U Reception Area there to help screen individuals as they come into the building um there's a little check-in system that's the new Universal um screening system that we have for visitor management at each of the schools um I tried it today myself worked fine um so you just put your ID it runs it through gives you a little uh printed decal um but this should really be a nice addition to the school to be able to um kind of control who's coming and going from the space excuse me and then that's um like I said we finished out fitting it uh today with the um uh the individual's equipment so tomorrow morning is when we're going to launch that officially so still waiting for a day for the um for the new doors to go out in the front but we're opening this uh even though the doors aren't in yet okay so tomorrow is the first official day tomorrow is the first official day we've been kind of fooling around with it internally uh making sure all the different things work and function the way we wanted to but tomorrow will be the first day that after the kids come in to start the day anyone after that will be um channeling through here so we'll we'll give it a going and report back to you how that goes we're excited um over at chelsford high school we actually accomplished a lot there as well this is a picture I don't know that we actually um got to see it too good because when we went there it was nighttime but uh in the back of the building um we have uh six brand new uh tennis courts uh so those were put in and painted and lined as you can see um that's uh front facing when you're in the parking lot and then on the back side we have um three basketball courts uh that are brand new uh they're actually in the process of being painted uh this week um the tennis courts are um made out of a post tension concrete so it's a different product than the back the back is a more regular asphalt um hot top but that went down after the fact and you have to give the asphalt a little bit of time for the oils to rise out of it before you can apply the pain surface so um that has been done and at this point point they're going to start uh painting that and then the back right corner um here is where the pickle ball courts are going to go so they actually started painting that as well today so um by the end of the week you'll have the six tennis courts the six pickle ball courts and then the three basketball courts um can I make one comment sure I really love the black uh painted fences yeah doing that yeah just stay away from the graef this is like your tile offset thing with me is I think that the twisted turn these fences look better they last longer and they really you know chain link fence without the covering so I'm really glad to see yeah this has like a plastic coating on the chain link it does look good it does um does the high school have middle AG now no so um this is community this is It's Community even the basketball in the back is community and the tennis courts are for Community use outside of school hours M um the high school obviously has a tennis team boys and girls that play in the springtime it's a Spring sport at the high school level and um originally pickle ball was going to be incorporated into the concept at McCarthy which we're going to talk about in a few minutes but as we were working on this particular project we decided to move pickle ball to the high school and the street hockey which was going to um yeah street hockey was going to be at the high school over to McCarthy for a couple of reasons um one there's actually a I mean there's a far better chance and it's a likely chance that pickle ball will get picked up as a high school sport over the next couple of years so to actually have the pickle ball courts be located at the high school is advantageous the other thing is you do still still have a little bit of Noise with pickle ball you have the clicking that some people don't like so out in the back of the high school no one's going to hear it um so that's also a positive as opposed to be right beside macari and uh next to the police department um and also to move the street hockey over to McCarthy the middle school kids uh really are more apt to play street hockey than the high school kids are so it actually worked on on multiple fronts um so this is all going to be buttoned up like I said this week the only thing just to set community expectations um all the painting things will be done the poles will be put in the grounds but we're not going to put the Nets up until the spring because by the time we put the Nets up we'll be taking them down for the weather and things like that so the tennis and the pickle ball will not be um operational until the spring season our high school team will kick it off in the spring when they open up for spring Sports and that's when the Nets will go up um but the spaces will be done other than that we make any opening serve I may be one of the the first people up there to play you never know we'll see um but no it's really I'm happy this project was done as you remember we're also be having a dedication ceremony in the springtime for um Al Thomas because we had dedicated this facility to um in in Al's name so we'll be inviting Al and his family to a dedication ceremony for uh for this space the committee voted to do that um so this will be in his in his honor um also with the high school again we had a busy summer um the other major project we had over there was um well one of the two um the complete renovation of the U five art classrooms at the school so the hallway on the left is the new hallway that was actually constructed we never had a wall down the left it was an open concept um classroom which was very difficult to um to use so uh the five rooms were completely outfitted with new flooring new SE uh new um ceiling tiles lighting um again this wall uh the Kil is on the right we uh reconfigure the door space so that the kilm can actually be directly accessed through the art classroom as opposed to having to go in through the the TV studio which um was just a unique uh way that you used to access the space and then the um three uh primary teaching spaces for the art room were all renovated as well so new floors new Furnishings uh desks student chairs the whole deal um the art staff are very happy with u with how this all came out um this is the room that actually has the spinning for the pottery um that's why you see the power poles coming down from the ceiling and um the teachers are very happy with this space so the out rooms came out great as you'll see we'll talk a little bit later on um planning for next year we'd originally submitted the our classrooms as a project for last year's Town capital and unfortunately it didn't get funded but we put it on um our prioritization list in the springtime when the school committee is receives recommended projects and we funded the firstest portion of it so we funded the uh basically the physical buildout of the space the only thing we didn't fund that we have to come back to is um in the two classrooms that housed the graphic arts um there are two computer classrooms we also had um a line item to have new student uh Furniture in those rooms and new technology so um the physical buildups done is not going to be as hard obviously to put new desks in and new technology Bill Sila is working on that for us um but that would be kind of the second and Final Phase of this work um we'll talk about that in a in a little bit um and the last major project at the high school which opened about two weeks ago was the new kitchen so um I know when we walked through I believe it was just an open space they hadn't really uh even started adding the power the ceiling grids yet um so that's been in effect for about two weeks now um all new layout all new design in the kitchen um we see a lot of the uh the kitchen staff are really happy with the space um we can ask Patrick after the student uh out feedback so far has been very positive as well um we're still obviously kind of working through the logistics of the different lines and who to go we for different options but you can see they're actually cooking up um you know quite a menu at the school now with some really good options for our students um and again I think it's is only going to get better over the next couple of weeks as now they can start to expand the menu and the students can kind of get into a little bit of a better flow knowing like where you want to go in the different lines for the different um different items that they're serving um but this has been very positive so that was the U that was the last kind of wrap-up project I just wanted to show you since we did our little tour at the end of the summer and now if we switch over to U McCarthy for a second if if you recall at town meeting about three years ago we actually had a proposal to um do a renovation of the McCarthy tennis court area in integrate some uh parking at the time um Tom meing ultimately said um they didn't want to fund the project at that point because they needed more um detail around what the design concept would be exactly how would parking be integrated this had been a request on the parking side that had come from the police department because they have very limited parking in front of the police department to be able to hold Community meetings in their community room um so the town kind of kicked it back to us to come up with some Concepts we put a working group together of individuals who are actually going to be convening tomorrow to continue to talk about this um because one of the things that um Tom manager Cohen was able to do and is recommending is instead of putting this forward to the capital planning committee or even the 26 budget um utilizing some free cash that the town had at the end of June as a town meeting warrant article um to actually complete this project now um so we would actually be hopefully week from a week from yesterday um getting funding at town meeting to actually