 Welcome to the Allington school committee. It is Thursday December 4th, 2014. I would like to welcome as Hanson the AEA representative It is my pleasure to announce that Adam and Rita chapter Lane welcome their daughter Pearl at 9 30 a.m. Wednesday December 3rd Pearl arrived at seven pounds nine ounces mother and daughter are doing great That's 601 where's Diane live births Count that one. Is there any public participation? Yes, I understand So we're going to begin with the budget and I'm gonna have Miss Elmer, would you come up? Thank you She's our special education director and she will be doing The education FY 16 budget actually our special ed leadership Team here. We'll be doing the special ed budget presentation tonight. So I just want to start by introducing The individuals we have up here So we have Jill Park in who's our elementary special ed coordinator along with Chris Carlson also elementary Special coordinator David Dempsey who's the high school coordinator and Ben health at who is the middle school coordinator? I'm Kathleen Locker who's our early childhood coordinator will also be joining us and she's Stuck in traffic, but on her way Good evening, Mr. Chair and school committee members. Thank you for this opportunity tonight We hope to use this time to briefly. I think you'd briefly highlight our priorities for the upcoming school year and answer any questions You may have We'd like to begin by reiterating our support for the priorities set forth by the elementary principles on November 20th In particular, we have recognized our own hiring process The increasing difficulty we have with our ability to recruit high and retain qualified instructional assistance Which includes both teaching assistance and behavioral support personnel that we use in the special ed department We believe along with the elementary principles that an increase to the salary categories is necessary We also support the maintenance of a full-time social worker at each elementary school We mentioned that it was coming off of grant that we had had for the last few years We know that students need to be not only physically present but emotionally available for learning in order to engage in the learning process The school social worker plays a vital role in creating safe and supportive schools that can respond to the ever present and growing behavioral health needs of all of our students Also in alignment with the elementary principles stated priorities. We support the maintenance of the three district wide board certified behavior analysts BCBA's And the three behavioral support personnel BSPs that are associated with these roles and miss parking will speak to that in a little bit in greater detail In addition to these priorities, we also have identified areas of need in psychological services speech and language services As well as our contracted services specifically home services and teacher of the visually impaired in orientation and mobility And miss Lockyer who has joined us will also speak to the needs of the monotony preschool So I'm going to turn to mr. Help add to discuss the Need at the secondary level for psychological services. Great. Thank you So as our enrollment continues to increase not surprisingly our need for school psychologists and our Has also been increasing this particularly particularly notable in the secondary level Where we currently have 2.5 fte's the caseload within Onsen and Arlington High is on the rise given the increase of stress demands as well as the growing concerns around transition During the 2013-14 school year. We completed 257 evaluations at the secondary level as of January last year. We completed 113 Currently we're scheduled to complete 151 By the end of January of this year So to quantify this demand a typical evaluation takes approximately 10 hours to complete Excluding sharing this report at a team meeting So while the demand for evaluation has risen the need for Psychologists attached to each school has also been noted to help really all struggling students Currently the secondary psychologists travel between both schools and the Jermaine Lawrence program leaving the school psychologists little time Other than drop-ins to assess students and then attend team meetings If a full-time psychologist were attached to each school This would allow for a greater proactive involvement in the day-to-day concerns that arise for students and have a greater influence on Students prior student support teams process Which works to identify and intervene with students prior to the special education evaluation? This news clearly given growing the school refusal cases That were experienced and psychiatric hospitalizations already at 14 this school year Among both general and special education students So we believe this would require an additional point five FTE to make the support available on a full-time basis at the middle school and the high school Sam does our contracted services and we recognize a considerable expense in these required supports these services are mandated through our Individual education programs which are IEP's and they combine both direct services to students as well as consultation to teachers and families Our TV I which I mentioned earlier was teacher the visually impaired and O&M Which is orientation and mobility those contracts are projected to total over a hundred and sixty thousand dollars this year for those services We would like to bring those positions back in district and realize those savings to Direct towards other areas of identified need Similarly, we've done an analysis of our home services as well And those are projected to cover or to cost about a hundred forty thousand dollars for this school year if we could create new positions And perform those services with our own staff We believe that we would realize significant savings that could again be directed to some of these requests that we have and Miss Park is going to speak a little bit more to the BCBA as well as the home Good evening. Thank you. I Want to express my appreciation for the third BCBA this year in our district and for the third District-wide BSP some of the work that they're doing is as follows The current three BCBAs cover 10 sites from preschool to high school So they share two of the BCBAs have three sites that they cover three of the school and one of them has four sites Compared to last year where it was five and five So the amount of work that they've been able to do has been greater this year given this the Split of the schools Some of the work that they do is they're an integral part of the supported learning center programs that we have in the district Pre-K through the high school. They provide a lot of consultation services to special educators and general educators and parents They assist in the implementation and the development of behavior support plans Including data tracking measures to assess progress. They make graphs. They show them at meetings And it's a nice visual concrete presentation That allows us to track the effectiveness of the behavior support programs But also to show parents and staff the work that they're doing and why we're taking data And in addition to that they're an integral member upon request of the student support teams These are students who might present with behavioral issues where may or may not be on Individualized education programs at this time and they assist in that process They collaborate have frequent meetings with building principles with school social workers. They're often called out in crises situations They attend team meetings. They supervise the higher level teaching assistants who are district-wide as well as Doing consented evaluations per the team process For the last three months. We took a look at some information just to give you some numbers Between the supported learning center classrooms and some of the inclusion classrooms so far. They're servicing minimally over 140 students About a fifth of them are in special ed for fifth of them are in special ed they've also Completed or in the process of completing a Great number of consented evaluations across the categories of functional behavior assessments home assessments, which is on the rise and Behavioral observation screenings And their number right now is at 36 just for three months. That's a pretty high number In addition to that they supervise the district-wide behavior support personnel those three floating TAs that we have Access to mostly in the elementary. We've been utilizing them it allows students to stay in the least restrictive environment as much as possible and Currently, we've used the three BSPs just for the last three months in five specific elementary schools serving five specific Students with intensive needs. They've implemented behavior support plans taking data to assess What the need is they've been able to fade out of some of those cases and And hand them off because they've gotten the kids to a certain level Where they can be serviced in the general ed classroom without them and they are still working with other students and they're they're very sought after in addition to that the Current BCBAs do provide some of the home services that we have for some of the students on their individualized individualized ed plan At currently for the last three months at count They're servicing eight of the families I did go back and look at information regarding how many students access home services at this point for the district and the number is in The range of 25 to 30 minimally. So with our current BCBAs, they extend their hours And they do make flex times. Sometimes they're provided fee for service to doing this. It's in addition to their current job But as Allison said given the large number of home services and the fact that it's on the rise We did look at those numbers a hundred and forty thousand if we did have an additional BCBA to cover the home services And that BCBA had a flex our job it could be that we would be a budget budget neutral situation minimally and And the nice thing about it is you'd have much more of an alignment between what's happening in school and what's happening at home Other districts really are hiring BCBAs to cover their home services as time goes on and it's I mean there's a Big budget difference. I mean to hire somebody from some of the private schools for a contract position is for BCBAs Well over a hundred dollars an hour. So there's a there's a potentially it kind of minimally a neutral position and potentially Could help with our budget Chris Carlson will speak to our speech and language Good evening I'm going to speak briefly about our speech and language pathologists that work in our district as one of our related service providers And I feel we start with just discussing what their role is kind of what the role the speech and language pathology plays in our buildings Pre-k right up through 12 So speech and language therapists provide direct services with a focus on the areas of language including vocabulary grammar concepts written expression social pragmatics The ability to communicate effectively Our therapists also address voice fluency stuttering articulation needs In these areas that cause adverse impact on learning for our students our speech and language therapists also administer and screening screening tests diagnostic assessments participate in team meetings provide Opportunities for right goals and objectives for IEPs and also provide valuable consultation to our Our faculty our teachers our parents and our other educational staff Currently at the elementary level we have six point four FTEs assigned And just to give you an overview they maintain an average caseload of approximately thirty three point two students Across the seven elementary schools, and it fluctuates a little bit Depending on the school depending on the needs, but on average it's about thirty three point two students SLPs provide an average of twenty hours of direct service, and that's In in the classroom in the general education classroom as well as pull-out services For their caseloads SLPs also provide an average of about one point seven hours per week of that screening consultation related to evaluations Both re-evaluations and initial referrals for special education Major role of our speech and language therapists over the last few years It's really been to serve as a supporting member of the student support team In that process really to help provide direct support services Providing consultation providing screening for students as part of their RTI response to intervention plans at at buildings In in reviewing our speech and language service model of the elementary level We've noted important factors related to our needs one significant factor includes the rising enrollments at kindergarten level Based on the increased special education needs from our preschool students coming into our elementary schools A second important factor includes our efforts as we've been doing Significantly over the last few years to increase our capacity to support the inclusion efforts specifically related to our RTI that I spoke to as a district we've developed and we've adopted Tools of the mind curriculum which focuses on important developmental skill acquisition of our young students and our SLPs are Especially trained to support classroom teachers and understanding that language development at that level and really do provide a Solid base of intervention early on to support a consistent instructional strategies and accommodations I mean this is really important for our young students You know where our SLPs working closely with our kindergarten our first grade teachers really support that early language acquisition It's very very important this past year We we what we did is we assigned individual SLPs to support Multiple schools due to some of the increased caseloads and service demands at some of our larger schools This has created a significant limitation on the therapist's ability to support our inclusion model that I spoke to in our SST process Which really provides those important services for our general education students ultimately? Especially at the kindergarten level So that being said we're seeking to increase an FTE allocation for our speech and language Therapists in the district at the elementary level Good evening everybody Nice to see you So tonight I'm here to talk on behalf of the monotony preschool where I've been working as a 0.5 interim early childhood coordinator Just to one of our goals at monotony is to really raise the awareness of the really excellent preschool program that we have so If you'll permit me, I just want to say it is really an excellent program I've really enjoyed working with the staff and There's really a devoted staff who has really formed a great team And we're all thinking together about the best ways for us to respond to the needs of the students So the news that I have to share with you tonight is that and just as a frame just so that the audience and everybody else Understands the mission of monotony preschool It's a our program is charged with providing services Two children who were 2.9 years to kindergarten age when they leave the program and head on to kindergarten and For any students who are residing in the district the students are referred by multiple agencies Early intervention programs is a major referral source and probably the one that's easiest to manage because we have communication with them But other sources of referral would be parents other preschool programs in town who see needs among the children that they're servicing or providing services to parents pediatricians Any kind of person? You know would be something like a YCC in town Places that are in positions to see the needs of children DCF is another place that would be referring to us So a lot of sources can refer children to us And we have we need to because there's no generally not a lot of history We need to evaluate each of those child to some children to some extent And that depends on the profile of the child this year Based on the data that we have for previous years We've been experienced an increase a kind of