This meeting will be connected remotely over Zoom.

Attendance by board and board members will be remote, and remote attendance shall count towards the 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.

So before we go to public comment, I just wanted to say that we are a little concerned about power outages tonight.

So we're going to shuffle the agenda around a little bit so we can get through the most important pieces.

So if people have a lot of comments, like if it's possible to keep your comment until next week, we would really appreciate it.

So we're going to move to public comment now.

Jay O'Brien.

Oh, Adam, do you mind?

Okay.

All right. The camera.

Camera, Julie.

Oh, sorry.

One more thing. One more thing is if you please could turn on your camera when you're speaking, we would appreciate it. Thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Jay O'Brien.

Do you get it? Okay.

Hi. Merry Christmas and happy new year.

40 days until the complete and full return of MAGA.

But things are already starting to get better.

The air is fresher.

Food tastes better.

It really feels like we're on the brink. Oh, as well as the Trump dance celebrations are breaking out across the sports landscape.

In fact, the New York Times even had an article on how popular it is today. I haven't seen a dance this popular since the Macarena.

It really feels like we're on the brink of the next American Renaissance and I'm very excited for our kids. So how does the Trump landslide victory impact Sharon public schools?

I propose eliminating the two DEI positions in the school district and use that money to create a local commissary where parents or real chefs in town can create an elective program to teach kids who are interested in the culinary arts. More chefs and fewer DEI admins is a win-win.

We could use the school kitchens on weekends to meal prep lunch for the week and create meals we actually want our kids to eat.

They could help create a lunch menu for their friends.

This would be a huge success, I think.

I'm very grateful to Bobby Kennedy Jr., Elon, and Vivek for joining the Trump administration.

With Vivek and Elon leading the Department of Government Efficiency, my hope is that this department will dismantle the Department of Education and get the craziness out of our schools. By this, I mean DEI didn't earn it and radical gender theory.

You may also know it as gender code ideology.

It's the same two things.

People told me I was seeing things when I said that in elementary school and Sharon had an all-gender restroom.

I took this photo last month when I was there for parent-teacher conference.

This is the all-gender bathroom.

I don't know if you can see this sign or not, but it's in my hands. Yes, Superintendent Patello and Principal Madden, you both told me respectively over the phone and via email that there was no gender discussion in grades 1 and 3.

How can that be if this bathroom exists?

This is wrong, and the hope is that Elon and Vivek will address this.

Parents, we should do everything we can to try and withhold federal funding until the gender theory is... Jay, thank you.

Your time is up.

Merry Christmas.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay.

Ms. Crosby, I'm sorry.

China.

Did you get it? Yes, I got it. Thank you, Julie.

So I have two topics tonight.

One is I'm really concerned about the substitute situation.

There were 39 uncovered classes at Sharon High School on Monday, December 9th. And despite the school committee voting to increase daily sub pay on October 30th to $110, there was no job post made on School Spring looking for those daily subs until December 6th. And that job post has set the salary at $100, which is not what you voted.

On top of that, you also approved hiring two building subs at Sharon High School and one at Sharon Middle School.

There has been no job post for any of those positions since your vote on October 30th.

I'm really concerned.

We have kids who are being told that they have to come to school or it's an unexcused absence if they have the flu or anything else unless they get a doctor's note, but they're coming to school and sitting in the auditorium for multiple periods a day. We have to do better.

The other question or comment I had is that when bad things happen in a medical context, there's something called a morbidity and mortality review.

I think Sharon needs to learn from what happened at Thanksgiving.

I think it's tragic, but I think there are lessons.

For example, we used to offer baseline concussion testing for every student athlete at Sharon High School.

Sometime between 2016 when my kid played a sport and now it was eliminated.

That helped take the decision as to whether a child was ready to return and put it into an objective context because you had the baseline testing.

And then if they had a head injury, you could repeat the test and see where they were at. We need to bring that back. We need to understand why we have not been able to fill the athletic trainer position that was weirdly not posted until August 27th, even though obviously it's needed for the school year.

But it was posted on August 27th and it's not filled.

Why?

That could make a difference.

AED should be field side during contact sports.

Why aren't they?

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Thank you all.

So we're going, like I said before, we're going to mix up the agenda a little bit.

I'm going to, because I'm concerned about the weather.

So I would like Peter to present the operating budget first.