uh do this project that would then allow us to actually go out to bid and hire a designer to kind of put all the bid specs together to go out to bid and likely get this project done um end of spring summer early fall so we would get down a lot quicker than if we had to wait um for the formal time meeting in the spring when we met with the group uh Kastle boo was the landscape architect um that worked with us on this they were also the group that did the High School tennis courts and basketball also they they're very good group to work with we said you know what could you fit on that um on that property they came out and took different measurements again this is just very conceptual and we had them give us a couple of ideas because when the group met we said you know the best thing for the school in the community would be to potentially have like a multiport complex not just you know one thing not just tennis or just basketball what not but they have a lot of different options so he was able to come up with some different configurations of what um spaces might look like at the school the other thing that we did um want to actor in was you can see kind of at the bottom there's a little rounded out area with a path um kind of a picnic area or play area for families so if they're there on say after school hours or a weekend that they would have a dedicated kind of play space for younger kids if old the kids were playing and instead of actually adding parking spaces specifically on that that piece of property the discussion became let's try to figure out a way so that the police department after hours could better utilize the parking that already exists in McCarthy so if you'll see um there's a recommendation to actually add a sidewalk that goes on the left side of the driveway all the way down say past that basketball court and then would cut through the fence at a um kind of a flat area and be able to connect to an existing sidewalk at the police department so cars would be able to uh Park in the regular McCarthy parking lot already but just have a much easier walk to be able to join the um to join the police department the problem is always the long well it's that long fence and having to go all the way down so this is obviously going to cut that off and so what we're looking at is um a couple of options like this option here has you know two street hockey courts one basketball two tennis with pickle ball overlay um this other option here has two basketball with two street hockey and a tennis with the pickle ball overlay so this is what we're going to talk to the group about tomorrow but ultimately I do see this being a mix of basketball street hockey probably the big big ones for the school as far as like fizzed classes and recess and things like that less so the the tennis and the pickle ball just for the age group of the kids um but it will incorporate um those three primary Sports into the uh into the design work um the cost factor is nominal depending because it's all just basically an asphalt um surface with different um designs so whether we go to basketball or two tennis the the cost really is negligible um so that's not a big concern for us but we're going to convene the group again tomorrow and talk about that and then ultimately this project is on the town meeting warrant for next Monday so we'll be there to uh talk about it and hopefully receive um approval for that that's amazing yeah so um any questions on any of the kind of the recap projects or uh that before we kind of delve into 26 it would be nice to know what how Patrick feels about the it would be wonderful yeah so I I'm liking it so far um on the first few days it was pretty hard because everyone was trying to get used to it and the lines were pretty long and they had to make the lunches longer but it's starting to get like everyone's getting used to it now I've already seen new menu items happening like um I think it was like fried noodles like like chicken fried noodles or something I don't know it looked awesome sadly sadly everyone ate it um I was too late I was too late to it um but yeah there's already um new stuff going on um it's just it's just like a flow like you get your lunch and then the sides and all the stuff you can put on it's all in a line so it's it's it's a good flow I I like it a lot better than the big mob it would be just everyone trying to reach over people and get their lunch before it but yeah I like it a lot so far great wonderful great thank you anybody else great thank you foring those pictures yeah no happy to do that a lot of work went into this um our facilities group DPW um really put a lot of time into the different capital projects this summer even our staff giving recommendations so I'm very happy to um to share that let me just figure out how to I have to come off this for a second so that I can look at something else you're off thanks okay um so as we shift to fiscal um 26 planning and there's a multicolored um kind of spreadsheet in your U packet if you um if you refer to that um what I went and did for you is took a look at the um capital projects which um we had on the list to be considered fiscal 26 I can walk you through all of them um a couple of the big um takeaways I just wanted to point out to you is there were obviously were several projects that were deferred for different reasons projects related to uh Parker Middle School for the most part were deferred over the last year because um we anticipated being able to do a Parker project and there was a discussion with the capital Planning Group about putting uh 30 to 50-year um item into the Parker if it wasn't going to be uh in existence for that long so any projects related to Parker have Pro primarily become if it's any kind of like life safety things like that we're certainly doing it but if it was more of just a kind of a um a want as opposed to a real need we were deferring just because there were so many uh different Capital items we then had um two items on the the list that are in uh purple that um for purposes of discussion the school Department's um projects add up to a little over $9 million uh in consideration for this year so that's obviously a huge sum all the different town departments are going to have their items uh to come forward and overall the town had historically funded about three to $3.5 million in total for a year last year we actually went closer to $4 million but it's just not um conceivable that we're going to um spend more than say $4 million in a year so what I did is I went through the list um and just kind of put down my recommendations on how to group these in uh just different projects areas and I'll I'll explain that to you um the first group in green and I did email you the spreadsheet too just in case you wanted to fool around with it on your own but the first ones in green were all kind of tied to uh School Safety and Security so um as you know we tried to do the maathi secure entryway as kind of a model for what we could replicate in the rest of the district in the other schools um we have true project costs for what that actually cost us to build out and so there's a recommendation to move forward forward and obviously it's going to look a little bit different because of the school layouts but to add a secure entryway at BAM Center Harrington South row and then um Parker because Parker obviously is still online and if it's online for six or eight years um in my opinion it's still a safety issue for those six or eight years we would want to treat that like all other schools and have a secure visitor management and entry way at that school um at the high school in McCarthy obviously they're not on the list because they already have the secure um best ability area at the high school what you have is a recommendation to add um an emergency egress at the end of one of the St Wells and then obviously when you get outside also you need to add like a cement platform to be able to drop down if you drive into the parking lot of chord high school and the building's kind of an L the exit door on the far left um if you're on the second floor of the building or you're on the first floor of the building and let's say it's a fire drill or an ALICE drill or something like that we doing what we found um through drilling is that both sets of students are coming down the hallway and they both have to use the same stay well to exit out that little side door and there's a there's a backlog you get jammed up by doing that the other side of the building um I I don't know the the name but coming down the other side of the building when you first come down the stairs from the second floor there's a push door that lets you go right out on the plateau so U this where the band does all their performances and practice and things like that so the top floor can go right out that door the bottom floor basically goes out the side door and there's no backlog so the recommendation from the security team was basically to add a similar door and I think the reason that the door is probably not there is because it doesn't walk out onto a flat surface it's not like you can just put a cement pad and then you walk out and you're done like you are on the other side you're actually coming out on a hill so you actually have to work a Stairway uh into the hill with probably a platform uh Midway down just because of ADA accessibility and scale and things like that but um the recommendation from the group uh was to add that kind of an eess so you're not bottlenecking in an emergency trying to get out of the building so um I do have that in my greens for the high school um because it had gotten recommended a couple of times and um it's not a huge number it's um you know 125 or $127,000 but uh still for the long-term use of that building um that was why that kind of triggered for me being a um kind of a top priority in the green priority and those just to kind of keep a running tab added up to like 877,000 can I just ask quickly you mentioned