everyone and welcome thank you for joining us I call the meeting to order if you could please join us in the pledge I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic Co it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all [Music] [Music] and [Music] and The Rock rare the bombs bur in a gave Pro through the night that our flag was still there oh say do that star spangled then yet or the land of the free and the home of the bre Mrs Fagan will deliver the invocation Lord as we begin this session let us acknowledge your goodness and mercy and ask your blessings on all our deliberations we thank you for this opportunity to be of service to our community and to the young people entrusted to our care and I also have uh another obituary to announce um and so we're going to have a moment of silence for Richard Rick Slavic who passed away suddenly at Morton Hospital on April 8 2024 he is survived by his wife Kathleen Slavic of Taunton Kathleen was a long time C A Kathy as we called her fizet teacher at muli school he was born in taunt the son of the late Steven Slavic and Janette Slavic he also leaves his daughter Kimberly Slavic and her husband Scott of Upton and his two grandsons to whom he which was deeply devoted will and Ben he um a longtime resident of Taunton where he lived his entire life he attended Taunton schools a graduate of coy Cassidy High School and received his master's degree from North Eastern University Richard also enjoyed golfing all local sports team and especially the time he could dedicate with his family he also leaves his siblings Steven Slavic and his wife his sister Joanne Murphy and her husband Mike Peter Slavic and his wife Tina he also had a brother who passed away who was survived by his wife Michelle of ton um I ask you if you could please keep this family in your thoughts and prayers um these these two were very nice people and I feel very badly for their family so a moment of silence please thank you thank you Mrs Fagan Mr Reus present Mrs shavs present Mr palowski present Mrs Fagan is present Miss Santos present Mr Vieira present Mr Mr Laura is absent Dr Dello present and mayor o Connell present thank you approval of the minutes from April 3rd 2024 thank you madam president I just had one correction on page 10 it says Mr sh and not miss sh so just something small but well thank you for bringing that to our attention absolutely uh so if there are no other discussions or Corrections can I get a motion to approve with that correction Mo motion to approve as corrected second motion and second all those in favor I opposed none opposed so voted and we have student advisory committee Report with Isaiah Wendell thank you Marl Connell um there's a lot of stuff as Marl Connell said my name is Isaiah w and I'm part of the student advisory committee um there's a lot of stuff going on in Taunton High School right now um as I previously said one of our last meetings that um we were holding foreign language exams for our students those exam results will be coming in um this week I believe um personally I can't wait to see my results um Spanish mine was in Spanish um we are officially in testing season as we are in our final stretch of the school year um currently our eighth graders today took St um mcast today uh We wish all those students the best of luck um next week we'll we'll be conducting and currently we're conducting AP exams for the students who uh partook in AP classes this year I have personally I have one next week hopefully that goes well um and lastly I'm excited to share a quick update on our meeting with the Taunton High School sub high school subcommittee today um it was fantastic we had a great time working together and discussing ways to improve the high school experience and discussing the day-to-day of a toau high school student it was very enlightening for me and I'm sure it was for all the members who were there um everyone was super helpful and engaged and I am confident we're on a track to make a positive change within the high school I am looking forward to keeping up the momentum thank thank you okay well thank you Isaiah good luck on your test good luck to all of our students on their upcoming tests it's an exciting time of year when we get to the end of the year motion to accept the report second motion second all those in favor oppos n oppose so voted do we have any public input this evening okay excellent and so we will go to coaching for change presentation um with Maris Taylor thank you madam May so as requested by the school committee it's it's always great to have the organizations that we partner with or partner with the to public schools to come in and share the work so at this time we'll turn the floor over to coaching for change so I do want to inform the committee that Maris Taylor the CEO for coaching for change is home dealing with a family outbreak of the stomach bug so unfortunately Maris cannot be with us but we have two outstanding members of his team to share their wonderful work throughout our school system so the floor is yours awesome thank you thank you for having us my name is Pete Burman I'm one of the co-founders and and Chief Operating Officer at coaching for change um we're excited to be here tonight uh because we've had such an amazing partnership being embedded in the Taunton community and working closely with Taunton Public Schools um coaching for change is a nonprofit that empowers college students to ignite change in the Next Generation and with Taunton Public Schools uh that's looked a few different ways it's evolved um over the course of time we started working with everyone here around 2017 um where we were an after school operator we came in with a two-part model where students were engaging in after school project-based learning with embedded social emotional learning and academic support around literacy and math and English and that while it felt very successful was abruptly shut down with the covid pandemic um at which point we were committed to continuing our partnership here and adapted our model to be virtual Services we recruited college students from from across the country who would join through the counseling departments at the three middle schools to provide social emotional learning and enrichment type activities to create deep connections with the middle school students um and with success of getting them to turn on their cameras and actually participate in activities while they were stuck at home um since the pandemic has passed and things have opened up we've shifted our model again to our in school School Support Services um this was due in large part thanks to input from the community um our staff went around spearheaded by Maris to speak with administrators Educators and leaders in the community to find out what was most needed for the schools to be successful in the ways that we're supporting students and that was very clearly stated as we need help in school that after school is nice but in school is needed and so we shifted the way that we provide our supports to recruit train and support our college students to be working directly during the school day partnering with teachers with counseling departments with administrators to do enrichment and academic support um and help the to build capacity for the existing staff in these schools to be able to better serve their students to provide more individualized attention and to be able to meet the needs as they exist today with the increase of students have fall falling behind academically and behaviorally I apologize that the letters got jumbled I'm not sure how that happens in PowerPoint um but we have a video for you here um one of our former mentees in the program in the after school program at Freedman Middle School uh we reconnected with her recently at an event at at the state house um and condalisa was an after school participant at the fredman middle school who is uh about to be a Taunton high school graduate and move on to Harvard University hey everyone we're here with Konda Lisa um from Mass mentoring hey everyone we're here with Konda Lisa um from Mass mentoring my name is Jaylen Dupri I Am The Hub manager at coaching for Change and I'm going to pass it up to Kisa okay so my name is condalisa D and I'm currently a senior at ton High School in Massachusetts um when I did coaching for change I was in sixth and seventh grade at Freedom Middle School in Totton and definitely my experience has meant so much to me some different things that I did um throughout the program it'd be after school and they would teach us about different math skills so I got to improve on my math skills um all the time so that I was really helpful in my academic achievements in the high school and then they also took very much care of our physical health by teaching teaching us how to play different sports like ball basketball and soccer um in the gym so we got to be more of a well-rounded person and they also got to take us on different field trips um my favorite one was when we got to go to Bridgewater State and we got to go into their gym and play all sorts of full games there um and then we also got to see what the campus was like I think that was my first time going to Bridgewater State University so um since then I've been back through different programs but I always remember that first time in my mind with my friends and definitely um he just been so impactful to me because it's shown me like from a young age what was possible for college um it's shown me um how to be you know an effective Mentor because the mentors that impacted me with their kindness their compassion and their just strong intent to see their students Thrive I've just taken it with me and now I'm attending Harvard University in the fall so definitely Mak so um definitely um different mentors like that's for my life have just been so inspiring so um please join coach for change [Applause] um conal has been nice enough to join us tonight and so while we didn't ask her to prepare a statement since you got to hear from her in the video she will be available for questions at the end if it's helpful to talk directly to the students who have participated and cona thank you for sharing your journey with us and and congratulations on all the success um gotcha okay um so a quick point to our implementation model um the way that we work best with the schools is a process around creating a consistent point of contact um which is required uh for each of the college mentors who work in the schools so while we recruit train and hire them we also work closely with the staff at each school that is partnered with us so that they can be the on-site coaches for the mentors providing supervision ongoing guidance as well as evaluation and feedback for us on how to be recruiting the appropriate mentors with the right backgrounds needed to provide the best support in each school um the college Mentor prepares and debriefs with their designated point of contact we call them a coach at coaching for change they're have Coach they have a coach at each site that they're working at um the college mentors have a consistent schedule now it used to be regimented for the after school to be specific two days and specific two hours but now it can be more flexible working in the schools the days that make sense for the school and and the mentor um and for longer periods of time instead of being restricted to those two hours for the late bus after school they can come in and work four to eight hours a day um directly with the kids in the classroom at lunch um Etc and the college mentors work with the same students on a weekly basis so they're consistently showing up to build the relationships we all know that Effective Education is centered around meaningful relationships and so that's what our mentors are in the schools to help create that connection to school um the goal is also for our College mentors to be supporting about 20 students at a time um knowing that classrooms are often larger than 20 students sometimes there situations that are smaller as well but the goal is to help more students get more individualized attention and that can look to to fit what is appropriate in the setting where it could be that they're helping to lead larger groups and allow teachers to provide more individual and intensive uh focus on the students who are in need or it could be switched for teachers to be able to lead bigger lessons and counselors to be able to lead larger groups and the mentors provide more specific feedback to the students who need that individualized attention this is an example of how uh our different schedules and and the different contacts can work at school um where classroom teachers school counselors and enrichment staff can all work as that main point of contact at any given school um and schedules just showing here uh that it can work on any given days that fit within the school week um as appropriate for the schools and the mentors to work collaboratively I'm going to turn over to our Hub manager Jaylen Dupri um who has been one of our lead contacts working with the Taun and public schools this school year hello everybody so as P alluded to my name is Jaylen nice to meet everybody glad to be here um so we are actually partnered with four um Taunton Public Schools right now as we speak so we're at Bennett East Taunton uh fredman and also Chamberlain so I'm just going to speak on the three of the four because we actually have Riley who is our coach at Freedman I'll let him speak on the model of fredman so um at Bennett it's an academic support but it's also social emotional as well um so with that being said um actually Stephen Morgan Wick I don't know if you guys know who that is the principal over at Bennett um is our coach which is a little unfamiliar usually it's like Pete had said it's more of a either a teacher adjustment counselor guidance counselor but uh with Stephen being the coach it's it's really insightful to hear um the feedback from the teachers that the mentors are working with so one of the things that Stephen had said was um they really the teachers really are leaning on our our mentors right now to do things that um that Pete alluded to as far as like working one-on ones or facilitating small groups things like that so that way they have more time um to run what they need to do in their classroom so if a student is um needs additional support they have that Mentor there for them to work one-on-one um which is super special and within that they Stephen also gives them that freedom to take students outside of the classroom which is Big because that's kind of that social emotional piece as well so not only are they hitting academically but they're hitting getting interpersonal relationships they're building that connection with that mentor and that's where we really see the relationships build off and that's where you see the academics building because um they're getting to know each other on more of a personal level aside from just being in the classroom so they help out um Stephen was saying really quickly they he he allows them to go like step out of the hallway um take a walk if they're done early or if they need like a little bit of a break or um just a reset so one of the students actually really enjoyed that and told Stephen that's one of their favorite things about the school right now is that they get that time to be with a college student take a walk with them talk to them about their college experience um what it's like to be a college student or just talk to them about anything stuff that's outside of school um so that's that's a little bit of Bennett in a nutshell uh we have Chamberlain as well where Chamberlain is doing something actually really cool we the one of the mentors just implemented it's called the social emotional group it's not they don't listed as that but it's it's UND it's it's disguised as as so so what the mentor does is they teach the students how to how to have those like learn how to have those soft skills um communication working as a group teamwork things of that nature that they'll need moving forward as they get older so um The MENTOR actually took it upon themselves to build that group um create permission slips to send out to the parents that they're allowed to do so to take them out every 10 minutes when while they're there well 10 minutes throughout the school day um and just they're playing ice breakers but they're learning like disguised like playing but learning at the same time so these students are getting all these soft skills learning about that having a good time and also building building those relationships with the mentor um so that's huge and then lastly we have East Taunton which East taunton's model is almost purely academic so we have two mentors there right now working with kindergarten through third grade students and what they do is they're in the classroom with them acting as kind of like a paraprofessional teacher assistant um so again running small groups one-on ones if they need to they're younger so if they need a reset um taking them aside just working them working with them one-on-one things of that especially the young ones you need a lot of redirection and things of that nature and that's perfect for the mentors because the teacher doesn't always have that time to do so um so that's what the mentors mentors are doing over there at East Hunton and then I'm going to pass it off actually to Riley so we can speak on fredman thank you guys all right good evening everyone my name is Riley suvin I'm a school council over at Freeman um I started working with coaching for change uh previous to covid as they mentioned uh with the after school component since then um I've been working closely with coaching for change placing the mentors within classroom rooms um I've definitely seen a positive impact although I don't have quantitative data in front of me I can tell you a lot of qualitative data has been positive as far as you know the feedback from teachers I can tell you for example it was probably two weeks ago where a teacher approached me fifth grade math told me hey you know was working with the mentor Joe said Hey Joe got uh soand so to do