meeting to order at 6:01 p.m. we're going to have the school choice hearing first which I'm calling to order and this meeting is being recorded so um sure what do we do for the school choice so each year the school committee decides whether or not to participate in school choice if a distri a district decides not to participate it must notify the state by June 1st and it must also provide a reason for not electing to participate or not choosing to participate in school choice one of the things that we'd like you to consider is the possib possible reductions that we'll be discussing tonight as a reason why we would not be recommending school choice at this time okay um we have to make a motion before well um I would make a motion to not recommend school choice because of our budget constraints I don't know if and then we can have a discussion second thanks okay um my feelings on it are we are facing a really difficult budget year and school choice would I think negatively impact that because we do not necessarily get the cost back from opening our school to other students outside of our town so I don't think that's something we should take on right now I don't know if anyone else has any thoughts they want to share can I can I ask a question sure um so I know in the past we have not been a school choice school um has there been a time when we have been one not that I'm aware of I do know of one of our schools in our in Union 31 that has opened it up to certain grade levels because their enrollment was low and they used that additional funding to not for their local budget but to fund additional projects thank you anyone else have a question should we take a vote so all in favor of not um of not participating in school choice um Katie um yes Lori I Karen Jessica and I'm a yes Lauren and do I close and okay and now close the uh school choice hearing and open the regular meeting at 6:04 p.m. and it's still being recorded um and we'll start by saying the Pledge of Allegiance of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all um I want to welcome everyone tonight I appreciate you coming and is there anyone that would like to speak okay um so three people so we'll just start with Gordon and then go back and finish with Lori if that's okay would you have the the section to speak after the presentation of update um I was going to if I moved it I was going to do it before the budget but um I was going to have people speak before the bud we can we're moving the budget up the discussion if we can if we vote on it so I'd prefer to have the speakers now okay you may want to limit the amount of time everybody SP it separately okay yeah and um in our in our uh policy it says that comments should be limited to 3 minutes so just if we could keep it to 3 minutes okay hm can they hear me go up to the mic yeah you should go up to the mic I believe people can't hear if you don't okay thank you if you could state your name and sure forers to 44 El Street uh I would just like to say that I know you guys have a big decision to make tonight I would recommend that you cut to the $500,000 Mark and no more you ask the town to make up the rest of the cuts that they're asking you to make it should be a shared change in responsibility this increase that we have is typically shared across the town for special means in has been has been the policy of the town for numerous years I think we you're looking at the budget asking the school commity to cut more than 10% to the regular day budget is a tremendous task and I don't think it's good for the quality of the education in school i' also like to point out that the enrollment numbers came out in October we knew there was going to be a shift in cost at that point in time the town should have been planning to look at these numbers and I believe they should been looking at an override from that point in time thank you thank you hi my name is Jen D just a short letter um dear school committee and members of the community I'm a current parent of CIF Elementary and a resident in this town i r my own CPA practice helping many nonprofits with their budgeting I have learned that when out come of the budget ISS could be to reduce the number of teachers per grade this will produce irreparable damage on our children there are hundreds of Articles and plenty of research surrounding the effect of class size and learning in children in a Grade with 90 students they are currently in class size of 22 to 23 students eliminating a teacher will bring that class size up to 30 many of these classrooms do not have a pair of professional in there now to help with projects behaviors and students who need a break the school seems to EMP emphasize mcast scores based on their goals set recently in my opinion this will only hurt those SC my child is at the school and is on an IEP and she relies on these smaller class sizes for Better Learning I beg that you try and find some other Solutions are there any grants available to fund our existing programs can we defer any school repairs can Administration take a 10% pay cut for a year can we charge a suggested administrative fee or entrance fee for sporting events can we rent out the facilities Tom more make some income I hope you can continue to explore other options thank you thank you hi um I'm L par educator and president of the Halifax teachers unit Association I'm here tonight to speak on behalf of our community's children and all the Educators here in Halifax we love the children of Halifax we think of them as part of our family we take pride in providing Rich high quality instr uction we instill in our students the love of learning we encourage them to ask questions collaborate and be team players as Educators we want our students to thrive and take within the skills they will need to be successful in life Halifax is a supportive Community we as Educators have seen that Halifax has always invested in the education of our community's children we understand we are facing Financial challenges we are all struggling with increased cost however reducing our school budget by 10% is going to greatly dism diminish our students learning experiences and their quality of Education we are pleading with you to find ways to minimize the financial impact that is going to hit our community school and ultimately our students we ask for transparency in how these drastic increases have come about and what plans you have for the future to ensure that our students and Community are not impacted again again at the end of the day we all know ultimately Halifax students will be most impacted as their teachers we will always be here to advocate for them we hope that you keep them their educational needs and their quality learning experiences in mind when you're making your budgetary decisions this evening thank you for your time um can I ask a couple followup questions sure sure um right we have three questions are there any Cuts being made at the administrative level are there any ideas for generating Revenue such as charging for buses and is hellofax at this time in a deficit thank you um I can't answer to what the cuts are until we have the presentation by Mr bodri um but are there at the administrative level like you mean central office or that we typically don't do answer questions during this part but we we will we've heard your questions and we will attempt to answer them in the presentation thank you anyone else thank you for your thoughtful comments um all right so now we will review and vote the regular minutes of March 4th 2024 I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes of March 4th 2024 as presented second second ready to vote Katie yes Lori yes Karen yes Jessica yes and I'm a yes thank you um so the pack draft and pgri Pilgrim area collaborative draft and possible vote um so this is renewing a draft we have for the pilgrim area collaborative that we haven't updated since what was it like 20 something 2017 2013 so I read through it um before the meeting I don't know if everyone had the chance to or if anyone has questions through most of it does anyone so we could make a motion if no um to approve the draft so I can sign it so I'll make a motion to approve the clar agreement with pilm area collaborative dated February 16th 2024 and approve our chair sign second all right um Katie for a vote Yes yes and I'm a yes all right um so the shared cost agreement um is also in the packet which it talks about the costs that we share with the other elementary schools at the central office um could everyone have a is there anything else they need to say about it or no it codifies how we paid share uh shared cost positions not only for Union 31 but at the at the district level as well uh a vote to approve would allow your chair to sign on behalf of the Halifax school committee it was recommended by Union 31 and the Silver Lake Committee in their last joint meeting correct which actually everyone was there does anyone have any questions or I have motion okay all right roll call Katie yes Cory yes Karen yes Jessica yes myself is a yes okay and then I would like to entertain a motion to take the agenda out of order and um discuss the budget first because I know that's why everyone's here so we can you know discuss it earlier and when we're all fresher and so would anyone like to make a motion or I'll make a motion to take the budget hearing as the next agenda item okay is that okay language to use okay second all right Katie yes Lori yes Karen yes Jessica yes and myself as a yes so so I'm going to ask principal B to um present on the larger screen for our um our audience but also for our audience in the recording as well and I'm going to ask the chair recognize um both our business director director of operations and finance and principal bodri they will be speaking to the slides in today's presentation uh the rest of us may have other things to add but the majority of the slides um will be handled by Sarah and Kane thank you superintendent grou um I'm going to start with the changes between the version two and version three budget um so as you know there have been a lot of work done all along with the budget and I wanted to include any changes that may have happened since we saw you last so the Halifax version three changes I removed found and removed from some pre pay out of district tuitions from the budget which reduced the budget by $25,990 special education Transportation was then adjusted uh and I removed $12,999 we allocated additional 240 240 Grant or um that's the idea individual with disability Education Act Grant we allocated an additional $37,500 Grant and the circuit breaker offset in and it's called tuition offset there was no change to the budget because of that that total changes between version two and version three reduced the budget by $374,700 to version four budget we allocated 400 uh 4,570 $71 from the reap Grant to offset technology purchases and we received a confirmed retirement which reduces the budget by $39,100 two so it was an additional reduction of $79,700 changes to the Silver Lake budget since I last saw you saw you so Silver Lake is on the version five budget um there were 32 lines that had salary adjustments it reduced the Silver Lake budget by $ 29,42 we received a technology grant for Hardware which reduced the budget by$ 70,000 we moved the Silver Lake integrated preschool supplies or $440,000 of Silver Lake integrated preschool supplies into the preschool revolving account which reduced the budget by $40,000 there was an additional $413,500 so the Silver Lake budget between version 4 and version 5 increased $124,000 $842 so the Halifax proposed version 5 budget of 7,465 3843 will re require a reduction of so after Silver Lake voted their budget and voted to um voted to use money from excess and deficiency to offset the assessments I reworked all of the assessments the Halifax assessment for fy2 is 8,611 15,27 71 which is a 3, 32,9 6025 increase which is an increase of 54.3% the total cost of education for Halifax would be 15, 376,162 40 which is a 57,7 5227 increase which represents a 3.5% % change this is the increase with the the cuts that the town asked for so the next question is why is there an increase in the total cost of education so I know a lot of you were at the March 14th Silver Lake school committee meeting a lot of these slides come from that slide deck so the overall during FY 24 this current school year we added staff that weren't part of the FY 24 budget so it in Halifax there were 1.5 teachers and two power professionals added to the building and then there were a number of positions added elsewhere and the middle school high school and prek positions that were added during this school year are now part of the assessments so really on this Slide the the salaries that aren't showing up for the Halifax budget are those four power professionals that were added at Kingston Elementary School everything else is either directly part of the Halifax budget or part of the assessment on the next slide um we had put together a year-to-year comparison of special education costs so during this current year this school year there was $98,700 6476 9 in tuitions and 86,1 15 in transportation in addition to those costs the current costs for FY 24 there's additional costs for FY 25 of $135,900 65 in tuition and $88,200 talk about special education numbers we're looking at what was the FY 24 budget minus the students that are going to be paid out of Silver Lake plus these um current FY 24 costs plus these 20 FY 25 costs plus any increases that the state has allowed on special education so going to the next slide this is a diagram of what education looked like in FY 24 so in all three towns there are the parts of the budget that are within the walls of the building and that is in the box right underneath the school where it says regular Ed and special ed over on the left hand side we have outer District vocational students that is part of the Town Budget on the right hand side out of District special ed students and for this year that includes students in grades K through six it includes prek students and students grade 7 through 12 plus it also includes tuitions that are paid to what we're going to refer to as Silver Lake staff revolving programs so a student that attends a program in Kingston at the middle school there is money coming from a tuition line going into a revolving account and then paying for staff the department of Elementary and secondary education has asked us to stop that practice so if you take a look at the fy2 in the towns for fy2 the budget that you see has regular Ed expenses the special ed expenses within what happens within the walls of the school the town is still responsible for the out of District vocational programs and then out of District special education grades K through six will be paid for by the towns and then prek and 7 through 12 plus are the responsibility of Silver Lake next year next slide please so this graphic shows the shift in the money over the from FY 24 to fy2 so in FY 24 there's $156,500 budgeted and being paid for out of District vocational students that's students at Bristol County Agricultural High School nor for County Agricultural High School Southshore V Tech any any vocational program that we don't have in District um that's what that is there is 5,225 699.99 budgeted for regular education expenses at Halifax Elementary School $1,341 14572 in special education expenses here at Halifax Elementary School there's 2,179 39462 budgeted for out of District students that is prek to to 12 plus and then there's $ 58,4 11138 which is budgeted for students that are attending Silver Lake revolving programs so the staff at their programs at the middle school at the high school at the pre School these are the these are the funds in FY 24 that are being charged to Halifax in fy2 out of District vocational $156,500 is proposed for regular education