Concord Carlisle School Committee August 20, 2024

Good evening everyone um going to call The Joint school committee meeting to order for the conquer KY Regional School District and I'll call the conquered school committee to order awesome it is 6:01 p.m. so nice and prompt um we have a number of things to roll call in oh that's right Brian we got you here all right roll call in attendance you're first tonight her Che Is here Moran present I'm forgetting rainy present for both Rank and present for both Viola present for the region Waton present for region great D Roa present there you go

we might start off like that this year it's a whole different Domingos okay great um KN that was com we have a number of things to to cover tonight um but I am going to turn uh the start of this over to Dr Hunter Uh to cover some some news so sadly uh two weeks ago almost uh Rising seventh grader Adrien SoDo unexpectedly died of comp medical complications um Adrien was a real Shining Light he'd only been in our schools for a few short months um but it really touched everyone around him uh and the

you know Middle School had really supported him supported his family and um have really had their worlds deeply impacted by his loss um We've been working closely with Riverside trauma we've been working closely with the family um supporting staff supporting students supporting Adrian's Mom especially single mom obviously really really huge loss for her so uh the funeral was this morning really really amazing ceremony really really hard um so we just wanted to honor Adrian's he's leave Adrian he's leaving us a legacy of Joy he had a lot of challenges um and he was a young

man with a lot of joy and a full heart and that smile is just entrenched with us and that'll be what he carries forward and I think if there's one thing that spoken with the Middle School administrators about who have been their extraordinary selves um just reminds us how much this work matters uh you know in the day-to-day world for Adrien we were an awful lot to him and to his success and in the crisis That's come recently um as has been the case in the past we are a lot of the foundation that keeps

everyone together supported who to turn to um and that will continue into next week as everyone returns to school so I think we wanted to take a moment of silence to honor Adrien and um just be thoughtful on behalf of the school committee and the conquer Community I um want to expend my deepest condolences to Adrien and his family um especially Mother Elizabeth um Adrien left us far too soon there's no question about that and um I also want to thank um Dr Hunter and um Mr Cameron and members of the middle school and the

ptg for all their efforts to support um as you said the students the community and especially his family thank you thank you thank you um well thank you I think um we appreciate everyone like like Carrie was mentioning um we're uh in the spirit of Keeping with the students and everyone you all such a big part um we have uh Zaria Felicity is Maddie here she's online oh hey all right perfect so you want to mention webinar oh yes sorry um you should come come up come on up here because I'm here yeah we're happy

to see you happy to see you um so we're getting situated uh for anyone joining online you may notice we move to a webinar versus uh the traditional meeting format As a measure around technical security so we're still getting used to it so bear with us um but yeah at this point I'll hand it over to the students to give an update thank you sorry give me one second I haven't been here in person before so I just need to connect to the Wi-Fi no problem Cynthia do you mind just helping her with the microphone

too just to make sure we can hear her yeah is this good okay thank You yeah should be recognizing you Felicity not my school computer we haven't gotten yeah sorry right sorry we're having well Felicity gets that set up Maddie do you want to just introduce yourself quickly we're welcome to the to the school committee we're excited to have you um join us thank you hi so yeah my name is Maddie Clancy um I'm going to junior year here at tchs and I'm just really excited to join and Work with everybody and yeah share a

little bit about my grade and everything so thank you for having me Zary welcome back always great to see you thank you how was your summer um it was eventful I feel like I've done a lot of up this this [Laughter] summer is that working for you yeah sorry my computer's just being a little finished no no we're good almost there good you're good we Good recording in progress all right um can she share should be able to I'll double check the settings yep you should be able to I think are you able to promote

me to like the panelist oh sorry yep absolutely no worries thank you okay so just mute you know have to depend on the microphone yeah um awesome we can see it all right great so um our update this week is a Little bit short as school hasn't yet gotten underway but um a lot of students are already back at school um for sports Tri outs and I know Maddie actually was there earlier today yeah I was there twice actually for field hockey we did morning sessions um just playing a little bit and then we did

finish testing so a lot of sprinting this after on Memorial nice I was so surprised by the weather um usually it's like the hottest week of the year for Some reason which is really unfortunate but it's been nice so nice and cool today yeah it was great and then there's also all the other fall Sports too and I think cheerleading starting up next week maybe but yeah um I know the week after school starts um auditions for the cchs theater production uh the fall production is being held but there still no we don't know what

the play is still so it's a little like confusing but at the same Time we're really we're all really excited to put on the fall production this year and as we kind of get back into the back to school mindset our schedules have been out and I know there's been a lot of like flurry with the usual everyone's exchanging schedules trying to see what classes they have with each other I'm a little disappointed because I don't really have that many classes with my best friends but I mean for Actually I do like though that senior

year Junior and Senior year there's a lot of flexibility with elective so my friends and I aren't in the same classes because we had so many options to choose from and so I do think that's like a positive side um and also parking I do not drive so I'm not entirely sure what's going on there but I do know that there is um I believe a raffle for parking spots near Bey and zarya and Maddie I think were talking about Earlier that it seems like a pretty pretty hype Stu deal right now so we may

have heard a little bit about that and uh lastly we just wanted to briefly mention some of our goals this year as um student reps so we are hoping that we'll be able to firstly integrate our role as school committee Representatives more thoroughly with the rest of the student body um that we still think that there's some amount of Disconnect between the work that we're Doing kind of like presenting these weekly updates and kind of um the interests and concerns of the student body as a whole so we're hoping to kind of potentially use things

like forums or just like um broader ways for student engagement and input overall and zarya did you want to add oh well I this year I'm going to be graduating so I need to find a new metco uh to replace me that's one of my goals personally but yeah yeah aari and I are both seniors actually um Um which is exciting and terrifying at the same time um and our second main goal this year as I was just mentioning earlier is to communicate more pressing student issues we know that our updates in the past have

been a lot about like events and fun celebrations that are happening we're also hoping to bring some more student voice about like concerns especially about kind of the district um level discussions and decisions that school committee is Making to kind of have that uh more holistic and student input and student voice in these discussions we hope yeah that's all for today thank you thank you thank you all it's so good to see all three of you I know yeah that's great has started thank you awesome thank you for showing up we appreciate it thank you

um well again continuing with the excitement um we want to recognize the cchs debate team and before I have them Come up so everyone can see them um if you haven't had a chance to read the back to school edition in the bridge there was a really wonderful article written by Felicity about uh the debate team going to Iowa to compete in the Nationals um so first of all Felicity wonderful article he did a wonderful job um not only giving a recap but raising up the all of you yourself and the teammates which was which

was great and if I read it correctly you talked about Topics that range from North Korea to the Kardashians um which is impressive uh showing the breadth of of knowledge um but I think if everyone's okay with it I'd love to have you all come up so we can get a view Anthony of the um the trophy as well as with Wilbur Noah uh and obviously Felicity as well and Tim you're here as well coach so come on up want to get should we get some chers bring your Chers can we yeah everyone should come

up there's plenty of room at the we will make room if there's not while everyone's getting situated again this is just quite an accomplishment we're so happy you're here to to celebrate it do you let go over it or can you put on the table oh yeah come on [Laughter] up how did you get that Home to myself you did I can see the reality of that was that the trophies were so large that they uh we had to uh have them shipped home yeah and that was another one of the generous contributions uh being

a debate coach I actually have a timer set there there are some things that I wanted to be sure we talked about you're setting a high bar for the first the Year great um just very quickly I'll go through a Couple of things that I've prepared uh in advance and then I have some bling to give to the uh school as well uh as you know from June 15th to June 22nd we had the privilege of qualifying uh four conquered Carlile students and one of my students from wearing School Micah Byron smara we all attended

as the New England District team to the National Tournament in De Moine Iowa which where it will also be held again next year uh I came to debate coaching 54 years ago when I Started a team in Manchester in 1971 after I taught 35 years at Manchester retired with a full teacher pension love teaching so much I went to wearing school where I work with Micah uh did that for 20 years officially retired on July 1 of this year I got to conquered because my grandkids were just entering conquered carile and some parents said to

me we'd like to have a coach do you know anyone who might want to do it and I said I do know such a Person and so uh my grandson who is not here tonight who is learning to surf at pittser College um in uh in Los Angeles he couldn't be here tonight nor could another one of our participants Noah AR uh because Noah had other things to do tonight but we have had four years of amazing success uh and the Pinnacle of that success um is the performance of Anthony but even if Anthony had

not gone to the tournament with us and hadn't won the National Tournament everyone in Front of you and everyone who couldn't be here tonight won a medal or a recognition and two of them Anthony obviously and Noah Arthur will be returning next year as an automatic qualifier having gotten to to ninth in the country Wilbur also tied for ninth Felicity was the top seed going into all of that Mah was an automatic qualifier this year and has done very well in different events so International extemporaneous speaking which is what Anthony did is an extremely challenging

event you are given a topic you are given 30 minutes you must speak without notes in a very intelligent way about a topic Anthony spoke about whether North Korea Was preparing for war and Anthony answered that question Dr Hunter has the uh link to that I believe she's already distributed it to you it's buried in the news release but if you don't find it I'll send another one tomorrow make sure that you have it because it is Absolutely brilliant I've never there's never been a sophomore to win the national tournament this is for people that

study International uh Affairs the people that win these tournaments often then become advisers to presidents I've been coaching long enough that I know Austin gouby chief economic advisor for Barack Obama was an EXT temper right here at Milton Academy so I do know that these are powerful skills and to do it as a Sophomore is totally incredible the entire group we had here did a fabulous job I do want to say that this does not happen by chance uh Anthony has worked very very hard and I received uh the champion coach plaque uh for that

and I would like right now to give that coach plaque to Anthony's mom who accompanied him to every tournament all year long who judged who carried things for us so Shannon if you will come up I because I would say that given the Parent group that we have here at conquered Carlile you are benefiting from a free debate coach who knows what he's doing in terms of organizing and getting people to places but if it were not for the parents supporting this activity financially conquered Carlile did not pay a penny for airfare for rental cars

for hotels for meals conquered treats us well and we do have a budget that allows us to pay entry fees during the year but The reality is the parents and the kids have come together beautifully to do all of this so Noah Arthur was speaking in something called big question debate did well enough to qualify for next year Anthony and international examp and the remaining students were in something we call World schools debate which is really a parliamentary style debate form uh which is really terrific and does have things like the Kardashians but also much

more serious topics that they Research ahead of time I also don't want to be focusing just on the kids that we talked about we have other members of our team uh thank you very much and we we have about 25 kids that are involved in the activity I see that I'm going to run out of time so I'm going to just mention a couple of other things with our 20 students we will continue to be meeting this year I still have a grandchild who will be in the system I I couldn't imagine leaving These kids

even though I'm now retired and I am not looking for a job I do not want to be hired however I do want the conquered Carlile school system the high school to start thinking about what can we do to find someone who can carry this on whether it's a former debater who's interested in doing it we do need to make this continue because I'm 77 this summer and I won't be able to do this all the time and I am starting to be in retirement uh and after losing my wife 5 Years ago I have

found someone a former col colleague for about 20 years and we are now a couple and I intend to do some travel with her as well uh so I'm making a transition myself I want to be honest about that but I'm I'm committed to conquered Carlile I'm committed to these wonderful people that I've been working with they are amazing um so I do want us to think about the future I also want to thank the conquered carile school system for hosting our New England District Tournament last year Dr Hunter was there and observed a little

bit see that's me S okay again a little overtime uh Dr hun Dr Hunter was there and did see uh what extemporaneous speaking looks like we showcased conquered carile High School which is an amazing facility with 60 rooms with an auditorium to Bar None with a beautiful cafeteria space with cooperation from people that I really admire like both your principles lean Donnelly Martha Hammer Ned Roose these Are people who lined up to find ways they could help us and and it was really terrific so I I'm hoping that we will have leadership in the future

I did bring some bling meaning the books that we got when we appeared there I'm going to give them to Dr Hunter we've got for uh each of the people I just mentioned from the high school maybe they could get one of these banners for next year here uh the school also receives the 2024 School of Honor in speech which is Something that I'll also give to Dr Hunter to put somewhere very few schools get recognized uh as a school of honor and speech and quite frankly it's Anthony that got us recognized as school of

honor and speech if there are any questions or comments we collectively would be happy to do it I should have also mentioned that Shannon and Ray ma felicity's mom are my assistant coaches whether they like it or not they are they are capable of signing Kids up to go to tournaments they can fill in when I'm unavailable our system has been that parents and kids go together to these tournaments it's a family thing we don't rent buses we don't pay for a lot of transportation and so we depend upon on the parents to really pull

us together so Ry and Shannon are are key people and I know that even if I Were Somehow suddenly out of the picture they would be able to help carry this on that's great well Thank you so much and I think um yeah another round of applause would be great um thank you and thank you to the parents as you mentioned Tim um maybe just to close it out if we could maybe get Anthony and Felicity and Dr Hunter we want to take a picture with the trophy and Tim you as well and Shannon Ray

everyone come up real quick and then we'll move on to the next yeah M you [Applause] Too in the pict I do take it don't need a work come exactly not maybe we could give let's give there we go let's give superintendent Hunter the the plaque which says that we definitely post this [Music] prominently it's a good picture awesome thank thank you great work [Applause] You want me to take to the thank you exed awesome congrat congratulations again that was awesome thank you very much all right this is great um all right we're going to

move on to public comment as a reminder um we have about 20 minutes for this um it's a meeting in the public not with the public so the school school committee will be responding won't be responding to any Comments um if you in the room and you would like to speak you can submit a blue form we have them up here um and you'll be called to speak and if you're on Zoom you can raise the hand feature we'll see you um and we'll alternate uh with each person uh getting three minutes to speak so

