 I call this regular meet school committee meeting of Thursday February 28th 2013 to order. We're going to immediately go into our public public hearing on the FY 14 budget review. Do I have to call that order also. Okay, so we will go to that. And for the public participation. We have Mr. Cardin and you can have up to seven minutes or right. He's the only person listed so. Thank you. Thank you for your time and attention to these important matters. I'm going to speak first generally about a couple of budgeting issues. And then we'll speak specifically about one item of concern. So I just want to echo a couple comments that some of the committee members have made in recent meetings or in blogs or whatever. So one is Mr. Thielman at the last meeting you talked about taking another look at the budget in late May or early June. I really think that's an important step to take. It's something that sort of been glossed over or hasn't been done in years past. That's one of the main causes of the budget deficit was that by May it was clear that the grants were going to be slashed and it never came before the committee. In the last two years it's been the opposite. It's been clear by May or June that the grants actually weren't going to be slashed. They're going to be level funded. And there was actually more money to spend. And as a result of not discussing that unclear how that money was spent it ended up being just carried over yet surpluses whatever. So I think it's very important that you sit down in May or June. And again over the summer one during your summer meeting to seriously as an agenda item take another look at the budget. And maybe you'll find you can fund some of those priorities that you have on that list that you currently you cannot fund. And it's important to try to do that. We've got lots of reserves now. We've got money in revolving accounts. We've got the Sped Reserve. We've got that circuit breaker that's rolling over. So we can be a little bit more aggressive in spending some of that money that gets freed up in the spring. The other item that you also will know presumably by that time is the number of retirements that you're having. And it's you know in years past we've had a significant number that has resulted in significant amount of savings because the teachers that get hired get paid much less. So I would ask you to look at those three things in the spring and I'll be back in public participation to remind you to do that if it's not an agenda item. The other thing that I think Mr. Schuchman has on his website is strategic planning. And it's been discussed a little bit but I haven't seen any action on that. I really think you know together with the budgeting it would be very helpful to have at least a three-year plan about what we're looking to do as a district. So with math intervention we talk about it. We talk about it. Where's the plan. So let's put together a strategic plan. Again there's been a lot of talk about it. You've asked for that. Maybe I've been talking about that that it's being worked on but let's try to do that. It would be great to have that with the budget for for FIDNCOM but that's getting really close. So maybe for next year we'll make it a yearly exercise. We'll update the plan strategic plan along with the budget. So those are two sort of long term things that would be very helpful. And looking at this budget you know I also they have more time I will also commend Diane Johnson for the progress she's made in making a very detailed and transparent budget. It's certainly much better as far as the level of detail than than many other districts around us. The marketing piece the sort of the strategic portion. Again those were comments you had at the last meeting still needs some work but the budget detail is is is tremendous. And the budget detail does sort of allow people to you know pick at little things and and and attack here and there. And that's sort of the downside of having transparency but overall it's a good thing for the district. So the one thing that I am concerned about and I did put a possible motion in front of you is the the sharp reduction in special education teaching assistance that's part of this budget plan. I am specifically concerned about the TAs but I'm also concerned about the overall funding for special education. The special education portion of the budget overall if you look at section 10 is only increasing by $14,000 over the FY 13 budget that's not nearly enough to even cover contractual increases for SPED staff. So really you're talking about a net reduction of SPED resources at a time when there's really no evidence that SPED needs are decreasing. And in fact the transition to the inclusion model that that it's a very important thing to do it actually requires a short term investment because what you what your plan is is you've got this program at Pierce that you need to maintain for a few years. You're building up this the inclusion model of the other schools. You're actually not doing it gradually you're doing it all at once which is the right way to do it. But you've got to maintain both those programs at the same time. The Pierce program over time will go down. They've got six and a half special ed teachers over time. They like the other schools when we have two. So you will free up teachers from Pierce will be freeing up some this year. And in following years you'll free up more. But in the meantime you've got to maintain you've got to invest in those other schools. So that investment is those learning specialists. But we shouldn't pay for that investment by cutting other bodies. And that's what these TAs that's what's being done here. Certainly there's maybe too many TAs in some schools on balances. There's over reliance on them. You'll hear if if if this is discussed at the committee you'll hear from the administration I'm sure that they want to redo it. The TAs aren't being utilized properly. They're not being supervised. So the new model is very important. And under the new model the TAs will report to the learning specialists. But they'll only be one per learning specialist and that's really not going to be enough. So you're going to have I think you're getting a chart. You're going to have one learning specialist and two TAs in one TA covering three grades. So two bodies covering three grades. And you have kids that have needs that have detention issues or learning issues that are going to need help in those classrooms. And that's just not enough people. So my proposal is to increase the number in those other six schools. Pierce is again a separate model still. But in the other six elementary schools put two more in. So there'll be four TAs. Most of the schools currently have five or six TAs. So you're still reducing the number. You're just not reducing it as drastically. So just a couple more things about that. You know, you might hear about the research about over dependence on TAs. The research is actually about the proper use of TAs. Again, they need to be supervised by a licensed professional. That's a very important part of the model and very supportive of that is something we're currently not doing right. And that's something that should change. But it doesn't say anywhere that you shouldn't have TAs helping kids. It just says you shouldn't over-reli on them. What is over-reliance? Well, maybe a full-time TA in every class is over-reliance. But we're nowhere near that. You know, typically we have one TA per grade. That's one TA spread across three classes. And in my model, that'll pretty much say the same. In the other model, you'll have, again, one TA and one learning specialist spread across six classes at least. Actually, that's nine classes, three grades, nine classes. So that's my proposal. I hope you'll think about it. As far as paying for it, you know, I think as a committee in years past, you've had these motions where you deduct X dollars from one line and put X dollars into another line. And they don't think that's a wonderful way to operate. At this stage, you have another meeting coming up where you're going to approve the budget. So you can just sort of make very general recommendations, as I did in my motion, and have the administrative team come back with their proposal. As far as my own ideas, again, there is all that money in revolving accounts that we probably are running a surplus this year as we have in past years. So there's lots of one-time spending items in the budget, all of the new curriculum materials, the software you want to buy. There's $95,000 just under the initiative portion of new initiatives. And all that spending could be done either through our current surplus or out of the revolving funds. And then you'll have more money to pay for these TAs. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I saw a couple other people enter after we had started. If anyone wants to speak at this point, no, okay. Okay. That concludes the public budget hearing portion of our meeting. Thank you, Mr. Cardin, for participating and other members of our audience. And if there's those of you at home who are unable to attend, we would welcome your comments. They can be sent by email to Ms. Fitzgerald, and she'll distribute them to all members. Our email is on the website under school committee, and you can find her email there. And I didn't welcome Ms. Siobhan, who's here on behalf of the AEA. We're also missing Mr. Pierce, who's out of the country, and Ms. Hyam, who is ill this morning, or this today. And so we've all moved just to not look so, so I'm not so lonely at the top. And I'd like to end this portion with a quote from former select woman annual court, who has multiple times said, a budget is an expression of our values. And I hope all of our members will keep this in mind as we continue our discussion of how money's in FY 14 will be a portion. And with that, we move on to public participation, having none. We move on to Dr. Boatting, discussion of FY 14 budget. This portion of the discussion is actually an opportunity for the school committee to get some clarification on budget items, ask questions. I think that there are some issues that people would like to discuss, and we're here prepared this evening to answer your questions. Ms. Lockyer, our director of special education is here this evening as well. Does she want to start with a presentation? Anybody? I'm glad you would have you want. I'm sorry? Whatever