within this building is 5,563 15164 for special education within this building 1,691 4337 the k through6 District special education after we've taken out any circuit breaker anticipated circuit breaker uh funds is going to be $453 385 the next slide talks about Silver Lake so the same type of year-to-year graphic comparison in FY 25 in Silver Lake there are uh with within the buildings of Silver Lake there's 29,600 th000 budgeted for regular education and special education at the middle school in the high school there's 1,958 7675 in uh staff for programs where cifax and Kingston and Clinton pay tuition for students to attend to those programs there are no Silver Lake revolving program programs at Halifax Elementary School there is a Silver Lake uh there are Silver Lake revolving programs at Kingston Elementary and Kingston intermediate school and the staff associated with those programs have been budgeted $581,500 19 for this current year and there are currently no revolving programs at Dennett elementary school again those revolving programs we were told by the department of Elementary and secondary education to discontinue that and so in FY 25 within the buildings of Silver Lake would be regular education 26,5 67,8 1564 special education $ 4,619 340 and the Silver Lake integrated preschool program 2,103 $421 and that's all within Silver Lake programming and then outside of the walls of the building is the prek and the 7 through 12 plus out of District special education which is proposed at 7,268 51939 so the next slide talks about the increased costs in fi25 again this is a slide that came from the slide deck in on March 14th for Silver Lake so uh contractual obligations applies to all four entities Halifax Kingston Clinton um when you look at contractual obligations that is everything from teacher salaries that have been negotiated to the cost of we have contracts for coffee machines for elevator maintenance so that's the there have been increas in costs for everything health insurance at Silver Lake has the cost has increased and that is in the assessment that's going to Halifax there' have been increased cost in special education transportation and tuition and the cost of supplies and utilities have increased want to do next so um we have a meeting scheduled April 3rd with the finance committee and we will be attending with our chair uh to discuss our budget proposals after tonight's meeting um in addition we have met with the building principal and as a district leadership team to discuss possible reductions for the school committee to consider this evening and as per your request principal bodry has uh presented them in a um a three tier fashion all right thanks Jo um so these when Ryan and I were looking at the the cuts we were just kind of put these priorities out there for what we were looking to maintain so number one of top there is just maintaining classform size uh for tier tier one instruction our class sizes are are pretty good C ag6 right now and that's kind of what this will show when we go through it um we also wanted to make sure that we maintain the offerings for our specialist classes um even though that we're reducing we're opposing a reduction in our Specialist Group and we also wanted to make sure that support systems still stay intact as best as possible um but again 74,000 is a large number so we did kind of get creative and trying to cut in as many areas as possible um next one there is trying to use the crint that we have when we're looking to propos producing our math specialist there's Title One funds that we've been working with our coordinator to kind of help us help in terms of even though reducing the math specialist we can still try and make make it keep it at a fulltime and just funded differently like it was previously to this past year um and then special ed the requirements for special ed have increased for next year there's a new IP process um so they're we're anticipating a pretty heavy burden on our on our I our special ed team um so we have to kind of keep an eye on that and make sure that the services continue as as planned um and then the El Services we had to take into consideration because Kingston would be taking back the current ell person that's here in h effect when we contract them out so that was position we talk about the last meeting um to keep to add that into our budget since it wasn't in that previously so what Bri and I we've been working on this for about a month now with Sarah and Dave and Chris and Jill and Ryan um so this first year here is we were asked to go to somewhere in the ball park up to 300,000 um so we just put the category on the left the amount and then the impact what we're looking at um so the first one is a building mobilization fund $53,000 and the impact on that would be to do with that revolving fund would be complet uh the next one is supply lines for teaching and custodial basically cut every supply line you could possibly think of uh to get to that $101,000 and uh that's in coordination with Melissa farell curriculum coordinator looking at text lines we talked with the um Tech director Steve P he also kind of made cuts to l items as well and then we talked with our codal staff um Mak Cuts in contracted services and anywhere else that and then our TJ as well also about Transportation what we're proposing is we currently have 10 buses we're proposing that we reduce that to eight buses uh based upon our enrollment currently we have buses that we have I think there's one bus that might as low as 29 there might be one bus that might be as high as 79 so with our enrollment at roughly 550 what we could do there is if there's 71 students that are on the bus we could easily go down to any buses um but in in that we realize that buses will be much more filled to capacity roofs will be longer and uh we could see an increase as well with our parent pick up and drop off PL support staff uh we're looking at two full-time equivalents uh that would obviously look to less support for students St and the last item there in tier one is reducing one of our custodians from a 1.0 to.5 so therefore the impact on that we be looking at prioritizing areas that need to be clean for other today we currently only have four custodians on staff and ab building is large it's it's a challenge to begin with but we were pretty much going looking at all departments that we could um so the total for tier one was 313,000 um down here is level two cuts that once when we combine level one and level two we're looking at 54,000 uh so again no area is was kind of untouch there we looking at assistant principal contract um that would impact the summer support and Brian is is there um the next one is cutting 2.4 full-time equivalents from the HDA that is three position technically it's three position between the behaviors the instrument position that we just added last year one of our two reading Specialists and that would account for $168,000 then we added two more support staff in this level as well and again just like in level one um it would be less classroom supervisions for students in classrooms and then we added main we have two main office staff um we are proposing reducing one of those to a point8 position and then obviously probably close to 700 people including students and staff on a regular basis and there's four people in the main office so that would be a reduction there so um that might be in have buing the door answering phone calls things like that and then next page is tier three Cuts getting to 74,000 this was proposing cutting 1.9 FTE uh that would be one classroom teacher and reducing our five specialist teachers to .9 they would go from 1.0 to .9 and then the last item there is uh our math intervention what I mentioned earlier two slides ago was reducing our math interventionist who a 1.0 to6 and then commity offset point4 can be funded through a grant for one working with and that total in that tier is $150,000 for a total of 7 so one of the things that um was asked in the opening um we have asked our principles to once again again in our next uh meeting to present facilities use form update and potentially considering um changing the amounts and updating the amounts for facilities use so that was one of the questions that was announced uh that was asked earlier in terms of administrative cuts um principal Boi has presented his proposal and then um I think we answered all the questions through the presentation but if we didn't let me know and I can what was the other sorry any in the central office they said they were going to reduce one of the office staff to 08 correct Central oh Central sorry my bad Central are there any we will be meeting with Silver Lake on April 9th sorry okay so now we can have a discussion m okay um so I guess I'll I have some notes um so we do have a pattern of declining enrollment at HS for the last 10 years and um we had an a larger kindergarten class obviously but um that doesn't mean every year is going to be larger and one in it was an anomalous Trend at this point but um um if we look at um that we could reduce some classrooms in certain grade levels where they would still be under uh 23 students per classroom which I believe is still pretty optimal um and I feel like we need to address what our actual enrollment is versus um you know what it has been for a long time and how we've run things and um and we're also going to be struggling next year to um because a lot of our circuit breaker money is going to be going to Silver Lake so we're going to face another diff more difficulties next year so I would like to um and I should have started with and I'm really sorry I love all of the teachers at our school and I'm torn up that we're in this position and I hate the decisions we have to make and there's no good decision there's absolutely no good way to do this and um but the town can't afford it and um and we can't present something to the town they won't pass and so it's a really awful position to be in honestly because I care a lot about all of you you've taught all my kids a lot of you not everyone but I just want to say from a human standpoint this is really awful and it's I I do you know and I've lost sleep over it I've you know been thinking about it ever since we found out how much increases are and um I I wanted to start out by saying that and not just but and I want to make the best do the best thing by our students I I and preserve education we have a great school here and um and do things that are sustainable and um data driven which everyone's wonderful about but I mean I do think we really need to take into account actual enrollment and actual class sizes in certain grades not all the grades because we do have some class some grades with larger class sizes so I wouldn't propose that we would reduce those grades but it's definitely something that I would I think we really need to look at because um it's it's a way we can reduce cost without a decline in Educational Services Mar can I just add I think that it's really important that we look at all these different conversations it doesn't mean that's where we land but I think we have to talk about it and I feel the same way both of my kids went through HFS I see all of you around town um you know I have great affection for the school and the students in it and the staff in it and it is a really hard position to be sitting here and you know thinking about the human element of the job or task to do so but I do think it's important for us to talk about it before we make decisions I think we should be talking about all the options and I hope that the folks that are here listening will understand that that is just part of this very difficult process anyone else questions sure um so would you happen to have Mr the um either the whole grade class size for k36 or the average individual class size sure um so by you just want the number per for grade whichever one's easier if you have like the average five size or if you have how many students are in each grade whichever I have each grade break down is that right yeah all right so kindergarten is at 90 first grade is at 67 uh second grade is at 69 third grade is at 77 fourth grade is at 70 fifth grade is at 83 and sixth grade is at 9 to and obviously sixth grade moving on to the middle school but I calculated for next year do you have I have it if you don't have it but for kindergarten OB to to be determined um I did it for going down on all grades to three classrooms which again is not something I think is appropriate for every grade but just so we have the information um for first grade it would be 30 second grade would be 22 third grade would be 23 fourth grade would be 25 fifth grade would be 23 and sixth grade would be 27 but given that I don't think it would be appropriate I think we should leave kindergarten because we don't know what the enrollment would be um first grade is way too many to um so I would want to leave that at 4 and also um oh actually sorry yeah and then sixth grade would be 27 so I also think that that should be for teachers as well um does that change any do it so if we hypothetically do drop one or two teacher then then is it contractually like a nightmare for them because then we're going to have to move teachers around to different grades almost all the time yes right that's going to not well it is but it's also what a lot of schools around us do to you so why what do you mean all the time well I mean if they're like say we cut a second grade teacher third grade teacher but then the big class is coming up then we need to ask where do we pull from to put it in there you know what I mean it's they're going to have to move classrooms I feel like that happens a lot here anyway but um yeah what you're saying though from your so I think before you you even go into what you're talking about I me I would love to hear the comments on the tear Cuts cuz we we have a different philosophy we don't want to C classroom teachers that's the last thing we want to do I Tau for almost 20 years if you can have classrooms under 20 you can do a lot of good so I think you have a certain approach we have a certain approach what is wrong with the cuts I'm curious goad there are teacher cuts up there there are also I I have to find $9,000 I'm cutting myself my office is cutting my custodian is being cut there are Cuts being made but Kane and I both believe we want to have the small classrooms we want to have tier one instruction best tier one instruction possible so if you disagree with that then we can have a conversation but comment on the tear cuts from carries what's wrong with it do well I'm concerned about the model at school and the fiscal ability to manage continuing to pay for the I'm I'm looking at it from the fiscal management of declining enrollment which we have at Silver Lake it's a model problem where if our enrollment is declined in quite a few grades and I mean I I did have back and forth with Mr bod and he said ideal is 17 to 23 so if we're still within those bounds and I also am concerned about cutting um Aid in the classroom you know the people that come in and provide Aid because from my understanding people are still behind um and that's th those are my concerns but I am most concerned about us not pay attention to the enrollment Decline and as a town that we can't I can't keep going to the town saying we need to staff this school when are we have less and less students I'm concerned you want cut highly certified classroom Educators that's what I'm concerned about and I'm concerned that we won't get those positions back well I feel like it well okay go ahead Karen yeah so as far as the way that I look at that the numbers if we were to put two grade level classroom teachers that would bring next year and please correct me from wron s do this math quickly so that disregarding hitting our of course because we don't know but class sizes would