[Music] okay seeing that it's uh 7:00 we'll uh open up the meeting of the uh Halifax planning board for uh May 16th 2024 uh present members our um uh myself Rick Mary Amy troop and Brendan Elliot uh just so uh everybody's aware uh the open meeting uh the planning board is meeting uh it is being recorded by area 58 and can be reviewed on YouTube all right uh let's uh let's I make a motion to accept the agenda hope it's written here with an appointment with trippy Cloud for uh 416 um Plymouth Street Park Plaza number 432a and discussions take to be taken on 400 Industrial Drive Felipe's Towing and some bills and minutes do I have a second second I have a motion in a second all those in favor to accept the agenda as has presented please say hi hi carries unanimous all right might might as well just kick it off then unless anybody feels we should wait for the applicant can do the bills in the minutes I think that we might want to give them a few minutes right yeah what we do that sounds good to me y okay uh let's get the bills out of the way make a motion that we pay the bill to P GB engineering invoice for uh 266 M ponon Street care review5 $1,520 do I have a second a second I have a um Motion in a second to accept uh the first bill for uh pgb engineering where have I got where's my number here there's another number on it oh 24-105 and I have a second one here for pgb engineering uh number 24-10 54 395 Plymouth Street I have a motion for $840 I'll make I'll make a motion to approve both 266 mon ponet Street and 152 for 1520 and 395 mon ponet Street for 840 okay all those in favor say I I I [Applause] I don't have them to look at yeah those are the only ones had I'm trying to think if uh they were if they were uh emailed to us I don't remember seeing them I didn't see them can I send that down oh yeah yeah that sent down pen pen pen thank you oh here is found it later bud see you bye thank you [Applause] [Applause] I miss the second one Rob again Rob G this is just going to need to be sent out to peer review anyway right yeah what's that we hav haven't we already seen this it's for the proposed shed open the discussion and we go through [Applause] that he's on back so they didn't lose them can we open the discussion have the discussion about the site plan while we wait for the applicant to potentially show up or not oh we we can have it without him you know if he doesn't commit of law we're still going to have a discussion about it oh okay I just thought you know you find any I didn't find anything I didn't find anything so um I'll swap you oh okay I was going to motion it I'll did you read these one uh that's the one I read over years okay I'm confused now okay [Applause] I don't know I'm if you're not 5 minutes early or 10 minutes late for meetings at least all right we sign in well we have to vote on it then we sign it I'll uh what's the first one this the April 4th the first yes uh I'll accept a motion to accept the minutes for April 4th the hell of explaining board so moved and a second second uh I have a motion to approve the minutes as presented for April 4th 20124 all those in favor say I [Applause] um on the April 14th is that the April 18th um minutes you can understand what is going on in most not all of it but some of it and I think that some of it should be noted in here so I would ask that um that would be updated and she doesn't mention what specifically you talking about so someone I tell oh sorry there's a place uh right here where it says that there's time missing but there is also time oh in audible that's right she said she said when she was doing the listening to the minutes all of it shut off right so but it's not all off so some of the things that I said need to be put into the minutes I'll never her double check that and then also I can come in and help her with it as well and then ALS so um in the second appointment structure that there none of my comments are in that as well so I'd ask her to update that all right all right so uh let's put it in the form of a motion regarding the U minutes of Thursday April 18th Amy you want to do that I'll make a motion to have the minutes include um Amy troop's comments from both of the appointments for for 16 Plymouth Street for the special paramid onor sign and also um on the site plan for the smoke shop at 432a which is back tonight and the uh smoke shop yep part of 416 Park Plaza M okay so then I'll uh request from Danielle that uh uh Thursday April 18th we reviewed on the tape and uh see if we can get some updates on that there is a notation here is as uh Amy May mentioned that the audio cut out there for a little while it's not all cut out and then there's nothing of my talk in the next and I find that to be not telling the whole story of the meeting more detail how's that yep more detailed SL comments how's that sure okay so then uh uh all those second in FA SEC the motion is seconded all those in favor of having the uh the minutes of uh uh Thursday April 18th uh updated with more detail uh please say I I I unanimous okay all right let's uh seee that it's uh shortly after 11 minutes after 7 when are we get on to our first appointment doesn't appear as though we're going to be here this is in regards to uh trippy Cloud LLC the application for the site plan review to open a smoke shop to be located at 432a Plymouth Street Park Plaza new site plan has been submitted by Patrick Maloney showing a division of the old church unit as requested by the board so make a note um the site then will will become part of the perent file for future reference future generations to come um I think we should be sending this out to peer review okay uh on Monday night I had an opportunity to uh speak with uh Town Council and uh Town Council said uh basically uh bottom line the discussion went that uh this is for an occupancy permit why is the planning board even getting involved in it and I said well I'll be honest with you the discussion went back and forth about the the change of use and I'm paraphrasing okay because we can have them come to the meeting and and explain it but uh nevertheless uh he said this is the zoning enforcement officers job and to uh whether or not to sign off on the occupancy permit and uh he said basically uh it's his call now I said what about the change of use he said I think definition wise technically wise it is a change of use if you want to split his however he did say that with an assembly there uh I'm sorry mean to put my back there with an assembly there's more restrictions and it's more stricter for parking wise than it is for the for a smoke shot he said an awful lot of other towns they have they have uh uh square footage requirements so if it's over, 1500 square ft or if it's over 2500 square ft it it has different uh definitions of of what parking is required but he said uh he said it's uh I I told them there there was a site plan it it uh it was uh reviewed not specifically for the smoke shop but for the property in general he uh the building inspector uh counted the uh the parking spaces and whatnot and included and I guess he did make the comment that he thought uh there was enough parking for the square footage of the of the buildings and the lot and uh he never said yes I think you know I should give the occupancy permit or I shouldn't but uh I don't know that was uh that was the discussion I had that uh it's the building inspector's call I I I don't and then you went on to say the that the bottom line there should be no reason why once the site review has been done and the perie done that every business going here needs a site plan review for a new business going in that's why but this I'm just telling you what the conversation was whether true or not that's that's what he said and uh he counted uh he counted the spaces and whatnot who shoot uh the building inspector and trying to think of the exact number he said there was uh should be on uh just for Devil's Advocate purposes we've been scratching and claing to get an updated site plan from this business or this building owner for years two years so now that we have one wouldn't it just make sense to send it out to peer review just so that it's who has to pay for this Pew the owner of the property right well hasn't the owner of the property already paid for a p review I have no idea what they paid for or not paid for and he didn't but this this whole entire thing has been divided into four maybe five over here because the bead shop in front of tikas that's one we have the smoke shop trying to go in that's is that what it is shop is that what it is I'm taking that from you but I I had Crystal you know that's what I I haven't been in there yeah yeah yeah had my sure the fight Zone the Kennedy dog place so that that is divided into four units we don't see the bead shop there so I'm not sure if it's still part of teins or not so I'll give it that they have um offices that are being leased individually now and that's an ass sign in the window they have a bakery that's put in here and um um hasn't and again I'm not asking for all of these uses to come in however that and then the Halifax nail spa and then the Rodney's kitchen and then we added this as a use the pump building and we added nzis Farm as a use okay so we have 1 2 3 four five poal potential new places in a building and it goes by the amount of parking that is needed for each IND individual business right there's not been storm water management when they took down all those trees and there are giant puddles out in back nezis in front of the pump house of broken up um tar and a whole bunch of issues back there they have not labeled out any of the directions around the building they added a door over here to the left a door here a door here there's a lot of changes it needs to go to peer review well you don't have a leg to stand on on the other ones that you want to send a peer review they're going to just come back and say well at 4:16 Park Plaza on pth Street you didn't make them go so we're not going to go either and they're going to stand in a in a quarter l so so back to my original sent statement right was just you know one of the the practices that we've implemented I think pretty much the month that I joined right 3 years ago whatever it was every new site plan goes to peer review it was just to eliminate all the potential every what did you say every new site plan new went to pview it wasn't who was the applicant you may as well take all the names off and just go new site plan peer review so that was that's step one but then I think because we've been chasing this down for so long why wouldn't we just so that we have the most updated legal stuff like and I agree I get it with all what all you're saying but if you even get more on a more simple level than that it's just this is a new site plan to which we've been chasing down for 2 years let's get it off to peer review so that they can check the boxes or do whatever they do to it and then it goes off to the building inspector and he can do whatever he needs with it but we've at least done our due diligence as our board to say new s plan peer review updated M well then I I personally would would like to go back and check and and to see uh in the meetings past in the minutes where I I know Mr Brennan has has come here and spoken about about this site and in whether or not there was an actual written peer review I don't I don't recall it I'd have to look it up from my knowledge and maybe unless it was at a meeting I wasn't there for but I guess my my follow question would be why wouldn't we just send it to peer review like well like what would a what would a leading for all the things that I just said so to not bore everybody why wouldn't we just send it off to PW like if it's like an innocent till proven guilty give me a give me a reason a a a a Fighting Chance at saying we don't need to do that what's peerreview going to do this have anything to do with these businesses in this existing building that's been there for years and years since to zoning this building has been there I think the peer review the peer review is going to take the most recent site plan and bring it up to speed bring it up to code bring it up to file so that we can have cuz to your point you said you were going to make a note that this was going to be labeled for future years to come for the file well if that's the case if this is going to be the document that we use for future Generations then this needs to be to sent to peer review I just don't know why there's a a hesitancy for that well the the only other thing is if uh peer review isn't required by uh the application of an occupancy permit but does it does it boil down to are we singling this out can we go down the street and say the exact same thing to to another business is coming in I think I'm missing something and it might have been a conversation that I wasn't here for but for the last 2 years we've been fighting for an updated site plan right and now we have one and now we're trying to come up with all why not to send it to peer review We cuz we had a peer review even though we used the site plans that were available to us no I thought we had a peer review on this individual section for nzas but that didn't include the entire building we had done for the kennels to go back but not as an entire site plan so if this is going to be the document that we're going to use moving forward for this entire building and all future businesses that go in and this is the most updated site plan why wouldn't we send it to peerreview I keep I feel like we keep coming up with reasons why we so in the meantime we're saying that this smoke shop can't go in that building until perview looks at the plan but according to uh attorney huum and the bill inspector they don't have to come to plan board to get documen permit in that's what the question was why are they come to begin with but they're not here anyway so it doesn't really matter right did you tell Rich hom that there's multiple new sections that were created and this question was to is it the same footprint did they that's not how by laer well I'm just you asked a question I'm answering you that's not I what would the what would okay I thought you asked me a question what would the downside be what would the downside be to sending it to peer riew like what's it I don't I don't understand why we're hesitating to just check this out like if anybody were to I don't know I'm I think I'm missing something cuz I'm you know me as long as it makes sense got my vote so whoever has to pay for the peerreview that would be the the property owner so does he have to agree to send the peerreview or who's and we going to get a bill from uh from Pat Brennan and who's going to pay it he has to set up a revolving fund just like everybody else in town yeah I know that but is he going to do that it took long enough it took long enough to get this plan so well that's why I'm concerned right is it took forever I mean all we were asking for was a simple updated site plan and it took us over 2 years to get it now we finally have it for some reason we're like letting them off the hook and skirting around the peer review I don't know if there's like a chest of gold buried back there that I wasn't privy to I don't know what the I don't know why we wouldn't and if he doesn't If he if he's willing to finally give us an updated site plan and we send it to peer review there's the kickle right there too because remember uh Mr narella had to pay for the last site plane because Maloney wouldn't then all of a sudden this shows up but but but bottom line you're going to ask him you're going to ask him to pay for a revolver he's a business owner and a building owner in town that he's bringing in new occupant into and we finally have an updated site plan that we are going to use as the staple document for all future businesses that go in here I think it is it's a no-brainer it's I I don't even see an ounce of and if he's on willing to do that then we will have to continue to say to all future businesses that come in we would love for you to come here however this needed to go to peer review and it has not been paid for by the building owner so therefore until that gets done you don't get to come in we have turned away four we have turned away four different since I've been here four different businesses to go in here just to get this document now we have this document and we're skirting around the peer review I don't understand what what happens now when you just for an example now if the building inspector comes out and says uh no it's an occupancy permit it's it there is no need for the smoke shop uh to get a a s plan review or peer review it's just for the occupancy permit and I find meaning the building inspector finds that it's a business in a business Zone and whatnot and says signs off on an occupancy permit good he says he makes that decision yeah and then we're still going to force it this this building has been changed since the previous PE riew has been done on this on this site so therefore because this because this property has been changed since the last time a peer review has been done on this site then if the building inspector wants to sign off on the smoke shop God bless you we still have a responsibility to the town for our records to have the most up updated site plan approved through a peer revie officially to make this the official accepted document moving forward otherwise we can just pick and choose when to send people to peer review and not and three years ago we decided we