I have one blue form here Michael come on up Michael Williams Michael Williams 1284 sbur Road uh welcome to the beginning of this 2425 school year to all I look forward to being a successful year for all of you I appreciate Dr Hunter's invitation over the summer to meet and discuss how Ellen Garrison could be best honored at our new school I want to publicly thank her for that opportunity our conversation with Dr Hunter Mr namiki the Conger Carla the EI director and Miss Turner the executive director of the robins house was substantive was Productive

further meetings are planned and I look forward to working in fruitful collaboration our Town's Middle School naming campaign was contentious I would hope by now that all parties understand that the name was but a marker a sign of commitment that conqueror would take to foster a safe inclusive and equitable educational environment where all academic Suess success is available for students we look to build on the Tentative start we've made by having our community's educational stakeholders work in concert to create quantifiable measures of faculty and student diversity academic proficiency and cultural fluency these are metrics that

have been shown to describe parameters that are eviden in our school systems 2223 Equity audit these measures if we we monitor them over time will allow us to gauge our progress in creating a diverse Inclusive welcoming and academically successful educational institution that conquer deserves thank you for your time thank you very much do we have anything online coming through I don't believe so right I see see is there anyone else there that'd like to submit a blue form otherwise we will move on okay all right let's move move to the uh consent Agenda um again

mostly minutes basketball lines Surplus books warrants um no surprises um should have all received the minutes ahead um at our June meeting just again just a refresher we did discuss the need to separate all the conquered in the regional consent agenda um so just as a reminder when we do approve it if we could just do an i for the region if that is what you're representing or an i for both um and This you know this process will just ensure that we are separating out who is voting for what um and especially for Brian

and I who are Carl residents that were not voting on conquered matters um k through eight so um can I entertain a motion to does anybody want to take sorry yeah anything anything we want to talk about before we move okay I move that we consent that we um accept the consent agenda as written in the Agenda second move do you want her to move it do somebody move it I just made yeah you can move it she can move it yeah Carrie can move it a second it but we have to do a roll

call correct so um roll call would start with you her yes for the region for both Morano for both right rainy I for both Rank and I for both Viola I for the region wat I the region great okay moving along this is good um Correspondence so from the the region I don't think we need to spend too much time on it we did get a question on parking um we've responded to it and it's taken care of um CPS do you want to cover what came through yeah CPS um we got six messages again

this is since our June meeting so this is over a period of time um we got three emails about the elen Garrison building at conquered Middle School from one from the Dei commission one from um Michael Williams And one from um a constituent who wanted to share a story um we also received an invitation to participate in a conversation about race and culture um we received an email from a constituent inquiring if it's possible for children from other towns to attend conquered schools and then we received an a question about direct pay inflation reduction act

credits that's about it a little heavier on the CPS side than in terms of flow of Conversation so um okay so moving forward we have um updates and we do have a lot of that obviously the summer has been busy um so Dr Hunter why don't you start with your update great it is uh T the season right so we are you know really starting to ramp up for next week highlights of the last couple of weeks and next week um in terms of scheduling I met yesterday and then this afternoon with the administrative Team

all 22 of us it's The only time in the year when we can um all get together with the assistant principles in the room and both metco directors and we did spoiler alert I do have an interim metco director in place that we're about to announce to the community so um that was brand new news yesterday uh and she was in a meeting today so that was great uh so there's a a really unique opportunity for us once a year to really do a big picture view of the World and then also do the logistics

we need to do we were offsite yesterday which is always refreshing and really peels us back from the work that needs to get done in the buildings and um it's just been a really positive start to the year over the last two days um in terms of other things that are coming up tomorrow morning we will welcome the new teachers to the district I don't have the count handy um but we have a less than we've had in the past probably About half 20 something new people starting with us across K12 um we're excited to

welcome them tomorrow morning formally I hired the last person this afternoon at 3:30 um so it evolves it rolls all the way from you know March and April right on until this till school starts um we're going to on board them both in terms of the schools the community they get in the bus and go around town they do a lot of logis ICS with us software And then they spend time back in the buildings and Shell's going to both run and be a new participant so welcome Shelly to the school committee meetings um teacher

bias training on Fridays for support staff through a Meco Grant this year we were able to offer the second annual bias training for all all support staff who want to participate it's bus drivers it's cafeteria it's tutors we open the invitation wide the Grant allows us to Pay them hourly which is excellent ideas will be here to run four different threads of bias training and I think Andrew said this morning we have about 75 people signed up so that'll be at the high school on uh Friday morning uh obviously teachers are back on Monday so

we'll kick open the year with our convocation Al together again that's the only time annually that all of us are in the same place I know Julie and Carrie are going to come come and Welcome the staff you're all invited at 8: a.m. at the high school um and the union presidents also speak kids are back Wednesday those who haven't already been doing sports or Athletics or whatever is already started up at the high school as such everything is rolling out to the parent community and the kids regularly here at this point schedules are out

placements are out tomorrow bus routes are out that's always a big milestone for us that That's the real message school starting um and then we'll be ready to roll next Wednesday so we're really excited to have everyone return the energy is really really positive as I've gotten to see people and start to feel the buildings come alive which is always a really fun fun sense we get at the end of the summer and then obviously the kids are the culmination so more to come as we you know I think we meet again second second or

third of September so We'll be able to share on how that all went but right now things are flowing really smoothly and we're ready to go yeah great it's an exciting time of year it is it is we didn't even say like welcome back we just kind of Dove got because I don't want to end summer yet yeah um does it make sense for me to go through the committee assignments before you give a review from last yeah I think that does okay um so I think From a chair perspective we would like to um

kind of have a chance to go through the committee assignments uh there's obviously a number of organizations uh not only in conquered but conquered Carlile um and at the last meeting in June we had agreed to who was going to be the liaison to which organization in town we have them all set up this is certainly not a checks and balances um to call you out here it's more just a Reminder so um I think just for the community to know adult and Community Education uh the representative is is me um for the Carlile finance

committee um as well as the select board it will be Brian and then I will back him and that was another thing I was going to can I just before you run through this for Aisha and Domingos you guys weren't here I think for this meeting if there are places where you want to slot in we would love your involvement but Just so just listen to the the list and sure sign up for something that you're interested in if you yep and the link is in the agenda so if you want to check it out

and follow along feel free to or look at it later um happy to do that um thank you it was a good call out um and then for the Committees that are um meet more frequently and have a a higher weight we do have backup so like I said the Carlile uh select board and finance committee Brian is going to be the Le on There but I'll back back him up whenever he can't make it um conquered finance committee that will be Alexa with Andrew as the backup uh conquered select board is Tracy with Carrie

being the backup uh conquer Dei commission is Tracy with Carri as the backup uh Peg access advisory committee is Cynthia the conquered Financial audit advisory it was Cynthia and Brian um and those two have definitely made contacts they actually to be sworn in um at least Brian did Brian had to be sworn in to do that yes um uh special education parent advisory Council also known as CPAC is is me with Alexa as my backup CMS building committee Alexa and Andrew calendar committee there is no shortage of people raise their hand for that um Carrie

is the person with the backup being myself and Brian uh sustainability Round Table is Cynthia throw playground committee is Carrie and I think that covers just about Everything um so anyway as now that we've gone through that we wanted to just give um a reminder but also have a conversation uh maybe later um but just as a reminder what it means to be leason so um the biggest piece is we want to ensure that we have a connection with the different groups in town and make sure that it's not just an automatic process where you're

going and then nobody hears about it um so if you can look at the committee assignments make Contact before the school year starts that would be great it's definitely a best practice and then I know it's hard but I know Carrie and I would really love to hear back from you even if it's three bullet points from your phone at the end of the meeting to say hey these are three takeaways that I had um and then that way what we can do is aggregate the feedback before these meetings and we can really do a

robust readout so that the community knows What's happening and also there is so much happening the school is such a big part of the community that um we want to hear about it and want to see how it incorporates so that would just be our ask did I miss anything no I think that sounds good okay perfect do you want to keep monitoring agendas yeah all right you want to give an update from last night yeah so um everyone yeah Brian was there too um so last night we had a joint committee Meeting with the

select board and the finance committee at Town Hall to talk about Capital planning it was um I thought it was really productive I'm speaking on behal of myself Dr Hunter and Carrie ller Bob and Anthony um from the town all got together put forward a joint proposal around how we should think about policies as they pertain to sorry practices around um capital projects and how we go about defining them um so I thought it was a great Start um there's a lot of work to happen I think my you know biggest question question at this

point which I mentioned last night is just what this means for the current incom guideline process because there's kind of a gray area of what is and is not inside the guidelin so it'll be just honest open conversations about that um I think one of the things that Mary had done with the select board I think it would be good if we just sort of took a straw Poll here um of folks on how you're feeling about the process if there's any concerns if you're you know thumbs up thumbs down um any you know General

feedback at this point um is welcome we want to just kind of go around quickly which I don't know if you saw it it was last night no yeah it's fine any want Tracy your um yeah no I thought it was great last night there was one correction I think that that uh We had made on the capital on the CPS side that one of the years it said we had 900,000 but it was only like 490 so if we can maybe just get that feedback back to correct that slide in case that slide comes

back again yeah um no I think it was Anthony say that again I'm sorry it was the um capital from remember were two years in a row we had the 900,000 but both years they were in the 400 we didn't get to Lo back with Anthony today because I've been busy all Day but I think we do want that slide yeah just to correct that slide um just because it's out there I know I said it ver but yeah you did say in the room last night the um no I think that the process sounds

great I think you know there were definitely questions that came up about buses like I heard a few things that you know I think we'll have to clarify um you know and the region is a different animal from CPS so it just it's just to keep talking as we go Through the process but I thought it was productive agreed yeah I I thought it was really good um I think with any this is like this is a big shift from how we've done it in the past so I think we will have to be flexible

selectboard will have to be flexible finance will be be flexible and kind of work through them some things you know I I just don't want to get to a point where we're kind of competing for the same town resources you know and if we're going to go in It's a unified front we'll have to figure that out on the back end but I think we're capable of doing that agreed so uh we we all are going to be competing as the town departments compete not compete but it's you're going to have to make some very

difficult choices um I am concerned about the lift between now and that November 16th date November 18th 18th date yes that's a lot to build we've never built a 10-year Capital plan all Tear that's a lot so when we agreed you know when we were debating these dates and actually we were I think probably positive a little surprised last night because the normal dates are earlier than that but with town meeting we on our own said let's just suggest we push these out and to hear the Committees interested and willing to push it further was

not what I totally expected so that's great to hear people are aware the the work it's Going to be I feel like with our facility study in front of us that gives us we've got a big really big starting point this year for CPS um so a lot of it will be vetting that and deciding order of priority and mapping out those plans I think then bringing in the region this building's got its own things in that plan that are pretty unique and then whatever other mostly smaller projects that have been deferred so I feel

like for us because All those pieces are sitting in place it's doable the work is really going to be at this table I think cuz we're not going to in with our own priorities we're going to go in and reflect your priorities um so I think to Cynthia's Point it'll be a matter of this having to be an ongoing discussion probably as early as September to help us be ready for November that's a great Point yep so that's said perhaps as the chair is Mee Again with Dr Hunter and yep Associated people you could kind

maybe a little bit of a road map yeah good idea so that we can have a reasonable schedule about how to review or whatever um yep yeah that's a great call your point about the lift it's it's busy all the time so it's going to be no different um and then we the study was 10 years I do think you made a point last night about how specific is year 6 to 10 I'm not going To lose a lot of sleep about figuring out what's in year seven versus eight like you know we do need

to sequence the best we can but it's a plan and like if a roou deteriorates that we thought was going to be year eight ends up being year six it ends up being year six six so um I think the the farther out it is the the less certainty on the the on the timing but we do have a 10-year base plan from our Consultants we we always we always say that these plans are Precisely wrong but directionally correct exactly well so and I do think we're going to have to put a bastter and on

any HVAC work because that has to be electrification and I don't think that was really part of their charge the consultant it was specifically not part of the charge and I think that has to be a conversation among the Committees my my instinct has been over the last six to 12 months is to pull that off as a separate conversation Because of the false starts we've continued to have um either the town's interested in spending that much more money to do it or they're not so we can propose the lifetime of certain pieces of the

buildings but I I don't know about accelerated replacements and things like that I don't feel like we've had enough of that conversation with the town committees as to their level of interest and desire I guess my own personal take because there's a lot of Opinions that don't all sync up quite yet um in terms of the level of interest for the additional spending so I certainly appreciate your point I don't know that it's part of this process per se we can certainly ask HVAC things or things that might have sustainable options to them but I

I'm unsure that it's going to be a recommend ation from the administration right now to Electrify when I don't know if the funding will be I think that's something We can talk about I was trying to go down the the road of what Acton did and they got many grants to do the study right um for both Town buildings and school buildings um so they have not done a lot of that work yet yeah but there's also a lot of Grants Etc so that would have to be collaboration between the town manager and you and

our sustainability director conquered so that's I just want to kick off that conversation I appreciate that it's Really the funding issue all of us are on board with the actual let's be greener it's who's going to pay for it convers and the grants is a good conversation I think we should we should put a pin in that and put it like on something for sure y thank you yeah no thank you that's great Brian I know you're online do you have any feedback I don't think anything more than what's already been said I thought it

was a good conversation always good To have you know multiple boards talking um speaking together um of course I love anything that's uh you know taking procedures and operationalizing them so yeah now it's just uh you know November will come up quickly so yep doing uh the work in between I was going to say just my my candid feedback was I thought I just am happy to see everyone coming together I thought it was a really great aggregation so I know you said it last night just want to reiterate thank you For collaborating so well

um and then I think just a note um because the region kind of the costs from the region just kind of get handed to Carlile Brian and I are doing some uh conversations with the Carlile fincom to let them know about the process um so if there's anything along their way that you think we should broker conversations with you already are on top of that but if we can help in any way is maybe a better way to put it and I think that Victor was Online last night too so he probably part of it

so that's good oh that is good yeah um so there were two action items from the meeting or that I wanted to just flag with these have already been referenced one is we have two meetings coming up um one on November 18th and the second on December 16th um these are the follow-up meetings unless they get pushed back which to everyone's previous points could potentially happen but for now if you could um either save Those two dates Monday November 18th and Monday December 16th or let me um or Julie know if you can't make it

just so we make sure we have a Corum that'd be great um the other topic that we T that was discussed um was very pretty high level was about um pbd and what happens when we um hand deliver it back to the town or what our next steps are with pbd after we move into the um amazing new middle school and uh there was a discussion about um potentially Just putting some feelers out there um from the town to get a sense of how people how developers um might use the space um so our our

piece of it I think the biggest question now is once we are out of it who who takes responsibility until town meeting so we'll have to figure that piece out perfect um that's it on last you want to give the update on the policy sub commmittee so um I'm like so excited About this I know I'm such a nerd but um so over the summer um Dr Hunter Julie Cynthia and I had nine hours of policy meetings um over three days in a row Tuesday Wednesday Thursday we treated we took turns bringing coffee and treat

it was the ice coffee that was exciting um and we sought out to go through um policies a through I of the book which is more than 200 policies the goal of the the kind of sessions was to get us up to date we keep getting to the End of the book and then realiz in that the front of the book is 10 years out of date and so we wanted to just update our book get um um up to code with mgl and all sorts of other things our process was if it takes more

than 15 minutes if there's more than 15 minutes of discussion then we were going to table it and bring it to the full committee we wanted to really just like identify the low hanging fruit what mgl what mural law pieces did we need to change what There was a lot of pronoun changes like grammatical things that were fixed um so we did it we got through a through I 200 plus policies in 3 days over 9 hours hours and um then we met again in August where we went through some of the policies that we

didn't necessarily feel like needed to come to you all but needed um some additional research so we met again we went through those policies and um so we have called it down to like a manageable stack of policies that we Think that this committee can um tackle over the course of the year um so Julie's going to go over that process in the discussion section but that is our um update on what happened over the summer and um huge thank you to the group because I mean I thought it felt so good because it was

just so productive but um I'm really happy that not everyone had to be there thank you for doing that oh and also sorry a quick thank you To Alicia Malin from um masc who came on the first day and really helped um steer Us in the right direction and get us get get helped us hit the ground running so that we could um reach our goal which we did that's great and Aaron for printing everything out and Aaron oh my gosh Aon and now for editing yeah drafts of the SL of the thank you toon

