Chris DeCardy- All right, going to order the January 11 meeting of the Sharon school committee.

Chris DeCardy- Just pulling up the agenda here, so I can read.

All right, in keeping with an act relative to extending certain COVID-19 measures adopted during the state of emergency signed into law by Governor Baker on June 16th, 2021, as amended on July 16th, 2022, and extended until March of 2023, this meeting will be conducted remotely over Zoom.

Attendance by Board of Commission members will be remote.

and remote attendance shall count towards a quorum.

The meeting will be broadcast live and recorded by Sharon TV.

If you elect to enable your webcam, your image and background may be broadcast with or without sound.

Pursuant to MGL C30A S21A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation with the STA and pursuant to MGL C30A.

It's not that second one, sorry.

I was, I changed this.

You're not actually bargaining.

Oh yes, you are.

Nevermind.

Sorry.

Go ahead.

All right.

And pursuant to MGLC 30A S21A2 to conduct collective bargaining with session, sorry, collective bargaining sessions with the STA if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigation position of the Sharon School Committee and the chair so declares to return to open session at 7 p.m.

So moved.

Need a second?

Second.

All right, Prisnell.

Yes.

Nguyen.

Yes.

Adam.

Yes.

Veronica.

Julie.

Yes.

And I, Veronica, raise your hand, yes.

And I am a, and we've got Veronica, and I am a yes.

Motion carries 6-0.

On to executive.

We'll see you all at 7 p.m.

All right, there we go.

Welcome back to the school committee meeting.

And we're back from executive session.

And jumping into our agenda, our very first item is our open forum.

And so I will take questions from the public.

I see tomorrow that page.

Sorry.

There go ahead tomorrow.

Tamara Beitsch, Thank you, Avi.

My name is Tamara Beitsch and I'm here to discuss my concerns regarding the five year trend of MCAS scores dropping in Sharon.

What is the Townley administration doing to stop this downward trend in performance?

We know the school hired Novak Education Consulting, who was also retained by Barrington Rhode Island.

Novak are supporters of de-leveling and assisted in Barrington's de-leveling efforts starting in 2017.

Barrington rankings in US News and World Reports dropped from 200 in 2014, before any de-leveling, to 308 in 2022.

More importantly, de-leveling had a negative impact on those who wanted to apply for Barrett scholarships.

In 2022, Barrington started on a journey to bring back some version of their honors courses.

Does Sharon want to follow the path that Barrington Rhode Island was on under the guidance of Novak Consulting?

There have been repeated discussions on de-leveling different courses and the seemingly less strenuous content of honors classes over the last several years.

My first thought was that these moves were hurting our high performing students.

However, a detailed review of MCAS data from 2017 to 2022 for the town compared against the top 10% of performing school districts in the state shows that Sharon is not just failing as high performers.

Sharon's school systems are starting to fail everyone.

Sharon is dangerously close to falling out of the top 10%.

of performing school districts in the state?

Will the committee and administration consider benchmarking against towns that have consistently remained higher ranked than Sharon on the MCAS, such as Lexington, Hockington, and Brookline?

Will the committee and administration consider benchmarking against towns that have started to perform better than Sharon on the MCAS, such as Weston, Westboro, and Southboro?

Will the committee and administration confirm if those schools are de-leveling or considering de-leveling?

Will they investigate what they are doing differently than Sharon?

Who are those towns hiring for educational consultation?

Sharon is the only public school district in the top 10% from 2017 to 2022 to have gotten progressively worse in all MCAS test subjects.

What are we doing to end this downward trend and remain a high-performing school district in the top 10% of the state that provides high-quality education for all students?

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Judy Crosby.

Thanks, Avi.

So my comments tonight are coming somewhat from two directions.

One, I believe this committee committed in December of 2021 by written agreement to engage in two diversity, equity, and inclusion trainings per year for the next 10 years.

And that has not happened so far.

And the reason I'm raising this, in addition to I think the committee should follow through with its commitments and should schedule one really, really soon so you can get two in this year, is because I think the conversation around de-leveling has been incredibly problematic and riddled with all kinds of ableist and racist comments, many coming from the public, but the committee has not taken steps to address that issue, which I think training

would help tremendously with that because harm is being caused as this discussion goes on.

Statements that only neurodivergent students require a certain type of math, statements involving air quotes about trying to create a more appropriate looking class, it's just not okay.

