 First, I'd like to welcome Solomon Goldstein-Rose, who has elected the other night to the Amherst School Committee. Welcome, Solomon. Thank you. Good to have you here. And Zoe Langsdale, who is the representative from the Student Advisory Council, so the right name. Okay. Great. At the high school. So, good to have you too, Zoe. Welcome. The other thing we can eat tonight is that we work live on TV tonight from the library for the first time. So we're really happy that Jerry and his gang were able to get that hooked up. So hopefully we can have meetings here from now on. We'll see how it goes tonight. We should thank Amherst Media with that as well, because it was a collaboration between Amherst Media and the schools. Yep. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Agenda review. Any questions or comments on agenda? Okay. I'm moving on. Approval of minutes of January 17th and January 24th. Any comments, corrections on those? Motion to vote. Sure. Move on both, please. Fix up. Is there a second? Second. Yep. Those are motion to approve both minutes. Who seconded? Captain. Okay. Any discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? All right. That's approved. Announcement of public comment. Anyone to make public comment tonight? Any announcements? Yeah. Any announcements from the committee? Yes, Kristen. I don't know if Maria's going to mention this, but just to acknowledge that there's going to be an additional forum that the Schittsbury and Levitt School communities are holding to discuss a potential change in time on February 15th. So just another option. And that's seven o'clock at Schittsbury Elementary School. Mm-hmm. At the library in Schittsbury Elementary School. Great. Great. Thank you. Anything else? Okay. Okay. Superintendent's update. Okay. Great. So first, I just again would like to say it's great to see. That we have a new member and it's great to have the student perspective represented. And Zoe having that representative back is really important. We missed not having one for that period of time. So we're thrilled to have you here. And again, Solomon and Zoe, this is new. So if there are questions that you have, you can ask the chair for clarification as meetings go on if you're not really sure how to respond. So relying on the chair, he'll help you out. So I wanted to make a few announcements tonight. One, I'm not sure that I announced publicly prior. We've been working for a while on bringing Dr. Ron Ferguson to Amherst. And for people who are not aware of Dr. Ferguson's work. He's a lecturer in education and policy, public policy at Harvard Graduate School of Education and at the Harvard Kennedy School. And he is a nationally renowned educator whose research and writing is primarily focused on racial achievement gaps. And many of our staff have had the opportunity to see Dr. Ferguson speak over a number of years and have found his work to be really valuable, meaningful and transferable to concrete action steps, which is critically important for us. So we will be having him come in March. We're still confirming the date at this moment, but we're thinking of the last Wednesday in March and we'll have an opportunity for Dr. Ferguson to meet with the leadership team, to meet with our partnership group, because the five colleges are supporting with other community members supporting Dr. Ferguson coming, supporting financially as well as offering opportunities for him to places to speak and such. And then we will also have an opportunity for staff to hear Dr. Ferguson and then an evening event as well, so open to the community. So we expect that that will be a free event and we'd love to see students, staff and community members join us. So exciting work. Also, again, just to mention that the MSAN student conference will be coming and I think we've confirmed the last week of September. I think is what we're working on at the moment, which will be Wednesday through Saturday for our students, but also for students in the MSAN districts across the country to come and join us in Amherst. And again, the five colleges in the community are stepping up to partner with us to bring the students here. So we'll be having support from the local colleges and universities, use of space and such to support us bringing this amazing opportunity to Amherst. We also are working closely with Amherst Education Foundation who has provided a substantial amount of financial support to our schools over the years in it on levertudes, very Pellum and Amherst and regional schools. And we've kind of started to work together probably over the past six months to think about how to kick off an alumni giving campaign. So Kim Stender's been working on updating the directory, which is an alumni directory that we were able to take care of and also work with AEF to think about a kickoff in November because that's when a lot of people come home for reunions. So we are hoping to have a musical event that we could ask alumni to come back and perform as a community kickoff, which would be a free event, but that would kick off the alumni giving efforts. So again, hope to bring resources into our schools. Sixth grade has historically attended the high school musical and our sixth grade classes. We are coming to see guys and dolls on 9.30 on Wednesday, February 29th before public appearances happen. And I know Pellum, we just mentioned that the sixth graders are very excited to come and see the performance. Zoe, are you in the performance? Excellent. And we would strongly encourage school committee members to come and see the performance. And I will make sure that I am there myself with my daughter. Also, as Kristen mentioned, we have an upcoming forum for Leverett and Shoesbury and open to other community members to attend to share their feedback. At this time, we have had three forums that have had 68 parents, guardians, students, community members attend and provide their input but also add questions and or concerns. So we're in the process over the next several days to analyze that feedback and to consider next steps. In the meantime, and I think Mike might want to say something about this, in the meantime, if people have specific, they weren't able to attend and they want to send something, they can send it into Debbie Westmoreland, which is Westmorelandd at ARPS.org and she'll compile that additional information. So, did you want to share something too? I have one additional item I forgot to leave out. You guys can come to the school committee to know. Please. We're having our, the MCF students came and presented to you about their actual plans we've got on the shadow day. So this coming Wednesday, we have 26th grade, 7th graders that are going to go shadow at the high school and part of it's going to be experienced a couple different things but also have a conversation as we've talked about about kind of the things that happen in 7th grade in the way that affects, you know, affects their feeling in terms of what I wish I do now. So I just want to let you guys know because you've heard that before that that will be happening and thanks to Mary Custard at the high school, college student at the middle school for more time identifying all those kids and that will be happening. Thanks, Mike. Two of the things I just wanted to mention that to the committee that we have a, we're presenting to the finance committee tomorrow night at 8 o'clock, the Amherst and regional budgets. So if members want to come, you know, obviously we would love to have you there. Rob and I will be there. But if there's an interest, I don't want, I know there's a lot of nights out this week but including the four time meeting on Saturday but just so that people know that is happening we're slated for, we think 8 o'clock on Thursday. And there's also a BCG meeting tomorrow in Amherst. Tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock. Okay, thank you. That's it for me. Any questions on the superintendent update? Okay, moving along. Fiscal year 13 budget update. Okay, so Rob you want to come up and help out with walking us through the new, our new understanding around budget support coming from the state chapter 70. So Rob's going to walk us through where we are at the moment because of course as we anticipated our assumption has shifted from assuming a 2% chapter 70 funding from this, increase from the state. So he's going to talk, walk us through what that means and how at this point I'm suggesting we close that additional gap. This conversation has happened with the three chairs but we want to make sure the committee has kept up to date. Rob, do you want mine? Here I have extra. Right down here. Do you have enough? Do you have one for Zoe? Here, send that one down. I have my own. All right, three more of these. Oh yeah, we got one. Okay, on this page 47R, revised as a T8, to change and then insert this in your budget books, the change on this page reflects the change in chapter 70 assumptions. When we started building the budget we assumed the 2% increase in chapter 70. With the governor's budget coming out, the chapter 70 increases 0%. 