School Committee - Grafton Public Schools - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the January 20th school committee meeting. Uh first order of business is public comment. Do we have any public comment? Okay, we're going to hold for a moment for technical difficulties. Make sure our friends on Zoom can join us. Okay. I think we're It looks like we're on. Oh, yeah. I know we're on. I'm trying to share the screen. Oh, okay.

It's not stuck on. Gotcha. This is the hardest thing I do. There's Steve. While we work on screens, I would love to have Nicole Pro Nicole McDonald join us to talk about CPAC and a special education update. Okay. And we'll just wait for those slides and maybe dance or sing. [laughter]

Kids best life. Uhhuh. I love that. Always. Look at this. I guess we all have them. We do all have them. It's just the people at home who have them, right? But we can.

There it is. It's really pretty. I like your board your template. Not just my dress. That's why she likes it. Like that. Good job. Just for you. [laughter] and look like your dress with the background the green. I'll have it out of it. It's really all that matters. Maybe you do a I mean I can get out if I can. I'm going to do that. Yeah, maybe that's best. Yeah, clearly. Yeah, we record people on. Oh, good. Okay.

I mean, not good, but at least we didn't hang up on people. is all I'm saying. It looks like your screen is also on. It does like you have cuz I'm not That's totally sound and I don't know what

Oh, it's lunch. I don't know. Maybe it's I've completely restarted. Oh, it's down. Yeah, that see how it's fine. Yep. It's sharing a different screen. You're not Dave. Oh, no. No. Never have to something. Yeah, but something's a miss something. What's wrong with them? Doctor, unless it's you. It's good. It's on. It is on their end. Okay. [laughter] But now they

Thank you. Yeah. I think um Are you comfortable, Nicole? Just kind of talking starting. Want me to wait or No, I think we can start. Okay. Wait. [clears throat] Sure. She comfortable with that. Pretty slides. Are we still getting recorded? We're good. Like this will be recorded. like they're Yeah, it's being filmed. Okay. Like nothing's happening. Then we should 100% posted it as a hybrid hybrid, right? Isn't available. Got it. So I would you okay? Yeah. Happening. Look at that. Correct. Right.

Okay. Definitely not the charter review committee. [snorts] Here we go. It's looking good. Yeah. Good sign. missing. [snorts] Why? Good.

[clears throat]

I don't know where they're at, but I'm going to start practice session. So, we're here live. I was at MAFD last weekend. We all had to share a fun fact about ourselves that some people didn't know and you did get. But what was your fun fact? My fun fact was that I'm in an improv on Wednesday nights. That is fun. That's a good one. I don't know how fun. Well, they were actually pretty impressed by it, which was weird. Yeah. I don't think any of us will win improv group on Wednesday nights. So,

I'm actually taking [laughter] it to Christie that would like No, that's okay. Use your skill set. No, it's fine. I'm not in it this thing in a It's me. I'm playing. No, not at all. What about a grand thing? I think the people I didn't have my cup locked on my way here and poured tea all over my jacket which was why I don't have a jacket that's very cold out and I have no jacket. Well, I do have one. It's soaking wet.

They used to dye things with tea back in the old days. [laughter] They still can buy that now. They do. Wait, what? They still dye eggs with uh with tea. You do? They told me maybe I don't have a microwave either, right? Microwave. My mother just got a microwave. I've never first time ever. Did you as a kid? Oh, wow. We never had one when I was a kid. My mom was petrified of them. No, I don't like mic. As of last week, she Oh, jeez. Oh, wait. That's a fun fact about Might as well have had like a rhinoceros. It was shock. A lot of people were nervous about her. Yeah, like the radiation. Yeah, my grandmother's scared. No, we sleep with phones next to our heads.

Yeah, I know. Good point. So, that's a fun fact about Jay. Another fun fact about Jay that he's been to every state. Really? We're good on our live, but whatever this screen is. That's not that's not on the spot. Just like very cool. Um I know that's what you have come up with if you had more time. I haven't changed. There's not a lot of time back. Oh, there are people listening to it. Oh wow. Okay. At least one was on the Zoom and two. Yeah. That it wasn't working.

That's good. That I love that it was Yep. That would be us. It's only 7:08. Like it feels like it's been a really long I know cuz we're all just staring at sharing fun, right? Yeah. Go in a circle. Is that a fun fan? You got nothing to do. Nothing. It doesn't have to be that fun. Like somebody said he likes pork. Charlie like my fun fact is he really and then we all talk to him about it. So it was like something like we all share. That's fun. I don't like pork. I do like poor. Okay.

Because that is not my fun fact. No. And what's my fun fact? Oh, I've had brunch with Mr. Miyaki. Oh, what a fun fact. I went to high school with his daughter. That's so cool. That he came to visit and he took us to brunch. Wow. That's cool. That's very cool fact. I don't think anyone tops that fun fact. I don't know. There's definitely more fun facts out there for people. I met Henry Winkler and he's fabulous. Henry Wbush seems like the nicest man. Yeah. And he's like great with kids and just super guy and writes children books. We have two of them. Autographs, too.

I love Always did. Yeah. I'm glad he's [clears throat] a good guy. Lately, anytime I've said somebody's a good person, something's bad. Immediately knocked out. Please stop. It's like I'm a I'm cursed. All right, we're going to try start webinar. Okay, but usually when I go into practice recording in progress. All right, I think this is good. That looks very promising. All right, can we share us? We can try. Let's see. Well, let's see what they do. It's I got you. It's not live. I get it. What his They have to Oh, go. So, it's live. Yeah. So, I can try to share. I don't know why they're not sharing. We're extremely serious people. Here we go.

All right. Thank you, Evan. I give Evan full credit. Okay, we're back to Nicole Square. All right. And our CPAC and special education updates. Awesome. Well, thanks for having me. Um, so I'm here to talk about Lucy Park and our events of the year. Um, so I'm the cold press. I'm the chairperson. We have an inter secretary this year, but she is with a sick child. Um, and then Stella is our spokesman. Can you get Yes. Yeah. We're yours.

Oh, switching it. Yeah, use that one.

Okay, there we go. Um, so I won't read the mission statement, but basically the SEAC is fueled by love and advocacy for our children with special needs and aspires to positively influence best practice, collaborative partnership, regularly scheduled interactions with specialized department and parents and supportive resources and mentorship. Um, so this is our schedule for the remainder of the year. On Thursday the 12th, we'll have a um regular meeting. Also, I believe that's the one we're going to have Melissa or a preschool come and chat about um preschool enrollment and initial eligibility process. Um we'll probably also have one more about ESY and the ESY programming. You just haven't determined which one. [clears throat] Um then we just locked down our date for the everyday hero awards. We're going to be doing it a little early this year. Um, but then I feel like the last few years it's been like a mad dash in May competing with like concerts and you know sports and all that fun stuff. Um, we've also been having regular coffee and conversations at the with CCC in Grafton. Um, just about a decent turnout and it's just a nice way to have another opportunity during the daytime to chat with parents.

Um, yeah conversation. Um, we have a voluntary mailing list that we started last year. Um, basically parents can opt in to receive emails and it's basically the same information I post on our Facebook page. Um, and I also share the bigger events on the GRON district page which usually needs approval but [laughter] um, like I just posted an hour ago the info about the awards ceremony and nominations. Yeah. Um so last year we talked about um super board elections. We talked about the graphic rep and the inclusive programming.

The sound does not seem to be working for the people on Zoom. What is it then? That's the sound. The sound isn't working. that I'm guessing that's the corresponding whatever is going on. Yeah, it looks to unmute yourself. Should you be should be muted? Okay. No, no, no. This is the worst meeting. No. Well, not no. It's the tech most technically challenged. I thought it was fun. I have 2,100 day dual lingo streaks. That's a great

fun. What is dual lingo streak? That's amazing. What like a lot? All of them. That's [laughter] amazing. Just a little bit. Um yeah. So last year we talked about high school um transition planning, a couple staff versus a high school kid. was uh no

thank you in our basic rights presentation we talked about the evaluation and eligibility from the federation. Um we also did the preschool process last year because preschool comes up every year. Um, we also did just like general upper elementary Q&A talking about the transition from elementary to middle and how that goes and then live. Of course, we had our everyday ceremony last night. Nicole, I'm going to stop you on messages that people on Zoom cannot hear us. Oh, no.

So, whatever, however they patch in the sound must not turn on closed caption pretty easily. anybody that work more accessible. I'm sorry, Nicole. I hate to keep interrupting the [snorts] right with our cats. We're used to the modification. [laughter] Your slides are really pretty.

It really is a great temple. All right. If you're on Zoom and you can't hear us, we're also not talking. I should say we should make incessant noise so they know if they can hear us.

Little man trouble. [laughter] Oh. Oh. I have no idea. Can you hear me now? There's a lot of feedback on these questions. I think once you turn on this microphone.

Yeah. They can't hear us. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Uh I think should we should we continue? I don't know. I mean there are people on Zoom. Yeah. I don't know if Yeah. Now if we can if people can't hear us now they're talking. I don't think they can hear you. Can I get on the Zoom? That baby just I think we can. The problem is on the back end. So I can't log in most likely.

I think it's a patch. Good. And the volume on the mics is super high. [laughter] I know. Usually no one can hear us. I know. It's just that

Jack may have explained Jack. It's probably Jack's fault. So GCTV can hear us on the TV. Like so when I watch it that way, but if they're on Zoom, they cannot. my first I think might Can you put the link to J2 TV in the Zoom chat? I don't think it's required by opening just an option. I know but when you make it available they feel like it has to work. people may not have access. You can watch it live on your website, but you can't.

Yeah, which we don't have anyway. We had up stuck. This is a very exciting meeting when there's in a room. It's like Yeah, we've like crossed the streets or something.

You can't I can hear it. I just don't speak it to the feedback. Okay. That's good.

Thanks. Okay. All right. Work on it. Keep going. All right.

All right. Let's keep going. Where was I?

