good morning um it is Tuesday March 26 and this is the public welfare subcommittee meeting um for the record that show that the entire public uh Public Welfare subcomittee um is present councelor darn lawitz councelor Brooks and councelor ma um we will start with item number one presentation by The Garden of public schools MVP program Academy in partnership with the monitech regional um School District in the presentation today will be made by DR pelino thank you and actually um I have with me from Principal McMorrow from Gardener Academy and principal buer from Gardner high school so I'll start out the the presentation on just a couple things a quick introduction and the why we're doing this um and then they'll kind of go over more of the details um because they know that nitty-gritty way better than I do um so with that if you want to go to the the next slide so and okay so that's the overview all right so just the MVP partnership this is brand new um and it's um very Innovative um and I say that because when we submitted it to the state the state had first turned us down and said you can't do this this is an after dark program and it's during the school day um when they relooked at it they actually realized that this is just a really creative way to provide additional vocational programming for our students so this is actually during the school day students remain Gardener Public Schools students and one week they'll be busted to monitech they'll take some classes they'll take the vocational classes at Monch while they're there we have so that we'll say the juniors go for a week to vocational programming and while they're at mon Monte Tech we have our seniors that are in the program will be here studying um actually they'll be attending classes at Gardner Academy the next week the seniors will go to vocational classes and our students will um will get then the Juniors will then get classes with us so the way we're funding the program is actually through chapter 74 funds that we'll be getting because this is a new vocational program and so we're actually giving that to Monte Tech to pay for the additional resources and the teaching staff for the vocational program so really excited about this it was a really creative way to do the program um but I I felt like it was really important that we talk about why we're doing this program and not only this program I'm really excited about all the different things and I I feel like whenever I'm given a microphone I'm going to say more than that I'm asked to say because I'm really proud of gardener um public schools and the work that these two very Innovative principles and their teams Melissa um Payne who's our career in um career in vocational coordinator was not able to be here today um so that's unfortunate but ultimately we have a lot of really creative people working on these things um so if you go to the the next slide or not not going using the arrows I am there there we go so we strive for Equity um for for for our student outcomes and so we take apart everything we look at for example suspension rates Dropout rates um office referrals we look at all of those different things and we're looking for inequitable outcomes and our job is to root those out in any way that we can for garden Public Schools we address those issues we've found that there's been inequitable opportunities to get into our vocational programming and that's been an ongoing issue that we've we've voiced before um and it's what this is a way that we address this through vocational programming um that's not only with the MVP program but several other programs that I want to talk about but when you look at the inequities if you go to the next slide you'll see that um when when you look at these are this is our opport this is our um admissions Gap and as you can see we have relatively when it when the first slide and I wish oh you know what I think my glasses on the first um the first the purple and gray is those are students of Color Purple is are considered students of color the number of the number of students who are applying um and the the grayer the dark gray is white students and so you see that there relative parity and who's applying all the way to the left is completed applications sorry about that that's all right um completed applications um and then all the way to the right are those who um who were offered it uh who offered admission then if you look at the next piece that's um completed applications for students who are low income so the green is students who are considered becoming from low-income families and the again the darker color is students who are not from low-income families and so there's relative parity in who's applying then you look at special education which is the next group same thing relative parity and then you look at our El students relative parity if you go to the next slide this is our um application Gap and so when you look at you know offers that are actually made to students of color um to students who come from low-income families from students who are have special um who have special needs and then students who are El students you can see that those there a a larger Gap now when the state looks at all of our data they're looking for anything greater than 1.5 times the Gap so if you click yeah okay so this shows that students of color have a 1.37 it's 1.37 times so not not enough to be considered an equity Gap um but students um from low-income families has a 1.72 gap uh because that's 1.72 times so in other words students who are not from low-income families are um accepted at a rate 1.72 times those who are um those who are from low-income families does that make sense everybody yep okay um the next one is Special Needs yes stay right there and so it's 1.27 so again that's that's below that's below what they would be considered um an equity Gap L students are almost three times um less likely to get in than non-l students if you go to next slide what are else is oh oh thank you English language Learners okay and so you know again so this is actually comparing so FY 22 or not FY but school year 22 23 so that those students who were accepted in the by the fall of 22 compared with 23 you'll see that actually things have gotten better and I know this is something that montech has actually been working on with the state to try to reduce these incomes I bring this up not to talk necessarily just about these um the inequities that happen but to recognize that we own some of these inequities this is these are garden of public school students so we have to do all we can and actually be to be totally transparent this is from the state you can click on the thing you can actually get you know all this kind of data this is specifically to Monch but it's all students who are going to mon Tech when you click on just Gardner residence I don't know if it's too small a sample but it's blank and I felt like it was important to just be kind of transparent about these numbers but the reason I'm bringing up these numbers is it just shows that this is our biggest vocational program and we don't have enough vocational programming to for all of our students so some of the things we expended if you can go to the next slide um so we do we've done a few things our long game to address our um to address these inequities starts with um having an early college program and a college program that will make it so kids who intend to go to college don't apply to mon Tech they should be staying at our Comprehensive High School and what we've what we've noticed is we've had students who we knew plann to go on a fouryear schools they were applying to Monte Tech that's not mon Tech's problem that's a garden of public schools problem um so we've been doing a lot to expand our early college program to reduce the number of students who are intending to go to college because right now we have businesses who are coming to us saying we don't have enough we don't have enough employees not enough kids are are attending Monte Tech and then going into the world of work right there's about 30% of the students have plans to go to um into the workforce straight out of U monitech so we're trying to make it so we shift that on our end and that's again our problem and an issue that we have when we're looking at admissions for example because of discipline issues well okay they might have different um they have particular criteria but who's the one that's suspending the students we are so we're the ones that have to address those inequities um if you actually look at our applications so right under that it just says 36 applications for 37 openings I think we have 37 it's usually high 30s yeah this year we had 36 students who applied to monitech that for us is um a win not because it's fewer students but because the students who want to go on to college are staying in Gardener Public Schools we had 75 students apply to our early college program I think 77 77 students apply to our early college program so we're trying to create that robust program and quite frankly this was for me the long game um where we're trying to make it so the right students are apping them mon Tech um and not students who intend to go to four-year schools so we're we actually got there in a pretty relatively quick way I mean um early college has been what five years now four or five years um yeah some of yeah so we think this had a huge