you would like. Yeah, I think that would be good. Okay. All right. So I think what you're looking for, and tell me if this is accurate, you'd like a little bit more explanation of the proposal for next year with respect to the elementary learning specialists assigned to elementary education. And the number of TAs that we will have supporting those programs. And there may be other issues that you also have, but do you want to speak to that? I will, and I'd be glad to respond to questions because, you know, I heard Mr. Cardin's presentation tonight with, we have spoken previously about some related issues. So I don't want to just speak to that. So I'd like to make sure of the other questions, but I do want to clarify a few things. One of the things in Len's presentation that there is a discrepancy about, and it's probably an important one. It's important to me. And it explains why there's continuing talk that we're eliminating co-teaching in the district, which we are not doing. There is not a plan at Pierce to continue to reduce staff there right now. I think where, at least my thoughts about this, and I want to make sure everybody knows this. That is my recommendation is to carefully watch what we're doing there, carefully watch the need for co-teaching and the needs of students. So we haven't made a determination that, in fact, the Pierce model, Pierce is going to continue as a co-teaching school. We're going to be looking for the aspects of co-teaching to be able to build those in all the other schools. The collaboration aspects, the communication, the common planning time, many of the aspects you see in a co-teaching school we want to replicate across the district. I also have the thoughts about watching carefully the students who have a need for additional support in any way in inclusive education. And I think that was the original intent of the co-teaching model. So we're watching that carefully. So we're not that aspect of what Len presented is not part of the plan at this present time. And I think that does make a difference in letting you know that there's a philosophical underpinning of actually taking the aspects of co-teaching that we know are very worthwhile and spreading them across the district. One other thing is, as he spoke and he's done his research, there clearly is a concern about over-reliance on TAs. In particular, as the predominant, certainly not the only, but the predominant way that we move to resolve ways to support inclusion and support children in inclusion. The use of paraprofessionals is an absolutely valid way to support students. In my whole career, I've certainly worked with paraprofessionals. It's not anything we don't value in the system. I think actually some of the things that we've talked about in the past and we talked about earlier tonight, I think that we want to make sure that the training of staff is appropriate to the things that we're asking them to do to support students. I don't think we're there as yet. We want to make sure that there's a very strategic and shared reason for what that teacher assistant is going to be doing and going to ask to do to support students. And we want to make sure that they get ongoing support, that they have time to collaborate with the person they're working with. In this state and regulations, a paraprofessional needs to work under the direction of a certified special educator. One of our intents in this plan was to increase the number of certified special education staff in each building. And it's not just the learning specialists. I think the community and the school committee have been doing that for the years. I've been here by increasing and we're looking at the roles of related service. We've increased related service staff. We've increased social service staff. We're really trying to build staff at each of the elementary schools and across the district and middle school and high school who will be not only working directly with students, but will also be helping paraprofessionals and others who support students. So that's the intent of what we're doing. There certainly was a look at the resources that we had and try to really think about, given all we know, it's not just the research on teacher assistance, that's one piece of it. But it's also what are the other ways that we can support students that are effective, we know they're effective and want to do more of. Another piece that I want to make sure people know are connected to this is the use of the TEAD instruction and RTI in General Ed. The partnership with General Ed and Special Ed is something that we're walking one way and General Ed's walking so that we can be together and really supporting students who may not be making the progress we want them to make, but may not have a disability that's causing that. So we really want to have that continuum of support. And the other thing that's difficult for me is I don't want to sit here as Director of Special Education and argue against money being spent in special education. The question of is this enough, is one that I can't answer. I think that's something that we look at all the time to see what are the supports we need. I think we've come up with a really comprehensive plan. Once the budgets voted in whenever that happens, I think we have a lot of work to do. Not just special education, but general education. We have been speaking with principals about setting collaborative structures together in schools, about teaming. There's a lot of work that we're looking forward to do together so that we can really point to improvements and have parents be involved in feeling confident about the experience that students are going to be having. That's more or less my statement and I have colleagues here who could add to it because we certainly have been discussing all of this. So I don't take any issue with Mr. Carden's placement. I think what he's bringing up is extremely understandable. I think it's all well intended. And I think that the challenges that we have are really to do some of the things in special education that based on everything we know have a higher predictability of improving educational outcomes for students than what we are doing right now. And I have voiced the opinion that our over reliance on one methodology is something that I view as a weakness in our special education planning. Thank you. Dr. Bodie, do you want to add anything to that? Well, I would concur that we have discussed this at great length over the last couple of months and there's no mystery to the committee that we are working with limited resources. But even if we had more resources than we currently have, we would be putting this type of program in place. It's very clear and I think you've said it very well, Kathleen, that what we want to do is to put in place a structure which we know will have more surety of improving instruction and student achievement than we currently are doing. What we're doing is very good. I'm not in any way saying that it's not, but we can do better. And we've talked at this table back in the fall looking at our achievement gap, which every year decreases, but we want to make sure that that achievement gap decreases at a faster rate. And if we continue to do exactly what we're doing, we're going to probably get the same results and same improvement going forward, but we're not going to get the acceleration and the improvement that we all want to see. Now, could we have, could it be more effective if we were to have more TAs? I don't think that we would argue with that issue. It's an issue of what else would we reduce in order to have that? Do we think that what we're proposing is going to be better than what we currently have? Yes. Do we think that's going to be effective? Yes. Could it be more effective? Of course. But when we're also trading this off about whether we're going to have math support or we're going to have the materials that we need or other things that are really high on our priority list, we feel that what we've made as a proposal is very balanced in terms of the needs of the whole system. Mr. Thielen. Did you want to go, Diane? If I may, I'd add one little point is that by adding, we are adding a teaching assistant who will be under the direct supervision of the principal at each elementary school to provide that sort of catches catch can help that's so vital to the smooth running of a school. So it's not just the two teaching assistants on each under the learning specialist. There's a third teaching assistant in the budget we've proposed that'll be at the discretion of the principal for there to meet the more administrative technical photocopying whatever needs they have. If you don't mind, probably just before we leave that point, this probably at least one other thing I want to say. Two other teaching assistants are going to be two actual BSPs will be working on the direction of the person who's involved with who's a BCBA, but she's also heading up our behavioral initiative across the district. That would be Jill Parkin and the other BCBA is working in the district. So they will also have two TAs that they're going to be training in behavioral management techniques. The issues of behavioral management, especially short term issues for students, issues of being able to actually work as effectively as they can within the groupings and classrooms are often the reason for, you know, referrals or emergency calls. And sometimes it takes a little bit to figure out what's going on and really responding to that so a student can get back on track. So that will give Jill and the TAs, the BCBA is working with her the ability to really get into programs. And we have tried these techniques this year to some extent at a few schools to really get in there and work longer term with a student, say three to six weeks and to try to help students get back on track. So that's another use of we're using the same intervention of using TAs, but we're using them in a different way than we've done previously in the district. There's also, you know, our related service staff will be doing training, embedded training, so that people understand the services that are needed for those students, how they as paraprofessionals can carry out some of those other goals with students and develop skills. So there's more to this that's hard to talk about in a kind of soundbite at a school committee, but I just thought I should definitely mention the other because that's a district wide use. Before we go on, can you just explain what BCBA means? Well, I'm sorry. Yeah. The BCBA is a train to work in behavioral analysis with students. They are data driven. They will observe, develop behavior plans, train staff at schools, how to respond to behavior. And it's behavioral management and helps students actually acclimate to the classroom and to the demands of the classroom. And BCBA means it stands for? Board certified behavioral analyst. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Thiem. Thank you. You were good. Yeah, I'm still, I'm going to ask my questions. But you answered a lot of them. So thanks for doing that. My question was going to be in instead of TAs, how are we using our dollars? And you kind of answered a lot of that. But the follow-up question is this. How many TAs do we have right now in each of the elementary schools? How many will we have next year, roughly? We have, it varies from school to school. But in general, the model has been the target of one per grade. So five, not including kindergarten, who has a TAs from a different source. Right. And we will be going to three. Three. Two that will be specifically special ed. One that will be specifically the principals. And that will be made up by, going from five to three, that the reduction in those two positions, we met up with what you just described, right? The behavioral specialists who are going to be training teachers. Is that? Well, that does, and the second learning specialist. Second learning specialist. It's the addition of the second learning specialist at the building. Okay. Primarily. But we're looking at those other positions, which will be, those are two district wide. So they're for all seven schools. I mean all nine schools actually. And could you just speak, you actually, my question was going to be about the professional development. You're going to offer teachers around this, but you kind of, you've actually addressed a lot of it. And you're, so are we going to see a different kind of professional development to our teachers as a result of the reduction in the TAs and with the use of the behavioral specialists? Yes. And all, and we're working on planning that. We have a design for it. We've also tried some of it. We're trying right now a form of embedded training. A combination of kind of the typical professional developments and initial training sessions. But with some coaching at the schools and also kind of in residence consultation in the school and demonstration. And that's in the area of social cognition and social thinking. And if I could put a little plug in, we actually have the consultant who's working with us, who's a nationally known consultant in the area of social thinking and social cognition. Pamela E. Lee doing a presentation Monday night at Autism Middle School, 6.30 to 9, and would welcome anybody to come. It's especially suited for parents and professionals. And, but would love community members. It's a very exciting project and that's been going on for two years in the district. We're particularly, we've been talking and looking at the areas that fall under a term, which is executive function skills. As some of the skills that we know students need to really be able to access their education, access curriculum and make the best progress. And that's a focus that's starting now and moving into the next year. So my question is actually kind of a higher one from Jeff. So what I want to understand is how much current special ed staff total, not just TAs, are currently at each elementary school other than Dallin? Because I know that that's a, I mean not Dallin, Pierce, because I know that's a special case. So right now we have five TAs. You want it? Well, we're supposed to have five TAs. Okay. That's not always. On average, okay. So they have five TAs and. And we have a learning specialist. Okay. We have the current model prior to reopening the Thompson, which we're going to expand into the Thompson, is half a social worker. I'm sorry, half a psychologist, half a team chair, a full social worker, and in most cases a full OT or most of an OT. And same thing with speech. No, a full speech and language therapist. And then we don't have a full but probably. Pointing. Minimum of a half OT a little bit more in most schools. And how will that, what will the numbers be like in the new budget? There'll be a second learning specialist. Okay. So we'll have, we're going to have the two TAs, still a learning specialist, but now there'll be two. Now there'll be two of them. Still half the psychologist, or now we're going to full psychologist. No, half a psychologist. Still half the psychologist. Half of the team chair. The, what's an SW? What did I write there? Social work. Social work. Speech and language isn't changing and the OT isn't changing. Correct. So all the other stuff. The OT will be increased because of the reopening of Thompson, but the proportion of it is really case dependent. Right. And. So as needed basically, but at least enough. And the coordinators at the elementary level will be changing. That structure is changing and the number of BS. BCBA is changing as well. So district wide. We're also adding more people. Correct. With teaching, with teaching assistance under them for short term targeted interventions. So that there's a crisis. There'll be bodies to deploy. To help get things together. And then they can be redeployed somewhere else as opposed to being a permanent insertion. Well, and that's an important point to make for the administrative structure and the assignment of staff. The reason why people are going to be more school based is really to be able to support inclusion and support different kinds of models and structures happening within buildings to basically be out in the field. And have a realistic work load of students that they're in classes that they're looking in on and looking after. So that we really can have a higher presence to support everyone, general ed, special ed staff and the needs of students with special education. So right now we are looking at a reduction of 18 TAs across. It is bigger than that because there are some schools that have more than the five. All right. But at this point, no, in the new budget, no one would have more than two. Three, because there's a principal's TA as well. Two special ed TAs. But it is important. That's not a special ed TA though. True. But it is important in terms of the principal's needs that we remember that third TA. Okay. But that's not a special ed. It's not special ed. Not special ed. Right, right, right. Okay. All right. Thank you. That was my questions. Yeah. Just a clarification. The reduction of TAs, are they all special ed TAs that are being reduced or when you said that in the new plan, there will be two plus one. And the differentiation was that the one is not a special ed. Is the reduction all special ed? Well, right now all of those inclusion TAs are funded out of the special ed budget as has been the traditional case. But they are not 100% deployed only helping special ed students. So we're trying to make it a little cleaner. Okay. In terms of duties. You know, who do they answer to? Whose professional development are they following? What are their tasks? And to make it to be very distinct. I just want to make one thing clear to everybody that any change in any child's program, special education, individual program has to be approved by the parent in their IEP. So if that's a concern for the parents as a result of this organization or the new program coming through, they need to be reassured in that. I am sure they already know that. There's no one stronger advocate for your child than the parent. But these changes from my perspective as a former educator to me just, I cannot tell you how great this will be when it's done. I would ask Dr. Bodie and the staff to report to us on a regular basis of how things are going in the upcoming year. I'm not asking for it in day one but in a reasonable amount of time to keep us informed and keep everyone else informed. I think there's another point to be made and I would make this to Mr. Cardin's presentation tonight. The plan that we have is based on the needs that we have identified right now. In special education we're always looking at those needs and we're needing to respond to that. And that's a commitment that I can make on the behalf of all of our staff is what all of us want is for the students and staff to be supported in the best way that we can do. So this is a plan that's been made. It's been built over the last two months. There's needs we can predict. We have better data than we've had to make these decisions in the past. So we're using that but it's March. So when there are changes we'll be coming back and looking to do that. Our intent is to make sure we are improving our services to students in each of the elementary schools at the middle school and at the high school in a way that is we're seeing demonstrated improvement in student outcomes. That's our goal. I was just curious. Is there a hard copy of this plan somewhere or something that would be easy to look at? The superintendent's budget message in the beginning of the budget document which is out on the website. It has it broken down kind of like a flow chart. Well it has the description of what our plan involves verbally and then it has it in spreadsheets with the additions to the budget. But it's more on a financial kind of a outlook. I'm looking for something that would have more of like a, I'm a little confused about the TAs that are under the learning specialist and then the TA under the principal. I'm just kind of a little confused about the responsibilities of all of these people. I think you said you were going to try and do more of a push in model than a pull out model with this new. We've been doing that for the past two years looking where that's appropriate. So the students aren't being, so the staff and methodology is happens in the classroom and in settings outside the classroom where that's necessary. But that's a part of what most staff have been working on over the past year and a half. But there is no flow chart kind of a diagram, something that would put in place all of these. A nice org chart. Let me speak that a little bit. There is some ability going forward next year to tailor this a little bit to the needs of a particular