Okay. So this year we grafting came back again and discussed their new inclusive programming. They talked about new inclusion program where they're providing accommodations and supports for students in after school programs um and summer programming. We're going to have high school that was later in the year we'll have high school secondary later. Uh we had a BSEA presentation on facilitating meetings and mediation which was great with Mara. Uh we'll had less in the preschool process. We'll talk about ESY. We'll have our everyday hearing ceremony on April 30th and then we'll have switching our board elections to June. Um that was a decision last year because it was tough being appointed in the funnel and not having that time to like learn thing it wasn't everyone's like boots on the ground you know so we thought we appointed people in June then we would have a summer for me to like pass on things or meet them or whatever to hand um and we have our CF website which has which has a link to our calendar, readings and resources to the federation and DCA and all that. Um has links to our previous agendas and meeting minutes. um update since last J. See if I can get along subject to open meeting law so we don't know um official tour of our agenda to the town and everything ahead of meeting so we can do it more like casual conversation trainings for which is nice makes it less questionable. So just for some people every year during those last year we had 61

nominations which was a 20% increase from the year before 17 presentation 14 this Great.

Thank you. That was great. And we that was we kept interrupting you. So, thank you. Oh, wait. See before Nicole goes, the sound is not working. It is working on the GCTV. Yeah. Okay. We don't take questions. So maybe they put in the chat or something,

right? But even though we don't typically do that. public link to the website with their website. Yeah. No. Yeah. There's nothing on this. And you know what? If somebody self-report, I mean, we have to get business done. Yeah. Always have all this technology like Yeah. It's public. It's going to be replayed. Yep. People can watch the replay. You certainly let the state know this happened and then we'll It's not like we're gonna Okay. Great. I think Right. I think [snorts] I think I think everybody wants to keep going. So, um Nicole, do your name. Jason, can you put anything in the chat?

We can or you can put it [laughter] in. We need to keep moving forward. Sorry. Yeah, we're good. If you could put it in the chat, that would be great. Thank you, Nicole. press while we're putting things in the chat. Is there are there themes that are coming up like say in the coffee in conversations that are sort of interesting or that we should know about or um nothing interesting?

No, it's more like I've had a handful of new families like So yes, we have two actually reached out to me when they were still connected. Awesome. Right.

Yeah. Um, so that's nice. we can be doing your you know this is my third year so thank you

I guess I should eventually hand over the rings [laughter]

So yeah, I think networking would be nice because I think you know I try to get um a program going to see bridge coordinators which other district cases like parent volunteers at each school to be like the in between communicators between us and the bad because there's That's it. I felt like I want this.

I tried to get together. I had like two schools and I didn't try this and I like that. So to get all together so next year, you know, be able to do that one.

Yeah. Because if you talk about like students like looks different like high schoolach people. [laughter] So, I will say to join your don't get to you don't have your child here and I think that feel like you know participate doesn't want to give you as many demos as possible.

Yeah. and all that. So, you know, do you feel as though you're getting more attendance conversations virtually than you are in person? Uh, the coffees are in person. Oh, well, it says meetings. It says regular meet and held virtually. Oh, those are the Okay, that's the meetings. Okay. So, the conversation are still in person. How do you have a lot of attendance? Cuz I remember I used to go to them and there was like not much.

Yeah. So, this year we've had an average of fiveish parents, which is the same five or they did the is it like all um No, like last um last month we had PAL come in and do like a presentation. Uh don't ask me what the acronym stands for right now. Parent Professional Advocacy League. Thank you. [snorts]

Um Beth would be very disappointed. Yeah. So the so they came in like chatted with parents, shared mental health resources and such. So that was nice. Um we had a decent group in that one. But yeah, I mean we tried to mix it up because like some people can't do evenings because of their child. So they might do daytime and then we shifted it a little bit because there were a handful of preschool parents who wanted to come but then dropped off time. So, we did it like 9:30 to kind of thing. We were doing it a little earlier, thinking, "Oh, drop the kids off and come kind of thing, but then forgetting the time difference." We brought food. Yeah. Food entices anybody. Coffee. Come on.

Come on. And the church is nice and cozy. And yeah, someone on the buckle page donated me a cure egg to you for something got me. Yeah. Right. Anyone have anything else? No. Thank you. Thanks so much, Nicole, for a the years of [laughter] leading this charge um and for putting together these great slides. Yeah. I just got to recruit. Oh, yeah. I need to recruit some board members. [laughter] Me, myself, and I Yeah. No, you better. Yeah, you do. Yeah, we can help with that. Just tell them it's one meeting a month. That's what I do.

It really? Yeah. Yeah. [snorts] I'm a control freak, so I do a lot of the task and sharing and all that. So, it really just be like the behind the scenes stuff and planning all that. So, thanks, Nicole. Thank you, Nicole. Beautiful. Hold that mic. Yeah, I heard that she's not allowed. I think so. Yep. Yeah, that's good. Please move. I trust your trust me. Want me to get started? Yes, Nicole McDonald, please get started.

So, thank you for having me back. Feel like it wasn't that long ago, but maybe it was. Um that I was here. um you know going to get into a little bit more information in our my presentation today but um I know last time I was here I talked a lot about placements and the different types of placements and um you know out of district placements what those look like all that good stuff so I'm hoping to give a little bit more um scope in that area um so this is my topics for tonight um the numbers making some a little bit of comparisons to um some area districts. Um what makes Grafton unique with regard to our special education programming? Um and then I really wanted to celebrate, you know, some success stories for, you know, students and things like that, but there's confidentiality reasons where I can't share, you know, a whole lot. So, I figured I really wanted to highlight some of our um special education staff members across the district um as a means of really sharing some of that success that we have within um Grafton public schools and our special education uh department and then leaving the end for any questions of course. So the numbers um so Grampton special education we have um as of our October sims which is our reporting to the department of education we have 592 students that are special education students on IEPs. Um that is about 18ish to 19% um of district which is uh pretty common in in um area districts. Our state average typically right now is about 21%. So we are lower than the state average with um students that are eligible for special education services.

Um at this point we have 35 students that are considered out of district students. So when we talked last time I was here, those are our students that are public day school, private day school or residential uh programming. Um which is approximately 1% of our students. Um and that is like as of today. Um obviously that es and flows as we kind of go through um each school year. Um, right now I do have three outstanding referrals for um, students that potentially will be placed out of district. Um, and I also have stu two students planned to return between this uh, school year and the beginning the start of next school year which is great. Um, and then we also have a number of students that will graduate or age out this year. So, um, when I say age out, we, you know, I think we talked last time that students, um, in under special education, um, if they require, uh, services beyond their 18th birthday, beyond high school in order to receive free and appropriate public education, they may get services up until their 22nd birthday. So, a lot of people say age out, it means they're turning 22. Um, and that's when adult services pick up any um, additional support that they might need. Do you I'm sorry. Do you hear this noise coming back to us?

Yeah. Like something like a telephone call. Yeah. Yeah. Huh? It's my voice. Oh, it's your voice coming from the which I don't sound [laughter] boy. It's like haunting my No. [laughter] Keep going. Sorry. I don't think there's anything from that. We got to keep going. [laughter] Keep going. I'm with you. All right.

All right. So, here's um some comparisons that um I know um in a lot of our you know uh budget discussions and things like that. I tried to use some of the school districts we're using in comparison for some of those discussions as well to help just ease our our um exploration of this. Um so the percentage of special education students um this was again as of um uh the 2024 you'll see it linked at the top of our slides um special education performance uh results from the department of education. So we were at 18.9% at that time in which the the data was collected and you'll see some comparisons across the board from different um area districts and then our state average at the end which is about 21%. Um you know as you've seen that we are kind of like around middle of the road with regard to our number of special education students. Um when we talk about different factors related to special education, there are a lot of factors that play into that role. Um so, you know, some districts that have more um general education supports, they have potential smaller um classroom sizes, things that affect student progress um often does affect our special education numbers in a lot of ways. some students that maybe have a disability um that might be in a school district that has different classroom sizes, different tier 1 and tier 2 supports that are provided. Although they may have a disability, maybe they're qualifying under a 504 where they need accommodation and they don't necessarily need specialized instruction. Sometimes that, you know, continuum of service

also can affect a school district's um special education numbers and how um they're found eligible, what their progress looks like with regard to effective progress, all of that good stuff. Um which are exactly our questions that we ask for any folks that have been a part of the special education process. Does the student have one or more disabilities? Is the student making effective progress? Is that progress a result of the disability is something we ask and then do they need specialized instruction or related services. Um so there's a lot of factors that play into that eligibility number for a lot of districts. Here is our numbers which um is exactly what I presented last time. We came um when I last time came to um the school committee meeting. We have 11 uh collaborative students, 16 private day, seven residential. Um that's 34. This was the numbers from when I presented in October. I just said we had 35. Like I said, there's kind of a moving target with regard to some of those things. Um what I like about this information, it does highlight some of the areas of need um in which some of our in district uh programming and support um maybe isn't providing that same level of support that an out ofd district program might have. Um so we have 18 of those students are social, emotional and behavioral students that are related to social emotional needs. Um we do have nine students that have behavioral needs associated with autism spectrum disorder. Um five students that are have a disability in the area of sensory. So that might be a student that is deaf and heart of hearing, a student that is considered blind. Um, and then we have two students that may be out due to academic needs, a specific learning

disability, um, of of fair significance in which our supports aren't providing the right supports. So [sighs] with some of that um you know I do like to and I say this in a in a way that's you know we've we've really tried um over the last I think this is my sixth year as um in the special education administrative world um our goal is to as we talked about when we talked about placement. Um the rule of thumb is to um create or find the right supports for a student with special education needs. We have worked really hard within our district to create things within district to hopefully shift some of the numbers that we have for students in which we have to find. So when I say find, I'm really talking about those audit district placements in which we end up um having students in. So, as we work through some of the programming that we've had social emotionally, um we've had our social emotional program, which is called student success program, SSP, at Grafton High School for a lengthy period of time. Um we about 3 to four years ago started the lighthouse program at Grafton Middle School, which helps support our students with social emotional needs. The reason I'm bringing this up is because as you saw our numbers that social, emotional, and behavioral component is one of our largest drivers um for out of district placements. Um and we have this past year just started our elementary program which um is called the Hawk Nest at Milbury Street Elementary School which I think we talked a little bit about last time I met at um with you all as well.