impact on the on the students who are staying in Gardener um and just as an aside again want to really tell you know the work of you know these two principles and their teams um our school choice numbers have also our school choice out numbers have dropped considerably we're it used to be when I first became superintendent we hit 300 students leaving our district to go school choice to other districts we now we're down to 169 considering we have 162 students who are coming in the district we're now kind of at kind of a balance so that's huge for us um because it shows that we're doing the programming that students want but this opens up opportunities for kids who might not otherwise have been able to attend monitech but now they're able to I mean really we should be accepting about 100% of our students and actually we're going to have to recruit some more to try to fill all of our spots so I'm really excited about this because this means that kids who in eighth grade going into nth grade are able to just go right onto Monte Tech and that for me is a huge win for those students however we also have students who don't don't know in eth grade that they want to go on to vocational programming so vocational programming for 11th and 12th graders is going to be crucial and we've been working on this for a while um you know one of some of the pathways that we have we have automotive technology I don't know if you know but we have um we're in the old Macky Builders building and I we have a um an automotive program that's there where that's through a partnership with Mount WUSA Community College we have three Innovation Pathways manufacturing certified nursing assistant and business um I keep having to look to Paula because I I might miss something so and I put together the slid so it's very likely that I did miss something uh We've also expanded in our own um building um our shops for robotics um industrial design engineering and graphic arts me say anything there that you add that's a lot of very high-tech equipment um um and a lot of actually um you know woodworking equipment and things like that that are still you you know a big part of what we do um and now we're really excited about this 2-year program with montech I mean this is a to me this is the ultimate partnership um making it so those kids who don't know in eth or nth grade whether or not they want to go to vocational programming suddenly saying hey you know I really wanted to do some things that are hands on or maybe they weren't able to get into Monch in in 8th grade well now we have this program um which will allow our um 10 um 10 Juniors and 10 seniors um to attend the program so to talk a little bit about what the program looks like and we won't we don't have to go into too much detail so we'll move through the slides somewhat quickly um I don't know if you want to talk yeah I mean VI the slides or not so there's carpentry and electrical being offered now hopefully with the addition of um Plumbing it's the goal down the road um we are you know we actually had a really good meeting this this week end of last week end of last we have lots of good meetings PA but to talk more about our Logistics we've been kind of talking about as a group um you know montech is going to do the busing we've got to you know how are we going to work in a week B week but we've gotten creative and we really haming out some good details at the last meeting where you know because we have um and you know Pete can speak to the alternative school a little bit more um you know we have some flexibility there so Pete's able to cover the core academic courses in the morning and then we're actually going to move the kids um midday back up to the high school where they're going to get their additional um math and English support um a math and English type lab and still be able to hopefully work with our manufacturing and Woodworking and Engineering um teachers for an additional class in the afternoon so we feel pretty good about about that schedule that we worked out kind of using resources from both buildings because it's you know it's a bit of a a pull because you know we don't have extra teachers that aren't doing anything they're all teaching classes and so Pete's been flexible with with the core courses and been able to schedule that in the morning we're able to schedule um classes in the afternoon you know we're going to incorporate Early College bus that comes through midday to transition the students between um they'll be taking montech buses um to the program back home from the program so there's been a lot of logistics but we've we've been able to be creative and and make this work we're likely going to have to do a lottery there's quite a bit of interest there our application Windows still open through next week so you know we've got five Juniors for um electrical five for carpentry and seniors the same um so we're um you know kids are expressing where their interest is and we're trying to you know kind of look through the look through the applications make sure kids are really settled on which one they want um so you know we will wait and see how the next couple of weeks play out with applications but if we you know need to go to a lottery we go to a lottery um pretty much that I mean the idea was that when we get those slots filled the more kids wanted to do one or the other we you know we talk to make sure like Paul is saying make sure that that's the pathway that they want to take the one that they want to go to and then the the idea behind coming back in the afternoon was to actually enhance math and English through the learning Labs back at the high school so our our we're set up to be flexible so for us setting out the academic programming in the morning um lunch happens and then back to the high school for these kids um it's not that it's a lift but it's not that heavy of a lift it just makes sense and the wound up that we actually timing wise are almost dead on with each other which that would have been the biggest issue but we're lucky that way and we've worked out you know things logistical things like lunches and you know paying for lunches and things like that to make sure that that runs smoothly mon Tech's been great about making sure that you know our business managers are talking and getting the work done um so they won't that will all be seamless for our students we're still trying to figure out and we're going to lean on Mon Tech here help us with this because we don't know how to do the insurance piece for kids because often times you know kids from vocational schools I think it can start at 16 they can go up for co-ops and things like that we've always struggled as a comprehensive school with that and I um I'm not sure if there's an exemption from the state so you know we're going to have to talk about some of those things too because we' really like to make sure that um you know again Paula's schedule is you know welld designed for afternoon internships Pete's schedule is just phenomenal I mean it'll allows for a lot of different things so this this this program I'm really excited about I think it's going to take off and as we move forward it's going to morph into um a better and better program similar to our others um but that's it in a nutshell we you know we don't have to go this was actually a presentation for parents which went through a lot more details um and the people who went to our information night that um these guys presented um immediately just sign there's a little Link in the end one of those little scan things and they signed on immed mediately so we had people just jump on this parents are excited too well thank you I was very excited when I saw her posted on on the Gardner Public School High School Facebook page um which is why I invited you here today um you know full transparency everybody pretty much knows that I spent you know my entire pretty much career at Garden High School the last 23 as a school counselor I'm very familiar with the monite tech process the applications the inequities that have occurred over the years um and and uh this was just thrilling to me this is something that you know talk about creative thinking outside the box um I'm also know what the puzzle of a g you know any High School scheduling is um it's a master puzzle and um we used to do the master schedule I used to do the master schedule and so I mean that you know being able to make this work is just I mean to me it's just very exciting um because there has been over the years I mean there just that group um I mean I think you everyone you're going to see kids not droing out you know what I mean if they're part of this program um that this is as I said this is just something that um you know to me is just exciting it's just it's a win-win all the way around um and when it comes to the students who are going on to college um you know we have the Early College programming G and we've had that and it's been very successful I was also in charge of the scholarships at Garden high school and Garden High has such a robust scholarship program more so than any other I can I probably can say community in Massachusetts if not New England um in our students um I always felt bad because I always thought the decision to go to a vocational school if you're going to a four-year College also needs to be a business decision for parents because on average and and I'm I'm