hello hello from New York City good evening uh welcome to the second regular meeting of the school committee for the month of May please rise for the pledge Alle Allegiance and invocation I pledge allegiance to flag of the United States of America to the godice can you see by the dawn early light what so proudly we held at the Twilight L gleaming who's brought stripes and Bright Stars through the perous fight or the real parts we watch were so gallantly streaming and the rockets R glare the bombs buring in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there oh s do that star spangled then yet W or the land of the free and the home of the bread please remain standing uh secretary Fagan 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 if everybody could remain standing for just a couple of seconds we have uh we I'm asking for a moment of silence the first one is for Andrew PJ Burns who passed away peacefully on May 5th 2024 at the age of 86 born in Pucket Rhode Island he was the son of the late Andrew and Bridget hunt Burns he leaves his daughter Angela Kaminsky Karen Lassa and Andrea Burns and if you all notice Karen is here she has a longtime and dedicated employee of the taunt school department as well as being the president of Tessa she currently serves as the as principal hul secretary as well as the recording secretary for our school committee Mr burn leaves has leaves a sister and her husband three grandchildren two great grandchildren and many nieces and nephews he was predeceased by a sister and a brother I I just want to add something I my husband was kind enough to bring me to his his waking funeral and I was so glad I went because I saw a family that deeply loved their father um the whole family and told told everybody about him being the life of the party of doing anything for anybody he could help and just a really kind and generous man so I I just wanted to say that because he would help anybody that needed help and that was one of his Hallmarks and he always had cold coolers of drinks for everybody so to hear all those nice things about my family about a family I knew you you people will all deeply miss him and it was really an honor to be there and and hear all those nice things about your father so i' like all of us to keep Karen in our thoughts and in our prayers the other person who passed away um we don't have any information on him according to Jen Andrews who was also in in the town of Sharon it was Kristen Keenan's father they had all private services for him so nothing was in the paper but because you're part of the TA of high family you're always part of the tton high family um I wanted to just express to her that we're all deeply sorry for her loss also and he died right about the same time that your father passed away so a moment of silence for these people thank you very much thank you and I'll do the roll call thank you secretary Fagan yes please you're welcome um Mr enus present Mrs shs present Mr palowski present Mrs Fagan's present Miss Santos present and Mr Laura I think he just pres oh there you are and Dr Dello pres and and mayor W connell's absent as is Steven Vieira and just Stephen okay thank you next up we have the student advisory committee report and with us we have Isaiah Wendell welcome thank you Dr Dello as Dr Dello said my name is Isaiah Wendell and I am part of the student toau and high school student advisory committee this report is a little long winded tonight so please bear with me first and foremost I want to extend our best wishes to all the eighth grade students who have been diligently taking their mcast exams this week we applaud them for their hard work and dedication and we wish them the best of luck as they showcase their skills looking ahead our 10th grade students are gearing up for their math mcass exams in preparation for this important Milestone we are thrilled to announce that Taunton High School will be hosting an mcast pep rally for our students in the auditorium this Friday it is a chance for students to come together show their support for their fellow students and generate some positive energy to fuel their success tomorrow marks an exciting opportunity for students as they attend the matl leadership conference at Bridgewater State University this conference promises to be a day filled with learning growth and inspiration we are excited to see students Embrace this incredible opportunity we recently celebrated the achievements of our one goal program participants at their graduation ceremony congratulations to all the students who have completed this program and a special shout out to Mrs Taylor wits our dedicated one goal teacher for her outstanding support and mentorship tomorrow morning there will be a gathering at the tiger tent in the back of the of Taunton High School to celebrate the graduation of our tiger tots it is a heartwarming reminder of the growth and development that takes place within our building and we could not be prouder of these Young Learners tonight is a special night for our softball team as they come together for their ring ceremony um it is an honor and their hard work and dedication throughout the season additionally they are celebrating their senior night recognizing the invaluable contributions of our senior players to our softball team thank you for representing our school with pride as we approach the end of the school year we want to take a moment moment to acknowledge our seniors with prom and graduation on the horizon this is an exciting time filled with anticipation and possibility to all our seniors remember once a tiger always a tiger we believe you we believe in you and wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors in conclusion I want to thank everyone for their dedication and hard work hard work and commitment to Excellence together we make Taunton High School a place where students can grow and succeed thank you thank you Mr Wendell always a very comprehensive report any comments questions from the committee I do have one comment uh just to uh share with the folks at home U Mrs sha secretary fig and I had the opportunity to attend the one goal stole Ceremony this afternoon this morning and uh after uh going through three commencement ceremonies at Bridgewater Gillette stum this weekend uh it was nice to be in a smaller atmosphere and crowd and listen to the stories of what 253 students uh and how the program has influenced them and making smart career decisions of staying in school and going on to to college so it was really really inspirational and uh credit to uh the the PD coordinator Miss Taylor witters and of course the students and everybody involved including the entire taunt Public School System uh I believe the ring ceremony tonight got postponed uh superintendent due to weather so there'll be a date advertised soon and we'll get that out via the social media Outlets that we usually have so thank you again any wishes of the committee on the report motion to accept the report all in favor I I opposed have it thank you next up we have public input uh I don't see any public input Miss Lasser no no public input okay we'll move on to item D the task presentation with us tonight we have zumira B Alcock president and sioban Tolson program director the floor is yours thank you I forgot to do the one thing I was supposed to do so I don't have to repeat all that right I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank the committee for investing in task again this year um because of it we not only were able to maintain the position of of our director position of Siobhan and the assistant director Melissa langum but we were able to hire five career Specialists it really made all the difference this year um so I just want to take this opportunity to thank you and thank you for allowing us to be part of this students journey and with that I will pass it on to Siobhan Tolson who is the director for task not going to really have an election I promise that's not me touching anything um good evening everyone uh first and foremost I would like to say thank you for allowing us to be here with you tonight um as Z said my name is Siobhan tulson I am the program director for the taon area scoo of Korea and this is uh Melissa langum she is the assistant director uh for the tary schoolo career program and we brought a couple of guests with us that you will be hearing from we have Dr Robert rendes who is the dean um at the Bristol Community College Taunton campus we also have Tanya Lobo the executive director of Taunton together as well as Mariam ferreras and her daughter Lee Marie ferreres I'm sorry it's Li Mari ferreras um she is a student at the taan Alternative High School let me see if I got this yep here we go okay so the Taunton area school program is um a program that's under the umbrella of Associates for Human Services uh we are a local nonprofit organization that works with young PE well we work with individuals from zero to uh end of life uh the TA area school to Career is a partnership that works with local schools in the area we are the bridge between student and businesses um um the focus um for task is to expose high school students Beyond um just high school and expose them to different career development as well as Workforce um and work-based learning work work based learning experiences some of the our current funding sources come from one taught in public schools um Mass mentoring partnership connecting activities as well as youth Works which is both through the Bristol Workforce investment board uh we have priet which is pre-employment services and that is through Mass Rehabilitation Commission they're actually getting ready to change the name to mass ability um as well as Webster bank so what are some of the programs that we offer um and how are they different in 2024 so first we have youth Works uh youth works is a work-based learning plan a work-based learning program that um provides paid placements for youth between the ages of 14 to 25 years of age uh youth works is funded through Mass Workforce investment board as well as com Commonwealth Corporation and then it's actually implemented through the taon area school to Career program so far this year task has placed 59 youth in paid placements in the for-profit and nonprofit sector uh we have worked with companies such as Boys and Girls Club o Colony y Morton Hospital citizens for Citizens our program here at Taunton High School which is jams for jelly together Camp witon hardware store and many more throughout the Young Person's placement Tas provides Supportive Services to the student as well as the business uh we provide case management through weekly site visits and ongo and Workforce Development training um this year we were able to provide 59 students um with CPR certifications um that is some of our students over the past summer so uh in collaboration with youth works the tary school to Career program was able to implement its first ever CNA training programing Not only was task able to pay the Stu pay for the students training but we were able to pay the students to attend the training as well pay for their first 8 to 12 12 weeks of paid placements um we partnered with Coastal Career Academy and I'm sorry we provided we we collaborated with uh coal Career Academy um and provided the training our was at um AHS which is located at 68 Allison AV here in taon um the students were able to do their clinical hours at Marian Mana which is with the in in the green um a PK completion of the training students were then placed in agencies such as Hospital uh wise and happy Health um where they completed a paid work based learning placement uh they were also paid a livable wage during this time um we collaborated with Taunton Alternative High School to be able to make sure that the students that were attending this training program received credit for school hours while they were um attending the program um and Tau in high school taught and alternative of high school was um very helpful with making sure that the students were provided with Transportation if needed um the program has opened the lines of communication OPP and opportunities uh to collaborate with Morton hospital and to be able to feed them the new medical pipeline um with our students uh a majority of the students that attended this program were either Tau in Alternative High School students and or they were um they just recently graduated from uh taon High School uh which brings me to our first guest um lie Mar fereres and her mother Marian fereres is going to come up to you and just give you a little bit of um their experience here at the program um liar is a 12th grader at TA Alternative High School uh she was introduced to the CNA task program through career services at the Alternative High School uh since day one liar has been a huge pivotal component in her own success throughout this programing uh through our partnership task has a been able to um secure our internship for liar at Morton hospital however instead of hearing it from me I will allow her to come up and tell her story I'm right here I don't have to touch you don't need that okay my name is lari f I'm a student at ton Alternative High School I was happy to be accepted into the youth's works CNA program last fall my mom is my mom works as a CNA so I knew this was a wonderful opportunity for me to be trained in a growing field I was able to study the material online and in class sessions with seven other students we met met at Associates for Human Services three times a week we visited Mary and Manor one day per week to be able to do our clinical work with their residents we also visited Costa Career Academy in Fall River to do more Hands-On work this really helped me with the skills portion for my State Testing I have passed my state my state exams and and I'm also certified as a home health aid and Alzheimer's care for first aid and first aid I have been able to learn and apply them directly at Moren hospital since March 2024 working directly with the staff and patience has reinforced me has reinforced everything that I've been taught during this program I know these skills are strong and they are Foundation to help me succe succeed seed in many places and that's all thank [Applause] you hi my name is Mary and F and um this program really helped out for Li Mari um her confident and her Expressions it really opened up a lot for her so that's all [Applause] okay well there we go and that is uh some of our participants at their work placements okay so next we have our Career Mentoring program um our Career Mentoring program is funded through our Mass mentoring partnership uh mentoring allows tasks to match volunteers from local uh business professionals with students our traditional one-on-one mentoring kicked off in February um right now we currently have a total of 17 mentors and mentees um they discuss everything from career skills life goals um task has arranged several tours um such as Rhode Island College Bridgewater State University URI Buttonwood Zoo tmlp Patriots Place and so much more um these chores have been they they have been made to meant to be a fun outlet for students but they've also provided an Insight on what it takes to actually run an organization and what type of positions are available at these different organizations um here are some of our students out with their mentors um we also have our new model which was uh an after school mentoring program we have done a mix of social emotional learning with career Readiness and a place for students to unwind and recharge um they do this through song team building um and a variety of different games um we so far we've had three 68 we cohorts that happen