All right.

Seeing as it's 7 o'clock that we don't have public comments, I will jump right into the meeting.

This meeting will be conducted remotely over Zoom.

Attendance by board and 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, maybe broadcast with or without sound.

First up on our agenda, we've got community updates.

Julie's not here. Is that going to be you, Veronica?

Or do you need me to? Veronica's got it.

All right.

For a little bit of a throwback correspondence, we'll throw it to Veronica Wiseman.

Thank you very much, Avi.

This is the school committee correspondence summary for February 8th, 2024. The school committee has received 52 pieces of correspondence between January 17th, 2024, at 9 a.m. and February 8th, 2024, at 9 a.m.

A community member wrote to highlight the importance of early literacy programs that are focused on quality with evidence-based results, as well as to advocate for funding to support these programs.

A parent wrote to the school committee to express concerns about fairness when dealing with a student and student-related issues.

We received several emails from parents regarding an incident that occurred on one of the buses that transports middle school students.

The school committee heard from parents and community members who expressed their concerns and perspectives regarding a guest speaker that was invited to SMS to present in honor of Hijab Day. A parent wrote to share information with the school committee on a DESE ruling of noncompliance on a complaint which was submitted regarding the district.

A community member wrote to inquire about whether the school committee will return to in-person meetings and to notify the school committee that the location of meetings which are posted on the town site is the central administrative office. This person also had several budget questions related to full-time employees.

The school committee was copied on an email regarding a bullying investigation which included a request for follow-up and clarification.

The school committee has received many letters from families and community members regarding the school year 2024-2025 calendar.

These letters expressed a variety of perspectives, including appreciation that the school committee was focused on creating a calendar to better represent the diversity of the community, support for adding one or both of the Muslim holidays to the calendar, support for a calendar that would only include the federally recognized holidays, feedback on half days in the school calendar, and concerns about the impact that additional holidays will have on the end-of-year school date.

We received three editions of Millie's Metco Monday newsletter that included highlights on the Tufts University Research Longitudinal Study, regarding outcomes for students who participate in the Metco program, enrichment programs at Metco headquarters, and a meeting that took place between Metco district leadership and state legislators.

The Autism Higher Education Foundation wrote to the school committee to inquire about interest in the paralegal program for students which is offered through the foundation.

A parent wrote to inquire about a social media posting that included a pride flag in one of the SHS windows.

The school committee was copied on an email sent to the office of the Secretary of State Public Records Division regarding an appeal of, quote, incomplete records, unquote, in response to a public records request.

A parent wrote to express concerns that the correspondence report was not available during the January 31st, 2024 school committee meeting.

All correspondence is up to date as of this evening's report.

A community member wrote to advocate for the inclusion of an additional school resource officer in the upcoming budget cycle.

A parent inquired about the possibility for a high school student who moves out of Sharon to complete the last several years of high school at Sharon High.

A parent wrote to share a video with the school committee.

The school committee received a letter to express concerns about the costs of gym rental space for the Sharon Travel Basketball League.

A community member wrote to invite the school committee to join a resolution for implementing safe gun storage.

This initiative is gaining momentum at the state level and presents an opportunity for Sharon public schools to play an important role in the public health of students.

And finally, the Sharon Planning Board wrote to notify the school committee of a public hearing that will occur on February 13th, 2024, regarding the MBTA Community Housing Act and its impacts on the town of Sharon.

That's it. Thanks for having me.

Thank you.

All right, next up on our agenda, we have our superintendent dates.

So over to you, Dr. Patel.

Okay, just a couple of quick updates before we jump into the budget presentation.

Oh, looks like there you go.

All right. So first of all, we have a kindergarten registration is up and running.

There are currently 107 student enrollments that have been completed or in process.

We expect many more before we are done, but we're just starting that up. So encourage those folks to register.

The high school school counseling office will be opening up local scholarship applications for seniors next Friday.

So we encourage people to take advantage of that. The scholarships will include the Robert Donald scholarship of $3,000 awarded to recipients at the high school.

