 Good evening. I'm calling to order the regular meeting of the Arlington School Committee on Thursday, March 30th, 2023. I'm Liz Exton, the chair. Tonight's meeting of the Arlington School Committee is being conducted in a hybrid model. Before we begin, permit me to offer a few notes. First, this meeting is being conducted by a Zoom, is being recorded, and is also being simultaneously broadcast on ACMI. Persons wishing to join the meeting by Zoom may find information on how to do so on the town's website. Persons participating by Zoom are reminded that they may be visible to others, and that if you wish to participate, you are asked to provide your full name in the interest of developing a record of the meeting. All participants are advised that people may be listening who do not provide comment, and those persons are not required to identify themselves. Both Zoom participants and persons watching on ACMI can follow the posted agenda materials also found on the town's website using the Novus Agenda Platform. Alright, our first agenda item this evening is public comment. Before I call our first speakers, I have a few ground rules. For members of the public who wish to address the committee, there will be 20 minutes of public comment. Depending on the number of people who sign up, time allotments may be reduced but will not exceed three minutes each. I will let the speaker know when they have 30 seconds left. If the number of people who sign up exceeds what can be done in 20 minutes, the number of speakers may be capped and will be invited to speak based on the time stamp of their email to Ms. Diggins. The school committee respectfully requests participants of the public to utilize their camera if possible while speaking and to adhere to the public comment policy, BEDH, that requires participants to provide their name and address. Speakers may offer such objective criticisms of the school operations and programs as concern them, but in public session, the committee will not hear personal complaints about school personnel nor against any member of the school community, except for the school committee or the superintendent and their capacity as the operational leader of Arlington Public Schools. The public is reminded that the school committee does not hold jurisdiction over the performance of school personnel other than the superintendent. Additionally, the committee will not hear anything that might identify and or infringe upon a student's privacy by name or incident. We have two public speakers this evening who I believe would like to speak together, Judy Bonn and Linda Hansen. Welcome. So you'll have six minutes between the two of you. Who is that woman? It's like a ghost. No, you just look younger. That's all. Good evening, everybody. And thank you so much for allowing us to speak this evening. My name is Linda Hansen. Next to me is Judy Bonn. We both previously worked in the Arlington Public Schools in different capacities and now represent two different organizations, Arlington based food security organizations. I currently serve on the board of Arlington Eats and Judy serves on the board of FoodLink. And we are here tonight representing these two organizations. We come before you this evening to encourage you to learn more about and hopefully support the Universal School Meals Bill that is currently before the state legislature. This bill would continue the program started by Congress in 2020 that paid for school meals for all students in the country for two years before being terminated in the summer of 2022. Our state legislature picked up the tab for the program for the current school year. Now is the time to advocate for making this program permanent. As professionals whose work involves supporting the healthy development of students of all ages, physically and emotionally, as well as academically, we hope you will agree that it's time to permanently remove barriers to accessing nutritious meals during the school day so that no child will ever again experience the stigma of receiving benefits reserved only for low income families and so that schools can devote their finite resources to providing healthy meals rather than processing paperwork and chasing down school lunch debt. The act relative to Universal School Meals Bill will do the following three things. One, require all schools to make breakfast and lunch available to all students at no cost. Two, require the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to cover any costs not covered by the federal government. And finally, maximize federal reimbursements by encouraging schools to support SNAP outreach. While there are clear health and well-being benefits from Universal School Meals, there are also economic benefits. According to Project Bread Research, for every $1 spent to alleviate food insecurity, we reap $2 in rewards and savings in terms of better health outcomes and future economic opportunities for each person who receives these benefits. In addition, it's estimated that families save around $1,200 per year per student when school meals are provided free of charge. This money can then be deployed in other areas of a family's budget, like paying for utility bills and the high cost of housing. There are also clear equity impacts related to food insecurity. Hunger in Massachusetts is significantly higher among Black and Latinx populations, with one in three Black and Latinx households reporting food insecurity versus 16% of White families and 11% of Asian families. We know and appreciate your efforts to promote equity in the Arlington Public School experience through your recent budgets. Just last year, you eliminated fees for elementary instrumental music and for high school athletic fees. In the budget narrative you mentioned, this change supports our continued work toward equity by allowing access to all for these important aspects of a well-rounded education. Ensuring equity, excellence, and access for rigorous learning experiences for all students is also the first priority in the draft strategic plan developed with Dr. Holman, the APS staff, as well as students and community members over the past year. To quote the document, Arlington Public Schools acknowledges that addressing these gaps will require significant shifts in mindset, practice, and content, both for our staff and for members of the Arlington community. We recognize that to address the needs of all, we must focus on the needs of those students for whom the system has not historically been designed. We recognize that the adjustments we will make to meet the needs of some of our students are truly meant to enhance the learning experiences of all our students. If the initiatives that will follow that you will all, you've all read about, we encourage the community to notice our commitment to improving achievement for all students through the elimination of barriers and resulting achievement gaps for our focal groups. We believe that school meals are the ultimate foundational cornerstone that underpins all students' ability to access the education they deserve. We don't charge for visits to the school nurse or social worker, and we don't expect payment for school textbooks. Why should access to food be treated any differently? We need to eliminate the tiered system of access to healthy food. The nonprofit organizations we represent cannot solve the food insecurity problem alone. We can only provide critical but very partial supports. Passing the universal school meals bill is an important step toward providing a systemic solution that matches the scale of this problem. We hope that you as individuals and through your statewide organizations will join in the chorus to get a one-year extension. You probably all know that this just just passed, but we'll save that for the very end. These budget decisions are being made over the next few moments, actually. So time is of the essence. Following an additional one-year extension, we will need to work with our legislators to ensure that the bill to provide school meals at no charge permanently is passed so that Massachusetts can join other states like California, Colorado, New Mexico, Maine and Minnesota in making school meals permanently available at no cost to our community. We have an incredible window of opportunity. A few hours ago, Speaker Mariano announced that the house budget will fund a universal school meals program that began running on a temporary basis during the pandemic. He was incredibly enthusiastic. Governor Healy also supports another year's worth of funding for the meals program, but we need to make sure that the governor and our legislators hear from us that this is a priority. Please consider passing a resolution endorsing universal school meals for all and contact your legislators in the next few days. Now is the time. We can make this monumental change in nutrition policy that will positively affect generations of students to come. Thank you all. Thank you. All right. Next, our EHS student representatives. Okay. To get a little rundown on academics recently, the sophomores recently had their MCAS, which surely none of them enjoyed, but the rest of us got a late start, which was much appreciated. Activities wise, lots of athletics have started their seasons and the spring musical into the woods is this weekend. You all should go. It looks amazing so far. Recently, National Honor Society has held a book reading where they went down to elementary schools and read diverse books. And I heard that was really, really cool for everyone there. And today in advisory, we recently we took the youth risk behavior survey, which was very important. And hopefully, that HHS gets the treatment that it needs. I suppose. Thank you. Next, we have a rainbow task force presentation. So, you know, Dr. McNeil and we have some other guests. So, if you're sitting at that table, just want to make sure you pass the microphone to whoever is speaking. I can do. Welcome, everyone. We're here to give an update of the rainbow task force that we started two years ago. And with me, I will have the individuals with me introduce themselves. I am Roderick McNeil for the people out who are listening or watching. I am the assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction and I am the liaison that was appointed two years ago to the task force. My name is Molly Blaugilis. My pronouns are she, her, hers. I'm a proud Arlington resident, proud parent of two kids, one of which identifies as transgender. And I'm also a member of the Rainbow Commission. I'm a senior at the high school. I'm one of the presidents of the GSA and the liaison to the task force and the Rainbow Commission. And he's say them, there's pronouns. So, we could go to the next slide. In February 2021, we were here last with Keith March Misler, who was a commissioner at that point in time. I was not yet on the Rainbow Commission and M Phillips also presented with us. And we really came in to give you an update on LGBTQI plus activities and experiences in the district. At that point in time, next slide please. We had three macro asks, collaboration, a senior district level liaison, which Dr. McNeil was our brave volunteer, which you all approved, and LGBTQI plus inclusivity. Next slide please. And we had three specific outcomes that we were driving towards. One was inclusive hiring. The second was district-wide safe schools, LGBTQI plus training. And the third was a curriculum review to ensure that there was inclusive positive LGBTQI plus experiences in the curriculum for the upcoming school year. And I also just wanted to pause here just to say this should be a very positive update for all of you. There's been a ton of progress and our asks are very minimal. So, hopefully it's enjoyable. We're excited to be here. So with that, I'm going to pass it on to Rod, who will talk about the task force. Right. So, at the inception of when I was appointed, and I began start starting to work with Molly, we wanted to put together a rainbow task force that included staff members, administrators, parents, caregivers, community members, and students. And our goal was to create alignment, collaboration, and positive momentum within the Arlington community. And so we started by creating a mission statement. The mission statement of the task force is to promote and support continued awareness, empathy, access, safety, inclusion, and belonging for LGBTQI plus students, families, caregivers, and staff. And so that we can go to the next slide. On the next slide, you will see some of the data that we used in order to drive our goals and our mission, and to identify some of the activities that we wanted to put into place. So we did use the data from the youth risk behavior survey from 2021. And that survey is given every two years. So that is why it was given this year in the spring. I mean, just today, as our student representative indicated, it allows districts is given 11 districts that are part of the middle sex league. It allows districts to understand the risk to health risk that are facing youth and their communities. And promotes information sharing and coordination across school districts, health officials and other community based service providers. And for Arlington, we some of the data that we collected and some of the things that we learned from this data. We learned that our gender queer youth are looks less likely to