weren't going to do that but no no no the peer review for new site plan for a new site was that's the way it should be because prior to that it was pick and choose who you're going to have to do who you're not going to do it I just I don't think I'm being malicious or picking on the guy I mean I don't even really have a dog in the fight I just from what my understanding was of the precedent that we had set 3 years ago to make sure that we didn't open ourselves up to any kind of lawsuits it was peer review for all new sight plants we'll deal with the next step The Next Step but there's no point talking about the next step until that peer review gets done and then once it's done good news is hopefully that building is here for when my kids open a business but the site I mean I mean like the site plan itself is involved with the with the building the parking lot and outside the building what does that have to do with uh Tippy clouds smoke shot CU it's going into this building and it does not have an updated peerreview approved site plan that's what it has do that and if the billing inspector comes out and says he doesn't need one for his occupancy we're going to force him to do one anyway because I would say yes because we need to check the box if this is going to be the document in for because then moving forward for anything get rid of the smoke shop or whatever if ask the board members then uh is it something that we want to send a letter off to the building inspector to I mean we're we're putting basically assuming what he's going to say or not say you know should we we get an actual uh I don't think the building inspector has anything to do with I'm just telling you that's what that's what Town Council said you know well I don't think that Town Council knows how many extra places are there now so I don't you're right because he was talking thank you he was he was talking in general why isation like this going before the planning board really basically doesn't have anything to do with the planning board it's up to the building inspector to make that decision does and does Town Council know that we've been chasing the building owner down for two years to get an updated site plan to which we have not been our requests have not been met and therefore multiple businesses have been forced to walk away and now that we have one sitting in front of us it's almost our due diligence it's like it's our responsibility to go peer review it is and then and if you've gotten this far why wouldn't you you're at 26 miles out of 26.2 why wouldn't you just finish the race and to your point instead of um speculating what a building inspector would say or even what a building owner would say request that it needs to go to peer review so that it lines up with the rest of our process and due diligence and protocol and let the business owner decide what his next actions are why don't we do that then why don't we send a letter off to the uh Mr Maloney or the property owner and re and request him that uh he he Supply the uh the blood with a updated peer review of the property at so one step make it even easier I make a motion that we send this site plan out for peer review and then the business owner Mr Maloney will then get notification that he has to pay for don't you normally before you send something to payper youw for a site plan you get the people who own the site to set roling account before you send well that will be part of the motion that's easy we can say um owner of 416 Plymouth Street Park Plaza is to set up a revolving account so that the town can have the site plan that is sitting in front of us right here here engineered in order for us to go forward with site plan approvals which include and all future businesses that can going so just as a reminder chapter 16728 site plan requirements no permit shall be granted for any commercial industrial business institutional apartment multi-dwelling municipal or School building or public utility structure and none of the above classes of structures shall be constructed or externally enlarged and no such use shall be expanded or established in an existing building or lot not therefore used for such purposes except in Conformity with a site plan bearing an endorsement of approval of the planning board said site plan shall show the owner of record location Zone boundary lines easements are other legal restrictions exact location of buildings on the lot with side front and rear Dimensions lot Dimensions topography adjacent public ways location of off street parking lighting Utility Systems surface drainage traffic flow location and nature of Open Spaces with specific notations as to Landscaping Locust plan and other details deemed necessary by the planning board the planning board May wave or substantially reduce the site plan submission requirements for projects having limited or minor impacts consistent with the purposes of the chapter they need to S submit nine copies of their site plan to the town clerk okay when we make reference to that then what is that 167 what is it it's site plan chapter 16728 unless feel like that formable motion yeah I we'll we'll send it to uh we'll send it both to uh I would say the building inspector and I would say also say Mr Maloney the property owner so that they know what's what's going on this is an elected board and the building inspector doesn't have any decision on over while whether or not we but take our job that we had taken oath of office to do to make sure that this occurs so once he's the one that makes the decision whether he issues a occupancy permit and he should be make made aware that this process is being done in order for him to make a decision on the on the occup or not has nothing to do with what a how is our around I'm not questioning is you know anything like that couldn't agree with you Mar so I I'm just saying so that we are uniform in the way in which we conduct ourselves we just say we have a new site plan plan of an old building that has changed multiple times and now that we've been provided a new site plan per our process we need to send it out to peer review and we can notify every resident at Halifax if we want it doesn't really matter the point is is we have a new site plan that's going to have future businesses going into it it needs to go out to a peer review especially if this is going to be the official site plan document used for all future development in that property so unless we're I mean the only reason I could think of why we wouldn't do this is if it's going to somehow get somebody in trouble and I don't I don't know how why why we I don't I don't know who or what or why but I just I feel like if it were I feel like this is what we've asked for we've been asking for a site plan for years and we finally got it and now we're at the finish line and we're going to just skip one of the most important certification parts of our process because and the only thing I disagree with that is your word skip if in fact it's not required you know we're not skipping over but I I you know theyy voice to check it's just such an then we never have to talk about this ever again cuz then the next business that comes in we can go oh yeah hey remember back in may we got this done let's uh let's pull out that site plan cuz it's already been peer reviewed so what are some of the changes that you're looking at making and what's a special permit that you got to do but now the next business that comes in we're going to have to go oh yeah that site plan that we got that we fought for for two years that we just at the last minute decided not to send to peer review it just it's going to mudy the water in the future okay so just so R why don't we make that in the form of a motion okay okay and the other kicker is 167 we have to notify uh 16 yeah 28 sorry okay go ahead we have to notify trippy Cloud that he's he's not going to be able to occupy the the store until Mr Malone provides the bull with yeah and the nice part about that is if we go back and rewatch the last meeting when they were here I told them that that was the process I said we cannot move forward until you get us a peer review I mean a site plan a new site plan that we can then send out for peer review and then we can discuss right and so that that's actually line up because he was like so you're telling me I can't move forward with my tobacco license and we're like not until we get an updated site plan that then needs to go out to peer review and then as soon as you get that we can continue the discussion I said and we want you in town and he was like okay and then when we got this I was like all right we're making progress and here we are right about to check that box so if it's okay I'd like to make a motion that we send the most recent site plan received for 416 416 Plymouth stre is it dated on the dated April 29th 2024 well I think that should be included yeah to send it out to for our official peer review inciting our bylaw 16728 as well as send out correspondents to the property owner Mr Maloney our building inspector as well as the business owner of trippy Cloud LLC and then as soon as it's done we can to set up the revolving and we would need to request that um the property owner Mr Maloney set up a revolving account to pay for the peer review okay second okay I have a any further discussion Rick no all right I have a motion I have a second I'll uh ask for a roll call vote on the uh motion Brendan brenon Elliot I Amy troop I um Rick Rick Mary yes bricky yes thank you all right cool that'll be clean moving forward all right this is uh this is Tippy here we got bills we got minutes oh signatures I got a fold here Polie s side pool and requiring or not requiring a site plan review for 40 Industrial do you know what 400 Industrial is currently because we don't have the file here I can look it up 400 Industrial yeah let me look at it can I ask a question about a um 400 yes it's on a property that I heard did that landscaping company that we went through all that process on 106 pull out really but didn't they clear all the stuff is isn't that is that definite or is it well that was my question I don't want anything on the record like a def it was at the zoning board oh and he said he's withdrawing me that's what I heard but like didn't they spend all that money to clear all that land and like have all the conversations about the trees they were going to keep with the neighbors Conservation Area yeah engine engineering everything else and they just well they all they did was clear the lot that's all they did yeah but they cleared it you can see all the stream beds now that's a crime that's interesting that's why I just I was wondering why some things hadn't gone up and then I heard that it they change a heart and the poor lady in the back that was begging us to save trees her house is now like in full sight of 106 so discussion SL action to be taken uh on our agenda 400 Industrial dve Felipe's Towing uh are looking to run an online car selling business a dealer license application has has been filled out as a dealer license is still needed even for online sales planning board verification is needed to either require a site plan review or not require it see form to sign off located oh in the black signature fall so to the board of Select does not require what's on the what's 400 what's on the an now I have no idea DMC racing Dennis MC's um painting where was that like opposite of if you go in um Industrial Drive you know on the right right you go Industrial Drive it's I believe the second building on the left oh before the uh before the it might be the third making by I think it's a third on third yeah I think kone's there is Kone still there I think he's next to Kone you youed have the sand blast in place out front but he's not there anymore that's a oh the one at the very top of the hill yeah well the big giant one we you see sand blasting and then I think it was Kone next to I'm not sure but he's he second or third building down the left that's what he is yeah and the picture of this um field card isn't coming up so uh uh let me ask then is uh 400 is the uh I mean I is there any more information on an application or okay nothing oh there is a ownership and all that kind of stuff on there [Music] okay so this is a good size building then see this is we're guessing what's that DFC Yeah well yeah so it says to buy vehicles this is basically what you said right to buy vehicles from the auction and then sell them back to the auction cars will not be displayed it doesn't say they won't be stored it say they won't be displayed I think we need to have them come in and ask them questions you know what I mean before we can decide any of that cuz it's I mean like it's the fourth building back on the Left Behind Johnny macaron DMC racing Motorsports for building okay yeah just before the uh machine and design and cl street services okay that's the only so well those are the questions that they're looking for a for us does it require a site plan this is to verify the following application does it does not require a new site plan requireed a new site plan for which one has been approved section two no restrictions on this permit or request following restrictions on permit well if they were so the way I interpret displaying cars I think of like a car dealership on 44 so they're saying that's not the case but if you're going to need a warehouse space for an automotive online you buy a car you bring a stored in that warehouse and then somebody comes and picks it up whoever bought it or they ship it out then if you're storing cars don't you have to have like drainage and all that stuff properly mhm well if it's Dennis's building he has paint in the cars I don't know where he would be going um but he already has all that set up inside cuz he paints racing cars oh cool yeah he's very talented he builds the racing CS builds TR that's cool yeah sweet he's one one of the best in the country no kidding yeah that's sweet I forgot that part that he builds into I think that's mainly what he does I don't think he's a painter probably ships him over to peroids right I don't know if he there's another shop down the street that paints him or something like that he he builds that's what he does he's just he he builds his guys sweet okay I cool though my grandson works there that's all oh there you go so so then the building is currently being used yeah to store repair stuff well he just build he builds you see we're guessing and like like you that's what you read makes no sense to me to buy vehicles from the auction and sell them back to the auction okay why would you do that I maybe I just don't know how the business or potentially so you buy them from the auction you put them online and if they don't sell within a certain amount of days you bring them back to the auction depending on what you can get for price so then why are they selling them back to the auction if they don't sell them on retail online oh cars will not be displayed but it doesn't say not stored so and I'm I'm okay with that building having cars there I know it's set up for that but like how many cars could you put in that building a lot it's usually like stantic in there I've never been to S oh you haven't it's it's unbelievable it's all it's all cars and tons of people working on 10 cars I'm get I have no idea more towards like the 2530 but maybe not that much so if they brought them in and didn't sell them they'd sell them back to the Au they just sell them back in auction either the same auction or someplace different depending on I mean think about if you were to buy let's say you bought 10 used cars from an auction 2 years ago right and then when that whole mic chip issue came up and they were using used cars like crazy you'd make 300% on your auction car investment I mean cuz used cars were like they're in desperate need of them because they can't get new cars in because of the microchip issue so if they were buying stuff from the auction to put all those crazy dealer stickers on them and stick them out on the street that's obviously not what they're trying to do but if he's like I'm going to buy them from the auction try to sell them if I don't I'm going to bring them back to the auction so that's really just a holding place okay okay so it's not a but again that's speculation I don't know you don't know until you have them come in and say you what are you actually doing I think it's just 100% I think that would just be a request for an appointment just to clarify like hey man what are you going to do yeah y it it would almost make sense that they have to recognize the distinction between you opening up a used car lot as opposed to we're trying to flip cuse and we don't we're going to send them back to auction we they taken the chance of buying it paying a fee at an option and not selling it having to pay a fee again to put it back on the option I mean there's got to be a whole used car auction Market that I don't have any exposure to but there's got to be a business to it I mean commercials on TV are it's crazy constant yeah so you think about all that like bartering like world that people make so much money like buying and selling used stuff it's like there's obviously a market for it in in vehicles but okay yeah what's the pleasure of the board I think we should have them come in for an appointment and tell us a little bit more in detail like is DMC staying there and they're joining that cuz it sounds like your grandson works there right Rick well just few hour well I'm just saying like so it