okay good evening everyone thank you for joining us I call the meeting to order if you could please join us in the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all oh say can you see by the dawn night what so proudly we held at the Twilight gleaming who BR stripes and bright stars through the per or the parts we watch were so and The Rock rare the bombs buring in air gave Pro through the night that our flag was still there [Music] oh that [Music] starled wave the land of the free and the home of the bra Mrs Fagan if you would deliver indication yes 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 this evening I have two people to uh honor they've both passed away recently and had an affiliation with the school department the first one is Linda Perry whose maiden name was Esther Brook a resident of East Taun who passed away on Saturday March 16th with her loving family at her side she was born in tarton and graduated from tarton high school in the class of 1964 continued her education at Bridgewater State College she worked as a bookkeeper for over 43 years for her husband at Perry service station on Broadway in Taunton but her true God calling was being a crossing guard for the bird streets in East tarton for the tarton school department for 34 years she never missed a single day of work um rain snow or shine she enjoyed tending her yard especially her flower beds playing bingo she was a New England sport teams fan as well as a Nascar fan with her husband and she never missed an episode of Blue Bloods and but above everything she loves spending time with her family um in addition to her husband she survived by her two daughters Susan faer her husband Scott of Berkeley Deborah Gad and her husband and uh siblings Donna estherbrook and Scott eser Brook and her two grandchildren Matthew and Megan farry the second person who passed away recently was Rosemary Parker who passed away on March 24th with her loving family at her side she was the Beloved wife of Richard A Parker and she was also known as Dolly to people in tarton she met her future husband Richie at cohannet school and they both graduated from tarton high school in 1954 she worked at St Pierce shoe store taon down in downtown tarton she they were married in 19 19 60 and her favorite job was becoming a parent um a mother to her three children Lori Richard Anthony and Donna Louise she later worked for the Gazette at rri a in Taunton for 11 years she retired from R Aid to her next favorite career being Anana to her grandchildren Christina who is a teacher at paret school Bethany Matthew uh lorano who's a police officer in Taunton and um Ronin Andy and Dylan and was was very thrilled to become a grandmother to Matthew lano's son who was recent so her first great grandchild Landon Paka uh lorano she enjoyed enjoyed spending time with her children and was such a cat lover that she had at least 20 cats in her lifetime and rescued a wild bird who survived under her loving care for 17 years so she is also Donna Lano has also been a longtime employee of the Tor school department she began as a teaching assistant and became active in the uh your finance office and that's where I had first met her so our our sincere sympathies go out to both of these families um their dedication to the city of Taunton and the history they have with the school department please keep them in your thoughts in your prayers so have a moment of silence for Linda a Perry and um Mrs Parker thank you thank you Mrs Fagan and on the roll call um Mr Reus present Mrs sh present Mr palowski present Mrs bin present Miss Santos present Mr Vieira present Mr Louis Laura present and Dr Gregory Dello present and mayor o conell present thank Youk you approval of the minutes of March 20th motion to approve second on that motion and second seeing no discussion all those in favor opposed none opposed so voted uh is there any public input this evening no public no public input thank you and oh I'm sorry I skipped the student advisory committee report uh so we have lyanna MOA and Isaiah Wendell here tonight we're so thrilled to have you guys here tonight so I'll hand it right over to you for your report thank you mayor Connell um um some things that are going on at the high school right now um last meeting I spoke to everyone and I said that we will be holding an mcast pep rally for our students our 10th grade students who were testing um last week for our English mcast that was a huge success a lot of students enjoyed it um following something that was mentioned in that um pep rally was that all the students who attended mcast for both days um Tuesday and Wednesday were rewarded um ice cream sandwiches there was an ice cream social held at Taun in high school during eblock um the following third Friday I believe and um students get to stop socialize with their friends in the cafeteria while enjoying an ice cream sandwich which was a great reward for um showing up and testing for um their education another um thing that is ongoing at Taunton High School is the national foreign language exams um I know I know that Latin exam has already been conducted um next week the national Spanish exam will be conducted students passing these national uh language exams uh can come with various rewards and benefits these include academic recognition such as certificates medals or awards for high scores for the students and the school some schools or organizations might offer scholarships or other Financial incentives to top performers which is a great benefit to taking this exam and I wish all the students who have taken it and will taken it the best L thank you so our spring sports teams have officially begun their Seasons um our girls softball team competed in Sharon recently um where they were filmed by Channel 12 News and they were given a short segment um all of our teams have had their first matches and we are wishing them the best of luck in their upcoming ones Taun and high school symphonic band will be attending the mic Festival this upcoming Saturday our band has previously done very well at this festival and of course we wish them all the best and our sure they'll put on an excellent performance again uh for this one we've had lots of class and Club field trips recently um today admitted seniors went to UMass dartm to toward their new campus soon our active Minds chapter will be taking a field trip to Gillette Stadium active Minds is a new club about mental health and breaking the stigma surrounding it it made its debut this year at ton high and we are so incredibly excited to watch it grow in addition um student council will be attending their Cass conference shortly um and finally taon high is participating in the historically black universities and colleges field trip for the first time um this year is our first time doing that we're not going this year we're going next year but we're preparing for a next year this year um they uh the uh Team behind this has made incredible fundraising efforts and have put so much work into making this trip as successful as possible we are so grateful to our staff members who are chaperoning and the students who are attending we are on glad these clubs are able to participate in these field trips and we are so grateful to our devoted students and staff chaperons for making them happen finally I would like to highlight latia Lopes on her nomination for the outstanding vocational Student of the Year award highlighting students in CTE chapters letia is part of our CAD program and has devoted countless hours um to this program she recruits students to join as well as supporting her peers in the class this is a state award and we are Beyond proud of latisia for this incredible accomplishment the following is a short statement from latia I would like to thank Mrs Hartung and everyone else involved in this amazing nomination and Mrs Von flanter my cad teacher for supporting me throughout my journey as a CTE student I really appreciate my hard work and effort being recognized not only on the school level but also on the state level once again congratulations to laia and that concludes my report I thank you all for your time and attention Okay thank you guys great job um it's always nice to hear like how much Community there is at Taunton High School and how hard the students work work to make it that way um you guys really lead all of these clubs and um uh events and efforts that you have so um it's great leadership skills so thank you all right see nothing else all right we will move on and next we have the fy2 preliminary budget we did approve the minutes yeah okay you can really I can see from here can you okay yeah yeah get it better you we don't want that oh thank you me thank you so before assistant superintendent morahan and I dive into the preliminary fy2 budget I do want to spend the moment to recognize that this was truly a team effort more so this year than it has been in the past so I want to recognize the leadership team Mr Bara Cheryl buts Amy monan Stephanie Hoy as well as assistant superintendent moan I also want to recognize our curriculum leaders Danielle Kurt Liz palowski Del Mendoza and Hillary bresenhan as everyone played a role in developing the document that you see in front of you and they also played a vital role in the student Opportunity Act which is also in the packet so that'll save some time on the back end when we cover the student Opportunity Act so this is one of I believe four budget presentations that you will hear between now and June when we go before the city council so again these are preliminary numbers based on the governor's house one budget presentation the packet is uh comprehensive and it's broken up into 11 sections I won't go through in detail each section but we did provide you with a table of contents I also think it's important for us to understand who we are and some of the some of the items that I'm really focused on as a superintendent and areas that I believe that we can continue to grow in the work that we're doing as a district will not only benefit the school department but I also believe it'll benefit the community and if you look down on the right on the left hand column where we have 84% of our residents have a high school diploma or better and in our we know as a school system we graduate close to 93% of our kids so I believe we can do a better job of having more residents attain higher levels of Education because we also know that 60% of our students go on to University or College college and yet about 23% of our residents hold a bachelor's degree or higher I believe the higher we drive those numbers are the higher we're able to drive those numbers and I do think the work we're doing with BCC with the Early College uh designation where students will be able to earn a high school diploma and 30 graduate credits towards College