I will share that yeah um okay so yeah so that was so that's great um moving into discussions I have one more sorry sorry fincom Fincom also met last night um and they had a robust conversation about the guidelines and um what data they were going to request of both the town and the schools um and they followed that up with their um guideline letter which was sent today and I've like glanced at it but not fully digested it um circulated it to you all and we will discuss it at a later meeting just you

know it's out and there was one other thing that came up regarding the schools about the Regional substance use prevention program that you're part of that um panel with Lisa kowsky so they were just starting that discussion last night but they um I can't remember her first name that was presenting it I want M Melanie okay and she said well Dr Hunter and lisoski are on the panel so yeah so that was clear so that was the only other thing that came up regarding the schools great thank you and then I think Cynthia wanted to

right so the financial audit Advisory committee met uh Brian and I were both there they reviewed the FY 23 audit of the town of coner and just one item came up that is interesting and intersection with policy so um they cited our uh Bill our warrants do not include bills or invoices which by Mass General law and I said I'm going to go check our policy and indeed it says exactly that thing so we as a school committee have been following our own policy but it's just sort of so subtle I Don't think you would

really notice it um Mr analdi said that most Town School committees do provide invoices in their warrants so you know I all I could do is report the Auditors finding we were making that adjustment as we speak okay great so we need invoices added to the warrants the only for the town the finding is that the town of conquer Town accountant should be having cop finding is that the town of conquer's uh Town accountant office should be receiving uh Copies of the invoices okay um we do our own review here um sure the first batch

we sent him had 326 uh pages of backup so there probably obviously some type of sampling he'll have to do but um what we are providing to school committee um I don't think is atypical and if there's questions and people wanted to see an invoice that's you know something we could do um so I just wanted to clarify thank you it's great the only the only other thing that came up is munice which The town has I guess recently implemented and I think the schools are cutting over to munus or that's in process or something

like that I wasn't really clear I can clarifying that too they they are um Consulting with us on how they construct their chart of accounts so if we were to consider it in the future it would be something that would be a possibility if they construct it in a way that it could be just shut off at Completely as a possibility so I've shared my uh concern about how much work that would be I'm certainly open to talking about how the uh chter of accounts is constructed and um we'll see where we are I think

they have a lot of work to do to get themselves up and running uh the next couple years okay thank you thank you Cynthia um okay uh moving to discussions um we have a few few topics under this uh theme um but we're really excited to Have uh Shelley chin here and we're going to have you go over your entry plan uh so the floor is yours great thank you so thank you for having me um I drafted this in July and it really is um the idea for me is inquiry in the sense of

just using these questions to guide my thinking and collect as much in-person data meaning getting to know the schools intimately being in classrooms meeting the Educators seeing The programming across the entire District so um it leads with what's our vision how is that implemented in our classrooms across our schools um what is the evidence towards that Beyond just the the data benchmarks of Beyond mcast and other assessments but what does it look like in terms of our assessments our students writing whatever it might be um and then how are we thinking about advancing that and

where do we need to move forward um and thinking about this District strategic plan um then it's curriculum and assessment and then thinking about that related to tiered interventions and how we support all of our students to meet high level you know rigor and success so what does that look like for for different profiles of students and the diversity across our students um and we've been doing a lot of conversation even in just the last two days about professional learning in thinking about restructuring but you Know taking a a path of learning from what's best

from previous years moving that forward but also taking a path of thinking about the next several years um and then of course Equity is centered throughout all this and so we do have to think about our students of color our students who have not experienced success in the past and so um it's a lot of being in the classroom I've already used a good amount of July just trying to do document review and that will Continue to be I'll be more familiar with it right I'll see it live and and see where might those gaps

be and again I'm really trying to participate as much as I can so my SC schedule is starting to get more booked um but try to be in classrooms as much as I can and then the idea is that it's listening and learning and observing it is not about any dramatic changes or insights yet until I've really got a better understanding and you know the Deep conversations you Need to have with individuals and schools right any questions yeah if I could just you know shelle's been here since July 1st and it feels like it's already

been longer it's just been a powerful Summer She's certainly done the most you know she's been really effective with her documentary reviews we go to talk and like she knows what she's talking about and asking me really thoughtful Questions so it's been a really productive summer I think I think probably time to get out with all the people that we serve and I think she's excited for that um but it's got a really good start to it and a really good feel really great response from the administrative team I think think many of you were

at bargaining tables where we did hear there was a pent up need for some more teacher voice so Shell's really heard that and um really giving Us a chance to sort of step back which I think feels really good and and beyond all of that she's writing all of the grants she's taking on a desie review that we got picked up for and a whole bunch of other stuff that um she's also hitting the ground running with so um we're excited shelle's here and it's been a great summer and just looking forward to having her

launch out into the buildings and get to know staff and be with kids it's been really productive Already and everybody has just been so welcoming and inviting so you've got a really great team and as Dr Hunter has said just really high functioning and it's now about really just improving and and and considering what does that mean to deepen it right like how do we strengthen our processes and our structures and where do we see those outcomes great I have one question sure um um first welcome um and we're really excited to get to know

you and hear your Ideas it's always nice to hear a different you know perspective someone um Chris was in this job for a long time so it's nice to have a different perspective although she um served this job really well um or this community my question is this is obviously like a you know your first year in any new job is is tricky and challenging um I'd love to hear are there is there any way that like we as a committee can support you can help set you up for success or um Back you up

in any way um how can we be supportive of you um no I mean I think anything that you hear from the community and anything that I might not be everything is new to me so any information whether you think it's teaching and learning related it really does all touch points it's everything touches the purpose of school and education right which is teaching and learning even though for example I'm not as acclimated or needing to know say bus Schedules and so those things but they're all um they all demonstrate something about our schools and the

value we have on our students so I think any tips information experiences that you know of hear of that you think would be useful for me I think is really important because we really want to respond again like we said to teacher voices family voices community and students so there's a lot of stories telling when people first on Board so you could all help with the story like here's the history of what that is really building that cont so that particularly in identifying needs and where Readiness and ready to move forward in certain goals um

I think knowing that context really does help thank you happy to here just one comment so I really like that you said you know I'm looking forward to getting to classrooms and really seeing what's happening in our schools cuz I think That's really probably the the biggest piece of to know kind of what we're offering what we're doing we have excellent teachers here as I'm sure you'll observe the leadership team is really Second To None So the fact that you're joining this really high functioning leadership team it's really going to be great to have you

here and just be on the ground with students and teachers so thanks for that yeah I'm excited to be in the classrooms yeah It's great coming from somebody who's new who's learning a lot and um I can tell you that uh I think your idea of soaking it in for a couple of months before you make big judgments I um was given similar advice and I mean even just this summer Brian and I started in late May arguably June um did two public meetings and then people went away for the summer um but it was

really great to get a tour of the school I mean just seeing the engineering lab seeing The music space seeing the classrooms and where the kids have all that extra space um I shouldn't say extra space space to take their electives as the students were mentioning earlier and then meeting with Brian and I mean it's just like and Katie it was like amazing um and it's not that it was so different from when I first came on but I hear you there's like it's so much bigger than I had anticipated it's so much like richer

than I had anticipated and um and good For you for the comments that you made you know that range from Student Success uh to uh diversity Equity inclusion so I I think you have a good you have a good directive thank you and it's a lot to take in I think one year isn't even sufficient to really to listen and learn and observe I mean that's multi-e and and a lot of planning and thinking and um but it's it's always that fastpac too of of of trying to to run the daily operations or just run

some of the the Things that have already been doing going well and then taking on new work and saying how do we how do we really Advance this yeah it's great well thank you and thanks for coming tonight um all right well let's move on to the next part of the discussion uh topics um as Carrie mentioned wanted to bring up policy again um as you can imagine going over 200 policies um in three days is a lot of information uh thankfully a good amount of them were either really close Or close to either masc

or previous version so we were able to do some quick updates um we want to be efficient in in this this time that we have uh every two weeks um and I think also with the purpose of subcommittees is to help us move faster and more efficiently so we don't want to bring all 200 in discussion to the broader group that wouldn't be a good use of our time um so we have an idea as a policy subcommittee that we wanted to pass by in terms of a Process but want to make sure that everyone's

you know comfortable with how we maintain approve and discuss the policies especially those that are important we want do so at these meetings um so the way that we were thinking about it like I said if the 200 we pulled out a group of them and I'll tell you high level a couple of the policies that we want to discuss in this forum uh social media uh cell phone usage um there is some comments about Like online learning that we might just give you a briefing on um but we made some some updates to that

um so what we we're thinking of doing is putting the list of ones that we've made updates to with minor changes you can certainly go in and review i a i a or bc- a b and c um we've we've updated them and you can certainly go through them especially if there's a topic like I personally pulled out ones that we approved quickly but I'm like oh This is an interesting one I'd like to dive into more you can certainly do that um but I think what what might make sense is of like I think

it's about 18 of them that we wanted to go through it might even be more than that that we pick out maybe two to three to discuss at each meeting so we to I think to get through these we're going to have to have two to three policies per meeting or maybe we can start with one and see how it goes um and have a discussion on For example cell phones have a discussion on social media usage um and pick a topic put a time limit on it for our meetings and then you all could

give us a recommendation as a subcommittee to go back and make the necessary changes and updates and then we can bring it for after we have a meeting to discuss um so before I go into further does that how does that sound to everyone does that make sense do did I miss anything cindia Carrie from that perspect particular perspective can I ask a question about first read second read so the so the ones that weren't sticky that you went through so that's next okay all right so I won't ask that question yet so talking sticky

ones just so what's actually let's take the first read I think that's a good point so what we're saying is like I mentioned we'll we hyperlink and make a list or make a list of all the ones that we uh first read good we're We're all set we think this is these are the slight updates we made you'll see them in the changes we're not going to give you a narrative for each one but yeah like for example like some of them don't know like didn't reference that there is districts yeah in conquered we have

districts so just adding an s that was a lot of them um some of them like harri mentioned earlier pronoun changes um some of of them were just the Mass General law changed and so we simply Adopted it or masc changed so we adopted it so for these ones we had talked about putting them in the consent agenda correct thank you yes I was yes aggregating them into so we would put that list and would go into the consent agenda we would agree to it and it would remove the ones that we want to talk

about but those listed those listed ones would be in the consent agenda thank you for the formal with your recommend like it would be the policy subcommittee Recommendation that first read is in the consent agenda correct and the second read would be the next week in consent agenda correct sorry the formal language is always still tricking me up here but yes thank you and it would we would send out our notes from the meeting so that if you were like what is changing about adf2 um you could go and see exactly what is being changed

um in our notes and you could pull anything from the consent agenda that you want yep if your Curiosity is there go for it um really so yeah so that be there because we really want us to use like again just the brain power and efficient time use of like having about the Richer conversations that we need to talk about um so anyway so to the first read to your point consent agenda is that sound reasonable anyone have any comments or questions about that we're good okay and then for the ones that need a second

read as a group um the thinking is again Just like we do with the 48 hours prior we would send out the information we would send those those policies ahead of time um and that you're prepared to discuss them um at the meeting um and we can like I said save like 10 15 minutes whatever the timing is for those topics um and then come out of that 10 to 15 minute time frame for discussion with recommendations and then as a policy subcommittee meeting when we meet again we would take that feedback Make the updates

and then either make a recommendation or come back with more questions hopefully the former not the lad um and so again we can start with just one on September 3rd that's our next meeting we can pick one I probably we could start with something pretty gnarly or we might take one of the ones that's a little bit easier just to gauge time um but in the interest of time there's some of them that like we couldn't Believe like masc did not have an update to social media policy since 2016 um so we couldn't even adopt

Theirs to get even close we need to really probably do it on our own we even asked masc if they had an update and they didn't so that's going to be on us to to work with Dr Hunter on um which would make sense for the schools schools um and then like like I said cell phones other ones there's just a number of policies that are in there that we need To cover as a group so we'll make a recommendation between Cynthia myself and Carrie and Dr Hunter for what which one we pull out for

the third just to test the process um and I think from from now until November 18th probably each meeting if I'm hearing everyone right we'll have something on the budget um kind of like as Cynthia had mentioned just having a road map and we'll probably have something related to policy and I think That's just going to be the norm especially between September 3rd and November 18th is that fair on Capital just for clarity thank you Capital yeah um trying to think if there's anything else um I think that was it from a policy standpoint if

we have any questions we'll reach out individually but I think I think that pretty much covers it did I miss anything no just thank you I think it's been a spot of Frustration and we were clearly in a rear to a fault and we're just making up making that up really quickly so yeah really good really successful having fun doing it we did have fun doing it I actually couldn't believe a second day I'm like I'm actually looking forward to this policy meeting just takes a but in in the smaller group it was probably really

effective effici alici was and she you know and she did say like policy is her Thing so she really loves policy three policy walks on the uh that vetting of like what can we just do quickly and what is going to take more time and if it was going to take a little bit longer we just sidelined it and that allowed us to not get stuck yeah that's um I feel horrible for asking this but you did a through I what's the plan for J through we just did them last year those are the ones

actually those are already updated got It okay so we're clean for Andrew get sh good there was a moment masc has updated policies related to the title 9 law that just changed and I mean literally we were out of date already within about a day and I you know we're going to slow those down because there's a lot of homework to do too but I'm like it just never stops right so but to get the Baseline back is huge y I thought there was a reversal of some type a couple days ago oh title N