work for like the first time in months you know the entire math class 57 minutes worked the entire time so they've definitely had a a positive impact they've done a good job screening the mentors and finding you know positive mentors that are eager to work with the children um so it's it's been a positive experience for me as well um and I've enjoyed working with coaching for change so I know we have a lot more slides and I want to be uh mindful of your time um so in terms of skipping over a lot of what's here I think you have the copies in front of you as well um a couple of highlights for those who are curious about the um way that the process works and and for recruitment we provide orientation to both the the staff the coaches and point of contacts at the school as well as the mentors and time for them to be working together before they're on site um at the schools um there's their onboarding process again and the placement is what we call their work in the schools um as well as post-service evals that happen at all levels we want the feedback from the district office the principales the teachers that are involved or counselors involved and the mentors to make sure that we have a continuous improvement process uh we don't believe that our work is done when the day is done that we have the ability to come back and be better for the next time and that takes ongoing conversations and collaboration and Innovation that that we try to do with our partners like ta um as the last slide that I'll go over um there's a lot of tears to I apologize the typo and the top tier should be tier three um but there's tiers to the way that we support our students and we wanted to point out that the mentors have been used for both tier one and tier 2 type interventions um with the general core instruction as well as with targeted interventions to be able to help pull students out into small group learning um and Improvement um again we're we're located in Taunton um and if people don't have our contact information I'm happy to provide it to the group for any questions after this um but I hope to leave some time open that if there's any questions from the group now um we appreciate you having us and and happy to answer anything you have okay all right well well thank you Pete thank you for that presentation and um I I can't tell you how much we appreciate having coaching for change here in um taunt uh and really the um you know the spectrum of services that you provide and programs that you provide to meet like the different and individual needs of our students is so effective um so I just wanted to you know thank you thank everyone who does the work there our mentors mentees um for participating and I will just open it up in case um school committee members have any comments or questions see excellent presentation excellent Mr palowski first Mr palowski uh no questions just thank you for the great presentation and both my kids did coaching for change at Parker back in the day they loved it so really appreciate everything that you do and thank you uh you know ki's a could you couldn't have picked a better example of success story right there so yeah thanks so much guys thank you okay Dr Deo thank you mayor so I guess uh our counselor nailed it on the head about the quantitative data uh can we get that data uh yes to us because is this report I mean you have the continuous Improvement slide which has three set subsets is this generally speaking or is this specific to taunt Public Schools so for that slide it's generally speaking the our goal is to form deeper Partnerships within the district to work with the people in charge of data um and so for the different districts that we've been able to collect the student level data with that's what it's been compiled to show um but our goal moving forward with a is to create a more intentional partnership at that level um to have more data to show these results specifically for and the responsibility of the data lies on coaching for change or our side it requires a collaboration um it's our goal to create the analis and reports that we're able to share with you but for the actual raw student data um requires help from your resources okay and out of these four schools you identified how many total students the at the student the Bennett Easton Freedman and Chamberlain how many total students are we impacting you know do you actually want to go to the microphone because I'm not sure that anyone else can hear um so it's it's about 20 students per Mentor uh and we currently have 14 mentors operating in Taunton so about 280 to 300 yeah okay so I'm pretty sure we can get that data pretty quick I think I think to better evaluate I mean yeah I I agree with everything else the social emotional part uh anything to do with keeping kids in school you know off the streets I I appreciate and being during the day is also uh helpful but I think the quantitative data would better help me understand absolutely it helps us too to be able to make more informed decisions in what type of mentors we need to be bringing in and which points of contact that coaches on site are you know most prepared to host and and have a vision for how to use the mentors most effectively um and that requires understanding where the improvements and and impact is being made good thank you thank you ma'am all right you're welcome Mr shavs thank you madam mayor how did we choose what schools to put the coaching for change into okay yeah yeah and and our goal moving forward is to speak with the principles who are leading each school to find out which school um cultures and and staff are most prepared and and eager and inviting to have this program operate at their school okay thank you and the only thing I'll add is uh in conversation that I've had with makis and his team in the past I I really do believe being in the building during the school day has is is the way to go and it's I believe assisting the guidance office working closely with the assistant principles and working with the staff it does provide another layer of support for our students so I'm very happy with the in school model not that I wasn't happy with the after school model but I think the in school model is having a greater impact on a greater number of students because it eliminates barriers yeah because you don't have to worry about Transportation getting picked up or um whether students have to be home to watch their younger sibling so the in school model so kudos and thank you for listening and adjusting your practices to meet the needs of our kids that's all we can do thank you okay thank you all right we'll move on to the superintendent's report so because we only had one meeting in April this is going to feel like a double meeting so one of the items that and we are pressed for time because we only have three school committee meetings left in the next meeting we're going to focus on the FY 25 budget so I'm going to ask uh as director of special education and director of social emotional learning Dr Linda Watt and Amy Moran to come to the podium and provide us with an update on special education School counseling and therapeutic supports hello hello everyone um I'm very happy to be here again um but I just want to introduce our team so we have Kimberly Morton is our um special ed coordinator for grades 7 through 12 plus so our 18 plus and then Jennifer Jenkins is our special ed coordinator for prek through six and Mr Dan Fagan our outa district coordinator and it's really a team that gets us to meet the needs of our um 1600 plus students with disabilities in this District that attend whether they attend school here or they attend an aod District placement I also have here she's going to present a little piece is Erica Lun she is our East Taunton Elementary School team chair um a few years ago we've invested in um our team chairs so are free up our school counselors to do the work and um we'll get into her present piece of her contribution to this so I just wanted to introduce our team and then obviously we have Dr Linda watt who will come in over there so we'll try to be quick because we know the time so this is my favorite slide there we go so this is a highlight this is our students with disabilities graduation rate we are the top highlighted so last year's graduation rate for students with dis disabilities um 88.4% of students with disabilities graduated and then the bottom number of the orange line is the state average so we continue to grow with our graduation rate and we continue to exceed the state average and we look at other districts comparable to us like Brockton Far River adbar Chelsea Boston Worcester we we graduate students with disabilities roughly between 20 and 35% High higher than those other similar districts so I'm very proud and I know they graduate from high school but all the work happens at the elementary level to the middle school and then of course our high school and I can't speak enough about the high school of all the things they do to support our kids and get them over the finish line so I'm really proud of that and again it takes a village and that's a lot of the supports the committee and the superintendent have supported us with over the years just oops just some other few highlights I'm sure you heard this year we had a student with a disability that was inducted to the National on Honor Society she is a senior she is graduating and we have our Unified sports and we have um I just want to give a shout out to Elise Comerford and um krie desmaris Callis she got married who have consistently over the years been Co coaches their senior night is May 16th at 3M it's track and field currently we're doing so Unified sports is exactly that it's our students with disabilities and that compete with non and our non-disabled people years they compete together against other districts um it's a great opportunity for you know some of our students cannot be make the baseball team or the or the football team because their physical limitations perhaps or or their disability gets in their way so we remove those barriers and we have this opportunity for our students we have lots of students that participate so you will also see our student who graduated from the National Honor Society because she she is a participant there so it's a senior night that night we're very excited for that I want to give a shout out to East haunton for their rise programs that's our program with um students who are on the autism spectrum and um Andor intellectual impairments and the shine helpers that's a general Ed classroom that they partner with this year they have had friendship cookies and hot chocolate where they work with um their buddy classroom which is Miss Lucy cfa's classroom and they pass out hot chocolate and cookies her staff who order it so it's a precursor a pre um academic vocational skill um and they've also done lemonade stands in the past so that's huge and coffee Nation continues to be a success at Taunton High School Our Hope now is that the Tiger Den is serving breakfast that we can kind of work collaboratively and kind of include our kids there and then I have to give a shout out for the numerous of individual ACH achievements that our students with disabilities accomplish every single day whether it's coming to class whether it's tying their shoe or if it's passing the mcast exam each day our students have tremendous success and then just overall in terms of compliance I did not put this on the slide but I'm sure you've heard we when parents or people make complaints to the state that's through problem resolution system so for the last two years February 22nd to February 24th we are 91% in those um complaints where were found compliant and the one or two that we were not found that we did not get 100% compliance we were partially compliance those were around uh bullying incidences and it's not that the schools did not do those bullying investigations correctly but they may have not used the correct form so you can take that however you want but I'm very proud of the accomplishments um this so everything we do aligns with our strategic plan I you guys have seen this I don't need to go through this but this is kind of leading into the one of the biggest big changes that's going to be starting come the fall and that is um the new IEP form this is a big thing this is a Hot Topic across all districts the department of Ed has changed the IEP form the last time they changed it was over 20 years ago so that's when the DiVinci Code came out that's like the No No Nokia little phones came out um so that is the last time the form has changed the law has not changed but the form has and this has been a process this process of changing the IEP form started preco but then things got delayed um but this is kind of the timeline this year districts had the option of adopting the new process the new forms um we elected to fully adopt we're all mandated to adopt the new form come the fall now this is very important because as we look at you know my this is my I'm closing out my second full year as director of special education and if you remember a couple presentations before where I talked about my entry work and where we had to improve and grow you know we do things well but there's always room for improvement it's like it's like the department of Ed has been in our heads and been in our buildings to see so everything that we talk about where we need to grow um Desi to says this is where we need to grow with our form so family and student voice our document process lease restrictive envir environment integrating transition planning and accessibility of language so all these things is about bringing our families to the table improving our processes so this is giving us an opportunity to really identify analyze and address our challenges with the IEP process and then hopefully to create conditions where it improves our student outcomes with for our students with disabilities and if our trend is going well our graduation rate keeps going up so um I think I think I think Taunton on a whole is in a on a good path not that we don't have areas for improvement uh so just an implementation timeline for all of you um we have provided all training the training of the new IEP form to all our special education staff um Kim and Jen have taken this Mission and run with it um they've done fabulous work we are almost done giving an overview to all our school Personnel so that's all our general Educators building administrators support staff everyone and anyone that would look at an IEP to provide accommodations or a service to a student so everybody will know um parents have fil have been communicated that out via parents Square emails um we have parent workshops we had our first yesterday at Martin school um we had 15 parents that were going to say they came but nine people were there it's okay we're going to keep doing it um our next one is May 14th right here for pole library and then our last one that we have scheduled for this year thus far is May 23rd and this is where we give a parent overview all that so feedback from yesterdays we did do a survey was it was very clear they felt good about it it was also an opportunity to to connect with our parents the IEP process is very complicated it's very convoluted it's open to multiple interpretations so parents sometimes struggle right they it's hard to understand I mean I've been doing this a long time and I still we still have attorneys that we counsel with or other colleagues to make sure we're following and doing the right thing so this is where I wanted just to talk briefly about that eligibility process because that is an area that the IP really focuses on and this is where I would love our team chair Erica Lun to kind of talk about it Elementary as you know is where we start um a lot of referrals from we you know we do evaluate a lot of students um and and I just figured it would be better to hear from nice to meet you all um so I have been in East hon this is my third year I believe but not new to special education 21 years in the field um welcome to be here and explain a little bit of this to you with the new IEP it's obviously going to be a little trickier but it's not that different there's just some things that they're going to include make it better um and we will help support staff as we go on so just a couple things um the let me turn to the next SL the department of Ed posts this on their website gives us guidance every school they encourage support and would like to see every school having a multi-tiered support system so what does that look like for Easton regular ed students start to have some difficulties what do we do um so right now in Totten we have different tiered levels of support for them we have a student support team we have instructional leadership teams we have academic coaches um I ionically in talking today with the coaching for change that is another tiered level of support that we would give our regular ed students so this chart that you see here is desie kind of telling us okay EV the general education should be the front door to every student that should be the least restrictive environment for a student we should always start there what happens when a student has difficulty though is special education the next thing no not necessarily and it shouldn't be a special education is a service it's a Continuum of support for the general education setting the general education setting should be um a responsive environment so what things do we do in taon to help with that well we can bring a student to a Student Success team which happens in every school we discuss the student we talk about difficulties we invite parties to that meeting that may have some impact with the students like related service professionals um we discuss what types of things we could give them as supports what things we could change in their environment if they're receiving Title One services do they need more do they need less instructional coaches can provide us with some more things to send teachers off that meeting with then we meet again after four to six weeks discuss the student what supports may have helped what didn't