at 6 o' we'll get started I'll call the meetings order we'll start the Pledge of Allegiance United States America all right so um Norton media and Norton public schools are recording um just let we know and if anybody else is we need to know that up front um thank you all for coming we're going to start with um the minutes from February 29th 2024 Open Session you guys have a chance to look at them yes any comments concerns questions there a motion to approve the minutes from this February 29th 204 meeting there second second all those in favor um then the uh executive session minutes the 20 February 29 2024 anything on that motion to approve the minutes second second all those in favor I um all right next is me so I have reviewed and approved the following warrant School expense warrants February 29 2024 $387,500 and school payroll warrant February 22nd 2024 1, 22274 40 I wish to enter them into public record student rep updates hey guys yeah um so student uh from the yell students are getting ready for re uh are getting outside for recess now that the rain has ended and they love getting on the turfield and playing all types of games and activities they're also getting outside during class time for experiments uh during PE Wellness for other outdoor activities uh we are currently engaged in our ST Math March mathness tournament where all 15 home rooms are matched up against one another in a bracket style tournament competition we are looking for each student to do 60 required puzzles per week with the class with the better percentages moving on to the next round the first round has home rooms from fifth grade versus fourth grade we will let you know who is crowned the St ma March mathness champion after a few weeks of competition students are excited for our hepto upcoming music Bingo night one of the best times of the year is also here with our HTO book fair which begins next week during the parent teacher conferences students come down as a class to the fair and can go during the conferences to print out book or pick out books we hope to see as many parents as we can during parent teacher conferences next week all right and so the for the JCS they are looking forward to the warmer weather and all that it brings and they asked the students this morning what they were looking forward to and we have some responses so Auto said I like to swim in the cold and hot um an said more playing outside because it's been cold forever playing on screens is no fun Colton said going outside more to play basketball and soccer and Noah said going swimming and Miss burle's class in unison said more recess and the first graders said getting to plant more sunflowers for the garden and nearly every other student K through three all said getting to play outside and then from the high school the past few weeks have we have seen a lot of cool things happen at the high school in the past couple weeks National Honor Society travel to elementary schools to run cool science events for science days and National Honor Society travel to elementary schools for Across America day um yesterday was the teacher versus student well faculty student volleyball tournament and was very successful Mr NHS uh Matt Williams won Mr NHS last night if you weren't there it was uh interesting um um as temperatur is warm people are very excited about all things spring including the spring Musical High School Musical which is the first week of April uh spring Sports and eating lunch outside that's all we have for you guys tonight thank you guys all right um update andot if necessary on the Norton BFW Carnival Gary you're up don't know I just want to make sure we're all up on right Gates and everything and if everything's okay ladies and gentlemen voted on it going to be June 19 to the to the 23rd so there any questions the last day we're gonna have a carh show from 10 to two while the con was going on we're using the uh the same vendor for the conival this year as we did last year we didn't have any issues with them staying at across the road in the parking lot public parking on doing that again and same setup so Thursday you're starting like in the afternoon they're starting setup in the afternoon is that correct and then Friday you guys are a go yeah yes so actually we're going to start on Wednesday this this oh Wednesday so it's going to start on Wednesday and go through Sunday so for five days the 19th to 23rd yeah was that an extra day than last year yeah um we lost a day last year to the weather and we're trying to build in another day this year just in case we have clate weather again that we can get try to get as many can it'll be a great way for the kids to start vacation so we're on a school attempt as of right now yes so um as of right now the last day is Thursday June 13th um which actually works out really well um I met earlier this fall with u Mr Cameron and we looked at the school calendar and it was it's it was a great partnership to um make sure that we were using dates that worked for everybody um so school will be out at that point um and they'll have a lot of availability in room to S I'm going to get a hold Town manager be yours we'll have a meeting with them too and you people be invited you know get that out way I think you're good to go on our end there's nothing going on in the turf field just parking what about behind the school you guys so it's just that where like solar panels are in front and the grass area in front yeah jinx it and last year we moved the buses to another parking lot I believe we mov to the Middle School po y we're hoping to do that again this year it should be yeah probably committ set up day after school mini bu takes you know couple yeah the mini buses were a little bit of an issue last year but if we're out of school by then I don't think it would be an issue this year thank you very much for you know welcome welcoming in St me and uh voting on it giving us the okay you guys are always welcome here that's right then Gary I'm looking forward to the carnival I'm looking forward to the carnival vot so I don't think I don't think huh um I don't think we have to vote right because we already voted for this so you guys are set to go I know you just want to make sure that we were all on the same page which we are um yeah wish you a lot of luck with it and hopefully it's a huge success all right yeah thank you thanks all right so next up we have recognition of Mr bwa he Mr B come on up um so um earlier this year members of the Massachusetts uh School administrators Association came and visited the yel school to um officially recognize and honor Mr bwa um as the 2024 Massachusetts school assistant principal of the year um this prestigious recognition highlights Mr bow outstanding contributions and leadership in the field of Education um Mr bwa has been with us here in Norton since 1998 um and spent I would say what more than 15 or 16 years as a classroom teacher at JCS um and then also at the yel school before transitioning into the role of dean of students in 2014 um and for those of you who are not sure what the dean of students does um it is really the role of an assistant principal within our um the Yale school and he works side by side with Mr gagan every day to uh make sure that students have everything that they need to learn safely in our schools and does a ton of work uh with our staff in looking at positive behavior initiative PBIS um and making sure that all of our students have a um welcoming and safe school so it's it's really such an honor um not just for Mr B but really for the town of Mor and nor public schools to have him recognized in this way um and we're just so thankful that he is is ours um Mr gagan I know is here as well do you want to say anything Mr gagan uh sure sure um so I've worked with Bob now for six years and uh Bob I nominated him and uh Bob is really wonderful as Dr O'Neal said uh he does everything for me as a principal he is really a co-principal when it comes down to it and he does an amazing job with the kids with families uh with the staff uh he and I teach a r RTI block together uh so kids come uh during their llt time and uh we teach together uh fourth and fifth grade math and Ela um and it's just it's awesome right I can depend on him and I know that things are going to get done and uh he's just a wonderful educator um the best that I've ever what a great honor oh thank you I just I just want to thank smarty uh he's been awesome I mean great person to work with best I've work with Dr o' Dr aan um the staff I couldn't have done it without the staff of the school they have phenomenal um and the students we only for the students and they great they really are I live 45 minutes away I'm here and know because I I love everything about the kids and staff so it's great thank you nice job congratulations um you have to go into the budget here all that but I'm gonna go up and so I can do this while you're doing abs okay so we're going to go into the um on the 2025 school budget so is there a motion to open the public in a second we need to do a roll call yes so um yes Nick and myself I'm a yes as well Sher I just session okay back I'm just following my orders here and you know we're all learning at that's this year so uh thank you everyone um for joining us tonight for the fy2 budget hearing um I would say this is probably the most people we had at a school committee meeting in the last um probably this year so thank you all for coming um I'm going to go through a few slides to kind of talk about how we arrived at this number and this recommendation that we have and also give everyone in the room some updated information that we just received today so I think it's always really important to start with our poor beliefs so in Norton we believe that students belong in a safe inclusive Collaborative Learning environment we believe that students belong in learning environments where they have access to grade appropriate curriculum and instruction and we also believe that students belong in a learning environment where they are able to receive differentiated and just in time interventions and that's a lot of the work that we've done over these last few years with our imss initiatives all of the work that we've done and all the time that we've spent whether it's during staff meetings professional development looking at student data has been toward these goals this is our current enrollment as of October 1st um District students we have 2,166 students that are here enrolled um in Norton public schools that are Norton students um as of October 1st we had 252 school choice students we have 39 students that are enrolled in our reads St and heart hearing program and they U use our schools for their program and then we had 29 students that were placed out of District um through specialized education programs since September I have been talking and sharing information with the school committee with our school Community about the goal of a level service budget for this upcoming year a level service budget means that we would retain the Exact Staffing program services that we have during this current year it is a financial increase when you think about level Services because costs go up your here so I apologize because I'm getting old and my site is not what it used to be um our current FY 24 budget is 34764 43 and our proposed budget for the FY 25 school year for level Services is a 12% increase 38 m873 431 it's important for um everyone in this room to hear me say again um this increase of $4.1 million represents a few different things previously we had Esser Grant funds which came from um Co relief grants that were all given to us over these last few years and what we did was we used a lot of those funds in order to either hire new staff or to retain staff over these last several years um during our current budget we spent 5 50,000 of erer funds to employ staff members so unfortunately with that money going away we now in order to retain level Services we need to add that $550,000 to our budget itself you'll also hear the school committee um and our administrative team talk a lot about mandated Education Services um versus the general education services mandated education includes special education um the service the staff also out of District placements for our students it also includes um education and supports for our students that are English language Learners that are working on their English language proficiency um as well as um translation services for those families um and also homeless Transportation uh that is something that we are required in by state law to make sure that we are transporting our students that may be without Homes at this time um to the School of origin so if they were originally a Norton student and now they may be living in Taunton it is our responsibility as a school district to bring that child to school here in Norton vice versa if a student is living here in Norton and their school of origin may have been in rehim we also need to work with the towns to make sure that we are getting our students to school um so that is actually a large percentage when we take a look at the increases over our fy2 24 budget currently the mandated education is about $13 million for fy2 we are projecting it to be about $15 million which is a total of a 15.6% increase on that area of service itself for general education it's 21.6 million for this year our request is 23.8 million which is a 99.8% increase on those line items this information has been shared um over and over again um I think it's really important it's I apologize that it's very small to see um but it walks our um community Through how we got there because I think it's really important for everyone to see how you start with the number and how those line items add up as you go along otherwise it's very confusing you say $4 million where did that come from um so I'm going to give you a very brief overview um $2.6 million is salaries and contractual obligations as I mentioned when I first started that $550,000 that we were using previously as part of Esser that's included in that we have to make sure we're adding that money back in um we are looking at almost 775,000 of increased cost to special education placements that are out of district and it's important for our community to know that this 772 ,000 is actually not the whole cost the district is reimbursed a percentage from something at the state called circuit breaker so therefore our tuitions are actually going up over a million dollars but the cost to Norm Public Schools will be about 772 th000 um additionally an increase of about $350,000 of transportation to our Auto District placements for our students Transportation these days is Extreme ex expensive and it's a very competitive um Market thank you my brain it's just very tired um it's a very competitive market you do not get a lot of bids for transportation um so you're we're pretty much stuck with the prices that they give us it's extremely difficult to negotiate um within the district we have um increases to special education programming that could be um student needs in terms of specific classroom materials it could be curriculum materials it could be um just a different type of programming than they were receiving originally or could be students that are now moving in to the district and are going or aging up they may have turned three and are now eligible for special education all of those things are included there um this year as I mentioned transportation is really um a tough Market we are actually going out to bid for another contract with our Local transportation service we use Bloom currently and what will happen is we will get probably three or four other companies that are interested um in learning more about our process taking a look at our bid and most often when we get to the day where we open our bids there's only one and so it's very difficult to go through a bid process and make it a competitive Venture when there are only one was only one company returning that we have an increase of $5,000 for homeless Transportation increase in operations and managements that is the day-to-day so um toilet paper cleaning materials paper towels making sure that our elevators are safe and able to run on a daily basis making sure um that our cameras are working when we need them to be keeping our schools safe and clean and then what we always do is we always add a contingency for unanticipated special education costs we have $187,000 in there and that really is the cost of one student that may be going to an outof District placement and one student that may be going to a collaborative and every single year without a doubt we always use that contingency and then more it's very very difficult for us to budget for special education needs for students because we never know what is going to pop up through the course of the year so that's how you get from the $34 million where we're starting this year to our 12% increase I think it's really important and this is something we never ever ever talk about is unfunded requests every single year I've been in Norton for um this my 21st year in Norton um and I have been an administrator in central office this is my 13th year in in central office role and every year our team comes to the table and says wouldn't it be great if we could have or you know our kindergarteners really need some extra support wouldn't it be wonderful if we could have kindergarten par Professionals in those classrooms so I think it's really important for for our community to know that the budget that we're putting forward is level service it does not include any of those extra really would be nice to have so these are actual really legitimate and justifiable needs that are coming from our principals our department heads our teachers things that we could use in our schools but they are not included in our budget it's actually a $643,000 increase if we were to be asking for these additional positions so things like um an adjustment counselor here at the middle school for our bridge program um kindergart par professionals to just be a halftime support in our classrooms with some of our youngest Learners um last year we had to cut a fifth grade teacher at the Yale this we were hoping to reinstate that position this year um same thing at the high school we cut a math teacher and an Ela teacher we were hoping to reate those positions so this is something that we typically don't share with with the community but I think it's really important for people to know that there are things that we aren't asking and really would benefit from Dr anal yes do library media specialist for the Middle School how many years has that been asked for or recommended and keep me honest this is the only school that doesn't have staff for the library okay Mrs wibur is saying that she's been asking for the LI media specialist for the last eight years I was actually going to say probably closer to 10 Mrs wibur um our libraries were closed in 2007 um in 2007 we actually received a negative increase um that year in our budget our our allocation went down from one year to the next and then in 2008 we actually received a zero so our libraries were closed as part of those budget cuts at that time um all except for Norton High School um because a librarian is a recommendation from neas as part of the accreditation process um for probably I'd say a good year or two they were covered in um plastic and you would just walk through the buildings and they were all covered up um we have been very fortunate that um at one point our parent volunteers went to the superintendent and said please let us help you let us run the libraries boards just so students can come and pick out a book and that's what we did for many many years we the students were able to go into the libraries um at the elementary schools and here at Northern Middle School come in with their class maybe 20 minutes once a week or once every other week and just choose a book and to take it and read it um we have had uh Mrs deris at JCS I'd say probably six or seven years um and the way that we got that position is we used to have Elementary Spanish and at the Spanish teacher ended up taking another role within the district you couldn't find someone to do like a point4 A6 Spanish position um so we posted for library and we found Mrs dermis who started just working at JCS and lgn to provide that teacher preparation time um and over the years we've been able to increase her a little bit at a time um so now she is actually traveling between the three Elementary libraries two days at JCS two days at lgn and one of the um for students to get Library classes and this library is run by a fabulous parent volunteer but it does not have a certified Library specialist here so that is definitely something that's been asked for for a very long long story short sorry I didn't me to give you all the history on that one um yes yeah so those are some important things um earlier today I met with um Mr units um Our Town manager to talk about some of the challenges that we're having and um looking at the projections that we have um the receipts that are coming in from you know Town Hall um and then our as a community the fixed cost that we have around health insurance um retirement benefits um all of those things we're actually looking at a deficit for the upcoming school year so instead of we've been talking talking about level Services level Services we want to have the same things we have now now we're going and we're talking we're not even talking about level planting so this is extremely detrimental to the budgeting process for for Norton so just to be clear this just happened today yes the meeting with the town manager so we thought we were going to expect X and now we are looking at way below yes X I just want to make sure everybody is clear of what just took place today I actually not I didn't hear anybody gasp so I I I'm not sure that people understand the gra um so we this would be we would be receiving less money for our schools this coming year than we are receiving right now so you forget the 12% is what you're saying so there's no essentially it's a negative percentage so it's a negative percentage so I I think it's really important I I want to say that um Mr unit is sharing this information with the select board tonight um I shared this information with the school committee today because that is my responsibility as a superintendent is to make sure that they have the information that they need coming into this meeting and to not be blindsided um this is a very beginning conversation um I asked questions this afternoon I sent Mr units an email what do we have in free cash what do we have in stabilization what are what do we have in some of those other accounts that we've been able to draw from in the past is there any wiggle room there and I'm waiting for some of those answers as a school district we don't have a lot of wiggle room left in our revolving accounts because we've been using them year over year to help to close the gaps that we have um so if we were not if for some reason we were not able to use other funds um we would be looking at a deficit of $374,800 less than what our budget is right now which when we think about level Services I've been talking about that 12% number we would need to cut 4.5 million from our level Service number in order to open our doors and September and so just to be clear all the work that has gone into let's say eight hours ago yeah all the work from our admin team from us sitting down and talking about what this is going to look like going forward what we're going to do that was all just taken shaken and thrown up in the air in a sense yes I can say you may not want to that it's exactly what just happened so the you just all found out about it because our superintendent is very clear and communicating with us immediately when we find out things like this Dess yeah exp um so I want to give people a sense of how to wrap their heads around this because sometimes you look at the numbers and you say oh it's 4.5 million what does that mean Etc so the way that the budget is set up we we break it into two pieces we break it into our special ed component and our general education now special ed by by law is basically mandated to be covered so the special ed increase was five five something I think and the general education get something per. um it was 15 and on that line it's actually not even relevant what they were our increase is 12% the special education is going to have to be met so the way to wrap your header on this is to say general education from Level services will be cut by 12% so we will cut 12% of the services we had from last year to next or sorry this year to next that that's what this