will help to drive up the median household income because we do know there's a correlation between the level of education and the earning power which I then believe will also drive up the property values time so I do believe education is not only a driver for personal gain I also believe it's a driver for the community and P and wealth of our community I won't bore you with our vision statement and our mission statement the Strategic objectives should be very familiar to you now as we are year six but what I will share with you and again this is where I need to thank the leadership team and our curriculum leaders is this is just some of the work that we've done over 5year period in alignment with our strategic plan and this can only be done by being funded to the level in which the city has continue to fund us so I want to thank the mayor in previous administrations for always honoring the 100% net School spending we also want to acknowledge the work in the business office for being very Savvy when it comes to going after the grants and the work of my leadership team and also the way we've utilized one-time funding whether it was Esser or the dollars we received due the student Opportunity Act so the these are our curriculum improvements in alignment with the Strategic plan culture and climate outcomes in alignment with our strategic plan and again budget and operation and performance indicators all the work that we've accomplished during my five years six years as superintendent thanks to my team and for family engagement Community Partnerships know those are just some of the indicators and some of the work and again this is work that is ongoing as I shared with you who were on the board six years ago this is a Liv breathing document so it morphs it changes it evolves and now that we are year six into uh my my tenure superintendent it's time to revisit the plan and modify it to make sure it's meeting the needs of our community and the to Public Schools I'm just going to give you some quick background um I would love to take credit for this information but I really want to thank Doug howgate from the Massachusetts taxpayers Foundation a lot of the work a lot of the slides we're going to cover now uh come from his group and I did cite or did reference this as a sauce so I don't I just want to point out that the governor's fiscal 25 budget comes during a time of transition with the trr the current C tax collections are down 212 million and for fiscal 24 you saw the budget increase from 23 to 24 by more than 7% so due to underperforming tax revenues back on January 8th and I saw an article today where the governor has actually put a hiring freeze into effect between now and the end of the fiscal year the governor and her team had to reduce the budget by $1 billion and how did they do that so they did that by the next bullet the shortfall announcement was accompanied by a$1 billion proposed solution which included 625 million of unanticipated non-t tax revenue as well as 375 million in net in net spending reductions so again this budget will be very similar to the budget I'm presenting to you today because as you also see in the next bullet the the the governor and at the state level is focused on restrained spending so I don't at at this point in time in the school system as you'll see later in the presentation as far as New Growth expanding the school department when it comes to new positions I believe we're at the point where we've we've Meed our capacity for New Growth as far as adding to our Budget moving forward if we do add to our budget I will be coming to the school committee with recommendations on how we can repurpose funds or reallocate funds to fund positions which we do have a couple of examples that I can share with you later on in the presentation you'll also know that this is a level service budget so all the current positions in the fy2 24 appropriation as well as our Esser positions have all been rolled over into this budget we are not reducing staff and I'm very proud to say that our three-year plan to slowly grow be fiscally responsible minimize the the use of our reserves is now paying dividends as you look around we see many school systems unfortunately uh for whatever reason have been forced to make reductions which is impacting as we know student learning and again without being funded using those one-time funds all this work would not have been accomplished so I'm very proud of the team for being fiscally responsible and for the school committee and the mayor for putting their trust in us on how we maximize and utilize our funding again just some more slides the blue indicates what was the estimated Revenue collection so this is what the state was estimating the revenue to be the yellow demonstrates what they actually collected and as you know we're in April so we have two months uh where we do not see what the state collected so as you can see the projections were very high the results are coming in much lower than projected this next slide again just to kind of give you an idea of what the revenues were actually at so we look at fiscal 20 we know what happened in fiscal 20 that was the pandemic everything shut down but I believe at the time the state was on track to to exceed the projected revenues and then in fiscal 21 fiscal 22 we started seeing a lot of federal dollars entering the state um so again that kind of indicates why we saw such dramatic growth in fiscal 21 and fiscal 22 and even into fiscal 23 but now as we look at fiscal 24 and fiscal 25 we we start to see the Revenue projections from the state starting the Flatline in the yellow represents a modest 5% growth because I I believe if you look at most communities they some well I won't get into most communities but 5% is very modest growth and if you're making 5% on your Investments I think we'd all be very happy so I think 5% is a good number for growth the next slide is with the stabilization fund and in this budget the mayor the state budget the mayor does not utilize the stabilization fund and personally I believe it is a wise decision not knowing what the Outlook of fiscal 25 may be so I wouldn't be surprised if the state dips into the stabilization fund as a way to balance any deficits due to low Revenue projections again it's a very similar strategy that we've utilized as a school department so you'll see back in 08 09010 which was the last economic downturn or you might want to call it a crisis when the housing Market collapsed revenue or in the rainy day account or the stabilization fund was very low fiscal 20 onset of the pandemic and then you see the dramatic growth where it's gone from about $4 billion in the stabilization account to over8 billion with a projection of projected $9 billion in stabilization fund by the end of this fiscal year and very little growth for fiscal 25 am I going too fast okay and then the next slide again these are just the the revenue collections that the state has the state is projecting so in fiscal 21 34 billion fiscal 22 41 so almost a$7 billion increase in Revenue collected and then you see again 38 billion which is a drop of about 2.2 billion and then we see a bump in fiscal 24 they were projecting a $1.5 billion increase however it's looking like it's going to come in at about a $500 million decrease based on their projections and for fiscal 25 a $800 million increase again these are very modest projections uh this next slide is just to emphasize the growth in Chapter 70 so in chapter 78 which is what every dollar spent in education in ttan 80 cents comes from in the form of chapter 78 you'll see in fiscal 20 the governor for Chapter 70 increase was $270 million fiscal 21 we know what happened then that was the year after the pandemic and then we saw the implementation I believe of the student opportun act in fiscal 22 fiscal 23 and fiscal 24 which align with the revenue projections that we see here we also know that inflation was Skyhigh fiscal 23 actual inflation was 7% fiscal 2 4 actual inflation was 8% but there was a cap of 45% this year for fiscal 25 actual inflation that this formula is being based on is 1.35% this next slide is what I added and I believe it was Mrs tar Melissa Mrs texara who brought this to my Mrs Santos I apologize I had a brain freeze I'm in budget land right now so my my world is numbers so so I apologize but I believe it was an email that you sent to me uh mentioning about what we could do to advocate for addressing the inflation Factor so I apologize for the for the mishap so I thought it would be important to put this in and to also identify that the mas and masc as well as the urban superintendent I believe the ATF and the MTA are also advocating for this change so the Chapter 70 formula is used to calculate how much funding school districts receive however the formula has not kept up with inflation so you'll see bullet three inflation in fiscal 23 was 7% the inflation cap is 4.5% that's a loss of 2 and a half% to the Chapter 70 formula inflation in fiscal 24 was 8% the cap again 4 and a half% that's a 3 and a half% difference so in total that's a 6% l loss of Revenue to the Chapter 70 formula because it did not follow true inflation so this wasn't always the case back in 0809 during the market crash there was language that existed that accounted for adjustments when this happened so we are advocating uh through the associations that one of them you belong to that I belong to we are advocating that adjustments be made to account and make up the difference in the inflation loss and if that inflation loss were to be made up that would add an additional $211 million to the 263 number that I'm highlighting in yellow and bring the Chapter 70 increase up to approximately $474 million so that is advocacy that I am participating on through the Massachusetts Association of superintendent the urbans network and I hope that as the an association of school committee members that is something that you will advocate for as well as you are members of the masc so I thought that was an important slide to add so Melissa thank you for reminding me to add that and I apologize for the name I that I so I forgot the name and you forgot the email so we're even so I'll turn things over to assistant superintendent moan thank you superintendent cabal so in front of you is our budget timeline um fy2 budget timeline So It Begins um through the state the governor's budget which was released in January 24th of 2025 so chapter 7 70 for FY 24 we received um 88.9 million for the upcoming fiscal year Chapter 70 increased by $5.9 million to the tune of 94 mil 89512 so where does that go from here from here we will go and the budget will go through the house which is in happening around in the mid April then again that may increase the budget or may usually just stay the same in the past we've seen an