Um, with all of that slowly coming into place, you know, we do have students that maybe didn't have that resource in second, third, fourth grade that did end up in an out of district placement. Um, something I do like to kind of as we're we're talking about some of these things is remind folks that like um these are are kids, right, and students that have been potentially attending the same school for five, six, seven years. It's not always as simple as um saying, "Well, we have that program back here and start pulling those kids back." It's a very significant collaborative effort between myself and Chris Kitell, the family of those students, the students themselves, as well as our indist program staff on making those things happen for students so that they can access um certain things that of course they have the eligibility to access when they're out of district school like Nicole highlighted, prom, graduation, things of extracurriculars. Those are all available to all of our students. However, it does make it more complicated when you might be going to a school that's over an hour away to come back and get to art club on Tuesdays in the afternoon at Grafton Middle School. we make it happen and we have made it happen for a lot of out of district students but it does get a lot um harder to do that. Um especially when some of those students don't have connections to any other kids that might be attending those those after school activities. Um so across my six years in this time we have between Bob and I previously and now Chris and I um have brought back um about 12 or so students um along the

way. I will say all of those students have come back into one of our specialized programs whether that's a social emotional program or our intensive needs programs. Um so our in district programming and our out of district programming are so incredibly linked um in a lot of ways. So I I want to highlight that's a huge success for us as a district. Um especially given all of those factors, right? So some of those students may have been out for five, six, seven years in a different school. And through that collaboration between all of us, we've created an environment where it's safe, um comfortable, and really successful to bring a lot of those kids back. Um so I will highlight that as a big success for us over the past you know couple of years. Um and then on top of that some of our in district programming as we have talked about a number of times we have a number of students that have tuitioned into our program in district um and some of that along the way. So when I started in the special education administrator role very fondly 60 years ago um with me and Bob, we had two students tuitioned in to the district um over the course of the last six years. Right now we are at 10 students tuitioned into the district. Um but we've also had other students that have tuitioned in um and moved or tuitioned in and aged out or graduated or things like that. So, um it's probably been um actually like 13 students that we have been able to bring into Grafton Public Schools, develop a community for them, um that that wasn't present in their um school district that they were previously attending. So, that's really I think something that makes us pretty unique. Um and I highlighted some of our unique services. So, uh, one thing I

wanted to really highlight, as you saw, are, um, academic numbers for students that require out of district, so a specific learning disability, there's only the two students. We have really robust, strong reading services across the board for students with specific learning disabilities, specifically dyslexia. A lot of that effort and work was done by Lisa Rice, Kristen Peron, folks that have really honed in on early intervening services, screening for that. We are probably one of the best districts, and I'll say that out loud, one of the best districts at ensuring that we're following those really um really robust dyslexia guidelines that the Department of Education has put out there. Um and still continuing to review students progress, making sure we're doing the right intervention for students is something that I think I have conversations about daily. Um, so it is something that's pretty robust here in Grafton that I that I I'm very proud of and I I would credit Wall for really kind of honing in on that with with Lisa Rice which she presented I think multiple times about about that those interventions in the past. um our intensive needs programming which we've talked about a number of times um providing uh um special education teacher support related services support inclusionbased support for students pair professionals um and then like I said our social emotional and behavioral support um we do have strong um BCBAS um and behavioral learning staff um and I will add that our additional um in district programming including our SS SP program, a lighthouse program, a Hawk Nest program. Um, still developing but really becoming um more robust and and um giving students the real services they need. [snorts]

So, I did want to include, like I said, you know, I can't really speak to specific students and their needs, but I wanted to include a little bit about some of our teachers and staff here in Grafton. And I'm talking louder because I get excited about, you know, the staff and everything that they're doing. So, I included a couple staff. I did ask them if I could include their pictures. Some begrudgingly said yes. Um, so I want to highlight Lin Louiso. She is one of our special education teachers reading um specifically at Grafton Middle School. Um, Lynn has been in Grafton for I think it's 17 years. So, a lengthy period of time as a special education teacher. Really got into reading specifically. Um, I believe she was at one of the elementary schools to start um and then moved to the middle school to really support the reading program at the middle school which is wonderful and and she is so so skilled at what she does. Um Sarah Daso on here is one of our LPNs um in our nursing staff. She works in our Milbury Street intensive program with um our medically fragile students. She has um been with us for at least the last three to four years. She was at South Grafton Elementary School supporting students and moved up to Milbury Street with them. Um, Kathleen Roco, if anyone knows, Kathleen Roco is probably the nicest human being that has ever lived of all time. Um, she is one of our par profofessionals at North Grafton Elementary School. Um, has also been with us for well over 10 years. Um, and works in our intensive needs program at North Grafton with some of our littles. Um, and like I said, is just the most lovely human in life. Um, Keith Oliver is a speech and language

pathologist at Milbury Street Elementary School. On my list of teachers, he would hate that I'm saying this. He has worked here the longest. Um, 1999 he was hired here at Grafton Public Schools as a speech and language pathologist. Um, I love his shirt in this picture. So it says you down with AAC which is alternative and [laughter] augmentative communication. Um so I want to highlight the great work he does at Milbury Street along with Kathy Karu at Milbury Street. They kind of come as a a pair. Um then I have Tiffany uh Benan here who is at North Street Elementary School. She's a special education teacher there. Um Tiffany has been with us for just about three years, just over three years. um and is one of our most flexible staff. Um has hopped in and helped in every area that you can imagine a special education teacher would hop in and help in um and I actually believe is also a Grafton resident, has children in um the school district as well and and just a really great asset for us. Um, Marco on here is one of our uh he was previously a high school paraprofessional. He has recently moved to our gain program. Um, and so he's one of our job coaches at the gain program this year. Um, he has volunteered for just about everything you can imagine after school. Um, he's coached a number of our unified sports. Um, just an exemplary um, par profofessional job coach for us here in Grafton. Uh Melissa McGovern hated her school picture. She'd hate that I also said that. So she made me replace her school picture, so I did. Um a [snorts] lot of a lot of our teachers are very upset about their power school picture when I pull it up.

But uh Melissa McGovern is our high school um intensive needs program teacher. Um she has been in the district for 15 years. um does life skills at Grafton High School um and really just is makes her classroom a welloiled machine. She's a calming, very mellow presence within the classroom and has really done a lot with the students, a very unique and differing um uh needs within her classroom. So, she is just wonderful. Um, Amanda Williams is one of our BCBAs and she is at South Grafton Elementary School as a BCBA. She actually was a pair professional with us previously. Um, and kind of got went on got her BCBA and stayed on with us. So, she I think has been with us since 2017 or so. So, a number of years as a PAR and then a BCBA. Um, I like her background dynamic. Um, and you know, she really is such a great resource for Southampton Elementary School and the support they provide. [snorts]

Well, my formatting is a little funky. Sorry. Um, any questions? So, um, great presentation. I think um as we're talking about budgets and we talk a lot about out of district placement, this has been really really helpful I think for people to understand um you know how we get to out of district place. It's what we've done to help students come back. I also think it's really interesting and for me it's kind of the first time I've heard us talk about um the power of our SEAL programming to help bring students back into the district.

Yes. um we don't always tie them together and it's really I think powerful for people to hear that. So um I I just think this was an extremely timely I don't have a question. I just want to thank you because I think this was just an incredibly timely presentation. Um and I I really appreciated it. So thank you for putting the time in. Does anyone have an actual question? [laughter]

Okay, great. Um actually I was going to say something similar about the um out of district placements. Um, it's really great to remember that also it's human beings we're talking about, not just not cost drivers. We heard a lot of you can just do you can just last week with the select board. So, it it's nice to hear again how important it is and how this is somebody's life and they're they're might be happy and doing really well at their school and it might be the best thing for the child, the student to stay out of their out of district. and the SEAL programming it sounds like it's it's gonna it's helpful for future too which is great. Um my question for you is 18 to 19%. Have you seen that I can't remember have you seen that number go up? Is that about has that stayed pretty stagnant or are we rising? It's been pretty stagnant across the board. Um I think even when I started in Grafton it was right around the same amount and and that was when Arnold was was here as well um about 10 years ago. every it goes up like 1% down 1% but it's it's pretty solidly in that um range

year after year. Great. Thanks Nicole. Great presentation. Always great to see you. Thank you. Thanks. Y

um I was looking back at your numbers for the for the the other school districts and obviously seeing like Shberry being like right next to us. Are we doing something more that they're not, you know, catching in their students or you also mentioned um having like smaller class sizes? Are they doing something whether, you know, maybe grouping them to get, you know, um yeah, better? I think um you know without obviously uh speaking specifically for like Shrewsbury special education department um I think that they um do from my understanding from um you know interactions with Shbury they do have a lot of um early intervening services they have a lot of tier one tier 2 supports. I would say that they do have a lot of programming for um a a a number of um students with uh emotional disabilities um as well as students that have um you know uh English learner needs that are struggling with maybe adjusting to um you know uh transitioning to the country and different things of that nature. So that um I suspect in in my experience with students with special education needs is something that does help support you know students um that maybe we would find eligible because maybe we don't h have the um you know those as much tier one especially at some of our younger age levels when I talk about our um Hux program our lighthouse program and our SSP program those programs serve special education students but They also serve 504 students. They serve students that maybe haven't been identified with a disability yet. Um so that is something

that we have um just kind of started like trickling down I would say um you know three to four years for our lighthouse program at Grafton Middle School. It's still fairly new you know in the grand scheme of programming goes. We learn new things every um you know year about improvements to make and and of course you know when you have staff turnover and different things like that that can always affect um your programming and how um stable and solidified it is. But I I do know Shrewberry has a lot of like tier one and tier 2 supports um that maybe doesn't always match what we have. Um so that I you know can suspect or hypothesize might be a factor um in some of those numbers um without kind of really too BCBA like to to make a causal effect by [laughter] that. Um but [clears throat] I I do think there's some linkage there. um if you have a lot of robos robust tier one and two supports um it does delay you know sometimes um the need for additional supports out there had something