you know we don't necessarily need that new vestibule at McCarthy or the high school because they already have them what's the situation with the Westlands we're looking at that because it's not to say that we wouldn't do that but um it's a very different layout at the Westlands also um so we're having to look at that a little bit separately when projects do Ty in the Westlands um I was kind of thinking about that as potentially being like a school um committee one time funding type project and what wesland also houses Community Ed we can access Community Ed funding to help uh C share something like that and I just don't have a hard number on that because the design is so different than all the other schools so that's why I didn't bring that forward it's not that I'm forgetting WL struck me like it doesn't have this like you're pretty open when you go in there so yeah it's and but it doesn't have the Nook that McCarthy had to be able to kind of create the separate entry so um we've got to get Consultants out to actually give us some recommendations about that entry and we do we'll certainly add it on um but I'm thinking almost more for like our funding of that with Comet got it okay and why is the cost different say like bam and Center for example is it just have to do with the size and the layout of the current vules yeah it's again these are budget figures right and I did this just based off of what we had at McCarthy but when you walk into um so um South Row and Center you're basically walking into a hallway so all you're going to have to do is construct one wall that goes straight across the area to block it off from entering the building at Harrington bam and Parker when you walk in the far right door you're going to actually have to build two walls you're going to have to build an L to block off access to the building because you wouldn't block the entire entryway because that's also fire erress so we're going to have to do a design there and there's just a little bit more sophistication with the wall extra wall and the um drywall cost and things like that so that's why those projects cost a little bit more money it's because of the extra wall Center and South Row are just going to be much more straightforward you basically just need to build one wall with one door you're much more narrower entrance to those trip than the others yeah it's already a contained space with the others AR you're actually having to build a containment area yeah okay got it um then we kind of go into the second tier of um things and my thinking on This was um projects that we Ty have deferred in previous fiscal years instead of forgetting about them usually we bring them back to the front because these have been things we've obviously talked about historically we thought they were important we brought them forward and for whatever reason if they didn't get funded I don't want to lose track of them um the first one which was still in the middle of getting U kind of finalized cing on Bill is helping us with is to finalize the U theat classrooms at the high school the original project was slated at 450 and um basically a lot of that cost were I have in here is just a placeholder 250 is just because of the cost of Technology um that's a lot of the cost of the uh the equipment for those rooms um we were able to I said again do the buildout of the space even the two rooms that we're talking about but there's still going to be a considerable cost for the um the technology Furnishings for those rooms the um McCarthy the replacement renovation of the tennis courts it's still on our list however if it gets funded obviously Monday night at town meeting it would come off our list but I wanted to carry just because it is a project that was previously um deferred and then um at the high school also um the last line of purple in the art classrooms there was a separate line item to replace um unit ventilators in the um in the art classroom space itself there's at least two that haven't the originally five there's at least two that haven't been replaced and uh so that was a cost that had been um carried and updated so again if we're going to complete the at spaces that's why I kind of said that would be a um a second priority and then lastly um at McCarthy we have talked about trying to add some additional parking to that school again we know McCarthy is going to be online for the forceable future um there's not a ton of parking particularly in the middle in the front of the building and we talked about almost doing um something similar to we did at either Bome or Harrington at biome is you know they have that giant island in the building and we actually cut parking spaces into it so we can could conceivably do something almost like with a fire lane is it m now to add a whole row of about 29 spaces um the other thing to look at would be similar to Harrington I don't think the geography lends itself to this but we would still vet it we Harington actually created an inner parking area um right down the middle of the island um so obviously The Architects would take a look and see if that's viable as well to add additional parking and that would separate the fire lane from the parking Lane um but you know the thought is to have some some type of additional uh parking at McCarthy that would not only help us during the school day but it would also be helpful to say the police department after hours because it's a lot easier to walk from the front of McCarthy to the police station for the community room as it is even say the back of the building um and again that was a project that we had on our list last year that got deferred and that was my reason for just kind of having to be like a second tier I believe McCarthy also gets rented out quite a bit right so it does uh on the weekends I always see the whole place very full and the parking is important as well there yeah I mean and this this group really um approv funding for the renovation of the auditorium just a couple years back but the auditorium now is in high demand um very similar to the pack of high school but it's a beautiful performing space it's got a state-of-the out sound system and lighting system um and you do we receive like dance recital and different groups that want to use the space all the time yes um it's always Jam for parking and you can go by an event and see people parking in the fire lane which they're really not supposed to do but um parking is tight on that property and he supposed to help the flow of traffic too I Lane when you're coming out of the school the other um thing was you basically it's too tight to have there be like two lanes of traffic someone going right and someone going left so what this would do is actually um open up a little bit the exit area so you could actually have two lines of cars going now whether people think about getting in the right lane there's another story but at least if you had a lane that can go right and they can go right almost all the time the hot pot is trying to get out and go left so if you have C that's trying to go left they hold up the whole traffic line for people who are trying to go right okay so that would also have to come from the traffic you know kind of engineer who who would be looking at this but that was a a thought process of opening the um the exit of the space on to North Road I could see that helping a lot because I think it would oh yeah can I just ask um so I see obviously that included on the second tier priority is the um the tennis courts thing that we just talked about that is a town meeting article also see the two kind of third tier things being things that we're sort of waiting for MBTA is that is that MBA M sorry msba yep um and I'm just curious why or I guess what's the logic between like raising those to high priorities is that like if they aren't funded through other means is that the idea yeah so I had two um I had two thoughts on that the the first one is a South Row roof so you in addition to the regular um kind of core program that the msba has for like a new school building project they also have what they call accelerator repair yeah I remember that discussion yeah yeah it's smaller projects that deal with roof spoilers and um South Rose roof was old enough to qualify to to apply so if we applied for um msba funding approximately 52% you know 50% of the roof would be paid through accelerator rep so instead of going forward a town meeting last here and asking for the whole 1.2 million to do ourselves we said let's put an application in to see if we can actually get it partially funded through msba if we can then you know about 600,000 would be coming from them 600 be coming from us it be a savings to the town and that might actually allow us to leverage and do something a little bit um quicker funding Wi on our rent so um the application went in for the accelerator rep at South Row um the group has to come out and do what they call the due diligence which they did last summer and then the msba is voting at their October it's either the 30th or 31st uh meeting to invite projects in so we won't find out officially until mid next week when the agenda gets posted if South throw gets invited in or not um what again working with the town manager we kind of preemptively put a town meeting article on for Monday night to authorize money to be able to at least pay for the design work that would happen I think it was like $100,000 or maybe 125 but somewhere in that ballp you just get the initial approvals and then if we get this funding we can really kind of defer and work with msba to fund it um my thought process process on this is I think the South Row roof has a very good um chance of going the msba route so I think it would be better um to wait and and see if we get that the reason I kind of had McCarthy roof as a second tier not that it's not necessary at all it also was a project that technically was partially deferred um but I know the city the city the town is still working on the