increase and times we've seen no change have we really seen a decrease seldom have we then it goes into the Senate and again same thing will it increase will it decrease there have been years we increase slowly or no increase at all again no decrease then lastly they go into the conference committee budget which is around in June of 2024 in that same month there are vetos and overrides and then a final budget is approved through the governors through the state in June of 202 4 so where are we with Chapter 70 summary so we're going to look at this current year which is fy4 and then the year that we're presenting for next year of fy2 for Taun in public schools our enrollment increased by 160 students well that's a good thing where other districts are seeing a decrease in enrollment which also will mean a decrease in their Chapter 70 funds the foundation budget was an increase between the two years of $8.5 million the required District contribution is an increase of $2.6 million which will in which means that the Chapter 70 increase will be about $6 million so we are seeing about a $6 million increase to the Chapter 70 fund net School set um net School excuse me required net School uh spending is an increase of $8.5 million now I I'm sure you're saying my goodness what are all these numbers and please know as we go into our budget Workshop school committee members we will go dive into this a little bit more so there's if you have specific questions I will be happy to answer those questions at that time or of course during this presentation so here is the FY 25 Chapter 70 budget Foundation budget so where do we get these numbers and how do we get these number uh this money well all of our you see at the very very top this is where you see the basic Foundation components which is our grade levels preschool half day we don't have half day kindergarten but full day kindergarten elementary junior middle and the high school and then a vocational why do we see a separate in vocational well that's for our chapter 74 programs at the high school the more chapter 74 programs or students who elect to um be a part of the chapter 74 taau and public schools receives additional funding so that is why we are very truly committed thank you to the to the school committee and to the high school for increasing our chapter 74 programs and then where we are not really it's kind of difficult where you're having a certain percentage for the increment mental costs on that base on that base from special ed to English language Learners and then lwi income so at bringing those all together currently again for the fy2 we have a total of enrollment of 8,235 students which brings our foundation budget per pupil of $6,995 okay so again as superintendent cabal stated that the majority of Chapter 70 increases and all comes from the state which is about 68% of the governor's budget so I I'm going to go on both sides but I want to look first to the left side of of the slide so here where you're seeing where we're seeing our increases and again the increases in that previous slide of the Chapter 70 Foundation budget every time we have an increase in enrollment that's where we're going to get more monies so if we're looking at there taunton's Foundation budget increased by $8.6 million for fiscal 25 so the re required local contribution increased by $2.6 million and then the chapter 78 increased by 6 million so the biggest ones are you seeing the bolded um numbers our full day kindergarten program we increase by 45 students Elementary we increased about 44 students junior middle school 19 students we increased 60 students just at the vocational and then our low income we added three additional students now again that low income we get a little bit more because we are on a desile um amount so there are about 10 is it 10 or 12 I forget now um and we are the 10th Den desile for low income which is very high for low income so here required net School spending is about 139 million 952 638 where does that go so 68% comes from the state which is 94 mil 89512 68% and then the city's share is about 32% and makes up that balance of $45 million looking at the bottom we're looking at the difference between this coming fiscal year and the fiscal year that we have in uh we are currently in so again our foundation budget is increasing from last year to this year by $8.6 million the required District contribution is increase of $2.6 million where you will see the chapter 78 increases by 6 million again all these numbers are a lot but as we go further into this into the presentation they will kind of get a little bit clearer I'll turn this over to superintendent cabal thank you assistant superintendent monan so again uh just to kind of share where we are in the budget process so sometime in May when we provide you with another presentation we should have that April column filled in and again if there are any adjustments you will see the adjustments made there but again just and then in May once it gets through the Senate you'll see any adjustment or any increases or decreases reflected there and then how do we get to 100% net School spending and how do we determine or come to an agreement uh with the with the mayor the CFO Patrick deluso on what we believe 100% net School spending dollar amount should be so did confirm this number with CFO delar ruso today I wanted him to be aware that we were making this presentation today and we have agreement now but again it is a moving Target I want to reiterate this is a moving Target as assistant superintendent moan mentioned required net School spending is $139 million eligible indirect costs so we're projecting indirect costs next year to be around $30 million indirect costs go up by about $2 million a year So based on the history of how indirect costs have gone up every year we forecasted that indirect costs will be about $30 million for those who are new on the committee indirect costs are the services that the city provides to the school department for example the building department we are assessed 75% of the building Department's budget uh the auditor we are assessed a portion of their budget because they process all our vouchers um the payroll department they help process all the checks for the school department Department health insurance is factored in because the city picks up 75% 73% of the health insurance cost and retiree health insurance so all those services and all those benefits come out to what I believe will be around $30 million next year and what's Mrs morningand I believe will be $30 million next year what's not eligible is transportation in crossing guard so when you back out the $ 11.5 million you're left with that number so we believe to truly reflect 100% net School spending a an appropriation request of 12,589 479 uh is a 100% net School spending and the city meets their requirement and that's all we're asking for as the city to meet their requirement and if the city can do better or can do more of course I would always appreciate more but In fairness 12,589 479 is the appropriated amount that we are that I'm requesting in this preliminary budget and again that number changes because of any uh adjustments to inflation during the house and during the Senate then I would expect the Chapter 70 increase to be reflected and you'll see that number changing just a history of net School spending history uh you'll be surprised to this day you still have school systems that are not meeting the 100% net School spending requirement which is in uh this orange column here so for fiscal 23 there were five that were below and the average was 129% net School spending in fiscal 24 of the 291 reporting there were eight that were below 100% 100% net School spending and the average is 128 and today 27 districts have yet to report so that means they're still going through the end of the year report our end of the year report was already audited and this is just all the urban schools uh Cambridge in Boston really kind of skew this report I know Mr enus you're not a fan of this report but Cambridge and uh and Boston you and I so uh Boston so but you'll see that most urban communities are hovering right around that 100% nit School spending and again we're urban communities we have a lot of needs and a lot of Demands and again with the local required contribution profile the only thing that I'll mention is you'll notice that there's a trend regarding the state contribution the state contribution has continuously increased since fiscal 18 to fiscal 25 from 71% to 80% and if you follow the slide we're asking for an appropriation of 120 million chapter 78 is 94 almost 95 million again so that 94 million represents 78.6 n% of that number the state increase was $6 million that's a six almost 7% increase the city's contribution to get to1 20 is 256 and that's a local contribution or 21% of that number so again the local increase and again I want to be fair the city has met its 100% net School spending but it does demonstrate that there is a that there is a decrease compared to the previous year which was 1.7 million and the percentage decrease but it does equate to 100% net School spending and I want to reiterate this is a moving Target our transportation costs may go up our indirect costs may go up for whatever reason our crossing guard costs May decrease those are all moving targets which will play an impact on the final net School spending number but I believe 120 million 589 will get us to 100% And then just to kind of that visualization 80 cents on every dollar is it comes in the form of chapter 78 while 20 cents comes from the local contribution am I back to you M so as superintendent said and we had discussed in previously um currently the fy2 proposed expenditures is 120 m58 5894 se9 that equals the fy2 C appropriation which means that it is uh total balanced and there's no uh variance so the proposed FY 25 preliminary budget represents a 100% net School spending budget so now we start breaking it down by category and again I will briefly go through this but if you have any questions please let me know so going through all of the categories when we do the line item budget again we'll do that when it comes to our budget workshop and then going on later on in another presentation going further um to school committee as a whole salary from FY between FY and 24 and FY 25 there is a about an $8.7 million increase which is about a 9% increase so before I say that though too is fy2 and I think the superintendent did say something briefly was fy2 is the first budget cycle in two budget cycles that we are actually applying our Revenue to make it a balanced budget and so again reasons being is that inflation Factor how um our infl our INF factor is now steadily declining and also what also will mean that is that we mean our Chapter 70 will be declining