feel close to other people at school are more likely to suffer from depression are more likely to plan for and attempt suicide, especially at the middle school level, and are more likely to be electronically bullied. However, based on recent data over the past couple of years, the percentage of middle school reporting electronic bullying has decreased in Arlington. And then finally, gender queer youth in Arlington also more likely to report being forced into non-consexual sexual acts. Next slide, please. The course is really focused inside key areas. The first is district wide professional development, which is focused on creating safe, inclusive learning environments for LGBTQI plus students. The second is collecting and leveraging data, as Dr. McNeil mentioned, to better understand the experiences of LGBTQI plus students in our district. The third is curriculum that reflects LGBTQI plus experiences. We also want to ensure parity with regards to building facilities and resources across our schools. And the last area is focused on community engagement, which is really focused on creating environments in which our LGBTQ students can thrive and also creating community for those students and their caregivers. So five areas we've made really significant progress in all five areas. Next slide, please. So just to start set the stage a little bit, year one was really, which is the year we presented to you, that was all about establishing the task force, codifying our mission and developing and launching work streams and programs. Year two, which is the current year we're in, has been about building momentum, increase collaboration and community. Next slide. So what we've accomplished, I'm very proud to share together with my co presenters here that this year district wide LGBTQI plus training was implemented across the district. Beginning in 2021, we updated the YRBS to be more inclusive and have more inclusive language around gender identity and sexual orientation. We have ongoing improved data collection analysis through the YRBS. As you all know, the YRBS launched today at the high school and includes those inclusive updates. In 2021, so that was two years ago, we established the Sims grant team to review and update human development and growth health curriculum. Those updates were implemented last year and this year in partnership with Kim Visco. And in terms of parity of resources and facilities, last year, we confirmed the direction on adjustments to the plans of the high school restrooms and changing facilities. That was due in large part to Michael Mason, Dr. Homan and Dr. Janger. And in 2023, just this year actually just a few months ago, Dr. McNeil and I ensured all of the APS elementary schools had rainbow alliances or in the process of establishing one. So that's been huge. Next slide. Yep. Community engagement. So we launched a successful series of well attended community conversations in year one. We hosted three in year one and we hosted four this year. I also should just say that community engagement has been a huge source of progress and pride pun intended for this group. So in 2023, that's this year. We convened, like I mentioned, all the leadership of the rainbow groups across every single school. And the purpose of that was to create connection with each other and with district administration. Dr. McNeil, I don't know how he does it all, but he participates in every meeting. In those meetings, the groups they share best practices. The purpose is to amplify student voices and to create community. And on May 13th this year, we'll be hosting our first district wide pride celebration at the high school. And that celebration is really driven by these groups, the task force and the rainbow commission. So for this next slide, I just wanted to invite them to say a few words. Of course. So the first picture in the upper left corner is a panel that I had the honor of participating on and putting together a Latin teacher from the middle school that was a very accepting, very open lesbian who very much ensured that I came out at a young age. Two of my very good friends and my mother was in the audience back there. And I thought the importance of having students, caregivers and teachers all sort of in my life. So seeing the same things that are happening, but with very different perspectives and how that they all support in very different ways. The students. I am very excited for the Pride event in May. It's just an understatement. I. Find so much joy out of this work, especially when it comes to seeing all of the young people that maybe even aren't going to come out as queer, but just knowing that you can be accepted whoever and whatever you want to be. And I think it is so important that between those transitions between elementary school and the Gibbs and then to the middle school and high school, having those built in connections and pathways that as a freshman in high school, you're not going into a huge new building without any friendly faces or not knowing about the GSA and having these having these events that allows people from the entire district and even bigger to come together and just connect with each other is so important. And I think is what I was missing in my early years of coming out. He take away as we enter our third year. The first is Dr. McNeil and the extended APS team as well as the Human Rights Commission. All have been incredible partners to the task force in the commission. In just over two years, we've created trust, momentum and a strong foundation for this work in our schools and in our community. We've created greater connectivity and engagement with all of the rainbow groups across the district and we're really a community, which feels great. I also just wanted to take the moment to acknowledge that this is a journey. We need to continue to bring the extended community along with us through education, conversation and empathy building. And that approach takes time. But as you can see from the progress we've made, it's highly effective. You know, through the work that we've done over the past two years, our community conversations have provided a safe space for LGBTQI plus students and their families to convene, interact and create community. And next year, we really need to do more for these students and their families, not less. We need the support of the school committee, senior administration and the cooperation of the entire district to ensure the programs we put in place are both sustainable and enduring. Next slide, please. So these are our plans for next year. I'm not going to read every word on the page, so I know we're short on time and you all have access to the slides, but we really want to build on the work that we've put in place over the last two years. So continued district wide training for staff and teachers, further improvements to the human health growth and development curriculum through the Sims Grant Group and Kim Visco, continued representation and inclusivity of LGBTQI plus experiences, people and topics in all content areas. And really we want to continue to support and champion improved data collection and analysis. Of course, we want to continue to ensure parity of resources and facilities among all APS schools. And we really want to deepen our partnership and expand engagement with the extended community. So next year, we plan to again host four community conversations with guest speakers and opportunities for the community to interact with one another. We want to continue to convene those rainbow groups across the district and host two community building events for students, one at the beginning of the year to kick off the school year and of course the annual pride event, which everyone is really looking forward to. Lastly, we want to establish mechanisms for these students and their families, especially those transitioning from like elementary to the different middle schools and then to high school, to be able to connect with one another and share community. So we have some macro asks that are not that different from last time, continued support and collaboration, continued transparency and open lines of communication and continued intentional LGBTQI plus inclusivity. Some specific asks are ensuring with your support that the endurance of the task force and the program programs in community we've established really are sustainable. The collective work and collaboration of the task force with the community has made this progress possible and we require both partnership and autonomy to be successful and endure. Secondly, we are looking for deputy assistant superintendent, Dr. Mona Walker to be our to be our primary liaison moving forward to ensure continuity, sustained momentum, access, action and accountability from senior leadership. And finally, more LGBTQI plus learning and training opportunities for staff and teachers, district wide. So that is our presentation. I just want to take a moment and see if them or Dr. McNeil would like to share any closing comments before we open it up to Q and A. Can you? Sorry, can you just move? Oh, sorry. I've been a liaison for the Rainbow Commission since seventh grade and having just all these opportunities to really see that people are caring about these issues. I think it's just really important. So thank you for letting me be here. And I just want to say that my experience in working with him and Molly has been incredible. We've worked truly as a team and all we have lots of meetings and we talk we talk about different ideas. And it's very refreshing and gives me a lot of optimism about moving forward when we have youth like him and and other peers of him working with us in order to make our goals come come to fruition. And I think it is a it takes a community to do this. So this is something that we've worked together to create. And I've just enjoyed thoroughly enjoyed the experience and I've learned a lot. And so I think that's the most important thing. And so I'm very honored to be up here with these two individuals. I'm just very grateful as well for the partnership and for the opportunity to present to all of you. So thank you. Thank you. Questions or comments from the committee? Mr. Heiner, you've done a great job. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Slickman. I want to take a moment to do a personal detour in this conversation and that my mom was a middle school teacher on Long Island. And in the early 1970s, she provided a safe spot for a young lady who was one of her students who was grappling with sexuality issues and coming out. Sarah is somebody who we've maintained contact with. And she reminds me to this day. She lives in Boston. She's married. She reminds me to this day what a difference it made to have an adult, to have a teacher, to have somebody in the system to provide a safe, calm, supportive environment as she was struggling with these issues. And I hope that everybody who is struggling or even not struggling finds the safety and the sanctuary in their discovery of who they are. And I want to say I appreciate the work you're doing. And I hope that we can do even more going forward. Thank you. Great presentation. Great job. I just I I agree. I think that I remember when you came to the meeting in twenty twenty one and asked for a liaison. And and I think the amount of things that you have done in that time period is is incredibly impressive. And I also acknowledge how much work there is left to do in the Arlington Public Schools around inclusion and creating a safe space for all students. But thank you for sharing this and for continuing to come and present to us because I think that it's very important for the community to hear the work that's happening and the progress that we're making so that we can continue that momentum. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Great job. All right. So next on our agenda, we are going to be honoring Bill Hayner for his twelve years of service on the Arlington School Committee. Mr. Hayner has decided not to run for reelection again, and he's going to pursue some new things. I'm going to give everybody a chance to share some thoughts and some wishes with Bill. But I wanted to just start by letting everybody know a little bit about about Bill. And thank you to Mr. Schluckman for sharing some of this information with me. Mr. Hayner joined the School Committee at a very challenging time when there were budget challenges in FY 2010, which resulted in a significant deficit for the school budget at a special town meeting that was called in the fall of 2010 in order to bring the schools out of deficit. Dan Dunn, who continues to take notes during town meeting, reported Bill Hayner, former teacher, spoke. He said that if this was a business, the CEO would be fired and so would the board. He called on the entire School Committee to resign and stand for reelection. Bill Hayner ran for a seat on the School Committee in 2011 and won election. During his first year on the committee, Arlington participated in Massachusetts Association of School Committees District Governance Program, a series of retreats and workshops where the members worked together to build relationships with each other and to agree on a vision and set of overarching goals for the district. Mr. Hayner said the experience gave him insight into the challenges of the administration, the viewpoints of his colleagues on the committee and a common language for communicating with each other. As a result, he has been a thoughtful colleague who asks critical questions, but does so in the context of a collegial supportive relationship. He is also responsible for the rights and responsibilities that we all read and sign at the organizational meeting each year at our annual organizational meeting. Mr. Hayner taught elementary school in Groton Dunstable for 28 years and then earned his law degree in 2000. His legal education has benefited the School Committee with his expertise in contract negotiations, and he led a successful review of legal counsel for the district. Bill has been an active volunteer in the community. As a school committee member, he worked with our elementary schools to create a mock town meeting in which students come to Town Hall and debate a warrant generated by the students. He is very active with the local Rotary Club and volunteers with the local Veterans Council. He participates in an annual polar plunge to raise funds for the eradication of polio. He works with Arlington High School students to install a Memorial Day display of flags for veterans. And he has been an active volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, the Children's Room and Mass Audubon in Belmont. Bill served as chair of the School Committee in 2014-15 and 2021-22. He has served on the Permanent Town Building Committee for much of his tenure on the School Committee. And he has signed the payroll warrant regularly coming up to the sixth floor every Wednesday. Arlington Public Schools and the School Committee have benefited from Mr. Heiner's dedication and commitment to our students and their families. And we appreciate Bill's 12 years of service to the town of Arlington. So I'm going to go first as the most junior member of the committee. So I first met Bill in 2018 when I was working to advocate for full-time TAs. And I showed up at a lot of meetings and a lot of subcommittee meetings. And one day he said to me, he's like, Hey, can I talk to you about the library books? And I'm sure. And he sort of took me and some of the other people that I was working with aside. And he said, I didn't really want to talk to you about the library books. I wanted to make some suggestions about how you could advocate more for the TAs. So Bill has always been Bill has always been supportive of teachers and students and wanting to help them get the best. And so I have appreciated very much Mr. Heiner's advocacy for students and teachers on my time on the committee. Thank you. I've really enjoyed working with Bill over the years on subcommittee negotiations, special projects and more. But the thing I most admire about him is his dedication to our students, especially in our elementary schools. Here I've got a couple of examples here in a good educational fashion. I have supporting primary sources. First, my understanding was that he he and it sounds like I was correct that he created and then ran a program of town meetings for third graders, originally starting with Thompson and Hardy and then expanding to all the schools. I think this hands on activity is a wonderful introduction to civics as well as just playing fun. As you can see in this picture. This is from 2017. The paper formerly known as the advocate. My second example involves Stratton in 2016. They decided to write a school constitution. Not really sure why, but they did. There were many classroom meetings, much discussion and bill was serving as a consultant or. Mentor or something helper. Oh, helper. So we were invited to the great unveiling of this constitution, but unfortunately Bill couldn't be there. So for my second evidence. Sorry. I thought I was last. I didn't queue up. Come on. My phone. OK, here we go. So. This is here we go. This is the entire elementary school saying thank you, Mr. Heyner. Awesome. So and I echo them. Thank you, Bill. I can't top that. So I do remember Bill Heyner on the floor of town meeting in 2010, calling for all of us to resign. And I thought, well, that guy's got a point. Maybe. Maybe we're taking into account. But Bill ran for school committee and I some of us on the committee at the time didn't quite know what to expect. But Bill became very quickly became a dear colleague who took the time to study issues who who cared deeply about students and teachers and who brought a very unique perspective to the school committee, which were badly needed. He was a retired teacher, had a law degree, had been a veteran and was involved in every service club in the town of Arlington. So everywhere you went, you would see Bill doing one thing or another for the for the community. And so Bill had a broad perspective on the community. He invited me on a number of occasions to have breakfast to try to educate me about things that I wasn't seeing in the town. And and and then I talked to a few other members and they said they had those breakfast too. So I wasn't the only one. So Bill was was did his homework. He did his research. And when Bill took a position, you know where he stood. He was very clear about it, but he never let it get in the way and and impede personal relationships. He was just he made a decision. He took a vote. His decision was final. And then we would walk out together and he would talk about grandchildren, children, trips he was taking and other things because he had a good perspective on the on the whole job. He had a good solid perspective on the committee and he never carried any at least I saw it and carry any any of his of any of our discussions outside of the room. He just was our friend. And so his we got to meet his wife Bonnie over the years and Bill is as you know, a very proud father and grandfather and a great colleague. And I am going to miss serving with you, Bill. I wish you the very best. Thank you. On November 15th, 2010, we're all back to that. I was minding my own business, sitting in my seat at a special town meeting. When all of a sudden I heard my name invoked by a booming voice in the back of the hall. The voice belonged to some guy named Heiner. For those of you who don't know me, I'm a retired school teacher. When I finished when I retired, I finished a law degree and I specialized in school education. I came with a prepared speech and now it's being trashed just from the past couple of speakers. Listening to Mr. Schlickman and Mr. Currow, every town in this common wealth should be in a similar situation that we are. We have two different things going on in our community than they have. And before I go into that, I want to state that I will not that I will support this motion for the kids because the alternative is not acceptable. We were in the special town meeting because of a school department overspending their fiscal 2010 budget by $1.5 million. Fincom recommended a corresponding reduction in the fiscal 2011 budget and some adjustments to reserve funds to resolve the deficit. Quote, in the 28 years that I taught Mr. Heiner continued, I negotiated different contracts constantly hearing that if we were a business, we would be treated differently. We would be held accountable. If this was a business, the board of directors would be forced to resign. The CEO would be fired for what has gone on. I don't know any of these people. So there's nothing personal in this. What I do know is the children are going to pay for this. Then Mr. Heiner dropped the hammer to bring credibility to the school department. Again, I would ask that every member of the committee resign seek reelection in the spring and judge. Mr. Heiner was interrupted by applause. He continued, let the town judge them. Let the town judge them for what they have done or have failed to do. Fast forward a few months at the April 2, 2011 annual town election. There were four candidates for three seats on the school committee, two excellent incumbents, Joe Currow and Leigh Bahiam. That Heiner guy was on the ballot along with James L. Dolan. When you Google James L. Dolan, you get lots of derogatory comments. But that's for the James L. Dolan who owns Madison Square Garden, the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers. Further refining the search, you find the James L. Dolan who served as chairs the Arlington Town Republican Committee. When he ran for school committee, he was a vocal opponent of any future overrides. He said budget cuts were unavoidable. He said we could replace professional staff or volunteers, combine the AP classes with those of neighboring towns. And he wanted a part-time CFO, someone who was already an accountant in town, to take care of the school's budget. We all voted for Heiner. It was a no brainer. Mr. Dolan placed a distant fourth in the school committee race and also trailed Maria Romano and Lawrence McKinney as a fifth place losing bid for a precinct seven town meeting seat. As it turned out, when we heard Bill say the CEO should be fired and the school committee should reside, we missed the real message. I will support this motion for the kids because the alternative is not acceptable. Four terms have been centered around that mantra, supporting motions for kids because the alternative is not acceptable. We all learned some other things about Bill. Beneath that exterior is a kumbaya kind of guy. He loved the district governance project, also known as retreat. He developed tremendous empathy for the colleagues he called upon to resign. His best moments in town meeting weren't at night. Bill brought our elementary students into mock town meeting and Bill constantly reminds us that the children do better than the adults. Bill isn't the teddy bear. It's a polar bear. And if you wanted to torment Bill, all you needed to do was send a check to the Arlington Rotary Club and Bill would jump into Boston Harbor in January or sit in a dunk tank in February. In recognition of the contributions Bill made to the public education, the Massachusetts Association of School Committees bestowed his Lifetime Achievement Award. I have a little lapel pin to prove it. Even though our meetings will probably be shorter, they will be short on the wisdom and humor that Bill brought us over the past 12 years and we are going to miss him. He likes a pale pin, so welcome. I'm glad that all of you guys did such a nice job talking about Bill because I'm going to talk about me. So the first email I have from Bill Heiner is from April of 2015. I went back and looked. I met him for the first time in person at his house in May when my then two-year-old ransacked his son room under Bonnie's watchful eye. I didn't know anything then about what happened in 2010, clearly you guys did. Or what brought Bill to the school committee. All I knew then was that I was pissed that the plan was to send my then second grader to the middle school for her fourth grade year during a renovation. And Bill was willing to talk to me and meet with me and my friends. He encouraged us to be respectful but direct. He gave us hope that we could be part of a change even if we didn't actually really know what that change was. Bill encouraged us to go to the Permanent Town Building Committee. We were their first guests ever at one of their public meetings. They'd never seen a member of the public. We were quite a curiosity especially when we just kept showing up. Right. And at one point Adam Chapearlane asked if we planned to continue to attend throughout the project and Bill's chuckle from the corner answered that question quite quickly. Bill supported us when we went to town meeting. He was there when in August of 2015 we were told plans had changed. Stratton kids would stay on site in modular classrooms for the renovation. I really believe that we hung in there for months continuing to advocate because Bill encouraged us to do so and he gave us a lot of hope. It was at that August 2015 meeting that I sat in the audience back there in those chairs and I exchanged emails and phone numbers with two Thompson parents. Juliet Moyer and Mariah Terrell who were at the meeting because they were concerned their kids were in a class of 30 and they wanted to know what was going to be done about it. Attending that meeting and connecting with them literally changed the trajectory of my experience in Arlington and I do not think I would have been there had Bill not provided encouragement. Everything kind of snowballed from there. As I became more engaged in Arlington political life my relationship and friendship with Bill proved a little confusing for some people while Bill and I don't agree about everything and we've supported different candidates over the years. My loyalty to him has been unwavering. I've been direct and outspoken about my commitment to Bill and I remember being at a gathering where somebody asked something about Bill and somebody else chimed right in and said Bill Hayner is a non-negotiable for Jane just don't even start. And it's so true. Right. I don't negotiate over my loyalty to someone who supported me supported my kids and my family encouraged me always reminded me that family comes first and back in 2015 told me and my friends that we could and should ask for the changes that we wanted to see. As you know Bill this work is all about relationships and I am so proud of the one that I have with you. Thank you. Thank you. Wow. So I don't have anything written. It's temporaneous. I was trying to get