one day a week we have uh no less than 25 students that attend every week um it continues to keep growing um um this came about after a conversation with um Mr Hokum in the beginning of the year really to provide students with an outlet that um somewhere for them to go after school for those that don't want to go home um we've been able to luckily provide meals almost every week so far um and it has been a tremendous help for our students um especially those that are um facing food insecurities um our next program is our pret program uh this is the pre-employment transitional service that's funded through Mass rehabilit rehabilitation services uh prets provides students that have either an IEP a 504 or documented disability with the five core services and those are um career Readiness Workforce uh workplace Readiness uh work-based learning experiences self advocacy and postsecondary education task career Specialists meet with students either in group settings so they do go to classrooms to meet with their um students they also meet uh one-on-one in guidance as well as via Zoom priet is not a one-size fits-all program um we aim to really be able to meet the student where they at uh this was something new that came about just last year um we received a grant through uh Webster Bank that we it's called Finance lab uh through this funding taon area school career was able to spare ahead its first ever Youth Empowerment conference we had over 250 local area youth uh majority of those students being from taon high school that attended um on that day students gathered at bristle Community College we were able to provide students with over 36 workshops with um huge range of topics including self-defense digital responsibility financial literacy uh we also gave away six $500 uh scholarships and we presented a check to Totton High School to sponsor students that were going on the first HBC Utah um we ended the day with a resource Fair where we had 29 local businesses that provided information to youth um about jobs Mental Health Services post-secondary education and much more we actually had Isaiah uh window was there that day and he led um the session um let me see oh there he goes uh so these are some of the students so here are some of the things that we've worked on um over the year I'm actually going to um welcome Dr Robert rendes and Tanya Lobel just to kind of give you experience that they have had working with uh tart area school to Korea and then I will finish this off um well being part of the youth Council obviously um working with the youth in the city all the time was very important to me and I feel like we've actually grown so much this year um not only as a council but um one of the things that obviously wearing many hats that I have been able to do is understand more of what task does but also have been able to coordinate and help um connect more students that normally are um kind of falling through the cracks and so we've been able to actually receive more funding to be able to help more students through the together program but also have um task has been such an amazing thought partner on how we can continue to provide these services to students who normally wouldn't have it and then connect um the different Community Partners who are working with youth who normally wouldn't know about the taon area scooter career and then how we're able to continue to help them not only while they're in school but then also after um they graduate so some of the things that we've been working on kind of like with the youth conference is how do we continue to um not only Garner the support of the community Garner the support of other funders but also how do we continue to connect to other communities and then bring those communities together thank you uh again Boba Zen's Dean for the Bristol community colleges Taunton campus I've been on a task Council I think this is my sixth year yeah I think so um and the changes I've seen over those six year has have been amazing um some of the programming that is uh happening now um much more um dealing with a lot of Social and emotional uh issues as well um and one of the nice things about the relationship we have is whenever we hear there's a need um it uh task has always been really good working with uh their Partners in addressing those needs one of one one example of that was um when the changes that were announced with the fast with the financial aid system that happened uh this past fall um there were lots of questions that were popping up uh working with task we organized a financial aid Workshop that we hosted at our college for any families that were interested in um went really well um we are looking and we are planning additional now additional work financial aid workshops um moving forward um to get as many students uh to complete that FASA um there's a lot of misinformation about financial aid a lot of people think it's all about loans and it's not just that there are a lot of opportunity for a lot of our students who may not realize what they qualify for and so we're looking forward to continuing to do some more of those uh workshops uh moving forward and then the other thing I'll mention that um that was really exciting this year um was that Youth Empowerment conference that we hosted at the college um we had it would the energy there with those over 200 students was amazing and the workshops that were held uh there were a wide variety of uh of topics and the feedback that we heard just even at the end after the workshops during the lunch you could go around and listen to what the students were talking about and it was really exciting to hear them talking about the what they were had learned in those workshops and the how excited they were to be there um and um it was a program that I hope will continue in in in an annual way um so thank you that they just wanted to add that all right so um just to kind of recap some of the things that we've worked on over the year again as as um Bob said we collaborated with Bristo Community College to bring the fast forite um we are hoping to do this more often um we've also reached out to local businesses um for the CTE Department to set up tours of um different businesses uh We've we've attended tours of ESI which is a new organization that just moved to the Taunton area area I want to see in August or September um they are um an HVAC organization that works on um doing CAD work um so this has opened up the door for the possibility of students doing internships from the cad um we also had uh the Children's Advocacy Foundation uh General Dynamics uh Brava technology um as well as uh Morton H hospital um we've provided support to the CD CTE core dator um we've provided series of Workshop development to um tunon high school and tunon alternative uh We've also um hosted a career fair at Taun Alternative High School um and right now for the month of May we're actually hosting a series of career chats where we have people from uh the laborers union um different people from trades coming in to speak with the kids every Thursday uh to Pro especially for those that are seniors that are getting ready to age out the applications for um the laborers union Etc open up um but they do on January 11th so we're trying to get students to apply for those jobs um taon uh task right now is provid in five days at taon high school as well as two days at TA Alternative High School um and we work with students individually we work with them in group settings um and some of the things that we do includes resume writing cover letters um interview um skills preping um interview prep uh and so much more and that's it any questions thank you so much um I'm going to open up to the committee for questions comments Mr palski um Shaban uh thank you so much for the great presentation thank you all um this is just awesome work that you're doing it's anything that we can do to reach out to kids and help them in their career path various career paths it's just invaluable um as a as a person who hires people I want I want I want to hire people with experience so the fact that you're able to reach out to these young young kids uh and get them that it's just it's just awesome so thanks thanks for all the work that you guys do thank you thank M palski anyone else uh I'll a couple of questions maybe or comments so uh please better explain to me with the youth works so FY 24 you place 59 Youth and paid placements in for-profit nonpr public so 59 I think that numbers come down quite a bit from the past am no actually it's went up it went up yeah so that's just youth works oh you know I'm sorry and I forgot to mention we also have the HS up which is the high school education um where we have placed uh We've offered 12 paid placements to the students that are in uh seniors that are working in the child care um so the number of the 59 for youth Works does not include like all of the internships that's just the paid placements that are through comc cor um I think in past years the most that we've ever placed has been 25 under youth works so it it's actually doubled in numbers okay I mean I bring that up because I I've been in your offices myself and Steve y a couple years ago and uh I'm all about internships but they must be paid uh there's no reason to send a student in today's world to an internship without being paid I agree I'm sorry it has to be justified uh so I I I thought the goal when we got together was to I don't know I for some reason I have 200 in it back of my mind have paid internships does that number ring a bell no no maybe um I want to say I think when we first met maybe was it two years ago no actually it was three years ago because we didn't have a contract last year so the year before that when we um met I think the goal was to place up to 119 students I don't have the exact number um in internships and that could be either paid internships or some would be unpaid um but that that would that's separate from I remember we talked about Transportation issues and how do we get kids to the industrial park and paying for bus passes and all that stuff so I recall that conversation so that's why I thought it was important that they had to be paid because school students doesn't have enough money to support themselves to get down there so so that number was over a 100 right for the um for the internship program that was I think that's the number that you're thinking of so again um that was the first year that I came came in and things uh kind of changed with the way that task was going at the time um we've always um work to help partner uh with the school to play students in internships but we were never really um oversaw that program um but we did work with the number we got I believe was 119 students and this was going back three years ago um to place 119 students in internships but it was not um paid or unpaid it could be either or but I I believe that we hit over 79 that year um and that's why I mentioned over yeah so that was but that was um so that was a different contract so youth works and the placement youth works and this is two separate things that's c yeah yeah that's when we we were solely working with the CTE this year things again changed okay and and help me better understand we have had someone from together program and the youth Council was mentioned so youth council is what is that the mayor's uh youth Council that's been set up in the city um well I am the youth commissioner for the city of T right you're on that window okay yes so what's the youth Council um so The Tartan area school to Career we have our own task Council so it our council is made up of different business partners uh through the city uh we have some Bank Representatives we have have um again miss Lobo U Mr rendes we have all different partners that participate in that we meet once a month to discuss uh services for young people they help us with a lot of things such as like fundraising um as well as job placements um and much much more they really are our backbone okay and so when you show up on the warrant which we'll have tonight uh to to approve um the contract is is it monthly is it annually fiscal year is it by month for for the task agreement that we have okay so when does it expire when does the present contract expire June June 30th June 30th so it aligns with our fiscal year okay so you're here to not only share the the good work that you're doing but hopefully get back uh July 1st with next 12 months with fiscal year yes and have have terms changed as far as pricing or anything like that that I I mean is there another presentation we're expecting uh I mean is it going to be part of our budget Workshop I just want to better understand where we're at it it was already so task falls on the contracted services so under the contracted service line it was included during our budget Workshop it's already part of that line okay great okay I guess I'm all set um anyone else Mr superintendant just um one sorry the the young person who spoke so eloquently about her yes I'm talking to you so the young person who spoke so eloquently about her uh her career choice in your career path I just want to say as somebody in this committee I got to commend this committee for always having the foresight to add new chapter 74 programs because this is what happens when you add chapter 74 programs and one of the programs that we are looking to implement will address a need in Bristol County data and research shows that we have unfortunately an aging population that's going to request ire the services of young people such as you to care for us as we get older so I commend you know for taking that initiative and finding a career that provides you with a purpose and answers your sense of why that brings you fulfillment because you are really helping you know to give back to everyone in this room especially mom who has given so much to you so I commend you and you did a great job speaking when I was your age I could not have done what you just did and I just want to also give credit to task um again when we think about chapter 74 programs we're thinking about high needs high demand Industries in our region and notice in General Dynamics braver technology uh again I I commend the work that you're doing to provide our students give them a seat at the table especially students who um may have been underserved in in in the past to make sure that they have equal footing and equal opportunity they get those high paying jobs so that they can be contributing members in our community and also care for themselves and care for their famili so thank you thank you thank you well thank you so much for being here night next up we have the fy2 preliminary budget house Ways and Means see enclosure superintendent y I'm sorry I'm sorry what was that yeah yeah for the task folks you you're you're free to leave if you you can stay we we'll be here thank you good night now thanks for coming thank you thank you for the reminder Mr Jakes so uh again um are we back on Mr Jake are we good all right thank you so as as part of our budget process um we just want to give you an update on where we are as far as the house Ways and Means with their budget that they submitted and I also believe the Senate submitted their budget today and I believe the vote will take place on Friday so sometime in June I believe June 5th we will have our final budget presentation which will also be our budget hearing which is a publicly posted an advertised meeting and then I believe I shared with the committee in my newsletter that we will go be going before the city council on Tuesday June 11th however a time has not been determined yet so I will share that time at the once it's