0% over the final chapter 70 allotment. So if you're going to look here and say, well this level is funded, how come it's growing up to 48,000? So we built our budget from point 12. We built it with the amount that you see here. It's roughly 11. Thank you. Thank you very much. Then along comes the greening and the state found they had extra money that had made an extra allotment to municipalities but also regional school districts. And so there was an increase in chapter 70 for us of $48,000. We'd already voted the budget. We had a budget. So rather than realping the budget and increasing the budget or whatever, they just took it as extra income. So two things happened. One, that extra income goes into E&D and you get that in a minute. We can use that for the next year. And two, when they say level funded, they're doing level funding from the final chapter 70 to the number of that part 12. So effectively for us, it's an increase of 40,000. Okay, so with that, there's still a lot of cut, well, $133,000. And the question then becomes, well, how do you fund that? And the superintendent looked at it and the options are, well, you can fund it for some other source or you can do cuts in that amount, $133,000 for some combination thereof. So you want to do cuts. So look at all the funding sources. Funding sources you can play with are excessive number of towns. Not an option. Not an option. And so the other option is looking at using more E&D, which is what this presents. And you'll see in this version that the E&D budget support is now $233,000. Instead of the $500,000 you saw in the original version of this budget. Do you have questions so far? Rob, any for the new members and for the public? Could you explain what E&D is? Oh, yes. Act of some deficiency in a regional school district is similar to free cash in a town. And what it is, I don't know how it got E&D as a moniker, but it's really the cash in the general fund that is not earmarked for some other purpose. So other purposes would be things like encumbered expenses for the previous year. Obligations for the next year. And what we have earmarked for use in the following year. So if you look up here, we'll be using this case, $600,000 for E&D for budget support and $280,000 for emergency funding. So those earmarked things in the general fund are available for other purposes. Unreserved funds are available for other purposes. How they got from back to E&D, I don't know. But that's what E&D is. Historically, in our region, the regional agreement called for a maximum of 3.5% of the following year's budget could be carried forward as we did. And once you go over that limit, there's going to be 5%. Any additional funds are used to reduce member towns assessments for following year. Now, the rest of the state has a cap of 5%. Actually, when the state certifies E&D every year, that's what they certify and adjust. So I remember towns who received certifications for E&D saying, yeah, you're not close to limit. And I looked at it and said, well, we're pretty close to limit. So three years ago, three years ago, here we go, the regional district voted to increase the E&D cap for our district to 5% to be a part of all the other districts in the state. So that's the free history of E&D when it is and how it works. And also the regional school district is a separate entity, so that's why it has an E&D, whereas the elementary school is part of the town, so it's really the town's reserves that is the reserves for the elementary schools and everything else in the town. That's a good point for now. The regional district legally is somewhat like a town. They're both governmental entities, state, separate entities. So, could I, I would like to just jump in a little bit too. The conversation we've had to have is, do we at this point make additional cuts when we have added what we believe to be essential to support our priorities, our budget priorities? At this point, my recommendation and speaking with the budget subcommittee was I would like to ask that we apply that additional E&D this year. We can look at in just a minute the history of school choice usage. What we've used in school choice versus what we've used in E&D. And as I explained and Rob explained at the four town meeting we have applied less school choice over the past most recent years. We used to apply much more because we had more choice coming in. Next year we anticipate going back up to the prior or close to the prior limit of what we were bringing in for choice funds, which is around $700,000. So we saw a dip in the use of choice and an increase in E&D. So we are anticipating that swinging back next year. Again, when Rob will walk us through, one of the questions is how much E&D to use and how much do you anticipate replenishing at the end of a school year so that you keep it in a healthy place and not deplete. And you'll see the history of how Rob worked very hard to make sure that we were being fiscally responsible to build up an E&D to a place that was solid because it affects your bond rating and other issues. So this is taking a little bit of a dip back but also the plan of replenishing at the end of this school year and ideally next year. What you won't see tonight is any additional cuts coming in front of you. You'll see the same papers with ads and cuts. Nothing has shifted in that document from our last meeting. Okay, so on the colorful page you'll see the history of E&D and it's the same as what you have in your book updated to reflect using 633,000 for the next use blend to support rounds of the 500,000. And I opened it up a little bit at the top and before I go into next year and following year just going to review what's happened in the past. So in the previous years the lines that are green and yellow are years that have been certified by the state as yes that is what E&D means. And you can see that what the percentage calculation is is kind of the end of fiscal 10 saying is what percentage of the total budget for FY 11 including the operating budget and the capital budget. So to mind those two what percentage of that is this E&D certified? So you can see that going back to 2002 it's been a pretty low observe of 1%. And by 2006 we're up to 3.4 and at that point we're living under a 3.5 cap. As we lift the cap we can raise E&D as we do it to get it up to a healthier level for bitter times such as these. What I've done in this version is shown what I expect to happen to any overall. So FY 12 at the end of FY 12 we're able to return $350,000 of unexpended funds for this year's budget immediately. That will raise it and then if we apply $633,000 for next year's budget you reduce it and so we're looking at potentially an E&D of 3.85% for FY 12 at the end of FY 12 rather than 4.4%. Now why the 3.5% is a reminder where that comes from and the 300 of that is from unexpended out of district places with special education that are identified this year. You don't need it for the next year's budget and then $50,000 is other sort of things. So we usually have something that goes back to the E&D because while we try to have it right on target things happen during the year and one thing we cannot do is spend more than we have in the budget. And so since it's virtually impossible to commit it at exactly zero given the margin of safety we invariably have a little bit left over because we're going to cushion that goes back to the E&D. So that's the history and the projection for E&D. You look forward to FY 14 if at the end of FY 13 we have $50,000 going back in and we use $300,000 we have $633,000 out of $300,000 in the E&D that's still going to deplete E&D a bit out of $2.96 but hopefully that will fly us this transition period for choice to come in on loan. So let's look at the choices and so the second section is our fiscal choice. Can I just understand this because so when I think of E&D I sort of think of a fund balance but it's sounding to me like what you're saying if we look at that E&D number as of 632,011 the $1.4 million that that has already what's already been taken out of that $1.4 million is what we budgeted for E&D and FY 12 which is $830,000 and it was $450,000 plus the $280,000 for contingency the $280,000 for contingency technically goes into the E&D year because it's a fixed it's a fixed reserve for your thinking so it really doesn't affect E&D either way it's a constant place over okay so so on June 30th