marked increase in the number of students moving into the district Already having IEPs from previous school districts Where they would have resided and they had developed an IEP and then they come in town being between the ages of three four or five and We need to provide services. We had eight of those children move in this fall Who had IEPs and three of those children? needed to have a Program placement a classroom placement some of our children come and receive services only Depending on what their profile is We also had anticipated and have placed another Four children through EI or another referral source than moving in And just to contrast that with last year in the whole year of last year September to June We had to ten new students come into programs so at this point in time we've had seven and Just after a recent meeting today We have two more children that are look like during the evaluation process look like their needs are that comprehensive So that's we're up to nine and I think the month is December right now So um so you know that that just gives you an idea of the need. We're also Being very creative about the program responses We're trying to find you know ways to service students needs With the resources that we have and I just want to assure you about that and the staff is very cooperative in trying to do that So that leads us to a recommendation that I have shared with others And I will tell you that you know in my other role when I was the interim Director of special education. I Knew that that there were more needs than we were seeing surface I mean I anticipated just talking to colleagues in different towns that this the need at this preschool Group the age group would increase. I mean it's not a surprise to me What is a bit of a surprise is how quickly it's happening? And I think that's reflected in the other population increases that you're hearing about in all the other schools It obviously affects every area But what I would say is that we're The request that that I am sharing with the school committee tonight is to create one more classroom Which would be a sixth preschool classroom? The area of need and it's really a little premature You know just in the few months have been there but in talking with the staff everybody agrees that this is a Accurate kind of projected Profile of what we need. I think one of the programs that we need is something between our supported the Learning Center or classroom that we have at the preschool and The more fully inclusive Programs that we have so a program that can respond to some of the specialized instruction needs of students with developmental disabilities some of the behavioral and attentional regulation issues which we're seeing even with very young children which other people have spoke about with other age groups and That's that is our hope. That's the group of children that we see perhaps May be needing some more Especially as our numbers grow may be needing some more attention. So we look at a model to to respond to those needs on This year I'm working as a point five early childhood coordinator. We have a team chair who's a point five We have a lead teacher who is a point five lead teacher because she has other educational responsibilities and we have a point five administrative support staff who supports the point five team chair and That structure seems to be really working well I think we all work really well together and Everybody's very busy at the preschool. I can assure you every single day So that is the request and I guess that it's also, you know sharing with you the significant Significant needs in numbers, but also in the the issues that we're seeing that need comprehensive Response and will benefit from early intervention I'm really happy to be working where I am because I truly believe early intervention makes a big difference I think it will the better preschool program we have the better programming We're going to have as we move forward the other group that I didn't address in the written remarks that I That were shared with you is ELL. We're having a significant number of ELL preschool children coming we have two three children actually two children that are now enrolled that have Quite high need for English development in they the native language is their primary Language and we have one one child coming in who has a disability But has absolutely no English and no experience in school So, you know those are children you can imagine take a lot of time and effort from staff So ELL is something that we're going to start getting very much more acquainted with as a resource at the preschool Thank you very much before we start questions. I'd like to thank excellent presentation from Any of the members have any questions for this at this time? this starts So for the preschool, what is the Actual what is the total number needed to them? What is the Differential well, it would be a new class a new classrooms. That's a new teacher One new teacher and our staffing is to support staff in each preschool classroom. So three total I'm not asking for increased Specialists at this point in time. I think the classroom placements is what we need and you know So I'm hoping that we can resource and reapportion staff But that's what we're missing is another classroom placement and we have of course the other issue We have a space of course, right? Chop it for another night, but we're very aware of the needs there and have some ideas And one other The ability so you talked about the ability to bring Some contract work into house. What are your feelings about how easy it is to fill those positions? Similar to a BSP that behavioral support personnel, so a specialized TA could you know perform that task with some training But we would need to be a to oversee the home service contracts because any service has to be The program has to be written by the BCBA that has to that consultation has to be with the BCBA So finding a BCBA would I think would be relatively easy There will be a challenge in finding a teacher of the visually impaired With the dual certification of our orientation and mobility so we could look at 2.5 positions One is just TBI one who's own and but there are individuals who have both that training Who we currently contract with is someone who has That qualification But they are fewer and further between I know as you get more specialized it's hard to find people All right. Thank you. That's well mr. Bez With with these BCBAs and BSPs be also assigned to the middle school as well or Our district-wide BCBAs are currently it just happens the bulk of the cases are at the elementary level When you think about kids who are typically Acting out with behaviors you tend to see more about at the elementary school They do consult with the middle and high school and have some cases Not so much at the high school generally, but So the need is greatest at the elementary, but they are district-wide positions. Thank you Okay, first on the monotony preschool I apologize First of the monotony preschool if we open it up another classroom We're opening up tuition paying slots for for the public. What's the offset? The tuitions for the preschool represent about 18 percent of the budget So there would not be a tremendous offset, but there'd be some there'd be some offset. Yes And assuming that we've already got an overhead figured in there. I'm just thinking about how much that would Offset the actual cost of increasing the number of folks Who are working there would be a little bit of an offset a little bit of an offset What will you need additional equipment to open the classroom? We would need to be fully equipping a classroom Because you know there might be some incidental things, but we'd be looking for furniture and fully equipping a classroom On the replacing consultants with district personnel Sounds like a good thing. Uh, are there any other opportunities for that with that that you've been viewing What what we did is we looked at what uh We're currently spending on those contracted serves and those were the three areas where we had the highest expense Other services that we contract our at evaluations, but currently at this point it wouldn't Be a cost savings to bring that back in districts. We don't rise to that level yet But it is a growing area. So maybe next year we'll be back here talking about it One thing with assistive technology needs is our staff is is really becoming well versed at understanding the assistive technology needs Um, so the right now we're really not doing we're really not doing the evaluations We're doing a lot more screenings Which is really just looking at the technology that we have the accommodations and the supports that we have in place Um, and our our our staff is getting you know, really strong at looking at those needs And depth depth and heart of hearing is another area that we have contracted services But again, it's it's not at the level. We're bringing that type of position in district Are we seeing any significant change in the population of out of district students That might cause us to think about establishing a new program in district I think that at this point that the programs that we have in district we we need to spend the time on You know refining and improving those before we think about adding a new program We're hoping to get through the 274 grant Which is one of the entitlement grants that we get each year for professional development to work with outside consultants on Some program development of our existing programs. So I think once we go through that process We would have a better sense of And do do you see any? Possibilities for further reducing transportation costs based on cooperation on out of district placement well, um, and you know Rick isn't here our transportation director, but I know through the lab collaborative. We do get some substantial savings by using their transportation Just because of we're a member district, but also the vicinity to the programs that lab services I can't speak to The greater transportation budget at this point without more information from Rick Any other things that you've been here a couple of months now So welcome welcome aboard and congratulations on hitting your first budget session One of the things if you take in a look at that you're even in the back of your mind you're saying This we might be able to improve. We might be able to do something more efficiently We might be able to realign are you starting to see those things That we talked about tonight are definitely areas to start in By looking at those contracted services To see what we could do In house as well as the home services and Ms. Park and can really speak to that need in greater detail But I think that is something that we've relied on outside contracts to do and it's just kind of grown So it seems like an appropriate time to try and take it back in I think when it started and This lock here can usually probably speak to that it was smaller. So it didn't make sense to have a position But again as the needs continue that expense The the only other way that I'd answer some of your questions about needs is the increase in in the autism Category as far as preschool goes But we also have been very successful with Jill's help help and the help of the bcba's in really fashioning Inclusive programs to support children with autism. So While people used to think that needed highly specialized programming It does need highly specialized teaching But many of the students are successful within inclusion programs across our district But that would be a category area when you one of the questions was about looking at our program models I don't think you know, I agree with what allison had said. There's no immediate need for restructuring those Are rebuilding adding to it may be restructuring You know our approaches to to really send You know tailor the programs to the needs of the students we're seeing and if you would permit me I just need to add one other thing. I am a point five early childhood coordinator and I am recommending a 1.0 Um, I think when we look at the structure that we have, I'm not sure that that means a full point five FTE to do that Um, but I'll be looking more closely at that But I do think a full-time early childhood coordinator is needed at the preschool And that person also should be working which has been an area of concern Working with the elementary principals and the kindergarten. So we have a very smooth transition And we're able to really in a very informed way plan for the children who are leaving preschool As well as those who get identified in the early days of kindergarten in the fall I think that would you know, really fill a gap that I think is there now for for our seven schools As they transition it Go ahead. May I just add to an increased need comment Um, I think the area of anxiety is something that we see in our general ed inclusion classrooms more and more Um, so I do want to acknowledge the work of the general ed teachers in addressing that need Um, along with the school social workers Um and the principals Um, they're really, um, we've utilized some of the work that of jessica minahan who we've had as a consultant through our success grant the social work grant And we're diligently working on looking at strategies to maintain kids in the least restrictive general ed setting But that I would say Is one of our biggest challenges challenges even this year. I see an increase in the referrals You know, I understand our position here is that we've got a limit set on us on how much our budget can go up On any given year. So we've got to Give a certain amount of pushback on any kind of increases Uh and and try to look at how we can balance requests for increases to ways to Do things smarter for uh, for less of a cost. So It's it's not the most pleasant question because I'd like to be sitting here saying What's the best thing to do for kids period and I don't care what it costs. Unfortunately We're not in the position to do that We understand and I think also in looking at those contracted services as I said earlier and jill highlighted I don't think that You know, it's not going to cost us 140 thousand dollars to have A tbi trained teacher So there will be savings from that that hopefully could direct to some of the other requests that wouldn't be as budget neutral That would be an issue so Now dr. Ami So first just a comment it would be helpful for me to have To get a list Or something that talks about now that you've had social workers in the class in all the schools What they're doing every day and over the weeks because It's helpful for us to be able to describe it to other people like town meeting or or other to explain why You know why there's been this change and part of that's understanding what it is they're doing Just to clarify would that be in addition to what the elementary principals talked about the last time Just so if we're gathering information for you Yes, I wasn't here last I mean I read I read what they did but I wasn't here myself. Okay. Yes. Thank you And okay, so I had a question about the presentation about the school psychologist It's a growing concerns over transition And what do you mean? I I didn't I mean there's two major transitions that are very anxiety-provoking both for students and for families Which is the one from well, there's three. There's one from fifth grade to sixth grade Which is a an anxiety-provoking transition There's one from eighth grade to ninth grade And then there's one out into the world after that and and those are really What often happens as we get closer to those transitional times Two things really happen one is that the anxiety of families Of whether that school is going to have what they need whether we know everything we need to know about our students Those things cause a lot of Assessments to be needed for students around those ages Also the idea of really just making sure that we do have everything in place for the students that we do know are coming up That also causes more Work in terms of psychological work As we anchor the psychologist more to the schools as well as have that increase We