underestimating a student who chooses not to go to Garden High School is losing a minimum of $25,000 in scholarships over 4 years and that's a minimum okay okay and since I've retired I know you have some new ones and it's probably even more than that that's a lot of money especially if you add it with early college program opportunities to seek credits so I just think for our LMI families um you know to do you know to to have them you know stay within the community and and get those scholarship opportunities and just to open up and broaden the opportunities for those that need to go into the trades because like everybody else you can't find a carpenter or plumber I mean there are fewer few of people going into the trades and and um I I I think we're just circling back to what the vocational technical school is all about and that's for the kids that um that that want to work for their hands and stuff so I applaud everybody involved in and um in in doing this um the state for embracing this which is not always um the easiest part of things um and I just as I said I just I really appreciate it and that's why for myself I just wanted to learn more about it because it's just it's just to me it's very exciting opportunity um and it's it's important that you know the collaboration between all the public schools in Monte Tech continue and and have um you know you know just a positive um you know imprint on on on the public and the communities because we all we all everyone's there for the same purpose and sometimes we have forgotten that so thank you counc Brooks uh yes uh first I just wanted to disclose the fact that I am a member of the husett Regional Vocational Technical school committee uh I didn't know that yes he is there you go that's another reason I had to back up from what I was doing uh and and I think this this is a great program that that's being formulated it's been interesting I I have been substituting a bit at the high school and so to to talk to some of the students there about what their goals are or or why they did or didn't apply to Bon Tech back in the day and I and I think it I think this MVP program is very good because it's taking care of some students that perhaps at 8th grade didn't know what they wanted to do and now at 10th grade have started to figure things out uh that's that's a good thing um the other thing is as as I'm listening to this um I guess I would say the admissions policy is slightly different from uh that the the admission policy in eighth grade that the eighth grade admission is handled by Monte tech and and they're the they're the ones that are ranking the students and and and setting things up my my impression is that with the MVP program it's it's the gardener public schools that are going to be saying okay you are the you are the students that are going yes which is really exciting but also now we'll feel montech pain so when they have to turn down students I'm I'm sure that's not um Pleasant so right now fortunately we don't we don't have to go the you know to a lottery or anything like that we're not going to have to turn anybody down but for for MVP we will be turning people that okay so as as of the other night we weren't going to have to but no I think I think we will but we have no we have no admissions criteria for the program at all besides that you are credit you are you've technically earned um enough credit to be moving into your junior year um there's no other criteria whatsoever besides interest filling out the application and that you're not credit deficient so and that's where when if we're over we will have to go to a lottery yeah so we'll see where it shakes out and what applicants come in in the next couple of weeks um I also have had some conversations with the superintendent about Monch submissions policy and and I think at monitech there's there's an ongoing effort to try and address some of the issues that have been uh expressed uh and the issues I think there are a lot of different issues and and I mean it can be a simple that somebody ending up below the the threshold in terms of of where they fit in the ranking um I think there has been an effort and and I guess I I recognize that a change that's made today doesn't have any impact until a year from now when you start to admit students and then it takes another year or two before you can really see the result of that so I think it it's you know if we all have a little patience but keep working I think we can we can get this resolved MH so thank you thank you C turn just it's great to hear all the different opportunities these students have now um forever ago either mon Tech or Garden High know you have the Early College Gateway program you have the 7vp program um it's um new opportunities that weren't there and I think we're adapting to the way the world is um now and trying to set up our students for the uh most success we can so appreciate all the work and the in innovativeness I guess thank you so much thank you all right thank you guys thank you thank you you know where to reach us if you I'll send you this presentation I'll send you vot re warm the seats up thank you yeah next item on our agenda is the massachusett vocational technical school budget presentation for fy2 by superintendent director Thomas Brown and business manager tamy used to be L Crockett Crockett okay I know the email B back so that's why I just wanted to make sure it was it was correct so welcome thank you so much happy to be here we're happy to have you here's my full disclosure Gardener High School class of 89 oh jeez she's a m child right before I came back I went back with my sister that's right with Lori 100% we have to disclose it no so welcome so I'll let you we all have a copy of the budget with us um but I'll let you present sure we have a PowerPoint do you have that do you have that did you send it to I think she did send it with the budget oh okay let me just bring up my email I have copies if you don't you yeah thank you you have yours there you go that thank you I just have to I just have to find the PowerPoint I apologize no worry [Music] um probably came from Julie yes from Marino um I don't oh no it didn't come from Julet came from somebody else Mar her last name's Marin m a r y n o k there she is no I'm unfortunately my my phone is much easier for me to navigate than the the City My City email not the biggest fan of Al look yeah seems like I search for things that I just got and says I don't have them just if I scroll down there it is but can't search for it that's great yeah I haven't done that a long time well I apologize I think um we'll just start without the PowerPoint we seeing we all have a coffee in front of us that's okay sure right all right so I'm going to get started first then we'll turn over to Tammy to do the budget um basically obviously we uh have an opportunity s come in we just want to give you updates I get I can go through the four MVP slides very quickly now that's already done so we're all set um no that's okay just one I'll set all right so um at each of our budget presentations we we'd like to start off to let everybody know about um how seriously at money Tech we take grants um that the idea of being able to supplement our funds uh without having to tax the towns um through Chapter 70 money and everything so just to give you some some of the examples uh this first one talks about what is called a CTI Grant the Career Technical initiative and what that is is it's a state program uh run through uh Commonwealth Corporation and what it really does is it focuses on the training for um adults who are young adults well adult older adults as well um who are underemployed or unemployed uh and it's a program they have to apply through Mass hire which is one of our partners um if they get accepted to the program there's we'll take a look get some of the different programs in a second um but obviously even though this is an adult program the funds that go to purchase the equipment then are that's because it's a night program then our our day students get to benefit from those programs so you can see there's been different rounds it hasn't been um consecutive so they skip numbers so uh but we've received uh four this is our fourth one we just received for this year was $720,000 again that helped to support more carpentry plumbing and HVAC programs uh and training um the next slide after that actually just about a month ago um we did have our most recent graduation ceremony uh the students that were graduating were from culinary CNC operator welding and Property Maintenance um and again these are folks who are doing the left turn in life that you know maybe they were working you know in a manufacturing plant or they they just or they weren't working at all and they decided you know what I'm going to give welding a try and they've come in so what's really neat about these graduation so is their families come in and seeing the Pride of the spouses and the children that you know Dad has completed this program and everything has been fantastic um so again we're moving into the fourth this last one in the bottom right corner there uh will finish up in June again carpentry electrical HVAC and plumbing so again adult Workforce training but benefiting our day student students as well which is great um last year we received a wonderful Anonymous Grant uh Anonymous gift and uh it was about 400,000 500,000 and