 Welcome everyone. Today is Thursday April twenty eight and this is the Arlington school I'm going to be very efficient I think I'm going to get all out of here about half an hour. So the first item of business is to welcome our newest member Len Cardin. Len could not be here at our last meeting and we look forward to negotiating, collaborating, disagreeing and all the rest. So next item of public participation is there, okay. So next item is a discussion about the incremental cost of the Gibbs options, the two Gibbs options that we've been considering. This is the sixth grade only or the smaller sixth or eighth grade. And Dr. Murray can speak to that. Thank you. The committee at the last meeting asked for more fleshing out of what the incremental cost would be for a sixth grade model or a sixth to eighth grade model. The task force also is very interested in what those incremental costs are. Not between the two models but just basically what would be the incremental cost of a Gibbs choice versus an addition. So I think we're going to have more discussion about this later but I do want to make some brief remarks about this process. Really it was only quite recently in the last couple of months that we started looking at incremental costs though we knew there would be some certainly and it's a valid consideration to look at but I think that in our previous discussions and hopefully also be our future discussions we really do need to look at the choice between the two not necessarily on the numbers as much as what is the best educational choice and I know that the committee is thinking in planning for more discussion about this and down the road having a public forum so it's going to be a process but we have spent some time on this. I did a first go at incremental costs for the task force a couple but I think about two months ago really mainly looking at the sixth grade as the window for looking at incremental costs since then we've now taken a look at looked at those numbers once again looked at them from a sort of a different methodology and in a way and have for have here in this document the findings now the sixth grade numbers just giving you an overview of it would include having four clusters now that would be something of a little bit of an incremental increase then currently we have 3.5 clusters for the sixth grade but our thinking in designing this was to increase it to four because it's going to have to go to four anyway we might as well start at a new school at that number of clusters but also to replicate our substantially separate special ed programs also to look at small group instruction for special education which would include our co-taught program and our inclusion we would have world language and we would also try very hard with all of our specialists they have parity with their current programming so that was looking at the sixth grade model we've already talked sort of a ballpark number for that anyway and it's roughly around 700,000 739 in this analysis when we look at the full staffing for grades six through eight we always knew that this was going to be more money just because of the complexity of having three grades all the specials and making sure that the schedule is allowed for all the elements of a cluster modeling in a middle school so again there would be four clusters but in this model we would have and this is one of two possible models we would have either a sixth grade cluster a sixth seventh grade cluster a seventh eighth or eighth grade cluster now there could be other combinations of this but essentially we're going to have to have two split clusters we would have we would not have substantially separate programming at the school that would remain at the middle school we would however have full staffing for the co-taught programs and the inclusion for special education full staffing for all specialists which is actually going to require more specialists than the sixth grade model just because of the complexity of scheduling this and what we also looked at what would happen if we were to look at the possibility of having a little bit tighter scheduling which may impact probably likely impact the cluster modeling in terms of having cluster time for teachers to meet about students which is actually the reason why we have clusters at the middle school in the first model of this with the full staffing we're really looking at a much greater cost of one point roughly about one point four million incremental costs and if we were to tighten up on the specials we could reduce that roughly another two hundred thousand bringing it to one point two but as I said the this is something we're going to have more discussion about later on and while it's another factor in the decision process I think that what we really need to focus on should the recommendation from the task force be the Gibbs option then I think there's more discussion and more thinking about all the all of the issues involved in that decision. Dr. Bodie those final numbers are those net figures what I'm asking is if there's all the six three one of the decisions is all six three down there is a reduction in the cost of auditing and if six seven and eight goes down there would be a different reduction so what I'm asking you is I understand those numbers do they take that into consideration. If I understand your question does it take into consideration the current staffing right yes well actually that that's the methodology was taking a look at the current staffing and essentially taking a third to the other school but these would be additional costs yes now if you had the decision there would not be incremental cost there are certainly going to be increased cost of enrollment growth these would be over and above what potentially would be the case for enrollment growth. When you're looking at the six eight model if you've included. Additional allowance for additional staffing given that there's going to be inefficiencies because the cohorts are going to be smaller and the kids don't segment themselves necessarily evenly so to maintain equitable class sizes that both schools you may end up having extra teachers at one school or the other. Yes. One of the things that one in our thinking is that we didn't want any surprises down the road until you really get into scheduling and trying to then prioritize what you want to make sure that is going to happen that. Students all have a full program. It's very possible that we're going to this is going to change somewhat. And is that what you're asking me. No. Okay. What I'm saying is that. We won't know exactly how many sixth grade students how many seventh grade students we have and how they'll be split between the two schools until it actually happens and it will vary from year to year. And to maintain equitable class sizes for the sixth graders who are at Gibbs if that's what we do in the sixth graders who are at the honest end. And the other grade we may end up having to add in extra teachers to bring down class sizes in one or the other. You know it if you have two hundred at one and and