[0:40] Everybody ready?

[0:46] I would like to call to order our school committee meeting for April 9th. If

[0:51] you're able, could you please rise and have the Pledge of Allegiance.

[0:57] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,

[1:02] and to the republic

[1:04] one nation under God, indivisible,

[1:07] with liberty and justice for all.

[1:15] Thank you. Um so, our first order of business on

[1:19] first meeting after elections is to have a reorganization, elect officers for

[1:25] uh the school committee. Uh

[1:27] and I am only serving now. I am vice chair until now, and I am serving just

[1:31] to get the meeting started. So, in that role, um I will welcome any

[1:37] nominations for chair. I nominate Sue Panini.

[1:42] Panini.

[1:46] Is there a second? >> I'll second that.

[1:50] Uh I will then turn over the role of chair to the uh most senior person, and

[1:56] that would be Christopher Benson. Christopher

[2:03] Can I get all in favor? I. I.

[2:07] All opposed? So it's unanimous.

[2:12] Thank you.

[2:15] Uh, I now would like to entertain uh any nominations for vice chair.

[2:23] I would like to nominate myself for vice chair.

[2:27] Do I have a second? Second.

[2:32] Any other nominations?

[2:37] Hearing none, all those in favor of uh electing

[2:42] Kim as vice chair, please say I. I. I.

[2:46] Opposed?

[2:50] Congratulations, Kim. Thank you. That's unanimous um and uh

[2:56] the third office that needs to be filled is clerk.

[3:00] Um we have Christine that has served as that. I've tried to be in touch with her

[3:04] and did not hear back. I only started trying in the last day

[3:08] knowing I'd be doing this. So um I if it's okay uh want to wait until we hear

[3:13] from her and then maybe at the next meeting uh we can officially fill that

[3:17] position. Does that work for folks? Mhm.

[3:20] Yeah. Okay. This is where we do the chair

[3:23] shuffle. Have the vice chair come up beside the

[3:27] chair.

[3:34] Just take your name tag.

[3:37] Oh.

[3:50] With that then, the first thing I'd like to do is to say thank you. Uh thank you

[3:54] for trusting me for to serve in this role.

[3:57] Um and I want you to know that I really believe that the correct verb is serve.

[4:03] Um that I see a chair as serving the committee.

[4:08] And what I mean by that is I think that the

[4:11] chair really needs to be the person that facilitates us to

[4:16] capture our mission and which is the mission of the school. And that's the

[4:20] foster our excellence for every child in every classroom every day.

[4:24] And I think it is the role of the chair to make sure that we

[4:30] um set agendas, get input, um have the

[4:34] right amount of information, and create an environment where people really speak

[4:39] to one another, and listen to one another,

[4:43] listen to the community when they want to speak,

[4:46] uh so that we have the information that we need to make those decisions that are

[4:51] not always easy ones. And um I really pledge to do that while

[4:56] I'm in this role. Uh and again, I thank you for giving me

[5:00] the opportunity to do it. I know that we have some difficult decisions. These are

[5:05] tough times, but I am very heartened by the different

[5:10] life experiences, professional experiences, and perspectives of this

[5:14] board. And I believe that if we really work together and share our thoughts,

[5:20] and uh work towards those goals that we will be able to navigate these times

[5:24] together. So, thank you.

[5:33] Uh with that, I do want to officially welcome our new members. And I wonder

[5:37] maybe if we start uh with Shawn if you would introduce yourself

[5:43] um to the folks that are here and the folks

[5:46] that are watching us uh on the cable Uh and just because you don't we don't have

[5:53] name tags today so everybody knows who everybody is.

[5:57] Good evening. My name is Shawn Mockler. I just want to thank you for being here

[6:01] tonight and thank you for everybody who voted

[6:03] for me and entrusted me to be part of this committee.

[6:09] Hi, I'm Leah Machado. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. I'm

[6:14] looking forward to working together with everyone

[6:17] to do what's best for the district.

[6:21] And thank you. And then we have one member that is not

[6:24] able to be here tonight who's Kristen

[6:28] but she will be joining us at the next meeting and so she will be able to

[6:31] introduce herself then.

[6:36] At the same time I also want to say a thank you to our colleagues that are not

[6:40] with us tonight that have served on the board

[6:43] for both Jess and Alan.

[6:46] They too are people that as

[6:50] our new colleagues and the people that remained on the board, I've had the

[6:54] opportunity to talk with everyone and including Alan and Jess and I want to

[7:00] say that I know that everybody is here for the right reason as was Jess and

[7:04] Alan that they really want to serve our students and our community and I want to

[7:09] thank Jess and Alan for the time that they did serve

[7:13] and put in all of that hard work that you all are going to get to see that

[7:17] needs to be done as to serve on the committee. So thank you Jess and Alan.

[7:30] » [laughter] >> I was just going to let her keep going.

[7:35] Thank you so much. That was supposed to be the last sentence of my

[7:39] thing Uh, thank you for trusting me was and by the way, I will mess up.

[7:44] And it is not intentional. Kim. That's right. Hi, I'm Kim Radlon.

[7:49] Um, and like the other new elects, um, I'm really happy to, um, be here to

[7:55] serve the district. I've worked in Middleborough Public Schools, um, for 14

[8:00] years prior to my current job, and I'm really excited to be back working with

[8:05] the district. Um, so I thank everybody who voted for me

[8:09] and put your trust in all of us. And you know, we're we're heading in the right

[8:15] direction. So, I'm really excited to be here.

[8:18] Thanks, Kim. And I apologize. >> No, you're good.

[8:23] Um, we're going to go a little bit out of order, um, and allow our

[8:28] student representatives, Jackson Collins and Mason Texeira, to give their reports

[8:32] so that they can get back to what it is that they need to do in the evening to

[8:36] be ready for school tomorrow morning.

[8:41] Uh, all right. So, normally we'd start with some district-wide announcements,

[8:44] but we don't have any right now. So, I just want to say welcome to all the new

[8:47] school committee members. Uh, I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Jackson

[8:51] Collins, and I'm one of the school committee representatives.

[8:56] I'm Mason Texeira, and I'm the other school committee representative, and I

[9:00] will kick off our report today with the stuff from the MEC. Uh, they want to

[9:06] wish you all a happy April, and their new word of the month is creativity.

[9:10] Uh, ways their students are showing creativity in their classrooms is

[9:14] they're making recycled art. They are turning cardboard boxes, plastic

[9:18] bottles, and egg cartons into robots, costumes, and sculptures.

[9:22] They are writing stories, and they are storytelling. So, they're creating a

[9:27] storytelling extravaganza with random pictures, poems, and they create what if

[9:33] stories, and they spend time in class writing to show their creativity.

[9:38] Uh they do a lot of things, inventive projects, emotional art, word play,

[9:44] creative writing, and even drama. So, they are taking creativity to heart

[9:48] during the month of April. Their field day is scheduled for

[9:51] Thursday, May 28th. If it rains, it will be held indoors. Volunteer sign-up

[9:56] letters will be going home the first week back from April vacation.

[10:01] If any parents want to volunteer, they need to have a valid CORI license.

[10:06] If you have one, you'll receive more information in an email letting you know

[10:10] what to expect. Um these licenses do expire, so please check and make sure

[10:15] that yours is current. If you do not have one and you want to be part of

[10:18] field day, you can bring a license into the main office and you will be able to

[10:22] fill out that form. Only parents with CORIs are allowed on the field, and more

[10:27] information will be posted in the PE news section, so stay tuned.

[10:31] Report cards will be available to are available to view in Aspen as of April

[10:36] 6th, and the paper copy was sent home on April 7th with all students.

[10:41] Uh kindergarten information night for incoming kindergarten families was April

[10:46] 8th from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m.

[10:52] Okay, and now we're moving on to uh MKG. Uh MKG just wants to extend a

[10:56] congratulations to their amazing drama club for their outstanding performance.

[10:59] They certainly have talent at MKG. Some upcoming MCAS dates is May 4th, the

[11:05] math session for grades 3, 4, and 5. May 6th, the math session for grades 3, 4,

[11:10] and 5. May 12th, the um science session for

[11:14] grade 5. And then May 14th, the second science session for grade 5.

[11:19] On Thursday, April 2nd, the first grade students were visited by uh Caldecott

[11:25] award-winning author and illustrator Brian Lies. The MKG staff and grade one

[11:30] students would like to give a huge thank you to the MKG PTA for sponsoring this

[11:34] amazing enrichment opportunity. Grade 2 students wrapped up their trip

[11:38] around the world. Their students worked hard to produce travel brochures for the

[11:42] parent presentation on April 2nd and 3rd, and they are so thrilled that many

[11:45] parents came to join. The mathematicians have started finding

[11:49] and using fractions in real world situations such as baking and measuring.

[11:53] Fourth graders have been busy this weekend while it's been raining cats and

[11:56] dogs. Ask your child what idioms are and why authors use them in addition to

[12:00] other figurative language. Students in fourth and fifth grade have

[12:04] been learning about the art of making sound for movies and films.

[12:10] To switch over to the HPB on April 6th, there was a PTA meeting.

[12:16] Um, it was an MCAS information session for the upcoming MCAS tests.

[12:21] Um, tomorrow, April 10th, is the art festival from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. The

[12:26] theme is Candyland glow in the dark, and it features hands-on activities such as

[12:31] model magic, sand art, face painting, and more. Bring cash for t-shirts and

[12:36] snacks, but entry to the event is free. On April 17th, there's the neon glow fun

[12:42] run fundraiser. Please register your child with the sign-up in the bulletin,

[12:47] and the HPB lobby has set up a donation box for clothing to support Cradles to

[12:53] Crayons. So, please consider contributing to this meaningful cause.

[12:57] Your donations will make a big difference.

[13:00] Um, and then normally we move on to Nichols Middle School, but we don't have

[13:04] any major announcements from that, so we'll just be moving right on to MHS.

[13:09] So, at the high school, we want to congratulate all students that

[13:12] participated in the instant decision day for Massasoit Community College last

[13:16] week. We're proud of them. And job well done to all of the AP

[13:20] students who participated in their AP mock exams over the past few weeks for

[13:24] both math and science. Congratulations to all spring athletes

[13:29] as they have started the spring season despite the weather.

[13:32] And good luck to the cast and crew of SCW's production of the play that goes

[13:36] wrong. We're looking forward to your play this weekend with shows at 6:00

[13:40] p.m. on both Friday and Saturday. This is the annual winter comedy that the

[13:45] drama club produces every winter. Uh congrats to the student

[13:49] council for the breakfast with the Easter Bunny event that was held on the

[13:54] uh previous weekend and where kids from throughout the community got to come,

[13:59] have some breakfast in the calf, and take photos with the Easter Bunny.

[14:03] Uh please plan your Sunday dinner here at MHS

[14:07] there at MHS as the class of 2028 host their annual pizza bowl. The event will

[14:12] begin at 4:00 p.m. and will conclude at 6:00 p.m. and on this Sunday. So, please

[14:18] come and taste a variety of pizza from the Middleborough area and you will get

[14:21] to vote on who serves the best pizza. Quarter three now ends on Friday, April

[14:27] 17th, we leave on break and quarter four will

[14:31] begin the Monday we get back from break. So, keep that in mind as grades will

[14:35] close very shortly. Um especially for seniors because quarter four will be

[14:41] about a month. So, get your grades up now.

[14:44] The spring SAT will be held on held at MHS on Saturday, May 2nd. So, be sure to

[14:51] register for that exam if you are a junior.

[14:54] Uh please reach out to your school counselor with any questions and

[14:59] student council elections have begun for the next um

[15:03] student council executive board. The elections for the class board will begin

[15:08] after break. And then after that, the elections for the new school committee

[15:12] rep will be held. And I believe it was a meeting the week I want to say the date

[15:19] was the 22nd that I predict the meeting would be where you will all get to meet

[15:24] the new school committee rep for next year.

[15:34] All right. So, we just wanted to touch base with the new board and discuss how

[15:37] we can work together as students and school board. One of the main reasons we

[15:41] became school committee reps was to make sure student voices could be heard. As

[15:44] the school committee reps, we are responsible for not only reporting on

[15:47] student ongoings in the district, but also making sure that the voices of our

[15:50] students in our district are heard. My first ask of this board is to

[15:54] continue to ask both myself and my co-rep and any future reps our opinions

[15:58] on issues, policies, and any other debates the school committee faces.

[16:03] We are the student representatives on the school committee and we believe that

[16:06] the students' voices are just as important as the parents. We ask you to

[16:09] remember that we are here to provide the students' opinions on issues and implore

[16:13] you to use us as a resource.

[16:17] The student advisory committee is another option you have for getting

[16:20] students' opinions on issues. The student advisory committee, which

[16:24] henceforth I will refer to as the SAC, is a committee consisting of five

[16:28] students from the high school. The members consist of the members-at-large

[16:32] from the freshman, sophomore, and junior classes, as well as the two school

[16:36] committee reps here today. Our purpose is to share the voices of the students

[16:40] with the school committee. We read through policies, we skim

[16:44] through handbooks, and we provide insight into everyday life at the

[16:47] school. Most importantly, we gather student input that can be shared with

[16:51] the committee at a meeting or via email, whichever is easiest.

[16:56] If the school committee is reviewing a policy that affects students, one of the

[16:59] student reps will request to review it with the SAC during the first read

[17:04] process to make sure that the students' voices

[17:08] can be heard in the decision-making process.

[17:10] If the school committee is debating an issue that would affect the student

[17:14] population, such as the mask mandate during COVID-19 if anyone remembers that

[17:19] and the pending cell phone ban for the upcoming school year. The SAC will meet

[17:23] to discuss and will share their opinions at the next school committee meeting

[17:27] where we hope you will all take our voices into consideration when making

[17:30] your decisions. Um a friendly reminder just according to

[17:36] the law that creates the advisory committee, the school committee must

[17:41] meet with the SAC at least once every other month. Uh we're very excited to

[17:45] work with all of you and we want to create a new relationship between the

[17:49] students and the school board. The SAC exists for the school committee to hear

[17:54] the students, the members of the community that serve that cannot make

[17:57] their voices heard in the ballot booth. In this transition into a period of

[18:01] transparency, please do not forget about us, the SAC and do not forget the

[18:06] students within the school that you serve. Um are there any questions about

[18:10] the SAC at all? Um the last thing

[18:15] » I I I do. >> [laughter]

[18:17] » Um it's actually something I've I was thinking about uh earlier in the year

[18:23] and that is we we do often uh change the order of the agenda. Um we think we're

[18:29] doing it as a favor so that you are not sitting through all of the deliberations

[18:34] and I wondered whether um that was something that you think we should not

[18:40] do. That you should remain so that if there is a um a discussion that's going

[18:44] on that a student perspective would be helpful that you would be able to

[18:49] um provide it within the context of the conversation rather than at the

[18:53] beginning out of the context of the conversation. Uh good question. I think

[18:57] it really depends on the meeting. There are sometimes where Jackson and I will

[19:01] stay to hear a certain um agenda item read. Um if there's a discussion item,

[19:08] we want to hear opinions for, we will stay.

[19:11] Um Lately, the school committee meetings

[19:15] have been very budget filled, which has led to us not staying for most of them.

[19:20] But, as the budget

[19:23] um process winds down, Jackson and I can continue to spend more time as we get

[19:27] back into more um policy and especially the uh

[19:32] superintendent search. So, I think it really would depend from meeting to

[19:37] meeting, but that is the sort of thing that once the agenda's posted, we can

[19:41] let you know. Thank you.

[19:44] Any other thoughts or questions? The last thing um was the superintendent

[19:50] search packet that we have here. I talked to Sue, but once

[19:55] um the committee is approved or changed or if you need anything from the schools

[20:01] for anything for the committee, you can

[20:04] reach out to both Fran and ourselves. So, thank you. We certainly will.

[20:10] Uh and thank you both for uh the ways that you have uh

[20:14] presented what your information is from the round the district. Uh I think that

[20:19] you've done it in a very professional way and I'm really appreciate it.

[20:25] Um so, I did put together I I knew that

[20:30] at least the newer members would not have your

[20:33] um laptops yet or Chromebooks. So, I did

[20:37] put together a packet of information uh that's before you that we're going to be

[20:41] referring to as we go along this evening.