And since I'm pretty sure he took all of our guidelines into consideration, I'm going to move that till after.

And we'll see if we really still need to have a final review of the budget guidelines.

But I think we'll be good after that. And then I'm going to do the grant, moving the grants to the end. We will be also having an executive session.

And then we will return to open session.

So, Peter, take it away.

Great.

Thank you. So, yeah.

So we're going to have a real kind of complete, like, first start at the budget, you know, look at the budget this year so we can really start to have these discussions and difficult conversations early on, as well as have an opportunity for the priorities committee and others to understand the current state based upon the current priority start.

So we'll start with that.

And first, kind of just giving a sense of context.

You can move on. So, you know, what we're aiming to is really to provide a level service throughout the district while having targeted improvements that continue to move our district in a direction that, you know, makes it, you know, continues to provide excellent education for kids and really recognizes that a school like any organization needs to grow and continue to evolve.

So we did that this year through a zero-based planning process to really try to think, you know, in a fresh manner about what is really needed in the district in order to provide high-quality education for our kids, while also taking into account that there are fixed costs, whether they be transportation or utilities or mandated services or contractual obligations that we have to kind of build into our budget regardless.

We then looked very carefully at the school committee priorities as well as priorities that were discussed among members of the district team, including the district admin, and look at the requirements to support level service, as well as making sure that all of our goals and needs are guided by our district plan and an aim began to provide excellent education that meets the needs of all students.

So that all of our students so that all kids have great opportunities here.

So, again, so again, using that level service and zero-based budgeting.

So again, there were some things like contractual obligations and legal mandates, as well as looking at enrollment class sizes that we had to build into our budget from the start. But then we looked at the needs and priorities, but then we looked at the needs and priorities of the district in each department separately.

And then together as a group, we identified what are the needs in order to really fund the district in a way that meets those needs.

We then also worked collaboratively with the town during that process and also took into account the fact that there are limited resources within the town and within our funding sources.

Now, these are some of the priorities that were discussed at the last school committee meeting that were taken into strong account and had a strong alignment with district admin's goals as well.

As far as we know that we have to be aware of the town allocation baseline.

We are absolutely committed to making sure that the new ALA curriculum rollout is done well.

It's a massive investment both in funds, but also in time and professional capacity to make sure that our teachers are prepared to use new curriculum materials and new approaches with our kids to maximize our kids' abilities in literacy and English throughout the district.

We are committed to continuing to try to strengthen our special education programs and make sure that they are supported not only to provide mandated services, but make sure that those kids are progressing as strongly as possible.

We want to maintain small class sizes, especially at the elementary.

We also recognize that the cutbacks of the high school administration, though well intended during a difficult budget year last year, are really not sustainable in order to have the level of service and support that we want at the high school.

We also want to consider the reduction or elimination of kindergarten fees.

When we look at kind of the summary of when we looked at zero-based budgeting, we had an appropriation this year of just over $54 million.

We looked at we then took into account our contractual obligations.

So this is taking all the people who are with us this year and looking at what steps and lanes and contractual obligations are had for next year and showing the budget for that.

Then we also projected special education out of district increases based on tuition increases as well as kids that are moving outside the district, but also kids that are remaining with us, special education, transportation costs, utilities, athletics, yellow bus transportation.

Now, when we did a hard look at, starting from the beginning, what would we need in order to really maintain the level of service in an optimal way?

Unfortunately, our zero-based budgeting exercises showed that we are really doing without a lot of needs.

And that kind of manifests itself in using some outdated materials that we would ideally be replacing and that we have held off on in several years.

Not purchasing consumables that really would benefit students and teachers in the learning process, but instead having them kind of do things on their own without consumables that aid in the learning process.

Using technology tools that are using technology tools that are free, but that are not quite as strong as ones that we would pay for.

So a number of things.

And so our zero-based budgeting, though very useful in helping to prioritize our needs, did not result in showing that we have fat to burn within our budget, unfortunately.

And so if we use the zero-based budgeting process as our final bottom line, that would result in a 6.63%

increase in our budget.

This also does not account for us really being lean with our operational facilities costs.

And so facilities are not being funded at the level we would ideally fund them at. This puts us at what you might call, according to the Association of Physical Plan Administrators, a kind of crisis level where we're really kind of responding to situations of having to repair and replace things on a regular basis that ideally would be replaced ahead of time in a more proactive manner.

