##VIDEO ID:Zkoq5v9rKPQ## good evening and welcome to the Thursday November 21st 2024 meeting of the school committee uh we are here live in the studio we are being recorded uh by hcam and if I would invite those in the audience to please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pled aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right so we have a a packed agenda tonight we got lots of important stuff going on uh but I would invite if there's anybody here for public comment I know people are here for the um budget stuff as well uh seeing none I would see if there are any recognitions people would like to have okay all right so then I would move into reports our student council representative Savannah is not here this evening so we will hold on for the next meeting for a report from her and then move into the superintendent's report all right thank you so this is the superintendent report for Thursday evening November 21st 20124 um I do have a recognition which I have incorporated into this report tonight um and I wanted to share that our friend Kim pnck has served as the district's Director of Human Resources for 18 years among other countless things she has managed five superintendents 800 additional students 50 additional teachers one pandemic and yesterday she got her very first hopkington high school parking ticket um our parking lot is being done over if you haven't been by there's no asphalt left we can't park anywhere near it uh so we are all just kind of dispersing and leaving our cars wherever when she came out she had a parking ticket yesterday do you have the ability to not have to pay it well it's funny you should ask that question because we had sort of a little go away celebration dinner for her last night and she came in with this parking ticket and shared it with Mr Bishop and let him know that she would not be that's been resolved I think um so now Kim is retiring and I want to publicly thank her for everything and wish her um great joy in her retirement she's done a phenomenal job for 18 years uh today uh starting at 4:30 the high school put on um The Adams Family it's a phenomenal uh comedy Musical and so uh I was able to visit with them for the first hour of the show today so just a couple of pictures that I was able to take uh during their performance it's amazing the singing the choreography it's all fabulous so if you have some time this weekend and you're looking for something to do The Adams Family is playing at hopkington high school tickets available online they must be I'll have to I'll have to check for you and that's all I have and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone we'll be on break next week starting on Wednesday afternoon and we won't be returning till the following Monday thank you any questions comments okay all right thank you uh that brings us then into the school committee chair report which is brief because we do have another item Down Below on the superintendent search but just for the report I have warrants 25237 s 2503 9s and 2504s have been approved in our in your folder do people have liaison reports all right oh the um playground committee is going good and strong has picked a design and it's lovely uh Susan has done a tremendous job great on that note I just presented that to the CPC and up until like right now which is why I'm late I apologize um it really was just a presentation they'll do their debate on all their projects at another meeting so but we were able to answer their questions it is really really lovely and the committee has worked worked very very hard agreed I do want to thank the committee I think the committee has done a tremendous job on this project should say CPAC had a basic rights training on Tuesday night that was well attended I guess it's very informative it's great it uh just thinking back to our last meeting it really is great to see how CPAC has grown and um how many different things they have going on so thank you um elpac has a meeting on Monday that I'll actually be able to attend that's exciting um and I missed the youth commission meeting last night for the um Harlem Wizards PTO fundraiser game at the high school which was also lovely all right so we are um significantly ahead of schedule which is never a bad thing um do we want to um I know we're waiting on Dr goch is working on the um I think the zoom link should we go ahead with building I was gonna say do we want to invite Mr person up to do our building and grounds oh actually uh we this is because Mrs rmck and I spent some time this week with uh Mrs Ranka we thought it might be good to sort of share with everybody uh some of the the pieces of the budget that we shared with you this week so um we have a very quick uh budgeting introduction to budgeting 101 [Music] so okay um thank you so what I just want to do is um pretty much introduce to everyone what the budget process is what you're going to be seeing both with the presentations and um just so you understand what's in your packet how to read it Etc if you will so in terms of the actual budget and what we charge uh the the Departments to do is looking at the metrics and those impacts so enrollment growth which we talk about all the all the time class size Administration supplies and Space special education as it relates to IEP needs and case loads contractual obligation which cover salary technology licenses preventive maintenance Transportation among others and then of course data and historical Trends so we're looking at student achievement and growth and data behind any of these trends that come into the budget process and then of course we need to balance what we're doing so we receive budget guidance from the town and that needs to be balanced with the needs that you're about to hear from each of the Departments so the documents that you will get for each department will consist of an executive summary which the department will explain their the needs and then a munus report so that munus report gives you three years of historical actual spending from fy22 through 24 then it has current year spending and the budget for the current fiscal year 25 and then projection the FY 26 budget projection so this is what it looks like this is what you'll receive for each of the um departments this is the munus report for the marathon school we have a question those come out in a PDF correct correct is there any way that the munus reports are vertical so you have to turn your computer sideways to read them unless I don't know way of flipping them in a PDF I believe you can flip the PDF you have to download it yes oh thank you okay so when you're looking at the munus report first thing that we'll start with are the account numbers so what you see going down the left hand side are all these numerical numbers for instance 2018 2212 space 511 609 MX hours so what does that mean and then a longer version of that same uh account number you can see down below which has 1000-3 D300 d320 Etc on the right hand side is what is considered the back end so every account is built and this is the back end of what is behind there so the first sequence is the organization code which has a definition so this is center it's still says Center because it's still back to Center School um you'd have to go in and change them all to Marathon um but Center School lead building principal and then the or code starts to break that down so clerical extra hours and then you can see the longer version all the acronyms that are behind that account that drive the reporting um both to the state to desie and the first uh code being the fund so this is the general fund the operating fund for the school and then at the bottom you can see what has the account description so the full description is Marathon clerical extra hours but all that fits within this report is that short description which is mar X hours so it's a little more difficult to understand the abbreviations but you you can't get that full account description in there without the report being very crowded so when you're looking at these reports to give you just a a shortcut the accounts that start with one those eight digits is preschool they start with two is Marathon three Elwood and you can see it goes on um through all the rest of your departments so again going back to the munus report because it just says prior year fiscal year actuals this is what you're looking at that first column is fy22 actual then FY 23 actual 24 actual then 25 actual so this is what has been spent to date your 25 budget and what the budget for 26 that is being requested so that is what you're looking at with what's in in your packet and when we talk about data what what are we talking about when we're pulling together the budget so this is an example where we're looking at the Historical Trends and how we've adjusted um the FY 26 budget so if you look at the actual spending and I'm using that same account Marathon extra hours you can see the actual spending in 22 was 300 in 23 was Zero and in 24 was 300 so the budget for 25 is 1,800 but we've now adjusted that down to 500 so looking at that historical spending um we've adjusted the budget that will be a little bit more in line with what has happened over the previous years then when you look at another line instructional Subs you can see that the spending in 22 was3 5 in 23 was 85 and in 24 was 85 the budget for 25 is 51 so this is where we needed to dig into that data and and what does this mean and what we came up with is districtwide there were 950 more teacher absence days which is starting to drive the instructional sub line up so that's where you'll see for 20 six there's been a correction an increase in that instructional subline and you will hear that consistently for all the buildings so this is not just marathon it's districtwide so that's another example of where we needed to adjust based on the data the other example is case loads so for special education what we did is look at hopkington compared to our um um Tech comparative districts and we looked at the K5 moderate case loads the K5 intensive case loads 68 moderate 68 intensive 912 moderate and 912 intensive and if you look down between the the low and the high in the K K5 moderate we're pretty much in line with our neighboring districts when you look at the K5 intensive on the high side is the 12 which is more than what we would like to see uh if you look again down all the tech districts so you will see a request um that will address specifically this case load and then when you look at the other case loads across in the other in the other buckets we're in line and if not below our other districts so again this is another example of where we're using data to drive um what you will hear and that's it and that will give you'll have more opportunity to ask specifically for the person that is presenting but that hopefully gives you a little idea of what you're about to experience thank you you're welcome and thank you Jamie for getting the ball rolling getting it rolling my pleasure the airport took me a minute to realize that's what it was yeah I was thinking it was some dystopian thing all right do we want to bring Dr go up sure for you it's nice to see you good evening nice to see everyone thanks for having me I believe the zoom link is live Dr Kavanaugh so hopefully we appreciate that anyone wishing to participate you know I I emailed oh you did him directly hopefully got thank you for your help with that no problem my goal today is to talk about the proposed uh technology budget for FY 26 um I am going to read unfortunately I don't like usually reading from my executive summary but I will um so this should be included in the packet that all of you received this evening um um so in terms of the budget overview for the technology department hopkington Public Schools technology budget reflects an increase of $174,600 roughly 6.2% over the fy2 budget the Hopkin Public Schools technology budget supports the district's work by funding three key areas the first priority of the technology budget is to maintain core operating systems and infrastructure the current budget allows for increases to our Network system account AV accounts and contracted Services which helps pay for all security platforms networking and District repairs in addition the technology contracted Services account also supports all renewals for all major Services provided uh throughout the district the increase for FY 26 is due to increase enrollment inflationary costs and security improvements the largest increase in FY 26 will be our Tech infrastructure account which supports District security tools and Enterprise level systems like munus the second priority Focus for the technology team is building our staff needs uh in data services and technical support while over the past 5 years the technology department has been reduced by roughly 3.4 uh FTE uh we've had full-time Tech integration teachers and part-time Web Master positions reduced over that time frame the tech department recognizes the town's budget message of roughly 5.6% over FY 25 that being said um based on need the technology department is requesting a point4 FTE to support students and staff increases over the last several years the last priority for the Technology support sorry for the technology budget supports instructional technology and software needs which helps provide teachers and students access to digital resources improve differentiated instruction and heighten engagement this preliminary budget supports instructional softwares as well in fy2 6 there is a need for additional software licenses to support new students in classrooms that require digital curriculum finally the presented budget will continue to maintain the core equipment in classrooms such as LCD projectors document cameras and student devices the largest increase in this category will provide new leases for high school teachers and iPads for Marathon Elementary School in terms of