[20:44] Um Uh so, if you open up and the first one

[20:47] that I want to refer to is uh

[20:52] charting the course. Um and again, uh

[20:55] for the new members, uh this is something that is required within the

[20:59] first year uh and you will see I just want to highlight that on May 16th,

[21:04] there is one of these sessions that's going to

[21:08] happen in Marshfield, which is closer than

[21:10] uh some of the others uh that you might want to think about

[21:13] going to. Uh last year Shannon and I went together to one and uh

[21:19] I will speak for myself, >> [laughter]

[21:21] » uh having a colleague from the school committee in the town together so that

[21:26] you could kind of discuss different things together of how that applies

[21:29] within uh our school committee, I found very helpful. So,

[21:35] um you might want to think about signing up together if you

[21:39] So, I just want to bring that to your attention.

[21:41] Also, behind that you see um something that Anne had sent around also, which is

[21:46] the Middleborough School Committee operating protocols.

[21:50] And that was uh approved at our last meeting or the

[21:55] meeting before uh as it it is based on our policies.

[22:01] Uh and the thought was of bringing this together the information together in a

[22:07] way that uh we can all read and then sign at the end that these are our

[22:11] obligations, these are the ways that we are to conduct ourselves while we're

[22:15] here. I don't know that you have had enough

[22:19] time to really take a look at it to for me to send around the paper to sign now,

[22:23] but I I leave it up to what you what you wish. We can wait until the

[22:27] next meeting um so that you can really review it and then sign or we can sign

[22:31] it at the end. Uh what's your pleasure, everyone?

[22:36] Thoughts? I'm fine for tonight, but should we wait

[22:41] for Kristen or It's a good idea.

[22:45] Want to wait till the next meeting so that Kristen would be with us and do it

[22:48] also? Yeah.

[22:50] Okay. And that's what we will do.

[22:55] Thank you.

[23:02] All right, next on the agenda you see um rules and procedures for

[23:07] public comment. Uh

[23:11] so over the past year

[23:14] um there has been debate uh around aspects of our

[23:20] policy around public comment. Uh and specifically around the idea of

[23:26] the 3-minute rule. Uh you will find in your in your packet

[23:30] that um thanks to Shannon

[23:33] who is on our policy subcommittee. Um she pulled out for me just just the

[23:38] guidelines for public comment um which speaks to many different things, but the

[23:43] uh you will see further along where it speaks to um

[23:49] that uh individuals can get up to speak that they have 3 minutes, that they

[23:54] shouldn't come back more than once uh and many other aspects of it. The one

[24:00] part that seems to have been a that people have

[24:05] challenged um and that I know that it has been

[24:09] spoken about during uh this election season was whether we should maintain

[24:13] the 3-minute rule. Uh also people wonder about how is it

[24:18] that we can change it if we decide if that is the desire. So behind it you

[24:25] will see um that

[24:29] I have also um copied and pasted what it says is the

[24:34] policy for um for policy adoption. What has to happen

[24:38] to change a policy? And you'll see it really is a process

[24:42] and rightly so. Um it takes review. It's a legal

[24:46] document um and you know it's something that we really need to

[24:52] abide by and making quick changes is probably not

[24:57] the best idea. Typically, the people that are responsible for looking at any

[25:01] kind of uh policy changes that it is decided by

[25:05] the school committee whether we want to or not. It can be brought forward by the

[25:09] superintendent. Um it can be as from feedback that we

[25:14] get from staff members or community or whatever, but brought to this board to

[25:18] determine whether we want to um change a policy or not. So, it's not

[25:23] something that we can uh do immedi- uh effective immediately.

[25:29] And so, what I wanted to do was to knowing

[25:33] uh that this is um something that has really and sometimes gotten in the way

[25:38] of um our meetings because people have strong feelings about it. I wanted to

[25:42] open up for discussion. Uh if this is something that we want to officially

[25:47] review. Um and so, that is what I'm doing. I am opening it up for

[25:51] conversation.

[26:01] Does anyone want to speak? Leah?

[26:05] Chris or Well, I was going to make a motion, but if anyone wants to speak

[26:08] first, I'd rather that happen.

[26:12] I would like to amend this policy. Um I don't think that in my opinion that

[26:18] there should necessarily be a time limit for anyone who's voicing their concerns

[26:22] at a school committee meeting, especially when it has to do with their

[26:26] children or the budget, you know, any anything. Um

[26:30] I would also like to see back and forth dialogue between the community and the

[26:37] school committee. You know, even if it's just acknowledging someone's comment and

[26:42] you know, making sure we table it and get back to it when we know

[26:46] the answer just so we revisit it and

[26:50] you know, have that back and forth. It's just It's

[26:54] silly when you comment and everyone just sits in silence. It's just It just

[26:59] doesn't feel right. So, I yeah, I would like to see this happen.

[27:04] Anybody else have thoughts that they'd like to share?

[27:06] Yeah, I agree. I I think we should look at the 3-minute rule. Um

[27:10] not sure what it should be, but I think it's worth investigating to see if

[27:13] there's maybe a better fit for this committee in the community.

[27:22] And then just in keeping you know, obviously with there's still

[27:25] discussion items that are open for discussion as well. So, I just want to I

[27:29] just want us to keep that in mind, too, when we look at revising the public

[27:31] comment aspect of it is that we're still open for the discussion items to have

[27:36] that, you know, that back and forth dialogue.

[27:39] Um and also, too, just to utilize email or reaching out to school committee

[27:43] members as well. I mean, I think sometimes that might be underutilized

[27:46] for us, and I just want to make sure that

[27:49] everyone is aware of how to get in touch, you know, with all of us if there

[27:51] are questions. And I know some parents are more comfortable maybe reaching out

[27:54] to Chris more than someone else, or, you know, they have people that they might

[27:59] be more comfortable with. But I want to make sure that, too, we're utilizing all

[28:02] the tools that, you know, that we do have when we look to revamp this policy.

[28:07] Can I ask a question? Of course. >> Okay. So, how does that work? So, if a

[28:11] parent reaches out to a specific school committee member, or, you know, reaches

[28:16] out to the entire school committee, how do we How are we supposed to then Do

[28:21] we respond as a group? Do we respond individually? Then do we discuss it?

[28:25] Like, how does that work? So, I I again, we can't We can't read We

[28:30] can't comment or reply all. Okay. Cuz that would be a violation of the open

[28:33] meeting law. >> Yeah. And the same applies to social

[28:36] media, too. So, I just want that I mean, I know it's not something

[28:38] we actually put on the agenda to review, but as far as responding to anything on

[28:42] social media, um as a school committee member, because then the opportunity for

[28:46] me to comment, and then maybe Sue comments and then maybe Chris comes and

[28:50] then all of a sudden we're there's three people commenting or we have a majority

[28:53] of Right. Okay. Which could also be considered a violation. So,

[28:58] um I would say in my own personal experience if a parent reaches out and I

[29:01] can help them then I appoint them in the right direction of what I can do

[29:05] or try to answer if I can. If I can't then I know I need to put them, you

[29:09] know, in touch with someone else. Okay. So, it's really just depends on the

[29:13] situation or what the question is I think for me. I I mean I won't speak on

[29:17] behalf of anyone else but that's just been my experience. Okay.

[29:22] Hi. Hi. Uh my experience also I agree with what

[29:27] Shannon is saying and and there are we do have protocol around

[29:31] when someone if it's about a a specific my child issue directing it to the

[29:36] person and you can follow up and make sure that

[29:39] that they got responded to and whatever. Um

[29:43] what my experience is also been that if I

[29:47] start hearing three, four five different people contacting me not

[29:54] about an issue um that's when I will go to the

[29:58] superintendent and say aside from each individual little thing

[30:03] it just feels like there's something bubbling up here that is an issue.

[30:07] Um can we talk about that and is there something, you know, that we need to

[30:12] address and we still need to bring it back to the superintendent

[30:17] uh and and then at some point a larger issue not around a student but

[30:22] a larger thing can be discussed at if it gets to that point that the school needs

[30:29] And I think you know, as we're going to talk about the policy and like

[30:33] Shannon had said, you know, really looking at when

[30:38] people are coming up for public comment and I know kind of sitting here and not

[30:44] being able to have a conversation back and forth.

[30:47] And when we're comment having comments on things on the agenda,

[30:51] but they haven't been presented yet. We can't really have a conversation back

[30:55] and forth because they haven't presented the information yet. So,

[30:59] kind of figuring out how maybe tabling that

[31:05] kind of discussion piece until they present and then coming back up and

[31:10] having that discussion. So, sometimes there are those points when

[31:14] we can't really have that back and forth because it's not our presentation to

[31:17] even be answering questions about because they haven't had it yet. So, I

[31:21] think all of that, you know, as we go over this, I think that's going to be a

[31:25] big part, you know, of the conversation, too.

[31:33] Chris. Oh. Oh. I was going to have a motion a motion

[31:37] get on the table before we go to public input.

[31:42] Okay. So, my motion in July, we tabled a proposed change to

[31:48] policy BEDH and then we've also been provided

[31:52] BEDH-E. I would make a motion to refer those

[31:56] both back to the policy subcommittee for review and

[32:02] hopefully with the recommendation to delete rule number three in BEDH

[32:09] or rule number one in BEA BEDH-E, which is the three minute.

[32:15] Is there a second? Second.

[32:18] Um this is my first request as the vice chair, can you get motions down because

[32:23] I will never be able to get them down. Um

[32:26] Yes, there are a lot of letters, though, so you might have to repeat that.

[32:30] » [laughter]

[32:34] » Yeah.

[32:38] Oh, no.

[32:44] E D E T E T and then this is the match. >> Okay.

[32:49] And then we can push that to a division. And did I hear a second?

[32:53] I second it. Thank you. Okay, any further discussion here before

[32:58] we go to um community?

[33:03] Anyone from the community who wants to have input?

[33:08] I have You're in the dark. I have a hard time seeing [laughter] you.

[33:13] Okay, if you would mind stating your name. Sarah Lord.

[33:19] Hi Sarah.

[33:28] Can you hear me now? Oh, can I ever. >> [laughter]

[33:31] » Um just a comment for the microphones. If everyone

[33:36] could just be mindful of their microphones, we can't hear a lot of you.

[33:40] Um so it comes in kind of blurry or I think it's just too far away. So like

[33:44] Chris I heard and Shawn I heard, but everyone else kind of and I asked other

[33:48] people so it wasn't just my hearing. Um thank you.

[33:52] I just want to comment on the 3 minutes. So I was coming to the school committee

[33:56] meetings when they started um enforcing that. That's when I started speaking out

[34:01] and I think part of the issue is it was done as a way of controlling parents

[34:06] from sharing. From my opinion and from the public opinion. I think it was the

[34:10] timing of it. It was never something that happened until a lot of people

[34:15] started speaking out. So people have seen it as a way of controlling parents

[34:19] and the community and I think that's why maybe the intention isn't that, but

[34:23] that's why it was used before by previous chairs.

[34:27] Um so I do think it's important to remind people that you don't come up

[34:32] here if something's on the agenda. That's clearly stated every time. Um and

[34:36] you save those comments for that particular item. But to come up here and

[34:42] most people don't break the 3 minutes, but I think just telling people they

[34:46] have a limit is it's not okay. And I like I said, it was

[34:51] used as a control method before by previous chairs and I think that's why

[34:54] it needs to go. So, thank you. Thank you. Helpful.

[35:01] Good evening. Welcome. Welcome all the new members. Um yeah, I just had maybe a

[35:05] couple of clar- >> but first, could you state your name?

[35:07] » me to Oh, I'm sorry. Pat Rooney, uh uh second grade teacher at the uh

[35:11] Brookline school. Um

[35:14] couple of things I and um I appreciate Ms. Redlon's comment about that. We need

[35:19] to speak on like when those items come up cuz like I'm looking at the school

[35:24] choice. We have no idea what that's about. Is

[35:26] that a pro? Is that a negative? Is it a thing? What are we doing? How we doing?

[35:30] So, usually

[35:33] and and not having been to a lot of committee meetings before for the school

[35:37] committee, when I was watching recently, it's like when do you talk? When do you

[35:41] not talk? When can you ask a question? When can't you ask a question? And then

[35:43] people would have note, we're not commenting on that right now.

[35:46] Um that dialogue between the board and the

[35:51] and the uh public is important. Um and I'd like to

[35:55] sit there and not answer those questions for the past several months. That

[35:59] doesn't seem like you know, we're working together.

[36:03] And we're supposed to be having all this um

[36:06] transparency. That doesn't That's not transparency. No

[36:09] one's answering the questions. Um

[36:13] we heard emails going back a little bit that I got emails that must have said,

[36:17] "We want to redistrict." I heard a lot of pa- What emails?

[36:21] How many did you get? Did you get two? Cuz that's emails. Did you get a

[36:24] hundred? Where did this idea come from? People

[36:27] say, "Well, I a lot of emails about uh you know, for it."

[36:30] Okay, well, not to doubt you, but what emails are those? How do we know

[36:35] you got

[36:40] I got Uh-uh.

[36:42] No, that's okay. Don't go away. Uh did did that turn the mic off? Is

[36:46] that what happened?

[36:59] I just don't know why. Um so,

[37:02] you know, just [snorts] that kind of a when people say, "Oh, well, I got these

[37:05] emails about this that the public wants to do this."

[37:08] Okay, but that needs to be transparent, too. How many emails did you get?

[37:12] One person has an idea that they want to change the schools. That's not a

[37:16] that's not a public comment. That's not a public demand. You know, what 30

[37:21] people did? There's 1,200 students, 1,200 parents, 3

[37:25] 400 parents. The other ones that you wanted to listen

[37:28] to prove it. So, it's not just, "Well, I heard this for it." But just that

[37:31] transparency there. Um

[37:33] and then I did that public comment should be on each of the agenda items.

[37:37] As things come up, that's when the people can make those comments and kind

[37:40] of say, you know, "Oh, yeah, that's a great idea." Or "This needs to be looked

[37:44] at further." Or "Where did this come from?"

[37:46] Who made you know, why are we discussing this now?

[37:49] Why haven't we discussed this before? So, but if it's just public comment and

[37:54] then we haven't discussed those things that

[37:56] are on the agenda that I'm sure people want to discuss.

[38:00] And I'm sure that you'd like to hear. Because you get the positives, you get

[38:03] the negatives, you get the for's, you get the against. So, so I I like with

[38:07] the board where you guys are looking at that to try to change that. Go back to

[38:11] the way things are so that there is that transparency that, you know, everybody

[38:15] knows what's going on. Whether we like it or not doesn't

[38:18] matter. Everybody knows what's going on.

[38:21] And that's where people can make their decisions.

[38:23] Thank you. Thank you. Um I do

[38:26] uh want to provide some information um and hopefully we'll reinforce it um as

[38:32] we're going along. There are two different times that we

[38:37] call for uh

[38:40] the public to get up and give us feedback or provide information. One is

[38:45] called public comment. And in that section

[38:48] you can get up and speak to anything that um is within the purview of the

[38:54] committee, whether or not it's on the agenda.

[38:58] Open law open meeting law does not allow us to speak to anything that's not on

[39:03] the agenda. So, that is why often we'll

[39:08] the response will be um we're not going to be able to speak to that right now,

[39:12] but we'll follow up later. The second time is as you've said is

[39:18] during the agenda. At that time, it is the agenda. So, that's why we stop and

[39:24] we ask for uh any kind of public feedback or input

[39:29] and that is when we can always have back and forth

[39:32] um information going flowing back and forth because it's on the agenda and we

[39:36] will not get into any kind of open meeting law violation.

[39:41] Does that help? Yes. Thank you. You're welcome.

[39:47] Hi, Lauren Hook. Hi, Lauren. Uh Summer Street. So, I just wanted to

[39:52] uplift with Pat, right? Pat just said. Um

[39:56] and I've had this conversation with both I can glean and Sean when we had some of

[40:00] these meetings about um

[40:03] you know, you don't know what an agenda item is and so I don't know if it's part

[40:08] of the law or just the policy of where public comment thought like lies

[40:13] in the agenda and if it could be moved back because that could also

[40:18] um like reduce some of the times that

[40:21] people feel they need to get up to speak if

[40:24] some of their questions are answered throughout the agenda previously. So.

[40:29] Thanks. Good idea.

[40:35] Any more? Oops. Sorry.

