 Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Allicton School Committee. It is March 12, 2015. As we did the last meeting, we are divided into two separate meetings. The first meeting we are having is the public hearing on fiscal 16 superintendents for post school budget. We are now going to check to see if there's anyone here that wishes to speak on that. Seeing as we have the last time, no one here to speak on the public part, I will entertain a motion to adjourn this meeting. So moved. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Public hearing on fiscal 16 superintendents for post school budget is now closed. It's the only time we get to bang to the gavel a lot. At this time I will open the regular scheduled school committee meeting and before we begin, I have a statement I would like to read allowed for the public here and at home. We've been informed during that during public comment section of our meeting this evening, one or more individuals may be addressing information about James Martin, a former employee of the school district who was recently charged with criminal conduct. The safety of your children is one of our highest priorities to the Allicton school committee and the entire Allicton school system. While we welcome public input at our meetings, I want to remind you, the public, that as an employee error, the Allicton school committee cannot make public disclosures about confidential personnel matters, including providing information about a former employee's performance and disciplinary record. We can and have provided information that is public, including Mr. Martin's dates of employment with the Allicton public schools and positions he held. Mr. Martin, like all employees in the Allicton public schools, passed a criminal background check by being employed. Mr. Martin was employed by the Allicton public schools for two school years, 2011, 2012, and 2012 and 2013. He started as a teaching assistant at Scranton Elementary School in September of 2011. In April of 2012, he became a teaching assistant building a substitute at the Audison Middle School. While working in these positions, he performed duties under the direction of teachers and administrators. He did not participate in the fifth grade science camp or any other overnight program associated with the Allicton public schools. Mr. Martin resigned from his employment with the Allicton public schools at the end of the 2012-2013 school year. And he has not been employed by the Allicton public schools in any capacity since the end of the 2012-2013 school year. Although the recent criminal charges against Mr. Martin are very serious, we have no information or allegations that this former employee engaged in any criminal conduct while he was employed by the Allicton public schools over the Allicton public schools student. If anyone has further information, they should contact the Allicton Police Department. At this time, I would ask Mr. Schell to give me a list of those that wish to speak. Prior to getting the list and calling people up to come and speak, I would like to remind people that the public participation is not a state mandate. It is provided by the schools. The usual procedure is to let them speak to three minutes. Mr. Chalmers, please come to the microphone. I have my letter. Would everyone like a copy of it? I, fine. I'd like you all to have one, please. Thank you very much. Thank you. I just said it this year. Thank you for listening to my letter. This is what I wrote to Dr. Bode the other day. This is Dr. Dr. Bode. As parents and children of the Allicton school system, I found your last few emails quite troubling. You failed to mention that James Martin was actually fired from Stratton Elementary School. After hearing from various people who were at the school during this time period, Ms. Dunovan's recommendation was that he was to be fired. Parents were informed parents that Mr. Martin was fired. Children have been telling their parents they remember him for various reasons, including throwing erases at children's heads and being verbally abusive to them. Why did you veto Ms. Dunovan's recommendation to fire this man? Families and students are talking and remembering his behavior in the classroom. Why weren't you listening? I find it very interesting and somewhat coincidental that his mother is a teacher at the Allicton High School in the math department. Didn't you used to be the head of the math department at Allicton High as well? Hmm, this doesn't sit right with me at all, and it brings up all kinds of red flags and nepotism. What were this man's qualifications that allowed you to hire him at our school in the first place? Has he worked with children before? What was his employment history prior to working in Stratton? Just so you know, it's common knowledge that his sister was also working at the Stratton at the time. I would like to request a paper trail investigation from Sherry Dunovan in the matter at hand. There are too many links pointing back to you in the rehiring of Mr. Martin. We are entitled to this information based on the Freedom Information Act. Between continuous problems with the school budget and the way you handled last year's parent threatening our school community with gun violence or rather didn't handle it, I think you need to consider submitting your resignation. We urge the school community to take this letter into serious consideration and terminating Dr. Bode's employment with the school district of Allicton. Thank you, Rob Chalmers. Thank you. Mr. Brantley, if I, I hope I pronounced that correctly. It's Bromley, I'm sorry. That's quite all right. My name is John Bromley. I live in Forty Brattle Street, 13 in Arlington. My children go to Stratton Elementary and also Odyssey Middle School. And I was wondering if I could address the committee on the transparency that we were promised after the gun permit issue that occurred at Stratton Elementary School with Principal Hannah. There was a statement that was given by Dr. Bode and I thought at the time that it was quite poignant and too appropriate. But since then the transparency doesn't seem to be happening here where since that time there are the allegations that have come to light of back rubs inappropriate touching in the school with Mr. Martin and things that were reported but then stopped at a certain level. So I guess my question becomes what investigation is happening? Is there a point person that can be contacted to help foster that transparency with the public? I know you can't share details, personal background, info, et cetera. And obviously there's no pending suits or anything but there are plenty of children, my own included, that had personal interaction with Mr. Martin alone without supervision of a teacher and we were told that didn't happen. Of course we learned later on from the teacher themselves that that did happen. So it raises concerns. Your child's in treatment for this now and I don't know how many other children may be there or out there that may need to be asked certain questions to find out. Did anything inappropriate