School Committee - Grafton Public Schools - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening Grafton and welcome to the April 28th, 2026 school committee meeting. I call the meeting to order and we will start with public comment. I do not see anybody here for public comment. Uh so we will dive into um our agenda but our students, our first presenters are not here. Oh well. Do they practice? One suggestion, so we could actually cut Delaney free. Uh might be do that before you know, trim away the kind of the easy things. Third member is coming up. I think they're trying to navigate the uh elevator. All right, awesome. Fair. Okay, Delaney. Um our updates we have are the senior barbecue got announced, so that will be happening with food trucks and activities. So that's a fun senior event. We also have our senior class trip to Boundless Adventure Park again, so all those permission slips we do this Friday. Prom is this Saturday, so that's really exciting. That's crazy. Yes. And all our AP exams are starting starting on Monday. Yep. So the weather's supposed to be okay. Yes. That's great. Well, that's so nice. It's going to be so fun. It'll be fun. Great. Thank you, Delaney. Just keep driving. Anything else? Couple more things you can say. Tell us more, Delaney. How's sports going? Sports are going good, actually. A lot of our teams are doing really well. It is a good sport.

I have a question, Delaney. When is your last meeting? I I asked you and then I don't think I ever Is it It's not tonight, is it? Tonight? I don't think so. 13th? You'll come back.

the next one? The 13th? The next one. Yeah. The next one. Okay. We need to know that. It's important data. Great. It's not this one for sure. You never want to leave. for sure. Right. You never want to leave. You could technically commute maybe next year. Or it could be an unofficial We love it. hadn't abandoned Zoom, we could Zoom you in. And that's exactly what Delany would like. Yes. Yes. I'm home three nights. Can't go to that party. Got to Zoom in. I'm home like three nights a week. All right. All right. Okay, Tuesday night.

Not going to go to the basketball game with everybody else. I'm going to Zoom in to school committee. They got a new coach. I know. It's going to You're going to have so much fun. I'm so excited. That's great. Leah, if you want if we have a minute we could do policy just as a single I love it. Okay, so let's do it. Thank you, Chris. I'd like to make a motion for a second reading and I'm going to read all the policy names cuz they're all a second reading

Yep. Perfect. So, I'd like to make a motion for a second reading for the following policies: AC, AC-R, ACA, ACAB, ACGA, ACGB, DM, Um IKB is being held. IKF, IKFE, uh JFABD, JICFB, JICJA, JNDB-AI. Second. Motion made and seconded. Any discussion? Questions? We're skipping IKB? Yeah, we're holding that. Actually, I'm waiting for um So, after we I'll talk about that in a second.

Okay. All right. Any other discussion? All in favor? Okay. Motion passes unanimously. Do you guys want to update us on IKB? IKB, Dr. Cummings I was waiting on you. You had stated that after NEASC came that we would re-look at this. So. has they have left the building. So, I will look at Okay. KB. Excellent. Thank you. Okay. And I'll be sending those over at MASC Excellent.

updates. Thank you. This is sort of policy related, so I can pre So, I'm going to go I'm going to a meeting a briefing on May 5th about the graduation requirements that the state is considering. So. Um if I have a good update, I'll update us. On the 13th. I guess I'll update you regardless. Yeah, I'll be interested Yeah, I don't know. I'm just Yeah. I'll be interested. Is that an MASC briefing?

Yeah, so our representative um Jason Frazier has been he's had a seat at the table, and so he's coming back to report to us about what he's learned. Okay. Um like apparently the governor was like, I want this done by June 1st. Right. Yeah. And it's going Yeah, there's it's not great. There. There we go. Okay. Great.

Look at that. Perfect timing. Look at you. All right, so um we are really pleased to welcome um our award-winning science fair team um of Navdha Bhatia, Lauren Peel, and Anushka our very own Anushka Singh. So, come on up. Tell us about your project. All right. Hi, thank you so much for Are they going to be able to be heard? We've got to carry it. I I moved the mic. You did. Okay, thank you. Project. Move that other mic. Do the best you can. Move your mic and yours too. Your mic. Yeah, oh. Yeah, now I have to connect to you. Thank you. Thank you. Can you guys hear me? Is it going through on the mic right now? I think so. So, well, thank you so much for having us here. We're so excited to just like present that like this project that we've worked on for like the past year now and I think we've all just gotten so passionate about um the project itself. So, yeah, we're glad to share it with you. Um so, yeah, I'm Neda. I'm Anisha. And I'm Lauren. So, this is our project testing and building a reliable enzyme encapsulation system for beta-galactosidase or more commonly known as lactase. So, um this for some overview. Uh Are any of you lactose intolerant?

No? Well, um around 60% of the population is lactose intolerant. So, that means when they consume any sort of lactose sugar and any dairy product or anything like that, they have trouble breaking down the sugars and um digesting it because of a lack of a functioning um lactose or sorry, lactase protein. And so, what do you do when you can't digest um lactase on your own or sorry, lactose on your own? You take something like Lactaid, which is a supplement. And a lot of the times, these supplements don't even work. Uh they will denature before they even reach your small intestine um due to the pH of your stomach acid, which is around two uh compared to your small intestine fluid where it's supposed to be normally around six. So, that's a difference and that usually denatures the protein. So, our system aims to kind of mitigate that effect and allow people to digest the enzyme without it denaturing before it even reaches the intestine. Yeah, okay. So, the question we're kind of trying to answer is we're basically trying to find a method of encapsulation that will fix this issue. And our hypothesis is that a double layer encapsulation system of a outer gelatin casing and inside would be these small alginate beads that have the enzyme inside of them. And this double layer system will better encapsulate the beta-galactosidase or the lactase and prevent it from enzyme degradation. Yeah. So, do you want to kind of go into our procedure? We didn't we weren't able to bring the pills here itself, but the pills are kind of like um

how many like maybe a centimeter or two in length and there's an outer layer as she was describing of gelatin and then an inner layer of sodium alginate which is like gel so I'll let you just kind of go into the process of making them. Yeah, so the way we made our pill was pretty simple. There is a chemical that is sodium alginate so it's like some kind it's pretty natural it comes from like seaweed, right? So, we had it in powder form we could just like online order it. And we were able to mix it into warm distilled water and it's really cool. It like makes this like thick gel-like substance. And when that substance is dropped into a solution with calcium chloride it has like a chemical reaction, and that gel substance, like the liquid, becomes a solid. So, that's how we get like these little beads. It goes from like liquid to little beads that we put inside of our pills. And so, the way it works, it's like um a two-layer defense system. There's two parts to our pill. There's the outer layer, which is the gelatin capsule, so it looks like any other pill you would take. Um that is the part that fights against your stomach acid. So, it goes through When we eat anything, right? It'll go through your stomach first, and the stomach acid will consume the capsule layer, right? So, then you're left with the bead inside of it. Then it gets down to your small intestine, and that's where the enzyme is supposed to be. So, basically, the capsule like helps the the beads survive, which is what we're aiming to do. Um and then we were able to test that, too. We couldn't exactly give this to human people, so um we had to find a way to simulate it,

which we did using a a water bath. So, we set the water bath at 37° C, I think, which is similar to human body temperature. And we had we had many trials. We tested, I think, like six different experimental groups, but the ones that, you know, we should focus on are our pills. We had lactate, which is like what we're comparing ourselves to, and then the control, which is just like fresh enzymes, if it, you know, were in your body, those who aren't lactose intolerant. Um and so, we got these little beakers, and there was glass beads in them to weigh them down in the water bath. Like, it's like technicality thing, make sure it's fully submerged. Um and each of those things went into those little beakers and they were placed in first the hydrochloric acid. Um and that was in a water bath for like about 30 minutes. We took that out and we transferred it into new beakers where it was in phosphate buffer. So, that was like the pH of seven. That is supposed to simulate the small intestine fluid. Um we took that out and we transferred it one last time and added the lactose, which is like the person consuming the milk or dairy. And then we were able to take it out and we could we found a way to like quantify how well each group worked. So, I don't know if you can go into that. Yeah, so as for our results, what we were testing to see, like Anishka was saying, is glucose production. So, when your body does break down um the lactose sugar, it breaks it down into glucose and galactose. Um cuz it's a disaccharide, those are the two monosaccharides. And so, if we're testing directly for the glucose, we can just quantify and see how much