been shared with my office or Mrs moan so this will be an a bridged version of our presentation I'm not going to go through every slide because a lot of these slides we already discussed in April we're going to focus more on the slides where there were some changes based on the house budget and there was a slight increase in Chapter 70 which we'll discuss shortly so again you have the breakdown of the PowerPoint presentation I will do the majority of the speaking during the PowerPoint presentation and then I will turn things over to Mrs moan she will go line by line addressing the line items that were discussed during the budget Workshop she will discuss how she made the changes or implemented the request of the school committee during the budget Workshop I also again think it's very important for people to understand who we are and the two areas that I tend to focus on is the media and household income in tarton I believe that we can do a better job by increasing the median household income in taton through higher education and higher education level we do a I think we do a very good job in this community as far as graduating students our graduation rate is around 93% at Taunton High School and in the city of Taunton 84% of the residents which is around 60 th000 hold a high school graduate degree or higher and but where I would like to see more work done and I'm very excited about the Early College uh Center at the high school The Early College designation uh that will go into effect next year where I believe we can begin to increase the number of residents who hold a bachelor's degree or higher which I also then believe will lead to businesses coming or utilizing T and seeing tan as t as a destination because of our qualified Workforce so again I believe education plays a strong role in the economic development and boom of our community our mission and our vision which I won't quiz you on but you should all have this memorized by now and then our four strategic bu buckets everything we do in tarton has to touch one or more of those buckets or else we don't do it I won't go through all the detail but again I'm very proud uh during the student Opportunity Act and during my strategic plan and the use of esod doll all the work that we've been able to accomplish that touched the four buckets of our strategic plan and I will not re review or bore you with all the details regarding the revenue projections for fiscal 25 instead I will ask you to skip to slide 13 again I just want to remind everybody here as part of our committee and everyone at home who's watching now the revenue projections uh uh expected to decline uh based on the low inflation and the low Revenue that's being collected at the state level with this slide does an excellent job of depicting is the Chapter 70 increase and you're seeing chapter chapter 70 right around the time of covid was increased by $270 million Co took place and you saw a dramatic decrease because of the loss of Revenue because everything shut down revenue or Chapter 70 only increased by $108 million in fiscal 22 we started to see some growth and then because of the infusion of cash at the federal level at the state level Chapter 70 increased by 494 almost 500 million and last year or this fiscal year $600 million however you're starting to see return back to what I call the normal years with an inflation factor of 1.35% so 263 is the increase of Chapter 70 for fiscal 25 so I hope going through this a second time third time it doesn't get clear but it gets a little clearer and one of the things that we've been advocating for uh through Mass which is the Massachusetts Association of school superintendents and also the Massachusetts Association School committees and also the urban superintendence Network we are advocating for some relief when it comes to the fact that Chapter 70 has not kept up with true inflation true inflation over the last two fiscal years is around 15% by Statute chapter 7 can only increase by 4 and a half% 15% minus 9% that's a difference of 6% so that inflation continues to carry over so a 6% de increase in a 1% 1.35% increase for fiscal 25 we're still out about 5% roughly so that made it very challenging this year but I want to commend Mrs moand in our Administration but we were anticipating this would happen we just wen't anticipating it was going to happen this soon we expected it to happen around fiscal 27 so this is the first budget as I referenced in April that we had to dip or utilize our reserves in order to balance the budget and we are very sound as far as fiscal 26 and also fiscal 27 so while some schools some business managers may be playing checkers we like to think that we're playing chess because we're forecasting two or three years down the road road so the house budget did increase slightly there was a slight increase of not even 1% of $70,000 in Chapter 70 and I believe the Senate will be voting on their budget in May continuing on I would ask you next to move to slide 19 so in slide 19 uh Mrs moan did a nice job of tracking the budget so you see where we are with the house rais and means uh chapter 78 increased by 70,000 there was no change regarding the city's required contribution and the overall required net School spending increased by $70,000 less than a percent and then you see the difference on the end of the slide uh we are staying we are holding as regarding our recommendation for an appropriation of 120 million 5894 79 any additional increases my recommendation to the committee any additional increases through the house or through the Senate uh I propose I would recommend that we submit a supplemental budget request in August or in September for those additional dollars that additional increase in Chapter 70 right now this is the number that the city has used in their budget presentation this is the number that provides us with a balanced budget so again any increases to the house which right now is 70,000 any increases to the Senate budget we would request in the form of a supplemental budget which I think is more than Justified because Chapter 70 has increased and that's a check that is written to the city of taton in dollars that are to be used on education I would all then ask you to continue and Skip to slide 24 again I believe this slide demonstrates to the community know the True Value in education and T as 80 cents out of every dollar is it comes in the form of aid from this from the state of Massachusetts while the city of taon contributes a little over 21% to education for every dollar that's spent and again we are proposing a balanced budget of1 12,589 479 this provides you all our fixed cost at a glance salary and I want to reiterate and I think Mrs moan did a nice job last meeting reiterating staff members are not not getting a 9% increase that includes Lane changes that includes negotiated increase that also includes sickly buyback that also includes our substitutes so any compensation that we had to increase is included in the salary Line special education we had to dip into reserves which is allowable so we're utilizing our circuit breaker funding for fiscal 25 and a small portion of our circuit breaker carry over from fiscal 24 and we'll still be carrying funds over into fiscal 26 I'm very proud of that fact knowing that we'll receive additional circuit breaker for fiscal 26 uh transportation we saw an increase utilities modest increase using the cola contracted Services which we referenced earlier also includes uh the task contract for fiscal 25 supply lines Mrs moan exhausted uh any grants that we were allowed to exhaust that's why you see a little dip and for maintenance um as much as we try to do our fair share to support the building department we are not in the business of fixing our buildings but we do do provide about $600,000 worth of support out of our line item budget and that doesn't even include the grants in the the project the $2 million softball field that's coming online that's not included because that's coming out of our reserves in revolving so I do believe we do our fair share and the last slide in this presentation more than demonstrates that again modest growth or consistent growth except for those covid years we're back on track a 5% increase and our average has been about 4.6% so I think this is a fair budget and I'll just ask you to go to slide 32 again 16 million so during my I believe during my 10e superintendent maybe a couple years as assistant superintendent our Administration again I want to give the school committee credit because this work cannot be accomplished without your approval and your input through the subcommittees and then when we bring it back to the committee so all utilizing grants and utilizing our revolving funds now with the minimal impact on the taxpayers No overrides No debt exclusions we were able to provide our community with $16.3 Million worth of infrastructure upgrades and that's something that this committee should be very proud of and this is something that the public should acknowledge that we do our fair share because as superintendent there's nothing that brings me more joy than to see our schools being used 247 7 days a week 3 65 days a year it's nice to see students on our campuses riding their bikes rollerblading hanging out you know playing guitar in the retreat that's what US I want our schools to be a fabric of the home and a fabric of the community and we have a lot of Partners it's a lot of work maintaining all these relationships involves a lot of time out of the office uh for me and my leadership team but I believe those relationships are important because we are and then able to leverage those relationships to be able to provide our students and our staff with the resources that they need I'll turn things over to Mrs moan and she will walk you through the line item uh changes that she made based on the budget Workshop back in April thank you superintendent cabal so as superintendent cabal stated I will be going over the items that were brought to our attention um during the budget Workshop so we wanted to clarify some of the items on the line line item the first one you if I could have you go to page two of the line item page two on the line item during the budget Workshop I was asked to provide how many FTE or a number of full-time employees for the uh curriculum supervisors line and which is 2110 and then the 21 20 line department heads so those two you'll see in the notes I have updated that information for you the next page that was referred to during the budget Workshop is Page seven so if you go to page seven page seven during the budget Workshop FTE were added under 2710 excuse me 2720 which is the testing and assessment team again that is listed how many FTE are um are captured in that line which is three the next page during the buz pr budget presentation I guess I can't say that Transportation notes so I went ahead and um as requested um we did go down a little bit with our special out uh special ed out of District um and you'll see a little bit of a dip there because that is current projections we added the um Vans to uh Tron Alternative High School which were previously Esser and then currently the fuel escalation that is the reason why there was a dip because of that's a current projection the next page page nine on the budget Workshop line number 25 3520 um again it looks like that we did have a negative balance on the variations but it really wasn't because that's the lines that we um charged to the revolving account so it's really level funded compared to the previous year so it's the same amount that we spent and lastly is Page 11 page 11 um again superintendent cabal stated about um special education out of District tuition payments again we are prepaying so you're seeing those lines in red um again it's not that we are not investing in that but we are dipping into revolving which is a um some of a prepaying of this year we prepay about $2 million on those two lines and as superintendent cabal stated the revenue account is circuit breaker and also o for circuit breaker carryover those two lines of revenues are always aligned every year to be applied to special education a of District tuitions any questions on the B line item budget or the power point Isaiah I see you looking Miss Santos uh thank you just on so the slide 14 that you had mentioned mentioned as far as you know fixing inflation calculation um this hasn't been addressed yet is that so it hasn't is there any like where as far as the process of that trying to happen is there anything on on our part that we can do as far as reaching out to so legislators or yeah so a bill has been proposed and and I believe it has been I'll have to I this question came up yesterday at a meeting with Mary B Who overseas mass and she's been working with the legislative to lobby for this bill so the bill has been proposed it has been submitted now it's going to be discussed and studied so um unfortunately uh based on my discussion I don't know if we're going to receive I'm not very confident that we're going to receive any relief and uh I I also should make it known too that they there was language in 2008 or 2009 there was language to address low inflation or when inflation was high uh previous years and it didn't keep up the following year because of the four 4 and a half% that language did exist but it no longer exists so one of the questions that I've raised is when did it come out how did it come out and it just makes too much sense not to add it in so if we did want to you know authorize a superintendent to send send a letter in support of this bill I'd be more than happy to draft the communication if authorized by the committee thank you if you want to make that in the form of a motion Miss can I do that you can do whatever you want so so making a motion for the superintendent to draft a letter in support of this um I don't know what the name of the bill is yeah I can I can put on behalf of the bill that addresses the inflation yes I second that so this is a letter to who the in support of the bill to the Senate so would be he would be sending on behalf of our school committee in in support of passing that sure that sounds great so there's a motion on the FL FL seconded by Mrs shavs all in favor opposed eyes have it thank you I I have a commment question maybe for the public at home more than than us as a committee you keep talking about Reserve funds and dipping into our Reserve funds uh let us know what exactly are Reserve funds what's our balance and what are we dipping into them for yeah so year circuit breaker carryover so we are allowed as Mrs Mahan mentioned we are allowed um by Statute to carry over this the the amount that we received in circuit breaker this year we are allowed to carry over that same amount into the next fiscal year so there's an incentive for school systems to really tighten their budgets and have the Reserves for circuit breaker to be able to carry over because special education costs are one of those costs that are unknown we can have two or three students move in in any given year and some tuitions I've seen tuitions and Mrs Mo can attest I've seen tuitions around 60,000 on average we've also seen tuitions come in at 250,000 for one for one student that are confined to residential uh homes 247 for for for their level of care so we are allowed to carry that Grant over a portion that Grant over year to year our practice has always been to try to maximize and minimize the you maximize while also minimizing the use of circuit breaker so we have that ability for unforeseen increases and also to prepay or anticipate budget shortfalls moving forward it's a sound business practice and