it goes into the July 1st because back out as part of this budget okay but on June 30th the E&D for budget support comes out the E&D for budget support for the next year comes out on June 30th as opposed to July 1 well the E&D for budget support is spent a long away right but I'm trying to understand why in the E&D your estimate of E&D at $630,000 in 2012 you're subtracting out what we're putting potentially putting in the FY 13 budget right but that's just the E&D for budget support for it right you don't see the E&D going back and forth right okay I am that's what I'm talking about the budget support so at $630,000 in 2011 we took out the E&D for budget support for FY 12 we took it out on $630,000 we actually take it out of that balance on $630,000 the $630,000 doesn't come out at $630,000 it comes out of the E&D at $630,000 right so okay I'm sorry though that's why I'm really confused by why you're subtracting out this $633,000 before you come up to your estimate of the balance at $630,000 in 2012 because the $633,000 is an FY 13 number yes that's right so okay so we're now at FY 12 and if I come again to the end of FY 12 we want the E&D balance at the end of last year will have been increased by the $350,000 but we also have $633,000 for the FY 13 budget so if we count the E&D at the end of the FY 12 year even though so that certified E&D balance isn't really a fund balance then because you're subtracting out your next year's budget amount the E&D is just the unencumbered, unreserved part of the fund balance the rest of the fund balance is things that are encumbered for prior expenses or reserved for budget support for next year or that sort of thing and we will be meeting in the next week or two and look at the audit of financials for FY 11 and we're going to go up to all those piece by piece as to what's in the fund balance and where you need to consider that the one thing I'd like to be fully going to choice, the one thing too I want to I've committed to with Rob that as we're looking toward the end of the year obviously we're being very fiscally responsible with spending clearly, however my commitment will be over the next few years to be committed to putting additional funds whatever is there at the end of the year back into E&D to keep that fund replenished so the $50,000 projected for to be entering back into E&D at the end of FY 13 is conservative and I would hope that that number would increase but again there's no guarantee but that is the commitment that I've made to be very conscious of putting funds back in because knowing that we are taking a bit of a dip and we want to make sure that we're replenishing for the future. Please. So the second section shows you the history of our choice revenue and expenditures from that involving fund. So what is choice? So we have some choice some slots I'll give you a choice into our district for verification in the high school and anybody can apply for the slots that we have open and what happens is the ascending district where we come from you know wherever ends up reimbursing us for $5,000 per student to hear for a full year so we look at students of FDE's that they hear for a full year it's one FDE we get $5,000 for half a year and half an FDE get $2,000 plus this cost services are fully reimbursed by the ascending district as well so there's two screens and put those together that brings revenue into our district and we put it into a revolving fund and if you're in a revolving fund we use some of those funds to support the following project so what you see here is for instance in FY 10 we brought in $436,000 in revenue and we spent $650,000 in that fund to support the budget so the fund balance went down to $13,000 from the end of the year with $500,000 skipping ahead FY 12 we're projecting to bring in $487,000 based on the allowance we had and we have budgeted to use $300,000 from that fund for this year's budget so we should end this year with a balance of $470,000 now we're opening additional slots next year and we are projecting bringing in up to $717,000 but you'll see that we're spending $470,000 which is how much we had left at the end of this year that was the fund balance we're going to take that and plunk it down to support the next year's budget next year we're bringing in $717,000 the end of the year with a fund balance of $717,000 and lo and behold FY 14 we plan on plunking it down to $717,000 to provide the support so as Maria alluded to earlier you go back to FY05 we were going down $900,000 from that fund and now we get down and now we're putting it back up and for our new members I would point out that the reason we do it this way is because we want to have the money in the fund before we spend it to follow the year because this is after all choice so we think the choice kids are coming we don't know until they actually walk in the door it's good to take a different choice over the summer right? be cautious we can just roll up that one it's one year okay so putting those two pieces together if you look at at the bottom section FY 12 we're using $300,000 in choice and $450 from E&D which all the budget is supporting two sources together of $750 because we just looked at we're not projecting using the $470 from choice as we have and now $633 from E&D for a $1.1 million of budget support for FY13 from these two sources and then you can see what Maria was talking about earlier in FY14 it switches choice goes up to $717 E&D goes down to $300 it's about the same level of budget but you're not going to be just switched now we're not putting the E&D as fast as we can and after that you can look to be a game stable that was very helpful for me anyway for the community to see it run run through so it does dip us down a bit but it gets us to a serious and we'll see how it will play out enough we can say to the committee especially for the new members we've my statements to the four towns and it's a similar statement that I'm making to Amherst around the Amherst budget we really need a year of stability to do some of our internal work to make sure that we are putting in place interventions we're looking at aligning our curriculum focusing on differentiation looking at the use of time and such in our schools so that we need a year to be able to see what the budget picture looks like in the future so for right now the goal is to have a level of stability without significant cuts so this is where this gap being filled with the E&D allows us to have that for a year Any questions? I have a request I'm interested to read the answer Okay I would like to request that there will be a review of the enrollment figures for the four towns in our opinion the three percent seems to be a tad high How is the budget on average? If you could take a look at that and get back to us before the 28th I would be appreciative Thank you Not a question but a comment In looking back over the years at least the past four or five years it seems to me that we're pretty conservative about budgeting about our expenditure budgets and in fact since 2006-2008 rather than using E&D we've actually been adding to E&D each year since then That's not a bad thing I think it's good to be conservative in our expenditure budgets I guess for me it's one of the reasons I'm not as concerned about this for this year using this amount because I do think we're conservative I suspect we will not use that much of E&D but it will help us to continue maintaining healthy programs for this year and at the end of the year it turns out for some bizarre reason Rob wasn't ultra-concerned in this year we'll have to re-evaluate but I think that at least looking at the recent past that's seemed to be the case Yes In full disclosure I'll accept conservative but not ultra-conservative because while we haven't been conservative and that's we've also been very lucky and we've been lucky with a couple of breaks along the way including head jobs which was a nice piece of money for a couple of years that really isn't part of our ongoing regular mix it just fell on us and we took it and worked with it and the other piece that we've talked about recently is we've really been able to bring such net services in-house to like, care down the last few years how much we have to come out of this year so that's like a one-time shift and hopefully it stays here doesn't go back up the other way but that's not really conservative but that's part luck part the group clinical management so there's those factors as well I can't possibly take credit for hopefully in this case I think Okay, if nothing else we're moving on to four towns meeting discussion I saw so would you like me to start? so four towns meeting is Saturday from 8.30 to 10.30 Rob will be putting together packets of this