help um if difficulty persists is that something that we need to help them with outside of school and then the last possible is the the referral to special education which is where I come into play so they would contact the um Team chairs in the building and we would start thinking of the evaluation process so what is special education as I said it is a service not a location special education is designed to meet the unique needs of an eligible student um in related Services is necessary to access or make progress in the general curriculum these are for students who we identify as having disabilities that's what special education is for so how do we get there so what does eligible mean we identify if the student has one or more of the following disabilities these are disabilities that are are given to us from the state they follow federal guidelines however so that is where our state of of the state of dep Department determines these um disabilities and then we kind of discuss those in our meetings so assessments for the areas of suspected disability a child's brought forth to the student support process team chair we discussed the suspected area of disability we have qual qualified licensed evaluators who then um perform these evaluations that are requested assessment tools are used with normative data data what is normative data normative data is all of the materials that we use to test students are current most up to dat and they are using Nationwide results that were research-based where they tested other children in that age group to determine what's normal for that age group now does that currently align always with our curriculum no it is really age appropriate for that child in across na Nationwide so we're always using normative data to make decisions parental participation and engagement anytime we send out consent for students or a parent contacts us we would make sure that that parent has involvement that starts right at the consent process there's a page that they receive that they can share anything with us then as evaluators are conducting evaluations of students they may contact parents say you know give me some information that you could share on their developmental profile what types of things are they doing at home what was their birth history like they may get all of that information background data to then perform the evaluation along with assessments that they're using it is non-discriminatory or racial or C cultural B basis so another thing we touch upon is we do have El students who receive special education testing we take that into account we discuss that um and we also provide evaluations with interpreters when needed if and we always kind of evaluate that at the student support teams um so we're always making sure that we're providing the best type of testing we possibly can for the student in taking account everything about that student from cultural to language um even if a child is in a special needs program or a child currently has a assistive tech device and they can utilize that during the assessment we make sure that we're using that during the assessment okay so that's just a snip a snippet of it not just disability is the student making effective progress this is the next part of what it means to be eligible for special education we have to consider is this student making effect effective progress for example if we find find that a child does have a disability we've identified a disability the next question is is that student with this disability making progress sometimes they may be making progress to the curriculum does the student require specially designed instruction and or related service so we take all of this into account is the student with a disability making progress if they are does that mean that they're eligible for special education or if they're not what do they need to become what do they need to become successful in our genad program we do have to consider some exclusionary factors so limited English proficiency which I mentioned a little so social maladjustment inability to meet the school discipline go or a lack of instruction in reading and math so some of these things are not necessarily a result of a disability they could just be things that are happening with that student that we as a team discuss together we rule out and we look at at some of these Student Success teams that we spoke about how long is the referral Pro process so so when we receive consent to evaluate we have 30 days to test um and this is State mandated so it is lawful we have to follow this process we do do a really good job here at to making sure that our timelines are right up to date we have 30 working days to evaluate the team meets within the next we have not now 15 days to meet the team meets we determine the eligibility no later than that 15 School working days if eligible we develop an IEP we determine the placement of the child at the team meeting and then we propose an IEP that I is written at the team with the parents involvement and it is a we formulate a draft together that parent then leaves receives the drafted IEP and has the ability to consent or disagree with the placement in the IEP Services um as soon as we if they do agree and send that back to us as soon as we receive the consent and it's signed Services begin right away they do have 30 days to respond and to kind of look at this and evaluate the draft and again I just want to reiterate they are part of this team process they're and this new IEP is going to include children and parent voices even more than we already have um which is great because we're going to start seeing things like what are what are the goals of the student and we're going to be asking even elementary students what do you want to see for yourself and including that in the IEP so their voices in the IEP what happens when a student does not qualify for special education um if a student does not qualify then we in myself as as the team chair who's leading these meetings discuss our Decap and again our multi-tiered support systems so for example if a child is not found eligible but may have a disability we've concluded that the child doesn't doesn't has a disability but is it it it's not access it's not um issue with their access to the curriculum I'll I'll give an example so if a child has a physical impairment and they need a crutch to ambulate around and they are in a classroom but they're accessing they're asking questions they make it to PE class they're doing everything their peers are doing their grades are right on par but they might have a general weakness in a reading comprehension for example at the team meeting we would determine okay there is a physical disability we've identified there's a disability but is that student accessing that student is accessing so they wouldn't qualify for special education however they may qualify for a 504 so we would refer them to our guidance department and say you may be eligible for a 504 plan we'd instruct them to contact our guidance and that's a different process where they discuss the disability and if that child needs any accommodations to their school day and environment to help them succeed in the environment um they also May benefit from Title One servicing we have peer tutoring we have Afterschool programs occasionally every in elementary level anyway will'll offer different types of tutoring throughout the year where they send home papers to parents saying is your child interested in extra math work um some after school reading and those are all examples of what multi-tiered systems we have in place thank you so much you're welcome and then just to round up the special ed stuff uh what's next for us um continued collaboration and communication with all stakeholders um our evidence-based practices in the priority area so we have like our high quality instruction materials all our instructional leadership teams that were that that's throughout the district we're going to continue to review and training and support our teachers um in to implement the new IEP form um this it's a new IEP form so there's going to be a lot of support needed because as we grow you know desie is still giving us advisories and we we'll share that information as we go and then continued professional development opportunities um next year we'll be heading into a tiered focused monitoring um evaluation through the state that's a state audit and then our continued growth with our alert tops uh we we want to get the copy center at the high school up and running and then we're going to explore um some hydroponics gardening for our students to do so and then next um because we're worried about time um Dr Linda watt is going to present um an update on our social emotional learning and mental health it's a good thing I talk fast um so May 1 is mental health awareness month and everybody here was given a sticker that's a stress relief sticker so you can place it on the back of your phone you can put it on something and you can rub it um so one of the things that we're doing in all of our buildings are the stickers are available in all of our buildings plus we have bulletin board and pencils for all the students um so I wanted um at first to start the difference between social emotional learning and Mental Health social emotional learning describes basically mindsets or skills and attitudes um that help all students succeed in school career life we all need social emotional um learning or social emotional skills versus mental health mental health includes our emotional psychological and social well-being we all have mental health but when people talk about mental health they talk they tend to talk more to the disability mental health so it affects how we think we feel and we act it also helps us determine how we deal with stress so they're interl a lot um what are we doing currently in the district with regard to our social emotional learning and our mental health we have Universal screenings currently going on twice a year we do the celus which looks at social emotional learning and that's the five Castle competencies and then we do the sabes twice a year that look at more mental health and behavior currently with our interventions they're all based on a tiered system which I'll get into we're utilizing evidencebased curriculums uh to address all five Castle competencies or any identifi identified mental health concerns this is how we're choosing our interventions so probably midf we met with all of our school counselors we went through how we're going to tier students with regard to our cell data our Sabers data but we also want to include teacher input we want to talk to the teachers about any teachers that they have concerns of children within their classroom we are looking at our referral data so we're looking at our data that comes to um admin in the buildings of children that are referred for difficulties within the building and we're also looking at our attendance data so when we do that we look at all of this data together um some schools are using their mental health we all have um school-based mental health teams now they're using their school-based mental health teams and in order to discuss this data and a lot of them are looking at this data within their um ilts and so decisions are made two different ways through the building B based mental health team they review all of the data and then they talk about tiered interventions for the students and then through individual student support meetings so um student classroom data is brought to the team to discuss what's going on for particular students so these are more specific to a student that's having difficulties a teacher can bring them to a student support meeting where we look at the data um not just the classroom data but also our Mental Health Data and then based on the discussions we might make different um recommendations it could include a reset room plan which I'll talk about um academic um RTI so if the student is struggling we might give them some academic um support or tiered groups so we have tiered groups running in all of our buildings at this time we do have some current limitations with regard to uh looking at all of our Mental Health andal Data um we're looking currently at consistency across the District regarding um our student support meetings and our building based mental health teams um different buildings run them a little bit differently so hopefully within the next year we'll get everybody consistently running them pretty similarly um we really want to work on understanding um the analysis of and the collection of the data because it's very important that we're data driven and we really want to make sure that everybody is looking at the data in the same way and we want to have consistency and Fidelity in the implementation of the interventions that we're putting into place that includes the reset room and how we use the reset room but also our tiered groups um and then we want to start to implement we are going to do some training at the end of this Academic Year with our school counselors on progress monitoring how are you progress monitoring the students within the groups that we're doing some additional supports that we currently have going right now in the area ofal and mental health we um do have the current new partnership with M man at Health which does include some behavioral health support and Bridge appointments as needed because what everybody is finding in the community is accessing Mental Health Services right now for young people particularly young people that have mass health is pretty difficult there's a six-month to a year wait for a lot of counseling appointments so Manet is offering Bridge appointments for young people with regard to mental health but also if young people come out of the hospital and need a bridge appointment in order to help with medications and things along those lines this is a very helpful service currently um we want to grow we are grow growing sustainability with the provision of um clinical supervision to our staff currently so a lot of our school adjustment counselors come into the district with a mental health degree but they're not independently licensed yet so one of the things that we're doing is we're growing our sustainability within the district to provide Mental Health Care by providing them with licensed supervision so that they can seek independent lure um we have partnered with suffk University for a Resto a restorative practice pilot so we have um several buildings that are attending six trainings on Saturdays from last month through June looking at um restorative practices for all students is uh restorative practices for problem solving so when we're having difficulties using restorative practices and then restorative discipline will be the final training um we have staffed reset rooms in all of our buildings at this point in time we are Staffing all of our reset rooms with a tutor and a school social worker in order to work with students so this is a tiered intervention for any student in the building um we we have a bright collaboration at the high school a grant was written and received so the bright program opened in one of our reset rooms at the high school this is a transition for young people with significant mental health issues um as they're transitioning from hospitals or to avoid another hospital stay they're able to use this space within the school building in order to support their mental health and then we also have a trauma informed cohort pilot through desie at the elementary level with two of our elementary schools and what's that looking at is trauma en formed practices within the building so we have two cohorts one at Bennett and one here at pole that are working with someone through desie to get um trauma informed practices within their buildings for all teachers and Educators so I just wanted to kind of go over a little bit of the reset room because that is one of the new tiered interventions for this year um every building has a reset room um currently I put up here the numbers of students that are currently utilizing the reset space on a daily basis so these are students who have gone through the student support process and there's a plan in place for how they utilize the space some children may be in there for half a math some student might be in there for a lunch some student might be in there for a group everybody's plan is individualized based on that child's needs the space is also utilized as an alternative to discipline so rather than suspending a student we will use that as an alternative to discipline so that the student is still receiving supports from a social worker but also an academic person to help them with their work so they're not home um at times for a you and distress so if we have students that are having kind of big issues and we need some support for them we might use the reset room for that and then it's also a place where we're doing a lot of social um groups or lunch groups for our students um I just put some little tidbits in here so I reached out to all of the people that are working in the reset room they provide a lot of data I am a very big data collection person so they have been collecting data on our students left and right but I also wanted some qualitative data so we have um some students that were utilizing the space twice daily they were having behaviors included leaving the classroom they weren't returning after their breaks they had a lot of disregulation and when they were going into the reset room they were working with the school social worker on school expectations and how you behave in school but also on being flexible and being flexible thinking um and now they're currently staying in the classroom and following all school expectations along with being flexible with very minimal use of the reset room so our goal isn't always to transition them out but for some students it's to give them the services that they needs so that they can stay in the classroom more because we want our kids in the classroom learning another student um used the reset space for over two hours a day in addition our our staff can also