school. But if you were to say what would be generally how it would look, there would be a learning specialist for grades K to 2 who would have a TA assigned to her or him. And then the other learning specialist would be grades 3 to 5 with the teaching assistant assigned. And so there would be, they would be working with those particular grades. But it could be that that might not be the best arrangement in a particular elementary school. And so there's going to be some discretion on the part of the principal to look at that to meet the needs of the students. And I think, you know, that sometimes in a school you might have more needed a particular grade than another grade. And that just happens for whatever reason. So that's the general idea of it, but I think it will probably be tweaked a little bit depending on the school. And it could be tweaked in terms of more TAs being hired if needed? It's possible. Yes, it's possible. And we will have a better idea certainly on our budget as we go forward in terms of especially the issue of state and federal aid. Right now the assumption we have in the budget is that we're going to have a reduction of 8%. Initially in the fall what was suggested was in the 8 to 10%. We decided to not go super conservative but stay at 8. Right now the talk is 6, but who knows really what it will be when we actually get through this change over tomorrow at the federal level. We just don't know. So but I think we'll have a better idea as we go forward and certainly if there was a need we would do everything we can to meet that need. Just like we have done with classes that have been particularly large and there have been a need for more support there. We have reached out to that. In our budget right now we have two reserve positions. And I don't look at them necessarily as teaching, but I look at them as money, how it can be used in perhaps a different way. So I mean if you're thinking about it that way you could have potentially six teaching assistants if we needed that. What our experience has been though is that sometimes you need a piece of something like a point to Spanish or physics or whatever or something at the middle school. So we don't, this is a blue budget is yes it shows our values. And I think that this is clearly showing what our values are which is that we want to support students and staff. And providing the best possible education for all students. And we're doing it within the limitations of our resources to the best that we can. And as we go forward the other thing to know about a budget is all of this is a blueprint. Things change. You don't spend as much on fuel as you were. You look at actuals and see where they go. But there are a lot of things that change over the course of the year. And so we will adjust when we need to adjust. And if there's needs we'll try to meet those needs. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Schuchman any questions? As I'm looking at this when I see a reduction in teaching assistants the thing that concerns me is that we're really making expectations of teachers to be doing a good job. In terms of differentiated instruction and that's certainly dependent on class sizes. I'm just sort of wondering at this point how kindergarten registrations coming in and what our projections are for class sizes. And are we going to have manageable classrooms under the structure? Well registrations will start next week. Okay. We sent out packets to a little over 460 families. But we've also gotten a stack back that people weren't at the address we sent them to. So I'll be able to tell you better at the March 28th meeting. And do we anticipate for the upper grades in the elementary that we're going to have manageable class sizes to support the model? We will have a range as we have right now. I'm hoping that as new students move into the district and we have new students moving into the district all the time. That we will be able to try to manage that a little bit better than we have been able to in past years. But this is our first time at it and we'll just have to see how it goes this spring. I have a question about the special education stuff. So in the code teaching model there's a special education instructor and a regular education instructor code teaching. This is my understanding. Who in the more direct inclusion model, who's providing the sort of support that the special education instructor is supplying in the code teaching model? Is it the learning specialist? So they're a teacher but they have a different name. I get confused by the language. And it is confusing. We did actually think about going to using a different term for everybody. But we want to make sure that we recognize the code teaching model that's been existing. And it seems right now the best thing to do is to stick with the learning specialist model. Even though we're somewhat changing that model and beefing it up. But inherently it's the same job that that staff does right now. Which is to support students who have their program is primarily in inclusive settings. And in supporting those students to access the curriculum and to develop skills. And that's more when they need to be in a different setting to develop skills to be able to do that within the classroom. But it necessitates part of the reason for adding staff theories. It necessitates working with students building skills. And then working with them in a general ed classroom to be able to demonstrate those skills and use them within the curriculum. And so that is part of the rationale. So they can have more time doing that. Okay. And part of the reason that I was asking about that is that we were given these articles about the TAs. The best practices and stuff. We only got them yesterday. I know. I just skimmed it and looked at it. But it did talk about in addition to saying well sometimes the TAs are not appropriately deployed. And this is in general not talking about our school. This is the article. Yeah. But that where really there's a need for a special education specialist. Absolutely. And that was I think partly I at least I get tripped up by calling it a learning specialist and not. Yeah. Not a teacher. Mr. Heiner. When I was involved in the inclusion part part of my training and eventually the specialist, the learning specialist whether for whatever skill he or she and I would meet. They would say to me what do you plan on teaching over the next week or so? They would say well we might need some adaptions here and stuff like this. And slowly my teaching styles became as Mr. Schlickman said that all inclusive aspect of good practices were developing. That I slowly learned that by adapting to some of the special needs of my students there were good practices for everyone. And the my evolution the specialist still came in. But eventually the child was able to get involved in all the activities with everybody on an equal footing. This isn't every child every time but more and more children were able to do this and go out of the classroom less. I've got to tell you as a classroom teacher nothing is more disruptive when one or two are going out for the first half hour and two or three a couple of hours and you're trying to maintain continuity and the expectations going back and forth. The more we can keep them in the room. I mean I'm speaking as a teacher. Ms. Wally can attest to this too. The better off everybody is and the socialization aspect of it is just phenomenal. And after a while with the specialists coming in and out the children were all children were expecting the specialists coming in and out. And it became a very positive thing for everybody and as well as the teachers as well. Thank you. And I would say that you know if I had a wish list for you know right now to talk about what we want to look at. Just in talking with a few principles today for instance but all the principles moving forward for sure is really looking at that collaborative piece. Making sure there's a way for it was mentioned about the change in role for general education or the broadening of a role for general education. Making sure that we can find a way to have that collaboration and planning happen. It's critical and I think supporting principles and being able to support staff is probably at the top of my wish list to think about how we can create structures and support for that to happen. That's you know a critical need. So I don't want to say this is perfect and it's done it's not. There are needs that will develop and but I have you know some real confidence that the school committee this community's been so responsive in in working with plans to really support students so far. We'll figure that out as it comes about. Thank you. Does anyone have any further questions about special education? Okay. So we're actually discussing the entire budget. So first of all, thank you Ms. Lockhart for your information about the special education budget. Before we just see if there's any remaining questions on the rest of budget. Dr. Bode do you want to acknowledge the staff who have come. I remember the members of the administrative team are here this evening and the back row Stephanie Zerchikoff principal bracket. Sherry Donovan principal Thompson. Deb D'Amico principal Hardy. And then in front of Deb is Larry Weathers who are as director of science. Thank you for being here and I'm Mary Valano will be up here shortly. There's multiple things going on in the high school today. Okay. Well, thank you all. I just wanted to be sure that you had the credit we appreciate you're coming out. So at this point, does anyone have any questions about the rest of the budget? Okay. I don't see any questions. I have one. So it's actually more of a comment than a question and I'm not sure how to handle it. The last when we last met, I asked where Thompson fuel was listed on the thing and what we were told is that the spending for fuel and stuff is all gathered in a lump as his maintenance and some other things. And I just want to comment that I can understand administratively it's helpful to have it all together. But when we're looking at it and especially, for example, the maintenance when we're looking with an eye of are we maintaining our facilities adequately? It's hard for me to look at one chunk of money here and all the spending that we've done in the past is is elsewhere and not gathered. And if I can understand that it's easier for you thinking