um how well the enzyme was working, basically. It's just a proxy for um like the measurement of the enzyme's activity. And so, we had these test strips uh that showed like different um quantities of glucose and we were able able to measure all the beakers. I don't know how well you can see on our poster, but so, this is the alginate beads, those are the pectin and that's Lactaid. Uh so, it's like the commercial brand and then um our beads. And so, if you look at the graphs here, our beads were very comparable to Lactaid and it actually in our testing, it performed slightly better. Um versus alginate and pectin on their own weren't really able to survive the stomach acids. And of course, the control shows that well, there are some sort of like give and take when you're encapsulating it. It's not as good as the fresh enzyme itself. But again with the lactate you can see that as well. So there it does seem to be some sort of um like disadvantage to having to take the supplement in the first place. But I guess it's better than nothing. Um it also shows with these error bars that ours is much more reliable. So there's less of um a like gap in between like the highest and the lowest sample. Um So when you take our pill you know exactly what you're getting. There's not sort of that discrepancy of like We did three trials which you can see here. And our pill we had um 450, 430, and then 430 again. The lactate had 400, 300, and 530. So big fluctuations while ours stayed pretty consistent. Um yeah and then do you want to go into the cost?

Yeah. So one of the pros of our pill is actually um our affordability. So we made a cost breakdown. And if you'll notice um on our poster Lactaid per pill is 35 cents while ours is only 2.5 cents. Wow.

Which is a big cost difference. Um and yeah. Um and then do you want to talk about Yeah. And so I can go over some possible or um sources of error and then our future steps that we'll take with our project. So some possible sources of error is um one we are not machines. So when we were making these beads because we have to use like droppers and do it manually there could be some minor fluctuations in bead size. Um additionally in our experiment we had to simulate the gastric fluids because we can't use our own. And we did not include pepsin in those fluids and that is present in stomach acid. So, the effects of the acid on our enzyme could be a little underestimated. Um additionally, um Sorry. Uh there might be um small um temperature fluctuations when moving our beakers in and out of the water bath. And then, some future steps that we'll take with our project is So, we did this in our back of our classroom, and we were given limited lab time. So, our the timing for our experiment, it was 30 minutes in the stimulated stomach acid, and then 45 in the stimulated um small intestine fluid. However, real stomach conditions for digestion would be more like 2 to 5 in the stomach, and then like 2 to 6 in the small intestine. So, given more time, we would lengthen that um amount of time the beakers are sitting in water bath. Initially, as I said earlier, adding pepsin into our fluid uh stomach fluid would have more accurate results. And then, finding a way to maximize the um bead size and the volume to um surface area ratio of that enzyme to get the optimal results. Um and then, one more thing to point out about our pill is that all of our materials are biodegradable. So, everything is clean and safe for the

environment. Nice. Amazing. Yeah, so do you guys have any questions? sure we have lots of questions. Dr. Soca.

Oh, thank you. Um I was so excited for you guys to come and chat. I as you may know, I am a veterinarian, but I'm an integrative veterinarian, and I do gut restoration every single day, and a lot of my patients are on enzymes, and a conversation I have constantly is like they'll come in, and they'll be taking an enzyme, and I'm like, "But the way you're giving it, it is getting destroyed in the stomach, and you are wasting your money, and you're not seeing results." And so, it's like this is so relevant to what I do. I was so excited. And um um obviously like you're looking only at um lactose intolerance and and lactase, but like this would clearly be relevant for a wide variety of um of uh digestive enzymes. So, I guess I don't really have a question. I'm just like this is awesome, and if you could like start producing these pills for me, that would be super helpful. Yeah, um we were like able to test the encapsulation method itself. It just happened to be lactaid and lactase that we could do, but yeah, this could definitely work for for other enzymes.

Like protease or anything like that.

Yeah, absolutely or combos. That would be really cool. How did you even come to this idea? Yeah, well, um my AP bio class we were talking a lot about enzymes and stuff, and so it was just a question I had because um I mean people take these like these like these pills. So, I'm like, "Okay, well, if there's such a difference between stomach acid and the small intestine, then how does the enzyme even survive?" Then when I started like looking it up, I realized, "Oh, well, it doesn't." It doesn't. So, we thought like we thought maybe like we could try to do it better, you know? So cool. Yeah, Ms. Austin and I had the pleasure of hearing this presentation once before, and honestly I could hear it 20 more times and I still wouldn't fully understand it. But um it I was just wondering, have the three of you done a science fair project together in the past? Is this your first time working together? This is our first time. This is your first time. Okay, I did have a question on the How did you come up with the cost per pill? How was that derived? Well, we have our calculations in the lab book, but we didn't bring it with us. Anushka kind of went and uh took to count all of the supplies, but I don't really know like Yeah, so we had to order a lot of our stuff off of Amazon. Um and it comes in like huge packs. So, we kind of like divided the price. So, like for example, we got gelatin capsules that were in a pack of 500 and they were like about $12. So, we could like calculate how much the cost for one pill would be like by dividing the total cost by 500. And so, we did that with all of our um ingredients and that's what we came down to. Um, theirs does say 35 cents per pill, but obviously they're a company, so it didn't take 35 cents to make the pill.

Right. I think we looked it up and it's closer to 3 cents Mhm. to make the pill, but obviously they're doing it in bulk, so they still have like more advantages. Mhm. Um, and our pill still beats them in that respect. Right. Yeah, I mean, even if you did yours in bulk, it'd be 20%. And it would probably be less than a cent each or something, you know, if you depending on Yeah, I know, this was wonderful. So proud of you. Are any of you interested in medicine or Yeah. I think yeah, we're all definitely Okay. Are you all juniors or Yeah. Yeah. When did you take AP bio? Junior year or sophomore year? I'm taking it right now. Impressive. Yeah, good luck. Can you guys speak to the kind of the journey that brought you here? I know you started at the high school, but you guys have gone Yeah. regional and state? Can you speak to that? Um, yeah, so we honestly we didn't realize how far this would take us to where um like we were just aiming to go to WERSATH and we're just like we weren't even expecting to do anything there. So, um but I think that like the judges kind of really saw like our passion for the project come through and I think that really helped us. Um and I think the more that we worked on the project and the farther along we got into it and the more invested we were. Um, like the more we learned and the more we um like did to the project. Like originally we weren't planning on um quantifying our data. We were just going to keep it qualitative, but then we figured out how to do that. Um like the integrity of the pills again was not something we were originally planning on doing. So, I think yeah, just our passion for the project really came through and um that's what really carried it off. And I mean we make a good team, too. We're all friends outside of here. So, that definitely helped. That's amazing. One more quick question. So, since

you're all juniors, do you think the three of you will work together next year on another science fair project? It's very likely. Are you already thinking of ideas? Yeah, we um one thing that we want to try to do is uh figure out how to preserve them. Uh they don't preserve well. So, every time we had another competition, we would have to go and really like make another batch. It's kind of why we didn't have any to show you guys, unfortunately, cuz right now I'm not able to do much, but um uh but yeah, preservation is definitely the next step to improve their shelf life and things like that. So, you'll take this to the next step, maybe next year. Awesome. You guys are going to be rich because you're going to patent this amazing process. It's amazing. So, if you need PR, let us know. We'll test participate. I love it. Don't forget that it was Grafton High School. G R A That's awesome. Anyone have anything else? Just really impressed by you guys. You guys are awesome. Thank you. You're intelligent. Amazing. Thank you so much for coming. I know it's not a hot Tuesday night, but we appreciate you. Thanks. Thanks, Delaney. Oh, goodnight, Delaney. Goodnight. We'll I'll you next time. Hi, this is Brett. Liora, would they like a picture with the school committee? I don't think so. Dad wants to meet you. Dad wants a lot of I think it's cute with the little ones. These ones would rather do just about anything. But I wanted one with them. I know. Well, that's true.