happen with Mr. Martin? I don't think it's a matter necessarily of trying to address fault towards the school board or you Dr. Brody, I don't think it's a one person issue. But I think that I don't disagree with the statement that was just read but I don't think it's a one person issue. I think it is something that as a community we should be addressing together and I think that it's something that if this transparency is something that you believe strongly enough in then maybe there should be more communication with the parents, maybe there should be a meeting that's been requested that's to this point to find out who else may have issues. Otherwise there's no real investigation going on if no one's asking the parents and then through them the children have you had interactions with this guy where you made to feel uncomfortable with this guy? Did you rub your back? They're all valid concerns. Is there any information the committee can share with us as far as a point person that's leading the investigation or anything about the investigation other than there is one? As I stated in my opening statement we are limited by statute. As I ended my statement that if people have information or I will even add the word concern I would recommend that they go to Chief Ryan. If we as mandated reporters in the school district are made aware of anything that is the first person we are required to contact as well. Understood. And if you brought something to somebody here the first thing that person would be expected to do up the chain would be contact Chief Ryan. So what I'm hearing though is that it's on the parents then to organize and investigate on their own to find out if anything needs to be reported through the police, not through the school system. I have to be very cautious in how I respond to you. I'm saying that preference. I'm a lawyer, I get it. Okay, the schools are mandated reporters. So anything that we, meaning the school district any employee in the school district is required to report it to the appropriate authority. That's, I don't mean to obfuscate with you. That's the best answer I can give you right now. I understand. I'm sorry. I understand. Thank you for your time. Thank you. At this time, we will move on to budget discussion. Dr. Vody. This is the evening that we have to come to a vote of the budget. We have been at this point with the recommendations from the superintendent and this is the evening that this becomes the superintendent's, I'm sorry, the school department, the school committee's budget that will be forwarded to finance committee and we have a meeting with them on March 23rd and will be approved by Tom Meeting. This, probably this May. Since we met last, there have been two major changes that do affect the budget for next year. One of which is that up in, we have always for, well I should say for many years, probably since about 2000, a little before that, have received kindergarten grant and that grant has funded presently this year, 18 of our halftime TAs as well as is funded one kindergarten teacher as well as stipends for the steering committee. It also has funded some professional development and materials for the tools of the mind kit. So it's, but roughly about $200,000 of that grant has gone directly into personnel. So grants for people who are listening are monies that we receive that go directly to the schools do not go through the general fund. So that's $200,000 that right now we need to plan in the budget for next year that we were not planning on. Another development in the last week is that, as you recall, I guess about two years ago, we went through our coordinated program review for ELL, English language learners and we've gone through a number of plans with the Department of Education and I may even ask Dr. Cheson to pipe in a little bit when we go through this, but essentially how we have been operating in Arlington is really providing the services to our students that are English language learners at the level that's been determined by the performance and what is the current support that these students need to progress at the appropriate rate for that grade level, which for many of our students requires considerable amount of time and less so for others. So that is how we've been staffing our ELL support services. And when we had our first plan for providing services, one of the ideas was to create SAI classrooms which is part of the whole retail initiative so that we have teachers in all of our classes that are doing core subjects, elementary classes, that would be prepared to deal with a range of learners that have English as their second language. As we've gone through these different plans, we've finally come to the point where the Department of Education is insisting that despite what the progress and despite the achievement of our students are, that we still must provide the mandated number of minutes of pull-out support. It can't even be push-in support. It has to be pull-out support for our students that are level one and level two and the hour to two hour support for students that are in the category level three, four, and five. Those levels correspond to the language proficiency of the students. So what that means for us moving forward next year is that we would need to have three to four additional teachers in order to provide the required number of minutes. One of the things that complicates it is that for level one and level two students, the required number of minutes is two and a half hours. So it's very difficult in the school to have two backed back two and a half hours because of a teacher's need for prep time as well as lunchtime. So it's been tricky scheduling it and it would be very difficult to be able to do two of those sessions. So generally you'd have two and a half minutes or two and a half hours for level one and two and then provide the services for level three, four, and five. We're working on some options right now as we go forward to next year and those options include providing all of these services in the schools where students are right now or possibly creating some centers in the town for efficiency and efficiency of our program. I don't know, Dr. Chesham, you wanted to add a few more comments on this? Just that there is a varied number of, in terms of depth of the students who need ELL, services from school to school. There are some schools that have a small number as 10 and there are two schools that are in the 40 to 45 range. So that makes it, when you have 10 students at a school, it makes it quite difficult to schedule a teacher in there and get any economies of scale. And so while we really hope to be able to hold on to the neighborhood school issue program, there is a possibility that in order to create the most efficient and effective kind of staffing for our students that we may have to do that. And I want to echo what Dr. Bodie is saying is that we've made our decisions thus far by really looking at student achievement data. And we get data from the MCAS for those students who are in grades three, four, and five. And all students in