means as we stand right now there's no other way than to say it's it's Draconian I mean this is a huge huge blow it's it's going to make for a potentially very bad year next year there there's absolutely no way to to should repo that I wish I could sit here and say hey don't worry you should worry quite honestly you should worry and you know uh our team and the school committee has spent countless hours looking at because we knew 12 % was probably a long shot we've been looking right I mean let's be honest we it we it but we look okay what if we got 5% what would those cuts look like what if we got 4% what would those cuts look like and we have spent a lot of time looking at our program looking at Staffing looking at ways that we could make this work and not with the least impact to students and up until eight hours ago approximately we really thought we really thought we were at 4% and it wasn't I mean don't get me wrong it was G to hurt that plan was going to hurt but to add another $1.7 million on top of all of that that's another 15 teaching positions over and above the 29 we had already discussed so I kind of want to just touch a little bit for what said we look at our budget as this we run the budget for the school department we are one of 20 Department departments in the town of nor they receive money what we think you know we have an idea of what our budget should be 12% we knew pretty much right off the bat that's that's that's a dream scenario what we vote on is what we think our needs are but we don't get our final number till bcom me departments till the voters at town meeting decide what their their choices are so you know again I I think collectively I don't want to put words in anybody's mouth but I think we're all you know shaking our heads for the last call it six hours when we received this information it's it's been a lot for us to process just in this and and we all have had multiple meetings where we know there's going to be significant Cuts I think I I think anything over five is significant and we were at 28 at one point um and it's now it's going to be a lot more than 28 if everything stays the same um to Mr sas's point it's it's time to worry I think in my opinion it's time to worry you should 15 additional 15 so 42 44 so I think we were 29 15 44 I I don't know where you get those kind of positions from um and then that's really looking at our line items as well and I think it's going to require our team to sit down and really look at things it's going to require um the school committee and you know to talk about what our priorities need to be um I think it's important to recognize that there is a perception in our community that we always save the day right I've been here for 20 years I know that you can't save the day from a $4.5 million cut like you don't that money does not exist there is no way that we can you know have a few people retire and a couple kids move out a district and we and we save the day it's it's not possible and I hate to be the person to have to say that we will sit here probably in a month's time as five volunteers you become the most hated people in the town for things that we have to do it is terrible please understand bringing kids to the meeting it it can't help can't help we can cry along with them they cannot help at this point this is bad we will become hated people and we are your neighbors we have worked some of us have been here 15 years you know nine years like this we volunteered you know when our kids were in preschool this is bad we've been saying this day was coming people chose not to listen here we are so please understand in the next month how difficult it is to sit in these seats please understand continuation ofer say I think it's important that people understand but we we're putting this forward as if we're voting on a budget but kind of dance Point that's actually not what we're doing this is just a transparent hey level services this is what we would need to fund now there is no budget nobody gets a budget until the citizens of this town sit down and vote the budget GR that's the budget that's the only thing that matters no disrespect to fincom to the board of selectman or to us what we all say does not matter Town sits down and votes on the reality is we don't have enough money to fund so that's it is what it is to sher's point you know people are going to get angry at us they're GNA say how dare you ask for that not ask it for it this is just a transparent admission of this is what it costs to want this District the town will decide what it wants to do so sher's right you know we listen we've been saying this for years I've been saying it for at least a decade that we are heading down tracks to a really bad spot and I said to these guys earlier I said the second worst thing in the world you can do is to tell people there's a disaster coming the worst thing you can do is to be right people are going to be angry about this I mean it is what it is though another thing I always say not your enemy math is your enemy it's that as simple as that if you have $5 you have $5 4 years not mathematics expens you don't have the money to cover your expenses it is what it is so it's and and listen I I we make Cuts last year we we make a lot of cuts that people never know about say you save the day well we didn't really save the day we just we cut services and nobody noticed it because it was a little here a little there and if you spread it over school district it seems like well things are pretty much the same might getting better but they're slowly eroding they've been slowly eroding for a long time a few meetings back I just we were talking about back of the nap and I just kind of did projections okay this is you know sped budgets going like this we're doing this to this budget at what point does this you know this kind of collapse I think I said like 10 years or something like that was 10 years from now we're not going to have any money in the general education budget that that's what the projection is right now and that wasn't even off of this that's that was off of actually much Rosier numbers quite hly so you know I mean I get it people are going be be pissed about it but this is this is where we're at as a town this is not the school committee's doing it's not board selectman's doing it's simply this is this is where Norton is right now it's it's the financial reality and we can be angry about it we can you know we can shake our fists at Clouds it's not going to change it it isn't I think that's the other thing to note is we've I say we the school department has gone through these motions for a few months um we don't know what the impact to town Services is going to be because they don't they haven't had a budget Workshop they haven't had this level of depth of what it looks like so we don't know how this affects our partners on the town side we can only speak for the schools with the numbers we're given this could be catastrophic on the town side as well but we don't know yet so I mean there's not much else we can really say that we haven't said in the last you know four or five meetings at this point this is all I mean in my nine years I think this is the most talked about budget number of meetings that that I've ever been a part of um and you know we we're in the situation we're in for a variety of reasons um Lorton has to choose what Norton of the future wants to be um and you know we're all citizens we're all voters um the voters and the towns people need to figure out what they want to become not what we are and the last thing I'll say this before we open question I assume we're doing that I think we have to the yeah and that's the last I has any any comments but um understand that this is something this is very very new to us not the process that the numbers we just found this out today and I think a lot of us are kind of still digesting it we don't know that these are the final final numbers these things are always in flux I sometimes right the day of town meeting yeah uh but but this is a big this is a big one I mean I don't think this is a oh no weit you know what we found $4 million like that that's that's not happening um so just keep in mind that you know we're still kind of digesting this as well from our side so um I think we're not really 100% sure yet what it will mean to us but it will mean Cuts in my eight years I've never seen anything like this Happ I don't know 15 years 15 years I thought the one where we had we were talking about going um pay to I thought that was the worst ever SE and this is 5X wor I think this is the worst added up of all my nine years here yeah could like like says it's always like a little bit here one program here one program here largely under the radar and then so we I mean we don't know what it's going to look like you know we we have we have to take a vote we have to have everything in on time we will do that process we will follow the process as we are mandated to do but we we will get our number and we will have to work within our number what a first year for you Jen sorry it's been so hard today Mr Cersei said it can't get worse and I said I think we you stop saying that it does let's stop saying that leave it to Vinnie to always make us laugh me too all right so I guess we're gonna open up to questions so I think we just need name and address Alexia I read that Robin Circle do you need like the actual I think technically yes oh to Robin CLE unit two Orton um I'm from Pennsylvania I've lived in this town for one year so you guys probably maybe already thought of these things um have you reached out to any grants from the state or federal level and also um something we do in Pennsylvania to help offset the cost from special ed is actually any student who's eligible gets Medicaid insurance and then Bill Insurance you guys y um in the budget book which will be um once the budget number is finalized and voted on by the committee it will go right onto um our website there is a whole page that talks about um grants and revolving accounts so there are a number of Fate federal and state grants that we received that are entitlement grants so um Title One idea those are grants that we receive every year based on our student population um I wrote the um Title One all those Essa grants for a number of years Dr arrian does now U Mr Cersei does all of the special education grants um and it's a also on that page will show you the exact number of Staff we pay for with those grants so I hope that's helpful for our community to see how we do offset um we've also been involved in a number of competitive grants over the last couple years um Mr Cersei and I wrote a umal grant which we were able to um got $150,000 we were able to purchase our district curriculum we were able pay for more PBIS training we were able um to buy anal screener so we wouldn't have any of those things without those grants um but Norton is also in a very unique position of being a suburban community um we're not extremely diverse we don't have a large number of um High needs families or low-income families so it's often when you look at those competitive grants we don't qualify as a community which makes it difficult too because we have a lot the same problems as say some of the other people but thank you yeah I mean one thing that always comes up I think as you probably know about this is Norton's consider a right to pay community so our median income is very high whether or not we believe it or not you know but that's the problem when it comes to some of these grants and and what we've seen the last couple of years is we've seen the one time you know grants because of the pandemic you know they were one time bail everybody out type of thing but we're seeing a lot some of the grants are just drying up they're not being funded at the state or federal level um you know that's you know it's different changes in administration different Visions for different politicians you know unfortunately I mean you know education is very public but the problem with that is nobody wants to show the public what education truly means financing that's the that's the biggest problem at the state d have anything else I think just a piggyback off of what Dan saying with politicians and whatnot I reached out to our state reps our state senator and our uh Congressman to DC trying to get an open Forum with them around out of District placements school choice dollars mandated education that we have no funding for um and it's met with a yeah we know about that but it's nothing we can really do um which is a problem you know I've said it multiple times Norton's getting $30 per kid Lawrence is getting 1,200 from State Fund so it it turns into an issue that we've always had in this town from a standpoint of we only have so much and everything is riding on your backs as taxpayers and our backs as taxpayers you know we don't have the commercial real estate like a Manfield does or a Foxboro does you know so we're getting to a point now where unfortunately you know when we had these s grants and everything else we kind of basically Co saved our bucks I mean it's that simple Co and the three effort funds financially saved our us you know now what's happened is those those are going away and we're incorporating them into the budget that was free money essentially from us in terms of getting it from the federal government now that money is riding on your back it's it's it's not a uh overly complicated system it's complicated because unfortunately the state government and how the state Parts doesn't they don't want you don't care all the kids education you don't it's a dollar games it's all a game around public education to begin with you have a desie board who's unelected they're all appointed right there should tell you right there alone it's all government crap that kids involved in your kids education and unfortunately this is what has struggled out and it's trust me it's going to keep getting worse before it get better plus my my publicist will kill me if I don't get on camera hi I'm joose um great English here um president of Norton Teachers Association um thank you very much for this um I think that I don't necessarily have a question as much as I can phras it in the question like Jeopardy so I'll charge you $800 okay um I think that uh it's important just I any you guys to speak into this but I think it's important to say um that um things are not great now right and I'm not sure that people outside of the buildings have a full understanding of that um you're absolutely right when you say that um people don't necessarily notice the cuts because there are little places here little places there um when I think just in my my time here um what we had that we don't have anymore um a librarian I think is a big deal um and the shelves like just look at the shelves behind me when I started here most of these shelves were full um homech is gone um foreign language to our sixth and seventh graders um is gone um there are and and there are a lot of other things there are many other things in all the other building things um and I think that for a lot of people who maybe aren't involved in school they follow you know this kind of Maxum you know you have to just have to do more with less and that economics kind of works at your kitchen table we all do it right we say oh I can't um take that vacation this year so we're going to spend a few days of the on the c or like I can't shop there anymore I have to shop at like Aldi and you know like save some money we all do that I do that um but there's no like you can get a can of Beats at Aldi that's probably pretty good there's no Ali like adjustment counselor like this like like this this there's no like no discount teachings no discount teaching no um and like these services are so important and you know something um one of my colleagues I mentioned this in a meeting earlier this week so so those you there I'm sorry I'm repeating myself but one of my colleagues uh said to me this week and I thought it was so powerful um the students also attend school here and she just said to me I'm so sad that the things I was able to give my students my kids aren't going to get when they come through the system and so um I really hope uh that you will approve a level funded budget I know that for pragmatically why you might not want to do that but um I think sending that message that people see like this is really what we need and not just what we need but what the community deserves um yeah so please pleas how many years have you been here just so I have been here this is 18 years um and it and it is on that note um it's a wonderful place and I watch every day the people that I work with just do such amazing things um and I think that to like to think of some of the cuts that we're talking about and to think of what that would do to the experience of a student you know graduating from Norton High School five 10 years from now the triple down effect have makes us all really sad um so thank you for the work you're doing I'm going again advocate for passing a level budget I think that those conversations are important than people need to see what we need to give our students what they Des thank you I just want to address J's I just request about passing level Services budget that's actually we have done that for quite a while I I can't J you you were happy about the administration when we decided to start presenting our budget as it really was and yes pretend it was less than was so we've actually been requesting level service for quite a while um yeah and some years it would be a level Service Plus a couple position right um this is truly like yeah exactly so we we've been doing yes we've been asking for real needs yeah yeah we we always for for the last decade at least we've been presenting what our true needs were and and allow the town to make those decisions as we started off before um and and I I get the idea of sending a message my my question is or I guess my my I I wonder if anybody's listening to the to the message any and and I think we've gone a lot of years where people haven't listened to the message and when you think about those cuts you know when we make a cut here a cut there a cut there it seems really innocuous at first it's like ah it's not a big deal and people kind of get used to that they get used to the idea of a cut here a cut there a cut there and I didn't really notice it so cuts are kind of okay so I think we've kind of gotten the mindset of cuts are cuts are okay okay and uh you know I think Nick hit theil on the head before we were going to be at this Cliff three years ago whatever the number is and surprise Co and all of a sudden it was like wow we actually got a state of execution um and that's and I'm not happy about that but it is what it is so we got a state of execution we're kind of through that now esser's gone and we never really got away from that clip we were just standing at the edge of it you know instead ofstead of moving it we stop right at the cliff and everybody's like yeah they're fine they're fine well there's the cliff and here we go about to we're about to go off of it so and I'm not trying to be melodramatic um I don't know if there's I don't see here who was in um think JCS back when I was the the rep for that or whatever but you know but I've been talking about this for a while like this is it's not sustainable the way that we do this is not sustainable and eventually you get there and we've gotten there and I think over the years people kind of just they got jaded to the to the idea that there was a problem and so you know we all said that they say that every year they say it's coming it's coming and and I'm sorry but it came it's unfortunate this is gonna be it's gonna be tough it's gonna be a tough year for for you guys be tough here for us because there's going to be sleepless nights for us it's going to be a lot of work it's going to be ton of time away from families you know just going through this stuff and you know it is what it is I apologize to my kids ahead of time not going to see it so what can you do um I'm Donna Doak I live at 104 Nukem Street um I just have a follow-up question to something that was brought up a couple meetings ago I'm just wondering if every single member of the school committee has had a chance to visit um at Le one of the school buildings because I I just think it's hard to make decisions about the schools if you've never even been in any of our buildings yes I mean I can speak personally you know my my youngest child is at the high school um I've had two others graduate from Bo so you know being active in the schools when they were younger um more recently i' I've obviously spent a lot of time at the high school but I remember when Mr gag started I had a child in that school and we became pretty good friends uh with my youngest who's now sophomore um so I mean we we obviously we don't get in probably personally as much as I'd like to but it's on the list of things with Dr unel to do walk through um you know I think there's a there's a lot of good things in all of our schools um but much like my house there's things that need to be um you know and we know that and unfortunately there's a different process when it comes to repair so you know we spend as much time as we can I know like I said I I go there with my children and how in the past um you know and I can say my my oldest graduated six years ago uh thanks PNY and and the schools look drastically different from like when my youngest was at JCS let alone when my oldest was there we we take great pride in our schools and and it's not just driving by you see the outside there's a lot of good that have an inside um so we do you know in an Ideal World yes we'd like this I mean we do our road trips I call them road trips at at the beginning of the year we go to each school for a meeting so we are in those schools at least meeting nights but um I think it was last year at the end of each of those meetings um Wade brought us around the school and showed us you know good bad the ugly um it was I've known Wade a lot of years he was so excited to bring us into the form of Boiler Room at the yal I've never seen a grown man so excited to go not have so when we did these big projects it was like Wade was like these schools look great you know big train project um but like anything else there there is work to do we know that um we rely on the administration to let us know these things we know we have a problem um you know with the lgm roof or whether it this group JC we we know what these problems are we try and do the best we can we are obviously working with a very limited amount of money um and that's not even you know this is just keeping the lights on but if a a light you know falls from the ceiling that's a completely different process um but so that's personally I'm kind of on the the end of my my time with my children in nor Public Schools I had never thought to send my children anywhere else um I was never full disclosure two of my children did apply to Southeastern and get in they chose to stay here that was their decision 100% um but I know a couple of members have had walkthroughs a couple of more are on the books so we will be out there as much as we can Mr and I were scheduled for today and then this bomb dropped we're like how what would youday good he good so I just did a few walkthroughs as well about a month ago and I think what you guys have to understand too is you know I report back like things that I saw you know we are in constant communication as a school committee of course you know legally right we're not breaking any laws so don't anybody worry about that um but we're in constant communication about things that we see things that we hear um you know Jen is very good about and and Joe is the same way just always updating us something that we be updated on um but yeah we have done we have done so just uh so a couple of things I've done multiple group walkthroughs over my 50 years in every going one schools um other than the LG because I don't live on that side of town I've had one child go from kindergarten all the way through she's college now and the other one kindergarten all the way through to she's in high school right now so I I I believe I'm very familiar with with what the schools are doing um my only question I guess or when you ask that question or when you pose that have you walked through because I don't think you can do this without going through the schools I think I think you're you're thinking or you're implying or maybe I'm inferring I don't know that these are things that we're doing lightly and and and kind of pel Mel and we're not really like thinking them through I want to be really clear this this is not an easy thing