we had split that with our cabinet making program to get some equipment and then our goal was to get a new um spray booth for our aut body program um the original existing spray booth is still sitting in our our our Auto Body program um it's pretty much used to wash cars at this point because it's just so old and everything else uh we do have one other additional one so we put out an RFP and then we suddenly realized oops it's a lot more expensive to build an auto body uh spray booth program um uh so we ended up stabling it for a little while but again sought out additional grants uh we found the Kenneth Donley Grant through Comm Corporation again adult Workforce training um but it was $500,000 and that's going to help us supplement that uh building that the booth that's in that picture that's actually from our our colleagues over down at bayth um but that's what our booth will look like as well when we uh begin to install it we met with the engineer yesterday to to to do that and again it's adult Workforce but the so we'll be training adults in um uh appraisals uh the auto body work itself but again this buy being able to purchase this booth then benefits our day students as well additional program that we accepted a grant foremost recently that we're calling our step program for supportive training ucation program um it was to address a piece of the workforce that's really ignored and that piece is um young adults with disabilities and we're talking about autism um talking social emotional issues that keep from from being joining the workforce uh they put this out as a training opportunity and Monch put it an application for the grant uh we received that grant for about a little over $100,000 we're going to be doing training we partnered with caps collaborative and the arc um which are two organizations um that work specifically with with adults we're deal with 18 to 35 um who have uh severe autism autistic Pro problems and uh issues and um the key thing is is that we're going to be training them in culinary uh both the front of the house and the back of the house we'll be training them in office and copier work uh retail customer service through our programs we'll get seven weeks of technical skill training a week of professional skills so they can work how to work how to collaborate with colleagues and everything else and then the best thing is we give them two weeks of a paid internship and then we give them a job and we gave you a couple examples of some of the company the Colonial hotel right out Farm Hanford has already told us they will accept students through this program so we are looking uh next week actually is when we start this program what we're really surprised actually but very proud of is that montech was the only Regional Vocational School in the state that applied to do this program um so we're thrilled to get that going and uh really excited about that and then you the next slide every every one of our shops looks for individual smaller grants you know this was just one example the iar foundation Grant a $25,000 Grant allowed that to uh purchase new equipment so you can see between FY 23 and FY 24 um well over a million dollars nearly two million dollar last year in Grants um the we're waiting to hear we think we're going to hear this week about the uh culinary Grant uh the capital skills Grant um we're looking the big Trend in culinary is food trucks so we're looking to get the grant so we can build a a food truck and and let the kids learn about how that all works um I'll stop and pause uh the 1.8 Mill ion skills Capital Grant last year that is the grant that's paying for all the work to establish the MVP program um that's paying for all the renovations that's paying for all the new equipment so the shops will look just like our shops at montech they'll look just again this is a building down the street about a mile down the road um an old uh watchus at warehouse that wusy warehouse um so that Grant has allowed us to do what we wanted to do very quickly because we're talking about competitive grants you know in terms of Appropriations grants allocation grants uh Perkins is the big one um but any student who is a chapter 74 student this is federal funds uh if they're involved in Workforce training they get an allocation we get about uh $300,000 we use a 100,000 of that in the next couple slides to pay for What's called industry recognized credentials these are the certifications that the students get in their individual shops that allow them to go get well-paying jobs when they graduate because they've earned these certifications and we're really proud of the fact that um we use the grant money to help pay for all the exams and tests these kids have to take in order to get that um so again again trying to find ways to make sure take away the burden from the towns uh the last Quick one here I'll go over is uh we're really proud of our Energy Efficiency and we knew we were doing a good job we're very mindful of it our facilities directors very mindful of it um and then randomly reach the Mass Save which you probably heard of you know it's a Consortium with ever source and Unitil and all the other different um utility companies they reached out to us uh last year and they let us know that of all the all the businesses and all the organizations of Massachusetts they will name 14 as a mass save climate leader in terms of there efficiency montech was chosen as one of those facilities um we do a great job in terms of there's a couple bullets there that show how we some of the things we focus on in terms of saving energy saving costs uh we love the fact that they highlighted the fact that we're training our students in Energy Efficiency which is a huge piece so again just ways to save money so it doesn't impact us the the um sing districts as much uh there's a couple slides there on MVP I'm not necessar going to go through them all because you already heard them all um you know again it has been a great opportunity to work with uh all three of the districts um very supportive we really appreciate that you can see the design that we're going to have for the building again we're converting that our students are doing all the work um the the last the fourth slide on MVP the pictures the right you can see what the warehouse looked empty without us doing any work and now our kids are doing all the renovations our kids are instructors um you know the one on the bottom left is a perfect example we had to cut the floor in order to put new pipes in so we could do an ADA Bathroom our students and our instructors did that we did not have to bring in a contractor that alone Sav $5,000 in terms of the work um so it's a great program we're thrilled to have it and should keep filming and exciting I just have to say I go buy this building every day oh there you go ning home in in pitchburg and um the trucks are there and everything and um and it's just yeah it was it was great to see and then that's when I in in reaching out to Mrs pay from Garden High she said that's what the building is been for excellent exciting um one thing we did want we all we always share with um our our sending districts when we come out um Mr Brooks kind of referenced it a little bit um is we always try to give some updates on where we are with admissions um and we think this table is really important to show so just to make sure that everybody knows is back in the early 2000s the state mandated Regional Vocational to if you had a weit list they mandated us to use selective criteria that wasn't a thing that we chose to do um so it's been in place for 20 plus years uh most recently about four years ago the state said listen um you can continue to use selective criteria but we want you to make sure that you're taking a look at your selective criteria and making sure that there aren't biases involved in this so if you look at what we've done in the last four years every year at the start of the school year um we take a look at all our data we present it to the school committee and we say what what's a problem here what might there be potential biases so you can see I'm not going to go through everything but back in 2020 if you scored a 90 even if you take a look at if you scored an 80 you lost five points um we changed that a couple years ago so now we expanded the ranges so you get full points with with with with different grades and everything else and we've worked that all the way down through um absences during covid we really learned that low-income families um students of color sometimes families of color it's difficult for them to get to a doctor to get that doctors know that says it's an excused absence um we accept if the sending District they say it's excused we don't count it so it's it's all based on their eth seventh and eighth grade um and we don't ask any questions but the fact that they can't get that doctor's note we said you know what we need to expand um the range again for absences so we went to zero to 10 days which back in 2020 they would have lost you know 10 points now they're getting full points even if they have 10 absences um the number that we use as the as the cuto off there the zero is the number for the state says for chronic absenteeism if you have more than 18 absences a year you're considered chronically absent again we do this for eighth and half or sorry seventh grade half of eighth grade so that's why