##VIDEO ID:tlQBJMvuoIg## all right good evening everyone it's 7:01 I'd like to call together uh the the September 12th uh 2024 school committee meeting if you would all please rise and join me the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance the United States of America the One Nation godice for all all right great back to be uh good to be back in session lot of familiar faces in the room so nice to see everybody um this evening we have the consent agenda posted as well if the the bills in payroll is there a motion to accept motion to accept motion made by Stacy second second is by Vino um so this will be a we'll do a roll call vote right Dorothy because ela's online all right so this will be a roll call vote Alaine can you hear us I can hear you can you hear me can perfect good test awesome I I'll call on you first Elaine for your vote to accept the consent agenda and the oath to Bill and payroll I sty hio I benine I and votes I as well all right this is our first opportunity for insted Citizens so if we have any with us is anybody with us this evening that would like to speak before the school committee or anybody on Zoom okay there's a second opportunity at the tail end of the meeting um this is our recognition portion of the evening so we're pleased to have Stu uh two new student Representatives with us um what and this is typically the portion of meeting where you would get a St student um committee student Representatives report I need to slow down I just got here two minutes ago like fumbling it words um why don't we start by both of you introducing yourself tell us a little bit about um give us your background and then get the report that's okay but welcome we're pleased to have Youk J um hello everyone my name is Harish Ganesh I'm a senior in Littleton high school and uh yeah I'm excited to be a student rep for the year great and then my name is Rael Rodriguez I I'm also a senior in high school and I am excited as well as be granted this opportun welcome yes excited to have you do we have a student representative report this week we do okay great take it away so for Shaker Lane Shaker Lane would like to Welcome All Families back to the 2024 and 2025 school year on Tuesday evening they had their back to school night which was very well attended they would like to thank families for taking time out of their day to attend this informational meeting jakan has already started to plan several fun events for students including book fair which be coming up in a few weeks and they look forward to having another great year with students and fames for Russell Street the Russell Street School welcomes everyone back to a New Year many families came to see the school over the summer during the three orientation days and their their doors will be open again in a few weeks Russell Street teachers and students are already back at hard work implementing their new literacy curriculum wi and wisdom Russell Street School is excited to join Shaker Lane school as well for its upcoming cultural fair in October Mr McDonald Russell Street's new principal is excited to join the Littleton community in partner with families students and teachers and the community members for another fantastic year perfect and uh from the Middle School the middle school got off to a good start to the school year they hosted their back to school night on Monday they're very excited to welcome returning families and meet new ones and they had their picture day today and the high school also was excited to get back into the school year we hosted our back to school night last Thursday we welcome your families and to meet with new ones on Monday we had our club Fair where we gave students the opportunity to explore some of the uh extracurricular opportunity available to them at our school our picture day is being arranged for tomorrow our first home football game was rescheduled due to the uh Triple E outbreak and next week colleges will begin visiting Littleton High School to talk to students about the opportunities they provide as students can uh take advantage of them and finally we have our senior college planning night uh for parents that'll also happen next week thank you awesome thanks so much um the student representativ report is always a great part of the meeting we realize that perhaps you folks are involved in a number of activities so don't ever feel the pressure to to stick until 9:30 or 10 o'clock at night if we have a long meeting over the course of the year we talked about this during our summer Retreat feel free to be called on um if you have any or any questions for the speakers or if you'd like to um offer any student perspective feedback to the school committee over the course of the year that that's why you're here i' love to hear from you as much as possible thank you okay very good um next up uh superintendent uh Kelly kenu will provide uh an update on our Boston magazine recognition yeah I actually have a few more so that was the only one listed and then other I know you've got a bunch always like the other so welcome everybody welcome back to another great school year first school committee meet of the year uh first acknowledgement uh Leah Bako Our Food Services director uh held a lunch in yesterday and was visited by 30 representatives from the USDA Agricultural Marketing service and the Massachusetts Department of Agriculture resources and the department of Elementary and secondary education to learn more about our lunch program uh through uh Leah's leadership we've received received recognition uh from both the state and federal levels which is really impressive and they wanted to see firsthand uh how we uh prepare and offer nutritious lunches to our students and staff and they they they did see firsthand yesterday we had a wonderful lunch and uh it was great to be able to connect with uh people from the federal USDA and and partment of Agriculture and desie uh and we do have a a really unique program in Middleton one that we are proud of and we should continue to be proud of and it's through Leah's leadership and staff's creativity that we're uh were able to to continue to get this recognition they uh pointed out a number of things first of all we're we're uh very uh committed to uh using local farms for our produ and vegetables and and also local areas for for our proteins as well and one other thing they were very impressed with as we or leam more correctly has encouraged uh and been successful at incorporating uh different cultural Foods in the menu and over the three years that she's been here I've been really impressed with what she can do with with vegetables certain vegetables that people don't even want to look at and yesterday we had a beet goat cheese combination and and you know our our students like that and that's really good because they're they're experimenting they love the salad bar and and are are our meals are are high quality it's that's Justin pointed out like going to a restaurant and you don't find that in many school cafeterias if you remember when you were in school so kudos to the team and and uh I'd like to thank the three School commit members that were able to attend it's always nice we have company at at these events so if any of you would like to comment feel free to do so that was by far the most delicious lunch I had all week I would say you all are lucky um but also really appreciate Leah's commitment and she recognized her staff a lot which also big kudos to them um and both the diversity of food the freshness and the Farms were there also which was amazing um it's really we're so lucky to have that in the very small school district we have and to be recognized the way we have so big props to that team thank you I'll just add I mean there there aren't a lot of school committee perks but uh being an invited guest to um a Littleton uh public schools lunch it was a special occasion it was was a very nice lunch we had we had it it was was wonderful um but the team they they I mean Leah said it during her presentation she said we want to run this more like a restaurant and that's the way that she's got the staff trained and everyone knows their job and they can rely upon one another and the output is just absolutely fantastic so any parents listening uh lunches are free and uh it's likely very much better than what what you could put together uh in five or 10 minutes is everybody's rushing out the door so I encourage everyone to to try the lunches and um Aaliyah's got a lot of data to show that participation is way up but we know we're not obviously grabbing everyone but it's she does a wonderful job with the uh presentation the food quality nutritional value it's it's a home run for us so I'm so excited to see Littleton as a leader in something like this and I think it's such a a great um situation where we've we've passed a progressive policy at the state level and it's allowed us to create this wonderful program that is growing what was most exciting to me besides just like the quality of everything that was happening was hearing about the food Hub in h in Worcester that is starting to move this kind of offering throughout our state so it's not just us children everywhere being able to to to enjoy these kinds of healthy lunches and um and and our our food sources our Farms our small farms being able to sell more and provide more to local schools which I know that's what they want to do you know farmers are in this to provide food so um that that that Worcester food Hub is something that that is developing because we're using them and we we led the way and that's very exciting to me I would small bit when these things come up and there's a a federal agency there's a state that's let it that's that's recognizing us I I would like us to remind each other that um maybe our congresswoman Trahan our our state representatives would love to know this is happening because they are also part of this story and they help facilitate these things happening more so um you know it helps them also and they like to know that that these wonderful things are happening because they hear all the complaints so anytime we can share a happy story it's a wonderful thing thank you for saying that uh Second acknowledgement I'd like to formally uh welcome our in Russell Street principal Mr McDonald he started uh the job in in July probably seems like it probably longer than that for you but that's okay happens when you transition into a new leadership position and we're really excited to have Mr McDonald run our leadership team so welcome and welcome to your first school committee yeah we're a fun so in your package you have a community close card and we also handed out a sample to you and this is one of the ways that we're we're striving to reach out to all of our community members uh beyond our school Community or Community more correctly I'd like to uh thank uh Michelle Kaine and Studio G for putting this postcard together uh QR codes are wonderful wonderful thing to have and and our community can just uh click on that QR code take us to our website and there's an opportunity for them to ask questions as well and this is one one of many ways that we're going to begin to try to get the word out and make sure that everybody knows H we're on the second stage of of uh the Shaker Lan project and it's called visibility study and uh within the next month or so we're going to have a better idea of what that project might look like it might be a addition renovation or it might be a new school and that's the whole purpose of the feasibility study is to determine what what the best fit would be for for our community I have to say Studio the architect we've been working with has been wonderful they've uh offered fantastic guidance to us we've seen a lot of schools that that have been built in the past five years we came back with a lot of great ideas and we're really looking for schools that are that are built and designed for students in this case prek to two students and uh have configurations that promote 21st Century Learning so we're all excited about that staff have been involved uh heavily involved over the summer we've had communities have office staff involved in a number of meetings I lost count of the number of meetings that we've had and but it's been a very rewarding process when we uh finally submitted the PDP I sent a picture of the binder that that we were sending in and it is a huge document but as we were working through that document there's there's a lot of pride a lot of pride in that document when we're finally ready to send it we we all looked at each other and felt really good about the the work that we've done and it wasn't just us it was the staff and community members and school committee members that that helped uh mold what the future shiker Lane School should look like for its students and staff so excited to continue the process and we'll talk a little more about that later on but go ahead Janine is now a good time for questions that um is there an opportunity to hold a public listening session before the town meeting we do have uh we do have one on the 18th of October let me my agenda here so we have a 16th 16th of October is a an opportunity to just listen and and we'll be able to again tell our story in terms of where we're at in the process and the meeting uh right after that October 23rd there going to be hybrid meetings are going to be held here the police station community room well uh that will give us an opportunity to talk about what we have we will have learned uh from msba and we'll have a better idea of costing at that time and schematic so things are happening fairly fast which is good because it is an elongated process we going have a five six year process from beginning to end and there are a lot of hurdles to to jump through when you're uh dealing with another entity or uh money that that will help uh help us pay for that project and uh they're a great organization to work with they're very structured and building projects of this magnitude you really do need to be structured so appreciate their guidance throughout the process I that sounds wonderful so if you want any help with the sessions that will invite the public to ask more questions be be heard a little bit more um anything can do to help um publicize that um I I just think it's very very important that members of our public are