push into the classrooms for support so they could be utilizing the reset room with the social worker and then the reset room might start uh person might push into the classroom and kind of be in the classroom as a support for that student so that they don't have to come out as often and now this student is currently just using it for 15-minute check-ins so again we're seeing a lot of success um we had students with significant mental health issues that used it as a safe space since the beginning of the year they've made Improvement not only with their socialization but their academic grades because our goal is to then look at the data do are they having less difficulties within the classroom but also how are their grades are they attending school regularly and when they're attending school are they being successful so in your handout there's you know several of these kind of success stories at different levels we're having success success at all levels um and what do successes from tier support look like basically we see increased engagement with learning um and and overall time on learning so we have a lot less children out of the classroom um increased ability to tolerate frustration and regulate their emotions because that is a lot of the reasons why our students are leaving classroom we want to see decreased suspensions we want to increase um expected social interactions but not just with other kids but with the adults that they're working with and then we want to provide space and opportunity for young people to reframe refocus repair and re-engage with learning so that's our goal from this tiered support um so the next steps that um kind of my goal going forward um I we really want to do a lot of walkthroughs with our mindup curriculum which is K through seven it's our tier one intervention to make sure that we are implementing it with Fidelity across all the district um we want to look at our grade level meetings because currently we do grade level meetings but we want to do grade level meetings with our counseling staff we're Switching gears on how we work with our school counselors we want to meet with them at their grade level for group planning to ensure sure that we're consistently um implementing our tiered interventions across the district um we want to really support our teachers to embed skills within daily practices within the classroom so a lot of uh professional development in that area we want to review the data from all of this information that we're getting and then we want to do that on a consistent basis we don't want to just do it once we um Implement a in um a screening we also want to be doing it pretty like consistently throughout the school year um and then we want to look at formal and informal data like observations of generalization of skills one of the things that we we will be working on with our school counselors is we run a group for 12 weeks we don't just run a group teach the skills and send them on the way we then go into the lunchroom to make sure that they can take the skills that we're teaching them and that they're actually utilizing those skills that they know how to take the skills and utilize them so we really want to start to collect some data on the generalization of the skills that we're teaching and for the last several years we we've been running a mental health boot camp in June for our school counselors um our school adjustment counselors our school counselors and our psychologists it's the last 5 days after school that they're required to work we have um a ton of different places come in and do professional development so um we surveyed all of these people and we ask them what they're interested in learning or what they feel like they need more support around and then are gathering people to come in and provide professional development in those areas in what we've also included in this data collection um they just did a PD this last PD on group um running groups and collecting data we have that person coming back in June to then follow up with our school counselors about okay you implemented this information you collected data now what are you going to do with it so we're also going to do follow-ups with our professional developments that we've already done to make sure that people are implementing them but also understanding what they're supposed to be doing and I think that's it that was a lot of information yes sorry I talk fast we tried to do it as fast as we can so great no questions thank you very much well thank you very much for that comprehensive um presentation we appreciate it and Mrs shavs thank you all of you and all the special ed um supports and teachers and staff that help you can you go back to slide number one please number one yes I know you went through this slide very quickly I know I'm sorry um but I think it's really important to point out um what an increase from 2016 to 2023 that you've made a 21% increase in stud I love my mathematician in students passing I also think that you need to make note when you use this presentation that on 2020 that 96.30% an analy because it is co year and so the criteria of how teachers were grading students at that time was very different well it was also don't mean to but it was also the year where mcast was not a requirement so I apologize for not highlighting that that was last year's highlight and I think that should be noted if you use it because I because then it explains even more so what a big jump you guys have made and it's everybody it's from it's from pre preschool all the way up to high school the supports that have been in place for these students that is a huge jump and I think that was just sort of brushed aside very quickly and I think that that is really important and if we compare it to what the state is doing the state has been pretty flat in in and and their increases I mean they're they don't have much of an increase and we have a huge increase with 21% so I would say that it's kudos to the whole staff and uh make sure that you send that on to to you know everybody in your department from the school committee because that's an impressive increase it is and that middle those middle numbers that's the adjusted um graduation rate so that's includes all our summer graduates that includes other kids that weren't accounted in the original one so like I said I'm very proud of the work because like you said Mrs shabs 2016 we were 67.4 this was an area that desie identified um some of our it impacts some of our 240 funding we had to go through making money matters we had to designate 2% of our 240 funding to work on increasing the graduation rate so that was that was a lot of e effort by predor predecessor Judy Mone was involved with and past administrators to get us where we are today so it's a huge it's a huge village shout out like there's everybody had hands in these kids I agree and it's it's it's special you too by the way well yes special ed staff as well as regular Ed staff a lot of the students do do inclusions so you have lots of teachers working with them so I think you brushed over your own accolate on how well you did so I just wanted to make sure that we pointed that out so thank you thank you I am very proud of that thank you thank you Mrs shavs anyone else oh so I have uh oh sorry Isaiah please there's the window so usually I don't I don't add anything but um I would like to commend you and your staff from a students point of view um I know I've heard from students who have visited these reset rooms and who have experienced um the staff within them and I've heard that it really does help them and um as a student I do appreciate all the work that you and your staff do and how passionate you are about the students within our district so thank you thank you for that and you guys are all worth it thank you Mr Wendell anyone else Mr palski uh thank you guys for the great presentation it was like drinking from the fire hose it was quite a lot of information um no but it but it's great I mean like our kids need all this help so I'm I'm I'm glad that it's all there um I just had one one question so echoing what what I Isaiah said I've heard nothing but great things about these reset rooms like I've been excited about it since we first heard about the concept um so you got you guys showed that like uh daily daily beneficiaries of the room range from like 10 to 23 um do you guys have an idea of like what's the capacity like how how much can each of those rooms like handle like how would you know whether you'd need like another one at a at a school with like so many kids like do you have an idea of that yet we've we've capped the capacity at any given point in time to 12 students in the room at one time um just because we want to make sure that the students needs get met but what we're finding is and when I look at the data there the staff in the reset room are doing a very nice job working with the student support teams to make sure that when a student needs something if there are a lot of kids in the room they'll alter um scheduling to make sure that the kids needs are getting met so I think we can we have a lot of wiggle room with regard to how to play with scheduling to make sure we can at this time keep what we're what we have in place and continue to utilize it thank you thank you anyone else so I just have a couple of closing comments uh I was whispering to the superintendent earlier when we see some new faces in the audience that I have not met before and admire their talent and their expertise too so thank you Miss comford for coming before us tonight cord m Mrs Len no Miss kford no no Mrs L lond I'm Sorry Miss com sorry my when I went to a slide I commended um Miss comford she's not here because the they're the unified coaches I apologize for not making that decision so anyway that's my remark when I was whispering to the superintendent of the talent that we have throughout the district and seeing new faces before us is always helpful so for the last seven years I'm not afraid to admit it's a subject area that I have no expertise in I am still trying to figure it out because there's so many moving parts and tonight's presentation kind of gave me a little bit more in-depth uh understanding of everything that comes together to make our school system uh the best that it is but with this new IEP form that the uh State just just implemented uh help me out with that is that uh going to improve the process uh is it the intention is to um really it's it's really about student outcomes and making things Equitable and inclusive ac across so the form um while the law hasn't changed and many of the pieces that are in the current form are going to still be in that form they're just arranged a little differently I think in for us one of the biggest New pieces in the form is that there's an actual spot to talk about our multilanguage Learners because often times um Miss Len talked about it when we do the evaluation process about evaluating in their n their own language and making if we don't not all tests are in every language so we have to use interpreter interpreters and things but really talking about that language acquisition to make sure one we're not misidentifying multilanguage Learners as having a disability and not under identifying so it's trying to find that balance so there's an actual spot where we have to talk about it we talk and I wish DEA was here for this because she can explain this piece better um but we actually talk about how they perform on access what their language needs are versus their disability needs if it's related to that the goal is to bring it the teams together and it's an opportunity to like with anything right when you just start doing things you can kind of come complacent or just you know you so it's an opportunity for to refresh and rejuvenate how that team process is to make sure parents feel more included teachers feel more included it's very data driven which it always should have been but now it's really data driven so we we're working with our special education staff about data collection um and on the General Ed level that's already being addressed and worked on with our coaches and really using data to drive our decisions so I do think it's going to improve the process it's going to be a rocky year for this because there's going to be some bumps there's going to be some our special educators are already starting to feel a little overwhelmed about like it's a new form and it's Chang and we're going to just continue to support them as much as we can so we've done the training once now now we're going to go away for summer and folks are going to be like what so we do have a plan in place to refresh everybody and stuff you know from the fall before they start to school so we are going to support and we're going to we're going to walk slowly in this process I secretary fig and I had an opportunity to be interviewed by a couple of folks from desie last week or two weeks ago and I was the first one to say to them I says you know desie sometimes doesn't serve the districts well enough meaning that they throw stuff against the wall and see if it sticks and you folks are the people that are the bearers of this new message and if it doesn't work you know we're kind of going through our motions to make it work so I you know love to hear if it does work eventually because if it doesn't we need to communicate that to desie too because we don't need to make your life any harder than what it already is so thank you so much for your presentation thank you all thank you thank you for your continued support and I just want to give a shout out with the reset spaces and the work that Dr watad has done like that was a huge um commitment um for the district to make and I'm glad we knew it was paying off but we wanted to make sure we could demonstrate that so thank you so much superintendent has closing remarks no I'll just be I'll be brief so I don't think people back home or may possibly even some of the board members understand or recognize how heavy of a lift it is to train about a thousand Educators when you think about who is going to have access who's going to be touching the IEP so I just want to commend Mrs Mo director moan and her team for that heavy lift and also just remind folks sitting at the table 22% of our 8,233 students qualify for special education services and that exceeds the state average so I know sometimes my board will receive phone calls or regarding the IEP process or certain outcomes of Team meetings but 22% of our students do receive special education services and as Miss lond sorry I was the one who gave Dr theel the wrong name so I apologize that's on me not mine I I'm I openly admit when I'm wrong as my wife tells me all the time that I'm wrong but I do want to say it was helpful for me and I hope helpful for the school board to understand know that it is a very well-thought process and it is a team decision and we don't just make these decisions know on a fly it's a very thoughtful process and I also commend the committee for for having the foresight six seven eight years ago to start implementing team chairs because it has we have reaped the benefits similar to how we're reaping the benefits of the te of the of the reset rooms which just committee supported to the tune of $600,000 during the pre previous fiscal cycle and the last thing I I would I would like to just commend is I love Dr watt's use of the term flexible even as adults sometimes we have to remember to be flexible in whatever roles that we serve in or when we're working with students at home with our own children or even when it comes to ourselves because that is a great skill and and a lot a lot of times that is a skill that can sometimes lead to disregulated or unregulated behavior so I love that term and you're probably going to hear me using that term a lot so outstanding presentation we do great work and I can and I think you saw yourself short but not pointing out that we've had districts actually reach out to tan to come up to come in and schedule visits to see our work thank you again have a good night next up on the agenda we have the superintendent's book study the governance core School Board superintendent and schools working together by Campbell and fulan so before I jump into the book study I just want to make the board aware that um our facilitator uh Tony bent has actually submitted an application to the mass masc joint conference to share our work as a school committee regarding the Retreats and also to share the work we're doing around the book study so I I won't go into the book study other than this chapter focused on me the superintendent uh which I thought was very interesting and I spent a lot of time uh just thinking about my Approach because the in the book in chapter three they talk about the hands-off approach as a superintendent they talk about the you know the damage control superintendent approach and then they talk about the purposeful approach so in the in chapter two it talked about the board's role when it comes to governance in chapter three it talks about the superintendent's role when it comes to governance and their work uh with the school board so with that being said now I did provide you with some guiding questions but if anybody through Dr Dello wants to entertain or share their thoughts on the chapter that's great I know we're up against the clock so if we want to know move ahead that's fine too we have three readers that want to comment also stop Mrs Fagan we haven't heard from you yet tonight oh I took notes again A+ huh A+ no I you know I found it interesting but I I what concerned me about that chapter all right and I could see pieces of you and everything you know what I mean because we've had well we all do you know what I mean it's it's it's it's part of the course but it kind of bothered me that this focused on the states of California Oregon and I think it was either North or South Carolina all right all right one of the Carolinas and as I was reading this stuff I I thought about all the things that we get pressured with whether it's when they have to do these IEPs you know the state turns around and now you're going