our Personnel summary uh the preliminary budget is requesting a point4 FTE technician this year uh and this uh will help provide us with um additional support uh throughout the district uh really managing Hardware repair software updates and instructional support uh we currently have uh four full-time technicians across um you know almost six seven spaces five buildings and seven other support offices um which totals around 5,000 plus devices uh we've got a population now of staff and students of you know probably close to 5,000 as well plus supporting parents uh with digital resources and tools as well so when you look at the four technicians supporting all of those people on a day-to-day basis uh it's it's something that the district really depends on um the expense summary uh the preliminary expense summary focusing on the technology contracted Services account has decreased um by 3 .1% roughly down $7,950 uh this is a small decrease in District software tools uh however most of the loss was because we recategorized security tools under our Network system account so we had a number of security tools uh like our web filtering uh software that we just organized and cleaned up and moved to our Network system account just so the books were a little cleaner um in terms of our Tech infrastructure account uh that has increased by 68.3% or roughly $104,000 uh this increase will support new network security with improved endpoint security uh and also will support additional enrollment and inflation uh and the biggest line item from the infrastructure account which is located in our Network Security account is an increase to a product called sofos so sofos is our um main software protection uh provides endpoint protection and we've had to increase that across the devices uh and extended as far as even things like boilers and other things within the district that now have you know access to the internet so we have to keep those items safe and there's been a huge increase in that uh software providing that protection uh in terms of Av accounts we we've had a decrease this year of 36.2% roughly $66,000 this decrease is due to budget restraints and will reduce the number of projectors scheduled for repace placement by about 50% um in the FY 2526 school year so this provides a number of projectors that replace throughout the district as they get older are failing we set aside some monies to replace those for the classrooms in terms of instructional technology uh this account is increased by 9.1% or $66,000 uh and this uh will cover two main areas the marathon uh building is due for new iPads roughly 600 devices across the building uh those were originally purchased when the building was built uh and haven't been replaced since and are now um aging and fading and need to be updated in addition the high school uh staff is up for a new uh lease for their laptop devices this year those are fouryear leases so they will start a new lease this summer uh and the graphics lab uh r27 at the high school uh will be upgraded as well for new devices to support the graphic art Department uh in the high school in terms of instructional software that has increased by roughly 24.2% or $55,000 uh these accounts are up as a result of an adoption of a grant funded curricular trial U from previous years uh and moving more towards some digital tools uh as an example of that stmath is a new math program that's been implemented that is now on a revolving um technology budget and is showing up here tonight uh our library accounts have increased by roughly 15.5% or $3,000 uh these don't very much year to year but the middle school and high school have been collaborating on some new tools um like noodle tools and Sora to provide digital resources and books for students and so that's up slightly this year uh in terms of our professional development account that's been level funded there's no increase there uh this is the main professional development account that supports um all of our technical staff our teachers or admin as they need training and various tools U throughout the district uh as example a lot of those funds were used this year to help Implement our new munus time and attendance uh product that's uh been in place this fall and so as new products like that roll out we provide some funding for training that concludes kind of the overall presentation that I have for all of you I'm happy to entertain questions or um answer anything in detail as needed thank you have questions on the technology yeah I had W the software providing the security you know up 68% are there competing programs or software that we've looked at that can offer the same security at a better price or are we just renewing based at a higher price point we um worked with tech collaborative so Tech collaborative is is a is a collaborative that the school district District belongs to and they offered group pricing so we looked at a couple other products but a couple districts within the tech collaborative was able to get competitive pricing on this product so we did look at multiple products we did get discount pricing through the collaborative uh but it is it's also an enhancement so we had a version of sofos in Prior years but we had to add additional products to that company if that makes sense so we had basic SOS protection we had to move to their kind of ndr inlo Protection Service which is in the middle range there's really kind of three tiers right the the final is fully managed service which is you know6 $100,000 of service that districts are paying um but because we have good you know in District support our our Network admin is on site has the confidence to handle those issues we don't need to Outsource and have it fully managed out of the district is that a I mean that's a huge increase 68% is that what was the last increase I don't know if it's in the attached that M what year over year yeah let's look I mean is this consistent that it keeps increasing at this rate well remember part of the increase was because we moved so our contracted Services account uh which is down so keep that in mind we had about 3 or four products housed in that account that we just migrated over to this network account so a lot of it isn't new purchases it's just moving and cleaning existing accounts just bookkeeping stuff 17,000 went into the yeah the network account correct so when you look at that increase it's not a straight increase year-over-year it's an increase to that account um but in terms of that actual um see if I can find my historical on that I mean the percentage I'm going to see is about the same and that's you know what was called out in um the executive summary that that whole a dollar amount which you know is you know roughly $100,000 uh as an example you know two of those products sofos was one was around 30,000 of that 100,000 okay another 30,000 roughly goes to our firewall maintenance and care packages so 60,000 between those two products so you know our firewalls we have two firewalls those devices right need maintenance and updates constantly so anytime there's a new threat those devices get updated with that information and without the service packages you don't get those updates so between those two products that's roughly 60,000 of that gotcha and I apologize if you know obviously my first year on the school committee and going through this process I mean I'm seeing 68% 30 and then there's you know there's decreases but the net percent increases at 6.2% correct okay and the target uh the town budget Target I assume they've come out and said hey everyone should be at 5.6% is that how is that is understood Susan is that maybe a question for you so at the end of the day um and actually that it might have been my mistake of not catching that it's actually 5% um at the end of the day the full budget needs to be at 5% so you'll hear from some departments where the tech department is higher than the 5% but you're going to hear some departments are at 1.5% so when we put everything together the full budget needs to be at five right so but kind of from a just a macro look at it you know Tech needs a little more and I don't know buildings and grounds or some other might need a lot less but we need to make sure that from a from a school budget we need to be basically at that 5% cor got it okay thanks my one other question you talked about the instructional software was due to a grant funded curricular trial is the grant helping to pay for this it paid for usually in year one or so or two depending on how long they were tring the product and once it is adopted and it's a instructional tool would fall under my budget so it gets moved from maybe a grant to to this so this would be the first year that it's hitting hitting us okay okay all right thank you thank you appreciate that things Jo all right with next up we have Mr person who is presenting our uh the budget for building and ground and Facilities feel like we saw a lot of you there for a while and we haven't seen you so much I can come around more if you'd like see on the building committee the building yes I know you're busy with the building how's everyone doing tonight good how you good how are you doing good good busy a good thing you're always busy always busy so I'm here presenting the FY 26 uh buildings and grounds budget um so we essentially break this down into three main categories a Personnel summary expense summary and extraordinary maintenance uh for the Personnel summary for this year I'm looking for a 05 increase for uh custodian at the marathon school there was there's currently a 05 position there uh that gentleman has retired and I'd just like to take and make that a full-time position um as the schools grow and we put additions on um some of these will kind of keep coming forward and in the next couple of years um so this get us to a great uh a better spot and the cleanliness of the building oh I should start with my uh preliminary budget is uh up $ 28,32 for for an increase of 7% um expense summary increased $786 a. 3% uh this was due to some contractual um contractual contractional increases in the HVAC preventative maintenance the um the repair and maintenance equipment account was increased this year's budget to align with the historical accounts um and the grounds maintenance account there was an increase in grounds materials grass seed and such um up $2,800 extraordinary maintenance so um for those of you who don't know so um extraordinary m maintenance would cover any projects that were fell under the capital project amount so anything below $25,000 but wouldn't necessarily be in the regular operational costs so um you'll see in that we are replacing and that one's decreased 2.4% this one kind of fluctuates every year so we try to keep it right around 200 100,000 to not uh you know go over we don't want to be too under but I meet with the building principles to talk about what their needs might be what they see we also use a program called School dude that logs in all of our equipment um we use it for a lot of things School dude School dude great uh name crazy name uh great great program so it we actually have all of our building equipment logged into this so we can see the years of service um that each piece of equipment's been under and uh we're able to kind of build budgets through that system uh so the extraordinary maintenance accounts you'll see the marathon school which this is the first year we've added M Marathon School onto this and um as you guys know it was a new school but was a new school in 2018 you so things are starting to you know come up and we want to keep on top of the maintenance of them so what we asked for this year was funds for a new floor scrubber which is exactly what it sounds like to maintain the floor in the building um truncated domes if you don't know what those are they're the uh at the curb cuts for the handicap um I think it's for um actually blind people to be able to feel the bumps some of those are broken up due to ice and snow and plowing and stuff like that so we want to make sure we're maintaining those and keeping those safe um for and for a preschool storage shed so um right now they hide their things underneath a set of stairs which is not appropriate location so we just want to put a little shed outside for them to be able to pull their tricycles and stuff like that in and out uh Elmwood School um obviously with the building replacement we're trying to keep the extraordinary maintenance down on there I did meet with uh Mr Broner just to make sure there was nothing of need that the school needed that the school could use for this year um but trying to keep that account low we don't want to put a lot of money into a building we anticipate not using in the next couple of years uh for Hopkins school because of the project that we have going you know we feel like we're putting a lot of money into not only the addition part of that building but into the renovation portions of that building so we felt like we didn't need to add money into that for this year uh Middle School which eventually becomes our oldest building um the p budget includes for brick repointing um which is just essentially the grout in the bricks there was a leak from a roof drain that's caused some damage to the side of the building so and it's starting to let water into the building so we just want to repair that um there was um water filling stations so we're replacing old bubblers or broken bubblers with water water filling stations and if you haven't seen them they do have a bubbler component but also um a place where you could fill a Stanley mug or whatever kind of cup that you that you want to use that's filtered water as well and then there and what was the last one water filling stations in repairs to ah4 which is just an air handling unit um that pushes air through the building uh the high school the uh funds for painting the hallway and guidance HV exhaust fan Replacements uh a chilled