yeah I just had a quick question on that that comparisons um chart so those numbers are where the student attends right not from their sending school if if we have like a school choice kid that's coming from Northbridge let's say that number is under Grafton and not under Northbridge I'm just curious. Oh, that's a great question. Um, they're considered a school of choice student is considered enrolled in Grafton public schools. So, I didn't ask this question from the Department of Education's numbers, but they're considered enrolled with us. So, we are responsible for their programming. So, it's encapsulated in us. Okay. I was just curious,

what if they're tuitioned in other districts? Um, so even when you look at this, I know, um, you know, also when Jay's making comparisons with, you know, some of the budget stuff and things like that, um, you know, a school district like Northridge is much as as much as we're at 18.9%, they're at 22. Um, so their eligibility factors, they may not have as much programming and things of that nature. Sometimes that happens. Um, so they're actually higher than the state average compared to a lot of um the districts that are on this list. Okay, thank you. Okay,

you can or just tie it, right? Like you can see the the funding the budget the budget, right? The high the less the budget the higher without doing any data or that's my Nicole is not going to comment on that. Yeah, it's such a moving target, you know. I mean, yeah. I mean, you look at Shrewsbury and Westbrow, right? Compared to everybody else. Well, that's the thing. If you have more support, then you know, the less you need. Correct. Right. Well, I mean, sorry, maybe the less identified or Right. like Yeah. Well, right. You need to look for additional supports because it's already there,

right? They have reading interventions like I guess smaller class sizes all of the things and and you know when you look at like a sutton or a mended upton they may have smaller class sizes smaller they're smaller right right yeah I mean that's without doing any research right [laughter] one more quick question your the totals that you had for um for the number of special education students did that include with 504s or that the only students on IEP. Okay. We have a about 160ish students on a um on a 504

at any level, right? Like from minimal accommodations to whatever. That's everybody with a 504. Yep. Whoever needs a 504. So that could be potentially a student that has diabetes or you know something that needs some additional support all the way to students with emotional challenges that might have um a 504 for that. So all students great thank you so much Nicole. She's a really well kind and helpful presentation. Thank you. [clears throat] It's

[snorts] Evan's afraid to move. [laughter] I'm so stressed out for Evan. I'm stressed out for Jake. I'm stressed [snorts] out for like feel like like he's been here longer. I know. Super stressed. Yeah. Evan up with the town budget. Municipal operating budget. Exactly.

Hello. Hi, long time no see. Yeah. Um, so I'm going to run through the budget. Um, this is a document I've already presented. Um, but as is tradition, I'll come up and present with you folks as well and answer any questions that you may have outside of uh our other interactions. [laughter] Now, it was it was supposed to be more uh light-hearted than that, but it sounds pretty glumpy. Um,

maybe I should tonight. So, um, all right, we'll move right past that. So, again, we do this every year. Um, we continue to try to reach out and find what services are valued most in the community. Um, we continue to try to, uh, have a competitive work environment. That's both from a um, cost standpoint, but also from a culture and environmental standpoint. Um, and uh, you know, through my office's work with Jay's office, we do try to continue to fund the public schools as competitively as we can given the budget that we have. Um, so Grafton's um, median income is about 23% higher than the rest of the state. I'm sure that you already know that. [snorts] Um, our home value is just a little bit under the single family house. Um, which is interesting given the demographic, but I think that's more of a east west uh issue than it is kind or not issue, but um representation that it is anything else. Um, and our average tax bill is about $1,000 higher than the state's average tax bill. That's our

uh yeah, there it's an interesting uh data set when you start to play around with the the states um numbers. Um we continue to have a double A stable bond rating. That's really good. Um given our current shifts in our OPED funding that we talk about in a second, um we actually have a pretty good chance next time we bond to be uh listed as AAA, which is the highest in the state. Um, and that's something that we've been working on consistently over the last uh, five years. Um, we have a $46 million unfunded liability uh, in our other post-employment benefit category. Um, however, we are up to about a million dollars, 1.1 uh million, that's 2.3% funded. Um, again, 5 years ago, we had 118,000. So, uh, we are on a good trajectory there. Um, and that $46 million is down from nearly 80 million when we started. Um, 66 million at our last review. So, um, through constant policy changes and, uh, updates to our funding mechanisms and how we're pursuing this, we've able to, our last drop in liability was about $20 million saved, um, between now and, um, 2050. So, um stabilization is healthy at um just under 5.2 million. [snorts] Our free cash um is very healthy. Um we've certified at 6.8 million, [snorts] but um after our file town meeting, we used some of those funds um to fill some other holes in the budget as well as some capital expense. Um we're down to about 5.6 million, which is still very robust for uh where Grafton finds itself historically. Um, and our current fiscal reserves are at 14% of the operating budget. By policy, we we try to be between 11 and 15%. Um, and so we're right where we

need to be. Um, we continue to see a lot of growth. Most of that, as you can see by the the blue, um, is in the residential area. Um, I think we touched on that actually at the select board meeting last week. A lot of this is, um, single family house home growth. Um that's what drove uh both of those um higher assessment years um with a little bit of commercial and a little bit of industrial uh growth as well. Um sorry this is the format changed uh a little bit but um

so these are general fund forecasted revenues. Um, you can see that uh we continue to raise our property tax by the two and a half%. Um, our cherry sheet numbers are probably uh, well, I'd like to say conservative, but they're usually pretty close. Um, and then our offset estimated local and offset receipts as well as our other funding sources stay fairly flat. Um, same thing with our enterprise fund, which is an indirect cost. Um that's the sewer department uh charging off against the town. Um so the the slide that everybody uh likes to see, this is our five-year forecast um with our spending over time. And you can see that if we continue to spend at the rate we spend and if we continue to increase revenue at the rate that we're increasing revenue, um we have a $1.4 4 uh million deficit in year 1, which is fiscal 27. Uh and then all the way out to fiscal 32, we're projecting a $9.7 million deficit. Um I did mention this both times I've given this presentation. Um anything past year three is just us continuing a trend between those three years. Um [snorts] it's less informed than uh say years one and two. And for folks watching Adam and I'm sorry to interrupt 97 is cumulative

correct. Yes, not per year.

Yes. Thank you. Uh yes. So that's the culmination of of everything. So compounding. So if we had an intervention let's say in fiscal 27 or fiscal 28 wherever that is that obviously changes what that deficit number looks like moving forward. Um this year we built our budget based on our Prop 2 and a half uh increase which was uh 1.391 million and we pegged our new growth at $1 million. [snorts] Now last year's new growth came in at 1.2 um which is a little bit higher than what we're projecting this year. I don't think we're going to be below 1.2 but it's uh something that's beyond our control. So we always want to be a little bit on the conservative side um so that we don't find ourselves in a deficit. Um this is our new growth over time. All that this is showing you is that new growth continues to rise. Um we are in a little bit of a a flat spot. So I think uh you know 1.2 is probably about where we're going to live for a little bit provided that the housing market stays where it is. um with some possible um little augmentations for when UPS comes online and is taxed. Um and we have a couple other developments that are in process that might skew that number higher. Um okay, so this is our revenue by category. I'm going to go to the bottom. Our total revenues um $85 million uh including our uh motor vehicle excise tax and um property tax.

So our current total revenue um is 84,187,000. That's different than the cumul cumulative revenue on the other page because that cumulative revenue does include enterprise funds and other funds that are not uh impacting the general fund. Our total expenses 85,616 which leaves us a deficit of $1,428,800. Here is our operating budget at a glance. So, uh you can see general government uh is looking at a change of about 1%. Public safety is a 5% increase. That includes the position for the fire department that the select board talked about last week.

[snorts]

Um, public works looks like uh I we cut them by 25%. Uh, we did not. We changed the way that we um fund our trash program here in Grafton and we created an enterprise fund. Previously, sanitation lived under the public works budget. Um, and so, uh, us taking out all the indirects and everything else along with that just skews that that data down. Um but without that removal it is about a 4 and a.5% increase over last year for inind services. Health and human services is up 3.4. Culture and rec recreation is three. Um you know all about the schools. We've been talking about that. Our unclassifides right now are pegged at uh 9.4%. Um with our debt service at 1.63% increase uh over last year. um since we've last met I don't know if I I can't remember I've given a lot of presentations but our uh initial pass for our GIC numbers is about 10.9%. [snorts] Um and that is a um projected it's not a decrease. We're still spending 10% more than we did last year but it's less of a uh increase than we were going to see if we stayed where we were. Um these are our what I would call environmental increases. These are increases that are beyond our control. We don't have a lot of uh input here. So um our my insurance is up uh 1% which is is really holding uh very steady. Retirement and pension we're up about 10%. Uh FICA is at 1%. Health insurance we've also pegged at at 10%. Um, if the GIC number does hold to 10.9, we will leave it at 10%. Um, and uh, we we do have that line is always slightly not overbudgeted, but there's more wiggle

room in that line than there are in other lines because we do um, give ourselves room for people coming on and off the program and we can't obviously predict whether they're going to be families or singles or what they're going to do. So, um, at 10.9, we're okay with what we've already budgeted. Um, and then Blackstone Valley, we put 10% in there, uh, just as a, um, hopefully worst case, uh, placeholder. And, you know, we can we can back up from from there. Um, so the total is, uh, a budget growth of about 9%. Um and uh or no, not a total budget, sorry. Just these environmental increases are about 9% which is 1.2 million of uh you know that $ 1.4 million deficit that we were talking about on the other the other page. Um, so things that are on our side of the the table a little bit, we have two union contracts that are open are up for for bit uh bid renegotiation right now. Um, we haven't started either of those. Um, we did up our revenues a little bit. um not well a little bit half a million dollars which is uh you know getting closer to us being out of our comfort zone. We're still on the conservative side so that we don't run into anything catastrophic but we're um moving in a direction where we're um you know trying to close that that gap in any way that we can. Um, I've also talked to a ton of town administrators in state of Massachusetts who are also uh right on the edge of their comfort zone for for revenue um trying to to close those gaps that so many towns are are finding. And then this is uh obviously what I pitched to the select board. Um but we're at the point we don't have a lot of other

levers. I don't know of any levers that we have left to pull. We're pretty much at an overrider cuts conversation which you've all been a part of. Um but uh you know we we moved a lot of things uh in the last fiscal year or two fiscal years. Tried to get as creative as we could and we don't have a lot of uh running room left to left to go. Uh these are for the select board so you don't need to worry about those. And then lastly um we'll talk about the reduction budget just a little bit of what that looks like on our side of the house. Um, so as I already said, GIC was up uh 10%. And Worcester County retirements are right around 10%. Um, so we pegged our first budget number at $425,000 reduction, which reduces municipal staff by 5.5 FTEES. [snorts] Um, still not going to go into specifics. Uh, as we talked last week, um, we do have a a plan, but I have not, uh, had conversations with those staff that are going to be impacted. And I'm, you know, going to do that before we publicly talk about their livelihood. Um, I think that is it.