it's a total of 27 days suspension discipline um going back to 2020 we included in small incidents that's gone right now the only thing you lose points for is what's called a 37h and a half suspension which is basically the big three bringing selling drugs not just bringing drugs but selling drugs in school assaulting a staff member or bringing a weapon to school thankfully there aren't a lot of seventh and eighth graders who are doing any of those so basically nobody loses points for discipline it's there because we want to make sure that if there is someone who does something like that I think we may have had two or three total kids and again this past year we had 860 applicants for this current freshman class we had 860 applicants for 360 spots so there's just dozens and dozens who aren't getting here getting into the building ascending School recommendation again something that we looked at this year as what we've decided was a source of potential bias and that is the fact that we and Judy knows very well guidance counselors are in some schools it's teacher teams eighth grade teams or anything um score the student um based on what they think in terms of the kids's ability to succeed at Monch that they want to go to Monch you um follow the training and everything else we came to the conclusion that across our 18 cities and towns 42 different people were doing those recommendations and obviously when you have 42 different people using different scoring ranks different values and everything else um that could be an issue that could be a source bi we had some districts where every single kid was getting total points we have some districts that were giving zeros they were the only District that well I should say one District that was giving zeros and they were the only ones giving zeros so we said this is an issue here so we removed that out and what we said is the opportunity for the kid to come forward and say I want to come to Mony Tech is the interview so we increase the score on the interview we have one person Chrissy Lamy who actually was from Garder worked in Gardner first she's our just team of admissions she's the only person that does those interviews so we know that is consistent across the board um so we increase the points there we G gave greater access we do a video that shows how the interview process works so everybody can get ready for it so just in general we want to make sure that everybody understands we're doing a lot of things we're really pleased with that we think that things to expand um the field in terms of what's coming can I just absolutely first of all I worked with for many years see again I work with chy she was a colleague of mine um and and she has a great personality about her to to do the interviews and whatnot um I did look at your application cuz I do did know you made changes on it my only question is even though it says it in the narrative that um revealing a disability is optional then it down here after they ask you know even the things about race and stuff I I really think should say optional next to them y um it says person with the disability yes or no and I read that as I mean is it physical you know you're you know as you ask you know IEP 504 and and just those questions I still think next to them just because they're high school kids it should still stay optional next to them even though yeah cuz they are all option and they don't and let's face it you know I mean I I gave test and said if you really read these directions sign your name and turn your paper in in 20 minutes you know you test kids and stuff so I just I mean there the qu the the questions are still there um but that's that's just my personal that it's still ask it's still asking you know specific things and um you know and I just as I said but I was really impressed with the at least the some of the up updates and and of the application process sure of course thank you all right so um then just to wrap things up uh continuing to work with our Partnerships uh Co-op we have huge numbers we're up closer to 220 kids now they're out on Co-op these are the Juniors and seniors that get to instead of going a shop every week they actually go out to the workforce work with the different contractors different businesses and everything else everybody's since Co really opened up and everything else um obviously we continue uh with college Partnerships uh similar to to Gard what they have we've been working a lot with wer State recently uh lots of dual enrollment classes give you some examples that we just started doing again these are all at no count cost to our students again saving uh money similar to um the programs they have in Garder uh we're looking at potentially building this into an early college program with Wester State and that brings me to my last slide well technically second last slide um one thing we really really like to make sure that everybody gets because there are people who look at vocational education and they're picturing the vocational education from 1950 and 1960 um not the current one if on this chart you can see all 21 of our programs the blue programs are programs where the reality is the kids complete those programs there's an expectation that they're going to go and have to take two years or four years of college example the animal Science Program when they complete our animal Science Program they can be a vet vet assistant vet assistant will probably get $17 an hour maybe which I think averages out to about 35 $34,000 a year it's it's not a wage that you can you can you can really go by in order to become a vet tech you have to go and get at least two more years all right and in many cases four more years so the fact that 17 of the 18 kids are going on to some type of college is not a surprise in any way shape or form our health occupations kids the fact that uh 24 out of the 25 are going right because again our health a kids they graduate with a CNA same thing7 $18 an hour when they graduate but that's not going to they can't live on that forever so they need to go and they need to be get their their PN and everything else so if you look at the blue ones those are technically where you're going to see kids that are going on to college and there's no surprise about that whatsoever the ones in greens are kind of the shops where it could do one or the other you know we talked about cosmetology they're absolutely ready to go right into the workforce upon graduation but there's several kids in compology who say I plan on open my own Salon I need to go get some sort of business courses business degree and that's what they do so it it varies but then when you go to the back page the ones in the orange those are the ones where you would expect in most cases they're going into um right into the workforce so you look at Auto technology 14 of the 16 kids going right into the workforce you look at Plumbing 16 of our plumbers going right into 16 out of 16 going right into the workforce so again if your perception is vocational school you're picturing the of of the 50s and 60s you're picturing these construction trades in Orange that's not the case anymore it's very different engineering kids who are in engineering they need to go on and get to extra college so you just need to picture that so we want this is our effort to say listen yes absolutely there are kids who are going on to college and there are kids are going into the workforce it is a very close balance on that but it's mostly because the programs that are in place we we are getting people ready for for all Workforce groups not just the construction trades and everything else so we just like to make sure that gets out there so everybody kind of sees that information again broken down by shop can I just ask those going into the workforce do you actually ask them where they're working so do you know whether is connected to their shop or not yes so what we do is we do a one-year um out survey and that's where we confirm whether or not they've been working with their with their trade or not TR or not okay yeah so and you know it's very important to note that those categories up top uh at the top of the the first page those are State categories and they so we have to go by them the reality is that I would almost guarantee you that every single kid that says they're going to a two-year College they're working they're working during the day and then the afternoon or that night they're taking their cour work for their their their degree but we can't give the kids that option to say they're doing that because it's it's not available according to the state correct correct and then last but not least we love to always say we'd love to do stuff for our towns um you know I did meet with uh mayor Nicholson last year and I think he did reach out for a couple things that we were able to do small things but as the council meets when you're talking about doing jobs around town if you're looking for work we' love to send our kids out to do it so are looking for Laborers I guess we absolutely are and um we have a lot of new department heads Y and they were actually our last meeting we had at the airport I like to this sub Community likes to go around and go different places the airport building they're doing a lot but they still need more and and the question was how do they reach out to you who do they speak to because there are some things that we you