I think I saw Something like I haven't read it yet but I haven't heard anything from m upates are out of date well it's a it's a hold okay so I think I was like good time we didn't invest a lot of time in that yeah and if you have concerns or even have questions just don't hesitate to ask us we're obviously happy to talk about it um okay moving on to uh fy2 24 CCSD budget transfers um so um we had that we have that as a discussion and a vote so we'll do the

discussion first yeah okay Be great um let me share my screen I'm a question do we do the budget transfers for the last quarter of 23 FY 24 that's what you're voting tonight okay and just while he's pulling that up um you know end of year is still something they're actively working on we're pretty close with the region um we have to reconcile with the town for CPS which takes longer so that's that's underway as well so I think the hope is we have end of year in another meeting Or two and then won't be

too long before FY 25 first quarters due to you so okay F yeah Bob's been running three budgets most of the summer four pretty soon when we start the next budget cycle goal is always to wrap one up before you start the fourth so um okay so um for folks that this is new to um I just wanted to orient people to the way the information is Presented um I'm going to scroll this down the screen a bit um and you can see uh the way the information is reported in which categories um the the

way we report our information is align with the Department of Elementary and secondary education chart of accounts it's how they uh look at things um and how we do our ndv reporting to them it also is how we can Benchmark ourselves against other districts um it's also the way the school committee approves our budget um So I've included as a reference when you see this report in the future you're going to see at the bottom what is included in each of these categories so that'll always be there if you're wondering uh you know where does

um transportation for example uh line up so with that I'm going to jump back up to the top and as uh Dr Hunter mentioned um this is a preliminary report I don't anticipate many changes to the region uh we've done a lot of work to um get to The point where we're nearly closed uh things like adjustments to use up some Grant funds we can still book entries um um so these aren't the final numbers we'll come back with final numbers um Auditors best practices are to have school committees review and approve these on a

quarterly basis um so that's what we do um and again these are preliminary the final numbers do need to be approved um so what we have here is uh where we landed on the budget um you Can see that um as of the um end of the year let me just move my zoom thing which is in the way of my numbers uh right now we're projecting a balance of under 100,000 I mean that's intentional we do we do try to make sure we're utilizing our funds some of that was not too difficult we had

some uh things that we'll talk through here um the uh what I typically try to explain here is what's in the adjustment column because what you approved Initially is in the First Column the original budget and then the adjusted budget is the third column uh of figures and so um typically when I'm explaining what's changed I think that's the information that's relevant to you you've already approved the budget um so kind of walking down that I I focused on kind of the items with larger variances um within instructional leadership that's the 2000 code um that's

really all of our teaching and Learning activities and and support functions like tutors um we are over budget under budget there um for the Year by 62300 ,000 375 that is salaries um 86 of that salary piece is short and long-term Subs $17,000 is tutors um as some student needs have changed we've um not backfilled some positions and actually if you might recall during the fy2 budget development we did cut for tutor positions so some of that was accelerated during uh last year uh we've Had a hard time filling the EI intern position U so

that was an un spent um budgeted role um and then the reading specialist uh because they were left in um because they were under budget we were able to charge more of their salaries to S3 we also had a special education teacher that was not backfilled a person uh in special education role filled in as department chair for the year and we were able to in Consulting with the Principles we determined we didn't need to backfill that role for that year um and there are some additional replacement higher savings things um that we realized um

in the non-salary lines um they're 248,000 under budget in teaching and learning um that includes kind of building Administration costs within the principal's perview um 33,000 in professional development uh 59,000 in instructional software and 102,000 instructional Materials um in the 3000 function the um other school Services were over budget and it's pretty much all driven by Transportation well almost all um 106,000 is for special ed transportation we ran into some situations where we had uh routes that we um were we needed to fill that uh case uh Transportation could not support um we also have

homeless Transportation Which we Reed reimbursement on the back end so during the year we don't budget for it um and at the end of the year we will receive reimbursement for most all of it um Athletics uh the school committee uh with our you know we presented this we um hired an assistant trainer uh during the year uh and we also had some additional rentals some of our sports teams did well we needed to rent uh more ice time for example um so Athletics overall is 86,000 and more than half of that's coming from the

trainer position uh and then campus security services um is 41,000 um and a lot of that was for safety initiatives you might recall the blue light um phones we put in place uh expanded Wi-Fi uh and then we needed to replace some cameras um and networking related to those cameras as well um within um the 4,000 which is really the maintenance and operations category Um we increase the the collective budget by 208,000 most of that is um electricity um 113,000 we did talk about this during the budget process and we've corrected where we've been budgeting

for fy2 uh 25 uh this coming year so that will not be an issue next year um and building and grounds maintenance was over by uh 55 we did have a lot of HB back most of that's building uh a lot of hbac repairs we Also did some space rework you might have seen the nice new spaces in uh the guidance area a lot more student friend um and those are important things to do um and um but those are some of the contributions um to what's over budget um health insurance collectively is over budget

by 174,000 net active employees and retirees workers comp is up 50 and liability insurance is up 40 we've seen a trend in our insurance uh prices Increasing we do have some good news on workers comp for um we just kind of moved into a different classification our rating you know knock on wood for two years of no incidents we have a better experience rating and so our workers comp will come back to um more in line with what we budgeted for next year um so and then the last one which is a little bit misleading

is um programs with other districts which is mostly out of District tuitions it includes Charter School tuitions school choice tuitions but the bulk of it is out of District private uh tuition and collaborative uh special ed tuitions um so in this area you'll see a negative adjustment of 87,000 but the true picture is that we um uh we had three to four placements more um than we budgeted for and so our out of District expenses in total were more than we budgeted but we had more offsets we filed for Extraordinary Circuit breaker relief when you

have kind of growth that's beyond the norm you can get additional money from the state and our special education department did a great job in identifying that and filing that um and so that substantially offset um basically what we um had had had for expenses that we didn't budget um I think those are the big things and so then the last piece is um the minute Man Natura Health Group offset I pulled that out to a separate line technically it would be in fixed costs or fixed charges but um this was our our regional district

exiting Minuteman Thea Health Group collaborative and as part of that we had to pay for six months of run out claims which is I guess normal um and um the school committee we brought this to the school committee and notified the towns that we were recommending the use of end so we did not impact Town Assessments um so we utilized end to fund this the way that shows up is an additional increase to the budget so that 395,000 is an increase to the budget but it's being funded by eend um so what I would be

requesting in in the action item is approval of the um budget um transfers as presented tonight um I should also point out that there's a a cut and paste error the First Column the mhg exit costs the original budget in the First Column should have been Zero um and the and so the rest of the columns are correct our original budget was 37 mil 8198 so that was kind of a quick run through I don't know if there's any questions you know just a reminder uh we froze the budget to help this outcome um those

unexpected special education costs we didn't know we were going to be able to get extraordinary relief and even with that we're you know really tight here So just a reminder that that's the way we ended up operating at the later part of the year um is it typically this tight towards the end of the year this it wasn't last year I just want to like name it this is $989 at the end of the year that's insane it is not normally as tight as it was and we saw that I mean Bob does such a

good job of tracking that we were able to see it as the year evolved so that mid year we could see and by March and April it was clear we should slow everything down and make sure we could cover the mandated costs that we have and slow down on the discretionary things um which you know you can do that a year you keep doing that year after year your discretionary because becomes a you know deferred cost that you then have to make up um so I think you know the hope is that this year and

I think the part all foreshadow with fy2 those unexpected tuitions are in this year's Budget now unbudgeted for so we're already especially at the high school looking at where we are and I mean we're saying this to in August um I think at the moment we feel like we've got options but that's a long road ahead of unknowns that could continue to change so um those SP tuitions rolled forward into deficits and out of district for the high school in fy2 before the school year you're already over budget before We started we were red in

tuitions so we're already watching it really carefully as the Staffing stabilizes which is happening right now because we're done hiring we can see if the you know through attrition we've been able to gather any more savings that's always the goal and then just really know where we're at um for the run of the school year so a lot more to come but we're already watching the high school really Carefully that was going to be my only question is the the first line of the your notes on 2000 so the um for example the position that

you did not back fill during the school year you're I'm assuming you are going to try to back and did you you did okay yes okay got it so that you know things like that we could do for a year we could of sort of skirt that and get by we couldn't do it for the long term and the other ones were you more from were you able to fill Them the Deb intern the reading Specialists all that we filled all of it the dib intern I think we're going to talk with Andrew like the

model he's envisioned is is just not fitting um a candidate pool um part-time and some other things so I think we're going to revisit that with him in terms of what that could be in the meantime he's empowered teachers in so many ways that I think it's become less of a concern that it's not filled um I mean the truth Is he'd probably love some Administrative Assistant support and is there room there to talk about even just halftime admin or something like that so more to come I think we're going to tackle that in the

FY 26 build and the reading specialist is actually there it's just that we had two people in the role one of them was similar roles and because one was under budget we were able to relieve we had extra money to cover part of the other Position okay well thank you any other questions I have one oh go ahead Cynthia I was just wondering about the incumbrances for instructional leadership is that normal to have it 1.8 so uh what we would typically do is we would close out salaries and acrw them and they would shift those

dollars will shift to the expenditure column but we haven't closed out yet so um pretty much a lot of that 1.8 million a lot of The 2.3 million in total is for salary incumbrances that we um there's a process at the end of the year where we'll post those wages and they'll shift from that column to the column before it okay I mean I think the part where you can really see us running really tight and making those adjusted lines are much bigger than normal um we're much closer to budget usually and we purposely aren't

because we had such deficits to cover so that's the evidence of the Shifting that happened as the year went on well we appreciate all the work you did to to make that happen and I think to car's point I mean coming in at $989 like $989 is pretty remarkable so thank you remarkable I I have just one question on the 3000 line um were any of the sped Transportation specifically the homeless Transportation were any of those reimbursable and is that somehow shown in here uh special ed Transportation the when we rep when we Request funding

for circuit breaker relief yeah no but specific to the shelter oh specific to the shelter uh we have not yet received so the spending that we did this year yeah will be reimbursed in May of 2026 oh okay it's a 18 months it's a following fiscal year well it's technically 13 month but last year we got we got it earlier that's not the norm that's not the norm 18 months we have to front it all of it wow that's a Lot okay good news we're kind of getting a flow going now that we're into year

two plus yeah or two is we have a little bit of we have some options on how we budget that the region we can talk about during the budget that a little bit less flexibility and the town of conquered but so we'll bring that up again in the budget process yeah is all reimbursable it's timing time has to be so hard to manage with all these grants and reimbursements Like yes municipal government thank you Bob there's no one single entity that then you just draw off of for the whole year and the timings the the

year the timing different on a lot of them I mean seeing it in a spreadsheet is much different than cash right yes yep great well thank you again so we'll see the final version of this next meeting um one of the next two meetings Most likely not the next the next one is the final version yeah but we'll vote on this tonight yeah you need to vote the transfers and then You' accept the end of year in a two meetings probably committee okay so this is going to be quick um I didn't send the self-evaluation

report so we didn't we didn't so therefore um I I realized this but it was within the 48 hours before our meeting and I didn't want to add it without um proper notice so anyhow we Will discuss it at a later date the um high level is I think that there's some well the high level on the evaluation is that everybody at this table was inv invited to participate um as was previous members from last year um it's Anonymous so I'm not sure who did or did not but um the the results came from masc

they did it for us they evaluated the results and then um sent us a report um which I will be sending to you later tonight or Tomorrow morning so total how many people participated I want to say it was six or seven um I think it was Julian Brian did were invited to participate yes or they were invited they had no context yeah yeah I get it so think you they and I because I did reach out to uh Carrie court and Sharon gotcha thank you that's all I need to know great all right so

yeah so another One we'll add on September 3D um to cover um okay moving along so we had put out um in the agenda the protocols and practices I think a couple reasons we did this as a line item to specifically call out is we have a new committee I know as of hypothetically may but really fully functioning now um and we just wanted to take the time to re to review the protocols and practices as a group you had an opportunity to look at them Ahead of time if you had any concerns um I

think specifically on protocols I just want to take the time to just review a couple of them um because I don't anticipate people having feedback on this I just want to serve as a rem reminder it's welcome is have it it is welcome of course it is of course it is um I just don't anticipate these ones because they're they're more of the structure of who we are as a school committee um but just as a reminder the Our primary responsibility is to represent and advocate for the needs and interest of all students in the

district and I think I've gotten to know all of you I think everyone shows up with that in mind but I think it's just good for us to be intentional in in saying that because it is a little bit unique I know when I've run when I've run and I've met people they're like we have to think of all residents and of course we do of course we do um but I think having the Lens that we have is really important and it's a good reminder to do so so I just wanted to say that

out loud the second one is um it is the responsibility of the school committee to set a positive tone for the entire district and make every effort to promote a positive image for the school system um even if we see faults I think the biggest piece is for us to be part of the solution um and so one of the asks that I've made to you individually I say it publicly though is it is okay for us to disagree I would just say that if you have a suggestion on how to improve bring a suggestion

don't just say I don't like this just bring it forward and let's talk about it because I think there's no shortage of smart people around this this table um and I think if we work together we can solve a lot of big problems so I think we all feel about and Brian you're part of the table I'm including you in that um very Big table and I think just the last one there's again there's tons of these I can keep on reading I just wanted to read these first few because I don't think we get

a chance to say this publicly and I think it's important to do so but the school committee will agree upon up to four annual smart goals that help solve and identify challenge or issue or to address an opportunity for enhanced student achievement at least once a quarter the school Committee will assess Collective progress and again I think just keeping a mind on progress Improvement Student Success these are really important themes for us to just think about and I I wanted to say these out loud because I think we're going to go into goals of the