be 22 22 23 25 23 and 21 so we're making class size equal across the entire School District so that every child is getting the same kind of classroom setting same kind of making those cut so we so what would you add out of that I I personally would add the behaviors back I think that that's a a very necessary position in this school um we've talked in the past now she basically wears R States because she's so busy and so to cut that one position I think is is you know important for you to consider because it means that there's going to be fart work on your plate and you're only one person cutting teachers though is has a just classroom teachers has a much further impact than just class size I think that should be the last thing that we look at is cutting teachers and I think primary grades definitely research shows that primary grades should have lower class numbers and typically when you get up to the middle and high school grades obviously those numbers are appropriate to have larger numbers but when you're going from 17 or 18 which is an ideal number in primary classrooms P to three if you're add five six even eight more students in those rooms it's a huge challenge for class so you're telling me that the the children that are in grade Kent grade one and current grade six aren't getting the same level of Education as the children that are in the other grades because that's exactly what's happening to them exactly what you're saying it's a big challenge that six seven more kids right so that's what the sixth graders are dealt with for seven years and that's what the first graders are going to be faced with unless we change it and this is a time and space for us to finally address the inequity of class size in this building that's been going on for years so you're saying you your words were it's costly to this child's education to have six or seven more students so that means grades 1 and six are getting a different level of Education than grades 2 through 5 I think I have that right so what we're saying is at least at the very least let's let's level the playing field for all of our kids let's have all of our kids have the same classroom experience because the the new numbers unless I was wrong are within one or two students per classroom and the good part is we keep that behaviorist we keep the map interventionist well I guess you said Can fun that or the reading specialist and all the support staff that can benefit all children K through six of the district all of the children have access to those positions that you want to cut and I I I think it's so important to have those resources because we don't know when or where those kids are going to need it and those are people that are fluid that can go in and move to the kids that are in the highest need and every child will now have the same opportunity to access students by making that student to teacher ratio almost the same throughout okay six that's how I feel that's my position do I want to C absolutely not but if we have to cut somebody I do not want to take away those support steps that certain High needs children need and that we can pull and get to those kids and need at anytime and my concerns too are is if we're pulling support out of the classroom are I you know our special education is going up and I'm very concerned about next year if we come back and have to cut the same amount we're going to have cut all the support staff and then we're still going to have to cut classroom teachers so I feel like and it's really not fair to the kids who happen to be in a bigger class size so they're getting less of an educational experience shouldn't we be adjusting for that I mean so but I do feel like it's an opportunity and I'm very concerned about our budget for next year and worried about if we do this now this seems a little bit like a Band-Aid you know situation and we lose a lot of support and I mean I know there's concerns because we discussed it about what happens with a specialist but I feel like this is our time to be creative could they help out you know with subbing or something I don't you know or something like where we can use people in more ways if they're a little bit more available with the people that are already in the building like I don't you know we um but that's I'm I'm worried about what we're bringing of the town and the sustainability of our actual budget and it's hard to say to to town you have to go out without other services because we want our kids in you know classes that are actually okay with 23 students you know that's kind of asking for a lot from the town and I mean I'm coming and I'm coming from a parent and as a town member and representing the budget and so I mean we would love everything to be ideal and have all the money in the world to give to our school but we have to think of the total picture and not just okay we can cut this and like I don't want people to go without pay for a long time like how sustainable is that for Mr s's family like it's a matter of let's build a model that works and be creative with how we apply it and I I think that's that's what we proposed here with cutting so many different areas and I think that having those classroom teachers it's again it's not just reducing class sizes I mean we're when we do that is as well we're going to impact Specialists their case loads will be will be lower we'll have to force the teacher to move every single year and then also the town will be on the hook for unemployment for all those classroom teachers that we just cut so I think I I don't know what I really don't know none of these cuts are good but just like which cuts are better than the other cuts and that's kind of where we're thinking that our classroom teachers they're they're highly trained and in Ela and math and like I think that's that's important that uh those are the ones that they're trained in that the other people are not but I think that it's it's difficult because we will have a challenge of you know provideing contractual time for teachers because if we don't have enough they'll they have prep times in there built into their schedules when when they're at Specialists so I'm not even sure how that would work or what would be appropriate and if you're asking like need to put like a music teacher to go in and teach math or Ela that wouldn't be ideal well that's not what I'm asking I'm saying they could cover a class though right or I mean it's I mean it would require a lot of work I mean frankly but is that always a bad thing to change things up I I think what he's saying is he wants to keep being the The lure for the students so having someone in a classroom that doesn't have that same lure is not as effective as someone with appropriate lure but if we have the same class if we just have more kids in the classroom how does that impact the teacher being in the classroom with them like why would especially more kids in a classroom though is going to impact like they then they're going to need more of the support staff and I think that we keep I don't I don't know why we're going directly to cutting like there's so many other things on this list that we could cut out why are we going to the teachers first I like the bus idea well the other one has Teach as well it's just a matter of how you do it I mean it's um and and I actually will if we I mean I wanted to talk about buses too and because the bus in my neighborhood's pretty empty so I mean could we go back to like covid times where you commit to ride the bus or you don't and then we get the number of buses we need for the number of students can we charge toide $450 per I know but we can't charge because it's a Regional School District can we charge to ride the bus so like BR but you're you're mixing isues so let's let's take one thing at a time okay go we we never charge during Co and we never eliminated buses during Co so let's not let's oh I didn't say that I meant yeah no we'll get back to that I'm sorry okay so the other part is is that that Halifax is not a Regional School District but it shares buses with a Regional School District and so um again I think you'd need to decide whether or not you wanted to charge for your Elementary but buses and and what would who who would be what would what would your radius be and would you provide transportation for all kindergarten students and grade one students or would it be a re you know just a a a radius type of thing where anyone Beyond a certain radius gets charged a certain amount to ride the bus okay those decisions would need to be made if that's the direction you want to go in and it wouldn't necessarily we'd have to work carefully with the bus company to determine to make sure that we're not violating any Regional commitments for regional buses okay we can come back to that Karen so just to Circle back to where we were um it's no secret that I'm a teacher and the last thing I would want to do is cut teachers but I'm here to support our children of this town and what I see as what's best for kids is to make class size Equitable across the school and I've been arguing that for years anyway so I believe what would be best for kids is not to have some students come in at a class size of 17 to1 and other students have a class size of what is it 23 I think was the highest one well not right because they'll be gone but 23 to one right Mr just said it's really difficult to add five or six kids to a classroom and expect the same level of Education well that's what we're doing every day for these kids every day their entire School career their entire Elementary School career so I think what's financially responsible and what's best for kids as a whole is to make that Equity across all the grades and we can make class size almost exactly the same by making that move and what's important what's important is keeping the extra supports in place that all grade levels have access to so the the two things that I've heard aside from the emotional piece of course right but the two things I've heard that disagree with that is one that um that teachers would have to move around more and dur during a previous meeting it was maybe last June I asked Mr B why teachers move so much here because to me it doesn't seem like a good idea and you said your philosophy was as great for teachers to move you think that it's wonderful for teachers to have different experiences in different places and times so that gen noty an argument as far as I can see for why teachers should move um IET what the other argument against it was CU I wait so long um but I feel like again not what I I'm not I I don't want to be the villain here and I'm not trying to be I'm trying to think about what's best for kids all kids k36 that's where I'm coming from but we don't know what the enrollment is going to be it's all so in the next couple years are we going to be able to hire two teachers back that we lost because what if there we continue to have 90 92 andrs 83s but we're focusing on next year right now what what does next year Well I agree with you except and I feel like it's easier for us to go to the town and say we need to hire another teacher than support staff I think we would have an easier time making a case for a teacher than getting the support staff we'd be losing I would argue that keeping class sizes small prek through two as students are learning to read and transitioning to reading to learn is research based and sound it may not be equitable much to my dismay as a former history teacher in a high school I understand that my class size was not going to be the same as other places but I can't deny the research about learning to read for young children and so I just want to put that out there that we can't always have the same class sizes for every class right but so we're keeping we would keep for a kitten Garten and right now the current kitten gardeners are 22 and next year to be 22 we're not touching in grade one we're not touching kindergarten grade two would increase slightly so we're not touching those primary levels K1 K is not being touched one we're keeping cor so it would still be the same exact B size and two would slightly increase can I ask why if we knew that we could have a grant that would help fund the math interventionist why that was left to tier three and not but in tier one especially if we're not losing that person and there's really it doesn't seem from at least first glance maybe I'm missing something that we other than in other words we're not losing that person and they're still working full-time so why wasn't that included in tier one am I missing something no I mean in terms of the tiar we as we kind of work through it we just were like okay cuz it seems like that should be a no-brainer if we know that we can find that another way right that should be an easy okay let's just do that one right yeah I have that question too I mean again these are this is just a proposal I think I didn't know if this was like a list of priorities that you had and this is why it was presented in this order or if I guess I I there's been so many iterations of that it's been you know move I mean daily that trying to help with their nonsense and I'm personally very glad that that we're not cutting a math interventionist because it has always been my feeling that every school should have a math interventionist I feel like we're very strong on providing support for reading but math is left by the wayside way too many times and our students need math just as much as they need reading so I'm glad that we found a way to reduce the impact to our school budget yet keep that person full time I have a couple of questions about what happens with some of the um um reductions on tier one so you know offset from building utilization it you've got here that the impact isn't it depletes the revolving fund so what would that fund be used for next year what would be the implications of that so that is uh that building utilization is is uh for years it's been When We Rent Out space here in the building and I think just it would be uh that actually is built up we used to use a classroom here we acted out to a collaborate Bram um and that's where each year we just kind of we put it in there do you withdraw from that fund for anything I haven't at okay no so that seems like that's a good option to go with I think that's what Jill is saying too is that looking at the rental agreements that we have in the building would be modified we propose that for the next about um so the next one supply lines um when you say limited funds available are we talking if you cut that amount $101,000 we're going to be um the teachers are going to be supplying those types of things are we going to have custodians buying bleach on their own and just curious like it really looking at all the line with custodial supplies teaching supplies um technology um our one of our textbook lines was also so it was pretty much looking at Contracting Services so those are the five main areas that we so where does how does that impact the quality of Education or like where do you make up cuz I'm assuming that those things you budget for in those five areas you still need to some degree to run the school so like how do you like I'm curious about what the impact of some of these other things is you know when I look at Transportation I've heard for as long as I've lived in this town parents complaining about busing um and I've heard some of the challenges that we have um in terms of how do we reduce buses or how do we charge for buses because of our contract with the regional system um I've heard of a lot of bus times I've heard of buses being late to bring kids to school like there's a lot um of pain points with buses so I'm not opposed to that but I I just want to hear more about when we take these things out what is the actual impact because I do think the public has the right to know what the future looks like for them