Our interim facilities director suggests that an additional $250,000 per year over the next four years would put us at a higher level, a more acceptable level of facilities management.

But right now, again, we're running with older buildings, except for our high school, in a way that really is doing everything in our power to make sure that our schools are running and usable for our kids, but not in the proactive manner that we ideally would be as a district facility.

If we added that $250,000 over the next four years, 60% of those costs would go to personnel and 40% would go towards non-personnel.

Now, as we come to a budget, a working budget that we propose, we're really using our level service rollover number as the baseline.

So that level service rollover number is going to be impacted by our zero-based budgeting process in that some of the things that we perhaps spent money on last year, we will not.

And some of the things that were identified as high needs within that $621,000 will be spent. And obviously, there'll be situations where we won't be purchasing things, whether it be curriculum materials or new technology tools that we would ideally have in order to make sure that we stay within budget, but still provide as close to a level service situation with strategic improvements for kids. So when we take out that $621,000, that was part of the zero-based budgeting process, as well as not add an additional $250,000 as suggested by our interim finance director, but do take into all of the contractual obligations as well as utilities, athletics, and other fixed costs, our increase is just under $2,960,000, and $2,960,000 and $0.70.

This is a 5.48%

increase over FY25.

And again, it does not include the zero-based additions or the $250,000 in facility needs.

Now, when we get to the next part of the budget, you know, even in difficult budget years, there still are some priority additions.

Typically, they might be four, five, six, even more in a good budget year. This year, based upon the district administration and assessment of our most, you know, essential needs that really are necessary in order to provide high-quality level service education to kids is to reinstate an elementary administrator in special education slash assistant principal, and also to add an assistant principal back to the high school.

Again, it was deemed that though, you know, we were able to, you know, kind of do our best to provide level service this year, having those positions non-instated long-term is not sustainable.

We also, in order to make sure that our special education teachers and administrators are able to really support the programming and instruction for our students in special education, adding some clerical support to do some of the administrative work around, you know, getting out paperwork, you know, doing orders, scheduling meetings will allow for our administrators throughout the district, as well as other special educators to concentrate on the programming and improvements for our kids. So with those $257,000 in additional priorities, our level service budget plus priorities increase is $3.217

million or 5.95%

over FY25.

So again, step one is to determine positions and expenses that could be reduced without significantly impacting the current level of services and determine opportunities to shift operating costs.

So as we look at the next stage, we have what we think is a necessary budget to provide high-quality education, but we know that's above the target set by the priorities committee and the current revenues coming into the district.

So what are some things to be considered?

Initial offsets and reductions were to include something we had discussed during last year's budget process about instituting some fees on clubs that currently do not have fees. So just like our athletics programs, there's some programs, whether it be, you know, you know, robotics or drama programs or music programs that kids participate in after school that are awesome.

And ideally, we would like to not have fees, but in order to be to raise some funds, it also be a bit more equitable between those who perhaps participate in some arts and science clubs versus athletics to raise some money through fees.

Again, obviously, you know, we would like to, you know, reduce and eliminate fees, but in difficult budget years, this is something that was discussed last year and something to be considered.

Also to increase ECC tuition more so than typical, so to a 9% to raise some funds.

We also do have some additional funds coming into the ECC that are an offset because of an additional classroom that was added last year. So that brings in additional tuition that was not, you know, wrapped into the initial budget.

So that's a positive offset.

Also, when we look at our elementary sections, because of some enrollments that have been moving over the last couple of years from the elementary into the middle school, we have some, a couple of grade levels where our numbers are low enough to reduce a couple of sections without having any significant increases on our current class numbers, meaning that our elementary, our lower elementary would stay below 22 and our upper elementary would be stayed below 24.

And so that would just be two sections that were targeted where we know we could keep class sizes as reasonable as throughout the other, you know, 10 or 11 sections in that grade level and still have some reductions in savings to support our budget.

By doing this, that's a 265,000 in initial outsets, which lowers our percentage increase to 5.46.

But still, again, a long way to go to the 2.726

that was proposed by the Priorities Committee.

So, again, priorities, you know, again, they're going to have a more official number tomorrow night. So they'll be talking and we'll continue to refine our initial budget, you know, request in conjunction with conversations both at the table here, but also with priorities.

So, again, we'll be talking about the FY25 appropriation.

So, again, our initial number was a 2.7626

or $1.49

million above the FY25 appropriation.