to do you know we we sat down a couple weeks ago and talked about these positions and it was hard it was is really really hard and I know a lot of people were talking about well you know what can we do what can we do to save this what can we do to save that this isn't something that that we take joy in by any stretch you know and if I'm if I'm being really honest about it like part of this is that we've we've cut so much of the what you would call fluff over the years that there's nothing left to cut like that so I'll say something that's going to make me unpopular these Cuts have to be made they have to to be made it's as simple as that and it's nothing personal it's not I'm cutting you know this is dolac I'm cutting that position not saying your position getting C just saying it's that's that's the reality of how you have to think about this is this is we have to now go through this and say okay what positions what position can we you know most afford to do without and and that might be a bad way to phrase it because we can't really afford to do it without any of these positions right we're we're literally at the guts now right we we've we've cut the skin we've cut the you know whatever we're at the viscer now we're in we're in the guts we're into the the vital organs now the schools but unfortunately we have to make those cuts because if in fact this is the final number and it's another 1.7 million there's absolutely no way to we can't we can't dim the lights and get 1.7 million we can't turn the heat down to get 1.7 million it's just not going to work so it's it's not something we take lightly it's not something that we're we're very cognant great work that's being done and it honestly just makes it all that much harder so I I I respect what you're saying I I respect what you're asking please please realize that this is I'm not trying to imply this that you know you're taking things lightly or anything like that I just think that seeing what's really happening and going on is important too like it gives you another piece of evidence I think right what we actually need and that's that's why it's so hard I think we understand what's going on and the problem is is even if we understand even if we say this is vital to the school we may still need to cut it because we just don't have the money I mean it's this is this is not a wants needs whatever this is a funding issue it's nothing more and it's nothing less and that's I'm sorry to be you know callous and and put it on such a base level but that's that's what this is it's simply funding we have a through z and we can fund a through M and we got to decide what a through M are going to be and and through Z are going to get cut because that's what we can afford to do unfortunately it's it is it is not you know it's not not understanding what happens it's not appreciating that it's not valuing that at all it's not the case and I think I think to piggy back off of that too this is a very collaborative effort it's not us five being like we're gonna cut the high school and we don't like that math teacher and we're gonna get rid of this part like that's not how it works it kind of comes down from Jen and the admin team through you know up through the principle BS of like hey where can we start all right who who's you know what positions are we looking at is the first grade class next year supposed to be a little bit smaller so we can you know kind of first grade teacher and keep the class sizes the same this isn't us five just going in and saying okay we don't like that I hate Athletics I hate this over here chop that off that's not how it works we take I mean we basically go off of central admin's you know recommendations and then say hey what is that going to mean to our high school kids what is that going to mean to LG what is that going to mean to you know JCS and and try to again it's very difficult you know whatever you do it doesn't matter what some something you cut someone's not going to like that's how it goes you know so you have to try to do what's best for Norton and what's best for what's best for our schools and it's it's nearly impossible to be quite Frank and and when we I just wanted to say one more thing like and Nick's absolutely right collaborative effort and it does come from from the administration as it should they say okay here's what we think and when we sat down two weeks ago and went through the initial Cuts after every single this is a position where cut same thing same thing was asked why why are we cutting that what's it doing for our students what's it going for what is what is the impact of that every single one and we ended up we had to cut 28 28 29 28 28 times we said why and if the answer's not good say that's not a good answer and there were some things that we said nope that's less important or sorry that's more important than this we need to rearrange the priorities here so it's this is not a you know again this is not like you know chop chop chop it is a explain this to me in depth explain it like I'm a 5-year-old because we need to know that we're doing the right thing because this impacts lives it impacts kids adults the people who are employed here it we we get it trust me when I tell you I just want to say sitting in the seat too is very difficult very difficult you walk through the schools and you see these kids faces and you know what's going to happen that did not sit well with me at all any of us right and so I've got one more year left right I'm done next year close to this time and I know that I'm going to leave this District worse than when I started that's terrible that's a terrible terrible feeling to have terrible to our students to our staff to the people that we have got to know and love this is terrible so I just want to understand I want you to understand that even walking through schools it is not easy for us to do that it's not easy to look our students in the faces or our St and have to sit here in the seat I think one thing to mention too um did I talk about it a little bit I I want to just thank the administration um theyve work countless tireless hours on this to give us the answers that we seek we're asking the questions we looking at things talk about and they they have they anticipated our answers and they had valid answers to our questions so I I want to publicly thank our Administration U our building leaders all of those involved in our budget process they have done a tremendous job um and have been felt a pretty awful hand to do it with so um I just want to thank Dr O'Neal and staff um for giving us at times I think a lot of information some you know more than what we look for sometimes and more than what we've seen in the past but this year we absolutely needed all that information provided to us as we navigate what will be a troubling time in the next couple of months where is the mic is this where the microphone is yes I just want to make sure Zoom can hear uh my name is valab I live at 50 manale Avenue I do not have children um I have two questions that are somewhat pointed one of them is does anything even in a level Services budget that wouldn't include fixing the Middle School theater lights that haven't worked for like literally had to stop in the middle of a show this year no that does not that that's actually a capital item that is on our Capital list when we're able to move it forward awesome do we know what the amount is on that um off the top of my head I believe it's $118,000 all right is that field yeah all right look at that if no if people aren't aware middle the way through a Norton singers were paying the school to rent the space and we had to stop the show multiple times because one day we couldn't get the house lights off we've had multiple shows where we've had to stop at intermission and reboot the entire light system so it's not a great system in there it's original 1998 yeah that's pretty old for a light system in a school for sure um the other question is I know last year the cuts that were made were a flasho um and I know there were issues where the students found out about them in the first place everybody was very upset parents got upset um do we know when that number of those 28 to Now 44 people are going to come out like when we're going to know what those cuts are going to look like um personally and this is something that I've shared with the NTA this is something I've shared with school committee I would really like to be able to do layoff notices prior to April vacation which is a month from now um because I believe that our staff deserves to know what what the future holds for them and um I don't technically contractually by law we have until June 15 to me that is too late um to do something like that that is extremely impactful um whether we're able to do that before the April vacation when we're really saying okay it's not going to be this many it's now going to be this many um we are really going to need to sit down and and really look at our programs and our enrollment and so many other things as a committee um that we have only scratch the surface on um in terms of fees and um transportation all of those things are now going to need to be relooked at and rediscussed um so that's my goal but I was just curious thank you I think you know historically I want to say it was probably September October um I think I might have said it publicly I know I said it privately I don't I don't want to hear about Cuts like our last meeting before summer break like we had a pretty good amount of people show up it's Dr arrian's first meeting um that's that's too late you know welcome to Norton um um that was too late that but the problem then is our budget is set at town meeting which is to me it's very late um and and you know I said this to Mr schleker you know it's it's the biggest part of town meeting and it gets little to know discussion or anything um it's just yep yep thanks everybody I nay yes um so that's always kind of frustrating because like we do all this work for six months and we get our number validated and it's like it's no can you speak a little more about that because I definitely think it's worth discussing but I'm not I'm not sure what the ask for discussion is that's come up a lot of times from other people not just you not just here that we don't really talk about it and I'm I'm curious about like what the conversation would look like because I think most people assume there's nothing we can do by the time it gets to town meeting you're in a grand scheme you can't however the exception being if you wanted to add a million dollars to the school department budget you can formally write a request bring that up to the town clerk and say I want to add a million dollars to the school budget it goes through the motions however mysteriously you can't have a million dollars come from somewhere so it has you have to write out where you're having it come from so whether that's now picking on our town friends uh I want to take 300,000 from police 300,000 from fire 400,000 from Highway and give it to the school department you can do that as a citizen of nor as a taxpaying citizen that is your right to do so um but we're not making any friends no we're not making any friends you know I believe the only time in my 20 plus years in town that that's happened I believe was denz I think you made that motion the year we need prioritize Food Services to switch some money um from the town budget to school budget because of savings of there was a very a very specific example though where we were essentially laying off however many people yeah 13 16 and and all I said was there's now a a healthcare save and insurance savings to the town and we should get that back so that we don't have to lay off any more people because we were L off a bunch people as it was so um and and I will say um I I somewhat disagree with the end about you can't do anything Tom me I actually think that's the only place you can do something quite honestly um but to his point if you say I want to put a million dollars more into the school budget you have to say and I'm taking it from a b and c and I by no means a town meeting expert hly I would I if you were to introduce that I would vote against it because this is not a hey everybody else is doing great and we're not everybody else we're we're going to be cut from our prior year budget everyone else to my understanding is going to be as well so this isn't something where you know it's the schools are getting screwed honestly the point of this meeting I think is basically just to make sure everybody understands this is what's happening because every year when we do this last year Mr aran's first you oh my god what I didn't hear about this really we had 10 meetings on it 10 meetings in a town meeting where we voted it through and everybody knew it was going to happen I mean this is this is the problem this is why people get mad at us is everybody says you didn't tell me personally you didn't come to my house hey you want to make sure you heard about this but we're doing this we can't do that we have public meetings we disseminate information as best we can it would be great if we had a you know a media person to do it we had CAU no long I mean this is you know this is this is the reality so you know I I think it's important for people to understand what this meeting is about this is not a hand meeting it's not a Lo me meeting this is simply a hey guys just a stands here's where we're at no surprises nobody gets blindsided later on Alex to in circle so what does the school Community need from the community like if we all like Goot to the town saying you know increase our taxes oh I'm sorry um I was saying what does the board need from the community do you need us to write letters to the town saying like increase taxes by 500 bucks so that the school can be funded can't we can't do that you are new to to sorry I think from to that you could do that Pennsylvania has a law called proposition two and a half which is you basically can't raise I I think don't quote me on the intricacies of the law but I think the Ines of the law basically you cannot raise your entire tax base by more than two and a half% so there's actually a cap on how much we can we can raise our taxes now you can override which is a big talk of everybody so you can override crop two and a half based on whatever number Select board has to put onto a a town meeting uh ballot and then the town goes makes a vote we've had override attempts in the past we've done overrides in terms of debt exclusions in addition to the high school building uh what else we do the fields so we've done those before we've never actually overd prop two and a half I just publicly want to say it it wouldn't be what you're doing for the schools it would be you're doing for the town we don't want this to be schools versus town it's it's one community so it's what you're doing for the community um you know we obviously you know we can give everybody all the information they want Town decide I think this is sher's line has to decide what wants be when they grow up and then you don't need to respond to this but we're talking about Cuts so maybe instead of cutting positions and this is way out there but cut a building and instead of having as many elementary schools that we have consolidate and have like a k to two and a three to five and that way every building has the library and the things we've been talking about we looked at it actually not a huge savings which sounds insane right because you still have the same number of students you still need the same number of teachers it's really only about a half a million dollar savings once because we have looked at it um and the other issue is that people think our schools are empty they are not we have very very little space in any of our three elementary schools we are filled to the brim at ALG North we every single space is taken um we have our L teacher who teaches on the stage um which is also the cafeteria so I'm sure you guys can imagine how well that goes during lunchtime um our our class our schools are very very full um but that is definitely something that we've heard many many times over the years is like well let's close let's close lgn let's close the El school um it's just not possible and and ultimately it's not a huge savings Jen we also have some teachers that are in closets yes yes we absolutely in closet and I think the other thing here is like one we don't have the space but if we had to could we do it maybe if you want 35 kids in the classroom that's the trade-off you know do you want to make it that second graders instead of having 20 to one have 35 to one you know no one wants to do that you know because I mean the only way saving the building okay that's a half a million dollars call a little bit more since inflation and everything else sure we're still gonna have to bring some of those teachers from LG to JCS or wherever we're going to go with them you know because you're not gonna be able to do it the only real savings you got that means anything to millions of dollars is in staff that's where your biggest expenses are that's where you go to right Christy Deets uh Norton employee um been a resident of Norton at one time I am a product of Norton kindergarten through 12th grade and I've also taught in the district for 28 years um very disappointed to hear how we've gotten this I've worked with many of you that are on school committee I worked with many of the staff as well as the administration this is the worst I've seen worst I've experienced in my 28 years worst that I can remember as a student going through um as a student myself 49 plus years ago um way more I had available to me than what we even have currently right now which is sad and here we are 2024 that we have less Services less activities less opportunities than potentially and things that I didn't have to pay for that you all have now as fees um my question as much as I would say and I would and this comes back to what the plan originally was for tonight which correct me if I'm wrong was it to vote discuss and to vote and put forward what you were going to put forward to town correct we're required to we still have to do that so that's why and that's why I I wanted to know so was the plan you getting information that you got is that still the plan tonight and still what you have to give to the town doesn't change what we actually need for level Services the level Services is level Services it's it is what it is the 12% increas is is where level Services is and it's this is not you normally put this is not a hey here's what we want for our budget it's just assembly here's what our budget would be if we have level Services then it goes to fincom it goes to the where SL look at it um there's so finom puts forward their budget Mike unit puts forward his budget um and I think I should actually reverse those words Mike L put puts forth his budget first which includes his opinion on what the school should get the fincom then looks and they put their recommendation budget that goes to the town meeting and then the town votes on the budget so but tonight is is simply I hate to say it's a formality but it's a formality of this is what our level Services budget would look like right full transparency just so everybody know and that's what I would I wanted to confirm that that was even with your information that you were getting that was um and also will it also because I also know that we put the numbers of what it would have looked like if we had gotten the three or the four or the five and I think it was very interesting to me to look at with those cuts that we were talking at like a first grade we would have a class size of 27 you're talking now 40 something cuts that class size is going to go up in all of those and I just think needs to also be put in there when we're talking about not getting that three that four that five so that it's transparent of what that is going to look like to the community because when you talk about at first grade 27 and I'm talking that was when you got your 3% kids per classroom and now making another 15 Cuts per se I can't imagine what those cuts and what those numbers are going to look like in the class sizes and I'm just saying I totally get that I just think it needs to be also what the potential could be because that's out on there for the community and the public and I think it's important to make sure that that's also updated if that's what we're going to and I'm sure it will be I'm just saying and I think and we agree and just to reiterate this has literally we found out about it this morning so totally that's why I was asking about whether or not you would continue with your vote yeah we'll continue the vote because it's doesn't change but as far as like putting out you know disseminating the information 100% we will it's at this point we just obviously hav't had the time to so it's so fresh it's going to require a lot of time to sit down look at programs look at numbers look at seniority look at teacher licenses we're gonna have to do all of those things um again um and you know add to that list that we've already started to establish um but it it will be significant our our budget is due to town hall on Monday um and so like it's it's fine our budget is done the budget budget like we just have to vote on it so I think it's important to point out taking out the information we found out today we I can pretty much safely say we had a plan for what three four and five we don't make that decision the count do so whatever we got back we knew this was going but we were Fair we were confident that these 28 people should have you know hit the ground running that if you know you know there was also a chance that 30 we could get to 30 if it was 3% or tce so but our important thing is you know some of us are friendly with staff um you know some of us you know we know our kids students have teacher I saw a teacher today and my daughter had for fourth grade I bought her a coule um so we want the folks that are impacted by this to have a a a good chance to we don't want them to but have a career somewhere else if that's the real possibility so um and that's why I stressed you know the folks that were finding out at last year found out too late and they it was an up battle so we're trying to weigh everything up trying to give our staff a good chance if unfortunately there isn't a spot for them here next year so but you know we have guidelines we have this a lot of what we found out today doesn't impact what our vote is in the next 20 minutes um largely because if you think about it we're voting what our budget should be the town votes what our budget is and then we come back and say well we we anticipated it was this these 30 people now it's 44 um so that's kind I think just a point of clarification as well is like say 28 position i s that doesn't necessarily mean 28 classroom teachers that always seem to kind of leak out there of like oh my God I'm going to go cut 28 teachers that is not the case I think I will speak for myself but I think I can kind of speak for all the board we know and I think Jen knows as well being a teacher there's no more important person in our schools than our classroom phic teachers you know it's every study in America is behind that that the teachers are in that room are the second most important kid uh uh adults in that child life next to their parents uh you know so I think when we look at that we as of the five of us kind of took that into consideration of like okay you know we're going to try to save every possible teacher we can where else are we looking you know there are going to be teachers cut you know um you're gonna you know whether it be a specialist someone moves down the LI changes whatever it may be but from our standpoint we were trying to do our best to keep the teachers inv in you know in those classrooms try to keep the Pars in those classrooms and again that's unfortunately you still got to cut you know and now if we go to 44 that brings in a whole another standard and to add to that Nick I think it's also important for people to realize that um we have some retirements that are coming up and we may also have resignations so what we will do is we will look at those positions and decide is that a position that we still need or is that something that we can eliminate through attrition and so it may not be 28 people with a pink slip which by the way are not pink but it will be it will be th that number of positions so it's important for the community to know that as well and and just a final a final note I guess on that um because I think when says is very important like it's we work really hard to keep it away from teachers it's last thing you want to cut that being