in under the two minutes. Yeah. So I also think back to that that night at town meeting where I first heard your name. I mean you always we were always over sitting there sitting over there on the left with the guy next to you ran for you ran for you ran for school committee once. Anyways I know. Yeah. So yeah you made quite a quite a splash that night and shortly thereafter we were beginning to organize for an override which was made more complicated by the deficit that we had just had just had. And I was at a meeting and people were like oh that Bill Haynor is going to run for school committee. He's so scary. And and one of the older town leaders said Bill oh he's a pussy cat. Don't worry about Bill Haynor. He's great. And she was right. You were. After after that after that snarling presentation at town at town meeting really you've been quite a contributor, colleague, a supporter and a great negotiator with me and in in the the very long series of negotiations we've had over the years since I joined. So I greatly like with my colleagues I greatly appreciate your friendship, your companionship, your support and all of the efforts that we do for our kids in Arlington. And you're going to leave a huge hole in the committee. Your relationship with the community beyond the parents is one thing that is going to be sorely missed because you know a lot of us are parents. But you brought that different lens to the committee and and and it's been a great contribution and we'll be slowly missed and thank you for all your service. You're not done yet. You got one more. Mr. Hayner, you are my first chair as a new superintendent and I couldn't ask for a better one, not possibly. Your perspective as a former educator and as a community member who knew a history deep and long which all of your colleagues just spoke to was exceptionally beneficial to me in my first year. I have deeply appreciated every conversation that we've had because you come in to you would come into our meetings with a courage of conviction and with ideas for how I could improve on my work and with a kind heart, you were always also willing to reconsider your perspectives. And so the conversations I had with you were some of my favorites as chair and since then and I have to say I really appreciate Bonnie just as a human being and I've only met her like one time but I know how deeply you love your family and that also gave me permission to prioritize my own family. Your commitment to Arlington and the commitment of all of your colleagues and what they've just demonstrated in their remarks is a perfect example of why I love being the superintendent in Arlington. This is such a supportive team and it's been absolutely wonderful to work with you. I'm the one who's known you for the least amount of time on on this table. But that amount of time that I have had has been absolutely wonderful and I know that you're not going to be a stranger because I'm still going to get invited to Rotary, I hope, and I look forward to those moments. Thank you so much for your leadership for not asking me to resign and for all of the wonderful time that we've spent together these last two years. You may. First of all, I'm on a sheer. I had a page and a half speech. After the first, the second person, I had to wipe out a half of it because it's already been said. I'm going to partly ad-lib. I want to just share this. I participated in four long term commitments in my life. Joining the Air Force and going to Vietnam, which was life-defining. The second one was becoming a military teacher. It was wonderful. And then I got paid to think and act like a child. Most people know me, including my family, say it's not an act. Marriage has been a wonderful and exciting 53 years as my long term commitment with my best friend, Bonnie. The fourth has been a member of the school committee for 12 years. Being a school committee member is not an easy job. One has to listen to parents, teachers, administrators, taxpayers, who at times all seem to have different and conflicting agendas. I can honestly say that each member sitting at this table has worked tirelessly to provide the best education and environment for the children of Allington. I'm proud to have worked with you. My only regret is that I won't be an active participant in what is yet to come. You are awesome. I don't take back what I said in 2011, but I think the program that we underwent, I don't know whether I was the one who caused it in anticipating a very angry school committee meetings in the future. I think that what came out of it was fantastic. And I would recommend that this committee do it again because you have several new members coming. A couple of other things that I've noticed. I've had some positive, might be considered a negative effect. This speaker is now growing a beard. I don't know if I've done that or it's because of Mr. Mason next door to him. The average age of the school committee will now go down. You won't have to spend as much time helping the old man with technology. The committee will change in its agenda. I think that's the majority of my majority. It will be interesting. From what I have found, this is the first time. I'll leave it to the future to see if it's a positive result. Thank you all. Be well and God bless you. Thank you. Thank you. There are more guests still. Sorry. I know. I saw them. John Garbilly and Dave Rogers are also here. My God, there are politicians working in this program. Unlike us, huh, Paul? Yeah. We're just community servants. You just have to make sure you speak into that. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Well, good evening to all the members of the school committee. It's great to be with you and joined by Representative Garbilly and I would be at a loss for words to say anything after the amazing tributes richly deserved that you've heard from your colleagues. But I can only say I've enjoyed serving with you as a partner at the local level. I love you are a colorful character and I say that as high praise. You're outspoken, you're firm in your convictions and your beliefs. We haven't agreed on every issue, but when we disagreed, we disagree without being disagreeable. I have enormous respect for the contributions you've made to this amazing town and this amazing school system. And I like your great sense of humor, which is important in this line of work, I think. And so it's really been a pleasure. And I wish you nothing but the best. And I hope we stay in touch. I know we will. And I'll let Representative Garbilly say a few words and then we have a citation from the State House. Great. Thank you, Representative Rogers. Good evening, everybody. I'm going to go into the discussion's bill. As a former member of this esteemed committee, I can say that you have been one of the great ones. Twelve years, I can't believe it. It goes by really, really fast. And throughout those 12 years, you have always put the kids of Arlington first. And I think as we leave this room tonight, and you become one of, like me, the former members of this committee, that will be your legacy. And as we leave this room tonight tonight, and you become one of, like me, the former members of this committee, that That will be your legacy that you were a champion for kids. On every single issue that I can remember, whether it be METCO, special education, the rebuild of our elementary schools and the high school and maybe the middle school to come, we hope, you've given it your all. You have been an extremely hardworking, diligent committee member with a great sense of humor and a colorful personality, as Rep Rogers just said. And I think the greatest gift you can have really are the comments from your committee members because they're the ones who've worked with you day in and day out over the last 12 years. And it's pretty amazing all of their accolades and everything you have accomplished. So I really, I know you're not done. My hope is that you would retire and go have some fun. But I don't think that's you. You're going to stay active in this community that you love so much. And for Bonnie's sake, I hope you stay out of the house a little more. But I wish, I wish you and Bonnie the very best. And you've made this committee a stronger committee. Thank you. Rep Rogers is his representative. Representative Rogers will take the citation. Bill, we have here a citation from the entire House of Representatives. And I'll read it as be it hereby known to all that the Massachusetts House of Representatives offers its sincerest congratulations to Bill Hainer in recognition of your many years of outstanding contributions to the town of Arlington as a member of the school committee. The entire membership extends its very best wishes and expresses the hope for future good fortune and continued success in all endeavors, endeavors given this 30th day of March 2023 at the state house signed by the Speaker of the House, by myself and by Representative Garbley. So congratulations again, Bill. Sorry. You know, and you wanted to. This was supposed to be. You wanted this meeting to be short. It's only supposed to be. It's my last meeting. I get to make it go really long. So it is a traditional for a school committee member who is retiring to receive a chair. But Bill insisted that he did not want a chair, but we could not go without giving Bill a gift. So we have gotten you something else. You're going to make it hard for me to open. I hope not. I'll tell you what it is. If it's not before I forget, before I forget, I've given you each your card. No, you don't have to thank me really before you think it might be an extension from 10 years ago when someone retires, they don't need to know what time it is anymore. Yeah, I was just going to say that. But then I said maybe they used, they just got the box. That's full of knives. You're showing my ineptness. It's all right. My nice, neat desk. Bonnie, I'll tell you how it works. I'm not going to be able to say that. So you need to break those forms. By the way, for those that want to know how long you survive 53 years, marry someone who throws nothing away. She's kept me. Slow on that one. Is this a plate with it? I think so. Better than the chair. Okay, got it. It looks blank. Thank you. You're welcome to turn it around. Hold it up. Every time I look at it, I'll think of all of you. Thank you very much. Okay, there's cake over there. We're going to take five minutes to cut cake. And then we'll get back to our meeting. We are going to have a presentation and possible vote to approve the APS five-year strategic plan. So I just want to note since the chair said it into the microphone, I'm going to give you a hard time at your last meeting. I don't want the meeting to be short because I don't want to hang out with all of you. It's because my mom is at my house and I haven't seen her since Thanksgiving. So it's not because I don't want to be here. This is all very important as well. So I'm going to talk through a few of the things that have happened in the past couple of weeks as we have prepared and finalized the five-year strategic plan. I'm going to provide a little bit of background and process about the process to develop this document, tell a little bit about what the plan provides for our Arlington Public Schools community, give a couple of trends that came from the public comment period that we just had for about the past month and update the committee on a few revisions to the plan that we've made within the past week as well as talk about what our next steps will be. So just as a bit of background, I would be remiss if I didn't open by saying that we are deeply grateful to the Arlington Education Foundation for their support of this plan the whole way through from inception and development and thinking about what the plan would look like and therefore what kinds of resources we would need to funding the entire process from consultants to paying members of our community to do this work with us so that we could equitably involve as many people as possible to helping us actually begin implementation of some of the parts of the plan like instructional leadership teams this year. So we have been hand-in-hand with AEF the entire time that we have been working on this and they have been incredible partners, both thought partners and also participatory partners in this work, and we very much are glad that they were innovative in their thinking and ready to fund this project. So the process actually began in October of 2021. It's been over a year and a half of planning and work with initial planning for the district investment grant that got this process kicked off. The process has involved hundreds of APS community members and stakeholders including students. The mission, vision and priorities were approved in June of 2022. Initiative development was completed in fall of 2022. We've been doing budget development for the plan and for Fiscal 24 through January and February, held a public comment period in February and March of 2023, and hopefully potential approval of the final five-year plan this evening. A few highlights of the plan. I want to just highlight some sort of tangible benefits that our community members will get or see if we are successful in implementing this plan. First, an instructional vision is included in this plan that should provide a deeper baseline of expectations for instructional