as well so FY 23 and FY 24 we had a high inflation um rate and also the um s SOA the student Opportunity Act so that's the reason why we had such high uh Chapter 70 monies and then FY 25 we're seeing a dip and the reason being is that our inflation rate is going down and that increas and that of course means that the Chapter 70 monies are going down so again salary is about an increase of 9.7 9% and like the superintendent said that includes all current positions currently now and now being moved over to the appropriation any uh Sr funded are now being rolled over so there will be no cuts for the next school year special ed tuition you might be saying Wella what happened we're decreasing we don't have a lot of special ed that is not true that's the one thing that did we had to go ahead and we applied our revenue and that is fiscally responsible and appropriate um through the circuit breaker so we um we applied $4.9 million of our circuit breaker funding and again that must be done because we can only carry so much and also we appli $2.5 million of our C uh circuit breaker carryover um to this to the special ed tuition so we still have money going forward to the next school year in our circuit breaker so we're not wiping out totally our C circuit breaker Revenue so again that's the decrease of $4.4 million because again we applied Revenue transportation is an increase of 11% of $1.2 million increase our utilities is an average about almost 4% an increase of $1 15,980 contracted Services is an increase of just about 8% which is $250,000 our supplies are going um pretty much a little bit lower reason being too is we are seeing a lot of our textbooks all going online so we're not buying our textbooks as much and also we were very fortunate to buy with our Sr funding and other funds to um put some supplies in our warehouse maintenance cost just increased slightly about 1.39% of about 88,200 so again the the in our budget for fy2 equals a 5.12% increase which is about $5.9 million increase in the budget how our growth patterns have happened starting in fy1 17 to FY 25 I'm not going to bore you but as you can see they are averaging about um a 4.5% a 4.56% increase so our 5% increase this year is just about On Target and and average so again uh I do believe we have a very fiscally responsible budget being forward for fy2 this is the um a graph that we do show every year and I do as we always see I'm I'm a visual person and we see that big blue right the big blue which in it shows up is the education so part of the city the fy2 3 City budget the largest portion is the school department but please know not is not just taught in public schools it is also Bristol Plymouth and Bristol Aggie a part of that 100 and I don't I don't have my magnifying glasses on but it's over hundred million doar on there um and if you do see it to the left I don't even wear that here for the left piece here on the education budget there with the FY 23 increase that increase you'll see there is $9.9 million well again although the FY 23 is that increase of 10.2% remember that $9 million was from the state from Chapter 70 increase so again that money that was increased to education came to the city by the from the state with Chapter 70 funding superintendent cabal did mention when he did the net School spending with all the urban districts here we are showing you all the urban districts so there are 31 urban districts in the state of Massachusetts Taunton Public Schools is the 11th largest district with an FY 23 with 7,951 students as you will see again each column in all I'm just going to highlight a few for you um we Taun in public schools is the fourth lowest administrative cost we sometimes think that's a great thing and other times we think it's not the greatest thing right we're a lean um administrative team and sometimes that's so wonderful but what we are very successful with that though we have been able to take that money that we would other school districts might apply to administrative we've put it into the classroom where we we believe it should be for our students and we have been very successful by using these resources to reduce class size to prek expansion to do the reset space that this um school committee did approve last year as a budget priority and also to invest in these students mental health and I'm going to pass this over to the superintendent so I hope that this portion of the presentation will also address a portion of the student Opportunity Act that we'll discuss later on because as you look on slide 29 I am very proud uh to share that we have accomplished pretty much everything we set out to accomplish under our first rendition of the student Opportunity Act so if you look at completed and in process we implemented the reset spaces we had the Comm we currently have the community input teams examining the therapeutic learning programs and exploring new programming models and they will be convening in the future under reducing class size now be mindful of the fact that we've increased by 300 students so we've decreased our average class size from 19.9 in fy19 to 18.8 while also picking up 300 kids so again if we did not add those additional students that number would be lower so I'm very proud of the work that we've done there we have the summer internship program we that we modified the high school schedule we conducted our in in-house job fair and we also created the tart and public Virtual Academy which is now home to 75 students they've exceeded their cap and we're going to be expanding that number to 150 next year and again it keeps 75 kids in school and gets gives 75 kids an opportunity to graduate from T high school with their diploma our early college Pathways very very proud I don't think people understand how significant this is to receive the high school designation Innovative Pathways in healthcare and information technology we have an early college pathway internship coordinator and we just created you saw that chapter 74 number increased by 60 that's because we created an eth chapter 74 program and I I cannot I believe this will pay dividends and it's beginning to pay dividends by having that sixth full day Pre-K classroom because our students will be better prepared going into kindergarten which will mean that we're frontloading the services so again everything that we've contributed or we aimed to accomplish we have accomplished during the first rendition of the student Opportunity Act so when I present the student Opportunity Act later in this uh meeting I'm going to focus on the new commitments if that's okay but if you have questions obviously we'll answer your questions and I just want to highlight the committee's work and as well as the work of my leadership team we currently have 468 three and four year olds in our prek program that's outstanding the red and as I mentioned and Mrs moan shared we have rolled I can considered this our new positions if you want to be frank because we have rolled all our Esser positions into the appropriation which was our threee plan I was hoping to have one more year and finish this work in fiscal 26 but fortunately based on our revenue and based on the Chapter 70 increase uh we have been able to roll everything that you see here into our appropriated budget we did not utilize covid-19 funding through Essa uh the one position two positions that we have not filled a prek through one coordinator but we might be able to do that at zero cost a zero increase to the school department and attendance officer that is something that we may be able to do by re reallocating funds through attrition so I'm pretty confident that all the positions you see here we will be able to get to within fiscal 25 or fiscal 26 and again we have a great partnership with the city so because the city has been able to fund us at 100% net School spending we we've been able to use one-time funds in our revolving accounts our ESR dollars to commit over $16 million to infrastructure improvement in our school system I won't bore you with the list but the latest on the list should be the softball renovation so school committee approved going out to bid and that'll be about a $2 million project so I'm very very proud of the work that this lean administrative team has accomplished and again I'm very proud that we are giving back to to the community and trying to in really trying to be good partners with the city knowing all the work that they've done to improve the infrastructure and the buildings for our kids and then last but not least these are just some of the partners that align with our strategic plan it take it literally takes a village and it's also nice to share that because of our Partnerships and our ability to always want more or want one more Taun and Public Schools is viewed very highly in the state and as you know and many occasions we've also received some national recognition so not where we got we've done a lot of work but I know there's a lot more to do so I apologize for the long presentation but if you have any questions I'd be happy to take them again it's preliminary so the only motion that's needed is to receive and place on fire uh thank you superintendent cabal um and I just want to take a moment to commend you and your entire team um for delivering a balanced and responsible budget at a time when we are seeing other school districts in significant deficits uh so we're really proud and glad to work with you on the city Side to help um you do that uh and also I think it's very wise to think about maintaining as we go forward and not continually adding because we don't know what the future holds in the next even this year the next year the following year and I think you guys have a lot of um successes in your budget you've accomplished a lot of your goals and that's really wonderful to see uh we are pleased to be at 100 net per net School spending and it is our goal and our hope that we will be uh over that by the time we get to the final budget here for the school thank you Madame may all right so thank you um and so yeah just a reminder I think uh superintendent cabal did just remind everyone that there are no votes required tonight uh it's a preliminary budget there'll be much more discussion going on particularly in your budget workshops uh so with that in mind I will open up to the school committee okay excellent receiv received and place [Laughter] no if you need to refer to a specific slide okay if it helps Mr via the slide um that I want to reference was the positions that were created under um the Esser funds so I know it was it was a threee plan and every single one of those was effective there wasn't one that that we put in place that the administration found to be not effective or I would say that all the positions that we have in have listed here uh were needed because that was