heard and and have as much opportunity I I I was just um very kind of curious I have seen I have seen informational um presentations at town meeting um I just I I feel like town meeting is where we go to do business and you know we have agendas and and the business comes up and we vote and we move on and um so I wasn't sure how long you know like how this fit into something like Med well what we're we're trying to do is create opportunities for for input and you know the town meeting is is a typical venue where you do a presentation capturing a hopefully a bigger audience and but it's only part of the process the more we talk about this the more we engage in conversation the you know the more fulfilling the process we be okay I just was curious about that thank you and and you know I I agree 100% we need to we need to think of ways and we rely on Studio G to to to to help us because they've gone through a number projects and I have PR Outreach and so they're guiding us through the process as well but every Community is unique onto itself you have to take that into account so anything that you can do as a school committee to to help spread the word answer questions send them to the Shaker Lan building committee you know some information you're not sure about it's a it's a community project this it's not a school project it's a community project and and whatever we do is going to be uh in Littleton for the next 50 or 60 years we want to make sure that people feel good about what we're doing and uh you know also are excited about doing something with Shaker Lan School whatever that may be thank you for bringing that up well thank you thank you Kelly do you have any it's a good point do you have any idea where this falls on the agenda for time meeting I think it's at the very beginning okay I can I can double check I kind I don't know what time meeting looks like this October what what needs to be covered in terms of I mean I know the ordinary business but what else is going to be on there and I know you know we start to lose a crowd at some point in time I think it's from when I talked to the assistant Town Administrator I'm pretty sure it's it's close the beginning right at the beginning and I'll double check I haven't seen the war Artic South yet so I'm not sure what's what's on well there won't be a vote associated with it no this is strictly information strictly information I I would lead with that to yeah Justin you know Justin has a great point it uh as the the meeting goes on for two three hours uh see our population starting to fade and sometimes they're there for things that they're in and it's understandable some when have children at home others are already put in a 10hour day and and it's just part of part of the process so I will definitely have a conversation with the Town Administrator sure knowing that it's a 10-minute spot and there's not going to be a line of people at the microphone after the presentation because it's really just informational on if we could get towards the first third of the meeting that'd be great for sure thank you so uh we have a lot of things happening already in our district hard to believe we've only been back for maybe a couple of weeks but Mrs steel and and our high school facing history teacher uh Mrs M mcmanis uh work together to organize two community events and they're in your package if you can maybe scroll through that and the the first event is called the uh dawnland film screen it'll be held on October 21st at 6 p.m. the LHS Auditorium our second Community event will be held on Wednesday March 19th at 6 PM again at the ls LS Auditorium and and this uh event is titled A book talk with s Tha uh these events are are funded by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and secondary education genocide education grant GNA ask Mr steel if you would like to add anything to that we will send out some more information more details um as the approach and we have some information ready to go out about the donin fil screening and Q&A there are two individuals who will be there that weekend one is a producer um of that documentary and the other is an individual who was involved um in the situation that Dom is actually about so we're looking forward to welcoming them having that screen together thank you onen and it's really exciting to team up with uh a teacher on staff Facing History is a a wonderful course our students are really receptive eager to take a course and anything we can do to engage our community more in in in those areas are you know helpful to our community as well they have a better understanding of what are high school students are learning at the high school level and that's it for my acknowledg oh I'm sorry Boston bank I can't forget that one let's go back uh Boston magazine I can't believe I was moving on in the agenda very proud to announce that we ranked uh seventh place in in the top high schools in the Greater Boston area last year we ranked six we've been on that top 10 list for for a number of years and i' just like to say it's not an easy list to be on I mean sometimes you take it for granted because we're on it more often than not there's a lot of hard work from from our our students our staff and our families right from 3K to to grade 12 and it's important to note that the successes of the high school are are not only due to the the great work that our our Administration and staff do at that school but also is a testament to uh everything that happens in all of our other schools as well so very proud of of this ranking and and uh it's important for me to state that sometimes when we look at these rankings we say oh they're just looking at the top students and that's not true in order to get on this list they look at all students with all scores and I think that's important for for everybody to understand you know they're looking at all of our students and all of our sun groups and determining whether or not with their their cut scores we we make that top 10 so again congratulations it's uh very proud of the work we do in our district and this is just one of of many examples of how we're recognized uh be on the community level terrific thanks L Sher uh we're g to move into our new bo uh new business portion of the meeting um but I just wanted to highlight the uh the blue box on the agenda this came out of our uh summer workshop so uh as we roll through some of the presentations if you find it applicable I just wanted to read that um the focus for tonight's meeting is the alignment to the district strategic plan standard number four climate and culture Foster a respectful and responsive culture that creates a safe secure learning and work environment the essential question is how have the schools created welcoming environments for returning students and staff and I know you were obviously going to cover that but I just wanted to highlight that um those are some of the key things we're we're listening for this evening so first up likely not applicable to that but as we'll take them in order to the Shaker Lane building update so so Stacey and Kelly are going to lead the presentation on this oh yeah we definit have we have lots lots to updates so I'll start and then Kelly can kind of f in as we go along um first I want to say for anyone who's been working on the building committee it didn't almost didn't seem like the school year had really ended because there have been over a dozen meetings that we've had throughout the summer to stick to the very strict deadline that the msba has us held to in order to make deadlines to get this project done um so a big thank you to Michelle Kane is hiding back there L sow Elizabeth steel um Steve Kelly you guys have worked very diligently this summer and put in I know a lot of hours to get this done I really do I just wanted to call that out and say we really do appreciate your effort on that um because it was a very busy summer for us so um throughout the summer since probably since April May we've had over a dozen meetings um visioning meetings we've had them with leadership Educators parents community members um everybody's really had a lot of input in so far as to kind of what the pie in the sky concept can be for Shaker Lane right now um we've worked very very closely with our OPM and our Architects to figure out how we can turn that Vision into an actual building that works for our school district so over the summer we that was all put together we were presented with what is it one two three four six different options for shaper Lane building um we had to look through a lot of the pros and cons of all of our different options um some were in a different location um over in B the fields one of them was a just a complete um code upgrade which would be the Shaker Lane would stay as it is right now we are bursting at the scen so that one was very quickly taken off the list as as an option we need to either add on to it or we need to build an entirely new building um so there's a lot of details to it but I just wanted to give kind of broad Strokes so we have to provide msba with three options for um for them to review um so we had to send in a PDP which was submitted to the msba recently um where we offered them our three options where um one option is a renovation and an add-on we have to contribute that to the msba as part of our kind of criteria that has to be one of the options and our other two was actually just doing a completely new building in the upper field of Shaker Lane so keeping it in the Shaker Lane field there's soccer fields and baseball fields all along there we would use that space um for a new building so the students would stay in the current building while the new building is built and then that would get demolished so that's having the new building in the upper field and then the next option that we presented was a new building in the lower field which is just another one of another part of that area back there so msba has to review that um I think they have 21 days three three weeks three weeks three weeks to review that they come back to us and then we kind of really dive deep into a lot of lots more detail um cost analysis we start looking at different sites we start kind of going in digging into the different sites seeing what we could run into um having way more Community meetings with everybody um so like K said we have October 16th and October 23rd at 7 pm we'll be having meetings here um for Community input um and I think you explained this well people ask questions they can come and contribute um and Michelle also worked on a over 60 page educational plan for Shaker Lane which was also a very extensive project you guys all worked on that um thank you again for that it really G gave us a good summary of what the vision is for Shaker Lane which allows us to really understand what that what building we need um to meet that Vision so thank you guys too for working on that because that had to be of it as to to the msba um I think other than that that's kind of all I I think that's it that's it okay the Shaker Lane meeting Shaker Lane building committee meetings are public meetings correct posted agendas they are qued agendas and they're they're public meetings yeah virtual meetings I mean anybody could drop in Via Zoom so I just I wanted to make the point that a lot of meetings have been taking place there's been a lot of opportunity for public input and as you said as we get closer we'll we'll our efforts will increase as it is for like Outreach to the public because the last thing we want is to be at town meeting next year and people are like I haven't heard about this what what is this so I just I wanted to reiterate to the community that meetings have been taking place there is opportunity to pop into a zoom meeting at any point in time get some information voice your concerns give your feedback and that'll intensify as the process goes on yeah um and we'll also be meeting as well with we already had meetings with select board finance committee school committee um in August that's something we're also going to be doing more now that um we're kind of in regular schedule we've got a lot of the the bulk of the work done so now we want to make sure that everybody is involved in the decision process decision- making process so um yeah great thank you so much thank you so much for your work Stacy I I mean I yeah I I know I just went to like one en visioning this summer and felt like wow that was so much and I know that you've done so much more thank you yeah the OPM and Architects and you guys have done a really good job of packing in a lot into these meetings and really getting as much out as we could um for input as to what we needed to to get this this PDP done so it's an immense amount of work many steps ahead but yes we're on the jury ongoing thank you for the updates DC uh next up is the superintendent report H clinch report on the first day back to school along with Personnel update so we had a uh a great start to the school year it uh went like clockwork our our you know buses were pretty well on schedule uh I to also say I'm I'm pleased that we we have buses and bus drivers there are a lot of districts out there that are still SC rambling because of the shortage of drivers and uh it's nice to uh have a group of drivers where most of them were with us last year so they they know the community they know the roots which creates some efficiencies as well uh our schools were were so inviting the first day and every school had their own unique way of welcoming students Shaker Lan school have had colorful chalk messages on the sidewalk when students were walking in or you know we we spend the the first few days uh actually over a week uh getting to know our students making sure that they uh they feel welcome and valued and and part of part of the team part of the learning community and when I toured the schools the first day I I was uh quite pleased with how quickly our students settled down and and to to learning I was uh my first stop was at our kindergarten classrooms and uh it was probably around 9:40 a.m. in the morning and they were all sitting in a circle in their respective classrooms and they were quiet and learning and uh by the time I hit the last classroom they had already broken up into group learning and uh it was just so so nice to see so how quickly they can go from a a two-month