School Committee - Grafton Public Schools - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the July 22nd, 2026 school committee meeting. I call this meeting to order. And we're gonna start with public comment, which I think we can quickly move on from, because there is no one else in the room. Perfect. Let's dive into general business and the school committee operating principles, which I'm gonna toss over to you.

Yes. I was like, who, me? Yeah. I just had them open and I closed them. Hold on one second. Where did they go? Oh, right in front of my nose. There we are. Excellent. We made some of the changes that were discussed in the meeting and let's see, I was going to bring my notes on this and then I forgot because I did it a while ago. So, I apologize for not remembering all the things we talked about, but I think I hit on almost all of the points that were brought up in. The meeting that we discussed. There were a couple that we sort of went back and forth on and hadn't really made decisions. So if anyone has any issues with this, we can definitely look at it again. But I think it's pretty much covers everything. Any questions. I definitely compacted things. So it wasn't I think there was an issue with, um. It was sort of like, yeah, the communication with staff and communicating with the superintendent and put that all together into just sort of the communication part, which I think helped make it a little clearer. Yeah, unless redundant.

Yeah, we got rid of some redundancies. Yep.

I.

Yes.

I like it. It's just, it's nice to, it's like a good thing to have. I, you know, just reminder and.

Well, and I think too, it's nice to put it out there. I'm sorry, I totally just interrupted you. We're out of sync of having meetings, I guess. I'm acting like we're sitting around my kitchen table. I think it's nice to put it out there though, for like, if we post it to the web, to our webpage, so people know like, this is how we kind of are committed to working.

Yeah, and top down, you know, to the district too, can add it to the newsletter.

I think it's also nice for new members because it is sort of like, you know, big learning curve, so.

yeah which I do want to bring up again we brought it up and then I never did anything about kind of onboarding future members because just think and I've learned a lot over being on the MASC like what other and I'm like huh you know we really do like yep they meet with Jay you kind of just get thrown in the deep end and you know that's okay but it'd be great if you know I don't know so anyway I'd love to talk about that in the future I feel good about these thank you guys for

Anyone have any other comments, Christy or Stella? Okay, I'll take a motion.

Madam Chair. Yes. I'd like to make a motion to accept the school committee operating principles as edited. So I'm looking at the edited version, right? So then you'll finalize them and then we'll get them posted and tattooed on us or something?

On our foreheads, second.

Motion made and seconded. Any additional discussion? All right, seeing none, all in favor? Great. Thank you.

That was easy peasy.

All right, budget subcommittee charge. So this has been unchanged since our June 10th meeting. Laura, I know you had a few questions or comments on it. Some of those were things that Christy added specifically, so I didn't wanna unilaterally answer for her. So we bring it back. So if you wanna ask anything, sorry.

Oh God. Yeah, it seems like a lifetime ago. I know and I looked at it again and um Yeah, I didn't have like me I think a lot of it was just requesting like removal like the Ensuring I guess reviewing maybe it's how it was worded reviewing the budget process to ensure the school committee is exercising oversight to me felt like the budget subcommittee was overseeing the rest of the school committee and And I think probably what it's meant is to, I'm sorry, Lori, where are you?

2.1. Oh, for God's sakes.

I'm so sorry. You're not in my head with me? Not right now. You were. I see. The second bullet under 2.1. I'm so sorry. I actually wasn't. Yeah. I'm so sorry. Yeah, I'm out of practice, too. It's only been a month.

Okay.

on number 2.1 review of current budget development practices which i like that it's reviewing the district's current timeline procedures communication practices reviewing the process to ensure the school committee is exercising overnight oversight it might be just me but the word like ensure feels to me like the subcommittee is coming to like oversee the rest of the committee where it's more like making recommendations or finding things that need improvement on or something like that. Why don't we just eliminate that whole bullet? Great. That was what we suggested. And thanks.

Oh, and it's going. We are, are you editing it? Yeah. Okay.

If you're cool with that, that's fine. That's as we talk.

Yep. Okay.

Uh, then under 2.2, I think you had a comment to benchmark how peer Massachusetts district structure line item transfer approval and revolving fund reporting

Yeah.

Do we remember why we wanted to remove that?

I have no recollection of looking at that. And I mean, to me, it must be maybe I thought that was like a lot of work. I mean, I don't think it's a terrible idea, but maybe it's the benchmarking. But I think it was more like.

It's not a due review instead of benchmarking? Yeah. Or.

Like, yeah. Like, yeah. But pure Massachusetts. Investigate. It's not a terrible. Investigate, right. It's a good thought, right?

We like to reach out and see if other people are doing the best practices.

Investigate, review, it doesn't matter. Yeah, it's not that big a deal. I don't remember that one, honestly. Formal. Oh, and then the draft under that, the draft of formal, we just said it was in the deliverables, so we could probably take that out.

Yeah, so delete that. Yeah, that was all it wasn't big deal.

Um, and then I do remember that I was very passionate for some reason on the meetings 5.1 that you meet, you'll present a minimum quarterly. I just was worried like. Having quarterly in there, like, what if you don't have a report. In the summer or something, and I thought we could be more flexible. Everybody then told me we would be flexible and it didn't matter. So I don't really. I don't know why I was so passionate about it. I really want to sell if I recall. So if you want to meet monthly and present to the full committee at minimum quarterly, that's great. But I just feel like if. You don't need to meet if you don't have a quarterly update. Like you shouldn't have to help. So I was gonna say something as needed or as requested.

Well, we could even just give the report of nothing.