doesn't seem like they're moving out or leaving I doubt he's leaving right so is he joining there where are the cars going to yeah well that's why I'm saying we need them to come in that's Point that's one thing too but it's Philip's Towing yeah okay now let's throw Towing into the middle of the mix right I think you're right we need more detail yeah I think cuz I think if you he's probably going to to them from the auction right because that's how he's going to get it so you're you're you're 100% sure it's that it's that property that he wants to use I just Google it like I Googled it what it popped up as I looked it up on the assess field motion please I'll make a motion that we ask uh Felipe Towing Gabriel Panero um to come in to our next meeting to explain or provide a clarification as to the manner of his future business in that building I'll second that I have a motion on a second uh regarding the application at the 400 Industrial Drive philippy Towing all those in favor say I I I unanimous cool what else do we have the folks oh mail correspondents just so make the board aware town of East Bridgewater they have notices of public hearing of approval on Cross Street Middleboro notice of public hearing town of Pembrook uh an approval for site plan review for 345 Washington Street a notice of public hearing on haror Mark in the town of Clon a notice of public hearing for Amendment to the plon zoning bylaw our next schedule meeting is June 6th where's the plon one what's that where's the plon um notice Plimpton has a public hearing at the Deborah Samson meeting room of The Plimpton townhouse five P Road Plimpton on oh it's already happened on may7th but the uh so excuse that's okay hearing for the notice for Amendment to the plon zoning B law was um add the words mobile home and trailers to is owning bylaw which doesn't really say the rest of the bylaw so we'd have to have that in front of us but it already happened um we don't have on here in our correspondence um but we did get correspondence I saw us all get it from Michael pey does everybody recall that in your email on 265 and 266 mon ponet Street the thork development project um he's said that below he uh please find an email that was sent to the Halifax Selectmen this morning regarding significant concerns for the Thorndike project we have tried to attend various planning board meetings that don't always coincide with our work schedules or cancelled and rescheduled but we're direct to Butters and they sent dear town of Halifax Selman we are reaching out to you regarding the development of a massive apartment complex um by Thor D development on 266 and 265 M ponet Street Halifax Mass we are direct Butters to these properties and we have significant concerns regarding the building of a three-story apartment complex adjacent to our property although this street is a meain route it is generally a quiet area this project is going to drastically change our neighborhood as a whole due to the added traffic noise lighting Etc the property at 266 mon ponset street is a 1 2 acre property and thorndike's planning to jam a huge apartment complex three stories high and a 12C car garage right on top of us we were told by the town of Halifax Building Inspector that the garage will be 5 ft from our property line and driveway how is this legal and why were we not notified of this the neighborhood here is Extreme wetlands and we have significant concerns putting an enormous septic system for a three-story apartment right next door to to our home and property we can hear some pumps running in our neighborhood because of extremely high water tables we personally had to pay thousands of dollars one recent spring as the water table got so high from the rain that our leeching field was pushing water into our septic tank and into our basement we have lived in this neighborhood for 50 years and know that there have been extreme water issues with issues with several neighbors and at the condo comp complex in the neighborhood that's the Li and Lane one they're referring to there has been a single family home at 266 poned Street for hundreds of years why Chang to a three-story apartment complex now in a small town like Halifax this is like putting up a skyscraper a local Builder first bought this property at the at the O'Brien family auction in 2019 and he was denied putting up two town houses because of zoning issues why is it now okay to put up a three-story apartment complex on this small property with a 12C car garage other concerns regarding this project are lighting issues as our living room and bedroom are facing this property we also have serious concerns with the entrance and exit to this complex that as it is literally a few feet from our driveway this is a major concern as we have a new Teenage driver and an elderly parent living with us there will also be major traffic issues for the entire neighborhood which Thorndike is underestimating the largest intersection in this town is only a few hundred feet away which is already jam-packed in the morning and evening commutes without hundreds of additional people living in the area we are going to lose all privacy in our backyard where our patio and pool have been for decades as this massive structure overlooks our property another concern is the pickle ball court being constructed right across the street at 265 mon ponset Street location these C will have extreme sound issues as our home is directly across the street I strongly believe that all the above items and concerns fall under Massachusetts nuisance law for privacy and the right to use and enjoy our land overall this project would be life-changing for us and our town neighborhood this project has caused significant anxiety for us and concern for our overall health and well-being please don't hesitate to reach out to us to discuss thank you Michael and Deborah peasy 254 M straet okay thank you yeah you know that's the one that uh they did claim that they talked to and had yeah they said they said they yeah nicely nice unfortunately actually the state hasn't approved it yet so we can hope that they won't but that was a letter to the select yeah y but they also sent us one what a week ago to weeks ago but it's all right anything else any business motion to I'm a motion to adjourn a second second Motion in a second all those in favor say I I passes unanimously all right thank you very much good job Vice chair [Music] --------- [Music] all righty folks good evening I'd like to call to order the Silver Lake Regional school committee meeting for Thursday May 16th um we are being recorded recorded and if anybody else in the audience is recording as well if they could please let the chair myself know that um to begin the meeting I would entertain a motion to go into executive session I we go into executive session pursuant to chapter 30A section 21 to conduct elective baring sessions or to contract negotiations with non-union personnel which is high school principal and Mass General Law chapter 38 section 21 A7 to comply with or act under the authority of any general or special law which is the approval of executive session minutes of 5924 and to return to open session second second okay I'm sorry go ahead Jason I just want for any members of the audience who might be here can we have an estimated time that we may be an executive session for 15 minutes maybe drops you have just an estimate just for the public who are here thank you madam chair okay um roll call Jason yes Lucas yes Mark yes Mike yes uh Jeanie yes Amy yes Gordon yes myself as a yes thank you we'll be back as soon as we can we are back thank you for bearing with us so next on the agenda we're we're on yes okay next on the agenda um public participation if anybody um in the audience wishes speak if you could um sir if you could give us your name in what town you're from hi my name is pater I'm from Halifax Mass um speak for a living um but the matter I'd like to talk to about is pretty complicated and I wanted to make sure I was clearly communicating to everyone here um about matters that have involved my family and son over the last full calendar year um so there's three specific areas I wanted to talk to you about the ongoing failure of providing safe learning environment for our son jack gy at Silver Lake the effect it has had on our child and our family over the course of a full year in recent fitory responses by your Administration on my child we've been dealing with what we thought was bullying since the end of last year what we've learned through several investigations outside input and from Principal coet is that bullying basically doesn't exist in the sver Lake School System the direct Co quote from principal quet was there's only been one formal case of bullying during her pen I have provided use the committee dozens of documents including email chains and investigation reports there's got to be 30 pages of documentation we have been told there have been investigations by the superintendent the board into Civil Lake Middle School investigative processes however received no outcome to either of them any of our own push into the details of specific Sol Lake Middle School investigations has yielded an inconsistent response in details and parties involved even the presentation of where a teacher was in relation to our son during an assault was misrepresented to us and affirmed when we had the opportunity to speak directly with that teacher the process has been handled halfhazard and now we're at a point where our son is being targeted by staff when Jack first let us in and shared he being bullied at school we were quick to engage Silver Lake Middle School Jack was incredibly reluctant stating he knew it wouldn't help he would be labeled a snitch an outcast and the teachers and administrators would turn against him sadly he was right and all of this came through damaging his trust both with me and my wife Nicole and our ability to protect him when we found what we found fast was Silver Lake Middle School was not forthcoming with process or actions that were voluntar required and the subsequent Downstream implications of su it's difficult to make informed decisions if those controlling the public process are unwilling or ignorant to the need in Sharing such information with a parent dealing in crisis this particular instance was the second it was mediated however shortly thereafter more instances started to occur to a point that led to spiraling anxiety sleepless nights and eventually full self harm of Jack the self was documented by the school by the way that very present on his body I'm talking he was afraid to go to school on Monday starting on Saturday night the situation in bullying became like a laack andle new groups of kids would pop up daily and weekly to harass him physically emotionally and mentally his status devolved to an outcast or a pariah in the student body the school entertained our correspondence however no plan to help Jack rejoin the student Community or take steps to look after his being going forward were taken in fact the first time it seemed the reintroduction process should be initiated was when my wife Nicole proactively brought it up and short we had documents called Safety plans written for very specific antagonists and specific actions but that was the extent it was also unclear and often proven that classroom teachers weren't aware of what was happening documented or their role to oversee a safe learning environment for all kids particularly those with documented ongoing problems The Bullying investigations have yielded nothing of substance other than a tremendous weight on emotions and a large time commitment by myself and others in your staff Jack was however implicated recently in an inappropriate touching incident where he briefly tapped the student on a lower back during lunch busy lunch it's remarkable a teacher whom was one of five in a full lunch was able to see such a quick brief and harmless action and immediately alert principal in Washington DC oddly enough a teacher overseeing a smaller group in similar proximity for a different incident was unable to see Jack assaulted twice by two separate students most recently Jack has been implicated in a graffiti incident we had heard from the kids interviewed and they have shared how vice principal rothm MIT and principal KET have been leading and damning about Jack's character role despite the kids disagreeing with the actions they said he did it's been remarkable in the difference between these last two investigations the first there were videos presented on screens and printouts ready to go even naming other students involved the recent one had videos of print outs however none of them was proactively shown or responded to they have also refused to share names or any details which again there are details shared but it's been very inconsistent make no mistake Nicole and I are objective parents our kid isn't perfect he's pain we stand by him in his word a significant part of that belief and stance is founded in the fact that he's been accurate to date on everything that's happened and how it's unfolded to the best of our knowledge Jack has had no prior disciplinary issues with the school until the last couple of months he's gone through a terrible year and we have advocated fiercely on his behalf it's odd that now for the first time ever he's been implicated in uncharacteristic disciplinary investigations one could see a high degree of correlation here or even draw causation it's a tragic here to navigate for our family we will continue to work with you the superintendent DC outside Council about the other kids who are suffering without advocacy that we're providing for our son we've heard lots of stories from other parents and our son about other kids in similar bad situations here say maybe but where there smoke there fire all we're saying is hold teachers more accountable if teachers don't value and we believe in public education and the service but there are in any standard distribution there are going to be outliers if those outliers don't value Children First their psychology and process to support safe learning they should seek another role roast up not actually not grow up not including Healthcare pension the average teacher salary in Silver Lake in 2021 was no almost $93,000 that is 67% greater than the average income of a single person in Halifax 59% greater than the same of Kingston and 71% greater than Clinton teachers are well compensated and should be held more accountable for our children's learning safety my comments for leadership are the same I have shared the same documents sent to the committee with outside Educators in similar size for larger schools and they were disgusted teachers and administrators one response was the way in which he's been treated is deplorable I quote Administration strategy of pressuring scapegoating and gaslighting the victim is deplorable these are peer Educators in massachusett please be better we will continue to Advocate thank you if you have any questions I'm happy to answer them sir I thinkk you first of all thank you for coming in and having your your thoughts very well thought out and coordinated bullying and and such as nothing this committee condones um certainly we've had incidences in the the past and um the um you know at one point the American defamation lead coming in and um doing some training I think you said something about you've you've gone through the process to the point where you mentioned desie you've you've done something with desie desie should have already been in touch with you about their investigation okay if not they will be okay all right um let me say this let let me I be privy to the dusty response I don't know that they copy School committees it's generally shared with the um with the superintendant and often times the special education director okay all righty um I'm not sure if I can provide that update to this Committee in Open Session where it's about a a student mhm um let us see what Jessie comes back with even if we're not privy specifically let let me see what Jessie comes back with in their findings um and I in possession of the same amount of documentation that I provided every person on this committee other than the most recent documentation which I will send the one as well okay all right um let let me digest this and and come back to you I I will get your contact information it's on the email that I sent previously and I will look into what I'm able to share with the chair our hands are tied by privacy issues obviously but um let's see where the process takes us and and I I will respond back to you okay okay anybody else have any I received your email I believe i' like to know that I received it comment back because um to the chair's point we're we're not able to discuss due to privacy issues so understand um but I doo hope that there's a resolution that's positive for your son as a parent I have to ask understand Hippa and any other variation of a Privacy Law you have to provide by it has been inconsistent in practice has been our experience thus far okay well I I thank you again for coming in and giving us us this sort of detail and update thank you for having me at this forum appreciate it thank you is there anybody else in the audience okay all righty we close public participation approval of minutes anyone has a a motion I make a motion to approve the regular session minutes of April 9th second okay any discussion seeing none okay all those in favor abstain okay um mam chair I'd like to make a motion