Our kind of initial level service budget priorities that I just presented, including the offsets of that $265,000 offsets, is $1,459,787 above what the priorities committee allocation would suggest, or 2.77%

above the 2.7626

that has been the initial number that's been shared with us. So, step two in the process is while, you know, kind of watching the Priority Committee allocation discussion, seeing if there's any movement there for us to outline the impacts of potential reductions to meet, you know, what we expect will be the final priorities allocation.

So we'll continue to work with district administration and principals to do so. We'll continue to have these discussions here at the table.

And we can start to talk about some of the priorities of potential cuts at our last meeting and through the meetings in January.

Again, we're specifically trying to have some of these conversations ahead of time, both so we can make decisions in as wise a way as possible, but also so that we can advocate for additional fundings to the degree possible by the town in order to recognize that, in order to provide, you know, the high level of education that we strive for, that we can only go so far as as far as cuts and that, you know, the cuts that are going to be shown in the next couple of slides, which would get us to the priority number are quite dire.

So again, in order to get to the current 2.7626

priority number, there would be a number of cuts.

We really did a bunch of cuts last year that were, again, very, that definitely were hindered our abilities, but we're trying to be as carefully done as possible.

And there's, you know, there's not much room for cuts that have lesser impact.

And so some things that we would need to consider if we had to reduce our budget all the way down to the 2.7626

would be to further reduce elementary teachers.

And so at the lower elementary area, if we reduced, based upon current sizes of classes in the various schools and trying to project for increases that we might have, for example, you know, our numbers coming into grade one next year are never certain until the summer because that is a place where students do tend to enter the system more so than in fourth or fifth grade.

So we're doing our best to project.

But by eliminating a couple of additional elementary teachers, we would be at class sizes between 23 and 25 in some of our elementary classes.

And that would be certainly a concern about class sizes in general, but also reaching our contractual guidelines as far as class size limits. And then if we did additional reductions at the upper elementary, that would put us up towards 24 to 26, even 27, with, again, a very strong concern about the impacts of those class sizes that are that big, as well as hitting class size limits.

And we'd have to be very careful to make sure that we fell within the guidelines that are part of our contracts with the teachers union. Also reducing elementary art teacher based upon sections that could be reduced while making sure that all kids still get elementary art.

Also, we have some open sections that could be reduced in our librarians to save a bit of money.

And also the consideration of shifting elementary music into an after-school program.

I know that as well as these class sizes have been discussed in the past.

I think we all believe that elementary music as well as class sizes are really an important part of a school system like Sharon.

And in this, like, difficult kind of exercise, these are some of the things that would need to be considered. We'd also have to consider reducing a team at the middle school.

So this probably would result in, you know, sort of having, you know, one team in seventh and eighth grade that serve both seventh and eighth grade students, and therefore having four, you know, just two and a half teams at the seventh grade and two and a half teams at the eighth grade.

If this was done, it would result in approximately 23 to 26 students in some of the classes and potentially up for 24, 25, 26, you know, maybe even 27 students in some of the classes.

The challenge at the middle school level is with different math classes that kids take, as well as different world language classes that kids take. You can't purely divide the number of kids exactly by the number of sections.

So that's why you see that range of 24 to 27 or 23 to 26. Again, both class sizes that are concerning as far as their impact instructionally in giving kids the attention that they need, but also concerned about how they push up against the class size limits that are part of our contractual obligations with teachers.

And then at the high school level, it would be looking at, you know, reducing teachers as necessary in each of our departments.

These would result in larger class sizes and concerns about caseload limits.

They also could reduce some of the offerings that were offered, because if you had offerings that perhaps were not running at full capacity of, you know, 24, 25 students, 26 students, then they might not be able to be offered because you'd have less sections overall offered in a department.

So that would be across the board.

Also in math and science in particular, some students look to double up, especially in 10th, 11th, 12th grade in math and science, and their ability to do so with less teachers would be definitely endangered.

And also, again, similar to elective offerings in English, some of the offerings in science in particular, like anatomy or biotech or some of our AP classes, if they were not running at full capacity, it would be in danger of not being able to be offered each year.

Also, there would be a danger of the visual arts programming being cut back or eliminated if we had to reduce significantly at the high school level as well. We'd also, we've cut back several times at the district and administration level, but we'd look to continue to get as lean as possible and do some cuts if we had to go deep into the cuts.

