[0:07] Good evening, everybody. It is March 11, 2026. This is our school committee meeting. We start each meeting by reading our district vision statement. The Ashland Public Schools strives to be a model district that creates a culture of inclusivity for our diverse students and staff who feel safe and supported are empowered with the academic and social-emotional skills to pursue their chosen path and embrace their roles as positive contributors to local and global communities.

[0:36] This meeting is being recorded by WACA cable TV.

[0:41] Our call to order this evening includes opening procedures, agenda review and adoption.

[0:46] We'll have some time for public participation.

[0:50] And first on the agenda, a launch update, Cassia Ashman lead teacher.

[0:55] We will have Pidaway Pre-K update, Amanda Curly preschool director,

[1:00] action middle school engineering students carrying Cade, a composting program proposal from the Pidaway School,

[1:10] Warren approvals, superintendents report, including mid-cycle update, superintendant goals, and FY27 budget update.

[1:20] This assistance superintendents report, and then the consent agenda, which has approval of gifts and donation,

[1:26] and minutes from February 25th, 2026, we will have reports of school committee members

[1:32] and then we will adjourn.

[1:36] So are you all okay with the order of business this evening?

[1:40] And I see that Marcy's here, Paul's here, Mark's here, I'm here and we're waiting for Gina.

[1:46] I will ask next if there are any members of the public that would like to give comment this

[1:51] evening.

[1:54] I see some people online and I don't know if any of you are here to make a comment to

[2:00] the school committee or if you're just here to watch the meeting.

[2:03] But if you're here to make a comment, please raise your hand now.

[2:06] This is the comment period and the only one.

[2:12] Seeing none,

[2:15] we will move on to our reports and presentations, the launch update.

[2:26] Hello everybody.

[2:27] Thank you all so much for being here.

[2:28] We want to come on up to the microphone so we can see you on TV.

[3:10] Thank you for

[3:17] your launch program.

[3:20] Thank you for having us.

[3:27] This is a presentation for the launch program.

[3:32] I hope you like the presentation.

[3:39] Thank you.

[3:40] We

[3:54] are team. My name is Jose Serrado Carrillo and I hope to go to a vocational day program.

[4:05] Thank you.

[4:08] Susan.

[4:10] We hear you.

[4:11] My name is Alex Bill Azurban.

[4:14] I hope to start a commute.

[4:18] I hope to start a computer program in training program.

[4:23] Thank you.

[4:24] So

[4:33] if you're a block off, I hope you have a job for I

[4:43] want to work at RNA hospital

[4:47] or NAMM.

[4:48] Thank you.

[4:49] Thank you.

[4:50] My

[4:57] name is Noah George.

[5:00] My goal is to get a pain job.

[5:04] I want to work with a DJ.

[5:22] I want to job working in the kitchen, I hope to earn a certificate to do that.

[5:32] Thank you, Marcus.

[5:45] We are transition program for young adults ages 18 to 22.

[5:55] We focus on preparing for adult life after high school.

[6:05] This includes job skills, independent living skills, and being active members in our community.

[6:14] Thank you.

[6:14] We

[6:34] want you to help link and deliver orders for the diary lunch cafe and you want those

[6:45] of compass each day.

[6:55] Each week we work out at the YMCA, we meet with other tradition groups at Hopkins and

[7:05] Arts Center for Adult Classes and we have different social activities every Friday.

[7:10] Thank you.

[7:25] Well, at different locations in our community, and around the middle school, my favorite

[7:36] internship is as a nutrition, we are working on being more independent.

[7:44] and some day I would like to make some drinks for customers from the Waterlooley Kelly from

[7:54] Ashenitrition.

[7:56] We

[8:23] learn how to make coffee orders, we practice cooking, and there are dishes.

[8:35] Thank you.

[8:36] At

[8:50] this year we have the daily long calf, we can serve staff at the Aslan Middle, at Aslan Middle

[8:59] School, drinks and treats. We did a calf, we did a coffee and kindness fundraiser for teachers

[9:09] and all of the schools in Aslan.

[9:13] Thank you.

[9:14] We

[9:21] also put on a movie event for classes from Davey Mendez, passion, middle school, and

[9:27] the high school.

[9:28] We watched the Super Mario Bros. movie.

[9:31] We sold tickets and had popcorn.

[9:35] Sounds fun.

[9:51] I love you.

[9:54] I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you,

[10:06] I love you.

[10:06] This program helped me learn more about banking.

[10:10] That's awesome, Alex.

[10:17] I have learned to make coffee drinks by myself.

[10:20] Excellent, Marko.

[10:32] I am proud that I have learned how to cook butter chicken independently.

[10:40] That's right now.

[10:41] It sounds delicious.

[10:43] I'm proud

[10:47] that I can make breakfast for myself.

[10:50] That's awesome.

[10:51] That also sounds delicious.

[10:56] This is the only part I really helped with on this.

[10:58] They have done amazing with, you know, coming up with the ideas of what we're going to talk about today, doing the script, picking the photos. So this is the only little part I'm going to do.

[11:10] I'm Cassia Ashman. I'm the special educator for launch. And I thought we would just talk on a couple of long term goals that, you know, our programs, hoping for.

[11:21] We're hoping someday that when we might have a business that would be open to the public

[11:26] that we could use models like Westboro's SugarShack that they have, Shrewsbury has

[11:33] Maple and Maine, they have these lovely storefronts that are access for their programs to

[11:39] do vocational practice, and then there's learning in the back, and if you haven't been to

[11:45] either of those definitely go.

[11:47] So we hope for that sometime, you know,

[11:50] in the future that would be a great goal of ours.

[11:53] We're hoping to possibly next year start

[11:58] working with local colleges like FSU or Mass Bay

[12:02] for some post-secondary learning opportunities

[12:06] for those individuals who are hoping

[12:09] for a college experience with the Macy

[12:11] or Macy programs that they have.

[12:13] So that's something that we're hoping to maybe start next year and in the future that would be great and we're also

[12:20] very grateful for our launch mobile that we have and as our program continues to get bigger we're hoping that we can also

[12:29] at some point have a larger mode of transportation so that we can kind of individualize everybody's work opportunities,

[12:37] opportunities, learning experience, and community events, so those are some three long term goals that we're hoping for with our program.

[12:45] Thank you so much. Does anybody have any questions?

[12:51] Yeah. You guys, that was an excellent presentation. Thank you so much. We've learned a lot.

[12:55] Do you have some more to share?

[12:58] Thank you. Sorry.

[13:00] Thank you for your time and support.

[13:10] Thank you all. That was an excellent presentation and when we learned a lot about the launch program and also a lot about what you all are doing as individuals.

[13:19] And it's great news all around so thank you.

[13:28] Okay,

[13:43] next up and anyone who would like to leave, it's okay to take off now or at any point.

[13:49] We will not be offended.

[13:51] You need to get on with your night.

[13:54] And next up will be the pit away pre-K update when you're ready.

[14:00] I mean,

[14:03] is this the one that

[14:11] we'll see how it goes?

[14:13] I've shared the whole document with everybody, though, just in case.

[14:24] Thank you for having me. I'm Linda Curly. This is my first time actually formally presenting to you on behalf of Pidaway.

[14:30] So tonight, I'm going to give a brief presentation about our second family event that we had this year.

[14:37] The Pidaway Winter Olympics, which took place right before the start-up February break.

[14:42] I'm fortunate our little learners can't be here this is already around the time they're eating dinner and going to bed

[14:47] So I did my best to try and bring their voices into the presentation. The best I could I had a ton of video clips

[14:55] As soon as you pull out a little mini microphone everyone wants to turn to speak on there

[15:00] But some of them whisper and some of them scream at it, so you'll get a laugh out of some of these that you'll see, so you can go there. Yep. So just just a little preview. So families were invited to come into this, so we had a little photo up thing in those rings that you see in the picture. Each class decorated a ring in their tactile, so they use different items in the classroom that represented the colors, and it was a way to bring a project together that represented all of the classrooms up hit away together.

[15:31] And then our events included movement activities, crafts, and sensory, and for this event, we utilize the calf space as well as our gym space.

[15:43] Yeah, so hopefully you please.

[15:50] You

[15:54] might have to listen to my home. So each of the slides are going.

[15:58] We can only hear probably on James computer.

[16:00] Yeah, and

[16:04] I'm sure it's really cute. It's cute, so it's shared. Yeah, the

[16:15] Bob's side she called it. Yeah, and there's no sound for those looks

[16:34] fine. You just hit the go the next one. Yeah, you had a figure scene.

[16:44] Everybody hear that?

[16:45] Oh, yes.

[16:49] Gated?

[16:50] Yeah.

[17:04] They should play automatically.

[17:06] Oh, sorry.

[17:07] Yeah.

[17:29] You're holding on.

[17:30] Yeah,

[18:03] you'll see in the next one, do you?

[18:07] It looked like bowling to him.

[18:38] Yeah,

[19:02] no, no.

[19:03] Yeah, some of these don't have videos on them, yeah.

[19:06] Yeah,

[19:28] we can get this one.

[19:29] It's one more video.

[19:35] The one on the end with the little girl with the hat.

[19:37] It's my favorite picture.

[19:48] So that was just a way to bring their voices in to kind of share what their favorite activity was.

[19:55] And I'll share this presentation to any of you that get my news letters. You'll be able to see the videos as well to hear.

[20:01] So this was just our family attendance rate.

[20:05] So you can see it's pretty comparable.

[20:07] In the morning, we held the session for AM classes.

[20:10] And in the afternoon, we held it for PM classes

[20:12] as well as our full day classes.

[20:14] And we had a pretty comfortable attendance rate

[20:16] for our families.

[20:18] That was just the percentage to make sure

[20:20] that every child had at least one family member.

[20:22] Some of them had multiple family members that came,

[20:25] multiple generations that came, siblings, aunts, and uncles.

[20:29] So it was a true family event, organized chaos.

[20:35] Jim was able to stop by in the morning when it was a little less crowded than the afternoon.

[20:43] And then I also did a feedback survey to families.

[20:47] So this is just a highlight of some of the feedback that we got from families.

[20:51] families. So, families reported a strong engagement and they felt that they had meaningful connections

[20:57] with their children through the different activities that we offered. They viewed the

[21:03] event as being well organized and welcoming and highly engaging for their students. And some

[21:08] of the highlights they had were the activity stations, the creative theme, movement-based

[21:12] fun and just the strong staff support. And then some feedback they had for us of how we could

[21:19] maybe you refine future events was to really look at some of our areas like the

[21:25] calf, the head of craft areas, if there's way to spread those out maybe utilize our library area

[21:30] and then kind of adjust some timing and flow with that just because especially in the afternoon

[21:35] when there was more classes. Just trying to handle all of the logistics because we also had to

[21:40] like get people out so the buses could get in so different things and then I also did a survey

[21:47] at the next slide for the staff as well

[21:49] to get some feedback from the staff.

[21:51] So this was a staff planned event,

[21:54] so they planned all activities,

[21:56] and that was the teaching staff.

[21:58] It was our special education support staff,

[22:02] our physical therapists or OT or speech and language.

[22:04] They helped plan as well.

[22:06] So all the staff really viewed it as a successful event.

[22:09] They kind of watched the observations

[22:11] with the parents and students

[22:13] because it was a family event.

[22:14] They were able to kind of stand back

[22:16] and kind of take in how students were interacting with their families.

[22:20] They loved the variety of activities that we had.

[22:24] They felt that our activities support our diverse learners, but

[22:27] they also wanted us to still continue in our advance and you can see in future.

[22:31] Think of our students and maybe have some limited mobility, could we add in some more adaptation

[22:36] to our events, to support them as well.

[22:39] So there were always looking to improve and grow in our practice.

[22:41] Yes. So that's just a brief overview. You know, I invite the committee here. Our next event is our pitaway open house, which will be April 15th, starting at 430. It's a drop in. Our theme this year is going to be out of this world. So the students starting next week will start to work on that theme and they will do different activities in the classroom that they'll showcase and then they'll have some live activities that they can participate in their families with. But we love it for you guys to drop by and see what's happening at pitaway in person.

[23:11] Does anyone have any questions for me?

[23:15] Oh, there's a great event.

[23:16] Yeah.

[23:17] It's nice to have you here today.

[23:20] It sounds like it's a good year so far.

[23:22] Good year, yes.

[23:23] Yeah, taking it all in.

[23:24] But I have a wonderful, wonderful support staff.

[23:30] You have a really high attendance, too.

[23:31] So that's great, especially events during the day are harder for families

[23:34] often to get to.

[23:35] So it's really nice to see you guys did a great job connecting with them.

[23:39] I'm all pulling them in.

[23:40] looks like it was fun. It was very fun. Yes. Yeah, the staff were trying out the Bob's

[23:45] lead as well. That was quite the case. Yeah, so. All right. Thank you so much. Amanda.

[23:49] Have a great rest of the year. Okay. Ashley in middle school. We have our engineering

[23:56] students here. Welcome. Welcome. I see some stuff on my table. Yes. All right. I'm going

[24:02] to just do a quick intro. This is the first one. Yes. Thank you. As you know, we spent

[24:08] a lot of time talking about the schedule change and addition of classes.

[24:11] And so for the seventh grade, the core class that was added for them was engineering.

[24:18] And the two teachers that are teaching that class were formerly a math and a science teacher

[24:23] on the half team, Ms. Dignacco and Ms. Gentile, and I cannot thank them enough for one just

[24:28] they're willing to dive in to a whole new curriculum and build it as they're flying

[24:33] the plane this year.

[24:34] The goal of the class is to really be project-based and applicable knowledge, applying what the knowledge

[24:41] of the kids are learning to their class.

[24:44] So we have two groups, one from each team who are going to present on a courtyard project

[24:49] that they did.

[24:50] So first up, for Mystic Knarko's class, I and Isabella.

[24:54] Hello, ladies.

[25:02] This is our AMS Courier Project,

[25:06] Table of Contents.

[25:07] So I'm going to be talking about some topics that we're going to talk about.

[25:11] What about the project to our goals for the project, three requirements,

[25:17] four design ideas, five scale drawing, six location of the design, seven 3D model, eight conclusion.

[25:28] About the project, we are redesigning the AMS courtyard tab of more welcoming place for all students in the school.

[25:34] First, we had to take measurements of the existing courtyard, then draw scale drawing of the courtyard, then research and create the new design, and lastly, we had a creative development.

[25:46] Our goals for this project, we wanted our courtyard to be a welcoming space, educational and fun for everyone.

[25:54] What we mean by fun for everyone is that some people can't take the ability to step down, and when you need to get into the courtyard, you need to take a step that some people don't have the ability to do.

[26:06] Three major requirements. We configure the flower garden,

[26:09] seating options for a minimum of 20 people,

[26:12] and provide a cover space.

[26:17] New garden space.

[26:18] We created three different garden areas.

[26:20] Two out of three spaces are flower gardens.

[26:23] Each 20 feet by four feet.

[26:26] We have one garden area with vegetables, fruits, and walking paths

[26:29] so that students can interact with the space.