Yeah, like just give the report when you have it. But like if you don't have one, don't feel like you have to. As required?

Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I like that it's quarterly. And then when we, even if we present on the quarterly that nothing happened, at least we know that we have to present something.

Because it gives you kind of a structure. It does.

I like to have like, I know that we have to meet and we have to do something. Yeah, I'd rather present on the quarterly and say, oh, we didn't meet this quarter than not have it. Perfect.

Okay. Yeah. Or there was not, you know, the budget was approved.

There was nothing. There was nothing to meet on. Yeah. Okay, great.

um we skipped over one thing um the recommended process for school committee oversight of line item budget transfers consistent the school i think oh i think i think yeah the language didn't really make sense yeah maybe that's it maybe that was what it was although i have a weird note here about it's in the process yeah oh i thought it was there twice maybe but um

Yeah, I think it's fine.

I don't know. Yeah, I mean, it does maybe read a little repetitive. Well, it's specific to budget transfers as opposed to... Yeah, I mean, I like the recommend a process.

I'm going to leave it if everyone's okay with that.

I mean, we could put it in deliverables, theoretically.

That's the only... Well, I guess if you want to make it consistent, you'd say develop recommendations for a process like it is above. It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

That is worth sniffing to death. That is somebody who worked at a lot of agencies. hammered in to be consistent. Love it, I know.

The font is not all the consistency.

All right, so.

All right, good job, guys, sorry if I had.

Those were a lot easier than I remembered them maybe being, or I just, again, certain things I just didn't wanna unilaterally answer to, so I.

No, I appreciate that, and I appreciate that quarterly update, so it was good to wait for Christy, because I do remember being super passionate about it, and now I have no reason why I care so much, so.

So on that note, I'll take an emotion.

Madam Chair. Yes. I move to approve the budget subcommittee scope as edited.

Second. Motion made and seconded. Anything else from anyone? Excellent. All in favor?

Awesome.

breezing right through. Communications subcommittee report. I actually made a report, put it in the drive.

I didn't get it to us in advance because I thought for some reason I wouldn't write a report, but then I thought I should because it would make minutes easier. So we met, a communications subcommittee met for the first time. Basically it was like a brainstorming session that we wanted to just chat about a couple of ideas with the rest of the committee to see if we had buy-in. Our thought was we're going to start Slowly over time. There's obviously lots we can do but We don't want to we want to we can evaluate as it's going and kind of just test out some things this year Our first hope was to issue a newsletter Through some more which we were able to get permission to get an account. It doesn't cost the district any money That was the other thing we were brainstorming lots of ideas that obviously don't have a cost to this which was hard for two marketers and PR people, but we're okay.

We have to make lots of signs and giveaways and we can't do that. We will not be using your tax dollars for giveaways.

We aim to go quarterly. But we could do more if we have more to say, so we brainstormed a 1st newsletter, which would just kind of go out early in the year and it will only talk about school committee matter. So that was hard for for us or me particularly. I don't want to talk for you just to make sure we're staying in our lane because it's so easy to want to talk about all the things. that are great, but that's not it. So we were brainstorming that the first newsletter would include an intro to each member, a photo, and just like five questions, kind of what we did with SGES, but it was like, you know, I thought to add like what subcommittees you were on, because that's often on other places' sites. You know, what's your favorite, like little fun things, nothing like too serious. A link to the school calendar, because we do approve that and people always need extra links to it a link to the chain of command and like a little blurb about just like. Who do you go to in the beginning of the year? It's confusing. It's not actually usually where the last point of contact. I was a little cute in the draft, but it's totally a drop reminder of our meeting days, especially like new day. Um, how to watch us how to participate and then, um. That was pretty much it. I did do an example. I was going to send it around, but I was worried that if you saw things in writing, you would want to edit. And it was so just an example. Like, it was like, it's my picture. You know, it's obviously not going to be all about me, but I did link it because it is super cute. So if you want to look and just see what we were thinking. And obviously we can do if people agree with this kind of idea and topics, we will draft 1 that's for real and we will send it around to the committee before it goes anywhere. I did want to hopefully maybe get a picture of the 5 of us at some point. they give you a heads up so you feel comfortable only because we don't really have one. It would be nice to have the website and I put it in maybe the top of the newsletter. Our other thought that we could do quickly was attend some town events. One would be that we have Grafton Day is coming up August 21st. We did just ask if it would be possible for us to have a table there. And Adam said, we could have a table and we could split it up and do, like, whatever to do shifts. So we could all get a chance to be there and really just be there. I think so. People could see us. Like, we went back and forth because Lou was like, well, what's the draw? And I was like, well, we don't know. We can't do anything where there's like a. costs this is where we're like we'll have giveaways but we were thinking like we did some research and we were thinking maybe we could do like a poster board and people could write a note or write the name of their favorite teacher either in grafton or you know and just think about that we thought maybe we could ask one of our parent groups if we could borrow one of the games like a fun fair game and people could just Play on that and then just be there to say hello and people just, like, know who we are. So we could do that. And, like, I wouldn't mind getting, like, a tablecloth and, like, I don't mind paying for that, like, out of pocket. And we can do a sign-up sheet. And then also, Christy and I talked about this last year, and I want to get it down on paper. We'd love to be a part of that municipal Halloween day where they give out candy. We could maybe get a desk outside of, like, your office or something and you know be non-disruptive but like represent i think that would be super fun because we're like municipal people and we don't ever do that do the kids come upstairs i don't know do that yeah our staff loves that day oh awesome oh they do there's plenty of room oh great cool do you um yes usually physically in the building yes

They dress up. They do the door. Yeah.