wise to do it that way. But for things like that, I at least would appreciate a pullout sheet where the, you know, like all the maintenance for the different schools is lumped together so we can see it compared. I think I'll just mention I'm telling the budget subcommittee chair. But going forward, I think anything that is spent in that is now being budgeted in big bunches. I think we should for comparison sake have pullouts of or at least I would like that idea discussed. Yeah, well, just all the different schools, you know, maintenance for Thompson. Yeah, everything like we like I do for special education. Yes, I can do a section for facilities. It's not a big deal. Yeah. And facilities feel anything where you're spent when you're budgeting now into a big pot. But all the spending is being accrued by the facilities. Okay. Yes. Yes, I would like that. Do you want it for this year? Okay. Thank you. Okay. Anything else? Okay. And I think we're set with budget and we will move on to the next portion of our meetings at this point. So, okay. So now we have the warrant and the articles. Okay. Articles that were two articles were pulled out article nine. And we have the warrant and some people article nine is granting of easements for the Thompson school. And then also article 11, which is just a couple below that both of these are mentioned in our minutes because I mean in our agenda agenda because the board of committee has asked us to make any comments that we want to make. So since I would assume we just we approve the granting of the easements. I mean, this is what we needed to have done. Right. It's actually a formality that Verizon would like us to have just so that they can have a legal basis for it. The fact of the matter is we're moving forward on this right now. And we, because we have to, if you don't do it, the project is not going to move forward and it will hold it up. But even though it's sort of a something that will happen and a warrant article and approval that occurs later, it's really just to have as a legality. Mr. Hinner. I assume there were polls prior when the old Thompson was there. Are these polls on technically school property? And is that why we're involved? Or is it town property? Well, technically it'd be school because well actually everybody, I say everybody, the town manager and I do and the chair of the school committee sign off on some of these easements. So yes, they are on school property, but they're town as well. If we decided to make the town wanted a parking lot in the front yard out here, that's considered school property. That's school property. Right. We would have to deed it. But this is a combined thing you're saying between this. Where the polls are located, it requires the approval of the school committee. We have a diagram in the back. You can't have this one. I have to sign this. In the new one. Okay. Thank you. I'm fine. Okay. I'm calling on my long-ranging or long-standing town meeting members. So what do we just need to say? We should probably move approval of this and send that to the, send that because we didn't insert the article. Okay. I don't want to say that we think it should go forward. But is it approval or is it something else? I'm blanking on the word. It's not approval. We'll support it. That's it. Support of article nine. I knew it wasn't. Okay. So can I have a motion, please? Move to support article nine as presented. Okay. Any discussion? Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. So we're done with article nine. Okay. So now actually still on article nine, I'm going to move us to something which you have in your packet on your desk, which is just a letter of consent for assuming that article nine will be passed. I have to sign it now. And I need to be directed to sign it. So I move that the chair is directed to sign the letter of consent for article nine. Second. Okay. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. So I'm going to sign that letter. Okay. Good. That's one done. So now article 11. This is regulation. This is. You need to be directed to sign that to your counterpart. No. This is different. So folks, all these things showed up today like at four o'clock in my email. And so I don't know, I mean, very well what they are. So article 11. Yeah. Okay. So I think we should affect this one. Oh, article 11 is the, this isn't the, this thing, that's something different to see whether the town will vote to amend the bylaws to expand existing restrictions on allowable activities. So this one, this is the one that was inserted by Mr. Jamison who came and talked to us about it to prohibit guns on other lands than just the park stuff. It is unclear to me. And when I spoke to Mr. Pierce, knowing that he wasn't going to be here, it was unclear to him whether because we have some restrictions in usage of our land and buildings in handbooks, whether we need a separate policy or whether it goes. And so I would ask that this, that discussion of this article be moved to the next meeting. No, actually be picked up by policy. So if we could have. So moved. Okay. Any discussion? Mr. Schutman. Well, I think that one of the things we need to be looking at is exactly what the text of the proposed vote is. Yeah. I mean, because we all know that an article is nothing more than a warning that something is going to be considered. And we really should look at this in the context of what the select member recommending for a vote or absent that what proposed vote would be coming from Mr. Jamison. Okay. At this point, this is what we have. This was given to us as flagged as one that we were asked to comment on. However, they gave it to us on February 13th and the meeting that they discussed it at was February 11th. So we can't comment in retrospect. But because of that, that's why I was in part because of that's why I was thinking it needed to be taken up by policy. Are you asking that we wait until the exact language comes? Yeah. I mean, the thing is, is we've got just this town meeting has nothing before them. We've got nothing before us. In essence, all we have is a warrant article on the agenda without a proposed vote. And if we do get the a proposed vote, then we could look at it and see whether we want to support it or we think it's a good idea. Okay. So you're saying you rather wait? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Mr. Hand. Going along with what Mr. Schlickman said that if we don't take any action and it's not going to have any effect, the night of the article coming forward, we have several people here that if it's consensus of the board to support it, it can happen right then and there. I don't think it's going to. When we get closer to town meeting, if there's an actual vote. Language. Language. We can meet as a committee and vote on it. Okay. If the proponent, I'm sorry, Madam Chair. Okay. The reason I brought it up was because I wasn't clear if we have prohibitions in handbooks, which are different than policy, but they're over, they overlap or potentially overlap. And I just wasn't clear if what we have already satisfies this. And it seems like something that policy could look at and think about. But if you folks prefer to wait, that's fine. Given that we don't have any language. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So we'll wait until we get better ones. Okay. So then article 32. So. I'm sorry. Yeah. I went through it. Okay. Okay. Okay. So now. Do you want to, you have down another. So we were just, I had pulled just the two that we had been specifically asked to comment on, even though they asked us after they had the comments for one of them. Madam Chair. What we can do, we can look to see this, any school committee policy that has, is related to this. The handbooks are for students. I believe what Mr. Jameson, this is my understanding is asking, is that, is that any board that has control over any land in the town, that they have the same regulations as the park does with regard to firearms, which means that I believe you can't have possession of or discharge firearms on park land. I don't believe that we have any policy at the school committee that that's specific for anybody, but we could take a look at that and see. The handbook is really for students. So we can, between now and the next meeting, if you want, we can dig into the policy book and see what we might have that may already satisfy this. Okay. Okay. Okay. So article. So this is not meant to be an inclusive discussion of all articles before that we will have, the only discussion that we'll have before town meeting. There will be other times. There will be other times. I, this was just to discuss the ones that we were specifically asked to comment on. Okay. I noticed that also on the agenda said other articles. That's why. Oh, well that was just in case I forgot something. I, I don't want to be labored, but the one I'm, I wanted, wanted to bring forward is one that we had a lot of discussion in the past on and I don't want to omit it. That's all. Okay. Yeah. We will discuss this closer to town meeting. Fine. The language may be clearer. Yes. Thank you. Motion at 32 now. Yeah. Now we're moving on to 32. If I move that the school committee supports article 32 appropriation creation of specialization stabilization fund. Second. Okay. I think we need to. Yeah. Right. We're obviously for it. We have put it on the warrant. Yeah. Okay. Do we have a proposed vote under the article? That would be our action is to propose a vote under the article. I think don't we still need to wait until the language is more clear. Well, if it's our article, we, we would be. We should know what that is. We would be the, the, the next step for us in other words would be to propose a vote under this article. And if we haven't done that as of yet. Okay. Or adopting a vote that would be made, say by Fincom under this article. So again, we don't have anything to do with this right now. We know that we're in favor of doing this and. Well, isn't this the actual language? Yep. Is it placeholder language? Yeah. This is it. Is that the, the actual motion of voted that we will. Yes. So we want town to vote to create a stabilization fund, et cetera, et cetera, as listed right here. Okay. So I think that is what we want. Okay. We should make sure the language conform, check with town council. Julianne wrote, or she wrote that. That is the language that the meeting will be