And then the MECO director hiring process is in its final stages.

We have finalists that are being selected and will be meeting with our families in Boston next Monday.

And we hope to have to extend an offer or continue the search by the end of next week.

And then initials, my initial recommended budget will be presented tonight along with budget hearing next Wednesday.

All right.

Now onto the fun part. I don't expect this to take too much time.

Hopefully everyone keeps in mind this is the initial presentation.

Certainly there will be an opportunity though for some feedback and questions.

So without further ado, Dr. Botello, the budget presentation.

Okay.

Yes, this will be the focus of our meeting for the next several meetings.

We have one next week and then one right after vacation, then one the week after that. So back-to-back ones after vacation.

And then, you know, have a school committee vote before we go to the finance committee.

So I'm going to start off with the context and look at some of the priorities reflected in our budget and a bit of a budget summary.

And then finally the budget calendar. Okay.

So first of all, our budget is really focused on the priorities of our district plan around really promoting a strong district and school culture.

A major focus on educational excellence and innovative student-centered learning and how do we propel that and enhance that throughout our system while working to make sure that educational excellence is able to be accessed by all students through meeting the needs of all students and that all of our students have a strong sense of belonging and access to our educational program in diversity, equity, and inclusion.

When we look at the context, it's definitely a fiscally tight budget year throughout the Commonwealth.

We're focused on maintaining, first of all, maintaining level service.

That means providing the same level of service to our students and staff, which factors in significant drivers.

First of all, contractual obligations for staff is the most important driver.

Contractual increases for non-personnel, related expenses, including transportation, facilities, utilities, funding of special education and other essential student services that are mandated requirements.

We also look at changes in enrollments and need to maintain appropriate class size ratios in order to have a strong educational environment in our classrooms and continued support of critical initiatives in our district plan, including multi-tiered systems of support and reviewing curriculum to update it and make it stronger going forward.

So you'll see, again, some of the mandated level service budget additions around special education, mandated services for English language learners.

We also have been talking for a couple years about grade 11 and 12 currently do not have a physical education offering and in accordance with state requirements, we need to add that as well as other requirements to support level service. You will also see some of the unmet critical needs that were put forth by members of our administration and staff that in a more healthy fiscal environment we would look to implement.

So how did this process go?

We first would consult with school and district leaders to identify needs and priorities that align to resources to our district goals.

So that's meeting with administrators, getting feedback from coordinators in order to develop our plan.

We calculate the cost to comply with contractual obligations and legal mandates as well as looking at enrollment class sizes and student needs.

We look to maximize resources by restructuring, shifting, and reducing as possible.

So looking at our current budget and seeing which ways we can move money around.

Maybe there's line items that have been not fully obligated in the last couple years so we could shift money to other places while still maintaining level service.

We work collaboratively with the town, including the town administrator during the process and we manage risk by budgeting for all known district's expenses.

We're looking ahead to try to project utility changes, out-of-district tuitions in particular, to make sure that those are planned for in our FY25 budget request.

Okay, so when we look at the initial budget targets set by the town, there's another priorities meeting coming up Monday when we expect that there'll be some adjustments to this, but currently the town target is at 53,885,220.

That is 1,489,532 above last year's FY24 approved budget or a 2.84%

increase.

Okay, so when we look at trying to maintain, first of all, level service budget, our contractual obligations this year are almost $3,000,000, $2,894,000, $847,000.

So that's reflective of cost of living increases, steps in lanes, and other contractual obligations.

So that's about 5.53,

that itself increase in the budget.

So well above the 2.84

is our just basic contractual obligations in order to have level service.

Then when we look modestly at the increases in out-of-district tuition, we're budgeting on $122,000 and then also some additional needs as far as cost of athletics, utilities, transportation of $116,729.

So just to have the initial level service budget without any mandated additions, that's at $3,133,576.

So just those basic asks to maintain level service is a 5.98%

increase.

Now then we do have some mandated needs.

We have an increasing number of students with social-emotional needs.