[40:39] Hi Katie. Katie McMenamin, um North Street. Um I watched all the incredible

[40:44] speakers that spoke at the Ways and Means hearing.

[40:48] Um so the three-rule for me um limits passion.

[40:53] Um having to hear them kind of rush through their speeches because they were

[40:57] limited at that thing. I just don't think that should be here. I think here

[41:01] is where should be a safe place, excuse me, safe space and we should be able to

[41:05] hear that passion. Um so my votes for the new uh School Committee members kind

[41:10] of lean towards, okay, who also agrees that maybe that three-minute rule should

[41:15] be looked at. So just another parent saying, I'd appreciate that being looked

[41:19] into. Thank you.

[41:25] Other thoughts? We can still discuss before the vote.

[41:29] We can. I just want to

[41:32] uh let everyone who's watching or who's

[41:35] here tonight thank you for being here tonight. Now uh the agenda usually comes

[41:39] out on the Tuesday before the Thursday. If there are things that people want as

[41:44] discussion items and they feel passionate about,

[41:47] you can email well, I'm I don't want to speak for everybody, but you can

[41:50] certainly email me and I will voice it to the superintendent, the chair and the

[41:55] vice chair and fight to get that as a discussion item because

[42:00] staff, taxpayers and parents,

[42:04] you all have a voice that should be heard every meeting

[42:09] and on any issue. So please reach out to me.

[42:13] I'm happy to read your emails and forward your thoughts along to the

[42:17] chair. Thank you. Thanks, Chris. And uh if I might piggyback on that, uh

[42:23] the agendas, even though they come out on Tuesday,

[42:26] um we really work on them the week before. So, anytime you want something

[42:31] on an agenda um that you feel passionate about,

[42:34] certainly email Chris if you want, but uh as chair you certainly can email me.

[42:41] All right, so I don't want to speak for you. That's okay. I appreciate that.

[42:46] All right, any other conversation? Go ahead, William. I welcome emails as

[42:51] well. Please Please reach out. That's why we're here. So, utilize us.

[42:56] Reach out.

[43:01] All right, so uh Kim, would you mind reading back the

[43:07] motion? Uh a motion for

[43:13] policy BEDH and BEDHE

[43:17] to be referred back to the policy committee for review.

[43:21] And it was motioned by Chris and second by Shannon. Thank you.

[43:26] All those in favor? I. I. Opposed?

[43:32] That's unanimous. Thank you.

[43:36] So, following up on that, um and I wanted to do all of this before we

[43:41] had public comment. Uh you will see in your packets behind

[43:45] that that there is a policy There's a policy for everything.

[43:50] Uh there is a policy to suspend policies.

[43:56] Um which allows us to um temporarily

[44:01] suspend some aspect of a policy. And I'm going to read it so that it uh those

[44:06] that don't have the paper in front of them will know.

[44:10] It says the operation of any section or sections of Middleborough School

[44:12] Committee policies not established by law or contract may be temporarily

[44:18] temporarily suspended by a 2/3 vote of the committee members present at any

[44:22] regular or special meeting. Any action to suspend policy must be reviewed at

[44:27] the next scheduled meeting and will be so noted on the agenda for that meeting.

[44:32] Uh what I interpret that to mean though I will bow to Shannon's knowledge of the

[44:36] policies um is that we can uh vote to suspend

[44:41] some aspect of a policy, but it's only for that night. If you want it to

[44:45] continue, you review it again at the next meeting.

[44:50] Uh and so with that in mind and hearing all

[44:54] of the input that has been given both previously and tonight, um I would

[45:00] entertain a motion to uh suspend the 3-minute rule what we

[45:05] have come to lovingly call the 3-minute rule

[45:09] uh uh for tonight's public comment. Second.

[45:15] Any discussion?

[45:19] All those in favor signify I. I. Opposed?

[45:26] We also have that as a unanimous vote. Thank you.

[45:31] So, we now move into with all of that done, we can move into public comment

[45:36] and I want to reiterate one more time that public comment is for the time

[45:41] if there what you want to talk about is not on the agenda.

[45:46] Um this is the time that you can speak to it. We can ask clarifying questions.

[45:52] Um but we cannot have a conversation about

[45:56] it if it's not on the agenda because of open meeting law.

[45:59] Uh if you wait until the agenda item uh, that it refers to, we will always

[46:06] stop [clears throat] and make sure that that the public is

[46:09] given opportunity to give input. You can

[46:12] if it is on the agenda, you can do it during public comment also.

[46:16] Um, but it might be a way to streamline um, how we get through these meetings.

[46:22] So, having said that, uh, is there anyone like to speak for public comment?

[46:26] Hello. Um, there was no Tiger Times this past week, so I just wanted to mention

[46:31] that the Nichols Middle School PTA, we're having a textile bin drive on

[46:35] Saturday for Earth Day. So, it's 8:00 to 12:00 um, this coming Saturday. Help us

[46:41] fill a textile bin. They're going to be dropping off a big trailer and uh, we

[46:46] get funds from that that we can use for the students and teacher appreciation.

[46:50] And then next Tuesday, we have a McDonald's fundraiser for Nichols Middle

[46:54] School PTA. Um, from 4:00 to 7:00 at the Middleborough McDonald's on Tuesday. No

[47:00] code needed. Any way you order accounts, uh, and we get 20%. So, thank you.

[47:06] Thank you. And thank you for what the PTA does.

[47:17] Relax, I'm on your side. Uh,

[47:22] James Dupont, 118 Elm Street East for the for the minutes and the record. I'll

[47:26] leave a copy of my uh, remarks. Uh, just to put it in in the context of

[47:30] why I'm here and with whom you are dealing, I served 18 years on the

[47:35] Bridgewater-Raynham Regional School Committee. I served as a town selectman

[47:39] for a number of years after that. And uh, despite the fact and there being

[47:43] three new members here, all I'll say is possibly in about 2 weeks, I'll be the

[47:48] new member of the Bridgewater-Raynham Regional School Committee. But, never

[47:52] never can tell. Maybe the voice of Bugs Bunny, Mel Blanc, will beat me.

[47:57] Good evening, uh, Madam Chairman, members of the Middleborough School

[47:59] Committee. I come tonight to deliver a message

[48:03] regarding a matter of grave and immediate importance to the students of

[48:06] the Middleborough district, their school committee,

[48:10] and the administration staff of the Middleborough School Department.

[48:14] The issue is twofold. First, it concerns the decades-long

[48:18] practice of underfunding by the Massachusetts State Legislature of the

[48:22] various categories of so-called local aid,

[48:25] which is all of you know is a significant factor in setting the

[48:29] the tax rate in the local property tax, and hence how

[48:32] much the property owners are asked by you to pay.

[48:37] Prior to fiscal year '81, the first year in which Proposition 2 1/2 was in

[48:40] effect, which I helped put on the ballot,

[48:44] the cities and towns before that simply put another nickel on the local tax rate

[48:49] to make up for any shortfall in local aid, and went on with things.

[48:54] After Prop 2 1/2 took effect, the cities and towns were limited in how much they

[48:58] could raise the prior year's levy. Consequently, many local services,

[49:02] mostly education, were annually paired back due to the

[49:07] annual recurring shortfalls in state money being returned to the local

[49:10] governments. This brings me to my second point.

[49:14] Where does so-called state revenue come from?

[49:18] The answer is it comes from every resident and business in every city and

[49:22] town, including Middleborough. Why isn't that money being returned to

[49:27] you, the people who actually need it for

[49:30] day-to-day things like police, fire, seniors, and most importantly,

[49:36] hear this that word, most importantly, schools.

[49:41] It's been my experience that our state legislators have not made full funding

[49:44] of local aid a priority. Members of the majority party bemoan how

[49:49] tough things are this year in Boston on Beacon Hill. And you're already hearing

[49:53] that. And I will just

[49:56] make a footnote. $8.3 billion

[50:01] B billion dollars in the rainy day fund. And they're telling you how tough it's

[50:06] going to be. And the governor only put in for a 2.5%

[50:10] increase in chapter 70. So, the members of the majority party

[50:15] bemoan how tough things are this year on Beacon Hill. Well, the minority party

[50:18] members shrug their shoulders and say there isn't anything I can do about it.

[50:23] Last year Rainham's annual budget process resulted in the failure to pay

[50:26] the regional school district's assessment after failed prop two and a

[50:30] half override, a large layoff of school employees then followed.

[50:34] 41 31 the next year and possibly more this

[50:40] year.

[50:42] Makes you wonder why I'm running for the school committee, I suppose.

[50:46] A resident I discussed this with said it sounds like bad management.

[50:50] I responded that it wasn't bad management, but rather a shortfall

[50:53] caused by our state legislators not fully funding chapter 70. I've been

[50:57] tracking chapter 70 since 1973.

[51:02] I have checked it every year. Never once fully funded.

[51:09] I want to repeat that for the record. Chapter 70 never once fully funded.

[51:16] When he responded that it to that I said that it wasn't bad

[51:20] management, but a shortfall caused by our state legislators,

[51:24] he responded by saying it sounds like our local government mismanaged their

[51:27] relationship with our legislators. And yes, I'm looking at you.

[51:33] As long as our state reps and state senators can get lauded for getting us

[51:36] half a loaf, then the residents and businesses will

[51:40] be told to make up the difference and you,

[51:42] the elected members of this committee, you will take the brunt of the public's

[51:47] ire, not the governor, not the state reps, state senators,

[51:52] the people at this table who've been elected to conduct education in this

[51:56] town will take the brunt of the public's ire when taxes go up

[52:00] and educational opportunities go down. Madam Chairman, this leads me to the

[52:06] conclusion that the time has come for all local elected officials to demand

[52:10] their respective state legislators change their vote on local aid and aid

[52:13] to education from the current here's what's left

[52:18] to here's what the town of Middleborough and its schools legally are entitled to

[52:23] under Chapter 70. After that,

[52:28] if the state then has a shortfall, let them raise taxes.

[52:32] Let them do massive layoffs to make up the difference.

[52:36] I want to thank you, Madam Chairman, members of the School Committee, and

[52:38] I'll leave a copy of my remarks with the secretary. I'm not asking for a vote or

[52:43] anything. I've been to 19 different communities with this exact statement.

[52:47] This is somewhere between Paul Paul Revere and Don Quixote.

[52:51] Those children are counting on you people to deliver for them. And I had

[52:55] one thought that I would share with you, that if you come to an override

[53:00] situation, how about we do this?

[53:03] What if you the tax collector sent out a tax bill to everybody in in town for

[53:09] what Proposition 2 1/2 would allow you to do, and then send them a separate

[53:14] bill for how much the legislature shortchanged you?

[53:18] And maybe you could have an override vote in November the same day that those

[53:22] legislators are on the ballot. I want to thank the committee for their time, and

[53:25] good luck to the new members as well. Thank you. Thank you.

[53:31] » [applause]

[53:36] » Katie McMannamin again. Um just because someone else had mentioned the PTA, that

[53:41] kind of sparked Um, I'm on the Max PTA. Um, so this Sunday, April 12th, from

[53:47] 11:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m., Papa Gino's in Middleboro will donate 20% of the

[53:52] proceeds to the school. Um, there's more information about that

[53:56] kind of all over online or you could certainly reach out to me and I'd be

[53:59] happy to share with you. Um, and if there's any parents

[54:02] listening, um, just a reminder to sign your child up for the dance-a-thon and

[54:07] fun race. That's it. Thank you. Thank you, Katie.

[54:14] Anyone else?

[54:18] Thank you all. Um, all right. We will move on to

[54:23] discussion items uh

[54:26] and to the superintendent's report. Good evening. So, every year uh the

[54:32] committee must uh make a dis- uh decision on school

[54:36] choice on have a discussion on that in the spring.

[54:40] Um, and you will need to have a public hearing. We'll do that at the next

[54:43] meeting. Uh, you only have to have hold a public

[54:48] hearing if you are going to say no to uh school choice.

[54:54] So, uh we currently are not uh school choice

[54:59] and so last year they held a public hearing

[55:02] uh to vote that. We do have school choice kids because in the past we were

[55:07] uh open to school choice. We have to have that open for siblings.

[55:12] We do not have any siblings coming in next year.

[55:16] Um, so I just bring this as a discussion item.

[55:19] No vote tonight. And if you decide that uh well, we'll hold the public hearing,

[55:25] you'll vote either yay or nay on whether we become school choice. Any questions

[55:30] on that? Do we have any

[55:34] perspective siblings coming in the future.

[55:40] Like if we vote no and close the door today,

[55:43] would the siblings going forward not be eligible? No, if the if a

[55:47] there's just none coming into the district next year, but

[55:52] it it's grandfathered in for any student in Celina.

[55:56] » And and a decision is made each year, so if a sibling was I mean have a new

[56:01] student who wanted to come in each year, we we take the vote based on what our

[56:06] capacity is. Pretty much correct? Correct.

[56:13] Questions? Thoughts?

[56:18] I thought I might see you again. Yeah, this is a good one. No, I just have just

[56:22] a couple of points that we're we're talking about

[56:26] RIFs with teachers, um

[56:30] which is going to bring up class sizes, um increasing those.

[56:35] So, if we're not replacing teachers that are going to be laid off or we're not

[56:39] replacing them in with vacancies, and we're going to allow and I'm saying we

[56:43] are or not, just saying if we allow school choice, we're now increasing

[56:47] those class sizes more. Um

[56:51] we don't know, you know, do we have a ceiling? We We do have in the contracts

[56:55] that we have class size we try to keep a class size reasonable.

[57:01] Um and you know, I'm not saying there's 100 kids who want to do school choice,

[57:05] but you know,

[57:06] any kid above 24, 25, 26 in the classroom is a lot.

[57:11] So, a school choice could affect that. Um is there a ceiling? Do we say like

[57:16] right now we don't have we don't have room, we don't have teachers, we don't

[57:18] have We don't have room in the inn right now,

[57:21] right? Um

[57:23] so, you know, we also have a lot of move-ins that are going to be coming in.

[57:27] So, just thinking about that that you know, if we're going to allow the

[57:30] school choice, and there's money in there, but will that school choice money

[57:33] go to salaries? To hire teachers, to help in the

[57:37] classrooms when our class sizes do go up, either through school choice or with

[57:42] our movings that are coming. You know, not just September, they're going to

[57:45] come October, November, December. Um so, just something to keep in mind, that's

[57:49] all. Thank you. Thank you. You want to make a comment?

[57:52] Sure. Yeah, they These are for out of district

[57:55] students. Uh and the reason that the committee has

[58:00] in the recent past voted no was exactly for that, enrollment and and capacity.

[58:06] It wasn't there, so we said no.

[58:11] Thanks for that clarification, Mike. Mhm.

[58:14] Other questions about school choice?

[58:19] And then, Mike, I assume you will be bringing that back for for a vote?

[58:22] » Public hearing, yes. >> For a public hearing. Mhm. All right,

[58:25] thank you.

[58:28] Budget update? Yes, the next item is a budget update. Um

[58:32] this is a brief update, so for the new members, uh I invite you to

[58:39] set a meeting or try to get a hold of me, set a meeting, so we can go over the

[58:43] budget in detail. It is quite lengthy and not for uh

[58:49] a meeting here. I will get you all the information, but

[58:52] I would love to sit down individually and go through it. But, um this is an

[58:57] update we've been obviously going through this for the last few months, so

[59:01] I have a little PowerPoint here. Um we normally uh set our budget with

[59:07] our budget drivers, which are all the things that we need uh to have a level

[59:12] service budget, which um

[59:16] is our continuous district improvement uh and the strategies that we use for

[59:20] that. We have to budget for fixed costs,

[59:23] contractual um obligations, and salary increases.

[59:28] Uh special ed tuition and services, we must uh budget for those.

[59:34] The ever-changing technology. Uh curriculum costs, we have a

[59:39] uh item in our budget for a new ELA program that we're discussing now.

[59:44] Uh we do try to maintain lower class sizes. We're struggling this year

[59:48] because of funding, but that is a goal uh and does drive our

[59:53] budget. And lastly, we must uh budget for transportation for our students.

[1:00:01] The three uh constraints that we find when found when we're building this

[1:00:05] budget uh was the special ed uh increases.