next topic um both the superintendent goals and us as a committee and I think it's just really important for us to ground ourselves as to why we are here because I I'm not Doing this at of self-pity we give up a lot of time um and I say give it up for good reason so if we're going to be here let's be productive let's be positive and let's be a big asset to the community um both car and conquered um so with that being said that's protocols we have practices as well does anyone have any

feedback from the policy meetings is that we had discussed um aligning the Administration's sharing of materials prior to meetings with the requirement of um posting so if we have to post meetings within 48 Hours of the meeting we will the administration is expected to Prov provide information within 48 hours and here it says three business days so I think we should just change that that's my just to update the policy keeping that's great so the only thing I'll say is do you think the self- evaluation will Make us reconsider any of this material or that's

the only thing I was going to put that out there yeah and we can table this vote until next week if we want to do that or oh yeah we have a vote on P we could we can certainly wait um I I don't know I'm just saying do I don't that's fine if you're asking my my my opinion and I'll just I will happily lend my head I did not respond to the survey because I didn't think it was appropriate for me to being so new um I I just didn't have the the balance

so I didn't respond to it so I know my voice isn't in that I think it's still really important to look at any data point that comes through um to learn at that but I don't think it's going to change protocols in practices I think it could change um ways of working to some degree but I think even just like the work we've done with the policy subcommittee like reenacting like bringing that back is is is a step in the in the I don't Want to say the right Direction just step into a a new

way of working as a group but um I'm happy to entertain if you want to wait until September to no I was just throwing out there it's a great topic the other thing is the more I think about our goals and the superintendent's goals we can have goals like review policy or you know things that are specific to things that we can do only on our own but outside of that I think personally as I begin to think About it more it should be 100% aligned between this school committee if it's an operational if the

superintendent has a goal I don't think we can have a different or separate or goal that's you know what I'm saying I do and I think you've said something interesting I think the reason I read the protocols is from being a people manager in more of the corporate space I'd have somebody show up with their goals and they say I'm going to do XY and Z I'm like that That's your job that's not a goal right so I think what we need to do is challenge each other to make sure that whatever we put together

is smart so I think your point it's like yeah we're not just G to of course we're going to do policy we need to do that that's our job but like what is it that aligns um so I think whenever we can have alignment I'm sure I want to hear from others I think I'm on board with that I think the biggest piece that we have to Be that we have to check ourselves the seven of us is is this the role of the school committee or is this the role of the school mhm and

what do we do to support and then what is our actual goal but I agree with you on the alignment that would be my only caveat any other yeah I mean I like to add something cuz we started this meeting off by having folks check in and I spoke up on that but again you know my colleague here um coming from Boston Doesn't feel inclusive okay when we sit here and we having discussion and it's like we're talked around um listening to say conquered k out no Boston then you're having people do a roll call

then it's like we're sitting here we're not just seven there's nine of us here yeah so having that terminology changed will make it feel inclusive but it got to be a mental thing it can't just be when you feel like thank you and that's what it's been feeling like for the last several Meetings I know there's new bodies at this table but there was something that I did appreciate about court was that he was inclusive that he made sure that not only myself and Aisha but others felt like they were at this table and the

last few meetings it's not the same kind of temperament and I would like to see that change because again we talk about this but then we don't put it into practice yep yes I think we absolutely have to change that the way this meeting Started was sad especially for me to come back this my first meeting since the incident so I would love to see that change um you know I don't know you but um I'm you know I've had a relationship with conquer for I was a former meal student I'm a Meo parent my

son's been here since kindergarten um I love conquer I have you know I appreci appreciate um a lot of things that conquer has offered myself for my my child so I would just like to see like Us move in positive in the right direction yep thank you I appreciate that's takes a lot to stand up I appreciate you saying that and um we'll do better and I think in addition to that I think just publicly um yeah we need to do that so let's let's work on that we'll see a change on September 3rd for

sure greated thank you anyone else okay so you're not going to vote that Tonight just to help keep the agenda yeah I mean I guess that's the question right so to cnth this point do we want to do we want to vote on the protocols and practices or do we want to hold it till the third my my feeling is I think we wait that would be my I think in in essence we we see that I think we all agree it's good but I want to make sure we have a chance to to review

It so we'll just vote on the budget tonight if that is okay and maybe to demo this point like maybe we put something in there about when we're taking you know if we have to do attendance because sometimes we don't do attendance if we don't have somebody online then we're not we're we don't even say who's present so maybe we have to put add something in there about you know how we order that I don't know good idea maybe that goes into our practices Because then it's in writing and it's visible mhm absolutely just a

thought I think that's great yeah I must have been feeling something too because you see I actually named my relationship with the Meco reps in my goals that I'm about to go through it's actually specifically named here as a piece of one of them so I think we're all committed to that yeah you're very valuable here and we wouldn't want you to feel Otherwise all right so um all right so we're going to put a hold on that we'll have that in theend genda for September 3rd um and I think let's move into your goals

and then we can have a a discussion on everything great and I'll just Echo Cynthia's point I think the more synced up we are the better those have been the years that it feels much more fluid and just the energy all goes in the same place so I'll just support that you know in that effort um I'm Going to do this at a high level you've had the document attached but many of them are continuations of last year which actually felt really good in doing that reflection process because they're based on the school the Strategic

plan which is where you're near 205 and they're meant to you know you just said syncing up with me I have that same sentiment of needing to be sure that the school Improvement plans and the administrator goals all the way to the Teacher goals have some correlation at at our level within the buildings so I think a lot of that felt validating but I think I'll just highlight some of the work that we're planning on doing this year again I don't think anybody's going to surprise you because you've had school Improvement plans already and some

of the um strategic plan efforts and I I think much of what you just said much of my role is to support other people so you're all my goals are Referenced with who is collaborating with me on them uh because there's no work really I can do alone and that's not how I lead nor do I think it would be effective so just naming that seems really important um so the teaching and learning category uh really working with Shelly on this needs ass assessment that I'm really excited for I think the step back after a

decade is going to be really important and valuable about where we're going to be going um we have Some smaller things to look at more imminently uh software being what kind of tool is it for us you've heard a lot about the database that we created to Warehouse all the student data it's uploaded and current and all of the kids and all of the data we have is in there and now we actually have to start using it so getting that rolled out to the staff really understanding what the tool can give us how we

not get lost in the data but what it's telling us and what We need to do differently and where our areas of growth are um we have some certain tools themselves that uh just you'll hear this I think during the budget process we have too much software still just to say Co we started here we're now here like I still think we can get here and just eliminate redundancies we've had some of those early conversations already even this week um PD is a absolute priority for all of us and really meeting teachers with the Needs

that they have to reflect the work that we're doing early literacy and now literacy even into the intermediate grades at the elementary schools jumps off the page the middle school has a lot of pedagogy and instructional efforts for the new building that we want to work on inclusion Team all of that the high school's really honing in on some core content areas math and LA are our top priorities and making sure our curriculum and scope and sequence is Really intact and that all teachers are on board with it and aware of it and teaching to

it um so that common experiences are also available and then I we mentioned the culture part of making sure teachers are heard um in terms of equity and equal opportunity this is really meant to be the academic portion of that work um calculus project I got I was very involved directly with the calculus project in the spring both at the middle And high schools that's going to continue um you know this is where our our outcomes really need to meet our our intent um that the kids are reaching those higher level courses and we've had

a lot of conversation this summer over why that hasn't necessarily always been the case um as we've moved kids ahead another year so a lot more to come there mtss we've been talking about and what that supports can look like I want to continue to work with deeper learning um Across the district as well well as udl the boy this is like alphabet soup here this one um Universal Design for Learning District curriculum accommodation plan our mtss those are all regular education side of the world and making sure we're meeting student needs um the last

really in terms of academics um in regular Ed is looking at uh well-being and I say that it connects because I think we're all pretty committed that high achievement can't Come at the expense of well-being or instead of well-being and so we tend to now really carry those two hand in hand so um panoram is our tool that we purchased last year and did a pilot with and don't love the survey questions that we asked so we're going to tweak that today we started talking about using it as individual seal um assessments uh fifth the

elementary schools just to quickly reference the CPS side we have responsive classroom Exclusively out and almost thoroughly implemented but theal curriculum itself which was fly five we've had issues with and probably going to do a reset there um messaging I feel like one of the biggest jobs I have is the priorities I set and communicate and making sure that we continue to share that message with kids with families with staff of like we believe in both high achievement for all and student well-being and not one at the cost of The other um and then finally

you haven't seen these yet we got the y our youth risk behavior survey data in right Bo right after school closed so we haven't really had a chance to look at them yet we're certainly going to bring them to all of you and see what that by anual checkpoint is showing us at um middle and high school special education is really the whole next bucket and the next set of goals um we have tentatively identified A different launch space for retail so excited by that that's great I'm not going to say anything yet but it's

exciting and it's a little more walk a little more um user user ready so kind of like walk in and get going and not have to do all these Renovations and everything a smaller square footage smaller rent it actually feels better so maybe everything's meant to happen um for a reason the the IND District programming I can't say enough about how That needs con continual efforts and attention Angels obviously the lead there with the principles but there's ramifications in every direction whether it be acute student needs whether it can be budgeting whether it can be

instruction um but really important programs that I need to stay attentive to and they connect with the out of District settings because what we can do in district has to be sufficient enough that we could then keep kids here so you Know those two things do go hand inand not that kids aren't ever going to go out a district but the two are partnered together inclusionary practices continue to be really important to us to talk about meeting all sorts of diverse needs in the classroom and then really honing in on specific instructional approaches that make

special ed really special for lack of a better word um that should be providing things that regular Ed isn't and I think we're still defining those Two categories of work professional practice I left the shelter here because it's such an ongoing evolving entity for us um we will on board about 40 kids this fall into K12 most of them are at Willard um um most of them in K and one really successful summer hopefully getting them a little more ready than they were last year but you're listening to the news like I am the governor's

timelines and limits are all going to have impact at some point the families Have been told they've got nine months so the anxiety level is High mock is working really closely with families now really focused on job security and housing acquisition and things like that so there's just so many moving pieces there I feel like is really worth me keeping um as a goal in and of itself and I am now connected Statewide and sort of touching hearing what other districts are doing desie des's very attentive to this I have to say nothing But positives

there and making sure I hear what that is um the only deib goal I wrote itself is what's here but that doesn't mean it's not ubiquitous to everything and it's just really important we keep saying that we have specific goals but it is also the filter and lens we are now putting on all of the work and being intentional about that um I just referenced the Strategic plan that Andrews got has built it's so robust and deep and there's updates we Could go in at every level to do that I don't think that's tonight's task

but certainly soon we will want to do that um I continue to serve on the state level committees with the superintendent Association and desie and then I did write two specific Meco goals here um really focusing in on support to the leadership parent communication connections at Inc the ptg meetings we've had a couple successful ones Domingos has been there the last few Months with another one it got bumped this week because of whatever else we had going on with tragedy but it'll be rescheduled soon and then I did name really wanting to really look at

the roles you have we're two years in what does my role with you both look like and there's the committee as a whole and so it it feels really important um and then I did name one um we have you know transitions going on I'll just leave it at that transition is Going on in the leadership both CPS and cchs now so just really wanting to be supportive to them because I think um I don't I I know we're not meeting exactly all of what the families are needing from us and I'm being really direct

and um connected to those efforts at Meco at Meco yes um in terms of finance and operations I think these are similar to what they were with a little with a lot more focus on collaboration and support connections with the town um to really I Think last night was a good start for sure and trying to collaborate with them in terms of capital and operating budgets and all things fiscal so that I don't want to be where we have been the last two years I'm just going to say it like that the all the way

to town meeting thing is exhausting on all of us divisive not good and I I know I'm a piece of that solution and so that's the intention going in is that we're collaborating and not duking it out to The last bitter moment because we're all tired and yeah it's not a good use of anybody's energy so correct um the rest I think there are names some of the work you're going to be doing so I don't need to go through all that and then last but not least a brand new conquered Middle School um I

am really in that right now and I expect that's going to stay the same for the next six months it's crunch time folks wow is it crunch time so we're meeting not just our regular Meeting we've been also meeting almost weekly on schedule and working with the general contractor on where the levers are to push and pull and um it looks like we're on track for February with potential little bits of things still to tweak so there's an update coming to the billing Committee in a couple weeks of what that might look like uh but

this is now everything from the building itself to the moving arrangements and all the work that has to get down there purging And getting out of the two schools um Justin I can't say enough he spent his summer planning how this would be a smooth flow from what he has to open the year to the new school at the end and I think boy he that that team worked really hard it's going to pay off later though because it's I think it's going to be seamless he's got a schedule that's going to flow that way

they built maps with room numbers in both settings you know I mean he's really way Ahead of it so um and now their focus is really going to be on the student centered part where we're talking about team the team model and the inclusionary parts and a reset of culture because you're putting two schools together that have never been together and I just really excited about what's going to come um I'm going to just CU Mike's still here just say we had a really positive meeting earlier in the summer another one scheduled I think later

this Week um Justin shared with me that there's some organic Ellen Garrison ways to talk and look at honoring her within the building coming from the teachers like I think there's just going to be something really special happening there and um I'm in full agreement with Mike let's look at as a way to heal and um you know we're going to honor the opening of that building in multiple ways the ribbon cutting might be like literally the 24th of February at 700 A.m. before the kids show up at 8 so um we talked about a

dedication to honor the Ellen you know Focus but also you know the ribbon cutting and some other ways to really honor all the hard work of so many community members in a community that put forward its biggest project ever and um so I think there's going to be multiple tear of Celebration and um just so much positive um so I want to invite you all to tour soon um so I'm going to get some dates out Because you haven't either been in at all or been in in a while and um I love any reason