[26:33] The vegetable fruit garden is 20 feet by eight feet.

[26:35] As you can see, there is a scale drawing of our flower garden and at the bottom we have

[26:42] a scale drawing with scale drawing of our vegetable and fruit garden and also an inspiration

[26:48] photo.

[26:49] Both garden spaces are offer educational and stress relief for students.

[26:53] Students can have a hands-on experience growing vegetables and fruits and a peaceful interaction

[26:58] with nature.

[27:01] Coipon.

[27:02] We want to add a Coipon for a focal point.

[27:04] This allowed the space to be more inviting and can also be used as a calming space for

[27:10] students that need it.

[27:12] For safety, the ponds are about two feet deep and this is very important because we

[27:18] don't want a super deep pond because it is obviously dangerous and also hard to maintain

[27:24] and by having a shell upon it is safe and it's easy to maintain.

[27:33] We have four picnic tables and two benches for the students to sit at.

[27:37] Three tables are 10 feet by 4.5 feet, which can seat up to 10 to 12 people each.

[27:43] One table is 8 feet by 3.5 feet, which can seat up to 8 to 10 people.

[27:48] This means that we have enough seating for 38 people.

[27:52] We wanted to have an area for students to do their work, eat lunch and socialize with friends.

[27:59] Covered space.

[27:59] We picked a canopy to create a cover space for convenience and because it protects well against different types of weather.

[28:06] We put seating underneath the canopy to protect students from heat or rain.

[28:12] The canopy is 36 feet long, 24 feet wide, and 15 feet tall.

[28:17] At the bottom, this is a inspiration pictures of our canopy.

[28:22] The shade canopy is made with PVC coated polyester.

[28:25] This is a, this is material, is 100% waterproof and 97% UV protection.

[28:32] This is a great material for any weather conditions such as rain and the powerful sunlight.

[28:39] Additional design, element sports court,

[28:44] sports court.

[28:45] We wanted to have a space for students to be active.

[28:48] We decided to pick a sports court that can include basketball,

[28:50] volleyball, pickleball, and more activities to stay active and to have fun.

[28:54] It can be used during recess, PE, or after school.

[28:56] The sports court would have would be 46 feet long, 31 feet wide, and the fence would be about 13 feet high.

[29:05] We will have a net or fence around the court for safety.

[29:09] There will be adjustable and removable nets for different sports that need them.

[29:15] That is the scale drawing of the current AMS court yard.

[29:20] And this is the scale drawing with our design, and we will be talking about more.

[29:24] we will be having more specific designs on the next side.

[29:33] Stand up design elements. As you can see there's a ramp on both sides

[29:38] and there's two flower gardens with cover space and tables

[29:42] and there's also a vegetable garden and a pond.

[29:46] Those are the benches and the cement sidewalk that leads all the way across

[29:51] another ramp in a sports court and turf grass.

[29:55] We chose to use turf grass because if people fall, they won't get severely injured.

[30:00] And for wheelchairs, it can be more accessible, and it's easier to maintain.

[30:15] So,

[30:19] this is our 3D model. There is a actual 3D model right there. There's the canopy. Yeah, there is. These are the details we made. Awesome. Conclusion. Our design is fun and educational for everyone. We met all three requirements, seating for at least 20 people, a coverage space and a new garden area. We also added sports fields for

[30:43] for people who want to be active

[30:45] and are relaxing quite on.

[30:46] Now, the AMS courtyard can be accessible for everyone

[30:49] and a spot that people want to spend time in.

[30:53] Wow.

[30:53] Thanks.

[30:54] And thank you.

[30:55] This is really interesting.

[30:57] Very impressive, girls.

[31:01] Are you available for hire or backpackers?

[31:04] All right.

[31:06] And Becca, thank you.

[31:07] Becca and Ariel are going to present their version of their design

[31:12] as well just so we can get representation from each team. These two groups were selected by

[31:16] their teachers and as the top projects from each team. So come on up, girl. Well done, come

[31:23] on up.

[31:31] And yeah, make sure you're talking to the mic so you can hear yourself when you go to

[31:35] watch it later.

[31:38] Art design.

[31:41] Art design for the courtyard has a path running down the center

[31:45] and two gardens. One garden has a path running through it so people can enjoy the view.

[31:52] And another is centered around plants that pollinators would use.

[32:00] There's also a tree with, it's like new like the circle, and then there's like a bench around the tree.

[32:08] And we also have three canopies that cover two picnic tables each.

[32:14] So the picnic tables stay dry and away from weather.

[32:17] We have two bench swings with the tree in between them to provide a relaxing area and vegetable boxes where students can grow their own vegetables.

[32:33] Court yard seating, 20 plus people.

[32:37] Round outdoor picnic table.

[32:39] This is a picnic table that can fit six people and it has a diameter of 35 inches.

[32:45] We chose this picnic table because it will provide a good space for students to learn and talk while they're in the courtyard.

[32:53] Farmhouse 2 person bend. This bench is made of durable hardwood and designed for outdoor

[32:58] use. It fits to people. We chose to buy this bench because it is a great place for students

[33:03] to hang out, talk, or rest. It will provide students with a comfortable place to enjoy.

[33:12] Three person wooden bench swing. This bench swing is durable in weather resistance. It has an

[33:17] adjustable height. We chose to get it because it has two side tables for students to keep

[33:22] their belongings, and students can relax and read on it.

[33:30] Round tree bench.

[33:31] This bench wraps around the tree, feels comfortable, feels comfy, gives you a nice spot to enjoy

[33:37] the surroundings and offers a space for at least four people.

[33:43] Courtier landscaping, garden and circulation path.

[33:47] The garden.

[33:48] In our garden, we chose to have multiple different species of flower to add color and life

[33:53] to the courtyard.

[33:53] There's a bench where students can sit and enjoy the different flowers.

[33:57] We added flowers that are native to Massachusetts like white yaro.

[34:04] We also have a small pollinator garden with different varieties of milkweed to attract

[34:08] butterflies, ebomb to attract hummingbirds, and other flowers that all attract native Massachusetts

[34:13] umbobies that are endangered.

[34:17] The vegetable box is a good idea because it helps organize the vegetables and make them

[34:22] easier to reach.

[34:23] It also creates a very pretty view.

[34:28] The pebbles.

[34:28] These pebbles help with drainage, and they make a clear path and way to traverse the courtyard.

[34:34] They also prevent the path from getting muddy.

[34:40] Portyard shading and accessibility.

[34:44] Can it be? This can be a good addition because it keeps you dry from rain or snow.

[34:48] It also gives you shade so you can sit under it comfortably.

[34:54] Collapsible ramp. This is a durable metal ramp that can be folded in half when not neat.

[34:58] It has a textured surface so people on wheelchairs won't slide down it.

[35:02] It will allow people with wheelchairs to access the courtyard and it can be used in other parts of the school too.

[35:11] There's been a problem of birds crashing into the windows in the courtyard.

[35:14] And to solve that, we got window alert UV stickers.

[35:18] The stickers are coded in the UV coding that looks really bright to birds.

[35:22] So they'll avoid crashing into the windows.

[35:24] Smart.

[35:26] Yeah.

[35:28] Okay,

[35:32] the total cost is $3,300, $4.00 and $6.00.

[35:41] Amazing.

[35:45] All of you did such a wonderful job and yeah,

[35:48] and so thorough and impressive and we love your models.

[35:53] And you can hear them throughout talking about the durability of some of the products

[35:58] and how many seats and the size and the dimensions of everything.

[36:02] all of that was what were requirements of the project and with with regard to the materials

[36:09] they had in the beginning of the year learned about different materials and what works well

[36:14] and in whole teeth and what you know reflects sunlight and what so they really did every step

[36:20] of this and and it just really they did an amazing amazing job including being including being out in

[36:28] the courtyard measuring it when it was very, very cold,

[36:32] luckily before the snow, but they were really out there

[36:35] taking the measurements and they did this from start

[36:37] to finish, so really proud of all of our seventh

[36:40] great engineering students.

[36:41] Yeah, amazing.

[36:43] Yeah, thank you for sharing that with us.

[36:44] This is like the best part of our night when you seriously.

[36:48] You should see what we have to do later.

[36:49] It's like what's in a good mood, and we're so impressed,

[36:57] and we're so happy and proud that you're getting that education and that you're coming in and sharing what you're learning with us.

[37:05] Yeah, exactly.

[37:06] I do get a lot of questions for students of like, are we going to make that?

[37:10] Yeah, some of the changes.

[37:11] I mean, I think you've got some really good ideas for sure.

[37:17] So thank you so much.

[37:18] Yeah, this is, it's really great to see this, the project-based element of the engineering class.

[37:24] I just love it. I was saying to Marcy this in the earlier presentation we had earlier this year from the business class

[37:29] This is such incredibly productive learning and I love it

[37:33] It's you guys did such an incredible job. So well done. I want to see these come to life. These look great

[37:39] I know but backyard if you need practice

[37:42] Two courier just one

[37:44] This is this is all based off of the one courier that we're talking about

[37:51] Awesome. Oh, thank you. Have a great day. We appreciate you

[38:07] Okay,

[38:11] next up, Kering Cade, the composting program proposal for the Padaway School. Hello.

[38:15] So if I get the right one for you here,

[38:22] yeah, I got to know I had a presentation tonight.

[38:26] I see green.

[38:28] It's not up there yet, the way.

[38:41] Hello.

[38:42] I'm here in Cade.

[38:43] I'm a senior at Ashson High School.

[38:45] Welcome.

[38:46] And this presentation is sort of just an overview of the plan that I've been creating over

[38:49] the last few months for a composting program.

[38:53] I'm really interested in environmental science and I hope to do it in the future and it's

[38:56] something that I'm passionate about.

[38:57] So I really wanted to make that come to life because I've seen how sustainability can work in the real world

[39:03] and I really want this to sort of be a springboard to hopefully make it so that people realize that we can be more sustainable

[39:10] so that we can create more programs in the future.

[39:14] this is Russian. She's kind of like my successor, I guess. Welcome. Hi, I'm

[39:21] Raisham. I'm also a high schooler. I'm a junior this year. And yeah, hopefully

[39:26] it works out. I've had a way we can expand the project and I can help out with that.

[39:31] And I'm also part of the Environmental Action Club. That's going to be a part of

[39:34] the maintenance program for this. Excellent. Thank you. So the location is going to

[39:42] be at the Pidaway School. We're hoping to have it in sort of like the driveway area where

[39:46] the dumpsters are. It'll be in a tumbler that will get spun after the compost is deposited

[39:53] into it. So that's where it'll be. So the Environmental Action Club from the high school

[40:00] is going to be the one depositing the compost from the bin into the tumbler. So, Eric, I'm sorry,

[40:07] I'm pronouncing that wrong. The Pidaway Nutrition Services Manager is going to be the one

[40:11] who's accumulating the compost as he handles sort of all the vegetables and fruits for

[40:15] the kids since he's the one who's mainly cooking in the kitchen.

[40:19] So the compost one is ready.

[40:21] It's going to be turned over to the DPW and we'll be taken to the compost site.

[40:29] So compost is going to accumulate throughout the week as the children eat their breakfast

[40:33] and lunches and stuff and it's going to be deposited on one day or two days a week depending

[40:38] on how much waste there is into the compost tumbler and the environmental action club will

[40:43] have a sign up sheet and whoever deposits the compost will be eligible for 30 minutes

[40:46] of community service.

[40:49] So as I stated, the main hope of this project is to reduce waste, but it's also meant

[40:53] to be a trial to see maybe if some kind of program could be possible to implement in the other

[40:58] schools in Ashland.

[41:02] Is that the last line?

[41:03] Yeah, listen.

[41:04] Okay.

[41:05] So are there any questions?

[41:07] Well, first, awesome, that's what I mean, such great stuff tonight.

[41:11] Thank you.

[41:13] Is it going to, do you want it to start right away or I really do hope to start as soon as possible once we get all the materials that we have the high school actually already has some composting tumblers in its courtyard that we could just transfer over in use.

[41:26] Okay, so.

[41:27] And like about how many people are going to be helping you out that you have enough people to participate.

[41:32] Oh, yes.

[41:33] Yes, the Environmental Action Club, 20 members in the Environmental Action Club, and they're

[41:39] all really excited about it.

[41:41] And we do have some kind of contingency plans so that if nobody signs up or someone's

[41:47] not available, then Samantha Riley, who's the Sustainability Committee at Town Hall, I'm

[41:55] sure you know, has offered to take some of the responsibility on herself.

[42:00] I'm willing to come in help out if need be.

[42:04] So yeah, there's sort of like a chain of command, I guess, there.

[42:07] Awesome.

[42:08] Questions?

[42:09] Is there?

[42:10] I was just going to see.

[42:11] You mentioned that the AAP could ask some public schools already has the Tumblr, which is

[42:15] great.

[42:16] Is there any other equipment you need?

[42:18] And if so, do you guys have a budget for it?

[42:19] What does that look like?

[42:20] The only other equipment we really need is basically just a bin that Eric can put the compost

[42:25] in as he's sort of preparing like compostable organic matter.

[42:30] and I could buy that myself, honestly.

[42:33] Well, that was not the reason I was asked.

[42:35] I just didn't know if you were looking for funds.

[42:37] Oh no, I got all of it there.

[42:38] I've got all of it.

[42:38] That club was going to fundraise in what that looked like.

[42:41] I don't think we really need any funds.

[42:43] I think we might have some, we have some big grades,

[42:47] have some big grades.

[42:47] So, I've already got to take care of it.

[42:48] Perfect.

[42:49] That sounds great.

[42:50] It's a wonderful idea.

[42:51] My question was to talk about composting,

[42:55] working with food services.

[42:57] As soon as there's some compostable material elsewhere in the school,

[43:01] you can throw napkins away or whatever they do in the classrooms.

[43:05] Is there a possibility of maybe down the road looking at

[43:09] to be able to capture more of that as well as just working with food services?

[43:13] Yeah, I would love to do that in the future and I actually,

[43:16] in a few of my meetings with other officials like Ms. Curly over there,

[43:22] we kind of talked about that.

[43:24] And the thing is a lot of the materials are either plastic coated or have plastic in them a certain percentage and anything with plastic in it isn't compostable.

[43:35] So that's one of the issues we have to switch over to new products for a lot of things.

[43:39] And also that would require probably some amount of teaching the kids on the teachers part which I spoke to her about that.

[43:47] And we just came to the conclusion that the kids really aren't old enough for that yet.

[43:51] Yeah, I think so.

[43:52] That's probably why we're fast in the adult phase.

[43:56] Thank you.

[43:57] So, question, how long do you expect the material to be in the tumblers?

[44:04] In warmer weather, it really only takes maybe two to three weeks for it to compost down into

[44:12] what is basically soil.

[44:14] In the colder weather, it would probably take around three and a half weeks around there.

[44:20] depending on how much compost is in the tumbler.

[44:23] So there are more than one tumbler we could use.