Right, cuz we knew them when? Exactly. Exactly. Thanks again, guys. Good night. It was great to see you. Well done. Yay. Those are girls are all rockstars in a million different ways. All right. I would like to point out the fact that this is on your screens is pretty impressive. Great work. Phil Robideau, give me a a new device. Nice.

so far. No. Why do we always have to have this when we have great kids in front of us? I know. Then we we have awesome kids and then we talk about why. Do we have a copy of this in the drive? Dr. Cummings in the drive? Do we have a copy of this in the drive or no? Uh yeah, all I did is merge. I can put it in the drive. It's I just merged two previous conversations. One was the GPS reduction overview from last time. And my understanding was I was going to give a quick review of what we're planning for reductions and then I'll speak to basically bring up the slides that I had provided earlier in the year around fees. Correct? All right. Uh so, no, this isn't in the yet. Nothing you're going to The answer was no. No, okay. I Frankenstein them together and I have plenty of I have both full. If you take it in a different direction, I tried I have three slide decks open. Awesome. Let's do He's ready. Okay, so it looks like quick review the district level two positions. These have a caveat in that I didn't count them towards the reduction total. The AI integration and digital learning specialist. That position would be eliminated. We would backfill with a technology support position. And then the curriculum coordinator position that we have not filled. That third position that we weren't able to fill because of some personnel issues this year. We would keep that open next year. So that's the two district level positions. We would reduce middle school or eliminate middle school sports and

four of the JV teams at the high school. Stipends and transportation costs together. That reduction would be around 41,000. At the high school level, we have three and a half positions. A math teacher, a French teacher that obviously eliminates our French program entirely. A food and consumer science teacher. That's a program of one. That's obviously eliminated. And a half time or we'd make a full time position half time. And that's the guidance counselor position that's focused on college and career counseling. At the middle school, we would reduce two Spanish teachers. That's going to reduce our overall Spanish programming by 50% as well as one of the music teacher, one of two music teacher positions at the middle school. At elementary, we would eliminate band programs at both Millbury Street Elementary School and North Street Elementary as well as a teacher in grade six, five, and four, boosting those class sizes up 25 and above from grade four up. In summary, that's 12 and 1/2 positions. That includes one position unfilled. The three elementary positions right now, I believe that through attrition, through retirements, we're going to be able to find spots for the three teachers who otherwise, without the retirements, would be let go. Um so, the plan is three retention, and we lose 8.5 employees as a result. But, retaining those three through attrition Yep. doesn't mean that grades four, five, and six aren't

affected. It just means that they're going to move around somewhere in the district.

Correct. Right. Um and that's what I have for this piece. Yeah, these are things you've seen before, obviously how we stack up if we make the reductions in terms of world language offerings against neighborhood districts or neighboring districts. You already know about the future um that depending on which way the town decides to go, um we're going to we're going to have consequences. There's just no way around it. Um and then what I did is I pulled slides I have the full slide back if if we need it, but this was a summary of um it was the summary slide that we used back in the fall when we talked about fees. So, adding the $100 sport fee brought in the additional $70,000. Obviously, doubling that would bring in an additional 140,000. I talked about stipends and my concern that we're less than half of what some area districts were below everybody, but we're way behind uh Shrewsbury and Westborough, like way behind. Um and I talked about if my recommendation would be if the committee wanted to implement fees, that I think it's critical that we um address that pay issue. And then this was simply to give you that overall picture where we stand um in terms of athletic bus and parking fees in comparison to uh other districts in the area. I think that's all I have for slides. I have others, but those are the main ones. Yeah, so hm.

Jay, do you know for the towns that eliminated bus fees, like the story behind that? So, Bellingham and Uxbridge. Uh Bellingham and and Uxbridge, uh Uxbridge I don't I definitely don't know. There was a certainly a push uh Shrewsbury did theirs the year before where they just had like fees exhaustion, which I which I get. Um I get the reason why they have the fees, but I also get that it's hard on people, uh especially a lot of them didn't have caps. Um or you were the cap was really high, right? 900 a family or it was really significant. Um so, I I think that's the the challenge. They didn't come into money. Bellingham's looking for $3 million dollar this year, so it wasn't like they hit it rich and can do without fees. No, I'm just looking at a lot of the towns that have the athletic fees. Like not a lot of towns do have the bus fees, so that's why I'm just sort of weighing, you know, that, I guess.

Yeah, Chris, begin. Uh Dr. Cummings, so in regards to your recommendation of increasing stipends, and please don't get me wrong, I don't think any department head or coach or anybody is paid enough. But I was doing some research in regards to our contract. So stipends are in the teacher contracts on appendix B. Mhm. And in order to change stipends at this point, we would have to reopen negotiations. And when I was reading the contract at this point, just as um so revenue is not directly related to compensation. The all the contracts in exception of administrators actually state that it's revenue and compensation are two separate items. Uh so just as we wouldn't lower our salaries as as we had been asked to by select board members earlier to freeze salaries, we wouldn't be able to do that if we didn't get enough funds in. Saying that we're getting in more funds does not neces- necessitate raising the stipend in the contract and how the contract is written. And so I went back and I saw how you said that our stipends haven't been raised since 2021. Correct? Yes, that's I mean, since 2000 I'm sorry, hold on. Wait, I wrote it down. No, I think longer than that.

No, it was longer than that. It was 2000 and uh 17. The Yeah, in 2017, they haven't been changed since 17. So, this is the second contract. So, when I read the contracts, it seems that the prior to that, the 2017 contract, they did go up substantially by over 10%, but as a result, it seemed as though I would Now, I was not in on contract negotiations, but just reading the numbers, it's it's quite clear that stipends went up over 10%, and you added stipends to more positions, but the rate the salary increase was 2% versus when you did the contract negotiations on the last round, the rate went up by 3%, but it looks like all stipends and every every every stipend department head, coach, they all remained the same. So, it seemed like during your negotiations, perhaps it was a balancing act of we'll increase the salary higher than what we had been doing at 2% to 3%, but as a result, the stipends remained the same. Mhm. That That could be true. I don't remember, but that certainly could be true. Yeah. So, that's why they went up. Maybe. So, I'm just saying I I Well, I do appreciate that if more revenue comes in, we want to hand that off as far as a stipend. In reality, just as if no money was coming in, we wouldn't reduce pays. It's not tied to the revenue. If we got If we were to receive a large grant for athletics, that wouldn't necessarily go towards stipends, is what I'm saying. There was a contract negotiation has been made and settled between us and the Teachers' Association of Grafton, in which

stipends is part of that negotiation. Yep. Are you on I I I just want to clear. That That's my recommendation. I'm not saying it's necessitated or or legally bound to do. Right, I don't even know how we would be facilitated. You'd have to reopen contracts. Will it be the next contract? It'd be the next contract. No. Um Because we can't unilaterally change a contract. Just as teachers can't unilaterally say we're stopping school at 1:00 p.m. No, what we would do is have an MOA. I can 100% say that that GTA would be open to having an MOA for increase in compensation for their coach their staff coaches, whatever. Um I can't I I can say that with 100% certainty. But that's my recommendation. It's not I I just want to be crystal clear. I'm not saying that's tied I never said it's tied to revenue or Right. Well, I Well, I mean, kind of I just want to be clear. Well, you're stating that if we increase revenue, that we would increase stipend. No, I'm just saying that's my recommendation. I understand. Okay. Uh No, I'm just stating that the negotiations were made knowing that stipends on all all every department had everybody remain the exact same. It was not just coaches. It was everybody in appendix B remained the exact same. What I'm saying is if we bring in $140,000 due to sports fees Well, I believe everybody needs more money. I also believe that Spanish in the middle school is needed and Sure. there's things that are needed in the classrooms that we are fulfilling our our negotiation.

Well, I it it's purely just I'm not speaking for the committee. I'm saying this this strikes me as one of those things where we want our cake and eat it, too. We want sports, we want good coaches who put in 7 days a week doing it, and right now I'm saying if we could, even giving them $2,000 over what they currently have, we'd still be barely competitive. Right, but as kind of ridiculous now. We're always going to need Yeah, we need Spanish, we need I don't want any of these reductions. Okay. All right. I also I I mean I the Can you go back to the where it says the totals that we would get?

Yep. It's also like these are numbers if everyone continued playing those sports, and that's false. Like that's just false. That like people aren't going to continue playing the all We're not going to have the same enrollment in sports if we're charging $200 per sport. We're just not. So, I mean we would be lucky to get like 2/3 of that, I would say. But we also won't know. We'd have no way to know. We'd have no way to estimate that, so it's not guaranteed. I think they based it off like 85%. Well, and it's again, people graduate, new people like we just don't know.