vacation and get back into into school routines and a credit to our families and our staff obviously for for having that that trans after after a period of of time off to get back into the learning process so uh Russell Street school they had a had you know similar activities in middle school I mean they all are age appropriate activities and and I toured every school and I was impressed with what I saw in all of them and was a superintendent you know when you've been in this business for a while and I used to evaluate schools number of years ago you can walk into school and a get feel you can feel it you get a sense of of was happening there I had a it was a good feel in all of the schools so uh I feel that this was probably one of our smoothest starts that we've had uh since Co so looking forward to a great year Personnel update uh to your package we had 11 new teachers or Educators more correctly and uh two administrator changes all the rest are you know people that were moving on in other positions there was some transfers from one position to another as well we always look for internal Talent when we're hiring and we're able to exercise that a couple of positions and this is is typical in terms of the the list that you see in your package uh it's a little larger than it was uh larger than it is it's larger now than it was uh preo and reasons for that is there a lot more openings staff can move closer uh to where they live and if they are younger staff members it makes a huge difference in terms of the quality of life they have they can have a 10-minute drive hold and and are able to to pick up their children within the time period so we're we're happy with the staff that we've hired we've had great pools and it's important to say that because uh when you have uh more demand for positions you have to uh get off the starting Fe as long as as fast K and we were really good about uh getting their ads out and getting their interview process underway so again Coos to our Administration and our hiring teams screening teams Etc we're we're uh well set for the school year we have a few vacant positions a couple of at assistants now called esps at Russell Street School we one at the middle school and Dr Harrington I think you have one of the high schools do did you fill that one yeah still still or ESP ESP uh we're in good shape if you uh read about education within the state uh you'll realize that there are a number of vacant Physicians and in a number of school districts any questions about the Personnel is do you have a sense of if this is the norm in the schools in our area it is a norm uh in the schools in our area we we find I find that when teachers if if teachers are in in an area for four or five years is a stronger tendency for for them to stay um but there is a part there there's a time in one's career where you you make a decision are you going to be an educator are you going to to be a department head or an administrator and those are just professional Transitions and we pride ourselves with with uh when our staff actually do those things because uh we work very hard to make sure that we support them and Empower them to uh Aspire for for any any position that they would like and sometimes they go to other districts and and make us really proud so thank you you're welcome everybody good all right next up moving right along so uh we've got the tennis courts withone project assistant director I see a couple people in the audience here but um assistant director Park and rack uh Tim macowski will present on the tennis courts whome project Alicia is here as well it's all Tim though it's all Tim Mike here as well tag team effort absolutely thank you for having us tonight of course thanks for coming thanks Mike um so this is something that we've been discussing for quite a while uh as far as getting the tennis courts redone uh since we've uh moved on with the center on chattic Street this has been something that's been a topic uh just to give everybody a quick brief overview uh the tennis court project became necessary after the demolition of the Town Hall tennis courts which uh took away two tennis courts and four pick ball courts which existed where the new site is for the uh Center uh the original location was chosen uh to be looked at was the Cooper Farm property uh a design was uh contracted and uh that design came out right around 1 .1 million and was um put on hold before it was sent to the town meeting floor uh in 2022 uh second location multiple locations were looked at and the decision was made to renovate the courts at the L and high school um the decision was that we're going to renovate these courts into a four pack of Courts uh to meet the needs of both the high school um Sports as well as replacing the the two courts that we had lost um at the site uh this was taken to fall town meeting uh and $734,000 was appropriated um of which some of that was CPC and some of that was going to be borrowed um we over the course of time uh met with a couple companies uh who were actually Construction and design and in June of 2024 myself Elicia Steve Mark uh and uh Mike met out on the tennis courts and started discussing uh next slide please so one of the things that became very quickly apparent was that places had kind of shorted the courts a little bit um and there really wasn't room and there was going to be uh pretty significant um site work that needed to be done we would need to cut into the hill uh there was going to have to be some retention walls uh and most importantly uh when we had started talking about this project was it was going to have a huge impact on where the buses that you can see in the picture parked uh which was something that uh was kind of a uh really affected what we're doing the other thing about this site is uh as far as the parking Loos erosion controls we were really going to have to look at really moving a lot of the islands and doing a lot of site work that was involved here um activitas had quickly put together these drawings and you know we uh Mike and I looked at them and said okay what are our other options next SL please so we sat down and discussed options and we came up with a plan uh couple things is for the general knowledge group and we'll go over on the next slide we've had five kind of projects that have dealt with both High School sports Middle School sports and where we are the Lea on Youth Sports um we've been chasing a lot of field space for a really long time uh so Mike and I finally got the ability to sit down and we said you know how can we put all of this together how can we save money for the town how can we advance the uh amount of open space in Playing Fields without actually having any extra Bas um so what we've been looking at as part of the needs that we needed to do were obviously the replacement of the courts uh tennis and pickle ball and like I said that came in at that 733 which we took to the town meeting floor uh the other piece was that eventually it wasn't part of this plan that we were going to need to build uh dedicated pickall courts behind the Indian Hill property eventually um I'm sorry that shouldn't say 750 that should say 450 was the kind of projected cost on that um so that was $450,000 there um and then the last thing was is addressing the needs of Youth Soccer and if anybody has a kid who plays soccer would kind of have all the soccer kids stashed all over town uh and most recently with the loss of the S ansfield uh we picked up a agreement with the Bible Church over on tadan road to pick up some extra space uh the the idea for putting another soccer field in town has been on the capital plan since 2016 and and that was an estimated cost of $1.1 million in 2016 by theale field study that we had received for the town next slide please um oh back one please so the other piece to it is uh you know and looking at the hole we were chasing the tennis courts we were chasing the pickle ball courts we were looking at getting a varsity field up to the caliber of jet field um just as in an interest of a uh the varsity baseball field has not been utilized since the high school sewer project had started uh so we were playing done at wicom and the general consensus was there was a lot of really good that came out of that because people are actually coming to the baseball games um after the other sports had wrapped up uh in our initial study which will see on the next page as well that uh estimated cost to renovate Wickham was about $650,000 once again back in that 2016 study um so all told if we put all these projects in it comes out to about three .24 million uh which is what we were looking at overall if we were to do these individual projects and figure it out um additional cost could be incurred uh in the future if Cooper or Ken white fields are impacted by the Shaker Lane project uh which we've also thought about that as well uh there was one of the um submitt that did leave us eventually net negative on one baseball field uh depending on what the selection is which we like I said have come up with a resolution for that as well um um after Mike and I had put together our heads we had a meeting with the ta's office uh School Representatives um Dr clenchi Steve Mark uh principal everheart um and then we had the ta's office Mike was present and a couple representatives from these Sports organizations uh the president of soccer and the president of baseball softball just so you can see this is the initial just kind of snapshot of the Gail report so you can see that it was a little over $1.1 million for the creation of a soccer field at Cooper Farm area and if you look at Wickham field the original idea was to possibly put a soccer and a baseball field there so that second line item you can see the 100 the 650,000 for the Wickam field that's where we get those numbers from next slide please can I also clarify that those numbers were uh projected in 2017 so they're quite old so in sitting down uh with Mike uh we kind of came up with idea and said how can we solve all of these things at the least cost and you know really make a solid impact that would give would buy us some time for the next couple to five years and you know really what we highlighted was that we convert the existing High School tennis Sports into the multiports that we lost at the um Town Hall so if you haven't been down there there's a picture on the next Slide the high school courts thanks to Steve Mark moving that forward they have been crack filled they have been resurfaced they have been line the only thing that has not been completed is the pickle ball lines being put on to them yeah I think they were out there yesterday or today doing that yeah so essentially what we've done bullet point number one has been solved so at this point the town hall tennis Sports as they were kind of exist down at the high school the next piece was still chasing that new tennis court project um and our idea was well what if we put that down at the Littleton Middle School uh on the Middle School field right as you pull into the parket lot um so as we walk through this uh we'll kind of discuss that as well uh in that project and doing it combined renovate and enhance wh wh and baseball field to bring it to the level of jet softball field for equity and then move all of the Town soccer to the Litton High School fields which uh we have started piloting that this fall and it seems to be working out very very well uh essentially what we would then do is M call The High School varsity baseball field which has been unused since the start of the sewer project and the softball field which has been unused since 2020 that's the field all the way out in the back uh we always had issues with getting people to bathrooms elderly handicap um just access to that field in general it's also extremely wet all of the time uh both of those fields would then become a placeholder uh that we could very quickly and easily for you know the cost between 30 and $60,000 per field uh bring back online if we did were to lose Cooper and Ken white for the Shaker Lane project next slide please um did you have anything you want to add that no I think you cover all right um so taking activ toses kind of overlay that we had had for the high school project with the four pack lining up um we laid in our tennis courts here this is the Middle School field when you drive in the middle schol driveway this would be to the right of the driveway um this is how the tennis courts would effectively look on that site uh we still do have room for one 8v8 uh youth soccer field uh which could be really used for anything um as far as Sports Fields practice things like that it's just a smaller field um and that would be located there uh when we spoke to principal everheart he did you know express some concerns about they do use that whole grass field for recess um and you know we really were kind of looking at it so there will still be partially grass the other pieces you know having the hard courts the Nets do come down in the winter and things like that um depending on how they're kept cleared things like that that can be a discussion that also you know creates an opportunity for getting out at different times of the year different opportunities that don't exist now with just the grass fields um next slide please so like I said um little and Tennis Sports of High School uh they've been crack killed resealed repainted and reigned and that was a picture actually took on Monday morning so I guess there's pickle ball lines on there as of yesterday uh so um that effectively is what we were chasing down for the um Town Hall courts next slide please Wickam field project and one of the reasons that we're coming to you um I'll be it a little bit late about this is we were waiting for what the selection was for Shaker Lane based on the fact that this was a site that was being considered um and we were asked by the town Administration just kind of hold off on the plan just to kind of see where that shook out um ideally what we would do next slide please is we would convert Wickham into a field that has fencing it actually has a home run fence it has dugouts on Deck circles exactly the experience that you would have a jet um and then the other piece uh that's involved in kind of doing this is we would then be able to take that Varsity Field offline um off of the high school not currently