[44:28] So we'll just honestly have to see how much waste is produced in the sort of time period

[44:34] for us to get to know really how many tumblers we'll need,

[44:37] how often we'll need to deposit it at the compost site, things like that.

[44:40] and a couple other questions around the location you're choosing relative to

[44:49] neighbors particularly you know we have more neighbors obviously pit away than we

[44:53] do a lot of the other schools but typically these do give off a little bit of a

[44:59] Yeah.

[45:01] So have you given any thought to that location relative to that and what your response would be if there was any any kind of questions about that? So I actually have the same kind of compost somewhere at my house right in my backyard when you walk out of the back door. And there's I have not experienced any issue with odor in the past. But if there were to be an issue with odor, I don't believe that there would because it's kind of separated from other houses given that it's behind a fence. I mean, it's kind of secluded.

[45:28] and the students and teachers don't really go over there.

[45:32] But if there were to be one,

[45:34] I suppose we could think about maybe a location change

[45:38] or maybe selling it off with another fence,

[45:41] but that would be a budget issue maybe.

[45:44] And you said you already have one other similar.

[45:47] Have you had any animal issues at all?

[45:49] No, so the tumblers we use actually have like a sliding door

[45:53] that can close,

[45:54] and I've never had any issues with animals getting into my compost

[45:58] assembler and we I have a rampant rabbit infestation so they would get in there if they could

[46:06] but we can see obviously I mean again I do want this to sort of be just like a trial around

[46:11] for the first couple weeks and then if there are any issues or anything that we need to fix I'd

[46:16] love to sort of take it in and rework it and bring it back. What's the time I fought the ground that

[46:23] Yeah, I wasn't worried about little animals, but I was worried about big animals that get knocked over and you know having that interest.

[46:30] So it is sealed, so hopefully.

[46:35] Any other questions?

[46:36] Yeah, just a quick question.

[46:37] What do you guys plan to do with the fertilized soil that you end up developing?

[46:41] Well, whatever the DPW wants to do with it, honestly, once we hand it over to the DPW for the compost, they can get spares.

[46:48] So whatever they do with it, that's pretty much their own jurisdiction.

[46:53] And they're responsible for all the town property, so hopefully that's a potential.

[47:01] Any other questions?

[47:03] Yeah, I think it sounds great.

[47:04] Thank you for your care and attention to the environment.

[47:07] Thank you.

[47:07] And for being so articulate and describing what you're doing.

[47:12] We appreciate you.

[47:13] Thank you.

[47:18] All right on to pouring approval after that. That's night ever. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. That's why we're here.

[47:30] It's a good reminder of why we do what we do and why it's important to keep it going.

[47:36] Between February 26th, 2026 and March 11th, 2026, Kendall authorized by my signature.

[47:43] The payable is in the amount of $208,774 and $6, this includes general fund expenses of $165,000, $29,17 and revolving expenses of $43,744 and $89.

[48:00] $0.9. Finally, I offer as payroll, getting amount of $1,565,825 dollars in Tuesdays.

[48:09] Thanks, Paul. Okay, next up is Jim with the two updates, your goals as well as the budget.

[48:17] Yeah, so thank you. I just want to give a brief update on the goals I did share everything in the.

[48:46] So as you know, we, our goals are my goals and the district goals have been really a couple

[48:53] of your process.

[48:53] Some of them are taken three years, some of them were one or two years, and I just wanted

[48:56] to give an update on where I stand, and I'll be frank, a lot of this year has been

[49:02] sort of budget focused, and while I think the goals that we've set here, these five

[49:11] goals, with regard to the district, taking over the fields, one district policies, getting

[49:21] time with Laurie and Paul, making sure that we're sitting down and going through, that was

[49:25] three-year plan while I've made some progress, it's slight this year. I'm just being honest with you.

[49:33] The first one with regard to the fields and us, the public schools taking over the fields that

[49:39] belong to the Ashram Public Schools. I feel like I'm in really good shape with this and that by

[49:44] mid-April, I'll have a presentation for you with regard to how we can make that sustainable

[49:50] or the Ashland Public Schools.

[49:53] I'm still waiting on some information coming out of Town Hall

[49:56] with regard to the Enterprise Fund

[49:57] and how much we actually have in the inventory of equipment

[50:04] that will be transferred to us in order to take care of our property

[50:09] and Chris, Mike, John Murray, Pete Connery are all meeting on Monday

[50:14] to have a really in-depth conversation

[50:15] about what it looks like in terms of just management of field rentals

[50:20] how it will work.

[50:23] So I feel like we're on target for that, for sure.

[50:30] The collaboration for the multi-theored system,

[50:32] Mike's been working hard, monthly meetings with our staff.

[50:35] I feel like we're in good shape for that as well.

[50:38] If you need him to speak more to that, he can.

[50:43] The educator evaluation, we've had these conversations.

[50:45] We've had two stoneies on Mondays.

[50:47] those happen to be Educator Evaluation Mondays, so we're a little behind there, but it's still

[50:54] good conversations. Actually, we met today with the entire AEA board and in all the bargaining

[51:04] units and things seems to be going well, but from an evaluator standpoint, we do need to get

[51:10] some things squared away there as we enter into this is the final year of the current contract.

[51:17] Believe it or not, Mark, right? We're ready to go again.

[51:21] But we will get working on that. And the communication piece, that's clearly on me.

[51:29] There's certainly more work to be done. I think the communication over the next two months are

[51:35] are going to be certainly focused on the next topic of conversation.

[51:40] And that's not the slight, the good things are happening within the district.

[51:45] I need to not only encourage the principals and the directors to continue to publish the

[51:51] really good things, as I'm focusing more on the budget and the override.

[51:56] So I certainly think while the target of two per month will happen, it's just not happening right now.

[52:11] So that's really where I am, just being frank with you, that most of my focus has been clearly on the budget since really.

[52:20] And we've asked you to do that.

[52:21] I mean, that's great.

[52:22] No, but these are important too.

[52:26] But the amount of work that's gone into the budget process,

[52:30] the iterations and stuff like that, obviously take precedent.

[52:35] And you know, the enormity of the work that you all have done

[52:39] is you can't be overstated, so.

[52:42] But more than any normal budget years, it is.

[52:45] I mean, we have to mention these things.

[52:46] It is the time of the year for the mid-cycle review.

[52:48] And it's also, we do need to know where we stand, so we know where to return our attention to, but for the time being just for reference, I mean hundreds of hours of budget meetings, multiple iterations of the budget, lots of effort being made to try to present a responsible budget, lots of time trying to work with other boards in town, lots of time with you work trying to work with the town manager.

[53:19] It's a much bigger task than, you know, probably most people really understand just because all most of it's done behind the scenes.

[53:28] And notwithstanding that, she sounds like you're making more progress in your acknowledging.

[53:33] Yeah.

[53:34] True, but again, I'm pretty good about evaluating myself, where we are.

[53:40] Yeah.

[53:41] And I think there's work to be done.

[53:42] So yeah, that's I'm just acknowledging that but by the time we get to June evaluation, you'll see really good progress on all of those events.

[53:51] Yeah, but and this has nothing to do with I'm I fully expect us to be where we are just in light of what we're going through and we're about to talk about it.

[53:58] But these few present presentations tonight though are such a reminder of it's all tied into what we're about to talk about.

[54:06] What we do here, enough people don't know, but we don't know about it until they come in and share it with us and we have probably have five people watching.

[54:14] I hope there's more than that, but it's such a good reminder of why we're fighting or to keep all these things going and to make sure that we have what we need and that the students can still have access to the things that enabled them to come in.

[54:33] And part of that is communicating that out when we have time, when the time is right.

[54:38] And I think to that point, so what we saw in my mind tonight was the results of the opportunities we've given our students.

[54:47] Yeah.

[54:48] The launch program is what in its third or fourth year, right?

[54:52] That was not a set of opportunities that we could have provided opportunity to those students.

[54:57] Right.

[54:57] Five years ago, four years ago.

[54:59] right engineering program is a function of what we imagine the curriculum at the middle

[55:05] school level and the investment so we've made there and they're just as examples and

[55:09] I think we're seeing what our kids can do when presented with these opportunities and those

[55:14] challenges and that is the best part of this. Exactly, that's why we do what we do and even

[55:20] the preschool. I mean, it starts there.

[55:22] Sure does.

[55:23] I mean, it's a fantastic thing.

[55:25] Yeah. So, okay.

[55:30] All right. Now for the good news.

[55:34] Okay. So, tonight I'm going to give, hopefully, you know,

[55:39] a relatively comprehensive overview of where we're standing right now currently with the budget.

[55:45] As you know, we've had a number of iterations.

[55:48] and I want to start just by saying thanks to Chris and Mike, there's not a morning that they don't come in my office, the first thing, and we sit and we talk about this.

[56:01] It's literally an hour every single morning, five days a week, that we're starting the day, lots of times weekends, but we're having these conversations and trying to make sure that what we're presenting

[56:16] And the conversations that we are having are reflective of not only what we hear here,

[56:24] but what we are hearing in our admin team meetings.

[56:27] And that's really critically important, right?

[56:30] So it's not, there's a budget process that may begin in November.

[56:35] And we may say at that time, we can do X, but as we continually evaluate what's happening

[56:41] within the district, we have to shift, right?

[56:44] And I think our organization, it's really difficult to shift on the fly.

[56:50] It just is, we have fixed income or fixed revenue sources.

[56:54] We have expenses that aren't fixed, that we just don't know what may happen from day to day.

[56:59] We have federal funding, that we just don't know if it's going to be there.

[57:02] We have unknowns, such as out of district special education costs,

[57:06] or out of district costs that may be incurred because of movements.

[57:11] These are all things that are happening and it's very fluid, so what I want to share tonight is a little bit of what I shared last night.

[57:21] I will put all of this on the website for the community as well as publish my budget book tomorrow as well, right?

[57:30] So there's a number of layers here and I want you to stop me if you have questions specific questions with regard to this presentation.

[57:42] because it is a little different.

[57:43] I changed quite a bit from last night just based on feedback I heard last night too.

[57:47] So I wanted to make sure I included a lot of this stuff.

[57:50] But I want to really emphasize this budget that I'm presenting is not about adding to our budget.

[58:00] It's about trying to fix a deficit, a structural deficit that's going to exist forever.

[58:08] forever based on funding formulas at the state level as well as at the town level, right?

[58:14] So we can't just go out and create revenue. And the challenge becomes how do you then

[58:22] look at your population which is our community and our students to ensure that they have the best

[58:27] chance for success? That costs, right? It costs money, it costs other resources, and we have to do

[58:35] to our best to ensure our students are getting what they need.

[58:41] So Abhishek has every opportunity he can get to go to whether it's school, work,

[58:47] military, whatever it might be that he's prepared to do that, that aren't law students

[58:52] that you saw tonight are prepared to enter into that program and that we're providing them

[58:57] the opportunity to be ready to be independent as they were talking about tonight, right?

[59:03] That is our goal.

[59:04] That's our charge. And I can't speak more passionately enough about what I get excited about.

[59:10] It's preparing that. Where I get a little down is when I can't do that for everybody.

[59:16] When I can't provide what we need. So what I heard last time, when I presented last time,

[59:23] and what I heard from you and the feedback from you is where I'm going to go with the story tonight,

[59:29] Okay?

[59:33] We've shared this. We have five schools, 360 employees, 2800 students. Our pupil cost is about $18,000. All in.

[59:43] Thank you, Mr. Kendall. He's done a lot of work pulling some data. So, normally I would have to go in to the DC website and pull it myself. Paul's done that. So, I've just been able to copy it. So, thanks for saving me a little bit of time.

[59:54] I think it's critically important that our community does understand that

[1:00:00] The $44 million, $44.4 million that's appropriated at town meeting isn't the true cost of what it takes to run the Ashton Public Schools. We have another $4.4 million that we use, whether they're grants, whether they're school choice funds, whether they're building revolving, transportation, our true cost to run.

[1:00:29] the national public schools is closer to the $50 million range.

[1:00:33] These are FY26 numbers.

[1:00:38] So, and you can see 79% of our budget is salaries, right?

[1:00:44] Those are, it's astronomical, but that's pretty consistent

[1:00:48] across education domain anyway.

[1:00:52] So what's changed, right?

[1:00:54] So this is, what change since February 25th?

[1:00:59] When I came in here and said, I think we can probably look at a 2.55% increase and be comfortable with it.

[1:01:09] So, taking into account conversations with each of you independently and getting your feedback.

[1:01:18] But then also having conversations with our administrative team and our leadership group.

[1:01:24] So, we felt as though we do need to make and have to make some adjustments to what we initially were looking at.

[1:01:32] And what I'm trying to share with you tonight is the process we've undertaken, and I see two mistakes on the slide already.

[1:01:45] The original plan is 20.6 FTE cuts and the revised plan is reinstate is actually 7.4

[1:01:57] positions. So it's 13.2 is still the number of positions that are going to be reduced no matter what.

[1:02:03] Mike and I were looking at this. I just missed it before.

[1:02:09] the next slide we fixed it, and so this is all based on your feedback.

[1:02:16] The challenges, and I want to be very upfront here, the challenges when we look at making

[1:02:24] adjustments, there are only a few funding sources that we can rely on to reinstate some positions

[1:02:34] that may have been in the 2.55 reductions, and I'll get to that in a moment.

[1:02:40] So 2.55%, this is where I presented in February, the 20.6 positions that would be reduced.

[1:02:51] Okay, not the 21.6, it was on the last slide, I adjusted the others, I missed that one.

[1:03:00] But those are the initial positions.

[1:03:02] So if the board said Jim and the select board finance committee said Jim, there's no more funding and you don't have the luxury of utilizing stabilization funds from the town and or school choice,

[1:03:22] we would then need to eliminate 20.6 positions to get to the 255 number.

[1:03:28] Does that make sense?

[1:03:29] Okay, because I want to be clear that's because that's the starting point for me from February 25th

[1:03:36] Obviously it shifted and and last night it shifted without having and I apologize

[1:03:42] I didn't get the opportunity to talk to you first publicly before I shared some of the information last night

[1:03:48] It's not how I operate. Hopefully you know that

[1:03:50] So this is where we were

[1:03:54] many of these positions are

[1:03:56] are initially retirements or non-fill positions.

[1:04:02] The reduction ones are what are added to the 13.2

[1:04:07] for the most part.

[1:04:12] So feedback from you all.

[1:04:18] Independent said, hey, Jim, how do we continue

[1:04:22] to move the district forward?

[1:04:25] What does it look like by not having

[1:04:29] that literacy coach, for instance?

[1:04:31] How do we fund that position?

[1:04:33] because we believe it's a critical position to ensure that not only are we going to be challenged

[1:04:39] from the Department of Ed to change our K-5 literacy programming but to have the continued work

[1:04:47] of our data teams, the coaching that our literacy specialists do, and to have that instead of having

[1:04:57] one person try to work through six grade levels, have one at each building which we've been fortunate to have.