before we make a decision on what we're cutting we're talking a lot about staff um and I'm you know I I hate talking about staff but I you know I do tend to think that you know there is some room some wiggle room um and I don't want to see behaviorists um gone I don't want to see the reading Specialists um gone support staff reduced I think that we just need to be looking at this instead of with a Cleaver with a scal B when we make these Cuts so I would like to hear more about the impact of of you know where where are the funds going to come from for some of K do you have a list from Melissa and uh Steve as to some of the things that they would cut I can yes um we have a question hi there my name is Laura King I'm a first grade teacher um and I just wanted to say that Kane and Brian were given an impossible task Ever Changing number of budget cuts without any flexibility or Creative Solutions from the town the number kept increasing increasing increasing and even with that impossible test they have come up with a proposed cuts and I'm just wondering why we're not trusting their expertise leadership when they have done something that has been incredibly difficult and as teachers we are here to say that we support them and their expertise ship and I just feel like there has not been enough discussion on the proposal that was given that they spent time working on I feel like there's a lot of other conversations and I'm wondering why their proposal with the number that they were asked to give is not an acceptable solution I'm asking what the impact of The Proposal is thank you I and I feel like we've given a consideration it's not that we're not considering it and just I don't everybody but I know that I personally said I don't want to lose the interventionists the support staff and the reading specialist so that's that's my position and I thought that that was clear so it's not that I don't want teachers it's that I also don't want to lose I'm really sorry sounds like that I know it's a painful horrible and again I can fully empathize I know that but when I look at kids at all of the kids in the building Cas your set I think what's most important is to give each of them the same education so to have one child have a 17 to1 student teach ratio and another child have a 23 to1 that's not the same education go the we have to make cuts and we can make that equal across and keep the support staff the interventionist I mean I don't know my kids didn't really access those so I don't know personally but I'm assuming that those support staff are really important for kids for all kids K through six all kids have access to those so that's my feeling about looking at this school and what's fast for education is not that I'm discounting the work that the administration did or their presentation I'm saying looking at kids K through6 Kids let's make it the same education in every question and I do you have research to that research that a Kindergarten class should be the same I'm not touching kindergarten I I mean not me but we're not I didn't say that we should change kindergarten I said that we should my me personally what I said is that we would keep kinderen at four years more Equitable I'm was just wondering if you have research to back up your claim that it should be Equitable G I didn't say that like there the case and the one are still I'm not so next year's first grade is have the same class SI they had this year they're going to have the same class size they had this year and Mr B your principal said that adding five or six more kids to a classroom changes the quality of education and that's what we have right now we have classes that have five to six more kids for classroom than other question asking by what standard principal expertise you just got up here and said that his leadership and expertise and he said he told us he advised us that by having fire sucess for kids in a room decreases quality Dr and Dr and Mr B have said there are research Bas articles that we can all pull up right now to say that class size Matters especially in younger grades and I just been wondering to keep using word Equitable what research you have to back them yes yes maybe you could remind everyone that everyone should be talking to you yes everyone should actually be talking to me thank you and the other thing I will note that I mean I I spoke with Mr bodri and this is not an easy thing to do this is not something we want to do at all and and yes I fully know I'm not a trained educator I 100% know that and I've talked to people for months because I knew this was coming because well I shouldn't say I knew it was coming but I was concerned I mean I I was surprised at the first budget meeting I should say I found out then um but Mr bodri told me that he said in an email having primary classrooms ranging from 22 to 30 is not ideal versus having 17 to 23 which is a range I was given which is where I based my opinions on from your principal so so I'm and I'm trying to think I mean it's absolutely true in the last 10 years that class enrollment at HS has gone down we've gone from 590 to 541 that's 50 students and we don't know what's going to happen in the next year so we're trying to take what we have now and keep it within the classroom sizes that Mr B told me we acceptable 17 to 23 so that's where I'm coming but also that's that's only part of it because when we're talking K to three you know those numbers should be at the lower end of the 17 that's what we were talking here and I think that's discussing whereas you would see the numbers 4 five and six those numbers 23 to 25 are more appropriate so if we adjusted four five and six instead would that be more palatable as far as because I mean I'm just sure like cting classroom teachers should be the first step I just that's well I'm talking about our actual enrollment though I mean our kids have been getting a quality education at HS with as many kids in the classroom as our current sixth grade class we've made it work right have we made it work we always make it work we always make it work so we have to come before the town and tell them we're keeping classroom teachers or I mean and also I mean honestly I feel like all the teachers contribute here and I'm not an educator but with my kids here I feel like everyone's valuable and classifying Ian you know is kind of hard for me you know like as far um Mrs ready Jen ready kindergarten teacher um you know I want to just be respectful because I know I'm not you guys all have a tough decision to make I mean and that's hard I understand but I mean I have I just wanted to point out a couple things like I I've di here in 28 years and this year I mean because kids move in after you make the classes and stuff like one grade had five kids with in this year and our grade had a couple of wom in so I mean the kindergarten we all started out Equitable but now like one of our Comm classes has 24 kids and one has 22 so it doesn't always land the way you think it's going to land and the past few years like you said we've had lower class sizes we have like 18 but having 23 this year I mean that's almost like a third of a class like that was added this year and it is harder I'm I'm not going to say that but when you say that you're trying to make more classes Equitable it feels like you're going on the higher side do you know what I mean like I understand it will make them more Equitable but if s Gres have 25 it doesn't sound high but like when you're actually in the classroom 25 is a pretty high number 23 is a pretty high number or 24 is a pretty high number in kindergarten when you're like K when you're trying to teach them to read and stuff so I mean on paper that doesn't necessarily look like a lot of kids you know like a lot of kids but when you're trying to teach them and you know in kindergart we don't all have full-time pairs I mean that's it is a lot of kids and I just wanted to point out the fact that kids do move in too like I said one grade level had five kids move in and kids move out but so it's not it's like right now okay one grade might have 25 across the grade level but say five kids move in you know what I mean so then it's then you're up to 26 27 so it's my point is that you know it's not always like just a set in stone number day can teach so no I I understand I want be respectful any you have a big you know a big decision to make but I just and that's why we're discussing it honestly we're trying to um to air on the side of the higher class and then have move in like just to make it to say to make it Equitable that is it's hard because you're making it Equitable on the higher end do you know what I mean so I just but a lot of it's honestly chance because you don't know how many kids are born that year right like your education experience is different because of what year you were born now me kids are in here I don't actually I feel like the education is very high quality here and how can we make our budget more sustainable because it's going to be bad next year as well and kindergart class is the one we make I'm just saying and it's like we keep on the trend right we had a trend for those three years but now it looks like we're moving back up again so then we just worried like well we kind of have to take it year by year too I mean it's it's fluid right it's Karen I just want to reiterate that as far as what I think we're talking about we're not changing the kindergarten staff for next year's first grade staff they still have so those two primary grades are still going to as far as what I think we're might be discussing okay and one would still have four teachers so I hear you about the learning to read about the kids coming in and they would K and one we still have four teachers I just want to make sure that was clear can I can I get back to the proposal cuz In fairness um you know Mr B Mr just santis did put a lot of time into this and they obviously talk with their staff and to be respectful of that work I think it would be good for us to at least go through it line by line and maybe have some discussion on what we're comfortable with and then maybe that will help us scalp through this sure and I'm going to propose that maybe we vote on each line item rather than tier because seeing as it doesn't feel like they were listed in necessarily priorities or um another manner that there may be some that we may able to take from one tier and utilize right away like that math interventionist that is going to impact our budget but not impact the day-to-day life so I think um just to start this off we talked about um offset from building utilization you're going to look at possibly increasing the form or charging more for utilization of the building which can bring more Revenue um the amount you're going to pull from the revolving fund is a amount that isn't really used so there shouldn't really be an impact so that seems like it's easy to approve um does anyone have any thoughts on line one no I think that's you're right okay so do we need to do this by motion or what the protocol so my understanding is is that you can vote um you're calling these line items these are not line items understand they reductions they're proposed reductions if you're going to reduce a line a line L you would refer to the particular line that things are from and you would Reduce by a particular amount so can we maybe just relable it and say proposed tier one and then we'd have to find where the line item is from and do the reduction from there correct yes but I kind of want to have the whole picture before we vote on anything but like I mean we can kind of add into a bucket of things we think okay here's a no-brainer for reductions right okay that's kind of to be like the end I think we should at least get the things that were comfortable saying like yeah that works okay so that that would put us at 153 that we're finding okay um so the supply L they asked to about how that would impact so what we did there was we were pulling from uh let's see so we were pulling from you have a supply teaching supply line that just has a a whole L Su that's in there reducing that by 12% down to $43,000 so you're not eliminating it you're just lowering lowering it okay and that's kind of a line item where we pull we uh have braid levels have like a certain amount of money that they could spend on whatever supplies for for More Level okay copy paper things like that can the PTO help with things like that as well like can they offs at that so so it's like not as big of a deal plus I mean I also kind of feel like at the beginning of the year you get your list bring in cleaning stuff and bring in just can't we just throw on like an extra pack of crayons in there like I when I go into like the kids classrooms when I've ever like volunteered to read or something and I see that like the kids are low on crayons it's like go to Walmart and they're 99 Cents and just buy a few of them it's not the parents like to help PTO likes to help I don't think that that's I think that's an easy and also easy check um so we also looked at the textbook line item with Melissa and instructional software the textbook line item was reduced by $155,000 and new instructional software was produced by 25,000 and what's the impact in terms of how that translates to the kid education so these are um Melissa she has in here classroom libraries Ela ccul resources science consumables um what else and then there's items in there like we have um it looks like a reduction in like accelerated weero programs that we have students that are on that we would produce those too we have a couple of different um instructional software that so it sounds like reading um support and Ela would be impacted it looks like it's a mix across the board from like ISL history sciencea do we have other things that will compensate for that production uh I'm pretty confident in Melissa's Cuts there I don't think she had anything in here that looked like it was over the top but I feel like she's Melissa's pretty resourceful and I think she'll definitely be able to kind of work with our teachers and R and I to kind of come up with ideas um can I ask you a question about so we have star and Dibbles is that star goes through what grades and Dibbles goes through what grades did start like 2 to 6 and then dibles is more early um so we do that like d go through six though K three k okay I was going to say it would be nice if we could cut one of those like I'm sure those cost us a decent amount of money if we had to cut something do we really need both yeah this year we do just because of the new requirements around early literacy screening but to to K's point that there were most far I went through with Kan and briyan there's been a reduction in the instructional software around like schooly learning ally Pebble go it's not absolutely cut but it's um across Union 31 was reduced about 43,000 and 84,000 in the proportionately in the um textbook line so I think he missed what the impacts are um okay like does does Prodigy cost us money just out of curiosity or is that I don't have it on the list I don't have it on the list either yeah okay but I think for places that don't can still need instructional goals of teachers we we keep an eye on who's using what and since it's we believe in the ability of teachers to work with kids and these are tools that we would start I think the philosophy was to start with what's the um what are the effective tools that we can use and what can we do without so I think that was the rationale with the so I think there's enough in there no those are I mean I I agree I was just that was just a question that popped into my head because I remember when I was at parent conferences I have a um second grader so obviously the the stars and Dibbles for the second grade correct yeah so it's it was like a double you're right we really need both of these but um if it doesn't coincide