water pump motor replacement and gym exit gym exit doors and a water filling station so kind of all self-explanatory but things that come up that kind of need to be repaired and you'll see these things coming up as we're looking at the building exteriors as well with the doors and then districtwide um pothole pothole repair and Paving I'm sure all of you guys have driven around the Loop Road and understand the condition this isn't a fix but something to help with some of those big bumps um a structural ibeam replacement so at the middle school where the maintenance shop is there's a set of stairs that come out there's an ibeam that's starting to starting to rust and has a little bit of rod on it it's safe we would close it down if it was not but uh it's time to do a repair on that so we're getting pricing on that now and then um handhold covers so uh essentially it's a a manhole cover but a handhole is more like an irrigation cover or something like that so it's not the big metal plate but the little green plastic boxes that you see some of those have broken and we want to replace those so nobody turns an ankle a dishwasher for the 18 to 22y old program that one is important for that program as they're teaching those students students how to use K how to use a kitchen and run these things and they use the dishwasher a lot we were lucky lucky enough to have one donated a few years back when we kind of did a little makeover in their space and it's unfortunately time to replace it and then uh part some parking lot adjustments in the bus lot so we want to streamline there's a big kind of mulched area that comes out in into the parking lot that is in the way as we've added a few buses so we just want to be able to pave that over to streamline the bus lot a little and that's essentially the buildings and grounds budget if you look into the historical data you'll see so a lot of kind of percentage changes we were able to work through the budget to um minimize costs here and add cost there and that's how we came up with the 7% increase and if you guys have any questions I'm happy to answer there questions I know we have members of the Appropriations Committee I did not I I apologize for not inviting you up during the last presentation do you guys have any questions um come on up if you want to retroactively ask them for Dr go we can do that after as well so I apologize come up see yeah so that just so that age Camp can pick it up um thank you uh I just have well one question and then one question that might be out of bounds and I can ask you another time um that one sounds more interesting yeah um for the extraordinary maintenance I just wanted to be clear on if there's anything that you felt like you had to defer that you feel like is the costs are going to escalate by having to defer it or your comtable with no I think we're comfortable with what we've requested you know there will be obviously every year additional requests but this is these are the main things that we'd like to focus on for next year okay yeah and then this might be a question for Susan it might be a question for you might both I think it's Susan's I I was recently asked a question about the turfield revolving fund um and it has been how many years since I signed the mou and I don't really remember I just want to be clear all of the revenue that's generated by the rentals goes into the revolving fund it does not go to the school department it does not go to partis and re it goes in that is correct it goes into the turf revolving fund okay and that Jes with my memory and the uh maintenance is paid by the school department or out of the revolving fund so the um building and grounds staff maintain the field um there has been t s where we've had extraordinary uh damage shall we say and so we have used a little bit of the turf um fund to REO seams um but that has been very minimal okay and for rentals is that maintenance still also paid by the school department or carried in your operating budget say that again like when when external groups are renting the fields any resulting maintenance from that is paid from the school operating budget or that's correct the the only thing that we do uh charge the turf field for are the porter John's okay okay and that and that is a shared because the school does use them too so it's it's like 50% goes to Turf and 50% goes to the building and grounds expense excellent thank you didn't even see it coming and that was really very helpful thank you very much um and I do have technology questions but I don't know if you want to check with Shah do first or um so is he on the zoom no no okay um I want to ask just one question before Tim and then we can have a show come back up it's okay so in terms of the Elmwood uh building I know we don't we're not putting a ton of money into it right now but it I'm assuming we're keeping it on par so that when we turn it over to the town it will be in decent condition I know that it's going to need work to turn it into whatever yeah so any mechanical boilers uh hvc un events type of thing we're maintaining if lights are out we're obviously fixing those in the parking lot matter of fact the DPW just helped us with about a ton and a half of pothole repairs down there uh just a week or two ago we added some lights in the back teacher parking lot to to make it a little safer for them to be able to get to their cars as it's gotten darker out so yeah we're doing our regular maintenance and we'll continue to do so you know throughout the life of the school the extraordinary maintenance would be um you know replacing carpets in the building which we may have to do next year but we didn't need to this year so um yeah we're keeping an eye on all those things we want the school to be safe and functional obviously for our students and staff so I I knew that much but I just wanted to to make sure that people walk watching at home knew that when the building's turned over we're not just letting it no no we're maintaining it as we would if it were going to be our school for the next 10 years yeah thank you sure anybody else for Mr person okay so I apologize but do you mind coming back up I'm really glad you explained but that there's a name for those bumps on the hand I had to find out that name it was uh I didn't know what to call it when we first thoughted talk quick welcome back good to see you sorry about that oh it's okay um I have very quick questions the instructional software I just am I understanding it correctly that this is just moving it from the building based budgets into your budget yeah so in addition to what I mentioned earlier about you know in a in a scenario where there's some Grant funded things coming through U Mr Le br's curriculum you know budget where they're piloting things trying things so them if those are approved those will move into the building based instructional accounts or um we may add things based on SML department heads uh teacher leaders saying we would like to use this tool it's we've decided as a department this is what we're doing it's beded through Mr LeBron's office and those get adopted into my budget so you'll see some of those increases particularly you know more at the high school and the middle school levels where you'll see things like math medic um various uh support tools for the World Language programs in there um certain Adobe products that uh they're using for certification classes uh at the high school level so some of those are have come in recently like as as new as this year and some have trickled in over the last several years okay yeah thank you that's helpful and then I just I wanted to go back to this one big one um the uh Tech infrastructure and there's reference in here that that also pays for munice and I know for some period of time or since the beginning uh munus was a shared cost between the town and the schools and it's my understanding that this town is not using munus anymore no so I'll let Susan jump in so typically the munus financial product the Main Financial system that both the town and the schools use is funded and Susan correct me if I I'm Wrong by by the town um over the years and more recently we have started to um go deeper with a lot of their HR products uh and so recently and in the proposed budget for this year we have a $444,000 doll amount to pursue additional HR products okay um that will help us manage um the recruitment process through things like substitutes uh and things of that nature so those are new addition products that the town is also looking into we've been on some joint calls with them to pursue that but those additional products are now sitting in my budget whereas the financials are still sitting with the town okay I wasn't sure if I was going to see an offset on the town side so that's what I was asking okay terrific I think that was all I want to ask thank okay thank you thank you stay up for the next one sure I just all right so that I think brings us into the special education budget this hansome welcome it's two weeks in a row we I know nice to see you guys again thank you for having me so I know you have the executive summary and I'll uh run through it at a high level and I'm happy to answer any questions uh so the preliminary FY 26 student services budget reflects an increase of 4. 3% and broadly speaking that's broken into um two chunks we're going to talk about both of those separately tonight um the first is we're going to start out with personnel and then we'll move into some of the other categories of student services um and there are many so in terms of personnel uh for the FY 26 budget we are um taking into account contractual increases um salaries for positions that were put in place during fy2 and that um now kind of need to come into this budget as well as new requests so I'll take my time and work my way through both of those buckets of of requests so newly we're asking for 1.0 severe intensive teacher to be shared between marathon and Elmwood so we can come back to that in a minute in addition we're asking for 3.0 ABA PA professionals and what's important to understand is that those 3.0 ABA PA professionals currently work in the district and I I broke them out for you individually on your memo so you could see for example that one was a pair who I believe at our last meeting you were um kind enough to add so here we are reflecting that decision into the future Additionally you can recall that um Mr leev and I came I think right in the summer maybe August and requested two ABA Paris to open school for the Middle School those are now again reflected here into FY 26 so 1 + 2 is 3 then we have this very interesting parab exchange system going here so if you remember um and you'll probably hear from Mr coder um in his presentation he um created a parab b position by um closing out a a par a position that's that was in his principal's um request and um that's offset if you will by the fact that principal uh Bishop came and asked to remove a parab uh where he did his very creative PE um intervention if you remember and so those two things zero each other out took me a lot of work to get it that clear so I hope that worked for you okay thank you I tried I practiced all right so now we go on so in terms of the new position we're requesting a 1.0 severe intensive teacher so that's a special education teacher with lure in severe intensive that's specifically uh targeting the marathon and Elmwood School locations and if we are able to um receive this increase what I'd like to start thinking about is that we would have 2.5 FTE of severe intensive teachers at Marathon and 2.5 at Elmwood for a total of 5.0 FTE across the earliest grades and I tried to write that a little bit for you to to kind of give you the context of that um if this is something that is approved we would then begin a very thoughtful process with the teachers in the buildings about how to best match student needs groupings and teacher needs to manage to use that FTE to its fullest potential so that's the the context of that request similarly I I would just say that the um 1.0 ABA par professional at Elwood is needed for all the reasons we recently discussed and we anticipate that need continuing so we are asking for it again and similarly the 2.0 Paras that we um added at the middle school um are part of what is a very um effective uh structural system that is taking root there that is meeting kids needs in smaller groupings um letting them have more access to General aded instruction and and really I think supporting the entire environment of the middle school and um I'm very interested in maintaining that um and then finally we want to respect the wishes of our principles who have some um say in how they want to use their paas and we're collaborating with them so now I'll shift gears to expenses so special ed has a a variety of um categorical expenses so we'll just go through them one at a time um so in terms of Transportation the FY 26 budget requests an increase of $242,000 uh in special ed transportation and I recognize that's a big number that uh amount is broadly uh composed of a couple big chunks so the first is that uh we have recently developed the need to have nursing on Vans for students who travel from our community to out of District locations so it's a new need it reflects some of the changes in the environment and and in our community and we anticipate that it will be approximately $90,000 next year for the provision of nursing on vans to and from both ways Am Pm um for students for whom that is in their IEPs additionally um we have uh increased the request for monitors so on a special education van you might have four five six students a driver but in some instances a student might require an additional other adult who is not the driver to monitor Implement a Behavior Support plan keep an eye on their health and safety um and that cost as you can think about broadly has increased um and we have additional students who