[1:05:06] And I thank you for that. I thank you for reaching out to me and saying,

[1:05:11] that's a critical position as we move into it. Mike and I have had this conversation.

[1:05:16] Mike wants to try to get to a number initially, but a position like this is critically important to our success long-term.

[1:05:24] right? So you know I want to make sure that that position right there is

[1:05:30] something that you understand why it was put back in but it was feedback from

[1:05:34] you feedback from the Ministry of Team.

[1:05:37] I'm going to just pause it for a minute because I think you've maybe got

[1:05:44] taught out later but lost over something I think it's just more important for

[1:05:47] the community to hear too which is you've already talked about there's a set of

[1:05:51] positions that are already being cut, right, that below this, I think you said using number 13.2.

[1:05:57] I think it's really important to understand, even whether there's an actual cut or reduction in

[1:06:03] the position because of retirement, that may mean, okay, it wasn't the sort of person being

[1:06:09] full to a person because they were going to retire anyway. But there is still a reduction of 13

[1:06:13] plus positions going on with rent as budget before you get to sort of add in anything or putting things

[1:06:21] back here.

[1:06:21] And it has an impact on students.

[1:06:23] So it's about four or five slides down, and I'll refer to that because those are the

[1:06:29] still the numbers that will exist, whether an override passes, and or a 3.25% number

[1:06:35] is what's voted on eventually, and I also want to caution folks who are listening.

[1:06:41] We still are required by a national law to have a public budget hearing.

[1:06:45] This is just another update, if you will.

[1:06:47] This is not our public budget hearing, I'm not asking you to vote on anything.

[1:06:51] This is just an update based on your feedback, feedback from last night, as well as feedback from the administrative team.

[1:07:01] Okay? Is that just so we're on the same picture?

[1:07:05] And when we look at, and you talked about opportunity a minute ago, and social studies, HS, world language, HS.

[1:07:16] While that was a point four, we still believe, we've had this conversation, we don't want

[1:07:22] to become a one-language school, if you will, right?

[1:07:27] We want to continue to push and work towards having French and Spanish.

[1:07:32] This would have required a little bit of combining of positions, you know, again, I think partly

[1:07:40] we want to continue to push to see if we can grow the numbers.

[1:07:43] members. Social studies, it would have been a cut in elective opportunities. We've talked

[1:07:49] a lot about on this board providing those elective opportunities. The AMS Adjustment

[1:07:56] Councilor, this was a conversation that I've had with Aaron recently and it's not about

[1:08:04] So, when we're looking at that 13.2 number, one of the positions that we're eliminating

[1:08:12] and reducing is the director of social emotional learning, right?

[1:08:16] And as you know, we value our value statement and our strategic plan talks directly about social

[1:08:26] emotional learning.

[1:08:27] So, it would be a fair question to ask me, if we're taking that off the table, Jim,

[1:08:35] how then are we meeting the strategic objectives that we've set forth in the plan?

[1:08:41] Fair question.

[1:08:43] If we had eliminated this position after further conversation, that would really become

[1:08:48] challenging for us, especially at the middle school, where the Adjustment Council or at

[1:08:56] teaching SEL lessons. We'll be working with the social emotional needs of our students.

[1:09:02] We'll be having opportunities to work with families. So I think that's one reason why

[1:09:10] I felt comfortable adding this one back in from that 2.55 because I know the role that

[1:09:17] Aaron intends that person to be involved in. And it's a lot of forward facing time with

[1:09:22] kids. And that's important. The conversation that we'll be having with our counseling staff

[1:09:32] is they're going to be required to be picking up a number of pieces of the puzzle that

[1:09:40] Gentile are currently managers, right? Especially the K-5, the 504 plans, the 504 meetings.

[1:09:46] Counselors used to do those things. It was taken off their plate a little bit, right? Not in every

[1:09:50] building, but some. Our counseling staff and we met today with the A.A. and they have

[1:09:56] counselors on that board, and they're like, yeah, we know that we're going to have to do that.

[1:10:01] We know that SEL is important to us as a community and as a district that we are going to have

[1:10:07] to pick up certain things. Whether it's, you know, the 504s, whether it's, you know,

[1:10:17] So looking at, you know, Mike potentially having to do some of the grant funding that

[1:10:22] Jen would do.

[1:10:25] The, you know, the Metro us adolescent health survey, we, Jen, would run that at the high

[1:10:30] school and the middle school level.

[1:10:31] Well, that has to be done now, either by, it used to be done through the administrators.

[1:10:36] So some of it will just fall back on.

[1:10:38] I just want to touch base there.

[1:10:39] I was going to hold on this until you kind of got to the 13.3 of the networks in there,

[1:10:43] but just since you're talking about, I see on the line, I've raised in our prior conversations,

[1:10:49] and I want to be sure that the rest of the committee members, including the absolute benefit of

[1:10:54] some of this stuff you've shared with me because I want to want a conversation with Jim about

[1:10:58] this position and my concern, certainly is for our commitment to the work, right? I mean, as a committee,

[1:11:03] as an administrative team, really prioritized the social-emotional learning and the creation of this

[1:11:11] position seven years ago or so really reflected that and I said one of the

[1:11:15] concerns I had is that without that direct level position you lose sort of

[1:11:22] that that person's responsible for making sure that that continues to be

[1:11:26] prioritized with the stress strength and so I expressed that concern to Jim and

[1:11:30] I told him that I would sort of tee up this question because I really think it's

[1:11:34] important that we share sort of response because it was one that made me feel a

[1:11:39] a lot better about this decision.

[1:11:41] I just, Jim, if you would be willing to for the benefit of the committee as well as the community

[1:11:47] to just talk a little bit about elaborating on what you're saying or to how you're going

[1:11:52] to address the middle school, but just how you see that role and where we are now.

[1:11:56] So, I want to give credit, we're credited, right?

[1:11:59] Jen has done a phenomenal job of creating a program in processes, and again, I think when

[1:12:06] What do we talk about in, you know, Mike's dissertation until it's social

[1:12:10] emotional learning, and, you know, the one thing that we've done and, and

[1:12:16] emphasized is that SEL is embedded across the entire district in everything we

[1:12:22] do, right? It should be embedded in our, every day lesson planning, it should be

[1:12:26] embedded in how we have conversations with parents, with kids, five or four

[1:12:30] plans, IEPs, counseling staff, et cetera. Jen has done a good job with that in

[1:12:36] setting us up for success. The challenge without Gen would be to ensure that the staff at each building

[1:12:44] continues along and is held accountable for doing the things that are in place. That's on us as

[1:12:50] leaders. That's on us as building principals. So on Mike, when you're dealing with district

[1:12:55] SEL teams, when you're doing PBIS work, you can hear Amanda and you hear Warren, those staffs now have

[1:13:05] it for lack of better term unlocked out, right? They know what they're doing. They've got the tools

[1:13:10] to have success making sure our SEL objectives are met. I think where we'll have to be challenged

[1:13:19] us is making sure that we figure out a way to appropriately collaborate with outside agencies,

[1:13:26] right? I think Jen has done a good job with that. We're going to have to figure that out

[1:13:30] as a leadership team. Who's going to be responsible for reaching out to hospitals? Is that the counseling staff now?

[1:13:38] I would tell you some counselors are hesitant to do that. It's not, you know, in their daily way, but that it will be required without this position.

[1:13:48] I think we will continue to have SCL classroom lessons all the way through. It's embedded now. It's expected now.

[1:13:57] And I think because Jen has put us in a good position to move forward, our team will

[1:14:04] be able to absorb a lot of that work.

[1:14:07] Not going to say 100% because I don't think there's any one of us that could do what

[1:14:13] she does in certain things.

[1:14:14] Jim, since this is going to be an obvious transition and pick up of work for you and your

[1:14:20] team and the principals, it may be as we move into setting goals for next year, a good

[1:14:25] opportunity to set that as a key goal because as we saw in the list, you just went through,

[1:14:31] you have a lot going on. And in a time of transition, like, you know, managing expectations

[1:14:38] and accountability is important. It would just keep a lens on if there's a slip or, you know,

[1:14:44] or you need more support, not that there would be a slip. Yeah, no, I think that thank you for saying

[1:14:49] that. I think that's absolutely good. I think holding us accountable for that to ensure

[1:14:55] that the SCL component of the objectives are being met.

[1:15:02] So, let me finish off this list here, because we'll get into the 132, but kindergarten and talking to Mr. Regan, even this morning, or this afternoon, we're on pace to get 205 students. And that, you know, when we start having these initial conversations, we work there, right. And 205 is 20.5, 21 kids per kindergarten. And this was not a retirement position.

[1:15:29] this was one that we thought we could reduce, it doesn't make sense, based on projected

[1:15:34] numbers right now, and Pete felt comfortable with those projections.

[1:15:42] The Mendes teacher was an added position, if you remember, it wasn't a retirement position,

[1:15:46] it was an added reduction.

[1:15:48] Again, while pulling it back in helps us keep the class sizes relatively lower than where

[1:15:58] they would be, right? We're still losing and reducing Mendes by, I think,

[1:16:05] it keeps on here, three or four, we'll get to it, but three educators already.

[1:16:11] So one of them is a classroom teacher, they're special ed and one is a special

[1:16:15] teacher. So by removing two, you go from 30 educators down to 28,

[1:16:22] and so there's some volatility if we have a little bit of enrollment

[1:16:27] bumps. We just want to be careful with that. And the last one here is, and I had this conversation

[1:16:33] with the union today, the bright clinical coordinator, when we talk about, again, doing what's

[1:16:40] right by kids, I think, Tina, you made a point to me about, it doesn't matter if it's one kid or

[1:16:46] 30 kids in a program. If you can just say what that is, because most people are not going to know it.

[1:16:50] Yeah, so, Brian, it's, I forget the acronym, Keller, you on, but the optory for kids who are maybe hospitalized, who have need clinical support in having not only academics, but mental health concerns, physical concerns working with families, with doctors, with outside clinicians, et cetera.

[1:17:15] So, to Tina's point to me, and we just started the program a year ago, and we have anywhere

[1:17:20] from, you know, six to eight kids who may be participating within the bright umbrella

[1:17:28] if you will.

[1:17:29] And the challenge becomes, and what I was hearing, was it doesn't matter if it's one or two

[1:17:36] or three kids, if it's eight kids, it doesn't have to be 20.

[1:17:40] How are we best supporting all of our kids?

[1:17:43] This makes sense to me, right?

[1:17:46] We just started this program.

[1:17:48] Kelly has seen a growth in the program, in the work with our families.

[1:17:55] But it's easy to put on a list when you're only dealing with a few kids, right?

[1:17:59] That's an easy to say from a budgetary standpoint.

[1:18:03] You're not servicing, you know, 30 kids in a classroom.

[1:18:08] You're right.

[1:18:09] But when you step back and I had to, sometimes I have to step back on my own self and get out of the way and say,

[1:18:15] hey, what about those hate kids who are now in danger of being dropped out and dropping out and not getting the opportunity, right?

[1:18:24] I think two gyms is another important thing to think about with losing gender and gender as well, so this is one of the

[1:18:32] The way that we are truly supporting students when it comes to SEL,

[1:18:36] specifically our mental health many times, right?

[1:18:39] And just to give you that acronym you were looking for,

[1:18:42] it does stand for bridge for resilient youth and transition.

[1:18:45] That's exactly what the program is, right?

[1:18:47] It serves as our opportunity to help students transition back.

[1:18:52] And it really, it just serves a tremendous purpose,

[1:18:55] specifically in the area of mental health, right?

[1:18:58] Thanks Mike.

[1:18:58] And Jim, your original assessment in terms of that first pass,

[1:19:01] like looking at like let's say we were looking at electives that only had four or five kids right it makes sense to look at the number of kids any specific position services but I think to the point you just made in terms of the intensive needs that that this specific position really addresses in their critical for many kids right when when they're when they're they have this need and and so I think it's that looking at that impact it does outweigh the number of kids so

[1:19:31] And a lot of these things that we're talking about from a budget perspective anyway, they

[1:19:36] prevent other problems that are going to cost us more money, you know, you're giving

[1:19:42] attention to, from literacy all the way through mental health and everything in between,

[1:19:49] there's a cost, like a real cost to not having the right attention on those things at the

[1:19:54] right time, and it impacts the numbers.

[1:19:59] I'll just share by coincidence, is that I had psyched council of earlier TA and

[1:20:03] Gen Shields of our Adjustment Council, our Adjustment Council at High School.

[1:20:08] There's almost always there, she was there today, and just as sort of a conversation

[1:20:11] point, she made the point that we have more kids who are in need of help.

[1:20:16] She's mentioned the Bright Program in particular, but that are having more

[1:20:20] challenging mental health issues this year than we've seen in the last few.

[1:20:23] which is just very concerning.

[1:20:26] It's kind of the first.

[1:20:29] Okay.

[1:20:31] We've been stuck on the slide for about ten minutes.

[1:20:34] Now, just want to listen to me.

[1:20:36] Yeah.

[1:20:36] So, again, this is just another slide basically showing those positions in a different format of the 7.4 positions, right?

[1:20:45] That they were originally part of the reduction in the 2.55%.

[1:20:53] So, and we're going to get to the next piece.

[1:20:59] We've talked about the operation override component 6.18 percent.

[1:21:04] It helps with the structural stabilization, right?

[1:21:07] It helps stabilize the deficit that we're in on a yearly basis.

[1:21:14] The $300,000 that we've budgeted as part of this for athletics, that we know runs that

[1:21:21] structural deficit every year as well.

[1:21:23] Well, in the other scenarios, we have to pull that $300,000 out of the operations.

[1:21:28] And that's an important piece that we'll get to.

[1:21:32] But it moves $1.1 million of their about of school choice funds that we spend on salaries

[1:21:40] and operations into the operation budget, which is where it belongs.

[1:21:44] Which then provides a little bit of flexibility for one time use funds.

[1:21:50] deferred maintenance could be one of them.

[1:21:52] It could be the purchase of, we're talking about $900,000

[1:21:55] for a K through five literacy program

[1:21:58] with professional development, materials,

[1:22:01] ancillary materials, et cetera, right?

[1:22:03] So how do you afford that?

[1:22:05] Well, you have to be able to have some flexibility

[1:22:06] with your one-time funds like school choice.

[1:22:09] Operators on override, ends the reliance on school choice

[1:22:13] to operate our business, our school.

[1:22:15] So now we go from the 255, just the 3.25 and what does that look like?

[1:22:23] It's a $1.44 million increase over the prior year's number and you know we have been asked

[1:22:32] at one point in time to look at a level funded budget, that $44 million, $486, $864,

[1:22:38] or something like that. I keep looking at that number, but that would be, you know,

[1:22:47] I don't know if it's pretty much just right, inconceivable. We'd never ever think about that, right?

[1:22:52] It's a pretty broad one. But we'd never be able to do that, right? Without really wiping out all of our revolving accounts.

[1:23:02] So this still comes with risk, just so we're clear, right?

[1:23:08] A 3.25% still comes with risk.