excellence across all of our academic areas and identify what teaching looks like that will support all students to excel as well as the teaching models, structures, schedules that we would need in order to do that. This plan includes initiatives that should bring a strong sense of belonging and build relationships between students, staff and families, particularly those students, staff and families who have been traditionally and historically marginalized by our system. It includes a multi-tiered, the development of a multi-tiered system of support that is stronger than the one we have now and that will ensure that every student will get what they need in a systematic, not haphazard or uneven way. It should get our stakeholders a strong diverse faculty that feels valued as well supported professionally and is compensated accordingly. It should yield modern, well-maintained and sustainable facilities, technology, food and nourishment for our students and spaces for learning. And it should improve our expectations, systems and resources for partnering with all of our families, including a fully staffed Welcome Center. Some of the public comment trends that we saw when we did the public comment process over the past month, people noticed that this was a values-driven and data-informed plan and that the values of the plan itself and all the initiatives in it are very aligned with the values that the community espouses and that the plan was built upon. A lot of people noticed that this is an ambitious plan. This is going to be challenging to implement. We did not make it easy for ourselves to get this done. And we're proud of that because I think it's important that we hold ourselves to a high expectation so that we can hold our students to a high expectation. There were a lot of questions about how the follow-through will look, how we will do it, more questions about that really than the ideas and initiatives themselves. So a lot of support in general for the ideas in the plan, questions about how will this look, how will that look, how will you actually expand after-school programming, for example. We got a lot of comments about the Welcome Center and making sure that it will meet and need and provide schools with resources specifically for meeting the needs of families who don't speak English as a first language, a lot of acknowledgement of the fact that translation and interpretation services are used sometimes, not always, not necessarily consistently, and that we could use more of them. There were lots of comments about the importance of an excitement for expansion of after-school offerings, including enrichment offerings, and a lot of questions about the importance of academic rigor and the role of tracking and leveling in initiative 1.1 in the plan, which we've tried to address in some of the revisions that we've done. So I want to speak to a few final revisions of the plan. We have adjusted the financial projections in order to match the most recent planning of the long-range planning and budget committees, and that is in response to a lot of budget planning and fiscal 24 planning conversations that have happened over the past couple of months. We adjusted the financial projections for space and technology improvements in initiative 3.1 with the anticipation that some of those adjustments assume that certain investments will be made as part of the capital budget on the townside. We made some adjustment in language linked to two of the initiatives in priority 1.1. Leveling and tracking was adjusted to reflect the intentions of the administration to complete an in-progress pilot at the high school and make sure that we engage the community in in-depth conversations about the impacts of leveling before we make any decisions or plan for any implementations about future programming. And for 1.3 in multi-tiered systems of support, we eliminated some language and strand milestones about what I need block or an intervention block, leaving to MTSS development teams to determine what structures will work for APS. And I just want to note that in a subcommittee meeting earlier this week, I spoke about what I need blocks. While we've had the intention to put enrichment programming in during the times that other students are getting intervention, we haven't been able to effectively execute on that because of some of the constraints associated with being able to provide coursework during a time when teachers aren't contracted to provide coursework. So while we would love to do that, it's not something that we currently have in our existing structures to do, and I misspoke about us being able to do that now where we do have this block, which is at the Gibbs. So we're hoping to expand it and we're hoping to make sure that we do so purposefully in a way that would allow for enrichment, and we would need to leave it to our planning teams to figure out what that would look like and provide recommendations that would give us the flexibility to do that effectively. There was also the addition of some more specific content on page 5, the overview, which contained some of the what this plan will give the community in the future. And then on to the next steps, we are working on the messaging of this plan to the APS community with the help of some high school students, and we're also hoping with the help of some elementary and middle school students, too. We're going to ask some students about what they're really hoping us to see us do and get some promotional materials together to explain the plan both in short form and provide access to it in long form, including printing a few copies for folks. We're going to do the development and launch of some task forces that will focus on the specific work of implementing the plan. We're going to need some folks to get themselves together and collaboratively work on several of the initiatives in the plan, and so we'll be launching these task forces as we head into next school year. We're hiring for key roles that were included in the FY24 budget and that are central to the work of the plan, such as the Director of Communication and Family Engagement to help us track progress on the plan. And we are going through a review of some of our year one implementation strands and milestones, and then we'll use that to develop our district goals for 23-24 towards the end of this school year. And finally, we'll be working on a web page for the plan on the district website and an online dashboard that will help us track and plan our progress on our outcome measures. That's it. I'll take any questions. Are there any questions or comments? Are there any questions or comments before I entertain a motion? This or something? After the motion is made and we vote this, this becomes ours. On behalf of the community and it's an important thing for us to have to put out to the community getting a clear vision of where we want to go over the next five years and the fact that we're going to be voting this on behalf of the community is a tremendous vote of confidence for all the people who work very hard to do this. And I want to call everybody's attention when they get to see the document to Appendix A of the strategic planning participants. The root of this plan started with the visioning group. And as a member of that group I think that the most profound things that came out of the visioning and mission statement were the words of students. Because every time we started to go off on a tangent of what we wanted to do for them to them they came back to us and said sorry they came back to us and said no we don't want you to make us something we want you to empower us and that's where the word empower came that is now part of our branding. A lot of this is a clear expression of the hopes and dreams of the students of what we're going to do for them on their path to their high school diploma. So it's an amazing and outstanding document and the superintendent was truly visionary in terms of making this happen and supporting all of the people who did this work. And I think that as a school committee member I can be proud of a district that does this. It's extraordinary. Thank you. What I want to say I'm going to vote enthusiastically for the plan. I think the thing to take into account is that the project began in the fall of 21 and it's ending now in March of 23 so it's 15, 16 month process so it was very participatory. There was lots of opportunities for people to give their opinions and thoughts and lots of us played roles at different parts in the journey and so I feel like I think we all own this in many ways it may not incorporate every single thing that everybody wants that's the nature of a strategic plan especially for a district this complex so I I'm proud of the process I congratulate the superintendent on leading it and I think it's a good example for other districts and it's also, this gives us a plan and a framework and something to refer to as we make policy decisions develop budgets for the next five years it's a great step forward for the district. And I think the important thing also to note is that we put this together in an extraordinary way and ultimately we have to go back to the community who has built this and we actually have to ask them to pay for it because we can't pay for it with what we have right now so that's what this part of the table is going to have to figure out how to make sure that we can move the work forward we have participated in creating certainly but that Dr. Holman and her team have brought and I think that that feels like a really exciting and important task that I know that it becomes the school committee strategic plan after tonight but I also do feel some weight about it because I'm like we need to be able to pay to be able to do this and so that's just another important part of this so thank you, thank you for bringing this to us thank you for giving us something that we can take back that is strong and is meaningful and we certainly wouldn't be here right now if we didn't have this work so thank you Mr. Gardner I should have brought my original campaign literature with me because one of the things that I wanted to accomplish again in 2016 now so long ago, seven years ago was that we have some strategic planning in the district and so finally we do and so thank you Dr. Holman for undertaking in your second year the very very hard work that's required to do a project like this so I'm very grateful for you and the entire team in getting us here I'm very excited about so many things in this plan it's addressing many many issues that I heard back when I ran in 2016 and since then about communication about supports that are available for students about the lack of instructional vision and cohesion and the lack of competitive salary so there's so many things in here that I'm just thrilled that we're focusing on and implementation is going to be very challenging but I'm very confident that with the team we have we will make enormous accomplishments over the next five years so thank you I just wanted to chime in on what Ms. Morgan and Mr. Cardin said about talking about paying for it and point out that the plan even before it was even when it was just in draft form is already providing both a direction when we have discussions about funding the schools for the future so being held up as an example of gee the town should do this too so I think I thank you for bringing us to a point where we have both a map and kind of a gold star next to it so thanks Ms. Keys or I want to echo my thanks to the AEF for supporting all of the work that went into creating this plan and to Dr. Homan and her team for all of the work and the time and the number of nights and evenings that you spent meeting in groups and small groups and then putting it all together and editing and to Dan Anderson for the work that he did in supporting all of you and bringing this all together I think it's incredibly thoughtful I think it's incredibly thorough I as an educator I look at this and I think it just it encompasses everything that we would want a school system to be I agree it's very aspirational but I think that we have to have a goal that we're heading towards and I'm really excited at what APS is going to look like in five years with this as our as our guide as our roadmap so thank you all of you for the work someone Mr. Hainer I'll entertain a motion to approve what has been presented to the board second we have a motion by Mr. Hainer seconded by Mr. Cardin Mr. Cardin Mr. Morgan Mr. Schlickman and I vote yes that's unanimous thank you both a starting line and a finish line at the same time just very exciting all right the lab collaborative agreement first read but I just want to make sure the committee understands that this is a first read so this is being presented to us tonight Dr. Homan will share some of the information we can ask questions to get feedback and just as part of our calendar that we had planned for school committee presentations for this year the executive director of lab is coming to our next meeting to give our presentation on lab actually have some of our questions answered directly so Dr. Homan I'll let you sure so the collaborative agreement is something that Pam Drard who is the executive director of lab has been working on extensively with the former interim executive director Bill Lupini and the state for