require that support and then finally we continue to um grow as a district and we are transporting more students in District so while it's a lovely thing to be able to support our students in District that also increases the cost of Transportation within the community and you guys know we're bigger than we look so there's a lot of routs and there's a lot of kids going different directions um and finally we are experiencing um the the necessity that sometimes the providers of choice can't Source a route and either our office will Source the route or we'll we'll pass through to a third party that will provide the root so we always hold the responsibility for providing the root if our preferred vendor cannot do it and we have someone in our office who basically has a Rolodex of all these companies and she works her way through methodically to find us the best cost and the most efficient and um highquality van service so we have multiple things happening in Transportation uh on good news tuitions we um are in a pretty good spot so I don't think I've ever had a 0.035 tuition increase of $588 in 31 years so I I'll say I like that number but it's reflective of an important thing the number inside s is going up so I don't want to obscure that in any way however our circuit breaker claim is catching up to that and also going up and we have um engaged in a more aggressive form of circuit breaker and it worked and so we received more money and so that's a good thing and so I just ended this little section by saying um the district will continue the more aggressive approach to circuit breaker claiming um and also you can see we're positioning as many students as we can in our collaborative networks which tend to be um not only somewhat more cost-effective but more local so they have this like pass through effect into Transportation um and when we can do that that's a win for kids and families they can get back before it's dark at the end of the day you know how do you what's the being more aggressive with the circuit break you want to know about that well I don't want to speak too long because I understand you have many presentations but essentially um we've expanded to claiming more students who are in District so another kind of positive impact of keeping students in District and serving them well is that you can hit the threshold for circuit breaker with a student who's in District it's microscopic claiming I mean it's claiming on like a penny by Penny minute by minute level but if you do that enough it adds up um and so we uh did that and it worked okay keep an eye on my clock here all right and then finally um for esy we served an additional 20 students year-over-year from FY 24 FY 25 um and we are anticipating that it will cost an additional $61,000 across all the groups of people that we employ in esy so that's specialed teachers speech OT PT bcbas par professionals um to continue to run the esy program at a high quality and meet the IP contractual you know requirements for those students esy is also circuit breakable in District so it's all kind of coming together um finally um we have two Innovation projects so um if you recall a year ago we um ran a requested funding to run a pilot of of taking some of the people who currently are being trained in our deescalation um training and train them in the summer so they didn't have to leave school in the fall right when we were making relationships with some of the very kids that we wanted to to not escalate and so we um didn't know how many people would take us up on it but we had 35 people uh come in from their summer vacations and uh be trained fully before the first day of school so we know that we got a good response and that tells us that there's a genuine commitment to doing that and it let us um Target 35 Key Personnel so people that we knew we needed to have ready on the first day of school uh so I'd like to continue that and it did cost $10,000 to do that um and then finally um we're asking for funding specifically to create a transition program retail store location so I just want to say a little bit about that so as part of the programming for students who are 18 to 22 we expand their world outside of a school building as you know to Community College Community settings jobs internships and to business models and it's very important not only for social skills development but for uh numeracy for Community safety and um for finding out what people are interested in doing right and so um this idea is to request $20,000 for the startup of identifying a rental location and the beginning materials and development of such a storefront so we've done some research in the real estate market and communicated with Community references and we think that $20,000 would be a um reasonable 12 months of rent plus some startup costs and while we understand the identification of the perfect spot might be the invaluably challenging thing to do we think that $20,000 is a fair um investment in the future of the transition program as it grows and more students stay in the community for those years as well 18 to 22 would um a a Community member who has a building that would be are there tax incentives for them to participate in this I am not an accountant but I would be happy to look into anything if a Community member with an interest in a building wanted to email me think it would be great to also talk to our town departments and other committees that are planning out our town and thinking about some of these initiatives to see if we can incorporate this and be a win-win for many departments thank you this would be 20,000 on a recurring budget anticipate it would at least be 15 on a recurring for the rental and there probably would be ongoing small um both materials and supplies um cost um and then finally we um similar to what you've heard in other presentations we have some structural adjustments that we think are wise to make so I highlighted for you um five of them so you've already heard tonight about sublines but uh our prek subline uh which is an important thing our preschool is an integrated preschool so so it's very important that there are substitutes for any of and all of those teachers um we're asking to be increased from 12,500 to $225,000 to match the historic actuals similarly the nurse subline again nurses are very very important and if a nurse is out we have a a limited pool of people we go to um but currently that sits at $7,700 and I'm asking for it to be raised to 11,000 to again match historic actuals um additionally we have two different home tutor lines and together we're asking for those two lines to move from $16,000 to $30,000 and that is um to match historic actuals but also projected costs and as part of what we've seen with the inflationary kind of development these tutoring companies have all jacked up their rates and so we are getting Less hours for the money we have at the same time we have students who do need to be tutored um and then finally the pre- supply line we created a year ago it didn't have its own supply line we gave it $1,600 so thank you and um we're asking for it to go to $ 4,215 which we built that number with every one of the preschool teachers sitting around talking about awesome stuff like markers and Beads and I think it is time to reflect the realistic needs of a materials intensive location like a preschool especially when half of its population are receiving special ed with that $4,000 um and then finally this special education testing line we're asking to increase from 16,000 to 22 and that's a a real hard number from the um companies that hold the copyrights to the tests that we use and they have incrementally increased their costs and we um need to abide by and use those tools that's the foundation of our instructional planning is assessment and we need to be able to maintain the um catalog of testing that we have uh actively and current so that is my summary and I'd be happy to answer your questions I um how are you covering the historic actuals now like the prek is there just diing into some Reserve fund or borrowing from someone else a little bit of all um and to be honest with you I think our um historic actuals are probably variable so special ed has this other variability situation so for some of these in some years they were even higher and some years they were lower um we made an attempt this year to Target a couple of these because they seem like they were year-over-year um not aligned to your point and not and we don't want to do that right we can avoid it and our preschool generates revenue from our models does so we do have we have Revenue that does come in from that correct we also have grant funding and other sources of funding question on the nursing for the transportation is that that's something that we're currently doing in fy2 so we are doing it on a um for yes we are doing it and it will maintain itself next year and in and it's projected to grow so I was looking at the need for nursing Subs if these are people that were employing as a district to be riding or are they being employed actually by the transportation company ah so there's two different buckets of nursing on vans so there's in District nursing on Vans which are people we employ who do that work and then there are nurses on Vans to other locations in other towns who come from a nursing on Van company that does that sources them um at 5:00 a.m. every morning make sure there is one and has a pool of backfilled contract company nurses so that every morning um a parent can be sure that their kid can go to school and do we for the IND District ones do we have the ability to have like that back fill to make sure that there's a nurse on there so we currently have lovely people who work very hard and check their phones at 6:00 a.m. every morning for our IND District system and that is working quite well and um I'm very thankful for the professionalism of those people they're very flexible and when we have um a a moment where three people are all sick and can't do it um our our in District nurses will will sometimes step in and and roll in early and do it okay but it's not difficult to hire then um everything's difficult to hire I it's difficult to find really great people to do it 100% all the time the contract uh to the other towns is an entirely different animal yeah now keep in mind as well that nursing Subs are also if nurses go on trips you need to have a a nurse that is staying behind in the school so it's more than just Transportation I was just thinking that for a lot of people because the transportation would be alone would just be two distinct times that might be hard this is and nothing it's like a universe of it as uh field trips came back postco we wanted to make sure kids had those experiences that hit that um and then sometimes nurses get sick probably pretty Comon correct and they are tough and they they come to work a lot so so that's that how much revenue is prek that's a Susan question it's probably a bigger question I don't have the answer and we may need to come back to you with some some research some question Susan one that's a good one I'll write that one down Susan well Susan is looking that up I'm going to ask you one more question any sense on the of the district numbers and why they're going up is it consistent with the growth that we're experiencing districtwide or are we having more difficulty uh serving our students in District that have the costs are going up the district or out uh for out of District say say were you more about IND I'm not looking at the cost so much as the number of students it it it sounds like the number of students that we have out of district is going up is that not substantially I mean so one of the things I would say is a single student can make a significant difference and we will um never discuss like s single students also you could argue that a single student turning 22 and moving out sometimes also impacts things um but while our outof district number isn't changing dramatically what's changing sometimes is the placements the cost of the placements I know they can be range widely and the type of placements so if we're not able to identify a collaborative we go to a private day and there are some very very very expensive tuitions understood and I I I fully support making sure that our kids needs are being met I just want to I guess my question is more to if the number if the numbers aren't significantly changes that discounts my question entirely but if they are changing or if you see the trend of them changing are there reasons why we're having would be struggling is it physical plant difficulties that that's interesting creating program we don't have the space say at at like Elmwood for example we know we have a lot of space constraints there or is I don't know that I could answer that in a thoughtful way I guess I would say every individual students needs are so individual that the um the match of this process is complicated so there are sometimes students who go to an out of District school and still require additional Services even for them for what they offer um but I don't see a pattern where for example all you know people at one grade are exiting or something like that I don't see that at all okay or not specific to a building or a location y okay thank you that's a good question is the outof district school tuition still done on days attended or in some cases is it here's the tuition for the year and if the student shows up half of the days you still pay the Ah that's a good question so um the tuition is for the year and it is a set rate by a state agency if a student misses a set number of days in a long run the team reconvenes not to turn off paying the tuition but to begin looking for a new placement where that student also will need to go and in the interim we're responsible for maintaining that placement so the student always has a placement so we try to be very prompt and not let