And so from both points of view, please prioritize doing that DEI training and doing it for real

and discussing all aspects of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

So including not only race and ethnicity, but also religion and ableism and ageism and gender identity and sexual identity.

And please prioritize doing high quality training and doing it the way you committed to do it so that these conversations, which do have to happen, are not as painful as they've been.

Thanks.

Thanks, Judy.

Trang?

Before speaking, can you just please state your first and last name for the minutes?

So this is Trang Nguyen.

And I echo what Tamara said before.

And I had a chance to review the data that she pulled together.

I really appreciate such a detailed analysis.

So I would urge the school administration and the school committee to take a look at the data

And, you know, find the causes, the actual causes as to why our ranking in the scores by MCAS have declined over the past few years.

And we're lagging behind other top school districts.

And another comment that I also have is related to a post on Share and WhatsApp around the expenditure of $70,000 over the past year to Novak Consulting on de-leveling.

So I would like to have a forum where we can review what kind of service that is and whether we're expected to spend more

on the consulting service and what are the expected benefits and so on.

All right, thank you.

Seeing no further comments from the public, I'm going to throw it over to Veronica Wiseman for correspondence.

Did we lose Veronica?

There she is.

No, sorry.

Thank you, Avi.

I just was eating a little dinner, and I didn't want people to see me chewing.

So forgive me for being behind my video.

This is the School Committee Correspondence Summary for January 11, 2023.

The School Committee has received 20 pieces of correspondence between December 21, 2022 at 9 a.m.

and January 11, 2023 at 9 a.m.

We have received several letters to express concerns about the possibility that SHS would consider eliminating the honors physics and world language classes in the ninth grade.

And by extension, we're opposed to the elimination of any honors or AP course offerings at SHS or any other de-leveling proposals across the district.

The school committee received a request for information related to the costs and work done by Novak Consulting.

We received a letter from an educator at East Elementary expressing concerns about the space issues at East, which highlighted the impact these issues are having on students and requesting that these issues be a priority to resolve.

We received a letter from a student to share their concerns about the lack of a substitute teacher who is available for the elementary strings classes, which then causes students to miss instruction.

we received several updates from METCO, including season's greetings and plans for the new year.

A student representative from the Sustainable Sharon Coalition wrote to inquire about the land ownership of Sharon High School.

The SSC Youth Committee is investigating the possibility of a system for compostable food waste.

A parent wrote to share their perspective and some information on equity in Sharon Public Schools.

The Sharon Interfaith Clergy Association wrote to share information about the MLK vigil on Sunday, January 15th, 2023.

And finally, we received a letter to notify the school committee that MASBO, which is the Massachusetts Association of School Business Officers, will assume responsibility for the Super EdNet database of fees, which are collected from districts across the Commonwealth.

And that's it.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Veronica.

And now to Sophia.

Oh, I see you over there for our student representative update.

All right.

Good evening, everyone.

So at Sharon High School today was the half day and we had class meetings.

Lately, there's been a new format with class meetings where there's been some sort of fun game or activity organized by our class officers.

And so far, it's been going pretty well.

There's been a lot of excitement about it.

Mr.

Fazio updated the late policy.

So at the high school, one late will be marked as a detention.

And that's changing.

That's being more strict than it was before.

In sports, the student council is planning the winter sports rally for February 10th.

So that's about in a month.

And the decade competition has been very successful so far.

We've seen

More students participating than ever before.

I think about 80 students participated this year and 30 qualified.

And this is despite the fact that the high school has no formal DECA class or business class.

The speech and debate team has been competing and the speech team is building up and there's about 40 members there.

Mock trial had a scrimmage yesterday and we're going into competition starting next Tuesday.

The math team hosted the math league competition last week.

And mid-years are coming up next week, starting Thursday, Friday, and then to the following Monday.

And on those days, the school day will be shortened, so a half day.

And this year, mid-years are also remaining at 5%.

So mid-years and finals are each worth 5% for a cumulative total of 10%.

Whereas in the past, they have been worth 10%.

There's been a lot of talk about

the weighting of these final exams as the purpose of mid-years and or in finals as cumulative exams have been to prepare students for larger exams in colleges and teachers have expressed concern that these aren't being weighted enough for them to be worth that much.

As far as students are concerned, I've heard a few concerns of students feeling as though that they're not prepared enough to take on these large exams in college.