to take an item out of order sure um so if I could I need to leave early so I'd like to um present the pack report from our last meeting of the year um you y let's do a second second all right all those in favor I thanks um okay thank you committee um so it was a big meeting um and there's a lot of information so I just wanted to pass this on um we did pass the budget for the fy2 5 um p in the amount of 11,1 15545 22 um we also approved the par professional and ESP contract for FY 24327 um and the last big item was um there was another budget surplus this year they did not freeze tuition um it is going to be for FY 2425 68811 which is a small increase and there was a motion made because they're outgrowing their space um to set aside an amount of $500,000 into a reserve fund so that we will be in a position to move into a dedicated space or pack when it becomes available if anyone has any questions on any of that uh the tuition for for which program was that a um that was the only one that they they just gave gave us for I so I'm not sure if that was for Seaside or if they're all going to be that amount or they vary but that was the only dollar amount that was given for tuition per student thank you and they're actually upo that space were they looking for a building before am I remembering that so um they did commission a building down at the registry of motor vehicles in Plymouth they they built with the private company Fox Rock a purpose buil building for their um social emotional High School um it does hold 5 to 12 and they also had a building down in Plymouth that they were looking to purchase um that fell through town of Plymouth took it off the marker right before they did buy it um so they've been running their Seaside program out of rental space for time um Amy is more current on their current needs but they they did have a purpose built building I was part of that building and I think moving forward um they are dip was saying that they are actually not looking to purchase a building in case because the needs change from year to year if they build a building and then it turns out to be too big or too small or not what they need so they are looking to move into rental and I believe they are going to be renting some space from Silver Lake Ming forward or maybe Kingston that's excellent well thank you for is that the entire report that's that's pretty much the enre it's just a lot of money items yeah yeah very good thank you and thank you for coming in before the concert excellent concert enjoy I'll be here a little bit okay all righty um facilities update so I'm going to start with that um the CTE Overhead Door project um is I I want to give you a status I put some schedules of from khabib and Associates in the folder so the bids for the CTE Overhead Door project were posted on March 11th they were due back on April 11th and the schedule said that we would award the contract on May 9th we didn't have a meeting it so we weren't able to um to talk about it and vote the NATO Corporation was the lowest bid at $177,600 there were three bids received that ranged from the $177,600 up to $349,250 the $177,600 plus the engineering costs for this project is $19,300 more than what was budgeted I put a a document in the folder for you that what had a brief summary of where we were with FY 24 Capital Pro projects and you can see that um for the stage curtains for the middle school and high school alone there was $60,000 budgeted but $3 37,62379 there um so we certainly have the Capital Money available for this uh project and the next step for me would be to send a certificate a vote and a notice to proceed to Nato Corporation but that requires a vote from the school committee Mark so uh to just add to that very well uh presentation the engineering cost were 23,500 I believe um which we had to do to get prepared for this project the bid only has two doors in it I was going to ask that okay okay so other than that I think Sarah did nice present um so without being able to get the third door at least in that side of the building done the add alternate was no savings um was an additional $799,000 to do the third door um we certainly don't have enough money I believe in the capital plan to do that but we did find enough money thanks to her the shortages on the other two projects to have enough to do two doors and then um we have our house doctor here um Scott bangro that give us some details on why this repair is going to take so much money U most people think a garage door certainly not a $79,000 project but um I'd like to yield the floor and introduce Scott bankr to the group yeah a real quick presentation on on why yeah um so we spent a lot of time uh looking into this um it turns out that it's not just overhead doors it's an assembly of components and each of those openings there five openings they originally built with a structural steel frame and the door was inset into it um and we we learned as the product went on that during 2001 when that overhead door was replaced it's not the original door the the steel frames were cut to get the motor to be inset into it so the the frame on both sides of the door there's a gap there so whenever you open the door the door is just it's vibrating it's moving there no stral Integrity left of that frame so that's a big chunk of the money um for these doors um you know if you replaceing just the overhead door you still got have the same problem CU it's going to be it's going to be racking you know this it's the steel frame has to be repaired in order to get this these doors to work correctly um and this is it sounds like this has been a problem for for a while with some of the doors just not open yeah they don't close correctly they don't open correctly um we get a lot of water in certain areas because the top of the door is sticking out you know almost a full inch we've had to replace the over the years because they completely R out um metal FB door has the biggest issue when the sun comes up and it heats up that door we're constantly in there adjusting the door stri cuz the door swells up in the Heat and when you come in uh try to leave from the inside the push bar on the door doesn't engage because it's so tight Michael you're talking about this entry door entry door on from yeah but it's all part of the problem with the framing so we could put a new entry door there but they're in the same position so placing the door just yeah everything's tied to that steel it's a like a 12in structural G that runs from the you know the ground up to the underside of the roof raming and it was just cut to get that motor for the overhead so now that's compromised so that's really a good place so they basically it's not a garage door it's a rebuild of the entire steel frame there's concrete motar work involved the bid documents on this particular project with 27 Pages which was nice to share but it took me quite a while so um it's a pretty extensive project it's just whether or not the committee feels um you know when you equate that kind of price tag with the other things for paying for now we're late getting to this situation and I wouldn't want to second guess the the work that has been done to date and we have invested a lot of money into it all those things considered but I think it's a committee decision of whether or not this is a repair at this point um to go forward there was some addressing of safety concerns that the doors wouldn't be able to open and closed in the event of lockdowns and that kind of I I don't know if they are typically used in an open in position when uh during class work and they assume they were cycled open and Clos to bring a vehicle in and out in this case um I don't think it's necessarily a safe to somebody getting hurt but it is a structural component that eventually we're going to have to fix uh on the building but it is much more involved than a garage store place so if I could just touch on the safety concern that Mr Green mentioned um I had a conversation with facilities director Lawless he had just prior to our conversation been over in the CTE wing and had manually closed the door because it doesn't open and shut electronically and he said it took him about 10 minutes I was shocked to learn that and I had a conversation with Mr blet who is part of the emergency resp response team for the high school and I asked if if the doors were open and the building were to go into a lock down is this going to know 10 minutes to shut a door is that a concern and the answer back was yes so it's not as much a safety concern that the door is going to slip down and close on somebody's foot it's it's an Integrity of the building when you don't want people here but I I think that that's certainly a concern but I think the concern is um we we have the funds right now to do two doors um but these may be the the limit as we go forward we can significantly uh reduce the capital plan next year and it would be hard to find $79,000 a year for the next 3 years to be able to do this assuming the price isn't going to escalate if all of these doors need this kind of attention but at this point um I think um I would support going forward with the two doors that we have um you know as long as the committee understands that that that's why the price is so high and we're going to we're going to have to find some funds to to to replace the remaining doors if they all have the same status is that the case they do all five of them C to get the motor for the door yeah and the other alternative that the space doesn't require these kind of doors perhaps another yeah that's missing that's the missing yeah the door yeah well it's not supporting the roof but it is wind bracing for the for the actual overhead door you know but it's not structural it is it is structural for the door yeah gone there a piece missing was taken out yeah in 2001 just to get that Moda to fit for that existing overhead door so yeah but it's not it's not sporing the roof it's just basically wind bracing supportting you know something for the door to attach to it it keeps it solid and the last question I have is is whether there be any that cannot use the doors remove the doors replace the structure and replace the door that's there with a new operator or anything there's no the entire door will be replaced I know 2001 23y old yeah yeah it's in pretty bad shape and we you know we we were very postive in what we use for the new door it's basically replacing that door in kind with the type of door that's in there it's nothing fancy you know but we were we did show an automatic door cuz that's what's at now you know the new door will have a motor that's out in front it'll be a little bit different so we don't have to we won't have that interference with a structural frame you know we'll do it right and these doors will have some windows too you know so someone's not knocking on the door and someone's just opening it without realizing who's out there so you'll be able to see who's out there well they have a little better our value and the ones we have yeah yeah definitely yeah solation so you would be replacing the frame because that sounds like it's a huge problem yeah it's about 18 ft by 13t m big yeah okay and are these two the worst doors of of the five I guess yeah okay metal is the worst door so that's why we chose Metal Fab Automotive because automotives used the most with cars in and out and when we have issues with that door you know cars get stuck in there you know that's a thing man open exp that to us so we were hoping there would be enough money to do the middle door which is the um Auto related door M you know but we only have enough to do the two so one in Metal Fab one in automo yes okay what's the warranty generally speaking on on this I believe it I believe it should be 20 years okay but I can double check that okay so we just need a motion to move the funds from the capital plan I guess that the administration feels comfortable um even though they have the authority to have the committee support transferring the funds from one C project to the other to fun yeah and that should be a committee vote yeah that absolutely you know $500 here or there isn't material this is this is a material decision it should be a committee vote okay any further questions or discussion seeing none got to move to transfer the funds I'll make the motion you didn't have a motion yet did you no I didn't I didn't know who was going to be did you need to make a motion with the correct amount just have some help s with the pennies pull up my spreadsheet we can make the motion I think to just fund the entire project with the funds available because you you've had two surpluses in the budget I don't know yeah SAR if you have numbers I you would be changing the amount that was budgeted for the CTE doors from $181,800 to $221,100 using excess funds from the stage curtains project and the FL did you need both I don't no the the stage the stage curtain savings was $223 is second your motion motion second any further discussion seeing none all those in favor excellent very good thank you very much so do I have the committee's perm I I believe I need a vote to award the contract to I need a I need a vote in order to send a certificate I'm sorry a notice to proceed so it's a certificate of vote SL notice to proceed okay all those in favor wonderful can I ask a quick question about the remaining three doors uh um so those are going to have to be done at some point right I that's what I think the safer committee will will try to get your an idea and then we'll get get your Capital plan proposal perhaps we can make some rearrangements to next year's plan is that uh beyond the capabilities of our CTE program if there's less urgency to to construct these do oh yeah I I think I can speak for that so you don't want to build do here you no that's but I I think there would be an advantage and I don't know about the timing of this but if uh we did find the funds and could accept the alternate at a later date for the third door before they mobilize to the site and start the work which I understand is coming up soon um we may be able to do the three doors if we sacrifice another project but I have not looked at capit plan enough to make a proposal at this time that that be something that Michael would have to bring forth to the committee now is this something that would be done while the um students are still in school or would it be started when school's out or does it matter timing wise it depends on the but it's definitely going to be towards the end of the summer hopefully not into the school year but it may be okay nice okay so the next two things on the facilities update the rtu 4 Roofing unit for the high school and the hbac project for the middle school I want to I also put the schedule from habiban Associates for those two projects in I want to alert you to the fact that we're in the process right now where the notification has gone out in all of the stat statuto required ways to send out notification for bids that the bids for the rtu 4 unit are due June 13th with the contract to be awarded June 21st the bids for the HVAC project are due June 21st with the contract to be awarded June 28th the reason why I wanted to talk about these is we have a tight timeline Kingston and Clinton used ARA funds from Plymouth County for these projects and we need a contract by June 30th for those and so I'm thankful to habiban Associates and the work that Scott bankra is done because we did ask him in February if we could have a quick turnaround time and so barring no problems we will have um a a request again in June for a notice to proceed and awarding the contract for those two projects can I ask a question question we're due to meet again virtually on June 6 and that is too early correct so we're going to need to put another meeting on the books or could we reschedule June 6th because two meetings in June would may be more difficult to pull on okay I'm I'm flexible whatever works if we want to move that date um we could reor and then do this contract business what date would work it it would have to be the 28th because that's a Friday and it it would have to be no so again the bids are due on the 21st and when those come in then there's the think of bit like reference checks so the the um and Scott you the probably know more about this than I do but when the bids come in there's yes there's the number that says this is the lowest bidder but the law says the lowest responsible and responsive bidder and so a decision has to be made if somebody says they can do the project for $25 that for for $2,000 or whatever amount a decision has to be made over whether the company giving this amount as a quote is actually capable of doing the work for that amount and so that's work that Scott and his cohort would be doing reference checks and things for the for the whoever the low bidder is just to make sure that they are good legitimate bidder and and how many days will that take because we that the 28th is the last possible day we could do this money yeah once the bids come in that day the following day we should be able to turn that over pretty quick and get you a recommendation to proceed so we could conceivably do something earlier than the 28th of June something earlier in that week I just I don't know about anybody else 28 I won't be available to 28 Friday night are you my preference would be to back it up by a couple of days so that if something happened we've got a couple of extra days 24th well the 2 the bids are due the 21st which is