someone kind of linger yeah um in rare rare rare cases a family may terminate a placement in which case we abide by that and then we start the process to find a new one so sometimes there's a gap there that might produce tutoring needs yeah yeah um for the monitors on buses is that something that only happens on the special transportation within the district so that money identifies itself to the specialized transportation of Vans um we are having broader conversations though about yellow buses and things that we can do on yellow buses which is a really exciting conversation that was my the root of my question yeah it's a different vendor and a whole different kind of ecosystem but um we're having good conversations about that what are yellow buses the big ones regular ones oh oh the regular ones so you're talking about putting monitors on as part of a student needs so the new IP contemplates the possibility of that which has never been something desie had thought about if we have a student now who is having difficulty riding the yellow bus if you will there are times where staff are put on for a limited amount of time there's also supports that are given to the student during the school day and just trying to work on a behavior plan to be able to write the bus independently so that does happen now and we did we used the yellow bus of esy as a practice for some students and they successfully learned over the summer and then generalized it to September which is super cool yeah great opportunity and I could imagine that if there were a student who needed that support on the yellow bus but then had to go to a special transport there might be some cost savings for the yellow bus training them you know developing that skill set to be able B to get back to the yellow bus yep I did bus Studio at Elmwood a couple weeks ago and it was wonderful to see kids you know being greeted by staff coming off it very neat to see people really um customizing kids yellow bus experiences so they could do it yeah and I have an answer for Susan in terms of preschool thank you very much so we are bringing in 240,000 in Revenue but we are putting 320,000 ,000 as an offset to the budget so we're using more of the fund than we're bringing in um we be able to maintain that until fiscal year 30 in which time there would need to be an adjustment in how much of the fund we use sorry what were those two numbers again 2 240 is the revenue 320 is the use and has the cost of that to for the families gone up uh we actually have not looked at changing the tuition in a number of years I'm going to ask a question that would probably reveal my lack of number that I'm going to have to have Jeff helping me with 340 comes in 240 240 comes in 240 comes in but you send out 320 we're using 320 as an offset to the special education uh budget so when I was showing you the accounts you know kind of that budget primary this budget that you're seeing is going to the operating general fund of the Town however we reduce the budget by different offsets preschool being one thank you thank you oh do I do have a couple questions um and I think that you said this in your memo but you are using the full uh special education revolving fund yes in this budget correct yes okay um and all of these structural adjustments as I looked at at them is really basically just maintaining level Services reflecting actual cost okay the addition of the teacher and then specific line adjustments yes um and I will say I sat here many many years ago and I really applaud not that many many um I I really I there are a lot of fresh approaches which have really done very well financially but also I think in the interest of the students and so I wanted to highlight that but I do have a question also about the 18 to 22 program and I don't know if currently you have the capacity to tuition students in from other districts or if you were able to set this store up if that would allow you to do that so I think that is something we've discussed uh the district does have a mechanism to do that however as we um look at kind of our own projections internally we want to make sure we're serving our Hopkinson students first um so everything's always on the table and creativity rules the day yeah um I think that it would be um possible if a program was established and had a great reputation that tuition could occur but at a minimum the goal is to retain more of our students in the district through doing this okay all right yep that thought thank you very much apprciate your I'll up thank you y thank you everyone okay so that then brings us into curriculum instruction Mr LeBron all right thank you very much uh it is a pleasure to be able to present to you tonight the uh proposed budget for FY 26 in the curriculum instruction Arena um I'm going to talk about two categories uh like many of my colleagues have done so already tonight the first one is personnel and then the second one is non-personnel expenses so when we look at the the budget that uh the budget proposal in the office of curriculum instruction there are a few things that we're covering the first is um curriculum and program Pilots the next would be the adoption or subsequent renewal of print and electronic textbooks other General instructional materials prek to 12 uh professional development the salaries of various academic um and curriculum instruction directors uh in this case for Hopkinton it's the directors of Elementary literacy elementary math Middle School English language arts as well as the Director of English language acquisition equity and access finally the budget covers um personnel and materials all personnel and all materials that support the program um our Esau program which is our English for speakers of other languages program so tonight I come with uh to you with a proposal um of 2 million1 5,868 this reflects an increase over last year of $35,000 $654 or 16.1% and Chris before you fall out of your seat um a little context um it the percentage is uh four times of an increase over special education what what Abby just saw but the increase in dollar amounts is half of of that so just to to put it in perspective there um still a big percentage it is it is and I'll walk through a little bit of why that why that is tonight so the first one is our our salary and like with everything our biggest expense always is going to be our salary so tonight uh I'm proposing a salary budget of 1,695 1868 that's an increase of 78,2 $54 uh or 4.9% this reflects no new positions no F no additional ft so status quo with the number of positions in Personnel across across the budget so the second category is the expense expense budget and this is a request for $410,000 that is an increase of $227,000 or 80.2% over last year the reason that is so significant is this is an area where the budget can be a little Lumpy from year to year and the main reason for that is um we are out of this budget primarily buying textbooks and textbooks last many years but they are they're an expensive one-time cost now what we have done in our district over the last few years as many districts have is we've shifted from um hard copy textbooks to electronic textbook licenses that's saves us a lot of money it also gives us a lot more flexibility so in the in the the fine lines of the budget uh I'm requesting for instance I I'll take a a middle school math class we might be requesting to have uh two to five copies of a hard copy of the text in the classroom but rather get licenses for every student so we'll have a few hard copies for when there's a need for that um but otherwise students would primarily be using licenses sorry Jeff the licenses are less than the physical they are they are over the life of the um just a quick comparison here many of our vendors will offer us the opportunity to buy a multi-year license and we can we can buy up to a six-year license in the town of hoofington um a six-year license for just one text uh would be $85 if we were to buy that at a one-year hit and spread that a little bit more evenly over several years it would total $126 per license so we actually end up saving $41 a license by paying for a pretty sizable amount UPF front do you buy a license per each student we buy X number of licenses and then we can each one is so if you had 100 students using a particular text you'd buy right right so if we if we have 100 students using the text we would need 100 licenses exactly um so this year we are looking to um replace a few programs that are going the the the licenses are just expiring um after after many years um our our big area of investment this year is at the secondary math level so courses in 68 math as well as a couple of our courses at the um at the high school level we are we are pushing off because so many of these things have kind of come together at the same time we're actually um delaying where we can where there is no Financial or negative instructional impact uh a couple of texts for for one to two years out we've also been working with our vendors to see if we can actually split the cost of say a six-year license over over a payment over multiple years um most are not interested in that uh most are not but we but my new favorite one is and uh and so that's going to allow us to spread that over the course of the next few years so there's no payment plan option for that when we've gone to them they've said you can buy our one-year option and pay it each year for six years but again the difference would be even not committing to a six-year commitment or contract yeah we asked that explicitly of of several vendors and uh all of them it's all of them said yeah we'd love to offer you the quite the business yeah the single year yeah um one so we do realize a tremendous savings over the life of the use of a product if we do uh go forward with that sorry sus one license might be $85 that does that cover six years the uh yes if we buy if we if we get the six-year license and we pay for it up front that will cover us for six years just an old school question sure what would that taxt book cost because the textbook might last although won't be current 10 years the uh I don't have that number off the top of my head what's wrong and I apologize but I can get it for you I assume these licenses they're updated like any kind of software yeah yeah and and they the ease of use is is once we have them connected I mean I'm not going to say there's not uh a good deal of backend work that Dr Go's department has to do to get them going but we once they're up and running they work very well and the kids are no longer carrying like we did you know backpacks full of books home they've got they've got the information they've got the resource anyway wear at any time so it really is a it's a great thing so the the the lumpiness this year won't be around for the next few years when we're here next year in these areas there be other areas well and I'll tell you that the the our math math and science are are where where the biggest biggest cost is and math in particular um so I don't want to overpromise and underd deliver here but the reality is that the math purchase at the secondary level is is always going to be the highest um you know we've been very lucky to be able to offset a number of our curricula by leaning into some very high quality open- source curricula so I think about um we're currently marching forward with the adoption of a comprehensive cohesive K5 science curriculum which is Open Source cost us nothing I was going to ask I there's a lot of you know across different Tech platforms that are moving to open source and it it just hasn't hit education like it has other Industries or is it just starting now you know I think that there there's a there's a there's a good deal of Open Source stuff out there it's not necessarily high quality and it's not necessarily aligned to the state standards um or the the discipline standards that might exist from like for instance the National Council of teachers of math might have a set of standards that we want to look at alongside the state Frameworks that we follow is it moving that way at all it's hard to say yeah it's hard to say it again more products more products are becoming available every day but the question is how how high quality are they uh you know I think about there is a a a a program that's increasing with popularity and science that districts are adopting which is we looked at it was pretty good um you know there there are some options but um with with math right now uh I think that these these these products are the best options for our students yeah um but on the flip side again how we're able to Leverage um that open source work we're really able to to keep those costs down we're also able to take advantage of grant grant funding and the various relationships that we've established as a district beyond the walls of hopkington or within hopkington we're able to keep um keep our PD down and we're able to use some of that grant funding when it's when it say for instance a subscription is eligible we can use grant funding if it qualifies to be able to offset that uh which is a great opportunity which can save us tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars a year so that investment behind the scenes and the central office working that really ends up saving us a great deal of money in the in the long run uh the last thing I'll I'll touch on is the uh translation and interpretation Services uh I'm proposing an increase of $5,000 over last year as we continue to uh demonstrate and execute exceptional translation and interpretation support for all of our families uh the $5,000 increase uh represents the actual that we realized last year but I will say that um in addition to being proud We Don't often scream about how proud we are about spending more money in an area but knowing that we are creating opportunities for All Families to understand and contribute and participate in the Hopkinson