have a much better chance of working with those students as they come up Whether they be general or special ed and working with those families as we make our transitions tighter and tighter And then the one out into the world is a much bigger one And it's a much scarier one for families and for students And really knowing what we need to know to make sure that we're sending them off in the best way Is an important piece Currently our school psychologists only do assessments So they're as I mentioned they drop in they assess a student They go back and write a report and then report it out We're not using their background They're training their expertise to support students in a proactive way So they're not able to participate in the student support team process Which identifies students early and tries to problem solve before they are referred for special ed services because they simply aren't available to do that And so we do think that a point five increase would allow we currently have 2.5 between the two buildings and also Working with germane laurence So to have the 3.0 would allow for a full-time psychologist at the middle school And then two full-time psychologists at the high school So they could participate in more of that work that would ultimately, you know, we believe reduce special ed referrals and increase student success And I think also Allison just said Is I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I we're kind of getting away. I was trying to understand It says growing concerns about transition And we've had transitions all along And I don't I'm trying to understand what if if there's growing concerns what the change is I think is what jill speaking to that increase in anxiety that we're seeing across The district that students who struggle with that those things and we we see that spike at the transition time So students who may have been at the elementary level having some of those Somatic, you know complaints. I have this stomach ache. I have the headache. Well when they get to middle school It's suddenly I'm starting to refuse to come to school or they're coming and they're having a very difficult time And then they're being managed at the middle school level But maybe it's not being fully resolved So the time they get to the high school and you're in new bigger building You know those kind of things are manifesting. I think across the board Districts in general are seeing an increase in students with anxiety and school refusal. So that's Well, I think I think one other thing just because of the fact that we are seeing a much more complex Student through anxiety and school refusal One of the important roles that the psychologists could really play with the increases to become part of the team And to really be a member of the special ed teams in helping to really consult to the team On how to work with students who are suffering from social emotional issues through anxiety And that are in the school refusal piece so that when we start to collaborate with the bcba's and doing home services With some of the students even at the high school level who are having difficulties just getting them to come to school We do have a psychologist as part of the team to really start to be proactive And be a member of that team that can consult to the team to really put strong Implementations in place to help that student come back into the school building and be part of the school community Okay, how are we doing for time? Okay So The question about the contracted my question about the contracted services are just I understand if we bring somebody in we could potentially save some money Is the need Can the scheduling be worked out? You know if there's one person Can they see if that's what we were speaking to so for Say the home services we're talking about 51 Hours a week of direct service So that would obviously need to be more than one person But that would be we mentioned those aba therapists who would be bcbsp level Individuals so that could be a combination of two point You know point fives and another point five. We haven't really gotten to that level of detail yet and for the and i'm just pulling up the contracts on the other one for the tbi and O&M we're talking about like actually like 20 hours of service that are costing around There's also additional consultation and stuff, but direct service is actually relatively low So we do think that we could do that With an individual or a combination again, like we said a point five Okay, and then finally you talk about if you were to hire an additional bcba to oversee the services And i'm just confused by oversee. Do you mean So jill can speak to the requirements of actually when you have Home services There's two types of home service delivery models one is the direct services teaching the child in the home The other is we're using utilizing a lot of the consult model because it really facilitates Parent education and being in alignment with the educators at school So um, so the consultation model is really what the bcba's Typically do so a good percentage of our home services on our ip's are the consult models Um, and we do periodic check-ins across the ip year to see how that's going Does that need to shift more services left serve less services? The bcba's also supervise the aba therapists that they have a dual role there the consults to the parents As well as supervising the aba therapists. Okay. Thank you. Thank you Okay, thank you. Um This is a very helpful presentation. Thanks very much the question I have Referrals to school psychologists to do an evaluation Uh, I don't know what your question is that that that's from classroom teachers who recognize An issue or how does that happen? Well, it's full. So we have students who are on IEPs who have, you know, the mandated Three-year evaluation, which would be a compliance type requirement as far as the testing and then there's the initial Evaluations which referrals can come from families. They could come from teachers. Um, you know, the student support team So you could have two sources of referral for the initial evaluation And the reason why we have an increase in evaluations this year is because be speculative But, um, you know, we're certainly seeing a large increase, you know, if we're talking about I have Was it 257 was completed last year? And we're talking about 113 at this point and now at this point last year and we're already at 151 Yeah, so So the parent referrals not necessarily classroom teacher identifying an issue Correct. Yeah, and we also have outside industries dcf Group homes students that come in from the group homes that also Come in and are referred to through dcf and through other Gotting items and and educational surrogate parents appointed by the courts Thank you. I was listening to the conversation the dialogue back and forth about the stress One of the things that may may be happening is that when you And this is not a reason not to do this but when you add more school psychologists and social workers To the system, they're they surface more problems that were already there They surface stress issues. They surface psychological problems that the kids were having that we weren't able to address So that may be the reason why there's an increase in No, no, it's not a problem. It's a good thing. Oh, I think it's a good thing that we're surfacing. No, yeah I know that, um, the surgery is having lots of these surgeons is that? Yeah, um, but we're not talking about kids Who are coming here and talking to the therapists and then having problems. Yeah, we're talking about kids who aren't coming to school for 80 days a year And only then It's not just here. This is happening. I go to principal meetings Every week I get a new training about the Every week I go to principal meetings and everybody goes what's going on, you know, they're rising expectations for students So in some ways, I think we're picking up kids who used to just disappear And now we go out and find them because we just used to let them drop out of school No, I Think it's good to have more therapists. So I I don't want to I don't want Yeah, well, I I I do too. You have no idea But um No, I the point I was trying to make is that it's a good thing that this is happening It's actually not I don't see it as a bad thing that we're surfacing more because I think these issues have always been there in kids And the fact that there's maybe more adults to talk to and get these issues out and addressed is a Positive thing in this report in the district More specialists. Yeah Yes, Matthew was saying the issues the issues were there for years ago. We didn't do much about it But it's also helping to keep kids in the district Yeah Before the we were losing a lot of kids to out at nothing because we we didn't have the strong therapeutic component in place for them here So all of a sudden they would go to a sub separate program and then they would be removed to an out of district placement I think by having more in-house Therapeutic intervention. I think is also keeping more kids in our in our district Thank you One quick question With regard to the contract services These are directly related to existing IEPs. Am I correct? Currently, yes. Okay Is this across the grade levels that they'd be servicing so that I guess what I'm saying is Would these services be graduating in the next in the near future? So it would be something that would be Okay, it's our youngest students who are coming in particularly with you know, that the teacher the visually impaired. I mean those are obviously Services that are going to be that's not going away. You know a visual impairment Deaf and hard of hearing those aren't those issues aren't going away with you know remediation. Those are going to be consistent I have one last question and the two groups following can prepare Do you have a bottom line dollar figure? We are not prepared with one tonight now I think that's important for us to have whether it's through the For us to see I hate hate to say that education and the welfare of our children is to the bottom line is the dollar But is our job to defend that and we need thank you very much all of you for all your work and time One of the one of those things you should know in terms of dollar figures is that what we talk about in FTE We we budgeted it at a particular amount, which we'll talk about In the next couple weeks, but it's really the it's it's what we need to find out is what the total FTE is Of all of these positions you're hearing about because then we're going to have to prioritize Right. Well, not only that you talked about tas. You talked about equipment. You talked about Other things that factors factors in there as well. So thank you again And I'd like to invite dr. Janger His group if he's bringing Starts I'd like to anyone that wishes to contribute I need you to come up and speak at one of the microphones Everything dr. Janger had to say was very important. I'm not sure if I got recorded. That's the problem to repeat it all right now Thank you We can pass this around if we need to go um So most of what I'm going to say is going to follow the structure of the handout you already have but I think So I'm going to go through this sort of conversationally Try to add a little color and then I think there's there's so many possible ways you could go in terms of questions You might want answered that I figured it was better to give you kind of an outline and then talk about it Pretty much every time I talk about the high school I always feel like it's important to set a little bit of context about the district in the high school That's why I start with this information about performance We are an extremely high performing high school At the same time we have an extremely old and we all know the state of the facility At the same time if you look at our staffing levels last year, we really appreciated the Bump and FTE which brought us up close to district averages, which is still below state averages You know and so I just think it's really important to realize we have this high level of performance We're an we're a gold medal school Most challenging school, you know now we're a level one school And we're closing up very much on the ceiling of the ability to stay at that level And at the same time our per pupil expenditures are below average Our staffing levels are below average our salary levels are below average Our facilities are in disrepair and We know that it would take 35 million dollars just to fix the stuff that's broken And so all of the we have very high fee levels in athletics all of those things Sort of are important is that the context when we have these conversations Because we're getting an extremely good product at a very low cost, but in many ways it's not sustainable I also appreciate what paul said before which is that we can only go up so much And so this is not a just everybody asks and we just figure out what we're trying to do So the idea is sort of figure out where to make planful steps to move us in the direction We need to go in what is every year a little bit of a zero sum game So I'll talk a little bit about this and then I'll go to that I couldn't forget an elegant way to do it, but I wanted to really look At what it's going to happen over time as opposed to try to do it in one year increments Because I think it's sort of seeing what we the conversation we had amongst the department heads Was we looked at what was going through the pipeline what the staffing levels were in each department But then we really had to think about how we were going to prioritize over a period of years So somebody might say well math can get through this year as long as we know we're going to get someone next year And so the order and what we're asking for this year reflects a priority over a few years um in particular The things that really put pressure on us right now in terms of Staffing levels and one of the most important And it actually speaks a little bit to some of the things that special education was talking about Under the new law chapter 222 Students who used to come to us if a student had a phony We wouldn't even enroll that student if a student was expelled. We wouldn't even enroll that student Um now we have an obligation both to if we expel a student We still need to educate them in the same way we used to have to only educate special education students And if students move into town with a felony We still need to educate those students and those are expensive and challenging students to educate They take up a lot of time amongst the social work staff particularly the deans Um in terms of managing those kids and trying to make them succeed And so it's a rising expectation for us in terms of getting kids to succeed It's a good thing to do. It's just an unfunded mandate to the to the district um At the same time building administrators are being asked Well, all of us are being asked to evaluate every faculty member every year One of the requirements of that is that every faculty member needs to be observed by a building level administrator So that's over a hundred observations being done by the building level administrators at the high school Um and on top of that folks that don't have department chairs are getting picked up again by building level administrators and so in the past where deans and You know principals would not necessarily have to cover that that's something which is falling to administration And then the last piece is when I talk about rising expectations race to the top We are a level one school not because we're really good We're a level one school because we got better Um because we closed the gap and that gap continues to close It's a good problem to have it something we ought to be doing as districts But again, if you go back to 1980 The graduation rate in the united states was 75 percent The graduation rate in the united states is 85 percent now And the graduation rate in our school is somewhere around 92 percent. Those kids are more expensive And so we're picking up kids that didn't graduate before and were responsible for them And one of the challenges at the high school is our