There were two adjustment counselors that we've been running through a grant for the last several years and because of the mandated needs associated to those counselors, we are looking to or needing to maintain at least one of them in order to maintain service for students who have mandated needs in the social-emotional realm.

Ideally, we would keep both, but this would allow us to, again, meet our mandated obligations as well as make sure that kids are safe in a social-emotional way.

We also have increased numbers of students who are qualifying for special education services in our early childhood center, so that is necessitating an increase of 1.8

FTE in early childhood.

So we have an obligation to either service students with special education needs in early childhood, either in the district or outside the district. It's much more cost effective to do so in the district, plus we like to service as many kids as we can in district. instead of other placements.

And then with increased numbers in early childhood, we also have the need for additional instructional assistance.

Another mandated need, we have an increasing number of English language learners, so we're looking to fund or needing to fund an EL coordinator who will both coordinate the programming throughout the district, but also provide direct service to English language learners as well.

This position will partially be funded by appropriated funds that we have gotten, and that $104 per day per student for our migrant families, students, all of which have been English language learners, we can use a portion of those funds at the beginning next year as well, because our last payment for that will come after July 1st. We'll use some of those funds to support this.

And then as I spoke, we need to add grade 11 and 12 physical education.

That's been something that has been come out of the deterred focused monitoring audits that the state does, and they've been requesting that, and we have indicated we put that in place by this year.

And then also, I've spoken about this before, but it's increasingly a need in order to just manage the large footprint, especially at the high school, but throughout the district, and the increasing number of devices that our district is trying to support the need for a network administrator in order to manage technology, especially at the high school, but throughout the district.

So when we look at that initial increase of 3,133,576,000, and then those additional mandated needs that I spoke about, that brings our total recommended increase of 3,664,656,000.

Again, so the 5.98

of that, or almost over 3 million of that, is just in level service with no staffing changes.

All of the staffing changes being recommended have to do with mandated services as well as just level service for our technology needs.

So we're not putting forth any additional needs at this time, though you will see some of the unmet critical needs in the following slide.

And again, this is a 6.99%

increase, which is well above the initial target of 2.84.

some of the unmet critical needs include an additional .5 physical education teacher at the high school.

We're going to have to get creative in just having one additional in order to meet the needs for 11th and 12th.

And potential theater needs with the new schedule, that secondary adjustment counselor that I spoke of, elementary social studies and science coordinators that really are needed to help to coordinate our elementary social studies and science.

We have a need for a math specialist at the middle school, and then some additional strings and orchestra teaching.

Tech support specialists, we certainly are stretched to the hilt as far as having enough tech support, especially at the elementary level, and then the need for updated curriculum materials for literacy and mathematics.

So those are things that are not included in our current asks.

As far as specifically the curriculum materials, currently our middle school and high school math curriculums are outdated and do not fully align with the state standards at MCAS.

We've been supplementing them best we can and trying to realign, but in order to really have a strong curriculum that teachers can rely on, they need to be obviously really aligned to the state standards, and this is long overdue.

Also, we've been analyzing our elementary literacy approach, as well as literacy throughout the district, and our elementary literacy materials are outdated and also do not fully align with the state standards. they're being supplemented significantly, but having, you know, materials that directly align and are more aligned with the approaches that we are wanting to implement is of great, great benefit to the learning for our students.

These outdated curriculum materials, you know, put our students at risk of not mastering foundational content and skills, though our teachers, again, are trying to do whatever they can despite the holes in the curriculum materials, and they also make it more difficult for teachers to reach their goals for student learning.

This jeopardizes essential learning in test scores and diminishes Sharon's reputation as a high-performing school district.

It's really important that, again, our curriculum materials, you know, are only as good as our teachers, but our teachers also should not be, you know, working to overcome, you know, deficits in the materials as they do their hard work to propel student learning.

Okay, so again, this budget represents the fiscal support necessary to maintain level service.

Unmet needs represent areas where we begin to fall short on meeting level service needs.

If we have to do further cuts, those reductions in level service will greatly impact students and staff and make it exceedingly difficult to make significant improvements and implement critical initiatives.