Public Schools is should be a thing that we we wear with great pride and um we're also trying to lean into software and lean into technology there is a software platform out there now that um promotes itself as being able to uh using technology using AI be able to to translate a scan into another language and so we're going to give that a spin uh in the latter half of this year and see if we can first of all if it meets our needs and and Rises to the level of of Excellence that we want and if it does uh that that could end up saving us a great deal of money moving ahead so that's what I have but I'm I'm happy to take any questions any more questions thank you questions comments from either from G or from the committee um just I I I am familiar with the cycle of you know textbook and curriculum purchases and it looks like this is I guess my question is is this the beginning of a wave and you expect to see additional subjects next year and the year after or this is kind of a peak and then we're going back Valley this is the wave this year this is the wave this is the crest this is the valley just in FY 26 right I'm just asking going forward do you expect that this it's going to stay at this level or or you just don't know that yet oh I see what you're saying that's a that's a great I'm just thinking ahead yeah um you know interestingly it was either last year the year before that I actually decreased the budget from the year prior and I think that that's something that could happen um but one thing that I have noticed you know in my third year in this position is the opportunity for us to really forecast these these purchases and think about is there a way to get something a year early which might sound bizarre but it might right you know from a from a fiscal standpoint makes sense to uh start something a year early or push something a year out so that we can level as much as we can moving ahead okay so that's something that you're looking at yeah absolutely that's terrific thank you that was it what do we do with all the old books just awesome well they're AR anymore just outdated and yeah so so most of the books um are electronic now so the things that we're already replacing are are that um but there are there our regulations for how we dispose of educational Municipal property what do you allowed to do with them I look at my friend Susan because I feel like she's got this like so you have to make it available to other districts to the public so we advertise that um over this past summer um like a warehouse sale kind of thing yeah we put it out to districts um some textbooks in uh the middle school that actually they haven't used in a long time and we just literally sitting in storage um and so we did put that out to other districts to see if anybody would like them um which is required you need to put it out uh for free to other districts but the books were so old that no else nobody wanted no one else was using them and then in which case we just uh recycled them that's what I was getting it is it there's no Revenue they have to be fre is no Revenue no revenue and we also get we we get solicited with offers from our our neighbor districts as well from time to time saying hey there's this this set of materials does anyone want them and um unless it is something a brand new program that they decided not to stick with typically I think they're just waiting to be able to recycle them knowing that everything has been offered yeah we have brought in desks chairs you know that other districts um have offered for free um when we closed down Center School we made all of that available and other schools came in and we're able to take our Surplus and you know so all the school districts really do kind of help each other out by when they have something declared Surplus um go you can't have a liquidator come in and generate Revenue uh it most of the time if you look at the declared value it's zero okay yeah you take it right to the end of life we really do yeah so in in just because I know folks are watching home my recollection of the Center School Furniture was that it could not be used at Marathon because of the msba requirements that we put the new furniture in there there there were some things that we did bring over but the stuff that we gave away was not because we were just it it really was end of life thank you yeah any other questions okay so you don't get to go sit down I'll just stay all right that brings us into uh you Dr Kavanaugh and Susan all right I'm happy to talk about the central office budget I know that we received an email question today and I think that Mrs rodik is prepared to answer that when we get there um so the central office budget U you can see is uh very very condensed here to a single page the Personnel summary is really Li limited just to um salary reserve and so what's interesting I think when we look at the salaries and the salary Reserve uh this year is that it's fairly Dynamic and uncertain because we are negotiating with our teachers our nurses our custodians and our cafeteria workers so when we can negotiate then we also negotiate cost of living increases uh we are uncertain as to what those will be um so we do budget for them and we also budget for Lane changes so for example if a teacher goes from bachelor's 15 to a master's degree uh we want to make sure that we are prepared to pay that person accordingly and then also any longevity payments so that's where we are with Personnel um and then if we take a look at the expense summary the very big driver there is really transportation and so when you look at this you will see that um we have a transportation budget increase by $210,400 of the student population in the district registered to ride the bus a couple of other just very small increases the school committee dues is increased by $4,750 uh and that's because we've taken on a new platform called ARX Ed and what that does is it does some benchmarking and budgeting work for us um we also have superintendent dues increased by $4,300 and that's really just Professional Organization so anything like ma um SS or you know some of the other things that we belong to they've just gone up and then all of those other lines that you're looking yet there really have been significant changes the salary increase that was all those were all expected increases based on forecasting from with lanes and yes so it's about $1.5 million or 75% and that's really largely an estimate it's our best guest at this point that's a large number yeah you large number just as a percentage uh how many person now do we have so you you need to keep in mind that this is to cover negotiations contractual negotiations for for units which includes rep how many people work here oh I think it's about 600 and that will include things like someone who coaches so you might just be a towns person who coaches tennis but we would have you you know on our roster so to speak um they're about 350 teachers I so that number includes districtwide yes that's correct not just the central office staff that's going right no just want to make sure everybody at home is clear um yes that's right it it's called a salary Reserve yes for the entire District thank you uh a few years ago we did think about how much it cost just to pay teachers for a single day and I think we thought it was about $170,000 a day that would be a Kim question yeah I know she'd know it off the top of her head she would know it off the top of that would be to pay every teacher for one day 170 $270,000 a day now that I'm thinking about it again yes yeah so and I don't say that because I you know think that that's an exorbitant amount of money I say that to sort of illustrate why these numbers are just so big oh yeah well that's that's probably the biggest expense in the in the whole 80% 80% of your salary of your budget is salary why we're here yes yeah we are a service industry if that makes sense my laptop just ran out of power so uh so I'll I'll plug it in in a second so was it one Point what's the increase again one about 1.5 million yeah 1.5 1.5 that's a projected increase for salaries for the 600 approximately 600 staff in the district yes 426 yes and that of course includes an increase in the number of positions that are related I'm assuming to grow um what's the what's the total's the total yeah so if you hired another person so for example if we looked at Mrs hans's budget that has an intensive special needs teacher in it that person's salary resides in her budget the total um salary budget is how much not the increase what's let's hold on it's got to be in the pap I'm sure it's in there it's like 6,659 6 million sound right 66 sound right if it's 34% no that should be for the entire District it's more than that yeah yeah cuz that's like total total expenses oh that's because this is the department yes CU this is just the main office right it's it's over 50 million inal salaries gotta okay what's the early retirement line that we reduced by 100% on that first um munus page from the packet if teachers give notice um and I I don't recall exactly what the contract is it maybe two years notice they're paid um a stien for that notice and we don't have any oh okay great I just like oh look 100% savings that's amazing aren't we [Laughter] good is that unusual no and you can see the fluctuation of that line which indicates some years you may have three people who have told you they're going to retire some years no one will tell you they're going to so the the total the approximate total salary for the budget is about 50 million and for 26 we're going to add 1.7 to that we're projecting potentially potentially to add 1.7 to that M got it um can I ask a bus question bus contract question sure so you're you're increasing because you're increasing buses what year of the contract are you in um I'd have to check either two or three okay we're early in and does the end of this B bus contract coincide with the opening of the next school for uh we have a 5year contract so it it would be close but within the contract we have the ability to switch buses switch tiers okay do anything we want to when you open the school you'll go down in buses is that so it'll be a shift um so you will have K to four on one time schedule but you're adding grade five okay through 12 to be on another time schedule so you'll have more buses at the middle school high school level because of that shift okay 33 you're trying to more CAU me off guard I think it was I was shocked when it went to 26 so that was a long time ago it's higher than that5 clearly all right well thank you that and I also want to say thank you for providing three years of actuals that's extremely helpful in terms of understanding just the broader context of where things have been going so I appreciate that sure then I do have um a quick little uh PowerPoint because I do know that there was also another question on Transportation so I just want to clarify um for the public in terms of what it is that we're that we look at and again going back to data so when we are putting together the bus routes so there's a lot of things that come into the consideration um one being ridership the number of kids that are on the bus the location and the time of ride that they are on there and keep in mind from the summary 83% of the student population ride the bus so that's a percentage that we're always keeping an eye on the more we can increase that percent the more cars we take off the road so that is always a goal of looking at that percent but then in addition the heat map the location of where students are changes constantly and that also changes um again like I said location so in fiscal year 24 we did do a parent survey um regarding transportation and the things that we were looking at the number one complaint at the very bottom um was that the bus ride was too long you can also see that bus is too crowded is in there as well and you can see what some of the other um feedback was inconvenient bus stops um and I'm sorry this is you know kind of a snapshot of what we received as as feedback um what did CH child has a license and drives they have a car so so but we've also decreased the parking for high school and we've and again this was 24 so we'll do another parent survey in the fall uh which would be for 26 so we'd like to see kind of how these have shifted a little bit um but just to give you an idea so again thinking of customer satisfaction this is what we're keeping an eye on so when we look at the middle school and the high school buses and we'll go from um the ridership in fiscal year 24 we had 33 buses but 11 buses were over the regulation of 55 students so we were behind in terms of population growth and the number of buses that we had in fiscal year 25 with adding two buses so we're at 35 but we still have four buses that are over the regulation of 55 students on the bus and when you look at the duration we had four buses that were over 50 minutes students were riding and this year we only have one bus so again we're looking to reduce that time and then across all 35 routes we reduced um the average ride Time by 1 and a half minutes now that doesn't seem like a lot but that's 35 Roots do we know what the average riding time is I do but I don't have it on here she knows everything uh so when we look at the elementary uh again 33 buses the ridership we had two buses that were over the regulation of 77 but for 25 we don't have any so we don't have any buses now that have too many kids on there but the duration is another piece so when you look at the um duration for 24 we had 16 buses where students were on the bus over 15 50 minutes and this year we still have four but that's a huge improvement from 16 and from the elementary side we've reduced all the roots by an average of 6 and a half minutes so there was a big change and we're still trying to catch up with the student population growth and you can see the big change that has happened