a Friday Tuesday Tuesday or Wednesday I guess there there's the work that needs to be done I'm assuming viral the June is going to be virtual mam chair yes you can't cancel the June 16 we need to reorganize we would essentially not have a committee till we reorganized as of May 31st and so we can't reorganize on the 20 4th or so 23 so you would not have a chair Vice chair the officers would not be imp panel the new members of the committee potentially per votes of their towns would not be um part of the committee officially until they sit at their first meeting so we need to reorg as close to the end of May as possible we do not need Administration available at that meeting someone who's not putting themselves up for a candidate for an officer can do the roll call and solicit the vote or the uh nominations for chair and then the chair can take it from there okay and you and you feel we have to do that that early in the month absolutely okay absolutely just in case the superintendent for example does get correspondence from desie that needs the signature of the chair we would be without a chair potentially for close to whole month okay all right so it sounds like folks and I apologize we're going to need to stick with the six virtually for quick reor relatively speaking and then a second meeting we could do virtually again if nobody objects on the 2 5th you're saying 25th I think Sarah preferred the 25th I lost track it Tuesday I would prefer Tuesday for Wednesday to give Scott the time to do the work that he needs to do that works okay well Wednesday we' be giving him that extra day and still give us two days if something happen so that that's fine um I would not be available but someone else could be available Ryan could be available okay that's so wday not pressure you to join us so the 20 June 25th that's the Tuesday 26 26th I'm sorry okay and we will confirm that as virtual as well Madam chair yes so that concludes everything I wanted to talk about with the the rooftop unit for the high school and the hbac project for the middle school and I would turn this over to facility director M lais and Scott bankr from haban Associates if anyone were to have any questions about those two projects M CH we for 6m virtual on 26 yes yeah do we have any other comments or questions for for Scott or Mike on these two topics okay all right seeing none thank you so much gentlemen okay actually may I just real quick before Mr W pleases the fields have looked phenomenal this year and I know that it may not be you out there doing it but it's within your perview so if I just give you a shout out because they phenomenal yeah the guys were on so you look real good okay thank you okay all righty folks um the next agenda item um Dave is actually going to uh uh work on some uh amendments to the contract so we are not going to be discussing and voting that contract was Sav IT centry project Elliot sure thanks for your time um as you know at this time of year we are typically looking for your support and um signing the contract that we signed with an outside customer for our construction program of the carpentry um department and we have a great project that we're recommending um that we've been working with the customer on I previewed this quickly with our CTE subcommittee last time we sat together in April um did share the the plans the application um with Paula and so the contract just again is signed by the the school committee chair and the customer so should be looking for your vat um this project um is in walking distance of the high school um it's on White Pine Lane which is off of Westerly across the street here which is in from the proximity standpoint um couldn't be better for us um it is a two-car garage with a mud room that's built off the side of a home um all of the pieces that we look at to evaluate from course curriculum to the scope of work safety considerations travel and location and customer Readiness are all scored very high for us so it's a great project it's got all the elements of uh Framing and new construction that we look for um with a good customer that's um ready to go and so looking for your support for us to proceed with that customer I thought it looked like a beautiful project wonderful project I do have one question for you Elliot in the um contract it did say off the top of my head something to the effect of um they can't sell the home for so many years otherwise they have to pay something and I'm I I see the painting in your face yeah so I would just tell you and I think some of you heard me say this before we we just have a very old contract that's really in need of being updated and it should be something that um I probably spent some time with this summer and we move our attorney into to update I think it's we're working with a a contract that's 20 plus years old probably with the school district so um there some things there that I don't think need to be I think that's reasonable I my question was if we have any ability to track them or it's it's really the honor System yeah I think that's probably been our history yeah yeah yeah okay um certainly ell leverage our um Council to to update that certainly um Russ works with all kinds of other schools he may have something off the shelf he can massage and and make silver lake and um not take up too much of your time with I think the location couldn't be more perfect I I agree that was the first thing I noticed was the address on there and I mean it it's really you don't have to worry are you going to still have to transport by the van or will everyone just be up yeah Al so we still move our students with our good messenger um bus and and you know we leave our Contractor trailer on somebody property for the year but you you can be in District and be 15 minutes away from the school and so that additional 30 minutes of travel time with some places and re loss of uh instruction time so just going to say that's going to make the project hopefully go quicker yeah that's great I will make a motion that we accept the CD proposal for this your project I'll second any further discussion seeing none all those in favor okay ell just an anecdotal footnote that has nothing to do with this project I took one of the classes the adult education classes I took shakery board with uh chef juel and I bring this up because first of all the class was wonderful when it was when it was time to leave none of us wanted to leave I could have easily spent another hour in there and um what I loved about it was the commentry class made the boards that we were making our cheese platters on so it was two different facets of CTE which I thought was a nice thing about taking that class so I I just had to tell you I it it was a great experience and I loved to how cop and treat played a role in it great Jo does a great job so I'll pass it along thank you yeah absolutely thank you thanks Paul if I may only say that I would like to compliment Elliot and Mya for organizing the C and the car show and the plan sale and I hope to see the same next year so thank you very much guys thank you I think it will turn into an annual fundraiser for the skills kids so lot of people so thank you yeah excellent thank you all righty folks um principal reports thank you so much I'm going to actually pull up the documents on the screen um I have two things for you tonight I have the Improvement plan and I really mirrored this towards um the district strategy for improvement so I put all four goals on here and in building relationships you can see the introduction I really want to thank the school council members he said from Clon Jen Mias from Kingston and Melissa Johnson from Halifax they've been instrumental in managing not only some revisions in our handbook but the school Improvement plan which we've talked about all year I showed them slides and we worked through slides but then I put this in the narrative um for all of you and for our documentation purposes so I mentioned the strategy for district Improvement and you can see here that each of our goals are built on that document what I want to highlight is goal number one building relationships I never expected when I made up this TB event at middle school that kids would take ownership of it and even at the high school as freshman they were like do I get a tby ticket so that has happened in the cafeteria which makes warms my heart a little bit but they really believe in the incentive of Thinking Beyond themselves and doing for others and so that's really what we believe here and that builds relationships between students between teachers um and between students and administrators so I highlighted that in goal number one and then goal number two I really highlighted our data that we talked about in the fall and we saw a lot of improvement in grade 8 mathematics um and some moderate growth towards our targets but we're really we were most most excited about the grade 8 mathematics and um the students that exceeded expectations which I'll talk about in my next presentation um um so you can you know read this at your leisure and then goal number three aligned and engaging curriculum so in a minute I'm going to talk about um our professional practice goal at the middle school and the high school in regards to teachers working on common assessments and in the middle school they religiously meet twice a week and work on these assessments and really think about how that moves our instruction in the classroom and last lastly go number four we talked about multi-tiered systems of supports here um and we're still working through that process and kind of how that can work but I've talked to you a lot about not only um how we meet students where they're at but also those grade seven exploratory classes which I can't thank you enough for keeping um because the students have so much more um energy and focus on how they want to choose their classes in 8th grade this year and it's been really rewarding for all of us um we also put in the bottom of this Improvement plan how we really strive to be one of the safest and most well-prepared communities in the Commonwealth um we just added thanks to the you know the budget Steve p and the tech team 44 additional cameras for a total of 87 cameras which might seem like why do we do all those cameras but let me tell you the kids know and the minute something happens we are on top of it and they know what's respective of them you know and that we have eyes everywhere in the hallways um and that really kind of benefits us for safety purposes um we also have our assistant principal Mr rothic who is um not only safety care trained but also an ALICE trainer um so he received that um status last summer and so he's been also working with our staff to ensure that we are as safe as possible here in the building which I'm really proud of so this um Improvement plan just needs your vote for acceptance and then I will move on to some other parts of academic life here and how we have been working on common Assessments in the district any questions I'll make the motion to accept the school Improvement plan for the Silver Lake Regional Middle School as presented with great thanks to the committee members second anything for questions or discussion seeing none all those in favor I thank you so much thank you so the next thing I want to just show you and present is a learning update for the middle school on my opening slide here I've listed our instructional leadership team members who I could not do this work without our curriculum coordinators are the backbone of this work and even though I'm only going to speak about four subjects tonight each discipline is continuing their work of creating and implementing common assessment which is our professional goal in Silver Lake and so I put that on slide number two I talked about this early in September on the third slide you can see that one of our common assessments that we utilize is STAR testing we use this from um the elementary school all the way till 8th grade specifically in English language arts um stars a reading comprehension assessment that is Norm referenc and computer adaptive which means that a student comes in at seventh grade but is really reading at an 11 11th grade level it will move them through the higher passages as they get the questions correct so we get more information right than just Middle School level information you can see on this slide that our partially meeting expectations and our not meeting expectations went down from Winter to Spring which is the good news because they went up right from from Fall to Spring in meeting expectations we are still wondering H I know how does that happen touch I know I barely touched it this is what happens um we are still wondering and thinking about our exceeding expectations category because even though on STAR testing which only measures comprehension you know we went down a percentage point and we really feel like we should be going up in that area and you'll see in our math slides we are but in this comprehension um test we we aren't um while star measures growth in comprehension it doesn't assess writing so our curriculum coordinator nicoa Pan and the teachers have really focused on how do we develop common assessments on writing our ELA teachers have been hard at work and have them analyzing these certain standards in seventh grade this is their first year utilizing these so we have preliminary data that shows our students are proficient right in RL that's reading language standard one three and four which is very exciting um and in eighth grade you can see some comparative results between the fall and the spring where they've made some gains in rl1 and rl2 and now we're focusing on these standards which are far more complex this is an argumentative standard so how do they argument create an argument and persuade the reader right with research and evidence so that is far more complex but we're working on that moving on to social studies which is sure just a second sure go back two slides MH two this one or one more go back one more okay okay so this is a teacher created assessment um and it's a is it multiple choice or it's actual no it's actually written um narrative or expository with a rubric okay so then go to the next slide um so we're saying that in three and four we declined 12 and 16% from fall to the spring yep and rl3 and rl4 those standards now it is a different passage and a different prompt so there could be some bias or um differentiation between those two which is also you know part of who we are as I feel like Learners and teachers compared to a norm referenced or evidence-based assessment so that's also the parts that we talk about for sure yeah it surprises me that that number be high enough call sugges assessment issue and we did have those conversations absolutely thank you for bringing that up because when we do these ourselves right it does bring that level of um questioning and you know that's part of our practice goal professional practice goal but we have some work to do there and in the conversations are robust and worthy in good news the social studies department has decided that they want to focus on the same standards as the element as The English Department um and they're focusing on summarization which is a hard skill for every student no matter what age um you can see the standard down here it's key ideas and details and you can see that in their preassessment 29 students 29% of students were proficient and in the assess the first assessment in the second assessment they gained some um knowledge background and understanding of summarization and then prove themselves um in that standard so that was pretty worthy but I really like the connection between social studies in this case ancient civilizations and sum SU ization they're really trying to do cross-curricular um projects and cross-curricular um writing assignments which I think can only benefit us this again is assessments that our teachers are cre y okay so all that's part of our um goals professional practice goals which is on slide number two same thing with mathematics so you can see here um in the fall teachers created this assessment they actually already had it created from the last two years years but they put it on a platform called Edge elasic um and they found that students were succeeding at this standard within 60% meeting and exceeding um and this I put in here um was really around fractions and moving on in in grade8 they've been focusing on linear equations and radicals and integer EXP components in each case we're excited to see students exceeding um 50% of students meeting in exceeding the standards in grade eight far more seing students exceeding here as well and again same same situation lastly in science and are those are machine graded assessments in that um they are created by teachers but then they are placed in a computer program that then corrects and not really corrects them but they put the answers in and then it analyzes the results over the whole entire class and then over four sections of the class and then over three teachers in that same grade level in science students are applying they learning through open science and their assessments look much different these days um like the ones they will be trying out next year in the field test of mcast you can see here that many students are partially meeting the various standards and we we are working on ways to engage students in this applied learning so now unlike when we were kids in science instead of regurgitating scientific