[1:00:10] Two, uh our alternative funding sources. And we'll get into that if you're new

[1:00:16] member, uh that may be a new concept. That we have funds that are not

[1:00:22] uh within the general fund that we use to offset.

[1:00:25] And last, um as you heard the gentleman, we are

[1:00:29] having the declining financial support from the federal and state and local

[1:00:34] levels.

[1:00:37] So, constraint number one in special ed, this is just a brief uh look at the last

[1:00:41] 4 years of our special ed out of district tuition costs.

[1:00:48] And you see how it rose from 23, 24 to the current budget that we're looking

[1:00:53] at, 26, 27, and almost doubled over that 4 years from 2.6 million

[1:00:59] to almost 5 million. In the middle column, we have the number

[1:01:02] of students. And uh you see that that isn't going up

[1:01:08] in a great number, but the dollars are. So, it's the cost of these tuitions that

[1:01:13] are really uh going up.

[1:01:18] Second constraint, uh Uh, as I said, we have alternative funding sources. The

[1:01:23] problem is we've been using those uh, and we have brought them down.

[1:01:28] Uh, and so, um,

[1:01:32] we have uh, facility rentals we reduced by 650,000 that we used last year

[1:01:39] uh, or the current year that we won't be able to use next year.

[1:01:44] Uh, our school choice we reduced by 112,000.

[1:01:48] And then, um, every year we look at the current budget

[1:01:53] to see if we have money, uh, this is a a legal

[1:01:57] um, payment that we could prepay tuitions

[1:02:01] uh, for next year if you have money at the end of the year. And I um, that is

[1:02:06] starting to look a little better. Uh, so that is good news. I'm I'm trying to

[1:02:10] keep an eye on that. But last year we used 355,000.

[1:02:15] We paid for tuitions for students um, at the end of last year for this

[1:02:20] current year. And hopefully, uh, as we get closer, and we're almost there,

[1:02:25] we'll have some more money. Right now I have zero budgeted, but hopefully I can

[1:02:29] put some towards that. Which will help offset our deficit that

[1:02:33] I'm going to get into soon.

[1:02:36] The last is the federal, state, and local funding.

[1:02:41] Uh, we had a grant, a migrant grant, uh, and we fully expended that this year, so

[1:02:46] that is gone. Uh,

[1:02:49] mentioned earlier again is our Chapter 70 funding funding is down

[1:02:54] due to the assessments and charter enrollment. Uh, so we need to keep an

[1:02:57] eye on Chapter 70. Um,

[1:03:00] some more maybe better news, we got a

[1:03:04] uh, email from the state saying that Title II and Title III

[1:03:08] may come through with some funding. So that 80,000 may be

[1:03:14] lowered a little bit. Uh, and then our federal grant

[1:03:17] reductions in our title uh, grants, title one and IDEA,

[1:03:22] are to be reduced by we're projecting 82,000.

[1:03:29] So, this is our original, um,

[1:03:34] uh, level service budget. And it's broken

[1:03:37] down, again, this is really high level and this is why I'd like to meet with

[1:03:40] the new members so I can get into a little more detail than just two line

[1:03:43] items for salaries and expenses. Our salaries total,

[1:03:49] uh, that we need for a level service budget is 37.8

[1:03:53] million. And our non-salary, our

[1:03:57] expenses are 12.2 million. And our total, uh, request is 50 million

[1:04:04] uh, 57,431 dollars.

[1:04:09] So, I go back to these offsets because this is really where we,

[1:04:12] uh, found our budget shortfall. Um, last year we used, uh, and I won't go

[1:04:18] through each and every, uh, line, but at the bottom you see in fiscal 26 we had

[1:04:24] the ability to use 6.7 million to offset, um,

[1:04:30] our budget and lower that of what our request would

[1:04:34] be. And because we've drawn those down,

[1:04:36] you'll see some zeros in the far column in 27 because, as I said, prepaid

[1:04:41] tuitions, the migrant grant are gone. Um, and the facility, uh, rental

[1:04:48] is, uh, gone down. So, we are only able to use 5.2 million versus 6.7.

[1:04:55] Uh, and so that's a 1.5 million dollar decrease in,

[1:05:00] uh, funding uh, that we have outside of our general fund.

[1:05:04] So, if you take the, um, level service, uh, budget that we've built, it's got 50

[1:05:10] million, 57,000, and you subtract what we are able to use

[1:05:15] in the alternative funding sources of 5 million.

[1:05:20] Our new request, again, this is level service from last year for current year.

[1:05:26] And we are um we would need 44 million uh 836,262.

[1:05:35] So, I bring that up to the top. And the middle column is what we are

[1:05:40] being allocated locally, which is a 1.8 increase. Uh

[1:05:46] you've I'm sure heard uh the town is having uh similar funding

[1:05:52] issues like we are. Uh so, our number is 42 million 550,000.

[1:05:58] Again, it's a 1.8 increase. So, from our level service, what we need

[1:06:04] to do exactly what we were doing this year next year,

[1:06:08] we have a shortfall of 2. almost 2.3 million.

[1:06:14] As I said, we've been doing this for uh almost 3 months now.

[1:06:19] Uh and so, we've had different uh iterations and changes as time goes

[1:06:25] by and uh as usual, uh the the longer we go,

[1:06:29] the better uh the budget looks and we get better

[1:06:32] news. You always uh have to be fiscally uh conservative

[1:06:37] to start. Uh but, how to get that 2.2 million in the beginning was uh cuz it

[1:06:42] was actually um a different number. But, we were looking

[1:06:46] at 29.5 position in reduction back in February.

[1:06:53] Um last month, um with some different funding sources

[1:06:59] um and changes, we uh lowered the number

[1:07:03] total positions of 24.5. You could see the breakdown um in the

[1:07:09] different areas. Um and I also tried to see or look at

[1:07:13] the historical of attrition in those areas to hopefully um

[1:07:19] we'll have attrition from now to the end of the year.

[1:07:22] And hopefully not uh have to eliminate um

[1:07:27] a lot of the positions will be eliminated, but it won't be people.

[1:07:32] So, uh most recently um and tonight we're looking at

[1:07:39] since we got some more news, um we were able to use

[1:07:44] uh or find some more money on the

[1:07:46] non-salary. Uh and I also added a line you see a

[1:07:51] blank down there for anticipated vacancies.

[1:07:54] I did not have that knowledge on 212 or 39. And uh we picked up a couple that we

[1:08:00] know are going to materialize, so I added those.

[1:08:06] Uh but the number total has gone to 23.5.

[1:08:11] Uh so right now that is what we're looking at in terms of positions. Uh

[1:08:16] along with the non um

[1:08:19] position non people and the expenses that we were

[1:08:24] able to reduce and we're able to balance the budget

[1:08:27] with that reduction. So, if you take the the reduction of the

[1:08:33] 2.3 that I talked about out of the total uh request

[1:08:41] uh we still have the offsets that didn't change at 5.2 million. We do now balance

[1:08:46] there to the 42,550,000 that was allocated locally.

[1:08:53] Not the greatest news, obviously, but it's getting better and hopefully it'll

[1:08:58] continue, but um in the next month either way, we're going to have to uh

[1:09:04] vote a balanced budget to that for the town meeting, which I believe now is

[1:09:09] June 1. June 1st is the town meeting. So, they giving you a deadline of when

[1:09:13] they need the budget for the town meeting?

[1:09:15] » have a I don't have a deadline. I was given one

[1:09:18] at least a couple of weeks, so I would think

[1:09:21] that it would be prudent to vote uh at the first meeting in May.

[1:09:29] Okay. Lastly, this is what you will

[1:09:33] actually vote on uh is not that 42 million. You will vote on that, but it's

[1:09:39] the total operating budget uh cuz there's a number of things that

[1:09:43] go into this, so there's a separate transportation budget that the town sets

[1:09:47] aside, and that's the 4.4 million that you see uh on the second line.

[1:09:52] Um, and then uh the next three lines really at are

[1:09:58] the offsets, and they add up to that 5.2 million. It's just a different way I

[1:10:02] broke it out because the circuit breaker is such a large amount for the 3

[1:10:06] million. And the IDEA is another million.

[1:10:10] Uh and then the other all the other ones at the 1.2, 1.3, those three lines add

[1:10:16] up to that 5.2 million that I mentioned earlier on the offsets. So, our total

[1:10:21] budget, what we spend, is the 52.2 million,

[1:10:27] and at the meeting, that is the number that you will vote, but it does include

[1:10:32] the operating budget of 42 550, which is what you'll see on at town meeting.

[1:10:40] And with that, and again, this is kind of a high level.

[1:10:45] Uh so, I do want to meet with everybody who's interested in getting into

[1:10:50] much more detail cuz it is 52 million, and I kind of did it in 5 or 10 minutes,

[1:10:55] so. Uh but I will take any questions.

[1:10:57] anybody has. Do will um everyone have access to the um

[1:11:01] get the new folks access into the budget line items?

[1:11:05] Yeah, so when I when I upload the um because it did change a little bit. It's

[1:11:08] online right now, but I want to I'll have uh Shawn uh upload the new.

[1:11:14] And that's what I'll go over with the new members if they'd like to. It's

[1:11:18] uh but that'll be online. Uh

[1:11:21] and then I could go over that and back up to

[1:11:26] uh this presentation. Uh

[1:11:28] if that is uh the wish of the new members or

[1:11:33] current members if you Want to refresh

[1:11:35] » nothing to do and you want to become a new

[1:11:41] Chris, did I see you moving toward the mic?

[1:11:44] Yeah, just so um things of have obviously improved a

[1:11:48] little bit. But if things improve in the future

[1:11:53] one of the priorities would be retaining student-facing staff. Correct.

[1:11:58] Yes.

[1:12:01] Other questions or thoughts from the board?

[1:12:07] Uh difficult situation. Uh

[1:12:10] one thing though I think that uh Mike did not

[1:12:15] underscore enough. And that is that um yes, because of the

[1:12:21] town's circumstances, they came back and um

[1:12:25] gave him a number that was 300 400 >> 400 400,000 less than the original

[1:12:32] number that we were given. We were given a number

[1:12:36] then it went up and it went up again.

[1:12:40] And this is 400,000 less than the first number.

[1:12:44] And I really do want to give uh So, Chris and I are on the budget

[1:12:48] subcommittee. Uh and so we meet with him on a regular

[1:12:52] basis, um getting his thoughts on the details and

[1:12:56] um providing questions that we've heard in

[1:13:00] various from various people and uh to get clarifications. And I really

[1:13:05] do want to give uh Mike the credit he's due of how he is really trying to work

[1:13:11] this budget as best he can under very difficult situations and in that 400,000

[1:13:17] it did not So you saw that number of um positions

[1:13:22] didn't that were going to be eliminated didn't go up with the 400,000. As a

[1:13:26] matter of fact, it's come down. And um that is a much credit to the work

[1:13:32] that he's been doing. Thank you, Mike.

[1:13:38] All right. Anybody else here first?

[1:13:41] Hello. Hi folks, how we doing tonight? Um I want to say uh hi again to um the

[1:13:49] school committee members. So I've spoken to quite a bit. Um welcome

[1:13:52] » provide your name first, please? >> sorry. I'm Alexa Sparrows. Uh Weir

[1:13:57] Street and also a first grade teacher at the Mary K. Gould. I also hate the

[1:14:02] feedback, so forgive me if I'm speaking a little close um

[1:14:06] speaking a little bit slow because of just the echo. Um so I'm here with a

[1:14:11] couple of questions. Um the first being the new number that the town came back

[1:14:18] with. Um does this is this is this it basically? Or is there a

[1:14:24] chance that they could come back to us saying there's even a greater

[1:14:30] shortfall? Not that I want that, but I didn't know if that was a possibility. I

[1:14:34] think it's always a possibility, but I'm confident that we have our number. Okay,

[1:14:40] as I cross my fingers. Um the second thing is I noticed I can't remember what

[1:14:46] the name of the slide was, but when you were going over the facilities rental,

[1:14:53] it was $715,000.

[1:14:57] I'm assuming that was So, of course, it was fiscal year 26. Is that

[1:15:03] funding that we had gotten as a school district?

[1:15:07] That is the money that we receive when we rent the buildings for any

[1:15:12] outside usage. Okay. I just I hope I'm not echoing someone else's comments.

[1:15:18] Previously, forgive me if I did. But, it seems like we got a substantial

[1:15:24] amount of money from fiscal year 26, and I'm looking to

[1:15:31] fiscal year 27 as $84,000. That's That's $631,000

[1:15:37] lost. So, I was just curious as to how we lost that rental. Is this the

[1:15:44] pool at the complex? Is it other things? This is not

[1:15:51] revenue in. Okay. This is expense. Okay. So, this year we spent $715,000.

[1:16:00] I can't do that again next year. >> No, no, no, no, no, no. I understand. I

[1:16:03] wasn't sure if that was money that we got as a rental fee or, you know, if

[1:16:07] people rented our facilities. Originally, that account

[1:16:12] was close to a million dollars. Oh, wow. And we

[1:16:16] And we allocated and spent 750. Okay. So, now I'm down to like two, and I

[1:16:22] can't I want to be conservative and not drain

[1:16:27] it Yes. >> totally. I understand. No, I was just

[1:16:29] clarifying question. I didn't understand it, so I apologize. No, that's not a

[1:16:33] problem. Thanks. Another thing is, when we were looking

[1:16:36] at anticipated vacancies, if I could please see that slide.

[1:16:42] Thank you. Mhm.

[1:16:47] Okay, so um I do see the journey. I do see how fortunately we started at 23

[1:16:54] positions down to 14 as teachers and then

[1:16:58] um of course the total number is 29 and 1/2 back in February and now 23 and 1/2.

[1:17:05] Um so my question is for clarification,

[1:17:08] when you have 14, I'm assuming full-time

[1:17:13] positions um and then you have average attrition

[1:17:17] 15. Is that 14 including the

[1:17:23] including the attrition or is it potentially could be lower?

[1:17:30] So, actually

[1:17:34] there's we're proposing 14 positions and

[1:17:38] normally we lose 15. Okay. However, it doesn't normally

[1:17:44] unfortunately doesn't normally work out that

[1:17:48] those 14 are the ones that are being proposed to be reduced.

[1:17:54] There's so many different things with certifications and grade levels and

[1:17:57] different things like that. It's just to give an idea that

[1:18:01] with with 15 um

[1:18:05] normally in a year in attrition that 14 could be

[1:18:11] much less in terms of people versus positions. So, that's good news.

[1:18:17] But if they all hopefully fall out the right way, we'd be in good shape.

[1:18:22] And my question is what were the anticipated vacancies?

[1:18:27] Um are they a specific I I I don't feel

[1:18:31] comfortable Got it. No, I'm sorry. I don't mean to put you in a position. I

[1:18:34] just didn't know if it was like uh, could potentially

[1:18:39] be teachers. So, that's why I was just curious. Um, the second thing is, maybe

[1:18:43] the third, I lost count. Um, the ELA curriculum, I know a lot of

[1:18:48] folks, um, in education know this, general public don't. There's the Prism

[1:18:53] grant. Um, I know we're hopefully looking into grant funding to help

[1:18:58] supplement the cost of, um, of our ELA curriculum. Um, forgive me if

[1:19:05] I'm incorrect in the number, but was it $200,000

[1:19:08] that was budgeted for curriculum? Correct. Okay. So, my question is, if

[1:19:16] potential, um,

[1:19:19] we purchase an ELA curriculum that everybody agrees is of the highest

[1:19:23] quality for our students, um, that also includes books and not all

[1:19:29] on a screen. Um,

[1:19:31] my question is,

[1:19:35] let's say we get that grant money. I've heard it doesn't cover the entire cost.

[1:19:41] Um, but could that money, if we're given that grant, potentially be rolled back

[1:19:47] into, say, a job or two? That's already been taken into account.

[1:19:52] Okay. >> Um, and so, we have some,

[1:19:56] um, of those,

[1:19:58] um, non-general fund, the offsets. Mhm. We

[1:20:03] have some more money there, but I I went back to this slide because

[1:20:08] I cut title two and title three grants, eliminated 80,000. Mhm. We got word we

[1:20:13] might get that, and that can be used for the ELA program, also. So, I'm Things

[1:20:18] are looking better. Okay, wonderful. I'm glad to hear that. Um, I know ELA

[1:20:22] curriculum is not on the docket, but I just want to say thank you for, um,

[1:20:27] having the committee to look at the ELA curriculum. Um, I wish it was done in

[1:20:33] the very beginning because I think it would have saved a lot of time and

[1:20:37] effort and we could have made some very good decisions early on.