being used that yeah and a key component of of everything that ttim been covering is I've been a little for 24 years been the athletic breaker for 20 every spring there's a meeting with Youth Soccer youth lacrosse youth baseball and softball and that meeting can be uh challenging let's use that word so we were trying to solve this dilemma of how can we satisfy all those needs in the spring being the one you see the most crunch for fields and what we're doing with the high school currently this fall we have basically all soccer in the town being played at the high school and over at um at corporate field we can't do that though if we have to use the high school baseball field in the spring we're back to only having one field space for soccer all the way over to the right that we can use and then we're back to how do we accommodate all these different sports that want to that want to be there and the other we've observed um over all these years is a trend with baseball and softball that you know baseball and softball participation has trended downward a lot of sports will e and flow I've never seen uh soccer e in this count ever like at the youth or the high school level we've consistently fielded uh six soccer teams within the schools Middle School JB and varsity the youth soccer participation is 4 to 500 or something uh so they've had a couple Seasons that they've gotten into the 600 it's it's massive and it's fall and spring massive so soccer is something that you know you have to figure out in this town you know we've never seen a trend where it where it decreases so we're trying to do that and also Tim has also mentioned that you know the jet softball field that was part of the uh the alumni build it is it is amazing I mean it's like the Field of Dreams for the sport of softball um we have a fence we have a warning track we have bathrooms uh right behind the field uh it's a it's a uh irrigated field it's tremendous we don't have the equivalent in baseball um and then when we started playing at Wickham as a result of the sore project what we thought was really a negative actually turned into we kind of like this location better but we don't really like the field better than what we have at the high school I don't want to have a logistical situation where we have well the softball kids like playing a jet the high school softball field is unplayable it would take a lot of money to bring it back online baseball field would would wouldn't take as much but we now have high school softball being played at one facility High School baseball played at another it's a logistical problem transportation it's a logistical problem with visiting parents they it's just tricky we'd like to have everything over where where we've been doing things for two Springs it's really worked out quite well and we have seen an increase in fan participation but the field really isn't where it needs to be for high school play um the bench area is not really all that safe it doesn't have enough fencing and then one other thing I would bring that if we're going to play there this spring that kind of needs to be addressed prior to the spring and I hope I'm not talking on a turn we do need some kind of a netting system that would protect cars that are passing on that road because that um that's not ideal right now so we would need something there um so if you just uh so as far as the Wickham project goes uh just so everybody knows in our preliminary conversation uh with uh Jonathan Chadwick from activitas um we did put the tennis Sports and the Wickham project together to meet kind of what we're looking at and in the next slide I'll show you kind of the why and you know the Wickam project is important right here um but in that initial proposal uh you know in that 734 that we had been given um through CPC funding uh which we do need to rewrite the article in order to be able to utilize that for design and construction costs uh which I've been working with Ryan for our assistant Town Administrator to do um it's about $112,000 to get the tennis courts and wickom design construction out to bid all of those documents that we need to do that which leaves us with about $621,000 um to actually complete the project uh so the next conversations will be with the fincom and with the select board to see you know how do we come up with the rest of what we need uh preliminary assessments have come out that uh the wiom project will probably cost somewhere around an additional $300,000 um to meet the fencing the dugouts everything that we're kind of looking to put into that in order to bring it up to where we want to be um if we were to break these projects apart and do them separately um it it would cost us somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 to 80,000 to do the design and the bidding and everything else separately so that's something that we look at as well uh when we were looking into this the reasoning why if you can go to the next slide is ultimately this is what exists right now at the high school minus the two little fields on the side so so for the first time ever we were able to really truly meet the needs of Our Youth Sports from a soccer standpoint um we have four full siiz soccer fields three of these are painted with uh additional Fields being the 9v9 and the8 Fields um so we now have ample opportunity uh the other piece that this does is this allows um all the youth are now traveling to the high school at a time that it's not really utilized uh so we're taking away a lot of the conflict especially traffic and other things um before we used to have a big problem where youth would come out baseball game was still going on or the field hockey game things like that so now that this exists um it takes away some of that conflict the other piece um from a high school standpoint that might talk about this a little further is it gives the ability for both the varsity girls and boys uh and JV to have a dedicated field should they need it um just to kind of talk about it in the future if we were to say okay Wickham is uh the field and it's not coming back uh the high school softball fields no longer need it we could put two 8v8 fields to meet the needs of that growing uh next slide uh other option for us is if we mothball these fields for right now uh like I said we can spend like 30 to $60,000 per field to uh skim the field or turn it into a ball field but what you see here is this would essentially be if the Shaker Lane project was going on we could move Ken white and Cooper to these two locations and because of the distances of those fences you wouldn't have the interface with the soccer we could still have full uh soccer fields because varsity baseball has such a a longer fence so this would be something that we could look forward to in the future if we did not need that space then obviously we would return to op opportunity number one and just use it for Green Space soccer lacrosse all of those um C well okay um um I believe that was the last slide yep so um essentially just what we're looking for is uh to see if anybody has any questions um ideally we would ask for a vote um for the school committee to either support um to support the uh kind of the plan overall uh so that we can move forward and we can rewrite the article uh this is all stuff that's taking place on school property um so that's why we would need uh the vote from the from the school committee to be in supportive of doing both of these projects um the biggest thing is going to be that we're going to move the T support project from the high school down to the Middle School site uh that's the big piece in rewriting the language because the language is specific to the high school at this point so we would rewrite the language in a way that was either directed towards the middle school or a little more open uh in the idea of on school property okay that's it thank you questions comments I do have a few questions just because I know more about W field than I ever thought that I would on it very to very tight space um so tennis courts aside I think that's that seems like a great plan but for so for the wh field you guys want to keep that baseball field there just develop it establish it fensive in a little bit more is that right that's the that's if they get if Shaker Lane if we can't get baseball fields at Shaker Lane so Wick would become our dedicated 90 foot uh fullsize baseball full siiz baseball so it would have fencing down both of the foul lines it would have an outfield fence foul poles it would have dugouts with rooms just like it exists as it does on the varsity field yep uh for anybody who's interested in kind of um looking at something that is Apples to Apples is air put in pretty much did the exact same renovation we're looking to do to their varsity field um black fence dugouts tin roof um if anybody wanted to see that that's kind of exactly what we're looking to do with them okay um have you seen the proposals for the Shaker Lane how we have all the fields in the front of the Shaker Lane so you've seen that there's there's plenty of space there if we wanted to do baseball fields there right yes okay yes um the only reason I ask is because just to note for you guys just for thoughtful planning for that space in Wickam field is that we're adding I think it was like 40,000 square feet to Shaker Lane building to meet the students needs Russ the streets an older building we know we probably eventually at some point going to have to add to that um and you know how tight of a space that is between 495 the brand new track the um alumni Fields there's not a lot of space in that area for us to add to Russell Street if we needed to so just something just keep in mind for that area keeping it a green space is wonderful tucking the baseball field back as far as you can so it doesn't get disrupted if if at some point we need to carve out some more space for Russell Street I just wanted to just note that you just go back to the W slide real quick so the one thing that we have discussed um is you can see that little green square uh up at the top closest to the Russell Street Parking the lot go down the other way step straight down towards the corner of the parking lot right there so that's really I mean that's as close as we could ever possibly hope to get to relocating home plate um at that point to Mike's uh statement about fencing we would really need to do something and that would probably require significant overhang on the on the um on the back stop which you know for baseball purist is not ideal um however if we were to move into that spot it it'd be about an additional 60 to $70,000 to relocate the actual field itself but you know that is something that we can look into in the project if we wanted to do that so how about the field behind Shaker laning if that remained untouched would that be a better option for you or no um varsity baseball field won't F there it won't be yeah so right now we're looking just so you have a a perspective um right and left field in this particular instance is 305 which is the shortest recommended High School fence um you know 325 is kind of the longer side that uh people are playing as you can see this is 325 in center field um you know some baseball fields on the high school level can go up to 375 that's really kind of the the dimensions that we're chasing which definitely we could probably maybe fit that at Cooper and Ken white I don't have those measurements but it definitely wouldn't fit on the Shaker baseball field and I don't know that baseball would necessarily like to lose that field because that is our nicest of the little Le Fields yeah it makes sense to have it over by the middle school too you've got we've got a lumni field there you've already got the set up like it M's already bossing all of the athletes down there anyway so there's a cost that you would be involved with moving them anywhere else yeah um yeah so I just be thoughtful with that yeah just be thoughtful with that that design and you know I would hate for us to build something and then in a few years we have to like figure out how to read or move it somewhere else because we need more space for the school well a couple facts that littleton's always going to have to live with unless you develop a massive piece of property the schools in the recre in the youth fields are they're like one and the same in lingon and that's not true in a lot of towns a lot of towns uh take like Gren they have massive uh you know youth fields in addition to their campuses we will always have to work together and hey we've been doing good job lately so we've been getting on great we've been making it work we think we have a better master plan for what we have to work with for both entities and you know it's not perfect it's never going to be perfect there's always going to be that crossover period when we're ending they're arriving I will tell you since moving Youth Soccer uh in the fall up to the high school where we're playing all the high school soccer we have siphoned off a lot of car and traffic flow at um the Russell Street complex in between school and youth that that five or six o'clock time there's essentially nobody arriving here at that point because we've taken the youth soccer and move it all to high school um the other thing you're always going to be stuck with in Littleton is and we can't go back and you know undo this back in 2001 or whatever or even the formative State for the high school we built a high school for those who don't know the high school used to sit where the Middle School currently sits so if you're wondering why the football the the stadium and the track two you know our two feature outdoor facilities aren't high school campus is because they used to be and at that time people decided to build a high school up on the piece of land they had but all we put out there was back fields so we just have open green space behind the high school which is fine but people of come to high school and they're like do you guys not have a football team or do you not have track like we do it's all over at the middle school Russell Street complex which I'll be the first to tell you is not ideal and those who see my emails and whatnot and Communications know that we spend a lot of time training our kids where they can't park so that they don't they don't uh disrupt the the dismissal process