first phase the first 250,000 that they had to do the assessment and figure out like what the longer term plan for that building would be and I just don't know again this is a conversation we'll have with DPW even over the next month or so as we're finding this I don't know if they would even be ready necessarily if they receive the extra funding to act quickly enough on it to have it happen in this funding cycle not that it doesn't need to happen it absolutely does but that was my thought process on that okay thank you yeah by the time we meet Capital we should know what sell throw oh you will yeah yeah we we'll know I mean the funny thing is we'll know like next week midweek but it's like a couple days after well it's after time meeting um but the roof hit the age limits uh I think the application was strong so I don't you know I'm hopeful that that's going to happen as soon as we know for sure um we'll let you guys know but we're just trying to leverage whatever state money we can because then we can do more on our own um then we get into and again in my mind as I'm doing this I'm also kind of thinking like total dollar amounts so if the first TI was 877 the second tier is a million4 the third tier is 2.1 I don't know how much further down the line we're going to get realistically than that we've already kind of exceeded um you know probably the school department share of capital I then just took a look at the different projects that were out there as things that but twofold um number one I definitely think the district would benefit from having them done and I think would be a service to the to the kidss in the schools if we can do that some of these projects are projects that you're actually going to see you know unfortunately when you do like a you put a new hot water tank in or a new roof yes functionally it works well but people in the building don't really kind of see that if you um you know um refinish say a stage floor right that the kids are using during lunch or performances you kind of see that so I try to kind of mix things that they're going to see with things that they're not going to see also in my mind some of these projects aren't huge dollar amounts and you know potentially if they don't get funded through the town I'd like to have some projects queued up for when we do our one-time um spending or our onetime projects and these are smaller projects that we can handle on our own without any kind of major construction work so you'll see like in the blue grouping there are uh four different schools that were slated to have their stages um redone whether it's repair there's some pieces that need to be replaced and then refinish the uh the hardwood floor stages at biim Center um South Row and Westlands um that is on here um there was some um exhaust fan repairs uh or Replacements that were noted in the HVAC study at um Harrington um in Harrington at the kitchen this past summer at BAM we actually took the kitchen floor up like the prep and the serving kitchen not the calf with the kids sit but where the food service workers work um to put in like a non stick floor very similar to what we did at the High School like a poured flooor because um again the the floors in the buildings are old they're original to the building and uh sometimes they do crack and they require extra maintenance you don't want them to be a slipping Hazard for the uh staff that are in the kitchen um I have to talk to Christine at DPW about this one and again we're going to confer on some of these priorities as well but um Harrington roof was on the list um to be considered for this year obviously that 1.3 is just a big number and I don't know like in the scheme like this is almost like one of those fire truck items every once in a while like the fire department they needed I think last year a new fire truck and it was close to a million dollars so if you going to fund a fire a truck or you're going to fund a $1.3 million Roof then there's not much more you can do other than that but I want to just check with them I obviously I think it's necessary if it's on the list um just around like scaling and what can they actually do if they do um if they do receive the funding um McCarthy definitely within the next couple of years uh again because the building is going to stay online is due for a boiler rep replacement um so that's going to be something that we have to look at again whether the boiler replacement could potentially and this is a one of the other things we're going to have to do um when the msba at the end of October gives their rewards for say boilers or roofs and things like that we'll be able to see the age of the projects that got funded because if we have let's say the average age was 25 years or the minimum age was 25 years if our roof is only 19 then we know we have to try to fund it into internally ourselves we can't wait 6 years to get on the list for msba but if we have a roof that's say 24 years and we know one another year it would qualify for msba funding well maybe it's worth patching and keeping it functional for a year until it qualifies because then you're only paying for half of it as opposed to the full amount so this is an exercise we kind of go through but um the msba meeting at the end of the month will actually be quite telling just to let us know like what um age of roof spoilers and um I think it's window project s actually got um got approved and which which didn't um but that's why I kind of had it in this particular tier um same thing at you know South Row obviously over the next couple of years they do need a new domestic hot water heater um they had a roof fan project U this is just to replace some exhaust fans that are Up on the Roof uh now um and then actually there's one item on here that Brian is confirming for me but we think we actually completed already uh when we were doing the the renovation which was removing the obsolete dishroom equipment at Westlands that by the time we next meet might be knocked off the list um he thinks we already actually did that um so if we did we'd obviously remove that um and then lastly for this category was at Westlands um all of our schools um have like cement treads in the old buildings and what we've added is like the rubber Treads just to make it a little bit less uh slippery for kids um so that's obviously something that um it's Wes's turn it wasn't something we were doing you know four or five schools in any one year we were kind of separate out so that we could um could move well with it uh and then that blue tier added up to 2.4 million um so what I ended up doing for these last two tiers uh again thinking that it's just unlikely that we would ever get to this area but not wanting to lose track of the uh of the items is just lifted listed for you by trade whether it's hvac's or roofs or exhaust fans things like that um items for us to kind of Monitor and track um by kind of going into it knowing that it's unlikely that we're going to get to that level of project to be funded this year and we're going to have to kind of come back at it and figure out prioritization wise what do we look at a year from now um so that was again I I think this sheet will be easier to work with than that first report I gave you that was a PDF you couldn't manipulate and I did send this to you in Excel in case you want to do some manipulations on your own um between now and that first meeting when we meet in November we need to kind of finalize what our priorities are going to be we certainly don't need to do it now but I at least wanted to give you like my kind of thinking rationale as to where we should um where we should and how we should approach some of this but um happy to to talk it through and ultimately in the end if you know if you decide something should get moved up or something should get moved down that's what we'll do um I just wanted to give us a starting point to work from now all the green ones those are additions to our old west too right we didn't have those on the on the the only one that was previously on was the egress at the high school okay the secure entry area wasn't on list previously but we we wanted to kind of wait till we did the mcy one to figure out conceptually how did it work and then what were the true costs U because we hadn't have a bid something like that before and then the ones at the bottom regarding Parker for example I assume those are things that would in theory be higher priorities but we're waiting until we kind of know where things are going with the new SCH and you can see on the little note like the Deferred couple of them have been deferred for a couple of years we would just keep deferring them um like the elevator um again the roof was actually ironically like a smaller roof piece it was um something that they're just patching for the time being um but yes let's say the Macy pocket project didn't go forward then obviously we'd have to go back and address the elevator we just don't want to lose sight of them so they want to keep that's I know that's why I just put them at the bottom yeah that makes sense and in in in some ways this is worth it's worth keeping in mind these potential expenses as the town weighs the decision about where to go with I think the other thing that's just telling when you look at the list I mean obviously I think it's a it's a true list you know it's over $9 million just for the schools never mind what the the town's going to have but um I I think in part of our argument IR rationale for why we think you know we potentially should be doing a new school building project is because these other buildings in town aren't going to get any younger um you know it takes a lot of work to keep them up and it's a big investment to keep them going um we again we can go back and to D this point we can take a look at what actually we've been deferring from say Parker that would have to jump to a top of a list if we didn't do some type of a new school but it does take a lot of money to um to