several months at one component of the new collaborative agreement and my apologies we discovered today that the PDF clean version you have is actually missing the even number of pages so I went back to Ms. Drard to ask for the even number and odd number of pages but the red line that you have is the full document and we'll get the other full document to you so that you can look at the clean version as well they made a number of substantive changes to this mostly because the collaborative agreement hadn't been revisited in several years so we'll go to make sure that it reflected the most current programming of the lab the most current procedures as the most current regulations per the state of how collaboratives operate and you'll notice that there's an addition of Watertown to the collaborative as part of the plan the primary reason I will share a little bit about this but if you have further questions for it that would actually be best to direct to Ms. Drard when she comes to visit in a couple of weeks the primary reason for it is that Watertown has CVTE vocational technical facilities we had maintained as a lab collaborative partnership with Minuteman that allowed the collaborative students to use Minuteman's facilities but that relationship sort of with the pandemic and for various reasons that I'm not clear on because I was not yet a board member had dissolved so Watertown was willing to provide some of those facilities and has them in their new high school on the condition of joining the collaborative they don't actually have a lot of lab students and so the impact to member credits is relatively minimal but we'll have some numbers for you available at the next meeting as well as they can speak to what the financial impact could potentially be the hope is that they'll be able to expand some programming and therefore tuitions which would be either a positive or negligible financial impact on the collaborative as a whole so they I'm happy to take any questions that Mr. Gerard and potentially Mr. Lupini can address if he comes with her at the next meeting and I will provide those to them so they can work it into their presentation as well. Mr. Heiner I'm not sure if it's anywhere else but in the draft form at the very top it says any subsequent amendments here too shall not take effect unless and until approved by a school committee does that mean one school committee could block the way this is written it implies that any one school committee could block it I'd be a little bit nervous about that it's just my observation just sharing that that's the way it currently is that's not a change from that isn't okay the red is not a change it's clarifying the procedure but that's the way it already is I guess it hasn't been okay so you have a question about that in the regional voc agreements all require unanimous consent for changes of the overall agreement which is why we had some leverage when they decided they wanted to build the new high school has town council looked over this no but I could have them in the next couple of weeks yeah I'd like our before we voted I'd like to have a favorable opinion from town council Mr. Cardin thank you I reached out to Dr. Holman just when I first saw it yesterday I couldn't get into Novus until then so lab has not added a member town since 1996 so I'm a little disappointed that we didn't hear I mean water town approach lab about this a year and a half ago so I'm a little disappointed that we didn't hear about this possibility before now I'll send you some more questions the I mean the way the credits are calculated I mean first when the town becomes a member they pay less tuition they get a discount that we currently get as a member district so those six students will be paying less in tuition for lab so that's going to have an impact and then the way credits are determined half of the credit is just by being a member so again we should prepare a calculation of what credits look like now and what credits will look like once water town joins and also since water town is just getting started in their construction I do question the timing of this is this really the right time to add them or do we wait until they actually can provide space for this programming so I think there's more conversations to be had the other thing is I mean the way the amendment the amendment process is currently structured we notified about it before the lab board approved it and that's a good way it's a good process because then if we had changes we could give the input then now if we do have changes it's going to have to go back to the board go back to the other towns so unfortunately that's where we are but one thing I think we should consider is given what happened with EDCO should there be more safeguards in a collaborative agreement like this and I think that's something that I'll think about in the next couple of days but what can we add about undertaking large liabilities like that lease that EDCO did without approval by anybody outside of the board so that's just one thing that I'm thinking about thank you Dr. Allison Hempie this may go back to the board I was just wondering on page two the paragraph it's struck out but it talks about shall not carry on any activities not permitted to be carried on by any entity except for federal income tax under 501-3C code and I didn't see that anywhere else so I don't know it's on page two it's in the middle it's next to the question for Colby why it's struck out but I just I didn't most of the stuff that struck out it's like reworded or moved I couldn't find that part and I didn't understand what it's doing so I wanted to make sure it's not important I don't have an answer for that right now that's fine I guess my question goes along so there's an expectation right now that this is sent to the Desi on April 30th and I'm just wondering and it sounds like it's an entire year's timeline if that date is missed is that accurate? I this is coming to you as swiftly as we had our hands on it we had it we didn't I apologize for timelines and not having that it was in the works to you according to that timeline I sent it to the chair for consideration on the first read and the second read because the executive director said they needed it by the end of April otherwise it's going to be a full another year and the process through which to consider adding a member is exactly this process they had approached but were not publicly being considered as a member until this process plays out so now is when if communities want to consider not adding a member as a member we discuss that and determine whether or not to approve the agreement with them added but the lab board has already approved this document well they've approved it to bring forward to their communities to approve I had some questions in terms of the process so we have just two school committee meetings in April in order to so any amendments or changes sort of on an accelerated schedule here um do the is it for approval of the agreement every committee every town has to sign every town has to agree to it right do you have a sense of what other based on your conversations we have the superintendents what they're thinking I haven't heard any concerns a couple communities have done a first read I don't think I'll have yet so you haven't heard like these are the issues I can ask Mr. frankly most other school committee members aren't attuned to how the collaborative operates so I'm not surprised well okay it just feels like we've got to prioritize this and we shouldn't be the group that holds it up these are issues that we can sort of get answers to address and get done by the second meeting of April the latest if we have to Mr. are you proposing making any changes and then getting it all done and wrapped up by the 13th for a second read or so if they're minor changes I don't know what the process is for the deadline for desi you know I don't know if there's any flexibility they've already reviewed it once if we add a clause a clause that you know financial obligations greater than one million have to come to our first to approval what would desi then hold it up for a whole year I have no idea but the process was the draft amendment was supposed to go to us before the board the lab board considered it and they didn't do that so you know it's not our fault legitimate concerns I'm not trying to be petty if we have legitimate concerns then the process gets delayed the building's not ready for occupancy anyway it's not even if they haven't even started the project yet yeah right Mr. Hainer and then Mr. Seckl if I may when you mention it are you suggesting that we are legal take a closer look at this document to make sure we have safe guides to prevent what happened to us in Edco there are none there are none, none now so we would have to add one and we would have to consult with legal about how to do that well being the representative of this committee on Edco that's a solution one member caused an awful lot of consternation threats of litigation it was just terrible and we should be made aware of that that the lab is going to do that from my perspective they've been very quick to us in the past but putting a safeguard in there I think it's very important for the sport going forward just one point I think the way the process would work is there would be a motion by a member of the committee to propose an amendment which would then have to go back and let's say you proposed an expenditure approval process that said any expenditure over X has to be approved by each school committee which I don't know how to vote on that but we have to talk about that but before that could actually happen I would love to find a way to hear what other superintendents school committees thought of that I don't know how we do that just it feels like us working in a vacuum and not having any dialogue with the other districts isn't the best way to go I don't really know I don't know what the expenditure the organization I work with there's a limit there's committees it's all and it's been approved by a board and it's just one board debating the thing so I don't know how you do this with all these different communities and I just don't know and for that reason I don't know how I would vote on your motion until I thought about and understood the process is this about the specific so you are next but if Jane is responding to Mr I'll let Jane go more about what the risk is of delaying as a former member of the Minuteman Regional School Committee our dealings with Watertown were a little difficult they were very happy to send lots of students the Minuteman as long as we didn't want them to become a member of the district so they were sending they were like the second biggest non-member town sending kids in but didn't want any part of membership because it would cost them more and when we rebuilt the high school and offered them again a chance to come into Minuteman when Belmont and some of the other towns left they said no thank you we were in it for the discount so Watertown makes me a little anxious so I definitely would like to see the cost benefit to having Watertown come in as a member versus continuing to charge them a non-member rate which sounds like it would be more advantageous for the rest of us Ms. Morgan so they're Watertown kids at lab now yes they pay the full tuition so the advantages of hitting April 30th are largely Watertown to be able to do that or that we have an agreement lest they decide they're gonna put a dog kennel into their high school space instead of housing lab I mean like they were to become members they we wouldn't have access obviously to CVT programming space right away but we they would be able to provide programming space to the collaborative and if they have if they can expand programming space right now labs enrollment is not significantly larger than it has been in previous years but the referrals are through the roof so it's possible that they will have more enrollment in coming years if they can staff programming appropriately if Watertown is able to give space then we have the space for more enrollment we have had to constrain a little bit of space the Audison in particular because of our growing enrollment at the middle school level so and we will have more space available when the new high school comes online but we don't have some of that but we don't right now so one of the benefits to the collaborative right now is potentially more programming space though it's not the CVT space that we will ultimately have access to and I think this is maybe a question for Mr. Cardin but this Watertown access doesn't solve the problem of our kids who want to go to Minuteman but don't have enough academic support there right because they had Minuteman used to have a program they almost had like a sub separate like support program at Minuteman for some of our kids so that they could better access what was happening at Minuteman but this isn't going to replace that correct? I'm not aware of Minuteman having there was a lab program at Minuteman Lab hosted a program at Minuteman we paid tuition to it and when they rebuilt Minuteman the superintendent was willing to charge substantial fee to lab to rent space in the new building and so that was not the collaborative couldn't manage the the exorbitant amount that they were asking for Minuteman so that programming