Questions for Thank you, Evan. Sure. Good. Christie Evan, last week when we met, we spoke about those stabilization funds and you sent out an email saying that there was a stabilization fund created in 2017 at town meeting [laughter] and that there was 100 grand in it. Well, that 100 grand had been transferred in it from free cash. What is the balance on that account? I don't have the balance today, but I've asked for a review of that. So, we're we're putting all that data together. Yeah. Do we know could we add more from free cash since we have 6 what is it? 6.9 million in free cash to go into its stabilization account for the Yeah, we have 5.6 million.

Well, you said 6.98 million, but then we use money at town meetings. So, we're down to 5.6. Um, and just to just for everyone's edification, you can only use a third of that. You can't use the whole amount. Um, you can, but there will be an impact to your bond rating and your ability to finance things over time. Um, so the short answer is the way I read it. Yes, you'd be able to do a transfer at town meeting to put money into that into that one. And then how would you put money into the other one? The stabilization funding. We're not 100% sure. The stabilization exists. The other one doesn't appear to have ever been formed correctly. So there's no you don't believe there's any 200,000 like

uh we're working on that right now. So um there's a a vote at town meeting. Um but then in the review of the chart of accounts and and where all the finances is uh we're we're having some difficulty on on that. So we don't know if they never created it properly at the time or if um it got it it's somewhere in the general fund that's categorized wrong. Um so we're we're working through that right now.

Right. So, but going forward, I mean with that first stabilization fund where we took a hundred grand from free cash, clearly no money has been added to it since then, but at some I mean that the thought behind that entire thing was that money would be continually added for such a reason. Uh yes, speculatively that's why they created it. I don't I don't know that one. That's why they created it. And then when you speak on health insurance, so what do you I guess ballpark budget in your head of what somebody would what the the cost of an employee going on health insurance. What is that like

um to the town? Yeah. Um so we pay 70%. Right. Right. So, um, given the premiums, I I think we're at like $12,000 annually for a family. Uh, that's a great question. Average. I That's I'm I'm ballparking this right now. I don't have my numbers in front of me. So, I will I will gladly again get more information, but um I believe that's where we're at.

Right. And then I had sent an email and I had asked in the last meeting and you said you'd get back to me. Um, regarding last year when we let go of six people, two people filed for unemployment. Do you have that number yet as to how much that cost the town and where that came from? Uh, I do, but I will send that out. Uh, we're we're working on changing the way that we uh are approaching that unemployment number. So, I've got two other things to do and then I will send out a response. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, because I was speaking with the superintendent today even and some of this just didn't even make sense because if we got rid of four people to cover the unemployment then that would create another $80,000 in unemployment and so where would this ever kind of end

when the people stop taking unemployment employed well if you're if you're using employees to cover unemployment [clears throat] then those people would then file for unemployment and it would be kind of circular that is one of the problems that we face. Yeah. Okay. But the 6.32 I think. Yeah. That we go up the increase. Is that a little skewed because of the money we used? Sure. Right. So it's really a few because last year we used a bunch of money. We used cash that we had in revolvers and and circuit breaker. So,

yeah, that that 6 that that 6.3 is um just based on literally what budgeted last year, budgeted this year. That's that's all that it that's all that it's showing you, right? So, it's not that we're just the most expensive and and quickly, you know, increasing department. I mean, it's it's based on that, too, right? Yeah. Yeah. A lot of the numbers, uh, if you go by strict percentage, get really skewed really fast. Um, I remember one year I I added $5,000 to the senior center and they went up by like 12%. Right. [laughter] And so it's like, you know, somebody should rein them in, but also it's only $5,000 so they can get new curtains and paint the room. Exactly.

So yeah, the percents are Yeah, those are not a great way to look at things, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, you definitely This is definitely a 35,000 foot overview. If you want to see more, [snorts] you can go on to clear gov and and all the lines are there. I think this is a really good like kind of town budgeting for nonmunicipal nerd publication. I mean uh presentation. That's what it's that's what we're trying to we're trying to achieve a road with that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We can get real granular really fast if you Yeah. You want to? Yeah. I bet you could. Let's see. Uh, anyone have any other questions? Rabbit.

Jay, did you want to say anything or add to it in any I know you're going to get into the budget for us. Um, nothing. Yeah, just thank you for taking the time. Yeah, we appreciate. Thank you. Always a pleasure to come up the second floor. Great. Thanks for visiting. Very up here. Yes. Yep. Yeah. [snorts] Absolutely. Delaney, we're gonna get really boring, so we're gonna buff you up. [laughter] I thought my go now. Yeah. Uhhuh.

We don't have a lot of updates. Um, the main thing was that we started a new semester today and that the Grafton High School newspaper is being reinstated next school year. Yay. So, awesome. [laughter] I love that. Those are great updates. So that be the globe. Are they going to be changed in or they haven't announced yet? They said it's being receated next year or is it just I think it might be to people. I love it. Yeah. It's great. Thank you. Thanks.

Especially with all the like reporting they've been doing on [clears throat] the spotlight. Like it's like almost like an article. That's a funny fact. That's a funny. Look at us being media people. I know. I used to photocopy it in the library. Did you scan stuff back in? Because I know somebody likes to print stuff and scan it. I'm just a yearbook, Chucky. I have a yearbook, too. All right. I It's the longest meeting we're having right now. It's beset with technical difficulties.

Stresses me out to know. Feels like we've been here for hours. I know. I don't have like I feel like we have so much left to talk about. I know. I love it though. FY27 FY27 budget. Okay. So, I do not have a set presentation for you. I've got a a this slide which Yeah, I guess you came. I don't even know if you can see it. Let's share. [snorts] Let's try that. Oh, there we go.

Um, this slide just this isn't a new slide. This is uh what we kind of left with the last school committee meeting on and obviously last Tuesday the school committee met with the select board and this is one of the I guess that this helped on the school side frame where we stand. So uh I was hoping tonight to get some direction from the committee if there's any to be given kind of give the committee a chance to reset a little bit. Um I have as always a million backup slides. If you have questions, I might be able to answer them tonight or if if I need to look into it, I will say that and get you that information. But I certainly want to go into next Tuesday ready and the same for the following Tuesday when we meet again. So we've set that pro or we've got the developing preliminary level service budget at 50.5 million cost drivers. We have three that uh drive everything salaries out of [snorts] district tuitions and corresponding transportation costs. So going back to what Evan just talked about, we've been looking at on the school side of reducing that level service budget by between 1 million and 1.2. And what I presented to all of you two weeks ago and then to the joint committees last Tuesday was a preliminary reduction plan totaling um $1,61,000. So if we just keep unemployment aside, roughly uh 14 uh teacher and counselor positions impacting programming and class size. So when you kind of say you're looking for direction, one of the things that I've kind of been thinking about and becoming increasingly sort of troubled about is the fact that

we were asked to cut more last week. Um, and I have to say that after 2 years of going in there and showing that we're in the bottom 4% of spending and well above the average in in um the state average in results. What we're saying is not working. We've cut. There's no more to cut. I don't really want you or your team to spend any more time trying to cut for me personally and I look forward to what my colleagues think. But, you know, we go in there and we we not brag, but we go on and on about how little we spend thinking that it's going to work and it's not working. With all due respect to the taxpayers, which I completely understand, I have a family budget, too. But a lot of our taxpayers are parents who are contacting members of this committee wondering what, you know, how we're protecting the schools. Um, I really I do not feel that as a committee we should go back next week and with any redu any further reductions. I frankly hope that we have no reductions.

And can I just I should have added Rebecca, you weren't able to be there, but we did catch up. Um, that Kathleen the direction that Kathleen and I took was I think the term was scrubbing the budget, but she is working to add greater detail to the preliminary budget, tie as best she can to actuals. Uh, we're meeting tomorrow. We talked about a gentleman stood up and talked about clear gov. We're certainly not going to spend 40,000 on the module, but there's she had a she being Kathleen had a discussion with Mary about the possibility of considering the school or using the school as a department. It would be a bigger department than the whole town. But if that works, seems like a pretty cost-effective workaround if it does.

Um, we are going to go that avenue if we can't. So, I already report back on that, but that was all I wanted to add. Even when I think about the scrubbing, and I'm sorry I'm going to let somebody else talk, but I I've just been like really ruminating on this for a week, and I'm very fired up.