know um you know even some you know simple you know Plumbing stuff like at the at the outside pool things so who would they they could send it right to it's technically Ryan regi uh re G he's our director of vocational programs okay um but if it's easier people to remember my name they can send it to me and I'm pretty sure it's uh you have a great resource sitting next to you as well so but we will we definitely will we want to get that word out because um you know I used to see them around town a lot but I in recent years I have not even even right pre Co um so I just think it would be again just to um ex you know expand that partnership and especially when you know uh with the MVP program those kids giving back to the community as well would be great right and and I will say one of the reasons why you might not see them as much is as we showed Co-op so many kids are going out on Co-op we have shops that when it gets to their senior week they might have one kid shop because all kids we felt really bad last year we were trying to do the there's a picture in there of the memorial walk for Sterling our masonry department and just got to point where they didn't have any Workforce because the kids were all going off on Co-op jobs which is great that's what we want they're getting paid to do that um but we did finish the project for them this fall so they were able to open it on time still but anyhow all right but that's mine sorry I took too long it's all about budget all Tammy okay so I'm I'm going through the PowerPoint where it says preliminary budget plan you also as we talked about at first you all have a copy of the budget which is much more detailed has much more detailed information this is going to be more of an overview of how we get to that place um our budget really starts with our foundation budget which is as you know is established by the state it's the minimum spending the state wants to see its schools um spend so this is kind of the blueprint for us it's based on different grade levels at the top as well as different um function areas going going down the rows um vocational education outside of special education is the most expensive education model so that gets the highest per pupil rate of spending for these categories giv so you can see at mon Tech all of our students are in uh column 7 vocational now that 1476 is our foundation enrollment it's not the number it's not just the enrollment at mon Tech so i' like to tell people our foundation enrollment is students who live in our 18 member communities that are enrolled at monitech it's also pupils that live in our 18 member communities that school choice to other vocational schools in the state as well as we have a handful we have a chapter 74 practical nursing program for young adults so those are also included in there if they're in District so that's where the 1476 comes from that's our base row columns 8 through 13 is what the state calls above base so they give you additional monies for pupils who are considered in these categories it's really a duplicative count of row SE column seven special ed in District we don't have 73 students who are special ed we have 235 this is an assumed percentage and it's assumed for all districts so if you're a vocational District it's an assumed percentage of 4.93% if you're a non-vocational district it's 3.93% and they give you some additional spendings um monies in those categories we don't have any special ed tuition out pups use would' have to be at montech to be montech be able to come to the school our eel's you get they base it out break it up at different grade levels our Els are in column 12 10 that is our actual account of El's so again you can see the additional monies there uh low income 500 so we're we're tagged as 35% low income and how that's count calculated is we upload our student database to the state and then what they do is they go and try to match those students to Transitional Assistance EBT programs Mass health programs all all that type of assistance and they and then they fill that number in one thing that did happen this year that is a change since 2017 is that Mass health changed the way it research certifies families of low income during the pandemic they just I'll call it hold harmless for better term they they just kept the same criteria this year they went back to the fy17 criteria so for a family to be considered lowincome they now have to be 185% below the federal poverty level whereas the past four or five or six years they were at 100 they were classified at 133% Bel uh below the federal poverty level so what that means for several districts in in the state is that they went down a low income group and what I mean by that is if you look at row 15 in the bottom left blue box it says low income group six last year we were in low income group seven so we lost kids in this category based on the recertification as well as several other districts in the Commonwealth to amount of millions of millions of dollars and what that means is not only is the count lower than it was last year but the amount of extra money you get per pupil goes up based on the loow income group you're in so that goes from 1 to 10 we're at a six last year we were at a seven so additionally our per p additional monies there went down we lost $225,000 in our foundation budget because of that change and it totals millions and millions for other districts that being said you total everything all the way over to column 14 in our foundation budget is 29,900 307 divide that out by the number of pupils and you can see it's per pupil Foundation budget of 20,28 per pupil I'll reference that number again that's why I'm kind of pointed out next slide shows our Chapter 70 summary so you can see Row one is just what we're getting this year 2 through five takes what's our foundation budget we just saw that number on the previous slide they subtract out our required District contributions so what that is is they take all 18 communities that belong to Monte Tech they calculate your ability to pay based on the wealth model which is in the presentation and they come up with all 18 paying 11,648 232 now they subtract that to come up with what our Chapter 70 should be 18 25275 well that's a decrease from what we're getting in s in in 24 so we're considered a hold harmless District what that means is that they're not going to cut your Chapter 70 funds they're just not going to give you any additional money be beyond the minimum which the minimum is in row six $30 per pupil so that's what we're getting this year us and 220 other districts in Commonwealth the math are considered hold harmless this year so they add that minimum to what we were getting this year so that's going to be our Chapter 70 for 25 18 36 2984 so then I come over to the next columns um we talked about our foundation enrollment we saw the foundation budget we will talk about District contributions I just showed you how our chapter 78 is calculated now normally I would say to you Foundation budget equals required net School spending I would say they're one and the same normally and what our required net School spending is is that's the minimum we must spend on education and it does not include Debt Service Capital expenditures student transportation or meals so our chap our net School spending number for this year is 30 mil 11,216 why it's not the same like you can see in F by 24 those two numbers are the same is because we're a hold harmless District so the state says we're giving you more Chapter 70 then you should be getting essentially so we're you're going to spend it all so that number is derived by adding the um the required District contribution to our Chapter 70 number so that's why they're slightly different and you can tell just from this slide that our required School spending goes up 525,000 but our Chapter 70 only went up 44,000 so you already know you can see it here the burden is being put on our district communities to fund that difference the next slide will'll give you a snapshot of what Monty teex FY 25 budget looks like going through the categories we kind of just talked about required net School spending there's that 30 million Transportation 2,516 010 that's our 30 school buses that get our students to and from school every day and it's our contractual um agreements with those three bus companies we are in year two of a new Transportation bid this is a 4% increase over last year the other additional small amount of increase is special entrance Transportation costs so that's what drives that up 4.87 the next number 29694 um identifies what our spending is above net School spending Which is less than 1% above and I will point out that we rely heavily on the grants superintendent Brown just told you about to keep our budget there um to keep it as close close to required net School spending as possible uh the next figures capital and vehicles uh 460 + 50 totals 510 compared to FY 24 that's a $10,000 increase and our capital budget for next year is really made up of replacing our athletic field bleachers that and small transfer to our stabilization fund of 25,000 and our opep account of 15,000 and I'll talk to you about our stabilization account in a minute so that gives us our total budget for fy2 33 million 3341 174 it's an increase of almost 800,000 or 2.46% with 500,000 of it coming from our increased net School spending requirement really