content students are being asked to investigate and design experiments when given a problem or represented with scientific theory and they're to they're asked to kind of defend that on the test which is not necessarily how this mcast is going to be given next week but it's how the test is going to be compiled next year I also think it's important enough to say that each department Music World Language and special education are working on their own assessments they have far more data to share but I wanted to give you a short presentation Michaela did the same thing of the work that's been accomplished thus far and the work that we will continue the summer and next school year so thank you any questions comments I appreciate the narrative and I appreciate the data together I think data sometimes give in isolation doesn't really tell the whole story so thank you thank you um so we have a curriculum group that is coordinating us and working on this sort of thing um so are they just studying just how the students perform or do they also are they also studying the performance of the assessments themselves they're doing both and they're even studying beyond that what is the curriculum and what should the curriculum look like because either we're succeeding in that area or we have holes in these other areas and we can see that on either our homemade assessments or our Norm reference assessments like Star reading okay so when we're evaluating our own self-created machine graded material um do we have and I'm sorry to be so no it's fine whatever but it could it goes toward ensuring that these things actually add up to success like on endcaps are we calculating anything like um actual difficulty of the items and then correlation or discrimination um and are we doing anything if we're doing multiple choice are we doing anything with uh distractor analysis or anything like that so um we don't have the Staffing for that kind of data analysis but or or necessarily um the preference to focus on that level of data analysis what this process does is one the norm reference materials no one here is going to become a psychometrician um then they're not going to be developing um something that is necessarily um a norm reference material but the benefit is the teachers working together and focusing on to what extent does this assessment actually measure what we want it to measure and those conversations are what lead to the tighter alignment in the in the conversation so while I agree that it's not as scientific as other measures absolutely no doubt about it I think it will be revealing to the teachers and to administrators to see to what extent were any of any of their common assessments predictive of how students did but because this is the first year that level of analysis is we're not there yet we're we're still working on um working together to um make sure that the that the rubrics that we're we're reaching consensus as to what makes us a five a four a three a two and a one and aligning with MC as what we know okay so um I don't want to get too far into your business of but um difficulty is super easy to calculate and doesn't take a psych nutrition it's just percentage of students are got right um correlation is also super easy to calculate which is just and and I'm not saying that they're not capable of it I'm saying that they're at a at a spot right now where where we're still in the emerging stages and beginning to look at it's it's no small task to get a group of Educators just to agree on on what the assessment's going to be that in and of itself uh is a worthwhile and important conversation that occurs between teachers so again I just I I felt the need to jump in only because I feel like the the focus here is really we're at the beginning stages and certainly uh as we grow and learn we can begin to add more statistical analysis and I think the programs we have have a degree of that available and we have to dive more deeply into that as well so we've also purchased um a a software platform where all of our data can be combined that will help us in some of that analysis so that we don't in the past everything was done on chart paper with markers it would take hours to create a data room and and not that there isn't value in it there's still value in that kind of physical going visual but the reality is is that most of our teachers and administrators have a full day so spending time just to break down the data and analyze it is a time consuming process so this that platform will help you shouldn't mistake me when I ask questions this this is big progress across like the 3 years that I've been doing this like we couldn't have this conversation 3 years ago so um just the common assessments of the in the track um follow versus spraying things like that that's great news so um I will gently plug again for correlation particular correlations it's very sad but but this is this is great progress I'm will be very interested to see what you can do in correlating success here with what happens on and if it doesn't we're okay with that because we can use that as a learning experience as well to what and so I I you know I appreciate your expertise um and certainly we appreciate you keep pushing us to do better and be better because that's I think the goal of everyone I have the luxury of working with about 30 second welcome all right so um transitioning now over to the high school um with our update on common assessment and data um one thing and I think I pointed this out in the fall so we spent um the first part of the school year as both the faculty and um within our department groups analyzing student and path scores and really breaking down where did they perform well and what are areas that we need to help our students improve um and at the end of the day you know we're all responsible as a whole faculty for helping our students improve it doesn't matter if I'm an English teacher or not you know we are reading and writing across all curriculum so we spent the better half the first part of the Year focusing on that with any um department or faculty and professional development time that we had and so um go to my next slide please thank you um today I'm going to highlight our Three core mcast subjects um but I just want to point out that this work has been going on in in every Department um throughout the whole year so as a school our goal was to develop common assessments for students in ela those common assessments were administered across all four grade levels targeting multiple standards they were developed by great alike teams who collaborated on the design and also creating those rubrics to score the assessments with um for our freshman and sophomores we focused on mcaps align text based reading questions um narrative and Analysis writing for our Juniors we focus on argumentative writing and Analysis and then for seniors um narrative and argument writing text based reading questions and then the Comon assess that were developed were administered in November and January um and then we have them coming up for seniors in May and then our under class again in June so our hope is over the next couple of years to really develop a strong Bank of these common assessments that um can be administered to students um at you know the end of each term or at the end of the mid year and then the final exam period of time so in English too um looking at the standards um student performance improved significantly from the fall to the winter obviously we haven't issued our um final assessments yet so that data is still to be determined um the numbers in red as as a district remember our goal is to meet 70% meeting or exceeding um so we we're falling short of that goal in three of our different standards at the beginning of the year um but we've made significant Improvement throughout the year um we're down two more to go to get to that level that we're aiming for I do want to point out though you know Gordon you asked a question to of Becky in some of the standards yes the numbers went down we didn't slip below that 70% yes they went down and so that's where you're see my little note at the bottom the fall assessment was focused on a text that students were reading and studying as a class so they'd spent a few weeks in that unit whereas the midar assessment was what we call like a cold reading so it's a reading they weren't familiar with so that could account for some of um the change in scores as far as next steps now okay what what do we do we know how our students performed what do we need to do next um in the ELA Department we're going to continue to use department meeting and professional development time to collaborate on those common assessments um scoring rubrics calibrating the scores um and then developing scaffold and supports in our classrooms to support our students um the ELA Department uses a data analysis protocol to examine those data Trends and they adjust student support plans as needed um we also as a school are focusing on on mtss more on that later this year um but really honing in on what are some additional tier 2 interventions that we can provide for students who may um need some additional academic support and then um examining individual items student growth across standards to discuss the impact on instructional planning how do we need to change what we're doing you know forward facing with the kids um and then one concern that is is here this again common across this across our building excuse me and one of the reasons we're advocating for a different bell schedule is we really need more time to spend on this um at the high school level we have two department meetings a month one faculty meeting a month all together that's actually Less Than 3 hours a month um so you know we're using that time to its greatest extent possible but time is time is such a precious commodity as we all know so um it would be great if we could find another way to get that time in our schedule for um teacher professional development in math uh common assessments were administered in Algebra 1 Algebra 2 geometry and pre-cal again teachers worked in teams to develop them work on the scoring criteria and then analyzing the data after the students had taken those tests um the math department had a pretty good um Head Start in this they have had some common assessments for a fewer years now so they were able to use their time to really dig into the data more so um and make adjustments to those assessments as needed throughout the year they also much like our staff at the middle school are adopting um edulastic which can they can input all their information and gives us some great reports and then educ which is the new platform Jill was mentioning um will be instrumental next year in providing student data so if we look um we took a sample from our Algebra 1 standards in the fall students um we had 65% of our students meeting or exceeding and then tested this past spring in April we had 83% students um meeting or exceeding so it was great to see some growth there in our science department common assessments were administered in our introductory physics class and our biology class these are our freshman and sophomore um science classes our students take the physics mcast exam at the end of their freshman year um but then if they are unable to um pass we do have an opportunity for them take the biology on their sophomore year um each of the content areas developed four assessments that they were able to this year so about the end of each term including mid years and finals um and I apologize it's really small prints on the next slide um but hopefully the colors give you a good um visual you can see um very few students are at that partially or not meeting um level we have a great success um student assessments this year and this shows it's introductory physics the college prep level on the left honors on the right and as far as next steps in our science department go they want to continue to familiarize themselves with edulastic tools to help strengthen um teacher analysis of data continue using any department or PD time we have to collaborate on that assessment design um again similar to our other departments um and we want to see it in more of our science classes Beyond just the freshman sophomore level and then just continuing to examine um individual items student growth um and again what the biggest are biggest want or biggest wish right now is just more time to to focus on this but I think considering um how hectic school years can get a lot of great work done by our teachers in all of our departments developing these common assessments and really digging deep to that data analysis I I think that's something that has been new for a lot of our staff and I'm just proud of them for taking on this Challenge and you know stretching our brains a little bit and how we you know analyze student performance so very proud of them any question question start um continue ask where are we at with the um feasibility study for year thank you what a great Segway um no and I'm glad that you asked um although we are we have fast-tracked the process this year we started the course selection process a little bit earlier we still aren't done building our schedule but we are still ahead of schedule um I know it sounds like we SP a lot of time on this but it really is a very cumbersome um project but typically we our schedule's built by like the try to get done the end of the school year so our teachers have a sense of what they're teaching when they return um so typically it's done the first week of June we hope to have it wrapped up in the next week week and a half and then from there we then I you may not be interest we have to go to another server to build the 4x4 schedule to to test its feasibility um because we had to make some staff cuts um I had to make a guess it is probably going to be difficult to um sustain a 4x4 um but I'm not giving up hope yet we'll see if we can get created we pulled off I would give you a if we're able to do it um I would have to present that at our July meeting um so stay tuned cross your fingers yeah so I'm sorry I will make just a couple of comments related to the um assessments um what you noted about the reading passages Cold versus kind of warm familiarity I think um I think your comment speaks for itself I think you know in the future you'll want to try to have um replicate the conditions from one thing to the next I think that problem does explain a good bit of it I assume when you're picking out reading passages you're doing like you're doing all the leveling and that sort of thing um reading leveling and so forth is that accurate happy resident expert sure how are you Gord um so I I built some of the common assessments uh for the Freshman curriculum um and I also have worked as a scorer for the college board on the AP Literature Exam so not only were we trying to build mcast style multiple choice we were also trying to incorporate AP style multiple choice questions as well and this is for unleveled freshmen um so people were understandably nervous about that which is why we started with Of Mice and Men passage which is not easy reading for any freshman really especially due to the old writing style um so we started with something they were familiar with but that was still pretty difficult in terms of reading level for a lot of them um and the teachers were nervous so they actually students performed I think better than people thought because it was our first go around we wanted to elay kind of all fears not just for like how how the kids would do but how the teachers would kind of Co cope with it and then from there that's why they then took something kind of cold read and improved and everybody felt more comfortable but to speak to like the quality of the questions like they are top tier difficult the passages are not easy reading I can't speak to the Middle School ones but like because Nicole a fasi has been working on all of them I'm sure they are difficult above reading level passages also um but we are happy to talk to you more about it um if you're interested appreciate all that um so yeaha thanks Gordon um in your folder is a list of some books that Kingston Public Library they continue their cleanout um and we are happy to accept those books with your approval the full list of titles is there and of course they would go through the betting process and we will send them a thank you note of approved is there a motion I make a motion to accept the groups okay second I'll second okay all those in favor all right and then for his final school committee meeting Mr Connor Doyle oh yeah good evening everyone um very happy uh as Miss skill said to recap Student Activities uh for the final time in this capacity um so I'll get right into it um April began with some exciting times at the high school and students enjoyed a spring Spirit Week the week following April vacation exciting theme days included USA day decades day and soccer mom and barbecue dad day that was my favorite having Spirit weeks like this one brings so much energy and excitement to our building and while I understand the surface why some could see Spirit weeks as a distraction or an unnecessary event I believe they are more important than ever the truth is that we have learned at the high school that changing routines can make a real difference in both the willingness and the capability that students have for learning this year spring spare week surpass expectations and as well as some large numbers of students participating