However, I mean, obviously, if you ask the student body, they would prefer for these large exams to be weighted less, but that is the overall consensus.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

As always, great job.

Our next agenda item is the naming of the high school gym requests that we received from a member of the community.

So as I mentioned in our last meeting, I had received a request for our new policy from Ted Phillips requesting that we name our gym in honor of Dudley Davenport, who was a longtime member of our basketball program.

I see Ted is on the meeting now.

So I'm going to throw it to Ted to see if he has any remarks and then we can discuss.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, members of the administration who are here this evening.

First of all, I do want to apologize due to scheduling confusion.

Some scheduling confusion on my part.

Some of the other people who have been working on this initiative were not able to join us tonight.

But I'm here to talk about Doug Davenport, what he meant to our community.

And again, put forward this request.

to name the gym, the new high school gym after him.

As some of you may be aware, hopefully you had an opportunity to read the article that I included in my correspondence for the initial request of this committee about Doug Davenport, who was a very long time high school teacher, coach, mentor, and friend to a lot of students in Sharon throughout the years.

As many of you know, Sharon currently plays in a division of the Hockamuck League that is named after him.

He had a really outsized impact on a lot of things and a lot of people, quite frankly.

in town over his tenure.

And so when he died in, I believe it was 2019, a group of us alumni got together to start thinking about what the appropriate way to honor him and his legacy would be.

We settled on proposing that the high school gym be named after him.

But at the time, obviously the

The process for approving a new high school was well underway.

You know, we had sat with some prior members of the school committee who suggested that we wait until the new high school was built.

Obviously, we didn't want to name a room that was imminently going to be torn down after that.

And so once the school committee had put a policy and procedure in place in order for naming

specific areas on school property after certain people.

We felt this was the appropriate time.

And of course, having the new high school built, we felt that this was the appropriate time to bring the request forward.

So we hope that you will agree that this was a man worthy of such recognition, that adding his name to the high school gymnasium would be an appropriate and fitting tribute.

And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Thank you, Representative Phillips.

I will look to the public, I think, first for any comments or questions, and then I'll bring it to the table.

All right, anybody at the table have any questions, comments, questions for Ted, thoughts?

If not, I would entertain a motion.

A motion to to designate Wait, I don't know what the wording is motion to name the high school gym after coach Davenport.

And I think that would be the motion.

Okay, that's the motion.

All right.

We have a second.

Second.

All right.

When is now?

Yes.

Veronica?

Yes.

Julie?

Yes.

Adam?

Yes.

And I'm a yes.

Motion carries 6-0.

Thanks for your hard work on this.

Representative Phillips.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I was going to say, if it's all right with you, hopefully what we'll do is we will reach out to the administration to work on next steps in order to, you know, work on an appropriate way to handle the naming, such as putting a plaque up or something like that, that we could, I'm sure that we can get private funding for in order to affix, you know, to near to the entrance or something like that, if that's okay with you.

That sounds great.

Yeah, reach out to administration, please coordinate that.

Awesome, thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

All right, our next agenda item is to go to Dr. Botehlo for his superintendent updates.

All right, thank you.

We just have a couple of short updates, then we'll jump into the second part of the agenda, which is around operating budget.

First of all, as we came back from the December break, we've been collecting applications for a permanent Sharon High School principal.

The applications closed on January 9th.

The search committee is coming together under Dr.

Sissot's leadership and will begin interviews in mid-January.

We're looking to identify finalists by the end of January and then do finalist interviews with myself and visits in February.

So we're trying to kind of move along as quickly as possible because there's some various high school principal positions out there in the state.

Monday, we wanna recognize Martin Luther King's holiday.

And Sharon is having an Interfaith Clergy Association vigil on Sunday, January 15th at 2 p.m.

And so we encourage people to attend that and to really think about the importance of Dr. King on this weekend and especially on Monday.

and then some upcoming things.

So we have an initial review of my initial recommended budget.

Then we'll have a formal hearing on the 25th.

We'll also be doing some calendar discussion tonight and continuing that throughout the month until it's approved, fees presentation discussion and vote.

in February and March.

We'll also, in our next meeting, have an elementary math and literacy overview.

We'll be jumping back into our conversations of the Charron High School Program of Studies and have some updates on our district plan.

Those are the things that are coming up in the next several meetings.

All right.

Are there any questions for Dr. Botehlo from the table?

I see Adam's hand.

Adam?

Yep.

Sorry.