I can bring to get in there so um we'll try to that in the next couple of weeks but it really is an exciting year to see this all finally happen so yeah great so thank you thanks for the air time to kind of talk through that's great that's great one of the most important things we do is hear from you and your goals I I honestly mean that because thanks uh you know Otherwise what is the point yeah so you know so I think uh that's not too much time it's yeah I love that

we've pulled it back to August where I've had the summer really do it thoughtfully and other years it was a little later in the school year and I waited too long to do it and now you know August is a great think space and um I feel much better about what I'm bringing you and so Dr Andrew why does it feel like September already I don't know right I know I it Is it is about to agreed um before we go into any ideas for Austin any comments questions feedback for Dr Hunter so there's a

lot here and I was going to say there's one big smart goal and no offense to the region this year is moving in moving into that building um and that's it's a huge task you know it sounds like Justin is really organized um but it's it's not like well we get 80% there we'll get 75% there like There's no options in terms of that smart goal it's just uh 100% so um with that said though I don't know if you could not tonight because I don't know if we're going to finish these tonight um could

you pick out five things from here that are measurable that are most important to you yeah absolutely these all meant to say that because they're not smart yet right I know that and I do want to pick some data points to bring you um I kind of thought we'd sit with The data we've got fresh data coming in right now so that's one reason I held off is as mcaps comes to us we're going to want to include that um but I also thought it would be helpful to listen to what you're all prioritizing and

then we'll definitely quantify some of these for sure which because they're not all the same they're not all equal correct um some some are different and saying they're not important all of them they're obviously all very important but Where would you absolutely SP your calories yeah I'm happy to do that and like I said I think um and these two were in the room the last two days but the energy in the room on we would just break up and talk about where where are you like you know vertically buildings getting to hear each other

and then a lot of horizontal talk and um you know shelle even came over and said I can't believe how much I hear the same thing no matter where I go that's because this Whole district is doing all this work it's not just me but yeah I'm happy to pulled them out and sort of highlight a few of and one more thing I'll say is this issue this is unprecedented right um communicating to the community on a number of fronts um I would like to hear we haven't had Andrew with us for quite some time

so you know there's some things in here that I um just would like to have a discussion about um in his report and I was going to ask you Because you prominently mentioned the The Ellen um at the middle school and what you're working on and so but you just already described that so that's great um so yeah I want to say that's uh the community now has a lot better idea about some of the things going on than they would have in the past yeah and I I just think we want to shout out

the conquered bridge that they've been working with us on that since late June early July so that that much information And obviously a lot of folks were involved and I just I I sent the sent Celesta thank you Friday I hadn't seen it yet right I I knew of the different stories but it's not all online and I didn't have the hard copy but I'm like I don't know quite what you wrote but I'm getting a lot of positives so thank you but to see it yesterday I it's amazing and really a really powerful Community

tool so I really appreciate all the time they they put a lot of time in with with A lot of our people so you get them delivered though right yes it just delayed you weren't there I wasn't here right I was at home problem Saturday and Sunday so yeah it's really hard to find coming from somebody who does not get it delivered to their house I uh no no it's a secret it's hard to find yeah Library the library I got the last copy but I went two times I couldn't find any I went three

times wasn't open Sunday Monday I so speaking of the next thing They're working with me on is to come into the middle school and two are behind the scenes Friday i' get some photos of the construction that's awesome that's great yeah we're there's a real Synergy going on this right now that I'm excited that's great can I ask one quick question about the shelter so you said you're going to onboard 40 new students no there's about 10 or 12 new kindergarteners most of them are returning to us so that's the good news Um what we

don't know is you know we've got one or two families that I found housing this summer so those rooms will probably have new students for us that's kind of some of our anst just we've had a lot of these kids for a year so we we're maintaining the same kids we've had going into this school year which is great predominantly so then the kindergarteners went to our preschool um so the kindergarteners either they did a little bit of everything so they either Did the play space at the shelter okay or they did our preschool and

they all went to Willard five days a week from June 17th until the middle of August and that is just going to be gamechanging oh yeah absolutely they they came in with some Readiness they left with a lot of Readiness and I think we're going to be in a great place to onboard them next week we're really excited is there bus there was a bus all summer too yeah so they got to ride the bus this is and I Have to say before the first I need to keep saying desie has done this right I

mean not only did we use funding from the $104 per day subsidy and we kind of budgeted for that but before the summer started there was another Grant out and we received 20 20 or 30 20 or 30,000 just for summer programming so the the the state has funded it well I understand that's why there's so much stress right now on how to get relief of it but they are really supporting District well to do and this did not happen last year the summer part no you know we kind of looked at each other mid

year like what would we have done differently because we struggled with the kindergarteners last fall um and you know Mr Lucy was immediately like I would have had them here all summer so he made that happen good job and what I you know I have to say it again but when he came and talked to his school Improvement plan he talked about the Newcomers yeah I just love his reference as our newcomers um because it just feels better yeah so very nice so we've added a you know just highlights of where that money's going we

have um you know with that many kids the $104 a day is substantial amounts of money um so we still have assistance in kindergarten and one for this fall both grade levels many of them bilingual some of them shelter residents um in addition we've added we were able To reallocate our internal elll staff so we've moved someone over there um so and plus the one we had hired last year so there's going to be three elll teachers at Willard um we've added a counselor of color that felt like a glaring need last year that the

kids need someone who looks like them and someone dedicated to the trauma work and some of those things that we were doing the best we could but had a need um and the final piece we've added is sheltered English immersion um so that the kids are getting instruction where they're at both language wise and academically because then they can be out of the class getting you know you can't make gains if the instruction is too far ahead and advanced of where you are too much of the day so by you know slowing things down and

giving them more opportunity we slow it down so they can close gaps and then get back into the um get on track for regular curriculum Trajectories that's the goal so um and that we did intentionally to avoid special education because what we what we know for sure from all of our Equity work is making decisions about kids in very low rades can eliminate opportunities for them later and we wanted to be sure we weren't doing that because of the newcomer status or because of the trauma status or because of the El status um but instead

we're offering regular Ed supports So it's a lot but it's going to be great it's going to be great awesome yeah thank you all right all right move over to the goal what is what is the process with these goals are they finalized right now or no no mine normally I bring them once we sort of reference them often through your goals um it sort of sits there then then usually I bring updates at different points during the year about the progress we're making or shifts I Had to make or whatever this is a year

you evaluate me so because we're on an every other year cycle so it will be more formal than it was last year I bring you evidence of hopefully you see the evidence anyway but I try to be more formally and identifying it so that you can really judge what what what was accomplished and what maybe we didn't get all the way there and use the evidence when you get to do the evaluation at the end of the year Because some you get to that evaluation you're like wait I got to dig through and yeah and

find the evidence so it's actually super usually just because so many of you haven't done it with me um usually I take this form that's why that whole column's empty and I actually put in evidence and Link a whole bunch of things to that so that when you go to do the eval you're not trying find stuff I've already sort of mapped it out against what I said I Was going to work on that was really helpful last time will we discuss these at our next meeting you know so I think that's part of the

discussion we have to have tonight I think Andrew's comment was a is a good segue I think what I don't want to see personally and obviously want to hear from everyone is what is that drop dead date where we'd like to have something formalized by um the purpose of tonight is to just that's why it's in discussions we want to have A discussion about them so um it sounds like we all see need for alignment for sure um so Lori went through hers heard from some of you I think I don't want to be blind

to what was just said so Aisha and Domingos we have time to hear any ideas you have we can either talk about it here or we can set up another one-onone um and then I think on the third what we'd like to make sure we do is have a more formal list of some of the things so tonight you're going to Hear from just feedback that we've received um and things that I was actually just blindly given from what you did last year um that I'm still kind of thinking through as I'm getting acclimated so

um I think the purpose of what we're going to do right now is to talk about themes that have come through and then have ideas come through tonight um of things that we want to add especially after listening to Dr Hunter's goals and then from tonight's Discussion Carrie and I will synthesize the themes a bit further and then probably make an Ask over maybe one-on-one just having conversations so that we can formalize them a little bit and so maybe by next meeting we could have um a longer list and then sometime I don't want to

put a date out myself but over the next couple of meetings where we have something closer to like four or five I don't know if that sounds good to Everyone okay um so some of the themes that that have come up um or I should just kind of reference back the goals from this past year was The Joint School committees will evaluate Student Success to ensure the district commitments yield to student achievement growth and success articulated in the 5-year strategic plan um there was another one on evaluate areas of deib to ensure that our district

commitments demonstrate progress towards our vision of an Equitable inclusive anti-racist community in conquered and conquered car schools uh the region will evaluate our high school campus the conquered Regional sorry conquer Carl Regional school committee will utilize the report from the C cchs campus advisory committee in order to make recommendations the conquered school committee will conduct a comprehensive facility study on the three elementary schools um and develop an updated Capital plan and The Joint School committees will ensure that the district provides the necessary programs and services to support student mental health which we recognize is a

required precursor to academic achievement so that was this past Year's goals so now what we want to do is we just just heard from Dr Hunter those are last year what do we want to do for this year knowing that it's a new year um but probably not a giant departure from what we've done But some of the themes that have come up um thus far is campus completion came from three people the need for campus completion at the at the region we can go through the details in a second um uh something tied to

transition and coordination among CPAC organizations but heard from a lot of folks that not just CPAC just anyone that is coming from any Community up to the high school we want to have a transition plan and again I would just ask is that something We want to do as the committee alone or is it something that we want to have in joint goals around that transition you going ask something Cynthia or just tell me what transition means to you so it originally started with some like at least for Mike I gave a similar one this

is an aggregated of themes but um like CPAC organiz CPAC from car doesn't always have the same visibility going up to the um high school as like the conquered public school is coming to Conquered High School um conquer carel Regional High School so um just having better alignment on that just so we have visibility to things I think and you have so you have some very active groups in Carla and I don't think I could name them all or know about them really um and I think that's really important because uh us understanding that uh

as a committee I think is really important to that being successful the Transition part agreed um so I just like to we have to figure out a way to sort of formalize that because you have some not town-based committees but committees that often report into your school committee right your and I don't know all the acronyms of your committee so um that would be helpful if a meeting we could go through that Boston as well yeah you know so I can't again I can't identify those either but I'm sure they exist yeah um absolutely so

I think that Would be really valuable okay um perfect and then another one that um uh a few they have come up is alternative paths to success um and then what infrastructure funding Etc needs to be set up and I think Dr Hunter started to kind of allude to some of the things that she's thinking on that alternative path to success we've talked about them in previous meetings but um you know traditional paths success are sometimes seen as the norm so what lives outside Of that Norm what does that look like and then what do

we need to do to not just say it but expand the infrastructure and support uh to stand those types of programs up um telling the story of the school a couple folks brought this up um and I think even just the the conversation we're having on alignment with superintendent um but how do we socialize this with the full community um we saw a little bit of that last Night with the select board fincom meeting that we had is just the school is a huge part of not only the budget but the community so how do

we tell that story to the town that was something that came up from a few folks and explain the full picture um we would like to have a goal around deib for the for the school committee um alignment and collaboration with conquer and um Carlile select board and finance committee so similar to what the select Board has done just really making a a a conscious note to to for around collaboration um one another one that that uh this one was mine so I can maybe speak to it a little bit but just Community problem solving

I think just my perspective since coming uh to the region obviously not only just coming to the region but region as a chair I've met so many people um it's been really hard to keep track of at times and knowing what's like what I'm supposed to Be doing at all times is sometimes a little bit tricky um but I think what I've heard is people have really reasonable requests but sometimes there's just not enough band with to to tackle them all and so some of one of the ideas that I had is like how do

we how do we bring like almost like an incubate like an incubator to to field these ideas um so that it's not all on the school committee and it's not all on the administration like again just like I said around the table in the community is like there is no shortage of small smart people and um people that have vast experiences and so how do we tap that in a formalized way so just something to think about um as we as we go through that um and then there was another one around a goal centered

around Innovation um whether it's with Lori or the the broad Administration um anything around datadriven Decision-making um and then anything that we want to tie as a school committee to staff development and even that first tier around student learning um so those are the things that have that have come up but um now that we've been through the full meeting and we've talked about a myriad of uh topics um are there things that we want to see it doesn't have to be a specific goal but like themes that you want to see come onto this

list that we can Add and I think just to add to that are there like obviously there are similar themes that are several people have brought up like the campus completion for example Are there specific things within that that we ought to be narrowing like how do we narrow these down into actionable goals I'll put them out there because they're written here the amenities building track um and then just making sure that We have view of the master plan um that was done just for again like there's some of us that are new to this

so um just maybe checks and balances to see if there like what what is open and then what realistically can we do this year next year the following year um I think that would be would be good um and then I know grants are coming up fast um and so any grants that we need to to look at whether it's Ada grants or C um any other grants that are out there or Working with um you know our our local state representatives on on help with that and I think the um the commission on disabilities

they would be happy to help us with those Ada grants um Gan was super helpful last year and it may also exist for like we could apply in conr and Carlile so I do think the more money we can kind of bring to the table um might be helpful to get the project off the ground agreed y Absolutely so something would be spe so we've kind of got off track about having coffees um school committee coffees which we did them well we had them and we no one came I still think we should yeah I

don't know what that is can you tell me what it is you just like most School committees in many towns will have a monthly coffee at a school sometimes in Lexington or I forget they go meet at retail coffee shop um where You might capture more people um but that makes it trickier l istically uh so it's basically granted not a lot of people came but we when was the last one we had I can't remember so the last one we had um it was last spring and it was the library we tried them Ju

Just for historical purposes we tried them in the morning we tried them at night we tried them in conquered Carell and Boston sometimes there were maybe five of us there and one person remember that last Members like five members and um one person so it it you know the car one was the most well attended one that Aisha sounds right went to so so it was just smallest possible population as the we only have one place to hang out so and we tried public coffee shops we tried Library we had one at the high school

like there was no we we turned over every rock that we could we could publish them in the bridge yeah no but I agree with you even if nobody Comes I think that's a good that's a good problem it means that if people have something to say they will find they will find very wise consultant has always said to me the one person who needed to come comes and it's worth your time they were all helpful though any anyone that came they actually got a lot out of it so it was actually it didn't matter

if it was one or four people or 10 I think that was probably the biggest one but they pretty much had like maybe Two people three people and I think the one in Carla was during the day yes that was during the day those are but I definitely want to go to Boston um we did we did wait hold on but last year did we do them in the fall and in the spring or the fall winter and spring we did them I believe we fall and the spring let the chairs discuss yeah I think

what do people think and I will say we've had them in Boston we had one in a coffee shop and one in the library In Hyde Park and you know this came up even like places to go like you guys were actually super helpful in finding a place that would really meet the needs of everybody so they were both in different parts of the city I that's important too um to find a location that people are going to want to come to Y does that work with open meeting law so you usually just have two

members there okay who can speak and other members can attend but sit there and Drink coffee take notes M but I just think you know if we advertise it a little differently you will get more participants um I know some parents even if it's at the bus stop yeah some parents will take that conversation you know as early as 7 in the morning morning but it's just again advertising it and making it appealing you know so I think the high school social media is really excellent I get all my information from The High School site