just with adding the two buses from 24 to 25 so that's an improvement to the student ridership and with an additional bus for 26 hopefully we can start to really continue to improve these times and ridership do you tell the bus company what you would like to have done and they do all this or does this fall on your desk we make the roots amazing it would be interesting and and certainly not for tonight but at some point to look at because I know with with the bus passes that scan who's on the bus physically if there are on some of the buses with longer routes or more Riders if that impacts how many kids are actually physically on the bus on an average daily basis so that for example I I do know people whose kids are supposed to ride the bus but don't always um or frequently don't because of concerns over both the duration and the crowdedness of the buses and I while that's I think that's a town issue as well I think it's a school issue certainly but the TR cars going back and forth between the schools and home makes difficult mornings and afternoons for I think everybody that's traveling anywhere not only around the schools but on the roots to the schools agreed um so keep in mind you have both an Elmwood bus Y and then the marathon uh Hopkins bus chasing each other to the same neighborhoods um so that will change with the opening of charleswood so that will be an improvement but we'll continue to reach out to parents and um see what we can do because if we can increase that 83% ridership you know that that is that is the goal and you know we did not get any complaints on um time duration this year which is different so I assume you use some type of computer software program to figure out the bus routes and stops and yes yeah is it 83% of K through 12 or 83% like because I think is it middle school or something it's 83% K through 12 okay was it FY 24 where there the bus company had difficulty hiring enough drivers and we were not able to fulfill what we had passed as part of our budget it was an starting with Co um we really the the bus companies and nationally had difficulty hiring drivers um so each year we do lose a few drivers and gain a few drivers we actually have um um bus driver positions posted on our website as a um looking for employment and we've actually been able to receive three bus drivers that way um we're the only District that does that so we're kind of their hiring mechanism as well good but it keeps our it keeps drivers in our buses which is helpful but the bus drivers are all employees of Cony correct thank you very no thanks all right thank you any other questions about any of is there any more I don't want to cut you off I think question does Susan have a life debatable yeah all right so that uh then brings us into the superintendent search um so for I think probably most people in town and in the district are aware that uh last week after our school committee meeting uh we did receive news that Dr Kavanaugh will be retiring uh at the end of this year and one of uh the biggest duties of the school committee is the hiring of the superintendent and as well as the evaluation of the superintendent but so this is unlike other positions in the district we are the deciding body so that when many other positions we work in conjunction with the superintendent and or don't fall under our prview at all but this is all us um so wanted to make sure that we could get a a jump on going as quickly into this meeting I think I had set aside 15 minutes in hopes that I would be able to get more information in the background ahead of the meeting than I I did but I wanted to outline the process so I went back and I looked through the last uh four superintendent searches that we did um with particular emphasis on the one that we did in 2017 in which Dr Kavanaugh uh was Advanced forward as our our new superintendent uh TimeWise that search in 2017 took three and a half months so that's a good bit of uh time from now we want to get moving as quickly as possible the first pieces that I think we need to look at and I don't have all the information now but would be hiring a consultant would be my strong recommendation we've done it the past several um because it is a a big job and it allows us access to many different networks and as well as people who specialize in executive searches for schools specifically we've used uh nezda is what we used the last time and a couple of other times um there we also are reaching out for proposals from we we're trying to get three proposals before the next meeting so looking at masc and we'll have one other other uh I expect that we'll have at least two proposals by early next week so we'll have those well in advance of the meeting to be able to have a fruitful conversation about both the scope of the work because it'll VA uh vary tremendously from one to another and then they'll help guide us in the process but we will again we are the driving force the last time and I know as well as the time before that when we were doing a superintendent search we used a similar process and we had a screening committee to start with and the screening committee is what they do is they look at the resumés they sort through and decide kind of who's going to be through the first round of interviews the screening committee is just that they screen for that part and then they they will recommend typically like around four two to three to four finalists for us to consider that committee um um had in 2017 there were 15 members on that committee not all school committee obviously but there was a school committee member on that there were also members of the community in past searches the number of members of the community has varied uh it's varied from one to three so the next time I'll have a more comprehensive list of what the different committees have looked at to do but always we've had a CP pack representative um we have some years used some of our other uh like the hpto he um other support organizations that support our schools um we've used a secondary and an elementary principle we've used teachers uh other options uh you know that we'll want to consider would be if we want to use somebody like townwide uh in some years they've used Youth and Family Services staff typically the director but they do have a bigger department now than they have in other years they're serving a you know a larger part of the town uh also you know people have recommended a select board member which is what we did last time uh not every time and that this again will be us deciding what we want for who's going to screen the committee it is typically the committee is chaired by a school committee member um and we typically we advance one person to do that because we're all part of the entire thing so once we get that committee together um and we'll want teachers and pair professionals perhaps and other people to to look at all of our stakeholders both of the committee the broader School Community but also of our town stakeholders and looking at obviously the schools have a big portion of the Town budget uh we have a fiduciary responsibility to the town but also our schools reflect a lot of our values as a town so we're going to be soliciting input from the community and have different points where the community can engage uh in terms of I'd like to make sure at our next meeting we can put the screening committee together and also choose a consultant um the other challenge we have this time is that as we saw back in the superintendent's uh initial report uh that our director of Human Resources is in the process of retiring so we will be also working with a brand new Human Resources Director so we're going to want to make make sure that we're able to kind of all support both our strengths but in looking at the community bringing in people who maybe have some specific uh expertise that would be helpful to what our processes once we get that consultant in place um things will move a little bit more quickly that we'll work on getting a posting going they'll in the past they have worked on surveying the community there have been times when they've also done focus groups with the community to try to look at what would be an ideal successful candidate for the next superintendent and that what we're looking at over the next you know I I think we all hope that we're find a successful candidate that we're able to retain in a longer period of time as we have with Dr Kavanaugh um there have been you know in the past I want to say that prior to Dr kavanau We There were in my recollection three superintendents that had come through in a shorter but Dr McLoud was here for a bit but there were two before her that were pretty shortterm so we're hoping to obviously get a longer term successful candidate that can work with the committee um with the schools with the stakeholders uh and try to make sure that we're inclusive of voices from all different segments once we get moving on that and they've Advanced the screening committee has advanced the finalists we'll take the finalist and we'll do things like site visit so we'll have a site visit team a site team visits and that will be probably two school committee members because again we don't want to have a quum probably not necessarily the ones that were on the screening committee itself but those people that are on that site team will go to the sites of each of the finalists they'll have people that come from different departments that will speak to the site team answer questions about the candidate and then those school committee members on that as well as the rest of the site team will report back with recommendations and findings from each of the sites that are visit we'll also then have the opportunity to have each of the candidates here in the district and as a committee the last time we did this it was something that all of the school committee was involved in in one way or another bringing them around to see our different schools um having them we'll have Community forums where the community is able to ask questions um of each of the candidates and then we'll also have a session that is just us interviewing um so that's that's the process I would anti and a community Forum I Community forum and we have done it and as we get kind of further into it we can discuss with the consultant and see what it is that we'd like to do but in the past there have been ways where we've done some of our searches not necessarily just for superintendent where the candidates meet with the school committee and then there there are some simultaneously meeting with the community forms and then we're able to watch those by the community ones by hcam but we're able to then get more in in one night rather than trying to do four um community and then four of that it helps the process move along but we can figure out if that's how we want to do it this time or not so starting if we follow kind of a similar time line is what we did last time we can try to accelerate a little bit or take our time a little more but we we are on a time crunch the last time we started in midt um and hired at the end of December so we'll be starting in really early December and so that would look probably closer to March when we actually have somebody in place I think it's probably well known uh at least in Massachusetts uh for people who are looking for superintendent jobs that we are in fact going to be looking for a new superintendent but the search firms that the Consultants will cast a broader net that will live not just at Massachusetts in New England but out nationally in other networks so where's the budget for the consultant come from so that that is a discussion that we have to have with um with Susan um to figure out because the consultant that'll be a piece of what we look at when the proposals come in the last search that we did uh with NASDAQ in 2017 cost about $9,000 it was discounted to us because we were members of NASDAQ uh I don't you know it depends on what services we choose of those is a part of it um but also what we determine is the amount that we're able to spend 9,000 that's it well that's in 2017 um I know that things cost a little but and there also there are more comprehensive things to do you know masc has different services so we can look at what the scope is but um so sorry last time it was September and then Dr kaver you were named in December December December DEC in December and at graduation for the high school is that when you leave too what when how long do we have you June 30th till June 30th okay you know and is it typical to always have someone obviously in place months six months ahead of time three months what's is there kind of an industry standard or best practices I don't know that I I don't have the answer to that I don't know if you know from some of your colleagues I think when people are doing searches so I was looking the other day and their might be like two districts right now that have a search in place U but they will start to tick up a little bit after the first of the year and if they take about three months people will usually know who their next superintendent is going to be like in March or April so it seems like we have time but we do in fact we're beating that end of the year great rush so that we'll get our stuff out hopefully first Y and you know the consultant will in an ideal way help with have the budget that we can have them help us with what kind of promotional materials we want to put out to highlight what our district is who we are um in kind of the direction going and the values but also kind of what an ideal candidate will look like and they will help us craft through the craft what that is through their work with the community great any other questions more to come but we will definitely have proposals by the next meeting all right so that then brings us into old uh old business and we have the 25 to 2025 to 2026 school year calendar okay uh so the only difference I think