We don't know the numbers for that. Um it's theoretical, right? It's based on all things being equal. I also don't think that the raising the stipends is tied to now we make money. I think it's tied to the job has changed because now it's a pay for pay-to-play, so coaches are dealing with something different. And parents' expectations will be higher. To me, that's why that's what the recommendation is, right? It is simply my recommendation. I mean I have the specifics, I guess, but we were talking about Obviously, with the reductions, we don't have 51 teams anymore. Um so that number goes down to like 91,000 if we did the 2,000 and the 1,000 adjustment. That's not That was purely just my recommendation. You can make it half that. You can make it more than that.

Maybe it's JV2 coach doesn't get as much as a varsity coach, who knows, right? But Oh, of course. But it was just a recommendation and a starting point. I mean, I very much hope we just don't have to worry about it so much because we have the money to run everything. Yeah. Um but Could you go back to the slide with the all the districts on there? Yep. Yeah, I just noticed that the ones that charged athletic fees didn't have the transportation fees. A lot of them don't.

Yeah. Unless you're Shrewsbury and you have them all. Right. But as we're told, we're not like Shrewsbury. So, stop comparing us. Oh, We're not like Shrewsbury when we're trying to fight for good things. We're like Shrewsbury when we want things that would hurt our our students. That's That's how it works, though. Well, it's tough. It I mean, the things you say, Christie, make sense, right? Of course I want Spanish in the middle school. I cried about that last time. Um it's really delicate balance, though. I mean, I don't want to take away anything from a kid. And we're taking away JV2 sports and middle school sports completely. Right. I mean, that's the other question we get from parents as well, can we decide to pay to keep the teams at middle school? So, the parents see paying for sports as keeping sports,

Right. not keeping a music teacher. Well, I I don't know. Like we spend on sports in in this cost center alone between transportation and everything, it's it's close to a million dollars. We're in a top league now. We we're providing more than we once were even 2 years ago in regards to sports. I just feel like at some point here you we keep saying want your cake and eat it, too. We can't keep providing this level of sports and cutting teachers out of classrooms. So, do we cut sports? I mean, that's what districts do. That that won't be too far down the road for us. I mean, we're already cutting some. Yeah. Um but that's that's a real it's going to be a real discussion. Right. That'll end up being the thing. Can I just have the clarification of So, let's pretend let's say we're doing $100. Can you go back to that slide? Just theoretically, and we potentially bring in 70k. Really, right? I just want to make sure potentially. Let's just be optimistic 70k. What's that's I think the question is and and yes, it can't automatically we have you have to open up the contract. We have to negotiate. There'll have to be discussions on that. So, that 70k, what does that bring back? So, they're paying for sports, but we're still going to cut the rest like is that bringing in the JV2 in the middle school sports? Does the 70k like that's where I think it's

we have 30 left. Right. Like that doesn't bring a teacher back. I mean, I think there would just have to be further analysis. There's not enough analysis from this alone to determine what it is that that you're asking. Well, and then the other question is in which we had talked about back on February 10th, would it become a transportation fee? We already charge transportation fees to get to the school, which kids need to go to. We charge transportation fees. Like if my kid has to go to a field trip, I write a check to Grafton public schools for $12 for the for the bus for him to go on that. Kids are going on these buses, high school students, to fields all over and not paying for it. But I'm paying to get to the high school. And when you say that, are you you're talking about athletics in particular? I would say any like I would I would blanket it to any you know, we charge I charge to go on a field trip. You I pay for that. I pay for that personally. Sure. You pay to go on the bus. To go on the bus. To go on that field trip.

Mhm. For my kid to get to the high school, I pay for that personally for my kid to get to the high school. But any other bus that's being taken out of the school for for an activity or for a sport, they're not paying for it. How how is that equitable? Well, I guess you could say they're paying towards transportation. Right? Like Well, I'm paying towards transportation and I have to still pay to take the bus to the field trip for $12. I think it would be a challenge. I don't know if any districts that do that. They There might be some. I think it would be hard to calculate it unless you just did I think I used to coach middle school track. We we drove on buses like I don't know, three times in a season compared to what Delaney's doing with lacrosse. It's nothing next to whatever that is plus states etc. So, I don't know how

Well, you'd have to figure out which sport a transportation fee per sport. Like football transportation fee is this. This transportation fee is this. I don't know who's and then student council and then

Right. Well, DECA and then Model UN But we're spending a lot like it's $185,000 is what we budgeted for athletic blessing. 185,000. I I get this expensive. I just don't know how we're going to how we would track that. I can see why. I don't know of any districts that do it cuz it's hard to manage. Athletics that we just have that as a flat fee, it's obviously a lot more simplistic. It's still one cover though. Even if we charge $100 per sport. Well, if If you got if you had 70%. Well, it would if you're looking at a transportation fee, you're not looking at sports, you're looking at the entire thing. You're looking at a deca, you're looking at As it is right now, I mean, I pay granted it's through kind of through the recreation, right? Ski club, I pay for the busing when my son goes on ski club. I pay for the bus for that. Uh it's not a school bus, it's whatever bus. bus But it's possible to figure it out. Okay. Are you making a motion of some kind or you know, about asking the superintendent to look into something?

Yeah, I mean, we thought that we had asked that back in February. I'd like Yeah, I'd like to make a motion

No, I I'd like to make a motion in regards to a uh a transportation fee for any type of extracurricular activities. Is that the high school level or high school and middle school? At at the high school level. Motion. And do I have a second? For high school. I don't know. What do you guys think? High school and middle? All right. We're analyzing. Voting on it having the superintendent analyze Again, I think we should all if we're going to have him analyze that, we should all cuz this is a brand new thing. We should all agree to do it or not. Or you not all agree, but you know what I mean. I feel like Maybe it's not a motion. I don't

I don't know. It just feels like it's inequitable. It does When a parent comes to me and says, "Why is it that I pay to get my kid to school that they have to go to? And yet I'm also paying to send kids on buses to sports or DECA or wherever that's well, wonderful by law you have to go to school. I mean I agree that's I don't love our bus fee. That's what I know. It never goes away.

And that's it, right? The bus fee has been here for how long, Jay? Uh, longer than I think. Okay. All right. So And yeah, you don't now it's expected, right? So now you add whatever this new fee is. We just Right, but at some point um field trips, the buses were free. At some point that changed. It used to be free to take the bus for a field trip. At some point somebody changed that. And now we all just agree to it and we all just write the check and at one point it was $10 and now it's $12. And at one point nobody said anything and we just keep writing our checks for it. It changes. Times change. Yeah, 100% disagree.

Those bus rates for field trips are basically we call AA and ask them, "We need three buses, four buses." And they break it down. We get a we get like a flat amount and then we break it down per student you know, in the grade and collect so much. And you know, even families that can't pay, we don't expect them to. We will cover it. But that's there's a difference between $12 and $200. Yeah. They can be up to 16. We go to Boston and they're they're they they're up there. I mean, I know point being at one point it was free. Right. And now, you're right. We all just accept it. Right. But if we're talking about reductions, there's no way that this cannot be on the table. I'm not saying it's not on the table, but we're not making reductions yet. What can make Where is the I'm in the budget. I'm trying to find the athletic Chris, are you on a Do you have it open? I think when we're like just throwing numbers and like I

know that's the number. The 183 is the That's what she was looking for. No, it's it's up on it's in our budget book. Yeah. I I get it. I don't have I don't have the budget book open in front of me. Well, not your not the school's. I have my own excel. That I can never find the other one. That is the I do know that's the line item. That 183 is the line item for for athletic transportation. 183 for athletic transportation. Mhm. Cuz I'm looking at transportation. It's just It's not under transportation. I don't or it used to not I don't know. They it's changed cost centers changed over the year over the It is not in the right line of transportation.

it's under the high school. I think it's under GHS. I mean, it what I would think is it would just be a flat fee. So,

Yeah. You sign up for I mean, where you just get like whatever you're in. Like I can't see it being changed. Like it's right per like well, you go to school four times. three times. That just seems Yeah, sorry. The line is $183,990.83 is what is budgeted in the FY27 budget for transportation for athletics and not transportation for activities, which is split between the the school, the North Street School, and the Milbury Street School is $3,745 at the high school. I'd have to pull up the other ones. At the North Street School, it's $415, and at the Milbury Street School, it's $415. And the reason that the it's at those two schools, and honestly, this shouldn't even be a This would not qualify as a fee. That Those are for the move-up days. When the Milbury Street and the North Street School have to

let them do that for free. Well, well, you can charge Fine, charge them $12, like it's field trip. I don't care. I'm just telling you it's it would like if you're going to start looking at transportation, that's what it That's what why those are there. Those are for those Those are move-up days. But, the high school So, the high school all the transportation is under the high school line. It's not under the It's not budgeted under the middle school. And it's $183,990.83 for athletics and for trans For activity, it's $3,745.62, totaling $187,736.45. So, then, if I'm just trying to think this through. So, now I like a creative thinking, we pay this, but then my kid's a senior and has a car and can drive and can take three kids, four kids with them. So, then, do they can they like opt out just like you can opt out from your um transportation fee if you are lucky enough to have somebody drive you? Mhm. Or does everybody pay like Oh my god, it becomes a It's a nightmare, right?