that's totally independent of revolving funds revolving funds is a separate bucket revolving funds I we anticipate I mean again a credit to man the way we've managed our grants I anticipate or we anticipate that we're probably going to end the year after the softball project we're probably going to end the year right around $4 million in in uh revolving funds and I think 4 million even though we never established a cap uh with the school committee I I think 4 million would be a good threshold to maintain and then once we get to a certain number we can look at a capital project sure and and those are not tax dollars those are gate receipts and gate receipts large a large portion of it Dr Dello now comes from uh school choice uh Transportation reimbursement and also our be in some other programs that we gate receipts as you mentioned the use of facilities we had a great year with use of facilities we're going to bring in over six figures by uh again the utilizing our facilities so we have great facilities generates Revenue then we can put back in to maintain or expand sure I think that's important for the public at home to understand that we just don't have a piggy bank full of money as far as the reserve is concerned what how it arrives and how we use it and carry it over and of course the revolving funds are totally independent and it allows us to sustain all the hard work that we have done as a group and we've added a lot of support especially around mental health curriculum and instruction and while I don't want to point or mention communities I but I will say I received a lovely email yesterday unexpected uh from a constituent who praise the administration and the school committee for having a balanced budget while they noticed in the papers a lot of communities are struggling to balance the budget and unfortunately the way they're balancing the budget is through through cuts and it's human capital so I feel blessed that we're in this position that we're able to maintain the level of services because it's going to benefit students like Isaiah and and my daughters at home as well anyone else who has kids in our school system great thank you so much we'll move on to is there just a motion to receive and place on file you don't have to approve anything just to just receive and place on file this fine Mr Reena seconded by Mr palski all in favor I opposed eyes have it thank you we'll give you a couple of minutes to now get over to the superintendent report first up we have the taunt public Virtual Academy update and with us we have some guests for first off I introduce principal Elizabeth Rodriguez and she can introduce her guests and as Mrs Rodriguez is making or principal Rodriguez is making a way to the podium I have some great news to share with the committee so our expansion proposal that Mrs Rodriguez developed and submitted to Desi has been approved so the only requirement that's left and she'll discuss it in the presentation the only requirement that's left of to expand the Taunton Public Virtual Academy would be the vote of the committee um to uh adopt the recommendations approve the recommendations if you wish to do that tonight uh which would be great because the deadline is June 7th so if we wait to June 5th we might be cutting it close but again um listen to the presentation ask your questions and if you feel comfortable we would request a motion to approve the expansion and I just want to commend before she starts outstanding job because I remember back in August we were worried about getting 20 kids in the program and here we are at 75 expanding so outstanding job Mr Rodriguez thank you superintendent karal um Dr Dello I'm really excited to be here today um a year ago when I was here and we were I was working on this project um although we were very encouraged and we were very confident no one was sure right you never know when you start a startup company what what's going to happen right you never know I'm very happy to be here I'm going to talk a little bit about the progress we've had in this year where we've been um talk about our growth our enrollment um where we're headed and I'm also going to end um I think this will make Mrs shavs happy too so um I'm going to end by just showing you a tidbit of how we will be able to progress monitor um and some of the data that we can use moving forward to evaluate the school and to help us to continue to be where we need to be because this school after all was created and built to meet specific needs of specific kids and I think it's really important that we start that way so um as uh superintendent cabal did we start with the mission and um I'm very Mission oriented and um people get tired of me hearing this um we've even we've even talked to our students by the way I'm joined here with one of our students cie Perera she's one of our graduating seniors on her way to Bridgewater as [Applause] well and I'm also joined by one of our wonderful teachers this is Mr Kent Gil Martin he's our social studies teacher and Mr Gil Martin will say that when I did all the interviews not only did I make them do um an inter a virtual lesson online but I also gave them the mission and I I had them look at it Circle what was important because for hiring it was really important that people understand that we need to be Mission driven and these are just not just words on a paper we talk about Innovation this is a different thing it's a different school we talk about collaboration um again Mr K Martin and all the staff and even cie's been around the office when we're all working together we couldn't have made this without the collaboration and just teaching kids about perseverance and persevering ourselves going into the unknown um and just with our primary value which is trust so um those are really important to us and of course as superintendent cabal said earlier we can't do anything unless we're aligned with our strategic objectives curriculum instruction assessment and planning professional culture and climate management budget and operations and family engagement in Community Partnerships we we couldn't move forward so I'll be happy to expand on any one of those if anyone has questions on how we're meeting that even in our very first year so for those of you who may not um know too much about Taun and public Virtual Academy yet um I'd like to mention just very briefly simply what kind of a model we are because there's lots of different models of virtual education so what does our school look like so what we have now is a combination of live synchronous teaching with our tpva staff such as Mr Gil Martin and student schedules also have um varying percentages of asynchronous online courses provided by one of our partners at Imagine Learning um and genuity and we are partnered with their instructional Services part um and that's the part that comes with teachers and tutoring and all kinds of support so it's not just put the kids in front of a computer and let them go okay so it's a combination of those two things the student schedules um are made up by 655 minute academic periods a day and one of the most unique uh things about us is the glue that holds us together as a school is that we H we start every single school day with an embedded 20 minute advisory block and that focuses primarily on social emotional learning um that's actually where we um talked about our mission a lot with our students and our staff as well um so what's different and unique about tpva first of all it's the first virtual school option we've ever had in this district and because it's not for those of you out there who may not know the difference there are in the state there are two Commonwealth virtual schools and any student in the Commonwealth can go there if if they get in um because there are wait lists as well um and there are district schools like us we are a district school this school exists because the committee has approved it last year and therefore we have local control over the school and while we are in constant cons consultation with desie it's the committee that approves what happens in the school um obviously we're aligned with the Le strategic plan as I mentioned and it's also unique that we are now the Third District High School because we serve 8 through 12 so I do believe that it promotes communication between the three schools we're one of only eight District operated virtual schools in the state and um remember it was created to address very specific needs of students who face challenges um in a traditional brick-and Mor School setting so it's not the school made for everyone and those challenges might be things like anxiety social anxiety um medical issues issues of bullying or even perceived bullying those issues exist students can't relax their affective filter and they can't learn um so this school addresses that specifically and because it's such a uh specific kind of school we focus on individually meeting student needs and families because students come with their families right that's where they come from so we have to interact quite a bit with families and again we're unique because we have that embedded time in our advisory advisory block for social emotional learning so next portion is going to be a little bit on the progress of where we've been in the last year um just to give you a little snapshot of what happened since uh we last were here well for this year um we opened our doors in August and by midy year we were already at our maximum capacity our proposal to the state and approved by committee for this year and next year was at a maximum capacity of 75 students because that's what we thought made sense and we were cautious but we that's we reached that cap mid year um and I'm very happy to say that we're only we only exist when we started because of the the few people who were committed to this Mission and that with that commitment that's how it happened because it's not it's not a typical school and to make it happen our people had to be flexible and in that way that's how we made sure we were living our mission and again I mentioned the individualized attention to students and families we didn't just say that when we started out that's happening every day um and the this is the supporting students onsite is something that grew during the year that we hadn't thought too much about but this has been something that's been Key to Our Success there are times when um even though students are learning at home wherever they are we found that many there are many reasons that we want students to come on site but sometimes they just need a little in-person support and because we we want there to be increasing human contact human interaction because that's how people learn best we want them to come on site so we can't have them there everyday learning of course but it's say hey you're behind in your science class online you haven't done that class in a few days now you feel overwhelmed come on we'll sit with you one of us will sit with you we'll provide whatever support you need and make a plan so that's no longer overwhelming when you go home and just because we're a virtual school that doesn't mean that they weren't able to integrate our high quality C curriculum that's been adopted by the district our students don't deserve less rigor or a different curriculum um and our progress and I reported this in nove in December when I was here and I'm so happy to say that um when you look look at the total um attendance numbers for a virtual school the first time I looked at it in early fall I was like oh no the attendance doesn't look that great but then I thought well wait a minute these kids a lot of them were non-attenders or they had poor attendance because they had issues that weren't their needs weren't being met properly so we literally compared the attendance these students had in the previous year and their attendance with us and there was a huge increase and we did that same you'll see the slide in a bit so even though we have a room to grow with attendance the attendance of our students and the individual students that's improving and that's what we care about and of course down the line it impacts the attendance numbers for the whole district and the other thing that's been really exciting is that we're learning more and more with our partner imagine learning and genuity um there's so many data points that we can use to make sure that we continue to meet um the needs of our students online and put that together with the Baseline data that we've gathered this year with our on live classes so that's really exciting so how have we grown where does what does that look like so trying to put together to think about oh my gosh when we were scrapping it up this summer trying to say where's our pool of people that we want to come in the school where are they um it's hard to keep was hard to keep track of all of that but from summer in 2023 after the committee approved we probably considered around 400 different possible students um where how did we do that well we did some Outreach and we out we did some Outreach to students that had left the district to go to one of the two Commonwealth virtual schools and those are Tekk and greater Commonwealth virtual school so we did some Outreach to them hey they left us we weren't meeting their needs but now we have a virtual school is this something that you want to consider what are your needs and can we help you right here and keep you in the community we also reached out to students who left the district on school choice um and we also did some Outreach on homeschool students and actually got a lot of calls coming in um once they started to find out about this new school and now um in ongoing referrals the core of our referrals come from Taunton High School excuse me ta Taunton High School guidance department and I want to emphasize that our referrals come through Taunton High guidance because I believe that the guidance counselors have the most holistic perspective of the students that they manage and we don't want to take a student who may be not successful in one setting and then put them in another setting that may be not better that's disruptive to the student and it's not helpful and moving around isn't helpful so when the guidance counselors we've met and we talk on a regular basis they understand what the issues of the student are they have a really good idea of what we're trying to do so by getting referrals through the taunt and high guidance we're really maximizing the chances of getting students for whom we will be a good fit and that's really important to us and we also get the same referrals from um outgoing seventh graders from our middle school guidance counselors as well so here are some numbers um how many students did we one by one individually meeting with me and our school counselor did we enroll we enrolled 91 total students that at some point were enrolled in tpva of those 91 17 disenrolled or left us for one reason or another 11 of them returned to Taunton High School um a lot of them thought that well something is not working out or their parent wanted them in the virtual school because thought that might solve their problem but once they started or had a semester or a few months with us they realized it wasn't really a setting that was addressing their needs and they chose to go back to Taunton High School and we have a process with Taunton High School to transition them back there so 11 left for that three of them were successfully referred to the Alternative High School um and this was primarily because of um credit deficiency so when we saw students that were really credit deficient weren't making progress maybe fast enough um we