together I guess yeah so maybe just for Halifax I can show you that initially there was a $40,000 textbook line which was taken down $25,000 and then there was a $39,000 to start instructional software which is which taken down 13,000 so I'd say those are like triple digit you know like 25 and 30% decreases to try to meet the 700,000 so I think those were gone through pretty uh in a detailed Way by Brian Kanan and Melissa TRS in there as well he was but he had 7,000 might have been and that's a a that's different than the tetw software yeah okay the re Grant offset was already factored into the budget okay so um the only thing that kind of perked my ear a little is and I don't know it was last month or the month before we talked about um probably both we talked about the need to increase our Ela um staff um Ela uh resource for students and we're cutting um some instructional materials for ELA support do you mean yesl yeah sorry sorry my bad it's too late and place sorry thank you they I think we have there's less than 10 students okay that are in the building um but we're keeping that one because we're already Contracting Services but now we contracts and services back but that's what we were planning on keeping okay CU we were drastically lower than the lowest level of on that was that almost like a no cost to switch the right for what we pay out the5 was pretty it was pretty similar I think the contract and service might be like 20 but then looking at A5 and been like 32 or something like that um the other supply lines we're looking at custodial um custodial supplies um we have a supplies for grounds and then we have a supplies for building and just trimming all of those areas um and then also we have a contracted Services line item which has like over $120,000 in it and it's where we would pay out venders that are um and when we talked with our head custodian he saying that we could cut into some so that's where when we add all those lines up it's what gets us, everything those those are all the thank you tell the other thoughts on or question I think that's a decent cut that's a good one yeah again for a whole we can talk with P we get there and get creative with teachers out well there's been a lot of events they're after you know they're starting to really do all the events and get all that back so hopefully it's flowing I was part of Bo and voiceout treats that used to host to supply for suay party year and kids extra supplies and deliver to the school so make a big impa um do we want to talk about Transportation um sure I mean I think it's I mean if we know we can reduce two buses but what I wanted to say earlier was if we knew if people could commit to whether they're using the bus or not and I only used Cove as an example cuz I remember committing to whether you were using the bus or not I'm I'm not saying I'm somewhat uncomfortable with charging for the bus because I wouldn't want to make it difficult for any child to get to school yes we're required to have a seat on a bus for all students in grades K through six who live more than 2 miles from the school they are attending okay so it's a requirement Okay so does that eight buses meet that requirement do we know yes so eight buses is pretty much the lowest we can go to so even if we asked for commitments it we still have that makes sense I mean and so right now we have some buses that are carrying okay and then the most pull is like 70 not is that what I heard you say it's I think we had a number of 799 is actually 79 but those are the numbers when we counted um but again we need to have a seat for every child say if there was an emergency or something like that so that's where the number the eight buses that's 71 on a bus is what we were working on so what would be the next steps in executing that would you have to set up a meeting with for students and talk about remapping or like does that change our contract um our contract is based on the bid that went out that first student so we posted a bid first student bid on the the um the proposal and in it it says that we have the right to add or subtract buses okay so that that's the legal piece of it then there's the technical piece um if we are going to go from 10 buses and Halifax to eight buses then I want to have a conversation with First Student you know within a month or so because typically what bus companies do is take the previous year's roots and work off of that and I would think that the entire town would need to be red yeah I agree which with the software program they use would take about 20 minutes so we pay per bus we don't pay a set now correct correct okay I think that's a age especially if we have some with not a lot of kids on it right now I know my kids bus has a lot of kids on it but then kind of Laur like what you were saying is that if you ask families to commit you might even get a better idea of the actual number of families but if we have to provide a certain number then we can't go below that number unless it is below eight buses I mean is the actual number of eight buses that to provide every student a seat is that okay so we can't go below eight anyway like I mean I love that but how how close are we to having to add that n bus or do we have some buffer um well if we look at 71 I do believe there might actually be some bus sah come around they either 74 or 77 capacity I think we do have some exended buses but if we had um eight buses say quick M here we had 71 and 568 is the number you're looking for yeah so that but you also have to take into consideration that that's three students per seat and sixth graders with backpacks may not necessarily fit six across the seat we've heard that too from parents when bus dies like when there's a lot of kids like you know you don't like to look at social media but you hear it well the bus is a jungle I mean we all know yeah you know yeah Financial impact can be at Sil Lake as well when you're cutting the bus because typically you have a route at the high school junior high we take the other half that guys so you could have a financial effect silver L is that something that was considered in proposing the bus cut if it's something that we can do even with Silver Lake I'm looking for the language in the contract right now so if you could come back to me that would be good sure does anyone else have comments on the buses I mean it seems like we have to say yeah I mean if we can I think that's a good solution because I have heard that a lot of buses are fairly empty so um all right and then yes I'm just thinking I mean there's three streets right here cranberry Andy where you for that 2 and half or the two M well we can't though because you have to provide it even if they're we have to provide it I know no I mean I I think that's a good idea but again I don't want to make it hard for anyone to get to school given people's work schedules and siblings and I just really but just another question on the bus just so it's clear so earlier I believe the statement was that we oated to provide busing for outside 2 m r or inside 2 m outside inside but we have to for kindergarten and first grade or no sorry go ahead so the eight pluses that are proposed gives a seat to every student regardless if they're inside 2 miles or outside so technically you're only obligated to give a seat to those outside what is the amount of students that are inside two M radius that maybe that potentially could be saing another mon or two of 37 plus that would have to be a conversation I would have with for a student they have an interface between their routing program and our student information system and it talks back and forth um and they would have to produce a report for me of the students and the distance from the school the house is so the idea just so I can clear what Mr Reese was saying is potentially we could have a conversation with first student to cut an additional bus if we can not provide transportation to students that are within 2 miles is that the idea that I don't think I'd want to like not have yeah I really am not comfortable with I mean I and it it and it would save like one bus I guess is 37,000 a year which I mean I you know thinking of the students I don't want to make their education harder you know I don't want to anyone stressed in this in our town about getting their children to school and I I just I feel like it's sort of small pickings for what we would get and I'm afraid it would cause a lot of stress for a lot of families and I mean that's just how I feel but it can dis go through the rest we come back that yeah um so then support staff reduction is that Paris that would be two full-time pair of positions okay and the less classroom in supervision support for students concerns me as a impact mhm um right now 17 there are 17 professionals and my concern too being that um with the struggle we've had covering classes with substitutes I feel like um I'm I'm that concerns me because we do have an issue with substitutes that we talked about all year long and how do you provide coverage to classrooms if what would your solution be if we lost even more Paris um that's something that we would have to get creative I know that you know when in the contract I know like specialist teachers out then you know the classroom teacher would have to you know cover their own class they would miss out on their specialist time um what they see the St for that what else we can combine classrooms if that's neat I know some districts have had that um we would try and not utilize our our like special ed teachers or reading teachers or math people because that would take away from the service delivery that those students require so so looking at the overall number of having 17 PA of Professionals in the building is an area that prob have more um more staff it's because we have two sub separate programs here that you know require additional Staffing how many do they require right now it's it's five next year we're look atal 6 so of the 17 PA of professionals right now five of them are in that substantially separate program so available to the school right now it's basically 12 pair of professionals and then cutting down two more would be 10 yes and and we've had trouble with class coverage which is another reason why having a reduction in classes might make that easier for grade one thing the school committee approved this year was allowing principal bodry to use the substitute teacher line to uh employ a building based sub which may provide some relief outside of supportting in the classroom um are you still going to be able to cover lunch and recess Duty short to Paris we're going to have to be able to figure out well is that something if Specialists load is reduced would would they be able to cover lunch in recess is that allowed or would that be considered a class period um I have to kind of double check the contract and make sure that staying inside of that but I mean cuz if any anything can happen it's cuz if other well I mean I'm sure well I don't know I mean you tell me like as far as like covering things is it just the pairs that cover recess and lunch or is it also well the teachers are also on recess Duty so we would moving to the reduction of parent we would probably need the teachers to also be on duty at lunch time as well as recess is that something that the Specialists could possibly do if we were to have a reduction where the specialist could help at like if you potentially but I'd have to look at the contract language and see what's what's inside that see teachers wouldn't have to help out every day for lunch or anything right could they rotate is that what they do for yeah but we have the cars right now they go out every day for both lunch and recess and would that impact prep periods or anything if teachers aren't going out right now that then we be if we cut Paris um I don't think it would because that the only thing would be teachers get their prep time when their students go to speci specialist okay all right cuz that's where I feel like the trickle down effect is concerning about cutting staff where if we have less classrooms it's less of an issue and you know I mean just as far as thinking through this but um so I feel like we kind of need to come up with I mean we can continue to go through this but just um thinking about there's a trickle down effect to no matter what decisions we make and it's just hard I don't you know I don't um well I guess and then going to reduce a full-time custodian to halftime is that something that would we probably lose the custo is that you know or is that I think that would be true for anything okay like even our Specialists if they're reduced to9 then if they could go find a fulltime position somewhere else can I ask about that now after that so in your proposal what do you mean by why would you what does it look like reducing specialist .9 um because the way we have our our master schedule set up it's it's an eight block schedule per day and so um to reduce them it would be like 4 and 1/2 like it would look like it's 4 and 1/2 days so they would teach right now they teach 28 classrooms for 5 days SP so if we reduce the classroom or a couple of classroom to you know open up more time in their schedule so right now they have so so those are Rel so if there were classrooms cut that's where the specialist would be impacted those okay I wasn't sure those were I thought that's what made sense but I wasn't clear that I think that problem might be able to be solved then if the contract allows then we can keep the specialist at 1.0 by having them also do some coverage or Duty coverage if that would be something cont but just something else to think about that like we could kind of fix the specialist issue keeping those by adding in other you know teaching time so to speak not to teach math now but you know to not have those holes in they're schedule if we fill the holes and but I think that would might have to be like a negotiated is that impact issue can I ask the union president is that something in the contract would that be allowed to oh really I'm sorry um if if we had um Can HTA members substitute in other classes or cover lunch and recess what we do now oh special specialist they have the same contract though right so I would just add to it it's you know we're all considered the same teaching professional the union whether we teach Specialist or special education that's teaches so contract reads that the the duties that be Equitable so whether you do you know a recess Duty a cafeteria Duty uh bus up to amm bus Duty cafeteria breakfast Duty teachers whatever group you're in are doing the same amount of Duties um you know in comparison to one another so so you can do different duties depending on what's needed for the school there's many recess I don't know if there cafeteria the teachers right now but you know we're in the hall in the morning we do breakfast um there teachers and Inter parent professionals doing duties so it can be different locations but in terms of substitution I don't know being a substitute how that works within our contract are is that happening with um people that aren't in the classroom like the classroom teaches are like is I know uh I know you're a reading specialist do you substitute last year a lot this year Brian Kan have done a really good job to make my job a priority and not just fing l so it is a POS like it is something that happens though so it's something that can happen according to your contract so if I mean it's not ideal I'm not saying I want that I'm just saying but like something you could have some of our Specialists subbing in class if we don't have coverage on a certain day I just like to add two you know for special how be consideration so help some Who start above the PE um 28 classrooms that I see we know course she'll teach for us and with full-time position now so those again a class size classroom classroom