the other large increase coming from uh Transportation yes all right above net School spending yes so what what net School spending is what the state's requiring yep minimum minimum yep and you're the the district's proposing a budget that is 300,000 higher than that correct okay yes yep um so you can see Chapter 70 we talked about that required minimum that's from the state we'll see how that's broken down in a minute the 11 million so the first component or I should call the second component of our assessment is made up of the transportation and operating so that's the 2.8 million so that's Transportation plus our above net School spending 2.8 million we're subtracting from that our estimated Transportation aid from our Cherry sheets we're also also subtracting from that our regional transportation fund so Regional School Districts receive Transportation reimbursement if the school committee well the school committee has established what we call a regional transportation reimbursement fund what that is for is that if we predict or estimate that we're going to get more in transportation Aid in the current year so looking at FY 24 we we've budgeted 1.7 million for this year's Transportation monies based on estimates and forecast from the state we think we're going to get more than that for our final monies which come in June what the school committee does is votes to put that additional money into this Transportation revolving fund instead of rolling it into our excess and deficiency account and how the Transportation fund works is you must use it in the following fiscal year so in this case FY 25 to reduce assessments to your towns and cities so we're projecting we're going to get 150,000 additional in that Transportation so we're using it in FY 25 right off the bat to reduce Transportation assessment to our towns the next piece is our excess and efficiency account account which um is very similar to the free cash that a city or town has it's it's our savings account um School Regional School districts are allowed to have up to 5% of their operating of their budget in there and I'll go over that account as well on the next slide so we're proposing using 250,000 from that account to reduce assessments so the net assessments to communities for this piece is 487 958 the next component of our assessment is our capital budget so that was the capital and vehicles 510 we also proposing to use 200,000 from end to come to the net capital piece of 310,000 we currently have no active bonds so there's nothing there so taking the three components of the assessment added together we come up with the 12 milon 4461 190 for total assessments 8 all 18 communities I mentioned that I would talk about the accounts on this slide CER so our certified excess and deficiency account has to get certified by the Department of Revenue is 1.3 million we're proposing on the previous slide using 450,000 from that account so I told you we could have up to 5% this will leave us 2.6% in that account which is kind of enough to in case of an emergency cuz Regional Schools rely on ENT like you would on free cash in case of an emergency so and then half we're using uh 450,000 of that to reduce assessments stabilization account that I talked aled about this is for Capital purposes we try to keep our Capital assessments our net or gross I guess Capital to communities at that half million doll Mark per year we try not to let it Spike cuz we don't want to have a spike to our communities so we are slowly building this stabilization account up to do the capital expenditure work we need done that's at more the mid to high range of costs so for example in our Capital plan for this current year we're doing some engineering work um to have our main electrical gear looked at this is the electrical gear that runs the you know it's the basis for the electrical and the whole building and it's been there since the build I think the building was built around it that the spray booth correct so we know that's going to be in the seven 50 or million range so we want to use the stabilization account to offset those costs when it comes time to do the repairs to that to re to keep our community assessments stable the next piece is our opv account um 2,919 my joke is it's small but it's there we have one you know as required um so the next slide talks about our um is a budget summary by our function code so you can see comparison from fy22 forward um comparing really comparing FY 25 to fy4 again you can see where some of the fluctuations are per function of spending year over-ear the next slide will give you more of a breakdown of where that's coming from so the the big budget drivers from 24 to 25 salaries we are FY 25 is going to be year two of our three-year collective bargaining agreement with our teaching staff and our custodial staff those are our two unions we have at the school so we have a three% CA for next year for all staff as well as the step- and column movements for the the staff that that's applicable to so that makes up almost 500,000 of the increase so Tammy that 3% includes all administrative administrative secretarial staff everybody y we we we tend to ask the school committee to give the same Cola to every after the teacher have negotiating yep um Pupil Transportation again I explain that to you we're in year two of that new contract which had a 4% increase as well as some increases to special education Transportation the third major budget driver and you'll see that when you look on the previous slide at some of the technology expenditures couple of big drivers our network is considered end of life so we're going to be replacing some switches some cores please don't ask me too many questions cuz I'm not the tech director and I'm not great tech savvy um Tom's going to talk to you a little bit about our cyber security protection PL we're just making sure that everybody knows that it's not it's not huge Revelation because it's already publicly disclosed but um where it mentions the cyber security protection uh the reason that there's a significant increase on that is that Monch was um a victim of a Cyber attack last fall um thankfully with the work of our it folks uh we didn't lose any of our data we were able to keep all that um we didn't have to pay any ransoms or anything like that but it was a serious wakeup call that we thought we had a lot of good things in place and then clearly we needed more um so we've definitely started to say listen let's let's turn a lot of funds to that um we've hired a we've got a service contract with a group that will do a much more strong and thorough um analysis of who's trying to get into our through our firewalls and everything else it's already been saving us a lot of work and everything else um so that was just that a big issue um it's it's about trying to avoid this the second situation we had to do all the public disclosure send out the letters to all the affected people which ended up being about 8,000 eight or ,000 yeah so it was a pretty busy time so we don't want to do that again so we're throwing we're throwing some money there make sure we're doing right we're we're touting we were thankful we had cyber liability insurance so we're touting that wherever we go make sure you have it it was a lifesaver they provided us with the with the attorneys that helped set up and do all those disclosures it also provided us with the um Cyber Technology teams out west who specialize in this who were able to help our technology people get everything all the forensics help them wash the data so they could put it back up so I just can't say enough about this the cost savings that having that cyber liability insurance helped us with as well so cautionary tale I guess okay I'm going to move to the next slide and it's called contributions by member city or town this is where um I talked about we would mention where um the required minimum contributions come from so you can see Gardener uh Foundation enrollment change from 173 to 166 this year so that's a shift um decrease of seven students and again that's kind of the normalization of now more of our districts are at their quota numbers whereas you're so you're graduating a higher senior class CU a lot of our districts were above quota whereas now with some changes we've made through the process a few years ago we changed the process in admissions that if a student leaves they're replaced by the a student from the same town it used to be that we just went by the the full list and wherever your score was with you were a Fitchburg kid and the next kid was a gardener kid The Gardener came came the problem is is to the towns they weren't prepared for those additional kids getting in we do have a couple towns uh Holden although they made it last year rarely meets its quota Harvard never meets its quota so there's a group where automatically we add kids but in general now it's just it's guarder kid guarder kid guarder kid so that's that's leveled out so this is it's taking a few years but it's going to get to the point as Tammy say it's going to balance out B that's important because I remember when they you were giving quote numbers to other you know we taking more and more and more off the weight list and stuff and it was just yes correct yes so I yeah that was quite a budget yes it could be and so that's why the change was made yeah thank you for poting that out and so you can see