referred them to ton Alternative High School and I've heard that I see them because we're in the same building and um they appear to be doing very well there and two students just moved out of the district and one student just withdrew from school so that leaves us with a retention rate of 81.3% which I am very very happy with with this is a slide I love because it shows you with the the blue bars show month by month um how our how our enrollment grew the blue bars do not show the students that disenrolled those 17 but it does show every month so you can see the progression by looking at the blue bars but what's really I think really cool for me is when you see the red line that overlaps with the bars those are the number of students who enrolled newly so if you look at the peak points of the red line the peak points are in August of 23 when the semester 1 began and then again in January of 24 when semester 2 began and that's exactly how we want it because the online portion of our of our um schedule consists of courses that are semester long courses through the online platform so students are much more likely to be successful be able to carry a full schedule and complete their full courses if they enroll during the beginning of the semester um so that is I'm happy to see that but as you can see that doesn't mean we didn't find ways to meet the needs of students throughout the year this is just some um information on how our enrollment is distributed um I'm trying not to make any assumptions but looking at these charts with Wonder and I want to watch them as time progresses to see how our enr Our Moment shakes out where are they distributed so the first bar graph shows by grade so you look at the bar graph you see most of our students are in ninth grade or 11th grade but if we compare it to what I presented last December our biggest growth from December until now was in the ninth grade so that's curious point if you look at the next bar graph those are students who are either on an IEP or a 54 um together so that just shows the the type of need that our students have and the majority of the 504s in IEPs are by the way primarily for social emotional reasons So that obviously that percentage of students on plans is much higher than at the high school or across the district this just shows the distribution of students in that in our school that are socio economically disadvantaged again it is a large percentage of our students more so than if you compare that to Taunton High School which is the same grade um the the first pie chart is just the enrollment distribution by race again just something to watch um and be pay attention to um if you look at the orange the orange are um the white Caucasian and that's we're at 50% right now which is less than Taunton High School again I think comparing it to Taunton High School gives you some perspective so we have a smaller percentages of white students and where the biggest change is is if you look at the Hispanic or latinx we have 27% which is much larger than than Taunton High and then if you look at distribution by gender we continue to have more females than males but again comparing that data to last December when I was here our biggest growth was was with the males so that was also a curious point attendance comparison this is what I referred to um a little while ago this graph shows that even though our attendance is not where we'd like it to be and we are going to continue to have that be be a focus for us it's still a big increase for the individual students that we have now so they're getting better they're getting more education now the next three slides I just wanted to show you real quickly just to I want you to leave you with an idea of what kind of data that we can use from our online partner to make sure we keep our eye on what our kids doing right because they're at home they're in their Chromebooks we have the ability to see everything that students are doing um there are so many different tools that we have but our our Imagine Learning Partner um can provide us with all kinds of things they gave me a yearend um report they gave it to me a little early so I would be able to see it and I'm not going to go through this slide in detail but you see all the different categories that we can use as our Baseline and be able to track over time on this this next chart there is something I do want to point out just so that you get an idea how are those kids doing at home are they doing all right are they passing are they getting credits um this data was pulled a month or more ago and if you see on the grand total line the number of students this is the number of students who completed courses so it was early in semester 2 students who had completed courses fully completed there were 34 of them now remember there are still open courses because it's still early in semester 2 but those 34 students completed 109 courses on Ingenuity they spent an average of 50 hours and 33 minutes working on those courses if you go to the last their actual grade on average was an 80 so they're learning and then if you're wondering what the overall grade is because that can be a little confusing the overall grade really you can think of it like their comprehension like maybe they missed an assignment so they got a zero on that assignment but for the assignments they did that's their overall grade so you can you can use it to measure are they understanding the stuff they've done um and this is just again just another tool that we'll be able to we be able to use in future this just happens to be how they track how the on demand tutoring was accessed by our students tutoring is one of the instructional tools one of the several instructional tools that Imagine Learning offers and this happens to be by month how many students used the um online tutoring through a chat they can be working for example anytime they want and it's on a Saturday they're stuck on a physics question they want to see if there's they just are stuck on something they reach out to the on demand tutor and ask the question now the the course also has a teacher but if that teacher is not right there right then to answer that question they can access a tutor and you can see that when we first opened in September from August to September there were a huge number of students that accessed that but then it waned so I guess for me that means we need to make sure every family understands that on demand tutoring so this is the kind of data that we can use to Monitor and evaluate moving forward just want to talk a moment about um student in family activity nonacademic things that are really important to us it's really important that we continue to promote the human interaction the relationships um with everyone so a few things that we've done we've had two very well attended very successful family orientations at the beginning of every um semester um every month we try to follow a theme for the month um usually during our advisory class for example when it was Hispanic Heritage Month we had a little gathering a little potluck this month is mental health awareness month and there's a poster contest going on right now in addition to the content that's being reviewed in The Advisory um I know I said this last time but I'll say it again we won the local scarecrow contest last fall we're very proud our school counselor is very much into that um the kids participated in some local volunteering which they just adored um we also partnered with the Alternative High School to have a field trip on to um Bridgewater State which that was great too I mean for a first year school just starting out to be able to do some of the things I'm very proud of that we've also run some college and financial n nights and one of our favorite things to do are these reconnect rallies so we came up with this term when we realized that see some kids are at home they're getting behind especially in their online classes you know we call them we email them but they're not here we can't reach out until the screen and pull them in so we invite them in for an event we call it a reconnect rally just come bring your laptop hang out with us we'll help you our staff is going to be available to help you with whatever you need help with and so that's something that we want to continue moving forward as well now obviously we have challenges and um there none of them are surprises which I was happy that when I had to evaluate what our current challenges are there weren't really surprised this here student engagement is a challenge for any school right no one you can you can do a song and dance but if the students aren't engaging with your song and dance then it doesn't matter and um we have the challenge of being virtual um in having the students give you know participate contribute how can they they participate more in classes how can we use the chat features better that sort of thing attendance of course is something the entire District continues to work on certainly we are also one thing that's a little bit unique to us is that we need to be able to codify these processes to run the school we are flying the plane while we are building it so we need to codify process IES they have to be acceptable to the to the district to the committee but they also have to meet the unique needs of our unique school so that is something we're going to continue to have to work on moving forward and of course Staffing you know it really all comes down to the to the human capital the people right so it doesn't matter doesn't matter how many you have um if they're not effective Staffing so it's very important for us to make sure that we have um the right people to meet our needs speaking of Staffing I think now is a good time to invite up um one of our teachers um Mr Kenton Gil Martin's our social studies teacher and I wanted obviously I have a principal with a prepared presentation in front of school committee um but I think it's really important to get in for you to have an inside view haven't prepped U my teacher or my student in any way at all I want them just to give their personal perspective um of tpva so Mr Gil Martin and actually I think I can help if we go back right here notice the um early tutoring help was in math uh we got a math teacher so I'm pretty sure that's why that number went way down they just went to our in-house math teacher but he's awesome they love him I went too far didn't I sorry it's okay all right so my name is Kenton gar and I'm the history teacher at tpva and um this is my third of teaching my first in the district I work alongside some pretty amazing people we have Erica our um counselor Aron is our English teacher Joe is our math teacher and Christy is our new secretary and of course our fearless leader Isa um it's hard to really put into words how amazing our staff is they um are just always so positive energetic but most importantly they always put the kids first and this team is really devoted to the students and their education and success so the main thing I attribute that fact to is the um really how we create a genuine human connection that's um really based upon compassion now this is not an easy thing to do in a brick and mortar school I taught seventh grade before here in Freetown Lakeville and um even being there in person was not an easy thing to do so the virtual school is just a whole another step it's another barrier so to say and it has been difficult at times but and quite frankly we've not been able to break through to every student like would' like to you know they all have their challenges they face in life they have their stories they have everything going on but we really do strive to bridge that Gap and um we are actively learning and trying new methods one of the best things I love working at the school is I'll come up with an idea I'll run it by Mrs Rodriguez and she will just say what do you have to lose try it out see how it see how the kids act do a survey at the end get their input talk to the kids so um our goal is to constantly adapt and make that genuine human connection because we want to connect to every student to help them really become the best version of themselves so every day we really do get better at this and um we get closer to that goal right which is delivering that first class education to those students who cannot be in a brick and mortar school so I'd really just like to end this off with a short piece of a letter that one of our eighth grade students um sent to US during Teacher Appreciation Week so coming to this school has left a big impact on me seventh grade was tough for me mentally I was so nervous to start um this virtual school I thought it would make me weird and different but that wasn't the case at all I feel so welcomed and appreciated I don't feel different at all if you guys ever think you're not leaving a big impact on your students you are I promise if you don't think um you are for the other students just remember you have changed my life believe it or not you left a massive impact in the seventh grade I had to wake up and I was scared scared of going to school scared of being judged scared of other people's opinions scared of never uh having the chance to be happy like I used to but here I don't wake up scared of anything I could wake up not being worried all the time I never have to suffer like that again there was a point I was giving up to be honest and a point where I didn't even want to go outside but you guys helped severely I'm doing better I could have done it without all of you I love you and appreciate all of you sorry that's that one was but um you'll hear from one of our other students but we really are making a difference here thank you for your time [Applause] now I'd like to introduce one of our graduating seniors um this is cie Pereira hello um I just wanted to say that like the virtual school has been really beneficial for myself and my education because when I was at tot and high I like struggled a lot with anxiety and getting myself actually into the school building and um I really like that I can Pace myself and keep track of my own school workor and then I just want to say that the staff they've been very kind and helpful and they helped me with my college application process and with writing my essay and I'm going to Bridgewater next year thank you now a student who states that she had difficulty with anxiety just did the thing that most people have the greatest fear of is public speaking and she did that she did that in a few months so thank you Cali she's amazing thank you and thank you Mr Gil Martin I really appreciate it so just wanted to say a few final things um clearly we have to talk about how this impacts the district financially right so I have two slides that I wanted to just review quickly and um I'm sure if um if need if they need to both uh Mrs moan and Mr caral can jump in so right now we're about about 75 student for our total enrollment and that's our maximum enrollment the FY 24 Pro people amount was as you can see it and so that would be the total amount is the amount that we get to keep in the district of students don't leave us to go have their needs met in a different Community or in a different School our contracted Services which is a partnership with imagine learning and the fixed costs so um that is the budget impact that's H we're having right now on the district so this we projected out just a bit what would it look like next year because um our approved Max cap is 75 um as Mr cabal has mentioned um we think we need to grow we filled up really fast and we think we can do that with the staff and in what we have now as tools um so we would like to increase that for the upcoming