at Russell Street School which there's a CR over there when we're arriving and they're trying to dismiss and we do the best we can with all these things and we're sensitive to the fact that you know our tur field our track they are right beside our intermediate building and our after school program it's never going to change because you know High School's up the road and we're always going to have to bus um D bus is we're lucky to have the best bus company um in this region we really are they have we're doing better than a lot of school districts a lot of the colleagues I have and uh Rene's been phenomenal and we work a shuttle bus every day and it's never going to go away because we have to get kids over to the turf daily we have to gets over to track daily we have to get kids over to fate Park in the fall for cross country we're always going to be one of those schools that can't really just um be neat and tidy and just have every facility for the high school up there and we're always going to have to work collaboratively with youth hence we really kind of this whole thing that we put together was kind those things like wow if this will really and and now we're living it I think we saw the soccer field crun I haven't I think we have right I think we have but we need in the spring too we haven't done anything if we get in the spring if we play baseball and softball the high school we're kind of right back where we were um so we again luckily though we found the softball players never want to go back to the high school they would never want to go back to the high school over jet field and we found that the baseball kids actually like the baseball uh field that they're playing on they just like to see it you know maybe some enhancements that what we've been talking about um so a lot of these things kind of came together in the need for tennis courts right now the town of Littleton uh we have 10,000 residents that about we have has two tennis courts in the entire town so that that is not sufficient so that's hence the the need formal Court somewhere Justin Elaine has her hand up she's online Elaine yes hi um I'm thinking about the tennis courts at the field behind the high school and I think you were saying that there is a problem with um with it being wet often would those plans to rebuild soccer fields back there mitigate the um those conditions so where we have the fourth soccer field coming up to it's it's still outside of that like really wet area right behind the short stop slri field area of the Varsity softball field um the only field you know if we ever got rid of that field and put a soccer field the little soccer field there we might have some issues uh if we ever redesigned and put uh another Youth Softball field up there those issues you know we'd have to look at whatever do we have to do to dry that area up um with material that was being put in okay thank you so Tim you're asking us uh the support or vote on essentially just kind of in summary this four tennis court project at the middle school and excuse me um some sort of spend on the varsity uh what is what what is to become the the permanent varsity baseball field yes so some sort of renovation whether that's part of this initial tennis court project or whether we you know look at doing it as a separate project that that is the as but you look at par of them together correct that it it's the biggest cost savings if we do it design and construction s the uh I'm it's just purely out of curiosity because I remember this from your presentation last time the orientation of the Four Courts there was something to do with Sunset and playing in the sun are they I'm just curious did you guys look at so these would be properly oriented okay um so then I could you just review what the money spend is for us and where we think we're the town is going to raise the money to do the Four Courts and so essentially right now um based off of where we are and the we're assuming this is all assumptions until we can get the $112,000 and really get the the construction cost um we're assuming that we're probably going to need somewhere in the neighborhood of an additional $300,000 which would probably be a borrow or CPC fund asked um depending on how the warrant article is written uh if you go back and actually look at the warrant um from uh town meeting November 1st 2023 uh in that particular warrant um it was to appropriate $734,000 for design and construction at the Wilton High School uh 400,000 of that would be appropriated from the CBC and the uh balance um of 334 would be Borrowed by the treasurer uh with approval by the select board okay so in this particular case um it's an you you estimate that it's an additional that's what we're based off of the air project and the idea that we want to get fencing and dugouts at minimum that's kind of what we're look at and that's the four the four new court at the middle school and the baseball field an additional 300 on top of what the town already voted in favor of correct for all of the pros that you just went through at this correct so in in the grand scheme of things when Mike and I work out this whole you know we met mentioned that everything all by itself in the 2016 report plus the Tennis Courts Plus the pickle ball courts was right around 3.32 million $ 3.23 million um even if we were to go to 1.5 on this uh we're seeing a significant savings over you know that 3.3 you know million dollar project that it would take to we what we were able to solve by just moving the soccer field and you know doing what we really sit down and kind of figure out there any organized Sports uh be it uh middle school or uh youth sports that use the where the Four Courts are proposed to go at the middle school the sorry yes so I mean you'll find a new home for them is the answer yeah the high school we got plenty of grass now so anybody who plays on that kind of uh the exception to that question which we've talked about and I don't know how deep you want to go into it is we do have Middle School field hockey out there right now okay traditionally they were out in the Wickam field we have um the track field is not being used right now we're actually resting it which has always been one of our goals and that would become the home for Middle School soccer okay so where would Middle School feel Hoy go you're well that would either have to go across the Outfield of of the Wickham field and one of the one of the objectives is that right now like we're always playing sports all over the outfields of the baseball fields this field would have essentially no sports played across it but with the only exception probably being Middle School field card that one might need a home um yeah it's hard to it's not going to be perfect you know in order to gain something um because we're adding four tennis courts that town really has never currently had because we had two and two so we just lost a site with two tennis courts we were putting in building so four tennis cours need to go somewhere why we arrived there is because when we started with the real with the engineer we started really looking at what the impact was going to be upon the high school it seemed like this is not really this is becoming prohibitive so that's why we arrived at that location but yeah you are giving up a small a small field but gaining so much grass at the high school yeah so the Middle School field hockey team will get this place to the Outfield of whitcom or potentially bust to the they were or they were the Middle School field hockey was originally playing on wik UPS Outfield yes they used to play there in the Middle School soccer used to play inside the track but then we had the opportunity to take soccer off of the track which we're wrestling that field this year and um there's also issues when you put a field inside the track with people going across your track playing on your track and riding bikes on your track and other things like that so we're trying to also remove because we used to use attractive heavily Middle School plus 3 7 v7s across it so we getting off it youth was coming on it right now we we just have we have actually nothing programmed in there letting that field rest um so what could happen is Middle School feel like it could go in there this massive soccer complex at the high school honestly could could daily handle all of the soccer teams but again not getting situation with middle school kids need to get to the high school but if it results in a better soccer experience for them because we have these we essentially have a soccer we're we're partly there but we're essentially going to have a a soccer complex behind the high school and you know again watching the trends for 24 years in this town I've never seen any any drop in soccer interest or participation I don't foresee it ever happening so to the to the point of the inside the track just one final point so any sport that we put inside the track with the exception of soccer the field has to be extremely heavily modified um because that the infield was not left big enough when they actually made that track um and then the other piece to that is um that you know we no longer have soccer going out there so spring season track is the only thing out there um in the fall season Middle School soccer team is a dedicated field which we've never had people right um two quick questions do you plan on doing pickle ball on the proposed four new courts as well or those purely tennants purely tenis okay right now obviously you could add pickle ball if the trend continues where pickle ball and then my last question was do you plan on moving the JV Varsity program to the four new courts eventually so that the J it's one bus ride one the tennis yeah tennis would join the U would just hop on the shuttle bus that already exists in a away M like we would host our matches at before new Courts at the middle school we would splitting JB and varsity but what we would get on practice days and I I foresee like having an A and A B week where okay week a girls program gets the four Court location week B I mean the boys get the two court at the high school okay next week you would give the boys the four cours for their practice and the girls so you'd be right now we have two Courts at the high school and we use one of the strangest land deals I've ever seen we use two courts behind those those uh the new houses at Weber yeah and I really the fence it is literally maybe two feet away from some people's patios like we are when we hold matches and sometimes maybe that fifth match is being played it's going to come down to that and the rest of the matches are completed so all the kids are watching it they're not doing nothing wrong they're right on the outside of the fence they're cheering everything we are in people's we are literally on the edge of their backyard it is it is not a good situation in those courts you get any rain I have to go out there with brooms I have to clear I have to clear all the puddles I have to blow them I mean those pts are are are not a good situation for us it we really need to be in our last spring this one coming up with those courts that's not a great situation for us or that that it's not fair to us residents from being honest we from being honest it's not okay yeah your name I got a little lost um so we're talking now about the four nuke tennis courts and the baseball field down where the Russ Street Middle School are um that's one project is are the soccer fields behind the high school a separate project we don't need to do anything we just we just had to pain so what we're trying not to do is if we can renovate Wickham and we don't have to send the um the spring baseball because if we had the varsity field up there then we lose to 11v 11 fields in the spring because baseball's up there there's no fence the ball can kind of roll forever it's three you would lose three in the event there was the four the four field scenario you would lose you lose all three of I trust you guys nowed Wick there's no sock deal there's no interface we send everybody up there you know traffic stays the same because now you have track meets you don't have Youth Sports coming there they're all going to the high school which is a site that's not being used because there's no high school sports being played up there with the exception of two tennis sports for practice no I really trust you guys and I'm so glad you're the ones doing this yeah I'm I'm thinking like money spent so no more money at at for the soccer fields we're talking about the money for the the tennis and the and the baseball field I'm good with that I just I just wanted to clarify my own mind I'm sorry yeah and to be perfectly clear we're already doing it um DPW is awesome they have that they have that robot painter they just programmed it to do more Fields the what what Tim put up there with the four Fields across we have three Fields across this fall okay the fourth field and that is has nothing to do with anything that we've talked about the fourth field is that soft build area and it has like a sink hole because there's been issues over there for since the beginning of time yeah but you could easily make a fourth field there with just bring in some LOM and seating it we just haven't got that far yet okay but you know it is interesting because some people might be thinking why would you have such a high soccer need in fall in Spring it's the only sport that's like that that has that that high KNE fall and spring the two questions when if we have four soccer fields at the high school when do those what's the is there a rotation to wrestle on those fields at some point in time you absolutely would have that option if if they did the four right now we're at three we're not really resting any of them we're using them but if you had four you could abely do that okay but the nature of soccer it it's not really a sport that's um it's not really a sport that's hard on fields honestly at all where the goalie stands that's it okay so right now we are so we would not have been able if we didn't have the Third Field essentially we could bring in a fourth field in the future we didn't have the Third Field currently we couldn't rest the track field which desperate needed it okay you could also ship them to if needed it in the future y so my second question is the 112,000 for the designed