three fifty at the other. And this is something that we can at least get a handle on. Sort of the magnitude of what they would be by just coming up with. Scenarios you know let's assume we split the sixth grade. One hundred in the Gibbs and three hundred in the honest end. I'm not doing the right numbers but. You get good any and let's assume that we do it one fifty and two fifty and then figuring out what we need for class. To do reasonable class sizes how many teachers would be we'd be putting in both places. Absolutely I mean that there were we are going to know and these are really just a way to get a handle on thinking about it. But I'm saying that we can we don't know but we can model it and we can get a sense of how much the difference is. For the. Six through eight model versus the six only. The point I'm trying to make is that I think that. The smaller cohorts. If we went to a six eight at both schools. Are going to make for enough inefficiency that there's going to be an additional cost in the hundred to two hundred thousand dollar rate. To keep class sizes equitable for both schools. In addition to what we have here that was just saying. In it. As a as compared to the six only versus six and seven eight model. There is one I think the take away from this is that one is going to be incremental cost. To. That the incremental cost for six or eight are going to be larger. And you have sort of an idea of the magnitude of it and yes we might have to spend more money. In order to make sure class sizes are are fairly even yes right but I'm saying we should be estimating that and that number also. As we go through the. I think I think you get the sense in there. I guess there is an open question. Whether there is a difference but I think it makes sense to ask Dr. Bote to look at this issue. And maybe because we can't decide tonight if you are interested. I understand I'm trying to make sure she understands the question. I'll talk to you more later but. There's going to be inefficiencies because the kids won't separate segment themselves evenly and we need to be. Modeling what those will cost in terms of additional teachers. There is definitely going to be inefficiencies that's true. And as we move. This is the first stage of this that we're certainly going to be able to get this a little bit more exact as we go forward. Even now when we are budgeting for the next year we sometimes don't know if we're going to need extra teachers until the summer time. I mean there's going to be a level of uncertainty. All around on this. Impressive just not understanding. No. No. Okay. Maybe we can talk. Thank you. So I. I think the analysis is is is very good as a as as you said as a rough analysis of just. I don't I actually don't think we can get to the level of specificity that. Dr. Ampe is asking for but. My one. Criticism or critique of this is with the cluster teachers. I think what people are looking for is an apple to apple comparison so. If you think that you need four clusters because of the size of the sixth grade. In that year in two thousand eighteen. You're going to need four clusters whether they're at the glib Gibbs or still at the autism. So the idea that you would only have three and a half clusters if we stayed at the autism. But we would have four clusters because we're going to the Gibbs. Doesn't make sense to me that's the one adjustment I would make. Name comment on that. The I look at being the Cibbon numbers for the next few years and they say fairly stable. The year it is we were to move in an eighteen. The numbers aren't that much higher that would require another half cluster. And yes we could have put a three point five and we thought that since a couple years out. We would need that other half cluster at the. The Gibbs school. That it probably made sense to have it structured that way from the beginning any what would mean is that we would have smaller class sizes now. Would there be some equity issues then. With the with the. Would there be equity issues. No if it was a sixth grade because there's only one sixth grade. If it's a six six seven eight maybe. You're creating a you're creating a model where. Only if we go to the Gibbs do we get smaller class size and that just doesn't make make sense to me I think we should say. We're going to four clusters either way. In two thousand eighteen. You could do that. It would be a decision of the committee to do that. The numbers if they remained. At the current building. Might not justify that in eighteen. My question on the analysis is. This assumes. This is not your this is an ongoing annual. Estimate so you're not assuming that in your one you're assuming that. We would move. If we had six seventh and eighth grade at the Gibbs. We would move some sixth grade or some seventh and eighth graders. From the out of some. To the Gibbs. And we would start right away with the six seven eight school that's a fun time to get. Yeah yeah so we would start with the six seven eight. Great school we have moved some rising seventh graders some rising eighth graders from the out of some to the Gibbs. And these are the costs and without. Okay thank you. Any other questions. Okay so cognizant of the time if you want to. The only thing I want to report on tonight is actually how we're doing this is the first week of the park exam and I've asked Dr. Chesson she just would comment on how that's been going. I think it's going much smoother I think than anyone here. There was certainly some concerns about technology certainly having a smaller number of students testing at. Bishop's and at Audison made it easier to bring those things under control. But to give you an example of at Audison the first morning about 40 minutes into testing I got a text message that said everything's all set everybody's testing. The second day twenty minutes into testing and this morning ten minutes into testing so every day it gets smoother and smoother teachers get more familiar with what are the kinds of things that can make the process smoother for students. Teachers and staff alike because the technology staff has been in a lot of the classrooms and so are the two instructional technology specialists are reporting that regular education students almost to a student are completing the test well in advance and I'm not saying that they're rushing but they feel like they have more than enough time. Kids have actually reported maybe erroneously but they felt that the test was quite doable and also students in special education even those students with extended time for special education 504 or yellow age most of those students are still finishing within the time window as well so they're getting that additional time should they need it. So all in all right now it looks like a good experience for everybody. I should get any questions but great thank you. Okay so moving on to the consensus agenda all items listed with an asterisk are considered to be routine and will be enacted with one motion there will be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the committee so regrets in which event the item