years it's a 5-year projective and increased numbers so if we were to reach anticipated enrollment of double 150 with the FY 25 per pupil amount 25 million we keep in with our contracted services and our fixed costs at at at about the same you can see the positive budget impact that it has on the district and I just wanted to end by saying you know we want to um moving into the future in addition to wanting to grow we need to keep make sure we have the right people in our positions at all all times um we need to continue to systematize our processes um we need to write you know write our policies and make sure that we're running smoothly so that we can maximize um all the resources that we have focusing on enrollment attendance and communication in the virtual world and um use some of that uh Ingenuity data in in addition to our own to be able to um make sure we have a plan for evaluation for next year and that's I have all I thank you so much for your attention and I'm happy to answer any questions thank you so much principal we'll start with Mr Reus great presentation my question is um you mentioned that you offer students the ability to come into school is that typical an on or virtual so it's Unique design no I actually I'm so glad that you asked that question um there are many different models and often times when I've I also belong to a national network and in addition to the state network of virtual schools and some of them will have a hybrid school where they might have students that go into a regular class but then go into a different room in the same school building to do some online work but that's not it what we were finding is in order to meet the individual needs we needed this student is getting overwhelmed we need to help them it's much easier in person can you come by can we find a quarter in the Cohan building to to sit with you um and they like it um that's a great that's and actually when um that started to happen in Taunton I have to say that my desie contact in charge of virtual schools loved it so much that she encouraged me to continue that and I at that that's the moment that I realized that yes we need we need that we need to make that more you know more systemic and we do came up with that idea was a great idea was thank you okay thank you Mr Reus Miss shavs eer I want to thank you because I know this was a a lot of work um to do and it's very impressive um a couple of questions that I have and one comment um so do the students get actual grades or is it a p fail they get grades so they get actual grades and they'll be graduating with Totton high students and to and alternative they get final course grades get they get credits we follow the same credit structure and we are not although some of our students do come in credit deficient um because they weren't able to attend regularly they might be a little credit deficient and we have some tools to support them we don't Define ourselves as a credit recovery school as the Alternative High School does I want to thank you for your data um and one of the things that though really jumped out at me is on on your slide number eight when you talked about the the the 17 students that left I think one of the things that you have to stress about that is 11 of them went back to Toton high school and three of them went to the tot and Alternative High School so we didn't lose them as a district and I think that's really important because if we didn't have this those students which were 14 we may have lost them completely so although it may have been a slight loss to your program it wasn't a loss to our district and I think that's very important so when you look at it you lost three students two who moved away and one that just red withdraw so I think those are excellent statistics for you thank you so much Mrs sh and thanks for bringing that up because some of those students had left tonh High had gone to a tekka or gcvs but they didn't go back there they went to tten high yeah great thank you palowski uh Isa thank you so much uh for the great presentation and all this work um I think one of the things I'm I'm most proud of about Taun Public Schools is that I think we really acknowledge that not every student learns the same everybody's so different so you guys have just created a completely brand new Avenue that did not exist before you literally had non-attenders you had kids that were straight up not going to school and now they're going to school and kids are graduating going on to colleges it's it's it's it's like nothing less than magic what you're doing it's it's it's really great I appreciate it and cie awesome job and like we were literally talking at work today somebody mentioned that more people are afraid of public speaking than they are afraid of death and you stepped up and and spoke in front of this whole committee so like great great job we're we're real proud of you so thank you thank you and by the way I had a I had a problem just speaking about C and you know students not having success last semester the school counselor Mrs matoza came up to me and she said Isa can I give C more classes she already finished her first semester classes and I said I never had that question before I said sure she did more classes because she wanted to and we have that ability thank you secretary Fagan yes I'd like to thank you for what you do because I have a a good friend of mine whose son was really struggling at the high school and she didn't know what to do and he's thriving there and you know I I because I have it I play another role somewhere else I had to do a whole bunch of State um mandated trainings as they say and one of it is it neurodiversity or something all right so I didn't know too much about that and I I'll tell you what there was some things I was like I don't know about this but there were other things that were really good in the training and I actually did it after we had the interviews last week I stayed up till 1: in the morning because I kept getting knocked off and I think it was that Colona thing with the Sun or something because they said everything so I had to keep rebooting the thing and and all that but they were talking about sometimes you don't realize that these some there's some distractions that people can't live with and you know I don't think I think we fail to see that often times too that you don't see those things that distract kids unbelievably I know I went to do we were doing a social studies curriculum revision and they put on music I can't listen to music and read I got to get out of the room I'm not saying I have that issue but if I want to concentrate on something even I turn the I may leave the picture on the TV to look up quick and see if anything's scrolling across the screen but I can't have all these sounds around me doing it and I didn't realize that that was an issue with people but I found it very interesting so the more we get to know about people the more we realize we can make some of the accommodations that help them to be successful but I've got to tell you she's been so happy since and he's thriving now he was not thriving so I want to thank you for that thank you Mrs Fagan you're welcome thank you secretary Miss Santos anything um I'll just say that I'm an educator as well too and whenever I had to teach asynchronous classes it was oh God bless you really like because as far as like student engagement that's definitely even when I do synchronous ones getting them to show their cameras and knowing that they're paying attention is one of the most difficult things and I think obviously with Co that really challenged a lot of students you know so having this knowing that certain students actually do really well with that is is is a great um just opportunity for them as well too um I just had a couple of questions as far as the which ones are synchronous and asynchronous is it like so is it the major subject areas that are synchronous and are the electives asynchronous that's what we strive for exactly what you said Miss Santos so we have um the the plan for the school is to have one major content teacher and a special educator and to make the schedule for the teachers and maximize the live teaching as much as possible considering the students that we have for example we may have more seniors than we have eighth graders if we were in that situation but we would be more likely to place the the younger students with a live teacher for a major course um so the on the online the Ingenuity is for all electives and any core classes that we can't cover with our live teachers and the good news is that they have a great diversity of courses yeah great um and just the other thing and I know this is obviously this will be your first time graduating seniors Right congratulations um where both you have two friends here at who we at Bridgewater State so you know that um I'm just wondering foreseeing transition back to in class in person for seniors right so considering her coming from the Virtual Academy is there anything in place that could helpfully help them train transition to going back to in person not yet specifically but that is a great question um in our first year we're like I said we're kind of noing but that is that's a great question and we'll be sure to take that back to Mrs matosa in the team because we do work the other thing is that we almost all work and decisions and what's going on we're able to collaborate as a team because we are such a small team so that is something that U we can contribute and actually we had some even some side conversations with with task while they while we were waiting outside so I think there's so much opportunity for growth and change all right thank you so much I'm gonna go to Mr wle first I'll come back to you Miss chvs Mr wendle Mrs Rodriguez I would like to make a few comments sure so I would like to commend you and your staff for um starting this Academy I was here in August I believe when you first presented this um I thought it was a great idea I took a severe interest in this I was talking about it for days after this meeting um maybe that's why we reached our cap so [Laughter] fast um but I think how passionate you and your staff are about this and about the students who are learning from home is great one thing that caught my attention during your presentation was on slide six when you were talking about supporting students on site um you said that students say they miss science class for a few days they can come in um talk to you get a plan in place for for how to unstress themselves so they're not worried about that and I think that's a great opportunity for students to have and I'd love to see that I'd love to see that more at taunt high school and all schools throughout our district so thank you for the work you and your staff do it is very beneficial and um well received by students thank you thank you Mr wend thank you Mr wend I'd like to make a motion to have Mr wend be champ please thank you Mr window Miss cha back to you just one thing what Melissa just said about the followup from the going to college when we met today and we were at the one goal they had talked about a new program at the high school that Taylor witness is working with helping students get off to college and part of their program is they do follow and help students up to October of sophomore year so it may be something that you may want to talk to them about how they're going to be working with the students because I thought that was very interesting and I do think that's really important I will I can definitely contact the high school about that and actually um I have already spoken to Mrs Golder and taon high guidance um to talk about what she does in her role and how we can expand what we do as well sure did you want to say something itself is a great way it's all about Mr Gil Martin please so just to follow up on your question on um prepping for college yes it's going to be very different because it's going from online courses to in-class courses but as we know a lot of colleges shifting to online but additionally what makes it really amazing for some of these kids is the time management aspect sure they have a schedule where they need to be in front of like me for history alas but all those electives especially the seniors who do a lot of the online courses that's one of the best ways I Can See For prepping for college because there's no class you go into you sure you're supposed to be at a certain place at a certain time but we have students who work who kind of need to do their classes at different times so it's up to them to learn that time management skill which I don't know about you guys when I went to college I wish my high school teachers maybe taught me a little bit more about that but uh it's actually a great way even before going College to learn maybe how do we say the hard freshman College lessons of how to time manage so sorry thank you yeah time management is definitely one of the biggest issues that our stud and I teach mostly freshmen so um yeah so that's great no I think learning how to I have this free time so I'm going to use it to this Advantage is definitely you know useful so keep that in mind as you you go on okay I'll just uh uh mention a couple of comments and uh also commend you uh for your leadership and uh making this happen the way it has happened uh honestly when the superintendent came to me uh and proposed this I said what the hell are you talking about so uh it was one of those you know build the plane fly the plane as you're building the plane type of thing and remember we were up against the major players right we were unknown and we were up against two major players across the state and I distinctly remember that we had a deadline and there was a a uh a markup that came back from the state uh regarding fix this fix that and how do you propose this how do you propose that and it was very stressful for you and I and I I I know you a little bit from you know outside of the classroom uh and saw the intensity that it was bringing upon you because I don't even think the state knew what the heck they were talking about so I I really honestly deep down think that the state or Desi whatever you want to call them uh learn from you and all of your input with all of the followup that went into the detail of the explanation of you know where we go from here and what's next so I I think the state owes you a little bit more uh so thank you for make a call for me and and one other thing I want to mention is you know I'm fascinated by the attendance comparison which is on slide 13 so it went from a 60.9 to 72.7 as far as attendance that's that's huge that's that's huge huge huge and uh I really really appreciate that and I just want to conclude by uh telling you and um Mr I'm sorry his name Gil Martin Gil Martin you don't have to worry about Kaylee following up with Kaylee she has two Folks at Bridgewater that will keep a watchful eye on her and uh she's actually my neighbor and I know she's going to succeed and and be a stellar student but of course uh keep up the great work and thank you thank you for all you've been doing for the district and thank you for your support because um I think everybody I think everybody in the room knows that um when you start something that you might not be sure about or other people might be you know not sure about um it's tough to have the confidence and learn things the hard way over and over and over again unless you have support so support's really important so thank you absolutely superintendent I I just only thing I can think of uh is like I think of a book I read this summer called and potential and here I see a teacher who worked in