identified in the plan as a needed position but some positions uh we do have some vacancies based on this list but these positions were were needed but again some some of them are not currently filled I just want to uh but we can get into more detail into the weeds when we have our budget Workshop no I just we have uh doing a great job well it takes the support of the committee as well and the trust of the committee abolutely I was set Mr or yes set thank you madam M okay did you have your hand up Mr Enis you can go okay the chairman thank you so uh sorry what' you callora it's contagious tonight anyway uh superintendent page one if you could so uh you know was it was clearly mentioned that our high school graduation rate is a lot higher than 84.3% that's listed on the slide and I guess my question is how do we move the needle I know that BCC does a tremendous job of the max out a waiting list that's uh I believe six months in AAR so uh if there's a plan that we can assist the community at large to move that needle I think that's something we want to think about during our budget deliberations that's my first item uh the second item appears on page 12 and I've been out of the out of the reporting uh field for a while but reporting these numbers when I mean is there a key that says that 42 would looks to appear 42,000 is actually 42 billion should we have something added to that I don't know if yeah I can again yeah you're right because somebody who doesn't have the financial acument of Mrs moan and I they would read that as 40,000 so we can add a key so people on this understand May mm okay or just made a key uh to explain that to the general public I think that would be important uh my next item is on page 15 and when we arrive at the fy2 enrollment of 8235 that number comes from what October of 23 how do we arrive at that number the that number comes from here Dr D page 15 yeah that number comes here and that's based on the October one report that was conducted back in October of 24 October 24 october3 this is finished is finished it's the same number 8235 so the 8235 number October of 23 not 24 20 but this is for 25 right but where do we get the number October 23 is what I'm being told okay so that that number isn't going to change as far as our numbers for the funding formula correct okay what might change what might change is inflation if they adjust the inflation right yeah but I'm just saying the actual number is the number that the state has approved or received from us correct going forward okay thank you and I have one more comment on page 19 I I understand that the appropriation of 120 milon 589 479 is at 100% net School spending below it we have the FY 24 appropriation of 114 719 and an fy2 chapter 7 of 6.2 million making it 121 million 8,737 which is approximately $500,000 more than the 100% net School spending why do you have that number there the $21 Million number that was just to show that if we did receive the full Chapter 70 increase plus the previous year's appropriation that it would be 121 million but to get to 100% which again 100% is what we're asking for and if we during the supplemental budget potentially we could request the additional 419,000 to get to that 121 number but okay to get to be at 100% again to be at 100% which which is what we've requested and again if the city wishes to do more during supplemental or during this budget process and throw in the additional 419 then that then the number would change to 121 but I believe in being fair in our past practice we've always requested 100% net School spending okay and the reason I mentioned that is of course because my first statement was how do we push the needle to get our community to the 90 some odd percent with the high school education so if you think that $400,000 would be critical to it or the 419,000 whatever that number is you know I think that we start with that number I guess I I don't know I mean well that could also be something during our budget Workshop that if we did receive the 400,000 how would we like to see those dollars utilized all right and the only reason is because you mentioned that number there so I thought it was critical to sustain the budget and now that we have other opportunities that would probably be wise to do that thank you so much thank you mayor Madam mayor okay thank you Mr Laura just a clarification on page 12 you were say something about the if there's a a a short short on the revenue intake from the governor's budget Revenue projections as uh right now the original projection was 40 billion dollar it's been revised for the end of this fiscal year okay to come in at around 39 billion 400 million and then for 25 they're projecting 40 bli200 million and that's because of the inflation if it doesn't keep up with the growth no that was based on the revenues that they're collecting so they're not collecting as much revenue so obviously a lot of the revenue I'm not going to pretend to understand uh how revenue is collected but I do believe the stock market plays a role capital gains property taxes uh excise tax know all the funds that we collect the taxes that we pay they're dropping and but I do believe the stock market plays a large role because if you think back to the $7 billion increase where there was a lot of um Expendable cash because of the amount of money that was being pushed into uh communities I think that's why you saw such increases because businesses were also thriving which resulted in more sales tax so it just goes to show that the economy is slowing down because the revenue is is not coming in as projected thank you for the clarification I hope that answers your question no it does because I was I just had a question thank you okay you're welcome okay I know Mr enus are we ready for the motion no Dr Dello has another question or com one comment I'm sorry I I was on the page and I forgot on page 19 back to the net School spending formula there when you mentioned the indirect costs uh including transportation of $1 million our contract with the transport provider which is Bloom when is that contract up I I believe we're in year three but we'll have that information of a three-year contract of a five-year contract of a five-e contract I believe we're in year three but we'll have that information at our budget Workshop okay and that number the 11 million attributes any inflation factors that's part of the contract it also it also attributes to added Transportation so with 300 new students we've had to add to our Fleet right our of District transportation is then there with 22 students we transport out of District as well as the 30 46 in town vans that we currently utilize to transport our students in District so we think about our prek expansion that's required additional Transportation but the cola was relatively modest this year compared the previous years my concern was if it's coming up for FY 25 the contract I think i' want to consider that also so we're good for another two years I'm happy thank you thank you mayor all right all right thank you so is there a motion motion to refer our budget to the budget hearings second is that the on discussion on disc motion and second on discussion I I don't want to refer to the budget office I want to continue with I didn't say the budget I said budget hearings oh budget hearings I'm sorry okay sorry Mr enus budget Workshop would that presentation Workshop we've got what three more so the motion is to refer this to the budget Workshop correct um I believe it's oh excuse me I believe the side Madam may I believe our budget Workshop April 24th wedes wednes April 24th is our budget Workshop if for some reason there are conflicts we can always reschedule okay okay all right I'll set and if we can make a friendly Amendment mayor if we could display this on the to Community Schools website preliminary I appreciate it second the motion Motion in second all those in favor I oppos N opposed so voted thank you I didn't hear you nobody else nobody absolutely okay next up on the agenda we have item F we have the superintendent school committee book study and of course the book title is the governance Corp School Board superintendents and schools working together by Davis Campbell and Michael Fulon see enclosures so thank you chairman deelo I won't Bore You by reading uh the excerpt or the summary that I provided you but I do want to mention that I thought this chapter uh was a much easier chapter to read and I really enjoyed I really enjoyed understanding the four core components which focused on systems thinking know the Strategic Focus uh deep learning and also manners I really enjoyed the section on on manners because I think I'm often reminded that this is a meeting in the public not a meeting for the public so I I do believe manners are always very important with how we conduct ourselves and how we treat each other uh during the meetings because we want the public and we want the students to reflect our Behavior as much as you know we want to reflect their behavior as well but I did provide for discussion questions if anybody wants to tackle any of the questions I believe that would be appropriate if anybody just wants to comment on their thoughts of the chapter we'll uh we'll leave it up to you I'm sorry uh calling I was thinking about still the budget Mr sh please thank you um I did enjoy this this uh chapter I thought it was very interesting and it was an easy read and I enjoyed a lot of the examples that were given um I specifically liked the uh governance mindset and I thought there was two interesting analogies that they gave regarding um the first one was the fire and the person looking out the window in their view versus all of a sudden watching it on TV and seeing an aerial view which I thought was interesting and a similar one was the dancing in the wallroom and the people dancing and um their view from the floor versus the view from the balcony and um this just reminded me of when I've worked in this particular District I've always tried to take something from an administrator when um I've worked with them and one of the things that I got from Isa Rodriguez is not not seeing the big picture and uh that as at the time that was the head of the math department and only looking at things from my perspective and not seeing the big picture and I thought this tied directly into that is that in these positions we have to look at the big picture so we have to be that person that's that aerial view looking down so I thought that was really interesting wonderful A+ for you Mrs shavs I have um Mrs Santos I have something to just kind of go off of that as well too so and this kind of goes along with two things I wanted to say but what kind of goes along with the Deep learning as well which was one of the questions but at the beginning it talks about um that we have