from remain the same and you know Specialists reduce 9 the half day you know those those offerings will probably impact the way schedule it help course some of the other other special do Mrs already can I just clarify too like I think you said that if um and like this would be something you think about but like you said that if we cut a teacher at each grade level that would be less duties but the same kids still the same kids still go every day so right now there's four teachers at a grade level so we each have duty like one day and then on the fifth day it's like you know like a specialist or a Lor or somebody and then but like if you cut it down to three at a grade would have two days do you know what I mean there'll be an extra day where somebody's going to have to do another but if we cover if we cut Paras the same thing happens teer if we cut the pars teachers won't be more responsible for duties like that my par is out I still go out with my kids and there's other put in for my I know I know they don't do subs for Paras but I'm saying if we were to cut two Paras people's duties would change well if your PA is not there to well for instance like in kindergarten we have three PA so if one pair it still be a teacher two pars out there do you know what I mean like not that I'm not looking here you know what I mean I'm just saying it's the same if a if a teacher and two pairs wrote at each recess Duty it would still be a teacher in a par they probably wouldn't put another teacher you know what I mean I don't know okay I think that what they're saying I think that there always has to be a teacher I don't think it's ever just par covering there's always a teacher and then I think the par are extra heal so it would still be the teachers and have to be there but they might not have the extra help okay so it's not that okay thank you and it's usually at least so while we're on this support step production of two in tier one of the cups tier two also has support staff production of too um I'm assuming those are also pairs M okay and then so ultimately if we do everything on this you're looking at kind par which would bring us to eight eight for the eight for the whole school it would be seven seven so each and then look at having six for the the sub so we want to like move on to another line before we talk about that I think we should okay um can I ask about the custodial staff I'm assuming that um the facilities your head custodian was incorporated in coming up with this I talk and he was comfortable with that I don't think anybody's comfortable with I apologize you're right you're right it's no one no one in this room is comfortable with any of this but um but he was he you know it's not ideal and like I said build the size okay you I think we have someone sorry I'm not a big speaker I class thanks we we appreciate all that you do imp we only have four they cut one to halfway it's like losing one nobody's going to work hot time and then what's going to happen is going to be a snow up the guys are going to say I'm down but some of the impacts that you're going to have what do you going do when you have a sit call you know I'm always there if you get a Sit call I'm here you'll have to have someone from the Town come in open the school up if someone's sick we'll have to reach out Kane I'll say call Kane or whatever have to call Kane Kane call spot and we'll have to get the ball roll um other impacts is snow I'm always here to make sure the teachers getting building safe ice SM snow melt par pickup um you're going to have to go three shifts so home school is going to have to be cover in three shifts so one custodian will probably have to come in 8 or 9 morning the next one 2 in the afternoon and then the other one maybe 1: in the afternoon and 1 3 so you may have a town person coming to open up the school and you still have the whole school clean 900,000 ft you might be losing part of my family here but you still got to clean every Club you got to clean the library you got to clean the gym 20 bathrooms inan every night so there is a big impact we always try to make sure that we're talking about the budget we work very closely together to make sure everything is done on time you know try to make sure everything is done clean you have an expectation every day I come in I have an expect expectation of how the school should be teachers and staff always have an expectation as well as the time they come in we want to see it the same way same way see tonight no it always looks I mean there's there's absolutely no question of the value every single person in this building adds and and that's fine and unfortunately the person they going to lose will be me and that's you know I'm going survive but who's going to schedle who's going to do all contract you know it's these guys that are going to have to pick that up you got one guy in the building during the day he's going to be in the cafeteria kindergarten just threw up on some things are just going to service is going to be neglected I just want you to make sure you think about that teachers will have to makebe their own right you won't be able to get to everything I always tell the teachers they're always tring oh I'll get that don't worry about that you don't ask me to teach I don't ask you to just just keep having consideration thank you thank you um so the next one is reduce assistant principal to 204 days so that would mean that you would come in less than the summer Mr de santis yeah prob I no I feel bad cuz we just gave you the the full time um how do you guys feel about that one I don't love it obviously I mean honestly it's $9,000 which is not a lot when we're trying to find 700,000 um but I respect that you know from a administrative perspective you're trying to all kind of look at what can be contributed as a whole so I don't love it either but I put it out there because I mean like we said we Tred to even off the C I do appreciate that I mean it's it's a hard you know because we are trying to be fair and how if it's even POS possible is and appreciate that but you know what makes less of a difference to our budget per se makes a bigger difference to your life like as a human you know like and you know I mean that's where it's really hard in trying to think in terms of where can we make cuts that make less impact but have a bigger budgetary impact that's kind of where I'm at and thinking you you know that's really where I'm coming from Mostly um I don't I don't know if we want to automatically add that to the list or if we're leaving people for last or I just and I don't know Mr bod are you able to take any Cuts or as principal are are you not allowed to or i' like some I I mean well I know it's not possible you have to be here well I mean I I don't know I'm just asking cuz I mean I feel like everything's on the table we're trying to yeah I I mean that's that's kind of where we're at that's we're cutting things across the board that's something that you take a look at my contract and reducing that as well be it think that's where Brian and I were talking is looking at every possible area so we don't have to make de Cuts Like into class teachers okay I mean with Brian not working and that his time not in the building and that's that's on me to to pick up the slap for the days that he's not here so that's going back have pick up someone has pick up behind no I know I understand someone needs to teach the kids someone needs to I mean it's I don't know what do you do you guys have any comments or thoughts I feel like um I mean there house to be an administrator in the building so I I don't really again I don't have a car feeling one way or the other on this and again it's not it's $9,000 um so I'd rather just Mo on and see if we can get through some of the rest that come back to what we're comfortable with I know like this is a really like excruciatingly long process but I feel like it's worth the time can I ask when when would the window be that you're out and it would be similar to the previous contract Happ year okay um and then one in July and probably be two yes just a reminder uh also have to have cover King's vation which has been another issue right that we weren't able to give the principal the time off we need this issue that we had where we didn't have coverage so I'm not saying is a good idea it's just something to keep into consideration any balls to keep in the air at the same time all right um so 2.4 from the HTA a behaviors instrument and specialist so as far as the instrument goes um if we were to have less classrooms and Mrs lard had more availability could she pick up the instruments or would that because I yeah Mrs lar because I know you've taught instrument I don't know I'm just wondering is that a possibility I know you're soorry um yes I am very qualified to do that it be whether there' be enough time equal to what she does now I don't know she said yes okay thank you it is hard to hear sorry yes Gordon so I think this is kind of where the RS the road um in the discussion that she having and I want to I want to try to distill a couple of things from the standpoint of how did we get here our understanding is we got here because safe funding did not keep Pace with What expenses were nothing anybody here can read about that so not a lot of Point spending time the other aspect was the special education costs absolutely skyro particularly in our district they went up across the state it's a problem across the state they went up particularly in our industry um some of that is uh the state allowing Transportation costs to go up other things like that but unless I have misunderstood the Silver Lake meetings a lot of the issue has been a growth in overall referrals and that is uh students needing extra Services a placements other things like that so I think what you're talking about here is you you have to to meet the service needs of um people with special needs and in need of special education Constitution there so you have to meet those needs I think what you're talking about here in this line item are the people that are on the front line of which direction kids L up to me and we have one model on the table that is gambling that we will uh mitigate or not uh create more challenges for special education by keeping classroom sizes essentially what they are right now and losing the support staff that helps mitigate those issues versus the other model which says we will gamble so to speak on classroom sizes that are research back and stay with support services that help to deal with um special education in the mitigation of what because most of these support staff work with children before they're on IEP correct like they're the ones that help they they're helping our kids that are sort of are a little bit behind but haven't qualified for services yet is that correct professionals I think you two position yeah these two positions sorry yeah no I meant sorry I me specialist yeah the beh well behaviorist is for behavior issues and reading specialist reading Specialists but the reading Specialists work with students that aren't on IPS yet correct so they're there to help bully you know boo the kids along it's a preventative measure yes so that's that's what the gam is and the whole thing that got you here and got us here so to speak not you but us as a district in particular is special education so I don't know what's correct I'm I'm a professional educator at the University level I'm not a professional educator at this level um so I don't know what is correct but the correct model to me is going to be that which is going to do the best possible job of mitigating special education challenges while also successfully servicing um you know our standard classs that's the I mean I'm not comfortable with eliminating a behaviorists or reading specialist and I I don't know to what degree we can figure out a way to keep instrumental instruction as part of the school with eliminating that position but this is the line probably he comfortable with I would agree I mean it's been on on the back of my mind the number of students that need Title Services Reading support math support we even had proposed to us by Administration a Heroes Academy that would supplement this even further and so I worry if we pull pull this support from our students who obviously need it um what it could look like for them and us as a district what is the um so it's 2.4 for all three of those what are they separated like what is the behaviorist the behaviorist and the reading specialist are one do we have a number for how many students access like a number of students that access behaviorist in general like on a sort of basis and a number of students that access the meeting specialist don't but um does anyone in the audience know here does anyone in the audience know how many students access the reading specialist and behavior L how many people are on your case L he I'm thinking okay a good 15 kindergarteners five first graders 8 10 second and third and fourth and I push in into a bunch of us what did you said speaking for grade we don't have any students we have for the past 5 years work their is there a way to drop the behaviorist down to like a 0.5 instead of a one save there but still have them in the building notable with that sorry I've seen a lot of kids come through the school that really need behaviorist but if they're not going to see them I I would honestly ask each gr level to see how many students actually see behaviors on a weekly basis okay you be surprised to probably here amounts that do actually okay kindergarten I guess everyone can think of it while they're what six okay first grade one one second grade two two we already heard from third grade fourth grade Z zero fifth grade two two sixth grade um I don't know if we have any KS that see her like it's a requirement we have kids put out too and then what about the DLC is she interacting nothing nothing in the K G for second we don't use her all CR but the older DLC class but it still goes back to the priority of Mr and Mr you cannot replace the tier one instruction it cannot be replaced and I will be happy to say the research AR call to back on my all right um and then so support staff there two more pair that we already talked about and then the main office uh to point8 for for I assume um I don't I mean one of the positions in there we have two main office people so be reding um just one one of them one is um year around position and then one is a par position that's uh is that included in the total number of Paras I don't think that it is I I think it's a separate stand okay second they differently the second I think it was different oh really okay cont yes they're different light items okay can I go back to the the for that the um behaviorist so if we cut the behaviorist is there any behaviorist ining who is do the responsibility of those students that are seeing half um most likely it could be members of our crisis be myself Brian our adjustment counselor and our school psychologist and um same the reading specialist if we have that uh um right now we have two full-time read teachers so that we into one cut into one and then most likely that would you know impact classroom teachers that they would need to you know pick up that extra SL instructions school psychologist actively have a case load or is he just doing the testing uh he has a little bit of both but he's also the team chair so he shairs all special education so he doesn't have a ton of access time for being no he doesn't have like that I think the question is does he have the capacity to take on what the case of the behaviorist is currently that position is does the school psychologist alone can he pick up behaviors no I think it would be collect four of us that would be on us to do that do we want to talk about any of the tier two cuts before we move on to three well considering they're all people yep