portion is that rolled into the $300,000 request additional funds that's already accounted for correct so it's accounted for so we did um have a conversation this week just so everybody is um one of the asks was is can that come out of the record revolving fund and we were told by um the state and the attorneys that that cannot be appropriated from that fund it's not what it's allowed to be used for so right now we have 734 appropriated uh that would be you know the 112 would come out of that which believe 621 so once we got our final answer from activitas we would know what the exact number that we're actually chasing uh it's conjecture right now that the Middle School site is going to cost us less because there's less site work to do um but it it would be assumed that there would be some sort of cost savings because that is flat and to our knowledge there's no utilities underneath of it so to are you still using the 2017 numbers or have you adjusted or so we have adjusted uh the numbers uh based off of current construction costs that were um given to us based off of the places um for the four pack that we were going to put at the high school and that was uh 202 yeah 2023 yeah 20 so recent yeah and then we're assuming the between two and $300,000 cost based off of what it cost cost um renovation wise for the for the air baseball field that's where we kind of ballpark that number from for the fencing and the dugouts as I said at our meeting prior to the end last school year I this is a an impressive plan for years and years so we've been having these conversations and and have not been able to come up with a viable plan like uh you have together so thank you for working together it's great partn a great plan I'm I'm just wondering uh until we have a uh a firm price I what this would cost maybe a motion to the effect that we we approve uh the plan moving forward uh in principle at this point in time until we have more information it's always you know before a school committee should should jump into the water on something like this we really truly do need to know the cost and what implications if P the cost is going to have to other town Department are Department yeah and ideally what we would do is rewrite the article go to town meeting with the idea that we were going to um be able to have it somewhere on the town of Li and school property rather than strictly at the high school which is how it's written which is what is being prev right now for us I think I think that's the key component if what you're really asking for is the school committee's approval to move forward with the project because it's on school property Grant we should be in favor of the money spend as well like we should we should do this with our our thinking hats on but the select board and the finance committee are really going to be the ones to make the financial recommendations F right now we just need to ReRe the article sense school property rather than I mean I know we have a big spend coming up that we yes we're all cognizant of tax dollars and everything but um objective is to get it into town meeting this October and hopefully so by next spring those new Fields will be in like what's your so ideally what we would do is have all the construction at some point we would come back to you with all those exact prices after we you know do the 112 spend to get everything we need put it out the did have all those numbers and then basically last day of school ideally if everything is ready to go we can shut down the middle school parking lot or you know wherever the site work is going to you know be most impactable that way the project can be completed prior to open back up school so it' be for next summer we're talking about this but it has to be into it has to be at this town meeting in order that time I just want to make sure I want to make sure we understand the class line that so so Tim I just want to make sure I I understand some things we haven't talked about yet so you're you're asking the school committee to to make a motion in order to construct the uh tennis courts and what they field I'm assuming that the land would still remain the School District Stadium is that correct no yeah there's no changes this is okay it'd be identical to what we were planning on doing at the high school it's just we're asking basically for more latitude on the on where the site actually is so that the next this will be the third time that we're going to town meeting because the article was so specifically written the first time it was for Cooper property the $1.1 million price tag you know was not um really what anyone's appetite was looking at so that's why was scratched uh in 2023 we came up with this plan like I said you know the Architects at the time didn't really give us a site that actually worked um and when we met with the the new Architects and um we we kind of formulated this plan but in order to do so we need a little bit of latitude on we need to change the language from the high school uh we you know somewhere on school property or you know we don't necessarily want to necessarily say the Middle School field so we don't end up in the same boat right but that's what we're looking for from you guys this evening any more any I think we've we've heard a lot it's it's of interest to us it's a good thing we spent a lot of time on it you spent a lot of time on it um if there are no other questions or comments we could move forward with the Motions so that they are comfortable moving forward with the project y like make so let me do this go for it um so motion to approve having the tennis Sports be moved in front of the Middle School correct and Al are we doing this the baseball part of it and renovation of the baseball fields current currently on fields does that work no works I second motion made seconded this is a roll call vote Elaine I Stacey hio hi Janine hi Justin both as well great I appreciate all of your time I did bring a copy just I had had an opportunity to submit it um this just a copy of the Tommy report of the language are changing and the activ so I'll give that to Steve has a copy but I'm sure he can disseminate to everybody thank you all all work you did on this that was we hope third times a charm than all right thank you for your next up are the school principal updates school principls will give a brief update on their school reopenings no Michelle we're going youngest to oldest age of the students um so I I like that you have that um essential question so I think this is really important like how schools created welcoming environments for returning students and staff so one of the big pushes we have at shapan is to always greet the students outside every single staff member is either at their door greeting kids or outside or in the hallways and this is been one of the smoothest starts that I've ever had this is my eth year at Shaker Lane and I don't think we any any crying kindergarteners nor preschoolers so this is huge when they had to come back Thursday and then after the long weekend then there were tears because they realized this wasn't a one time thing they're coming back they have to come back but overall it has been the smoothest start we're seeing our preschoolers our three and four years old foury old students coming back with skills that they didn't have the past few years because of the pandemic so I feel like we've got bring gained some traction there our kindergarteners are coming in with some solid skills it has been the smoothest start we are fully staffed at sherlan that's been the first time since 2020 that's not the case in any education anywhere secondary postsecondary so it's it's really great to start there um I feel like Harish and recel have spent a lot of time sharing the the highlights of us of what have happened at choline but we had a great back to school night we actually followed Russell streets um format this year we had one back to school night and we offered families uh time to meet with our unified Arts teachers time to meet with our uh special education staff elll staff um support staff occupational therapists physical therapists and then they had breakout times for about 20 minutes to 45 minutes with the classroom teachers and it was amazing to see our unified Arts teachers actually have people come because they had a dedicated time to present to them they originally set out like 10 chairs and there ended up being like close to 30 people at their presentations so I think they felt appreciative to have a dedicated time for themselves um we had uh CPAC was out with information we had the building project information out there Girl Scouts we just received an email from the Girl Scout leader saying that she got such amazing feedback this year so it was a very successful night lots of families there excited to hear about the year so that was I think the biggest highlight to and this is the earliest we've ever had it in Shaker Lane it's usually kind of later in September so this was a nice way to welcome the kids in uh the first week K to two then our preschool is the next week and then our fam is um the third week we have our book fair next month that is coming up pretty quickly that's in about 3 weeks and we have a very excited twist coming we are going to be offering a little masked reader event that night so I think the kids are going to be really excited we have costumes we have voice changers I don't watch The Masked Singer but I'm sure and I think a lot of people do um but we're excited to offer this Mas reader event during the um book fair and then we've also started um some Community other community events um as Russell Street had mentioned I think Harish had mentioned we are doing our cultural Fair again this year we're partnering with bu Russell Street so that's going to be really cool to have both schools there um boo you came last year Kelly be hland it was just such an amazing event so we're looking forward we have some um thank you to beel we are coordinating some dancers so we're going to have some presentations we're gonna have Irish step dancing we're gonna have a Bollywood um and we're working with Masala Bay to have some food as well so we're taking it to another level this year very excited um especially to partner with Russ Street um so yeah it's gonna be really cool I think that the girls that were dancing last year they were amazing I have a crew I have eight or nine Shaker Lane Russell Street kids that said yes to dancing that is awesome and we're working with Whitney mcisaac she's goingon to bring over some of her Irish Step dancers so pretty cool so it's been a great start to the year and we're looking for a great year I just wanted to give you a quick shout out on the new newsletter format which I know um Russell Street is doing as well but I know you had taken feedback last year there was a survey and it's beautiful it's easy to read there's a link there's a link for specific things I've been on it I've been on the Russell Street one now more because that's where my kids go but just really who knows to taking that feedback and redesigning it it's awesome that's great to hear and it was truly feedback from the families what do you want to hear what do you want to see the ease of use I do think it's kind of cool because we had designed it to be um on your phone on a tablet and on a computer so it icon based so um again that was just just answering parents with and families what they wanted to hear yeah has a question oh yeah hi Michelle it's Elaine um I'm so happy to hear that the kids are coming in with um with good skills this year since the pandemic that seems like a real game Cher that will move up through the system um I have a real specific question do you know off the top of your head the date of the cultural fair in case someone would want to like me want to attend it was a but it wasn't the second the six I think there's no school on the second I'm not Mist November 6th elen November 6th okay I'll consider that an invitation yes thank you thanks elen thanks so much thank you until McDonald good evening everyone um I'll make the briefest of introductions uh I'm the new face in the room uh Colin McDonald new principal of Russell PR school I'm happy to be here um prior to coming to Littleton I was the building principal of Penbrook Elementary School in Georgetown Massachusetts uh prior to that I was a director of curriculum and instruction in that same district um and I have administrative and my teaching experience in Chicago before my wife and I moved back to New England um so happy to to be in Littleton and it has been a fantastic um start of the school year of Russell Street um I'll back up a little bit before the start of school year um we had the esy the extended school year program um at Russell Street which is great actually the the first day of esy was my first day on the job so I was welcoming students into the school and I had no idea where I was sending them but I was welcoming them um and it was lovely to have have students and and staff in the building and I got to meet and work with some of our kids over the summer which was a great introduction to the school um also over the summer we uh held three orientation nights for our families to come in and T the school get to know um the procedures and processes of of Russell Street again I had to be quick on the uptake because I was talking about and buses and lunch procedures and had to lean on Mrs Romano to to school me on all of that but by the end I I was able to to let people know what was going on um the start of the school year uh was fantastic a really great first day um I was shocked at how quickly and efficiently we got cars and buses in around the turf field and through the circle um it was uh really really nice um we welcome some new staff members um to the building this year which already the packet that you saw um and just a few new changes to to Russell Street um that are somewhat minor but I wanted to mention um first off we are now serving uh our morning breakfast in cafeteria at Russell Street as opposed to last year it was more of a grab and go and students would have it in their classrooms but we have a supervised breakfast now so students can have a nice breakfast for those of them that need it in the morning and when they get in um in the cafeteria one place and after morning announcements uh they're off