keep all the buildings functioning you know when they their systems start to need to be replaced whether it's the roofs the boilers the windows yeah I think it's worth you know everybody wants to talk about the cost of a new building which is it's real but there's also a cost to not building I think that's worth having some actual figures to understand a question on the oh I'm sorry go ahead did you you ask a question first because mine was more comment you sure okay on the um next LA right before Parker starts yes South rall School's classrooms what is that yeah I was curi that's all it say yeah classrooms were we placing classrooms oh no you know what when in the in the spreadsheet that I sent you you have the complete narrative for whatever reason when I converted the spreadsheet to a um PDF all the words in the cell didn't fill in it didn't um come in the bottom it actually says replace damag metal shelving and doors and classrooms um so it's more of a cosmetic um type thing where again a lot of those buildings are just older and the case work in the buildings you know starts to need some work and things like that um obviously if it was anything from a safety perspective you know we would repair it but this is almost like if we're going to keep these buildings going you're going to start to see over the next couple of years some items for like replacing the casework in the classrooms just because you do need to modernize the um the space a little bit um but that's it actually says replace damag metal shelving and doors in classrooms okay makes sense there were a couple where the whole paragraph didn't come in so I see that uh sorry about that thank you my comment was excuse me you I've been attending a lot of the meetings that the town's been having about the Strategic plan and getting Community input and housing we're I was talking to John Al housing is certainly up there with people's concerns about it but another big concern is um keep the infrastructure of the Town up which is roads certainly but buildings and people have been talking a lot about the Aging buildings in town and how important it is to keep them updated so if that ends up being in the town strategic plan as a high priority it can only help the schools as well to make sure there's a lot of focus on keeping these buildings up to date so we can be hopeful about that just to add to that too I was served on the um Capital committee and there is a ton of infrastructure stuff so Christian Clans did a great job surveying all the buildings and last year was all roofs boilers you know hbac that's why the CL our classrooms didn't go through the McCarthy parking lot didn't go I mean our tennis courts didn't go through the parking lot because they were doing infrastruct I don't know if it's going to be any different this year so you know getting stages and stuff like that may be difficult a difficult sell I mean definitely the safety stuff I think we can definitely make an argument for um you know but just keep that in mind too as we're prioritizing you know we could put something way up there but we go to the big committee and they say well you know that's not you we got to do something at the library it's not essential it's not essential so just just kind of throwing that out there yeah I'm not saying that these are like um small things but like some of the departments were like even when it came to like vehicle replacement and things like this like that in Prior years might have been something that you just approved and went through but people were like you know could you ride that truck for another year because you know I remember it was HVAC I think at the library yeah there was a HV the the air conditioning wasn't working and there was also something significant with the roof that had to be U replaced so it's like yeah you got to get the roof on before you do the um you know the car or try to get the car going so um I do have to say all the town departments are very collaborative when we get together it's it's not like a fight and everyone just kind of puts their stuff on the table makes a you know the compelling argument to why something should happen the capital committee meeting sits they kind of just like weigh it all over talk out a lot of it you know it'll be like you know Maria could you possibly defer this for year because you know John's thing really has to get done and there's a lot of give and take that happens um John Suza does a really nice job um kind of sheering everyone through the process but um it's getting tough you know and again it was a stretch for the town to go to even $4 million of capital um I think when I first came it was like hovering around two and sat I creep up to three and then last year there were just so many big project and there was a fire truck fire trucks will kill you um it it jumped us right to like the $4 million Mark which was which was a lot the only thing I thought of in terms of stages and things like this spaces that we might think are for recreation or whatever it may actually become space for classrooms and for if if we get to a point where we have to put up dividers and do things like that because we don't have enough space in the elementary level so but we're not at that right now the interesting about stages is they can actually also be a source of income Revenue because we can then rent out those stages so it can bring money back in in return so it's not only a payout yeah it's true so how do you want to handle like people put together own individual lists and send them to you I would say for tonight I would just kind of like take this in I'm not asking for any kind of actions or anything I would let it kind of sink in see if you conceptually you agree you disagree if if there's like particular areas you'd like me to let me refocus on if just between now and the next meeting you reached out um if you wanted to go through this because I did send it to excel if you want it to on your own say make a little note for me or reorder something I can try to take your opinions all in and then collectively send you out something well in advance of the next meeting so you can have it in front of you but um I just wanted you to know how I approached it with kind of the school safety stuff and the Deferred stuff just so you'd actually be able to see that I think in the back of your mind be thinking if $4 million is what the town allocates and about half goes to schools and half goes to the towns you know we've got about2 million doll worth the projects to advance um in that right and if we prioritize the safety stuff we got $1 million we can advance and we also know after Monday if um the which is a big number you know it's close to a million dollars for the McCarthy tennis area and then also we'll know midweek if the South roow roof is going to go forward because if that goes forward with msba then that's going to knock takes two big things off the list those are two big numbers right out of the mix and we'll we'll have a much better sense by the end of next week yeah and on the state level wasn't there a bit more funding available for buildings they're trying to push for the core program the accelerator repair has been a pretty similar number they're trying to push to allow more pro programs into the core program but that won't affect us at this point because we're already in for Parker the other thing is I think relying on the I rely on your judgment or after reviewing all the reports you reviewed and so on on things like the the roof I mean if the if the roof is is really an issue it might not be visible but everybody's going to be very upset if it suddenly starts leaking all the time so um you know I I rely on you for that and um it it it's been very good so far all the years I've been on this committee so I'm continueing to do that we'll also between now and the next time we meet also we'll have our meetings with DP to also kind of make sure we're on the same page and because they know the roofs even more than I know the roofs so we'll make sure that like that stuff is happening and we're also going through the first you know um three tiers into the fourth tier a little bit of projects and um reestimating costs just so that we know we kind of have actual costs something might go up a little bit something might go down a little bit um so we'll have like final final figures for you I guess I'm looking more for just like um you know General agreement or disagreement about the projects the the um ordering things along those lines and I'm open to any suggestions you have between now and the next meeting um I can try to put something together that maybe takes that into consideration like I said get it out to everyone and then we just talk it through with the next meeting okay can you just want to make sure I'm fully understanding this before I go off on my own to give this a deeper look um the Deferred portion of the renovate art classrooms line um the remaining 250 $50,000 approximately the which one I'm sorry the renovate art classrooms it's the top the um you had said I just want to make sure I'm understanding that correctly that would be the computers correct largely it's the student Furniture in two classrooms and the technology so the computers that those are like the um the the special on drawing Labs that they use for the art um and then also they do the graphic art class and that one they do the photography classroom in there so would be any of the equipment that goes along with those classes the reason I'm asking is in part because you know I look at that and that is $250,000 is a significant amount when you look at the first few items on the next tier down right being $50,000 or so so I'm curious I know it'll be helpful to get more information on the level of urgency for a roof or a boiler but I also would be curious how outdated the equipment is for that art class it would be lovely to have everything brand new in state-ofthe-art all at once since those classrooms are renovated but