grades one through five also take the access test, which is a measurement of their acquisition of the English language. And we look at that data as well. And those are the things that have informed us up to now. And unfortunately, despite the fact that we fast-tracked all of our elementary teachers through the retail program and that we actually have three interns from Leslie College who are getting dual certification in English as the second language as well as elementary education working with our students, those actions have not been sufficient for the Department of Education. So as you know from the last meeting, we had looked at our legal budget as a way of providing some more reserved positions. And as we left the last meeting, we were looking at eight reserved positions. When we are looking where we are right now, if we fund all of the positions that were covered under the kindergarten grant, that's 200,000. So roughly speaking, we're looking at three FTEs. And then the additional three to four for ELL, we are getting very close to the number we have. Plus, we know that the middle school is going to need some partial FTEs in all the specials. So we're at the point now where with these new additive responsibilities that we do not have the eight reserved positions that we thought leaving last meeting. So we have, as a central office team, have looked at what could we do in order to provide those, but at the same time, create some additional reserved positions, which if we have a repeat of what happened last year in terms of enrollment growth, we have to be able to be responsive to the need for other classrooms. And as we've talked about the possible proposed elementary schedule, that's going to require some additional FTEs as well, that's separate and apart from what is necessary at Otterson. So one of the suggestions and Diane Johnson isn't here, she's at the Capital Committee, so we can get more detail from her when she returns, but there are two things that, two areas of the budget we've looked at. One is that we're actually going to go deeper into the legal budget and take about 100,000 out so that we could put toward reserved positions, but the other has to do with the half cluster at Otterson. We've gone back looking at numbers and reassessing whether that might be the recommendation we would have going forward next year, the middle school administration has been involved in the thinking on this, our curriculum leaders as well, in fact, our director of mathematics has done an analysis of what would happen if we changed things and what that would mean is, right now we have four clusters in sixth grade and that four are obviously, we're going to seventh grade next year, so the number of students. The proposal is to rethink this and to go back to an idea that we originally had, which is to have a split cluster between sixth and seventh, so that each grade has three and a half. Now, what we do know will happen and would make a big difference at the middle school is actually if we increase the FTEs sort of across the board for our specials, because that is one of the places where we're getting large class sizes and also become juggernauts in the schedule as well. Now, I know Dr. Cheson has, you're much more familiar with the numbers in terms of class sizes and maybe you could just talk a bit about that for a second. Our original proposal to put a half cluster in the seventh grade to add an additional half cluster in the seventh grade would have changed the section sizes from 25.7 average to 22.6. The split cluster still does that, but currently in the old proposal, we would have had in the sixth grade approximately 20 sections with 20 students in each and now we're talking about 18 sections with 22 students in each, so really getting the reduced section size in seventh grade without a major impact in the sixth grade side and in addition, we are projecting that based on what we think is coming up from the fifth grade if every fifth grader came to the middle school and as we are aware, somewhere between five to 7% of the students will choose to go to another middle school or another school completely or may move out of town. So we have looked at that historically, so when we talk about 22 students per section, that would be the worst case scenario. That's if every student that is in fifth grade chooses to come to the Odyssey Middle School. So it's our recommendation that this would be a good proposal. It also helps us with some of our spacious hues right now and so those clusters and we've already had our department chairs begin to talk to people who are very interested in doing three classes of sixth grade and two classes of seventh grade. It would allow us to stay to our commitment to have small class sizes in sixth grade so that the transition is easier but it would also allow us to have that half of seventh grade cluster that we need for that larger class size that's moving from sixth grade to seventh grade. So we had looked at this before. One of the things that didn't, to be honest, come to my mind when we first looked at it, the first time is that because the same four teachers have those three sections of sixth graders and have the same two sections of seventh graders, it is pretty much the same cluster system. I mean, the bonus of the cluster system is that the same four teachers share the same students and they can provide a very concerted effort for the success of those students and this will still allow us to do that and that was the thing we also wanted to preserve. All right, so in combination, while we're not quite at the five, we're getting closer to going back to a five, assuming that the committee also, I think that the ELL situation is something that's mandated and we need to go forward with some plan that's going to, we can work out with Desi to address their mandate. The issue about the kindergarten is something I think that is something the committee needs to discuss tonight but I wanted you to be aware of the other monies we've identified that we could put toward reserve. Now, should the kindergarten grant be funded next year, and but we won't know that for a couple months, and then what that would do is give us a little bit more flexibility with respect to our reserve positions because even at the four, four and a half, we know with the elementary proposal that's gonna be some of it used so we're gonna be a little tight on the reserve positions at least in terms of what's on paper and planning. Obviously we have to adjust as best as we can to the realities that may face us this summer. Thank you. Questions or statements or? Oh yeah, I just have, sorry I have lots of little questions, I'm so sorry. So for the English language learners, were we to move children out of their neighborhood schools? Would that be a temporary situation so that as they moved up to three or four or five they'd be put back into neighborhood schools or that would be a permanent situation? Well, I don't think we're fully decided that. Be more likely that they would be able to go back to their neighborhood schools because