to understand our own um personal strengths knowing our own personal strengths right and that we gravitate normally to the things that we're good at versus not to the things that we're not good at right and I was feeling that intensely looking at that budget um because that like my my brain just kind of starts to shut off when it comes to numbers and I'm English right so um but I know that I can't expect myself to not be willing to learn like I have to be able to learn the things that I'm not necessarily good at right and they had said things that it's natural for us to gravitate to things that we don't understand but this idea of deep learning is that we have to be also committed to learning the things that we don't necessarily understand and I know I don't I can't speak for Mrs Sha but coming in as a new person is overwhelming because you feel like you need to know a lot more and so you feel completely naive for the most part because you don't know as much as as as the people who have been serving for a really long time but I think thinking about us as uh lifelong Learners I think is really important and the other thing I mentioned about the Deep learning by trustees is understanding the challenges facing the students they serve and this just reminds me of as you all know I'm an educator as well too and we were I was talking with colleagues uh and today um about The Chronic absenteeism and I know that's obviously an issue here but Nationwide it's an issue at higher ed it's an it's a severe issue uh so we were talking about a lot of the struggles that we're facing as Educators as well but we're also having to understand why are our students struggling as much as they are and it's not just a k through 12 thing it is a higher ed thing where students are really struggling and you mentioned something about communication issues and things like that but yeah there's a there's a struggle 100% so I think trying to better understand why is it just a covid thing or is it beyond that you know is it just mental health or is it beyond that as well because there really is something that our students are missing that are not allowing them to be as successful as possible and the whole chronic absenteeism we were talking about I think it was in the New York Times that school has somewhat become optional for some um students now and I think Co had something to do with that as well so those are my points no I just I just think your comments are a great reminder and a great lesson for our kids because often times our kids will gravitate or will avoid subjects that are difficult so I think it's as even as adults we we struggle with that at times so thank you he Plus for you too Miss Santos uh and one of the comments you made uh I've been here for seven years going on my seventh year I still don't know it all so don't feel overwhelmed I'm sure sure Mrs Fagan could probably say the same she's been here a lot longer than me and it's uh always a new day right and uh certainly is one of the things yeah microphone please um I'm sorry um and I didn't get to read all of it but as I was going through it I you know it struck me that we kind of all have to try to get be more able to look at a lot of different venues when we're talking about education and take everything in and understand where people are coming from one of the things I think that bothers me about education is sometimes the kids will say to you well I don't even why do I have to know this and why do I have to know that and sometimes I think we just don't make it relevant enough in their lives and if you realize the relevance of some of the stuff you learn um I think you know it it would make it more fun for people or something because we just can't teach every subject in a vacuum and not realize it relates to something else and I I think back to uh Mrs mtin who used to teach over at Freedman fredman and how great she was with math and the other things she could interject into math to make kids understand things and she did this she loved whales and somehow whales got into Math and how you could make you know use all different things with whales and make all kinds of equations and figure things out and percentages and all that but it had a relevance to it because all kids understood the whales you know so I I I I saw that in this to that that P could actually be part of things that we need to be doing but I think I think basically when I I think about being at these meetings I think we all let leave here I I I don't think we some of the stuff that we're reading I think we're already doing if that's any consolation to anybody we're not that far off the Mark about leaving here and and all wanting the same things for our kids which I think is the most important thing at least that was one of the introductory things that don't forget the kids you're there for the kids and I I'll just share was um was a reminder for me regarding my mannerisms as well so even as a superintendent it just reminded me that know the way I interact with my school board the way my Schoolboard interacts with me is something that I want to maintain a very high professional level at all times so I think it was just a good reminder and I also I think it was Mrs shavs who mentioned it too know the personal agendas that we come in here with a focus which is what's best for our students our staff our our school district and our community is coming in here with personal agendas so I just thought that was important as far as maintaining our strategic Focus because when we have that Focus you see the benefits you know all the work that we accomplish in a short period of time excellent thank you so much uh no action needed at this time uh we'll move on to I'm sorry Mr VI Mr VI I have no comment at this time thank you superintendent cabal I I do want to share though you are the second person in two days who um spoke about the visual effects and being able to put learning into um into Real Life practical Concepts and how uh leading countries in the world that's that's what they're do not to get off topic but that that is what they're applying a lot more and they're having a lot of success with so I thought that was a very interesting point Mrs Fagan so thank you Mr cab so along to those two to Mrs Santos's point in your point Mr VR one of our goals that we're going to try to accomplish before the end of the year is to repc one of our bar experiences at ton high school and invite the school board city council the mayor our elected officials to go through the experience so that you can see what takes place and hear from kids so Isaiah I'm recruiting you again so that that's something that we're we're hoping to put in place maybe in May or June and have you participate and get that feel for why these experiences why you're spending so much time out of the building out of the office it's bringing us back uh it's really reminding us about our focus and our WI which is you know giving students voice and giving them that deep learning know that Hands-On learning that relevant learning that will hopefully you know make them ex get Inspire their curiosity again which I think we need to do a better job of the example yesterday was a surface area of a curvature and if you put it into uh you know something that was tangible like a canopy then you know the concept was more easily absorbed and there was emotion that was went into the concept and it was a entirely your point so thank you superintendent thank you thank you everyone uh moving on to administrative business we have first item Staffing report see in closure motion receive place on file Mrs shs I'll Vo it's yes makeer the motion want to amend include Mrs shab's so move all in favor hi opposed I I hat present for Mrs shavs everyone else is in favor motion passes thank you next up we have taunt Public School Staffing update see en closure uh just nothing new to report we are 90% staffed we currently have 20 uh vacancies and I did provide you with an updated list on the back and I know the the human resource department is currently working on the May 1st posting so it's a very busy time of year for the human resource department wonderful uh wishes of the committee Mrs uh Fagan just a quick question when we have these conversations when you say you don't want to um add additional staff but you're not you're not talking about the positions that are vacant are you no okay new positions the new positions okay so we're going to try to maintain what we have is that's what we're talking about okay thank you Mr VI thank you Dr make like to make a motion to receive and place on file all in favor I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have ta Public Schools district enrollment update see en closure now you'll notice uh in this month's report that we are up from 8271 back in February 28th to March 27th 8 331 students and most of that I believe can be attributed to our continued expansion of the prek program which I believe has picked up an additional 14 students Mrs shvs um I have some questions and some comments on this um first off prek um an 18% increase that is very good that looks that looks um excellent the kindergarten through 11th grade it's negotiable it's a few um um students here and there but over the last couple of meetings I've noticed that there is a continued decrease in the 12th grade so when we compare the 467 to each of the columns that you have there when you get to 327 which was the last um um statement for 433 students we're down about 7.3% for seniors so are we looking at seniors that are now quitting school at that point or are we absorbing some of these kids and and the Alternative High School or the tbva because the Alternative High School has gone up since the beginning of the year they've gone from 88 to 135 which is a 53% increase that's a question I would only expect from a former depart math department so it's a combination of a couple things so the latter is correct we do have students who are now attending tpva and students attend the Alternative High School and unfortunately we as you remember T high school we try to carry our kids on the attendance sheets and re-engage them for a long period of time unfortunately the state uh wants us after a certain point to drop those students so it's a combination of kids going on to different programming or students that we are forced after a certain period of time to have to drop them from the enrollment so we are losing some students could we at some point get like a breakdown of what that is so we could see like where we're losing our students yeah you know if you know if you're talking about a three or four student that are dropping out but the rest of the kids are are being absorbed into the other programs then that looks better than what we're seeing here I can Prov yeah I can provide the commit so uh is