Thank you, Dr. Botehlo, for that update.

I just had a quick question on the schedule.

I know that when we heard previously from the administration regarding the potential changes were proposed, I guess thoughts really at that point,

to the program of studies, it was shared that any changes that did involve de-leveling, and I think we've heard about that, would also include kind of public forums and opportunities for kind of parents to better understand what those proposals were.

Would that be before or after the presentation made to the school committee?

It'd probably be...

It might be either before or in the middle, but not after.

So that part could occur prior to school committee making final approval of the program of studies.

So I'll get the dates on that.

I believe the...

the science department did reach out to have an initial conversation with the committee and we'll look at when those dates are scheduled, but I'll get those dates to you prior to the next meeting.

Thank you very much.

All right, we go to our next agenda item, which is the FY 23, sorry, the FY 24 operating budget presentation.

Okay, so this is kind of a big, well, not beginning, but kind of beginning some of the formal part of our process of putting together our FY24 budget, which will be the focus, you know, one of the main focus of our meetings over the next couple of months.

When we think about the components, we think about if we want to provide the same level of service minimally that we did this year, what is that going to take financially?

What are some mandated special education staffing needs that we need to add in order to service our students

appropriately based upon their legally binding IEPs.

What are other service improvements that are necessary in the coming year?

And also, we're excited to incorporate the funding for free full-day kindergarten.

So when we look at my this is kind of a summary my initial recommended budget is just over $52 million it's 1 million.

A little bit of over $1 million over the initial town priorities target budget.

or 2.1% over the target budget that was provided at the priorities committee.

And getting into the reasons, part of that is the cost of our level service budget.

Our level service budget itself is costing $1.6

million above FY23, which is a 3.24%

increase.

Part of the reason for that large

uh increase is uh what we'll talk about a little bit later but um the cost of special education especially as far as uh out of district placements in private settings uh the state operational services division as um

called for a 14% increase in those tuitions in one year.

And that's a kind of an astronomical amount in one year.

So that's, you know, part of what's coming into this, just this, you know, this cost to just provide level service for students.

As far as mandated special education staffing needs, we've been growing our high school LEAP program.

This will provide for a 12th grade teacher to finish that core staffing for that program.

We'll also minimally know we have a need for at least two additional instructional students assistance and also some possible additional nominal assistance

additions for occupational therapy in order to provide the needed services for our students.

Other servants improvements that are included in.

This year's initial recommended budget include a custodian at the high school.

The high school building is a major new facility with a much greater square footage in order to properly.

maintain and keep that building in good shape, but we definitely need an additional custodian.

It's not something we know that we're focused on learning in our school, but the maintenance of a building like that is critically important that we keep it clean and well-maintained.

Also, there's a lot of, you know, technology infrastructure, both at the high school and throughout the district that we're really we had, you know, several as we went through budget requests several needs related to technology, including tech support individuals and tech integration individuals.

But the most important one, one of the things that would have the greatest impact is a network administrator.

This would allow our tech director.

Right now, that person is trying to manage the network along with others in addition to leaving the entire group, in addition to having major issues.

you know, involvement in maintaining technology, but also has been a lead in getting a very, very high tech high school, including that has aspects of technology that don't just have to do with instructional technology.

But whether it's the heating system or the alarms or various other things.

So we definitely have a much greater need in order to make sure that we're taking advantage of our investments, both in our new building and in technology in general, a need for a new network administrator.

And the last one is we've been doing tons of work, especially at the elementary school, to really analyze data and understand student needs and provide focused supports and interventions.

And in order to make sure that work is really well coordinated at the secondary level, we're looking for a MTSS coordinator.

And then the last next part is around free full day kindergarten.

So we've been working really closely with the tri board in order to support the move towards free full day kindergarten.

Through our work with the state, we've come to realize that with this bridge,

funding of $590,000 for this year.

We're able to fund full-day kindergarten, which will then lead to the next year, FY25 being funded by the state through our chapter 70 at a higher rate.

So this budget ask has been really well supported by the town, which we greatly appreciate.

And it's really exciting to be able to really move towards full-day kindergarten for free for all students in Sharon.

and is a core part of our budget.

Okay, so we look at, again, the FY23 approved budget.

We look at the...

The initial recommended budget that I'm putting forth today, that's a $2,519,000 increase, which is 5.09%

above FY23.