each day uh also in the month of April as I informed this committee at last month's meeting Mr Anthony we's AP United States government classes mock election took place the election was contentious and hardfought by both the breakfast sandwich and the French toast stick in the end I am happy to inform you that the French toast stick came out on top come on big uh we want to extend a big congratulations to the students running that campaign for their accomplishment um more than anything else though this exercise in its third year has provided students in Mr Weber's class with a greater understanding of how the American electoral system works as well as gives other Silver Lake students an opportunity to vote in a real situation something we found many students took advantage of this year kind of looking ahead to May and towards the end of the year um it's been an especially busy time for students in the beginning of the month the student Le production of the play Greece took place over two showings the show was a smashing success with Sol crowds and amazing performances by all involved a May 8th we also hosted the second annual People's Choice chili cookoff in car show hosted by members of our skills USA club and our CTE students this event was truly won for the books as several delicious chilies were displayed and many uniquely designed cars were also shown this community event serves as a great fundraiser for our skills USA club and for CTE students I found talking with these students that being able to share their gifts and passions is something that's very near and dear to them and we would like to truly commend them for their efforts as I think anybody who attended that event found it not only well attended but also very interesting and engaging throughout the first couple weeks of may as well we've been offering AP exams to students through the College Board organization members of both the classes of 2024 and 2025 have worked diligently in their preparation for these exams we are wishing we continue to wish these students the best of luck and hope that their efforts will reflect this District's goals of producing well-informed Scholars who care deeply about the world around them uh just yesterday we also hosted our spring Signing Day for committed athletes these individuals who signed are all extremely hardworking and are dedicated to their respective athletic Pursuits beyond that though they also shine as leaders in the classroom and in the Halls we would like to wish them all the best of luck on their future endeavors looking ahead to the end of the 2023 to 2024 school year we still have quite a few upcoming events we are looking forward to celebrating the class of 2024 at their graduation on May 31st the weeks leading up to this day we have filled with fun spirit week activities graduation rehearsals final opportunities for the class of 2024 to gather together before graduation and to celebrate a night of fun at the prom we are also looking forward to welcoming the class of 2028 back to the high school on June 6 for stepup day our high school students are ready to welcome the class of 202 to the high school with open arms and cannot wait to share their favorite memories and advice about the high school with these students and finally I wanted to share some final thoughts of this is my last time addressing this body in my capacity as a student representative for this committee it has been a distinct honor being able to advocate for the ideas and wishes of my peers before this committee I am very grateful to all of you for welcoming me this year I especially wanted to thank Mrs Karen tringali for being so friendly when I first presented at school committee my sophomore year miss tringali your act of kindness has stuck with me all these years so thank you for everything you're I also wanted to thank our regional administrative team Middle School principal Miss Becky kette Middle School assistant principal Mr Donald rothm High School assistant principls miss Catherine Pratt and Mr Steven but and of course High School principal Miss Michaela Gil for their mentorship and friendship during my time as a student leader I would also regret not thanking our wonderful assistant superintendent who we are missing here tonight Mr Ryan Lynch and our excellent superintendent Dr Joe Pro your work and your presence at our schools make them a better environment to learn and grow so thank you both for your work for the district finally I would like to thank this year's school committee to this year's members The Honorable chair Miss Paula hatch Vice chair Mr Gordon laws and members Mr Lucas Kowalski Mrs Amy courte Mrs Jennifer Caroll Mrs Jean Coleman Mr Jason Frasier Mr Mark wabon and Mr Michael shicane thank you all for your tireless commitment to our district as a group your sacrifices are what allow our students to learn and grow freely bettering the world around them in the process I am overwhelmed with gratitude for all that you have done for me and all the students of this District I can truly say that my high school years were some of the longest yet most enjoyable years of my life so much of this has to do with your hard work every day please don't ever underestimate the impact you all have on this community I can assure you that whomever the incoming school committee representative ends up being as I am currently in the process of conducting interviews for that position I am proud to say that we have quite a bit of Interest which is a marked improvement from a few years ago I am sure that they will be well equipped for the role and will bring a fresh perspective to the job as well as take it places that I could not possibly dream of and with all that being said I want to wish you all nothing the best and I will as always booing to answer any last comments questions or concerns you may have you have been a pleasure an informative wellp spoken well organized pleasure I have to ask you have you made a selection where will you be going I uh signed the dotted line the other day I uh will be attending assumption University in the fall wonderful thank you we adore you you and I can't thank you enough for all of your help on the drama backstage everything for the middle school as well thank you it's it's been a pleasure working with you and I I have to say I regret you you have quite a big presence in my home as my younger brother had the honor of of being in in eighth grade your your first year here and the stories he would tell when he would come home I I was kick I used to kick myself and say I just imagine what it would be like to be here uh with you as the principal and so thank you for all one day you might come back I'll hire you don't be afraid come on join us so we've already offered you any any internship that you could imagine gladly offer to you at any time and I just want to say thank you because when your presence in these meetings makes me um helps remind me of the importance of the role that we serve here I try never to take myself too seriously but I always take my role and responsibility seriously so I just want to thank you for that because um you're an excellent reminder for us all absolutely Conor if you pop over to the band concert Lind is back in town she's watching together so love to check that out I going to Missy very much so I feel like I've had a third assistant princi all year be short staffs next school year I can't tell you how many staff members like well Conor said that you can do yes I can do that Conor is correct so thank you for everything we're going to miss you and that's all for guys tonight excellent thank you both that um moving on to the um District business director before you begin S I just wanted to actually kind of interject I was going to say something at the beginning of the meeting and I didn't um we have a budget next year all three towns um hard fought was not an easy process um I want to thank the taxpayers for supporting the budget all three towns thank you so much um I want to thank this committee for everything you did this year to get us to this point it's it was a brutal year in the my history being on school committees I this has been the absolute most challenging budget process I want to thank the SL for putting your heads together and coming up with any and all ideas you possibly could to share with us that I think is the first time I've seen that much thought and ideas push forward to us I mean you really you know you went to bat and and came forward with some great things and we appreciate that having said all that I want to thank everybody at this table and and Ryan and and everybody else who had a hand in it from an administrative perspective I at times felt uncomfortable able with how we were hammering you to look at the numbers again make Cuts I it was a very uncomfortable year very unique year I mean now we finally have the the prek baked into the the budget and the we should have more smooth sailing from an understanding and a presentation and a calculation standpoint going forward I just feel it necessary to say thank you for sticking it out with us and and bringing the right numbers forth and presenting them and explaining them to us in a way that we finally got comfortable and said yes this is our Sil Lake budget this year I just wanted to say thank you thank you and thank you to Sarah it was no small task to step into this thank you to the entire team thank you to the slea thank you to all of you I think when things like this happen I think it becomes very apparent that during difficult times we can pull together and although we might not always like what we're C to do we can come up with the best possible way to approach difficult situations to the best of our ability and sometimes that's all we can do it's not the first time that we've had to do that and it certainly won't be the last but I know that um I'm very grateful uh for everyone's support throughout that entire process um but I I wanted to give a special recognition to Sarah because it's a very difficult situation to walk into as a new building uh business director So yeah thank you it was fun can't wait for next year Sarah I agree I agree um you want to buckle up for this one oh boy the business office has discovered just this afternoon that during the transition to an in-house payroll there were some settings selected in the payroll module of the financial system which has caused duplicate charges to budget lines beginning in January the biggest example of this is in the health insurance line which has $869,500 $ in the health insurance line when there's actually approximately $118,000 in that line the duplicate charges appear in the financial system and create a deficit in the report but they're not actually real charges so what we discovered is happening is that when the payroll gets posted into the financial system for example there's a 5 ,000 payment from Silver Lake to Blue to Mayflower Municipal health for a certain Blue Cross program that staff have selected and so that $5,000 is being subtracted out along with all the other amounts and then when the bill from Mayflower Municipal health comes in for $268,000 we're actually paying that bill and a check for that amount Toco so there's real payments that have been made and there are these little ghost payments that we've been creating since January um so this issue is potentially affecting all lines connected to payroll so the next steps for the business office is to correct the settings in the payroll module and then we have to go back and remove all the duplicate charges fortunately we already have a training schedule for tomorrow morning with the trainers for our software prr program so we're going to be getting to work on this first thing in the morning as soon as I have a corrected fin financial report for you I will send it out to the entire committee so this is good news and bad news the bad news is there's an awful lot of work to be done the good news is there's more money than the report says there [Music] is okay I'm going to ask a question duct tailing off of that does that slightly inflate our budget for next year okay all unfortunately yeah I'm sorry these are funds that we have to correct this in the next 5 weeks so it will be it it has to be corrected by June 30th I we wouldn't have a picture of what the end of the year looks like like without fixing this you find enough money for the other door is that doable Sarah do you do you feel comfortable that we can I guess we have to so so so we have to and this I I spoke to Dave turot about this we have a consultant that we have worked with that is an expert in the program School Erp Pro that we use I have to be completely honest with you everybody in my office is is busy doing their jobs all day every day and so there's not really someone who can devote 20 30 hours to this and so Dave had suggested that we contract with Nicole Wood who has been of great assist she she's very Adept at the computer program we use and she's been of great assistance to us in the past and then you said you're implementing training to correct the situation we we happened to have training scheduled tomorrow with the I don't know the The Specialist that we also did the training with the payroll modules we have training scheduled tomorrow for um the end of the year rollover and so I figured seeing us we're meeting with this woman that it would be best to open with this m the end of year rollover training is multiple days so if we take several hours tomorrow to start sorting this out okay it will put us behind the eight ball for June 30th okay okay any other questions comments so as soon as that corrected Financial is available if if we could have it regardless of if we yep have meeting that night or the next night as soon as it's available that would be great okay I can email that out uh the next thing on my report is Grants can I ask a question I do we want to even though we don't have a we don't want to vote it okay right I think we did it once before there wasn't a report but we voted her okay not that she's going to make an amended okay report to us okay um the next thing on my report is the Perkins equipment and program Improvement Grant so this may be news but you supposed to vote to accept All Federal grant funds so Silver Lake was awarded $812 for the Perkins equipment and program development Grant the federal award to require school committee approval my understanding is Mr glass uh applied for this grant for uh additional equipment for the Allied Health Program I will make motion that we accept was it a the the one he applied for today was all Automotive this this wasy there's a lot of perk money not as much as I wish there was true working on it second thank you I will make a motion to AC the Perkins equipment grant for 8,120 Mar ex okay any further discussion see none all those in favor and the last part of my report is an update on the corrective action plan there is no progress since my last update so the audit cited that the business office is essentially underst staffed and I don't think we'll be able to make significant progress on on the corrective action plan while we're under staff go ahead my question the the plan does include some reorganization and utilization of your staff in different roles I would assume U when you get around to working on itan are you trying to add staff but you're also going to look at how the department is organized I assume in this study yes but but the simple fact is that there are too many tasks for the people that we have at the moment so we do we have to do a corrective action plan though yes and we're saying we don't have the staff for it go ahead Mark so you went out and outsourced for the issue of the software not just throw a idea that we should Outsource for the organizational part of this you don't have time to do this you should consider a consultant to look at your staff and how they utilize it perhaps we need to hire somebody to be able to tell us out of Department well I I mean that's certainly an idea I don't know I mean Sarah's been here for just a handful of months and I think she'll get her arms around it but I I guess I'm I'm struggling with we have to do a corrective action plan and we're saying that we don't have the staff to do it so we how do we augment that so I think in terms of competing priorities Sarah has to prioritize what has to be done first it's not as if we're unwilling to do it it's just that we're unable to get to it because as you know we just went through three town meetings and budgets and all the things that go along with that we'll have end of year close out we have the restructuring with the different um contractual changes that will occur as a result result of all that we're a very complicated system and our auditor has has also um stated this getting temporary clerical help is a lot less expensive than paying someone to come in and make those um to look at us objectively and I there is a place for those types of audits and I'm not opposed to them but I I just want the school committee to know that paying someone to do that will could be quite expensive and the reality is is that we recognize that there are two areas that um have grown and are complicated over the past decade and that would be grants and transportation particularly homeless Transportation now that's just from the people in the office who do everything we can to keep all the balls in the air and not drop any of them so again um well if if I could give you an example prior to my starting here the decision was made to