job is to get them to the finish line And so a lot of those problems sort of explode as you get close to the end of the line Um and then the last which is when we're all aware of and the one that we talk most about is rising enrollment We have small enrollment increases coming next year and that's what's tracked there over time So if now we're at 1294 depending on how you count and next you were expecting go to 1318 and then on up So that by I can't read my own handwriting by 1819 we're expecting to be at 1400 students and so um You know the expectation there is that we're going to have to bring in a number of new teachers just to keep ourselves even We're already below the district average if we come up to the district average and then stay even with the district average Which i'm not saying is a sufficient staffing level It's just what we work with and sort of if you're talking about paul's balancing out needs Sort of a reasonable rule of thumb to try to balance things Um, you know that that's one way to look at things just to keep us even with where we are now Um, and then two things going back to the under staffing issue that he talked about last year Um because of historical low staffing we still have these directed studies Um, which we're really not supposed to have and it's sort of two one piece of butter across two pieces of toast And so it's a challenge for students because we have all these wonderful offerings and then they can't take them If you come in as a freshman you have a study hall for half of a set period half of one of your Seven options if you take a full load, which you're supposed to take you have one elective option freshman year One elective option sophomore year So kids who might get excited or engaged in one of the many elective offerings Don't really have the opportunity to experiment to take those things or kids who might double up and go ahead on math Or science and other things really don't have an opportunity to do that till much later in the game Um, and then last another piece of that is the pe requirement, which is something we really would like to fix in the next Four years Which is that although the state requires and we are not the only town doing this so Otherwise I would have run around much quicker But I asked all the principals and asked how many other people are doing this many are But the state requirement is that you get four years of pe we give three And we're able to do that because we're able to do that and nobody is Auditing it or requiring it right now because they know the state districts are in But it seems like we ought to at least be complying with state expectations So That brings me to the site up there So if you were to take us from where we are now in terms of staffing level Okay, that's not the version I have mine does not go to 700 significant digits The mine has values on the bottom somebody added something to my data and it it changed it So the formulas don't work anymore. So I'll just talk through. Do you guys have it as a handout? What's that we've electronically it's the numbers are fine here Okay, so this is my version So you can see this one. So if I click on it, do you see the like my little pointer on your computer? I'll do it that way All right. So if you look then What we would go up next year in order to hold us even next year We would see about 3.7 FTE And then the following year because we're flat we wouldn't expect an increase The following year before additional and the year after that it would be three Um, and so what we're thinking is really to smooth that out over time So if you look at the request what we're doing on the flip back for a second um In some ways to my surprise when we went through all these conversations I met with each department chair each department chair talked about staffing levels and pipelines Each one talked about where they wanted to go and then we sat down as a group and said What do you think we should all focus on and everybody said we should get a new dean? Um, now I agree, but I know I agree because I see that part of the world Um, but the reality was that recognizing because of this chapter 222 work because of the The issues that around sort of supporting kids around all of the work that they're doing Um They really see the value of getting that level of service now right now We have two deans each servicing about 600 kids When you have one of these school refusal cases Or one kid who comes in with a felony needs a program designed for them Um, it's incredibly time consuming and if we don't do it right, it's incredibly expensive Paul asked before about how we save money We save a lot of money We have saved a lot of money by finding ways to do this by not sending kids out of district placements We could ship them up to edco west and every time we have a kid We go maybe we should ship them to edco west if we're putting them out and then we don't We put them into our mill. We're putting some now into our mill book program We're working on other places to serve those students more and to keep them in our own school But it's very very time consuming for for any of the deans at this time of year You feel like you're spending all of your time doing that instead of dealing with the larger population of students who you want to monitor attendance and Catch them long before they get in trouble. So the dean is the first piece of the request I don't know why that's doing that here Um, I gotta go back to my West spreadsheet now Um So then if you look last year I talked about hard targets and soft targets At this point all we're sort of focusing on as a hard target is a point for additional FTE of science Last year we went up by a point six FTE of science thinking that in terms of lab space that was about all we could fit The science classes are still large. We still have I can't remember something like 15 classes in science Of 25 or more students which given our lab spaces is a safety issue not just an educational issue We've now carved out what used to be an office and storage space Into another small usable classroom and people are sharing ways That make us think we can fit a couple more classes in there. So we'd like to increase that by point four We'd ask for more if we thought we could fit them in there, but we don't really have a place to put them Um, so that's the hard target. It's the the dean and then the point for FTE for the um For the science And then in addition to that and I put in a sort of red placeholder We don't really know exactly what the strat trends will be around the others You know, one can see potentially needing another spanish teacher or one can see potentially needing another italian teacher One can see potentially needing both and combining it Um, but given the trends given the numbers of kids We feel that if we have 1.0 to work with We're going to do the program of studies. We'll do the request and we'll see what where the kids end up Um, and depending on how that works out. We would spread that most likely among You know math would be potentially one more class of computer science Facts would probably be two more classes of cooking, which has been very popular If we did it in art, it would probably be a digital media Our class or two in order to use the new digital media lab But the idea is that we'd hold 1.0 to simply cover enrollment issues There are a lot of classes, particularly in the electives. They're all full I mean every elective is a 25 or whatever the lab size is sort of maxes out at If they've got 20 units for the most part, they're in 20 units not all but that's sort of the case Particularly in those departments And then the idea is so that if we're asking only for the 2.4 this year The expectation would be that we pick those up in later years. So the following year We'd be looking to get even though we don't go ahead and increase in enrollment We pull a little bit from this year's fd and a little bit from the next year's fd And bring in a new math teacher And the idea then is going forward We would know that we would need an english teacher and a social studies teacher by then as you can see In the sort of fuzzy goals the miscellaneous line on the bottom gets bigger as time goes on because the uncertainty about exactly how the trends We are going to go is unclear, but we know over the next four or five years We're going to need a math teacher social studies teacher an english teacher We'd need a new science teacher if we could fit them We know we're going to need a new dean and we know we're going to need a new guidance counselor So the idea is to spread out over time when we think that's going to happen And also let you guys plan ahead in terms of how you staff So it's not every year we come and we want a quarter of this and an arm and a leg to put together a teacher over time So that's really the big money a lot of the rest of it has to actually was sort of explaining How we cobble together a lot of things from things that aren't always discussed here But I think it's important to talk about Technology has been A huge jump this year from last year to this year Last year I came to and whined pretty copiously about Six and seven year old computers and now we have every teacher has a new laptop. There's about 80 macbooks and chromebooks the computer lab has Created the problem with the computer lab was we it was the stem computing lab And it's now become the stem computing classroom because we filled it with computer classes So now we're going to get a laptop cart which will be shared with science Or mainly in science and then shared back the other way to math We're looking and that's the laptop cart is grant funded the stem lab is grant funded The digital medias lab that we're going to put in next year will be lab funded The Other thing that we're proposing is to bring in another roughly 80. No actually it's more than 80 If I believe the numbers it would be roughly 200 devices through a grant Which we're not sure we'll be able to get but that's the goal to get anywhere from 80 to 200 New smaller devices chromebooks or iPads To spread out the classrooms to start to build out towards what's called a b yod model Where teachers have enough devices in their classroom to be able to support and expect that students are going to be connected anywhere And that they're sort of prepared to support students bringing their own computer devices into the building Um, and laura chestin has been talking to capital about that kind of grants together for that Teachers are often doing that through smaller grants also through a e f And so a lot of activity is bringing that work in and that's not in some ways always being funded here um Jumping on from that As we have these Conversations about staffing one of the questions I keep asking is where do we put them? We know the building is in difficult shape We know that we're waiting to hear whether or not our SOI is supported But it's important to realize that if even if we heard tomorrow And we broke ground in 2017 and it took the fastest way possible Two years the kids in eighth grade right now are going to be graduating from the version of this building Um, they're not going to be in any kind of new building And so if we're talking about painting something and you should need to paint it every five years We need to paint it this year if you're talking about um a classroom space or infrastructure When I asked david good about the wireless technology we're putting in and said You know, is there anything we shouldn't be doing because it's a waste of money His answer was no the stuff we put in now is going to be gone in five years anyway Because that's the lifetime of that sort of work And so it really has been a challenge. I mean one of the biggest ticket items which Melissa probably talked more about But you know, we have a 13 year old turf field. They have a 10 year life Um, and we're not going to figure out what we're going to do Before we have to make a decision about how we're going to use that that's a central place where we do Most of our big games. It's also a revenue producer for the for the community So those sorts of things have to be done specifically Um We have heating issues. I don't I think there's already been At least five days this year When most of bill mccarthy's time was spent on a day Shifting teachers in and out of classrooms or dealing with heating issues because it was either freezing cold or boiling hot in the Um Then that's we haven't even gotten into the tough part of the year yet You know, we have leaky roofs again. We're moving teachers out of classrooms We have doors that are broken and difficult to secure We have problems with parking and we need to repaint the parking lot and pave the parking lot so we can figure out Where everything needs to park Because we can't even count the number of parking spaces. We just sort of park everywhere We have a very small number of cameras They don't really give us very high resolution and don't cover all the spots that need to be covered I mean all of those things we spent I think nine thousand dollars doing sort of a Skim coat of painting in the locker rooms, which were so appalling that I wouldn't even go into them Let alone use them as a locker room and now they're kind of maybe a little okay But need more work And so that's going to have to be something that we're going to have to support We're going to have to support maintenance doing it the town doing it Um, I think Kathy can attest to probably that's something that takes up a converse part of our conversation every two weeks When we get together Athletics Is again something where I think and I'll get I'll point to you more but it's a challenging budget with athletics that sort of When not when we came in what spoke to diane last year her basic take on athletics was that Spending in athletics over the last years prior to her had always been sort of a little beyond whatever was budgeted Now athletics is again offset by revenues. It's offset by fees And it's offset by revenues that are brought in but tickets and I know malice has done a really good job of focusing on You know saving things making better use of time bringing in revenues and creating those opportunities And so But as you look at that I think we need again to get that in in check So the number that we actually shot for last year and the number we shot for this year isn't the number that's on paper It's the number that we looked and seemed like the historical Low mark and we've stayed within that But I think it's important as you guys look if I was to look at that I might say why are you over budget? And it's like well because at the beginning of the year we said that's how much it's going to cost And so I know that we scraped the money together from other places Um, I don't know Do you want to say anything more about about athletics and because she's got spreadsheets that I wish I had for my own thing but and I know there's uh Scheduled at some point. When is the athletic conversation? It was at some point a report or you had talked a lot about having a an athletic presentation in the future Is that scheduled or is that a future event? The athletic City was asking to have Actual presentation on on athletics. Yes. We want to have that somebody is going to be scheduled But I do think it would be appropriate at this point just to have the committee be aware of the State of the field because this is significant and as we have looked at the possible renovation of the school It first of all would never be covered in a renovation. It just would be outside of that completely And um, I think that we did not understand until quite recently I let melissa speak to this a little bit more herself, but I don't think we really appreciated the State of the field in terms of safety and maybe melissa you could just talk a little bit about this and maybe dying might want to Talk a little bit how this might work in capital if it's going to work That's the other problem Just one second. We're talking about the artificial turf field. Yes, okay I thought it lasted forever, but apparently in only the last 10 years Five to 10 depending on the the weight of use a genet had been