Probably like a group costume. Yeah. I love a group costume. I'll have to think about that. I'm not sure about that.

Jay can dress up as the Wicked Witch and we'll all be the monkeys. That sounds fun.

But yeah, it's a big thing.

Okay. Well, we would maybe that's super fun. I mean, we'd have to pony up for the candy, but we could probably figure that out. And those were just like our 1st, kind of brainstorms for the fall. I think moving forward, like, when we get to bigger media topics, like budget, you know, we'd love to be able to just send this out. The other thing that we were thinking about was 1 of the other issues is channel. Right? We don't want to just to go to. Um, school families, right? Because we represent the whole. Community, um, and we don't have, like, a social media page, but we were thinking maybe we could post, we could have Jay posted in the parent. Group, and we could do all things and then just close comments and put a blurb. Like, if you have questions, email us at our group thing. So it doesn't turn into a back and forth or things. It might still, but we could try to limit them. And then I also thought we could maybe just print out a few copies and post them downstairs. We could have some at the library. And that's something pretty, we could probably utilize, I think, a copier here or something, and it wouldn't be too costly. and then have whoever, I don't know who does distribution, if it's Maureen or, but maybe she could do like an email distribution to the, I'm sure. And we could like queue it up for you so it wouldn't be hard and take a lot of time. So those were just our initial thoughts. I guess my main thought is like, well, I guess the two things, because it's the 21st, would people be interested? Do you feel okay with that? Or do you think it's super weird? I'm on vacation that day, so I don't know. Yeah, I'm working that night. You're working, but is it night? Okay, so there'd only be three of us. Yeah. So that doesn't seem really great for our first event.

Um, yeah, I always want to back up for a minute and just be like, you know, sort of the thinking behind the whole thing is really just, yeah, we're not always very, we're not visible in what we do isn't visible unless, you know, it's hard to come to meetings or watch the meetings or whatever. And, um, you know, there's just a lot, we're just looking for ways to. Have more of the town understand the work that the committee does and and how it impacts the town and and interact with us more and have. You know, like, the way the select board has their, or, you know, people can come and ask them questions. We're not sort of the same, right? Because we don't have as broad of a mandate, but. You know, all of this is sort of ways to try to address the fact that we're just kind of hearing this. Room doing work and people don't know what we're doing. So, um, I just want to hear. Yeah. Like, how did. What do you all think about that in general? Yeah.

Yeah. In general, I think this is a great idea. I think that the newsletter is a wonderful idea. I think that 1 way that we could. utilize ourselves is if each of us attended one of the back to school nights and i know that nobody wants to hear morris talking at those back to school nights but even if you just like laura takes the south grafton elementary school night you take the mulberry street school like and say like hi remember the school committee i'll be here this evening if anybody has any questions after you walk around and see your classrooms we're I'm here for the evening, like, so that they can see different school committee members and possibly members that they don't normally see, like, you're typically at North street. Maybe you would go to South grafton. You know what I'm saying?

We talked about it, but not that way. And I, I like that idea as long as it's not taking away from that.

Right? Like, I would be like, about the schools and not about right.

But, but. I mean, we've done different things over the, I don't like, again, I almost wouldn't mind trying as long as it's okay with principles.

They also do like, I assume they do it at North, but that's out. They also do, like, the popsicle social, like, getting in there when those, like, those parents are brand new about we've done that.

Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Um. We've talked about doing that in the past too, like, attending and we can attend all of us, like, yeah, just as a hello.

Right. Um.

When people are just milling around at some of those things, and it's a good way to introduce ourselves to new parents and, you know, it's hard because we're not really that day to day contact with parents. But on the other hand. We're busy, we're doing, like, important work and I don't think it hurts to, like, have face time. So, are you on the fence about that? Like.

No, I just, we just launched right into our ideas.

So I was like, so I just wanted to like, let's back up and talk about why, you know, I meant about the back to school night because I knew we went, I mean, for me, I guess, unless like Jay, I would want your opinion. Like, I again, don't want to take away, but I'm kind of open to trying like anything.

Even if we have like a table with the like we had like whatever our tablecloth is because they I think like the counseling department has it like a different people have tables and it's like if you want to come talk to us you can it's not like we're gonna yeah right it's not like you don't have anything.

But yeah, I want collateral.

Yep.

I don't know what the collateral would be and it would cost money and I don't quite know what we would have on it.

It's going to give candy out constantly or just candy or, you know, I do like the, you know, the woman in town who makes the laminated calendar.

Yeah.

I didn't. I thought I did.

Yeah. I was wondering, but I feel like if we were going to ask her to make, yeah.

We'd have to give her money for that though. Like you can't ask somebody on their own to just make us hundreds of, but you know, that's what would somebody like from us? They would maybe the chain of command on one side of the calendar on the other, or I don't know.

A school calendar magnet would be so nice. I love that. Yeah, she makes those. I would love that.