Okay, so we scrub, whatever that means, and there's 20,000. I don't even know how much it is. I mean, we're already we've blown through our sort of money allocated to fixing roof leaks and HVAC for the whole year already. So, So, we make ourselves even more vulnerable to the unexpected, which we know is going to happen. That's I just Yeah, I I really feel like what we're saying to the select board isn't working because we're saying, you know, we're really really frugal and we promise to keep being frugal. And they go, great, be more frugal because we've spoiled everybody by making it work. And I I'm just Yeah, I'm disturbed and distressed about it a little bit. So, I would love to hear what other people think because I should stop [laughter] talking now. Laura,

thank you, Madam Chair. Well said. Um I I have also had a it was a tough week for many reasons. Um I heard from several um constituents um that they feel like we're there's nobody fighting for the schools. We're not doing our job. Now, I was thinking about a lot. I take a lot of those things to heart. Um, also, we just, you know, and you you sound a little I feel like I'm sounding a little nutty. I just watched Evan's presentation and I have a really good understanding of our town budget. I also go line by line. Like, let's be clear, we all go line by line on the damn budget. So, I also don't want to hear that ever again or be accused of that ever again. But um when we did our first override um 10 or 11 years ago, whatever it was, we started with what does Grafton look like if we go to great? What does Grafton look like if we're good? What does Grafton look like if we don't get this override? Um we haven't had that luxury to even talk about that in in a very long time. I couldn't even and and I think Grafton has improved in so many ways. And that's also something like I don't we say level service but we also have an amaz I mean we just heard Nicole like all these things that have done that are really great. So when we tell our story I get a little frustrated too because I hear people coming at me and saying well you're not and it's like no we've been like working with death by a thousand cuts but like

also

you know also we improve on every you know on so many things it's hard to show you know unless we just use test scores or nonsense like that. I mean, I think Nicole's presentation was really great to highlight a specific program that we have. Um, so I also don't want to present any more cuts. Um, I understand that the number is large and I guess my thought is that's not really our my job, right? My job is not to figure that out. That again, I think I said this last year, that's why I'm not on the select board. But our job or my job is student achievement and thinking what can we make student achievement happen. So I am not interested in I know I have a feeling we might come back and they're going to settle on a number and it might not be big enough but I'm also not interested in having people tell us what we need to cut because that is also our job. Um and it feels like it's very difficult to kind of have a real conversation in a meeting of 10 people and I know you know especially when they're just trying to do their job too. Um, and I have much respect for for all of them. It's a hard job, but also schools are are under them. Like they don't get the budget, but like the voters are also people who care about schools. So, um, I should shut up because I don't know what I'm saying, but like I just I think it's a fr it's been frustrating because one, we can't win, which I know on school committee you really can't ever win. We're either doing too much or we're not doing enough. And that's frustrating. So, I just I guess I want to reignite myself that yep, we're here to advocate for the schools. It's not up to me to worry about the taxpayer. It's worry. It's my job to make sure we spend our money correctly and not, you know, waste it frivolously and it will be, you know, I'll be there to help advocate to get more money, [clears throat] but u it's not my job to figure out the numbers. Guess that's my thought. Stella and then Christie.

Thanks. Um I mean I don't like the reduction budget at all. I mean 14 teachers is through a lot. Um you know I think we should go in there firmly with you know wanting to push for for an override and to have you know bring it to the voters. I've heard from a lot of um you know constituents or you know friends and you know they're worried about the class sizes because we're already you know at 20 something plus and then if you add you know if you cut one teacher you're almost probably at 27 and learning is tough as it is with with that amount of kids and losing 14 teachers across the district is I don't know that's to me is a lot of people and uh you know Nicole shared so many great things that we're doing and then you know kind of like looking at the like Shrewsbury Westboro number they're doing you know also that with like you know other smaller class sizes so we should be doing the same thing I don't want to go in there and say yeah we'll cut it like one $1 million I want to stand firm that we can you know we want to be good m great but I just don't want to cut it at all and I think they should either bring it to the voters let them decide I and if if they speak and they say no,

we have a budget but we don't have to further reduce it in my opinion. Christie. Yeah. I want to know what Christie.

Yeah. So um yeah, I think that the direction Dr. Cummings as you stated was right that that uh we're going to be looking at more of an actualbased budget as you had said and what Kathleen is saying is that we're going to be scrubbing the salaries and starting back with that. I think once we go back to the select board with something a little bit more concrete than what's this projection is I think we'll be on a better footing at least on our end to to say like we've done everything you've asked us to do. Here we go. and then look at the reduction and then with the reduction in addition I don't want to cut teachers and I don't want to cut any teachers let alone 14 teachers I really want us to look further into as Evan said with these if we have to if we have to come up with a reduction budget after that after we do the scrubbing of the salaries and rework that those numbers then we need to actually be looking at these stabilization accounts and understanding what we have in these accounts why money has not been added to these These accounts, these accounts were created 8 n years ago. I mean, if we had been adding even $20,000 to these accounts over those years, we could continue to grow. And we need to make sure that that happens going forward that we don't these accounts were created for one reason. So I think the direction from the select board as I've heard it and as I've heard from my constituents as well is that and as what you've stated and Kathleen I can see in the master budget is going through it already and I'm going to meet with her tomorrow morning at 9:00 uh is let's get the actual budget and then go from that point. I want to be clear though it's not like the budget's not real. Is this a projection?

Yeah, I don't anticipate the projection rate going lower. Okay. But but the point being is that that this is what has been asked of us to do. I'm not arguing with you. I'm saying I no matter how much scrubbing is done, right? I would put recommend that this committee goes beyond that fourth percentile in the state budget. I understand. Right. I think we're saying the same thing. Rebecca. No. Um I agree. I think we need to move forward with pushing for an override, but I think there'll still be it'll be interesting to have the conversations about what that number would look like. Yeah. So, yeah.

Right. There's a lot of scrutiny this year over this over override and I think that the most like more we can do as a board to ensure that like we can all stand behind this the the better we are and doing what members of our own constituents the select board other people are asking us to do. Let's just do it. Let's just sit down and do it and then we can say we've done it. We've done what you've asked. Here you go. There's always been scrutiny. when we've been through it a lot of times and it's great if we want to represent our budget. I don't imagine your the budget I really just that's great. Um I had a question and I didn't ask

does anybody remember so well uh Miss Foley present said something about a she made something she had asked not the tuition adding a student no it wasn't anything she said like none of us had looked into it um at the very least I think she might have remember way back I say way back it was probably October um well they're she remembered she couldn't she was great yeah she asked some questions during the meeting but said she had many others sent them to me I think I shared my answer I think maybe on there somewhere in there she mentioned I I believed and I will double check this glad you brought that up I had forgotten um

was like a grant or some sort of No I believe what she's referring to was Some towns like Shrewsbury, I don't know if they still do, but when I worked there, they had a a parent organization that wasn't PTG, it wasn't PTO, the Grafton Education Alliance that that campaign headed that that's not I'm just not positive, but it's all confirmed, but I think that's great. Rise up grafting people like that's not our job. I like it would be great if we had just crystal clear. I could be wrong. [laughter] Memory Foley and [snorts] that was my thinking when she said it, but like yep,

we did. We used to have that. We can't even get parents to help their own kid do special education. Like we're going to Great. Go for it. Like get together and figure out how to fund raise. Rise up. I'm up for it. taking a lesson from the boosters who like come out of the gate like crazy and we already have it so many we do have doing work great job but yes that was an amazing group that they aged out and there was nobody behind them behind and like like miss Dany every day but yeah she moved but yes I think well we if you could look into it because if it is something else I would like I mean I want to make sure we answer right

what did it They fundraate. They were like an overall like out like they helped after the first override. They were super helpful with that. I mean I can reach out to Doug and and get information. I know we have the Yes. Grafton. No, it was very different, wasn't it? Ducks was an override valid initiative. You have to that's separate. This was the Grafton Education Alliance. They gave out scholarships. They sponsored a spelling bee which was very fun for years. Remember? Yeah. They raised money. It was just but it was overarching. It wasn't for one school. It wasn't for group like PTGS are for schools. The boosters are obviously for sports. It was lovely. I guess I guess I'm going to look into it.

I guess it seems similar to a PTG because or PTO because you know I think back in the 2015 days we didn't raise as much money as we raise today. So I think you know sometimes that maybe you know you put it in a different bucket you know it's like you give to that then you give to your you know fundraising has been more intensified as the budget has gotten lower and there's been amazing parents who were very grateful for I shouldn't have made that comment that we couldn't get people that was kind of nasty and I didn't mean it. I'm very appreciative of all our parents. It's just there's only so much you can ask of people to do and and that's what I meant and I didn't mean to sound like I wasn't appreciative because God knows I am. It sounds like it's maybe like re, you know, distributed to different

Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to spend a ton of time on this to be honest. I'd rather spend time on the stabilization thing figuring out why we can add money to that. [laughter] Can we have the hundreds of them conversation about them stabilization because

so I started like like can we back up because it was something that I brought into the town. It was not popular with the select board especially with a some of the select board that are are on it now. Um, we got it passed the town meeting. It was supposed to be a fail safe. So, we had to still go back to town meeting and get twothirds of the money. Like, if we found ourselves like, "Oh my god, we have no money and someone's moved into our district." So, we had to we'd have to go to town meeting, have an emergency town meeting, and it's like a three quarter vote or something. We were said by casually by one of the select board members, hey, how are we going to fund this? The town isn't going to fund this. you're going to have to fund it. Previously, many, many, many, many years ago, the schools used to budget differently and had money left over and they would give the town back a lot of money. So, in some people's mind who have been in Grafton government for a long time, they they still sometimes think that's what's going to happen. So, that happened whatever 10 years ago. I don't know how it got set up or if it got set up or what happened. That sounds like that needs to be. But it sounds like to me the money that we've had left over has kind of gone back to the town and it's been like 20,000 here which is I agree Christy like great money 10 years that'd be $200,000. Love it. That would have been great. We that didn't happen. So moving forward, we maybe can discuss it, but it sounds like the money went maybe like you like, you know, just figure things out in July. Like we don't have tons of money left over to go through, but this the stabilization fund just is set up for and I get speak and argue this is an emergency, but you still need to like go to town, meaning you got to transfer it over and it needs to go. I think

there were two the other one I don't know what so the So there's two funds. There's one, the stabilization fund, and according to that email that Evan had sent out that was set up in 2017. Yes. We put $100,000 in it from free cash or had agreed to it. Like he said right here, he does not know the balance in that account. Yes.