[1:20:42] And as a first grade teacher, I want my children, my students, both my children

[1:20:49] who I gave birth to and the students I teach

[1:20:53] to have an ELA curriculum that's being taught with books in front of them and

[1:20:58] not on a screen. So I'm just putting that little plug in.

[1:21:03] And then the last thing is that transportation budget that we have

[1:21:11] that is a separate budget, correct? >> Correct. Okay.

[1:21:16] For those folks who weren't aware, this is not myself

[1:21:22] praising myself just to make you and the public aware.

[1:21:26] I went with three fantastic educators to the Ways and Means Joint Committee and

[1:21:33] and also other folks that support us too.

[1:21:37] And one of my colleagues who spoke did bring up the issue with transportation

[1:21:43] costs. It's funny when we stop and look at it. When you have regional school

[1:21:49] districts, they get 80% of their transportation costs funded simply

[1:21:55] because they're regional school district. If you consider the size of

[1:21:59] Middleborough, how big we are, our town alone is almost even bigger than some of

[1:22:06] these regional school districts. So we took it to the state level. hoping that

[1:22:13] they do listen. There were over 100 folks that spoke there from school

[1:22:18] districts across the state and other people who just support us. It'd be

[1:22:23] amazing to see if they rethought things and helped us out

[1:22:28] with the budget on the transportation among other things.

[1:22:31] Um so, thank you for answering my questions.

[1:22:35] Um thank you again to everybody who takes their time to do what they have to

[1:22:39] do as a school committee member. Mike, thank you. I know you've been thrown a

[1:22:43] lot and I know probably dread seeing me come up to the microphone.

[1:22:48] » Not at all. But, you know, if there's there's no ill

[1:22:52] will, I promise you. I just ask hard questions as a parent and a teacher. So,

[1:22:56] thank you. Um have a good night, guys. Thank you.

[1:23:03] Sandy Smiley, 15 Spencer Street. And um I'm a former special education

[1:23:09] teacher. I have uh taught in very, very rural districts, so I totally understand

[1:23:17] the concept of Middleborough being such a large space

[1:23:21] and how transportation can literally, not to use a pun, um but

[1:23:26] I'll use it, drive the bus um in terms of budgeting. I've also

[1:23:31] worked in a large metropolitan school district that had the audacity and

[1:23:37] foolhardiness to think, "Ooh, we'll save on transportation by putting all of the

[1:23:43] kids at their home school, whether that building is accessible to a child that

[1:23:48] uses a wheelchair or not." And that lasted about 20 minutes um and caused a

[1:23:54] great deal of problems. So, I know that is a huge

[1:23:58] um not very easily controlled. So, I hope the state does pay attention. My

[1:24:04] question has to do with special education. When I have come to your

[1:24:09] board meetings, your committee meetings, and listened to reports from the

[1:24:15] departments, I've been amazed and really impressed by the level

[1:24:21] of both human support that you have budgeted for and provided and

[1:24:29] um software and other kind of program

[1:24:32] support at um materials and things.

[1:24:36] So my question is I was really surprised when I saw

[1:24:40] that one large chunk of increases was because of out-of-district special

[1:24:46] education students. I understand how those other places can be

[1:24:53] making their their costs go up and that we can't control that.

[1:24:58] But I was surprised at the number of students and I realize 33 is a very

[1:25:04] small number in terms of the total number of students, but I mean we had to

[1:25:10] twist arms, legs, and practically, you know, hog-tie people to get any student

[1:25:16] allowed to go out of district. So I'm just curious

[1:25:20] not breaking confidentiality, but what is the nature of the kind of

[1:25:26] out-of-school placement? Just to kind of educate myself.

[1:25:32] There's a number of them. I'm not uh

[1:25:36] well-versed in that. I can get you that information. Uh I will tell you that we

[1:25:40] are main focus is to

[1:25:44] uh limit those and keep the students here.

[1:25:48] Mhm. Um so we are working on that. It has been a major focus, but um the

[1:25:54] disabilities range from all all kinds. Uh but I can I can uh and I think we did

[1:26:01] have a presentation for our from our acting uh sped director uh who went

[1:26:06] through all those and and we can go through that again, but I I I don't I

[1:26:10] can't comment on Okay. a lot of those. If I could add to that um because it was

[1:26:14] for the budget subcommittee, it was uh that uh we asked the same question

[1:26:18] immediately. Um if that was a place that we might be able to bring students in

[1:26:23] and the information that was shared of the extensive nature of the

[1:26:28] disabilities, it it's not because we're not using the right methodology or

[1:26:33] something like that. It's not that at all. It's something is more

[1:26:37] all-inclusive that to set that kind of environment up to

[1:26:41] meet the needs of that student in this district would cost more for

[1:26:45] that student than it would be to send them off to another place. So, um

[1:26:52] I I believe after after listening to the um

[1:26:56] the discussion, that it's not a place that we would be able to bring students

[1:26:59] back into the system. Thank you. Thanks, Anne.

[1:27:11] My question is on the facilities. Do we have a

[1:27:15] school committee subcommittee on facility rentals, Mike? Yes, we do.

[1:27:19] Okay. Big different about $700,000 difference

[1:27:23] there. Um we have all all kinds of basketball

[1:27:26] programs in town, dance recitals in town. Um where are the kids going if

[1:27:31] they're not renting our facilities? We have baseball starting up, right? We

[1:27:35] have all Oh, no, we're we're renting our facilities. We have We have the balance

[1:27:38] up to 1.2 million in there. We started using it more than what we were bringing

[1:27:44] in and we can see No longer doing it. All right. So, the facility rentals

[1:27:48] aren't covering themselves, then. Oh, no.

[1:27:52] I'm sorry, say that again? So, in other words, we're renting

[1:27:56] facilities, but we're not making enough money to cover the cost of renting those

[1:27:59] facilities. No, I wouldn't say that. We We are

[1:28:04] paying We were paying for some salaries out of

[1:28:09] facilities rental. Um and so, as I said, we did the balance

[1:28:16] was up to a million, and over the last couple of years, we were paying for

[1:28:20] salaries that used to be paid out of general fund.

[1:28:24] So, we were paying for those,

[1:28:27] and now we can no longer do that. I have to move those people back to the general

[1:28:31] fund. All right. So, is that money then

[1:28:35] that money kind of accumulated then over the years and paid and now we've hit the

[1:28:39] bottom and it just it looks like we're making

[1:28:42] like we're making $700,000 in facility rentals, but we're not. That's a that's

[1:28:47] many years that have accumulated. We were able to take out of it, but now

[1:28:51] it's Correct. kind of zeroed itself out and we're just I wouldn't say zero. I

[1:28:56] wouldn't allow it to go >> not zero.

[1:28:58] I got to leave something in there. Yeah, yeah. [laughter]

[1:29:00] All right. Well, thank you. Yep. >> [clears throat]

[1:29:06] » Mike, just a touch. So, it wasn't the 715 in one year. That was built up and

[1:29:12] we had delayed some of the payment we're feeling now by using those one-time

[1:29:16] payments going forward. Correct. Okay.

[1:29:24] Anything else for Mike?

[1:29:28] Okay. Moving on. We ask about subcommittees. That's next

[1:29:34] on the agenda. Um,

[1:29:36] so, again, the agenda that was

[1:29:41] uh, this is the topic that's typically on

[1:29:45] the agenda for right after we have the elections of what the the subcommittees

[1:29:49] are are and who might serve.

[1:29:53] Uh, so, in your packet, you'll see there is

[1:29:56] a list of our current subcommittees and who up until

[1:30:02] the time of the elections, who has served on it.

[1:30:05] Uh, you'll see I'll just quickly, um, read this the

[1:30:10] that we've referred to many times already this evening,

[1:30:13] uh, which Shannon and Jess served on, um, lots of time that's been spent

[1:30:18] because our policies hadn't been reviewed for many years. Uh,

[1:30:22] it's very important because it's uh, there are many laws that we have to that

[1:30:26] are always changing that we have to make sure, uh, are incorporated into our

[1:30:31] policies. Uh, very important and detailed information that has to be

[1:30:36] discussed and, um, and then language written that then goes to legal,

[1:30:42] uh, and then comes here for our, um, review and decisions.

[1:30:48] Next is a We ended up during the year last year because when Zeke left and we

[1:30:54] went down to a smaller committee, so we were a committee of five. Um, so, um,

[1:31:00] populating all of these subcommittees was, uh,

[1:31:03] was not easy. Uh, so, we combined to the master plan,

[1:31:08] facilities and equipment, uh, subcommittee, which Alan chaired and I

[1:31:13] was on. Uh, we did not get to the master plan.

[1:31:16] We worked, uh, predominantly on, uh, looking into questions about the

[1:31:21] facilities that came up in a variety of different ways.

[1:31:25] Uh, public and student relations, that was Chris and I, but, uh, because we

[1:31:31] were also on the budget, uh, as well as others, uh, there are

[1:31:35] some things that we did regarding communication and it was something that

[1:31:38] was a definitely a priority that came out of our retreat last year, but,

[1:31:43] uh, it is not one that we made a lot of progress on.

[1:31:46] Uh, and you'll see underneath there what what the intent was for that committee.

[1:31:52] Uh, budget committee. Again, you've heard a lot about that.

[1:31:56] That was Chris and I. Uh, negotiations.

[1:32:01] Uh, we have a variety of different uh, unions that we need to do negotiations

[1:32:07] with and we need to have typically two people at those

[1:32:12] negotiations. Sometimes if it's a

[1:32:16] small one we can get by with one. And that was Jess and Chris.

[1:32:22] And then superintendent evaluation that was

[1:32:27] Jess and Shannon. Last year when we populated these we did

[1:32:32] it originally last summer. We did a retreat. We determined

[1:32:38] we did it a bit of a self-assessment. We determined goals and priorities and from

[1:32:43] that came what the individual

[1:32:47] committees were and what their charge was.

[1:32:50] And then the chair

[1:32:53] reached out and asked people what where they wish to serve and then

[1:32:59] these were populated in that way. In thinking about where we are now

[1:33:05] um again um

[1:33:08] uh where we have our all our new members

[1:33:13] uh a thought that I have and I'm I'm just

[1:33:16] putting this out as a thought uh and then

[1:33:19] whatever the wish of the board is um

[1:33:23] I do think that we might want to wait until we have the retreat to

[1:33:28] formally go through things again this you know if we did it early this summer

[1:33:33] and then um

[1:33:35] really get a sense of what you might want to serve on.

[1:33:38] Uh though there are some that are of immediate need

[1:33:43] uh and Mikey you know or anyone else who can

[1:33:49] help me if you think I am misstating

[1:33:53] um policy and protocols

[1:33:57] uh we have Shannon and we

[1:34:00] and Jess is not with us any longer and Shannon might not

[1:34:06] be with us uh in physically for a little while.

[1:34:10] Um

[1:34:12] I know we just spoke about wanting to to look at

[1:34:17] uh the policies. I do wonder this is, you know, ideal and

[1:34:22] reality. Um not having someone here immediately

[1:34:27] to help with whomever else wants to serve on that board, I wonder if we can

[1:34:31] put it on the given that we're also looking at uh suspending

[1:34:36] uh the one that we really want to take a

[1:34:38] look at first, I wonder if we can hold on that one until uh the end of the

[1:34:44] school season and then uh you're able to look at that along with some other ones.

[1:34:49] Uh master plan and facilities,

[1:34:53] uh

[1:34:55] actually, Mike, I know that you uh there are some things that are coming up that

[1:34:59] we need to discuss immediately. Is that true?

[1:35:02] Yes. Um so that is one that we're going to

[1:35:05] need to think of quickly to populate a second person on that subcommittee or or

[1:35:11] the first person, which is me. Um

[1:35:16] public and student relations, again, even though that's something we want to

[1:35:20] we know we want to do, I do wonder if that is one that we can hold till the

[1:35:24] summer or where we have some time to regroup.

[1:35:27] Uh budget, I think Chris and I can continue

[1:35:30] on budget. Uh just on the subcommittee, everything

[1:35:34] comes back to the committee anyway, and finish that.

[1:35:38] Negotiations is one. Uh you told me was that was a stipends

[1:35:44] one? That's not like a Is that a different

[1:35:47] subcommittee? Stipends? Is it something else? I can't Um it's not a

[1:35:52] subcommittee. It's just uh we need a

[1:35:56] committee member on

[1:35:59] when they talk about stipends either athletics or for

[1:36:05] non-extracurricular. Um, and so they meet it it

[1:36:10] they don't meet that often we have in the past few years cuz they've totally

[1:36:13] revamped it. Um, so it's not a

[1:36:17] heavy lift, but we do need one rep >> There's not enough there. And the next

[1:36:21] time that group would be meeting would be It was yesterday. We couldn't do it

[1:36:27] cuz it was Jess. Uh, so they moved it to next month.

[1:36:31] Okay. Um, and as far as negotiations we are we

[1:36:36] done with any negotiations that need to be done for the rest of the school year?

[1:36:40] No, we have uh we just got a notice to start food service.

[1:36:45] I'm sorry. Food service. Okay.

[1:36:49] And that will finish it up. And superintendent evaluation um won't

[1:36:55] begin until next year. Uh, so my thought is

[1:37:00] at the next meeting given this uh that

[1:37:04] And is that too late for the stipends and negotiation one

[1:37:08] to populate that sub those subcommittees if we wait till next the next meeting?

[1:37:15] Um, I if someone if someone would just be

[1:37:21] available for the stipend uh it doesn't have to be a

[1:37:25] uh a standard Okay. And we can maybe we can talk about that

[1:37:29] after this And I can work with them as to when someone would be available and

[1:37:33] we could go from there.

[1:37:37] Uh, so we would be and the uh when we need

[1:37:42] a a group for you to meet with about facilities, when does that need to

[1:37:47] exist? That one's

[1:37:50] immediate. Okay. Uh

[1:37:55] can it wait till the next meeting or do you need it tonight?

[1:37:59] It could wait I think till the next meeting. I'm meeting with the attorney

[1:38:01] tomorrow morning um to start the conversation what I'll

[1:38:05] bring back to the committee.

[1:38:09] And negotiations Chris, are you still on negotiations?

[1:38:15] I can't. Uh so yeah, uh two chairs ago put me on negotiations and then the

[1:38:21] previous chair informed me that legal um

[1:38:24] told me that I could not participate as a member of MTA.

[1:38:28] So I was replaced with Al. Okay. And so do we need that person now?

[1:38:36] Tonight? For this one, yes, because uh food service is connected to that. So

[1:38:41] but if it were a custodial or the admin assistants

[1:38:45] uh Chris could sit on that one or those

[1:38:48] two, but the ones uh with the ESPs, food and teachers,

[1:38:53] he's not uh

[1:38:55] able to do that.

[1:38:59] Okay. Um so this is my thought. I don't know

[1:39:03] if we can do this this evening. Um if it is okay with the board

[1:39:09] uh that I speak with individuals and see if we can just temporarily fill these

[1:39:13] positions until we um regroup uh this summer and um and more formally set up

[1:39:20] our subcommittees. So I'm open to any other idea.

[1:39:27] Yes. So if I may, so just with the suspending of that policy for this

[1:39:31] evening, obviously it needs to be reviewed on the next agenda.

[1:39:34] Um so with that, are you going to review put it on the agenda as such that it's

[1:39:39] noted that we did review it and was suspended for this meeting, but we will

[1:39:42] put that on hold until there is a redistribution of the subcommittees.

[1:39:48] Correct. I put the review on hold and and revisit the suspension each um each

[1:39:54] meeting. So, the 3-minute rule will stand until the subcommittees developed

[1:39:58] and has had a moment to review the policy. Okay.

[1:40:03] Other thoughts?

[1:40:07] Okay, next Are you moving to your

[1:40:10] your Sorry, I I understand why it needs to be suspended, but then every meeting

[1:40:15] I'm not suspended, tabled, but every meeting will suspend it or vote to

[1:40:19] suspend it. Okay. Yes. Okay.

[1:40:25] Okay. Mhm. Okay.