front of students in another Community who I feel has found their why found their purpose and really found something where they can he can thrive in and I see a student who has reached or is going to reach her hidden potential and the reason why we have the alternative programs as we learned from covid is we want to make sure that every student every staff member can reach their full potential in a in a place that meets their needs or meets them where they they're at so I'm proud of this program I commend again I commend the committee uh for having the trust in our leadership team uh and Mrs Rodriguez to put this together and also for supporting it financially because it does it does as you see it does not only provide a financial benefit but it also provides kids with a skill set to reach their potential moving on to college and universi so we can increase that number from 22% up to 60% so great job thank you great thank you is there any action requires superintend tonight again um if you would Pro if you would if someone would want to make a motion to support the increase from 75 to 50 second motion made by mrus seconded by secretary Fagan all in all in favor I all any opposed eyes have it good luck thank you thank you thank you so much thank you thanks next up we have uh superintendent's report uh I'll be brief because I believe most of you should have received this as these were press releases that we share with the community so I'm very proud of tton high school English teacher Meen faras Marine was recognized um black Excellence on the hill she was nominated by representative Carol dty for her work as the adviser of the African-American club uh contributions from Mrs faras throughout the community at ton high school she is part of true T and diversity Network she has organized an annual CLE cell fundraiser and walk she provides additional learning opportunities at the black Heritage Trail Museum of Fine Arts the zeran Performing Art Center in new Beford her background she is one of my former students that I had at middle at Middle School at Freedman when I was a principal and assistant principal she worked as a substitute teacher and she is now a full-time English teacher in the toon Public Schools since 2016 uh next um very proud to say that mass Insight recognized two of our English teachers at ton High School so special thanks and recognition to Colleen Conners and Deborah Logan who are AP Literature teachers see the award partners and in excellence award for Mass Insight on Education and Research it goes to demonstrate how Colleen and Deborah go above and beyond to support our students on the AP Literature exam and also to make sure part of the work with mass Insight is to make sure the underserved students have more access to AP cres so again it's a great recognition and a great award and just a true Testament to staff members at T high school they going above and beyond to make sure that all students have access and opportunities very excited to talk about how we had three teams one of my favorite events at during the year is the Junior Achievement company pitch program so it's like a high school version of shock tank at the beginning of the year teams are provided with $500 and they get to start a company they got to come up with a business plan they got to create a product they get to Market it and they get to sell sell it uh we had two teams from tunon high school and one team from the Taunton Alternative High School uh one team they came up with keychain creations and they had a handmade keychain and they raised over $1,000 but more important importantly our civic-minded students donated 10% of what they raised to a mental health charity we had tea tags from taon high school and they created personalized bag tags for backpacks using recycled materials they earned they generated over $750 and then we also had upcycles our us from Tau and Alternative High School and they made key change in jewelry from discarded plastic they were using bottle caps which was pretty cool they generated over $320 in profits so again it was a great competition I cannot commend our partners at Junior Achievement um they do a great job of really working with the kids and I I want to commend the advisers of tton High School Mrs Palumbo Alternative High School Mr mcale and Mr Rosa for supporting these programs and something that I keep pushing Junior Achievement and our high school folks I want to see this come down to the Middle School level I think honestly the middle school kids would outperform the high school kids that's just that's just my my thought so maybe that's something we can talk about next year and maybe having some seed money to make that come to a fruition if we sponsor two three one team per school that would be $1,500 if we did two teams per school that would be $3,000 so something you'll probably get from me at a later time and very excited to say that t High School senior latisia Lopes was recognized as the outstanding Vocational Technical student at taon high school as part of a marav celebration which was held in Worcester which I had the privilege of attending with Mrs Monahan and several other members of the tton public tton high school Community Leticia is an amazing student which many of you have met through High School advisory now she organizations that she belongs to the Massachusetts Korean technical Educators organization and the Massachusetts Association of vocational administrators this recognition is a Scholastic and Vocational achievements and I believe Leticia was the first tton high school student to receive this award so she is literally a pi a Pioneer so uh achievements you know she is the first student T High School to receive this award she is ranked 26th in her class with a GPA of 3.7 I the Red Sox team GP uh average was 3.7 the activities include student representative of the chapter 74 drafting Advisory Board as well as a student advisory committee representative she's a student ambassador she's a Catu Tuda let me catch my breath and she's also the president of the pier assistant leaders so an outstanding student and an outstanding reflection of our great community and what we produce at tton high school and with that that concludes my report thank you super place on file second uh motion made second it uh all in favor I opposed eyes have it and that's why I'm a Yankees fan superintendent hi next up administrative business we're talking about earned run averages okay that's that's why uh administrative business Staffing report wish of the committee wish of the committee mras second second by Mrs shabs all in favor I opposed eyes have it next up the Taun Public School Staffing update just providing the committee with an update um again this time of the year with 24 days left I do believe it will be difficult to fill these positions because the people who apply and accept these positions will have to reapply for the job because it's a midye higher so this was part of our May 1 posting and will be looking to fill these positions the fiscal 25 excellent second second by m M Fagan all in favor I opposed eyes have it thank you next up subcommittee reports will start over with curriculum Miss Santos here's your first one ever I know go get him off without a hitch um okay uh subcommittee um on curriculum and instruction met on May 2nd 2024 meeting was called to order at 3:40 p.m. Mr Chris barata Mrs sha Mrs Fagan and Miss Santos was in attendance uh superintendent cabal attended final minutes um this meeting meeting was largely informational Mr bar reviewed the various curriculum uh programs that are being utilized with the subject I'm not going to go through all of them but Through Math Science um all of those different programs so it was just kind of an overview of them he also State Mr bar also stated that the wellness and art will begin their curriculum review this upcoming school year so the 2024 2025 uh school year which will include curriculum meetings and eventually a presentation to the school committee so something to look forward to uh this meeting was also meant to discuss the subcommittee's interest moving forward uh Miss Fagan brought up a concern regarding student struggles with specific subject it was math algebra and I believe it was chemistry as well too right um she was made aware of these struggles after attending the most recent student advisory meeting um Mrs Shaw is the former department chair of um the math department acknowledged that there were some issues regarding the actual rating system of IM which is illustrate of math which is the the program that they use and also said that in fact in her 10e 14e span the math department had never presented their curriculum to the school committee and that there were a general lack of a Visions while we did not discuss this plan specifically during this meeting it is my wish I say this now as a subcommittee that that's something that we we look into going forward um finally we discussed Dr demello's referral to of the TLC program to the curriculum and instruction subcommittee Dr demello's referral is due to a recent incident that occurred at Chamberlain Elementary School and his overall concern over over the overall program Mr barata informed the subcommittee about the creation of a community impact team put in place by superintendent cabal that assesses the specific program superintendent Cal who joined us later um informed the subcommittee that the final report was completed um but needed to be synthesized so the subcommittee along with superintendent comol will be meeting um Monday May 20th um at 4 p.m. to discuss this report and the meeting was adjourned at 4:45 p.m. excellent report Miss Santos uh questions motion to accept the report second all in favor I I opposed eyes have it thank you again next up we have the finan and law subcommittee Dr Dello that was uh taking place earlier this evening uh present were myself and Mrs shavs uh first up we had cafeteria bid openings we had a bread first up we had two bids from kisi and fantini uh the bids were opened and and all information pertinent information uh qualifications were met and those were referred to Administration next up we had groceries uh there were three bids from Cisco Gordon and thirston uh same thing all of them met the bid specs and were also referred to Administration and the third uh bid opening was for milk we had two bids from Thompson and Katee Dairy and once again uh they met the minimum bid qualifications and specifications and were refer to Administration wish of the committee on those three items motion to accept the report and recommendations all in favor I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we had the Student Activity request it was a taught in high school for $1,250 and it's really duly noted to a junior prom um uh class of 2025 at the Venus de Milo and that was um the motion was made uh to accept the report in place on file by Mrs schams what are the wishes of the committee motion to accept all in favor I opposed eyes have it third up we had a procurement card update uh we had a memo attached with the very clear uh description of charges uh which is excellent uh under one billing statement under the pro card and I just had one uh question regarding a Home Depot Supply purchase of $20 and it was explained to me that the procurement the Home Depot accounts that we have the home Pro and the other regular Home Depot card I used for more major purchases through facilities and so forth so this was a one-off and of course there was no problem with that that was the only question and that was also uh uh approved and referred to uh Administration by Mrs shavs and that was unanimous wish of the committee motion to accept second and yes Mrs Fagan on discussion um can I ask a question about something here Cambridge printing company $7 7,739 if you could hold that for the next line we're going to do we're going to do the um fy2 24 quarter 3 budget update okay that that's GNA we'll get to that on the bills payable I'm sorry turn no problem so next up we had the fy4 quarter 3 budget update uh FY 24 quarter 3 line item budget budget update um pretty self-explanatory Mrs shavs also made a motion uh to receive uh and refer to Administration uh that's the correct motion that was made uh and that was voted unanimously unanimously what are the wishes of the committee motion to accept all in favor I opposed eyes have it uh fifth item we had the special education expense update uh on the memo it's basically a balance that's still left in legal fees for fy2 24 of just over $30,000 to be precise $3,924 we have budgeted $50,000 so we're standing in a very good financial position with that account and again uh that was uh voted by Mrs shavs to refer to Administration uh and place on file voted unanimously wish of the committee motion to accept second all in favor opposed eyes have it and last but not least we have bills payable for FY 24 in the amount of 1,539 18836 and again that was voted unanimously by Mrs shavz and myself wish of the committee motion to accept second on discussion Mrs Fagan yes so it's on page four the Cambridge printing company and it's for personnel and student service supplies in the amount of 7 $1,739 44 that was for we had to update our emergency preparedness manuals which is located on the wall so we had to we had to go out to bid and get three quotes and that was the lowest oh I was just curious because we do so much of that stuff at the high school we have you know we have a local printer and I just it just they were able they weren't well unfortunately there were certain requirement if you look at the manual there are certain requirements that were required that uh okay some inh housee we could not complete okay and the local vendor could not produce what we were asking for okay that's fine I just I didn't know what it was it just I've so many people that print up things that's why I wasn't sure thank you uh any other comments questions okay what are the wishes of the committee we did just the vote now oh I'm sorry we did that's right she's seconded on discussion uh all in favor I opposed eyes have it and that concludes the finance and law uh subcommittee report thank you next up we have item I new business I don't see anything under the new business move on yes unfinished business action item updates uh one two Hamilton Street use proposals discussion so this was the evening that the committee uh was going to use the last two weeks to review um the proposals that we shared with city council and not discuss a particular use but discuss the grade span so therefore we would have a better understanding as far as or the city would have a better understanding related to code what kind of codes they would have to provide answers to the letter that was sent I believe back in January regarding information that this committee felt they needed in order to make an informed decision so um I guess this would be an opportunity for discussion if anybody wants to talk about the grade span that we foresee being utilized in that building Mr psky so what are the different breakdowns of grade pre prek would trigger prek and I believe kindergarten would trigger um the fixtures in the restrooms and other fixtures being lower to accommodate the students um but as far as I believe the regular grades which we have in all our buildings uh would be specific codes if we were thinking a k or first one through 12 a middle school High School Model 5 through 12 those those would be similar codes okay anyone else Mrs S does that also include for Community College so again uh because they would be leasing space that would not apply in that case because it would be the dominant use Mr