And like you're saying like Yeah. There if we could have kept adding maybe or where maybe we could take from free cash, whatnot. The second one was created in 2018 and that's a special education reserve fund. And with that one, we do not have to go to the town. It would only have to be approved by the school committee. And at that town meeting, it had said that there would be 200,000 transferred into it from it from the general stabilization account. Now, the question being is, is there any money in there? Evan doesn't know, right? Did we just agree to this and then no money got put in? What if there is money put in, why wasn't this continually be added? because part of that whole reserve was that the balance can't exceed 2% of the annual school spending. Now, annual net school spending. Now, that arises another question, net versus gross. Are you talking about what we're spending after the cherry sheets, what we're spending, how does that work, right? Because if you're looking at 2% of of a $47 million budget, that's $950,000, right? That we could have been like continually adding. So the I it's kind of a major question as to what these two accounts are, why we have not been adding to them like cuz even if it's not for today,

5 years from now, we should like we should like we should get on this as to what is happening. I sent you all the email that came April 4th, 2018 from Rebecca Meakans, who was our former town administrative um assistant town manager. Um so this is when Anita was here working for the town. Dan was here, Jay was here. Um the first initial one it says this is they said um we don't know the source of the funding at this point is still unknown. So we'd have to dig back. Yeah. It's funny because the first one is called the special education stabilization fund. Yeah, that's different. That's the one that you're that's what you're talking about and that's where you need different from this other that is different from the other one. There's two I thought they were the same.

They're not the same. There's two accounts. There's even a definition in in that email once you're right. So, I really recommend reading that email. I recommend that we talk to the to the select board. Even if it takes like and I'm not saying a surplus of 20 grand. I'm saying if if the town has free cash of a certain amount, why isn't it that we're constantly even adding 50 grand on an annual basis to these accounts if we can build it up to if we could build this up to 900,000 or Yeah, that might why I mean, yeah, if not for today, but for tomorrow, but we still need to talk about

that was an error that somebody who's no longer here made. So let's just be clear that that might have happened and then we can just maybe request that going we need to figure out what's going on and move forward is what I would like to do because I don't want to right that's these people I just sent that email none of them are here even so none of them are here I don't you know and Tim was like we had a different everybody's gone so that's a awesome fine right but maybe and like if the town is willing to give us out of free cash something something even like a hundred grand and when we're talking about cut cutting people like like you guys say this is not widgets this is people. So if we could get money out of like

I'm in total agreement with that. I sound like I'm not I I just don't want it to be I don't want to complicate it like that this is going to save us this year. I think it's more of a future thing and I just want to be mindful that we're going to let Evan kind of dig into it and it'll be interesting to find out. I might dig into more of my emails. That was what I just found with one search but yeah. Okay. So yeah, just so I think it's awesome. Two accounts. Two accounts. Thank you for my mind is clearly going. Do you remember either of these things after coming? Do you remember yesterday? It's hard to remember. I I have a bad group recollection. I remember Dan Gail going on and on about the second thing. Me, too. Maybe we have Dan. We're still in touch with Dan. I can find out from Dan. It

It's odd to me that that we don't know what's in these accounts. Like I'd keep your expectations low. Yeah. But just even that we don't know even any number is an odd [snorts] like I I mean I'd love to find that warrant you know I need to go like back to 2018. Well yeah he put the copies of the warrants I think in that email 2018. Yeah 2018 Evan had sent out an email to the I appreciated that but moving I guess do you understand like from next Tuesday you're doing nothing plugging away. I didn't promise at that last meeting that we'd have some perfect budget on whatever the date is. You said it would take at least two school committee meetings.

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so I just don't think [clears throat] I'm going to I feel comfortable. I mean, I don't know about the rest of this the members of the school committee, but um I feel very comfortable saying at the joint meeting that, you know, we're just in favor of an override. I mean, Whether the budgets changes by a fraction of a percentage point, I don't think that matters to, you know, our advocacy for the students in the schools. Yeah. I think they find like 20,000 and it's like but we're we're still at 1.4. Like that's

I don't think it's fundamentally anything. And again, so the budget's a living document. Jay has shared with us numerous times how things can change in an instant, right? So, we need a number and then the allocation might change, but I I don't find us in a situation where we're going to be asking for something that we can't use. Well, and I don't know it sounded, you know, I don't know if like we like have to do like what you said like, [snorts] you know, there's there's some people that are still waiting for us to make certain decisions that may or may not be made, but

I don't think it's actually It's a It feels like just delaying. Well, well, the budget's not 100%, so I don't We can't make decisions. I think we all know where we're heading. We're heading to 14 reductions or not. Those are the choices. Yeah. Maybe it'll be 13, right? Or 12, right? Okay. That's still awful, right? I mean, we obviously, right, it's people, it's their livelihood. Yep. But it's also students. I mean, there's a lot we have to look into that. Not necessarily other you know just like I said on the slideboard they have to think about different things that we have to think about or have to think about our students. Yeah. [snorts] um you know what different decisions will mean for that.

I mean if you look at like this it's like if we make well I don't know what the reductions are but if if one more child goes out of district then it you know the 1 million we're looking at you know there is zero scenario where we can make a few little cuts and not have an override. Nor do I think at this point we've cut plenty. Do we need to make cuts and have an override. We already did that. We did it last year. We did the cuts last year. Yeah.

I think they were hoping to get that number like I think that number is big and it's hard for people to digest because we've never had a number this big for our our override. So my thought was that and I'm not Yeah. I I thought it the thing I was getting was not that they were like we don't need an override. My thought was we don't want this large an override. What else can you do? It's going to be really hard for us to advocate while we're still cutting. But I I would be mad as a taxpayer to have my taxes raised to save maybe $10. And I know I'm in a place of privilege to say that. Um and but still not be able to have full program, double services. But that was that is my thought. Absolutely.

Um

you know, and and not knowing that what all the average numbers is. I've heard different things. I don't like to say numbers and if I don't know what they are 100% but that to me is something you know I'd be concerned and not knowing what they're talking about now you know and I don't know but that would be something I would reach out to as a individual and be like you know but the other thing I think we need to keep in mind is it's hard to come back from a failed override too. So I know there's that mindset of what can we get past and that's from Grafton, right? We've always been that way. We've always been conservative. That's why we didn't go for that great the first time and that's why we don't, you know, we've always gone for level services because we are we need to get it passed. So you have to think about that too. And

again, not my job. But Evan, as Evan said, I think it's important Evan said in his presentation after the third year, it's total 100% speculation. So maybe we're not looking at that big number. Maybe we're looking at three years and what can we do that's palatable for folks but protects and even gives us runway to make to grow if we can. Right. Yeah. Like that's where maybe cuts or reallocation of things like Yeah. What's not serving the district and our students but what and where can we reinvest some of that?

Even the first year speculative. I mean last year Dr. something had suggested that this year it would be about $800,000 less than what this number is based like last year when he gave his projections for FY27 it was like I said who knew about that right but I'm just saying like if you want to look out like even one year is extremely speculative right it's people

um yeah I mean I just think that we we just need to do what the select board has asked I think that we go through it Dr. Cummings um We we make it that there's zero holes in this budget. There's nowhere for anybody to ask you a question for which you cannot provide an answer because if if you do go through this line by line, which I have gone extensively through line by line and and I mean to the point where I've gone back four, five, six years and I have the entire thing all done. I I could ask you a question and you and it it would be questionable and I don't want anything like that to happen. So, I think we just do what we're supposed to do. Go through it, make the actual budget, then go back, say, "Look, we did what you wanted. We're at let's say 50 million even or whatever the number is." And they can say, "Well, did you do it?" And we say, "Yes." Right now, they're asking, "So, just do it." I think just do what we're asking.

What are we talking about? So, I think just do like until we get this number done. I don't even [snorts] know. Exactly. I understand. I understand, James. So, okay. I I think until that's done, I I mean, I don't know what there is to really ask of the select board because until we finish what they've asked of us, what are we asking of them at this point? Asking them to advocate for the schools. No, I'm not advocating for the schools. I'm I'm just stating No, not you. Okay. You are. I understand. Christy, we're asking those for to listen to us and understand what our budget is. Some of those they're the same questions that they ask every year. Like I I understand

that was my frustration, right? It's it's hasn't changed. Our cost drivers are, you know, we didn't know about we had an out of district tuition. That's why there's 800, you know, we didn't know that. Like they didn't I don't we don't report to them either. And they come, you know, it's not going to the principal's office. I'll go, "Our principles are lovely." See, again, they [laughter] stop talking. I will. Oh, you're doing No, I will, Leora. I No, I know. I know. I love our principles, but when we were in school, they weren't, you know, they were mean. Was that when Jay was a principal?

Was Jay a principal in the 70s? Probably. Oh, Christiey's [laughter] a little

You're right. Listen, I just But I almost think it's like a stall tactic to go back to do anything like find $10, find $20 thing. There's a way, you know, I understand. Well, I get that. And that's seems like that's being worked on by Kathleen and you got Yes. Great. Good. That number whatever that's gonna let's say it's the same number. I can promise you on probably let's assume the first week of July is quiet. By the second week I'm already having to mess with it. We had three kids move in 800,000 in July. Of course, I didn't see that coming. So therefore, we start scrambling. We scrambled constantly

and try to land it. And we've somehow landed without going back to the town asking for loan money during the year for 15 years. But we are as that margin is ridiculously thin now. Right. And we're going to look at the 2026 memo managing the override money that we've been very grateful to receive. People want very generous. That's great. But it's super thin. I right wish we could just set the budget and make it all pretty and we're all set. It can be pretty, but I can tell you we're not going to be all set. There's just no way. I just Yeah, I don't

I think they're just looking for a hail Mary in there and like, you know, something you can cut that's going to be I don't even think you can do that to to no end. I mean, you're housey, you're in financial crisis in your family. I could walk through your house 50 times and find something that Oh, that's a fancy toaster. Do you really need the the chrome and grab your toaster and do it again and take your vacuum cleaner and give you a broom? You could play that game endlessly. [snorts] Endlessly. I think that's a great analogy. Yeah, it's true. And you can kind of live without it, but Yeah, but you sell it on Facebook Marketplace, you get 40 bucks back. That was my um drama. No. Yeah, I think. Okay. Well, that helps.

Does it? Does it? I don't It seems we're missing anything. I think Kathleen's going to do what she's doing. If it works with Clear Gov and everybody can look at it, great. But we're in the bottom 4%. It's just ridiculous. Yes. To say that we're overspending. Like that's just nonsense. It is. Yeah. Well, Ian seems like a lot of people want to be on school committee, which is amazing. and they want to decide where I'm from the money. Okay. Yeah. All right. Oh, I guess we're clear is as mud. It confirms kind of where I thought we were going.