What? Cuz you'll have more people driving to school, and it's already And then, can I pick up my kid and drive them to the game? the game? Imagine trying to keep track of that. This kid paid, but he's not allowed to get on the bus. Yeah. No, but No, but those are the questions people will have. You're right. If you call it a transportation fee. Like, great. I'll drive my kid. Mhm. Right. I'm neighbors at the time. I mean, but as we've upped our league, we've upped our transportation fees. Our not fees, rather expenses. Yeah, it's expensive. Because we've upped the league, it has cost us an increase in transportation costs cuz we're driving further. Are we driving further? Yes. This is incre- I was talking with Kathleen in regards to it and she said that's why this transportation athletic fee increased from the previous years. Yeah. All right. So, where We have a motion.

We have a motion that has not been seconded. No. Let me just clarify what it was. Well, yeah, I don't I don't think Yeah, I'm going to rescind my motion actually because I'm not sure what it is that I'm even motioning for myself point because we don't usually make motions to vote on Dr. Cummings to provide a report. I know, but Um, it would be an absurd amount of work. I think you were trying to gather if there was enough interest from the committee to have him do a brief project. Is that what you were saying? Yes. I don't want to send him off to do something if Right. If there wasn't there wasn't a majority of people.

We don't one of us just ask Dr. Cummings to do something. We as a committee ask Dr. Cummings to do something. So, I was trying to gauge do we all Are we all interested in pursuing this, I guess. I mean, but you're right. Now I've lost what it is we're asking. So, if you have $186,000 in fees and, you know, put a number for, you know, the number of kids that do activities and athletics, but that's going to be not balanced because the the activities fee is so much cheaper than the athletics

Right. Like, student council maybe goes four places. Football could go 12, right? So. Right, so as we were saying before you'd have to put a fee per per thing. I just very complicated.

Would there be any appetite to looking at what Bellingham and Uxbridge did? What did they do? They moved away from bus fees. And went to athletic. I know the bus fees were before my time. Right. Well, so the question is if I have But that takes that transportation fees out. Can I have a I have a question on that? So, I mean Yeah, I mean if I had to pick between the two I I we all think or I agree that it's ridiculous to make somebody to pay to get to a place they have to go to. But would we then the but that is either there's two questions here. One is are we just trying to break even with the bus fee going over like removing a bus fee to have athletic fees or then are we just now saying no we still want to make that 70,000, you know, so I guess that depends on what the how much the fee is, right? Right. I I had assumed that the purpose of this was to increase revenue not to to change how revenue is brought in. I think that would be a a massive waste of your time to to try to do an analysis on switching how we how we receive the same amount of revenue. Right, but it but to your point a lot of parents do feel like I can't believe I have to pay to send my kid to school. Especially when you don't have to pay till you know till you start seventh grade.

And then on top of that and now And now we have right. You have to pay to do things. That's what. Right, so that that's what I was getting at Dr. Cummings when I asked what was the story in Uxbridge and Bellingham what did they eliminate? I assumed it was cuz they inhibit because a lot of No more interested than I was in finding out. Yeah. It'd be interesting. So I mean Do they regionalize?

You're not wrong, Christie, in that you know, these are line items, these are, you know real costs. I just I think there's a lot more analysis that has to be done as to what what are we really charging? Who are we charging? What are we using that for? How is it going to impact the bottom line? I know it's really popular and there's a lot of people that just want to be like the schools should just charge this. I just don't It's as Laura said, once you have a fee, you don't get rid of it and it sometimes doesn't stay with the times or it's not appropriate. I don't know. And then once you play a sport, you know, you you you're going to expect your kid to play so many minutes. And coaches are going to have to take that on. In an in an effort to not give Dr. Cummings more work, I'd be happy to take on this analysis on my own and bring it forward to Dr. Cummings to

What would you analyze? I would analyze the different activities, the the amount of buses. I I I would create an entire analysis of if you this were to look like a transportation fee, I would take that on on my on my own and bring that back.

How are you going to get all that info? You going to go to the high school and find out how many trips I would have to go and ask, yeah. I mean, it would be time consuming, but I would be willing to do that to bring forward back to the committee. So that we have I don't want to leave any stone unturned when it is that we're talking about getting rid of teachers out of classrooms. But is would it come wouldn't it be used to pay like See, I think it would keep sports that we're getting rid of. Depend like I I think that there's a further analysis that needs to be done more than what's here. Well, then Madam Chair, I would recommend that we have a subcommittee. I don't think we should

One person. I I That's fair. Is that a motion? Sure. I don't know what to call that. Yeah, I moved that way. None leave no stone unturned committee. A fee committee. An exploratory fee committee subcommittee. I second that. Was that a Was that a motion for it? Yes, I Sure, okay. Any other discussion? I don't think so. No, I'm down with the subcommittee doing it. That's fine. I think. Okay, all in favor? Great. Okay, now who's on the subcommittee? I'd like to be on the

Christy would be on it. I know I'd take Christy. I'll do it with her. And Stella? I can do it. I love that. Excellent. All right. Great. And then can we have a written just for the next meeting what the What the charge is? I'll have Yeah. I love this solution to the problem, the subcommittee. Excellent. Thanks, everybody. Good idea, Laura. I'll put that was That was Christy. Well, both of you. Christy, great. Raising it, you. Bringing it together, both of you. that Laura didn't want to join me on it. No offense, Stella, but Laura and I have bonded a lot. It wasn't you, it's the subcommittee.

Mrs. Austin, you kind of felt like that about policy at the beginning of the summer. And then She loves policy. Policy makes makes good things happen. Fees I don't know, I don't know. All right, we're going to get the roof update we never got because Yeah. You spent more time downstairs and things have changed. Um yeah. Uh so the last meeting I was Yeah, I was scheduled to present to all of you and went down and uh did the presentation to the select board. Um so this is the rough outline. I updated as you'll see with some new numbers, but um I'll run through these and you can ask me anything you want about the roof. I know more about this roof than I ever wanted to know. Um Can I say something about that picture really quickly?