voting. Yes. Okay. Then, then I'm, and we, okay. Then, um, I guess we should vote to report that I don't know. Should we vote? Put it on there. Yeah. Okay. But the thing I'm, here's what I'm thinking is that some, in some report of some committee by virtue of the opening votes in town meeting, the reports of various committees and the recommended votes are before the meeting automatically. So how is the actual vote under this getting into the into the hands of the meeting? That's. I think you should go through the finance committee. Okay. Yeah. I think, I think it goes by recommendation of the finance committee. So I think you should just be in touch with the finance committee. Yeah. Let them know about this. So it's in there. I'll know. I'll know. Okay. It should be in there. It'll be in their report. Okay. Yeah. And this, this was not one that we were asked to comment on by the board. So I mean, this, this, this, and step on the list of the committee members. Okay. I trust you. And that's it. I trust you. Okay. The rest. So that's the warrant articles. I don't want to get my things. Okay. So there was, let me just finish. So this one was an easement also for Thompson. Maybe it is for the polls. It looks like it's still for the polls. Yeah, it is. It's the other one that you need to sign. Yeah. That's exactly right. So does she need to be directed to sign this as well? If the easement has to be done right away, it can't be part of the meeting. So I just signed both of them. Okay. So it's all covered under that. Locality. Okay. We're done. Okay. So now update on Thompson rebuild. Okay. Now we're back to something we understand. So glad that you folks are also as kind of confused. Yeah. He isn't. He's fine. No, I'm confused. So let's get back to education. Okay. So we can manage that. Thompson. Thompson is going along quite well, especially after we get this easement signed agreement. Well, we get the polls. It's going to hold things up if we don't get this done. And it all just sort of, like so many things, it fortunately came in in time for tonight. It just really came to us in the last day or so. It's going well. I hope you've had a chance to drive by. Some of the windows are in now. And it really gives you a much better idea of how things are going to start to look. It's really shaping up. I don't want to put Sherry Dunovan on the spot, but she doesn't usually hear. I don't know if there's anything you would want to say about the rebuild at this point. Can you come up? I'm sorry. Microphone. Sorry. Sorry, Sherry. Sherry has been very busy with this, especially with what we call all of the furniture purchases and technology purchases. Don't ever do that, John. That's really procurement for a big building. Oh, I just can't imagine doing that over and over again. But I had a walk through today. So I'm very, very excited. And I'm going to be able to bring in, not all my teachers at once soon, but in smaller groups, maybe 10 each time. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. It's joyful. And it's just so exciting. I mean, I've been excited through the whole process, but once you go in, the top floor, they've started the sheet rocking and stuff first there. And they're painting the walls right now. I mean, I'm learning a tremendous amount about construction. They also are testing, either tomorrow or on Monday, the big bathrooms upstairs. And the way they test to make sure that they're perfect is they pour in about six inches of water, and it remains like that for 48 hours, or 24 hours, I can't remember. And if you've built the structure like a bowl inside the floor and then the ceiling below, and nothing breaks through, you know that you've built the bathroom perfectly. So they're doing that and are very, very hopeful. There are more whimsical mirrors, or not mirrors, or windows inside the building that I had never even seen in the drawings. And there's a huge round window entering into my office. I had never seen that. So I also can see in there now many things that we told the architect in the first meeting that we loved about our building. They're there in the new building. So I forever thank her, and she's done a fabulous, fabulous job. So it's good. It's muddy. But once you're inside, it's very warm, and it's already a pleasant place to be. I'm very excited. Thank you all. Cool. Thank you very much. Maybe we'll arrange for... I knew you were going to say that. I'm wondering, can we bring a camera? We have a camera? Probably. Well, we're trying... No, I mean, at me. Have them come through? You know, we get every month pictures from our project manager, and he takes them back. But we probably should get them in here so you can just sort of flip through them. We're also going to have... You saw the posters we had before, and some of the other designs at Tom Union this year, so people can see them in the lobby. But yes, Mr. Hayner. You got distracted there. I just want to make sure you come back to that. I'm sure we can work something out. Have you come see a sneak preview? They would be delighted. I got invited to walk through when we were having that below zero temperatures, and I said I was going to wait until it was a little bit warmer, so I'm going to do it soon. But anyway, it's very exciting, and I couldn't agree more, that HMFH and Lori Coles, who has been our architect on the project, Brian D. Philippus and Kevin Nigro, who have been our project managers, have been so attentive to every detail and really working with us well. And I think Sherry and I both would agree it was a great decision on our part to get consultants on furniture and technology. We were a little over our head initially thinking we were going to be able to handle this and save some money. But we're in great shape. And thank you to Sherry. She has been marvelous. There's many more superlatives in this as helping to bring us through this whole process. And because you don't know the level of detail that is required to, one, move a school out into all three different locations, keep that all going, but you also have some colleagues that have been really helpful as well. But we're going to be beginning the process of moving back in. And while that's not quite as difficult, I'm not sure that's actually true, but there will be a lot of challenges in moving back into the building. But I have no doubt that it's in great hands with Sherry Donovan. We're doing well. Okay. And now, superintendent report. All right. I actually have quite a bit. But first of all, there's somebody else here in the audience who I really want to acknowledge tonight, because she's not here all the time. And I'm not sure if we'll, maybe we'll have to have her back before the end of the year. And that's Deb Demico. I think that all of you know that she will be retiring at the end of this year. And she has really been exemplary. I know that there's a tremendous amount of feeling of loss, both in staff and parents, that she will be retiring, but at the same time, she wishes that she will have a very happy retirement. But as you know from the principles being here and other occasions, how eloquent and what a strong advocate she has been of students and she has been at her building. She's been at it for the district and really, we're a great debt of gratitude to all these seven years. We're going to miss her. Yes. I think that's true. Thank you, Sherry. Thank you. Have you started that search? We have. We have started. We have started the search. I mean, this gives you an idea. We're in a constant search. Well, we have. The AA is getting representatives. I put a letter out to the Hardy families to invite them to participate in the search. I'm also arranging a forum. In fact, the staff, the staff next Thursday, and I had planned to do it with parents on the 12th. Then I found out we have instrumental district-wide elementary just concert that night. There's just so much going on the rest of this year. It's unbelievable. So it's very hard to find a night where something's not going on. But we'll have both staff and parents will have the opportunity to talk about the qualities that they're looking for in a new principle. And that is also very guiding as we move forward and looking at who would be the best match for the school. And you can have the same person applying to be a principal in your district, but that same person might not be a right match for one building and not another. Just for the various needs at that time. So we have begun the process. We already have applications. I don't know if Rob wants to make any comment about that, because he's been sort of the conduit for all this. It's posted. The applications are coming in. We're reviewing them. And we should have some candidates to interview. In fact, our first two interview nights, which I put out to parents are the 18th and 19th of March. And I suspect we'll probably have to have two or three more after that. And as we have with other searches, once we have three finals or four finals, we will have all-day visits. Of course, the reference checks that goes on behind the scenes. And opportunities for staff, parents, administrators to meet the candidates and to give me feedback. So all of that will be going on. My hope is that we'll be able to have all of those in on-site visits before April vacation. So we're moving along in that direction. Now, since we're on the topic of searches, I know that this is probably old news, but I do want to take this opportunity to also Mary Vellano is here. And Mary has been an incredible principal for the last two years for the high school. And we owe her a tremendous degree of gratitude for the work she's done. And we have been in a search for a new principal and we have found someone I think that is going to be a great match for the high school. I think that everyone that has met him in the high school as well as community members are very excited about this appointment. So he will be beginning in July, Dr. Matthew Janger. And I know that Mary will be there to help him make the transition, probably a good chunk of the summer as we move forward. One of the things that was interesting when we met him was we were talking about our management system because power school is such a challenge to really understand well. And when we asked Dr. Janger what system he used at his school in Mount Desert Island, he said power school. Everybody in the room just lit up because the learning curve