[1:40:27] All right. That is the end of the subcommittee, but

[1:40:30] you're going to be hearing from me. Um

[1:40:36] All right. Next on the agenda

[1:40:44] is the superintendent search. Um you know, probably the two most

[1:40:49] important items uh that we are working through right now

[1:40:54] is the budget and the superintendent search.

[1:40:58] Uh I don't think that typically, though I've not been on the school committee

[1:41:02] long, that um the first meeting of the new

[1:41:05] board has uh uh

[1:41:09] heavy lift items on the agenda, but because of the importance of the

[1:41:15] the superintendent search uh and some pressing

[1:41:20] um decisions that we need to make, uh we really needed to dig in on this one.

[1:41:26] So, in your packet you will find clipped

[1:41:30] uh together uh three different timelines.

[1:41:37] Uh and let me give you a little context for it. Um, at our last school committee

[1:41:42] meeting, um, at the very end of it, um, we were

[1:41:47] given the superintendent uh,

[1:41:51] what is now labeled the original superintendent search timeline revised.

[1:41:56] Uh, it had been revised, um, when it was given to us, but it's the

[1:42:01] original one that we had we received at that time.

[1:42:05] Um, when we had, uh, Shawn Costello from MAS came and did the presentation on the

[1:42:12] superintendent search, uh, we had told him, uh, that we really

[1:42:17] wanted to, uh, expedite the search, uh, and, uh,

[1:42:23] have a superintendent in place for the upcoming year, and he was given a

[1:42:28] deadline, um, of July 1st to have, um, the superintendent, the new

[1:42:37] superintendent begin the tenure. Uh,

[1:42:41] and and that was something everybody wanted, uh, when we had first talked

[1:42:46] about doing the superintendent search back in,

[1:42:50] I don't know, Mike, when when did we know we wanted to launch the

[1:42:54] search back in, I don't remember the dates, I think January or February,

[1:42:59] February. Um, we we thought that that was doable,

[1:43:03] but because of circumstances of when we closed, um, our relationship with the

[1:43:08] past superintendent, that got pushed back.

[1:43:11] Um, and as a result, we ended up with the timeline that you have in front of

[1:43:16] you that says, um, the original. When, um, those of us that were on the

[1:43:22] committee at the time afterwards started looking at it, there were a few of us

[1:43:26] that began looking at the dates and wondering whether or not it was

[1:43:30] reasonable, um, for us to accomplish all of this

[1:43:35] knowing that it was of utmost important to us that we

[1:43:41] get community input, that we get stakeholder input, the teachers, the

[1:43:45] staff, all various kinds of input. Um and that we wanted it to go smoothly.

[1:43:53] Um if you've been involved in searches before, you know,

[1:43:58] you set times and dates but they never stay exactly where they are. Often it

[1:44:02] gets moved back. And we didn't want to miss uh

[1:44:06] at least I will speak for myself. I didn't want to see us misstepping

[1:44:09] because we were trying to get it done by July 1st.

[1:44:13] Um so on

[1:44:17] on [clears throat] Sunday

[1:44:20] well, maybe it was Monday. Um when I realized I would be at least

[1:44:25] starting this meeting. Um I reached out to Sean uh Costello and said, uh can we

[1:44:33] look at pushing the What about What if we push the

[1:44:38] uh start date for the new the new superintendent back to August

[1:44:42] 1st? At least give us a little uh wiggle room cuz if you see on the

[1:44:46] original one, so for example um we it says April 2nd uh a designee meets

[1:44:54] with the consultant to confirm deadline, set up the schedule for focus groups on

[1:44:59] approving survey and determine the scree- screening committee composition

[1:45:04] and recruit plan which just appropriately did, but we've not really

[1:45:09] had time to look at any of that. Um and then according to this timeline, we

[1:45:16] would be starting online surveys on the between the 6th and the 15th. Well,

[1:45:22] today, you know, we're already behind. Um and then on the 10th,

[1:45:28] which is tomorrow, um, start recruiting volunteers for the

[1:45:32] screening committee. So, it already felt like we were falling behind and that it

[1:45:36] was it felt I will tell you Monday it felt very

[1:45:40] overwhelming. So, uh, I did contact Shawn and asked for that, um, August

[1:45:46] 1st. And so, you will see,

[1:45:49] um, that you have another

[1:45:54] timeline, which I've now pulled all my stuff

[1:45:57] uh, apart. Hold on. You have another timeline that's behind

[1:46:03] that that says with the August 1st.

[1:46:09] When he gave that to me, he his initial I said, "Would that work?" And he said,

[1:46:16] "I have to tell you." Well, first I asked him if we could go to September

[1:46:19] 1st. And he said, "So, you're just not going

[1:46:22] to get the candidates that you want if you go to a September 1st date. Um, they

[1:46:28] they will already have gone and and taken positions."

[1:46:31] Um, and I said, "Well, okay. How about August 1st?" And he said, "Yes, you

[1:46:36] would have a you'd have a better pool there if it was September 1st."

[1:46:41] Um, but not an ideal pool because of how late it is in the season that people are

[1:46:46] already ready to move on. And he came back to me with a

[1:46:51] another suggestion, which you will see behind it.

[1:46:55] And that is he said, "I really believe, um,

[1:46:59] and then he called me back again.

[1:47:03] Oh, no, he emailed me and said that he talked to his colleagues later about our

[1:47:07] circumstance, and our circumstance being where we are,

[1:47:11] many new, um, members of of the board, um, that haven't been in the

[1:47:16] conversations about this, um, that we have the positions that are

[1:47:21] open in leadership um or in interim positions.

[1:47:26] I he recommended that we consider hiring an interim

[1:47:33] um superintendent and starting the for a year

[1:47:38] and starting the um search for the permanent

[1:47:43] superintendent end of September. Um

[1:47:47] with the goal of having that person be in place

[1:47:51] at the ideal time next year, which would be July 1st.

[1:47:55] Uh so um I said that I would bring that to this group, which is uh I know that

[1:48:02] this is a lot um for our first time around here.

[1:48:06] Um I have talked so Mike has been our acting superintendent.

[1:48:12] Different people have used different titles, but uh that is the title that

[1:48:16] he's been operating on and from the very beginning when we spoke with him, it was

[1:48:21] uh because we thought that it would be for a um short period of time.

[1:48:27] Uh this would extend it um through all of next year.

[1:48:31] Uh there's a lot on his plate with far as the budget is concerned uh

[1:48:36] going forward in the facilities and all of those things. Not to say he is

[1:48:43] absolutely able and willing and he has done a fabulous job and willing to

[1:48:48] continue on. Um

[1:48:51] uh so the question would be um which direction [clears throat] do we

[1:48:55] want to go? Uh and as I I'll throw in one last

[1:48:59] thought. Uh and that might make this a little

[1:49:03] more palatable in terms of the chunks of information we're taking in and

[1:49:07] decisions we need to make. It might be that the first decision

[1:49:11] would be do we want to go with the idea of

[1:49:14] starting a search

[1:49:19] the end of next September with the idea of putting someone in

[1:49:24] place that would hire a superintendent whose tenure would begin next July. We

[1:49:30] can start with making that decision um tonight which would offload a little

[1:49:35] bit of all of that we should be doing if we're going to go forward with it.

[1:49:40] And then um

[1:49:42] have a conversation about uh interim versus acting

[1:49:47] uh and the complexities of the decision of that of that decision.

[1:49:56] To not I'm not saying whether which one to go with

[1:50:00] just for people in general this is the last one with starting in

[1:50:06] September and doing the whole process through the year

[1:50:10] that's a typical search process and search timeline.

[1:50:15] Um Correct. What

[1:50:18] we would be doing whether it's July 1 or August 1 is definitely an expediated

[1:50:27] compressed timeline. Um so just comparing what would be

[1:50:32] typical versus obviously what we are also you know looking to do

[1:50:39] which yields very different pools that we're looking at.

[1:50:47] Other thoughts?

[1:50:51] I have thoughts but uh can we hear from the people first?

[1:50:55] And then I'll share. Sure.

[1:50:59] Anyone like to speak to this? Hi, I'm back.

[1:51:04] Um okay. So I have a few questions. I know

[1:51:07] that we don't want to rush this, make a knee-jerk decision. I get that.

[1:51:13] Um

[1:51:16] Mike, you've done a great job considering everything that's been

[1:51:20] thrown at you. Uh

[1:51:23] it Please, do not mean this I hope this doesn't come off as offensive. It's

[1:51:28] nothing with you. Um but our

[1:51:32] former superintendent had been MIA for the entire year due to being on leave.

[1:51:39] Um and now we're hearing that yet another school year

[1:51:44] we could be without a

[1:51:49] Again, Mike, no disrespect. A true superintendent that's been hired in that

[1:51:54] role. So, in my mind I'm thinking 2 years, wow.

[1:51:58] Um and I know some school committee members who are running for this

[1:52:02] position ran on the idea that they're going going right into that

[1:52:06] superintendent search. Um

[1:52:11] if we were in this position where let's say hypothetically we take our time

[1:52:18] and maybe you cannot answer this question,

[1:52:23] but would it be Mike being as the acting superintendent, is this another

[1:52:33] potential candidate? And my question is if it's another potential candidate, how

[1:52:38] are they going to be selected? Under what credentials? Who is going to make

[1:52:43] that decision? Um because

[1:52:48] we've been a district in flux uh with

[1:52:52] administrative positions kind of coming and going and different messages and

[1:53:00] so on and so forth. I was really hoping that we would just go all in and really

[1:53:08] hit the ground running looking for a superintendent. Again, this is speaking

[1:53:13] as a teacher and a parent for my children's education.

[1:53:18] And um if I just want to respond to your question

[1:53:23] uh that you asked. So, um unfortunately, you don't have this, but what um

[1:53:30] the timeline for choosing an interim superintendent search timeline, it would

[1:53:36] be conducted in the uh by mask by Shawn.

[1:53:40] Uh and it would involve uh many of the same steps, but not as intensive. So, it

[1:53:48] includes a community survey, post the position, um

[1:53:54] and then we would be meeting to review the survey and determine questions to

[1:53:58] review applications and select interviewees.

[1:54:02] Uh and this is his recommendation, and also

[1:54:05] this can be added to. So, I that pro- it would be a process. It

[1:54:10] wouldn't be just one person or a couple of us saying, "Yeah, let's hire that

[1:54:15] person." It would go through a similar very truncated process uh for someone,

[1:54:20] and typically um there is a pool of for interims of uh

[1:54:25] superintendents that for a variety of reasons uh

[1:54:30] very often they're people with some experience that they don't want to have

[1:54:35] a full uh go they they see this as something that they do, or there's a

[1:54:41] variety of reasons why, but they're people that would have the same kind of

[1:54:44] experience and credentials um that uh for superintendent.

[1:54:51] Okay. And if that was to happen, when would that potential decision be made?

[1:54:57] Would that before be before the start of the academic school year? Could we see

[1:55:02] an interim in like October? No, July. This he he believed he could do

[1:55:09] by July because it's not in the in a typical the one thing that for example

[1:55:15] that is not in the timeline of hiring the regular the full-time one

[1:55:22] is things like site visits is usually always part of hiring and I don't

[1:55:27] believe I I see that in this. So, there are

[1:55:30] specific things like that that you wouldn't do for the interim so you can

[1:55:33] truncate it a bit. Um and it would be his hope that he would be able to have

[1:55:38] someone here for July going through a real process.

[1:55:43] Thank you. I just have never been a part of this conversation before so that's

[1:55:47] why I had different questions. Um moving forward

[1:55:53] we do need again Mike no disrespect but I never want to come off like I'm coming

[1:55:58] off the wrong way but the culture of the district

[1:56:02] this whole school year has been different. Um we feel it. So, my hope is

[1:56:11] whether it is an interim situ- or or acting superintendent whatever you want

[1:56:15] to say whoever is selected is an ideal candidate for a not rushed

[1:56:21] superintendent search. I just am hoping we're not delaying

[1:56:27] uh delaying the process. That's all. So,

[1:56:30] thank you so much for clarifying those questions.

[1:56:36] Sue, just sorry Sarah. What is the We know what the cost is for

[1:56:42] the actual superintendent search is 11,500.

[1:56:45] Do we have a cost and Sean may have presented this and I maybe just forgot.

[1:56:50] Um is there a cost associated with an interim superintendent search in

[1:56:53] addition to the regular superintendent search?

[1:56:56] » He said it he they would do it for the same fee.

[1:56:59] Together. >> So in addition okay. So all all 11,500

[1:57:03] in. Yeah, it does not increase it does not increase the cost. I just think that

[1:57:06] was important to know. Thank you. So as someone who watched the last

[1:57:11] process, I think we really need to be careful

[1:57:15] about rushing this. Uh we need to open this up much further than just

[1:57:21] uh the the zip code. Um so I really think we need to consider having an

[1:57:26] interim somebody that knows they're not here long term unless they choose that

[1:57:31] to apply for that later. But I think if we're going to hit the ground running

[1:57:35] now and try to get a permanent placement in July, it would be foolish. It would

[1:57:39] just be repeating old patterns and I think we need to get out of that

[1:57:42] mindset. We've a brand new board. I think we have a great acting

[1:57:47] superintendent. I think we need to just take a bit of a breath and make a make

[1:57:53] those choices in a timely manner, but not to just rush

[1:57:58] and hit the gas and say, "Well, we need this. We need this. We need this."

[1:58:01] There's a lot of issues going on, but I think this is such a big um decision and

[1:58:07] we've seen it go wrong before. So I'd really like to take time with this. So I

[1:58:10] think an interim is definitely the way to go.

[1:58:13] Thank you.

[1:58:19] I just want to comment towards the new members. When you guys were running, I

[1:58:22] heard and read about you stuff. I don't think any of you would surprise me as

[1:58:26] superintendent. Are you? Cuz it sounds like, "Oh, we got new

[1:58:29] members. We're going to put it off." I think they knew exactly what we needed.

[1:58:34] Right? You know we need new superintendent. You need time to

[1:58:38] I don't know what. Learn more about the schools? I think you ran because you

[1:58:41] know that there's an issue in the schools. So I don't think waiting

[1:58:44] because a new board They knew what they were getting into.

[1:58:48] They knew what they wanted to take on. This isn't and I don't feel this is

[1:58:52] rushed. We've been talking about this for what? A month and a half, two months

[1:58:55] now? What is Mr. Costello's timeline if we

[1:58:58] start in July? Is it a two-month process? Cuz we're going to be ready for

[1:59:00] September with the new superintendent, right?

[1:59:03] And now we're going to wait another year.

[1:59:06] I don't know why we're waiting. His His timeline sounded pretty quick. I can't

[1:59:10] remember exactly his timeline. I know it was busy.

[1:59:14] He did talk about that. But we knew the timeline, and we thought

[1:59:17] we'd get a good pool of candidates. I don't know if it was July 1st or if it

[1:59:21] was June 1st that we were meeting. And now we're saying, "Well, we're going

[1:59:25] to wait." And I do agree with the fact of

[1:59:29] yeah, we shouldn't rush into it, but are we rushing into it? Is three months by

[1:59:33] the state rushing into it? If that's their program, is that how

[1:59:37] they pick superintendents? That's not rushing into anything. That's their

[1:59:41] policy. That's how they find superintendents.

[1:59:45] So, I I I don't know why we would wait. We're in trouble. We need help. And

[1:59:49] again, no has me He's doing double duty.

[1:59:54] But the schools need something. And we can't, you know, waiting another

[1:59:58] year. Okay, well, then what are we doing?

[2:00:02] And we're still going to interview for an interim, but we're not going to go as

[2:00:05] far with the interviews. Well, then aren't we kind of rushing

[2:00:08] into that, too? Where did this person come from?

[2:00:11] Are they just because they were a superintendent, that means, "Oh yeah,

[2:00:14] we'll put them in there for a year." That means we can't move forward for a

[2:00:18] year. We can't move forward on programs. We have the ELA that we're talking

[2:00:21] about. We want the new superintendent about the restructuring the schools.

[2:00:25] And we're going to wait another year. I just

[2:00:29] I think Mr. Costello made a good case that this was the program. This was how

[2:00:32] you picked the superintendent. I

[2:00:35] If I just may clarify, he he said if we want to do it that

[2:00:39] quickly, even during the presentation, that he would

[2:00:43] build a timeline that did it, but the normal timeline is longer and includes

[2:00:49] other aspects. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome.