in this calendar from the one that you saw a week ago is that we did in fact add the third contractual professional development day to this C calendar and what we are looking at is November 4th which is election day so that's where we would put the professional development day for um faculty and staff uh we by contract have three two of them take place before the start of the school year before the kids ever come and so we have to figure out where one more will go during the school year and it's typical that we use um the first Tuesday of the month which is election day in November um other than that I know last time we were together we talked about how many days are on here that um are not sort of technically federal holidays or things that we have to have off um and I did count them up and I think that the answer to that is six if we were looking at rashash yam koralia bandi Chas um eel feeder uh Good Friday and also um Christmas Eve all of those six would be things that you would be able to go to school for because they're not go ahead you were say I was just GNA say so we talked about doing committee we talked about their advented survey in the past is that data available to us to see what the results of that survey because there's been a lot of speculation among the community about the results of that survey I can absolutely send you that one of the things and and maybe uh please forgive me if I'm repeating myself but one of the things that we wanted to know last time you can go to the Desi website and it will tell you a lot of things but it never tells you what kinds of holidays and observances people you know are looking for um so things that are you know observances or religiously based that was one of the things that our survey kind of pulled out for us that was helpful but I can share those results with you George yeah I mean I don't think we want to very I I think if we repeat that survey we're not going to get widely different results right we may we may not CU we've tried it for once and we don't I think want to disregard the community's uh voice however the way this calendar is also reflects our values for the town especially as you heard both the superintendent and the school principls all talk um at the beginning of the year about every child seeing thems in um the hopkington public schools I think this calendar really reflects that but I do would like to go look at that I don't want to very widely from what individuals in the community are saying to us we've had significant response both emails to us as a committee and um on social media what's involved in repeating the survey does it take two weeks does it take a month does it take I would say the survey is not a standalone piece of work it was a great deal it was a couple of months that the subcommittee worked um on that historically and that's we have repeated that process every couple of years it it I think it's a worthwhile process to repeat I don't know that we have the time to do it the full process before when do we have to approve or alter the calendar is there a deadline or the only deadline really is something that you impose upon yourselves we do get a lot of people at this time of year now who will start asking about the calendar simply because things like camps will become available to families and they need to know when they believe the last day of school will be so that if you're sending your child off to an equestrian Camp a swim camp or whatever it happens to be people will know well we know for this year they're planning for this summer yeah what kind of response do you get to the survey I can tell you that as well I don't know if I shared this with you last time but I will share the report that went I'd be curious what the you taking a deeper dive into the survey and even a new one um having do I understand it correctly that the the holidays that have been added were post survey right so before we didn't have those six uh non some of them we did because yam kapor rashash Shana Good Friday and um Christmas Eve have been standard for a long time okay so or school days off school anyway yeah I'd be curious to see what's involved and redoing the survey and seeing what those results are I mean anecdotally just personally it seems very split a lot of people want to keep it a lot of people are hellbent on oh you got to get rid of those and I think I I would assume again I'm speculating with the survey will say but my guess is it's probably pretty similar but I think it's probably worthwhile to give everyone in the community at least an opportunity to voice an opinion or or give some feedback uh you know if we have time to do it and it's you know we're not burning a lot of calories in doing it I assume we have the survey on some platform and can change some dates or or edit it and push it out to everyone again I would think well you're you're suggesting doing the survey without having a calendar committee do we need a calendar committee to there I don't know what the survey looked like last time so I'm I'm assuming it's we we we can look at that and do we need a committee to craft the survey is that what you mean no it isn't the crafting of the survey it's that it there are a lot of a lot of pieces I think that I don't know that a survey alone would answer for me something that would sway one way or the other I would want to have more input from like the last time we had different religious leaders I think who spoke to the committee or that was the time before perhaps about why certain holidays or um observances were important versus you know obviously not every holiday is reflected in this for most religions but I I wouldn't want to short cut the process by just making the change based on a single survey no I wasn't suggesting that I thought the survey is a good place just to start and 8% 80% of the people say get rid of all of them and geez now we can kind of quickly move to some other things or that's split we may say hey you know the kind of people have spoken and it's kind of what we thought and why don't we just maintain where we're at um I I don't know if the survey is just a good starting point and then if it's something that can be done quickly again I don't I don't know what's involved in a survey is it something that going to be done next week I don't know who does it we so we usually send it out from my office um in Georgette sends that out we usually keep them open for about 10 days to two weeks to make sure I'm looking at the last last time we had 1,490 people respond to that survey so response that that's very high actually when we send something out uh and I can share these results with you for sure yeah I mean may may that's a bad strategy I don't know if it's a good strategy or not but I'm just you know I don't know if we need to form the committee and it's several months I don't know if just having the survey is a good starting point and let's let the results of the survey kind of steer where we go from there I don't know if and opportunities for people to come and make comments here or write letters or write letters to the editor or and did the survey include students I remember last week or the last meeting Savannah had some useful insights I think that we included high school kids not anyone P to8 well sometimes we do kids all the way to fourth grade on service I mean I know Savannah mentioned and it was brought up that the the student feedback was that if you have an excused absence or say Good Friday or rashash Shana that students felt some anxiety about missing what was taught or something I assume that it's basically just high school kids I would assume yeah you might have one or can't imagine a fifth grader small group of Middle School right maybe so that's a pretty narrow group of the student population yes well so I 33% of them that mean I don't know and and I will say and really you know but I don't have I I don't really have sort of a stake in this because it doesn't matter to the administrators we work 261 days a year so if it's rash Shan we still come to work um but I will also say that um when they have a day like rashash yam kapor and if it's a day that you don't observe they would say that was a really nice sort of release of of pressure for them because if you had been sort of stacking up things and you needed time to get them done that day that you don't observe would give you no new learning but an opportunity to spend 6 and a half hours working on things I guess nobody bites for removing some of the vacation time I we could put that out there in the survey too it just seems to me regardless of what that's in the teacher contract too right sorry go ahead the vacation is in the teacher contract is that in the contract I vacations are not and this just anecdotally for me no one likes that idea it just I I guess it's where I'm from does not make sense interesting perspective I would say feedback I've gotten we get out of school June one you know I'm okay with like survey fine I'm okay with like coming to a decision on this calendar but I think regardless of what we do with this calendar one way or the other I feel like there is value to having a larger Community conversation for the next Cal next cycle of calendars over the summer when we have that's a good point it doesn't preclude us from making changes for this calendar I don't think I just I feel like whatever we do we're going to generate some very happy people and some very angry people and for reasons that I think probably all of us can can understand I I mean I certainly when I look at June 18th that feels like very long into the into the month of June I have to jump on something that um Kylie said um about the the different religious holidays I think it also helps the students realize there's other things out there and opens up opportunities to talk about them too J did you want to add anything on no I I I don't see any downside to asking people for their opinions over a survey I would want us to be clear with people when we're sending out a survey what our intentions are so that people don't think they're filling out a survey and if 53% want us to remove everything but federal holidays that we'll be doing it um I think that would be important because I know people do feel very strongly about this which is why there's a benefit to having a committee where people are truly working on it collaboratively um but I I love feedb I yeah just I think it's good to grab the data and it again it might steer us one way or the other or for sure if we come out with a very different like if one side feels and I shouldn't say side because it's more Nuance than that but if there's one prevailing opinion that is so clear would certainly point us in a particular direction differently when was the last one how long three four years ago 2122 I think oh yeah not fairly recent but I remember parting yeah is there somebody that would like to make a motion relative to that because I do feel like this is a big deal and we should have a a wait of the committee whether or not we're going to do a Sur survey make a motion to send out a survey great about motion by Chris second second by Jamie all those in favor I okay so oh I'm happy to share with you well we could use the exact same survey that would I think that would probably be and but do to incorporate Susan's uh input do we want to add a question about those I don't remember the survey having a question about changing the February and April school vacation yeah I can look to see if we did ask that question you can have the de and I knows it's a serious thing I grew up with the same calendar you did yeah but and I realize it's baked in up here yeah I I grew up with the the February April but I also recognize that there are districts that I'm aware of at least in Rhode Island that have shortened at least the the one break so and I I the the one email we got really struck me when the costs of what do you do if but everybody's working that really really struck me and if they're not taking a vacation the one I mean that balances at the other end that's what I was just going to say we're getting out later in June you don't pay that for summer camp and um and and maybe there's people who are working around a flexible um parent schedule or caregiver schedule um but I know for my family it's we're taking care of three kids who are out of school regardless of when that day is if it's in June or if it's in April it doesn't change all right so we'll move forward with the survey um make a note to send you all of that information say the the old survey data would be great for us to to have yes I would say the new survey maybe should wait until after Thanksgiving so it doesn't get lost in it will get lost if do it if we do it this coming week and if we're talking about holidays we should honor people's time well but all right so with that um I think we can safely move into items by consensus uh and come back to the calendar once we have that data okay as superintendent I recommend the school committee approve the items by consensus as outlined in your agenda make a motion to move to approve the items by consensus by Chris second second by Jamie all those in favor I and I um should have said this at the beginning of the night but we do not have need for an executive session tonight because we do not have any new anything new to to share we talk about bless you well I thought I'd save it for an end of the night's surise yeah with that um I would seek a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn by Chris I'll second it second by KY all in favor hi and we are adjourned at 9:16 our next meeting is regular meeting here on December 5th and then I turn the TV on for him he he's very knowledgeable in news but I wonder what he would do he heard your voice I put the H yes if he heard your voice he'd probably be very excited about that he'd be he'd be running the TV with the on T really recogniz just even walking yeah we on of marath d