said I think it's important that they know and I don't know how much we've discussed you know like at by the end we had gotten to teachers so what does that mean that means we got to the point where we had to start cutting teachers and with the 1.7 million that's where we're at we're at teachers now so just so everybody's clear out where we're at you know so it's it's not what we want to do but but we're there let me just go to Peter yes I'm Peter J WIS hon May Norton 157 Miss I'm a lifelong Norton night I've lived here for 37 years and 38 years and my good friend bill says in the past 43 years this town has never passed over and this is an article that I posted from 1993 and Bill G back in 1993 said this town has to start finding more Revenue to pay for the service it wants or understand that it's not going to have the service expects and I lived in this life for 38 years I'm a proud supporter of the school system and this is going to hurt but I will stand by the school committee the teachers and the students 100% I because I'm the honor may nort I still love the students no matter I love you all I don't want to follow Peter gone first um Karen dra I six North Washington Street um I just want to talk a little bit about special education um my son is in special education and not only is he in special education but he's in a specialized program so um he's one of those kids that on this budget is costing us more for the town um and I've been concerned I've gone to meetings um since I don't even know when the budget started October November or whatever um and I've heard how special education is talked about and it's often talked about these State mandates and um that it's special education's problem you know that special education is costing us so much and therefore we don't have enough for general education and that is um not true those kids are our kids they live in our town they deserve that education is the school committee actually going to say that because the state mandates it that's why you're providing those Services Would we not prepr providing those Services if the state didn't mandate them um the problem is is this this town does not increase its Revenue um we had a chance I I would love somebody to Crunch the numbers and find out if we passed an override and Peter are you gonna tell me 16 and 17 201 2016 and um where we would not be here we would still be we would be probably you know it would be less but we'd still be here we would be looking at another override 1,000 and that is a that's within our control that is within our control as a town that we can control that we can't control the state we can't control the state only gives us $30 because control we're not Lawrence we are not Lawrence we're not Taunton we're you know there's million dollar houses in this town um but in our control is that but I do want to speak to the fact that especially ation is not the reason that we're in this situation um and those are our kids they're my kids yeah so nobody I don't think anybody's ever said they should not here but no at our last meeting somebody said the school Committee Member said what would happen if we didn't follow those mandates that's not what I said nice try that tell us what you said this is what I said what would happen no I said what would happen if the UN funded mandates that came down from the state if we didn't have the revenue sources to fund them what happens I think it's a fair question if we can't fund them as a town and we don't get an override and we we're staring at a $4.5 million deficit what happens but it's the town's responsibility to educate their children correct why should the state be paying for that because in special education there's there's reimbursements that come into play and they are I mean circuit breaker and but the problem is communities across the Commonwealth are seeing an increase in special education needs of students um right now they're seeing a a a very dramatic increase because a lot of the children that are starting in kindergarten have come out of Co so when you see you know early intervention programs are at capacity preschool programming is at capacity and the problem is when a child becomes comes in at preschool or kindergarten we don't quite know what their needs are but the difference in special education and general education is special education students have a legally binding contract that we must abide by so when Mr schleker talks about unfunded mandates I'm not speaking for him we get those for general education not necessarily special so special education mandates what we have to give these students because they have a legally binding contract with the town or school department so we can't do anything those those are costs one thing you know we look at and I I had a special needs student I not a District student for a while I know what the costs were I have family members that are in the same vote so I I know the special education world and I I respect you know the work that those Educators do the problem we have is the state education board can come in here into any district and say you have to teach our kids this whatever that is so if it's I think the last change was Civics as opposed to something at the high school level all they said was you got to teach Civics they didn't say you got to get a teacher certified you got to get a curriculum certified you have to get this certified they just said you're teaching Civics now those are what I think Mr sler is said Heering not special education we can't do anything with special education cost and and I know for a fact they are Skyrock just last year one of our collaboratives the state allowed them to raise their tuition by 20% but unfortunately if we have a student that can only get services at that collaborative then that student goes there correct and our hands are tied and and we can't do anything about that I mean we've we've tried to talk to our state representatives tried to have these discussions with the town the only real part of special education I think we can try and control is the transportation working with you know a a van or or maybe trying to say if we have two students going close by we've invested in some minivans have some of our own drivers it's it's really just it's it's a rip in the bucket of problem what we're trying to identify is a lot of our discussions that we talk about we can't change at the Town level when it comes to reimbursement rates and things like that one of the big things that a couple years ago tried to have a special education circuit breaker account set up stabilization stabilization didn't go through um special education costs are to's Point earlier they're Rising because the needs of children younger are rising you know I graduated high school many years ago things are different then as I mentioned earlier my son graduated six years ago things are were different for his two sisters just six years so those who are thinking you know special education is you know something we try and say you know our school budget is for our 2600 students that we have in our district we don't separate them by special education in general we do to so we can show where our casss are going but we don't treat any student different whether or not they're on an IEP a 504 or they're just Joe and Karen from down the street so we we try and make it a point that we don't discuss it that way when we talk about costs but when we talk about special education those mandates are in place because of those students things if I can just add to that Karen thank you for sharing that and I appreciate that and um as an educator and a mother right I have a daughter who's a freshman she has dyslexia she's been on an i since she was in fourth grade I have a son who's in fifth grade he has ADHD the inattentive type which is important to designate um he's on a 504 um I think it's really important that we make sure that we're messaging around like all students and it's really really important for us to make sure that every single student that comes to Norton public schools has the best possible education that we can provide for them and we have spent so much time and so much effort and like worked so hard with our staff and with our families to create programs in District because we know and research shows that students attending school with their peers their neighbors is so much better for them than to be you know in a different placement in a collaborative or a private setting it's so difficult be just because of the golden handcuffs so to speak um of educating our students these days and um when you guys see my budget book and I've shared it with people before we all have education as a common experience and it's something that we all can talk to we've all been there it's personal for us but education has changed so significantly and the needs of our students have significantly changed when um I'm about the same age as Dan and like I remember it was like Reading Writing and arithmetic like that was what you went to school for you did not have a lot of these extra things and now we do so much more our teachers and our staff are you know counselors we doal we teach them how to you know persevere we all of these other life skills that are so important for our students it is just the Dynamics have significantly changed and I think when we look at the mandated costs we don't have flexibility in those those costs where we do have flexibility in other areas um so that is why we show it that way to let people understand that but I I don't want you or anyone else to think that um it's an US versus them it is 100% we are always looking what for what's in the bestes for all of our students so Karen I'm going to change my opening statement because my last one almost started ding I have never suggested that we should not educate special special education never never said that one time this is not I hate to say this this is not an educational discussion this is a a a financial discussion unfortunately the reality is special education is mandated so it will grow at a larger rate than the general education STS can back me up if something grows at a larger rate than something else it will become a larger and larger piece of the whole that's this the reality so it's important for us to point that out it's it's not saying that special education shouldn't be funded or we whatever it's pointing out listen this eats a larger and larger piece of our general education but I I get where people in town might look at that and say it's your fault that's not true right I was about to say a word I shouldn't have said that's not true it's it's not I mean we we are mandated to to fund that and we should be quite honestly we should be mandated to fund a general education too but we're not it's just the reality where we're at so that's the finances of it right it's a becomes larger so B is going to become smaller it's just unfortunately that's again math is our enemy not our it's our friend but also our enemy in this case so so what do we do we have these discussions to say hey this is why this is happening there was a question earlier about well does does Medicaid pick up anything listen a lot of these C this has been a a discussion for I've been doing this for 15 years and I could say it's it's been 15 years I remember distinctly sitting down with the pin comy years and years ago there's a guy I don't remember his name he's he's been G so long and he asked he said well why isn't why isn't Insurance why isn't Medicare you know Medicaid why why isn't health insurance picking this up certain things they probably should be right they're not if you look at them they're not really educational so so why are we required to pick them up this is not and I think this I won't speak for what I think Nick's point was you know to to say we're not going to to say we're not going to pay the mandates wasn't hey we don't want to it was more of a hey state federal can you help us out we can't afford to do this you know and this is we're seeing it right now we can't afford to do this and it's not special education really clear on that it's the reality is our budget is growing a lot faster than our revenue is it just is what it is now there's a section of it that we're mandated to pay pay why we mandated to pay the other side too right I I mean it's it's crazy like this is there's there was no greater equal I know we talk in society and I'm sorry I'm get getting out of so fox now we talk in society all the time about you know equity and blah blah blah there was no greater equalizer than education that's it that's the equalizer if everybody's educated to the highest degree they can be equality will take care of itself we don't do it we talk about it lot of lip we never do it why not most important thing I do I I I been do again I to been do 15 years this is a difficult position and there's times a lot of times when it stinks no one says thank you is you know mostly complaints but I believe this is as important a position as you can possibly have in this town people said well what about po select me no no interest in that this is where the actions this is this is where you make a difference it's for lives lives get made you know better or worse here and and right now unfortunately the reality is with the funding issue we're possibly G to make it worse and you know Sher was upset about it before like to leave this you know in in a worse position that than when she started and I would make the argument that we've done a lot of good over the years too so you know and sometimes sometimes the good is just stabing off as much of the bad as you can over time and that's kind of what we've been doing recently you know we've been basically fighting fighting at the walls like trying to keep this this from overrunning our district and unfortunately they're starting to win you know so and I don't I don't honestly I don't know where we go from here I don't know what the next step is I mean it's there's no white you know White Knight coming in to save the day there's nobody riding on a horse saying hey I got the money here or maybe there is I don't know but but it's not going to be the town we just don't have the revenue you know and I know people well we need to override I mean it's not meting is two months May 13 I may May 13th I mean I don't I don't think an override is realistic right now I think it's I think we should start kind of wrapping our heads around the reality is we're going to be in this situation at least for the following year so an over the ballot it would have to be voted on by next yeah I mean it's just I just don't see the timing Rec put over right on the ballot that has to come from actually has to come from citizens through the I believe they're discussing it tonight in their meeting they are discussing personally my thought process was put an override on but what's the worst that can happen maybe people will get nervous enough or or understand the cuts that are going to happen and let them decide we've always said let the people decide we've done it four times in my career here of overrides and we weren't successful so the year out of planning and all the preparation didn't work didn't work all the information we get out we walked we knocked on house doors we went to fields we did all it didn't work and remember on hold on so here's the thing put it on a ballot and let the town's people decide how much hurt is enough how much do we want to suffer it's your call right you make the decision so that's that was what I would recommend um and I did mention it to fincom and the chair of the select board that would be my recommendation put it on a ballot let the people decide and you know what put it on a ballot until just keep putting it on a ballot until until we realize what it takes as a community to to educate to have police and fire that we need to have a full-time parking Rec director put it on until so now I go on record that's what B recommendation would be anybody else and TR remember those days you bon and sah back in 2016 17 about the community of we were part of a good good and a great try to fight the good battle we need to it's fight the good battle and this school needs money right the problem is the battle is exhausting it's exhaust y does anybody else have any oh Paula Daniels um p po power Street I've been on finan since 2019 I have two children in the school district you might have to speak up sorry I sorry Paula Daniels 54 power Street um I'm on the finance committee and I have two children in the school district um fourth grade and seventh grade um I really just have a process question because I'm just trying to follow all this so we are meeting with you all on the 25th of March finance committee is um are you presenting to us the 12% budget or are you going to be able to present to us what you're really get that's pending what our vote is at the conclusion my guess would be we'll we'll present to you the 12% budget with full that one already when we met yeah I mean I think we we've always been pretty um pretty clear about like we get that that's not what you're going to do you know and the the methodology or the mindset has always been we present what what's required to keep our services intact so that people see it knowing full well that that's not a reality and and you guys look at it and say okay we get it here's what you actually can you know can yeah here's what we can actually afford to give you and that's fine we we get that so yeah I mean my my guess is we haven't voted on on it yet and I'm not counting votes here but my guess is that that's what we'll present to you guys you know budget that that would be what our budget would look like but again it's it's a process right and and we fully understand that that is not what the town about by any stretch if we don't tell you what we need right no I know that but so we heard that all in the joy meeting that's why I'm like I wanted to move this process along I want to I want the town to hear what's really going on and for us to go through the formality again of this like dream world of the 12% increase so what would weeks what do you want us to vote no I mean not no I just want to know like can we start having the real conversations like when you guys are presenting to us like you know what what this actually means yeah what's what's what's this actually going to mean a better idea of what that just to confirm I have April 8th on my calendar for the school to um present and so maybe you and I can connect offline just to double double check that okay thought we had changed that's part of the budget process it's kind of a little backwards because you know and I say backwards meaning as an elected board with a department under us we set our budget there is no board that oversees police fire parks and wreck so they go through the town manager to you guys and and so and again I think I mentioned this earlier we don't know what the town's budget is looking like for police fir Parks anything else they started presenting to us last week and we're definitely seeing over 3% for everyone um so maybe they haven't been told the hard truth maybe they all got the news today too I don't know um but yeah we're not really seeing reality from them yet either um so I mean you got you know and I don't to speak for your board I don't know the in but you know the way it's been for my years here we vote on our budget we send it to you guys you guys talk to the town manager he talks about the other Town Department budgets you guys then say this is what the recommendation from us is going to be for town meeting if you guys were to come back to us and say you're G to get a 1% increase then we work within our confines to say we're cut you know at that point we have 11% that we're not getting so we're getting 1% so we wait for those recommendations right um you know and and you guys and and the floor of to meeting are the final decision makers and then you know in Peter said May 13th so May 14th we would say this is what our budget looks like next year these are the takeaways these are the cuts that we're going to make and we're ready to go on July the 1st for our new fiscal year right right um and as far as override process so know you mentioned the ballot um option and the deadline being next Friday for it to be on the ballot which is um Town election as April 27th um we also have another option for during town meeting to present two budgets to the town one being um what everyone needs for their departments and showing that which would require an override and then one being um all the cuts and then the town to decide which budget they want for the town so that in that scenario the role would essentially be reversed as I understand it so it wouldn't go to The Ballot Box first I would go to the floor of town meeting first right and then you'd have to have a special election after after to the tune of $10,000 you could actually approve two budgets one well can ask you a question I don't know if you know the answer to this um or I see Zach working back there he may know the answer this um as well and and I want to prpose this by saying I'm not saying think this is necessarily a good idea but is there a way to fund a budget deficit like this by floating a bond or something again I get it it's not it's not ideal but because this seems like it's so crippling this year and it looks like it's going crippling to not just us but everybody is there a way to do that or is an override really our only option I've never heard of what you're suggesting but we can definitely talk about it Z Would you know that takes a whole L yeah that's a whole that creates a whole so we can't finance a deficit basically and we don't even have that money in free cash what you again I want to PR I do not think it was a what we did last year where we took 700,000 I think it was from stabilization um and that was a Band-Aid and you know and then the problem just doubles the next year um but yeah a bond an interesting question I haven't heard that scenario we can definitely talk to Mike or James about it but I mean the 700,000 it's it's kind of circling back to what we talked about before right where we're we're always doing these little things to make it big things 700,000 I'm not trying to say it's a small amount of money but you know we're doing these things to to save this off and eventually you run out of little things to do that's kind of where we're at right okay I just wanted to clarify the proces as far as like what we might be seeing and I'll double check the date for when we're meeting thank you so much so Z you mind coming up so the M catch you up here be shy is this good Z name and address too please Zack 3 Richmond Drive also member of the finance committee a couple points to make that a lot of people may not realize Municipal governments do not carry unemployment insurance so whoever you lay off if they don't get a job you're paying them anyway and that's going to make it even a worse disaster come to fall because if these people stay on unemployment town is obligated to pay them and it's a snowball that goes down the hill so people need to understand that secondly like I didn't hear the first party presentation because because I was at the orientation of high school my son's going the next year um but can we see a budget when you do come to finance committee that includes um no teacher cuts so you can make your friends whatever you I I didn't hear the first part of this yeah at Administration but this is the number we would need not to lay off any teacher facing student facing positions thank you that that I think the other about okay no teacher cuts you know we need to be here or we need to be here with you know increases to fees Etc you know like and I hate to say that I feel like an airline will like charge it for everything but yeah right I mean it's but we need to start thinking in that area you know there's no other option we just don't have the capacity we do not we could I I can't even begin to imagine what that would look like laying on that many people and so we're going to have to be really creative and look at Option I'd be curious to see if if we can even get to a point where we're not where we're essentially getting what we have in the books this year that's I mean I I I get the I get the idea of saying we to be to get lofs I don't know if we can get there I mean just and that's not I'm not talking us I'm talking about a revenue standpoint I don't know we just have the revenue to get us to that done so I I mean I think we were we were closer with our last discussion but now with you know today's events that yeah might as well take the the paperwork we've that's what I'm saying that's what I'm saying if this if we're if we're actually getting