Well, what we did, or what we're thinking for the PTG is have a QR code that brings us to the website, because on the website it has the PTG events, and then below it's got the Google Calendar. That has the district calendar, like, all the no, no school days, the half day. So people aren't surprised by them and you can add it to your your Google calendars and it shows up as a different color. So you can see, like, your appointments versus versus theirs. And it's like, we just have the link to the Facebook group. Just a quick way to go to each. thing that you normally would bookmark and then just like try to find in like your bookmarks um you know the school calendar the school s'more the you know the school this it's like you have like in the beginning of the year you get overwhelmed with like a number of links yeah yeah so it's like you put them like all in one place it's almost kind of like an influencer like type link tree and then you have it all all there and then it's like oh did you know right but we don't have a

place do we i mean we have our school committee page but we don't we don't own that yeah not trying to poke holes i like the idea i'm just trying to think out loud and then what are we giving like and are we a little like who's paying for that right because i said in the old days i would have just well it's just a google it's just like a link to the google drive so it just you'd have to have like a Oh, you have it printed out.

There's a QR code. It's a PDF link, and then you click on it. People scan it while they're there, is what you're telling me.

Or it's a picture of it.

That's what we could do. Yes. Oh, I see.

So we're thinking of actually making like magnets.

Yeah, but you guys have a budget.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I love that. But just to get everything that we would. And then you can update it. The thing is, it's a static link, and then you can always change it. So if you're like, oh, we want to now like, you know, have people have access to this. You don't have to like, you know, let them know. It just updated.

That's an idea. We can think about that and figure out what the implementation would be. So I guess for next steps, maybe we could just get, do we know the back to school nights yet? They're on the calendar, which is linked right into our, so we can't.

But like each school like sometimes has like two to three different.

oh yeah yeah so it's yeah I remember for the grade yeah especially for like North Street and yeah Street we don't have to do this life so we will circulate the times and we can figure out who's doing what and you can certainly go with another person or more than one and

I mean, you wouldn't want to go with 3 or like, we're going to risk a quorum. Yeah, right.

So, like, 2, 2, at least, you know, if you want to, if you see someone there and you can go and you want to be there with them, that's fine. But yeah, no more than 2. I think we would have to scrap the draft and day idea.

Do you think just because it's only 3 of us.

I don't know. I mean, it wasn't very strong. I just feel like our 1st, it's like our 1st visible thing and it's only 3.

Yeah, that's fair. I would go if I was here, but we're never going to be able to get like, okay.

Well, I mean, there's always going to want to put people on the spot. So, you know, we're not going to be out there, like, talking about ourselves anyway. Right kind of a, we don't even know if it's going to. Yeah.

People are going to want to talk to us at all.

I don't want to put people on the spot. We have time. It's a month away. So I guess, well, I just, I don't know. I don't know why I'm being weird. I'm being weird because I do not want you guys to feel bad or left out. So feel bad and left out.

Do you prefer that we not do it because you're not there?

No, I have work. I don't care what you do.

I feel like nobody cares. I love that you want everyone to feel included.

Well, I just want, and we will make sure if people ask. I just, okay. You know how things get weird? Maybe because of me. Holy moly.

You're making it weird, Laura. I know.

Oh, my God. Okay. I'm going to shut up. So what's going to happen? Can I?

can i can i ask a question one can we kind of buy a show of hands like everybody like the newsletter idea all right great so we're definitely going to do a newsletter for the start of school yes great so wait to go back so the newsletter that will be reviewed by the school committee before it goes out so you will all have an opportunity we'll post it where everyone can see it and we'll say like we have 48 hours to give us any changes or comments and it's going out in the meeting um i think we can

I think we can go through Jay, because it's not going to be talking about anything that hasn't already happened in the meeting. So we won't be deliberating. But I think if you just give Jay, like, feedback or. And he can pass it on through us. I'm pretty sure that that one is fine and we're not violating any kind of open meeting because every single thing on this newsletter has already been approved and discussed. But it might be like, there's a typo or worded a little differently or and there will be a type of my picture. Yeah, like, I want people. you know, and I already told like, if you have another thing you'd like included, but this is what it's going to be. And maybe that maybe the operating principles might be added, but it'll be right now like five things, which is like an intro message, like welcome back, you know, who we are kind of thing, meet your school committee member. So we'll send out those questions, meeting dates, we know who do I contact if I have an issue? link to the chain of command. I also did a district Facebook page shout out, just because, Christy, you've mentioned a lot of the newer parents don't even know about it. But I mentioned that that is the superintendent's page. And he might direct you to ask your principal, because it's not necessarily a superintendent-y question. And then a link to the nice little school calendar. And then a link to our website is at the bottom. Our website is too long, so I had a tiny URL. So this will most likely be the format, but the words in here are not going to be what they are because I definitely was having a little too much fun.

Can we link in there to the policy manual? Yes. Great thought. How could I have not done that?

I don't know.

Neither of us thought of it.

No, that's terrible. Yeah, policy manual. We could probably do a sidebar of important links. And then operating principles, policy. The buses, bus rules.

Budget. Yeah, I love that. That's what people ask about. So link them.

Yeah, I love that. And they're accessible. You have to dig to find them. Yeah, you don't have to dig to find them. No, no, no. That's great. OK, so buses, link, budget, policy. Phenomenal. Thank you. Great feedback, and then maybe our calendar, so people can yeah, maybe our school committee calendar.

Yeah, just so they can see it. Maybe when they're still out there that I think I might have linked that in.

You did you did it isn't that okay? Yeah, but I could do it on the side too.

Oh, yeah. Well, because the sidebar probably kind of live for all of them. Right?

So, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Also, in lack of a picture, I just created this little graphic. You know, it's so small you can't even see it, but it's really funny.

Yes, I hate my picture on that one, so we're going to have to talk about it. Those are from the website. I hate my picture on the website.

I think Christy's is actually the best.

Mine is so old.

Mine is.