100% That is a great picture to show the sections of the roof to make it more understandable. I really appreciate that picture. It is. I didn't take it, but I'm glad. It looks dangerous.

for Google. Um So, back it just a quick refresh. Back in spring of 2025, the select board authorized, if you will, through a grant William and Evan to engage in a study of all of the the roofs. The ones they focused on in town were the schools. They're the oldest roofs. Um that was produced on May 22nd of 2025. By that time, they'd already had a spring town meeting. We knew that our roofs uh it didn't take a rocket scientist to tell you that our roofs weren't in great shape. Um what jumped out from that report and all of every report every everything's on our website. Um was the condition of certain sections, about half of GMS, which we knew was our worst roof, but uh it showed it abundantly clear and I'll I'll show you that. Uh following uh seeing that, reading the report and pieces of the report about that roof, obviously met with William and Evan, and we came up with a plan to move things forward as quickly as we could to get it addressed. Uh the fall town meeting, we presented on it and the town approved funding for design services. That was it was around 400 450,000. Uh we went out to bid for those design services, contracted with this company GRLA. They provided us with an early estimate before really studying the roof, doing the core sampling, etc. of somewhere between 4.3 and 5.4 million. They had to wait until it was as dry as it could be. That was on April 10th, they came out and did the core sampling. So, now they have all the information they need. And they provided us roof estimate on the 7th of April. So, this was the super concerning part

was that half of the roof is in dire need of replacement. Please know that catastrophic failure and other health dangers are dangerously evident on that roof if replacement is put off any longer. Obviously, that's a massive red flag for me. I hope for town meeting in the fall, but we've got to get on it. This is just an aerial view of the school. The yellow dot, just to give you your bearings, the yellow dot is that main entrance right by the office and the green dot is the set of doors that go into the gymnasium area. You can obviously see that above roof area H, it looks like some kind of war zone and that that is the the most challenging portion. That and what what we refer to as the center area. And there's really five areas that comprise just the center. And as you pointed out, this is a good way to look at it. In the far right is the auditorium and the gymnasium. That's a big section. It's got a solar array on it. It's disconnected right now. That dark center piece, that is five smaller pieces that looks like one whole and that connects area H, which is where the classrooms are, furthest away in this picture, and closest to us on the left, the cafeteria. Okay, so the report that came in this this measures roof saturation. Ideally, you don't want to see any red. Um obviously H where where it looks like pink, um that's 100% saturation. That entire roof above the main classroom area is just horrendous. And that that's what's um

we have to without a doubt do that section. The next section is obviously that section in the middle uh that we call the center section. Uh one piece of it above an elevator shaft was recently done, but um all of those red areas are just huge problems. Uh the problems are you don't want to see any red. So, the part over the calf and the auditorium and gymnasium, uh they're not great, but they're much much better than the classroom section. Um so, the most updated this is post the core sampling. These are the the numbers in terms of full replacement, they believe 4.2 to 5.2 million. If we do the center section and area H, 2. About 1 million to 2.6. And above the area H classrooms only is 1.3 to 1.6 million. Uh they felt it was a nice thing. I figured they'd do the sampling and say, "Oh my gosh, it's even worse." It was actually a little better than they expected. So, that that was actually positive. Um so, I made a recommendation to look at or or to have at the very least H in the center um replaced. The select board met on 4 21 and decided to move to replace the entire GMS roof. Again, uh that number 4.2 to about 5.2. Um any project this size, you want to have a little extra cushion, so the discussion was about five up to 5.5 million in total. In the plan, this is my understanding. I met with Evan today. We went through it, but he doesn't meet again. He wasn't at the last select board meeting, and they meet next Tuesday. So, he's going to have a chance to He came back from vacation and kind of had to unpack what was decided. This is his understanding, so I'm just saying that with a caveat.

This is not set stone. Uh, that 1 million would be taken from free cash, or the request would be 1 million from free cash, 500,000 from stabilization, and then, uh, look to borrow the remaining 4 million to get to that total of 5.5. Should come in below 5.5, but that's you want to have a little cushion. Uh, they put Article 28 together that's before you. Um, and this is what will go before the town town meeting. If this was to all move forward out of town meeting affirmatively, um, it would be voted on, the 4 million, if that's the number they land on, would be voted on on the 19th. If it was to be approved, obviously, we'd move forward with the roofing project, and I can talk about the timing of that. If it was shot down and wasn't approved, we would still be able to, if everything went well at town meeting, we'd still be able to access that 1.5 million and get as much of the section H as possible. Um, that would be 1.5, and you can see the the range is 2 million 69,000 to 2 million 2.6 million. So, um, we if it's on the high end, which we hope, obviously, it isn't, but if it is on the high end, um, we'd have to figure out a way to close that gap. I'm sorry, I gave you the wrong number. I'm looking at the lower end. Area H only, the 1.3 to 1.1 million 647. If we have 1.5 million, we're 147,000 short, so we'd have to utilize capital. We'd have to figure something out. So, that would that would be the plan.

And yeah, that is all old stuff. So, that that brings us to where we are today. That section over the classrooms, that's the one section that can't be done when kids are in school. That has to be done in the summer. You could theoretically have work done on, say, the gymnasium or the calf, but the center section, indefinitely area H, have to be in the summer. So, we'd have to really hustle. Frank's done a great job getting all of our ducks in a row. The company we've been working with has been fantastic, but we would have to hit the ground running and then some. Thank you. Questions you have about the roof? Can you speak to the 4 million if if it doesn't pass at town meeting? Are is Are we waiting for the the grant in 2027? They'd have to kind of go back to the drawing board and come up with the plan. The next MSBA grant, so if we didn't get that, I'm assuming in January of '27, we apply for the MSBA MSBA grant for the remainder of the roof. The the reimbursement, I called and it should be around 50%, maybe 53% if we were accepted. The drawback to that program is it just takes a long time. It's usually 4 years before construction takes place. They don't tell you if you've been approved for 10 months. And then once you're approved, it's 3 years before of planning before they do it. We have our ducks, so I think in a row in terms of planning, like we're we're at ahead of where I thought we'd be. I'd like to think that that would change. Um This is historically the the the number of the projects, the

school projects, where that had been approved in the past, and you can see um even out of the 20 27 approved in 2022, zero are officially done in 2026. So, only seven out of the 21 approved in 20 um in 2020 are completed right now. So, it's it's just a slow process. From the grant? From the grant.

Okay. And we could possibly make that timeline work for the the cafeteria and the gymnasium um auditorium area. We'd have to do something. We've been talking with some roofing companies. If that plays out, that dark red area above, if you can figure on the far left where the auditorium and gymnasium is, you'll see that corner that looks horrific.

Yeah. That's above the boiler. Oof. On one hand, it's not a good thing, but on the other hand, I'm glad we're not going to have to plaster the boiler room. Um and they they did do some core sampling, and I think it's because of the heat of that room is actually They were like, "It's not great. We've got to do something, but um it's somewhat manageable, more manageable than above a classroom. If H comes in, like just say if it comes in under, could they use the rest of the funds to tackle that project, that corner? Uh would assume so. I would assume we would be able to we'd probably focus more on the center. I'm more worried about that center section and that we have that's over the library and hallways. I would obviously I'm going to defer to the roofing experts. It's not going to be I think you guys should do that. But

No, I thought that was the little courtyard in the middle. No, that's in the middle of the library. Okay, that's right. Got you. That's uh I think way back when it was a high school um Was the smoking area. Was the smoking area. It was smoking. Oh, wow. Yeah. Let's bring that back and we'll charge per cigarette. Um Yeah, any other questions on this? Uh yeah, Dr. Cummings, I have a question as far as beyond the roof, are we looking at additional I'm still laughing at that cigarette. Um capital expense cuz where there's water, there's mold. I I I've been upstairs in this building. Clearly I am not a mold expert as you are not a roof expert, but one would venture to assume with water coming down, I mean the rugs and such and the ceiling tiles, are these all going to have to be replaced at some point?

tiles it's like not daily, but that happens all the time. We we had it doesn't smell good. Like the whole thing is just Right. You know that on that section. That is secret to anybody that went there net now or 20 years ago. We did have it tested for mold a couple times last year and it came up negative. Um it did. Um So, uh we'll see. Yeah. Of course.

So, you said Evan, what is Evan checking on?" Cuz this is like our about like the warrant's published, so I'm confused. Yeah. I know you don't know, but Um What is he going back to?

Well, they they need to speaking way out of my uh over my head here. My understanding is there needs to be a more in-depth There might need to be a more in-depth uh discussion about take What are the implications taking a million from free cash? I couldn't tell you what those are, but I think that's something that uh Yeah. if he was present, he probably would have had that discussion on their end. He needs to make sure that all is exactly His understanding needs to match up with the intention of the uh motion and what was voted on and have a real discussion. Yeah. Yeah.

make sense? It does. It happened very quickly, and That was the impression I had. Yeah. Oddly. Um and also, I guess just like housekeeping, and I'm not a municipal like but like submitted by school department. Yeah. I don't love that. We're not in the room. Our input was not accepted. Like I I when I was going through the warrant the other day, I was like I was like, "Oh, school department." So, It it it's definitely I can't really add to it other than I have to I love finance committee, I'm happy to speak to them, but I'm speaking about this that other than advocating for a roof Right. placement. Yeah.