[2:00:56] I can I just have a couple questions clarifying. So, there's an $11,000 fee

[2:01:01] for the search. And so, we're already in budget issues. We're going to do $11,000

[2:01:07] this year if we do interim and then $11,000 for the search next year? No. Um

[2:01:12] he offered to do all of it for the same all 11 months.

[2:01:16] Um so, then my other question or thought to consider is

[2:01:21] you know, some of the things that we had discussed and I think you know, the

[2:01:25] previous comment also just mentioned this is we weren't going to think about

[2:01:30] reconfiguration and some other building issues with

[2:01:35] interim superintendent. We wanted to get a full superintendent in here before we

[2:01:39] had these conversations. So, now if we have another interim, are

[2:01:42] we going to wait a whole another year to start having those conversations about

[2:01:45] our buildings again? Um and just continue pushing things off

[2:01:49] for further years. So, just my thoughts. Thanks.

[2:01:58] Also, for clarification, um not really following the original

[2:02:05] hiring of the previous superintendent and the process um

[2:02:11] until it got towards the end. When you have a superintendent,

[2:02:18] what process goes on in terms of um evaluation?

[2:02:25] And like with anything else,

[2:02:29] whether you get an interim or whether you hire a full-time

[2:02:34] superintendent, I'm assuming there's going to be an evaluation period. And if

[2:02:41] they're not cutting it, then they're going to be held accountable.

[2:02:47] So, to me, having worked in districts, if that process,

[2:02:54] if you do as good a job in search, regardless of the amount of time, as you

[2:03:00] possibly can, and then you stay on top of evaluation based on what you have

[2:03:08] learned apparently from where there were shortcomings and

[2:03:13] difficulties and things that didn't work,

[2:03:17] then it seems to me that you'd have a a better outcome.

[2:03:23] And and I empathize with those staff members, it's going to be

[2:03:30] very difficult, I would imagine, to keep morale up

[2:03:36] if there are unanswered questions or there are un-

[2:03:42] um resolved projects like reorganizing uh the elementary schools

[2:03:50] that have to be put on hold. That's that's really going to be difficult, and

[2:03:55] I think whatever decision you make, that impact on staff needs to be

[2:04:04] really thoughtfully considered. Thank you. I got a good point.

[2:04:13] Colleagues on the board,

[2:04:16] so is there a way to maybe put together like some kind of survey that could sent

[2:04:23] out to everyone with the thought process, the two different

[2:04:27] timelines, what would be the reason to consider

[2:04:30] either or, and see what the majority of people think?

[2:04:36] Uh um are you saying

[2:04:43] the whether people want an interim or the

[2:04:49] by the time we do that we will lost the time

[2:04:52] So the surveys that are supposed to go out

[2:04:55] and by the time you did that we would have blown this timeline that we we

[2:05:00] wouldn't be able to is my thought although people can

[2:05:05] because we'd have to develop develop it get it out but maybe you have a a

[2:05:09] different if you're looking at these dates

[2:05:12] to get this done but maybe you have a different thought.

[2:05:16] Okay.

[2:05:26] Is there someone up there? I'm sorry. It's dark up there. I don't see. I

[2:05:30] couldn't tell if you were sitting or standing.

[2:05:33] Is that a short joke? No, [laughter] cuz the thing's in my way so I couldn't

[2:05:38] see. Um hi Eva Crawford

[2:05:42] resident here in town 172 Center Ave. Um also retired teacher here in

[2:05:47] Middleborough Public Schools. Um I've been through two interim

[2:05:52] superintendents. So I know

[2:05:56] what that feels like as an employee. Um so I would caution you to

[2:06:03] really think everything through before you make a decision. I've also

[2:06:08] been on a superintendent search committee

[2:06:11] 20 years ago.

[2:06:14] Um so I understand very much the process and how long it takes. Um

[2:06:22] I just want you guys to make the best decision possible because this is not

[2:06:26] just about staff this is about our kids. Absolutely. And I don't know any teacher

[2:06:31] who does not want the best for their kids.

[2:06:36] You know, our staff is wonderful.

[2:06:39] So, we really hope that you really think this through.

[2:06:45] Okay, thank you.

[2:07:06] I understand when when you said about this um survey and how com-

[2:07:11] comprehensive and how long it would take and everything. And this is probably

[2:07:15] maybe even a stupid thing to suggest, but

[2:07:19] you're in a lose-lose situation, quite frankly.

[2:07:23] So, the best you can hope for, or if I were

[2:07:27] in your shoes, would be at least to send out by Monday one question to staff. And

[2:07:35] that would be the question, should we go interim, should which will take this

[2:07:39] kind of timeline and lay out that timeline, or should we go

[2:07:44] um the longer or should we get a full-time

[2:07:48] superintendent with a compressed three three month um

[2:07:53] search proce- process? At least give them, to my my way of

[2:07:59] thinking, and this is just my opinion, the respect of asking that question of

[2:08:04] them. And I mean staff from all the way

[2:08:08] across the board. Um

[2:08:11] get back those answers. And then you at least know where they

[2:08:16] all stand, and you can come back to them with what your decision is and your

[2:08:20] rationale for whichever it is. But I think

[2:08:25] they're going to feel blindsided, um

[2:08:29] and then that's going to make the whole process harder. Um

[2:08:35] So, I I'm I'm glad I'm not in your shoes.

[2:08:40] Thank you, I think.

[2:08:45] I just had a question, uh Kim, you brought something up about the pool, and

[2:08:49] I I don't know if you can answer this or not, I just don't have any experience

[2:08:52] with this, but I think you want the strongest pools possible of candidates,

[2:08:56] right? So, was that what you kind of indicating

[2:08:59] is that, hey, the normal process starts in September, you know, cuz it was

[2:09:03] vacated, and that allows for a larger pool or stronger pool, I guess, of

[2:09:07] candidates. Are we kind of Do you think we're past

[2:09:11] that point? So, it's kind of like you're not at the bottom of the barrel, but

[2:09:16] like maybe those candidates that we would want, they're already kind of in

[2:09:20] a, you know, last interview type of process that we think would be a good

[2:09:24] fit for this district, so it kind of really narrows that focus at that point.

[2:09:29] Right. So, a lot of districts who are in a superintendent search right now are

[2:09:35] kind of finalizing their searches. So, a lot of superintendents are being hired

[2:09:42] right now. Um so, or we might obviously will be getting ones that are still

[2:09:47] looking for jobs. Um we might be getting ones who are being let go from districts

[2:09:53] and then looking for jobs at the end, or who might have put in

[2:09:59] last-minute notice and then leaving positions, um

[2:10:07] I mean, somebody might see our post and be like, okay, awesome, yep, want

[2:10:11] Middleborough, and then put and put in their notice. I mean, it could be a

[2:10:14] unicorn, who knows, but um you know, at this late stage in the game, this is the

[2:10:20] hiring time versus the posting time for a superintendent. Um whereas in Sep-

[2:10:27] late September, fall is usually when you're posting and that's usually if

[2:10:32] somebody is leaving a position or it's that towards the end

[2:10:36] of their contract or things like that, it's the last year, then the the

[2:10:40] district's already prepping for that. Um and they know that is coming, so.

[2:10:47] I also would add to that, um which I think is

[2:10:51] absolutely correct, but it in addition to that,

[2:10:57] the amount of time that we really want to get the community and the

[2:11:02] teachers and the staff, everyone's um information and really think through

[2:11:09] what we consider the best fit for Middleborough at this time.

[2:11:16] And um I just worry that we have a lot of um

[2:11:22] bullets on here about do fo- do a focus group next week, send out the online

[2:11:27] survey next week. Um and is it really in a in

[2:11:32] will we have enough time to thoughtfully consider who we are looking for with the

[2:11:38] right kind of input that's also alongside of what you're saying, that's

[2:11:42] also my concern. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, looking at the timeline, if we

[2:11:46] were to start now for the August 1st, we would

[2:11:50] be putting out, you know, after break,

[2:11:53] putting out um surveys, doing community forums the week of,

[2:11:59] you know, May 7th, and then on Monday, May 11th, we would

[2:12:05] be, you know, kind of looking at that and then immediately posting

[2:12:10] 3 days later. I mean, that's not really giving a whole lot of time to even be

[2:12:14] able to review the surveys that the communities

[2:12:18] you know, the information they're giving us.

[2:12:22] So, whereas if we're doing that process throughout the fall,

[2:12:26] that's giving us, you know, a lot of information and a lot of time to get a

[2:12:29] lot of get the community input.

[2:12:39] Other thoughts? I know, it's hard.

[2:12:42] Can I chime in? Certainly. All right. Uh yeah, so

[2:12:46] in my experience, usually the way and we're in a different spot,

[2:12:50] usually the year starts in September where you have a superintendent who's

[2:12:56] they're in their last year of their contract and they're going to retire

[2:12:59] and that's when you start your search. So, we're definitely behind that given

[2:13:03] our circumstances. Um I think it's

[2:13:07] I mean any number of candidates can look really

[2:13:10] good on paper. I really want someone who's here for Middleborough and we're

[2:13:15] sure is going to be here for Middleborough and understands the staff,

[2:13:20] the families, and the this all the stakeholders.

[2:13:23] Um and I'm hesitant to do that in such a a quick search.

[2:13:28] Um in terms in my experience are usually experienced superintendents keeping even

[2:13:33] keel. Um and I think one bonus that we haven't

[2:13:39] talked about yet is if we have an interim superintendent,

[2:13:43] then we don't need to have an acting end business manager doing two

[2:13:47] jobs at once. Um and I don't think uh the state's going to cap spending on

[2:13:54] transportation, special ed, and other costs and I don't think they're going to

[2:13:57] add more funds to us. So, I think having a

[2:14:01] business manager who is full-time looking at the books and monitoring the

[2:14:06] budget is incredibly almost as important as whoever we pick for our

[2:14:11] superintendent just in these next few years where things are going to

[2:14:15] they're going to be tight again next year and for the foreseeable future. So,

[2:14:19] I think that's an important piece that we need to consider.

[2:14:25] And if I could add to that, guess I'm adding today.

[2:14:28] Um, couldn't agree more with one addition

[2:14:32] and that's the added bonus of having an acting superintendent

[2:14:38] um, on the staff working with the interim and it would be my desire that

[2:14:45] whoever whomever as we go through that interview process that we

[2:14:49] pick a team player that recognizes that he's got a good teammate, he or she has

[2:14:54] a good teammate who's done this for a while and will be able to provide the

[2:15:00] institutional knowledge um, and information about the culture

[2:15:04] and all of that um, to help guide in in a way that might

[2:15:09] not happen in other circumstances.

[2:15:18] I would just really love to see some community input even if we have I would

[2:15:22] love to see community input on this because this is such a huge thing

[2:15:27] for our town. You know, [clears throat] and

[2:15:30] I completely value what you guys are saying as educators. I mean, you've been

[2:15:34] involved in it, you know firsthand. Um, but I still just feel like everybody

[2:15:39] should have some kind of input even if I like that quick survey. I mean, let's

[2:15:45] just hear what people say. You know, because then everybody's

[2:15:49] they're going to be involved. So, whatever decision is made, it wasn't

[2:15:53] made by just the seven of us. We have more input, you know?

[2:16:00] Understood.

[2:16:06] So, how do we want to proceed here?

[2:16:13] If I may say, I I think too with to Leah's point as well as that this was

[2:16:18] on the agenda. I think if people I mean people here have spoken. If they wanted

[2:16:23] to come and speak or had any questions about the superintendent search

[2:16:27] as we presented at the last meeting, I think tonight would have been a good

[2:16:30] opportunity for them to come out and raise those questions.

[2:16:34] Um obviously not understanding that we were going to go through this process of

[2:16:38] presenting an, you know, an interim superintendent, but I think,

[2:16:43] you know, if we did proceed with an interim superintendent search

[2:16:47] and then we are going to launch a community survey

[2:16:50] with that, I think that will give them an opportunity to answer like to ask a

[2:16:54] lot of the questions. But is your question more whether we should proceed

[2:16:56] with an interim superintendent or just go right into Yeah, and the

[2:17:00] superintendent search. And I feel like if it was stated like that on the

[2:17:04] agenda, maybe more people would have come, you

[2:17:07] If if that's, you know, the point. Um sometimes people can't get here, you

[2:17:11] know, so for something like this. It cuz I mean I wasn't aware that we

[2:17:15] were kind of behind the eight ball with the timeline. You know?

[2:17:19] I did I wasn't aware that we were going to be thinking about an interim until um

[2:17:24] a little mid I don't know.

[2:17:27] Yesterday afternoon. When he got back to me, yeah. And and

[2:17:31] whoever said lose-lose, I guess I would call it a rock and a hard place.

[2:17:35] Um I I

[2:17:37] I empathize with

[2:17:40] the different perspectives on this.

[2:17:43] Um and

[2:17:46] I just want to know what we think is realistic.

[2:17:51] Um so if we put out a survey

[2:17:57] which in of itself, I don't know where I I'm not that um

[2:18:02] knowledgeable about how that process works and and you know, how do we give

[2:18:06] people the context to understand what they're answering.

[2:18:09] Um and then we get it back and then we would meet um

[2:18:14] when to make a decision of how we go forward.

[2:18:19] Um I'm just trying to be realistic that we

[2:18:23] don't miss that we shoot ourselves in the foot because we

[2:18:26] ended up understanding the reason for it. I I it

[2:18:30] Um so I'm not

[2:18:34] for me that the having the input for our next superintendent

[2:18:41] our next full-time superintendent is of utmost importance.

[2:18:46] This timeline does not allow it. That's I guess what what um

[2:18:52] concerned me.

[2:18:56] So I think one thing that might influence that, uh if item nine, the

[2:19:00] April and May 2026 school committee meetings Mhm. cuz they were

[2:19:05] they were discussions that we would be meeting next Thursday at one point.

[2:19:10] Um if we knew are we meeting twice in April, twice in May, then that might

[2:19:16] give us time to put out a survey. Uh what I was going to recommend to put out

[2:19:21] a survey to to Leah's point. Okay, so if we put

[2:19:26] out a survey now um

[2:19:31] and What what would you see as a turnaround

[2:19:36] time on a survey? What's I'll answer your question.

[2:19:39] Uh I think when Mike and I were speaking uh that we thought the best time for the

[2:19:45] next meeting was April 30th.

[2:19:51] I I really don't I shouldn't do this off

[2:19:53] the top of my head. Hold it.

[2:19:56] Yeah. Uh that we would have a meeting on April

[2:20:00] you would said meet for this Friday. Mhm. April 30th.

[2:20:04] Um April 30th, then May 14th, and May 28th.

[2:20:09] So, if we put out a survey for 7 10 days, and then we can review

[2:20:14] that on April 30th and make a determination then. Would that still

[2:20:18] give us enough time? Enough time for what? To either

[2:20:26] go with the interim or try to tackle the expedited timeline. Okay. So, if you

[2:20:32] look at the uh timeline for the August 1st,

[2:20:36] um we would need to have the screening

[2:20:41] committee composition and recruitment plan

[2:20:45] already done. Um

[2:20:48] and start recruiting the um volunteers for the screening

[2:20:54] committee on April 27th, which I'm sure it can go a couple day I

[2:20:59] mean uh

[2:21:02] and have a

[2:21:06] community

[2:21:11] So, to me uh the the things that would be challenging, first of all, is

[2:21:17] um we need to know from this group who

[2:21:20] wants to if you're able if you're able to to go

[2:21:24] to these meetings that are mandatory for the two designees the for the um

[2:21:30] the interviewing and going, you know, there are um

[2:21:36] the May 11th is is something that everyone needs to

[2:21:41] the designees or all of us need to go and take care of the

[2:21:47] focus groups and the survey responses.

[2:21:54] So, if we met on April 30th, then it would just cut down that April 27th

[2:22:03] to the 8th. It would just cut that down really to 1 week rather than

[2:22:07] I mean, yeah, if we're going off this timeline, then this timeline we can't do

[2:22:12] it anyways because April 2nd we should have already

[2:22:17] had all that done. There there is a There So, a schedule

[2:22:22] for focus group they have the room. They have the questions

[2:22:27] that were determined by Jess and Shawn

[2:22:32] back then. So, those are done. Um

[2:22:36] I tried to get a copy of the online survey,

[2:22:39] but Shawn is now on vacation.