there would really only be an hour, possibly as much as two hours to pull out. One idea in this is if they were going to a particular school that provided the services, we might still do it as pull out or we might do it as a substantially separate class. We're really deep in the planning of this right now but Dr. Cheson and Carla Brzezi, who is our director of ELL, have been looking at these various possibilities but either way we're looking at it, we're still hovering at that three to four positions. So it's it, we're trying, obviously we want to do it from the mindset of what's best for the students. Presently the model of two and a half hours pulled out isn't a particularly good model anyway. I know that some other communities have been talking and with Desi about the idea of this being pushed in and unfortunately they're not making much headway on that one. So there's a lot of discussion I think that needs to happen at the state level in terms of these because on one hand, if we're providing services based on achievement and their scores, that's exactly what should be doing. We should be doing, we should be providing services based on that, not to some fixed formula to what the Department of Education feels is the necessary amount and not to have it be a push in model. That's I think another issue. And for the half clusters and the sixth and seventh grade sort of split clusters, staffing is always a concern. And I know that when we were talking about doing the half cluster, we had sort of identified and I don't know who they are, but you know, some particularly good people who could do that. Would we be in danger of not getting those people if we switched to this different model or would they be? They're presently teachers at the school. So they'd be in the school. They would be in the school. We may have to, the following year because the seventh grade will go to eighth grade, we're gonna have to obviously rethink this. At the very least, we're gonna need the three and a half each six and seven. So that's gonna have to remain fairly constant unless we have, we have one more year before we get those really much bigger class sizes in which case we very likely will have to go back to four at the sixth grade. But we could be facing next year and likely facing next year, needing to do a half cluster. Which grade, more likely would be at the eighth grade level. You mean next year's budget? I'm sorry, for the FY17 school year. And do you have any estimate on how many FTEs we would need to staff the additional specialists? I mean, are we talking about two, one, half, four? I would say we're probably in the neighborhood of like 1.5 and F, well, we'll be in even numbers. I know, for example, with art, it might be 0.4. So I think that you're gonna see some of that. Okay, okay, thanks. Ms. Starks. I'm just trying to do the math. So the loss for the kindergarten grant is basically the equivalent of three, we have. Yep. The ELL needs that we have are now five of those. Three to four, so additive it would be six to seven if you put the two together. Okay, so then we need the one and a half at Audison. So now we're at eight and a half is what we need, right? Okay, at $66,000 times eight and a half. So that's $560,000 a bit more. And I'm not sure how we're getting to that. So we have $100,000 in legal. And if we're simply cutting a half cluster, that's only two teachers. So my math says that's only $232,000 of what we need. Eight reserves. We already put in eight reserve teachers. That was already considered in the budget. We have eight. And so- We gotta find a half on those numbers. No, but then we have no- No, right. Right, right, right. We have no- We know that those are coming in, so- Well, we're telling the state no one's allowed into Arlington for this year, no addition to that. I'm being facetious, but that's, you're absolutely right. We tried to budget for the reserves. Thank you, the math doesn't work. Well, the money that I was just talking about, I maybe it wasn't clear enough, is to fund reserve positions beyond the eight and a half. So we're gonna have two positions that we weren't, we originally had in our budget for the half cluster. And we're gonna take another hundred out of, so that we identify roughly $250,000 for reserve. In our budget, over and above the eight. And so then the eight becomes the kindergarten and the- That's our proposal. And then now we have enough for another five. Roughly so. No, another. It depends, it roughly so. Four. At 66. At 66, that's four. That's four. All right. Less than four. All set? Yep. At the moment. So right now we have budgeted for half day kindergarten aids. There would be no change in that designation or no. But the, my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, there's no monetary effect on going to the reduced, the Tuesday at that program. That's not gonna cost us any money, am I correct? For the kindergarten aids, no. No, no. I thought you were talking about that. No, I just wanna make sure that it's all, it's going to be like it was this year for the kindergarten. So yes, if we, yes, I think it is. But now it would have to be identified in the operating budget versus- Instead of a grant, right? Okay. But it's accounted for in this new plan. Accounting. Okay, thank you. Mr. Schlickman. The, I'm looking at the chapter 70 numbers. And the one thing that disturbs me is among other things is that the demand for our minimum contribution is increasing above two and a half percent. When legally towns have a two and a half percent cap on their ability to raise revenue. So I don't know what the governor's thinking or what the state's thinking about or the ability of municipalities to pay, but the state is coming in with less money in terms of an increase vis-a-vis the foundation budget, the minimum medical spending requirement. And this is pretty consistent with a lot of districts across the state. The other thing is, is that in our fiscal 16 chapter 70 calculations there are allotting 226 ELL students. Is that about, is that number been constant? Is that increasing or decreasing? It's very fluid, partially because of the population that we have at several of the schools, given the countries they come from. They may come in April and then leave the next March. We have students that have just arrived in March because that's when their school year ended, so parents generally move at the time when the school year would end. They would not try to move in the middle of the school year. We have had 193, has there been some increase? Yes, is it a tremendous amount? It's hard to say, it's really hard to say because you could look at the data on the number of ELL students one week and then you could look at the next week and you could see a significant difference. It's been in that rough numbers, it's been over 200 and it's fluctuated in the last couple of years in that 200 to 250, 60 range. Yeah, that's a significant number of students that we have and I think that there is a higher foundation budget number for ELL students because we do need to provide extra services and I know