shifted to Burlington High School for a small time but Burlington High School did not have the comprehensive programming that Minuteman had that lab students had access to so Watertown offers that potential that for a while they explored working with Medford at their comprehensive high school and hosting a program there that was ultimately did not pan out and so both the opportunity for that which won't come online for a little while is one piece of it and then the piece that works maybe Mr. Mason can explain a little bit more is the amount of space that you give determines the credits that we received back so each member district has a different essentially rate at which they're paying based on the amount of square footage they are contributing to it so to calculate what it would be with the change I think it would be a little bit more tricky to figure out given not knowing what that square footage is ultimately going to be that they devote to the programming just one thought is that if it's possible to have a dialogue with a bunch of the superintendent and bring Lenin to kind of express this issue and just see where it might go it would be helpful just to have some sort of conversation with other districts to see what they're thinking rather than just go to you and you go to them and you go back to us it just might be better to have one member of the committee go to you. Yeah I'm happy to do that. Yeah that would just be more. Again had we known this was going to be both going was happening I would have gotten involved much earlier. I'm happy to go to a lab board meeting. Yeah just to kind of talk about it because an expenditure approval process by the way is a very complicated thing that a lot of people have to agree to and it's like just a one million dollar or any arbitrary number it becomes really complicated. Dr. Allison. I just want to echo my support for Mr. Cardin's idea because I think we owe it in the to do what we can not to have something like that happen again and I understand it may be complicated but I think we should look into what are the options because the standard ones failed us last time and so I think we need to be looking at it next level up. So it sounds like just to recap some of what I'm hearing here or rephrase it sounds like it's the options whether it's this year or maybe next year it's not just a plus for them it's also a plus for us in that they're offering access to something that we don't have access to right now and it's something that actually sounds important and so I think that's really I don't think we should be I think we need to get this agreement right to move their deadlines or something then maybe we need to wait another year if we can't get it all we should try and get it done by the deadline but I think we should be trying to get Watertown in because I don't know where else we can go because we've already eliminated every school that I can think of that offers that kind of programming and so those are my thoughts so you'll share these questions ahead of time you'll keep Mr. Cardin apprised of any sure I'm a little unclear on like Mr. Thielman's suggestion and Mr. Cardin's follow-up so there's the board responsibilities it says the board is responsible for improving all expenditures including the number of contracts borrowing and the purchase and sale of fixed assets in real estate so I don't know where the conversation go but it could go to a point where it says that any debt over X needs to come back to all of the school committees for approval that could be it I'm not sure where it could go but for that to happen that has to be amended everybody has to agree to it and it would be good to have a dialogue first informally with folks from other towns to see what they think of this process and how it would work because I think you're talking about sort of like we don't want to have a repeat of that nobody wants that so we want to prevent that from happening so one way to prevent that from happening that's been proposed is for the school committees to have a veto over something I don't know what that something is it could be a debt over a certain amount of money it could be a loan over a certain amount of money it could be a deficit I don't know that's all I'm saying does that make sense? I can talk after I'm just trying to clarify that should all happen one of the disadvantages of not is that if we wait a year we're operating under the old agreement that is exceptionally outdated that could be an amendment after this for another year so I'm just trying to figure out what timeline expectations are two things one I wasn't I think it's not that we're all going to veto it it's that we want better information if we're essentially agreeing to an expenditure of the magnitude a million or whatever or cutoff is but do we have I mean can't we separate the new water town and changing the agreement I'd have to ask because can't we get the new agreement set so that but not necessarily by April 30th but get that and so then when water town's there we've got the whole agreement and it's all worked out and there we go I just think that the provision that has been suggested for a structure for large expenditures and commitments would probably be met favorably by the other towns currently in the collaborative as they were all EDCO members and had to struggle with this as well so I think that maybe even if town council could advise us on how to write something like that I know it's a busy time for town council because town meeting is coming up but this is expensive for us as well okay let's move on monthly financial report Mr. Mason all right good evening school committee members can I present to you sorry tonight we'll present to you the financial reports which finances as of February 28th 2023 and these reports were included the general fund report that includes the town appropriation which is Chapter 70 funds and local contribution as well as revolving and special revenue report as well as grants which include the FY23 entitlement grants, COVID-19 grants related grants and electronic bus grants so the general fund at a glance we're projected to and right now around a hundred thousand dollars give or take some dollars I don't ever like to give an exact number but and these projections assume that all departments will spend their budgets down we are coming up to our deadlines on spending internally which is most departments will see spending except a few exceptions around April 14th for procurement supplies and materials and then we will then look at what the remaining discretionary salary spending is looking like and we'll have come up with a better projection that's more precise but currently this is the projected balance along with expected transfers that are tied to some projects for the end of the year based on salary savings that we were having earlier in this year okay this is currently the budget versus actual the maroon or reddish lines are what we currently actually are spending at by percentage and then the dark gray and I'm seeing it here is what's encumbered and then the black is what's remaining in each section just because a section may have a larger percentage unspent does not represent dollars wise because each category slightly has different amounts the next is updating the actual versus budget by the month and we're currently in line as you can see based on a projection to still hit our numbers and have a balanced budget what I will say is that I believe the May budget number on here needs to be updated because of an extra pay cycle so I'll do that update in the future periods as we try to get this chart out and then I wanted to touch based on comparisons or driving factors from prior years budgets at this time so last year at this time our salaries were lower at this point obviously we have contract agreements and you know we do cost living increases for our personnel and ad personnel but these are the top changing categories that are higher than last year at this time and I will then add to that is that we are seeing our tuition right now is a little bit higher currently and on the general fund and power electricity is actually we're seeing some substantial cost increase and this is actually not reflecting all current usage in power electricity currently we're paying market rate for the new high school meters the new rates will come in effect in the summer which then will have a better sustained and spend rate for power electricity in fiscal 24 we're also seeing that our computer software so we did a lot of investment after the pandemic and instructional software but as well as modernizing processes and you know leveraging softwares for what we're talking about a digitization project which is including with HR HR software which is showing why we are increased in that area and we've seen due to the pandemic increased paper cost and as well as ventilation with the contractor services there's some pending invoices that's required to it for a transfer that we'll speak about but the figures are closer to what's encumbered is going to be around $300,000 that's really already been spent that's just not reflecting these financials for HVAC contractor services some positives are we're saving on natural gas it wasn't as cold of a winter as well as our new building is driven mainly based on electricity so we're seeing savings on that offset we're also seeing due to the pandemic we're not spending as much on the medical surgical supplies this was masks and whatnot we had some leftover costs back in last year in cleaning materials and some of our instructional materials we've shifted away to use software where some of our instructional materials are down right now we do anticipate that to have some increased spending at the end of the year and we are seeing lower we don't have as many long term subs spending at this moment the rates are different so that's what we've seen so moving on to the special revenue and revolving I just will say that we're spending the main balances down we're starting off around $5 million in the beginning and we're projecting based on current spending and transfers that need to hit the revolving funds which include the circuit breaker so we'll be moving some tuition off of the general fund but not to go over our allocation for this year we're projected to end the balances around $4.2 million these also include some summer projects that we're anticipating to hit building rentals and then last but not least just grants are also going as planned more detailed reports about the entitlement grants and we do intend to have some carryover at the end of the year tied to the ESSER funds and some of our entitlement grants and I will then actually I usually end there but I just wanted to add also there's two motions this evening one motion is to accept the Afghan refugee support the schools grant this slide outlines how we intend to spend the $28,000 to support Afghan students or schools that have Afghan students in classes if you have any questions about this grant I can further look into it but I may not have all the answers for this evening and last but not least I just want to say the other motion is for a budget transfer or budget transfers one this has been changed from your memo there's been an updated memo and obviously presentation if you look at the presentation earlier to reflect that it's no longer coming out of curriculum instruction due to salary savings in the secondary budget we would be moving about $405,000 to the other budget transfer category to cover the increased costs and facilities which include increased electricity costs we have we've had a lot of ventilation work due to not having the staff to actually do some of the HVAC work and the maintenance team so the cost to contract out is substantially higher we also looking to modernize start our digitization project in the central administration what this will do is digitize documents that we are housed throughout the halls on this floor in our offices and make them electronic with the ultimate goal to save space to help reduce costs well not reduce costs per se but to help with the move when we intend to move to the new offices in the fall and give us opportunities to look at maybe new acquired spaces if we do not need as much storage we can use for other purposes it also will give us a chance to look at leveraging software that we already have we already procured and are using for other tasks like munis our financial system it can hold documents and we pay for the housing in the tile content manager we also we are in the process of implementing power school records which will be our new HR system to support our HR documents to give access to our staff to see some of the documents in their files and so yeah that project we are estimating the cost $200,000 and we are contracting a conical model to help us with that there is no need to do the secondary transfer that was down below for the oddison day the Gibbs and oddison day we have found funding sources out of the medical grant that is not going to be required that is it I'll heed back to the chair Mr. Cardin you heard what happens if you run a deficit tonight right after you you're not going to run a deficit right yes yes yes I move that we accept the refugee support I move that we accept the refugee support to schools grant and the amount of $28,163 thank you Madam Chair