cut like you know and I think it's important to note that some of the positions that we talked about may not be student chasing oh sorry um some sorry I sat down I thought we were Ming up um some of the positions that we've talked about eliminating I think it's important for people to know while they may not be a classroom teacher they are still student facing in terms of providing students with support additional support for reading and math and making sure that they are able to be successful one of the things that I've said for many many years is that if you want to um I'm going to use the word in quotes and I hope you guys will understand fix your special education problem you have to focus on general education and we need to make sure that we are enhancing core instruction in every single classroom across the district if we want to support all students in their learning when we do not have strong core instruction that is when we see students falling behind and we see parents and teachers having conversations about interventions about IEP about testing a strong core instructional program eliminates a lot of that conversation so it's important for us to know that those some of some of those things are already on the topic does anybody have anything else they want to add or say or no thank you for doing a thankless job I get that it's hard and I get that it's sucks and I get that nobody says thank this is Val [Laughter] brawy no it's sucks I mean it it gen I grew up my mother was a conservation commissioner for years of my childhood so I have been to plenty of meetings where she got a lot of things said about her and you can find old Taunton Gazette articles if you want to but um it is a thankless job and none of us I don't think think that you guys are sitting here hoping to cut things from the students and I mean I appreciate as a as a citizen knowing what you all are doing and all the work they so thank you because it is hard appreciate that you do a good job thank you Peter all right so back to General Session yeah I got my notes about me sorry know it's been a tough meeting but I'm following along there all right so we need a motion to close the public hearing on the 2025 school budget is there a second second we're going to do a roll call Dan yes Nick yes Justine denz yes and I'm a yes as well now we're going to move to a motion I need a motion to approve the FY 2025 budget in the amount of 38 million 873,000 $873 431 as recommended is there a second another roll call Dan yes Nick yes Justine yeah Den yeah yes as well thank you all very much thank you for approving what we had discussed as a level servic I do want to mention publicly um the schol has been invited by the for do have Mee next thursdaying and process if we able to make that work if we not we'll have to so we're doing fincom as well um Thursday just a I only heard select board um so not saying you're not invited to the party but um the text alwaysed to do all three J is the next Thursday that is what we've been what what we've been invited to so we'll follow up and see yeah got a little Clarity you got it so um we still have more on our agenda so before we can I I want to thank you for Thanking us um because you're absolutely right and then you can thank me for and I just want to kind of close out their whole Marvel budget situation by saying like you know I say this all the time like every meeting it seems like I I'm casting a yes vote for something that is is diametrically opposed to my family I I I feel like I'm constantly voting something that's going to financially hurt me or educationally hurt my children because it's just what we have to do and it's unfortunately it's the best for you know best for the town um so it's not an easy position um and it is nice to hear thank you sometimes appreciate that so we do have more on the agenda um you guys are all you know of course welcome to stay and listen but we're not offended if people need to get home um but I do want to thank you all for coming it does mean a lot to have only 8 o' 756 yeah maybe we'll just take a a te break yeah any hang on a second hold on okay that's fine all right can we change can we just do the community f one first so B if you would be willing to touch the bottom bottom where I'll get all scw up need help good evening hopefully this will be on a lot lighter note just had to see you guys go through uh my name is Joseph car I've been running second nature Farm here in town for five years as this one uh I am a resident of town n Harvey Street so we're neighbors we are neighbors hi no we are neighbors we always say hi but we've never got um so there's a little back history about just myself uh and what's going on in town here so I am the last commercial vegetable farmer left in town it was currently on the crane Farm which is up for sale there lots of rumors around town about that but um currently we our lease is no longer there and the town has extended us the opportunity to use rose Farm These are some of our practices we obain from chemicals we're a basically an uncertified organic operation uh a lot of our community outreach in the past has been with food insecurity and HEB food pantry is a pantry that caters to the north here so that's one we have don't chose to donate a lot of food to they're able to service the community weekly as opposed to our guance here town which is by weekly so we're just we are a community based operation um more interesting things here uh so Rose farm is the property behind the JCS JCS school was actually built on Rose farm Rose farm was a old self-help grant that came into the community to support agriculture way back so when you say behind the school are you talking like behind the softball field area directly behind playr area so if you are so the elementary school's here and there are four Fields behind the school okay that's our and aerial helps there is an AI so what I am here asking the commission for is to build a community card conservation has granted second nature Farm the use of Rose farm and all are small for the entire for and the community has long time been asking for and what better for someone in the community who is a agricultural person to provide a service back to the community the unfortunate thing to Rose farm is it has very limited access it's a beautiful hidden little gem in our community that most people have never walked on um in if we were able to get some permission from the school to access where our pink line is here and there's potential for lots more building back here but this is just general basic gathering information C because there are some things that have to happen here for this to take place we did I discussed with Mr O'Neal and Wade the other day and we had a small disc discussion about some of the options here and that was when maybe a fence possibly could come up to denote some of the areas after that meeting I had met with the police department to see if there were any concerns there and their concern was yes we definitely need a visional separation to know where one operation begins and one operation ends and these are like I said this is a this is very preliminary for the community guard but we're asking it as a this is not a cost to the school system this is this is a good thing for the community and also this would Grant many opportunities for staff and student to have access to Second Nature farm and our resources and community garden areas for education so I think my first point like what kind of Road are we talking like a two-lane road or like a farm dirt Ro it would be a dirt surface or gravel surface loose gravel surface something that storm water R doesn't have to so we don't have to deal with capturing water and sending it in all kinds of places and treating it natural ciation so in so doing that it definitely would need to be able to pass the two directions um it's a you know we're looking at trying to find the safest way to do this and obviously there are operations which I didn't realize we have access to a community place right here in town the trienal park which I didn't realize there was an access to the school to get to that so we're here kind of gathering information to see what your take on gaining access through here before we move forward with any more planning purple Square there rectangle whatever is that a parking that denotes a parking so we're between 10 to 30 parking spaces handicap you all of the guidelines that will need to be met even though I am acting as a liaison in this with the steuart it will this is this is a community project it's not a Joe project or second major we're doing this for Community Access I guess my question when you go into JCS and go around like so yeah like is that one way coming out of that parking lot or is that it is not so that's that's the entrance you would you would enter in off of northwester Street it is not one way um but you know Dr marus and I have had a few conversations and I've said to Joe um some of the concerns I have are um number one was the fence you we want to make sure that there's a clear delineation and that students um because we have physical education classes out there um or you know Field Days things like that we want to make sure that there is a clear division between where our school property is and where where the road is um and the other concern that Joe and I spoke about Dr marus and I spoke about was access during the school day um which you know I think that that's something that we really have to have a conversation about um for those of you who currently have students at JCS you know how crazy that parking lot and that driveway is um be really between like 8 8:15 and 9:15 in the morning and probably 2:15 like almost 4 in the afternoon between preschool and the buses and how late they come sometimes um I would be concerned about a lot of additional traffic at that time of the day so I think that you know if there's an opportunity for us to kind of take a look at what some guidelines would be there so I guess my other question if you can Farm on this and how how are you gaining access to my access point is further back and is a very long agricultural Road okay like your equipment's not coming down here through this area more than likely other than the farm access is going to be through the rear both I mean could we access through here occasionally yes but no mainly our access is is beyond I don't know how much traffic you think a farmer will cause we're probably going to end the probably two to three times a day as a farmer having worked on a farm I know that we don't leave I but I know a community guard could be a community guard is obviously this is going to and this will also be an access point for the entire conservation land this is not a limited access this is a community property and we're asking to come from a public property to a public so people could come down park there they could walk around or they'll be able to buy things is public access it is entirely a public access situation this is not a one use situation this is a Community Access and you know and also in town we do also have a school that has ball fields along a road so you know there are situations in town here where we have traveling along a athletic and so typically we have very clear signage about accessing um like the fields at the high school are not allowed to be accessed during the school day um across from lgn it's typically not an issue that school gets out at 2 o'clock at practice is later in the day um tricentennial they can also enter from the from 123 that access roog was put in just last spring um actually to ease the flow of traffic at when they go out to take that right as you're very familiar with the Public Public also is able to access from that through the school so this is not something that foreign to what could potentially happen on public property so why can't why couldn't the access road be where you access right now it is so narrow and it is one way and there are there are some CTS in there it's just not it's a very Danger it's a very dangerous situation to have traffic flow in that and also where the entrance is it's not very wide visibility down the road is very restriced and this obviously will have great visibility that was my next question is I'm not assuming there be too much going on after hours if you will in terms of sales or whatever but like is there going to be lights out there lighting that road up or youing no we're not this is this is yeah this is a typical Public Access situation daylight hours non ploud Road you know not accessible at other times the other Beauty to this is as we're on the property it is also going to add another access point for police fire in a just another situation where they'll be able to get to the back of the instru rures from an unrestricted way because the farm as we get through here there will be an unrestricted path right now they could get a police car down they're not going to get a emergency veh as we're on property it will allow for an emergency vehicle situation because it will be open enough for an emergency vehicle to travel down so it's giving another option for those Services too have you got any feedback on the uh Butters there it's public property so we have not gone that far um we actually do not need that as it being public property it is you these these properties are public they're public accessible so what do we at this point it's informational at this point we're looking for informational we're looking to see what are your objections so we can answer the objections and come back to you or permission for this project I think the only thing with me and I think we talked about it is just know school day access and me that's you know I people have to be aware and we can and obviously like anything else at TOS we can add signs along there there's going to be a kiosk on the property you know we can post information just as the school has posted information any else this is like I said this is for public when do you think you want to like when are you moving on to the farm too like what's your time frame for we will be on the farm the day after pwn meeting okay we are waiting for the approval of a sure I mean I just my to sents here was I do like the fence idea I would wrap that fence all the way straight up past the uh softball field baseball softball field has a fence here there is a Ed fence so the the discussion with we we move the vents Beyond correct but you can still easily access from your parking lot you can simply one jump over the fence or two walk around and walk right to the back of JCS there is fencing uh throughout this area this is the fence here right see this fence needs to go all the way to this point at least where no one can get in because if you leave this open they can walk around to the back yeah Nick also there's no fening behind the playground either goes straight to the woods yes there's no fening hug drop off down the back of the does not have fence that's what I'm saying correct so what I'm saying is is if you're in this parking lot this fence is really doing nothing besides keeping the cars in which hopefully the cars going to stay this is the prop this is what we're saying this fence is to do is to the travel we're never going to stop any anyone from entering property we don't gug the entrances of our schools we don't you know our security places in our school system start out our front doors that's why we have cameras that's why we have security yeah yeah because like yes I understand what you're saying this public already there's existing public accet so I understand that but not with cars do we have to be on foot you correct so the vehicles will not leave this area there will be barriers in a gate so there's an emergency way through here but there will be barriers within that system so a vehicle cannot travel we don't we don't allow we don't allow our kids during the school day to go and play on the playground for like if I wanted to take my kids were out sick I want to go play basketball behind the behind the thing during the school day we don't get B back there and do that why the hell would we allow a bunch of citizens with with no fence or nothing that makes no sense but we don't have a fence now that's what I'm saying if we're going to have people who's not supposed to be on our school grounds we better try to keep them out of it you you do have a sign that says that you're not supposed to be on school property yeah I and that is cons we're not asking to access to school prop no he he's not he's not saying he's woring about someone parking in the pink and walking through the back to the school which what is the difference from them parking in the front driveway walk because we have security measures in place at school we have kids playing on the playground out here correct right now there's really no access to get back there if we give them a road now there is access to get back there make sense okay no well I think if somebody parks in the parking lot you can walk around the left side of the building there's nothing stopping anybody it's it's G inest to the oh after drop off for mys I we ever I get it someone on foot are we worried about a car accessing that I'm worried about someone being to go out to a back parking lot where there's no supervision whatsoever from the schools with no fence someone just goes there at noon walks past the softball field and now can get directly to our playground with no cameras nothing out there because we don't have anything out there my question is do we have cameras at LG on the fields do we have I'm just curious [Music] to I would just extend the fence another 200 feet or whatever it would all the way to as far as we can go where then it is thick woods and everything else and then we're going to have to try to deal with it I guess I don't know I mean the vence between wood and that where is I mean again I'm not sure where you're I think he's worried about someone with bad intentions being able to get get that to that point but in a public setting already if they're coming in there's they can come in it is a Dr Mar do you have anything to say recogniz thank you um I I uh as principal of the building um absolutely support concept of making use of the farm and having uh opportunities for the students to learn supporting the community in in any way that we can to have the farm uh being used in different ways and for the community and educational purposes and things like that but there are a lot of things that we have to figure out before uh this plan is ready to go um and I think Mr schleker brought up an incredibly important one about safety there isn't anything more important than that for me uh and there are lots of safety concerns that I have about that kind of a access um there is the drawing that you put up um that has the purple uh line it can't go from right there there's a large Swale right uh at the uh at the the edge here and there is a sale here all right so you so you and that is wet so that Swale right now has got water in it um and it's and I don't know if it's part of the water that's also part of the Wetland that runs along that access road um but it's not you know it's not something that you can just open the fence and and have a road go right through you're going to have to do some kind of construction or whatever in order to make that work um the fence uh concept I think is incredibly important um and I would see uh again the importance of having that fence wrapped all the way around that that that whole area should be fenced anyway our fence right now goes out to the property line of the abutters and all the way back um and if we were going to do something like this we'd have to seriously consider that we also want to look at water and the water resources and where that's coming from um along with lots of other things I think that currently Water Resources all of those things will be provided through the access on the conservation that will not be coming through the school system all of that will be self contained on conservation so I'm assuming for this whole project and I know you know the farm is one part of you know your livelihood the farm is already all set what we're do what we're trying to do is create a community guarding area I'm assuming with this road I'm assuming an engineer has to go out there and do all like all of that work has like we can't just say here's a truckload of gravel here's our road like it has to be a deliberate you know engineer room there can be some there certainly could be some engine yeah I'm not like I said I think just a lot more questions I guess but I'm not totally against it by any means but my concern is you're going to have a parking lot on the back of a building where we have five-year-olds playing on which again I get it they're on foot if you come from northw to cut through the woods through the farm anyway I get it but you're giving the ability to we're opening up our our students to a potential issue with having a parking lot back there with no security measure of so if someone's parked here there's equal security there's a gate there yes there's a gate to the back to that road this is why no it's not no it's not it's F it's fenc all the way across now yeah yeah and it's Fen and with that bur well whatever if you wrap around the building there's a swing gate that opens for traffic and I don't know hopefully it gets shut during the day but during the day it shut clock so therefore again someone jump over a fence absolutely you're not stopping it we're not a four foot fence is not a security who said it has to be four why can't it be eight well I mean there's not a piece of property here in town that we have a like that sure I'm just I'm trying to I get it I get it but you gotta from our standpoint yes I think the idea behind I I don't think you're going to get met with too much resistance to be honest there's just going to have to be a very good plan in place that we're going to make an access road the the first and foremost thing is the safety of our students and then Absolut from there once that question is done and answered then I think we can get into the other stuff ab and that's why we're here and and we're I'm asking you what are your safety where are they so we can address them the other piece if I may is that you are opening up traffic to basically our parking lot so whether it's during drop off and pickup uh at those hours or it's during the regular day all of a sudden we're introducing a number of cars that are going to be driving up and back um anytime that somebody comes on the property right now we had uh a land uh what's it called Mark land mark yes came today to work on the baseball fields I got three walkie-talkie calls within a minute you know Dr Marc Dr Marc there are people on we got should we pull the kids inside what do we do to so we are unbelievably security conscious and if we're worried about three guys that are supposed to be there that were given passes and ready to go and we're introducing something that's much more wide open again I'm I as I said before I'm not opposed to the you use for the farm I think a community Farm is a great idea and how how we can support it I think we should but we have to come up with lots of thinking about how this is going to work before we make a decision that's my opinion like say this is this is a information GA session where're looking for those specific factors so they can be addressed I mean I think to your point a four foot fence I mean I could probably find my way over one too but I think it's a piece of mind to have we're we're not saying that if F not back in here there's nothing near now there's nothing now and like I say that property's been open to the community for as long as I've been alive and down ironically I didn't know it was public property I like I said we're trying to do this in a way that is positive for the school yeah I mean I think in a nutshell we're worried about you know that and I think we're really we have to be aware of the timing of this you know because I I'm assuming it's going to be like a Dusk to Dawn but you know we already have a a lot of cars going in and out of that school um to add on potentially you said 20 to 30 just you know there there's going to be some traffic most of this activity is going to be happening when the school is not there's going to be a small window in the spring and a small window in the fall these are the extension Seasons yes it will be accessed back there for the public so yes there will be some people can't still continue in Access but I mean I'm sure as you know we have people who Park in school parking lots all the time to do other things all over this I've been a community been this town my whole life I've been through the school