I don't know if that to me necessarily is more urgent than let's say having some smaller but immediately felt projects happen at a variety of schools too you know I I'd love to know how urgent it feels you know how out ofd are we with the technology that they have quite honestly like that's the perfect kind of question they ask me because when Bill is say put putting together his quotes and things like that he can do like a little um analysis that says here's what we currently have this is the age here's the replacement cycle that I was thinking about um here is kind of the recommendation and then you can have that data when you're figuring out is is this a priority for me or is it like you said um a stage in one of the schools um so no those are the things if you just kind of let me know between now and then like I don't know off top of my head the U the age of of that equipment I just know that it was up for a redo cycle because that's how we got on the list to begin with but um no that stuff I'm happy to track down for you for the next meeting great yeah the only I the only thing I know about this is when my daughter was there she took quite a bit of digital photography and uh those type of courses and it was already not at the versions that it should have been at in terms of the ability for the equipment to run it and so on so she's now a junior in college so so there is some in to this and I'm curious though if there have been some not quite rising to capital investment things that have happened purchasing new software and things like that that may have updated it since then too and like we're just not necessarily always it's the speed of the thing but um what what I think is really important for us in terms of the art Department to realize that a lot of it has gone the way of digitizing MH um in in terms of the creativity design all all of this stuff so you know in the old days you'd have a lot of students who were incredible and wanted to just do painting those type of things now it's also the Digital Arts that are really absolutely crucial so yeah we we have five classrooms in total at the high school three more your traditional spaces and two them where year kind of tech and I remember when the teachers were upgr updating them El on uh how to teach digital photography and all of those things yeah yeah but that's like a perfect question so I will work that one for you but like if other things like that come up you want me to take a look at just shoot me an email or um make a note on the form send it back to me and I'm happy to look at that for you all right any other questions or comments thank you for this great than you right you're welcome all right uh budget yeah second item we'll ask um Joanna to review the first quarter financials with us thank [Applause] you so this is the first quarter report for this school year so July through September it's our regular packet of uh you have a memo you have the financials for our um 73880 million annual operating budget you have a grant and revolving fund summary and you have the summary of the balances of the Student Activity accounts so the clubs and the teams at the high school and both middle schools um overall right now everything um labor and non-labor accounts are favorable and some of our largest expenses such as special education outo District tuitions are in line with our budget this year as well as our circuit breaker offset so I've just um wrote about a few of the larger variances and right now our classroom teacher category is favorable by 17,49 um one of the reasons we're favorable is um we had the on line item for the lane change accounts um of $171,400 uh teachers achieved their Lane change and this committee approved the budget transfer at the September 17th meeting of 46,9 42 um for those salary increases so this leaves a favorable um amount of $24,105 which will remain the remainder of the favorable Varian is is due to um case is where we've hired a teacher a new teacher at less than a master step three if we've done that if they come in in a bachelor step one that category will be favorable and the converse is if we hired a teacher at greater than Master step three or if there was an internal transfer perhaps at a master step8 that account would be unfavorable but when it is all net together with all the um employees in this category we are favorable approximately 148,000 because of all those uh differences in salary and then right now there's a small amount that we favorable because of approved unpaid leaves of absences for teachers in this category um the next category that has a large favorable variance is the specialist teacher so that special ed um elll and our tutoring supports and that category is favorable by $327,999 and it's for the same reasons um as I talked about in the general classroom teacher category is happening in this category as well and just wanted to point out we did have one vacancy at the beginning of the school year in this category and but so the September report is favorable however we did successfully hire hire the teacher and she started September 20th so that favorable variance um will not be that large of an amount in the next quarter report or even on the October report that we'll post to the website at the uh beginning of November and then just a reminder that this category has an offset budgeted of 115,000 um so that the chips revolving fund helps fund a portion of the chips teacher uh if needed and fiscal 2025 the next category that um has a large variance is the employee separation cost of $166,300 and this is the account we budget um for those teachers who retired last year and let us know that they were going to retire um before the deadline in is it November and we paid some of those incentives in in June of 2024 which is fiscal year 2024 rather than July of 2024 which is fiscal year this fiscal year 2025 so because we had some um room to do that in our favorable variances in fiscal 2024 this committee approved a budget transfer from this category at the September 17th meeting of 27,7 58 into the art rooms and science lab Renovations that we were talking about earlier so in the end when we pay the next incentive which will be these employees selected to receive it in January um this category should remain favorable by $945 16 so when the superintendent was talking about possible one-time purchases in this fiscal year these might be some of the categories where we would recommend the um the shift um the budget transfers come from out of District tuitions so uh right now on the September reports the category is favorable by $1.1 million um we the way we budget for this is uh they're funded from two accounts the local budget which is here and the circuit breaker revolving fund which is on the um a little later in this presentation um right now only at the end of September only 3 million was encumbered that means the purchase order was entered into the system but even today just a a few weeks later we're fully encumbered up to the 6.9 million that was budgeted so this was just a timing issue and um and next year we'll work to try to have all the incumbrances in for the September reports so uh just just a a reminder here of what was originally budgeted we originally budgeted 6.9 million in tuitions that's cash out the door to all these providers we budgeted a circuit breaker offset of 2.5 million a valley collaborative credit of 300,000 for a net amount of 4.1 million which is what is in these reports um since that time so that was all done remember in February of 2024 since that time we have more information um it's probably easier to look at the next chart on the last page um we prepaid tuitions in fiscal year 2024 so that's 2025 tuitions you can prepay certain things in the in the earlier fiscal year so we prepaid 1725 million of tuitions in fiscal 2024 we're fully encumbered um we're still going to have the offset of 2.5 million it's a little bit higher because we got a little um extra money in their last circuit breaker payment by about 4,000 last year we think our Valley uh credit is going to be 20 $9 4,216 the superintendent mentioned um to me that the valley board meeting is coming up in November and we'll have a a number then but it's he's not expecting it to be um that far off from this number so basically because we prepaid the tuitions in at the end of last fiscal year um that amount is the amount that we're going to be probably favorable in this category and then that would be up to the committee to um listen to recommendations on what to do with those funding those funds should we prepay again you know at the end of you know fiscal 25 the fiscal 26 tuitions we have time to um work on that decision and then also you know you could have students move in and we could have more tuitions that weren't originally planned in the 6.9 million and then the last chart is just uh where we are on the school choice revolving fund we um used to use this as an offset to special ed tuitions uh we haven't in the last few years but um we're using it to offset the one to1 computer initiatives so right now the fund is at almost 2.9 Million we um are expecting well we already paid actually the lease payments for the one:1 computers for four grades and we're anticipating the balance at the end of this fiscal year to be 2.83 million so I'm going to pause and that's the local budget and see if there's any questions questions I know last year we got extra money from circuit break is a possibility this year I didn't what it was for so last year we got two extra um amounts we had extraordinary relief which is um always available if you're um tuition's it's a little formula greater than 25% and of your total and your net School spending it's a little formula so we'll keep an eye on that always and that's one time money it doesn't hurt your cap it doesn't hurt your formulas it doesn't it doesn't hurt to apply for Extraordinary relief but and that was like 500 and something thousand and then I think I don't