to change this and you're going to do that and and and as Greg said that's part of the conversation we had with them but I don't see how you know I don't see any of that overreach into what these people were doing so they pretty much could do what they thought was right but I did find a consistency in what they had to say but it still bothers me that I wonder what it would be like in those States if they had such that kind of government overview continuously like it it happens in this state but I found that what I really liked were the people who want the one guy said no trustee will ever read something in the newspaper without hearing about it from here first I thought that was important um keeps keeps the board updated on the by on the key strategic issues important that the uh the full board is informed and and I remembered you know some of the things that Dr Coto used to something happen he'd call us all up individually I just remember things like that um we had a woman superintendent to that said it was important to be supportive of the board watching their backs and there's times I think that even we need that because they realize that we have to answer to the public too and I think that's a difficult thing to do sometimes because they'll say well why did this happen and sometimes you really just don't know but she also felt that she still works for the children because because she was a teacher to start with the thing about a governance structure with emphasis on protocols and Norms we do that we keep in touch with students involved by with structural School visits which we did today Isaiah I was there with you and um learning programs were being imp implemented in real time with real children and it says the biggest mistake a superintendent can make is never lie to the board either by misinformation or by admission you must confront the ugly I said there are sometimes things do get ugly and um uh one of them said that believes that even in um cases where he is not required to get board approval he of boards the uh gets the board's uh things by making sure the board never hears about a program and issue from someone else the no surprises thing and we talk about that all the time but you know no surprises work both ways I've I've said to newer members on the board if something is bothering you don't drop a bomb at a meeting you know have a private talk beforehand I think that's the best way to handle things and I like the one person that said the most H the board must have confidence in the info it receives governance is um is chess not Checkers everyone should be thinking three steps ahead which I thought was another important thing so I I think I think there was a lot in there that was important but there's also the owners is on both of us and I think if we both find a mutual respect we'll be all right and that's what I liked about it but like I said I felt kind of weird that it didn't involve some of the states like ours that really do have a lot of influence on us so that's it thank you secretary Fagan very every well said Mrs shavs you had a comment she did the quote she did the quat that I liked about the Checkers in the chest I thought that was important and and trying to look three steps ahead so you so you're better prepared when something comes your way which I thought was important Miss Santos anything tonight I can't go away without saying anything of course not that's why I called you no and she you don't really summarize it all really well but I think it was easier reading because it wasn't about my role on the board so I was kind of like oh I don't have to no I had to pay attention obviously but it was like all right this is more about what he has to do right but I think it it helped me obviously new here understanding the role in general but that and I don't mean to be cheesy that I feel like we're kind of Lucky um if you think about what some other school boards have to go through and things like that and again I know I'm new and somewhat naive in that but as Christine Mrs Fagan said I see little bits I saw little bits of you throughout reading that right like as far as having the purpose um in mind and then the part about how you can sometimes disagree it made me think of the budget meeting last week um where there was some you know sometimes there's contention right and I think maybe that's just me like I hate conflict you know but I think seeing adults being able to have that contentious debate and still get along and you know I think that's a really good um just lesson to put forward I think just not just for governance or what have you but just adulthood and for kids and all of that other stuff that you can disagree with certain things or contend with certain things but that at the end of the day it's still a team so that was one of the things that be flexible yes yes flexibility but that was one of the things that came to mind for me so thank you Miss Santos anyone else nope well A+ for Mrs Fagan Mrs shavs and Miss Santos June June the June 1 meeting first meeting in June chapter four fol that means you Mr VI all right next up we have administrative business uh Staffing report wish you to the committee receive place on file second all in favor hi opposed eyes have it uh next up taunt Public School Staffing update wish of the committee questions comments receive and place on file second all in favor opposed eyes have it ta Public Schools district enrollment update comments suggestions yes Mrs shs thank you Dr Dello I just want to tie this in with what's coming up next because the numbers don't match up so I don't know if there's a typo somewhere because and these numbers here and again I'm looking at the 12th grade that I had questioned before if I look at the 12th grade on the September 20th we're at 467 and the next thing coming up is the um is the increased development impact on schools that has the similar tables but when we look at the table on the fourth page of that set it says that when we look at September 15th which is only five days off we're at 545 students so how did five days later we were down to 467 students so that's because the Alternative High School wasn't listed okay so they were in with them okay that makes sense then thank you excellent question Mrs sh Mr VI I think actually this one I'm GNA this is in in regards to increased development and impact on the schools so yeah accept the first so uh for item three wishes the committee receive and place on file second all in favor I I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have increased development and impact on schools Mr Vieira thank you Mr chairman on page one of the communication of Mr auu it's uh cited that there's 468 three and four year old students attend in the prek program but when you look at on the enrollment page as a 327 2024 it sites 428 um it's a 40 student difference I'm just wondering which one's accurate I don't know if it's a typo or no I'll drill down because I did pull numbers off the Desi website and I did pull numbers off of our open architect dashboard uh I wanted to make sure that when uh Mr abro he doesn't have access to open architect that is something that only administrators use I wanted to make sure that they had a source that they could use if they wanted to back into the numbers or go to the site that they could reference so I will confirm the numbers but that come those numbers in this report are coming off Desi okay I I appreciate superintendent thank you and I I did see here in one of your Communications that you noted the increase is due to our prek program which has expanded and mostly due to our Virtual Academy so those are important things to know thank you so any action required on that Mr VI motion receive and place on file did you already send this to Mr Abra correct okay that's what yeah that's what I meant so the update has been sent to the planning board yeah it was sent to them oh this isn't data I apologize this was sent to them via email uh short after I received the communication from their secretary and did she and she did confirm that she received that she received the information I sent and I did offer to meet with them if they have any questions or concerns excellent thank you wishes of the committee receive him place on file second all in favor I opposed eyes have it uh next up we have the review of open meeting law complaint see enclosure just a point just a point of information it might be wise to just have recommendation or motion to approve the recommendations as noted I'll accept that in the form of a motion I'll make that motion Mrs Fagan I'm sorry I didn't hear you superintendent uh I would recommend that the school committee adopt the recommendations laid forward by attorney Matt CA to make sure that we open meet in- law you probably should take a vote just have it on record so Mrs Fagan motioned Mr Viera second all in favor does this need to be roll call or just reg I would do roll call just to be this Fagen roll call vote Please Mr enus yes Mrs shs yes Mr palowski yes Mrs Fagan votes yes M Santos yes Mr viea yes Dr Deo yes thank you next up expansion of enrollment at taunt public Virtual Academy superintendent yeah so some good news uh as I think I stated earlier in the year we're at capacity with the virtual school and I think as we heard during the high school advisory uh students mentioned how their friends who are attending the Virtual Academy being very successful so in the future we are going to be coming to the school committee to get your authorization it'll probably be at the June 1st meeting or possibly the second meeting in May I'll have Mrs Rodriguez the principal come before you to make her presentation and I will I we will be requesting from the school committee to expand the virtual school to 150 students next year and we believe that at 150 there will be no increase to our full-time Staffing but Mrs Rodriguez will make will make that presentation to you at a at a later date so this is just to make you aware of what's coming in the process and that it will require a school committee vote Mrs shv thank you Dr Melo can you ask Mrs Rodriguez when she does do the presentation how many students she's turned away and if she can find out where they went the weight list yeah if it's just the wait list or it' be interesting to see we don't want to lose them out of the district so where are they going because you know at some point maybe we may have to increase it more not necessarily next year but we may have to make it even larger than what it is and add additional staff so it' be interesting to see that data so when Mrs Rodriguez comes before the board uh you're going to see a four-year plan to eventually cap out at 300 excellent okay but we're going to grow incrementally excellent sounds good thank you Mr VI thank you Mr chairman is there going to be any um additional cost or is the um capture in the students that we loseing going to offset the cost or is that going to be part of our presentation yeah we believe that at 15 these students with the current Staffing we don't need to add any staff so it'll be add zero cost well the current cost but not no additional cost sure sure thank you superintendent great anyone else wishes of the committee motion receive and place on file all in favor I post eyes have it thank you next up we have a future of legal councel uh basically this is a discussion item I believe superintendent can better uh update on that please yeah I believe it was during the budget Workshop that this came up uh and it was there was a motion that was seconded to have a discussion regarding the future of legal council for the toon Public Schools so this would be a discussion that the school committee would have to provide us with some Direction with regards to uh the current the current state of our legal council currently the school department utilizes gay and gay and they've been the legal councel for know since I've been in the to Public Schools however legal councel attorney gay um is beginning to transition to his retirement so this if this is a discussion that the school committee wishes to have now we can have it now if this is something that you want to have at a later date we can have it at a later date but uh again right now we are currently using uh gay and gay and again attorney David gay is transitioning towards retirement so if the committee wishes to authorize the school department to continue with gay and gay we can continue with gay and gay if the school committe wishes to um put out an RFP which gay and gay could also bid on and we can seek bids from other legal councel to deal with the labor side of what we um the labor side of the house because we have lions and Rogers who does the student service legal side again that's something that we would need I would need authorization from the school committee in the form of motion on which direction to go yeah it's my understanding that the superintendent's been pulled a few different directions regarding Labor Management issues which shouldn't be his his role right I mean should be HR or we all we all play we all play a role right and again it's from my perspective is recognizing that attorney gay who's been an outstanding and a legal mind and of service of the to Public Schools recognizing that he's retiring in what are the wishes of the committee I'm always involved in legal matters um labor matters but we also do need to refer to Legal uh for their support their guidance when it comes when it comes to legal matters to make sure that we don't introduce a liability or put the school system in a liable situation absolutely Mr Vier thank you Mr chairman um if RFP has put out who what's the process to review those do they go to finance and law does the whole committee review them again maybe I'm thinking out loud here I don't know what past practice is I imagine G has probably been our attorney for 30 years or probably longer so um I know when we did the special education uh RFP for lions and Rogers the leadership team uh put together a RFP with the rubric we reviewed the rubric we brought the findings back to the committee I don't recall if it went to finance and law if it came to the whole committee but I know we brought the findings back with a recommendation based on the rubric um which was shared with the with the committee and we provideed a rationale um because in this aspect legal councel will represent the school committee it matters it wouldn't be a bad idea to have school committee members whether it's know uh special programs long range uh Finance in law to be involved or or school committee members who have an interest in in Labor Management or legal Affairs to be involved in the process with my leadership team if that's the wishes of the committee yeah yeah I think Mr makes an ex excellent point that it should kind of come out of finance and law I think that's the subcommittee entertains is or well or combination of both we could have two we have two subcommittees already established uh we can actually meet separately as we always do and push forward a first and second choice for example and then bring it to the leadership team I think that's where could could start but it's up to all you folks I mean that's something that I would be comfortable with having the school Committee involved in in the process and um you know making that decision because it is very important and I know the Labor Management side's a priority but it's also you know our attorney as a body so I think it's important for us to be involved in that so I think that's a uh a great idea it's just a matter of how to craft it and finalize it again if it's the pleasure of this board sure so that's exactly it so the pleasure of the board is to uh send out an RFP and then um responses um get sent to finance and law and rules and each subcommittee pushes forward maybe two two top candidates what about the leadership team and the well yeah two leadership right I mean to leadership we're not going to make the decision so so one we we need we knew okay yes I hear what Dr D was saying I believe that would make sense we will develop the RFP We Will We Will publish the RFP collect the results make two copies one for the rules committee one for finance and law those committees will meet schedule public meetings and to review the work and then forward their recommendations to the superintendent and we will compile both groups along with the leadership team recommendations and have one overall recommendation at our future meeting and and for members I mean you can always attend the subcommittee meeting it's not restricted you just don't have a vote but you're welcome to attend like most of us do so that's definitely transparent process I believe Mrs fager um in in that process are you looking for somebody that'll be here full-time like in a role like margarite played or you just you want somebody that just comes in on somebody that can address leg okay I wasn't sure what we we were going to be looking for there and and I think that we still need uh you know attorney gay if he's willing to be on Council on retainer or some kind I because of his expertise and collective bargaining I I believe that would be prudent of us yeah and also because of his institutional knowledge right like I said yeah especially yeah Mr VI you had your hand up um no that that's what I was going to ask if we were still going to keep them on as a consultant long as he's willing to stay I'd love to have and again their role would be similar to the one that he has now as far as negotiating Personnel matters any advisory matter okay good what are the wishes um motion to authorize the superintendent to put out an RFP for legal councel with the process that was laid out in this discussion clear clear to everybody second okay and all in favor hi I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have field trip requests first is the world language in history Spain and Portugal trip see enclosure so I uh must apologize to Allison Golder because she did send me a comprehensive uh I think it was a 90-day window uh that I had requested and I haven't responded to her but I'm responding now publicly that uh I'm very happy and