Mine was taken by Jen Palusi. Mine was, too, years ago.

You guys look great, all of you. Anyway, we won't use those.

Did you also make up this little logo for the school committee?

I did.

For Lincoln School? The five people jumping out of the book. Do you see it on the bottom?

It's at the top. I made it up. We're growing out of books.

We're jumping out of the pages of a book. She don't like it.

This one, yeah.

Oh, look at us. Which one am I?

Am I the tallest one? I'm on that.

Okay, I guess maybe we're done with it.

I think so. So on to the fee subcommittee report.

Is it going to be as fun?

Probably not.

Would anything be as fun? No. In regards to fee subcommittee, we are going to, at our next scheduled school committee meeting, give a presentation in regards to everything that we have worked on. We've compiled all the FY26 documents transportation costs for athletics. We've broken them down by school and by sport and shown them a thousand different ways. Stella's also found our comparable schools, what they charge for fees. So we're gonna be just presenting that in our next school committee meeting. So we just wanted to give you guys an update as to when that is. We're gonna be having our last subcommittee meeting on, August 11th, um. Before we present it to committee to full committee. So, that's all guys. Okay, not as fun. Sorry.

Do you want a logo for your for your committee?

You can put it on the front of your report. All right, so the next item is school committee goals and. This is a big topic. I think I have it on here mostly to talk about. um when and how we want to do this i think it really has to be tied to the strategic plan for the schools right so our next meeting is a workshop with district leadership to talk about the strategic plan and i think um coming out of that Our goals should sort of reflect how we're going to help support the strategic plan. But just kind of wanted to talk that through as a group and think about, you know, do we want to maybe see about having like Tracy Novick come and facilitate a goal building session? Do we feel like we can do it ourselves? I'm of two minds, I could kind of go either way, but.

Oh, sorry. Laura, you've been on the committee a long time, so in the past, years and years ago, weren't there goals? Like how was that constructed then?

They were not great, I will say. Leora asked me and I dug them up. I think I was chair, so I think I drafted them. I've always struggled with the SMART goal formatting, just as a person I've struggled with it, because you want them actionable, measurable.

Those are realistic.

Yeah. Like, and my goal is always, like, increase communication. You know what I mean? And. So, I would actually think it'd be great to have someone come in just to facilitate to get I get the right ideas. I was also thinking, like, of 2 minds kind of the work that, like, Christie's been doing that, you know, recognizing, like, procedural things and things that have needed to be improved. I feel like that might be like, a decent goal. Like, we could have school committee goals and I would still want to talk, like, see what the district goals are because we want to make sure we're on the same page. But I could see us having, like, a couple, like, the communication and, you know, like, our internal policies or whatever, like, what the budget, like, you know, looking at the translate things that just we could button up better, you know.

Um, some of that's coming out of subcommittees though.

Yeah. Yeah. But it would work into our overall goals. Yeah. Just doing the work in the work.

Yeah. No, I think it's definitely.

But our goals for how we work and how we do things and then, like, we might have a couple different, but we're not talking about, but I think I would love to have somebody facilitate. I think it is really difficult when you're in it. I don't know. Especially if we're trying to do, like, the smart goals.

Do you notice MASC have some sort of template or something for this? I haven't dug into this.

I feel like they do. They definitely, I know they offer like a workshop on helping you do it. So I assume there are materials that go with that.

Oh, look at this. They have a whole learning lunch on it.

Oh, wow. Does it cost us to have her come out and give a workshop? No. Then just have her come out and give a workshop. Yeah.

Yeah, no. If it was an expense, I don't know. It's included in our membership.

And we should just take advantage of it.

Yeah. I mean, she sees a lot of districts. I feel like she can bring some good perspective. and also be like uh that's not really an appropriate goal or you know don't spend your time there or whatever you know so do you is the plan to try to have a goals drafted for her to review prior or to just to me she takes us through the process of building the goal

okay i feel like there's an element of just because like we obviously are working on things that we think are important it's like maybe we should just have like a brainstorm dump of like these are the things we kind of are thinking already before we even go into our next workshop just i often feel like maybe this is just me but sometimes if i'm in a group setting and we're working on a bunch of stuff together then the things that i had kind of gone in there planning to care about i kind of forget about them If you know what I mean. So I, you know, just making sure that we, before we sort of go in and look at admin, what everybody else's goals are, like, let's remember what we, as a group are kind of already focusing on. I just think we should kind of because I think we all have things we care about, and then we're noticing that we would like to make sure we don't forget about when it gets into a bigger group. Especially so doesn't get rushed.

So you mean before we meet with district leader?

Yeah, even I mean, it doesn't have to be it doesn't. But before we, like, finalize. These are our sort of main goals. How do we. Because I feel like when Tracy comes, it'll be some level of let's talk about what your goals are. But I, I feel like there's also going to be a level of, like, how to make those goals. Actionable and, you know, like, we, we aren't going to go in with a completely empty bucket of nothing. I mean, but it could honestly just be like a Google document where we just dump ideas. Yeah, I just don't want to go back later and be like, oh, we totally forgot that we really care about communication. We wouldn't forget that, but you know what I mean.

Well, I think there was 2 thoughts there. Yeah. So you, I think district leadership is separate. We need to have that. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. We need to have that. Our voices aren't going to be very loud in that. I don't think right. We're there to just. Yeah. And actually, I got to tell you, not that I read it all while you were talking, but this is actually a really good presentation that I just sent out. Good. Did you send it to put it in the drive? I just sent us all an email. I should have put it in the drive. I will too, because that's public. People can see it, but it was a good, it also talks about smart goals and what they are. But maybe we have, maybe we do have a workshop, just the five of us to brainstorm before Tracy comes and then we can give her. Yeah, yeah, so it's a little more work. Yeah, but we could have that more informal. Because I don't think yeah, I don't think we can actually just all throw our, like, our right.