think this will come back the reserve relief where the state had extra funds um that's the first time I had seen that so um I haven't heard anything about the opportunity for Reserve relief we did get the reserve relief too but just a reminder that and we got the money in May um but that cash that we got is kind of subtracted from our quarterly payments that we will get throughout the quarter in fiscal 25 so they they recognize that Reserve relief as part of your overall circuit breaker claim other questions anything that we need to keep an eye on the overall budget like I know Transportation was a little high last year some utilities I mean and it's early I know anything that we yep for transportation it's probably likely that special ed Transportation will be higher than the budget I was talking with Amy ree um last week about that um there's just um more students needing the transportation and the rates is are pretty um straightforward on what to budget it's just the number of vehicles you need okay um so we'll keep an eye on that and if that happens we do have some flexibility with paying for more of the regular big buses from the Transportation revolving fund to help offset that and it's a little early yet to know how we're going to do against our um homeless transportation and our foster Transportation those are tough to estimate and then did you want to speak about the utilities from what the town manager said or I had planned on it okay that's okay um I know I don't have the number off top my head the town manager had entered into a new agreement I think it was electricity or gas uh it just said utility I think it was one of the other because I think they have the other one coming up too but just that the um there actually is a a decent rate increase that's going to go into effect at some point this fiscal year but he was telling us ear for more budget planning purposes for next year to make sure that we account for that um if I find those we'll obviously put in the budget for next year but if I find that I can relay that to you any other questions on this on the grants we have still about 307,000 uh 307 100,000 um available we have that are you talking about Esser okay so good segue so the next report is the Grant and revolving front summary and the top one oh sorry no no that's okay the top parts are second the first part is the the grants and Revol the grants and then um the second page is the revolving funds so the very first grant at the top of the page is the very last of the Esser three Grant okay so we are fully spent and encumbered the full 1.4 million over the three and a half years what the 307 is is um I'm waiting for the revenue to come from the state and I don't um record that as a receipt until we actually have it I've requested all of the funds but if it doesn't uh come by September 30th it doesn't make it on this report but we are we are all all done with that Grant we'll make a couple um final payments and we're waiting for that last Revenue great y so the top section is kind of all the what I call the carryover grants and then right below that are our new entitlement grants that have all um been approved we just haven't received Again by the end of September any revenues or spent anything on them yet and then um the next section is kind of the private grants um the circuit breaker is down in that section too our balance um at the beginning of the year was the 2285 we got one quarterly payment that was actually last year's payment that came in July and then the next page is are all the grant or all the revolving funds such as school nutrition Athletics turf fields and all of those are uh none of those are in deficit and and growing if you could just remind me on the special Edge Reserve fund oh yes are we at its maximum no we're not right no the maximum will be around um I want to say like 1.4 million between 1.4 and 1.5 million thank you it's a certain percent of your net School spending any other questions on the grants and then the last few pages are the um balances for the high school and the middle school student activity accounts the high school is at um approximately 181,000 and then there's all the clubs and activities listed the McCarthy Middle School is at 33,000 with their set of clubs and the Parker is at um 63,000 and their set of clubs question on the activity funds like take it they figured out McCarthy and Parker after they split and is everything yeah we we ended up pretty much leaving everything alone our policy did say if a fund or if a club leaves it goes to the general student body fund within the school so that's what happened to um so Parker 7eventh and eighth grade monies went into the Parker general student body fund and then at McCarthy the McCarthy fifth and sixth grade funds went to the McCarthy general student body fund that's where it work out well that's what the the policy said so that's what we went with all right anything else on the financials well thank you as always thank you thank you great uh third item on the agenda this evening is just the Personnel report for the month of September and you can see we've gone down to a more manageable uh number but we still did have a number of new hires come in uh during the month of um September again most of these are support staff uh in various roles in the district um we did have a couple of teachers who started after the first of the year so uh they're listed here and then we did have a resignation and a couple of retirements that became effective after the start of the school year so those are our Personnel transactions for the month of September so a02 Spanish teacher just teaching one class it's a very long story okay yes but they it's just teaching one class okay retiring huh crazy huh I didn't hear that good for him y he uh and I don't know Susan as well but very long time uh psychologist over Parker um did a super job and then Rob actually retired at the end of U well he left at the end of the school year but he didn't officially retire until September gotcha good for him though that was a birthday thing y right any questions on Personnel okay field trips field trips just uh two field trips for me one I had emailed you about previously it was a request um to approve the cross country team which um Patrick spoke about earlier they had a very good meet in Manhattan um going to the Manhattan qualifier uh in Riverdale last weekend it came after it came in after we had a meeting so I didn't have a chance to post it on the last agenda so this is kind of a retroactive acknowledgement of that trip and then um McCarthy Middle School the grade seven uh students their annual trip to um uh C A Christmas Carol uh in Manchester New Hampshire on December 20th oh my gosh so do we have to approve the one that's already passed by or it's up to you I mean it went it happened it was without event um maybe just at least acknowledge it um okay if you want to retroactively approve that chelsford High School cross country track team qualifying members Manhattan cross country Invitational in Riverdale New York from October 12th to the 13th of 24 I second okay all those in favor I I so it's retroactively approved I moved that we approve the McCarthy Middle School grade seven students attending the performance of a Christmas caral at The Palace Theater in Manchester New Hampshire December 20th 2024 I second we have to approve something for Christmas already all right all those in favor I Christmas is coming it is coming it's the holiday season's flying Gs are coming again all right that's all I had okay great anyone have any leaz and reports I have a few um so on the seven I attended the South Row PTO meeting um and South Row is diving deep into restorative circles this year which is great I know we heard from I think it was Harrington another elementary school last year that's really been focusing on that um so it's nice to see that sort of spreading through the elementary schools um that is going to feature in the school's parent engagement night this year as well um Lots of interest in the community in on the topic of Internet safety so that is coming up and they're looking at ways to um support that in school um they have staff plc's on the topics of restorative practices seal and neurode Divergent Learners um so um those are obviously going to yield a lot of um strengthening of teachers practices in those areas um the other kind of big kind of fun things coming up up Pumpkin Fest is approaching on October 19th which is open to anyone in our community not only South Row families and um there's a lot of conversation about what technology tools to purchase for the PTO um that will enable them to more um capably process transactions at events and things like that fundraisers um interestingly I heard sort of similar conversations happening when I was at Parker McCarthy PTO meeting so um I think there may be some talk among the schools about there ways that we can share these expenses among the pto's um maybe one purchases one and one purchases another and they allow each other to borrow um at the Parker and McCarthy pto's on the 10th of October um I got to hear that there uh the the Parker change drive for I think it was the Jimmy fund was successful um at McCarthy I heard that um there seemed to be a better sense of community um with the kids coming in now that they've all been together at they had been together last year at Parker so um or also at McCarthy so they hadd all been together the prior year which um has helped them feel like they've been better developing a sense of community so that's great to hear as we think about the transition um between the schools um they talked about something we'd already heard which is about the eighth graders that spoke as part of the Town strategic planning process um and um there was a conference at snhu for some student leaders um that was um that included representatives from McCarthy um and other than that Student Activities have ramped up which means late buses have