satisfied that what has been Pro the progress that's been going along with this trip is uh it's very comfortable um I've checked all you know dotted all the eyes crossed all the te's and to my understanding it looks perfectly fine so what are the wishes of the committee I'm Sorry Miss chvs I just have a question on and on both on the field trips in general in both of them chapon no information on the Sha rooms on who they are we know how many people so like um well Ally and Chris are going but there are four chapon so they're only two so who are the other two we typically don't provide the names of the chaperons but it's usually staff okay in some cases parents and we we try we usually try to stick to a 10:1 ratio and they're all Corey checked that you cannot go on a field trip unless you are cored and I is fingerprinting required as well just for just for employees okay I just wanted to make sure thank you and uh they're flying with my favorite Airline tapier Portugal so it's got to be a great trip wish of the committee motional approve second all in favor I I I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have Item B which is the taon high school band Dallas Fort Worth tour now this is not until 2025 am I correct correct they're just seeking pre preliminary approval because it involves a lot of fundraising for the group and through the boosters and the and the parents yeah my only fear um you know is is a progress report as we're going along um you know I love these companies that are global companies that you know basically uh screwed T public schools of $70,000 a few years ago so uh I'll just say it as it is so I just got to be very careful that we have all our financial uh you know policies in place that we're not uh no I know but believe me the the big ones go down too Mr but I also know that I I agree and with that company that we dealt with during Co we we'll never do business in the to Public Schools as long as the superintendent of this District right I understand but in in my world a lot of these companies have been merging and they there sub subsets of this and that so just as long as we protect the financial interest of our students and the district is what I'm really concerned with booking it this far in advance so just maybe a progress report um along the way progress report updates yeah like like like Allison Golder did yes yes please I think that would be nice just follow the example okay wish of the committee move approval to move forward this is a I'm sorry Mrs fer this move an approval to move forward on that I don't know how else to say motion to approve as presented motion to approve preliminary motion to approve the prary approval with regular updates okay excellent all in favor opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have a wonderful colorful org chart in front of us that I hope everybody had a chance to view so so what I what I would ask is um take it take your time because you had a very small version of this in your packet so take this home with you uh at the next meeting if we'll put it as an agenda item if there's any information that's incorrect or any information that needs to be updated just we'll we'll discuss it at that meeting so that we can make the updates for the June 1st or the the first meeting in June or the second meeting in June I don't expect you uh bed on the version that you received to have any any feedback or any suggestions now but if you do we'll take note and make them but I think it might be a better item to discuss at a future meeting y i I will have some comments at that time so any anybody else right now nope Wishes the committee on that item motion to um discuss and uh did you say the June or the I don't know the first meeting the first meeting in I think it's June 5th believe June 5th yes no June 1st June regular school hold on it says regular school laminate it'll make a nice place mat it actually it says colorful 65 okay you may want to change this motion place on the June 5th uh agenda second all in favor I I opposed eyes have it next up we have uh subcommittee reports first up we have Elementary subcommittee Mr lur is absent uh Mr psky are you taking lead on that I sure am thank you chairman uh so to today uh May 1st uh commencing at 5:04 pm. we held a meeting of the elementary subcommittee present or myself and Miss Santos um the uh the purpose of the meeting was to receive the school Improvement plan for East Hunt Elementary School uh delivered by Claud Nichols uh so I have to commend uh Claudine Nichols for giving remarkable report uh a ton of work by her and her staff and uh one of the most impressive things uh Miss Santos and I were impressed we get these packets of paper all the time that are pieces of paper that come from Word documents that have links to websites and reports and graphs and all that which we obviously can't access from a piece of paper so miss Nichols actually printed out all the data that applied did the links and she kind of highlighted it so I thought it was pretty cool I appreciated it we were able to see it um so you know I I can't do justce summarizing everything that we spoke about but um some of the highlights were um and it goes along with what we were hearing a lot of today um Mrs Nichols stressed that uh her staff is really seeing the great uh benefits of the reset rooms uh they gave a couple anecdotes of of children that have really turned things around really seen that benefit and and and the staff is really loving it so they they're grateful for for that being an option um and the primary focus of her and her instructional learning team is number one on writing they showed us the the mcast results for writing that are they're not where we want to be so there's a very concerned e effort districtwide you know not just cwn Elementary all all along uh targeted resources to help these kids with their writing and help bring that up um and then the second primary focus is social emotional learning where you know that's where the reset rooms and everything else comes in so um yep uh excellent excellent work going on at Easton Elementary School um they presented us with a very uh colorful uh handout with with pictures including a sneak preview of the new dedication of the of the school um in memory of uh Corporal Raymond AR lont um so excellent excellent presentation um and the meeting came came to a close at uh 4 5:45 p.m. and that is the end of the report thank you Mr chairman wishes of the committee receive and place on file second all in favor I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have special program special programs chairman shavs thank you Dr Dalo as chairperson of the special program subcommittee I'm notifying you that the subcommittee met on Wednesday April 17th 2024 at 3:10 p.m. all members of the subcommittee were present which included Mr enus Mr Laurel and myself along with other school committee members that that attended Mrs Fagan Mr Vieira and Dr Dello the purpose of this meeting was to review the various Tau and public school student supports and special programs consider an action plan to effectively distribute this information to parents caregivers teachers and students and discuss any um concerns or new business um Mr cabal um m Monahan and Mrs Hoy um presented a slideshow that re re reviewed the various Tau and public school programs currently available and the criteria for Access of each of the programs in particular we discussed how this information is either missing from the Tau and public school website or it's difficult to retrieve Mr cabal explained that this came to light after meeting with both myself and to discuss um special programs as well as with a parent who was looking for resources for their student so Cyn Johnson the communication coordinator explained as a result of these conversations she is now in the process of aligning each program with this strategic plan Miss Johnson described in detail how she is reorganizing updating and refining this information on the district's website pages will now include up-to-date program descriptions qualifying criteria contact information resources and relevant links to make it more visible and user friendly for those trying to locate and navigate supports for students Miss Johnson explained the different benchmarks needed for the completion of this work so it includes one separating the programs by Department two compiling and writing updated descriptions of each program with qualifying criteria three identifying contact information and resources four creating new pages offline until work is approved to go live five developing QR codes for easy access to the information and six determining how to get this information to work in conjunction with parent Square which is our school and parent communication app Miss Johnson also indicated that district one sheets would be created and available at each school which will summarize the list of programs where to go and who to contact it was agreed upon that Miss Johnson will report the progress of this project back to us at a later meeting under new business Dr Dello voice concerns regarding certain programs in particular the TLC program at fredman Middle School Dr Dello indicated that the he had been contacted by parents regarding an incident at the school and as a result he'd like to see each program carefully examined for its purpose Effectiveness and performance measures Mr Enis made a motion In seconded by Mr Laurel to refer this request to the curriculum subcommittee um and the special program subcommittee ended at 401 PM very comprehensive report chairman shavs any comments questions wishes of the committee Mr devier thank you Dr M I'll make a motion to accept the the report and adopt the recommendations of the subcommittee second all in favor I I I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have finance and law today the finance and law subcommittee met present were Mrs shavs Mr viar and myself as chair uh first item on the agenda we had a facilities update Mrs Monahan explained that they were 269 items 76% were for schools and uh a lot of open and closed of U orders were are listed on the memo that's in your packet uh that was received and placed on file unanimously then we had the use of facilities update uh basically uh Mr Vier asked the question what an X meant in a certain box uh it would mean that for that organization we're charging for example a manager uh or a custodian or police fire details and many of them have unchecked boxes which we let him use the facility in Li of service such as the boys CL Boy Scouts I believe it was uh in other organizations like that for service oriented um um opportunities uh that facility update was received and uh placed on file and it was voted unanimously then we had four items on the uh fourth quarter a third quarter fy2 24 budget updates first was the FY 24 quarter 3 line item budget balancing negative lines uh There Was an explanation that's in your in your packet that was um it was comprehensive but I I think there was some not comprehensive enough so uh unfortunately that item was tabled to the next meeting in May which is May 15 so we'll get more information updates on those uh negative balancing lines which means that uh any overages will be used to satisfy a negative and it'll be a little bit clear more clear on the May 15th meeting so that item was tabled next up we have the FY 24 appropriation quarter 3 report uh pretty much self-explanatory on the items in front of you re uh revolving account quarter 3 report also uh very very healthy numbers which approached $5.8 million I believe and last but not least the fy2 24 grants qu 3 report also uh very informative and in your possession those last three items were all voted unanimously in favor uh no objections and is are before you right now so on the three items that we just discussed exclusive of the uh line item budget balancing negative lines which was tabled what are the wishes of the committee or questions concerns yes Mr VI thank thank you Dr Mo uh make a motion to accept the report and adopt the recommendations of the finance and law subcommittee second all in favor hi I opposed eyes have it and last item on the agenda today was the bills payable for FY 24 in the amount of 8731 16261 um there were just a couple questions from some of the subcommittee members uh one was an item that dealt with a vendor by the name of surf pro and that it item uh was explained by Mrs monam uh and it was an item um on a fringe which was pretty self-explanatory uh on that and that was favored that was voted uh in favor unanimously by the subcommittee so what are the wishes of the committee on the fy4 8731 16261 or any questions motion to approving the amount stated second second by Mrs Fagan all in favor I opposed eyes have it thank you that's the report now coming up uh we had a special Committee of the whole meeting on April 17th if you recall that was vacation week and at that meeting uh it was voted unanimously to approve the FY 24 uh warrant uh bills payable in the amount of 1,325 18692 I don't believe there were any questions or comments on that uh uh on that warrant so what are the wishes of the committee motion to accept the report second all in favor I I I opposed eyes have it thank you and last but not least we had a special uh special school committee meeting of the whole budget workshop on April 24th uh I believe all members were present uh there was some discussion on a preliminary budget presentation uh very informative uh a lot of questions and and and responses and we will follow up with another budget workshop on May 15th superintendent on May 15 and again open to the public uh if they want to come down and and uh participate in the budget Workshop they're always welcome uh so that's basically the report out of the committee the whole of the budget Workshop of April 24th wishes of the committee motion to accept the report second all in favor hi opposed eyes have it next up uh on the new business item I would recommend a motion to refer to Administration uh on item I so moved second all in favor I I opposed eyes have it thank you uh next up unfinished business action item updates uh two Hamilton Street update see enclosure we' all had a chance to that this one no go ahead super so just quickly uh you received a uh letter of the school committee chair secretary and long range planning subcommittee chairperson received a communication from building superintendent Chris carmichel regarding current conditions and current state of the to Hamilton Street property with regards to the assessments that were raised during I don't recall which meeting this took place but it did provide updates in summary it appears that the um building superintendent is looking for some direction regarding the potential of the future use of the building and the school committee if the school committee were to acquire the building what would be the attended use for the facility and as a reminder I did include the two Hamilton Street use proposal that we presented to the city council as a refresher in case some of you have forgotten what we had discussed so just for uh clarification purposes I did respond to the letter uh today as a matter of fact uh unfortunately I couldn't get out sooner uh it was uh through the superintendent's office uh emailed on the TA Public Schools letterhead I'll provide a copy to each member before you leave tonight I apologize it couldn't get out sooner but it was just drafted this afternoon and just just some uh concerns I think that uh are pretty basic to be answered and I believe that uh that could be addressed by Mr carmichel by the May 15th meeting so uh I believe that it's best that we as a committee uh individually think of best uses uh if we want to continue pursuing to Hamilton Street so that we could present at the May 15th meeting so us as a committee would vote out of the five the superintendent where's that list it's in in five five five proposals the five proposals that were shared uh Mr pelowski just a question so these are the only five proposals we're going to vote on are because I I I was under the impression that we would be engaging the community engaging different groups within the district to get you know various options what what to use so I I thought this was a preliminary group so we're going to vote on just these five good question I believe uh how did we arrive at those five does anybody recall how we arrived at those five yeah and that was done through um the leadership team working with principles and um you know in discussions with other educational leaders we have not pulled the community we have not pulled the staff we have not talked to the students uh but today we did hear in two advisory meetings we did hear from kids and they had some suggestions which I won't discuss at this meeting so these are five possibilities um that we feel as an administrative team leadership team uh would be most beneficial to the school department M psk you all set okay Mrs shavs in order to vote on one of these I would like to see some data like on on why one would be better than the other and the cost analysis of what it would cost because my concern is is that if we're approving um a budget for next year how much is this going to cost with whatever one we decide to do and how will that affect the um budget so those are all great questions but I I I would think in order to get the information that um Dr Dello referenced in his memo to superintendent of buildings Chris carmichel I believe what is needed is determination of use will it be used for educational purposes will it be used as an early college Center because that changes the code ites to chis Mr providing the information so perhaps and this is just a thought perhaps we could discuss yes we want to see we would like to continue discussing the facility used for educational purposes um not a prek center not an early college Center maybe a k212 education facility because the code will be similar for kt2 Mr VI so so the requirement right now it's considered a business use not an educational use so that falls under one classification simply put if you change the use back to an educational