updated information for the four towns to review and you know be kept up to date with our current situation and you know it would be helpful to hear from the committee if there are other things such as enrollments that would be helpful for people to have from for your committees consideration for Saturday we also really I think it's just a time to check in to see how people are you know looking at budget needs because we recognize this is a challenge for some of our communities more than others to reach this level of support for our schools so I think for me it would be very helpful if there are points that you'd like us to consider and address on Saturday would be helpful to hear or if there's anything that you know that you'd like to that your communities have asked to share in advance and then I don't know if there were other points that would be helpful to hear from the committee to address on this topic anything else I also wanted to mention just kind of an update for those who were at the last four town meeting one of the conversations we had which was raised from lever was to look at some of the unfunded mandates for the schools and the implication of having the state not fully fund aspects of our school requirements where Kip Fonch and Frosche Hadjir and Peter Derico came and met with our staff and we started to compile what these unfunded mandates are and to consider you know the possibility of looking at ways to either take some action to consider if there's a way to reduce some of the maybe increase the revenue for some of these factors that affect our schools so we are pulling this information together that we will be sharing and as we get closer to if we're going to take any action at the state level to bring out these topics we'll bring them to the committee but we just wanted to let you know that we have taken that step to start exploring Robert can I also say another budget update did we just get notification that for this year the state is reimbursing for McKinney-Vento transport can you tell me what that is because I knew there was one other piece I couldn't bring that with me but I'm sorry in both the districts I've been applying unfunded mandates too and one of the ones that pops up in our conversation is the requirements to transport McKinney-Vento students so that is students who are homeless or displaced or living and have had to move to a different community but really should continue their schooling where they've been and so it's a vision of the law that the two residents areas can have whatever it is to share the cost of transporting kids to their home school if you will even though they don't live in that area it was the cost of all the transport so that's called McKinney-Vento transportation so some of these little towns went to I think it I can't was it the auditor state auditor yes you know look we're incurring these large expenses these towns are incurring over $40 million $300,000 it's an unfunded mandate either you'll need to help us pay for this or we couldn't have to do it and the state auditor found in their favor and is sending a massive action through the part of education and the legislation the calculation that the auditor did was that the full amount was $11 million yeah I think that's what it was about $11 million statewide unfunded costs incurred by school districts and they've done a little calculation as to how much the town needs to do I don't know how they get these numbers but I think it would be that Amherst would receive something like $5,000 the reason would be that $10,000 would help right but I really don't know how they got those numbers so I couldn't thank them just yet even if it hadn't gotten funded but right now it's just a proposal from the the state saying that we should be funded so stay tuned well do we have a line out of in our budget where we know what our actual cost is for that item yes do you know generally I don't know exactly I can look it up though okay you don't have to look it right now okay but I can yeah thanks is it a transportation I think it's on a separate paragraph there is and it and it talks about the current and I think there's a graph also of the number of students who are currently serving yeah thank you Rob because I know I wasn't getting that correct thank you Rob so I just I'm actually taking it back to lunch I just want to see if I can get the take home message here correct and I'm worried I didn't so is it that so the vision of how we're seeing the funding happening in the future is that we're drawing down E&D and we're relying more heavily on school choice funds over time is that well we're going we're going to draw it on E&D for a year or two and then bring it back up and then bring it back up coming in from choice and then choice revenue will go up and I think we need to go down so so the choice money is going to end up supporting and supporting the E&D fund not necessarily the operating budget well it's the same thing because this is how we draw funding to support the operating budget we draw from the choice revenues so if you look so if you look at the bottom so the total budget support on the right where my fellow seven hundred two thousand is that point 13 one point one million but it's only four several choice and six thirty E&D but next year it's still about the same total budget for one million but now choice revenue is seven seventeen E&D is only three hundred so it goes back we're drawing it down at a much more rate similar to what we did in the point ten so we're just drawing more heavily for a couple years to get us to the place where the choice revenue increases again and the assumption is that the choice revenue will stay solid is there any concern about that I guess well the choice you always have to wonder on the other hand we've never had unfilled choice slots just want to come here in our history historically maybe that's happened with our brothers yes I'm feeling fairly confident that we'll see absolutely okay thanks Rob one question too but is there any are there any rules about what year revolving fund to stay at like based on number of students or is it our rules of the state can I ask one more budget piece before we move on Kip did you I'm remembering from our meeting the other day did you want to talk about letter writing to the state around increasing chapter 70 did we talk about that and am I yeah we talked about writing letters to Kulik Rosenberg regarding re-examining the legislatures or the excuse me the governor's decision to allocate money for those schools which appear to be increasing enrollment moving into the foundation amount as opposed to places like the region that are having declining enrollment I personally wrote a letter to Kulik and his response was that he understands the inequity of it but he doesn't understand the rationale behind it and that there were also other legislators from those towns that are similar to ours that did not get any money at all that are very upset about this so I don't think we've heard the last word about it but it would help if there could be some letters written to the various legislators in regards to picking another look at that decision and do you think that's more powerful coming from the committee as a whole or individuals or I'd personally be very much in favor of that but if we do it I would suggest we write local representatives but also to the Senate and House leaders as well and maybe even the education committee would you be willing to draft I don't know if we could look at it next meeting why are you saying that because you kind of did already if I have a I guess I would that would be wonderful yeah thank you thank you Kip yeah thank you should you come here first to ask another question back to this budget so I mean things are still really changing on the revenue side right so I guess my question is what happens if Chapter 70 doesn't even you know what if there's a cut to Chapter 70 I mean are we are we thinking this is sort of the maximum drawdown in which case if that comes that occurs we're going to have to look elsewhere I'm just curious what you're thinking about that yeah I mean I think that when we looked at the you know the information that we have at this time we're feeling fairly as confident as we can be that this is a reasonable projection with zero but no further cut however if we have an additional decrease in funding we're going to have to come back to the table and I'm not sure at that point I would ask us to go any deeper into E&D so then we then that's a whole other conversation one other thing I'm sure it's affected some of the other times as well is that we didn't get any increase in levels so one of the reasons why we feel so much pressure at 71,000 increase which is still