When we look at, you know, the potential impacts of a 2.84

priorities target, it really, really puts in danger the work of teachers and students in the district.

It would result in significant cuts in instructional staff resulting in large classes in the upper 20s.

It would reduce supports offers in programming.

We would have to look at ways to look at our district-wide staffing and creative ways to cut back and find funds that could be used to meet this target.

And we'd also have to look at cuts in already austere supplies and materials budgets.

But especially, again, in order to come close to that 2.84,

there would need to be significant cuts in instructional staff and teaching staff, you know, resulting in class sizes that clearly would not benefit our kids and clearly our community members and our staff know is not what, you know, a district like Sharon should have.

One way of looking at, you know, where we sit as far as funding is looking at per pupil expenditures and, you know, the last published numbers are from FY22 and Sharon sat below the state average by, you know, by $783.

So $19,350.

If you took the number of students in FY22 and increased us to the state average, that would bring in $2.868

million additional dollars, which would close the gap that we're talking about and allow us to really fully implement the level service as well as improvements that is necessary.

Dr. Patel, can I just clarify?

Yeah.

That would be on, like that would have been on FY22.

Correct. So when you say close the gap, it actually, it would then increase, because we're given a percentage, it would just keep rolling forward.

It might even, if that were to be true, by this point, by next year's budget, we may be looking at being able to add to services, not just meet our level services.

That 2.868

number wouldn't be, it wouldn't be, the gap that we have, that we're looking at on your slides, is partially a function of that funding.

So I guess I just don't want people conflating on this committee, that 2.86 number as a number that would close the gap of the shortage you just showed.

It's actually a number that would keep rolling forward and get bigger and fund our district even better every year.

Yep. Yep.

Yeah, and that's just, you know, that's obviously looking at the state average as being a benchmark.

When we look at our comparison to other districts that we, you know, often compare ourselves to, you know, besides Octon Boxboro, you know, we are, we're the only one funded below the state average.

We used to be funded above the state average and before FY21, but the last couple of years we've been below the state average and in not, you know, making a mark with Needham, Westwood, Whale, and Lincoln-Sedbury, some of the districts that we really look to compare ourselves to when we're trying to maximize student opportunity and student achievement.

Yeah, so we, and we look at this just with respect to one year at FY22, you know, we are, you know, again, $783 below the state average, but over 2,000, 3,000, even 5,000, behind Whalen, Westwood, Needham, and Sudbury.

Obviously, all those, all these districts are different in various ways, but, you know, if we had, you know, not only the state average, but $2,000 more per pupil, that would provide tremendous opportunities for really providing the class size, the resources, the supports for students and staff that will allow us to reach the excellence that we're really striving to reach.

And one of the contexts that we look at when we're looking at this current year, that definitely, you know, some of the agreements we made with our teachers, you know, are costly, but they are in their investments in our awesome staff to make sure that they are compensated competitively in alignment with the hard work and the skill that they bring to the table. We also know that the context of many districts, you know, really having tough negotiations and that these six districts have recently gone through strikes and have settled at, you know, numbers that are quite high and quite costly.

But not only the compensation is, is significant, but the, the morale and the lack of collaboration and unity that these districts have faced has been really very, very problematic where we worked very well together with our union to give them a fair package, but also to get some really important gains in additional classes at the high school as well as additional time at the elementary to benefit students in, in the district.

And so we look at, this whole budget is based upon, you know, our striving to have the highest expectations possible for our students and staff, and that necessitates high levels of support.

You know, we strive on really, we have a very, very good district here, but I think everyone within the district is really, including certainly myself, is looking for greatness.

We want to be the, the very, very best district in the state.

We have a diversity and a uniqueness that is really, is really something special when we think about having a community of such great diversity that values education, a staff that really wants to push themselves, you know, a relatively well-resourced district, especially as far as, you know, of other districts in the, in the country, just an ability to, to really do great things, and that's what we're striving for. You know, average, we look at kind of average per people expenditures.