use it falls under a whole other set of classifications as far as ADA compliance sprinkler systems basic life safety um things like that so I think what he's suggest suggesting in his report which I have a lot of questions about he's suggesting that he really can't fully answer the he can't fully respond unless he knows whether we want to use it for again k to2 k to2 falls under a different classification than College falls under um and then that would mrow Santos Mr Santos concerns what is the of Mr sh that allows us that allows us my leadership team to do the analysis uh to collect data and then cost analysis too so if it's going to be k for 12 that really Narrows our focus with regards to cost in use Mr psky okay so if if I understand correctly we are more deciding which category of use not very specifically exactly what we're doing okay that makes sense in order to move forward we need to pick the category because that changes the compliance now that's that that's perfectly fine I I think why would you want to take a building that isn't K to 12 right so you would think you would want to make sure it is going to work for the most stringent of of needs and then there's other things too like is a assembly does he have to consider assembly there's an auditorium there's a gymnasium right like there there's probably things just beyond educational and and business that that have to be factored in as well it's my guess I would to Mr Santos first Miss Santos um I'm just wondering if we say if it's K through 12 aren't we eliminating some of these B possibilities as well U we would be and that could be a discussion for next week because um based on the conversations we're hear I'm hearing in the community I'm hearing from staff we're hearing from kids they all seem to be heading in One Direction but we haven't again we haven't done the the heavy lift as far as seeking that input but either way if we tell him it's K through 12 we're committing in one way or another to certain things yeah and I and I believe K through2 is the direction that we should be heading but again I'm just one voice Mrs shs oh I agree the K through2 makes sense if we're going to be taking it in and we are an education K through2 you know organization so if if we were to take this our plan is not to roll this out till the next fiscal year in which we would put whatever finances we need in that because if we're balancing our budget now we're not going to have the acccess to work on it for next year Well we still have reserves we still have revolving funds um we still have reserves that we could utilize depending on when the school committee makes the official request to the city council so one we have to identify the use and then go before the council and make the request and and I don't want to get ahead because there's still work to be done but I wouldn't see I can I can say we wouldn't have students in that B building in fiscal 24 okay sorry fiscal 25 yeah uh Mr palski and then just another clarifying question so if we were to state that we were planning to use this building for K through2 does that mean we could no longer lease it to BCC I was going to bring that up Mr psky thank you so if I may so the brief the section States brief history of the facility a change of use from education to business was done in 2021 to accommodate BCC so it went from educational to business in 2021 specifically for BCC why they did that I have no idea but anyway what are the repercussions my my question was and you'll get a copy of this what are the repercussions of the change of use from educational to business that occurred in 2021 regarding any future potential use by Taun Public Schools so if we classify it back to educational does that cover us for what Mr said Mr bolski said Miss Santos said are we covered for everything that we need it that we could possibly need it for so if I could just put on my business manager hat for for a moment so um BCC at one point occupied occupied space at TT High School uh BCC has occupied space at Freeman Middle School BCC has occupied space at Cohan so I I believe and we'll do our due diligence as well and verify Mr kich information I believe it's to predominant use and I believe BCC being the sole proprietor of that building and being a public agent I I believe that's what triggered the code to business but we'll do our dual dilig the diligence to confirm that okay so where are we at so we are right now re uh was there a motion to just receive and place this on file receive and place on file and discuss at a future meeting okay all right motion was made by Mr Vieira seconded Mrs sh seconded uh all in favor I I opposed eyes have it thank you fy 24 appropriation update see enclosure uh right again I just want to bring the committee uh up to date that we received our final installment of our $114 million appropriation which ensures that the city of tunon fulfills their obligation to meet 100% net School spending so so I'm pleased to report that earlier this month we received a final installment of our funding for fiscal 24 which total 1.7 million this additional funding is critical in supporting our ongoing efforts to provide high quality education services to our students so to in order to be transparent I wanted to make the committee aware that 700,000 has been earmarked for salaries and the remaining $1 million funds will be designated for transportation I also want to express uh again a lot of communities don't make it to 100% net School spending so I want to commend the mayor and her staff for honoring our request of an appropriation of $114 million and for providing us with the additional funding which I believe will also put the city of T in over 100% net schope spending and uh again as Mrs moan pointed out I want to commend the business office and Mrs moan for her work in managing the budget uh we're looking like we're going to have a surplus to end the year which we plan to prepay uh for auto District tuition we plan to pre-b our cleaning supplies and purchase any any U any materials we have so I do believe the to Public Schools is um has been fiscally responsible and that we are in a very on strong or solid Financial ground so that takes a team effort by my Administration and the support of the school committee so Ju Just to be clear so the 1.7 million was part of the FY 24 net School spending appropriation it wasn't above and beyond well I believe I believe the city will be above 100% net School spending but that brings us as a we haven't done the end of the year report yet so right so when we do the end of the year report we'll know if the city is under or the city is over I believe um I believe we'll be around 102 104% net School spending once we uh Shake everything out uh transportation again that's a moving Target that doesn't count towards net School spending any large capital projects that we utilize our funding for does not count towards net School spending I believe the threshold is 150,000 and also crossing guards do not count towards net School spending but I sorry but I do believe the city will meet or exceed the 100% net School spending requirement in large part due to this additional funding excellent Mrs shvs I just wanted to make a clarification because at first this sort of jumped out at me the 700,000 for salaries is not the total 700,000 for salaries it was just out of the 1.7 million corre yeah so how it was worded it was a little funky there so it's just out of the money that's come so you're a math major and an Ela major well no but I I I looked at the number and that's what jumped out at me thank you excellent thank you Mr sha wish to the committee on this item motion receive and place on file all in favor opposed eyes have it thank you next up uh lot of uh action on this one uh ton High School Hall of Fame update no it's it's coming and I'm very excited that we will be able to honor the rich history of our athletic uh Traditions throughout this throughout the city of ttan and I look forward I believe we're going to have a press release is either going to go out tonight or we have a press release scheduled to go out tomorrow or Friday so it's it's coming I'm very excited and I want to commend U Mr aivanelli who's going to be retiring at the end of June Mr Fox for having the vision and for his persistance to uh to keep nudging Mr aivanelli to make this happen and I also want to commend Cynthia Johnson our Communications coordinator for as Mrs Fagan knows sometimes it takes a woman to bring two men to the table to push them along to get the work done right Mrs Fagen and uh and Cynthia has done an outstanding job in synthesizing all this information excellent thank you um wishes of the committee let just uh receive and place on file second anyone second second Mrs Fagan all in favor I I opposed eyes have it thank you action item update I do have one item here um the last item 9 2023 refer traffic and parking situation T he to safety officer I I I bumped into the safety officer the other day and there was something to be addressed in a letter uh from March which hasn't been responded to so can we please take a look at that sure I I didn't get to the extent of it because I was at a intersection I was blocking traffic and it's like I'll talk to you later CU he was a police officer but I didn't want to get a ticket from another police officer so we just left it at that okay Mr superintendent thank you so much anything else on this action item update we need to take a look at Taun and high Taun and alter to high school awning is that done no that work is be I believe middle of May okay gotcha all right so let's leave it on there anything else the school naming we have a date just to make sure everybody's aware flly day it's on it's actually item item five June 4 at 10 a.m. it's okay so in invitations will be going out soon the food truck so we have awarded the bid on the commercial kitchen the food truck we are expecting I think last I heard was possibly end of May sometime in June and the outdoor dining area uh I was there today what a beautiful space I can't wait for the awning to come in that'll go over the door and I believe we'll then order some outdoor furniture so we'll have some updates a lot of it is moving Parts work in progress yeah Mr Vier took me to lunch there today so it was a great opportunity to take a look at it thank you Mr Vieira I'll pay next time any don't hold your breath anyway uh so that's all set now this item in front of us is this to be oh so I apologize yeah I received an May yes please so I received a letter uh from a student at tton high school her name is Anna Pereira and a long story short she is planning to attend or she has registered to attend the PCC program which is Project contemporary Affairs uh which is held at I believe at Stonehill and she is she is asking if the school committee would authorize or assist with the tuition which is 2800 $2,850 for the twoe program that she attends so uh project contemporary Affairs PCC um I believe when I did my fact checking today there are currently two students who have enrolled to attend the program and there's one student who's interested so in the past School committees schools have assisted with tuition to attend these programs I would just say that whatever the school committee if the school committee does decide to assist that um that it be Equitable should additional students choose the other thing I will say is um we are no longer members of PCC because what our membership fee was was not reaping us the benefit we were paying 10,000 a year as a member and we were sending maybe two three four five six students so I think it would be advantageous to maybe look at that $10,000 and use it or ear marking in the form of scholarships to students who attend PCC versus uh paying as the largest member of PCC of the Consortium we are assessed the largest fee so technically the smaller School District benefit because of a larger school district and those smaller school districts tend to be more affluent and tend to tend to send more students so if you're thinking about how to address Equity maybe scholarships to help our students um attend would be more advantageous in paying the membership fee isor sorry mrsk is that a line item in the budget contracted Services it's all locked into that 1.2 million oh okay as long as long as it's somewhere okay thank Mr psky yeah I think um setting aside the money that you would have been spending otherwise for a scholarship that is certainly an equitable option you just have to determine how would you choose which students could benefit from that that scholarship so I'm assuming you'd have to have a committee you'd have to have like uh you know criteria for choosing assuming that you had more children applying than you had funds for so and I would and if that's the wishes I would delegate that to the high school guidance counsels who work on recruiting students I I would like to also uh make a recommendation that we we limit it I mean I don't think we should be paying the full tuition I don't think that would be Equitable because that's not going to go too far if we have $10,000 and it's what 2,800 2800 and we have three students or four student if we have four students forget it it's not going to happen right so do we just pass it along to the high school or do we want to put a a a money limit on it up to or [Music] this is shvs could we get a number on what's the maximum number of students that we've sent because let's let's say we're we're sending less than 10 students so if we offer a $1,000 a student we could send 10 students I I don't think I I I do remember analyzing this data for Dr hacket and I I think it was on a rare occasion we sent more than 10 kids it's usually like or eight students that would attend so a $500 minimum $500 and if we're going to give more we can bring it back to the committee to up it stop with 500 and see where it goes and I can Rose bring it back if we feel that we should be doing more Mr Vier I come back to you Mr no I I just um the people that were sending are they going to have the means and the capacity to offset the scholarship cost or so they're already planning to go they're just looking for some assistance okay all right thank you sir time Mr psky um you know so perhaps a thing that we could do if we if we are going to set up a scholarship any sort of assistance with this it might be nice to have uh like a a presentation so maybe the student could come to us and and tell us about their experiences right so like we can you know really really find out whether this is actually something that's value added to our students that we want to encourage that we want to grow and like if it is a great thing then maybe we put you know more funds toward more more effort towards it but if it's not been something that many kids have expressed interest in then you know maybe it's not something worth putting the funds towards can can I just make a question what did the $10,000 membership fee get us I want to say it was like a $2,000 $200 reduction in tuition $200 reduction per student it was very low that's why I that's why um good call Superintendent yeah Mr enus just since this wasn't on the agenda should we just refer this to the administration let them handle it motion to refer the uh email to the administration let them deal with itly but uh I I like that but I think the budget part should come back to us because we do have to put a dollar value he'll come back with a yeah decision so refer your Administration to come back to the school committee for a financial yes piece Mr motion I mean I think it's a great idea but should we be taking any official action if wasn't on I'm referring it I didn't take official I'm just referring that's I'm I'm not taking a vote you just got vote up wrote up put don't that's why that's what I wanted to ask okay all right I'll second the motion so second thank you Mr en all in favor I opposed eyes have it and one last piece before we conclude tonight there's an internship showcase happening Tuesday May 14th at the high school cafeteria between 12:30 and 1:30 anybody that wants to participate whether the school committee or the public at Large RSVP to r reposa at tauntonschools.org that's Rebecca Rosa internship showcase and before we conclude to I do I do want to point out I didn't have a chance to put this in my newsletter we have a conflict with school committee recognition night I don't remember the event that's going on at Taunton High School that night but there is a conflict that's going to involve a large number of high school students so I'm going to have to work with the committee to identify an alternate date so I apologize okay any press in the audience seeing no press a motion to adjourn be in order second all in favor opposed eyes have it good night thank you all --------- good evening the uh finance and law subcommittee meeting should come to order uh Mrs uh Mrs shaas present and Mr Vieira present and chairman Dello is present first up we have a facilities update C attached memo Mrs Monahan thank you Dr Dello as as we always do have once a month uh director of facilities Mark frus re re sends us a report listing all of the work orders that are happening um throughout our school buildings so again looking at that chart you will see that um the amount of total work orders is 269 work orders the school department has 76% of those work orders which is about 1,600 work orders and then at the bottom of the of the sheet you will see the number of open work orders and closed work orders per building any questions okay uh any action on that motion to receive and place on file seconded all in favor I I post eyes have it use of facilities update see attached memo back to you Mrs monan the use of facility again are from a few local organizations Applause acmy looking to use uh fredman middle school as you can see throughout um the month of May Silver City football officials at Parker Middle School Boy Scouts of America also um asking for fredman middle school again for those two um but especially for the Boy Scouts instead of charging them anything they do some community service um to for our buildings okay any comments Mr aier