systems here I'm aware of these things and all I'm trying to get here is what are exact concerns so we can address them and fcing is one say sign obviously we have some other concerns about safety U traffic didn't seem to be a concern of police department at this time went to the we discussed these things it is a public accessible prop there are no laws that you cannot drive on this property at any time there are some signs they're suggestions just like most of things but we and unless I'm unaware of something we haven't passed any law that you can't enter this property may I clarify sorry it's not public property right now the where you have the purple line and where you are going to have that road is not public property at any time during the day publicly held property I can as the principal superintendent school committee can very easily say nope you can't be on the property correct what you're asking I think the school committee's opinion or our opinion as the school department is can we turn this 12 foot 15 foot piece of school property into public property is it's school property right now it's publicly held school committee managed you're asking and so as the superintendent or as the principal or as the school we have every right during the day to say correct there there is no one allowed on on our property and we adhere to that pretty strictly and and so um I think perhaps what might be the best option so to move forward is perhaps maybe John and Nick I'm gonna Vol told volunteer you seem passionate about the topic um but maybe work with Joe to share what our con like maybe more Joe project this is a community project this is being but if you want to get our concerns and then be able to Sol problem I I think we're going to have to be able to give the opportunity to write them down and share them with you um and I don't know that and I think anyone here this is this is we can certainly conservation everything can be emailed right over to conservation this is this is going on through where this is part of a land use problem this is part of a lot of different things that so what other do you need other perits and approvals to do where our process here to get this access way in is to is basically our hold up will be the school proper okay so the the end decision will lie in you know at some point us coming back with a vote right but you know we need to address the issues prior to arriving there because that makes no sense to come back BL yeah yeah so I think issues have been noted and you take it back to who you need to take it back to right and then we correct have another conversation correct okay providing like I said you put together a list of issues that can be mailed over emailed over to John Tomas at conservation and we'll address them one by one Perfect all right thanks for coming in thank you for your time all right little sorry I'm not listen to go ahead Benny I told them you're mad at him I know see that wasn't me see that's your fault that wasn't me see told you a common denominator my friend we are I remember I'm he well thank you guys um having us back um back I think in the fall we did like an overview ofis we asked to you sort of come back at this time um we have only about an hour and a half two hour [Music] presentation really quick a really quick update um in in some data that we've had uh we've been able to collect not just this year years so so I'm going to go through my part very quickly you guys have already seen this and I know play but this is kind of the history of how PBS um came about here in Norton and role that it plays um not just in our tier one and now in some of our schools tier 2 intervention but also in some of the um mandated uh grants and mandated services that we have to provide like around discipline and so forth these CB is one of the uh better known uh systems that we can Implement um to support some discipline and other uh supports that we have in place for our students uh but more importantly it's really about building Community Building um appropriate behaviors and and working together with our teaching staff to speak forward with WR and other skills um this is the uh just real quickly is the LGs um uh Matrix you remember we talked about this so respect responsibility and safety uh how they go about it um they do purle hearts um they work both on an individual level and a uh classroom level and they have towers that they fill and then the students get to choose once the tow is filled to the teachers and staff other and each other um tends to be the bigger draw for them in terms reinforcing okay um then we have uh the JCS who uses turn tokens I believe is how they how they uh they reinforc some of the things that we're looking for and they've done a really nice job of T tying their PBIS to their character strong which is the uh the curriculum that we're using to and right now I believe is it perseverance or working with perseverance and um you know reinforcing those kinds of attempts and what I like about this is you know perseverance for one kid is not the same as somebody else so you can really kind of Target that to the individuals I great levels and so forth um and then we have our hashtags um Mr gagan has left us but um he uses hashtags and Mr blow um to again reinforce their the areas that they're looking to work on uh and they talked pretty pretty intensely about um the different themes that they're working with um with their classrooms and their students as well um and he wanted to make sure we noted that as of uh the middle of February they had 278 good news calls of the day to parents so students you know come down they get recognized parent is called you know this is what so and so did um and so forth and I actually hear a lot on my position um from my specially parents uh that that just love that getting those phone calls um and then um as you know the uh parent board there has been a big supporter and they have set up event vending machine the book vending machine and they've had 215 visits so far to the book vending machine I happen to be there the other day when young lady was turning in her tickets she was so excited to get this one book that she had just D there a highlight of it not so otherwise good day so I really enjoyed that um the middle school has kind of revamped um and reorganized as we talked about and they do team buckets um if you go there during lunchtime you'll see they they really use that that time they have like a spinner that they use and they they pull um kids names from that it actually gets very engaged so they've been doing a lot of work um and their parent board has also been a huge supporter of this initiative and then um The High School uh is we just came back from an International Conference not a lot of high schools doing this work um so we are in the first field full year um we're working with our students now on trying to kind of tailor what it is is that they're looking to both address in terms of behaviors but also in terms of how do we reinforce that what's that look like um and uh we've had some really interesting and dynamic conversations with them actually just the other day so um that's kind of just a real quick hit um on what's going on and now I'm gonna let Eric talk a little bit more about what we are looking to do and what the what the data is saying sure just just in case you don't know me my name is Dr Eric Mackey I'm a clinical consultant from the May Institute my training is at as a psychologist with focus in school psychology and my role uh since the 20192020 Academic Year say year that was uh was if we all remember uh was is to support uh n public schools in the roll out and implementation uh of PBIS so I primarily provide a lot of training technical assistance and coaching to teams within each school so that they can become the local expert within the building building to be able to roll out these social and emotional behavioral efforts so what we know from uh PBIS is just maybe a little bit of review but just kind of timely as we're talking about things like budgets and things along those lines is when we do pvis as its design design positive behavior interventions and supports we get these positive outcomes such as reduced exclusionary discipline so we're not seeing as many students getting sent out of of the school we see improved testing scores which is uh like about mcast scores we see improvements uh there we see better Equity as far as who's receiving uh office discipline uh referrals we also see improved teacher uh outcome such as reduced uh turnover and improv perception of school climate as well as feelings of efficacy so feeling like they can do their job in order to be able to educate as you can imagine these have Financial TI if students are getting um suspended over over and they have to be sent out of District that cost money we're just talking about that a while ago Eis has been shown to be able to reduce some of the uh some of that sending out for students out in District in order to do pis oops didn't click I'm clicking on one thing and not on the other it's what time on on a Thursday :39 thank you I appreciate that um so part of part of my work is working with teams in looking at data uh looking at data to see are we doing PBIS as it's designed so that we can get to those desirable outcomes that I I was just talking about and are we getting those outcomes so the first thing I'm going to talk about is Fidelity uh and at least once a year with the team we go through what we call a Fidelity inventory scoring the school as far as how we're doing and rolling out uh the framework what we find is when we're at about 70 % that's generally considered Fidelity or sufficient Fidelity to say we should be getting those outcomes uh that we're expecting also it's a good key to say okay we might be able to continue building our building our structures um so what you see here are the scores for the elementary schools are all clustered together over the past three years what you see is their Fidelity has been over 70% for the past three years which is fantastic to the right you see the secondary school so you see the Middle School uh first because uh they were implementing first and then you see combination of middle school and high school together as you can see we're building in Fidelity on that side on the secondary side but we're not quite at that Fidelity Point yet we're hoping to get there soon um especially with continued support but we need to continue to uh support them in in order for that to haveen now I'm going to shift towards outcome so what is it that thank you for I'm so used to everything getting I'll do that all right we did this so as far as outcomes I'm going to focus in on office discipline referrals so these are the situations where a student uh may do a behavior undesirable Behavior multiple times like maybe they're knowing appear here or they're calling out or and they're not responding to a teacher's attempts to uh resurrect that that would get documented and land in this digital system that helps us to analyze those results we Al we're also taking a look at times where students are getting sent out of class due to their behavior maybe they've been aggressive or they're absolutely un redirectable maybe they've needed to get sent to the principal the vice principle that's also documented within this swis system schoolwide information system and what that that computer system allows us to do is to take a look at the the data and the patterns to get a sense of what's Happening School wide as far as patterns of behavior what's happening grade wide as far as uh patterns of behavior and what's happening at the individual student which as you can imagine can be really helpful when we're trying to get ahead of behaviors versus trying to fix them on on the back end so for for something like that if it's a digital system would that fall that student under their career that is part of the record was my thought process real quick was if this student is struggling from like 1230 one every day then that's EXA that's exactly there's lots of different ways to use it but one of the things you see is that's actually how we use it when we think about it from either a school addal counselor again or a bcda perspective um or even an administrating so to see both on the individual level but you also get to see at the at the group teach you know the group level or the um schoolwide level so you can address it it's not always about addressing just the child right sometimes it's about addressing the environment or how we're going about it also is something we can use for when we do like our fbas it speeds up that process so it makes our work with our school counsil our BCB is way more efficient and effective because we have the data we don't have to spend weeks Gathering data just have question about that the the digital program um so just so I'm like can wrap my FR around this one um like if a let's say first grade teacher is teaching a lesson and a student talks out in class redirect whatever you know and then finally the teacher's like okay you know what someone I need you to go to your seat if like they were on the Rock let's say does she then have to go back and put that information in or is that sort of not what you're talking about as far as like a behavior I guess I'm trying yeah I think it be more I think typically you can drill down that level where we're looking at more little bit larger behaviors than that like they're filling out in report or they have to do they have to go like a Next Level type um yeah I I don't haven't looked at that data in the last couple days I just looked at the middle school data and they do like they call them minors and majors in this so they actually do track within the classroom setting the some of the minor not all they need to be a need a certain threshold in order to qualify even for documenting that minor because wouldn't want to overwhelm teachers that was my that was my question teach to then have to go it's something you know that we might be looking at in terms of asking them to do say it's more efficient it might be something that we would be asking them to do in the old days you know ask Circle the pluses and the minuses um this just doesn't for us digitally and then from the office referal perspective it's just documenting in a way that in that graph follow actually look at and I think too and because I was doing this work previously um when we started these conversations at the elementary level it actually led to a lot of really great conversations about what are things that teachers should be managing in the classroom and what are the things that are at that next level that wen't um an office referral and it it led to such great dialogue among colleagues to be like oh no I don't know that I would like that's to me that's more of a minor um so that was actually really helpful when we're starting this process those conversations help lend towards consistency across teacher if one's consequen thing for one for one Behavior another is not that's confusing for for a student and they're not going to know what to do from Context to context they might attempt to split staff or teachers if they're having that kind of confusion so creating that thank you sure sure so again back to those outcomes what are we getting out of uh PBIS this is a graphic that it's technically called a triangle report but it's a rectangle because we're it's basically a triangle stretched out over a over years and the way this is broken down is those who those students the percentage of students who earn zero to one referrals are considered to be in the green uh some might say that those are the ones who are responding to our Universal strategies or or percentage of students who are receiving two to five referrals that's in the yellow those are the students who may benefit from tier two I don't say that they must have it but they might warrant some further investigation to see if they might benefit from it and then the red are those students the percentage of students who receive six or more referrals those are students that we say you know what they might benefit from some individualized supports like an individual individual Behavior plan or counsel something like that the hope is that we see the majority green right we want the majority of our students to be receiving one or less referrals over the over the course of the year what you see here uh with say Yes um what you see here is majority is green that's the desired effect that's what we want we want I keep telling teams that I work with we want to grow the Green Grow the Green Grow the green we want our our green to be at least 80% or above and that's what we're seeing here and we can actually for Time s kind of scroll through you can see that for Norse majority majority G you do see some of that tier 2 in there but especially in most recent here you see it's major majority same thing for y same thing for Norton uh middle school so this is how we track uh progress to make sure from year to year that we're reaching that goal of at least 80% in that who are responding to those Universal pack here my one piece because I feel like this data is not the best simply because when you look at this we're looking at it from 18 19 if our kids were already doing this before we put in PBI us and we were already quote unquote in the green this really hasn't helped us necessarily we don't have that comparison data well we have to have it somewhere so I think the other thing to consider too and I was thinking about this specifically for norn Middle School was how much is actually being reported right so what were things right so what what was being reported initially so and the middle school has kind of had to relaunch PB so I would be willing to you know wager that they weren't putting in those discipline referrals or they were writing a note to the administration instead of putting things there instead of tracking and documenting so the data almost looks like it's it's going backwards but instead it's just actually it's more accurate it's but then I think to Den's point with when we talk about like the mcast testing if you have a really bad grade of second grade boys let's just say one year it's going to be you might have more referrals and the thing does this then all of a sudden you get to fifth grade you see the middle school or whatever El school start falling down so on and so forth so like we're looking at this I mean it looks like making this number up but so many schools it's well over 95% of our kids have less than one or firm uh Norse looks like well over 90% of our kids you know like what were our numbers beforehand that is like are we actually gaining something from PBIS I guess I would say we weren't tracking any of it yeah there's no I mean that game there was no historical data so I agree right there's no historical data but I think the other point is it's just not about historical data it's about drilling down so I use this just within my own two kind of two departments or whatever I have um I drilled down a lot with staff um and and I think actually V hawood has done a really nice job of doing this at his at his different um his different teams to kind of look at like okay where where not just who right but where when and how are we seeing certain behaviors occurring and how are we then addressing them both from an adult perspective as well as individually so we may be addressing some of these kids individually all right um but then I think the other bigger pieces we're looking at you know people get wrapped up in the reinforcement because it's kind of a pretty thing to look at um but to me that's not the most important part in all my training and I I did this prior to coming here it's about the environment about changing the environment making sure that we're okay are we should we be taking a look at how we're doing dismissal because a lot of our problems coming out of dismissal what are we doing in the cafeteria like that was a targeted area for for the middle school I know they did a lot of work around their cafeteria um and not to not to sash you know having a good time in cafeteria but how do you actually manage like where do you cross the line you know does it being loud is is one thing smashing you know smashing a yeah or or milk bottle is a different thing right so those are the kinds of ways that we utilize it um and then again I think having some um consistent ways of acknowledging students when they're when they're doing the right thing one of again one of my struggles when I was a school adjustment counselor was always like I felt like you're focus on on a lot of times on the kids who are not engaged in the appropriate behaviors and you start to forget those kids that are not we want to make sure we acknowledge our little kids because it takes effort um and then you know so and then teachers can look at it differently too and look at say okay where where I feel like we're struggling as we come back with recess does the data show that yeah it does okay let's see that time frame what can we do different we work with administrators or they can do themselves they work with their teams or coaches to try to figure out a way to address that it's really a way to make sure that we're reutilizing data to address what we think we might be seeing um and then sometimes it's it's it's not like some I've been in schools where you hear everybody's out of control like the whole school's out of control and then you utilize the data and you're like no let's take these seven or eight students that are being more disruptive you take them out the data really shows that the school itself is not control right so you have to address those tier two tier three years so to me it offers a variet at each level is offering us the ability to do some some drill down work around having conversations so what we have in terms of consistency because my first thought as we're going through this is in this school and the high school the kids are moving around yes so if you have a teacher that's lack of is a little bit more laidback and maybe isn't doing the reporting versus you have the teacher that's going to report everything how do we how do we look at a data set like that where there is a human a human element to the report you ask a great question and thankfully there are limited roles as far as who can analyze the data and there are select individuals who have the ability to dive in and take a look okay how are the referrals looking for staff and not so much as a gotcha um but more to say oh I see a lot of referrals here what can I do to support this classroom maybe they have construction happening maybe it's it just happens to be a challenging class maybe there's a whole bunch of factors so we do have the ability to do that kind of analysis okay okay how how are teachers preparing somebody might just be a little bit uh giving out more frequent uh referrals so might be lighter but it's an opportunity for observation for supervision for for feedback look at the individual stud is it really like you also have to take a look is it that Dan is easier than Nick is or is it that that kid likes your class for whatever reason more than he likes your his you know um so I mean those are the kinds of things in sometimes what what the data leads you to discuss not necessarily always what the data so you have to take the data like any data right you have to take the data and then look at it break it down and talk about it and have rational discussions about okay what does this mean um you know and you have to kind of think about what it means do we have any feedback from teachers on their thoughts across three levels about you like about the implementation of PS and also students like how do the students feel are they so the I'll be honest right now the the I think the elementary for the most part again people right but you look at for 80% Fidelity and that's what we we got there so that's part of that measure correctly um we hear good things from students I mean you know at the elementary in the Middle School the Middle School actually very excited to have it back I see it when you go in there we are you know we're have some growing paints at the high school um they have some good feedback and then some kids are like I don't like it this way so we're talking about that and like anything else this is a process um not a lot of people do the high school so it's something we're trying to implement it's a way of dressing behaviors it's not going to address all behaviors it's not the be all end all but it's definitely a way to I was in a Brian and I were in a uh AP class the other day and they were presenting us all kinds of different scenarios um one of the things that came up wasal and bbis and