And this would be, you know, adding to the reductions we added from last year, certainly impact systems, responsiveness, and our ability to manage improvement efforts that allow for our, you know, students in our classrooms to evolve similar to other districts in the state that we really want to make sure that we're providing, you know, as good or better education to our regional, you know, competitors or just comrades in education.

Also looking at, in trying to really bridge this gap, the potential of increasing athletic fees by 10, 15% in order to raise revenue to offset the potential gap between the needs of the district and the budget that were provided through the town and the state.

So these potential cuts are $1.459

million.

And when you look at that, though, if we were, if the priorities committee was to maintain the 2.7626%

increase over FY25, all of those cuts or, you know, a set of cuts at a similar degree would be necessary in order to bridge that gap.

Again, all of the cuts that we've shown in the step two are all have significant impacts on the district.

We certainly would, if needing to make some of those cuts, try to prioritize them in conjunction with discussions at the table.

But there aren't cuts within that next round that really don't have significant impact on students.

That first round, again, those first couple of cuts of elementary sections because of enrollment could be done in a way that really maintains, but all of the cuts after that really have significant impact either on the middle school, elementary school, high school, or district in school-wide administration to support students in sharing.

Now, you know, in addition to the cuts, there are several unmet needs that we didn't bring to the table and were not prioritized as additions, but we just wanted to show you some of the things that came up during that discussion.

So they include additional technology support that we've discussed.

Again, we have more and more devices and more and more used by teachers and students and really, you know, in order to be functioning more properly and more responsibly in technology, having additional support.

There are math specialists and literacy specialists, both at heights, but also at the middle school level.

Those middle school ones were cut back last year, and those are really important to provide even more robust tier two interventions for kids, as well as, you know, making sure that both students in general ed and on IEPs have opportunities for, you know, kind of short-term interventions that allow them to grow and progress when they're struggling in a certain subject or on a certain topic within that subject.

More adjustment counselors at the high school, especially one to support students that are coming back from, you know, either medical leaves or hospitalizations or struggling with chronic absenteeism, as well as we cut back a social studies teacher last year, which made it more difficult to have, you know, good class sizes as well as fully, you know, make sure that every student could get the courses that they wanted. So these are unmet needs that did not make it into our priority needs just because of the status of the budget, but there are certainly things that in a good budget year would have. Thank you very much, Peter and Ellen, and I know how much work went into this.

So I'm going to start with Avi.

Thanks, Julie, and thank you, Dr. Botello, for the presentation and Ellen for your work on this as well.

Julie, just real quick before I ask my budget question, I wanted to say something before we jumped into the budget presentation, but I wanted to look through my emails and just make sure that I had this right before I said something out loud. I do just want to be clear with the public, and by the way, I know it's really unfortunate that we're now into another school committee meeting in which one of our student athletes is still in need of our positive thoughts and our prayers, and so I know I speak for all of us when I say that we're thinking positive thoughts and extending our prayers to not only him but also his family.

I do just want to say that I had confirmed with the football program at one point since this injury that concussion baseline was a requirement of all football players this season. I can't speak for other sports.

I hope that that was in fact something, but I have seen the email that was sent to families with the process for them to go through that, and so I do know that baseline concussion testing was something that was required of football players this season.

Jumping into my budget question, Dr. Patello, under unmet needs, and I understand we can't dive into specifics because, you know, union negotiations and rules and whatnot, but under unmet needs, I know I didn't see anything there about our instructional assistants, but I don't think it's a secret that we're in negotiations with instructional assistants.

I've heard you speak not only in meetings that I've been part of, but also here at the table over the last few years about the importance of our instructional assistants.

Last week, this committee expressed in really no uncertain terms that special education and the improvements throughout our special education is a top priority of this committee and this community. I would just ask that at some point through this budget process, you communicate the needs to provide instructional assistants in places where perhaps it's been communicated to us that we're lacking.

Also, what the training looks like that some of our instructional assistants have expressed, they believe that is required in order to strengthen our special education and also other services IAs provide.

And then also, I would just add ask that you clarify, I know you can't specifically talk about the numbers because we're in negotiations, but that you are, I guess I'm assuming based on the conversations you and I have had my role in negotiations and also my trust in you with our budget, that we are taking into account contractual increases to our instructional systems and hopefully striving in future budgets to get our instructional systems to a place where we're at least better off than we are now, if not.