thank you Mr chairman just to be clear so the X indicates who's paying and what they're paying for correct correct and if it's blank there is nothing there they do not have anything charged okay thank you Mrs monam wishes of the committee motion to receive and place on fire seconded all in favor I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have the FY 24 quarter 3 budget update and we have uh four items we have the fy4 quarter 3 line item budget balancing negative lines say that three times quickly FY 24 appropriation quarter 3 report FY 24 revolving account quarter 3 report and fy2 24 grants quarter 3 report so Mr monam the first one is just a memo because we do have some new school committee members here um as we currently do at this time of year we utilize Surplus lines items line items to offset lines that are currently in the negative balance and then we ask that you authorize the administration the school committee to authorize the administration to pay the fy2 out of District tuitions prepaying so the following are some lines that can offset the 9498 442 worth of negative line balances so again currently is when we look at um when we do go over the line item you will see that those three account numbers those three account uh lines have currently an excess amount of um of Revenue in them and they could offset those um lines that are currently in the negative so again if we look at the line item update for quarter three again we have it by account number account name how much we've appropriated to each line how much we've spent per line the balance and then the percentage of the expenditures again if we look to the very very bottom you will see that in Total Line budget item we have spent 62% of our budget again quarter three simple math that means we are at 75% totally of our budget So currently we are in line or a little bit under and then as again I was saying briefly there are some lines that are higher and that at this time we ask that school committee goes ahead and authorize the administr ation to um let us offset those lines and then if if allowable to prepay out of district tuitions for the fy2 Mrs sh quarter one sorry Mrs Monahan yes how do you decide what accounts you use to offset them as I saw on the first page there's one two three four five accounts in the rears so what line items do you decide to use to pay those those are the ones that I just in that memo are the first the three lines there uh 2410 teaching supplies and the reason being too as you can see that's a a huge number still open yeah we're really not going to be purchasing much more for teaching supplies between now and the end of the school year so that's how we kind of look to see how we balance entrance for the line okay that makes sense thank you of course uh I have a question so we're looking to offset uh approximately $950,000 we want to prepay for FY 25 is that what that number is no the 950 so if we're looking at the the total number of lines that are currently in the negative balance on that whole line item that's where the 949 comes from okay now if you add up those three account numbers that you have listed that's a little bit over 1.5 million right so we're still $600,000 in excess correct what do we plan on doing with that money well at this time we are if we are going to ask if there is money between now and the end of the school year to authorize the administration to go ahead and prepay f u fy21 quter 1 out of District tuition okay so so that's what the first sentence says in your memo to us so that's why I made the question I asked the question I should say so whatever excess of this 1.5 minus the 950 will be to prepay FY 25 well it's a little bit more than that um because again if we're looking at the so let's not I I mean my question let me be clear why are we picking these three accounts if we only need uh 950,000 why are we picking three accounts that amount to 1.5 million we were trying to maybe thinking that it would be helpful to explain how we will do this by looking at the three line items that have a large Surplus to understand that so please know that it can be happening to this line but it can other lines have a surplus as well so again if we look at it we're right now only we are using 62% of our budget so if you think about it we will as we go continuing on to forecast we will have a a a sub a surplus that we are hoping to go ahead and be authorized to um to prepay fy2 quarter 1 tuition okay so uh I mean because we're only picking three out of how many lines here oh my God and by the way this is mine was very blurry I don't know if yours all were blury I had I got a little motion sickness looking at me too yeah I thought it was just me maybe it was the car whatever so I I just want to be careful that we're not just authorizing a blanket authorization and we have $5 million left over I mean I think we need to know where we're going with this right I mean so again the we're not done with the school year so we've encumbered or the business office has encumbered um the open POS that we have open and they forecasted you know based on monthly expenses what the expenses are going to be for the end of the year so what we've done as as our practice is any lines and Mrs moan identified three potential lines and there were other lines that have a surplus that we will utilize to balance our budget at the end of the fiscal year also one of our practices that has proved very beneficial for this district is to prepay tuition for the following fiscal year so again we're not these are just three examples of some of the lines that we can utilize there are other lines that are currently in a surplus but the budget is still ongoing until the last day the fiscal year which is June 30th but we need to have that flexibility to balance the budget with Surplus and other lines yes Mrs sh thank you so two things so when we had the presentation um with the budget there was um a sheet I was looking it over today that the the special ed um tuitions were substantially lower because that's what you were saying about that we were going to prepay that so even so it it looked less than what it really was was but that's because we were prepaying it now correct and we've done that quite a few every fiscal year we have been doing it do you do you exhaust everything that's left to prepay it okay so whatever is left you will go what so whatever is remaining is left you will use that to pre to a point because again we can only do quarter one okay um for for the out of district and sometimes some of the collaboratives may not have the tuition's ready to go so maag Grant Works her magic and working with uh collaboratives and tries to get as much as she possibly can and again about about $2 million okay I mean I I just feel more comfortable that we get another update on May 15th I mean we still have um May 15th and a couple meetings in June right yeah I think that's a good idea so what what would be the best course of action today to satisfy this 99,8 42 the best is is what we're what we've is our pract is our practice out of the business office to have to have the authorization to balance any negative lines in the budget with Surplus from other lines and that's a practice that's been going on since I was business manager was something that I was taught by Mr Martin and Mrs moan has continued with that practice and this is the time of year when we do it because right now Mrs moan is closing out the fiscal year and we have to present a balanced budget and make sure that every is spent uh appropriately so we are allowed to prepay for auto District tuition for quarter one we are allowed to prepay or pre- buby cleaning supplies and we are allowed to pre- buby any school supplies so this is nothing different than what we've done in the past we're just coming to you as we've done in the past without authorization Mrs chefs when do you normally prepay the tuition is there a certain date that you have to do it we begin it now we begin it now and then again it before June 30th because of course the city needs to go and we have only a certain amount of warrants to use okay but again this is something we have been doing in in the seven years I've been in here and the superintendent previously well I can verify that at least from my point of view as the curriculum supervisor I would get supplies before the end of the school year for the previous year for the next year based on what you were saying exactly that that they had been pre-bought so I I'm just looking at the the the the cover sheet here uh that says there 62% of the budget uh expended right so if if my numbers are correct that means we have about 133% that were're under based on the third quarter right because 75% would be three quarters so if we're taking 133% of what aund what's our budget 120 what 114 114 so that's uh 13% of that that's over12 million maybe so I'm just I'm just confused we also have the teach check the what check for the teachers the end of the year at the end of the year teachers will receive that that's five that's six pay that they get so between now and to the end of the school year there's quite a bit of items that we will be purchasing that we will have to pay out I mean I I've seen this before I mean I'm not saying it's not the right thing to do I'm just saying the numbers are like really really high of what's still out there and I just want to make sure we're doing the right thing that's all please look please know that it's not really if you look at uh previous previous years and even previous quarters we are just teetering right underneath where we are to be which is a very good place to be yeah to to be I mean 75% into the school year and to have 62% or 63% of your budget expended I mean you want to be under you don't want to be over what you've expended oh no absolutely not but I want to know where we're spending 12 or 13 million too right a lot of it's going to be on eight 80 cents on out of every dollar we spend is on salary so that balloon check those final payments before the staff go out on summer vacation that's it's tight up in salaries I mean I I'm my feeling is to get a better understanding on the May 15th meeting to better prepare the the true numbers I guess that's my opinion but I'm going to let the committee uh decide what they want to do so any other questions comments on this I'm fine with that what the wish commit I'm okay waiting until May 15th okay Mrs shvs would that hold you up if we wait until May 15 no we're going to do the work we're going to do the work and begin the prepayment process so again we're going to continue the work because that's what we do and that's what we need to do so that when we do get to go-ahead we can hit the trigger so that we're not delayed and then we're not able to prepay but what would be helpful for us to know having been in Mrs moan seat is what is the information that's needed to make an informed decision by the finance and law subcommittee well that I mean that's where I stand I mean I need a better informed so what is it that what is it that you're still missing I'm I'm just again I'm just basically thinking that there's 12 to13 million and again I know that 80% of every dollar is for teacher salaries right um so so an encumbrance less would be helpful yeah I guess yeah yeah and and get rid of the lines that we want to take care of because I mean maybe the example wasn't the best example that's where I started out on confusion where where we have 1.5 million and we only need 950,000 so maybe that wasn't the best example for me to better understand that I I'll also say this is based on my experience we're probably going to have other lines as we go deeper into the year we're going to negative yep so again given us the authorization to balance the lines that are in deficit with lines that are not in deficit is something that we've always come to this committee without a memo we've always done it verbally and it's always been approved verbally that night uh unanimously but I understand if an incumbrance list would demonstrate to the committee how we plan on spending out our budget then we will have that whether it's the May 15th meeting or the June 1st meeting but Meanwhile we're going to be doing the work in the back office to make sure that we are ready because we only have three warrants left sure I personally would feel more comfortable that way what are the wishes of the committee just what do you want do you want to just receive or you want to table at to it's up to you folks what do you want to do I'm I'm fine we're giving them the authorization to do it because they're going to report back to us so I mean we're going to see where the money goes I I think past practices shows that I'm for giving them the approval to do it okay that would be have to be an form of a motion I then I form a motion that we accept it as is and give them the ability to make these payments ahead of time is there a second no no second uh table until the 15 okay so there's no second so now you need to make a motion to table it motion to table it to the 15th meeting okay Mr second on that the the check in second I'll second okay okay all in favor I I opposed opposed two in favor one opposed thank you next up we have bills payable fy2 for amount of 873,000 I'm sorry I still have other I still have other quarter items to do that was just the line item there are two other reports the Athletics revolving and all that stuff I have to do the revolving yes sir revolving and also the grants quarter okay uh so great um the next one is quarter three um the revolving again um you will see the how much re uh Revenue has come in one1 point just about $2 million has come in we've expended over $800,000 So currently in our revolving accounts um we have about $5.8 million wish the committee motion receive and place on file seconded all in favor I I oppose eyes have it if I just like just to make a quick comment I just want to thank Mrs marinan at the business office for their outstanding work to build our revolving funds which I believe two million of those funds will be utilized to install the new softball field so that'll leave us with $4 million to stop fiscal 25 so good job Mr M okay motion passes next up the last one is quarter three the grants revolving uh the grants financial report um again you will see that um each what each Grant is and how um how much is left over after we've expended please know that any grant that has an ending date of June 30th I have sent out an email to all Grant managers as of today that they must provide us with um their their remaining dollar plan um by Next by by in two Fridays because of the city's warrant process that we need to make sure that everything is expended and no money goes back to um the feds or or the state okay do we know how much that is Mrs Monahan I see a few items here I don't have that right off but I know that I sent off to about um a little about eight grit managers so it's very most of them are very easily done there's PDS so I can assure you that it's all under control excellent yes Mrs sh thank you do we have one person that writes grants for us we do we have a grant uh coordinator but I do work with her because of course we it's still under my purview so I need to make sure that everything is done correctly anything else questions comments wish of the committee receive and place on file seconded uh all in favor I opposed eyes have it thank you now we're off to bills pay uh bills pable for FY 24 amount of 8731 16261 questions comments wishes of the committee Mr VI thank you Mr chairman on um page 15 custodial supplies in the amount of 13255 20 and then 25325 what what is that Mr VI I'm sorry page 15 page 15 and what's the amount again custodial supplies 13,000 yes oh Home Depot Pro yes 3049 yep I see it I'm sorry m page 14 it is um it's those are the bulk items which is your hand towels your toilet paper those items that we have okay and that was it everything else was pretty straightforward for me thank you Mrs Mahan Mr shs thank you I noticed that on page nine we have Home Depot credit services and then on the page 15 we have Home Depot Pro why two different Home Depot accounts and sure what happens is the Home Depot credit services we have a credit card for our groundskeepers if they need to go to Home Depot very quickly to pick up something and then the other one is through our Pro account where we buy the bulk items okay that makes sense on page 16 you had Service Pro of Providence for 6,900 what was that for so we just updated the HVAC system at um at Martin Middle School and because we did that we thought that and our the vendor that was doing the installation could not do the cleaning so since the building is an older building and we're updating the HVAC we thought it would be very important to make sure that the entire system was cleaned by the advisement of the vendor if I could just also add to that was a grant that Mrs minan and the grant director a grant coordinator wrote that brought in over $1.1 million so that was why the city did not clean it it was work that we went out to bid on therefore we're responsible for the cleaning because we installed it correct scratch thank you just wanted to clarify I know sometimes when we see those Ser Pro we think Building Department my first reaction is why didn't the city or the building department cover that cost but that was work that we installed okay it was covered through the gr I had that on my list too I thought it was some type of disaster because surf proos usually yeah me too that's what I thought um on page 20 um the quadrant leasing what is that CU then it's postage then it has postage yes quadrant is the company that we use our postage M machine so when we go ahead and do all the postage the big postage machine um that our storekeeper uses that's that's what it's for okay the rental of the machine and then Postage and the postage okay thank and I just have also set thank you Mr shs I just have one question on page 21 uh 10,000 Fringe what is that oh okay a that's a benefit for an employee the superintendent gotta okay that's it what are the wishes of the committee motion to approve of the amount of $873,000