[1:23:11] One, we still have to utilize significant amounts of funding out of school choice

[1:23:17] and transportation revolving, athletic revolving, et cetera.

[1:23:22] Athletic fees, that $300 gap, is still going to be infused into our budget.

[1:23:27] It's just going to exist.

[1:23:29] Now, folks have asked me, hey, can we cut some sports, can we raise fees, and I would

[1:23:35] tell you this, we currently have the highest fees in the TVL already, with no cap.

[1:23:40] So we are taxing our parents more than surrounding communities for our students to play athletics.

[1:23:48] That to me is unacceptable.

[1:23:51] I know it exists, and once you start fees, you never take them back, right?

[1:23:55] It's rare that you can, you take the fees back.

[1:24:00] We bring in about $300,000 a year in user fees already.

[1:24:05] That's what we bring in.

[1:24:07] We look at potential reduction in opportunities.

[1:24:11] This board has never been about reducing opportunities for our kids.

[1:24:15] Some opportunities are better than others in terms of being able to be financially viable, for sure.

[1:24:21] middle school sports people ask about that all the time, middle school sports pretty much run

[1:24:28] level funded across the board because there aren't that many kids who play they don't have a lot

[1:24:34] of expenses with it. The challenge becomes in the future there is no tri-value league middle school

[1:24:43] program anymore. One other school has middle school sports. Sockington. And if we want

[1:24:53] to play Hopington 33 times, we could do that. We could build a rival. Except we've, they're

[1:25:01] unsoftballing an example and it's a fair one. Hopington only runs an eighth grade softball program

[1:25:06] for middle school. We don't have enough students to fill the JB team at the high school so if we've

[1:25:12] We're going to pull up eighth grade students to play at the JV level, at the high school level.

[1:25:17] Now we potentially have six graders that may have to play softball against the eighth graders of Hopkins.

[1:25:24] So there are structural issues within just athletics, not even a financial standpoint.

[1:25:31] Mr. Connery will be coming to have in these conversations with you.

[1:25:34] I think we need to be prepared to say, okay, if there are sports programs in this community for

[1:25:40] For certain grade levels, probably that's where we should be focused as opposed to running them at a middle school level, but that's a different conversation.

[1:25:51] Again, fiscal cliff, school choice.

[1:25:54] Yeah, of course.

[1:25:55] You have a distant ballpark figure on the overall cost of athletics, whether you're drawing from others operating or revolving.

[1:26:03] What do we spend on athletics, middle school high school combined?

[1:26:07] If you, I would say it's, my spreadsheet is not up to date yet.

[1:26:13] I would say it's probably, I'll run a $300,000 deficit, probably about $600,000, $800,000.

[1:26:20] Los Armannos?

[1:26:22] Yeah.

[1:26:27] She's spent on this slide for a while.

[1:26:30] Again, we've talked about the override.

[1:26:33] It funds, you know, the $300,000 deficit, I don't want to spend a lot of time on the override

[1:26:39] because I think it's important when we talk a little bit about the adjustment.

[1:26:44] I think that's where we need to spend time on.

[1:26:48] So no override, right?

[1:26:50] It's the 3.25 percent increase.

[1:26:54] It maintains the current services in the short term,

[1:26:57] but we're deferring any structural issues.

[1:27:01] We're not able to fix the structural deficit that exists

[1:27:04] and that we're able to hopefully clean up with the override.

[1:27:08] And it's much less than we've have been getting for the last several years to maintain our level status.

[1:27:14] Yeah, yeah, we're, and I'll be clear, we're not really a level, it's not a level service.

[1:27:18] Right, budget, it's certainly a restructured financial realignment budget, like what we're

[1:27:25] presenting is really a realignment of where we are.

[1:27:30] It still is going to require us $450,000 of school choice to fund operations.

[1:27:35] at fees, as I said, are already the highest.

[1:27:39] We're still going to have eight teachers

[1:27:41] funding through school choice of 709,000.

[1:27:45] Athletes will run that deficit.

[1:27:47] The one thing this is dependent on,

[1:27:49] well, there's two things, right?

[1:27:52] Ken and is the town willing to support

[1:27:59] finding 1.4 million dollars of additional revenue,

[1:28:02] whether it's through stabilization funds or some other revenue source to allow us

[1:28:10] to get to 3.25 percent, right? That was the conversation last night is if we're

[1:28:16] to get here, those other positions need to be, you know, absorbed within our

[1:28:22] operations, those 7.4 positions.

[1:28:28] If not, does this board look at it and say those 7.4 positions are critically important

[1:28:35] to the success of the action public schools?

[1:28:37] So Jim, go back and put those into your revolving account for another year.

[1:28:43] And as you know, what that does is it decimates the revolving account in one year.

[1:28:48] It'll be gone.

[1:28:49] And the previous slide you said, you said, hey, and this has risk, it doesn't have risk, it adds to it.

[1:28:58] Sure, sure.

[1:28:59] So just to be clear on what that means, we've always had the risk.

[1:29:04] We've had the different things that have happened over the years that have allowed us to kick this can, kick this can.

[1:29:10] And this scenario doesn't just have risk.

[1:29:16] It brings risk.

[1:29:18] It brings risk.

[1:29:19] It increases.

[1:29:19] A known risk is, there's no avoiding it.

[1:29:22] And there's no savior at the end.

[1:29:24] There's nothing that's going to happen to change the trajectory of it.

[1:29:27] It's pushing us really close to a very large class.

[1:29:31] Correct.

[1:29:33] Right.

[1:29:34] So, Mark, to your point, you know,

[1:29:36] the 13.2 positions that will be reduced no matter what.

[1:29:44] In any budget scenario we have, these 13.2 positions will be reduced and

[1:29:51] eliminated from the Ashen Public Schools budget.

[1:29:54] When I'm saying to this community, listen, we looked at our entire budget and

[1:29:58] said we can make some adjustments.

[1:30:00] In what we're truly asking you for, that 2.75 is an operational override, it's critically important to fixing the structural deficit moving forward. That's what I'm trying to do here. I'm not asking this community to give us 2.75 million dollars more over my budget to add things. There's no adding. It's all eliminating even with a 2.75 million dollar override. Okay?

[1:30:29] I can't emphasize that enough.

[1:30:31] And I'll just say my party line, and you have 10% of your budget on grant funding,

[1:30:37] which we know could be at risk since we had $100,000 position just taken away from that grant funding this week.

[1:30:45] So it's an unknown environment, and that's a real reason to preserve one time funding.

[1:30:53] Agreed.

[1:30:56] And my concern with this slide is really, to talk about impact, that's Fed Coordinator

[1:31:03] and have a huge impact, both to our students, to our families that that Fed Coordinator

[1:31:10] is going to support, and to our budget should we not be able to support the students and

[1:31:16] families.

[1:31:17] All right, so let me figure out how Paul's comment.

[1:31:21] So I'm glad you used the word impact,

[1:31:23] because we've had that conversation,

[1:31:25] I think in a lot of detail at different points

[1:31:28] in the conversation, but I think it's one

[1:31:29] that we just always have to come back to,

[1:31:31] because we've talked about a budget,

[1:31:32] we're talking about cuts and positions, right?

[1:31:35] But it's the impact of those cuts

[1:31:36] that I think is the most important part, right?

[1:31:39] I mean, nobody really wants to be in a position

[1:31:41] of telling somebody that they're losing their job.

[1:31:44] Obviously we're able to do some of this

[1:31:46] with registration and retirements and all that,

[1:31:48] or positions that weren't funded,

[1:31:49] but that impact, you know,

[1:31:52] that cut in opportunities,

[1:31:53] which I'm not saying the opportunities

[1:31:55] that are presented from our students today

[1:31:57] are the ones we're talking about,

[1:31:59] but people have to understand that the opportunities

[1:32:04] that are available to their students,

[1:32:07] right, took it for a bunch of us

[1:32:08] with seniors in the area in the table,

[1:32:10] more to their students, their kids.

[1:32:13] That's a real thing, you know,

[1:32:14] And if people think about it, that's what's at stake here.

[1:32:19] And so when we talk about cutting of feature, right?

[1:32:24] If you think about, well, there's just one person out of 361.

[1:32:28] What's the big deal?

[1:32:29] You're really missing the part that underlies this whole thing,

[1:32:33] which is we're trying to manage a budget in a way that preserves

[1:32:38] opportunities for our kids and appropriately staffs them

[1:32:43] so that even though, yeah, you're going to have a fifth grade teacher, maybe there's one last one that's the impact kids in that classroom is significant.

[1:32:52] Yeah.

[1:32:52] What happens with more kids in a class is less opportunity and less education.

[1:32:58] I just never invite you to use the word because it always triggers me when we focus so much on number of positions without talking about that.

[1:33:05] And just when I look at it, I don't see all impacts as the same, right?

[1:33:11] So for sure, an impact that, you know, I have a sophomore that impact that he doesn't get a particular opportunity and the impact that that's beg coordinator can have on a family night and day, right?

[1:33:25] So those are the decisions that we've asked to make out of balance with the speed, right, to find the places where the impact is the least and to recognize the ones where the impact is most significant and positive.

[1:33:35] And that's my concern with this one in particular is like I get the director and

[1:33:42] Before even we would do and I had a conversation. I led with

[1:33:45] We've always said SEO is not a bolt-on. It's not a class just a class you teach you

[1:33:51] You it's it's woven into everything you do and we've done that and so now

[1:33:56] That has some more, you know, it's organic into a lot of different people in their position, but

[1:34:03] So, you know, so I struggle more with this one than some of the other ones when we flip

[1:34:08] back.

[1:34:11] So, do I?

[1:34:13] This will be a challenge.

[1:34:16] It was three years ago we added this position back into the budget, right?

[1:34:20] Before that, we had one less spend coordinator and so they worked cross buildings.

[1:34:27] It works better with one in each building.

[1:34:29] It just does.

[1:34:30] It's better for families and better for kids.

[1:34:32] We know that.

[1:34:33] But, again, it's that balancing act of, how do we, can we do the work, we can do the work?

[1:34:41] It's going to require us to rethink about what we're doing again.

[1:34:47] I don't disagree with you, Paul, if you asked me to put a rank order,

[1:34:50] this is the number one position to me that I would add back in, of all these positions on this list.

[1:34:58] As you can see on the left side, they're unfilled or retirement physicians, and I think that's

[1:35:02] important.

[1:35:03] Mendes is losing three, a special teacher, a special education teacher, and a general

[1:35:07] classroom teacher.

[1:35:08] That's why I felt I needed to add back that other one that we had on the 2-5-5.

[1:35:13] Well, normally we would feel retirement.

[1:35:15] Of course we would.

[1:35:16] 100% of the time it would be part of the budgeting process for us because typically, and we

[1:35:23] We track this, typically obviously when someone retires, they're generally at the highest

[1:35:28] end of the scale, and we can hire someone at a lower end, so there's a cost savings from

[1:35:34] a salary standpoint.

[1:35:35] That's not existing this year, the work that we're doing has already taken that into account

[1:35:40] when we're looking at our reductions for them.

[1:35:44] Just a quick note in terms of the spec coordinator, I agree with both of you.

[1:35:47] I think it does worry me a little bit, taking this out and kind of in thinking and kind of

[1:35:52] sharing my feedback with you, Jim, I think one of the reasons that I didn't necessarily advocate for this position is because I was, of course,

[1:35:59] making that of course direct impact to the students, but also thinking through how, like you said, a couple of years ago, we added this position.

[1:36:07] So we had functioned for a very long time, yes, it's much better with one in every building, no question.

[1:36:12] But I also thought about the fact that it pit away, we now have just, it's not a shared position anymore.

[1:36:20] And so, it's, I think, the ability, why am I blanking on her name?

[1:36:26] Thank you, oh my gosh, I'm sorry Sarah, the ability of Sarah to focus just on special education.

[1:36:32] I think it opens her capacity a little bit, not saying she should be taking on other students and other schools.

[1:36:38] But that was something that played into my mind, too, in terms of the impact.

[1:36:44] But I do agree with you both that this is-

[1:36:45] But I think the greater point is it's like these some of these are painful and they're going to have an impact and

[1:36:53] It's just us being realistic

[1:36:56] Working with the amount of money that's available to us. We only have a certain

[1:37:01] A few options for our sources of income. There's state funding. There's town funding. We've been given our

[1:37:07] Marching orders and we're trying to be as responsible as we can within within that

[1:37:12] System, but it doesn't mean that it's not

[1:37:15] That's obviously not what is ideal or we wouldn't have had those positions in the first place, you know, and I think that's an important point to be made though that we are, we preemptively did this so that we could get to a budget that works and that we could still get decent funding from somewhere and provide an education for our students and meet the needs of all the diverse needs that we have in the district, but it's not, it's not going to be what we had, it's a setback.

[1:37:47] I mean, I'd just like to make a quick note on the other slide.

[1:37:51] I was wondering, these 13 or so cuts, of course, they have to occur, but is there a scenario

[1:38:00] in which we could renew certain positions that are being retired or vacated and cut additional

[1:38:08] ones by weighing them? Of course, it's not ideal to bring somebody on and then fire somebody else,

[1:38:14] But some of these positions, like the thing I'd point to directly, is the AHS Science Department, right?

[1:38:21] And Ms. Sherman, who's retiring this year, she's a great teacher, I had her sophomore year.

[1:38:26] It's a bummer I can have her future years, but she is servicing, I think, around 60 to 80 kids yearly, taking chemistry.

[1:38:35] And of course, that is a foundational class for high school curriculum.

[1:38:40] Do you think it would be a certain scenario in which we could renew that position or find somebody else to fill it while dropping a different position, just based on the impacts they have?

[1:38:51] Sure, so those are conversations that we have with Miss St. Kerr all the time, right?

[1:38:55] And she has those conversations, whether it's at site council, and or with the department heads in the building.

[1:39:03] And looking at other classroom enrollment numbers within the science department.

[1:39:09] That's one position they feel like they can absorb some of the classes.

[1:39:13] So class sizes are not too big and they're stuff to teach chemistry.

[1:39:18] It's just who's going to teach it with the staffing that we have.

[1:39:21] So, to answer your question, are there possibilities for bringing positions back?

[1:39:29] The answers, yeah, if we find more revenue somewhere, right?

[1:39:32] That one of our next steps, and we had this conversation Tuesday with the admin team,

[1:39:37] is to take this list and rank order them to be honest with you to say, okay,

[1:39:43] if there's a windfall, somehow, some way.

[1:39:46] Or maybe an unexpected retirement later down the road.

[1:39:48] Whatever it might be, which ones are the most important that we fill in, right?

[1:39:54] Because what you're saying Abishak is really important, but I also have the Mendes folks saying,

[1:39:58] well, this is really important at Mendes, right?

[1:40:01] So it's sort of, it's that balancing act of which position.

[1:40:05] So could you argue the social studies versus the science?

[1:40:09] Maybe, but we also have less social studies teachers at the high school.

[1:40:13] And those are opportunities for electives that we might exist.