this the required minimum contribution changed from 1,1 14,928 to9 96317 the next couple slides just kind of show you how the state does its calculations for the community um contributions they go through the same process for every community in the Commonwealth a to c um this is I refer to as your your wealth Factor um however you may want to call it um so they use three factors the first being property values so that's what rows 1 through 3 represent the 2022 equalized valuation of property they multiply that by a uniform property percentage so that 392 per is is uniform across the state so again A to Z doesn't matter what community you are that's the percentage the state is using to calculate what your effort from property wealth is so you can see Row three the state determined that for Gardener the effort from property wealth is 6 million 719 239 the next section is the income portion so they use income of the citizens so 20 they've they're taking 2021 income and you can see what what that is then they're taking the uniform income percentage 1 4299 that is for communities A through Z as well every Community that's the same percentage so they come up with gardener effort from income 7,705 884 so come up with what they call the combined effort yield they simply add 3 + 6 and that's where they get the 14 million figure from rows eight and nine row eight represents Gardener's portion of the foundation budget of all the schools she belong to so Gardener public and mon Tech that's Gardener's portion of those two yep those two schools so that's 44 million the state then takes 82.5% of that the reason for this is even the wealthiest of wealthy communities at least gets 7 175% Chapter 70 State a so that's why they do a formula there then for row 10 they take the lesser of 9 or seven and in this case the Lesser is the 14 million so that's essentially what they said this is what we think Gardener can afford to pay to its schools based on the wealth the third component is the municipal Revenue growth factor so that's 13 through 16 13 represents what Gardener paid for its required local this current fiscal year 24 they multiply that by the municipal Revenue growth factor that number varies by every community in the Commonwealth it's different and it's calculated by the Department of Revenue and you guys sitting in this room probably know far better than I what goes into that calculation besides your Levy limits New Growth new revenues those are some of the factors that go into how the state calculates this they multiply that out by 13 R 13 and they come up with 15 so now they say okay this is what we've calculated Gardener preliminary contribution to be 12,740 712 let's see how that compares to what we think they can afford to pay which was row 10 so now we're in 21 through 27 they say oh that's less than what we said they can afford to pay and the shortfall is 1.6 million or 3.73% so if you look on row 23 it says if your shortfall is between 2 1/2 and 7 1/2% we're going to to add a percentage so in this case that's what they did they multiplied row 13 what you're currently paying by a percent and that's how they come up with an additional increment they're going to add to you of 12277 so that's how they come up with the final required local contribution in row 26 12, 87200 482 the next slide shows you how that number gets a portion to Gardener and Monty Tech so I'm going to focus on 5 through nine so five is just the number brought forward six is Gardener Foundation enrollment at each school so you can see from mon Tech we said it yours was 166 Gardener's piece of Monex budget3 million 362 772 was the 2,258 per pupil that I told you at the start of my presentation per pupil spending was a a times your foundation enrollment so that's where they come up with your piece of mon Tech they do the same process for your piece of gardener and they say okay what of the whole does Monte Tech rep represent montech and Gardner represent well montech represents 7.48% of the whole Foundation budget so they multiply that into your total required contribution for this year of 12 milon 87244 and that's how they come up with gardener required contribution to mon Tech 96317 same procedure for gardener so you can see that's going to be a decrease this year come up with that gross assessment for all 18 communities and Gardener's portion of that now Gardener's portion of that is 11.25% you'll see that on the next slide that's how the 54871 is derived the capital assessment I showed you on the budget summary slide how that was calculated Gardener's portion of that is 11.01% so that's where the 34,000 comes into play for a proposed FY 25 assessment to Gardener of 1, 52,1 190 which represents a decrease of 55,1 151 it's actually a decrease if you look to the far right it's actually a decrease of per pupil um of a per pupil assessment from Gardener tax rols as well from 24 to 25 the next slide shows you that same process for all 18 of our communities the two it or the couple of items that I've referenced that you haven't seen to this point is just that first section of numbers so we saw Gardener's Foundation enrollment 166 the next column is that's your percentage of our operating assessment and that's just the 166 into the total Foundation enrollment of 1476 Garder represents 11.25% the next number is your school attending children number so this is the pupils that reside in Gardener that are eligible to be enrolled in grades 1 through 12 there's no prek or k those grade levels were not in existence when the district agreement was signed so we don't use those numbers I get these numbers from the superintendent of school's office so garders numbers were 2747 what percentage of our total population of 24956 is Gardener that's 11.01% so that number that percentage is twofold it represents Gardener's portion of your Capital assessment as well as gardener portion of the Freshman quota so the school committee just voted at their April uh excuse me March six meeting to approve a freshman quota for this year of 355 so Gardener's quota is 11.01% of that that's how if I I just want to make sure because I I didn't want to bother him but I want to make sure because I think when um superintendent poo was was saying his number I think he said something like that the the only applicants from from Gardener was 36 applicants or something like that I want to make sure everybody understands that's from Garder High don't forget these are anyone who lives in Gardener can apply to mon Tech so in terms of gardener applications it's closer to 70 75 kids total from gner so that includes kids who go to play with there's a number kids family kids who school choice but live in Gardener and everything else home school correct so I just want to make sure there's more than 36 trust me there's way more than 36 applicants again right now the this year's um round of applications will end technically on Monday it's April 1st um I think we're in the range right now we have about 770 applicants or again 355 seats so again we're still double the applicants we have for our so I just want to make sure to clarify that yeah that was a great clarification um so my last slide just I just like to end with showing you um where Monte Tech is with its per pupil expenditures in comparison with um the other vocational schools in the state the latest um State numbers that I had out for PR for numbers were from fy21 so you can see Monte Tech Falls in above the middle range of the regional vocational schools throughout the state in our per pupil spending that's my presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions question uh none of this time no thank you I my only question is is that um this is your preliminary budget when do you expect it to be approved by your school committee approved by the school committee so this is the one that we put out to ask our talents to put on their um agenda okay we don't get it we don't end up um asking the school committee to vote the final till the state's final budget out and you know as well as I do that's from June to October so so my understanding is the process here is that you submit this then to the mayor correct is that how it goes in the city and then the mayor submits it to be on the council agenda so we will look forward to that being done and we will um and uh and probably see it in our on an April or May agenda coming up may I'm assuming it might be may but as soon as you submit it um I just want you I will your your presentation um if I will there's probably one to the clerk who's on vacation so if I can have a copy sent along with this we will make sure that it's posted yes um for people to see it along with the video of this meeting perfect um because I think it's important for people to be able to see it as well I found it extremely helpful um to follow along and um I appreciate your time I apologize last year we ran into very late circumstances and I just think it's really important um because you know you are part of of the community and that that we we hear all the the things that are going on and and where the fuzz are allocated and and what the necessary um uh changes are whether to be on our community contribution um towards M Tech so I greatly appreciate you we appreciate thank you allowing us to come out and talk to you about our schools so thank you so much for your time as well thank you thank you yeah thanks great thank you