I know he is in a Google doc without because I got a story about new technology farmers.

Yeah, that's your client that I just got. Oh, I just wanted to tell us about I'm so sorry.

Okay. That's why I shouldn't be doing this during a meeting. So, yes, I think. the district leadership sort of strategic plan workshop is a little bit different, but I think that that will help us form our goals or at least inform them.

Agreed. I just, all I meant was when we then hear about all of their exciting goals, we'll be like, yes, that's true. I also want to do that. And it may backburner some of the things that we have already talked about. So I just don't want to, I mean, honestly, even if we all just wrote our own, like, let me remind myself of the goals I care about. because I think we all have things that we don't want to forget about and all of our thoughts are important and valid.

So we have our leadership meeting thing on the 12th, correct? The 12th, yes. So I guess what's our first goal? When do we want to try to have this kind of rolling by? Is this something that we're going to try to develop throughout the year or is this something that we want to try to have done by November 1st or something to that effect?

I would like to have it done by the end of the calendar year, let's say, November 1st, December 1st, whatever. I think that's, again, I like to be time bound so that it gets done.

Right. So the drafting of the goal by then?

Our goal, yes.

Yeah, have it all done. So are we looking in the end of August to try to have a workshop with Tracy Novick?

My thought was, so we have the meeting on the 12th, right?

At that point, I think we got to get the school year rolling.

Yeah, I think it's okay. And then we have a meeting post the five of like a workshop on an off Wednesday, I guess. And then, and then we, or we also, we can work backwards from Tracy's schedule too, right? She's pretty busy in the fall. So I don't think, I think it gets messy those last few weeks of August, right? Yeah, it does.

Very messy.

I'm away a little, yeah. But I think maybe we could, once things settle, like maybe mid-September, we have Tracy maybe coming by October. Yeah. We could get these written, you know, by November. And then, you know, because we want to start working on our goals. Right. Right. Yeah. We don't want to spend the whole year building.

Building the goals. Right. Yeah.

I think we know the goals, I think. i don't think we're too far off i hope um and if somebody's coming in with a really big lofty goal then we're going to have to talk that through right yeah well the goals aren't necessarily for just this year right right right is the idea for each of us to have a goal or is it a school Okay, your goal is to stop making things weird and meeting.

Reasonable hasn't had such a date. Okay, anybody have anything else on this.

Cool wait, I'm sorry so you're going to reach out to Tracy. Yes.

and just to see what her it looks like schedule is like this one right and i re-sent the link i dropped it in the drive and i recommend everybody take a look at that and i apologize for the other link but you should watch that too yeah it's really cool it's really cool we're coming you are up about half dozen things