looking kind of difficult that's sort of complicated to position because we were counting on that well as well for the elementary and so this is because we didn't get that this becomes an even more onerous hit not on the region but on the elementary level so it's still an issue for us absolutely yes it is and it's a hard balance to have to to look at both I'm sorry try me to do that okay so that's it seems most of you at the four times meeting so school calendar for 12, 13 okay so Debbie's actually going to talk to us a little bit about the process of looking at the school calendar and what you have in front of you and make note this is our first it's a very much a draft our process typically you know we'll bring this in front of the committee we have two options we then go to APA and ask for their feedback as well before we come back with a final recommendation for the committee but I'd love to have Debbie just kind of walk you through what you're seeing in front of you basically what you have in front of you is a pre-Labor Day calendar draft and a post-Labor Day calendar draft which is what we always typically present to APA for their consideration so far the only folks who have really vetted this the principals had a look at it today the district directors have had a look at it we don't know yet you know which one APA may prefer but this will be going out to them within the next probably I would think the next couple of days but what we have done we have to schedule 180 days with students and 184 days for teachers and as you probably recall during this current year for the first time the decision was made to have two of the curriculum days up front which resulted in a staggered ending of this school year with the elementary schools ending a day earlier than the regional schools the principals and directors agreed today that we will have just one of the curriculum days up front for FY 13 which means we'll have the same end date for the school year but basically what you're looking at if one of these was approved as written if we approved the pre-labor day start students would be back to school on August 30th that would be for all students other than kindergarten kindergarten students would start two school days which would be September 4th the day after labor day if we approve a post-labor day start students would begin on September 4th the day after labor day and kindergarten students would start two days later on the 6th the draw one of the drawbacks to the post-labor day start is it would put us fairly late into June if we didn't use any of our snow days we would get out would be June 18th potentially if we used all five it would be June 25th which is sort of the situation we're in this year the ending dates look much better on the pre-labor day start June 14th the earliest possible last day of school June 21st if we use our five snow days one of the issues that will be discussed about the pre-labor first trimester end for students it would be ending right before the Thanksgiving holiday which would be great for students but it's a little difficult for teachers because they would come back to school and immediately be getting grades out and starting the new trimester and I think the only other thing to draw your attention to in the draft because we have I believe it's two of the elementary not all three that are polling sites because this is a presidential election year there's always concerns with elections about people coming into the building having access to the building who are not quarried so the principals have recommended that the elementary teachers work day be scheduled on election day that way students aren't in the building they can be still in there working it's just different from what families are used to because traditionally our work days are on either Monday or Friday so that students have a long weekend it would be on a Tuesday this time I just want people to clarify there are three titles for some of these days there's curriculum there's professional development professional day however work day is teacher work time to transition from trimester or half years for elementary students in terms of your goals which if any of those days will be devoted to teachers working in teams or what have you towards those goals the two curriculum days in addition to other times that have been scheduled within our work day again that's a priority to make that time for teachers for their own development thank you you're welcome Debbie and Rob so first just to comment and then a question I think starting two days before Labor Day I just I've never felt that to be a good idea to have two days of school and then break for Labor Day it just it seems to me that those two days aren't as effective as they could be if we started the day after Labor Day and that's just my personal opinion about it I don't think those two days those extra two days at the end of June it's still the end of June you know the 21st to the 25th it's I don't I don't see that that makes that much of a difference my question is about probably I've seen this before but I've never really registered that there's no school due to budgetary constraints we have so many staff who take that as a holiday that sub getting enough subs for to sub to fill the buildings is an issue and we made this decision I want to say three years ago two years ago Marcus St. Chew was it these or is it three so it was three years ago he's telling me pcs it's three all right a few years ago we made this decision because it was so challenging it was such it was a lost day and it was the cost was absorbent and and we just couldn't get enough subs so I'm sorry Rick can I just so it's a little bit misleading to say due to budgetary constraints because it makes it sound like we just threw money and it wouldn't be a problem it wouldn't be a problem but it sounds like it's a bigger problem than the cost of the substitutes it's not being able to find substitutes it's the students absences there was a deliberate thought around this at the time and I can tell you the history and to be honest what happens I pull up my draft from previous years and I use that and plug things in the first year we did this it was truly a budgetary constraint it was when massive, massive cuts and because of the number of subs you have to bring in in addition to not being able to find enough subs you have to bring in so many that it is rather costly so it really was budgetary but that should actually probably come out of this stuff and I also think it was important to say that we're not choosing a religious holiday because the fact that there's another factor that's requiring us to excuse me have the day off one question so on this proposed calendar the teacher elementary teachers work day in November was that the one that was typically in January there has been recently in the last couple years a teacher work day in January the teacher work day I think is February now isn't that the one that would be the typical the one in November is the election day and then my other question Debbie is I'm missing a day when I compare last year to this year so last year we started this current year we started on the 6th of September it's a leap year so that gives you one extra day and then the high school students ended early as possible on the 18th which is the same as the proposed calendar we're starting on the 4th in this proposed calendar early as the 18th where am I missing a day the post labor day so where am I missing a day in there yes we had an extra day in December vacation this year because New Year's Day fell on the weekend and so we had to come back on the 3rd instead of the 2nd and this for some reason the the December holidays just fall beautifully this year the 24th through the 28th in one week but just for full disclosure because this is still a draft I'll have probably 20 other people count and recount to make sure the right number of days because after counting at several times my question wasn't really that you missed a day I was wondering if it had to do with changing the work days but the elementary students are the ones who change the work day not the region right and this year the elementary teachers did have two of their work days or professional development days up front before school started and they are moving one back into the school year so so I was just going to respond to the idea of starting on Thursday before Labor Day and I that's how we've always done it until this year I feel like it's sometimes been right before Labor Day and sometimes not but starting on a Thursday I think I don't know if this is necessarily representative of most students but I feel like it might be a good idea we're coming from summer and then you go back to