And that is above the 2.99%, I think, which is gonna come on the next slide that the Priorities Committee had initially recommended.

Yes, so that's the amount that the town target was shooting for.

And, you know, but based upon our level service and these some of these core services were above at 5.01.

Right which so that again 52 million is what we're requesting based upon our needs and that's 2.1% over the revised target budget that was put by the priorities committee.

Now there's some significant needs that were discussed by all of our different leaders in our buildings that we wish we could put forth.

These are the highest,

priority critical needs.

They include a 0.5

business teacher at the high school to support some really high interest business classes, a 0.5

robotics teacher to utilize some of the great facility and opportunities.

around STEM and engineering at the high school to build upon some of the work we've done at the elementary school, I mean, the middle school as well.

We also have a great need to move from a facilitator in social studies and science at the elementary to a coordinator.

One, because when we have facilitators, they're teaching full time and then trying to facilitate.

And the second reason being, we really don't have people who are able and willing to

take on that role.

So we have even our facilitators not filled completely because of the massive need to really have someone to lead that work in a more comprehensive way.

We also have some math classes and English classes at the high school that have some really high enrollments above 25.

And so those teachers would allow us to keep those class sizes in a handful of sections at a more modest rate.

level.

Then we have the technology needs, including IT specialists, which are really kind of tech support personnel.

to expand what we have currently, as well as additional integration specialists at the elementary school.

Because right now we have one integration specialist at the elementary school.

We have another one that is shared at the elementary with the high school, but really needs to be more full-time at the high school.

And so really isn't able to provide the level of support at the elementary that is necessary.

We also have the need for a district-wide visual and performing arts coordinator, as well as a wellness teacher.

This will be especially important in a couple years when we, by mandate of the state, and because we want, we believe it's right as well, expand wellness into 11th and 12th grade, where currently for almost all students, it's only being offered in 9th and 10th grade.

But those are things that are not included in my recommended budget just because of the cost of level service, as well as mandated special needs, as well as those aspects of maintaining technology in the high school building that are absolutely 100% necessary.

Again, part of the reason for the level service, which I explained a little bit earlier, is the operational services division of the state is recommending or calling for a 14% increase in private out-of-district placement tuitions.

Typically, that's 2%.

So to make such a dramatic jump.

Also, collaborative placements are following suit in raising their rates.

We don't know if that 10% is not a fixed number.

So that's a prediction based upon what we're seeing.

But typically, that's a 3% increase.

The total of this increase of providing the same level of service to a similar number of kids this year is over $650,000.

So that's a big chunk of the level service increase that we saw in my initial slides.

So this is kind of the range of costs of day programs for out-of-district placements and residential programs that go into our costs for this.

And so whatever, if it was a $100,000 program and then it went up by 14%, obviously $114,000 and you do that with all your placements and that's where you get that $650,000 increase that I'm alluding to.

Now there's some possible relief, but we won't know about that for quite some time.

And we would hope that if we found possible relief, we would be able to fund some of those unmet needs that were listed.

First of all, the 14% increase for private placements could be overturned.

This one I would say is very, very unlikely, but it's possible.

The 10% increase for collaboratives could be denied by individual boards.

And so the actual increase could be less than that.

That's a little bit more likely that perhaps we're planning too conservatively with the 10%.

So hopefully that will come in a little bit lower.

We won't know that for some time.

There also is major lobbying being done by the Mass Superintendent's Association as well as the Mass Association of School Committees to lobby the state to provide some relief in funding because of this major increase.

Then the following year in FY25, our circuit breaker would help to provide relief as well.

So it's really kind of a gap

filling for a year that possibly the state will help to fund.

But there's been no promise of that.

There has been some major lobbying going on, and we're hoping that the Healey administration will start to discuss that possibilities as well as people at the statehouse.

And then we did not put forth kind of increases in

in our classrooms.

Part of it is largely because of budget reasons, but it also has to do with space, especially at the elementary schools.

But what I can say is our numbers, especially in K and one, are better than we experienced this year.

Kindergarten is too early to predict exactly where those numbers are gonna fall.

But the census report has our initial kids that we're planning for in kindergarten being less at this time than last year.

And so we're hopeful that the numbers in kindergarten will fall more in the 20 range versus the 24 that we experienced this year.

But we'll continue to follow that.

We do have one space at cottage that we could potentially use if those numbers go up beyond an acceptable range.

Our first grade numbers are more in the 1920 range this year.