I don't know that we're ever going to reach where we all believe we'd like to be, but I guess I just don't want to let it hang in the air since it didn't mention.

There were a couple positions I saw you added back, but I just, I know one unmet need in this district is compensation for our IAs and training.

Yeah, I think that's important.

And I think for, you know, especially for future presentations and for other audiences that don't understand what you're saying, that we're, you know, that is on our minds, I can add that as a, just for clarity because I'd certainly, you know, the more support we can get funding-wise, the more we're able to have, you know, greater flexibility in, you know, making sure that, you know, RIS are compensated as well as we can possibly can, as well as making sure that other factors that allow for them to be effective and have those positions filled are met.

Thank you.

Thank you, Avi. Jeremy?

Thank you for putting this together.

I'm glad that we're getting a look at it a little earlier this year.

What were some of the top items when you guys put together your zero-based budget that were just below the line of cutting?

I think in the budget subcommittee, we had asked for a few options and kind of an understanding of the ranking.

So what were the three or four items that you elected to keep?

I know that some other districts that I'm just curious what would those three or four work?

So say that one more time, Jeremy. So when putting together the budget, right?

Yeah. Probably had a priority list if you're doing proper zero-based budgeting.

Yeah. What were the three or four items that made the cut to keep in the budget but just by the skin of the teeth?

And which of the ones that we do cut would be a priority add back? Like, I was surprised to see the elementary school classes size ranges a little bigger than the middle school in this budget.

So I was just hoping you could address like what you would add back first and also the three or four things that you considered cutting but kept.

And I'll explain the reason for that.

The, when you look at the, like a cut of a teacher at the elementary school, you know, and looking at all the different sections in the size of class sizes at the school, if you cut back one, the number is the result of that.

So it's, it's, it's not that there's any aim to have the elementary in that range that is discussed.

It just means if you were to cut a position, that would be the result at the lower elementary.

That would be resolved just to cut one position.

So, and so there's a part of what the middle school, part of what helps the middle school a little bit to be a little bit more even and, and have a little bit more control over the numbers is, there's one middle school so you can spread kids more evenly.

When you have three elementary schools, it creates, you know, a minor in efficiency that can, you know, by result in pumping one, you know, like reducing one section across the 11, you know, the 11 sections of the school to, you know, increase that one school in one of the sections more so than the others.

So that's what, yeah, but per that math, the lower end of the range would be below, right, if we're talking about rounding, so.

Yeah.

And that's not the case in what you presented.

Say that one more time.

So if it's a lumpiness issue and the range reflects for it to be across schools.

No, the range is not across schools.

The range, that range would be for, you know, kind of one school.

You would take, so say if you had, a situation with, so I can give you an example, you had a situation where you might have 81 kids in four sections.

And that's, say, the smallest, you know, group in a particular grade in one of the schools.

If you took that 81 and you divided it by three instead of four, then those, you know, those, let me just do that.

Those, you know, three sections would be 27.

The other two schools would, you know, kind of remain where they're at. and, but though, that also might entail the need as new kids come in to shuffle kids and bus kids across the district a bit.

So, but that range is not for the entire grade. It would be for one school if a cut was made in that one school.

And, yeah, so that's, that's, and actually, yeah, there's one that I see that's 76. So it would be, like, that's where you see that potential at 26 if you cut at that grade level, it would be more at 26.

So this would be the range in just one of the elementary schools and not across?

Depending on, if there were multiple cuts in a certain grade, it could be more than one. But, yes, if there was just one cut in that grade level, that's what would result.

It depends on how many, you know.

Okay. I can follow up after to better understand that, but I'm more interested in what the three or four that just made the cut to keep were.

You mean three or four things that we were considered cutting that we didn't?

Right. Because at the budget subcommittee, we had asked for some options and kind of a range around, you know, just a view of, like, what was considered.

SPEAKER_UNKNOWN: Um, there really wasn't much. We went so deep in coming to this, getting to 27626.

There really wasn't a lot below that that we were, this is incredibly deep, like, more deep than, you know.

Um, it's touching every school.

Um, it's, it's touching every department.

It's touching administration.

Um, so there really was not, um, there was really not much below this, to be honest.

I mean, obviously, we're going to keep on overturning every rock and seeing if there's anything we're missing, but this is, um, such a deep cut.