that in the form of a motion so moves Mrs sh okay I just had a question what what's that time frame the time frame you have to I believe it was it I don't want to put my leadership team on the spot I believe it's 60 days 6 30 days sorry um only because when we have our tier Focus monitoring this comes up under cr16 that's the Civil Rights 16 um so after 10 consecutive absences we we call it a drop procedure so that starts with letters of engagement so we send a letter to the families we say hey you're out we want to bring you in um we give parents two options two meeting dates we have to hold we have to attempt to hold both meeting dates and then we have to do a follow-up letter and then after those attempts are done to no success we drop we we're we have to drop the student if it's a student with a disability we also use the team process to re-engage now at anytime the students can come back so um but that's what we're required to do unfortunately Mr Vie so just to be clear it's after 10 consecutive absences and then I'm sorry I don't know if I didn't you after how long do we officially say they're no longer a student so it's kind of quick they want us kind of quick most times families come in they might so if the kids are out 10 days we send a letter they come in for a couple days it starts over again so we have a lot of kids that do that we they go they're not in school then they come for a couple days and all that but after if we after the 10 days we're required under state law to send a letter with two opportunities to meet with the family for to talk about re-engagement if the parents and student don't show then we have to formally drop them so it could be it could be up to 30 the whole process could probably take 30 days but it's not usually too much long that and I want to commend the high school because they do this one reluctantly and they do this sometimes by the force of our hands saying like we we're going to have to drop them so sometimes it's more Beyond but the law says 10 days and then we start that procedure Mr shavs this is for all grade levels correct we're not just looking no I'm sorry thank you that's a great clarifying Point 16 year olds starts at 16 16 and okay thank you that's a great thank you that's that's an important fact sorry we were yeah we were talking about 12th grade yeah so it's it's sophomores Juniors perhaps yeah so again if I so what's the process for everybody under the age of 16 we just try reach reaching out treny um Steph can talk about the court piece if you know we do have that um well we again we don't need to know about the court piece is just a general how long does the person stay on the books or as an enrolled student before they so we're responsible for them unless they transfer okay so usually we have four truy officers that work with our high school each treny officer is um engaged in a situation when we haven't seen a child for a number of number of days they are called to go out to the house letters um Community facilitators also go out to the house to try to engage the family and unfortunately the last of everything would be a court issue uh we would actively pursue a c which we do do gotcha thank you you're welcome thank you uh we have a motion on the floor by Mrs sha is there a second second on that all in favor opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have the student Opportunity Act plan C enclosures thank you chairman deelo so this will require a motion if the for the school committee to approve the plan as presented and it will require a roll call vote because we are required to document that there was a motion and a vote and then Mr bar will work with our grant coordinator to upload the document uh to to Desi so as I've stated um and you saw in the the budget PowerPoint presentation we've accomplished pretty much everything that we set out to accomplish under the first submission of theu of the student Opportunity Act I would ask you to turn to page six page six is where we identify the new commitments in the student Opportunity Act and the new commitments we identified by engaging the community we shared a survey with our high school students with our caregivers and with our teachers um and we also put this survey on social media Instagram Facebook X I believe in also on our website so we did get all the feedback we synthesized it and these were the top three items that we said we would commit to for the next 5 years while also maintaining the previous commitments we're not going to stop working on those so this will be new commitments so the first commitment so we're going to reimagine the high school experience so that all students are engaged in prepared and this aligns really well with the high school school Improvement plan which you heard uh several a couple meetings ago our second commitment on page eight and again this was something that the public weighed heavily on was co- teing within the toon Public Schools so we really want to strengthen our co- teing model and use the multi-tiered system of support process to implement academic supports and interventions that provide all students particularly students with disabilities and multilingual Learners Equitable access to deeper learning and then the third priority will be on page 10 will be to implement a multi- system system of supports that helps all students progress both academically in their social emotional and behavioral development so that is the work that we are committed to going deeper the next five years utilizing our student Opportunity Act funding as well as our appropriated dollars in Grants to supp to implement this work over the next five years wonderful thank you thank you superintendent cabraal uh what are the wishes of the committee just a quick question Mur now does this all have to be approved by Desi prior to us getting into it for Grant applications and so forth so this is the this is pretty much is the plan and the Grant application so after it's approved by the school committee It Gets Sent up to desie for review and uh I do believe the previous plan did get returned or was returned and we had to clarify any points that they needed clarified and I do also want to again compliment the leadership team and our district coordinators it really was a team effort to put this document together thank you wishes of the committee move please wishes to approve his presented second on that on a roll call vote Mrs Fagan Mr enus President yes Mr um palowski yes s votes yes m m Santos yes Mr Vieira yes Mr Laura yes and Mr Dr Deo yes thank you everyone thank you next up we have a 2024 2025 school calendar C enclosure so I'll ask director of student services uh Stephanie Hoy to present the recommended calendar to the committee for approval made a couple and then what we received from the majority of our unions is option two which is a more traditional calendar so it would have two professional days or professional day and convocation day prior to Labor Day to the students would start on August 28th they'd have school on August 28th and August 29th we would have our traditional professional days throughout the year in the last day of school that year pending of course weather uh would be an early release on June 17th so it's it's very it's very much a traditional calendar looks very similar to this year and that is what we are proposing tonight uh any questions comments uh Mr Vier I just question for is this the best calendar for the students as well I know we talked about the the unions no I mean they not not that I you know the unions obviously are a vital part but this is the for our students too we believe that this is Mrs hoy's recommendation we believe is the best calendar for the student staff in community okay but the only thing I will put out there is and it doesn't require approval on the calendar we are exploring some early release days uh throughout the course of the year to use for professional development but and particularly with at the at the older grades because currently the high school still does midterms and still does finals and the yearl calendar we may be able to repurpose those early release days uh for better use such as professional development maybe um some PLC professional Learning Community time so that would be the only thing that might change as far as some early release days that'll be administrator driven so early release for the students not for the staff as we want to embed some professional development while we have staff in the buildings thank you super tenant uh ju just one question if I may um when is graduation in June of 25 I don't see it on the notes on to the right we don't typically add that to the district calendar because that usually goes through ton high school they have their own calendar that they send out to families so we don't typically have it designated on this calendar although I mean we certainly can add that that's not a problem yeah I I I think it would be wise to add it I I mean it's not dependent upon snow days right because there it's different class uh and for advanced planning I know there was some controversy a couple years ago Saturday to Sunday because of a conflicting school and facilities and so forth so you know if we could just kind of get out there so like we know what we're doing and whoever else is around us want to do what they want to do that's fine but you know we have our calendar solidified what do you think of that superintendent that's an easy that's an easy fix but I don't want to speak right now as to what the day is but we can add that yeah that would be wise so uh should we hold off on this until we get that date in there can we yeah stipulation that uh add the gradu so motion to approve is presented with a stipulation that the addition of high school graduation be added very good second by Mrs shavs and any comments questions and just to be clear this is option two right option two correct calendar option two thank you Mr all in favor I opposed eyes have it thank you next up we have a field trip request Taunton School Taunton High School Deca chapter uh we we have information our packet I just want to point out that uh this is I under under my understanding a really really uh amazing uh event that's taking place this year uh I happen to hear another Deca coordinator from a school in the district that was on a local radio station in fall river that had a couple students talking about what's going on and they have to have there's so many students attending that they have to have two opening sessions and uh uh they have an event at Disney I believe the first day they arrive there and uh this is really really cool inspirational we have nine students going how many do we have nine students and two chaperon going and I've reviewed it and looks really complete and informative of what I always look for uh so what