Like the the mechanism I don't know. What's our strategy at town meeting? Are we doing it? I know Frank did a presentation. I'm going to do another presentation. Am I supposed to be like Do we have a strategy? I do not. Can we have a strategy? Cuz it's going to be questions. So, is it everybody going to look at Dr. Cummings to be the roof expert? Or is Frank going to be? Uh sure Frank will be there. Very confident about all things related to this roof. Sure. This part.

Yeah, which this isn't us, but this is our warrant apparently. Right. I noticed that as well and went I actually had no part in submitting that. That wasn't our recommendation as a committee, but it is I guess to our benefit or to our students benefit. Sure. Yeah, I'm pro roof. But yes, I don't know. Yeah, we should think about, you know, what are we advocating for? What's going to What's the presentation at town meeting? I guess that's next steps, right?

Yeah, and we don't meet again before We do not meet again before town meeting. I don't know. I'm just I'm Speaking of town meeting beyond just the roof is the school committee giving any sort of presentation in regards to the override? Is it going you as the chair

Oh no, no. I was I was nodding in that. Good question. Not cuz I have the answer to that question. Oh, not cuz I'm like, yes, I'm doing it. Yeah, no, I I just didn't know like what's happening. I This is almost should be a separate agenda item. Like we talk about town meeting and it's too late to add it, but you know, as we're talking about future agendas, we can put this as part of that. The future. What is to Laura's point, like what is the strategy at town meeting? Is What have we done in the past?

school Yeah, Laura, what's the I don't know if we've ever done Because has the school committee been ready for a lot of questions? I mean I wouldn't want it to come from us, right? Cuz it's a town override. Correct. So if there was something done and I that would be a good question for Anne for Mr. Jefferson, I think. I would want it to be collaborative. Um I just my but we I don't in the past. I don't think we did anything. Did we do anything? I think it was just a warrant, right?

Yeah, it was a warrant. We must have done something. I feel like there had to I don't I have a presentation. I'd have to go back. Yeah. I don't I'm trying to think of the hot one, right? The 2020 where Uh the 2020 is the The one before that I remember we voted by ballot, so we did a ballot vote.

And it took a very long time. But I I I then I but I don't want to be like no no cuz I'm Cuz I feel like a lot for for things of this nature, there's typically a presentation from someone. Yeah. I think it's Yeah. I mean, I'm happy to reach out to Yeah. I just I don't I don't I love and I would want maybe us obviously would want our fingers in it. Right. Our you know Input. In- input. Thank you. That's a good word. But I wouldn't want it to just be here at the schools coming up asking, you know, cuz it's It's it's a town wide. And I think that it would have to come from our chair. Like she would rep- Laura Leora would represent us as the committee. Yes. School hurray. Yeah. Yeah. If there was that Yeah. Could you use like similar to Andy's presentation at the the outreach meeting? Um like not all of it, but like parts of it would be reductions at the planning on the town side and the reductions that we have Yeah. for the first year and then Talk about that. With something along those lines. Something to frame the frame the way the town to make a decision and Yes, I would do it very brief. But yes.

to go over mod- matter of moderator. So Right. We can do it We could ask just ask her what her feeling is. Or I just think No, I prefer that it is because it is a town. I just don't, you know Could you send that presentation to the school committee ahead of time so that we can Yeah, have a Yeah. Put it in Put it But then we're going to need, you know, then when we still What will happen too is when they go through the budget, right? They'll have the hold or the question and they'll ask the question about the school budget and that's where Dr. Cummings Then he has Is in between. Right. That's

handful. Oh, yeah. Right. Vote for both, right? We have the Right. Article 15, which is the contingency budget, which is the level services budget. Right. And then But there's also the Where's the crappy budget? Appropriated budget or whatever. The town appropriation. Okay. All right. Anyone have So are we doing two presentations then? Did I sign Did I sign us up for Christmas? Good, Laura. Two presentations. One for roofs and one for co-presentation for override. Okay. Anyone have anything else on roofs? Okay. No, but I guess just to reiterate that that is another It's also and you said it, but it's two votes. It's one at town meeting and then it's one when

Both of them, yeah. you go on the 19th. Question one and two. And Just as a quick point, Liora I think that it should be mentioned at the meeting. I had a lot of questions asked as to where to receive those yes graphs and signs and since you know, the graphs and school committee we fully support the override. Maybe you could state that right now so that the public would know who's watching this, whoever would like. A yes graph and sign? Yeah, we're in support of the override. Yeah, well, of course the school committee supports the override. We support our students and our schools. Uh, I think there's a yesgrafton website, yesgrafton.com, and I'm pretty sure there's a link there to sign up for uh sign. And Facebook.

And that, I want to be very clear also, not a town committee. It's volunteers. Um And they're registered with the town, isn't it? It's a initiative. Yes, but they're not They're not official. We're not running it. It's It's kind of a ballot initiative, a volunteer group, so Um but yeah, I would go to yesgrafton.com, and I think they have links and there's a contact us or help or something link, and it's there. Great point. All right, so

need to take a vote? It would be a nice thing to have a Grafton School Committee supports the override. What do you mean? I don't know. Yeah, we all know what the override A vote? I know. We did vote, though. We voted. We voted. We voted to support the override. Yeah, unanimous vote. It was a unanimous vote. That's right, it was. Thank you.

So, we're good. Um We're not having the superintendent evaluation today. We're doing it on May 13th. Uh and our students have already uh represented and shared and updated us, so Um The number The first change I have to the future agenda is moving the superintendent's evaluation into the 13th. Yeah, I did. You did You did it all. Um That's a good one. Uh and it might be worth mentioning for those who don't know, starting in May we'll be moving to Wednesdays.

Yep. Um Big changes, big changes. Yep. So, our last three meetings of the year will be on Wednesdays. And I know, Dr. Cummings, you prefer this room, but conference room A allows for Zoom capability, which is kind of an accessibility issue to allow for anybody to participate or watch the meeting, and conference room A would be available given that the select board meets on Tuesdays. So, accessibility in terms of participation. Yes. And it's Well, I know that there's a elevator here. It is actually much more handicap accessible on level on the first floor in conference room A versus conference room F. Okay. What does that What say what's available on? Does it I mean, it's not a vote thing, but does any of the other from the committee have thoughts on that? I mean, I like Zoom if we're going to have people talk. Like if we're having, you know, if somebody has to join by Zoom one of us is we're not here or um we're doing a hearing. But other than that, I feel like the broadcast and the streaming it's fine for folks. I don't know how other people feel. Well, I guess is there a reason that we prefer this room over A? What is what prefers this room compared to A?

I will cater to your collective wishes. Um It's always been our This is kind of our our space. It's close. I haven't had to run to my office and grab stuff lately, but that has certainly happened. Uh I can set up early in the day. It just a convenience for me. I don't To be quite frank, I don't care where you meet. And then I'd like to meet at my house. Zoom. Well, you can't Zoom in if we're in conference room F. I love not having Zoom, to be quite frank, unless it's a real accessibility issue. Like today, this has been The easiest start ever. did not get a text saying I can't hear you guys. Yeah. Right. if

That's awesome.

If we bring back Zoom, we need to figure out we have to have somebody do it. Like, it cannot be you monitoring Zoom. Like, this is what This is where we need to start making different choices. And we'll start with an easy one. Like, the select board's able to have it because they have an assist They have William there and William's able to run it. So, Evan can do And not that William isn't more than that, but that is what he does. And they have Amber. We don't have any of those things, so just move Like, I don't think this is for May 13th, but when we're thinking of this for next year and if we do move, like I I don't We need to be good at it, as you always say. I don't like And we weren't great at it. And maybe that's something that we could consider preparing with the high school for like a National Honor Society volunteer hours for a comp sci National Honor Society something.

solution cuz you're 100% right. You would provide a student with the cuz we can't monitor Zoom for questions and chats. You you know. So, yes. I think that's a great idea to look into doing that. Cuz they're always looking for for hours. hours. But, then we need to make sure, you know, not that like then like we got to make sure they're consistent. Like, we see what hap Like, love them. Like, there's just I wanted us to think it through more than like let's bring Zoom back.