the state's going around monitoring hours of service to students generating the most of all the students and expecting to see what we're providing, so yeah, that's an important thing we need to be including the budget and I would hope that with the state being vigorous in terms of enforcing their regulations that it be fully as vigorous in terms of providing resources to do the work. I just wanted to make one small point, not so much for Dr. Bodie, but for our viewers outside, that the reserve teachers are put in the budget to cover the enrollment increase that we anticipate from our projected enrollment model and so their reserve in that they're not assigned to a spot yet because we don't know where all these students will trickle in but they're not a reserve like I think of in my household where I have a reserve to cover car repairs or things like that. We expect under normal circumstances to use up all of those positions and last year we were surprised because our enrollment went up even beyond what our projection was and so we didn't have enough positions in reserve. I just wanted to make sure everyone knew that because I think it's a little confusing. Thank you, that helps. So my question is, I just want clarification, we're voting tonight on a $59,387,000. $59,000,000. $59,000,000. You can write this, Eric. What's a comma? $59,000,000 budget. That's, so is the budget going to go down by the cuts that you just discussed? Should it go down by? The answer, it will go down, it will go down by the amount of the grant revenue, well, perfect timing. I don't want to leave. So I think first of all we need clarification, what is the number we're voting? The base, good evening, sorry. Good evening, welcome to the Arlington School Committee. Welcome back from Capital Planning. Thank you. I'm sorry to be late. The total of all funding, this revised sheet that went out today, the reason I'm asking you to vote one number is because the line items are incorrect because we've consolidated all the potential funding for contract increases into the admin line. So that's grossly overstated and all the other lines are grossly understated by that same amount. So when all the contracts are settled, they'll be allocated appropriately on a person by person basis and then I'll come back with an updated one of these. So for the time being, you've already voted the town appropriation amount in January. So this would just settle the budget within these parameters and then we'll re-vote it when we settle the contracts. So the number is 59, 387, 766. Oh it is, okay. It's the same amount, but it's the same amount of money. Oh, what about the grant? We're not taking that in because that's still speculative at this point. Oh, so okay. Yeah, we're gonna be making a lot of revisions. We always bring you updated funding in the fall as all the grants come in. And at this point, kindergarten, it's not a done deal. It's just a proposal. So kindergarten is still in there? Yes. Okay, that's what I wanted clarification. It's still in there. It is still in there. If you look at section three, the funding section of your budget book, it's still in there. Okay, I thought- If there's change from the original proposal despite the fact that we've gotten more information because all the information is very up in the air. Oh, so it's, okay. Then I miss, I thought it was definitively out. Well, it has to, the process goes, the governor's budget to the house, then it's gotta come out of the house and then to the Senate. So it may not, but when we're thinking about our budget, we have to be thinking about these additional positions and how are we going to address reserve positions should this be the outcome? And then we'll have to do an adjustment on the numbers once we have definitive numbers from the state. So it's possible that in the spring we could come here and have a discussion about reduction somewhere in the budget to make up for this? Correct? Correct. I mean, we could be saying we're gonna cut something. We could be, or we could be doing it in the fall. I imagine- When all the grants come in. They're aware of the fact that we've identified more money in legal that we would take out as well as the half cluster. But that discussion went on before you got here. Sorry, I missed it. If I may- Go ahead, yeah, go ahead. My understanding was that we're preparing not to have the kindergarten grant in our budget. That's not reflected in these documents. I understand, but I mean, going forward to the town and stuff. We have to be planning for the worst. Okay, thank you. The number, the bottom line number is not changing. How we spend- At this time. As we spend them, let me put it this way. It is our hope not to go any lower than this number. Well, if the kindergarten grant doesn't come through, it will be lower. It's gonna be lower. Because that's in here. I guess, then why are we putting- Because it's not been voted yet by the- No, I understand that. But grant money, we don't have it, because we don't generate the money within the town. We always speculate on what our grant funding is going to be at this time of the year, and then we re-vote it in the fall when we have a clear picture of what our grant funding actually is. And kindergarten is not the only grant that changes over the course of the summer. All of them change. Right, okay. Title one, title two, title three, I'm sorry, title two A, title three, SPED grant, they're all in flux. It's all speculative at this point. Yeah, that's right. And so why, I mean, I wrestled with this. I thought, you know, should we revise this based on this more drastic information? And then I thought, you know, when you're trying to play with a moving target, it's too many things moving, and it's too speculative. Right. By August, we're going to know. And then we can make decisions based on no, and at that point, hopefully we'll have settled contracts, and so we'll know exactly what it's going to cost. And so then we'll be in a better position to cut only what we absolutely must, rather than proactively cut in advance of a cut we may not need to make. I don't want, I'm reluctant to bring this up, but what I would say is that sometimes when you're facing this situation, you also have to consider whether you want to increase revenue in any other part of the budget for fees or anything like that. And that's a discussion that could also take place in Mayor Jim. Absolutely. So I think we should be conscious of that, depending on how drastic the cut is. Correct. If it's a drastic cut, we would want to go to the, we would want to have a discussion with the community and say, look, another option is, is the fee increase as terrible as it could be? So I think we just speak. I also feel okay about moving forward with this, because at this point, based on what we know, even if we were to lose the kindergarten grants, even after the deficit we expect to run this year, we would still have reserves sufficient to backfill that for one year. Okay. So I feel like we have time to work this out. All right, that's good to know. That helps. All right, thank