[1:40:17] You know, some might discuss, hey, you just added some electives with other teachers,

[1:40:24] like business class, for example.

[1:40:25] Well, those are packed, right?

[1:40:27] Those are classes that are absolutely kids are looking for.

[1:40:31] And I've been an advocate and so is this board about adding potential electives for our kids.

[1:40:36] Because not everyone's going into the sciences.

[1:40:38] We have to have opportunity.

[1:40:40] You make an excellent point.

[1:40:42] Yeah, it's a great point.

[1:40:42] It's a huge loss.

[1:40:43] And it wasn't done, though, without probably hundreds of hours of all the administrators getting into the room and every principal can probably tell that same story so that then now you're talking about five or 10 positions that fall into that same category.

[1:40:58] And any time we lose, and especially one like that, because my kids had her, I mean your

[1:41:06] kids probably did too, and not being able to replace that because of decisions and how

[1:41:12] they factor into the bigger picture, that's kind of my point from earlier, it's a huge

[1:41:17] loss, like we should not be having to have this conversation, you know, and we're doing

[1:41:22] the best we can to try to fix at least some of these things with an override, and things

[1:41:26] do shift and sometimes there are opportunities later,

[1:41:29] our special education, things are one day we could be even more set back than we thought

[1:41:35] we might be and then the next day there might be some funds that are released and all

[1:41:38] the sudden maybe we could fill that position, but that's a day-to-day thing that those are

[1:41:45] the things that are out of our control.

[1:41:46] And to your general thing, whatever we put here, and even if we make the decision we follow

[1:41:51] through with it, it doesn't mean that next year our needs change.

[1:41:55] None of this is binding from a long-term perspective, right?

[1:41:58] So if things change next year, we have to make a different decision and bring back this bed coordinator or the science teacher or any of these positions, this is just what the current plan is and it will be evaluated.

[1:42:12] I mean, every single time that there is a retirement, not only are they looking, it's a reflection point on their having the conversation of, yes, we will.

[1:42:22] So many of them, not all the time, we can hire at a lower cost, but not all the time.

[1:42:29] And so we're always looking at that, and we're evaluating it at that time.

[1:42:37] Do we need this?

[1:42:38] Or do we need something else, right?

[1:42:40] So I think just to put a finer point on it, when we're talking about a science position

[1:42:47] rating that it's being created in part by, I mean, the reason we don't have to let somebody

[1:42:53] go is because somebody's retiring doesn't necessarily mean that the classes that the teacher

[1:42:57] who's leaving taught are not going to be taught, right?

[1:43:00] And there's those to be taught by somebody else.

[1:43:03] What it means is that within the science department, there's one less person there, and as we've

[1:43:08] talked about a number of times, one of the ways we're trying to adjust is recognizing where

[1:43:13] We have some under-subscribed classes, right, and so maybe we've had two sections of something that we really need to merge into one.

[1:43:22] But, yeah, we're talking about department-wide adjustment. We're not talking about not teaching chemistry, right?

[1:43:28] And so there's always the shifting of assignment of classes and what gets offered by the available staffing that happens every year regardless of the budget, right?

[1:43:37] Yeah, raise an excellent point 100 percent. So again, this is just more narrative in terms of the impacts right of the reductions.

[1:43:48] The first one.

[1:43:53] It's not middle school, it's just a six and seventh, right?

[1:43:57] Right, it's in the middle school.

[1:43:58] Yeah.

[1:43:59] Right.

[1:44:00] When you say middle school, Spanish elimination.

[1:44:03] That means it's not going to be six and seven.

[1:44:04] Right.

[1:44:05] Eight, eight is middle school.

[1:44:06] No, I understand.

[1:44:07] No, I got it.

[1:44:09] Is that the middle school?

[1:44:10] Is that the middle school?

[1:44:11] Six and seventh grade Spanish.

[1:44:12] It looks like.

[1:44:13] I understand.

[1:44:14] Okay.

[1:44:14] I can adjust.

[1:44:15] I can adjust the language.

[1:44:17] Six and seventh.

[1:44:18] Spanish grades.

[1:44:22] Right. It's great six and seven. Yeah. I understand. I get your point, but

[1:44:29] it's articulated. I mean to somebody when they read unless they read the

[1:44:32] finer print underneath them. Right. So it's fine. I did, but it doesn't say

[1:44:38] everybody's all right. Moving on. We will have eighth grade Spanish only, and it'll

[1:44:43] be Spanish one for all kids. So they're prepared to go to Spanish too at the

[1:44:47] high school. They're using the curricula of Spanish one at the high school now. This was

[1:44:54] a position that we had talked about even a year ago that would eventually be faced out based on

[1:44:58] not every kid in-

[1:45:00] In 6 and 7th grade, it's getting Spanish now. There were different challenges contributing to that decision. But again, it's just more of a narrative of those positions and just a brief, if someone was asking what an impacts. I think, you know, this is the, this is where the rubber meets the road in terms of the different impacts, the models have on our revolving accounts. Right.

[1:45:30] that at the end of FY27 and a 2.25%, we'd have about $4.7 million available to us with 430 of it being for school choice.

[1:45:45] Remember, right now, you're talking 1.1 million dollars in addition to another 400,000,

[1:45:55] If we had to support those other positions from the 325, right, and then, you know, the override is where you can see that we maintain a level of balances that can help us in the long range, in the long run, 1.8 million in school choice to help with those deferred maintenance issues to help with when you have an alarm system break.

[1:46:23] it costs you $150,000 to fix, that we don't have the capacity to go to the town and ask for capital at that point in time.

[1:46:32] That we have to get that done because, you know, the fire department says you can't open your building unless you've got, you know, safety concerns being met.

[1:46:41] Bless you.

[1:46:42] So, some folks might say, hey, why aren't you spending more down on the school bus revolving?

[1:46:47] And then I explained this last night is, we're in a contract here coming up.

[1:46:51] And we don't know what it's going to look like.

[1:46:53] I don't, I'm a firm believer that whatever you bring in for revenue is what you should be spending for is an expense.

[1:47:00] Now, you have to go above and beyond that at times to make your, your budget balance.

[1:47:05] But that's really good practice, you know, even in your home life, you know, don't spend $5,000 if you're only making $3,000, right?

[1:47:12] So, so that's really what it looks like at the end of FY27 where it gets scary folks is FY28 and I don't show the override here. I just show what it looks like in a 2.25 and a 3.25.

[1:47:28] Without the town stepping up to provide additional revenues for a 3.25%.

[1:47:37] It would be really challenging for us.

[1:47:41] Even with that, you can see, at the end of FY28, we would have a $38,000 deficit in school choice.

[1:47:49] We're still have to pick up salaries and operations in school choice.

[1:47:57] However, at a 2.25% if you said to me, and again, these are models, right?

[1:48:03] If you said, Jim, those positions, seven point four positions, are positions we want to keep in the Ashton Public Schools, but they can't be in the operations because we're only getting a 2.25% increase in our overall appropriated amount, that means we'd have to spend significantly more money out of the school choice to make it work because you'd have to pull those other salaries.

[1:48:33] of those 7.4 positions in the school choice.

[1:48:37] And the money won't be there to do that.

[1:48:39] It would not be.

[1:48:41] Right.

[1:48:43] I know we've had this conversation a number of times.

[1:48:45] And I always worry about numbers.

[1:48:48] Some is still got $3 million in one-time funds.

[1:48:54] Yeah.

[1:48:54] Why doesn't that fix the problem?

[1:48:56] Right.

[1:48:57] And because I never know who was watching this for the first time.

[1:49:01] I'm just going to ask you to talk about those other sources and the restrictions and

[1:49:06] that's sort of why we can.

[1:49:08] Yeah, so revolving funds are certainly part of a normal operations of a school district, right?

[1:49:15] So when we charge fees by law, whatever we charge the fee for,

[1:49:21] that's what you can utilize to pay down an expense.

[1:49:25] So transportation fee, we pay a bus fee, $28 per kid.

[1:49:30] that has to go towards transportation costs only.

[1:49:34] It can't go to fund a salary by law.

[1:49:36] And circuit breaker.

[1:49:37] Yeah, I'll get to that.

[1:49:38] Yeah.

[1:49:39] So I can't take the fees that we get for transportation

[1:49:46] and pay a teacher salary with it.

[1:49:49] It's against the law.

[1:49:51] Circuit breaker is a reimbursement

[1:49:53] for out of district special education costs.

[1:49:56] It can only be used to offset

[1:49:57] that out of district special education costs.

[1:50:01] The challenge with circuit breaker is that the funding formula

[1:50:06] is again out of whack, being polite.

[1:50:11] I use, I try to keep it really simple.

[1:50:16] Let's assume a student is out placed, and it's a $100,000

[1:50:22] student.

[1:50:24] By law, the first calculation is, okay, four times the cost per pupil is owned by the

[1:50:33] district first.

[1:50:34] I mean, it's 10,000, it's not 10,000, I'm just using it as a number.

[1:50:38] So there's $40,000 that the district is immediately responsible for.

[1:50:44] So then there's this $60,000 gap that exists.

[1:50:48] And that is what is eligible for reimbursement under the circuit breaker.

[1:50:55] However, the circuit breaker funding at the state level can vary.

[1:51:01] It can be by law, it's supposed to be at 75%.

[1:51:06] And it's been as low as, you know, 25%.

[1:51:10] And it's been more traditionally than at the 75% the last few years because the funding has been there.

[1:51:16] So let's just use 70% because I can't do the math real fast tonight.

[1:51:20] So out of the $60,000 it's remaining, 70% of that would be reimbursed, so $42,000.

[1:51:27] So then there's still a delta of 18,000, right?

[1:51:31] So that 18,000 gets added back to that first 40.

[1:51:34] So it's $58,000, so 58% of that $100,000 cost is owned by the district.

[1:51:44] And we talked about an average per pupil cost for us is what, 18,000?

[1:51:49] So that's how it works.

[1:51:53] But again, it can only be used to offset any of those costs.

[1:51:56] So next year, it's $5 million of anticipated claimed outer district costs.

[1:52:04] And you have to meet a threshold first, otherwise you own the whole thing.

[1:52:07] Not all of our kids meet the threshold just so you know.

[1:52:09] So we own all of that cost if a student may go to the accept collaborative.

[1:52:14] It may be under the reversible requirement to claim.

[1:52:22] So you own it all, right?

[1:52:25] So it can only be used for that.

[1:52:26] Athletics, the same thing.

[1:52:28] Athletic fees can only be used for things that are related to athletics.

[1:52:31] So transportation is an interesting one, right?

[1:52:34] We can use transportation for athletics because it's transportation.

[1:52:38] But only for buses, but not for salaries.

[1:52:42] Just one thing to keep in mind, too, when you talk about the circuit breaker for the ending balance.

[1:52:48] The reason the balance isn't zero is because we can have budget continuity.

[1:52:53] We know what we're going to be able to budget for this year, so we always do have a year behind it.

[1:52:59] So reimbursement system and not a pro.

[1:53:02] Correct, it's not what we just read.

[1:53:05] Right, it's really good practice.

[1:53:06] There are some districts who anticipate what they're getting and

[1:53:11] that's what they use is their budget.

[1:53:13] This is the best approach, it's actually the recommended approach.

[1:53:16] So that's what some mark to answer your question.

[1:53:18] That's right.

[1:53:19] So that's 3.3 million, 3.1 million under a 2.25 is not real.

[1:53:24] It's 2.1 is gone.

[1:53:26] So you're got a million left in the other three remaining accounts,

[1:53:30] school bus building and athletics can only be used for that 140,000 in athletics.

[1:53:36] We already told you we run a deficit of 300,000.

[1:53:40] Right. That's not even enough to cover the program.

[1:53:42] One of the things that you've asked for feedback on presentation before,

[1:53:45] and it's just kind of dawning on me now, so I'm not asking it more.

[1:53:49] I could appreciate it, but it may just be as we talk about this going forward.

[1:53:56] People heard sort of segregating out of the school choice.

[1:53:59] That's really the only amount of money there if there's any flexibility, but we talk about that, but you know,

[1:54:06] as people from a time many presentations, form a budget hearing, people go, say, well, you've got $3,000,000,000 right there.

[1:54:13] Yeah. Yeah. It really isn't that. It's under those slides, it's $250,000.

[1:54:19] Correct. Even aheading, like revolving counts that we can't access for operational.

[1:54:24] I have it in the budget book, I describe it, but yeah, that's a good point.

[1:54:27] And just to piggyback on what you mentioned about transportation, revolving and why you have some extra there.

[1:54:34] Looking back at the data that Chris provided me, you know, between FY 17 and 18 was a contract year and our expenses for after fees and everything like that went up over $600,000.

[1:54:48] So that's why you're doing it, right? You don't know what that is and that's why that's there.

[1:54:54] if we were to be irresponsible and spend that down now,

[1:54:58] and we can get a bump in a contract here,

[1:55:02] we'd be just putting ourselves in a team.

[1:55:04] Probably, but in transportation services.

[1:55:07] Possibly.

[1:55:08] We shouldn't.

[1:55:08] Yeah.

[1:55:09] Right.

[1:55:10] That's the whole of the couple.

[1:55:11] We've had a conversation, right?

[1:55:13] So, I think part of it too is, right?

[1:55:17] And I know there are hiccups, and I know there are pains

[1:55:20] with combining middle school and high school routes.

[1:55:23] You know, when we when we did that a number of years ago, there was concern, you know, with high school kids being in the middle school kids, those concerns are, you know, are very small really in the end, right?

[1:55:36] But it saved us significant amounts of money because we don't need as many buses either, right?

[1:55:44] So we're able to, they figured out the roots had to drop off one side of the town and pick up before they go to the other side of town.

[1:55:51] You know, Donna Walsh has been great.

[1:55:54] Chris is team, Tamara, you know, working through the busing.

[1:55:59] It's very complex.

[1:56:01] And that contract, you know, we added three.

[1:56:03] We need to do more of that.

[1:56:04] Yeah.

[1:56:05] That particular contract.

[1:56:06] So we're not even talking about.

[1:56:08] Yeah.

[1:56:08] Let's move on.

[1:56:10] But this is stuff.

[1:56:12] We're not even talking about capital investments.

[1:56:15] 14 and a half million dollars of things we need.

[1:56:21] and that's important, we need a room for placement at the high school, we need fair field replacements at middle and high school, the literacy program, I highlight the literacy program that 900,000, partly because again, if we pass it over, we have some flexibility with our school choice funds to afford this over a three-year window, we have that flexibility, we wouldn't otherwise.

[1:56:42] We've seen the enrollment trends, you know, Paul has done a good job with the poor people spending on it.

[1:56:47] Again, I always want to make sure that the community understands they're getting a pretty good value for their money here in this community.

[1:56:53] It's a cash-22, to be honest with you, for us.

[1:56:56] We are ranked 362 out of 396 school districts in terms of the lowest amount of poor people spending.

[1:57:03] Which is shocking.

[1:57:05] It's been that way for a long time.

[1:57:06] I know.