school for just two days ease into it and then have a long weekend again it's like a transition period because you don't want to go to school like the first day and have lots of homework and like lots of work and you're kind of like oh my gosh yesterday was summer so it's kind of a nice transition I've heard the same from people as well so I'd say that that might actually be positive and as to the exams being right before Thanksgiving how were they this year? the week after Thanksgiving so that's how it would be if we started after Labor Day that might be something to see if we can ask school students their preference I know I personally kind of like having exams before because it's like you review a lot in class before and I feel like having the long weekend kind of get even more stressed out about it at least I know I did this year so I think it kind of helps to get all done the week before and then I have to worry about it a bit because people go away also and it's hard to come back and have exams I could see that being a problem then teachers had to grade exams for Thanksgiving break though so that'd be something that's the teachers about too thank you and we're going to have to look at all of that and I know we'll be taking a look at that with with his team also I just wanted to mention can I for Leverett and Schuetzberg you know Pelham's on our same schedule but for Leverett and Schuetzberg we did reach out just to say just try to see when curriculum days were happening and is there any way to coordinate so that we can do some cooperative great so we're you know trying to open so this will be back in front of you again great thank you you're welcome okay policy subcommittee update I mean I mean do the update obviously first to give you a sense of where we're heading and what we might be able to bring to you is in the next month or two I'm hopeful that we will have a busses idling policy that's the last thing I want to say before you maybe not in February we're certainly by March I think we will have that we're also looking at class size guidelines and perhaps most significantly and most as most bearing recent discussions we have invited the athletic director Mr. Farrow to join us on Monday so I don't think we'll have a proposal for you for a while but we are starting to look at that yes I also wanted to mention that I met with some parents today regarding class size and gave some input into some language change you know what would be considered what is a target versus what is the cap so I would love to come and be able to share that information with the committee when you're you're talking about when we have guests before the guests have taken up our entire meeting so I will be very quick no no no I can email why don't you wait until we come to get you please do oh that's great so come let me know when you want me to be there because I'd love to share that I'm not sure we will make it on Monday Catherine yeah I guess we're target cap and that's mm-hmm so outside and defining what we mean by that and Catherine if you have anything along the email at 2 million I'll be there alright thank you I'm sorry yeah well I guess I was just going to say I think it's great and I love a lot of things for the subcommittee structure particularly with these two issues the class size guidelines and the sponsors the policy comes to us for like a first reading or anything like that I kind of think these are some of the ones that should be discussed in committee first then go to policy for like writing and speaking then come back as a reading I think the committee subcommittee would actually prefer to work on it a little because we're a smaller group bring something to you not for a first reading but just to respond to and have it evolve something immediately for first reading something that potentially controversial that would be appropriate right but then I guess just to respond what I'm looking forward to is a full committee discussion where the superintendent presents some data and information about class size guidelines and we have a discussion about that long before we get a policy or change Amherst we have placed it on the agenda for a next Amherst meeting for that level because we are going to issue to weigh in and I can share that information I don't know when the next meeting is but we can do that I also have another just an update on one consideration for some revisions do you want to wait was there a question I was just going to so I understand the preference of wanting to do it in a smaller group and bring something around it but then I do agree that this is a full committee discussion or I'd like it to be but will you bring some research or some of the research you've done around it at that time well as I was going to note a researcher usually handles those responsibilities and she's not here this evening but since we're live I was giving her a heads up and lots of loving over this videotape but I'm sure you'll be able to do that so well just one other thing where we're going we also have to finish we're not finished but after we look at our next items are section A and section C so that should keep us busy for a minute what you have in front of you I mentioned Elaine she was kind enough and on top of things she's able to provide you with a brief commentary on each of the policies that you have before you you notice most of these are changes relative to laws the other thing I would bring to your attention what we're basically concentrating on are those policies that the last time they were looked at was perhaps before some of you were born so that's what we're looking at in terms of sections A and C quite a few in the early mid-80s but that's I think I wish I could add more to the comments that Elaine has provided with me but I think she's done a excellent job of covering all the points so I'll be happy to answer any questions you have so policy on all of them any questions on policy AC yes detailed points sure there's a period after the first few words that should be a comma thank you for pointing that out that's it any other comments on policy AC AC policy AC is commitment to non-discrimination and educational equity okay if no questions on that we'll move on to the next one which is policy ACB affirmative action on cultural diversity any comments yes Elaine and point two and a stuff which includes individuals from historically marginalized groups I wondered about saying something about currently marginalized groups not just focusing on history but what is actually the situation now in some form any other comments on ACB just sort of struck by how long it's been since it's been updated I know when you're plugging through these one point about that if I may please Elaine did point out that in the past if they've been looked at and there weren't changes they didn't change the date at the bottom because there was no vote on them so some of them have been looked at just not changed thank you so bottom up on that what we're planning on doing is if we don't make any changes to add that the policy was reviewed in 2012 okay so it's nothing else on ACB moving on to BDFA school councils any questions on this point A the council shouldn't include et cetera and for the high school at least one student representative could we state clearly that it's a possibility if it is meant to be a possibility to have a student representative on any of the other councils is that meant to be a possibility when you're talking about the councils from this policy covers the region Amherst and Pellum when you're referring to it's one council which is a specific council it's the school council that works with the provides an advisory to the principal is that what you're asking Solomon it's one council for schools yes so for the high school it should have at least one student representative for the middle school for the elementary schools is that is it possible to have I don't suggest mandating that but just clarify the wording so that I'll certainly add to our discussion that would also change the wording at the second to last paragraph on the first page there I'm just going to comment on that I mean I think you could have a discussion about it for the middle school I would not go for for the elementary schools so I just wouldn't be in favor of a student representative on the school council of the elementary schools it's certainly permissible allowable it's I think it's the way the law is written there there has to be a student at the high school it was my understanding but not that it's not mandating in other spaces but it absolutely could happen so so I had a question unless I missed it it doesn't say how the members did was there any discussion about I think we were moving it up to individual