I know it's, that's a complex, you know, thing to look at, you know, we're a small town and there is some limits on the amount of resources that we have, and we're really trying to make sure that, you know, we can achieve as great a product in our schools as possible so that people continue to move to Sharon because of their schools, and that really necessitates above-average financial support.

I know all of us in our hearts support our schools with greatness, and the financial necessities, especially as the complexity of, of serving kids has really grown, is incredibly necessary, and that's why we put forth a budget that really, you know, minimally reflects our level service needs so that we can continue to move forward and support growth and improvements and strive for greatness in our district.

Some important dates, again, we have our initial presentation, we have our budget hearing, public hearing next week, and then the week after vacation, we'll come back with an updated budget presentation, a school committee vote on the 6th, as well as school committee vote on fees, and then a budget presentation to the finance committee on March 11th.

Also, as I said, next Monday, the priorities will be meeting as well.

Thanks, Dr. Patello.

Did you want to touch at all on Chapter 70?

Do you want me to? Or I can just open it up?

You can.

Okay.

So just before I open it up for feedback and questions, I do just want to touch on, as most of the committee is familiar, Chapter 70 funds are state aid specific to education.

They're a relatively large revenue source.

I think some years, if I was ballparking it, they might be just under 20% of our total budget.

The way that Sharon handles new revenues on a town-wide level, all new revenues come in to the town and then are split up by the standard allocations for each department.

We, as a district, receive 73% to 75%.

I apologize if I don't have the exact number.

So it's not an exact one-for-one math, but it's something we depend on quite a bit.

The Chapter 70 funds that came in, or the projected Chapter 70 funds on the governor's budget, are shockingly low.

And so our budget chair, Veronica Wiseman, and myself have been trying to sort of understand this.

I mean, certainly Dr. Botello and Ellen would more understand this, and they gave us an explanation fairly early in, but I think we'd be remiss if in our roles, Veronica and I didn't do our own homework and try to understand this. It's part of the accountability, I think, that we bring as far as trying to hold our admin accountable.

Not that we didn't trust our admin by any stretch, but it is, I think, our job to sort of do some homework here as well.

So our budget chair did set up a meeting with the finance director for MASC.

I was able to sit in on that.

And the explanation that we were given, there's a couple things that I just want to get ahead of because I think my first concern as the chair of this committee was where is the kindergarten money in the Chapter 70? So to be clear, we were assured by our MASC finance director earlier today that our foundation budget was actually raised $900,000 for the switching kindergarten.

We had 162 full-day K students that we were credited $8,000 for instead of four.

So I believe based on the projections that we were given when we made the kindergarten decision, we actually saw a bump over that.

Unfortunately, the way that the math is done and the formula is done for Chapter 70 takes into account all enrollment choices, changes, I should say.

And so one thing that I just want my fellow committee members to understand, especially going forward, especially as we sit at this table and make decisions, actually there's a lot of different places in our district where certain enrollments and certain decisions that get made, I don't believe any decisions were made that impacted this, to be clear. But just something to think about going forward.

Things that impacted our enrollment number and change in our formula to some degree.

We did lose a handful or more of low income students.

So that low income students do give a bump in Chapter 78 to this district.

We did lose a little bit more than a handful, ironically, of English language learners.

So that impacted us as well in our enrollment.

Interestingly enough, just cyclically, the way the grades in different grades are different sizes. It turns out our high school enrollment was down, replaced by enrollment in other places of the district. Our enrollment as a whole was not down, but our high school enrollment was down.

So again, like the way that the state formula works, those numbers drop.

The biggest drivers. So there's only two drivers in Chapter 70 funds, it was explained to us. One is inflation and the other is enrollment.

What jumps out to me right away, and the very knowledgeable person at MASC confirmed this for Veronica and I, is that that means that Chapter 70 funds are not looking to adjust in any way and catch up to expenditures rising in school districts, which they happen obviously every year. They are simply trying to replace dollar for dollar. So they're only adjusting for inflation and enrollment numbers.