I'm gonna start with some sad news that I know that you're aware of. I just wanted to recognize the passing of a great young man, Ajay Roberts. He was a member, I don't remember if he showed up with the GAIN program with their presentation or not. I don't think he did, but he might've been in the audience. Just always looked just like this, like huge smile, loved music, loved life. He went through South Grafton, Millberry Street, the middle school. our high school, graduated, and then went to Gaines, and sadly passed away, leaves some siblings who have graduated in the past, really great kids, and there are some still with us now. So the, I don't have the, I'm not sure if it's been set yet, but in mid-August, there's going to be a remembrance ceremony for him. But he's gonna be greatly missed. I did wanna also thank the staff at Gaines, did a wonderful job handling tragic situation and Patty Champy, one of our counselors from the high school, took time out of her summer, worked with parents, staff and students over there, which was great. On more positive news, our ESY and enrichment programs, I don't know if any of you have been over there. I've had a chance to get over there a bunch of times and it's awesome. Pretty much the whole first floor and most of the second floor are just buzzing with activity from ESY and enrichment. Kids couldn't be happier. The fact that the HVAC is working is just incredibly fantastic. So staff's a heck of a lot happier. We're about halfway through the program, but so far it's gone exceedingly well. Just a few, I asked Frank for a list. He gave me literally a list of 50 things that they're working on and doing a great job with. Our custodial crew is cleaning hundreds of office spaces classrooms etc it all looks great we're right on schedule we don't have any like massive projects this summer but we've repaired or replaced some sidewalks walkways a lot of painting this summer more than we've had the past two years interior painting for the most part we're replacing this goes back to a project that's been ongoing that i think frank talked about with the replacement of lighting we're doing the next Next round of upgrades at GHS Gymnasium we worked on that a lot last year in the GHS auditorium this summer With the architect that designed it. I mean wonderful, but boy like super high ceilings was in vogue that year I mean, it's crazy. How high our gymnasium and auditorium ceilings are so that's a massive undertaking. Replacing two smaller HVAC units, one at North Street, connected to the nurse, the nursing area, and a similar one over at the high school, but not one of our main units. You may recall two of our school zone lights on the side of the road were taken out by plows over the winter. Those are being replaced using food service revolver funds. We are creating a new serving line at North Street. That's the original line. If you've been over there, it's just inefficient. It's lousy. So that's actually kind of exciting. And then I'll talk a little bit about the roof project. What we're gonna do, we've been working with that company, GRLA, and they've been fantastic. We know we can't get to the bulk of the entire roof as a whole until next spring and summer, but the goal has been to get H, which is right above where the students are, the worst section, get that replaced before winter, if humanly possible, so we don't have to cross our fingers and just hope. So we're breaking, we're basically breaking the project into two pieces, H, and then we'll go through the same, this basic process, which I'm happy to speak to, where we put out bids, contractors come, they check it out, they can request, RFIs, request for information. I clarify the work, they really have to look at what they're bidding on, then they bid, and then that's very quick. Right after that, within a few days, we'd actually, we'd have a contractor and be moving. We think it's gonna take September, October, and then just, we put early November in case it goes long or we get a hurricane or whoever, who knows what. So that will be phase one, hopefully before this all goes according to plan and we think it will. And then we'll go through the same process for the other two thirds, three quarters of the roof. right after this is completed, like in the winter, and we'll have plenty of time to just, obviously the ideal time is you have a good buffer in terms of a run-up, and ideally you can do most of it when the kids aren't in school. Any significant work for this, first part of the project will be anything that that includes that um what's the best way to put it they call it ripping but it's actually a tearing out roofing like the hard stuff that certainly isn't going to be done when any students or staff are in the building so that's either going to be on the weekends or at night that component laying the new roof that's i've been part of those projects before that's not a particularly big deal any questions on any of that and this all goes frank has really he works on this every day and there's no concern about disruption classrooms or yeah it's any construction project it's not if it wasn't july 1st to august 15th right anything outside of that um we luckily have the concerns come up not certainly not with safety um and as long as we're not doing the ripping the sound shouldn't shouldn't be an issue It's usually, you've got a crane involved, you've gotta store all the roofing materials. We luckily, right behind the building near Lake Ripple, we do use that for some parking. So that's gonna be an inconvenience, but it's not, you've got a crane and everything on the front steps and kids can't get out of the building. So in a weird way, it's actually captured here in the lower left. We'll use that as our staging area. And again, that GRLA company's been just the best I've seen. They've been great to work with. So I will keep you posted on this, but it's moving right along. And I was asked to give an update on where we stand with staff attendance. As you'll recall, last year was the first year that all districts submitted their absenteeism numbers to DESE. It was posted. You could compare districts, all that stuff. So that was 24, 25 up top. And obviously below that, this is our preliminary data. I want to be crystal clear with that. We have until at least next Friday before we actually submit. So Jamie Cardinal, whose focus is on our district data has been scrubbing it, going through every single individual, and improvement across the board. And it may change a little, I think only for the better to be quite frank, because we may find something that was labeled as say a sick day, when in actuality it was a in-district PD day or something. So I expect any changes to the positive, but I want to be crystal clear that this is preliminary. And then I'm not sure, the timeline's a little, ahead of where they were schedule-wise, DESE, last year. So at this point, we haven't even submitted, I don't know when they're gonna put out all the statewide data so we could compare how we're doing to neighbors.

Dr. Cummings, the 2024-25, that's what you had submitted to DESE last year, but then you came back to us and told us that those numbers weren't right.

Yeah, these are the correct numbers. Are you sure because- I don't know for sure. This is what Jamie gave me. So I assume he gave me the right numbers. He could have made a mistake. I don't know.

I mean, I just typed it in the drive, attendance, and it comes up the report that you had given us back in, like if you type it in, attendance.

Okay.

The report from- I'll check with them.

Whatever.

They're lower is what I'm getting at. Those are the numbers that you had submitted to DESE, but those are not- They were a little better after. Right.

Okay. When they do release it, I would come back, like I think we did last year, but have a memo and speak to whatever that is. So I'll ask Jamie.

Do you see what I'm talking about, Laura? Yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to.

Yeah, this is the one that was on the DESE. But then he came back like in December. Right, but you're right. These numbers match what's on DESE's, which were wrong.

Which were wrong, right. Right, and unfortunately DESE, I think probably every district realized what DESE was doing with it, reached out to DESE and said, oh, we've got changes. and DESE didn't accept. And said no, right. So if they have on their website, I'm guessing you're gonna be able to go and sort by year, et cetera. This is what's gonna be in DESE. Right, yeah. But that's a good catch.

Yeah.

So I can kind of build our.

All right, so then my question about, wow, nice improvement on the teachers.

It's definitely still, I don't remember off the top of my head what the number was, but the changes didn't move it. I mean, it moved the needle, but it wasn't, I was still concerned. But I'll have that, I'll have the actuals. We know this year's correct, but I'll have the actuals from 24-25 as well. And Jamie, if I want to talk to him tomorrow, I can easily just share that with you as well. Is that it? And we've been doing just a ton of hiring. We've hired 19 teachers, counselors, professional staff members. A huge hire for us has been Laura Cahill. I'll have her at the next meeting. She's the HR director. She was the HR director in Worcester just so unbelievably fantastic, it's gonna make me exponentially better, I'm hoping. We have about, I think right now we have seven more hires to make, and that doesn't include paras, and coaches, that type of thing. But I believe it's either six or seven professionals, teachers, counselors, admin.

you probably will not have this data but i'm going to ask you um how many teachers did we kind of lose at the end of the year that either were worried about uncertainty or um or just went somewhere to make more money or i'm just curious when we looked during kind of the override talk you and i found that actually we lost a lot of teachers over the last couple years so i was curious kind of what happened at the end of the year this is really rough i didn't have it

I've been working on a slide deck and this is one of those slides. I'm not gonna sign off on this in blood at this point, but I think it's accurate. Marita's vetted it, so did Laura Cahill, but I wanna go through it again. But it gives you an idea. We tend to lose 9% to 13% of staff in terms of turnover. Some of those, definitely a majority. It's gonna be financially based. We lost, I think it was three to Algonquin alone just to make, I fully understand it's unfortunate, but 10 to $15,000 more a year. Marlboro this year, that I didn't see that coming, but a few people went to Marlboro. So it definitely adds up. I get it, and it's just our reality. We certainly have some people that, I don't know of any this year, but last year and the year before, we definitely saw a spike in people leaving to especially go back and live with their parents. just financially, just trying to make it work. They couldn't buy a house in the Northeast and they went to fill in the blank. There was an uptick in those. Yeah.