wski so I would like to propose based on what I've heard from the community what I've heard from uh people that work in to Public Schools all the different proposal look at I would think that the best use of that facility would be for grades somewhere between and 12 5 and 12 I agree second so in the form of a motion Mr pulski I wouldve that we that the grade stand usage of that facility would be from to 12 so educational use between five and 12 okay right anybody else comments questions this is Miss F I have a question we still don't have a report about what that building needs right are we still now we will based on the code okay right so this will facilitate the answers to our questions because now they can spearhead the use of the facility so we have a motion on the floor seconded by Mrs shabs all in favor opposed eyes have it thank you please forward that information to the parties that need to know next up we have the organizational chart uh that was displayed before us tonight uh looks pretty complete to me I think we need larger paper but uh my eyes my eyes arms my thank you Mr bski I'm turning um June 17 another decade we won't tell you which decade but another decade don't do that it gets you in a lot of trouble so anyway uh I don't know if anyone has any questions I mean just hit us tonight uh looks pretty complete to me so we can take it home and take a look at it what are the wishes of the committee a motion to approve is that it's not really uh I don't think approve motion to accept motion to accept there we go I just want to I just want to I just I just want to thank Mr Mar Tim clock and the leadership team for their work to make sure that this was updated it hasn't been updated I want to say close to 10 years so uh that's what happens when you have a Desi audit come in you have to update some documents so uh thank you Chris and thank you to the team thank you superintendent motion was made by Miss Santos seconded by Miss shavs Mrs shavs all in favor I opposed eyes have it action item update see enclosure any items that need to be disc discussed tonight I didn't see any not none at this time other than I did speak with the safety officer aseno shavs uh this week and we discussed some items regarding uh the email that he that I think was referenced at the last school committee meeting so we'll be scheduling a meeting with Bloom to discuss the what we just discuss with them or we discuss this afternoon excellent I don't know if we have any action needed on that so we'll go on to uh before we go on to press time I just want to remind everyone that the last day for seniors is May 24th uh we want as a committee I'm sure wish them the best of luck as they approach the final days of uh high school life and move on to their next career path so I know as a committee we wish them the best uh we have uh any other announcements superintendent that we need to make uh graduation uh we'll still have another meeting before no we won't we don't have that's why I think it's a thank you it's it's appropriate to recognize our seniors because we don't have another meeting to June 5th and they're going to be they will they will have had their last day and they will have walked across the stage on June 2nd and uh I can just uh again I want to thank the committee thank the community thank all our Educators for all you've done to support my senior at home she's had a wonderful education courtesy the top public school so thank you everyone excellent and uh a reminder uh graduation is June 2nd a Sunday at 1:30 p.m. you all have your sorry is that when it begins 1:30 yes we usually be there before before 1:30 yes we usually get together 115 absolutely so any get instruction any other items to discuss no uh press time any press in the audience no press in the audience a motion to adjourn will be in order so moved all in favor I opposed uh I'm sorry before we take that motion I'm sorry sorry just one item just a reminder um because of juneth we're going to have our last meeting in June on Tuesday but I after discussing and after discussing and analyzing we'll keep we'll stick to the same times six 5:45 finance and law then 6 o'clock we'll do our regular meeting it will be on Tuesday June 18th June 18 due to the holiday on June 19th last last day of school too thank you all right wonderful so now I will address the motion it was made in seconded all in favor to adjourn opposed eyes have it thank you everyone have a great night for --------- uh good evening the uh finance and law subcommittee shall come to order uh with attendance Mrs shavs present uh Greg Dello present uh first up on the agenda we have the cafeteria bid openings uh these are individual or all together bread groceries and milk are they each individual individual so they're individual so we'll take the bread uh bit opening first Mrs Monahan for the bread um bid we have two bids one is kisi Bakery and one is fantini Bakery Mr shs you want to open the bid or let the superintendent do it okay that's the other one is the there reference is complete specification sheet is complete nutritional facts have been provided comp of the train appears in all us but I would say that we refer this to our Administration due diligence when it goes out to bid do they have a list of stuff that they have to include in the bid yes all the items appear to be included but I would say re refer this one to Administration and also to do the calculation because this was a per item bid and they did not include the total cost we would have to calculate that and then bring the recommendation forward so Mrs sha a motion uh moot to refer to Administration being order motion to refer it to ad ation to come back to us second all in favor I they have the bonds they have the itemized lists references tax forms this also appears to be in order so I would say refer this bid to Administration okay so motion to refer that one to Administration second all in favor I I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have groceries this is Monahan take your time got some pretty big envelopes and stacks there well this one is um for groceries there are three bids one is from Cisco one is Gordon Foods and the last one is thirst Foods so one is this is an interesting bid oh my we have samples you would like that oh never pass on aale that's an interesting one that's that's a first that's a quite big yeah not tick is it thank you very oh wow this is all the backup documentation for the for the spe sheets pretty cool huh very thorough comprehensive very organized so regarding the actual bid take these away brother these are just the backup so Cisco has included the check and and a disc with all the backup trck is in the appropriate amount so we got the banker check sign documents notorized I pressed in the insurance document so this appears to be an order why don't we check all three as far as one make one recommendation so that appears to be in order thank you this one is I just open here this one is Gordon Foods so they local right our backyard there's also a flash this one refences warranty insurances invitation non ction bid bond has been included for $100 been notorized liability pricing list is included everything appears to be in a recording last bid is for groceries is thirst Foods didn't open that one yet are they the incumbent I honestly I don't remember right off they they have otherb well they have other on not sure I know they are part of us right now check is included price list is included taxes collusion everything appears to be in order with this one too so I would refer I would make the recommendation or propose a recommendation to refer these three bids to Administration okay Mr sh yes I I recommend that we put those to Administration to compare them and have um John or Brenda come back to us with the information sure if I can just add to the motion so the three bids are Cisco Gordon thirston to be referred to Administration I'll second that all in favor I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have milk milk we have two bids um Thompson food service and Cape Dairy that is the first one Thompson food thank you sure this is Thompson open that one and I'll Che thank you cashier check is good unit pricing is included taxes non collusion this one appears to be an audit to I would make a motion and do both there two or three two have you I haven't opened it I opened it you I didn't know if you wanted check is included schools taxes unit pricing non- collusion this appears to be in order I would I would uh suggest a motion to refer both bids to Administration I make a motion to refer both bids Thompson food and Cape da um to Administration to review I'll second that all in favor I I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have the Student Activity uh request uh first item is the one and only item is the taau in high school uh Student Activity account in the amount of $1,250 Mrs sh I make a motion that we accept it okay uh I'll I'll sec I'll second that and place place on file all in favor I I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have the procurement card update C attached memo so does you want to speak about that on ahe um again as we do monthly we have the charges for the procurement card as you see for the month of April we had charged $ 26,572 and then a breakdown of all the charges and then the colorcoded as you can see what they are charged to but I will at I will ask you to look at the bottom of the memo that the charges for the peacon of that 26,000 um $1,769 was charged to Grants three just under $4,000 was charged to revolving $39 is in charged to Food Services budget and 9,352 42 was charged to school budget great any questions comments Mrs shavs no I make a motion that we accept this and put it on file okay on uh discussion just one question so description of charges we have Home Depot supplies it's only $20 but I'm I'm still trying to understand we have a Home Depot Pro and a Home Depot something or other so why was this put on the pro card so probably with this one here with the for the procurement card this one could have been um a staff member a principal usually our procure our um Home Depot credit card is grounds keeper storekeeper and N facilities okay great so motion's been made I seconded all in favor I I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have let me get my agenda back here oh right here we have the FY 24 quarter 3 budget update uh FY 24 quarter 3 line item budget update Mrs monan at the last meeting when we presented the quarter three uh budget updates one of the concerns was the line item budget where we would ask school committee to let um allow these the administration to go ahead and balance the lines and then prepay um out of district tuitions and also if anything to buy supplies for the following year there was an understanding of where was the monies encumbered and how was that there how did we have the monies that we did have it looked like we had a larger balance than we did superintendent did explain that a lot of it had been encumbered and that has been the the case so again there are numbers that are encumbered um and so as you can see we have a balanced budget but there will be some numbers that we will be able to fluctuate between lines to balance the lines so right now you're saying that as of April we've used 7 72% of the budget corre probably you got April May June you'll get a little bit closer but you won't make it to the 100% and you're allowed to prepay tuition and you're allowed to buy um materials correct supplies for the yep exactly those are the two areas right those are the two areas we normally ask okay okay so is this just to receive and place on file I would we would like to have the authorization to begin prepaying fy2 5 tuition for quarter 1 and if there's any funds at the end of the year once the business department in particular payroll and bookkeeping uh once they hash out all the incumbrances if there's any funds remaining to be to also prepay prepay and to pre- buby supplies for fiscal 25 I make a motion that we pre- buby um um supplies and pay tuition um and put this obviously on file I'll second that on discussion I'm still struggling you know we're we're we're so hung up on fy2 yet we have classrooms without teachers we have schools without Librarians and uh just today received an email from a parent that's not too happy uh and I'm I'm trying to you know wrap this around me and uh you know I'm I'm All About You Know making sure that we don't have to provide money back and we have a balanced budget and all that stuff so um you know that's where I'm at I don't know if the superintendent wants to add anything about that or so that parent was contacted by the high school English department head English language department head to discuss the succession plan that we had in place the funds for the teacher are encumbered that's why we have the encumberance line because all those salaries for the remaining of the year are incumbent so if we do identify a teacher the funding is there to pay them for the next 24 days or we can move them into 24 this is again a practice that we have utilized over the last 15 years to begin putting us in sound financial position for fiscal 25 and fisal 26 so if we do find the staff member we do find the librarian those funds have been encumbered where we can bring them in and have them on staff so and our our budget will be overspent we are going to overspend our budget because I want to ensure no offense to Mr enus I want to ensure that we don't return funds to the city so we are going to overspend our budget and then we will balance those lines in deficit using any balances on lines that exist once we hash out on the incumbents lines and see if we have Surplus which we usually do or we'll utilize some of our grants to balance itself out so again this is just a sound business practice that many school systems utilize and one of the reasons why we've been financially uh stable over the my 15 years as assistant superintendent superintendent I appreciate that of course as a school Committee Member I'm also very proud that we have a balanced budget going forward we're not laying off anybody and we're going to continue to sustain programs are necessary for the students so uh motion was made I seconded uh all in favor I I opposed eyes have it thank you thank you next up we have the special education expense Services C attached memo is that you Mrs monam yes um again for the month of um March so we have spent we have a budget of $50,000 for our special education um legal services and for that month of March we spent $2,991 bringing the total charges to the year year to date $199,000 which leaves us um about a budget balance for this line of 30 just under 30 uh $31,000 I make a motion that we approve this and violet yeah just a place on file I guess place on file I'll second that all in favor I opposed eyes have it thank you and last but not least we have a bills payable for FY 24 in the amount of 1, 53,9 18836 Mrs shavs I thought I had one question the um page 20 the STD travel what was that for that was um for 10,000 it is for travel housing for skills USA to Atlanta okay that's coming up okay I did we approve that on the field trips right yes that's a deck of field trips gotcha okay anything else Mr shs no that was my only question thank you okay what are the wishes I have to read the amount here where is it so I I put a motion to put on file for this uh warrant 1, 153,50 and 36 I'll second the motion uh all in favor I I opposed eyes have it thank you that concludes the finance in law agenda motion to adjourn would be an order motion to adjourn second in favor I I opposed adjourn thank you