in the capital budget committee for replacement Right, okay, but it got kicked Ah because of the high school plan they felt it wasn't prudent to invest a half a million dollars in a field That we could have trucks driving over when we start construction Okay, so that was based on an expectation Yes, thank you So I did provide some spreadsheets as matthew alluded to Around athletics and that's really nothing to review just for your own information As he noted the athletic budget can be tricky and there are a lot of costs that May not always be visible, but they're very present and quite often very large So I thought it might be helpful as we're assessing the athletic Moving forward for you to have that information In terms of the turf We had it tested there is a test called g max that comes around And what they do is they test the impact of a fall So if how much give essentially the surface has so when the turf was put in The fibers were a lot stronger that they are than they are now and they could hold the infill And with them holding the infill well When there was contact on the turf there was a lot of give Over time obviously that give lessons So they do a g max testing where they go around to the turf and they test different parts throughout And they rate it on a one or zero to a 200 scale 175 Is considered failing and no longer safe. We are right there. We are pushing that limit And one other intricacy of our surface is that when it was put in every five yards They had a different if you notice there's a dark green and a light green So it was two different turf fibers Really just because of the shades of color, but they have worn differently Basically just from the way that they absorb sunlight Because of that every five yards, there's a quarter of an inch to an half an inch In the surface Which doesn't present a safety issue for lacrosse or football, but for a sport like soccer or field hockey. It can be dangerous So we had the testing done in early september We are right at the brink of You know crossing over that line of the turf not being recommended for use And it was something that we brought to Kathy and Diane's attention in terms of how we're going to move forward Why don't we move back to grass I mean overall wouldn't it be less money over time two problems would make one of it is it's a toxic waste dump That's capped And to go back to turf would of necessity have a toxic waste souping up through the grass And number two maintaining grass is a problem with the kind of usage that field takes And I actually would just like to add to that There have been a number of schools in the district that have put in second or even third turfs and I've asked their athletic directors How did you get the funding for that? And they said that it's actually more cost efficient to have turf Over the length of time So it's a huge cost to put it in but over the 10 year life With a relatively low cost of maintenance annually. They said it's more cost efficient And so now some schools have two or three turf surfaces Can I ask a question? When did capital decide not to fund it? Two years ago last year. I'm not sure exactly I mean over the last five years capital has been systematically Saying no to everything high school related Unless it was an immediate health and safety factor and the turf was scheduled to be replaced Either last year or this year. It was this year. I believe so It was on the it was on the five-year plan for the schedule But then it must have been last year the decision was made by the capital budget committee To not go forward with funding the turf replacement because of the up-in-the-air status of the building rebuilding of the high school So next time when this happens could we Be have that brought to us I don't remember ever Because we would I I know at least three people Yeah, I think that I know I know we did tell everyone but I don't think what we did know until the testing was done How imminent the need to do this would be and While we share the concern that there could be um A problem with the construction the thing is that We're still going to be at least three to four years before we're We're putting a shovel in the ground and I think that we would just have to make sure that if we make the investment now That we protect that field from any kind of incursion we would We would have to be very creative in what we're going to do with the students You can't be pretty good with the football program Or the athletic programs that we have so that that field would have to be protected And maintain it if we're great maintain our athletic program How long will it take To start do you have any idea how long it takes to finish? That's a really good question. Um When I've spoken to a couple of different companies, they alluded to it as a summer project So my guess would be anywhere from four to six weeks But I could look into that and find out Do we have any other questions right now had had the field ever been tested in the past? Not to my knowledge Do you know if it was tested in the past? Well, somebody must have made some sort of evaluation for the capital planning to Make an assessment that there was a replacement. Oh, it's just the 10-year life on turf When I came in last year, Joe Conley had spoken to that it was up for renewal A replacement and so had Diane Just in terms of the timeline of when it had been put in We did change the plan of care for the turf this year and so we increased how frequently it's groomed Which essentially pulls the infill which will help with the give Thank you very much Say that can't be no question. Yeah, yeah The point you raised about the directed studies, could you elaborate on that? You're saying that we're not In compliance with state standards. That means that there are some students who have more directed studies in the laurel But could you give any? The state standards are a certain number of minutes per year of a instructional time 990 hours, right? And we call them directed studies and we treat them as instructional time Okay, right and that is and we're not again not alone in doing that. Correct, but um But it's really a euphemism for study hall Though there are not times that are used for for the vast majority of students has anything other than study laws And so it's not really instructional time At the same time the problem with directed studies is as I said before so I've got a student who's a freshman And he's taking for his pe requirement three on our rotation right now three days of pe out of every seven And three days and this is true for sophomores and three days out of every seven. He's in a study hall Which he may not need Now I could program opposite that pe class Um, if I had but I'd have if I did it and we could for example put intro to art in that slot But if I put intro to slot art in that slot, that's going to take You know one and a half pe art teachers. Yeah, but I don't have So if I programmed art more efficiently so kids could get more art in their schedule Um, I wouldn't be able to staff it Um, and the same thing is true, you know, I mean many seniors want to take they want their one directed study But they're not supposed to have directed studies in the middle of the day I didn't count again this year, but last year it was 75 kids Children years and seniors that had directed studies in the middle of the day when we don't want them to happen Um as a study period Well, it's either 51 minutes or 80 minutes depending on the day So if the student wants a study period you tell them that I will extend your day by 51 minutes You can have your study period Um, right, but they're the point is they don't have that study period because they want it They have this study period because there's nothing for them to so I mean I think To frame it It's not that the district or the high school isn't in compliance with state standards It's it means that we're we're short changing some kids because we're not able to offer classes during those periods But we're in compliance with state standards Yes, yes, so that's important. I want to say yes Well, I mean, I Yes, it is like as some of the other things I said today Um, there are things that we are all challenged by right challenge across the state And the state has allowed people to make that decision It's sort of not quite with the spirit of the law, but it is with the letter of the law In terms of trying to be able to provide kids programming during those times Okay, thank you As full There are a multitude of electives that you said in your previous talk, right? And with a very small number of exceptions, those are all full So it's not that you can direct some of these directed study students into some of those electives there I mean our art class Our art teachers At the moment I was just looking at that Have five sections of 23 to 25 kids I have one section of digital photography that's 29 in it You know the we had um I can't remember the exact number but for the five slots of cooking which we can put 100 kids into because Um, we can only fit 20 kids into the cooking lab without somebody falling in the stove Um, there were I want to say 180 kids that wanted Art I'm sorry to keep right barring the physical limitations of some programs like cooking or art There's got to be some electives where instead of 23 students there could be 28 And you could get some of those students out of directed study and without putting in a new fte, right? I'm sure you'd be increasing class size, but we have the well, we have you know, I mean we have tried to cap the class Yes, I mean if we could but if you put 28 kids I mean first of all, I I believe we have it at some elementary schools teacher Our contract cap. You got it. You must be on this one. Is it 125 for a teacher load? Well, they're not it's It's just suggested. Okay. There's no requirement You know, but if you put a teacher just 25 kids in a class for five classes You got a teacher who's now responsible for 125 students Plus an advisory plus a directed study that they're likely to be supervising We try to cap the classes 25 And sometimes we beg borrow and steal and like that, you know digital photography class He has not got enough stations for 29 kids, but they make do But How do I say this? So we do squeeze kids into those programs. I mean memoir I think memoir poetry has 29 and 27 in the two sections. Those are English classes Writing heavy when an English teacher signs an essay and spends five minutes creating every single one of those papers It's an awful long time outside of school to give the kids feedback So it really I mean it depends on the classes So we're squeezing the kids in there and we will squeeze the kids in there We're not asking right now for more than you know, what we're looking for right now is You know a small number of sections to accommodate the rising enrollment not to accommodate Breaking out, but if we were to fill in the gaps You know, it's so that we weren't busting at the seams and all those electives It would be three or four more fd just to fill that in That actually gets to kind of my question which I have to one is would it be possible to get Numbers of directed studies per grade We've had this in the past and it's helpful and to be helpful to see how it's changed over time It was before you And then also, I mean I will say this it's better. I mean last year. Thank you You gave us six fte Right and last year we all added a number of electives Um, and by all accounts, we had a much better and a much smoother enrollment this year in the fall And it was much easier for kids to get in. I mean, that's the thing It makes a difference in terms of kids being able to get in the programming they wanted and the schedules they want Um, and so it makes a difference even small differences make a big difference um so And what so what you're asking for then I mean I can certainly produce this what you're asking for is Because it's merely juniors and seniors you'd be looking at is the number of directed studies, right? No, actually the freshman and sophomores too. I want to know they're all undirected studies right and and I just want numbers I want to know I mean just so I can say you want that over time or just for this year Um, if you have it over time that you don't have to go very far back because we've gotten When did we have it from 2010? I'd like to see it myself. Anyway, I can I can find what we've got But then the other question is just how many ft would it take to get kids out of these directed studies? And I'm not saying I have that Magic money somewhere to pay for them, but I just like to know Roughly three or four depending on how we did it, right? It's just that would be helpful. Thank you Thank you, I've done the math many times in the back of an envelope and depending on how I do the math I come up with three or four Thank you again. Thank you very much Mr. Ruggieri Hello, good evening, so I'm by myself We have parent teacher conferences tonight. So the assistant principals or all the school I stayed there for the first hour or so and things need to be going pretty well So I was able to sneak out I'd like to begin by thanking you for for having us well My department chairs myself Some of the department chairs came for some support So I'm going to be asking for some help for them And I'd also like to thank you for all the additional staffing that you did give us for this year It has been very helpful already. We've seen some successes and I'm going to be looking down once in a while I forgot my glasses. So I may be down there a little bit longer just till till things focus But the successes that we have and we back up and we look at The growth our enrollment growth is still up there We keep getting bigger because more and more people want to live in allington and they're leaving other districts. So I go to meetings with principals And I see their schools are getting smaller Where I was just getting larger. So I think when I got here, we were about probably the seventh or eighth Largest middle school in the state. We're around four or five right now And we're continuing to get bigger and bigger So and I know you know that so I want to review what Happened this year with with the clusters To that sixth grade cluster that you gave us was very helpful I want to back up a little bit at the end of my first year We had to cut uh 10 positions and I say this all the time because we're still a little bit behind We were just over I think just over if if not just around a thousand students When I when I started at audison six years ago Now we're at 11 40 somewhere in that area So that's quite a growth over the time that I've been here when I first arrived at audison We have four sixth grade clusters and cluster sizes were right around a hundred As they are again, but then for four years we had three clusters So in that time the teachers were getting really burnt out They were getting stressed This year it's like a Walt disney film up on the sixth grade floor everybody's happy You know people are relaxed You know there's butterflies and bluebirds and it's it's really something else the kids and so what happens is the It allowed us to keep the the clusters at just under a hundred students Which is really a great You know thing for the teachers because then they're able to get to know the students better And it really helps with the advisory program too because now you have not only do you have the 99 98 99 students with their teachers and they're getting to know them very well And they're doing a lot of team building, but then you break it down You also have that advisory period once a week So now overall teachers have smaller advisories and are better able to get to know the students And with the house system now you have the assistant principal that's right there on the floor running their own cluster or team meetings and learning team meetings and they're better able to get To what the student issues are earlier. So now we're able to identify Issues with students earlier because the groups are smaller so that the teachers can see them more So it's this like ripple effect And it also helps with cluster meetings with parents Because parents