you. Just, I've got one question. Can you give us a number of what you feel that a legal budget will now be since the week? Yes, I will have, I've reduced 198,000 from the 600,000 altogether, so it will be 400,000. Okay. 2000. And I'd just like to make a statement. Since I am definitely the oldest member of this committee, one who lived through the 60s where the civil disobedience was considered, and I'm scaring my fellow members. I am appalled at the state. We have an ELL program that is more than adequate, it's successful. As a former educator, and I believe a current educator, the suggestion that they're put to us is retrograde education, and I'm only one on the committee, but I'm telling the state no, and go forward. I just find that we have a good education program, and not only is it retrograde education that we're going to be forced to go through by this potential pullout program as opposed to inclusion, which has been the mantra for education for the past 20 years. It has a dramatic effect with the myriad of unfunded mandates that have gone on, and I'm really fed up with the state doing this, or desi. Isn't it federal? Isn't it federal? It's partly federal, but the state is advocating it. Would they tell the federal honest, yes. But it's one more edit that's affecting us in performing our education. I think if we had a chance to present, and again, this would cost money, and I'm not totally advocating it, but to an impartial judge or whatever, our program against what they're suggesting we do, I think that would fall down on a positive education for the program we're providing currently, that they're saying it doesn't meet this magic number. I think sometimes when bureaucrats who think they're educators make these mandates, don't realize what's actually going on in classrooms. I've said my piece. Mr. Schlikman, did you wanna? Yeah, I've got a question just for the administration. Have you been catching any tea leaves from the legislature as to what they might do with some of the line items that were subject to nine C cuts and are either reduced or eliminated under the governor's budget? Does the legislature have an appetite for restoring money? What's any word? Not much. Other than fairly certain right now, the proposal, we were not clear about Metco, but I think it's at the FY15 level, so the nine C cuts were just a single year, but they're basically level funding for next year. Of course, level funding means budget cuts because other costs go up and so it is a reduction. As far as the kindergarten grant goes, I don't know what they're gonna do. However, I did read the rationale for why the governor made this reduction, which I don't know how this will play itself out with the legislators, but apparently now something like 85% of the state has a full day kindergarten and this grant was initially designed to move that initiative forward and provide the funding to do the planning, the PD, the extra support and so it achieves a level that they would like to achieve and what they're saying is that you're getting an increase in chapter 70. Of course, in Arlington, the way we have it set up in our town is that all revenue goes into a general pot and it flows out to different departments based on the formula we've agreed to in the town. So the increase in chapter 70, which is about $20 per student, is not necessarily gonna come directly to the schools. Grants come directly to the schools. Could you speak to whether you're going to have discussions with the town manager about if chapter 70 was increased and the kindergarten grant was taken away if there can be any reconfiguration of the funding? Had some discussions about that and I know that the Starks and the Hanson are going to go. With Adam next week. Anyone else? So would you like to frame a motion? Yes, we need a motion for the bottom line that do you want to give the motion, Diane? We request that the school committee vote the total FY16 budget amount of 59,387,766 dollars as one lump sum. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposition? It's a unanimous vote. Thank you very much. Ms. Johnson. Monthly budget. We have, in these monthly reports, the deficit has worsened slightly and that's predominantly due to the cut, the 9C cut to the, is kindergarten grant this year a 9C cut? Yes. Okay, due to that cut we've taken that, we've made that change. And so since the grant is no longer carrying that much, the general fund is carrying that much more. We are still under budget for snow removal and perhaps we've seen the end of the snow for this season, but we can't guarantee that for some time yet. This is the only, you're under budget for the snow budget? For custodial snow and ice removal over time. Oh, okay, not the whole thing? No. Oh, no. No entity in the state. Well that's the predominant amount of money that's set aside for snow and ice in the school budget. The heavy equipment, the roof shoveling, and all of the other massive work that was done is carried on the town's budget. Oh. So should we find ourselves with some surplus at the end of the year, I think we'd probably do the right thing and kick some if we have it. You know, I've already discussed with town manager, chapter lane, that you know what our situation is, that we knew we were in deficit, we're probably going to have to tap our reserves to some extent. But we're still running under budget and out of district tuition for special education. And the plan is to take that differential between what we expect to spend through the end of the year and the budgeted amount and move it into the stabilization fund at town meeting as a transfer. So, you know, just so we can rebuild that stabilization fund that we depleted last year. Thank you. Yes. What is the mechanism for kicking money back to the town? How does that happen? They could journal entry some expenses to us. And there's no vote or anything. It's just, there's small enough numbers that, okay. It's good to, we should be apprised a bit. We should let us know, yeah. Anyone else have any questions? Okay, my usual ones, line eight, two, four. Okay, let me get to the document. Hold on, you move awful fast. So, this would be the budget tracking report, I presume. Yes, I'm sorry. All right, line number. Eight, two, four, one, two, eight, two, four. Eight, two, four, one, two. HVAC, yes. HVAC, yes. Is that all the high school? No, by no means. I mean, this number is, I mean, it's a hurting number. Do we have old systems or something? No, what's going on here is actually we're improving the efficiency of the systems. I'm sorry, you told me the last time. Yeah, we have that new diagnostic software up at the Pierce, and it's teaching us about how to make the stuff run better. And so, when we detect a fault, we run around through all the other buildings and see if we have the same fault. Thank you. I apologize for not remembering. Eight, three, eight, three, eight, zero, four, athletic services? Yes. Do we look to see, that's gonna stay in the red? We're getting close to the end of the year. Well, they have, we haven't moved expenses into ticket