I don't even know what we're all saying next time [laughter] than when we meet with them next week because we're all Well, well, listen, they're making decisions tonight. We'll find We'll talk more. You know, I really think I I totally get it. It's like I said it's it's you know everybody has different drivers and drivers and things to think about right like we I don't think about the person on you know till I think about the students. Okay. I guess I'll just stay here and keep going.

All right. Uh the timing on this next one feels poor but [laughter] I do believe it's important. Um tonight I'm looking for the approval from the school committee of a new position request. As you know, and as Nicole spoke to, we've been building our intensive needs programming K through 12. It's been very, very successful. But we want to utilize some of our tuition in funds. We had a student recently move in uh not move in, sorry, tuition in to one of these programs, utilize a portion of that tuition. Uh create a position that would potentially strengthen all of this program in K12 where initially for the next few months, the primary focus will be at the 26 level. We have a program at North Street and one at Milbury Street. They're both doing really well, but they could use more support um in terms of uh coaching, um embedded professional development, modeling, really take the programs to the next level. Um and we believe that what we'd like to do is hire an interim intensive needs coordinator, try it out for the remainder of the year. The person would be on the teacher contract, see what works, what doesn't work between now and and June. um we are very very confident it's going to have a very very um positive impact but time will tell uh in reassess in May and June and then depending on how all of what we just talked about falls into place either looking to keep some version of the program of the position going forward or um revert back to what we were doing previously. So, we're going to post it internally. Um, and again, it would be on a teacher contract.

And again, the tuition, correct? More than covers the cost for a half year. Say how much the salary? Yeah. What is the salary range? Um, we don't Well, we assuming we hire somebody who's already with us internally. Obviously, the cost comes from backfilling that. Um, that's a position that we should be able to hire for effectively, I'd say, 64,000 or less. So, roughly a half a year, 32 to 35,000. And the tuition in from this student is twice that. Yeah. Okay. I'll take a motion. Yes. I'd like to make a motion to approve the intensive needs coordinator job description as presented.

Second. Motion made and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? Unanimous. Ongoing. J. Keep. All right. Collaborative reports. Uh, Desi requires all collaboratives put out regular reports for the school committees [snorts]

um of participating districts. So, Grafton belongs to the Southern Worcester County Educational Collaborative and the Aspet Valley Collaborative. I provided the reports and corresponding documents um from both of those collaboratives for you to look at. If you do have any in-depth questions, I can do my best to answer them um or put you in touch with the collaborative directors. No vote is needed. I simply need to show Desi that we've put this before you. Anyone have any questions based on going through them? Okay. Okay.

Great. Uh transportation assessment. So, this is under superintendent report. Um, as you are all very well aware, one of our AA drivers is facing serious criminal charges. Uh, the situation has been incredibly challenging on many levels over the past month plus in my world. Um, I've been focusing on assessing where we stand in terms of transportation safety. So moving forward as the case progresses I want to ensure that our students are obviously as safe as possible. Um so with that I am working on putting a report together uh that I plan to have it complete uh something that I can present to all of you um at the next school committee meeting. Um so a report as uh focused primarily on monitors the incorpor the potential incorporation of a bus tracking system and transportation staffing. So basically lay out what we found in terms of best practices, what area districts are currently doing. Um those that do any of the the things especially that the bus tracking system um what works, what doesn't work. Try to provide a lot of realism to whatever I I put before you and basically like a menu of services with attached costs. um and if and make recommendations and if the committee chooses to take my recommendations or exceed them um we'd obviously know what those costs were and if there are specific questions on timeline etc. If I don't have the information I'll be able to get it by the following meeting. Um

yeah, I think that covers everything. Any questions about that or anything you want me to look into? Um I know I asked you about like the bus tracking system. the cost has to be absorbed by us most most likely. Um I mean in light of the events is there like um come

that's a very good question but I would say right now it would probably fall on the district. I don't know some the the districts that utilize the system, they're typically significantly larger and they typically have a staffing team, more than one person that can help manage it. Um, if it were to be added into a contract, there's going to be we're going to pay it one way the other, either through a the contract revision or pay for it on our own is my guess. Um, we're going to look into I I I have reached out to and I'm utilizing uh former principal Kevin Carney to help me with this work. Uh, we met virtually for this morning uh to start this work. Um, like there's a lot I can talk about the cost by that time. I'll have met with AA transportation again, Grafton Police Department, obviously our special ed department. I've talked to daily about this in the principles uh in terms of communication. There's a lot of misunderstanding about

communic but not communication about transportation how it works and a lot of people think we have a team a transportation team that sits with like a bank of video you know screens or something. Uh we don't. It's it's me and Frank Rothell. Um with the bus tracking that's a lot of people have reached out. They think it's like this liveaction tracking system. I looked into it about a year and a half ago. Things I'm sure have improved, but at least a year and a half ago, it was very much like if you order something from Amazon and some days you'll get the dot that kind of comes and some days, a lot of days you don't have the dot at all. Um, I remember waiting for either something I ordered for myself or my wife, but I couldn't wait for it to get there and I was like on top of it. The dot was still like halfway across Craftton and the guy showed up with whatever the gift was. Um, so I'll be very surprised if it's a lot better than that. There might still be some advantages, but this, you know, you can know exactly where the bus is minute to minute. Um, it was so far from that. Um, so I want to provide accurate information. Um, be very forthcoming, but I also want to be realistic about it. Like we could do it and it might be a nice to have on the day that the dots working, you know, the bus is coming to pick up your kid. That that sounds great. When it's not working, who's getting called? Who's responsible for that? If it's myself and the director of operations as we're doing other jobs that that's just that that's a discussion that needs to be had with all of you.

Any other questions on did GPD have any Oh, sorry. Were you about to ask something and I interrupted you? Go ahead. Was there any recommendations of technology um improvements that AA could make in terms of like alarms or alerts if things go Yes. Um arai

we're going to I'm going to meet with um Chief Manardi who's been absolutely phenomenal um later this week. But I I do expect that um and that would be more on the AA side if any any piece of technology is disconnected or not working that that's flagged um for for them. Okay. But he probably has other things as well, but that's something that we've talked about. Okay. Anyone have anything?

I just a comment. I just and it's been really difficult and challenging and I know that it has sparked a lot obviously of uh intense feelings but I did want to thank um you and um Chief Minardi and um AA transportation I mean they like I'm grateful that they caught the person and me too and uh you know

um aa their level of transparency their responsiveness this I think if Neil Manardi's probably talked about this, Chief Manardi, but um all the groups have there's just been um just tremendous collaboration and transparency, which is all you can ask for. Uh and people working very hard to uh make sure that the investigation was incredibly well supported and then as we start to look ahead uh work together and be super honest and and transparent. Okay. All right, I think that's pretty much happy. Uh, future agenda have anything to add, subtract, move around on the agenda?

I think the most I know you are early, but do you think we could bring back our operation guidelines conversation? I think yes we do have to bring that I get it superb busy myself we do have to bring it back and I won't pick a date you oh okay we shall do that tell me what promis practice is we talked about that last time we thought I thought it was that I apparently didn't get that far

yes um I can that is [laughter] I think you were out. Um that is a um a it's an event if if you will held at BBT every year and we belong it's not a collaborative but a consortium the Blackstone Valley Educational Con consortium and years ago they started promising practices to annually recognize one educator from every district that's doing something. Not only are they fantastic, but they're doing something maybe creative in the world of SEAL or project-based learning, something kind of uh promising practice for the future to be emulated. Uh they all get together at BVT. The students serve a breakfast. Everybody gets up and uh presents their project. Kelly Carr from North Grafton Elementary School, um phenomenal educator, was recognized this year as a Grafton rep. I haven't reached out to her yet. I might have mentioned it during the breakfast, but ideally I'd like her to come and I put it when Julie was here anyhow.

Uh so if she's available and she just will give a a quick overview and maybe a chance for the committee just to recognize her, but she did a fantastic job. But that's what it is. I think our class was here the last time was here too, right? Last year, wasn't it? Kelly. Oh, that was Kelly. Yeah, she's really she's amazing. She's really something. Her her class is just amazing. I want covered for her for a day and I was getting crushed [snorts] by these kids. [laughter] I mean, crushed and I accidentally banged my head into a windshime and the kids went quiet like on like church.

It was the greatest discovery I ever made. And she just had them trained. When she does the little [laughter] ding, it was like perfection. So I must have rung that bell. Is that a [laughter] job on you? Easy. She is both of you at Kelly. Only one of my only one of my clearly geniuses. Yeah, she's she's topnotch. That's what that is. Is there any plans to Yeah, since he's talking about it. And Dr. coming. So, you wish a bell here sometime. [laughter] It was I want to be clear. It was this beautiful wind. You want to win time here? He [laughter] probably wouldn't work. It wouldn't work, but I wish I had.

I don't know. We all too much. We all talked to talking and then she told me back to stop talking. Get your gabble. I will now take a motion to approve the minutes of January 6. Madam Chair, I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes as written on January 6 for January 6, 2026. I'll second that motion made and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Great. Thank you. You're up. And I'd like to say as always, Rebecca Mahoney, it's like just seriously.

Anybody have any questions on the warrant or in the drive? Okay, good. Uh, we had our budget update, I think. Uh, yeah. Um, we we skipped over it accidentally. Q2. Yeah. Um, sorry. I I don't really have anything to add other than what Kathleen provided. Um, did anyone have questions on what Kathleen provided?

No. No. Uh, no. But I did speak with Kathleen today. So if you look at the the budget report as written um if you look at the non- salaries that Q2 spent that encumbers up through Q2 whereas the non as the [snorts] salary stuff just shows Q2. So moving forward she's going to ensure that it's the same like the same whether it's

yeah the same mechanism because like I said on the top part it's just what happened in quarter 2 versus on the nonary is because because of how the incumbrance works. She said that she didn't care which way she did it and if I had any thoughts and I said I would do it the same way that you do it on the non- salary side since that's the more complex side with the incumbrance like it's just easier to put the uh two things together. Thank you. Thank any policy tonight? No. Okay. So we have correspondence and we do not need executive session. So after the what felt like the longest meeting ever, I'm going to say good night graph and this meeting is adjourned. [clears throat]