are able to get in more frequently. So if you have 134 students in in a in a cluster and you have 40 or 50 parents that you need to see that's an awful lot of cluster meetings So now the teachers are tired They're they're grading more They're having trouble getting all the parents they need to get in there because they don't have enough cluster time Well, this really helps that because now we have more time to get parents in we have more time And we can get more parents in because we have more teachers And so really overall the staff feels less overwhelmed. They feel more balanced They feel as if they're more effective They they felt pretty beaten down the last few years and I can tell you how they're just so thankful that you were able to do this for them It really meant a lot. I'm sure that if you've seen them, they probably told you that But it's really made a huge difference and I hope that we can see You know at the end of the year a lot of some concrete differences that it's that it's made And I'll be reporting back on those Um And it's also specifically beneficial when teaching certain subject areas math, you know reading One of the things we identified In the sixth grade MCAS scores where writing was an issue because students weren't reading the way they were supposed to be reading So after talking to deb parry we we've really beefed up reading across the curriculum On all three grades, but specifically in grade six. So when it comes to something like reading it's really Beneficial to have smaller English classes so that we can do a better job of teaching reading writing math And you know, I know that sounds like a logical thing, but I just think it's something that needs to be pointed out And we also thank you for the part-time specialists that we got That we were able to get this year. Um, now that's a two-fold thing. It's it's good But because we looked at the cluster and said, all right Well, the kids have to go somewhere the students have to go somewhere when they're outside a cluster And when we started to build the schedule, we realized that we're going to be short staffed In some areas and there's going to be some imbalances In foreign language pe tech facts What am I leaving out art music digital modeling? So we added things in and they were very helpful But because we added them in as late as we did Because we knew we needed the cluster and that was the main thing that we needed to ask for But because we added them in later They were helpful But when you back up a tech class that now you have a point six extra tech teacher But you have 2.2 or 2.4 facts teachers now that's in that's an imbalance So when you're trying to schedule a sixth grade student Who now has to choose a foreign language? So they have to choose mandarin say they're in mandarin and they're in tech and they're in facts The way it all shakes out is you may have a mandarin class of eight A tech class of 32 A fax class of 12 You know a pe class of 38. So the because of the way that the the specialists were added Um That made that created an imbalance and the specialist so we started the schedule for next year already We started I started working on it over a month ago with the department chair So I have all the numbers for next year already Uh, and we're putting those together and I'm hoping to do a dry run of the schedule within the next week or two So the numbers that I'm showing you tonight Are the closest I have to what I believe will help alleviate that imbalance from last year I'm hoping that the numbers I have right now will alleviate those imbalances With foreign language and tech and fax that and art and music Because those classes are still very large even with the added on and whenever you talk about an average class Especially at the middle school because it's so tightly Scheduled and I will talk a little bit about the schedule too and where we are with that If you say that there's an average class of say 21 Then that means there could be classes of 26 27 and 28 and classes of 13 14 15 16 If you say your average class is 26 or 27 Then you could have a possibility of average of class sizes of 32 33 17 18 19 so that's you know, that's really Another thing that helped with the with the fourth cluster But not so much with the specialists Um, and as I said as our enrollment grows our ability to maneuver within the schedule that we have Is really difficult as a lot of the things that That matt said are similar with us, but it's different because I'm not saying this because I do it But middle school schedules are the hardest schedules to do because of the constraints that are on them And I know a lot of you up there know that because we you know Have been as our enrollment goes grows. We've been struggling with what we're going to do So as we add these staff members, it'll add the sections that we need dense space becomes an issue So that's something else that we have to look at But when you look at students now The schedules are so tight and we have we don't have enough sections The STEM students are having to forego taking classes So a student may not be able to take art because of certain situations in their schedule There's only so much room in their schedule or so many sections of art So a student really needs to take a class That is held at the same time of art. We have a limited number of sections of art So that student can't take art in a different place. So again, that's what matt was saying about directed studies So it's the same exact situation But in a middle school manner at the middle school where we're not able to run Say 1b when orchestra and band and chorus are in We're not able to run an art class or a music class or a fax class or a tech class at that time A because we don't have the staffing Well a because we don't have the staffing And b I was going to say because we don't have the space but we could probably find space at this point Because I think we're going to be okay Sort of But um, you know That that's the problem and that's why we really need to have To have these extras because you know, what we're trying to do is is bring equity You know, that's our real that's our data focus this year too at the school is bringing equity to students You know, we're looking at a lot of different things. So so we really want equity to be the center of everything we do You know, that's that's our hope this year and when I talked to Kathy yesterday and my administrative team that was really one of the things that we we really want to see happen And to do that we need to be able to add these positions That i'm going to be talking about later, but at the same time, i'm really thanking you for the for the Physicians that you already added because i'll tell you as matt and show special education We really do well our school really does well I did a presentation the other night on mcast the advisory program the house system and you know How we're rethinking what we might might be doing with some of the programs at the school and um, you know I sat there. I said we've been able to do A tremendous amount in the last five plus years And I was really proud of looking at the at the scores and how they've gone up You know because we have a habit all of us because we serve the public of Of beating ourselves up because we want to do the best that we can do But every once in a while it's okay to take a minute and say hey, you know what? We've really done some special things here. So we want to continue to do those special things But unless we can continue to grow with our enrollment, we're not going to be able to do those things One of the other things that was really positive this year as well as the the extras in The specials and the cluster was Because we had extra technology teachers and because we had so many Grants from AEF or so much grant money from the AEF. We did win the mass tech award this year as you knew Which was a huge coup for us But well deserved. They were blown away by everything we were able to do So I'd like to just take the the time right now to thank the town and the AEF for that That's something else that was a huge accomplishment. So that's why again We want to see things like that continue to develop So for 2000 2015 2016 our hope is that now that we have that fourth cluster, please can we keep it? We are going from 397 students to roughly 405 students So that's not that much of a jump, you know, there will be more So I I would hope that with a year under their belt with four clusters now that the sixth grade students Will have a better experience next year than they they had this year because Every year we try to improve we do improve the transition and every year we try to do earlier interventions with students grade seven Is currently 342 students and it will increase to 397 So this is a 55 student increase So what we'd like to do in there is not ask for a whole cluster in seventh grade What we'd like to do is ask for a half cluster So if we had two teachers that were duly certified So a teacher that was certified in humanities the la in history social studies and another teacher that was certified in math and science And they are out there I had in a previous district. There was a school that had the same exact setup We would be able to take roughly 60 or 70 students put them with the half cluster and We'd have an average class size in grade seven of 21 students again average in terms of middle school where A teacher could have a class of 17 and then a class of 25 or 26 If we don't have that we're going to have average class size of 26 27 Somewhere in there So that would mean that cluster sizes are larger now that the sixth grade students who have had all this personalized instruction This great experience in grade six now they go to grade seven They don't have the half cluster. It's all for not And well, I shouldn't say all for not but it's going to be more difficult more difficult for the students More difficult for the teachers again as dr. Janger was saying earlier We're getting an awful lot out of our teachers and an awful lot out of our students But at some point in time It's going to break and I know you know that and I know that you're just you just need information So that you can take it to the next level and and really help us So our hope after that for the 2016 2017 year Which I can't believe it is not that fun way at all is to build on to that half cluster So to add two teachers to that so we'd look at that That half cluster and say okay We want to add a math and an e la teacher to that because this person's strength is really social studies and that person Strength is really science. So You know, we would hope that that would be and then what would happen there is that Now full cluster would be split between seven and eight. So they'd have 60 or whatever the number is, you know, whatever the number of the incoming class would be so it would be 405 and 397 at that point. So they'd have 57th graders and or 67th graders and 48th graders So they'd split the class they'd have three seventh grade classes and two eighth grade classes And that would minimize the numbers and that would keep the numbers probably around 22 23 average Which is still very reasonable and again that number I haven't really the 21 and 27. I've calculated that the 22 23 is more of an educated guess So what I'm really asking for for next year And I will get to space it a little bit later But for cluster teachers It would be the 2.0. So for the half clustering grade seven In order to balance out All the specials I would need those below and I'll go through those So if we had added a 0.6 facts And a 0.4 technology facts and technology run back to back So if we were to add a 0.6 A 0.4 technology class Then we could have a grade six technology teacher a grade seven technology teacher and a grade eight technology teacher or A grade six technology teacher and then a seven and eight. They could split seven and eight. However, you know Mr. Weathers and and brandy and gary Think would be the best way to break that up But I think it would be great to have a technology teacher that solely did great Again really trying to personalize their experience. Well, that runs back to back with facts so If you have balanced technology numbers now you're going to have imbalanced facts numbers and the facts numbers are large Anyway, the family and consumer science. So we'd need a 0.4 facts to balance that out So because they run back to back you'd have far larger facts classes than you do technology classes and by Going to 1.0 Technology you are now reducing digital modeling So what would happen there is there would not be enough staffing to have digital modeling for the sixth grade We because that the staff member that is teaching digital modeling would be moving to 1.0 Tech so we need to fill that position so that we could keep the Digital modeling numbers which will be fine because again, we're only increasing by Anyway from five to ten students next year So that would keep that Copacetic In art we would need to add we have a 0.2 right now. We'd need to bring it up to a 0.4 So that I should have had a 0.2 art there 0.4 pe and 0.4 ace all those classes are They're tough to balance as well. We need to create more sections Of these classes and we can run them during times during the day when other things are happening so for instance, we were talking about the directed studies and a good creative way of using Directed study time would be if we had extra sessions to be able to build them into those times also what the special education department and Matt jangler we're talking about earlier really helps me as well because I We need a regular education social worker for next year We we were talking about the interventions that we try to put in place for students and get to them as early as possible If we were to have take one of my social workers now That's a regular education guidance slash social worker and take that social worker and go from 0.5 to 1.0 And then have that Social worker work primarily with the new intervention program that we're building We're model we're attempting to model an intervention program after the The high schools intervention program to deal with students that have been hospitalized that are coming back Into district or students that are going out and being hospitalized We don't have an intervention program for them right now. So a lot of that From time to time turns into school refusal. The students aren't as successful So I've been working with mr. Flood miss murphy and miss salvator my three assistant principals And I have been working with guidance and the high school and been having meetings on how to build a transition program Not by asking for anything But by you know doing what we have with the hopes that next year we could build in a 0.5 social worker Also this year we last year we had 1104 students And we had one nurse this year because of a grant we have two nurses I was talking to Some of the nurses and they were saying that the grant may not be in existence next year Which would mean we'd be back down to one nurse with 1140 students That just isn't feasible. So we're asking You if You could impress upon those who listen to you That we would have one nurse If the grant that isn't renewed. So at some point in time The grant is going to run out and it may be next year. So we're really going to need another nurse The the next thing that I would like to talk about and then that'll Be the end of of my presentation will be space. So again Murray murphy myself Jack flood wendy salvator we sit down. We're like, oh, this is great We we know what we need for staff and then marine without missing a beat We'll say all right now where are we going to put them and and it's true So what we've been doing is we've been going around the building And we've been looking at space that we can split and talking to you know Kathy and diane last year because we didn't really need the space As much as we knew we'd need it in the future We put off dividing some of the rooms because of the cost So diane was saying that it would be better to put that money into other areas for now Instead of spending the money to split