move the payroll in-house so we went through that process and everything was going fairly smoothly part of what wasn't talked about really until maybe January was the payment of payroll taxes so every two weeks when we have a payroll there's a payment that has to be made to the federal government and a pay a payment that needs to be made to the state and our accountant already comes to work at 6:00 in the morning and you know stays still 4: you know it's not something I could put I felt comfortable giving to her so I'm the person that pays the payroll taxes that's great I learned how to do it I have a little sign in my office that says everything is figureoutable I figured it out our payroll taxes have been made and then guess what I had to figure out I have to file quarterly tax reports so again something else I had to learn um there're just not somebody that normally this would be something the treasurer would do go ahead Jason so we had some items we've already cleared up with desie that they were asking us to fix at this point all they're asking us for is for additional staff we can tell them the pound sand until we as the financial capability pound s what are you going to do to us the the corrective action plan right was filed in the federal government that it it was about our um but what is the unresolved issue Staffing the unresolved issue is that timelines weren't met and what do they want us to do to make up for that besides we you already apologized and fixed and I Le what else did they want from us to not miss deadlines in the future can't do that while we're under St so if it happens it Happ we'll do our best and we'll support you if that happens agree agre thank you pound s they do well they could withdraw the federal grants from us I would love to see them try right yeah they would be some people losing jobs in Washington it wouldn't be us we're doing the best we can who filed this with the federal government who initiated the requirement desie auditor it was part of the audit so there are three parts to the audit and it's the single audit of the federal grants that required the corrective action plan and that could hurt financially yes not the only District in this situation okay okay makes me a little que okay um Des yours anything else Sarah that we need to put our gloves on or or combat boots or whatever that is my report for tonight thank you excellent thank you um thank you assistant superintendent is not here tonight he's not here tonight and he he apologized that can not be here this evening uh but he will have a report for you in at our June meeting okay perfect okay and that leads us to you sure so I just want to publicly thank uh the communities of Halifax cons and Clinton uh and school committee members as well as school staff and uh School leadership District leadership for their support of the fy2 budgets we appreciate your advocacy on behalf of all of our students um the other thing that I want to mention is that uh search committees are underway in some cases contract negotiations have begun for several key positions uh in our schools um but um only one uh we are able to announce this evening and that is our assistant special education director um so I'm going to pull up my information CU my screen Ed out I'm sorry I don't want to mispronounce your name um Elizabeth McKay is our new assistant director of student services um she has accepted the position of assistant director of student services as of July 1st 2024 for the Silver Lake Regional School District Elizabeth is an experienced school psychologist and special education administrator currently she is the department head at Sandwich High School sandwich Public Schools prior to that Elizabeth was the department head of special education at Oakridge school and sandwich Public Schools her special education experience at the elementary high school level will be an asset to the district before moving to Southeastern Massachusetts Elizabeth worked for Burlington Public Schools as a team chair an out of district coordinator as well as a school psychologist so I want to thank uh Chris and her team in the search committee um for interviewing candidates conducting an effective search identifying and um also Dave for his assistance with uh not only this but all of our search processes so it's been a a busy spring underway we have uh a preap principal um candidate that now working with u that I'm not able to announce this evening um an athletic director uh finalist that Dave is working with as well and um an HR director who I believe we may have final finalized uh some terms today and I also want to publicly thank Dave for his service uh these past two years he's made an enormous impact uh we're going to miss him these are big shoes to fill um he's cleaned up a lot of our practices and made us better for it he's been an enormous support uh for staff and um we're going to miss them so much yeah absolutely you negotiations um the whole process was a lot smoother um with with you augmenting the the teams I really appreciate everything you've done and you're a pleasure to work with and in in the negotiations when it got really tough and you'd say something that you didn't even mean to to be humorous and uh it just lightened the mood so I I really um I've enjoyed working with you so much I wish you so much luck well thank you very much for the opportunity it's my pleasure to you all too Lu thank that's all I have that's all you have okay I also want to thank Gordon M for his participation on the HR on the athletic director um process so I'm sorry I I forgot all right nothing under new business nothing under old um special committee reports we's start with slea you're stuck with me tonight uh John decided to prioritize his newborn child over her name is Olive Winnie Olive win Olive win she's 4B 4 o of gorgeousness oh wow is this his first yeah oh wow that's wonderful how big was she P she came a little early but everybody's doing well yeah everybody Rachel wanted to come to the art show tonight we told her no sorry I'm there's a lot of us here and that sounds like only one person so I don't know what he's thinking um I don't have a lot of updates um for you all like you said it was great that um our budgets all get passed um this meeting has not disappointed uh as our last real one of the Year between finding literal bags of money and taking on the federal government it's been a pleasure to be here um it's the senior last day tomorrow which came up or for some of them we're really excited to see where they go and for the rest we're just excited that they're going the record we love them all I would say that to their faces don't wor don't want you to go away angry want go away I for tomorrow just in case um I also really appreciated Gordon your questions about the common assessments and the data um don't feel bad about asking those questions um those are definitely all the sorts of things that we've talked about in our meetings as well um the middle school is a little bit like here High School teachers get 50 minutes of non-student time per day and like 2 hours to work with their departments uh per month so we haven't had nearly as much time to Crunch the numbers but I know there's lots of experts in both buildings who would love to do that if they had the time um so it's great that you to hear you all focusing on that sort thank thank you than thank you um administrative review um I was contacted by the current chair of admin review to try and schedule with the superintendent the time in June for the mid cycle formative evaluation conversation doie um CTE no update okay Shaman's report I have no correspondence you folks don't know about legislative agents report um I apologize before I launch into this and I would also like to thank my boss for the amount of time he has allowed me to put into advocating for all of the school districts of Massachusetts but specifically the the schools of our three towns and the region um I also like to to thank my children for understanding why I have been not around and thank my wife for putting it with me so I think that's really important I've been spending a lot of time on Beacon Hill and in conversations with reps and Senators um most recently we had day on the hill for masc I'd like to thank Mark for coming up and and flying the flag for Silver Lake that was a lot of fun also i' like to thank um Chris jeene who is repat Chief of Staff for for coming for the second year in a row and sitting through the full presentation then walking back to the state house with us um we had three keynote speakers um the house education committee chair um R garlic was there the vice chair of the education committing Steve elrina was there and the commissioner of Education was there and they all delivered wonderful remarks at the presentation um the house budget actually came through for us quite a bit um many of you may know that repan is sitting on the house ways in me committee now which is extremely powerful position um she heard our cry for help and help to maneuver the historic High $14 per people minimum increment into the house budget um the governor had set it at $30 so this was a significant change in the for people minimum increment this is especially helped the town of Halifax see dollars come into their budget um as they're a heeld harmless Community this was one of the only ways to actually get more State funds into their offers um very very thankful for that move um repan atra actually also came through for the Silver Lake Regional School in a very specific way she did manage to get an earmark in for the Silver Lake Regional school performing arts uh specifically for Ada risers for the middle school and some funds to also helps on the stage at the high school as well so um I had previously said don't count on it this year but but Kathy came through for us big time on that one so we're now onto the Senate budget um they're actually beginning debate with the full Senate on Monday of next week um but we have really good friends up there and I'd like to thank Senator Bruce tar he is um the Senate minority leader he is also the masc legislator of the year and you're about to hear what um every time I contact senator tart or a member of his staff and ask them for an amendment it gets filed like that so he has quite a few amendments that are going to be debated starting on Monday one is an amendment to fully f Regional Transportation at 100% um he also put an amendment in to try and get the per pupil minimum up to $125 per student um and in addition to that um he did file legislation and amendment to get the inflation index from 1.35 that was in the governor's proposal and the house version of the budget up to the 4.5% with Provisions for catchup years coming in the future so so I can't say enough about Senator T's cooperation and getting those specific amendments put in that will directly help Silver Lake but also students across the state um we did manage to get this one shocked me in in the budget itself and the ways and means proposal circuit breaker fully funded at 75% for tuition and transportation so masc was the organization calling for that and the Senate listened and it's in the budget already so just using FY 24 numbers because I don't know how much we've spent collectively as a district for all of our schools last year Halifax Kingston Clinton had $1,300,000 worth of eligible Transportation costs we were reimbursed by the state during this year at 57% so we were able to bring back about $746,000 to our three local school committees if we had the same exact numbers for next year and we know we had higher Transportation costs this year was the same exact number we would have received close to a million doar in reimbursement from the state that would be $200,000 more than we got the sh so between the per pupil minimum increment going up to $14 that changed our preliminary char for the Senate Ways and Means and the house version of the budget just for Silver Lake Alone by $176,000 over the governor's budget good news there is that will help us start to replace the $750,000 that we took from before we even lift the finger and we have to come to difficult decisions next year we'll be about a $600,000 that we're going to have to figure out of how to replace an end over the course of the next year to okay there's an amendment that was filed that I fell out of my seat when I saw this um this was by Senator o Conor it's Amendment 705 if anybody wants to go home and see if it's real because I can't even believe it's real this amendment would bring circuit breaker to 100% for transportation and tuition over the next 4 years wow it's a long shot but putting that language there and putting people on notice that there is a need a desperate need of the local level for help with our special ed cost and their transportation for special ed students is being heard at the highest levels of rest state government so I'd really like to thank ranatra for her help I'd like to thank Senate President Karen spila for all the time that she is devoted to listening to me advocating for our schools um since she's been in the Senate we've never had below 75% for special in circuit breaker reimbursement but getting that 75% for the transportation is going to help all four of the school committees in our area so I'm very very thankful for all of the work of the members of the house and the members of the Senate they're trying to to help us they hear our our desperate thank you excellent well Genie first thank you Jason um I was really pleased to see your email the other day we update so thank you um but on this note um Sarah is there a vote that we need to take for the shuffle reimbursement more of a point of order I guess for the um Silver Lake reimbursement completely forgot all about it it's more money I put I did put that into the file correct yes um yes G this is great may I make a motion that we um accept the $66,500 um for the second shelter thank you second any discussion saying none all those in favor hi good good cat and Mark you got a point yes i' I'd like to thank Jason watching him work up there on Monday on D in the hill uh a couple weeks ago was uh and the polit political uh folks that are involved in our education system from both the uh Mass Association school committee and the uh legislators that we met and listened to um it's a big moving puzzle and the guy that made the Press presentation was the guy sitting right over here that had all the numbers at the tip of his fingers very well organized without a q card and I was very impressed uh we're very lucky to have him on our committee and I just want to extend our thanks that he out there every single day trying to get all this money for the entire State and it's not just self-serving for Silver Lake but he does it for everybody and should really get a a round of applause for really appreciate thank you for that um negotiations um no meeting pack we heard from Amy earlier policy no meeting uh safer well we heard enough about safer I think thank you very much for taking all my uh Thunder Sarah welome said we don't have anything else thank you all right treasur report yeah we nothing sign correct so the vendor invoices were due on May 9th and went out digitally as a single signature warrant last week there were 20 warrants totaling 1,751 12270 in our in April our meeting was also out of syn with the warrant schedule we met on the 9th with the warrants due on the 11th there were 24 warrants totaling 251,000 47 okay Union 31 no meetings um single single single signature warrant you just elaborated on that um all righty dates to remember May 27th Memorial Day May 31st graduation rain date of June 1st uh June 6 our first virtual meeting of June to rior June 14th uh last day of school June 19th juneth day in July 11th is our close out meeting with that June 20 the 5th one in the middle there all right folks well motion to adjourn point of order point of order Madam chair yes uh I may just be exhausted but I'm feeling tremendously emotional tonight um is this potentially your last evening as the chair of the Silver Lake Regional school committee it it very well may be yes um having said that I'm not going anywhere you can't get rid of me um I I have one more year on my term and um I think it is prudent for me not to be chair next year if that was even the will of the committee um so I feel I would be better used by the committee to sit back in support whoever becomes chair and the rest of the committee so I'm not going anywhere but I I do believe the best best um action would be for me to not be as well as my own philosophy on this role is it should rotate I think it's healthy for everybody involved to rotate it so it has been my pleasure to do it for so very long I I love being on this committee U it's been my honor to be on the committee with you as a fellow member but especially these past couple of years with you at the head of the table guiding us through these difficult times and I don't think we would have ended up at the place we are right now with three towns supporting our budget um with not having to lay off a single member of our staff keeping the family intact so we can we can meet the next day and the next challenge and and Silver Lake Regional School is a better place because of you and thank you for your time Paul thank you again I'm not going anywhere I just believe I'm I'm going to sit back and help row the boat thank you for that so with that I would take a um motion to adjourn so second all those in favor I thank you folks [Music]