are the wishes of the committee move approval second any questions Mrs CH sure I noticed this was a heavy amount of money for students to pay so was there any kind of fundraising they were doing or were there any students that couldn't afford to go I know I believe the school committee helped supplement some of the schol so we are supplementing it yeah because this this is a club and to Dr the melo's point last year at the Mercedes dome in Georgia I believe we had high school students at tarton high school went to present and before a crowd of 33,000 people that's how large this International Event is right yeah this it's an amazing and and I know the motions on the floor and I'll call the vote but I know that we have a local radio station that I think would be ideal for uh one of the coordinators probably Mr mcfa and a student or two could go on to explain to the community the impact this has on you know Taun Public Schools not only the students so motions on the floor is there a second there's a second correct second who seconded it Mr sh second M shs and all in favor opposed eyes have it thank you all next up we have subcommittee reports first up finance and law subcommittee uh by myself we called the meeting to order at 5:45 this evening present were Mrs shavs and Mr Vieira uh first item that we discussed was a facilities update uh basically uh Mrs Monahan uh has a uh memo in front of us that clearly states that out of 1871 work orders uh we occupied 1461 work orders which equates to 78% of all work ERS for the city's 59 buildings so uh our task is quite large and we're doing it well uh that was the first item uh there were no uh comments or concerns what are the wishes of the committee motion to accept the report as stipulated second all in favor opposed eyes have it thank you next up we had a disposable dispos disposal of surplus textbook requests uh in the enclosures we had one Surplus item uh which are algebra one books that uh were 150 editions valued at $55 each total value of $785 and the other were passport to algebra and geometry 200 additions at a estimated value of $6.50 each for a total value estimated value of 1320 $6 and uh I believe Mr Vieira asked if we were following proper procedure of disposable of surplus items and the question was answered as yes and that's why we're here today to make it official and either vote vote it up or vote it down so what are the Miss of the committee motion to uh adopt the recommendations of uh the subcommittee second all in favor opposed IAP and the last item was a bills payable for fy2 4 uh in the amount of 1, 82,2 6211 which is of the committee motion to adopt the recommendations of the subcommittees all in favor I I opposed eyes have it thank you so much we'll move on we have new business uh anybody have new business they want to share I have a piece of new business I'd like to share uh we received a letter uh addressed to Mayor Shan oconnell and Dr Greg Dello chair taunt school committee and Mr John cabal superintendent taunt Public Schools uh from the Manet Community Health Center uh coming from Grace Murphy mcauliff who was the board president and Cynthia Sierra chief executive officer that they were writing to share the news that the Mana Community Health Center board of directors unanimously voted this week to bestow its highest honor the Manet Medallion upon the city of taunted school committee and we will celebrate that on June 6th which is a Thursday evening uh at 6: PM from 6:00 to 900m at Stonehill College and I believe we will have invitations forthcoming for the school committee so if you are interested in attending please RSVP with me or Courtney and we'll make sure that we get a table and get enough tickets for anyone who would like to attend so uh the magnitude of this I did some research it's really amazing that we are a recipient of this Medallion the man at Medallion and we should all be very proud uh pasted committees present committees that worked so hard to get this done in Taun public schools and it's uh there's going to be an open house coming up I believe April 9th Mr super correct so just I was just going to reiterate April 9th an open house and I believe the health center right now is averaging about 15 students a day so that's 15 students receiving access to Quality Healthcare thanks know to know the vision and the support of the school committee so I commend you all for your support and your trust and again for having that Vision to bring this much needed resource to W School Community absolutely so we should all be proud and please RSVP to the superintendent uh it's uh Thursday June 6 it's from 6:00 to 900m and it'll be at Stonehill College and I'd also like to extend my gratitude to the leadership team who did a lot of work behind the scenes there were a lot of fol focus group meetings to bring this to light so thank you for your help and contributions absolutely thank you any other new items uh on the new business Mr palski uh thank you Dr Dello um in the last meeting I mentioned that we would be scheduling a series of uh meetings with High School subcommittee uh so the first meetings uh will be held uh next Tuesday April 10th uh at 4:00 uh we will be meeting uh at at taunt high school with the taunt High School advisory committee of the students um the the object to follow up on uh our previous uh meeting at the beginning of the year see how things are going uh get a report on all all the work that's been done uh and then later on that evening at 5:00 we will be having the same meeting sorry high school at four Al alternative at four high at oh opposite okay so Alternative High School at four ta high school at five Mr psky point of clarification you mentioned April 10 Tuesday uh is it April 9th Tuesday April 10th Wednesday April 10th Wednesday okay yes Mr Vieira I will Mrs Fagan we we we have um another obligation on April 10th oh yeah we have three members that are serving on the athletic uh director search committee and our meeting start I believe at 3:30 and we'll go till around 900 p.m. that evening because we have five candidates that's going to be about six six hours of six or seven hours who does that exclude from the high school subcommittee yourself Mr Vieira and Mrs F so we'll have to reschedule then this is my fear is we're gonna have a lot of this happening because we have the ad nurse High School principal I just so I'm wondering if there's a way that we could try to I think we just have to take the situation as it presents itself on a caseby casee basis I mean nothing going to be perfect we have a a plan right hiring committees come up all the time I'm just concerned about the number of meetings we're having and trying to um trying to adhere to all the different schedules so if Mr palowski you want to go back to the drawing board and we can try to find some dates that work yeah sorry about that Miss Paul we took two of your members away it's all good all good we'll get it done we'll get it done okay uh I have one more item on the new business business uh as a uh associate member of the tary Vietnam's veteran Association we met on Monday night and uh they have a subcommittee for the Raymond Le Point dedication for the East Taun Elementary School and they'd like to uh Share three dates for us if we could be available and our students and our principal uh the three dates that were discussed was April 22 which is a Thursday April 29 also a Thursday and May 2nd also a Thursday and this would be probably a 10: a.m. dedication Mr cabal or somewhere around I would check with the principal to make sure um how it impacts lunches and the student she wants to involve okay but uh if we could work with these three dates with just schedules uh I don't know if we can make a decision today so we can start moving on it because today is April 3D just a quick question are you sure the 29th of April is a Thursday because I'm pretty sure that's the last day of classes at BSU and that's a Monday April yep 25 I'm sorry I'm I'm I'm way screwed up it's April yeah I wrote down the whole different dates Thursday April 25 okay Thursday May 2nd wow I think it was April 18th yeah so let's let's go back April 18 April April 25th and May 2nd three consecutive Thursdays April yep which is SC vacation week so that's no good April 25th or May 2nd would be the two dates is there a time I believe the wishes of the group is to have it during the school day so it would probably be sometime in the morning similar to what we did on Mahi which was around 10 10:30 yeah the 25th and the 2 right the 25th of the 2nd now Mrs Santos uh BSU is over when 29th so 25th probably won't be good for you how on Thursdays oh you don't teach on Thursdays any any uh issues on the 25th Mr enus could I just propose that we have our comprehensive review in the department of Elementary secondary education is going to be here that week of the 25th okay so with May 2nd work with the group May zoning board on the 25th too in the morning no but it's going to add to my schedule so I was trying to give an excuse to help you out try to get the so may may 2nd's probably a little bit warmer um I know it's going to be a sunny day just hopeful and uh it's going to be an indoor outdoor activity because we have the outside piece and we have the indoor um actually it's going to be very beautiful and we'll talk about that Mr uh cabal after our meeting so is May 2nd pretty good with everyone's schedule Mr psky how are you doing with that uh made work good any of you other conflicts Mrs Fagan good so let's shoot for May 2nd time to be determined and we'll uh send out communication to the uh subcommittee the tavva because they are so looking forward to this and uh you know we're talking with some folks that have served uh our for our freedom and they're all getting a little bit older so the sooner we do this the better off we are so uh for all for everybody so I'm happy to share that uh any other item on new business um me Mrs Santos so I wasn't sure if I had to do this on unfinished uh past business or new business but um just an update for the uh curriculum um subcommittee I had reached out to Mrs shavs and to Mrs Fagan about setting up a date and and Mr cabal so the next our first meeting will be April 16th at 4M April 16 at 4m. yep wonderful that's a Tuesday okay who are your members on that Mrs Santos Mrs Fagan and Mrs sh good and myself wonderful thank you for sharing all right moving on uh we have unfinished business action item updates action item updat see and closure anything on here that we need to add or remove not at this time any of the committee members have any thoughts seeing none no action needed on that right okay going to press time is there any press in the audience seeing no press uh motion will be in order to adjourn second all in favor eyes have it thank you so much have a good night