And so that number which was way it was up like 2324 this year is lower in more acceptable.

And then we think about grades.

You know, two, it's more of a 19 to 22, 23.

Same thing in grade three and four.

And then grade five is a little bit bigger with a range of like 21 to 25.

So that's what we're looking for as far as projections for enrollment at the elementary.

And then the high school and middle school are pretty diverse.

you know static as far as uh numbers uh we do again have some issues at the high school with some of our math classes being um you know some sections of math being larger numbers some of the segments are are very very uh good numbers but then there's some sections that are larger um and then as well as a couple of a handful of english classes as well but i think the the

Just the final concluding point is that so we're really requesting a increase of.

of approximately, you know, 5.09%

in order to fund our budget.

That's $1 million over the priorities target and 2.1% over the priorities target that is provided by the state.

We've already begun discussions, you know, at the town level and we'll look forward to collaborating with our town peers.

All right.

Does anybody have questions for Dr. Botello on this presentation?

All right, Veronica.

I should get rid of the seal.

I don't know where that seal came from.

Thank you very much, Dr. Botello.

That's some tough stuff to take in, speaking as a school committee member and a parent and a taxpayer and all the rest of it.

Very hard numbers to look at.

Why would you say that that 14% hike

is not likely to be sort of negotiable.

Why do you think that that's so?

Because it seems so stark and it's the budget buster, obviously, that we're looking at.

Can you elaborate on why it is that you think that that's going to be a hard and fast probably thing?

We certainly have our president at MASS and certainly the president at MASC.

They've been kind of having conversations about this.

The Operational Services Division has the authority to make that recommendation.

And so it would be somewhat extraordinary for it to be overturned.

It's not something that needs to be, you know, that's part of their authority.

And so it's not because it is such an extraordinary number.

It's not like there's absolutely no chance, but it's not very likely.

There's a greater likelihood that, again, that some kind of relief in recognition of that increase could occur through state funding to school districts.

And then the following year,

circuit breaker funds would help to alleviate that pain as well.

So that's more likely.

It's just another mechanism for the state to recognize that it's extraordinary without overturning it, which would be unlikely.

Right.

But obviously, in the bind that we're in now with budget planning, we have to plan for the possibility that it's going to be that amount, and we're not going to be able to predict what we get reimbursed.

Right.

We can't really tell yet what the circuit breaker increases.

Well, in the circuit breaker reimbursement for that, you know, overage will not occur until the following year.

So we won't experience any of that until the following year.

So we know for this year, yeah, we have to plan conservatively.

We're in constant contact with our, you know, some of the people that, you know, lobby for us.

We're also, you know, going to a

a conference soon where Maura Haley is speaking and we'll have some of our, you know, business leaders in our districts as well as our town administrators accompanying us as well and other people from the town.

So we're all following it and we'll keep people updated as we find anything new.

Thanks.

Avi, can I ask one more question?

Sure.

Just in terms of helping us understand where administrative priorities are, when you look at the unmet need list, that's also one that makes me swallow hard, right, to look at those things that we're not able to provide in light of what we are mandated to account for.

But I would appreciate, I guess, to see if you could, and I know it's really hard given that list, what would your priorities as an administration be if, say, you had the ability with some reimbursement to predict what you might want to look at for, say, September, right, and hiring into positions if, in fact, we got reimbursed for?

Right.

I would be really interested to know how that list could be prioritized.

I don't imagine it was in order of priority, not that it's easy to do, but I would just be curious about that to see if we came into some flexibility where you would direct us to think.

Right.

Yeah, I can say, yeah, we definitely need more conversations as an administration to put those in in clear priority order.

I think that the four top ones are, you know, certainly will be in the heavy discussion of high priority.

But I also as I look at the visual and performing arts coordinator, that's a really, really important one as well.

So, yeah, we'll have more discussions and put those in priority order for you with the with the hopeful outcome.

you know, outcome that we're able to fund some of those if things change with respect to that relief.

I appreciate it.

Thank you so much, sir.

Adam.

Thank you, Dr. Botehlo.

So I think just one question that piggybacks a little bit off of what Veronica was saying, which is, I think at least for me personally, and I'm imagining for many folks out there, we were...

not the current number of children per kindergarten class is kind of not ideal and certainly not what we desire.

And so as we think about next year, as we know those numbers can fluctuate, would an additional K teacher to kind of support that one additional classroom that we could maybe fill, I guess,

where would that fall on our list of kind of critical unmet needs, or is that something we would trade off?