[1:57:06] It's been that way the entire time I've been here.

[1:57:08] So it's not surprising.

[1:57:09] But.

[1:57:10] We did drop.

[1:57:12] This.

[1:57:13] We're last.

[1:57:14] So the latest data at the state is F524.

[1:57:17] Yeah.

[1:57:18] Between F523 and 24, we dropped more.

[1:57:20] Because Hollister passed an override.

[1:57:23] So finally, they're.

[1:57:24] They're.

[1:57:24] They're roles.

[1:57:25] Yeah.

[1:57:25] There are a couple of rides in other.

[1:57:27] So it.

[1:57:28] It did shift even with the, you know, surrounding TVL.

[1:57:33] I'm always been surprised that the number of communities in this area in the state, the

[1:57:39] costs in which, in particular, I consider it a more affluent community, the hash and

[1:57:44] more holistic.

[1:57:45] And for whatever reason, the per pupil number is sort of in the ball, the similar ball

[1:57:52] bar.

[1:57:52] They used to be having looked at it a couple of years, I don't know if it was still as close.

[1:57:56] But they're also a bigger district, probably better economies of scale than a thousand.

[1:58:00] I don't know what the geographical explanation is because it's actually one of the more affluent areas of the state generally speaking.

[1:58:09] So I also think it's always important to have the conversation that we've built programming internally over the years.

[1:58:15] One, the value statement of keeping kids in because we believe in that.

[1:58:18] Two, it's saving close to $11 million since we've had these programs, you know, started within our community.

[1:58:25] I mean, you know, it's a great question.

[1:58:34] If all those kids went out, yes, it'd be $11 million for the year.

[1:58:39] But, you know, it's taking into account, it'd be very difficult.

[1:58:45] So that's a binary situation, like that we didn't add any of the programs, so it could be that.

[1:58:52] So you don't want to be an alarmist, but it'd be somewhere between you.

[1:58:54] So, if it's $85,000 a kid out of district cost,

[1:58:58] multiply it by the 127, you're gonna get close to $10 million,

[1:59:01] right?

[1:59:02] So, again, we're worried about grant funding.

[1:59:07] We talked about that, you know,

[1:59:08] Marcee agreed 10% of our budget is grant funds, right?

[1:59:15] So, we really have to fast forward right now.

[1:59:17] We have the override and we have the 3.25%

[1:59:21] And they both, you know, that's still on the right side because 3.25 comes with risks because we're still reliant upon heavily on our school choice funding.

[1:59:29] We don't have a mechanism for athletics. We don't have a mechanism for deferred maintenance.

[1:59:35] And we don't have the ability to be ready to maneuver if we have one time expense.

[1:59:47] The other side, again, I just talked about we're trying to fix what's broken.

[1:59:50] I'm not saying it's going to be perfect.

[1:59:52] I don't want the community to think that it's going to be perfect.

[1:59:55] But we're still cutting one plus million dollars out of our current operations.

[1:59:59] All right.

[2:00:00] To then make this work and pull stuff back into the operations.

[2:00:07] Next up, we have to have a budget hearing. And where the community is notified and have a public hearing, you'll have to support and vote on two budgets. One is the operation overripe 6.18% and the other, unless you tell me to change it, is the 3.25%, which is what I want to share with the community tomorrow.

[2:00:33] And if it's a different number, you've got to say, hey, Jim, we still want these positions, or we don't, and utilize the choice funds, or not.

[2:00:43] And I think as we prepare for the overall budget hearing, the public hearing, that's what you need to be thinking about.

[2:00:52] I can't speak for any of them, but that's where we are, as of today.

[2:00:57] When do you anticipate the budget hearing?

[2:01:00] First meeting in April.

[2:01:06] I mean, I think you've taken all the input on the positions already.

[2:01:10] We gave input last night in our tri-board meeting about, you know, feeling strongly not all

[2:01:17] of us were there, but of those of us that were there, I think we were really advocating

[2:01:21] for that 3.25 budget and the town generously agreed to help support us towards that end.

[2:01:28] So I don't see much changing unless somebody's heard something tonight.

[2:01:32] I wanted to ask Paul about the special education coordinator position.

[2:01:35] That's the one that's come up in this conversation and you've obviously done a sort of

[2:01:40] deeper thought process on that particular position and sort of looking to see whether you're

[2:01:47] interested in pushing that position back into this discussion.

[2:01:52] No, I mean, so Jim and I had this conversation.

[2:01:54] And what I really struggle with is if we're in a position where we don't pass an override.

[2:02:05] So this is asking for 2.75.

[2:02:10] I wasn't even sure how I felt about going up from the 2.55.

[2:02:16] And the reason for that is the work that went into it and no matter how much I try

[2:02:26] to inform myself, my ignorance and going into it saying, hey, do something different

[2:02:29] when I don't have the same level of expertise or visibility into things.

[2:02:34] But also to be cognizant that if we put ourselves in that position, we can't just go back

[2:02:42] next year and ask for $4 or $5 million if we couldn't pass this this year, how the heck are

[2:02:51] we going to do it next year, particularly if the sediment was, well, we were able to do this

[2:02:57] stuff with our one-time funds, so nobody felt pain and if that's what people need to be able to pass

[2:03:03] and override, we haven't done that, and so even increasing it from 2.55 to 3.25. My challenge

[2:03:13] there is, if we had to go and do a stepped pain, both it has more of an opportunity for us

[2:03:25] to recover and potentially get an override in the future, but also just the impact. If you

[2:03:30] You were to take a district and you said, okay, it's painful next year, but you're taking

[2:03:37] a smaller chunk of the pain, the people and the processes can adapt to that.

[2:03:43] And then if it's a chunked thing, it extends that outwards.

[2:03:47] If we pull too much back in, we hit a fiscal cliff.

[2:03:50] And now, even if you end up in the same spot, you're going from one spot to that spot, one

[2:03:57] year jump and I think that the impact on our staff, the impact on the students, we incredibly,

[2:04:04] it'd be more than a more gradual, you know, more gradual approach, even if it's a year or two

[2:04:10] different, right? So that's a long way to answer that way of saying, I struggle with it and I

[2:04:27] in one year than paying over a couple of years if that makes sense.

[2:04:32] So I mean, I think what you're saying is like you're on balance.

[2:04:35] We want to preserve the ability to absorb things over time.

[2:04:41] And I appreciate that. I just, I felt like

[2:04:46] that when the conversation that I had with Jim were really around the director of SEL

[2:04:50] position and you've heard where that went, I felt like I wasn't aware of your,

[2:04:56] I think I can start about the spec coordinator position as much detail, and I wanted to know what he felt strong.

[2:05:02] Yeah, and I totally get what we operated with that, but the same logic is beside for a elected position.

[2:05:10] Sure, the electives that we do is for any one of the other positions, right?

[2:05:14] So, so yeah, I mean, I think the number is where the number is, and I guess what we go for if we if you know, I think as we go,

[2:05:23] if having for bed we're in that situation and we need to adjust we can adjust but I think that's

[2:05:31] comfortable is the wrong word but that's that thing. It would move the percentage at 3.47

[2:05:39] anyway if you're curious. Yeah and I just don't feel comfortable pulling that hard.

[2:05:45] Yeah right. Yeah I appreciate that and it was one of the people that wasn't able to be at

[2:05:49] So I know the discussion that you all had on behalf of the school department yesterday to get it from the 255 to 325.

[2:05:57] I don't want to go back and blow that out.

[2:06:00] But this was just something that came up in this conversation that I wanted to test your comfort level with what we talked about.

[2:06:07] I appreciate it.

[2:06:09] I do have another question, Mr. Adams.

[2:06:11] So this does say that given an override has passed, it will end up being a more sustainable

[2:06:18] financial future.

[2:06:20] But just being totally honest with ourselves, the past couple of years of budget increases

[2:06:27] have been 6% 4% and 6% so that was all good and well during the COVID years when inflation

[2:06:35] was around 7% like core inflation.

[2:06:38] but now that it's starting to dip and all those things are starting to get

[2:06:42] back going again, this really isn't something that's too sustainable over

[2:06:46] long period of time and if we do continue boosting the budget six percent

[2:06:50] every year it's it's not something that the community is going to take or the

[2:06:54] community will like continue seeing diminishing returns on the service that

[2:06:58] they're getting so do you have a plan for necessarily making sure that this is a

[2:07:03] one time override and stopping further increase.

[2:07:07] Sure, sure.

[2:07:08] I mean, I would never ever sit in front of you and say,

[2:07:10] that's one question.

[2:07:12] It's a long, it would never sit in front of any group

[2:07:15] and say it's never going to happen again, right?

[2:07:18] Because the flaws in the system, right?

[2:07:22] The flaws at the state level at 2.5% capacity

[2:07:26] to increase taxes on the levy.

[2:07:29] That being said, the way we're designing this

[2:07:32] This is in five years, we may have to have another conversation because we are going to

[2:07:39] be negotiating contracts with educators, right?

[2:07:43] So let's assume that they get x percent.

[2:07:49] Well, that x percent is typically more than a 2.5 percent increase of the property taxes

[2:07:55] is about 1.7 million dollars in revenue raised.

[2:07:59] That overall increase in teacher salaries or educator salaries and paraprofessionals and custodians is well more than a million dollars.

[2:08:06] So they're never going to be parallel, right? They're never going to match up.

[2:08:10] So what I would say is what we're trying to design is a system that allows for that fluctuation to exist.

[2:08:17] So if we have now the ability to utilize some of that school choice money, not 1.1 million dollars of it, but maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars of it to offset.

[2:08:28] that some of your operation expense.

[2:08:30] Great, then I think that's doing its job with the override.

[2:08:37] I would say if we go back and look at our percent increases,

[2:08:40] there were reasons for that, right?

[2:08:42] And reasons that we couldn't even predict.

[2:08:45] So we have policies within the community that says, okay,

[2:08:48] if at the end of the year, when we do our budget,

[2:08:52] there's X amount of dollars available.

[2:08:54] and we maybe have a 4% increase in the budget.

[2:08:58] We start at 3.75%, that's our policy,

[2:09:00] that's where we should be starting.

[2:09:02] But if more revenue comes in from the state level,

[2:09:05] in the fall, we traditionally then reallocate

[2:09:10] the extra revenue, 70% of the schools,

[2:09:13] 30% to the general government.

[2:09:15] So our budget may have been approved at TOW Meeting at 4%,

[2:09:18] and it ends up being 6%.

[2:09:20] So because of just the way the revenue streams work at the state level or even at the

[2:09:29] town level when they finally look at all the revenue and get it audited and approved.

[2:09:34] So I think it's a fair question.

[2:09:37] I don't, there's no way any community can sit here and say they're going to pass one override

[2:09:41] and it's going to fix the entire scenario.

[2:09:43] What I'm saying is, with the override, I've committed to already reducing our budget by

[2:09:49] 13.2 positions that will help stabilize the budget over the next five years.

[2:09:57] We're starting from a different point. The other thing, too, is like an article

[2:10:04] went around today. I don't know if any of you guys got a chance to read it. Somebody

[2:10:07] forwarded about overrides that are happening in other communities in the state.

[2:10:13] And many of them asked for a lot more money than we're asking for.

[2:10:17] were probably on the lower side if not the lowest.

[2:10:20] And so back to it into those conversations,

[2:10:22] when we were deciding what to ask the community for,

[2:10:25] like you have to take the big picture on

[2:10:27] like what this community could afford.

[2:10:29] Yeah, could we have gone for like a bigger override

[2:10:31] that might have provided us with help us meet

[2:10:34] more of our goals and meet our strategic plan

[2:10:38] and move us forward.

[2:10:39] I mean, this is Jim has pointed out many times.

[2:10:41] This is a stabilization override for us.

[2:10:44] It is not a moving forward situation.

[2:10:46] And we have been static almost the entire time.

[2:10:49] We have been able to do some great things, but a lot of them have been for the purpose

[2:10:53] of saving money in other areas, like all of the special ed programs that we brought in

[2:10:58] were amazing, but they required an initial investment, but they also paid off.

[2:11:04] But there have been a lot of other things that we haven't been able to grow any of our,

[2:11:08] you know, teach more languages in school, offer more electives, have more art classes.

[2:11:14] all kinds of things that we can't even talk about.

[2:11:18] There's a very long list of things that we don't,

[2:11:22] and that's last night when we had a tribal meeting,

[2:11:24] I was talking about how some of the language

[2:11:27] and some of the town department's discussion

[2:11:29] were about like advancing things and moving things forward.

[2:11:32] Those words do not enter our conversations.

[2:11:36] Certainly not this year.

[2:11:38] And if they have for the entire 15 years that I've been here,

[2:11:41] It's been a little bit here, a little bit there, and that's been it.

[2:11:44] So what I'm saying is that when we decided on the amount of the override,

[2:11:47] yeah, could we have gone for something more that might have reassured you and anyone else asking that question that we're set for a while,

[2:11:53] you have to think about like what can the community support, you know, what is fair to ask of them given other things that are coming down the road or what we just had a school building and a public safety building.

[2:12:05] And we can be mindful for all the things that are on people's plate.

[2:12:09] So, it's all those things that factor into it, but it's fair, that's not going to happen.

[2:12:14] So, this is, it's never positioned as permanent thing that you never need to come back with, right?

[2:12:22] There are other opportunities, so I can show you some data on our new growth numbers.

[2:12:28] So, in town, when your taxes can go up 2.5% plus new growth is the base of what it can go up.

[2:12:34] And the new growth is any improvement to real property, right?

[2:12:37] So somebody adds addition under their house, a plot of land that's empty, has a part of the building that comes on board.

[2:12:45] That increase in value can then be added to the real property values of that time and the revenues, portion of that revenue that you get from that new growth can be added to that levy, so can be increased by that, right?

[2:12:58] But it's been down since 2019, it's been on the decrease substantially.

[2:13:06] We have some projects that are probably coming on.

[2:13:08] We can advocate at the state level for differences in the chapter 70 funding and things like that.

[2:13:15] So those things are things that can help.

[2:13:17] It's not just about, because I don't even know that the right place to fix this is the prop

[2:13:22] two and a half because maybe it's more of the state funding, right?

[2:13:28] And some of the challenges advocating there for having a bit more depth in these things before you start going out for universal pre-K.

[2:13:39] There's a lot of, and those are all great things, free community college, all these things.

[2:13:45] But the impact is we're fulfilling these locally, right, of putting more of that burden on to our local communities,

[2:13:56] then kind of spreading it out at the state level.

[2:13:58] Even though those other things we mentioned are fantastic things, it's, you know, so that's

[2:14:03] where I think we can advocate for, you know, really just highlighting the impacts of spreading

[2:14:11] tooth in those state dollars and trying to refocus on the core things that we need to do.

[2:14:17] So it's not just on the back of our local taxpayers.

[2:14:22] But I especially appreciate your questions in your input because those are the kinds of

[2:14:26] things that, you know, I don't know, are you 18 yet?