these rooms, which wouldn't be cost effective And then this year now I understand why and I understood why they did it now then But I understand better now because we really are up against it So we're looking at splitting some of the classrooms and and the problem was that the ventilation was an issue But we can do it. It's just going to cost to do it We also are looking at some of our programs in the building that have That don't have as big a numbers as other programs in combining room space So we're going to we're hoping to add rooms that way We also have two computer labs that we're hoping to go mobile with We were we're moving away from pcs And so we're going to be moving those out of the of the of the labs at some point in time So we're hoping to go mobile And use those labs potentially for foreign language teachers And also for we could use it for the half cluster Also talking about foreign language. I did leave one thing out We I ran the numbers with uh Catherine rich yesterday afternoon and this has already made its way over So I know that our our spanish numbers are going up as well So we're going to have very large spanish classes for next year So I was hoping that at some point in time I might be able to speak about adding Possibly a point four to spanish a point two or a point four there To to help those numbers and I I feel Kind of greedy asking for this stuff, but it's not it's really what we need I We're trying to be as as frugal as possible But this is where we're really up against it and I was talking to one of the guidance counselors tonight at the beginning of Of the parent teacher conferences and he said, you know, if we keep this up, we're going to be bigger than the high school I know that sounds funny because there are four classes there But you know This is just getting out of control in a good way, you know, because We're growing which means the town is successful, which means people like it here And that's a wonderful thing, but we really are going to need space 2016 2017 is going to be very difficult challenging And we're going to need some more space In the school So thank you very much. I appreciate the time Yeah, I was just confused you kept mentioning equity and I I think I just sort of missed something equity across Well, if we are able to balance out our classes better Oh cross so class sizes is one thing, you know, we're talking about doing there's a lot of different data Points that we're looking at this year and one of the the focus is that we're looking on is whatever data We're looking at we want equity for the students in all areas So if we're looking at homework, is there equity for homework, which I'm not gonna That'll open up a whole other discussion. But when we were talking about equity as far as We're in this particular instance. It was it was class sizes so and And I know you don't want to do this of course, but But suppose you could only get half of what you wanted. Would there be a prioritized list? I mean I'm an optimist. So I believe we're going to be able to do it. But yes, I mean, I have to talk to the superintendent assistant superintendent business manager Human resource director my assistant principals, but we'd be able to come up with Some sort of a prioritized list Okay Um On the half cluster Um, I've got a lot of experience with that I It works on one level, but I've not really found the teachers Who do really really well on both content areas, right? So my calculus is In terms of looking at priorities What I rather have the half cluster And have 75 kids Taking the classes with the teacher who's stronger in one area than another Or what I rather have higher class sizes with a strong science teacher and a strong math teacher and a strong ELA teacher and a strong social studies teacher So that's one of those priority things that I'm thinking at that if I'm looking at I'm just going for my gut opinion As a result of the presentation So the question that I would want to hear an answer for and it's not for tonight It's for between now in march when we finalize the budget Would be Are we going to maintain the quality of instruction on a half cluster in a manner that was better than having A Not having the half cluster and having everybody with a strong future in that particular content area So understand that that i'm looking at that balance the second So so i'm not expecting an answer to that now because that's a tough thing to answer and we have asked that so yeah Yeah, the second thing that you're talking about is in terms of the balance of the schedule in terms of An average class size of 23 could be 33 and 13 What thoughts have you had in terms of breaking paradigms or changing The way the structure the schedule is structured In order to balance out the numbers. Well, i'm meeting with principles from other middle schools and looking at their schedules and seeing if there are Possibilities of how we could redo the schedule. So we are looking at other schedules from schools that are like-sized And the funny thing isn't the few prints a couple of the principles that i met said i like your schedule so they were I ended up going meeting with two principles and they both wanted to adopt Our schedule and i didn't like either of theirs so But we are looking around and and we did contemplate going into a junior high model At one point which would make it easier to Schedule but we really believe in the philosophy of a middle school model and i don't want to go away from that It really Makes it a more special experience for the students and again growing the house system and still having the clusters It really personalizes it and i'd hate to have to do that So we really are looking into How we're going to redo the schedule and i hope that by starting as early as we have When we do the first run that'll really give us an idea of if we have to think out Side of what we're doing right now. Okay now for the p word portables Um If we're looking, you know, I don't know where the trends are going All I know is that right now at this point in time they look to be increasing And that you can see for the future for a year or two where you can divide rooms and Move things around and go for a little efficiency and get the uh old Desktops out of the computer labs and convert them to classrooms and And and teach on the stage or do whatever other little Band-aid you do When do we get to the point where it's broken to the point where we really need to do something substantive like Add square footage. I think the year after next we're going to need to decide what we're going to do the following year It's a 2017 2018. I think Kathy, I don't know if you wanted to talk to that at all about what we might be doing the year after next for space Actually, we're developing a plan I honestly would rather talk about this with the facilities committee rather than right now, but A plan is developing because the question is I I've been through you know this building I assume that you've taken the same kind of tour that we have and we've got these wack wacky divided rooms that are divided Uh To make a triangle and pillars in the middle of everything and that that we've done Bad things to create more classrooms That no matter what we do We're stuck with them until we get the sbab in there to come and tear down those walls and every other wall surrounding it so On a long-term thing my real concern is is that if we that we're not going to end up doing something in terms of Division rooms now It's only a stopgap measure that we're going to have to address later and end up with a permanent situation of a badly divided room So you understand what you know My anxiety on this fine as well. Thank you. Yeah We'll be dealing with that facility. Yeah, but We hear we hear you we understand this we've been talking about this a lot and Convey to your staff that this is one of those things that we worry about every day Thank you. I will thank you I was also questioning about the have questions about the half cluster. I'm just trying to figure out their schedule In my head and if they've got 60 to 70 students and two people albeit they can each teach two subjects. You're still if Everybody and everyone has to be scheduled in cluster at the same time you're going to end up with classes of 30 to 35 Because there's only two people and I'm not saying that's going to happen for I I'm worried that it can the half cluster wouldn't be scheduled the same. That's one of the issues as well You know, mr. Slickman pointed out. There are difficulties with half clusters. I mean, how do they have cluster time? You know Who are they connected to when they're not? With their teachers. They're meeting at different times. So that half cluster Can't meet with their content areas, you know, so there are issues that we have to work through with this And the scheduling the scheduling them will be different The way their schedule will be different the way the students schedules are done will be different in how they go to specials So these are all things that we again have to look at Okay And then I wanted to make one comment to mr. Schlickman's concern about whether it's better to have Bigger classes and higher quality teachers My child went through that in sixth grade and In seventh and she's one of the ones in the big the big cluster that's going ahead and It's less than optimal There even though the teachers are great There is a limit to how much time they have in the day just the same limit that the rest of us do and the interactions with the students Diminishes just because they don't have that much time and so I think I think there is a trade-off and and it's something I would I mean You know it depends how much less optimal the person is but I I think it's worth definitely worth considering Well, and that's another thing that we were talking about with balance So if we were to go to the split cluster this year Then we would be and wouldn't be able to ask for as much With the specialists to balance that so that's why we decided that we would go with the half cluster and Beef up the specialist and then add that other piece on the following year I'm going to stick it with you, but it goes for all of them I in order to make an informed decision would like to see the cost of staff and Related materials space changes in buildings. Oh, that reminds me it's going to add down to that. Yeah, just all that goes forward With a all the requests what it would cost And I guess I would ask you and to dr. Bordi to the other principles and stuff If you don't get it the impact That we know Back I don't think everybody's going to get everything they want But I think we need to understand and our decision making the impact of what again for a better phrase the priority list But at at the different levels I have a lot of faith in you mr. Hannah, so So but that was one thing I left out were desks You know chairs materials materials, so that was one of the things Having a teacher has a ripple effect through the budget Thank you any further questions Thank you very much. Thank you all Okay, uh, thank you Moving on to the monthly financial miss johnson Um, yes, thank you. Um, we are continuing along. There have been no drastic changes Or swings and we're still very early in the heating season, so Any members have any questions miss johnson? I do. Sorry. I'm already ahead. You jumped too fast. I have to find my go first. Yeah, you go first Can you give me uh, and you may not have the numbers with you right now cost expenditure on gas last year and the previous year it is if you go to the budget, um, it would be under I assume you were talking about natural heating gas as well. Yes. The one that you're anticipating 8104 I think so It's it's a count code 8204 And what you see here is that we have a budget line of just under seven hundred thousand dollars But right now based on our last years last several years of gas expenditures We've encumbered as much as we have typically spent So that's that's where that's that's why we're estimating that savings Okay, and I didn't want to I know we've been over budgeted in this line for a while But I wanted to have at least one full season on the thompson before right. I have cuts there I did so this 690 696 is what we've been budgeting for the past couple years. Yes, okay, but have we seen this much? Last year did we expend most of it We expect I mean the encumbrance amount that you see the combination of the 31 that's been spent and the 308 That's encumbered right. That's for this year. I'm talking about but that's based on prior years Oh, okay That's that's how we come up with our encumbrance number for the year we project what we expect to spend on that line We're concerned with Is that right now we're showing many lines over No, and no lines under really just a couple of lines under but the Right now. We're looking at close to 500 000 over. Yes If all of a sudden we have massive cold We're going to be hurting even that much more if we expend with all this gas, Mike Well, the likelihood of us Expending all the gas money in the budget I think is tolerably remote based on our last several years of expenditures But I just didn't want to lower the budget until I had a full season on the thompson and last year I just didn't have that Um, one of the question that I had on the revolving revenue tracking The dates are wrong at the top. I didn't change those. I apologize. That's okay. Uh, the bishop bus is Looking at a plus of two thousand dollars That's a fee correct Does it go back or no? No, we we I estimate how many kids are going to pay for the bus each year for the bishop And some years it's over and some years it's under but we try to keep the estimate close And that's pretty close So so we use the entire amount that we collect in any given year to offset the cost of a bus driver We've uh just from my We've received two twenty two thousand. Yes, seventeen dollars. Yes. We're expecting to spend twenty thousand No, we're expecting to spend twenty two oh seventeen I will spend all of what I collect in a given year just like I do with athletic fees Then why are we showing uh estimating over budget? It implies when I but when I did the budget last year my estimated revenues in that line were twenty thousand dollars And so we have more people Riding the bus and paying fees so I'm interpreting that under the variance that we're going to have two thousand dollars cash at the end of the year in our pocket We're not Yes, it will offset the general fund to the tune of the additional two thousand seventeen dollars I will what I do with that revolving line Is that I move a bus driver's expense out of the general fund And into that revolving line to effectively use up the money So that in any given year those fees that are collected are expensed on a transportation expense I think I know the answer We're not going to make a profit on this. We never do the cost of the bus That's what the bus costs more than the bus costs far more much more than however much we collected offsets However much we collect right fine. It just the way this was done. It looked like we could be confused. Thank you Okay, I found out well I couldn't find my question because it was on natural gas and mr. Hainer apparently stole it out of my computer and asked exactly what I wanted to do it right So, yeah, I had exactly the same concern. So no and and I have two But I've I've been as they say hesitant to to do anything until I saw a full year of the thompson In case they were bugs or shakeouts or it wasn't nearly as energy efficient as we were promised It would be okay Yes, how did the teacher moving budget get so out of whack? That's not particularly out of whack I've never really budgeted for it. You know, it's one of those expenses that that's kind of comes out in the wash We you know, and I don't have a really good metric For figuring out in advance how many people are going to move Now when we move the stratton that's going to be a really big number And I'm going to work harder on figuring out a metric to predict how many people were moved But in you know, March January February when I'm creating the budget I have no idea how many classrooms are going