sales or Pierce field yet. So, those are other pools of revenue that are potentially there to offset those expenses. But the, that revenue doesn't seem to be gonna be covering $63,000, like $20,000 in the field. There's 40 in ticket and 20. Okay, there's only a lot of tickets, good. Okay, and I think there was- That happens when you have successful athletic teams. Yes. Thank you for that comment. Eight, seven, two, oh, two, and three, oh, one, I guess. Same thing. They're gonna offset each other? Yes. Thank you. And last one, computer equipment and hardware. Is that replacement? Sometimes it's expansion, sometimes it's replacement. Remember when we give the department heads and the principals their budgets, we may not have, we may not have budgeted it in computer equipment. They can't exceed their bottom line for their part of the budget as a whole. But they could spend less on paper and more on computers or less on PD and more on computers. And so it would throw the budget off in this way. Now at the bottom line, each of the, each of the principals department, their amount of money, they don't exceed that. But they may, in other years when we've seen furniture, principals have elected to buy furniture. I don't budget money in furniture, but they can buy furniture. Okay, so this is basically the end of February, and we're looking at a negative $425,000 at this time. You see that being diminished? Yes, if we continue to be successful, we could pick up 200,000 of the court judgments that as to date has not been touched. So that will reduce that. And I've not yet begun projecting savings in instructional materials, printing, office supplies. I'll do that after April when they submit their final purchase orders. As we go through the end of the We could pick up grand. This should dramatically, hopefully, we'll withdraw it. Yes, if we continue on track, this should drop pretty significantly. Thank you. Does anyone else? Thank you, Ms. Johnson. Okay, and let's see. My favorite time, superintendent's report. I don't really have that much this evening, but speaking of snow, since we were talking about the snow budget, presently we have six snow days, and our last day of school is June 25th. Fortunately, there's still one day left in that week in case we have another snow day between now and April 1st. Once we hit April 1st, should there be any unexpected snowstorms in April? Hopefully not. Then we would not have to make up those days. 25th, does that go beyond our snowman days on the calendar? Yes, it goes one day beyond the snowman calendar. Okay, and we can do that. That's not something that's contractual or something. Do you see what I'm saying? I do, I do understand, and I think that's a great question. We are required by the Department of Education to build into our calendar five snow days. So it appears on our calendar. And we certainly can go beyond that, and there's many towns in the Commonwealth that are going excessively beyond that, but we must have it in the calendar. And for our employees, it means that you really can't assume another, take a job until after that date. Now what can be difficult is if we start going past that. What our other limitation is, is that we can't go past the end of the fiscal year. So our last snow day could be on June 30th, but we go one day beyond that, then we have to start making up some other way. But we will only put five snow days on the calendar, those little snowmen. But that doesn't mean you can stop there. I think your question was contractually. The contract is to teach X amount of days. So if they have a snow day, that's not considered part of the contract. So I just wasn't sure. The only limitation we have is what Dr. Bote just said. So it's very difficult for a lot of people to understand that teachers, and I'm not being a wise guy, do not have holidays. They don't have vacation days. They contract to work for a certain amount of days. So if there's a snow day, that's considered not part of that contract. So they have to make that up. Then the only other suggestion is, I'm sure that this is that specific question is on a lot of people's minds, what the last day of school is. And just if there's someplace to put it on the website, that's easy. It's there. It is there. All set? Thank you. And Dr. Chester mentioned our athletic teams. I wanted to compliment them all. They had a fantastic winter season. Two of our teams went to the finals of the North region, which is something that we have not as a high school done for a number of years, and they did very well. I think that in both games for boys basketball and boys hockey, the game could have gone either way. And they need to, they should be very, I'm sure they're disappointed. In fact, I'm positive they're disappointed. But on the other hand, they should be very proud of the terrific season they had. One of the things that I was proud about too, and I want to share with you is that we had one of our referees at the boys basketball game comment to the high school principal on the way our students held themselves. They were very, very gentlemanly. They were very good sports. And I think it was a compliment to our team that the the ref made that point of saying that to the high school principal. So that was, that's what we really want to see is the winning is important, but what's really important is, is how your character and how you engage in that competitiveness. So that was terrific. We're now getting close to the next season. In fact, spring season starts in a week. And one of the things we're dealing with is snow on tennis courts and on fields. And we're working on trying to get those ready for the spring season. The other thing, the last thing is our high school team that has been competing on WGBH's quiz show has now made it into the quarterfinals. They bested Long Meadow in the last competition. So we'll try to get out when they're appearing again. So that's terrific. That's it. Great. Any questions to the superintendent? Thank you. Community Ed Youth and Teen Program Coordinator, job description approval. Yeah, this is just a new position in community education. As you know, community education is a self-supporting program of the Arlington Public Schools and the revenues that are generated fund the positions there. So this is sort of a combination of putting three more part-time positions together into what's basically a 0.6 position to run the Kids Zone, GoLingo, and the afterschool enrichment and summer funds. So they want someone to manage those programs and it's basically putting those jobs together in this description. Any questions to that? I have one. Does this, my favorite, does it fall into any of the units? It does not. Thank you. Move to approve. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposition? Thank you. This is scaring me. Take a look at the clock. Good job, Bill. Stop. 