with their day um another update is uh something that's new for our unified Arts is that um our students rotate through the four unified arts on Tuesday through Friday um but on that Monday this year um we offered uh a unified Arts elective for some of our students so that they could uh choose a different UA to to attend um and for the first round we're doing them in six week increments our first round this wise cow music teacher is offering a digital music unified Arts um elective um miss hendley our PE teacher is offering a running and walking goals um UA where students will um use the track outside in the nice weather to uh set some some goals for their walking or running um benchmarks and try to time themselves and track their progress throughout that six weeks and Miss Morton our librarian um is running a UA called stories or super or she's um collected a bunch of stories that have to do with superheroes and superpowers so our students made those selections on Monday and they'll start that UA elective uh this coming Monday so we're excited for that um some upcoming things our back to school night is this coming Monday um from 6:00 to 8 so we look forward to having all of our families there uh the one small tweak to that this year is this is romano and I are going to meet with families prior to the um classroom presentations just so people can get to uh to put a name to a face uh meet me and Mr mono is going to make some updates on some attendance uh initiatives that we have going on across our screen um picture day is the following day on Tuesday 17th so uh addess your best and um I'll just like I'd like to close just by saying um what a one welcome that I felt at Littleton it's been really a joy to be here so far and I really look forward to to making the most of this year and so great I'm so sorry everybody back in a it's the first um the the opening middle the middle school year has been fantastic I've had several teachers this week say that this is probably the best opening that they've experienced at least since Co and in many cases prior to co which is great when you have people that are feeling comfortable we had a couple significant changes to our program of studies last year and so that you know going through that for the first time people are coming in we we added a second laa teacher we had seventh grade math so now that we're B into our second full year those teachers are feeling comfortable with the program um you know a lot of the work we do because the the the move from elementary school to middle school is is a significant change and so the work we do to make students feel welcome really happens during the summer you know we we we have tours you'd be surprised how many families ask for individual tours because child is anxious and they just want to see the building on their own without the crowd so we we certainly welcome that you know anything we can do to make sure the kids feel welcome when they come in so that they're not overwhelmed by the process um we hosted a a family cookout you know a few days before school started to to welcome new families and get them involved and and and start to build those those Partnerships um you know the biggest thing that we're doing is you order to make students feel welcome is really doubling down on the idea that I want every student in that building to a connection with an adult we had um I brought in Dr Alex hburg yesterday for a 2our PD he'll be coming back in a couple weeks and he talked about how students today so very different than many of us when we grew up most of us didn't want to hang out with teachers and spend time with teachers but students today they crave it and so we as as leaders of the school right our adults have to have to provide opportunities and so what we want to make sure to do is is is create an environment where that can happen so um in the course of that professional development we're going to be looking at trauma trauma and Form Construction how do we handle these kind of situations so that that we are bringing students back into the fold if they're anxious or or or you know in some cases depressed and and not sure about what middle school is going to be like we want that to be something that we handle right away um in addition to that we placed uh QR codes on the back of every stall door in the in the school so that students if they're being harassed or bullied I I I we can never know how many students never report it and I thought about that a lot over the summer and it's something that I feel very very strongly about we get students and parents who will say my kid is being harassed or my kid is is being bullied but what about the ones that you never hear from and so what what this is an opportunity for students to anonymously report if they or a friend of theirs is being harassed by somebody by doing it on the inside of the stall doors they're not taking a picture of the QR code in front of everybody else it's private they can do it um thankfully we haven't had anybody use it yet but but we anticipate at some point in time um I I I yeah I just want to make sure that we are taking every opportunity we can to reach those students so I feel like what we what we created is a real culture of positivity in our building of excitement but also supported with the idea that every student should have the same advantages and opportunities not just academically but in terms of of social education and connection with adults and so that's what we are doing to open the school year and so far you know 10 12 days in it's been a great success I just have a good question I love the QR code idea especially where you placed it students can take phones into the bathrooms you want the the truth or the truth no they're not supposed to have their phones on but let's be honest sometimes sometimes they happen so when that's the case that's there we also email the the same link to a Google form so they can do it on the own after school or at home um but sometimes it's easier to catch at the moment we just want to make sure that we're you know casting a white net ideally they're not taking their bones into the into the bathroom but you know yeah but it's email to them also yes yeah so every student should have access to can I ask since we're on that topic what are our policies for phones lunch recess what what are you doing this year so we're continuing what we've been doing um our sixth grade team two years ago said we we we want to eliminate cell phones from they were just we were just seeing kids not interacting with each other and so it became you know part of what we really believe to say how do we how do we make this happen so we ban all technology a lunch cell phones watches Chromebooks all of that so as those kids matriculate we just keep that going so this will be the first year that the entire lunch process six seven and eight no cell phones no technology and it's we haven't had to confiscate a phone we haven't had to remind anybody the eighth graders they're used to it they're doing it even when they go outside to eat they're not on their phones it's just become a part of it it's just so wonderful to see kids talking and playing and interacting in ways that we didn't necessarily between you know 2017 in 2023 so um we're very happy about that um rarely do we have much of a cell phone issue anymore I think because that was the biggest time and you know the passing periods are so short that they don't really have time to be on their phones and our our teachers are very Vigilant about phone pockets and boxes to put them in so the whole school has gotten behind this idea uh we want to make sure that that b their teacher possession or at least in the front of the classroom while class is happening and during the lunches um our teachers who do lunch duty we have all staff do lunch duty so every person in the building at some point in time there's lunch duty so we're all invested and we all have a role to play and making sure this happens one of my worries has always been with with cell phone policies is you know if a sixth grade teacher has to has to confront an eighth grade student about their cell phone somebody who maybe has moved in you know after sixth grade how do you get everybody to be part this way we're able to do that so by we're bringing in the coun and the psychologists and and and everybody is a part of that too so it's a moral whole school investment I think we're definitely seeing the day off on that thank you made really good prop with that i' love seeing that it's great I thought I was gting more a fight and it's you know the first year was a little bit but after that it's just now how we do business so it's great job um I had the opportunity to attend the back to school I thought you guys knocked it out of the park great job that all the parents felt welcomed we moved throughout the building pretty well we got to all of our kids' classes I was very impressed with seventh grade team yeah I'm sure it'd be very impressed with every team but I had the individual pleasure of meeting all those folks yeah so job well done and it's it's off to an exciting school year I we you know we've had a fair amount of turnover since Co um and I'm really proud of the hiring that we've done and I think we have a staff that is that is um hungry and wants to wants to do well and has invested in students and I think you know you would know as a parent if that wasn't the case when you're sitting in those classrooms so if you're feeling that you know the kids are feeling it I'm very proud of the that we have work they're doing great all right thank we're clapping for John coming in thank you very much nice welcome Spirit of the the agenda tonight H so how we created a welcoming environment for students and staff and you know very much in line with my colleague of the other schools we did have our back school night you had mentioned that just recently that was a terrific opportunity for parents to feel connected to teachers and get to know a little bit about the school we did learn a little bit about at the outset of that how we might distribute schedules differently was an old way we did go back to that in terms of having to get that in advisory soad it'll start the the evening a little bit smoother in terms our back to school night with parents but we there's tons of energy and enthusiasm in the building um you both know Fernando and I actually meginsky our SRO often joins us with her dog Rett to greet students upon arrival at school so that's nice opportunity sort of wave to parents as they do the drop off and check in with kids Julie Elmore is down at the her dog Archie reading the students has to get off the school bus is a different part of the building that's a nice way for students to you know can't always be there every day but it's a nice way for students to feel connected right on arrival we want made a real concerted effort to be there for the first few weeks of school and we've continued that the wonderful weather that we've had has really helped with that um we did have similar to other folks we start this process in the summer with personalized tours as well for new students who are school choice or new to the area uh or just feeling anxious about their arrival at you know high school if they're coming out eth grade so we did conduct those tours in the summer we also had new student orientation invit by pe leaders that was very successful and nice way to you know get help the kids feel a sense of blind right at the outset um the we I I and um Mr K Mr Co I hosted class meetings with school counselors um to we met with all the individual grade levels to go their expectations and just help feel that while they'll be challenged they'll also be supportive along the way and the police you know seek out any guidance don't be afraid to ask for help for any of the staff if they have any concern concerns we do have an advisory model at the high school and we um made sure to have our advisory sessions during Flex block for the first two weeks of school so they can make that strong connection with their fellow class Fates but also with their advisor the advisor as you know from previous presentations wrote loops with the student invisor know freshman year and that person will stay with them for four years providing they staying on staff and for the most part we have a very consistent staff um we had PD professional development yesterday focused on social emotional learning the character strong advisory curriculum went over very well I checked in with the facilitators I want to thank Dr Tracy Turner and Jen fudo for facilitating this mer Perry health and wellness coordinator was also involved with planning uh and it was terrific it's and the focus actually is right at Agenda it was about creating a sense of community of belonging and well-being and encouraging that how we going to do that throughout our advisory model and our character strong curriculum and so that uh one of the activities that they will will have on Monday is a to be Challenge and that is where the students will be a challenged to be welcoming inviting challenge yourself to talk to somebody new and find out at least one thing about them or invite someone to participate joining you at lunch or um or an activity and so that's something that St all the students will experience when they when they engage in this activity on Monday uh and we'll continue these 2B challenges each month the character strong will be there's 10 sessions so both throughout the course of the school year and it's a it's real focus of course of social emotional learning and I imagine we providing more updates to you at Future meetings about that um the other thing to mention I guess is we have our College planing night but I think you already did that that's coming up on September 24th and we have our homecoming dance on October 18th where we bring the whole school together for our next night of dancing part the school at the school having can answer any questions but that's what we're at smooth start Play have to report that have the high school athletes been kind of disappointed with the Triple E threat and needing to move the games to Saturday afternoon I jus we haven't heard I mean you can speak to that good happier right there um you I haven't heard too manys just yet but you know I think they yeah certainly the football team