This is, we were assured happening to every district in the state, 88 districts, one of them being Sharon, moved from what's considered a foundation aid district to a minimum aid district.

That's not a categorization.

It's simply math.

We felt because of the way the inflation numbers multiplied by enrollment changed the increase.

We did end up in a place where we would have been below $30 per pupil, and so by law, the state bumps that to $30.

So where we rightfully were projecting somewhere close to, and Ellen, you can correct me if I'm wrong, somewhere close to $1.1 million.

I don't know if that number is drastically wrong.

Go ahead.

We were thinking probably, I believe it was about $760,000 plus Kershan had anticipated there to be an increase, you know, on top of that, a small percentage increase.

So I believe that that's what he was looking at in the original priorities.

Well, that connects a dot for me a little bit, because the math we were doing earlier today had us at $768,000.

But I don't know why someone had said $1.1 million maybe at one of the meetings.

SPEAKER_UNKNOWN: No. The $768 makes sense.

Yeah, that makes sense.

So rather we reach, I think the number is $105,000.

So is what we receive.

Again, this is early in the budget process. The problem that the woman at MASC explained to us is that while there may be relief because of the Senate and House's budget, it will come after our budget is set.

So we are at this point forced to figure out how to address these budget concerns within the municipality.

And that's sort of where we are. So certainly at this table, I think working across town with our finance community and our select board, our town administrator, and that's kind of where we're at. Make sense?

I see questions.

Prisnell.

Thanks, Avi. And actually, thank you for that explanation. That's actually really helpful because it answered some of my questions.

All of my questions are for Dr. Botello. I will follow our norm and ask all my questions.

Hopefully you can respond to them.

This is more of a comment.

I appreciate the point on the literacy and math outdated materials not aligning with state standards being a priority.

I think that's what I heard from him as a requirement to ensure that we're looking to fund the change there.

So I just wanted to voice my support and appreciation that he raised that.

Beyond that, I think I just had a question around last year's budget where we had a number of priorities that we couldn't fund for various reasons.

And I think I saw some of them like the network administrator and the literacy coordinator and EL coordinator.

But I just wanted to validate whether or not we what have we incorporated from last year's priorities that we weren't able to fund and whether there's anything that was on that list that wasn't added to what we were shown.

I hope that made sense.

And then beyond.

Okay. Go ahead.

No, if you want to ask them all, you can.

Yeah. Okay.

Let's see. So my other question, I had a very specific question about the, I forget the name of the the DEI training for administrators, but that's something that I just want to make sure it's kind of getting very specific was included in our budget as well. So other than that, those are all my questions.

And I think this is a really good and helpful presentation.

Thank you.

Yeah. So for the first one, the critical needs from last year that were unmet that we included this year were exclusively the ones that were kind of mandated.

So that included because of our increased numbers with our English language learners, adding that EL coordinator, or at least we to coordinate the program, but also provide direct service. That means, you know, teaching and in push in with kids, it's not only, it's not just a critical need anymore. It's really in order to meet the mandated needs of those kids, we need those additions.

So we included that.

We also, what else was it?

Oh, we included, this is a little different.

It's perhaps not mandated, but because of the number, the amount of technology we have, both within the high school and throughout the district, adding an additional technology person in the form of a tech administrator, which would then help us to reorganize our entire tech department to meet the needs of the district with all the technology we have. So that, because also the, you know, the technology is not just about Chromebooks and about interactive whiteboards.

It's also about all the technology that's infused into the high school that might be more operational and facilities technology.

So it's part of that as well. So those are the two things that really were from unmet needs. Then there was a bunch, as far as the coordinators for ELL, I mean, for science and social studies, those were included last year, but they're not included in this year's budget.

So many of the other things were not.

Oh, the last thing, I think we did list physical education last year, and we did put that in because we've been mandated by the state to add 11th and 12th grade options by this year as well, by next year as well.

Will you indulge me to just follow up?

Yeah.

So Dr.

Masello, thank you. I heard what you said.

I guess I'm hearing you included all the mandated needs from last year.