to get shuffled over the summer And that's fundamentally where this this number comes from is when teachers get shuffled over the summer So it's just I have no idea how to get a handle on it I mean, I could I could do better at putting in the the average of the last several years But it's so year specific You know when we did the thompson those expenses were expense to the thompson building project Because it was related But when we're just moving people around to make them fit and as we have more kids We're moving more people more often to make things fit. Why does that cost? That's what the teachers receive a compensation for moving their classroom And you know, if an unfortunate teacher gets moved every year Thank you We down to uh, consent agenda Did I skip something? Yes, superintendent. I'm sorry I apologize Freudian Wow, let's do we should explore that With the new psychologists, yeah, yeah, thanks Um, actually, I don't really have much of a report tonight, but I do have one thing and that is to To congratulate the girls soccer team Um, as you may know, they went to states this year and I think this is the first time in 22 years We've had a team go to states But what's an enormous accomplishment? Which is that they they were the division two North winners and they're in a very competitive league and they did an extraordinarily great job this year So congratulations to them the the final Match with hingham was a nail biter Basically tied until the last minute of the game And unfortunately, um, we we were not the team that they got the last goal We also this has generated a lot of Team spirit one of the things that That our athletic director mr. Dulecki has been emphasizing is whole school team spirit And how that manifests this year is teams going to other teams games and they all go to at least one or two And the cheerleaders went to the states not to mention the fact we had two bus loads of fans go Um, but then the the girls soccer team the following sunday went to the the cheerleaders competition So there's a lot of that that's been happening this year, which I think has been um a great Team spirit high school spirit incentive So anyway, congratulations to them That yes Thank you We'll be 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 So request which event the item will be considered in its normal sequence Approval of warrant number one five zero six six date at all November 20th, 2014 total warrant amount 961 thousand eight hundred fifteen dollars and seventy cents Approval of draft minutes october 9th, 2014 November 13th, 2014 November 20th, 2014 I want to pull the warrant The warrant itself. Yeah I'm pulling the 20th, but I don't I couldn't find the minutes of the 20th in here, but But I could I could be missing them. Okay, but anyway, I wasn't here in the 20th. So right now, uh, we will Prove oh, yeah I mean draft minutes for october 9, 2014. Okay. They're there at the 20th of that. I just November 13 2014 all those in favor All those opposed We'll now move on to uh, approval of draft minutes november 20th, 2014 All those approved. Please just raise your hand for the secretary Poas abstain abstain Okay, we'll be on to the warrant uh article Yes, you're in it. Okay. Thank you very much I will be abstaining in that there is an item of reimbursement from Going down to the MASC Conference Thank you. All those in favor of the warrant as presented raise your hands again, please Opposed abstention Thank you Moving on to subcommittees Policy Thank you. We had a meeting just yesterday to go over policies and student discipline policies the agenda that was Listed that's not on for secondary tonight. Is it? The agenda policy no Do we approve agenda? We did Oh, that's right. That's right. So on for first street tonight. We have the domestic violence leave act This was uh in august the legislature passed this act Which requires all employers with 50 or more employees to provide work leave to victims of domestic violence We worked off a model that The mass association and school committees had written a sample and it was Given to our legal counsel to look at which was suggested By MASC to pass it by legal counsel and we discussed the merits and and we would recommend this For adoption at our next meeting It's all we have So I understand that you're working off a model and stuff but And that it comes down from law But when I'm reading it it doesn't actually If the person has suffered domestic violence and is recovering from an injury Or is caring for a person recovering from injury. That's not covered as the thing is written And it just seems to me that that would be a natural thing to include in this And again, I realize that what are you looking at? I'm talking about the inorder to be eligible for said leave And it talks about the employee must be using the leave from work too and it talks about things But it doesn't actually include recovering from injury or caring for a person recovering from injury And I just wondered about that Well in paragraph one it says a family member of the employee Right, right, but I'm saying that the employee in paragraph two Right It says the employee must be using the leave from work to two seek or obtain medical attention counseling victim services or legal assistance Secure housing obtain a protective order from court appear in court or before a grand jury meet with a district attorney or other law Enforcement official or attend child custody proceedings or address other issues directly related to the abusive behavior Against the employee or family member and I'm saying recovering from injury can take time And or if a child or someone is recovering from injury that takes Caring for them takes time and that doesn't actually look like it's covered Yeah, I would say that um the language that it says that the employee must be using the leave from work to seek or obtain medical attention if the medical opinion Is that the employee needs time off from work to recover from injury that would I think that would fall under this and it would Qualify for the 15 days of domestic violence leave It may also qualify for the employee's use of sick leave or other fmla or something else That could be sort of combined at the same time could run concurrently. So it's not it it wouldn't Mean that they couldn't use those things. It's really up to whether the situation calls for the use of those other types of leave okay, I I guess that's kind to me that's kind of a generous reading of obtaining medical attention But if you think that's how it would Do people understand what i'm trying to say? Yes Was it a consultation with me? I see on this particular one not with uh, mr. Finnegan, but with um Attorney said george williams. Yeah We talked about whether the leave shall run concurrently or consecutively And we determined that it was going to be a case-by-case basis and the employer that the district has the right to Either provide pay or or or to ask for the employee to use the secrification in addition If nothing else we're on record as stating the broader interpretation And I think it really is a case-by-case determination because these situations are so individual And what one person needs is and I hope rare I would hope very rare What one person needs may be totally different than what another person needs So it really is an individual case-by-case basis Okay Nothing to report at this time. I'm sorry, uh community relations. No Facilities, I'm sorry curriculum instruction and assessment and accountability We will be meeting i'm trying to find us Um Oh, we meet on december 15th at 6 p.m. Here To discuss the issue that was brought up at Our meeting to me Facilities we don't meet again until january 22nd. Okay Um We all receive you all saw a copy of a letter we got from the human rights commission They will be formed In the package, um, they will they have formed a Committee and have asked us to join them in a joint committee To deal with the issue that was brought by mr. Harrington to this committee. Um, we have their The idea is to have three of us go. I'm willing to go if there are two other people that have been willing to go Uh, mr. Pierce and uh, dr. Seuss Uh, I think just to make it official Since this will be a joint subcommittee. Uh, i'm going to call for a vote on that to appoint Myself mr. Pierce and dr. Seuss to this Joint subcommittee. So moved. Is there a second? second The discussion all those in favor. Hi. All right. Thank you and I will uh through, uh, Mr. Schell contact the human rights commission that we And then set out a doodle or something to set a date for the first meeting. Thank you. Um, Well, what about the super eval? That's that's the next one Joint subcommittee, I'm sorry Superintendent eval committee met, uh, monday You have in your package a draft For the event uh, superintendent evaluation timeline If we can approve that tonight, uh, I would recommend that this goes to a policy to change the Timeline that's there and replace it with this There's any discussion on it I'd welcome it at this time I wondered if I didn't have big problems with the big picture of it, but just whether We want to be more specific because we're working with The document the current evaluation thing We can be more specific that the superintendent is supporting the professional practice goal And you know not just two goals. Okay. Well, uh, what number we talking? Number one and then number two Um It's true those two are her well those two those two are required by the statute Yes, but they're required to be a student And an apart just so we know which ones are Well, we can be more specific. I mean, that's all I'm also going to announce that we're going to have another subcommittee meeting next week To work specifically on the goals to bring to this committee For the final meeting in december to follow this timeline I meant the the type of goals that it's she had to provide, you know, the first two You mean to be specific of what those goals are? Yeah I that they were kind of I don't have the thing in front of me right now What is what is it a student achievement goal? One is a practice goal? Yes I think that just state those there. Yeah, and then Be more specific on what those two right and then also what the subcommittee is providing Well, we're going to be recommending To the full committee for discussion at the next meeting No, I mean The subcommittees will submit goals for full committee I understand that I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the um, the superintendent Evaluation has There were the you know, I'm pulling it up now so I can look at it Okay, so there were the practice goal the professional practice goal the student learning goals and then We would be providing the district improvement goals and I think it should say that It it doesn't it's not necessarily it can be district improvement goals, but it doesn't it isn't narrow to just that We can we can come up with a with a goal that Is beyond that if we choose We can we can we can create a specific goal for our specific needs or goals Okay, I'm those are called the district improvement goals. It's just terminology. Okay, fine, right? And that's I'm just trying to make this no timeline fit. Yes. The timeline should fit with the document. We have to fill in That's all she wants. That's all I'm trying to do. That's for number three. That's for number three. Yes. Got it With those Changes That's a question in terms of setting this up. Um Is this a standing subcommittee because I don't think we ever voted it We did vote the committee. It was not it's not a standing subcommittee The question was asked It would probably have to meet at least twice a year once right at this time to do the goal setting So you're gonna we're gonna have to vote this special subcommittee every year to re-establish it because it's a year to year thing Yes. Mm-hmm. So should that be put in this So that we remember that This isn't the this isn't the committee. This is just the superintendent's time. All right. It may be a place that's required for I'm not sure you need to start a committee. You might this could just be referred to committee to cia Yeah, that's in the past. That's where it's come from Before we started doing this whole of out. Okay The hope was to finally get a tool and get so do we want to that and then do we want to Specialify that the subcommittee shall be the cia subcommittee because this is confusing. It's like the superintendent Again, Judd, this is just the timeline If you want to put I mean, I don't know where it belongs I think is would you want to just pass it to policy to Polish and this this needs to go into policy, right? Okay, so no, no, no, no. I mean pass it to the policy subcommittee to finish the Well, I think once it becomes voted we can we can make it work and fit within the policy The only concern I'm having is that we're actually acting on this right now The subcommittee that If we can pass this for the corrections right now, and they need changing on the first and second reading we can change Like that, but this is the meat of it if we can agree on the meat of it This covers the whole year. We're coming also into a new aspect. I don't know if you y'all sorry There will be a survey involved of some of the staff As well And I really I would like to commend miss stock. She took it upon herself She she saw the one that the desi suggested And it just doesn't apply for our needs. I think and she's wanting to bring that forward There'll be a couple more meetings on So with the suggested changes Okay, so I think mr. Pierce has a good point which is it has to be Right now the timeline if refers to a committee subcommittee that exists now, but will not necessarily exist in the future So do you want to fix that now or do you want to just? Well, I didn't ask for some just say the subcommittee In 2015-16 shall be part it shall be in the What if we just change evaluation subcommittee all the way through to take a recommendation and assessment subcommittee? Yeah And then you just superintendent shell Will submit two goals to the soup you could say to evaluation subcommittee or ciaa I would just say value I ciaa no because we've got you've got evaluation subcommittee right now And I don't know if that's what you want me to do with it now All right Are you guys ready to dissolve it? No But in the future after april first when we go back to uh, when we form a new committee I think at that point we can pass it on one of the goals do next These goals the first this right now Wait the next meeting the next school committee meeting. We will be greening on the goals Okay I would recommend we just stick with this right now and do Our policy so we're just it's not a formal policy. It's just a timeline that we're agreeing to for this right now time certain Yes It's just a With those corrections, but but I mean I do think that We should consider Putting this into policy. Absolutely. So so with the better language and stuff And Yeah, I'll be happy to bring this to policy Oh, we just sent it to policy. I mean just sent it to policy. So I missed the last two and I don't know how quickly but through those meetings without me Okay All those in favor accepting that this timeline Uh with the corrections say aye. All right. Opposed Thank you very much Was there a second second For the record Are there any further announcements By any members of the committee At this time remember we added this to our agenda I'd just like to Make a quick announcement. I as a liaison to the pier school I met with their pto last night and they presented me with a list of Um, their concerns and their hopes and issues for our upcoming budget And I presented those to dr. Bodie in the form of an email today And I'd like to you know, perhaps go over that With her a little bit more in depth and and then with the committee Could I ask you also to submit that to the budget subcommittee as well the copy? I'd be happy to. Yep Any other members to have an announcement at this time Is my understanding that there is uh, no need for an executive session tonight. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn So moved is there a second All those in favor