those are the harder on ones and I mean the trickle down effect again it's we're all trying to see into the future by um deciding what cuts will have the least amount of impact and honestly none of us know exactly but my concern is is the struggles we have right now with these support services and I feel like because our teachers have shown their ability to teach with bigger class sizes because we don't have control over how many students are in each grade level you know a Kindergarten class comes in and if that class has to have 27 kids you guys make it work because you're phenomenal but so I mean I feel like going with knowns and is better than going with unknowns to me we haven't gone without all of these support staff and um reading Specialists and I mean some of them are new but um but we have had certain classes be larger than we would like because if 90 kindergarteners sign up we take 90 kindergarteners with four teachers we don't do anything about it so I mean just in going through this I feel like here's a place where we we can reduce with not as much impact because we make it work anyway which I feel like a lot of people move into the town of Halifax though for small class sizes I agree that's why I did what are King over bridgew I don't want 30 kids in a class but we're not at 30 but some them are going to be at 27 but we wouldn't be cutting all of them yeah there's none7 the highest class size if we were to cut and I don't even know how many teachers are talking about yet but Miss L said that if we cut if we cut everybody down to three which I don't think that we're considering the that would be the 27 and the 30 but I don't think any of us would do would agree to cut every we wouldn't need to cut every single a teacher from every grade because she was just showing the numbers but taking out the two large numbers the highest class size would be 23 which is what the current class size is right now of one grade and then another grade is 22 right now and another grade is 21 we're not those AR the ideal classrooms that's like you don't want that's not ideal for people like they don't like 17 to 23 is yeah 17 17 yeah but like nobody wants 23 just like Mrs Ry said she doesn't want 24 kids in kindergarten it's just we had it but if we have 90 kids she's going to have 20 right I get it but like I don't see us having a smaller enrollment I've been saying this forever almost as a joke Co babies are coming well every like I just just my neighborhood alone just you have the teachers in we they telling you that they would rather have less support staff and have teachers teach your kids you increase the classs in those grades you're going to end up having more need of support stff you're going to need more support staff if you bring those class items up because they're at 17 for those grades and they're not sending out the numbers that were mentioned weren't as high as I'm expecting them to be the other grades if now there's 23 kids in you're trying to do reading groups with those 23 kids you're going to have want to send some other those kids out of the room so you can need more support Specialists I understand it's a very hard choice to make I think you have the principles the administration that went through all these iterations that you guys are trying to squeeze into tonight's meeting that came up with their recommendation I think they got input from staff and I think it would be wise list I know I think we are listening think you're not you've been at the side of the table so I appreciate your words but this is this is challenging we're trying to listen to everybody um so I I would like to ask though you if your comments at the beginning of the meeting you suggested that we only cut 500,000 so this proposal is 74,000 so we also have our town um manager and from our Board of Select and there's a finance committee meeting next week on Wednesday on Wednesday excuse me it's okay so I think that you know part of going through this exercise as gainful as it is is trying to figure out where's that 500,000 is there even an appetite in the town to contribute the other 204,000 I've already asked and and they've asked us to cut 680,000 yeah so you know there's no good answer um respectfully I I think it's your job to fight for what you believe the students need in the building it's the finance commit responsibility to fight what they think is a responsible budget it's to bring forward the budgets at to needed and what the people discussing but I think if you cut to the 700,000 we don't have the discussion of me I agree with you I I think we need to be creative I think that this is an exhausting process and we're against a huge timeline we've you know like we have to pass this tonight and we're being asked to make impossible decisions I would respectfully say that you have to pass a budget tonight it doesn't have to be the final budget the finance committee did not recommend your number we've done it before when I was in the finance committee didn't recommend s b number didn't recommend the elementary school number it it happens dos will happen on town meeting Flor the numbers on say I I think that it's your responsibility to fight for the students but the students need it's the town's responsibility to find the funds for that now again I would argue that the planning for what is happening here should have taken place in the fall everybody should have been a operationally the ship at Sil Lake would cause a $300,000 change and that should have been taken into account the budget asking asking the schools to have a budget of 4 $75,000 with the increase at Silver L knowing the percentage increase I don't think is realistic and asking the elementary school to take the burden of those cuts to regular day students is massive impact and if my daughter wasn't going into the sixth grade right now I would pull her and put her into a charter school and I would ask all the other kids that my help friends with as well because those dolls would be falling hers and bring away they student it's a general education student and it would make this committee's job a lot harder and I understand that because those dollars would come up but right now you're asking because of these Special Needs increases you're asking the regular day budget to be up I think you need to stand up and say the budget's here for a reason you need to support general education students and this is what we have I I'd like to Echo for was saying and I'm after listening to everything and hearing the decisions that were made and why they're being made um I would like to make a motion to approve the tier one and tier 2 proposed is it ideal no I promotion CS yeah we end the last meeting we but I mean I would second tier one I think tier two needs maybe some tweaking hopeful reading can can I make an amendment to my motion then I'd like to make an AM uh a motion to approve the tier one proposed cuts and the math interventionist uh reallocation of funds from tier three I toal 26,000 how much is the 26 that brings us to 339 that's a good start we um well part of tier two that anyone wants to entertain to add to that as much as I hate it and I thank him for sacrificing his family I think um Mr DeSantis is it's hard to say I mean but I think that we should add that to it he's willing to do it and and take one for the team so to speak no one likes it I think before we had that one and I think we had the support staff reduction and the main office reduction and instrumental I would agree with instrumental and being office I think I would need more information about the behavior that I think if we can yeah just go back and just a clear tier one let's can we just can we vote on tier one and then be done with tier one probably without the math intervention we just go yeah let's just do tier one right now cleaner one I make a motion I already motion so I'll second the motion to approve tier one okay we'll take a vote Katie yes Lori yes Karen yes Jessica and I'm a yes the first one and K ended up second whoever you want to Second well she did first um I feel like we have to at least I I mean I don't I feel like we have to get to maybe 500,000 because they asked for 680 can we divide out how much like how much is the instrumental how much is ring and how much is behavior right now it's under 168 as the total you you you can just vote a number to reduce the budget by I I'd like to know that what we're actually thinking I know ultimately the school has line Authority I get that but I would like to hear like the doll values and I think our taxpayers would like to know the impact on their kids education just to make sure I understand question you're looking to say what is each position we are not in a position right now in order whenever we do a reduction course we are uh filed by the contractual procedures so we would look at a seniority list based on people's licensures and once we eliminate positions we would then examine which people are who uh basically be moving around so for me to tell you with Precision without actually looking at that list I think we're just asking about position instrumented here cut down okay I guess my what the point that I would like to put out there is that you eliminate a position it doesn't necessarily mean you're eliminating that person you're eliminating the position and then they have to go through the union no I think it is I think it is for all of the all positions we give you the placeholder that we use because it's not necessarily faculty I believe is 65,000 and Par the placeholder for par professional support would be 25,000 what does instrumental fall position is that point four but we're only doing Point CU we share that with had to be 26 26,000 so we suggested that the um assistant office reduction the instrumental 20K all right that would be an additional 133,000 basically if we do all of 365 is just instrumental right now this plus we do cuz we most likely going to do this intervention math one so that is the MTH one's already included isn't it we haven't done that one yet we haven't vot on that yet that's 26 so at 3113 + 26 + 26 I thought we at 339 365 it was 339 with the MTH the top tier and then the math one but to add in just the instrumental is 26 so it's 365 that one and then that one is that something we can do is bring a behaviorist down to5 bring what behaviorist from up one to.5 well yeah you can do anything yeah sorry I'm just so Lauren you heard proposals that we try to get to F correct at least okay so based on what I just kind of calculated um taking all the tier one the math interventionist um an instrumental instrumental and then the office staff sorry interventionist um 371 I have 3 I have 381 me so 120 to F that's really just just reall we also have already if we do this um we we will probably wound a custodian um as was testified um could you just tell me what the positions are that you have in the second number uh yeah so it was the reality of the math interventionist going from fulltime to point6 and then 0.1 would be made up with title one so they're still kept as a fulltime employee and then um the instrumental teacher at 26 and the office support staff at six so I got 381 it's all going to be kind of can you give me the numbers that gave you the 381 there yep so 313 for tier one okay 26 sorry I think I Double Di there no I didn't 26 for the maist 26 friends so it is 71 but then there's the main office and office at six we can vote on those cuts as well and then hash out the final bit what do you think or wait do we want to try to talk with the bit just make one fin yeah let's just do that so I'm looking at this we still have two Professionals in tier two in tier two that we have discussion about and we also have iner three um the point the minus five or five special is going from 1 to9 and a classroom teacher I think we've heard pretty loudly from the ience that the class school teacher is not the route that folks want to go um so I think it's just um a matter of do we think you know looking at the specialist teachers um it seems like an equitable reduction however I don't know if reducing those hours is going to cause us to lose staff anyway so that's my question like I'm just interested well what does that actually say of us the 0.9 reducing specialist to 0.9 yeah cuz that's like a big jumbo cuz it's got full teacher in there too so what does going down to 0.9 actually save us on those five teachers as an estimate half a teacher so it's a choice between the support staff at 58 for the specialist at 26 and the behavor the reading specialist well I have a question actually would would you folks consider not taking a cost of living raise this year across the board huh cost of living like so that's something we could take off the top of the budget I counter with what what are you willing to cut go to the town to say and you say well we're I'm the town wants us to cut 680,000 and I'm trying to come up to five and ask them to please close that Gap I mean I'm so that's my question if maybe everyone in the building everyone collectively doesn't take that cost of living raise then everybody's feeling it Ian I'm just throwing things out there because I'm trying to cuz it's hard to make decisions about whole jobs you know no but we can do we can do a like a memorandum of agreement an MOA I don't know if that's something you want to talk about or so Lauren I this is how I feel and I don't want to you know I I think it we've gone through I don't even know what time it is at this point 2 and 1 half hours on this um I don't know that we're going to get to 500 quite frankly I think um I think that there's a lot of I don't think we're all in agreement on things I I the number I'm comfortable with is where we're at 380 I think we go to the town with that and see what they say well the town's here tell you that it's not something that we can absorb it's up to the town people all I do is recommend a balance budget we not Brak unbalance budget for we Haven have a balance budget but it's up to the town at this point we can't Mo forward with override to sa just so 25 that's the ballot and the budget has to appr by you know goes to TI what their recommendation is this is what they've recommended bring this is in line with all for other departments police and fire about 2% increases for the year um and we're seeing other increases as a result of the elementary school budget our health insurance and then as a reminder we could be our eliminating positions the town does to of those uh unemployment costs so with what you presented here we're looking at additional $100,000 and if we come in without you know I mean our costs went up considerably you know so that's where it's hard because the town still has its operating budget with all the other services it provides and I mean so I I don't know I mean it's a we can vote a budget but I don't know what will h i mean none of us can predict the future we don't know maybe everyone will say absolutely will but I'm bringing what the finance committee asked us for and coming in that much lower I don't know but because there's you know there's only so many resources I mean in our town we had one new house this year you know built like we have no additional revenues as a town plus fees are kindergarten tuition I know that go back to myself I paid for kindergarten tuition on my own kids and I also paid bus fee doesn't have to be maybe could be like a onee thing try it out but it's a potential area for current situation I'd rather pay a bus fee than lose Brian in the summer pay two buses for that we got trying I still feel like we really have to be careful with kids getting to school but so many other towns like P I think charges like $350 to rrive the bus and there's like a sibling discount of like $50 I don't don't think it's I mean I don't like my kids ride the bus do I want to do I want to pay $350 for my kid to ride the bus 0% chance if that's what