And I think that's where people are at least parents are going there if you've got a high school student um you know I think like they just quickly get it and they're like oh yeah there's that coffee thing um but we did get feedback on community members not knowing how to access a coffee but we did we kept un putting it out there so maybe just a question do it make sense to have anything like not knowing the history I mean I know what we've done in Carlile To be honest with you most of the

stuff we've done in Carlile has been through subcommittees so for example like the CPAC myself and um Sharon wit are on that we we go to everything we see people all the time we know every parent that's on that group um just because again it's just a smaller town um for it makes it a little bit easier but but also there's typically a topic that's tied to it would that help do you think if there's a topic that is coming like All of us obviously I can tell you like Brian and I hear a lot

of the same themes over and over again I'm sure um you all do in conquered and I'm starting to hear more and more from from all parts of the the region so um are there themes that would it help to have like a theme so people can like feel heard about specific topics would that help do you think what what are we talking are we are we talking about goals are we talking about like a tactical thing to Solve a goal well we'll put it in our goal one of our coffe it might not be

coffees maybe it's just something about like community outreach that's what I'm wondering like we Community Education that's a tactical to yeah because so so that that kind of get community outreach I think is the education you were also saying about having some kind of a incubator yes because I don't want these things to come through for coffee because like I Keep saying we actually had a really rich conversation about like Zoom policy I have two kids limited babysitters if I got a babysitter for every single time I had to come live and in person I

would be broke exactly so you know there has to be some flexibility and I think people are going to show up to a coffee they want to know what am I going to get out of this right and I think that kind of that's why keep saying like the equity lens is multifaceted like that Somebody who's going to come out and show up what am I going to get in return besides just oh that's interesting cool I almost like your idea so conquered is uh the town has so many um what did you call them

forums or yeah so you know we've had some forums not necessary school committee sponsored I think jointly sponsored we had a school Forum last year on Mental Health yeah yeah so I think just expanding on that so maybe to Andrew's Point like maybe we have Something that's specific to community outrage and education and I think there has to be an ask for each of us like what would be be responsible for that's that smart goal piece of it it should be tied to our goals right yeah so if and maybe this is the way we

link it back to Dr Hunter so if she has something specific to deib or specific to CPAC then we should have some of our community out and education Beyond those themes you know um just something to Think about you know so that we can get you insights from the community because the hope would be we go to these we listen and we report back and it helps you with your goal yeah just we we listen to the administration and we report out yeah yeah exactly yeah I do think some of the challenges with coffees and

and even when you have a theme is a lot of things are not in the school community purview that people want to talk about and so it's really Balancing that and whether you have a parent that's like asking very specific you know questions about teachers in classrooms I mean that is not our role and I think we have to be really clear clear and careful with that and then um you know just to go back to the Forum so we tried that piece last year too and it was it was it was excellent but I

think we had five parents go and when you think about a forum on Mental Health that's offered from prek to 22 students In conquer Cara and Boston and we had six parents in attendance and it was challenging so I think it goes back to what Domingos is saying like so what what what happened and I think doing a retrospective was it advertising was it the topic was it the time right so I think maybe doing some surveys beforehand because I agree it was a great topic right um and I can say we've done we've had

some more things happen in car but we had a r correct before Wrong somebody on uh either tablets or screen time I think they filled the auditorium on that topic um but who knows if it was a topic or the time or if it was just because it was a car specific thing and it's just a different network and there also may be opportunity for things that we can tag along to like at the high school they had a speaker series and if School Comm members can go and be there to listen to what's Happening

at the speaker series that might be an opportunity for us to do community outreach and we talked about remember we did um the um QR codes that year to get subscribers we talked about a lot of that especially with the sportings events um me and Tracy we was at a lot of the games and stuff and parents were you know asking certain questions like she just said and it's kind of hard to answer them but there was events where they were like we don't See any Administration besides the the Athletics um that's something that you

know we can we can take and use to our advantage especially the network um if we're going to do community outreach that would be a big piece because you know this is a body you only see on Zoom like you don't really see folks unless you attend these meetings and if we're actually out there in the public and using the QR codes and stuff like that I don't know what's the Newsletter at now like oh yeah I don't know how many subscribers do we have L and we did improve it I mean we did that

goal I think we you know that was one of our goals last year was to increase it I think we did but you know to have a population of something what like, 1400 in the school and we only got a couple of hundred subscribers that's something we can work on and that helps with the communication piece and social media social media Piece yeah for sure all right so that's good so sounds like we have community outreach and education um we're going to probably want to do something around the campus yep um and then is there

anything that we heard that we think we can ladder up to Dr Hunter's goals better and again maybe something Food For Thought to come back with after you've you've heard them and seen them um I still like our goal on Mental Health um that we had from last year I mean I guess that might be another part of the discussion are some of our goals should they be the same you know sometimes some of Lor's goals might be the same the objectives and how she gets there is a little different totally but they might be

the same and is that okay for us because I do think that you know when when kids are in the right frame of mind in their mental health then they Are ready to access curriculum so for me like those two kind of go together and Student Success I mean a lot of these I don't know I think we just have to make a decision are we going to you know finesse some of our goals from last year talk about you know where we at in those goals and how do we move forward yeah I'm fine

with there's some of them that are really good I think they just um it's easy to play armchair quarterback by the way so I I know I'm Coming into this um but I think just adding some kind of statistic or smart component of it just to say and this is what that looks like would be the only comment I would say for any of them that we're going to add especially the mental health like i' I'd love to see that today I think just adding a statistic or a specific goal that we can work towards

the youth risk survey which we're going to see shortly right yep yeah or how we're going to like almost our own Evidence of what we need for evidence to see if we're meeting that goal yep the one thing I think is tricky I was thinking about this last night we have we can't write a goal around mcast unless it's around last year's mcast because we're getting a new set of mcast data you know what I'm saying it's sort of like a chicken and egg thing we can't it's sort of maybe that's where the evidence comes

in like you can talk about student achievement and then based On you know and your evidence for us to have that discussion is around mcast results it's around AP scores or you know whatever it's going to be that that's sort of the tricky part because you can't you can't go back to last year's data and say we need to we the other data is already cooked we have we'll see this soon but our goals also have to be school committee goals and not the superintendent a goals which you know there's always you know budget's Always

a way for you to support that if we come with certain asks on how we can move needles that's always one way to support that I always wondered and I don't have the answer to this what's another way the school committee can support I mean I often say to many of you the fact that you know when I get challenged on uh embedding English levels because that's a really significant Equity move to make sure all kids are getting access to higher curric Higher order curriculum you're you're here having my back saying that's the move we

need to make when people aren't unsure of that you know whether that's going to work for them and their family like a lot of it is us being synced up so that as we execute on things you're like no that's what we all believe in so I don't know what that looks like exactly but I know that's a really important role you all play is one way we talk about it like to Echo off of Your goals to say these are things that we're going to see reports on from you like we we haven't quite

HIIT on what are the reports we want to see throughout the year and it has to be synced up with what our goals are so as one way to set a goal around reports or discussions that we have at this table on X Y and Z I don't know yeah and I know we had some feedback on some like high level reports but to your point like the specifics are going to matter For this for sure I guess I also I I do I do like the the comments that people made about the story of

the school I don't know what that looks like and I think we should talk about that but one of the biggest things that I've found from not only meeting with other governing groups whether it's the select board in both towns not just one Finance but even people in town when I was running for election in Carlile the perception of what a school Is now is so drastically different than what a lot of taxpayers expectation is and I do think that part of it even um some of the ratios that we look at traditionally from a

finance lens um around cost and spend like I think we need to put a um a new lens for the community on that Carrie did a really nice job when when we met with the bridge about mental health being Incorporated and so if we make a decision that we want to set up our Students for success in life not just to get into either a college or whatever they're pursuing after college um that that might impact a score I think we need to socialize what that looks like and why that that looks like the way

that it does um because the school is the expectation of a school and what Student Success looks like is very different than it was when people graduated in 70s 80s and arguably the '90s so you remind me about something so And I'm going to call it the wrong thing because I think we're not calling a portrait of a student we're calling it portrait of a graduate graduate Port of a graduate graduate and I know you're trying that's kind of going to be building based but on the other hand I think it's a huge topic that

the the public should be interested in because it doesn't just happen 9 through 12 right we're not just delivering empty vessels to the high School I mean these kids on the Carlos side um our Boston students and our conquered students need to know about this from prek uh to eight before they get to the high school so um and I don't know how it's a two-year process or something yeah and actually it's now embedded in the nasc accreditation process for the high school we're up um so they're actually getting they were just at a workshop

late last week on portrait of a Graduate and saw some really great models in other districts where they did really take it on not just that as a high school activity and process but as a collective activity and process and I do think there's some things to work with there we haven't really talked about it beyond that but we do see there's a a project that could anchor a lot of discussions for lack of another way to and I really think that ties into mental health because yeah a lot of Families have their own vision

of a graduate right even when their kids in second or third grade um so I think it might it helps to Anchor um some some healthy Norms yeah I agree and I think even just like I said when Karen it's like just we put a lot of thought in talking to Tracy talking to others about what some of these facts and figures are and I mean you can look at the affordability at College it changes the lens of like what success looks like Postgrad a million yeah but also like not only the half a million

but the need in the communities of like whether it's Healthcare or um the trades like there's such a huge need and so the community being tied to some of these scores just needs again it needs an update and a modern view of what success looks like and um yeah I think I think that would go a long way in socializing in the community agree and I actually think that fits really nicely into community Outreach and education like I think that's another tactic at that and I think that actually something along those lines something along the

lines of a portrait of a graduate would be a great thing to use to promote a coffee to like like lure people in and say like let's talk about this like what do you what are your questions about it what are you excited about what did you learn what feedback you know I think that like just something tangible is often times Enough to get people you I've always thought in all these years in education our greatest gift is that people really do know what we do because everybody's been to school our greatest challenge is people

know what they experienced in school and unlike you go to the doctor you don't think you have the Doctor's Medical knowledge because you're a patient but something is different in education where you sort of think as a student you know and there's no way to Know if you've been out of school how much things have changed so and everyone thinks they're younger than they are yeah know I'm guilty of it so whatever I think those are great ideas yeah and I just want to be mindful I know Brian you're online I don't want to call

you out but just want to make sure your voice is heard do you have any comments questions or anything no all I would say is you know there's a lot of great ideas on here I Personally think the sort of the community outreach the pr is uh probably one of the you know one of the important things to do I just think as we are looking at all the other different ideas keep going back to um you know what we said at the start of this meeting which is advocating for the students is our most

important job and so what I would you know we have so many great ideas down which of those can help move the needle the most for our students in the Year to come and you how do we prioritize that knowing that there's so many hours you know between now and uh when we're evaluating these at the end so um that is the trick just using that mindset as we think through it awesome less is more yeah so um all right so I want to be mindful of time I think um Carrie and I have some

themes here hearing from I will probably reach out to you individually or Carrie will reach out individually one of us will um for Some feedback and then we'll Aggregate and have another look on the third I'm not trying to pile everything on the third so but I think the one's important I think we should get there um but before we close out and move to the action items any other comments from around the table Brian just spoke that we didn't cover that you want to cover all right great well thank you again for the for

the conversation this is really helpful um so from an action Items the only two things we had for tonight was the vote on the fiscal year 24 budget transfer that Bob went through and vote on protocols and practices as we mentioned we're going to delay the vote on protols and practices till um the next meeting on the 3D but for the budget transfer um can I have a motion to approve the I move to approve the FY 24 budget transfers as written second roll call vote heard Check Yes discussion oh sorry Discussion yeah discussion no

okay thanks Bob thanks Bob oh sorry Morano I sorry I her ey rainy I rank and I Viola I wateri great um so with that um the CPS is going to take over the conquered carile Regional School District meeting is adjourned Dam she warned me she was like I actually used the gavel to adjourn I'm like oh it's very exciting definitive but you can't leave Yet not you con a look good meeting this is the they don't necessarily include everything maybe it's all up there yes it's just Google the conquered Bridge conquered Bridge one.org a

lot of yeah everything is not on the online version have a good evening everyone I know oh proba they're all gone now by Julie bye Brian bye Brian thank you for Joining us the bridge delivered here no yeah um it it seems to delay a little but that might be our mail regular in the summer but we just get one um just get one yeah just to me I think there was a bunch at Town Halls last night that needs to get fixed yeah it'd be great to have more to distribute out in the school

they don't drop it off at the school the schools may get one too it's not it's not Plentiful not everything goes online cont last is say we need to uh for our me current events that's what the sure sure yeah yeah okay great point or I don't know if you need to do it any of us can do it you ready Carrie let's do it go so um CPA application Lori do you want to pee this up yeah Mr Sparks has just joined us so hopefully he can he's been online the whole time whole time

he told me this morning he' just hop on and do his things at home until We were ready so so there he is um what we've been working on and we just wanted to be sure the school committee was aware uh the it's late right so Community preservation act um and the conquered Community preservation committee has annual funds available for very specific topics on Recreation and other needs um because of the thorough campus plan that we shared with you last year um we have some identified needs we've got some Funding but we don't have enough

for the entirety of the project so Justin and Justin really took point on all of this which we're grateful for the application is due September 12th so the timeline is really always much earlier than our budget processes or otherwise um what he's been working on is working with the the Consultant Group that supported us mapping it against the asks in the application for justification um he's going to go Through some funding requests we're aiming High knowing they could partially fund if they're Distributing monies um if the off chance is they have a light year then

the money would you know the ask would be there to fund it in its entirety um I've already been in a little bit of email communication with the chair of the CPC and um so she's aware we're working on this she's going to watch the recording of tonight and take a look at the draft online before We submit just so she knows it's coming not that she's going to help us know if we're getting funded or not and I think with that uh we're just going to turn over to Justin to sort of talk us

through some of the highlights of the applications I want to be sure you're aware of what we're putting in Mr spks hi good to see you all thanks for the Invitation I I had you all on in the background while my daughter and I were making dinner so she just got a a lesson in local politics so thank you love it you were on school committee for six years she probably had some yeah happy to share an overview um of some of our efforts to improve the thorough campus um which includes a a a um