I'm curious, what are all the sort of non-mandated needs that were priorities from last year?

I'm happy to kind of move forward with your priorities.

I kind of want to understand what last year we said were really important.

Sort of when we're focusing on mandated, that's saying these are the bare minimum we absolutely have to have.

But that does not mean that the sort of stuff that's not mandated is not important.

I guess I want to understand what that universe looks like and what we're leaving on the table.

So we don't have to kind of hash that out today. It would be helpful for me to understand in a future presentation, if you want to sort of send me something separately, what that looks like. Does that make sense?

Absolutely.

Absolutely. Yeah. I'll find out if there were a couple beyond the science and social studies coordinators and the tech that was in last year and the PE that was in last year and the ELO was last year. If there were a couple more that didn't follow from last year to this year, why?

Thank you. And also, if it's changed and they're no longer needs, that's fine. I guess that's the conversation.

Yeah. But I'll go off the line. That's the Y part.

Yep.

Thank you, guys.

And as far as, yes, we still have maintained professional development funding that would allow us to fund additional training on DEI for administrators as well as teachers as well. Thank you.

SPEAKER_UNKNOWN: Thank you. Yeah.

Adam.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Patella and Ellen. And so I want to actually follow up on something that Prisnell just mentioned, which was, so obviously we want appropriate curriculum for you to bring us in alignment with state standards and kind of follow best practices.

That was the one item I think that was on the list that didn't have a number associated with it. And so I'm just curious if you could help us understand, obviously, and we spoke about, I think in the last meeting about kind of piloting different curriculums, but just what's the ballpark figure?

Like what sort of expense is that if we wanted to either think about it this year or for future budgets?

I think ballpark, if we were talking about the entirety of middle school, high school math, as well as core elementary literacy materials, ballpark is like 300 to 350,000.

That's just ballpark.

It depends on what materials we actually selected as well as if we rolled it out in one year or over multiple years, but that's a, that's a rough ballpark, but we don't have the, because we haven't selected those materials yet. We don't have the actual quotes though.

We have gotten some, you know, kind of estimate quotes on different materials.

So we have a sense of it. Yeah, it's really helpful just to give us a sense of the scale. Yep.

The, the only other, it was more a note that I had. So I was, I was surprised, you know, when you, when you shared kind of the Sharon's per pupil funding relative to, to the state.

And so I looked it up.

There are over 200 districts, kind of when you look at the DESE website in the state that spend more than Sharon. Um, so like just to, to put that in perspective of kind of where we are relative to, to the state. I was, I know I was surprised by that. So I just wanted to share, um, for the committee members and anyone else listening.

Thanks, Adam.

Um, Veronica.

Thank you, Avi.

Thanks, Dr. Botello.

Um, Adam, thank you for asking the question about the costs associated with the curriculum because that was on my list.

Um, the only question I have at this stage, Dr. Botello is just in reference to adding the FTE at early childhood.

Um, I'm wondering about, uh, the future conversations regarding fees associated with, cause that's a fee based program where we have a revolving fund. And I just wondered if you would comment on the impact of some of the revolving funds and fees that are associated with some of the items, um, in this presentation.

And thanks.

Yeah, I think, um, we'll, we'll be definitely looking at fees in the, uh, upcoming meeting.

I think, um, you know, um, we, I think we have a built-in kind of increase or proposed increase in fees for early childhood, um, which only bring in, uh, a small amount of additional revenue.

Um, um, but, um, you know, and so we can look at potentially increasing that.

It still would not be a tremendous amount of revenue because we already charged fees. It would just be an increase to, to help, you know, supplement that. Uh, but we'll certainly explore that as well as, um, some of the other fee areas. Um, I'd say most of the other fears, our fees are pretty healthy at this point. Um, as far as the, the amount that families pay, um, uh, but we'll certainly look at them.

All right. Thanks, Sean.

Sean, we can't hear you yet. It does show it's unmuted, but.

Can you hear me?

You can hear me now.

Can you hear me now? All right, cool.

Um, so I had a specific question, two specific questions.