schools so otherwise it's going to get pretty he take away some of the time it says teacher and student members are elected by their peers selected it does it does okay maybe I missed it point A okay the exact method and what that means is up to each school okay so one other bit of punctuation paragraph superintendent for approval it's missing the period first line two first sentence it's no period see who's still in courses and doing this work which is good yeah right just need the period it's a double screen anything else on BDFA okay moving on to BDFB school improvement plan the only thing that's different here is that we split all of this policy into yeah there's a big difference okay any comments on BDFB okay moving on to the next one which is policy JH students, absences, tardiness, tardiness, and fluency this young man yeah there are as you'll note quite a few changes in this policy more than in any other policy that we brought forward so I certainly would encourage you to look at these changes very very carefully between now and the next time we look at it because you may find something is either you know mistakenly stated or you may say something you don't think the policy should say there's just a lot of changes here so take care of it run so my question is on the language that adds the writer's note after three days of being out with illness and it appears to be new I'm wondering where we got three days how we come up with that number that's a story yeah I don't think it is new oh it's in bold that made me assume it was newer changed I think this is part of a larger I can check for you Rob because I just I am not aware of that being new but I can check and see where that came from thinking about I just have medical questions about it being in a position because okay so my kindergartner for two days with fever these last few days she's still got a fever she's probably going to be out tomorrow and I think as a parent in a position I don't really feel she needs a trip to the doctor and I feel like that could be kind of onerous money and time for certain and I'm not opposed to the idea of a day limit but I'm wondering how we came up with three because I kind of feel that lots of viral illnesses can sometimes go three days so that's just my question well it's just and I have people come to my emergency room saying you know I don't really need to be here but I need a note to go back to school I need a note to go back to work in that case it's I think the latter the origin the genesis of the three days it's a very much an employer number that may be part of the reason we have to do it for yeah we do it's a no contract anyway like I said I'm not opposed to the number but I think four or four or five might make more sense to me than three but that's just I don't know I'd like to I don't have any hard data on that yep I'd be curious to know if the members of the members of the committee see a distinction that needs to be made between that number for elementary students and for secondary students I don't know if that might be an issue of some sort but there's just a lot to think about that and other things Catherine? yeah and I also sort of wondered about the note from the physician versus a note from the parent and I'm thinking about I have a lot of children and on any number of occasions my kids have been sick at home for three or four days with those who've had and I've spoken to the doctor on the phone but I'm not necessarily taking them in and the boy's written a note myself so I mean you know it would be someone's burden for parents to have to go down to the doctor's office to pick up the note and even if they need to have their child or whatever yeah I mean to think about it absolutely Debbie then Solomon so I actually I agree that three days I think is the worst and I think it in fact encourages parents to send their kids back to school when maybe they're not quite ready so they don't you know when you know they're not sick enough to go to the doctor but they're really not well enough to come back to school and is there a difference between high school and elementary in my experience there is but I don't know that it needs to be delineated in the policy you know I'm not sure that's really necessary for the policy I think it is I think the difference is on the secondary level particularly the high school it's three absences or more than that and you lose credit it requires an appellate repeal process that's a huge difference in policy not so much policy but an implementation of the policy but I think it's I think it's worth exploring the numbers of days and seeing how that fits with the secondary you know attendance process but also just think about what's reasonable what are other school districts doing for a number of days I think it's Solomon who's next actually I was going to respond to that Kip said yeah the three days and lose credit though that's three unexcused absences correct? not three excused absences you don't lose credit for four excused absences no no but if we don't need to excuse this point seven days and the parent rights are not saying he was saying he was saying it doesn't work I'm the last paragraph on the first page it says college visits students trips or school sponsored field trips and then later on it says that these won't count towards loss of credit but they're not under any of these five exceptions at the beginning do they should we put an exception number six these three things or is that some other category we'll certainly look at that's the kind of question that ultimately is answered by the committee as a whole but we can certainly bring back if the committee wants us to come back with that revision we certainly could do that and then the committee as a whole would vote on it we don't make those try not to make those decisions for the committee so two things I'm hearing you could use the feedback on one is number of sick days do we have a sense of what well Maria can talk to her staff about that and come back but also what do we think Rob just one suggestion might be to have something with a little bit more leeway for the administration you could say something like if a student is absent for you could say three or more days due to illness the administration may request a note from the healthcare provider and then you could set a harder limit and say if a student is absent five or six days in a row for illness they know it will be required that's just one pass I don't know it's just a suggestion that's helpful soft like we might request it from you especially if a particular student has had problems if it's a power not exactly but I think one of the reasons don't do that you have a policy is to remove arbitrariness I hear what you're saying no I agree with that too so I would say at least four but that's too no that's helpful and I will look into seeing what other districts do and I'll talk with people who I know have spent a lot of time with these topics and see what their sense is and I'll come back and you can share that yeah I could do that yeah if Debbie reminds me I could make sure I do that no it's not I could have something by Monday sure absolutely and then do we think we should add a number six like Solomon suggested to cover that last paragraph what I would want to check the only oh I'm sorry I'm jumping in the thing I'd like to check is that some of this goes by law the attendance piece and there are very specific reasons that you're exempt in terms of what's considered truancy and I'm not sure so I would just want to check that so I'm not opposed to but I want to make sure it that's all I think the difference here from the student's perspective is the mark of excused absence or unexcused absence and that you'd like these things college visits exchanges field trips to be marked as excused in which case I think they'd probably have to be one of these things but maybe not certainly the practice at the high school always was when I was there was that any trip to any college trip or related kind of absence was almost pro forma excused I think it is yeah it is still I'm sorry go ahead Debbie then Kristen it does mention under high school absences there's a line that says school sponsored field trips exchange programs and a limited number of college visits per year will not count toward the absence limit for class credit so I know that's not exactly what you were saying but it's addressed in some way my memory of our discussion was that that these five were related to the law the law and we also recognize that that the the field trips and things like that should be excused and so underneath the absences you see by law only the superintendent or his or her designee may excuse excuse necessary absences for other