[2:14:29] I mean, those are the kinds of things that voters are asking

[2:14:32] or should be asking or need to know.

[2:14:34] And those are the concerns of, we all live here in town.

[2:14:37] We're also voters like we all need to understand

[2:14:41] what all of this means.

[2:14:42] And it's complicated on so many levels.

[2:14:46] And we need to really understand what people's concerns are.

[2:14:49] So thank you for bringing like at least those to the table.

[2:14:54] Do we have, do you have more, Jim?

[2:14:56] I do not.

[2:14:56] Anybody else?

[2:14:58] Yes.

[2:15:00] Any other comments? Anybody else have anything on that before I ask Mike if he has any comments tonight? Mike? I will be brief like usual.

[2:15:15] Course placement is happening right now at the High School of the Middle School for our eighth graders who are moving on to the High School next year. In terms of some assessment updates we are preparing for our math placement assessments.

[2:15:29] Specifically, our fifth graders will be taking their math placement to under two determined whether or not they'll be going into the accelerated math program.

[2:15:38] It's in that just one piece of the puzzle.

[2:15:40] It's a lot of data that goes into that, but I know that's something that's coming on the other minds of many of our parents as they look towards the middle school.

[2:15:49] Just to assure folks too that it's again one piece of a puzzle, and there is opportunity even if the child does not go into.

[2:15:58] to grade six of celebrated math as a sixth grader.

[2:16:01] There's an opportunity as their child moves on to make that happen after,

[2:16:05] in terms of going into seventh grade or even on eighth grade.

[2:16:08] There's a placement test that happens every year for that.

[2:16:12] Edge evaluation, Mr. Habs, touched on it.

[2:16:15] We are behind in terms of that evaluation work.

[2:16:18] We were behind going into the year.

[2:16:20] We're even further behind now just because of two meetings that were scheduled that both landed on snow days.

[2:16:26] We have scheduled additional meetings to try to catch up.

[2:16:30] I do think we're going to be able to catch up, but we are still at the same place.

[2:16:36] We were last time when I gave you an update, so unfortunately we're not making the progress we want yet.

[2:16:43] There, professional learning update, trying to give that as much as possible.

[2:16:46] I always talk about what that year 2-3 program that happened this past week.

[2:16:50] We had 22 folks from Menden Upton and Milford with us visiting our classrooms across the district.

[2:16:57] On Monday, we had about 28 of them last week.

[2:17:01] We have got a number of our educators visiting Milford tomorrow.

[2:17:08] One of the most exciting things about that program in particular is we have a great relationship with them in terms of our EL folks going to see the amazing work that happens in the EL program.

[2:17:19] in Mulford and Christie Arnold actually is planning on joining them tomorrow so she can go and see what's happening in Mulford as well.

[2:17:27] And they have a wonderful preschool program too, so the opportunity for our preschool teachers,

[2:17:33] especially the ones in the specific programming models are able to go see what's happening in Mulford.

[2:17:39] Other quick things talked about MTSS processes and procedures are well underway.

[2:17:44] Okay, that's been our major goal this year, is sort of pointing in on the process in the procedures that we have.

[2:17:51] That's our goal for our next meeting, is to really leave our MTSS meeting with the district-wide folks to say,

[2:17:58] this is what the process looks like for every building, for every school meeting that takes place.

[2:18:06] So they all look the same and we're all uniform.

[2:18:09] And also I touched upon the fact that we're utilizing our open-architects platform.

[2:18:13] And we've made some really good progress in that.

[2:18:15] I look under the day and there are a ton of folks

[2:18:18] throughout the district who are using that

[2:18:20] to be able to track some specific initiatives

[2:18:23] that are happening so we can really look at data

[2:18:25] and see how students are improving based on

[2:18:28] some specific goals that have been set.

[2:18:32] Safety committee, Matt recently and our focus right now

[2:18:38] is less on crisis intervention techniques

[2:18:42] because we've done a lot of that work, and now we're looking at what happens after the after-math of a potential crisis incident, and we are looking in our reunification procedures.

[2:18:52] We are utilizing some great tools that are there from our Raptor support team that we have, as well as the Safe Schools.

[2:19:00] and we are going to be working in conjunction with the police department and the fight about my hails you always do to determine in on-site

[2:19:10] local community venue for any potential reunification that would have to take place.

[2:19:16] Flag Day, I'm sure I'm probably stealing some of Abish's stuff, but Flag Day at the high school on March 13 to 1030, always a wonderful event where we celebrate the many different

[2:19:31] I encourage you to do so at 1030 on the 13th a great event where it's for our entire high school community and literacy night one of my things that I'm most proud of at the war in school it's something that we started quite a few years ago

[2:19:49] I'm not so sure that parking lock had maintained it, but it's a wonderful event and that is happening on March 18th, so give a plug to Warren.

[2:19:59] I had the pleasure over the course of the last week to read a story to every student at the Warren school.

[2:20:07] I went into each classroom and they asked me to read if I could build a school.

[2:20:11] school, and I read that to all of the kids, and they are now going to present me with

[2:20:18] their ideas on what their fantasy school would look like.

[2:20:23] So they have templates that were created for them, whether they're going to be drawing their

[2:20:27] plans or writing.

[2:20:30] I thought of that today, but again, it's just another one of those wonderful ways to get students

[2:20:36] thinking beyond the typical way we think.

[2:20:39] And I look forward to seeing their fantastic ideas when they see me on the 18th.

[2:20:51] Sorry.

[2:20:52] I just want to make sure.

[2:20:55] This office right next to me knows how bad it is.

[2:20:59] You're right there, buddy.

[2:21:00] Okay.

[2:21:03] Sorry, Mike.

[2:21:04] Thank you.

[2:21:04] Oh, you're done.

[2:21:06] I'm done.

[2:21:06] Okay.

[2:21:07] Yes.

[2:21:07] unless there's questions and they usually are from Paul but we'll see.

[2:21:11] Not tonight.

[2:21:12] He just made a very brief comment so I figured I would throw one back here.

[2:21:18] I can't handle the darts.

[2:21:23] All right, are we ready?

[2:21:25] Well, we have a consent agenda.

[2:21:27] Does anyone have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

[2:21:30] Paul in favor?

[2:21:31] Aye.

[2:21:32] Okay.

[2:21:33] Are we ready for reports?

[2:21:36] So at the high school, we are getting into the end of spirit week almost.

[2:21:41] We've had the CARES team, the CARES club, they put on a spirit week celebrating Ashland's

[2:21:47] culture and diversity.

[2:21:49] So yesterday, or sorry, Monday, we had Korean food in the cafeteria, so they like to put

[2:21:55] on a show, they put on some music, and it's really a good environment.

[2:21:59] And it's Korea, blanking on yesterday, I can't believe I just did that.

[2:22:03] India today, something tomorrow, please do.

[2:22:07] It's Turkey.

[2:22:08] Yes, it's Turkey.

[2:22:09] And Russia is one of them.

[2:22:10] Yeah, it's, yeah.

[2:22:11] They've got some cool places this year.

[2:22:13] That's also.

[2:22:14] As Mr. Cairo said, it's culminating in Flag Day.

[2:22:17] And after that, student council will also be putting on a spirit week.

[2:22:20] They were supposed to be happening the same week, but they kind of shifted it around to mitigate that.

[2:22:26] But student council will be having their spirit week.

[2:22:29] Other than that, students will be choosing their courses for next year.

[2:22:33] So those can already get went out to freshmen, sophomores, and juniors.

[2:22:37] So they'll be choosing their electives.

[2:22:40] And the parent approval process will be coming out shortly for that as well.

[2:22:44] Other than that, that's pretty much it for me at the high school.

[2:22:48] Good stuff. Thank you.

[2:22:51] I do not have anything.

[2:22:53] My attendee, the Ashback.

[2:22:55] The main topic of discussion was the budget.

[2:22:58] And so kind of shared some preliminary information myself in Brittany,

[2:23:02] you know, kind of from a big picture overview in terms of knowing where the conversation

[2:23:07] started around the cuts that were going to happen regardless.

[2:23:10] And so there was some conversation at the meeting about the loss of a study coordinator.

[2:23:16] And so, you know, Brittany, the parents had questions in terms of what will it look like,

[2:23:20] and, you know, how will coverage be maintained, and, you know, will it there, will it decrease,

[2:23:26] you know, kind of a response time, you know, how will it impact the process?

[2:23:33] And you know, Brittany kind of shared, you know, her thoughts and the fact

[2:23:36] that she and her team have talked a lot about it and they're looking at

[2:23:39] different ways to make sure that everybody will have coverage and, you know,

[2:23:43] she's somebody who probably takes too much on her plate sometimes but she's, you

[2:23:48] know, if need be, she will take on some cases as well, which may be the case.

[2:23:52] So I think you know she has an eye on making sure that the service level doesn't change the parents and I think she and her she gave I feel like the members of the of Ashback walked away feeling confident with her.

[2:24:07] You know, acknowledgement of the challenges but willingness to kind of step up and deal with them.

[2:24:13] So I encourage them to share any concerns that they had as they continue to meet.

[2:24:19] If I hear any else, I'll certainly pass them on.

[2:24:22] Thank you.

[2:24:23] Paul.

[2:24:24] Yeah.

[2:24:25] I mean, I don't think I have too much.

[2:24:28] I just kind of, I just want to thank Chris.

[2:24:32] He spends a lot of time, not with Jim, but I ask, you know, I ask a lot of questions.

[2:24:38] We should be thank him for tolerating you.

[2:24:41] But he's been very responsive and helping me put together a lot of data.

[2:24:46] And so, I'll just throw it out there, if you're meeting with a group and there is questions

[2:24:52] on just things, I'm happy to, you know, yeah, supplying the information once I'm ready

[2:24:59] to.

[2:24:59] I've been cautious about people to ask me before until I go, I don't want to slide to

[2:25:05] go out and then it changed and then somebody said, I hope I'll hold on what happened.

[2:25:09] Right.

[2:25:10] We need integrity with it, so once I do that, I'll happily share it.

[2:25:15] You can use it, or I'm happy to talk through stuff.

[2:25:19] Yeah, thank you for doing that, and thank you, Chris.

[2:25:21] Yeah, I know it's been a lot on all of you, Mike, Jim.

[2:25:24] Thank you all.

[2:25:26] So I went to a high school side council meeting today, and it's been really almost a whole session

[2:25:33] talking about results of a title as a school participation survey.

[2:25:38] The idea is to look at how engaged our students are they feeling connected, feeling included.

[2:25:45] So I'll just share some overview things with you.

[2:25:48] And for context, I think, we said that there are roughly 180 students in nice school.

[2:25:54] The response rate was, the number of responses was somewhere around 230.

[2:25:58] So 25%, I don't know if that's good or bad compared to other surveys.

[2:26:02] and I'm sorry, it can be a look like.

[2:26:06] Okay.

[2:26:10] Wow, you got that many?

[2:26:11] Yeah.

[2:26:12] So one of the questions was around how often have you participated in an event or have you

[2:26:20] in the last three months and 65% of kids could take the percentages and indicated that they had participated

[2:26:26] in these one or more events associated with the school

[2:26:29] in the prior three months,

[2:26:30] there was some discussion about barriers,

[2:26:33] like why were students not able to,

[2:26:36] one of them was transportation, presumably,

[2:26:39] and we didn't get into the depths of this,

[2:26:41] but presumably I was the ability to get to an event.

[2:26:45] Another, there was a specific question about

[2:26:46] whether English was an access barrier,

[2:26:50] and so that was flagged to some degree.

[2:26:54] All of these things kind of led to the need to dive more into sort of what the specifics

[2:26:59] are.

[2:27:00] I would say that was flagged as I think the second was common kind of potential barrier

[2:27:05] there behind the transportation.

[2:27:08] And then there were some specific questions about what the students felt like they had an

[2:27:13] element of belonging or were they felt included.

[2:27:16] Those two questions were on a scale of one to five and so on the sort of negative side,

[2:27:24] the number that responded with the one or two, like 8.8 percent, it said they didn't necessarily

[2:27:30] feel like they belonged and in terms of included, it was very similar terminology to me, it was

[2:27:37] like 8.4 percent, but the others, they really skewed very much towards the fours and the

[2:27:42] fives, the threes were sort of say much more than one and two, but most of the kids were

[2:27:48] saying four and five, which I think is a positive.

[2:27:50] I think that's worth taking with the grain of salt on this and we did have some conversation

[2:27:55] about it as how many of those sort of not-belonged numbers might be kids who are new to the school.

[2:28:02] That might be freshmen still finding their way as opposed to seniors.

[2:28:06] If somebody's been here for four years and they still feel that way, that way, indicate

[2:28:11] I mean, what they didn't parse it out by thinking, yeah.

[2:28:14] I had asked Kelly whether she had the ability to,

[2:28:17] or she felt like she did.

[2:28:18] The other thing was that there was,

[2:28:20] so the percentages, there were a whole series of questions.

[2:28:23] The number of responses that were ones and twos was,

[2:28:26] what was it, the numbers were exactly the same,

[2:28:28] but the percentages were very similar.

[2:28:29] I said, ask everybody to see whether that's a consistent trend,

[2:28:33] like there were same kids or same ones and twos,

[2:28:36] for all the questions.

[2:28:38] I don't know what that would mean,

[2:28:38] but it'd be an interesting thing.

[2:28:39] I think she thought she could see that in further analysis.

[2:28:44] But I would say, if you look at all percentages, I think the data is actually pretty good.

[2:28:48] We probably all are wired towards what about the other ones and sort of, you know, let's

[2:28:52] figure that out.

[2:28:54] So that is a part of the work that the site council wants to sort of do and try to understand

[2:28:59] that better.

[2:29:00] One of the other questions I just want to highlight was, you know, we talk about a lot is

[2:29:04] trusted adults.

[2:29:05] how many kids feel like they have a really shipment of these one trusted adult and 70% were in

[2:29:12] that four or five category in that. There were 12.9% that were one or two and obviously the rest were

[2:29:19] in the middle. So I think generally speaking, again, look at some vast majority of kids could say yes

[2:29:25] to that and that's great. Questions sort of, you know, why are some students not feeling that

[2:29:30] level of connection and not feeling they have a trust that it does and we're going to look to see they're

[2:29:37] going to look to see whether they can gather better insight into that but I thought that was all

[2:29:42] interesting data and that's what we predominantly talked about for let's say it's an hour and half

[2:29:48] being probably 75 minutes embedded in that there was sort of an impromptu conversation of sort of

[2:29:54] X block and what opportunities are there to use X block in a different way and more constructive way.

[2:30:00] There are ways to support this, because it was in the context. I thought it was an interesting conversation, and I think going forward, hopefully, will be able to pull more data out of that and find some useful trends that can be sources of action steps. That's what I've got. Thanks, Mark. Warren site council was postponed this month, so I don't have anything. That's it. Thank you. All in favor. Good night, everybody.

[2:30:29] Thank you very much.

[2:30:30] It's no choice, amigos.

School Committee _March 11th_ 2026_

Transcript