would want to be under the lights and the other teams as well when they have an opportunity to play on Alumni field I enjoy that um but they know it's just you know our kids are very resilient adaptive after what they've been through and their schooling experience with less you know five years certainly three years and um and I think they they're responding well and they know it's it's out of their control so yeah hopefully temporary yeah yeah I hope so you know we'll see how long it work we just need a hard freeze a hard Frost what I'm we haven't had it in beautiful weekend in the 80s be interesting we have our first football game of the season at 12: noon on Saturday and the weather is Beach weather Lane has a question Lane yeah thanks um I want this is actually for all of the principles that presented I'm um very grateful uh all that you're doing to create welcoming communities for the students and staff so that's that's uh really meets our essential question for the meeting tonight um one of the things that I do as the clerk of the school committee is submit um information every month for the town newsletter and so I've been taking notes so I'll summarize what you all said about um the opening of school which is so much good news um if any of you have photos that you could send me of any of the things that you were talking about um if there are students in the photos of course they'd have to have media permission um I'm thinking also of uh Michelle was mentioning there were some chalk drawings that were welcoming students on the sidewalk any of that what I've learned in the past is if I don't provide photos of what I'm writing about then they just in insert a picture of your school building and we can do way better than that so um anyway so if you could just send it to my um school committee email that would that would be great I'm going to be putting together our submission next week so thank you in advance thank you thank you thank you very much well done everybody all right new business item number five a district portrait of a learner superintendent clench she will upate the school committee on the new initiative so I'm going to uh speed things up a bit here I know our presentation on uh Fields tennis courts field took a lot longer than we thought which is good good discussion over the summer had an opportunity to really dig into how does how does one take a vision that is Well written on paper and and convert it into something that that we truly aspire to live by we've talked about P of a graduate it's been around well 14 years now and uh you've heard me talk in previous School Comm meetings about the importance of identifying culminating skill sets that our students need when they transition from one school to the next school so looking around and and John and I met a couple of times this summer we we knew that there were districts uh in the nation uh seeking out to develop a portrait of a learner for for all students from when they student School school they graduated and uh we found a district uh m m Upton School District that has done this the uh co-principals of the uh 6 to 12 Regional High School had developed a portrait of The Graduate originally about 12 years ago and they uh took on the leadership role of working to develop a portrait of a learner for the district so we invited the co-principals to our Retreat this summer and and spent about four hours with them and and uh they helped us develop a a road map so that we can start this process this year it's not going to happen quickly we're hoping by the end of the year we'll have a pretty good draft and then in the fall we can we finalize it but you can see uh by the model that I've included in the package uh it's really nice to to identify those those key areas that that we all would like our students to provide it prior to graduation again starting right from when the ENT schol but I'm sure you've heard me in the past talk about I can statements so if you scroll down to the document I know we don't have a lot of time left I want I try to get us out of here at n there there are I can statements and and what's powerful about this is every school in our district can develop I can statements that use vocabulary that students can can relate to so at the end of an activity uh a teacher can can can talk to their students and and talk about solution Seeker for example and and they can say I can da da and and that's so powerful because your students are are involved at a level that they truly relate to and understand rather than having the staff involved the students really don't figuring out what this is I mean udl our students know what udl is but they can't use a terminology so our task uh when I talked to theen uh just this week was here's a good example of how we can convert language that's going to be applicable to different age levels of our students and start using ien statements to have them better understand you know the the language associated with G and that's really important if you want students to to thrive and and uh continue to uh be passionate Learners you you have to give them those skills in that language and and help them understand that bigger picture so I'm really excited about this I knew there was something out there uh just took us a while to to figure out uh somebody that had an example that we were proud to take a look at and they've helped us uh immensely with the four hours that that we spent uh Dr Harrington and the staff has worked have worked hard on on a portrait of a graduate we're hoping that that some of that work if not all of it can be used in in taking a broader s sweep of of developing a portrait of a learner and uh we're really excited about this I mean we all have great Visions you can go to any school district vision statement is incredible but what's missing is how often do we talk about our vision we don't it's in our strategic plan but this brings it to life every single day and and this is so exciting to me as an educational leader who has always uh believe that uh our students need to come along with us and they need to be part of of what we do as a as a school district so again very excited about this we'll keep you posted as as the year goes on um as steel and I have developed a process we unraveled that process at our administrative meeting this week so we're already starting starting the journey so this speak any questions on that a districtwide thing like just at the bottom of this it says um nbook had like 32 students across and 47 students participate is this something where students buy yes we'll we'll involve students in this process as well which what's really really interesting to me that nitb high school has uh portrait of a learner profiles for some of their high school students so they they develop laminated cards and and these students talk about how the portrait of the learner help them become who they are as a as a graduate and how it's going to help them uh in their postgraduate studies so I mean they have done an incredible job I looked around for a while and it's really nice to find somebody in state of Massachusetts has done this we're really excited to continue our partnership with that has a questione you have a question yeah hi I'm really excited about this initiative I've always thought that um portrait of a graduate um initiatives were were uh not taking into account all of the the work that happens at the grade levels below high school so this feels very inclusive um my question is we' we've got so many um statements out there already like we've got our vision statement we've got our district strategic plan we've got school Improvement plans um once this program becomes implemented is it going to draw upon all of those other documents so that it doesn't become yet another thing that overlays the other documents yeah that's a good question uh it will be interconnected everything has to connect and and if it if you don't connect everything you're uh you're just not going to you're not going toh achieve what you've set out to achieve so the the vision the mission to me a mission statement is what does an organization need to do to be successful and if you can't accomplish your mission and you really need to re re reassess what you're doing because you're not meeting you're not meeting what your organization is supposed to do so that's just kind of standard your vision is where do you want to go how are you going to get there and and so this takes this strategic plan the mission part of the Strategic plan andan that's what we're doing and we incorporated the vision into our our sips already in our strategic plan so now what we're doing is we're we're we're creating a a uh a document or a schematic more correctly and we're making I can statements it's going to interconnect everything so there's going to be no disconnect when we're done is that answer your question yes beautifully that's exactly what I was hoping to hear thank you thank you all right keep rolling sure next on the agenda we talked a bit about the school committee presentation uh schedule and I'd like to thank Elaine uh when we were together as a a school committee superintendent Retreat this summer one of the things we talked about how do we how do we better integrate this strategic plan into what we're doing at the school committee level I mean that is a guiding document for all of us and uh Elaine came up with some of the or came up with the ideas that we we have before us tonight and it does it does a nice connection with the understanding that that not everything is going to relate to to that particular standard uh but there will be part of the meeting uh that that is uh directly related to The Standard so it's going to help us keep keep this strategic plan in in the Forefront of what we're doing which is really important and if you don't have any questions on that so I'll turn it over toh Steve Mark to give us Financial update okay so uh reports are in your packet um again this so this is the first report uh really being presented for the year uh we're uh this is really the first three months uh our fiscal year starts in July so uh there's really no concerns here um again the by way of explanation under the encumbrances at minus 345 um again this happens uh happened last year happens this year uh it's because fy2 24 is still open Town hasn't closed it and so what we at the end of 24 uh any funds any projects any supplies that we had awarded in 24 that didn't come in we we carry those money forward into fy2 so this is reflective of those payments but the money that was carried forward isn't reflective because they haven't closed 24 so it's it's a munice accounting issue where the funds are still in 24 they haven't rolled into 25 so that's why that shows up asn't a negative number um as soon as the town closes the books all the the their finances will match up um timing wise and that number will go away U and be more of a realistic number but at this point in time there's no issues uh under the appropriated budget uh the second second page that's in the report is uh and again these are preliminary numbers uh the town is still closing the books these are where uh we ended uh June 30th of 24 um with our revolving funds so it shows School Choy circuit breaker um the athletic fund the kindergarten fund all of these all of those funds are reported in here you can see the balances uh the uh good healthy balances uh that allows us uh to really be U financially secure if um something unexpected happens so um glad to answer questions if there are just two two quick questions come to mind on the second page the school lunch line item yep can you just explain with school lunches being free Statewide how how are for fiscal year 2024 it would seem like it should be a wash right like the provide school lunch and then we're reimbursed and at the end of the day it's Net Zero to us but this looks like we received one one almost one two and we spent a million correct we actually the we're we're actually our expenses are not our expenses are covered by the re reimbursement we get from uh Federal programs and state programs um so we're actually making money in the cafeteria program for the first time ever so we're investing some of those funds back into the program we're upgrading the equipment um buying better food products the additional Revenue comes from those that are buying items outside of this they can buy all card items as well that that was kind of my yep and then the building use School uh building use School use we took a loss on that last year uh y we did because what is that line out of four uh so that's when we rent out their Performing Art Center or we rent out the gyms or the fields to um some outside group or something yeah um most of the revenue when that comes from renting out the Performing Art Center we rent that out to a lot of dance studios and things like that so so the revenue was about the same but the expenses were up so did we run into sort of extraordinary expenses related to that well that and the revenues weren't up because of we were still recovering from the shutting down for Co okay and so a lot of programs are now coming back to us getting looking for rental um now that their programs are ramped up after covid so a lot more dance programs are coming and saying hey you know we're now doing um dance recital and things like that so our revenues are back up for that okay goodbye me anything else all right thank you very much perfect second opportunity for interested citizens hearing none we'll move on uh subcommittee reports I think we can roll these pretty quickly and try to get out of here so the first one on the agenda is pmbc pmbc covers School building committee essentially so we've done that okay budget subcommittee this is our first meeting of the year we don't have anything to report but the budget subcommittee will look to schedule a meeting get going in the budget cycle um policy subcommittee we're idle at this point in time we'll be uh we'll be back in November or so we'll get back together perfectly f there any other subcommittee reports or any other business which wishes to be brought before the school committee from the members hearing none seeing none uh I'll ask for a motion to adjourn motion made by Stacy seconded by benol be a roll call vote Elaine I Stacy IO Janine hi Justin VY as well we have a j notk