Um, you know, if, if we were initially, we were thinking about, you know, kind of shooting for a different target that was a little higher than 27626, but since that's the, our working target, we did it. And, and, you know, there, um, and we look at that, you know, I, it's hard to say, but I think, um, we would certainly be trying to protect the, you know, elementary sections that were, you know, up 25, 26, 27, especially in the early grades.

Um, we certainly would be, looking at every high school department in, in trying to predict the best we can. If there's class sizes that were both, you know, too high, but also restricting offerings for kids while knowing that we have to be as efficient as possible while trying to provide offerings.

So there might be a, you know, a department like last year, we did reduce a social studies section because of a retirement.

Um, and, you know, for the very most part, kids were still able to get all their offerings, but there might have been a handful of kids who had to wait till the next year to get an offering.

Um, and so, in an elective, so we'd be looking at each of those very individually, uh, based upon, but some of that stuff we don't know absolutely until actually kids select classes about how it's going to actually impact, um, you know, what kids want. We have to predict it based upon what's been the pattern.

Um, but I'd say those, you know, those are two areas if we were cutting less would be areas that we looked at very, very, um, closely to try to, to try to not reduce.

Um, you good, Jeremy?

Yeah, I can let Dan ask his question.

Okay, Dan? Yeah, Jeremy, and any of the folks, this is, you know, again, I think it's good we're having these discussions early on.

Certainly, you know, reach out to us in the, in between meetings so that, you know, if there's certain things that you really want to understand more deeply or, you know, understand the complexity of them sometimes is what it is, don't hesitate to reach out.

Go ahead.

Yeah, thanks to everyone.

who put together these options.

I really mean that to our administrators, our teachers.

I know this process is difficult.

There are long hours, lots of people involved.

I saw that our guidelines that we provided, the administration were reflected in the presentation.

I saw the options that we asked for were in there and I just want you to know that it's noticed and it's appreciated.

And we know that this is just the beginning of this conversation and we'd appreciate that too.

There are two requests for information that I have that I think might help this committee.

They would certainly help me. and the first is if as part of a future presentation, I'm not expecting it tonight, if we could hear more of the specifics about that high school assistant principal position.

In the case of the elementary assistant principal position, the special education position, we heard very clearly that things were breaking in our special education program by not having that position.

We heard specifics about that and we heard that that impact was direct and severe and I just haven't heard that case yet made for that high school assistant principal position.

There may be a case to be made for it but I just haven't heard it yet and had the specifics so I know that the value those positions have, my father was an assistant principal at high school for many, many years but in an environment like this, we know there are just going to be essential services that we're not going to be able to meet in full and I like the benefit of those specifics so that we can evaluate every option versus every other option.

That would be a big help if we could get more information about that.

And I have one other request for information.

So if in the spring we need to make, or maybe the late winter, we need to make the kinds of severe cuts that we saw anticipated in this presentation, I'm talking about those deep teacher cuts and I agree with what everything Dr. Patel said, touching every part of our programs, you know, some of these options involve maybe cutting classes or even entire programs of our schools.

Nobody wants to see that.

So I hope the town can find more money, allocate more money. I hope we're not in that dire situation, but if we are, I'd want to explore every alternative in that situation.

I'd want to do everything we can to preserve our instructional position.

So in line with doing that full evaluation, there's one option I felt might be missing from this list and I've spoken about it last year and you'll recognize it right away when I say it.

It would really be helpful for me if we could have an analysis of what moving to a department head model would mean. I'm talking about moving away from our curriculum coordinator model.

I've heard the value that those coordinator positions have and all the good work that they do and that's real and I know that they help our teachers and our administrators.

I've heard all about it and I accept it, but we're only talking about really deep difficult cuts here and not every district has those positions and I just like to understand what the trade-offs would be.

You know, if a teacher misses work, there's a real direct, immediate, severe impact on student learning in the classroom.

When we're talking about coordinators, that impact might be real, but it's attenuated.

And so I just like to do our full diligence and explore what moving to a department head model would mean. I know it might mean more work for some of our teachers. Nobody wants that, but maybe in this situation it's the least bad option for everyone, including teachers, when the alternative is cutting instructional positions. So that information and analysis would be very helpful to me, maybe for others on the committee as well. So thank you.

Sorry, Adam.

Thanks.

I think other people have raised a lot of good points and issues. I just wanted to echo back to maybe something that folks have touched upon just to say again, because I think it's important.