[2:22:43] So, I couldn't get it from him and I wasn't able to um

[2:22:48] There were a couple of other people that were involved and they didn't have them.

[2:22:50] So, we we don't have that to approve.

[2:22:55] Uh And I have the composition as in that

[2:22:59] they determined is in your packet. So, we could

[2:23:03] we could approve that tonight.

[2:23:08] So, Sue, was the online survey approved prior to the election?

[2:23:13] Or it was not approved? Going by the original timeline.

[2:23:18] The original timeline it was done Yes. So, it was already

[2:23:23] approved, the online survey? Approved by one person from the committee. Correct.

[2:23:29] So, is there any to reapprove that online survey so we're not jeopardizing

[2:23:34] a newer timeline? Or Are you hoping to get an opportunity now as the chair to

[2:23:39] approve again the same survey? Um

[2:23:44] I I think it would be nice for the committee to see

[2:23:47] what's being asked.

[2:23:51] I'm not saying that legalistically. I'm not I I don't know.

[2:23:53] » no. I I'm just I just want to get a nice word out.

[2:23:55] » I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

[2:23:57] I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

[2:23:58] I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

[2:24:02] But that's This is one person's thought. That's So, if you all feel differently

[2:24:06] that we can go forward with those surveys and not having really had a

[2:24:10] chance to have um take a look at it.

[2:24:19] I mean, we really wouldn't put those out until after the 30th anyways, cuz we

[2:24:23] wouldn't know if we're doing this or not.

[2:24:26] Till the 30th.

[2:24:29] Cuz this would be if we're doing I think they were saying going forward

[2:24:33] now within the the original.

[2:24:38] Cuz we the survey you you're talking about is to send out to

[2:24:42] say do this timeline or an interim. No, this is the

[2:24:47] online survey that will that is going to um

[2:24:51] give the information the superintendent search. I think we're

[2:24:56] talking about two different surveys. >> Yeah, two different surveys. Right.

[2:24:59] Yeah. But we wouldn't >> What you're talking about would be which

[2:25:03] timeline we pick. >> Yeah, right. Exactly.

[2:25:07] But do we need to send out the survey that Sue's talking about?

[2:25:12] We don't send that out until And that's just to That's just to the committee,

[2:25:17] like to approve. I I'm My question was more has it been approved already? Does

[2:25:21] it need to be reapproved because having more eyes on it and then approving it

[2:25:25] again is going to now obviously delay that Yeah. But we would have time.

[2:25:30] Yeah, no. And if people are comfortable with it going out with not because of

[2:25:35] someone already approved it. Again, up to you folks.

[2:25:46] I think to Chris's point 7 to 10 days is a bit of time. Maybe if we shrink that

[2:25:50] time frame down just a little bit. 5 to 7 days max and then we can go from there

[2:25:55] so that if we shrink that time that 7 to 10 day

[2:25:59] timeline down that Chris suggested to maybe 5 to 7 days before April school

[2:26:03] vacation and then we have that time before April

[2:26:07] 30th meeting that that might be the way to go. I still

[2:26:10] think that's plenty of time to answer one question and for you know, for staff

[2:26:14] and for parents. I'm shaking my head even though I heard

[2:26:17] like three or two words. So,

[2:26:20] I'm sorry I didn't understand. So, just shrink So, if you were were to send a

[2:26:23] survey out of whether or not we want to follow the interim superintendent search

[2:26:26] timeline or the the full like put the full-time

[2:26:31] superintendent search timeline. We send a survey out but we shrink the timeline

[2:26:35] down to answer the question within 5 to 7 days Okay. prior to April school

[2:26:39] vacation commencing and then prior to that April 30th meeting. And who will we

[2:26:45] send what what groups do we send? First of all,

[2:26:50] is there somebody that's willing to help put together that survey and should

[2:26:54] there be contacts information that goes with it so that

[2:26:59] there's an you know, understanding of what the choices are?

[2:27:03] Anyone willing to work on that? >> I'll help so. I just don't know how to

[2:27:07] do it if someone knows how to do it. Would it be Shawn? That did it. Okay, so

[2:27:11] yeah. I'll help. Okay. Yeah. Um

[2:27:15] and we would want that to go out when?

[2:27:19] Probably as soon as possible. Yeah.

[2:27:24] Okay.

[2:27:26] And to what groups?

[2:27:31] I mean parents, staff.

[2:27:36] If there's some students that want some input. Yeah, it's probably a good thing.

[2:27:41] Um as our representatives will say, a good

[2:27:44] thing to um if we can

[2:27:48] And when would we say that the um it needed to be returned by?

[2:27:53] I'm not just asking you. I think people really need it we need to if we're going

[2:27:57] to send it Monday, today is Thursday. [clears throat]

[2:28:00] Um Friday before break because I think once

[2:28:03] people leave for vacation then it's kind of gone.

[2:28:07] Okay. I think five days is more than more than

[2:28:10] sufficient.

[2:28:14] And once the packet is is ready um does anyone So Leah and Shawn are

[2:28:21] going to work on it well, I don't I think Shawn will

[2:28:26] do the mechanics of it, the um the body of it. Do

[2:28:31] you want to circulate that or how do we what do we do?

[2:28:39] Yeah, once you kind of write up whatever it it'll say then you can just kind of

[2:28:43] send it to us just to I would recommend that if possible that

[2:28:49] we include the timeline um with it so people understand what

[2:28:54] their what their choices are. Yes.

[2:29:03] All right, should we put this into a motion?

[2:29:08] Want me to take a stab? Um I'll entertain a motion

[2:29:13] uh that we the uh school committee will

[2:29:18] disseminate an online survey

[2:29:21] to parents

[2:29:28] teachers and staff that asks them whether they would prefer

[2:29:35] to go forward with an expedited superintendent search

[2:29:42] or have an interim superintendent

[2:29:47] for next year.

[2:29:56] Anyone want to amend that?

[2:29:59] Just add includes students. I will Are we going to survey them or

[2:30:06] are we going to speak to the students?

[2:30:13] How would they get a survey? Excuse me? How would the students get a

[2:30:17] survey? Is there a different way or It's Google survey, so they have all have

[2:30:21] access. The same. Okay. >> We might want to limit, you know,

[2:30:24] obviously not kids in kindergarten. We can determine but maybe

[2:30:30] we determine what level of students if we want high school and up or

[2:30:35] Or the representative boards. Correct, yeah. From the Yeah, from the school

[2:30:39] committee from the student committees, yeah.

[2:30:41] I didn't hear that. The student committees.

[2:30:44] » Yeah, yeah, maybe the student maybe the student advisory committee.

[2:30:46] » Yeah.

[2:30:51] Want to read that back to us, Kim? Sure.

[2:30:55] A motion for school committee to disseminate an online survey to parents,

[2:30:59] teachers, staff, and the student advisory

[2:31:02] committee whether they prefer an expedited search or an interim

[2:31:06] superintendent.

[2:31:09] Do I hear a second? Second.

[2:31:13] All those in favor? I. Let's discuss. Oh, sorry.

[2:31:18] Uh I am all for the survey, however, um I just want to strongly voice my opinion

[2:31:25] that we should go with the interim superintendent search timeline based on

[2:31:29] my experience and the points that I brought up earlier. But, I will vote I

[2:31:33] in favor of the survey going out. I agree with you, Chris.

[2:31:39] Any other comments from anyone? Hi.

[2:31:43] Um if when you if the wording on the survey, can you just maybe put the

[2:31:48] footnotes just to some of the things that were talked about tonight about how

[2:31:51] the cost doesn't go up cuz I think the budget issue is going to be

[2:31:55] a big part of it. Like for people thinking it's going to cost double. So,

[2:31:58] can is there any way to put like a paragraph before people choose

[2:32:03] just to have some of those pieces of information?

[2:32:07] Perfect. That's a very good point. I think in the context of what we were

[2:32:10] talking about um there's some different points that we

[2:32:14] should make sure and that is one of them.

[2:32:19] Uh Alex Cook, 32 S. Main Street. Um I will say I understand why you choose to

[2:32:24] go to the student advisory committee, but I will also note that advisory

[2:32:28] committee is only made up of high school students and I think that does a

[2:32:31] disadvantage to the lower grades. I would suggest maybe

[2:32:36] um I'm not 100% sure if the middle school still has a class president

[2:32:40] system, but I would suggest maybe including those representatives because

[2:32:45] it does disservice them to only speak to an advisory committee of only high

[2:32:49] schoolers. Not This is not take input from the lower grades. Thank you.

[2:32:55] Thanks, Alex.

[2:33:01] Can I just ask one more question? You know, I'm in favor of the survey.

[2:33:06] But, the intent is you know, okay, so this goes out and

[2:33:11] it there's going to be one group that's going to sit there and say yes or no

[2:33:15] they're going to pick one of those two. At the end of the day, does this come

[2:33:18] back to this board to vote on which direction?

[2:33:22] So, I guess the cautionary tale would be if they said, "Hey, let's take let's go

[2:33:27] the expedited route. Let's get the full-term superintendent."

[2:33:30] But, then this group decides to vote and say, "Hey, we want to put the interim

[2:33:36] um in motion." Now, you're kind of going against what

[2:33:40] the popular vote said. So, it's just a cautionary tale. I can see it both ways.

[2:33:45] I think the survey should be done, but I'm just trying to think through the

[2:33:47] entire process and and what could possibly happen.

[2:33:56] » [clears throat] >> Other thoughts?

[2:34:02] I I will add to that. It's the

[2:34:05] Oh. Sorry. One more thing I'm thinking about

[2:34:08] the survey and who it goes out to. Um you know, I know we said parents, but

[2:34:12] there's some parents of kids that would be impacted by this that

[2:34:18] aren't going to get that survey because they're not in the system yet, but they

[2:34:21] would be, right? So, like thinking about kids that have preschoolers

[2:34:25] um that if this decision is made for another interim versus waiting a year a

[2:34:32] expedited search that wouldn't have a say um because

[2:34:35] their kids are right on that cusp of not being in school to be counted in

[2:34:39] whatever email system there is. So, just something to consider.

[2:34:48] Um one thing I would um ask you to consider

[2:34:53] is to educate the public on what this timeline is going to look like and what

[2:34:59] it all entails. Because someone's going to say it's an interim, it's going to be

[2:35:03] 4 months, but what does that look like? So, if if you give them some more

[2:35:07] information, they might be able to make a better decision.

[2:35:10] Thank you.

[2:35:17] Anyone else? Anyone else from the board?

[2:35:24] Um

[2:35:27] On the Did we put the dates on there? So, it's going to go We think

[2:35:32] and I'm not even positive that we I'm hoping that Sean can

[2:35:37] Who's that?

[2:35:40] You have no thoughts? I I don't know that Sean can do this by Monday.

[2:35:44] You know, there's there's So,

[2:35:46] uh

[2:35:48] there's that. Okay. There's a lot

[2:35:52] There's a lot going on. Today's Thursday. Tomorrow's Friday. Mhm.

[2:35:56] Um

[2:36:02] If this is not able to be done by

[2:36:07] a certain date, I don't know. I just I I feel that we

[2:36:11] are really tying ourselves up in some real big

[2:36:14] unlisted timing knots that are going to hurt ourselves. Mhm.

[2:36:27] Does that change anybody's thoughts? All right.

[2:36:30] Um so,

[2:36:33] all those in favor of uh creating and sending out a

[2:36:38] survey, if possible, on Monday, um please say I.

[2:36:45] I. I. Opposed?

[2:36:52] And we have it.

[2:36:56] All right. Whoops. Sorry.

[2:37:04] Uh next, as we talked about, is uh April and May School Committee meetings.

[2:37:10] Uh What are folks We already have School

[2:37:13] Committee meet- meetings scheduled for May 14th and May 28th.

[2:37:18] Um, we know that we're we really are going to need another

[2:37:22] um, meeting uh, and the one that we are thinking

[2:37:25] about is April 30th. Uh, which we need both for budget

[2:37:30] reasons as well as for the search questions.

[2:37:34] Uh, does April 30th work for you folks?

[2:37:41] I'm going to say no. That's probably wise.

[2:37:46] So, I'll abstain from any vote.

[2:37:50] Okay, and Mike, this I've not done before. How do we check on room

[2:37:55] availability? Uh,

[2:37:57] Anne talk to Paul and

[2:38:00] Okay. Tim. Okay, thank you.

[2:38:05] All right. Next is the consent agenda.

[2:38:12] Mike, approval well, approval of warrants. I just thought before we

[2:38:18] approve these warrants, Mike Mike give us a little

[2:38:22] how we get to this point with these warrants that showed up in your

[2:38:26] drives. Yeah, so I'm already in trouble.

[2:38:30] There were warrants that I was supposed to bring for you to sign. So, what

[2:38:34] happens is every uh, all during

[2:38:37] every day, we're paying bills and setting up warrants

[2:38:42] uh, that a committee member needs to go in and sign.

[2:38:46] Um, so there is a warrant in my office that

[2:38:50] was supposed to come with me so somebody can sign it.

[2:38:53] Uh, so I do need someone to come tomorrow

[2:38:56] and sign. Um, but we build the warrants, it's all the

[2:39:00] bills for the month and you go through them, review them,

[2:39:04] sign off on them, and then they come in this form

[2:39:08] uh on the agenda

[2:39:11] after the fact. Uh so, the ones that are on this are

[2:39:16] uh from previous, but we we do have a warrant. I don't know if you're

[2:39:20] available tomorrow to go over to Forest or someone.

[2:39:26] Cuz if you can't, so I'm I'm off work tomorrow, so I can go That would be

[2:39:29] cool. I got to go into Boston tomorrow.

[2:39:31] » Yeah. What else am I doing?

[2:39:35] So, that's the process. It It's every 2 weeks there's a warrant to be

[2:39:40] signed. It has every bill, every backup, all the invoices.

[2:39:45] And then if

[2:39:48] they get them to me like they did, I can bring them here, save some time.

[2:39:52] Um but, we'll do that. So, that's how the warrant process goes, so that the

[2:39:57] board is aware of what we're spending uh on a daily basis.

[2:40:02] And also involves some uh series of checks

[2:40:08] uh different kind of checks. Uh

[2:40:10] the department head signs, you sign. Purchase Yeah, the whole requisition,

[2:40:16] purchase order, everything goes through a

[2:40:19] uh a checks and balances and really a number of approval

[2:40:23] for the payment. And and then the school committee

[2:40:26] members sign them before they come to the full board.

[2:40:31] Um so, uh a movie that we we uh approved the warrants

[2:40:39] uh that have gone through that process that were in your uh that were in your

[2:40:43] uh drive.

[2:40:45] I have a second? Second.

[2:40:48] All those in favor? I. I. I. And that's unanimous.

[2:40:55] Uh and so, we're down to information.

[2:40:59] Uh Middleborough High School Speech and Theater workshop is uh June 12th and

[2:41:04] 13th. Middleborough High School class of 2026

[2:41:08] have online sales

[2:41:12] um they're happening that you you saw in your um

[2:41:17] in your drive. Uh I also wanted to note that we got an

[2:41:21] invitation from um Miss Sacha from Meg to

[2:41:27] go to the space camp on Tuesday. Um and and those are wonderful events as well

[2:41:33] as uh a request that maybe that she could come to a bring the kids to a

[2:41:39] future uh school committee meeting which I think would be fabulous. And so I I

[2:41:43] will pursue uh getting them here for that.

[2:41:49] With all of that, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

[2:41:56] Someone has to say so moved. So moved.

[2:41:59] And second? Second. All those in favor? I. I.

[2:42:05] Thank you and good night.

[2:42:09] Bye. What time are you I mean on Wednesday I'll drop the kids

[2:42:12] off in the morning and Any time. Are you

[2:42:15] you're at school?

[2:42:17] » Yeah, I'm at Yeah, I know. No, they're usually at Oh. Forest. So if

[2:42:21] you brought them over to me Oh, okay. Oh, I forgot to bring you the money.

[2:42:24] Okay. I'll um I'm going to do it. I'll Yeah,

[2:42:27] I'll try to get there Get them off the bus and get them back.

Middleborough Public Schools School Committee Meeting - April 9, 2026

Transcript