One, um, what proportion of, uh, direct service versus admin, um, will be for the projected EL coordinator? Um, I would say about 50-50.

50-50.

And some of the admin part, I think would be still kind of coaching and supporting some of our, um, EL teachers.

So it's not necessarily direct service to kids, but it wouldn't be, you know, just administrative work.

It would be more, um, you know, a lot of it would be hands-on work with teachers and then some administrative work. Is that a, is that a union position or a personal service?

It would be, um, it would likely be a union position.

Okay. In the, uh, you know, similar to our other coordinators.

Okay. Um, and then, um, the discussion about the math curriculum, um, how does that align with the curricular program reviews that we're doing?

Um, I know last week, Dr. Burke or last meeting, um, Dr. Burke had talked about the, um, impact of the program reviews.

And I'm just wondering how that, how that all aligns because, um, that wasn't, that wasn't brought up.

So.

Yeah.

Um, Tina Keller, our new, um, um, you know, secondary, um, math coordinator has been working with Tina Kemp, who is on this call here, our extraordinary elementary math coordinator, um, to, to look at, um, the materials that we use and to look at their alignment with state standards.

And so there is a, um, there's some hands-on work in those departments to analyze materials, um, in, uh, in order to, in addition, we are, you know, these, um, programs have, um, both materials, physical materials, but also online components that, um, that run out at certain points. So, um, it's looking at the, the combination we're going to need to either, um, continue to pay for access to outdated materials or look to, um, get new physical materials, materials, as well as access to, um, updated materials online.

SPEAKER_UNKNOWN: So we're going to do that- == amounts between two different parts, for many those departments, these packages across each other. Um, and we're, you know, um, working with one of them that we topic everything in public and online are used for Mm 4. So we were obviously going to use to correct them. And that's great. SPEAKER_UNKNOWN: Okay. SPEAKER_UNKNOWN: Great. Thank you. One more thing, I know that we haven't talked about it, and I know it will be upcoming, but I also just want to, at some point, make sure that we really look closely at our fees. I know that a parent had written in from the community talking about fees for rentals and our building usage and how we can look at that as a source of additional income.

I know now is not the time, but I think that there is maybe a missed opportunity that we have there for additional sources of revenue.

Thank you.

Thanks.

All right, Wynne?

Yeah, as far as the curriculum materials that need to be did, it sounds like there's kind of a lot of flexibility there, but if you have the money today to pick materials, how many things are we picked out and ready to purchase, or are we still trying to sort of in a wait-and-see kind of mode?

I think by the end of this year, we would want to be able to purchase materials in an ideal way.

If not, we'll continue to do some, you know, piloting of materials in collaboration with the materials we currently have. Thanks.

Adam, I see your hand up again.

Yeah, just a quick question.

What's the anticipated lifespan of the curriculum materials?

As far as you, like the, what you usually have, especially with mathematic materials, is you might have kind of a five- or six-year, you know, lifespan of a certain edition.

Now, the next edition can be minorly changed.

It partly depends on what happens with state standards.

When state standards change, companies get together and they revamp the materials majorly.

So, sometimes the new additions are pretty minor in their changes and you can often, at that time, maybe keep some of the physical materials and just do, you know, replacements and update the online materials.

So, typically, you know, if a, it could happen where you can actually have some of the physical materials over five or six years while still updating the online materials.

As far as literacy, it can be similar, but it depends on the nature of the materials and the way that they kind of supplement them in an ongoing way. So, sometimes, again, it can be stretched out longer if they're always supplementing them in a way that keeps them updated and if there haven't been major, major changes in state standards or approaches to teaching literacy.

Yeah, I guess I ask because I'm curious, you know, we request Chromebooks and furniture and, you know, other things within the, yeah, out of the capital budget.

And to qualify for capital needs to be a $10,000 value and have a life expectancy of five years or more.

And so, it sounds like the curriculums would potentially qualify under that definition.

I had that actually.

It's a good discussion to have at the capital table.

I did have a discussion with the town administrator and that had not been done here.