ramped up um and the middle schools um are full of events coming up as well um notably um McCarthy is thinking about the recycling day on November 2nd from 8 to 12 um which is a big fundraiser for McCarthy and I believe Center school as well and um there will be a craft fair at Parker on December 88th from 10: to 2: so those are big things coming up and um I will say um one of the things I've been talking with both of those schools about um PTO about has been my own interest in hearing what families are thinking about technology use in general um so um specifically things that might eventually have policy implications so I've been um I've been hearing about those at the PTO meetings as well as emails following um I attended Harrington PTO meeting last week um they recently had a wathon which was very successful students raised over $5,000 in the wathon which is great that money is going to go toward running their field day they have in the spring they also had a just a social event at Roller Kingdom which they really didn't anticipate raising a lot of money but the school got $1,000 back from that so another successful PTO event the TR Trunk or Treat is coming up on October 19th yeah um holiday shop is going to be running in um December December 14th and then there's a few other various fundraisers and things coming up um interesting is um you just reported that there were discussion about expenses in transactions the um current PTO at Harrington is really keeping tabs on on the money and how it gets used and their um liability in some of this had a lot of questions from me about it so um I maybe all the PTO people are talking to each other about how this money funnels through them so I do have a few questions that I will um follow up with you just to help them understand what's going on with that anything um for me um drunk Retreat October 19th is a very popular day will be at Center uh from 1: to 3 there recycle day jointly with McCarthy comes up on November 2nd the signs are going to be going up and I attended the first a meeting of the wellness committee um we are in compliance again this year which means that we basically have to go through this whole program to make sure that our program is in compliance and uh we talked quite a bit about the fact that really this law deals with um Wellness in a couple of aspects uh but not in mental uh type of Wellness so emotional social type of Wellness is not measured at all um to this this particular committee or this program right now it's just not in the law hasn't been updated and this um and anybody can participate in this committee by the way so if folks are interested just reach out uh to be added to the committee uh this week we also have a council of schools meeting coming up Thursday I believe on Thursday right y so maybe that's something to uh that the Council of schools can look into the payment programs and so on for all of the PTO I'll bring it up to them sure right anyone have any new items um now that the kitchen and the high school's done can we talk about Halal chicken for the love of God can we get the fix food fixed now the food's fixed the food's great um well well food fixed that for people that can eat it it's fixed the food is not edible to that person it's not fixed so the menu is obviously going to be expanding um the staff are doing a really good job with with what they have over there and um yes they'll continue to expand so that their offerings are um great A lot of it does come into like where they can get food how they can get food and things like that but um I'd give it a little time to really get going it's only been a couple of weeks and they're working really hard okay I'm just giving you gave me the the the gold poost and then you crossed it and so you got to keep asking so I'll ask for you again in a few weeks thank you Patrick said we have more choices right yeah the food is wonderful I'm not I just there is a population that's missing there Diana um I just want to elevate I've been hearing I've received several emails from separate parents attending separate schools um about some concerns around the unreliability of the buses this year so far and I know we only have so much control over what happens because we do contract out the busing and um you know we don't directly manage it but I did want to elevate I have only been on the school committee less than a year but I was pretty surprised kind of by the volume of concerns that I've been hearing um specifically it sounds like um it might be particularly problematic in the center School District area um but a lot of buses coming very unreliably late very frequently um which is causing a lot of families concerns with other plans that they have and things like that never knowing when their kids are getting home from school so I bring that up um not because we can directly do anything about it but because I want to make sure that that stays in the back of our minds as we think about what kinds of um expect ation to set and and what kinds of um factors we can include as we make decisions eventually for you know the next time we put out an RFP for transportation and also curious if there is anything that we can do to to ask or put some pressure on the bus company to try to hire more folks um it's always the what I'm hearing from these parents is it's always the well we just don't have enough drivers and so we wind up having to you know combined combined Roots but it feels like that reasoning has been going on for a very long time and and that still hasn't been solved so I don't know if there's something they can do to get more of those drivers into place sharing that concern anybody else I just have a couple reminders first of all we don't meet again till the 12th because we have election coming up the first week in November so it's going to be good three four weeks yeah four weeks before we meet again we'll all be going to the conference because in the interim um we do have the MSC conference um down in the cape week before and then also Monday starts town meeting and there are some several items that concern the schools on there just I know most of us are town meeting reps but um you have the the park or feasibility just the funding of it and the tennis courts and the South Row roof so just you know just to kind of keep that in the back your head um my other thing is just I and I I I know we just went through this but in rout news recently whole thing with AI and you know whether a school district getting sued because their policy didn't say something just what we don't have a policy on a I know we had build worked on some procedures I don't you know you know maybe if we can just look at that to make sure we don't run into yeah it's no it's funny you bring that up because we just at the high school and and Steve muray the principal yeah was saying he heard like a news article about something happening this I hadn't heard this yeah um what I will tell you is um we are a district that actually um signed on a team to go to an AI um kind of series of workshops and have them do some work with us the first one happens to be Friday so Bill and I think there's eight uh teachers of staff from my district are going into at MIT in collaboration with some kind of a learning lab that they have taking a look at AI its implications specifically for teaching and specifically for policy that District should have around that so I do think something will come of that um it's a a good group ironically um the former Commissioner of Education Jeff riy is now leading a project at MIT as part of that a look um so they offered up I think it was 10 or 12 districts could um participate and we um agreed so we're one of the districts that was selected to participate so they are already going to be kind of looking at this but I'll go and try to find out what that story was because I don't know enough about it involved the student came student work and called it plagiarism he they said there was no PO it was very confusing whether there was a clear policy on whether it was essentially banned for students to use assistive technology through it didn't get to what he did but it's not even clear yet whether using AI really is plagiarism because it depends where you get the information you put into it depends on how you use it how you use it right didn't say how he was using if you use something you plagiarized and put into it just to improve it then clearly it's plagiar but if it's all your own questions and clearly it's these are all prob need to absolutely I mean I think in general I would say I I have a pretty strong interest in exploring our policies on technology in general um hearing you know some early responses from community members I've reached out to there's a lot of interest in um exploring whether we want to um have a more you know a policy around self cell phone use social media um and things like that so I'm not saying I have a particular stance yet but I do think that AI Falls in a similar conversation as we explore where we may have gaps in our policies great anybody else I'm really reading a really good book on that it's written by the um K Academy um founder yeah if you're interested at all it's a it's a really good book about um the use of AI as a really an interventionist Tool uh for students to improve performance and he believes deeply in the Socratic method of bringing that technology into the classroom and into to help students so it's it's just an interesting read it is a Next Level right so teachers are learning how to use AI but then the teachers are going to have to learn how to integrate it for the students to use just that's the you know the progression we're in right now that's I just learned how to spell it never mind use it all right um anybody else okay I don't see any public comments we didn't get any emails so we'll take a motion to adjourn I make a motion to adjourn I'll second all in favor 5 zero all right thank you but I thought he was going to come off in that for