on that is so tremendous. So that was a terrific little side benefit of him coming. But anyway, I want to thank Mary too. She's done a wonderful job and continues to work very long hours as multiple things going on at the same time. Thanks, Mary. All right. Today we had a visitor, Jerry Leone, who is the Middlesex DA come and speak to our juniors and seniors on the topic of texting and driving. And he was very eloquent. He had a video which is very emotional. In fact, I had Karen preview and she was pulling up with this one. And I think we agreed that we were thinking about showing it tonight. But I think what we're going to do is just get it on the high school website. And when I do my next newsletter but that won't be until for a few more weeks because the current one's coming out tomorrow, that we'll put a link to it. But I think having it on the website would be great. And I would really urge all parents of high school students to look at this video. I'm even going to send it to my adult children because it is so powerful in what the consequences are for just small little texts that you might do, a one word text where it takes your eyes off the road for five seconds and the consequences are devastating. Maybe not even to you but the bicycle that you hit or to the passenger in your car. And just one decision in that three seconds can make an entire difference in your life or whether you have your life. And as he ended the presentation with, he says, is a text worth your life? Especially when you see one of the texts where one young girl was killed by hitting a median, all she was texting back to her sister was yay. So when the video was playing there was not a pin that was dropped. And you could hear a pin dropping in the auditorium and I don't know Mary if you want to say anything more about this because it was, because it really was, it was a great leadership of the whole team at the high school making sure that this happens. And this is a passion for Jerry Leone in being an advocate for prevention of, and whether it's drug and alcohol or this is what he's particularly passionate about right now because in the last, since last year there has been a 19% increase in the fatalities of 16 year olds and 17 year olds in the state due to texting. And when he started the presentation he asked would everybody who has a cell phone raise your hand? Well I was standing against while looking, nope there wasn't anybody who doesn't raise their hand. How many of you text all the time? Texting is constant. Kids can even text under a desk because they've gotten so good at it. It was, yes, and probably you know. So it's a way of life for our students but on the other hand it's a dangerous thing when it's in the car. And he's suggesting the one thing you want to make sure is that that cell phone is not in arms reach. And if you have to do anything, pull over. So it was a powerful message and hopefully the kids took it to heart. I'd hate to see any of our students, any student, any 16, 18 year old have the consequences that are in this video. So thank you to Mary and her team for bringing him in. That was really powerful. Okay. Some, really a whole bunch of things here. A lot of good news too. I want to acknowledge Mike Covell who won the division to assistant wrestling coach of the year. He's been a 14 years assistant coach in wrestling. Wonderful person and he is a veteran of both Iraq and the Afghanistan war. And I remember talking, sitting with him as he was ready to be deployed in terms of, you know, what it was going to be like for his family. So it couldn't have happened to a more wonderful person and I want to give our heartfelt congratulations to him. Another award that, there are a number of awards and you had some of them in your packet. We had a student who participated in the Lions club speech contest. You had that in your packet and went to the district level competition in Dedum. So this is the annual Lions club speech contest and she won first place. I think she may have, I had $500. I'm not sure what the amount of money was but now she's going to compete in the states in April. So we wish her well. Jesse Kirchner. We also had a tremendous showing in the Scholastic Arts Award. We had 21 students that were honored with an award which is for Scholastic Arts because this is probably one of the most prestigious student art competitions in the state and at national levels. We had 21 students, 20 at the high school, one at middle school and we had four gold key which is a high percentage for a school our size. We had five silver keys. The gold key awardees will also compete at the national level. So I want to congratulate them but I particularly also want to congratulate, not particularly but congratulate our art teachers because it's through them they motivate and they really encourage our students to perform their very best. One of the things you also have going to another topic, you just came out, well actually just came out a couple weeks ago but you're not getting copies of Summer Fun. This was a program that we started, I think this is our fourth year coming up with this program and it is a two week program. We may expand it this year to more weeks, another week and maybe more in the years to come, a program where students can sign up for a week of a whole array of courses that we offer up at Otteson and already we have, well this was even a few days ago, we have 860 kids registered, yes already, already. Last year we had over a thousand, I think it was close to 1200. So we're, and this is only March, this goes, it just came out, I mean we just got it at home for the students like two days ago. It's hugely popular. So if you haven't signed up yet, please sign up quickly because some of these courses are already filled. Are they only for middle school students? No. No. They're grades, for students entering grades one through nine. You can't go, sorry Bill. But also you have here another program we started two years ago and it's growing is our kids zone after school program and we've had some really good programs through that at the different schools and I want to thank the elementary principals who are here because it's not easy trying to figure out a space for all of these and they've been very accommodating because when I say why it's hard to find a space is that we have after school programs and they're after school programs use all of our common space pretty much. So it's how do you manage all of this because teachers often want to have their own classrooms after school. But anyway, it's working very well and it's through kids zone that next year we will advertise it very soon our language program. I think we advertise it too late to get the number of students we needed to run it this year but this year we're going to move forward more quickly with it this spring. All right. All right. We'll have some more. Okay. Tonight I don't know if Mary Volano knows what's happening. We had two of our high school teams in the tournament. The boys basketball went through round one and a very competitive game in a plane right now. Not yet. They promised to text. And girls hockey is also in a tournament game tonight out in Groton. So I wish them well. They're doing quite well in this league change. All right. As I mentioned, February newsletter that's coming out tomorrow. It's really, as I was looking at it today, when you look at all of the things that are going on in the district, when you hear about them piecemeal, it's great. But when you see it all together in terms of what's happening, it's really quite impressive. And that's really a credit to our students, our teachers, and all of our administrators. Snow days. Snow. No more. No more. That's what we want. There's no more. No more snow. We have one more snow day. And then we have to look at other ways to make up the 180 days. I think that there's been some confusion because I've had emails from parents and teachers saying, well, why can't we just add, if we get to that, you know, beyond that extra snow day, why can't we just add 10 minutes or 15 minutes to the day? Our obligation has two components to it, hours and days. We have to do 180 days. Adding time only helps if you're short hours. And that's not our problem. Our problem are days. So we actually did a survey today of staff, actually yesterday to get to see where they are. And I don't have the final results, but I wanted to look at the possibility before the opportunity was gone of whether we would, if we had another snow day in the next couple of weeks, whether we would consider having a half day on Good Friday. It's a high percentage of people who would prefer that than Saturdays or April vacation. But it depends upon what happens in the next month. And I keep looking ahead to see if there's any big storms coming in every time it seems that inside 128 we're getting rain, which is terrific. And I hope it stays that way. I know there's been some concern about snow in the field. We were in a situation in the town where we had an unprecedented amount of snow that needed to be put somewhere. And there was not enough place in the res parking lot. If we have any future storms, that's where the snow will go because we need to make sure that field and DPW has promised that the field will be ready in time for the spring sports. And if there needs to be some reconstruction, not reconstruction, but fixing of the field, that will happen. But there wasn't really too many alternatives as to place to put it. There's a big pile at the res too. And there's a pile at the res. But if there's more snow, there's going to be a bigger pile at the res. So hopefully that won't happen. But we'll keep everybody in communication should we have one. And I will say this. I'm not going to let not having a snow day be the predominant rationale. It will be essentially what is the safe decision to make for all of our students and for our staff. Okay. Let me just quickly see if I have everything. I think that may be it. Okay. Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Okay. And this. Keep the pace. Thank you. Keep up the pace. We're losing Jeff. We're losing Jeff. Okay. So we're out right now. Subcommittee reports. Policies and procedures. Miss Starks. All right. You have before you as blue the second reading. Last week we read through all of these. No one had any changes. So they are identical to what you see today. Again, these were modified through policies and procedures by the head nurse. So she brought them to policies and procedures. We approved them. And bring them to you. It's basically an updating of physical examinations of students. Immunizations of students. Communicable diseases and administering medicines to students. Just making sure that those are up to date and relevant to what we actually do. So if there's no. No modifications then. They will become the new policies. Okay. Do you want to move? Do we move those? I think we have to move to approve. Okay. So I move approval then or second read of. Policies JLCA. JLCB. JLCC. And JLCD. I think you're moving approval. Okay. Move approval. Second. Okay. Is there any further discussion? We'll thank you all for bringing these forward. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. We have new policies. Thank you. Is there anything else? Nothing else on policies or procedures. We don't have a next meeting current. Okay. And budget. Budget also is currently. It's weird. We're in the middle of the budget cycle, but. It's been pretty smooth. So I don't know. We probably need a meeting. At some point before town meeting just to help. You know, prepare for that. So that will that will be coming. But other than that, I don't have a. I don't yet have a meeting. Mr. Hand. Would that meeting be sufficient? We were talking about putting some sort of. Brochure or something to go out to the community or the town meeting. About the budget. I don't know. We talked way back when we started doing budget. On the presentation, a smaller form and a capsule. I brought, I shared a couple of documents with you. I thought from the program back in. Down the Cape. That it was a summary. The dashboard. Well, a dashboard or. Just specifically to the budget. Right. Just for the budget. And we, I didn't know if. I mean, do we give one of these to every town? No, no. We do that special town meeting book. Yeah. Right. Which is not as slick and glossy as the things that some communities mail out to every citizen. Right. It's more intensive. But it has basic budget information. It has all the links to the budget online. And it talks about accomplishments and graduating classes and other good things and other information. One of the seminars down, down the Cape was, it was just a two sided sheet. Color had pie graphs and stuff. It was a basic summary. And also said, if you want more, you can go to what you just suggested. But it was a quick and easy read. And the people that would, they did this presentation said ever since they started doing this budgets went far smoother than they had ever been. They sent it out to the, to their legislative bodies a week before. So that they, they could ask questions or actually those that want to go into the, the fine parts. And I don't know if we wanted to do that. We should certainly bring that up at budget. So we'll, we'll definitely talk about it. I'll bring, I'll bring other copies of it. Thank you. I think there was also a discussion of if there's any, so we will move approval of the budget at our next meeting. Yes. And if there is any changes, we would need to have a meeting before think of the budget is taken up by Fincom just to look at what changes, you know, the, to, um, for the school committee to see the changes. You're looking at me like I'm confused. I'm saying if there are any changes to the budget next week, I mean next meeting, if, if we make, if we make any, if we approve the modifications that because the meeting with Fincom will happen before we have our next school committee meeting, it would be appropriate to have a budget subcommittee meeting before the Fincom to vet the stuff. So I will plan to have one then anyway. Okay. How's that? Okay. Although I don't know that there will necessarily be any changes. I'm just saying that was a discussion. When we talked about the timelines, the reason I was looking so puzzled is because in the past when there's been changes, they've usually come up at this meeting and then I would be presenting a final document for you to vote on at the last meeting. Yeah. I'm just saying I don't know, you know, maybe Mr. Pierce will come in and have a little really well argued change that we just feel compelled to come. Do we have a date for the presentation of the Fincom? Yes. It's March 20th. March 20th. Okay. I should probably know that I did. March, I'm sorry March 12th 20th. 20th. Okay. What time? So we're meeting on the 14th. It'll be our vote on the budget on March 14th and it's the following Wednesday. Okay. At 7, what time? Mr. Fanning is here. 7.30. 7.30. Thank you Mr. Fanning. Where are they meeting right now? Town Hall. Town Hall. Okay. Okay. In the big room. Great. It's a 30 town hall. Excellent. Thank you. In town hall, town hall hall. Upstairs. Okay. Thank you. In the main building, the selecting is hearing room, right? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you Mr. Fanning. Okay. Anything else budget related? Nope. No. Community relations. Ms. Hyam is ill. Anyone on the committee want to report? Yeah. The curriculum instruction assessment accountability subcommittee will meet on Monday, March 11th at 5.30 p.m. to take up three subjects. Formative assessments which will be presented on the committee. So we're going to kind of look at it beforehand. The tools in the mine curriculum and a request by group in town to talk about the inclusion of diversity in the next version of our goals. Goals for FY 14. Okay. Mr. Heiner. Mr. Pistin, call you about another topic. I'll talk. Diversity. No. There was no. I'll talk to you about it afterwards. Okay. Okay. No. It's possible. Okay. Okay. So just going back. Community relations since Ms. Heim is here. Who sits on that committee and can they was there anything to report? Mr. Yeah. We were working on the survey regarding release days and we're also discussing moving forward on the dashboard. Okay. Thank you. Kathy. I just wanted to alert you in your pile papers because you have a big pile there that Laura Chesson gave you sort of an outline of what. Yeah. Okay. So she's looking for feedback from any of you and certainly community relations committee. Just read it. Community relations. Quick and accountability so that we know what you are looking for in that presentation on the 14th. And you requested pre- questions from us. I assume you'll send her or have sent. I will. So this is I will. She wants feedback on the formative assessment. Okay. We can get it at the at the committee meeting but if you want to funnel that toward. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Other committees. Facilities. Mr. Hannon. A month or so ago superintendent Dr. Lockyer and staff and Linda Hanson and myself took a tour of the early childhood center. We had a meeting. I think it was Tuesday as a follow-up discussing the things that have been done. It was very productive meeting. We talked about the future and space needs of the program. And it was a good meeting. I have continually talked about having a facilities meeting. We will have a facilities meeting in March. I will get to the group by the beginning of next week with a doodle for times. If I could just add another thing unrelated. I've been going to the EDCO meetings for the past couple of months. They've been very productive. Part of it is an opportunity to meet other school committee members from different communities. Sometimes it's a complaint session, but all ends up very positively sharing ideas of solutions with each other. This past meeting was a little more structured. We talked about superintendents and school committees and their relationship. And I was very proud to be able to say we all graduated with nice certificates from the governance program. And a couple of the other committees are interested members. And we started talking about the superintendent's evaluation with all of us saying we don't know what we're doing at the beginning of it. So the next meeting, they haven't scheduled a date yet, will be specific to it and they're going to try to have some speakers. Great. Thank you very much for attending these and letting us know what's happening at them. So legal services, we met this week and our starting to develop some action items or recommendations to bring to the committee. But we are continuing to work and we'll be meeting again before our next meeting. And then as chair, I am requesting you all because it is approximately one month before our election and change over of officers that, where does it say, you all need, where is it? Here. Ah, here. Yes. Members who are willing to accept nomination, so I'm reading from file BDAA. This is our policy on election of school committee officers and this is our updated version. Members willing to accept nomination for the office of chair, vice chair or secretary shall declare such willingness approximately one month prior to the annual town election by providing written notice to the chair and to the administrative secretary who's Mr. Fitzgerald senior members who have not held a particular office are strongly encouraged to submit their names as potential nominees. And so I am giving you this notice. I'm also going to have it sent out by email since some of our members were not here. But I wanted that to be done. And now can you pass it back to Mr. Schlickman because I stole it out. Okay. And at this point we move on to the consent agenda. All items listed with an asterisk are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the committee sought request in which event the item will be considered in its normal sequence. Approval of warrant number 1319 dated February 14, 2013 total warrant amount 325,224 dollars and 91 cents. Minutes for approval January 10, 2013 and January 24, 2013. Do I have a motion? Second. So moved. So moved. So moved. Second. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? None. I'm not used to sitting here. Sorry. Didn't do close to the chair. I'm not doing a good job. You've forgotten. No secretaries report. And at this point we go into executive session of the meeting. We're just adjourning only for the arena. I'm forgetting. Oh, we don't even need executive session. Okay. This is possible. We're good. I move adjournment of the meeting. Okay. Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay. This is scary. See what happens when we get to the meeting. Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay. This is scary.