CPA Grant proposal which I think you All have um in its entirety in your packets so I'll just kind of go over it quickly um so most of you should remember that last year we did a um a campus feasibility study with our vendor cha and they came out several times to assess the campus um we did some surveys they use the data to develop a master plan and that was presented um their initial draft was presented to the public on January 17th which was recorded um got Some feedback from um teachers from parents um

from our neighbors um made revisions and then what you saw on March 26th was sort of like a final version which I think was pretty well received um so that plan targeted several aspects of the campus for improvement play Space um which included a new playground Green Space enhancements black top and basketball courts so um topping of those um a lot of that those areas are kind of Crumbling or cracked at this point um student safety landscaping and erosion mitigation so if you've ever been on campus um towards the backside we have quite an erosion

problem going on in a couple of different areas there and then parking and Aesthetics um so upgrading these for better functionality uh for appearance so the total estimated cost was just about I think just under 700,000 um Bob has the the correct figure I'm sure um with 200,000 coming from um potentially coming from Capital um I should say that we're also simultaneously in the midst of a a playground project um so this came out this is a recommendation of the overall plan but um it's not a part of this grant proposal and Carrie's been a

member of that which we appreciate um so the playground project is um like I said uh 200,000 from an Estate and then the rest we hope with your blessing to fund raise um to get uh I think we said carry at our last meeting um somewhere in the neighborhood of 500,000 um is a is a is a good goal um there so in terms of this uh CPA Grant proposal we're considering different creative ways to offset the the large cost to start ticking away at some of the improvements so Dr Hunter recommended that we explore

the possibility of applying for this and This application falls under um the recreation category of the CPA Grant and some of the proposed upgrades would include restoration and Rehabilitation so the green spaces um it would involve digging up and resing some of these areas with a higher quality of turf that can withstand heat and significant usage um potentially without without um needing a watering system and irrigation Recreation space expansion so it' be a development of a multi-use sports field um and some community garden enhancements as well uh potentially shade structures walkways uh and some play

equipment that that those things can all be covered through the grant um and then accessibility improvements as well so stabilization of um surrounding grass areas realigning paved Pathways for better Access um parking is not um you know first and foremost but but obviously if we expand um parking it it it increases the access and this aligns really nicely with the district strategic plan especially objective four Innovative environment as we're creating a safe healthy Innovative space conducive to Student Learning well specifically um initiatives 41 42 and 45 and it I think the project aligns nicely with

um most if not all of the CPA selection criteria and also the conquered Recreation um comprehensive long-term um goal number one and that's aligning with a broader community and Recreation goal so uh we put in the request like Lori mentioned for 500,000 because we feel um you know with the with the requirements and positions as strongly for funding and I'll say that we have contingencies in place um if you don't get the total amount even If we get half of that we'd be comfortable and um we would just need to prioritize certain aspects um so

you'll see in the packet the timeline's pretty aggressive um we we're hoping to uh start on the playground um the fundraising campaign hopefully should kick off shortly um but we hope to start um with a community build which is exciting um spring into summer of 2025 and then um lot improvements summer 2025 and then probably into spring 2026 for the green space and recreational enhancements I'm not sure when um they they review and approve grants or not um but I think some sometime in the 2026 range is a is a good estimate yeah so this

this will take all the way through the review process and then approval at town meeting in June so we have to factor that in knowing it's almost a year before the monies are available so we have a we've got a a Really beautiful facility um at at the row but I think we can all agree the the campus does need some improvement so I'm excited to tackle this with Lori and and of course Bob's um help in cha um and create a space that improves functionality and just makes it more aesthetically pleasing and in the

spirit of Henry David thow who believed in the harmony between nature and human experience exactly so we're committed to enhancing the campus to reflect those Ideals uh happy to take that was just a kind of a high level overview but happy to take any questions or comments from the committee if I can just say that I've been um I'm on the playground planning committee and it is the most thoughtful excited group of people we had a three-hour meeting over the summer I was like who meets for three hours on a Friday in the summer but

but we did um and it was all about brainstorming um how to make this the best possible place For kids and how to um pay for it in a way that doesn't that it makes the most sense um so I just just wanted to say thank you Justin because I it's a really good group of people um with um working really hard to make this a reality from a fundraising perspective grants Capital all of the above so thanks yeah thank you was it as fun as policy he was listening um it was more fun we

did have a good time I think um You know we let's just say there were windows at the in the in your meeting right yeah it was great to sit down with such a we have really a super team phenomenal CH Mitch Brooks we were able to kind of highlight some of the um you know thinking about what's we did a student survey and a staff survey um so just kind of thinking about all of the different elements we hope to see in in this playground so this is exciting stuff this is the fun work

Right I do think to car's point it's a great example model whatever we we want to use of what can potentially happen with the right energy on a project to make it cost effective we're not tapping any one place for all the money you know a donation fundraising a grant and then 200,000 from your Capital request quests seems like a really exciting model to talk about when the project allows it so I think as we talk collaboration with the town and really try to share like we Are we are over here thinking as much outside

of the box as possible The Hope here is there isn't another ask because one way or another with even if we have to phase it a little bit longer um we don't need to come back so and it it could be a million dollar project by the time we're done um just with these different things that are evolving in the big vision of a playground so really exciting and and a really beautiful Accessible space for our the the kids to play on and for the community to use and for the community yeah so I have

a question and maybe a comment so the question about the fundraising is the fundraising plan for just the playground it it doesn't touch any of this project here in the grant that's right correct okay and so there's a line in the grant that says amount from other funding sources so you wouldn't you're just going to leave that One blank this is a draft I didn't know if it would does it typically help if you say like oh I'm going to you know yeah I think yeah we can flesh out and the we it's It's tricky

to you want to not bring too much of the playground in because you're not asking them to fund the playground but you also want to name that we're doing other things with the playground so that's good feedback for us know is it is it um helpful to say the total Project with the playground but you're going to fund the I don't know I don't know what to think about that yeah I think part of the problem is we don't know how much the playground will cost yet that we're working with a vendor on that and

um he is tasked right now with developing an initial design based on our priorities um and I think Carrie correct me if I'm wrong but he's coming out with two different scenarios one at a higher um Funding level and one at a lower funding level so we don't actually know what it's going to cost yet we'll know before we start the fundraising what it will like and what it will cost so having paid a good amount of attention to CPC which which buckets does this fall into of their Recreation because I don't I've never seen

them have a big appetite for Paving to be honest no we don't expect that They will um it the focus is on the field okay for recreation purposes and then you know whether they want to look at the rest of the property in terms of recreation itself just because of the way the um campus is so utilized I think that was but we're not asking so that's the application well we've got to decide it's the same question Tracy just asked like how much do you include of the whole project I would be the actual ask

I would be careful to put things in that They would sort of sure say that you know yeah why did you do that we might re word work on the the how to delineate right anything with like U that would impact the like that's sort of recreation related so drainage and those kind of things that that's good that's what we thought the paving we knew as a nonstarter but your to your point and the playground like how do we delineate but part of the paving is for a play area which is four square and Hopscotch

I mean that no no that part isn't that part the big Paving I know the big Paving the lot yeah Recreation related ask for if it's a even a dotted line to Recreation but yeah that's a it's a good point Cynthia really the focus is on the Green space yep erosion mitigation and the Aesthetics so um you know flower Community Gardens um yeah you know trees and Etc yep although pickle ball quartz would be Nice and it is uh detailed in the conquered totally have you asked the ab Butters and let not even no pickle

ball cards can you just draw lines in the parking lot that's paid for the pickle ball course never run the drive I'm like no no we're not getting pick ball business injuries you know oh no it's it's the noise oh my gosh all right all right well thank you Justin question thank you for hanging around hope you had a good dinner yeah Tell your daughter good night of course yeah thank you all great um I think we're moving on to Bob for the transfers okay share my screen again these are preliminary figures um same similar

format as uh CCSD um there is less variability here um we didn't have quite as many moving Parts um and CPS as we did at the high school last year in the region um but I'll go through um the adjustments that We had um I'd also just want to say again these are preliminary figures um unlike the region these are a little bit more preliminary um because we have to go through a Reconciliation process with the town we have some new staff in our district that's in their first year new staff in the town that's

in their first year so that process is is taking place and um it's still not completed so we may uncover expenses that are School related that the town's recorded but we Don't know about yet um I think we've we've captured most of to that so again um these figures may change a little bit I don't anticipate them changing significantly um so um you can see that uh in this case the budget is also substantially spent down um kind of intentionally left a little buffer there in case we have any surprise expenses um that we haven't

recorded yet so a little bit under $6,000 um the um the adjustments that Are most significant again I've highlighted um within the instructional leadership category it's mostly driven by salaries um and there are some offsets um some above some below but I think what what's primarily driving this is uh you may recall last year um we needed to add a preschool classroom um so that came with an additional teacher and um two um preschool AIDS um we did have some offsets in teacher salaries um so the teacher lines relatively balanced Out but um um the

two tutors um unlike the for the homeless uh part of this is driven by some um students from the shelter um moving into preschool um so that there was a growth in the preschool population we don't receive any uh shelter support from the state for students that are in preschool it's just K and above so um we had to add those two positions but there was no funding for it so it basically um causes to be over budget in the general Fund um with within U maintenance um we did have some staffing shortages this year

uh that we needed to um have some staff work overtime to cover um that's the primary reason for maintenance being over budget we did have some offsets with utility costs being slightly under budget um within fixed charges um we had a couple more staff retire than we anticipated and as part of that retirement we had a retirement incentive um that was in place at the Time that certain people uh took advantage of and with that there's a sick leave buyout that's a portion uh that's something they can receive as an incentive uh so because of

that because of a couple more people um opting to retire timing wise uh we were over by 32,000 for that the balance is due to property and liability insurance increases um the um fixed assets are under budget by 117,000 um we wish they weren't we wish that the um the bus company was on time with delivering the buses that we ordered um but they have delayed their delivery um they're going to arrive in fiscal year 25 but because they were delayed we didn't incur the lease costs uh that we anticipated incurring um so that's what's

driving fixed assets is favorable um and then the um out of District tuitions again this is a little bit Misleading the um we were basically fairly close to budget in terms of gross expenses but because we had some additional offsets in circuit breaker and grants we were able to um budget wise come out uh favorable there um so netwise again this this was a little bit more of a not gwood straightforward year for CPS um and and these kind of highlight the uh most significant things that we uh had to focus on and address um

Through financial management straightforward but we still froze it to get it to turn out this way yeah same timing mhm this was more of a concern early in the year and then uh we didn't we kind of the freeze really helped things and also there wasn't really many surprises that happened from pigon which is um surprises happen all the time um in education there's variables you can't anticipate and so it was fairly smooth From February on but it took a lot of um restraint on uh thinking about things we could afford to do and um

so we landed in a good place um moving into next year does anyone have any questions no if you don't spend that 6,000 it's back to the town or correct you like to spend it right you you would have had technically no there's um I mean there's the books are open it's too late for me to go spend Money now like an addition like to make a purchase but um if I you know found um I could do an adjustment between different of accounts i' to coordinate with the town on that I also don't know

that you know I don't know for sure that we don't have expenses that haven't been recorded that the town might have they charge us for certain Services okay so we get um the way that's communicated sometimes not all that gets communicated and when we go through that Reconciliation process we'll learn about those things like an example is they we we get gas from the town DPW VI garage and they bill us for that but um you know we might not have been notified about all of the Billings we really worked to strengthen that process 6,000

is a good little buffer to have it is yeah I mean I think it it really illustrates how tight these budgets are um you know at the region and at CPS and that you had to freeze this but you have Not had a freeze since since you got here right you haven't had to freeze my first year which was a whole another that was a different setting um but no not since then really that's tight budgeting yes and I think the part I you know the part that we feel good about and I think all

you of you should feel B I don't know how many districts you've watched in the media be surprised yes they were short a million or two million or many more million the fact that we're Reconciling bringing you quarterly reports we sit with Angel every month like all those checks and balances allowed us to freeze early enough to offset the deficits it's not that we didn't have deficits like some of them they weren't to the same degree thankfully um but we were able to mitigate some of that because we all attend all of us attend to

it so much so I think in terms of best practices just you know all of you and I think we Should feel good that we're following them because we're not getting surprised like that at the end because you are definitely reading some of those articles from the masc and School District my heart's breaking because there's part of me saying if you know earlier you have more options yeah doesn't mean you can fix it all like we also we knew enough to apply for the circuit breaker relief at the high school which I ended up coaching

one of Those districts to be like did you apply and they're like what and you know so just us all knowing what the moving pieces are what the options are but you also have to know the State of the Union all the time to be able to maximize all of those so I don't know I guess I'm saying you know as tight as it was and hopefully it's not that tight again and we'll keep working to collaborate with the town so we're hopefully not running like we did to have to freeze but we we All

did what we needed to do to make it work and not end up in a bad place great we try not to O overreact and impact what's going on in the schools and you know determine when we really need to react so like I was nervous about this in October L's like we need to pause a bit but um but you know this led to you know when appreciate that yeah no and I I tend to pause as well but um you know the I guess the ex example we talked about the special educator at

the high School where we didn't backfill you know we reached a point where we knew about a couple out of District placements and so you know you reach a certain point where you need to make those decisions but you don't have to make them right away necessarily you know so anyway and just a shout out I mean once we did freeze the collective energy on that from the staff from everyone we would he hear them say well we wish we could have this or we kind of need that but we know it's Frozen like you

could hear it echoing in the way they were you know their expectations shifted too and I think that helped a lot because then the pre the principles aren't getting the same pressure to do what they normally do um they all understand there's a collective energy needed here so really positive in that regard thank you Bob yeah thank you um so I think that's it unless anyone else has questions should V yeah Yeah um so action items we'll vote um does anyone want to make a motion I move to approve the FY 24 CPS budget transfers

as reported seconded any discussion all those in favor I I those opposed thank you thank you that's it and we will um adjourn into executive session does anyone we have to read it right a roll call vote a roll call vote okay all right I move that the congr school committee will enter into Executive s session under three of the open meeting law conduct strategy with respect to collective bargaining with the CPS building service workers and not to return to open session second roll call project I Morano I rainy ey Rank and ey all right

good night a good night night [Music]