And this isn't something that we necessarily need to answer now, but I think as you're thinking about what that prioritized list is, being able to share with us where that need would be and kind of what the threshold is.

And I understand that that's a really challenging question, but do we want the numbers at 20?

Do we want them at 21?

Do we want them at 18 or like,

Just understanding that would be helpful, I think.

Yeah, we'll certainly be kind of following those numbers really closely and looking into it.

I think it's partly also a timing thing too, because at some point we start to assign kids to buildings and then in order to divide them up into an additional group, you then have to kind of spread it across buildings, which is a challenge.

We'll be looking.

We're looking to try to keep those numbers in the ideally 20 high teens, low 20 at best, and not the 23, 24s that we have this year.

But we'll keep you updated on that.

Thank you.

All right, our next agenda item is the kindergarten, the FY23-24 kindergarten fee recommendations and a possible vote.

So, yeah, as far as the kindergarten, again, as we discussed in the budget, you know, based upon the the agreed upon appropriation of five hundred ninety thousand dollars within to our and the priorities budget, we're able to fund, you know, kindergarten for for for free this year, if that is possible.

that continues to be the wish of the committee.

And so and then in the following year, the chapter 70 funds will will alleviate that need need for that gap year funding.

Does anybody have any questions or comments or not?

I would entertain a motion.

Motion to set the kindergarten fee for next year at zero.

Is that?

That would be the motion.

The correct motion.

Okay.

That's my motion.

Second.

All right.

Wen?

Yes.

Prisnell?

Yes.

Julie?

Yes.

Veronica?

Yes.

Adam?

Yes.

And I am a yes.

Motion carries 6-0.

Kindergarten fee is set at $0.

I just want to reiterate on that.

I mean,

You know, there's some unmet needs and we really, you know, they take those seriously.

But the fact that we were moving in this direction is, I know, exciting for the community and exciting for us in administration and in staff as well.

Absolutely.

And just to piggyback on those thoughts, I think in a moment like this, it's just important to recognize there were a lot of people are responsible for that.

So I think that we first and foremost, I would thank you to our administrators, starting with our superintendent, Dr. Batello, and our assistant superintendent, Meg Dussault.

Certainly our business manager, Ellen Whittemore, who is largely responsible for this being able to happen this year by walking us through with her prior experience how it is that the state will take care of this going forward.

Our finance committee, for their support, especially at the tri-board meetings,

our select board in particular, Bill Highton and Emily Smith Lee, who were on the priorities committee last year and got the ball rolling when Emily Smith Lee proposed contributing from the town side towards this.

And Bill Hyten was a huge support in that.

And then certainly our prior chair, Tanya Lewis, who made this an important goal for this committee last year.

And I know that she's super proud that we were able to push this through.

And then, you know, this committee, certainly every member of this committee, including, you know, just to recognize Julie Rowe as a member of priorities this year, in some of the conversations that we've been able to have to sort of

get some some early some early signs and commitment from the other side of town to be able to take care of this uh and i do see somebody from the public here today molly towardsman who pushed uh from the community side pretty heavily for this and supported this a lot uh so thank you all for being able to make this happen uh the next agenda item would be the fy 23 24 school year calendar sta feedback and district recommendation discussion and feedback

The one thing I can share is that we did get feedback from the SDA and their overwhelming preference was for draft two, which has a starting for staff on August 28th with kids starting on August 30th and has us ending

if there are no snow days on June 13th, and if there are five snow days on June 21st.

Peter, would you like me to put that on the screen just for people to see or not?

I know it was in.

Depending if they need it to be up there.

Well, certainly for the public, I guess that would be helpful.

Can everybody see that now?

And I would say from the administration's point of view, draft two would be a fine choice.

I think that's one that we would lean to as far as preference as well.

Julie, I see your hand.

Thank you.

So I think I actually kind of like draft three because it started even earlier and ended even earlier, but I think this is a really fair compromise to like, you know, let people have their vacations and not worry about like students missing camp or anything like that, but also letting people have the tail end of the summer.

I do have a question and that is, I think,

Is it true the week before school starts is when, like, tryouts are for high school teams?

There's definitely some of the sports stuff going on, yeah, prior to that first week, yes.

Okay, so that would probably, if we vote this calendar, it would probably start a week before, roughly.