second we have a motion by Mr. Segelman seconded by Mr. Haynor discussion can you just explain where the grant came from can I forgot my notes there are I'm not sure how detailed I am there are statistics that the state keeps on students who are placed in districts who qualify as refugees and we had a sufficient number of students who qualified as refugees coming from Afghanistan the state informed us that we were eligible to apply for this grant and so we did and we were allocated this amount the actual status is humanitarian parolee but they would like to then register for refugees but they weren't declaring that thank you second that's unanimous I move we make the budget transfers as described by Mr. Mason second we have a motion by Mr. Cardin seconded by Mr. Haynor discussion Mr. Schlickman I'd like to ask Mr. Mason pertaining to the digitization that we're going to be putting documents into power school and to munis what is the ownership of those documents and will we have a backup in the event that we desire to change renders so yes the plan is to have conica minota when they scan all these documents to provide it on to a media source as well as we're working with the IT department on trying to find alternative backups in a more secure kind of cloud storage solution we are this is the initial discussions with conica so we've chosen them they gave us the initial proposal some of the solutions they also are the professionals they are the ones that are specialized on this so they will meet with the special education department and the HR department next week to discuss further about the projects and what their needs are for those individual departments to then ensure that they can also provide solutions that those documents are going to be in a secure place and how we will go forward some of the solutions will be keeping some of the documents but they'll be in a controlled area but not the entire set of documents there's also to speak on the HR side there's going to be a redundancy that we anticipate to have which is where power school records will be able to house our employee documents to be the face for where our employees can go and access documents and do any changes and what not but then there's going to be also the redundant on the Tyler content side which is munices which have a long term standing relationship with with the town and Tyler so you're doing the state reporting out of power school which state reporting the are you talking about EPIMSIMS EPIMSIMS is done out of power school and so we're going to be looking at solutions in terms of whether IT we had an initial conversation this week actually about IT saying well could we put some of the student records into and leverage power schools but seeing what that cost would look like if there's going to be additional cost to do that on the school side, the student side we've paid for the records portion which is a very powerful tool but it's also a data warehouse where we own the data I don't think there's going to be a cost to if we ever need to take out the data in a later time, even if we lost or had a problem with our physical media or the other redundant cloud option that the IT department has there will be options for us to retrieve that data so I don't feel confident with this process and it's also about establishing workflows I think there's a lot of manual processes that we have that we need to move from the paper process to now how do we watch this through and see it on actually leverage our technology that we have that the town has invested in already I've lived with a 17-year nightmare of how to get stuff out of easy IEP they sort of had us trapped into it and they were totally uncooperative which meant we had to renew because we couldn't get it out and move it into a SIS module so that's why I'm sort of worried about digitization in terms of do we have ownership of our own stuff and can we move it if we so desire okay Dr. Allison Ampe I'm assuming security is also a concern yes so that's why we have our IT team that's going to be partnering with us on the project to make sure all the solutions are going to be secured not in a safe that they either can manage or they can find a vendor that will securely manage okay I forget it was motioned by Mr. Cardin and seconded by Mr. Heiner or vice versa but so transferring both of these budget transfers all those in favor aye, opposed, abstentions that's unanimous that's all the anything else on finances superintendents report Dr. Homan brief updates tonight first a few events that are coming up this weekend and to celebrate from last weekend this weekend tomorrow we will be hosting our coffee and conversations annual hiring event that the superintendents diversity committee put up oh tomorrow's not Saturday Saturday, not tomorrow don't come tomorrow we will be here from 10 to 12 Saturday from 10 to 12 will be the coffee and conversations hiring event in the lobby Arlington high school many participants signed up last count was about 25 folks said they were going to come this weekend as Michelle mentioned we have our Arlington high school into the woods that I cannot wait to attend it's going to be fantastic as it always is and there was the bishop play spectacular production of beauty and the beast Thompson held its first multicultural festival in many years and Arlington met co-hosted their annual APS annual bridging two communities family walk this is the third time that they have hosted this walk and there was a record turnout of over 100 community members and it was a beautiful day and the sun was shining and we walked through the Boston Arboretum and it was absolutely fantastic so it was great to see so many people in support of our two communities coming together I want to give an update on the curriculum reconsideration process which is policy IJR the school committee manual we do have a current challenge of our human growth and development curriculum that is going to be under consideration over the next month or so there will be a public hearing at the meeting on April 14th and that will be announced to the public at least 48 hours in advance after the public hearing and after we have an opportunity to hear from community members when we send out the announcement we will also send out the verbiage of the challenge itself what's being challenged what's being reconsidered as well as any resources that the community members may want to look at to help them understand what they would want to come and tell us after that it will be reviewed by a team that includes students parents teachers and administrators and we will also send out the recommendation and vote by the school committee at this regular meeting on the 27th at the end of the month of April it was the 13th not the 14th the slide is correct you just said the 14th so April 13th April 13th regular meeting is the hearing the April 27th regular meeting is the recommendation the committee will issue recommendation to me and then I will issue the recommendation to the committee for consideration we are currently active the bishop principal screening committee met this week and will meet next week to meet with candidates they have those initial interviews next week after which they will forward some finalists for my consideration and to meet members of the bishop community the bracket principal opening is still posted and will be posted through the end of next week director of communications and family engagement as well as director of research data and accountability are also currently posted through the end of next week and you have updated in section projections and enrollments in your packet I want to draw attention to some updated section projections as kindergarten enrollments are still coming in keeping a close eye on them but we have we are anticipating that we might need fewer sections of kindergarten at Pierce an increase of sections at Stratton in grade three and potential adjustments of sections at Thompson for space consideration reasons and to make sure that those sections are evenly staffed and then also at bracket there was one section that was very under enrolled and we have eliminated that section and we are keeping a pretty close eye and I am just pulling this up because it helps me remember we are keeping a close eye on bracket kindergarten sections as well we had projected that to be four sections and we are not quite sure if it will be four sections or three and then here is the Pierce section that has changed the Stratton section that has changed and the bracket section that has changed at grade four I am happy to take any questions Dr. Allison Ampe I am going to keep doing this every time until the number goes down I am concerned about Thompson and both first and second grade numbers Ms. Donato about how she would want to support those two grade levels if those sections stay at that size I am not happy and actually Bishop to second grade so I am registering my concern so I wanted to offer up to the committee a resolution on universal meals for all as a first read with the bill going to the legislature and the governor extending the free meals for the rest of this year and then into next year I wanted the Arlington school committee to consider advocating for universal school meals in the future I think that Ms. Hansen and Ms. Bond did a nice job explaining all the reasons I can also just share that as someone who works in the schools having free meals for the last few years has really even the playing field in terms of stigma for students in terms of relationships with food and with one another around food and I think it's important as part of our strategic plan and our vision and mission that we support free meals for students Mr. Schlickman so I'm wondering how my colleagues would feel about suspending the rules to go immediately to second read in adoption. So moved. Second. Second. We have a motion by Mr. Thielman seconded by Mr. Schlickman to suspend the rules to have a second read. Discussion? Those in favor? Yes. Opposed? Okay. That passes. Move to support the resolution as presented. Second. Authorized. Motion by Mr. seconded by Mr. Schlickman. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That's unanimous. Thank you all. Incentive 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 makes a request in which event the item will be considered in its normal sequence. Warrant number 23219 in the amount of $916,526 $916,526 and four cents dated March 21st, 2023. School committee minutes March 16th, 2023. Approval of field trip, OMS drama club to New York City. The current director of high school counseling job description. To approve is presented. That would be move adoption of the consent agenda. Second. Motion by Mr. seconded by Mr. Cardin. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That's unanimous. Subcommittee liaison reports and announcements budget Dr. Allison Ampey. We met last week we mainly hashed over numbers that were in the strategic plan which you have now seen the results of. Community relations Mr. Hainer. We had a hiccup on the chat last week. It's been resolved going forward. Nothing else to report at this time. Curriculum Instruction Assessment and Accountability Ms. Morgan. We met on Monday and we talked about the strategic plan that we approved tonight. Facilities Mr. Sealman. Facilities no report. Policy and procedure Mr. Sealman. No report. Arlington High School Building committee Mr. Sealman. I just wanted to the committee is meeting on Tuesday but I just want to give everyone an update to make sure we're all on the same page. The project, the high school project is in phase two right now. This has always been the phase with the tightest and most complex schedule because we had a demo one building and build a new one. We voted last fall to delay the demolition and abatement of Fusco House and the blue gyms to allow us to open up with a full schedule. That's also going to happen. And the schedule turnover of the building for phase two is at the end of September. However there have been some delays with the pouring of slabs concrete slabs throughout the building and so it's possible that there's going to be delay in the turnover of the classrooms to the district into a date after the end of September. The committee won't know for sure about that until May. And at the May after that meeting in May when we have good data I'll report out where we're at. So that's what that means. In all likelihood the safety valve and the timing of the turnover of the district offices and the preschool just like the auditorium was delayed last time in opening by eight weeks it's possible that the district office will remain here for a little bit longer after the turnover and the preschool won't be able to move in on time. But the preschool is at monotony and the district offices are here. That's the summary. Superintendent evaluation Mr. Cardin. Nothing. Announcement Mr. Hainer. Once again I would like to thank you all and I have one more. It's been vivid. Future agenda item. Be nice to the next person. We were nice to you. Nice sir. Just as a last tribute to Mr. Hainer I'd like to ask the chair to recognize Mr. Hainer for any motion to adjourn. Thank you. One second. I also I think Ms. Exton for chairing the committee this year. Yes. Here. Here. Move to adjourn. Second. All those in favor. Motion meeting is adjourned. All right.