it was interesting the initial kind of response they said was well no this is kind of I know I feel like it's babying us and then we talked about incentives and reinforcement how we all get reinforcement and they kind of came around oh okay we're getting it we're so I think there's some of that is it gonna work for all kids no like it's not it's just that's why we have tier two tier three um and then if the elementaries are starting to to implement the tier two process which is much more structured check-ins with kids um it's a way to be more efficient and effective with my my staff you know my counseling staff my my my bcbas and some others that makes it more efficient and effective um because we can kind of drill down quicker see what is that we're looking at we can also see turnaround quicker if you know in terms of those Geer two is this you know let's do this for six weeks just like any other like from a curriculum perspective how we seeing it improve I'll I'll just add to that that uh one of the major drivers of PBIS is having a representative team so each school has their own team that includes teachers special ed regular Ed counselors mental health so that there's a representative uh Viewpoint there it's not just a couple people dreaming something up and they are they the individual who get to represent uh their PE so you're Point how is this impact the teachers there's a direct line to the teachers one person can't everybody at least there's some representation there and they're constantly seeking feedback on their products you mention about the students one of the best practices especially at middle school and high school is to have have at least a student on a team not have your own your own team uh of students to give that kind of feedback because what we find with PBIS at the secondary level is if you don't have that student Buy in you don't have that student Buy in you're kind of su so they very wisely especially I think it was high school has has students represented on the team helping them to build their framework I would think at like the middle and high school level yes there's someone that's constantly interrupting class those kids are more than likely going to have an opinion to bring to somebody because it's their like if they say you know Johnny's constantly interrupted class but we're not seeing any interventions the students at those level probably be like can someone do something about this kid I'm trying you know trying my best and I'm getting distracted because you know it's like the old saying one kid can distract 25 but you know so I I I think hopefully there's buying at the secondary level because they know this can affect their Educational Opportunity yeah I think we're still again we for year really year one into the high school and you know we were at we're we're we're leading like we do a lot we're leading kind of that charge you know that's why we're asked to come speak about it um because at that secondary level I've done it in a theraputic day school that's a little different than doing it in know GED high school but I I personally think the data is some of the most important pieces you know Nick I there's there's always issues with data um but the way you approach the data and the way our teams approach the data is with a little bit of skepticism it's not like oh look at that isn't that great or oh look at that that's means everything no let's really look at it from a deeper dive um and we we we're growing we got get better at that there's no two ways I guess my last piece of this is obviously we want 80% whatever per we 100% but like I guess from the salones it looks like pretty standard across the board in five years again Co was huge Interruption uh but again if you look at 1819 to 22 23 they look pretty similar maybe one or two differences Norse with PBI seems to be getting better and then yell and North Middle School seem to be getting a little worse is that how we're should be reading it and I think that's where it's really important to consider the variation in data and think about who's who's giving the data how consistent are they the data what's going on within within the context has there b turnover with within the school so everything has to be Ved vetted exactly um so say that this is the end all as far as the effectiveness of of PBIS I would not say that I would rest everything on on this data I think it's important to also take a look at when we have the universal streen what is what is that look what what are things like for internalizing students who might not be flipping over chairs or flipping the bird but who might be struggling their so we want to think about also St turnover is that only this dat available be those other outcomes that we're hoping to see from totally correct I think that's my next pie is like what what are the data that we because again I just kind of compare to the mcast stuff it's like it's not the end all be no you know like what else can we tangibly see that we can see as the five of us to look at it and say hey this is actually working you know maybe the yellows went from hey we're moving a kid from a class compared to three years ago we had kids throwing chairs that's better you know it's it's a step in the right direction I I think you know again I think at the the actually even though the data looks different I would say it's actually more consistent in being used you know in a in a better way in terms of um how they're implementing it so some of that you know you have to kind of look at what's going on in the in the individual setting and to be honest this the behaviors are more challenging that we're seeing than we saw prior to co right so so I actually again I think it's implementation I think in John's case it's some of the stuff that John's put in there I don't know how accurate that data was prior to John coming in to be honest to your point too that you made earlier if you look at you know if you put up the yell and then you know JCS and LG it could be that grade level so this data the 2120 can down lots of different ways which we do I we know there's certain grade levels are struggling right and so we're trying to address that over time I've also seen great levels um that have struggled and then have improved right so you know there's multiple factors that get get involved um you know in in breaking down the data so I'm by no means a PBIS implementation specialist never many hats is certainly not my stretch um however I think I'm fairly decent at digesting data and so I guess actually my first question is I notic we have the triangle report on everything except for the high school yes because it's their first year of okay so we don't have data there yet um so I actually have a couple of problems with what we're looking at um the the first of which is and again forgive me if I don't understand this correctly but when you talk about Fidelity and you talk about say okay we implemented this program and these are the expectations and do we see the expectations we think we do how do you prove causation how do you prove that your program is actually why they're either improving not improving Etc oh that's a great that's a great question that's one of the challenges in especially in school scenarios because we can't can't always turn it into an experiment where we have that clear conditional group or we had that c before and after unfortunately right now we don't have access to that before and after data to be able to show you that clear kind of line defining line to say okay so when we started doing uh PBIS the these are the changes around that basically start tracking the data as soon as we start tracking right but I don't I don't think it's even it's even that simple to say okay prior to and post because you don't want to you don't want to confuse causation and correlation right like correct so I mean the reality is here co could be a causation for something and we're saying oh look the program is doing this or not doing this or whatever you know in um 2020 21 when kids are all remote you know maybe there there's Lessing you know all a sudden instead instead of interrupting they're just and they're like that's why the phrasing of this is interesting I can't say PBIS caused this I can't say it did this I can say it may have contributed there's a lot of factors I said it could be and this is why I'm not sure we we really have anything yet and this is not to say the PVS is is I'm not discussing it but I'm saying I don't think we've really shown that we have anything yet at all in fact I would actually make the argument like if you look at some of these ones where the data starts with very few referrals and it increases those are likely the most most accurate right because like like any anything as you do it for a longer and longer period of time you get better and better at it right so the teachers who the first year are like H is that a referral I don't know whatever by the fifth year they are referring it's say that's a referral that's a referral so you should actually see that progression where it actually increases I hate to say that but it it's the reality of data right so and they kind of bring it back to what what Nick said I'm not sure what to do with the data when I see it and I say okay you know um for the I think for y we had five we five years it's twoe school so I'm not sure what I take away from that you know what I mean like it's okay is it is if the yell went from a massive yellow and red to shrunk down to almost nothing that would actually tell me not that this is necessarily working they were tell me there's a completely different cohort of kids in here so I I I don't know what to take away from this and again I'm not trying to be dismiss of the program no I'm just saying like I don't think this data really if I'm being quite with you I don't think the data shows us anything yeah and and and it may never quite honestly so I guess it circles back to my original question of how do you know that PBIS is causation and and not just simply just something else that's in the background well I mean I think from a from a scientific standpoint which is not our that's not way you look at the research you get like a deep dive into research there is some it's one of the most researched programs out there in terms of what we're trying to accomplish um you know we look at it and I look at in different ways I think that the value to this is not necessarily year to year although that's nice to look at I use it or we use it I think and I think as we do more npss we're GPSs some more of that so looking at the data both at the at the year level but even more granular level right right so that's you so that's probably that's probably the right way to look at this right is not to look at it year-over-year for the entire enti of the cohorts of the school it's hard to say you know student X you know as a whatever first grader had five referrals as a second grader he had three and by the time he got to third he had one or less right and and this is this is what PBIS is doing or or you could you could look at it and say okay we put this in with this group of kids right and I'm just going to use the the cafeteria um we had a problem in the cafeteria we looked at the data where we track we decided these are the expectations we got the expectations directly maybe we made some changes to the environment as well now we look at the data a month later and say do we see do we see improv right and it's not just P bys in terms of you know for a fact that you know reinforcement verbal praise so those kinds of things there's plenty of plenty of plenty of research it says yes that improves outcomes for behaviors like this there's no there's no doubting that I think the value of PBIS goes beyond that that's the G component to me the value of PS is also it's the the the looking at the the data it's looking at the environment looking at where you're seeing your issues within your school and then how do we address that and sometimes it's not a traditional thing you think I I know keep this short and I'm Sorry's gonna yell at me but you guys you guys are yell you guys you guys you guys are asking the question so my first example like when I first started doing this at the therapeutic gay school we spent month every our first period not our check-in right we have the whole check-in process that went fine we were having all these issues first period first period first period and we kept trying you know we tried the behavioral stuff we tried the reinforcement first period we couldn't get past it but we kept diving into the data believe it or not what it came down to is what we what got to us was wait a minute what's happening let's keep backing this up and we realized our bands think about theraputic dat show were showing up and they were all sitting on the bands for like 20 minutes before the staff came and got them so all these beefs were happening but our our check-in system was so super structured that they didn't have a chance to carry those into the into that wasn't until they got to first period so what we learned with our PBS data and our process of discussion was we need to call the van company and say stop getting here so early and change that guess what our data showed that our intervention was correct because it's not always about what I like about people ask it's not always about just the kids yes I love the hashtags I love recognizing the kids I love doing all of that I love that we can Target a kid who maybe can't meet this expectation but we need him go from here to here but he's doing it in the same way that his peers are doing it he's getting reinforced in the same way I love that but what I also love is it holds us accountable to look at our systems and how we're implementing our systems um is that's to me is almost more important um in some ways it's not the shiny Bubbles and you know all the things which everybody likes and you know sending home 256 good calls of the day since you know is great like I think that's fantastic it's nice connection but there are things that we changed within our systems um and I would like to get there at high school honestly because I'd like to be able to Deep dive into our systems a little bit more to figure those pieces out so it's not as simple sometimes as how people perceive PBIS it's a much more complex approach to behaviors expectations School Readiness skills perseverance in those and that's a good answer because I the other thing I always worry about with these things I've talked about before is you know people the worst thing you can have is confirmation bius right say this is what we expect oh and we saw it well yeah you didn't see it you you want so I worry about that so the idea that you you know have this issue in first period you're like I don't know what it is I'm not going to go in and say it must be this or must be that I'm gonna just look and see what's going on that that's how you should handle we also try things and then looked at the data right because behavioral interventions as much as we also you think oh this is what this is what it seems to be but when that data says no that's not that's your your interventions aren't being effective well then we need to look at different interventions so we had to get there it wasn't like oh it's the buses right right that again I'm not dismissing PBIS I'm just saying let's make sure we're not planting the flag halfway up the hill that's all you said it's very complicated I actually think I'm G to say the opposite there's also some very simple things that have anecdotal evidence that is um you know we didn't have any consistency and expectations previously you you were a second grade teacher and you procedures and your expectations for your students were could be night and day for the person store and then they go on to the next grade level they work consistent caperi expectations and you know was a huge problem when ljn and JCS would come together and fourth grade at the L we spend a lot less time having to review some of these things because we're teaching children what the expectations are we always say they can't do it if they don't know how and so we're teaching them how to ask and how to walk and how to be a student and that's really powerful too so that's antical anything else good job keeping it short [Laughter] Babs thank you thanks for reporting thanks for staying so late yeah appreciate it all right so next upep we're really GNA beise running out there she like what so I just I just want to start just with a thank you um we're coming to you tonight and I know like we talk about process a lot we've been at this for 18 months Jen started this work along with Gia and along with all of our elementary school teachers our curriculum Council and our field test teachers the volume of work that has gone into this and the level of detail that's been provided is um up here the level of conversation collaboration communication I just want to make sure that the public understands how much time effort everybody has put in to bring us here tonight so just a really public acknowledgement and thank you to everybody for this thanks so just to give a a little bit of background um our last uh adoption was I believe in 2016 um went wisdom and in 2017 the elementary Frameworks had changed and really what C were looking for was what they called an evidence-based literacy plam so previously any vendor any publisher could slap on a textbook Massachusetts state approved Common Core state standard state approv but it was a meaningless designation because there was no vetting source so there are two sites one is called Ed reports the other is called curate that really do a deep dive and they are the consumer reports so to speak for instructional materials and really what they require are complexity of text rigor representation of cultures and different cultures and perspectives engagement making sure that our screening assessments make sense and a connection to the imss process and I just want to diverge for one moment so all the work that we've done from PBIS did this work here to our conversation about budget educationally speaking it circles back to that layering of support I know that triangle and then in the case of PBS the graph you know the elongated rectangle but that's what it all CES back to and in our um effort we really were looking for what we call those high quality evidence-based and in fact part of the council's non-negotiables were if it didn't me meet the all green which is the highest standard on Le reports we didn't even review it for consideration and so there are really four phases and this again began about 18 months ago the learn and prepare phase the investigate and select and where we are now which is what we hope affirming a positive response from from the school committee this evening to really move into the launch phase and these phases have involved a lot of time a lot of effort researching the texts making sure that we had vendors com in and talk about what the texts were doing Teacher book walkthroughs and actually using rubric scoring and I want folks to just understand that this was primarily a teacher-led process so teachers who were in front of the kids every day who understand the nuances of what it takes really drove the process and so I'll turn it over to G to talk a little bit about a vision so the ELA Council that came together we had representation from each grade level from each school plus our special ed teachers and some reading Specialists and they came up with this Vision that really is our why about why we do this and it's I think everything that we've been talking about tonight and that is our students I think everybody could agree on that and so this Vision captures our why and what we want for our students and that would be to build a strong foundation and um support all Learners and to make sure that this new program is engaging for them and that they want to learn and they develop a lifelong love of learning and reading and writing and that it is high quality and and um engaging for all students and so this was our vision that was developed from the council I gotta get in the right new battery broke it so these are the parameters which are the non-negotiables um and that we wanted this to meet the high quality markers of having that text complexity and the depth of knowledge um differentiated resources for intervention our El students must be a rigorous curriculum that's aligned with our state Frameworks that it's within our budget um that it was a 2019 or later Edition we didn't want to go any earlier than that and then it had both paper and digital components those were our non-n our priorities were that it was student centered and engaging quality and diverse literature incorporates reading and writing together lessons in included embedded scaffolding uh built in in formative assessment tools um tools to bridge home and School connections aligns with our district needs and priorities teacher and student user friendly workshop model which is our you know going into small group and Center work that it supported that and that it would made those authentic real connections for students student center engaging why would that not be out well it it is a must it was I think it part of our um priorities and priori as well but it's definitely a priority that's why it's on here the parameters are more like uh that has to be within the budget it has to be you know these are yeah you don't even look at something if it doesn't want and I touched upon this just briefly before but really what we're looking for is all of the markers that g had talked about but also with a solid empirical base which means that it was reviewed by teachers and administrators and shown to be of high quality in all throughout those areas particularly for us it was really about that foundational Knowledge and Skills the text had to be complex and Rich and clear and from the lens of our teachers because part of our experience the teachers did a field test of both products for between five and six weeks so that alignment with our standards and then the usability feature so that if you saw product a and product B had a similar experience with both over a period of time you could make the comparison because you field tested both and that was really important for us to make sure that the decision was made so that everybody had equal footing with with both prods and so we chose between two programs one was called inter reading the other was called my view and this was after a process where we looked at other vendors as well even for just the books but we chose because you can only feel test two through a curriculum Council vote to go with into reading in my view we wanted to make sure that from a planning perspective that we shared and followed the pacing and we had regular meetings at the council we aligned teachers created Google Docs shared back and forth positive and negatives all throughout the process and then to make sure that students have the ability to utilize assessments and make sure that the program had all the right components so the Student Book assessments and that these were used with Fidelity so that if G was teaching grade three at JCS I was teaching grade three at lgn we had regular conversations about what did this look like how did our kids interact act with it you know what are our thoughts in terms of how how it all works out so our recommendation this was after a um curriculum Council vote um after about an hour and a half discussion is into reading and the publisher is uh hon mithin as an aside it's a little bit less expensive too so that that help so I guess my question and I know there's a whole ring council I guess how would it have worked if say you have 14 people and it's like seven versus seven like how how do we come to a consensus on that so on on decision day we had shared a process with the team very specifically up front because to to your point we had to be really detailed so the first component was we were to spend 15 minutes talking about strengths of inter reading EXC yes because that was the first book that we Feld tested and 15 minutes of my view we wanted to make sure that we separated it out and then there was an ability for the curriculum Council people to go back and forth so like one of the themes that really emerged in that conversation was that the inter reading component with those foundational reading skills K to2 which is really the ages where kids are learning to read whereas grade three kind of demarcates then reading to learn the K to2 folks were super passionate that the inter reading component was deeper it was richer it was more clear it was more robust so that was really a mark and so in the rubrics that we scored our teachers were