will be considered in its normal sequence approval of warrant warrant number 16156 total warrant amount 834,834 and 21 cents dated April 14 2016 approval of minutes approval of draft school committee organizational meeting and regular school committee meeting April 14 2016. All those and sorry. Oh yes so you want to pull the regular group just just saying okay. Okay so all those in favor please signify by saying I. All those opposed and abstentions. Mr. Cardin. Okay so moving on to the next item and we'll do this quickly I wanted to talk to people about the public forum that we're thinking about planning for to talk about middle school options if it turns out that we take repurpose Gibbs which is still up in the air and I decided I think I've gotten the sense from the administration that the timing that we originally come up with was very ambitious. We know that the decision won't have been made until Monday and we just had break and it just maybe not enough time. I've also heard from members of the steering committee of the debt exclusion that they would prefer that we take our time that we not rush this discussion. I think it's very important to reach out to the community to get the input to both educate community members about the constraints and issues and also hear their concerns, hear their thoughts. And so what I'd like to do is suggest postponing that public meeting to later in the month. Mr. Heyner. Yes sir. Thank you. I accept all the reasons that are going forward and I think it's good but I think because we said we made a statement that we're going to take public input on this issue as soon as possible we need to have a date for when the committee is going to make the decision and then work backwards for a date for public. I don't want this just because we're canceling this next Thursday we're not going to have it. Thank you. So the idea would be that we would take the let's see what obviously we want to get too far ahead of ourselves but if we're going to be going to get on to the next day of the year and we have the next Thursday it will be passed on to the kids and we have a choice between the sixth grade model and the sixth grade model at the gibbs we're going to take that vote after June 14th or before June 14th that's the question. I'd like to make a recommendation for discussion so what I've heard from the steering committee who are working on the debt and earlier it would be helpful to them and they said to me that they actually prefer that we take our time on this and do as much community outreach as possible. So my current thoughts but for discussion are that we should take the vote on the 23rd of June and that we should have our public meeting the week of the very end of May 530 531 I think. So I'm interested in people's thoughts and you know Mr. Cardin. I fear that people I don't know how we I don't know I don't know that we can we can predict how people are going to react one way or the other. I don't think we should specifically schedule it before or after the vote as a result but I'm not sure that we quite need that much time given that the presentation on the 14th had all the information from the administration hopefully parents have seen that by now and and I think we can move forward with a public hearing on this sometime in May and then decide you know when we're ready. We can start I'm right we don't have to necessarily make it on the 23rd but but I think I guess the question before us now is when do we have this public forum. That we have to make that decision tonight because this is the first time the rest of us are hearing this whole thing and the first time we've had to talk about it. Can we defer making a decision about this until our next meeting we can defer what we can so we actually voted to have this meeting next week so we need to make a decision to not to defer that meeting. I mean defer when we're I'm saying reschedule but defer the date of the rescheduling until our next meeting. Let me think. So our next meeting is on the the 12th well I want to make sure that the the administration has adequate time to prepare something to defer the decision. Would be. Yeah I'm sorry. The administration not knocking them but they should have brought that up last week when we schedule for next week. We're now looking to have it at least two weeks in the future. We're not going to have it on the 12th but be scheduling it on the 12th. So that gives them at least two additional weeks from what we were expecting. We can be ready whenever. Okay great okay thanks I think the new piece of information I wanted to convey to the committee is this was a surprise to me that how many people in the steering committee wanted us to to take our time. You start. And not for the steering committee but for the decisions that we have to make. So how quickly do we if in fact the decision is that we choose to repurpose the Gibbs. How quickly then do we need to have a decision so that we can move forward. That's the timeline I think that should drive us not anything else because what I'm afraid of is putting this off starts to delay everything and I'm not sure what that timeline is. So I'd like to better understand that before we made a choice about this. As I said we can be ready at any point one issue is that you would want it to have the teachers come and be part of that forum. And the date you pick may or may not work. I don't know if it could have worked. We have but we can also work on another day. So I know I'm sorry I think your question was when would we need to make a decision what I've heard and Dr. Reagan correct me if if this is right is that we we should make the decision before the end of the this year before the summer that I'm right that we that ideally make me think we should make it we should make the decision before the end of the school year yes. So I think that yes that we should now one of the reasons why you'll hear more of it tonight with the presentation should that be the decision going forward. And we have the resources to do an override to begin the design process that's going to be happening is going to be important to know which of these options I would not wait until the fall. There is no there is no difference between us making the decision in May or June. That does not hold this up at all. So there's no whether it's June the last meeting in June the first meeting in June of meeting in May in terms of the process going forward. No because we can't move forward with any design unless there are funds for that design. So would anybody like to make a motion to. Let's see. The May 5th and that someone will come up with a schedule and we will discuss it and vote it at our next school committee meeting. OK motion to cancel the May 5th meeting come up with a another meeting date at the next school meeting meeting which is on the 12th of May. All those in favor. All those. Okay. Motion to adjourn. Is that it. Nope. Yes please. Oh I'm sorry. I'm sorry. All those opposed. No is that I'm sorry what. Okay. We're okay. Okay. Made by Mr. Seelman seconded by Mr. Heyner. All those in favor. And.