I want to do but if it's going to save jobs for teachers and Paris and Brian and can we do that I thought we couldn't do that we I thought we couldn't do that because we're Regional was an option for us I scheduled a meeting with the regional director for First Student for tomorrow I have a phone call with her at 2:30 and I also need to talk to an attorney D Pare okay thank you I just I feel like we've discussed it before and that's all back to it's not an option for us just because I good and and to your concerns I think you know students that AR free to reduce lunch they I assume we we can make it that way you know so I think that we could you know still be athetic with that um but I just thought that that wasn't an option yeah well P you know like you're Peno tej they they pay to ride the bus so then it's also going to narrow down like our bus problem too with who's actually going to ride the bus and then we know then we know how many kids are on if you charge though do you still have to provide this like yeah that's what I don't understand still to provide but I mean I suppose like we could do it Silver Lake did and vote a number and still work on trying to figure some things out I I mean I don't think we're going to have all the answers tonight I mean unless someone thinks like I mean there's things that are going to require research and yeah I agree with that definitely two questions so and I know like maybe we're not as comfortable but we do have to bring a number to the town and the thing is if we don't votee on number and we can't pass a budget then that gets us closer to the state taking over our school and we have no say then so we have to work with something like we have to keep moving forward um and you know they'll they'll decide what our budget is and they'll decide what you know and and like come take over the school and then we'll have nothing so we have to bring something to the town I I feel personally that we should at least try cut 500,000 cuz they asked us to do 680 and say you know can can we bring this to the floor and see let the towns people decide I like that number too okay what do you guys think so would we really actually just say that we're voting to reduce the budget by an additional um 87 because we already did the 313 I keep that we did we we definitely yeah we unless you want to vote those ones too and we just comforable voting those remaining B to to be figured out so we also talked about sorry my mous messed up so talk about the main office reduction um the assistant princial reduction the instrumental instrumental in the maap that brings us to up 380 to make a motion to to also eliminate 9,000 for the assistant principal the main office production of $6,000 the um MTH interventionist of 26,000 and instrumental 26000 we second that yes we did okay all right vote I know um Katie yes Lori yes Karen yes yes and I'm a yes and now we need to vote for the additional now 120 right 120 so we we are voting the entire budget number to reduce the entire budget number by an additional 120,000 so I'll make that motion to reduce the school budget by 120,000 okay second all right Katie yes Lori yes Karen yes Jessica yes and myself as yes all right the exact number oh the exact number what would the exact number be okay thank you I came up with 500 no no the exact number we're voting to in the to for the budget what do you mean like we have to take what the total budget number is now minus the 500,000 um I have 6,965 13843 that's 6965 13843 65 not 56 say say it one more time 9, 6,965 13843 all right you vote the total budget I'll make a motion to vote the total budget of 6,965 3843 all right Katie yes Lori yes yes Karen I I know your name yes and myself is a yes is there anything else we need to do oh yes Gordon has the amount necessary 25 what did you say the rest oh for the 24 24 25 okay we'll do it over you okay I will make a motion for the total budget for Halifax Elementary School for fiscal year 2425 to be $6 million 9651 3843 second okay Katie yes Lor Karen yes Jessica yes and I'm a yes okay yes can you clarify what positions you just cut just put here that's okay tier one the we know tier one tier two and then we oh tier two in tier two yeah tier tier two um we did a main office reduction to8 um we reduced assistant principal to 204 days and the instrumental and the inter math interventionist from tier three we're just reallocating funds to keep her as a full-timer okay is that all that was on tier two no no no there was support staff on tier two and behaviorist and reading specialist as well what was the total number that you the total number we reduced by was 380 we also made a motion to eliminate $500 for 500,000 from the budget to reduce it so we still have 120,000 that we have to figure out where that's coming from but we have not figured it out tonight okay um now we have the sign signing warrants so I have brought with me tonight nine warrants totaling 4246 $992 to be signed and then delivered to the Town Hall in the morning there were no single signature warrants in between when I saw you last and and I apologize I also have a food service warrant I just don't know if you signed them or not I don't know do we we voted and approved last meeting yes we do thank you can I ask one of of the people in our audience that asked if we were in a deficit for this oh yeah that's correct we are not in a deficit for this I just wanted to make that clear we aren't in a deficit we are not cuz we froze the budget you need on all right um school committee sorry school school committee corresponds the report I don't have any um future agenda items is there anything you would like to put on the agenda for next I can just ask that we keep the discussion about the water situation um as a constant on our agenda until it's resolved sure it would give me we have it on the Forefront of our mind sure okay anyone else anything okay all right subcommittees policy oh everybody did um did policy didn't meet right thank you no it's okay negotiations um we're going to talk about an executive session um Pilgrim area collaborative Karen that draft Mee again the 6 Thursday okay um Youth and R um the town hosted Easter egg hunt on the 23rd of March was okay anything else okay PTO Karen I was at um my confes that um but but I spoke with the president um and she said that they approved the requested excesses associated with field drives and buses for all students and they have plans for bus driver appreciation day at the end of this month and teacher appreciation great okay capital budget I don't believe met did admin review meet okay de I subcommittee so we talked briefly um we're continuing to look at policies um I did have a question um sorry um so at the last meeting that we had um Mr um Mr L one of the questions that we had asked was um if you could give us the um description of inwriting of what you do didn't know see not come through so it's in the folder apies no problem so we need to take some time to go through that sure tonight or un another time we're going to the rest anything else okay um Union 31 did meet on the share cost agreement and that's pretty much it right um and all right principal report uh let's see so school council met uh last week to continue with the handbook revisions we still need some more time with the handbook we apologize we weren't able to it all but we're try and get that guys as soon as possible so and then it's water not on here I I thought water was added but um if you could update please yeah yeah it's just I just wanted to give an update in terms of the they put water filters on the bubblers and water filters in the kitchen and then they changed out the um the kitchen prep and in the basic and have we retested since then or no they have not tested do we know what kind of system they put on it like what kind of water filtration system they put on it the only I can find out for you is just like that well yeah just curious are they going to at some point it would reach just capacity would be filing anymore right so are they I don't you to know that are they come check it to make sure like is there time frame for how long this comp last I know that our head custodian PL was here and then SC turna and Mike I think they all collaborate on you know how long the filters last so I think each one in the building is a little bit different but well yeah I mean depend on of do that's what makes it tricky right so it's not like being electronically monitored Som I mean one bubbler could get used 50 times a day and get on one so that that just concerns me to think about just relying on a filter without having real time data of whether it's actively still really filing right right I'd have to ask those guys know yeah no I wouldn't expect but that's something and the total payment for the lead so far is about $118,000 correct yeah for the mitigation are all the different things that we that are associated with the water and it's still being flushed every day Y and that's like the time that see coming in the morning SC right I know is there an end in sight for do we think that these costs are going to keep coming in well the end sight comes from the testing so after they've put these filters on and after they've done these mitigation strategies then they will test again we don't have an end inight until we know what what we may need to change and so We are following the advice of the water company and our um facilities director in terms of taking it step by step it sounds like it's improving which is good news and just so everyone's aware I did ask the finance committee where the money is coming from for this and it is coming directly out of our budget the town is not picking up cost so we we need to consider that as we are forming our budget is that we could have these costs that continue that we currently don't have a line item for so I have spoken with um the Town Administrator and one of the things that we discussed was once we had a better sense we might be able to put a warrant article but the warrant articles need to be in by a particular date and we were hoping to have more information but the reality is is that the process is taking longer it's also very unlikely we want to free Cas to use if we're going have at least $100,000 Mar cost Mr bod um and so the handbook I mentioned the water I think that's just an update we'll find out filters and then you talk about flyer distribution is that the basketball flyer in the is there a girl one too I think I saw a girl one too I'm hoping to have a Silver Lake football one come up soon too later right so I'll make a motion to allow Administration to distribute both the Girl Scout flyer and the Silver Lake summer Hoops flyer second okay uh vote Katie yes Lori yes Karen yes Jessica yes and myself is the yes and then the a safe heill trip uh that is our third grade that they are going into trip that's major approval since the testing how often I mean it's this I get I mean I don't recall other I mean I I mean it's Rhode Island so it's not that far you know but is there any risk with anything with the student leaving the state or is it it's just the school committee's policy that anytime a trip is out of state it has to be approved by the school committee okay so even though it's Rhode Island it still has to be formally approved by the school committee my only question was this is just about the approving out of state like this is funded we don't have to worry about how that's going to impact budget all right any more discussion or okay someone make a motion yeah I know it looks cool I'll make a motion to approve out of St you say field trip should be clarified even further to bi marine biology CER okay you on a second or I'll okay um all right let's vote Katie yes Lori Karen Jessica yes and I'm a yes A okay financial report Sarah thank you there continues to be a deficit in the PD line which is the tuition reimbursement the budget for FY 25 takes this into consideration there is a deficit in the tech hardware and the guidance testing materials line which are absorbed within the categories of guidance and Technology and there is a deficit in the special education Contract Services tuition and transportation lines um the deficit in those lines is $488,500 in circuit breaker the special education department also applied for Extraordinary relief and we anticipate an award of approximately $182,000 for Extraordinary relief and 77,000 in reserve relief so one of the things that my office is working on this week is taking that bottom line number the bottom right hand number on the budget uh sheets and projecting out the costs for the remainder of the year so the next time we meet I'll have a an actual um that number minus any salaries of where we stand okay all right any questions all right um Ryan thank you I have one item tonight it's called our student Opportunity Act plan uh which every District in the Commonwealth uh needs to submit uh that's due today by midnight so the nick of time uh essentially you identify between according to State one and three evidence-based practices that the that the district in this case just Halifax will work on over the next uh 3 years so as you can see in the submitted document I wrote up our work with the mtss the support teamwork um so that's technically identified as number one effective support system and number two is to continue to work with our collaborative teaching models which are is the work we've invested in um in co- teing this past summer we had a co- teing academy uh for all the schools in the district for teachers that would work together and support one another um prior to the start of the year they would have two days to work together to um plan how they would Implement interventions and pieces like that so this a lot of the goals are similar to what Kingston um and Plimpton would have but um each district is required to submit one so with the approval of the committee we would submit this tonight after the meeting and then wait for des's feedback back um and it would be in place between uh 2025 and 2027 and lastly it's just supposed to outline what we're doing with our somewhat increased Chapter 70 funds and so that's why every district is asked to to submit a plan and then it's posted publicly and everybody can see if we're making progress toward our uh evidence based um practices so we'd have to um just have a vote to send it in or I would request if it would please the committee to approve our student opportunity plan and then if approved I would submit it to desie after the meeting um to meet to meet the deadline okay um any discussion okay I'll make a motion to approve our student opportunity plan and to submit it to desie after this meeting a second okay we'll have a vote uh Katie yep Lori hi Karen hi Jessica yes and I'm a yes okay you're welcome Jill I have no further updates for this evening okay all right so now we can make a motion oh actually dates to remember um April 11th is a joint meeting is that for all the school committees or it has been cancelled oh it's been cancelled so like we schedule for um the 9th the 9th April 9th M so is the as well it's just Silver Lake just Silver Lake okay spring vacation is April 15th through 19th and our next school committee meeting is 6 um would someone make a motion to adjourn not to come back to regular session I'll make a motion to adjourn to Executive session not returning to regular session uh via mgl c30a section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to Collective Bary contract negotiation with the HX professionals if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the public body and if the chair so declares the executive session pursuant to mgl C3 ax21 A7 to comply with or act under the authority of any general or special law approval of executive session minutes of March 5th 2024 second second okay roll call Katie yes Lori yes Karen yes Jessica yes myself is yes