amazing some of the rubrics I kid you not they were 20 pages with level of detail and so it was a solid majority for inter reading I wouldn't call it you know was not unanimous and my view certainly has some strong features um what we've already done as a counil um we're organizing a group to look at the inter reading points that were identified for areas of improvement to meet with the folks from into reading so we can have that conversation about we field tested this here's what we liked but as we launch we need your support with this because we want to be proactive in addressing teacher concerns up front mind you these are minor concerns they're not significant but our role in this process is to get everybody as prepared as possible so that when we enter we enter with a lot of positive moment I'm curious on the CL the classrooms that tried out like each program um what like do they are they continuing with inter reading with like the the books that they had or like my son was in one of them so I got the my new book home um but I'm just like and then is there a a setback because there was a small amount of time you know like I I do it's a great question so here's our here's our plan I was a little bit presumptive and I jumped the shark so to speak because I did ask the folks from inter reading to send us the rest of the year's materials for field test teachers so that students that had that experience could continue they've agreed to do so at at no cost um you know by the rules it's within your purview to approve first and they haven't gotten here yet but I wanted to make sure affirming a positive vote that we were ready to position teachers for that thanks many teachers asked that too well yeah I'm just about about three 30 330 330,000 wrong business I gotta open up a curriculum store this is a question I always ask with any curriculum what was the separating factor of inter reading over my view what is the one thing that was kind of like this is what's doing it and then what was the one con if you will of what why was my view that close to possibly being our next Cur okay Mak sense I think I think the one indicator was when you were to weigh out the level of detail precision and um quality of materials and ease of instruction with the foundational literacy skills in K to2 that was a really strong marker because the difference there was I think it was noticeable between and the folks at kada2 were really clear about that some of the folks in the 4 five strata felt like the my view component was a little bit um more streamlined and straightforward for the older students but there wasn't a significant disparity but it was enough that we noticed the trend but even again like to address that point we went back to the vendor and I said to to Cindy I said we want to be able to sit down with you and just kind of unpack a couple of the the areas to optimization before we get started and then I guess what does my view do better than into reading that we're gonna hopefully talk to S you figure that one out I think the the the the component and correct me if I'm wrong Gia was I think timing and pacing with the older students with inter reading needs some tweaks whether it's done from the vendor level or whether we decide to do do it on our own I think the timing will will need to calibrate that to our Norms here I apologize if I miss this this is Grant funded so we have applied for a grant through Department of Education for high quality instructional materials um Dr aan applied for it probably in October um and we are still waiting to get back from them um we also put um if % of it towards as part of capital which will be remain TC and it's also part of our our budget as well so it's um we're really hopeful that it's so so my first question is is the grant covering it if we got the grant would it cover it you it would cover 50% okay um and so one of the things that we've done in the past has entered into a multi-year payment with um publishing companies which has been very you know they they want money right so and they want you to pick their program typically willing to work with you um up up through three years okay so we could potentially you know say okay we can give you the 50% right out of the gate because it's Grant funded could we work with you to pay the other 50% over the three years so and we have a capital request which yes like I don't okay do we have expectation on hearing back on yeah so last year we actually received the grants around mid- March that's how we paid for um the El program here at Norton Middle School and the math program here at Norton Middle School um so we're hopeful that we'll hear from them sooner rather than later um and you said that right now we have 150 this in our current budget we have 165 currently in our current budget um again as you know conversations we've had earlier tonight we going have have those conversations so I mean I hate to say this but I don't I don't this is a tough one for me right now quite honestly and so what I would say is um I think it's important for the group to look at the program itself and say you know if this if if the funding is there are we willing and able to move this program forward and then we have to take a look and see okay we did get the grant we were able to get it for you know whatever that cost was so we have that first initial payment is there a way for us to do it over time what's our current program we have a we've a few different pieces so we have uh Lucy carin's units of study and then we use foundations and hegerty for bonics Lucy I'm reading specialist but there's a lot of controversy around luy go so right now we're in the middle of the reading again right reading Wars are back um there's a lot of conversation about whole literature are we teaching children you know from this perspective or are we teaching children from you know chronics first and you know what we've always done is we have always supplemented Lucy cofin was not purchased for Norton as the be all end all we've always supplemented supplemented with foundations and other things there too I think one of the most important things about a new curriculum is the consistency of core instruction for teachers um this and uh please interject um that this program is much more structured for teachers the the resources that are available are all in one place they don't have to go looking for other things um and so you know we're talking about the lack of interventionist or the lack of other support positions we're going to need to make sure that the PO instruction is is strong we we had discussed earlier the the whole idea that we need to be proactive because our budgets regular Ed and special ed and part of really that tier one component is catching kids before they get referred to special education so ensuring you have an evidence-based program that's taught universally in the same way for all students starting in grade K I think would really go a long way to satisfying all of those all of those ends and was there any feedback or thoughts on like obviously we're talking about kids who were either born during the pandemic or are you know had remote learning during the pandemic so obviously there were gaps that need to be filled and did the teachers feel like this program was able to fill in those gaps and then help to meet you know Great Expectations and standards did and J can like we had and again we don't have to go through the slides but there was the teachers had very specific comments and very pinpointed feedback about why this was such a win for us I have my own personal opinions on Lucy cin so I mean I think one of the other areas that always look to do since I got on to school committee anyway was the reading percentage of what our students are reading at I remember Joe was saying I be 90% And we were well below 50% so I mean depending on what look yes um so I mean I think doing something that's going to hopefully help our teachers and in turn help our students is smart when we talk about the money $330,000 is a lot of money obviously we have $165,000 in this year's budget in the upcoming budget which now that we have new information that changes what are we are we gonna have any savings this year [Laughter] I think there's just too many unknowns right now yeah I have a hard time voting on this not without knowing money and we the problem I don't want to also golden handcuff ourselves that now we don't do it we wait too long we can't get everything in and now we have our kids set back doing luy Hawkins or whatever for two months and then we're trying to like I don't know how much time do we yeah need an answer I can I could certainly I could certainly work with the vendor um you know I've been we've been very if you're if you're gonna give them $330,000 they'll give you time and you know and I've been very honest all the way through the process kind of explaining what it is even going back you know to to to Jen's Point talking about multier payment plans because even with the you know without the new information we receiv tonight there are layers to this so we can so we could if there's a need to kind of create the space you know even perhaps there could be you know an ask for an approval of the program itself pending funding availability it seems like we should at least table this discussion to see if we get grant funding for half of it because if we if the grant funding says no we sure as heck cannot come up with 330,000 I would be more apt to say maybe we could come up with three years at you know whatever 40,000 whatever whatever I don't math so I mean not that we can this year but I mean if we're not getting half in at Grant then I I'm hesitant so what we could potentially do is say that you know we you vote to approve the program as the next curriculum for elementary Ela anding I that's super big or like I mean I would hate for them to you know so much work has gone into it yeah I hear you listen but CH this is the thing right like so and I I'm super appreciative of the work and it's not that I don't want to have this program but we need to make very very hard decisions now and 330,000 that's third of a million dollars that we're talking about here you know it we have to consider the possibility that that that may be teaching positions teaching positions that we need I get it this might be super beneficial to kids teachers are more beneficial I mean it's so this is not like this is not a you know condemnation of any of the work that you've done I appreciate it and and in a vacuum I would I would vote to approve this right now but I mean hard decisions right as a responsibility to this town I think we have to look at this say we we at least need to know what the funding is before we can vote on this and and I get like you know I get there's like you know we think there's a time pressure but we can't it's a third of a million dollars they'll wait trust me OD nin will be happy to take our money when we're ready to give it to them so I I I I urge people to at least think about tbling this otherwise I don't think it's right now I'm just looking at quick math here $330,000 by basically what we whatever teacher I think we're at like 69,000 looking at that's 4.7 teachers or additional Staffing that we'd have to be looking at cutting in addition to a out 28 and or 44 right right because only whatever 168 of it is in our budget now we say yeah we don't we can't do some kind of extended funding now the balance of that goes to next year's budget too I this is this is got to be a table right now it has to be this is probably a bad question to ask right now but it's where my brain went how do how are we saying kept saying 12% is level Services we threw in $165,000 for new curriculum so wa that we we yes yeah there's no good answer for that no so it's it's service aspect is we're getting rid of the old CTO we're bringing in New the other thing to think about too is there are consumable products that go along with any curriculum so every year we buy New Foundations materials for students we buy um hegerty materials so when you take a look at what those costs were it's not an additional 165 that we added to the budget it might be an extra 30 when you really look at what the costs were because your your expenses go down on the Cent correct I mean I'm personally I think we should vote on it with a condition of something because if we do get half of it in rent we do get something from Capital whatever that may be we might be looking at nothing and then nothing cost to us if you will Zero cost to us that we can then go and ding that Bell hey go order that now we're good to go rather than if all of a sudden we're stuck here we haven't voted we get from capital in April 1 we hear from the Grant in mid April we don't have another meeting for two weeks in or even later like like I I guess what what's the turnaround time this like if we if we table this till say end of April whatever that may be we should have the grant we should have some idea about capital is that still enough time foration like what's the turnaround it would it would change the curve so it's certainly doable so I want to start by saying that either pathway is doable in the most optimal position we'd be able to order sooner have the materials in and then offer the first round of professional development prior to the end of this year so that we could give all of the teachers the manuals before they left have the materials here ready to go and then offer to teachers over the summer that opening round of PD now if that's not possible those other dominoes fall into place they just would fall into place a little bit later correct which is then going to essentially set back whatever September October November is essentially what to look like to pushing everything back is now now a roll out we could we could figure out away because we would never want we would never have our Educators enter a space with a new curriculum unprepared if it came down to waitting till April we'll figure it out we will figure out a way to make sure the teachers get what they need we'll figure out a way to get them to professional development so they at least have a taste prior to implementation and then for the PD opening PD day for next year that will be the day for our K black folks how we think we'll have more information in in two weeks time though I mean we're looking at a joint meeting next week I think if we just push this to the to the next March meeting I don't think we need a month but I I think like after the trauma of today I think we need to just take a breath I mean listen I so so appreciate all I mean I've known G forever I appreciate all that everyone has done but this is one of those hard decisions that we are now and I I just think to spend $330,000 we have no idea after what we were just told today we we are I I IIs I know I absolutely want to say 100% yes it makes total sense to do this but just again after today I just don't know how we can do that without knowing how we're going to pay for this so what we can do is we can off and if if we have an update from the Brant side of things or the town side of things or the 28th um we can come back um I don't know if you would want them to do their presentation again and we can we can make that decision if we do not have that information we have a meeting on April 11 so um which is before the break and we can we can vot that time so um I want you guys to be sure that you're feeling comfortable I know um I did say to Dr arrian earlier that they feel really bad we're gonna go present thisa curriculum timing after our budget hearing maybe we should put first but like um I did say that to him earlier today so and I I do believe that there are definite options um for us in terms of working with Publishing Company um so maybe maybe we table it for at least two weeks you kind of go on your end and see what the options are we'll try to work on our end to see what is going to happen with us with capital I mean I don't even know how this trickle sound to that how are they gonna do that right I don't know but I just think we need more information I think we need more information about the budget I mean if you guys would have come to the last meeting this would have been a no-brainer right and then we would have been you know struggling right now saying how we're going to do this but but just I I think with we just found out today we just have to pause and just take a breath and get some more information just appreciate the opportunity you know to speak and present and just you know again just the work that's going in and again my hope is this becomes an exercise and delay gratification for all of us because the level of work and detail that's gone into it has been just a awesome and I just want to say again publicly just thanking everybody for you know everything that's Point into it we agree we appreciate the work please do not think for a second this is a no we disagree with you we don't like theog whatever I love it I I I wish we could do it I wish I wish you had infinite money we don't this this just couldn't be a worst year and worst day of the year we definitely get the B the ultimate bad timing award I just I do want to say in in defense of this work in this program and having a new program it is critical I just want you to know how critical it is to have something that is up to date something that that's meeting des's guidelines um right now I think it's it's a struggle to meet those guidelines so I do want you to know how critical it is% yeah and I appreciate you saying that I I I totally hear what you're saying I just especially with the cuts yeah yeah and that's the problem right this is we're cutting critical things this is exactly problem I mean if we're cutting teachers to implement a new curri have could be a reality I mean not that the program is to create a strong core so strong tier one and so without tier two support you're gonna need a strong tier one yeah I mean totally makes sense spot this is this is the D we're going to have now right we we're picking and choosing yes absolutely terrible all right let's just take we can table it for two weeks let's just come back you guys don't have to present we already know all the good stuff like we're we're good let's just see if we can gather some more information just take a breath from today and and come back and I'll I will do a deeper dive as well I'll Circle back to the vendor and kind of talk through what we've talked through and um see what the next steps just different scenarios on there to work with us I maybe if you tell them what's going on maybe they say hey you know what we can extend it over five years or we can give you you know we can give it to you for whatever schol district and I've been I've been because I've said I you know just in the process I've been very open with them from the very beginning about what is and what isn't to the whole piece so I'll certainly take our information back and and update them and um we'll see where that goes okay thank you so much thank you for your we have anything under other um I just wanted to remind everyone that next Wednesday the 20th is theud school um it's a great opportunity not just for students and families but for to come in and some of the great things that we're doing um at in Norton um and they'll have other um local um community repr well I just have one thing as well just want to mention that the um it takes a community basketball game is going to be held on Friday May 3rd at the high school at 7M um for those that don't know this is a charity basketball game where teachers play against um police officers and we sprinkle in some um basketball players or with some high school kids and um all funds go to or all profits made go to families um who have unfortunately suffered a loss of a a child parent in town um or uh have a pretty serious illness or um financial hardship um it's been a great event we've posted at the school for a lot of years I know they're looking for um and things will be coming out on social media into the schools but they'll be looking for donations for concession items um because they sell uh Waters and drinks and snacks and stuff for kids um there's going to be the balloon artist back again and um players of course needed and sponsors anyone looking to sponsor can reach out to itch Norton gmail.com I have oh Vinnie can I just say from my perspective and what I do like counseling and support I has been there for so many of our um I I don't even know what we would do so many of these difficult cases was prch so I've never had this kind of sport and the almost 30 years that I've done this work um from a community organization around the kinds of cases that we deal with so um there's a lot of families out there that I don't know where they'd be without it so thank you say that just one other thing probably so this next meeting select one this what day um they would like to know if we are able to meet with them on Thursday March 21st time 6 need yeah if we can get that confirmed by so SEL board is all set ready to go there're just waiting to see if we able to can I make a suggestion to this sure I know we always do a joint meeting just do it with do we have to is there a reason why you wouldn't want them there I just I just feel like there's too many CES everyone just kind of stares at each other help us well I mean they're not they're definitely not not no no no no not their point the meetings in joint The Joint meeting itself the reason why we started doing with all three boards is because if two of us met it was we were hearing things but then the third wasn't so the reason why we started doing joint meetings in the beginning was that everybody was on the same page about situation just that collaboration right so that that's why we started doing that so I'm almost especially we two fin CL members were here tonight I'm almost nervous to not invite them because like they're going to be making decisions as well right so yeah I think if you don't I think you end up having to have a second meeting to repeat that first meeting sure that's just yeah it's just you know sharing information and just making sure who's on the same page and nobody's hearing something hear say or whatever I I think if it's especially if it's going to be about the budget I think at minimum you a COR of the if next Thursday is the date I mean I have something I'll just change it can you guys all make it on Thursday what it the 2 crazy I'm pretty sure good for Jus um I believe so I just have to check on child okay so at least three of us do that and I'm sure that's GNA be because it's going to start at seven so it's made another late one and not this is other business or not I think given what we found out today and hopefully in two weeks we'll have a little bit better understanding I think at some point need to kind of reconvene and look through look through options again absolutely I mean there were some you know borderline crippling decisions that we didn't want before we may have to think about it and I think our team needs a couple days or a week or two just to kind of sit down and and give you guys some options and you got you got with the numbers and say okay you know now now we have I think probably um you know 4% is but now we have maybe maybe a more realistic idea of where we're going to be you know but what is 1% what is% zero and a cut like what those look like and we can start figuring that out because I think again there's going to be a ton of really hard decisions to make and we got to start now I mean I don't think we necessarily need to throw throw away you know the blueprint ESS that's a starting you know we're starting there right we're starting from there I I mean I hate I I hate to say this but what we were like this is what we would I think that's a PO conclusion those are done like I mean there's there's they're no coming back to that right so um and I'm sorry this probably should I should have probably talked about this other the budget discussion but and and so kind of circling back to like when you out little pink slips and we wanted it earlyer rather than later I think in in the past you may say okay well June makes some sense because often times we can call people back I think we we can fairly safely say that that first 15 to 20 are not getting call back in any scenario and probably probably a lot more but at least give them time to start looking and find something else somewhere because to Zach's point if they don't now that was doubly damaging the town you know our education suffering and we're going to get with a financial break so all right anything else I'm ready for a drink when they did their thing the um the what the valuation or I saw like could see us martini favor thanks for stay