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 requests. Which event the item will be considered in its normal sequence? Approval of warrant number 15115 dated February 26th, 2015 in the amount of $695,329.80. Approval of minutes public hearing on fiscal 16 budget on February 26th, 2015. Minutes in regular meeting on February 26th, 2015. I need to have both minutes pulled, please. Okay. So we are now only going to vote on the warrant as presented. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Approval of minutes public hearing on fiscal budget 16 budget on February 26th, 2015. Need a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. And those abstaining? Aye. Did you get that, Ms. Fitzgerald? Mr. Pearson. Mr. Pearson, thank you. And regular meeting minutes for February 26th, 2015. Need a motion? So moved. All those in favor? Aye. Abstentions? Aye. Okay. Subcommittee and liaison reports and announcements, policies and procedures. Mr. Pearson. Nothing at this time, Mr. Chair. Budget, Ms. Starks. Budget subcommittee held a meeting on March 4th. We talked at length about many things. One is that we talked about what the nine C cuts were meaning to us this year. I think we're losing about $76,000. Is that right? In total money from the state. Thank you so much. And then we also did, we talked about Baker. Now we didn't have this information given that it was a week and a half ago. We now know more about the kindergarten grant. And as I told you earlier, Linda and I are going to go talk to Adam this week about that. We also talked a little bit about the FinCom presentation. We reviewed last year's and kind of made some suggestions. We are gonna have another meeting on Wednesday, March 18th at five o'clock. And that focus will be on the FinCom presentation. What we wanna make sure we say, make sure everything that we wanna say is in there. And then we also spoke about the town meeting presentation that will need to be made at town meeting. And we decided that we would have another meeting of the budget subcommittee to review that. And that meeting is going to be Wednesday, April 15th at 5 p.m. Thank you. Community relation, sorry. Can I bring up a budget sort of budget thing? Sure. So the foundation budget review commission will accept written testimony until the end of the month. And I'm sort of behind for various reasons, but I've been working on what I hope to have as a letter. And I'm thinking if I bring, if I, I'll send it via Karen to everyone, but if I was to have something by the next meeting, could we potentially pass it and forward it as an absolute? Not only that, do you feel it's appropriate to put it on the agenda for discussion? Sure. Yeah, that would be great. Sure. For the, on. It, I want to write, I want our committee to write a letter to the foundation budget review commission expounding on how short, in many ways, the foundation budget falls from what our actual spending needs to be. And I've done some, it's not gonna be real fancy. I just took all the books that they use and I compared what we spend, what they say we spend. And it's great, falls short in lots of ways, mostly special ed and pensions and stuff, but there's other ways too. And I just think we should point it out. Absolutely. With numbers. Great. Okay. So it's your intent to send a draft of that letter. I will draft the letter. To through Ms. Fitzgerald to us. We will have it ahead of time. I would like us all to look at it. We'll put it on the agenda for discussion. To what length we, and then make it. We're not gonna be able to do lots of changes. I understand. And make a motion at that time to forward. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Anything else on the budget? Okay. Nope. Community relations, Mr. Schlichman. Yeah, we met on March 5th. We had two things on the table that we were discussing. One would be the parent satisfaction survey and we recommended the superintendent order cross tabs on grade level frequency of contact to school and school performance is the ones that made sense. We also were talking about the district website upgrade. And this is a topic that we talked about. It was the last school committee meeting. That it's gonna require a lot of effort and considerable amount of time. And the suggestion was made that we have a parent advisory committee to work with the superintendent in terms of the design because there are a lot of talented web folks in town that we'd much rather have in the process helping us to do it than criticizing it after we do a job on our own. So that's basically the conversation we had. No upcoming meetings at this time? No. Thank you. Curriculum Instruction and Assessment and Accountability. Nothing to report at this time. Okay. Facilities, Mr. Thielman. We meet on March 19th at 4.30, okay. Special study group on superintendent's evaluation. I apologize. You got in your package a copy of the proposed questionnaire. I was negligent and required asking the superintendent to also send the goals we had discussed to get a chance. So on the 26th, there will be a motion to ask a few folks, a small discussion on this and to take it forward for the administrators. I apologize. And on March 16th at five o'clock, there will be a meeting of the group to discuss the administrators, contracts that are coming up. That will be the one and only meeting that will be open. It's mainly a meeting for organization and determining any information that we want in the future. Afterwards, it will be, I think, Mr. Thielman, you've already got that date down. Six o'clock. Isn't it six? Is it six o'clock? At six p.m. Six p.m. I apologize. Six p.m. Thank you. And for the meetings, because they are dealing with negotiations, we'll be in executive session. The chair has no other announcements. Does anyone on the committee have anything they would like to announce at this time? Yes. If I may, I'd like to remind everyone that the finance committee will be reviewing the school committee budget on Monday, the 23rd, at the police station, the public safety building. 7.45, right? 7.30 is the start of the meeting and we'll be first up. The capital budget is being reviewed at finance committee on the 16th on this coming Monday. Thank you. I was just quickly trying to look it up. I see that truck is being performed. They are in high school. We don't have the date, so do you? It's the weekend of the election, which happens to be, Saturday, March 28th, so the Shrek is actually on the 27th and the 28th. Okay, excellent. Anyone else? Okay. At this time, I will seek a motion to conduct, go into executive session to discuss, conduct strategy sessions, preparation for negotiations with union and on non-union personnel, or contract negotiations with union and on non-union, in which, if held in an open meeting, we have a detrimental effect to conduct strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation in which if held in an open meeting may have a detrimental effect, collective bargaining may also be conducted to discuss the deployment of security personnel and or devices or strategies with respect there too. We will adjourn only, we will come out of the executive session for only for the purpose of adjournment. Do I have a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Roll call. Yes. Yep. Yes. Aye. Aye. Inanimous. Thank you.