causes that's another cause that we're just kind of saying you don't even have to ask about it then I wouldn't recommend that oh wrong I have another medical question under urgent medical or dental treatment I assume that's state mandated but that defines urgent so what do students do for medical appointments I don't know how much they're excused at this moment if it's not considering an urgent medical appointment just schedule them for after school yep yes okay anything else that sounds like it's state mandated I believe the I don't know that it's state mandated I'm not sure it's one of these I won't speak to that one I can do the five but not I think the origins of what appears to be very very strict rules about that as it's origins and time and learning issues years ago making sure that kids students are in school 180 days 960 whatever and so I think I think that's sort of the motivation behind that kind of limited wiggle there's also you know there's also the process of appealing to the to the principal when you've exceeded days so there is a process to go in and say here's my reason why I needed to and I want you to consider exempting me from that so I think there's always that option possibility so I only had one other question about this one and it's the very last paragraph if parents slash guardians choose to remove a student from school for an extended time they will be required to withdraw the student and will be required to submit a home education plan but what if they're not educating the student at home what if there are other arrangements or maybe this is just a technical legality that it's called that it's home school so if you go on sabbatical and you take your child out for a month for instance instead of like arguing that that should be excused you basically apply for home home schooling application and you say this is what's going to happen when I'm gone and this is how we're going to create the educational plan but I guess my point is what if you're not home schooling them what if you're withdrawing them and putting them you know say you're going to another country and you're taking them for a month and they're going somewhere you can choose to disenroll and reenroll or you can say I'm providing my child an experience by taking a couple courses here that would be more of a home school plan but it's trying to put some parameters around that students are required to go to school so it's just giving options to your children for a prolonged period of time but you have not provided any parameters around what the educational opportunities were for those kids during that period of time and I guess I'm just being nitpicky but it seems like you have two choices you have to you know you're required to withdraw your student and you can either put them in another school or you can homeschool them but you don't have to submit a home education plan if you're not going to a homeschool if say you're going on a trip and you're homeschooling or even here homeschooling you may have your child enrolled in a course but it does not constitute a full school day and you still submit a homeschool plan so kids who may go and take a course at something at North Star or something else that still constitutes a plan of how you're going to provide access to your child for an educational experience unless it's a school where they're you have to create that unique plan whether it's home or abroad or wherever you may be is that right so I guess that's all I'm saying is I should say something that you'd be required to enroll them in another school or submit you don't have to homeschool them I'll say if you only missed that but yeah now I get what you're saying if you're rolling them in another school then this policy doesn't even apply it's not like an absence anymore because some people do that for a semester or whatever yeah it's it's ambiguous I mean we were in this situation where our children weren't they were sort of exchange students but they went to school every day you know it's yeah it can be ambiguous sometimes so I think it's good to spell it out because I think parents always know what they're supposed to do okay great thank you Kip and the policy such committee it worked I really appreciate it I'll cue those to Kristen and Elaine and Deb okay moving on to calendar upcoming meetings so at the next meeting which is February 28 we actually vote on the final budget and it looks like we'll be ready to have an analysis of administrative costs and teacher evaluation yeah preliminary information on that any yes question about the teacher evaluation at our elementary school maybe the other night Joan brought out this incredible stack of papers I think it would be a good idea to bring that stack be happy to to the meeting so that people can see the paperwork involved in this because it's really truly onerous yeah and it's a good idea going back yeah I brought it to if I may I brought it to Pellum the other night in case we were going to talk about teacher evaluation but I will bring the stack and there's the potential for it to be very burdensome however there's also the potential to be very strategic about how you use supervision and evaluation to leverage improvement and I think we have set ourselves up for with collaborative teams to be able to really think about team goal setting and showing progress in teams of their work in the system and also we are exploring which we can talk more about by that point different systems such as web based programs like my learning my learning plan which is a system that tracks the process of professional development it is a request an approval process for professional development and a pool of professional development points for relicensure but it also has another component of teacher evaluation so that it will take the forms and you can have them put those forms within this process which then helps you to walk through the documentation of rubrics it also helps you to manage timelines where I could print out and say show me where X principle is in their timeline of completing the so it is a lot of work but we're looking at tools that can help us become more efficient and more effective in this process so I'm not being too frightened yet I know we can discuss this the next time but if you could also clarify initially when this first came out the way I read the rubrics was that um um vaginal features would not need to be evaluated every year now I'm hearing that they do have to be evaluated every year is that correct we will definitely clarify my understanding at this moment of the process is that in the initial round you have to say 50% of our staff will be evaluated regardless of their professional teaching status in the next cycle anyone who has proficient or exemplary can then go on to a different cycle so I but again that's a very cursory general information what I plan to do for the committees to have Beth and Kathy Maser who are um owning this world for implementation to come and talk with us about that information so we'll make sure that we do address those specific points that's the third interpretation there you go and it's interesting because by September we have to have this up and running two thoughts one would it be okay if we had the 28th as a joint Pellum region meeting so that Maria does not have to repeat everything on the 28th and I'd love that March first okay so we can just post it that way and then my second thought is as I look and I hesitate to say this but I'm going to say it anyway as I look toward March and April can we think about maybe in the later spring summer months not doing two meetings a month and maybe combining these into one meeting per month I mean I understand during the fall and during budget season it makes a lot of sense but I'm not sure we need it around that'd be great and we also will look at this calendar more I mean we have something slated out but we will as topics come up that people really want us to address we'll make sure that we fill in those topics yeah on that note I was wondering I don't see here and I've been to the late start forms and my case talked about sometime in late March yes coming in yeah we just had some thoughts about when that might be when we'll discuss it again yeah yeah I'm sorry we didn't update that I apologize so I'll make sure I add that it would be I need to speak with Mike but most likely we'll have to do probably one of the later probably the last meeting in March which would be the 27th I think that allows time to really do the work if he's ready to come forward on the 13th like now that's fine as well okay okay there's nothing else so I'll take a motion to adjourn is there a second? second any discussion? all those in favor? thank you very much thank you all