Yeah. I think maybe for this at least my recommendation is we're here through June. Let's stay our Wednesday nights here. Fresh start. Figure out where we're going to live next year and how we're going to do the technology and just close out this challenging chapter. Right. Close out the year. That's here. I have no problem with that. And then we can But, you're right. It can't be a different student every time. It can't be they can't come because they have an exam.

we don't have Zoom. I mean, I don't know. Right. We could talk to Mrs. in regards to something. But yes, let's not try to shoehorn it in. Let's just stay here on Wednesdays. And next year we'll have a plan. Yeah. Okay. I have lots of plans, by the way. Let's just uh uh Okay. So, Laura, we're not going to have like I remember one you weren't going to be here for the reorg because of Super Saturday. Now you are. Thank you. Yes. So, that's wonderful. Yeah, I Thank you. It is. It is wonderful.

It is. Well, you should definitely be here for the reorganization. It is good if we're all here for the reorg, yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And that you don't miss And that you don't miss your son's graduation. It was You know, I was And you wouldn't be able to zoom in, so. I will forgive you. Wait, I was going to zoom in. I did suggest that. No. You did suggest it. No zoom. You're not allowed.

We don't have dinner reservations yet. You don't? Oh, come on. It's another way. Um we have minutes from April 7th. I'll take a motion to approve those. Madam Chair, I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes for April 7th, 2026. Second. Motion made and seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Shockingly, you did not. Excellent. Uh we have warrants. Nobody had issues, any questions, concerns with the warrants? Okay. Everyone have a chance to look at the Q3 financial report? Yes.

Kristy. Yeah, Dr. Cummings, so I had reached out to Kathleen to ask for this not as a PDF but as a spreadsheet because I wanted to see the formulas. I had I didn't hear back. May I I would like to move this to be postponed to the next meeting. The The numbers on Q3 under the the uh uh non-salary don't reconcile. The The If If you're looking at, for example, the balance of Q2, the first one, let's say 2,200, and then it increased 4,300, and then we have a decrease of 52,000. The total would be -45,000. On yours, it says -11,000. It says offset. I don't know what that amount is on an offset. But But then on the other ones that don't even say offsets, I'm still not getting the same amounts. On the salaries, it all reconciles. On the non-salaries, it's not reconciling. Did you say that you emailed her that question? I emailed her for the for the formula so that I could see how we're for the spreadsheets so I can see the formulas so that I I didn't hear back. Okay. Okay. We'll hold on that. Okay. Override planning. This Proceed, this is what you brought up at the last meeting. Um Regarding the sort of longevity of the override. Mhm. Um I did want to bring it back cuz we weren't It was sort of slightly off topic last time, and it's certainly something that plenty of um taxpayers have asked about in terms of, you know, you said you needed 5.7, you got five. What does that mean? So, um you know, I know you had advocated for sort of changing our budget even for this year, um and perhaps cutting to make the money last longer. Um but I think that is That budget is on the warrant, and it's closed. So, I just kind of wanted to talk through

Right. what happens year two, year three, etc. Right. I didn't know that we were talking about this this evening. With regards to the override planning, I I I can't find my spreadsheet then. We We exactly We can absolutely push it. It was I mean, cuz the fact is we can't We're not changing the budget that's on the warrant anyway. Right. I understand. Hold on. So, we can push this to the 14th.

I'm going to try to find it. Do you give me 1 second? Hold on. This is the last thing we've got, so. Hold on. Dr. Cummings, I had sent it to you a while ago. Yeah, okay. So, I have my spreadsheet. So, um I guess what are we asking here? It's not going to last 5 years. Yeah, well, and it's if everything remains the same, no, right? But I think there's a few things. One, we, you know, we don't know that allocation's going to stay the same year over year.

Well, we Regardless, the 1.2 taken out in year one or 1.1, what the amount is, Yeah. given the projection projections even on the town projection site of the the latest projections of expenses, increase of 4.5%, 4.7%, 4.3% it won't It won't It will not last Yeah. 5 years.

Well, we've made that clear, right? Because of the way the numbers go, they're it's more than 5 million. Right. So, it won't I mean, I'm That's all I was trying to state that we need to be under- understanding that if if the the expectation is that that this amount is go- that this override is going to last 5 years or 5 million dollars would last 5 years, that's it won't Not with where we taking out the one

mistakes or you know, is it's not that it's the number, right? It's what we're advocating for. We passed two overrides. It was supposed to last 5 years and it lasted 6 years. So, there's possibility it could go four to five. But, when we're advocating for what we know, the number and hopefully in the future we'll be able to partner with better partner and and get numbers we need. Right. I mean, right. We definitely asked for a different number. Um but I think, you know, as we've seen, like you said, we've made some overrides last longer. Um we've seen creative ways to bring more money in, you know, so uh I think we beyond 2027, we have to be extremely mindful of the fact that what's been allocated to us is less, right? So, what are we Yeah. Focuses on our future budget.

Right. Yeah. So, I think it's important for all of us to remember that. Um and yeah, we're behind the eight ball a little bit because we've allocated more than a fifth for this year. Right. I mean, we've kind of kicked it down. We're just kicking the can.

I'll say the first override, we didn't remember that very first year we got cut. It was half a million they just we didn't get. So, it's it's happened. It's a I mean, like so not I like I get I think it's important cuz I don't I don't want people holding us to promises that one we didn't make, you know, but but also things have happened in the past two where we just, you know, we asked for this. We got half we had to cut. We still had to cut. We made those difficult choices and that could happen at any time, really. The select board doesn't They could change what they give us. I mean, at the same time, it's like we have this high needs special special needs program that's bringing in money. Like these are all like all of these projections are projections and they are not hard facts and And the farther you go out right Exactly. Like I I agree. Like we're

Like yeah, if you take more than a fifth out in year one, you will run out before year five. Well, I mean but if we are I mean if our costs don't stay the same. Like if these projections are 100% accurate, yes, but these projections are not. Right, but even if even if our expenditures go down to make match our revenue, that would be pulling it down an entire percent. That would be just even with Dr. Cummings. Dr. Cummings, beep. Dr. Cummings. Dr. Cummings, the screen went black. Can you Can you put that up the screen? Which would be another way to tell you Remember when I did that the beep beep thing? Anyway. Um we lost our tax Yeah, that's restaurant filling. Mhm. Anyway, it would you'd have to bring down expenditures by a full percent to even be at a break even of every year and that and even with that taking out more than a fifth in year one will not will not last you five years. There is so There's always the outside chance we get more revenue. There is. Beep. Could happen. Right, or We've said that every every time. This could be it.

This is the year. Last year we did. Last year we came up with a really creative program and we did. Um but also yeah, I mean the fact is we say it's a five-year override but that's what's what's voted on is to raise the levy capacity by five million. The time period in which that's done is not written in the warrant. I mean of course we're trying to make a commitment to the taxpayers that we're not we're going to make the money last. But Our commitment is to be the good good stewards and I think you know and be mindful of what we ask. But that's also then we, you know, Right, but we asked for something and what we got was short of that.

No, I was thinking the roof. Anyway. Oh, the roof. Okay. Yeah. So anyway, I I think it's important that it's discussed in an open meeting and you make a good point. It's also nice though because I mean it's not nice, none of it is nice, but it's nice because we have like this whole process, even though we knew it was coming miles away, ended up sort of feeling crushed and smooshed at the end. Like we're in some sort of big rush to figure it all out and we didn't know it was coming and golly gee, here we are. Um but now it's like now we've got, let's say, several years to sort of actually be, you know, make some make some thoughtful decisions in a way that doesn't feel as under the gun. So, I mean Anyone have anything else on this? Just want to make sure we acknowledge and talk about it. Okay. I just hope people if they read or hear something that sounds not right, they reach out to either um Liora or Dr. Cummings um or to ask the question.

Yeah, I have to say I had a long conversation with a taxpayer today. Wasn't somebody that was typically publicly very pro override. We had a really great discussion about lots of questions. Um you know, he brought he brought up things I hadn't considered. I brought up things he hadn't heard about. It was, I thought, very productive. So, um we are always happy to take questions. And thank you for your override um outreach work, both of you um over the break. Um appreciate that. You guys both took the time to do that. Um It They were good meetings.

Yeah. Uh if nobody has anything else, I'm going to uh call this meeting adjourned. Thank you. Good night, Grafton. Good night.