Is this only teachers? Nope. Okay. Oh, I see. I see the delineation. I got it.

No, it's okay. I see. in the people that we're getting are they like just out of school oh that would be so i shouldn't say that would be so great but there was a time where we kind of could hire somebody a couple years out of school and it was wonderful understandably those people if if we do there hasn't been a hiring meeting with a less experienced newer person where they don't bring up that they've got offers from other districts and how can you match it. And that's a huge challenge. something else we've had a couple more retirements come in i think i've shared those maybe with you um trying to think of who a couple teachers that were on the fence and they're gonna they they were late in telling us and that's okay um but they're gonna be retiring, I think there are two. So the numbers aren't perfect, but they're close. I've been really happy with our hiring, but it's definitely really challenging. Knock on wood, we haven't had any of the super hard ones with the exception of business teacher. We lost our two business teachers to higher paying positions. It's very, very hard to hire for that position. other positions along those lines. If you need like a French, Spanish teacher, that's impossible. Physics, next to impossible. There's certain outlier positions, if you will, that are just, you're up against districts and it's super tough.

So currently we do not have any business teachers? No, we have one out of two.

Oh, okay. And I actually met with Tracy Calo about one of the candidates today. But those folks, they're not coming right out of school looking for that. This is somebody that's just been around and it's gonna cost more. Does that answer your question?

Yes, thank you.

I don't know, you probably noticed, you probably don't know this, but I'm wondering just like, anecdotally, how many, you said it was about 9% turnover?

90% we have about 500, 50 is 9%.

Normal for districts, like, yeah, what is, you know, is it just a huge turnover or is this kind of normal? I mean, I get the reason, you know, I certainly get the pay and all of that. And I mean, it's expensive to live in the Northeast. So, regardless, but I'd be curious, but I don't know how, you know, I don't know.

I can easily find that out.

Yeah. Okay. If you can easily find it out, I would be curious just to know, you know.

Yeah, what's the typical turnover rate?

Yeah, because I think if we're all kind of similar, but if we're really, you know, then we have a bigger problem than I'd like to kind of dig into. And I think with Laura here, too, you know, she can get this year, like, when people, if people leave, get some more data, like, you know, which.

She's already all over that.

I'd be really curious to kind of dig into that more once we have, like, somebody who can devote some time to it and has the experience, but

that's a great slide jack yeah i mean we've had 50 teachers resign in the last you know two school you know two calendar years three school years i mean yeah that feels like that seems like a lot yeah

Yeah. Just in resignation. I'll get the data. I think you'll find that it is, but I'd prefer to have the data before. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, and in general, I'd like to know, is it pay? Is it environment? I mean, if it's some things that, you know, we could really at least dig into and if it's pay, that's a great number to also have and, and.

And then maybe like, if you could get it, like the select board, like if they want to know, like with our hiring, like from the people that like left us, like does that increase our budget for salaries or do we? Like you mean if we have to hire someone more experienced? Well, just to kind of see like what the overall number, like what that like accumulates to, like are we like still on track with the budget that we had for going into? Or does it give us like a little bit wiggle room?

okay that's all i have um sorry when stella was speaking it just occurred to me so i had read that that more money from the state is going to be going out is this correct right maybe maybe it would be like approximately like 300 000 yeah are you going to provide us with um addition uh allocations for that yeah okay would that change the amount that's that um

because with the override we had said we were taking probably like one point was it 1.1 or 1.2 the first year would that reduce that what you're talking about yeah we could um one early thought is to take a significant chunk of that and do yeah pretty much just try to hold on to it my biggest worry that aside that's a legitimate worry um is going into this year with pretty much no capital other than what we have just built into our operating budget. All of our allocation, I believe, almost every cent is gonna go to the field. So when something breaks, and let me promise you, things will break, and where we don't have the reserves that we once had in terms of school choice, for example, I'm really worried about that piece. So I like the idea of putting it aside. Hopefully it just, we don't have to tap into it and that will help offset what you're talking about. But to have that there when a furnace goes, I think would be wise. But yes, I'll definitely have a recommendation.

Okay, and another question, which wasn't covered in the thing. Have you had the administrative retreat yet? Has that happened?

No, Monday, August 3rd, and Tuesday, August 4th.

Okay, do all the administrators go? Yep. Where are you going this year?

I don't know, somewhere Western Mass, not in the same place we went to last year.

Any one of anything else?

Thanks, Jay. Next year's schedule.

Why are some of these things yellow?

Ah, I can speak to that. So, sorry, I was in my own little world there. The last meeting, you may recall, there was a discussion. I put forward just something to put before you just to serve as a jumping off point. The committee had a discussion about some conflicts. I went back and rewatched. My notes made no sense. So I went back and rewatched it a few times, made the adjustments that were requested, and those changes are in yellow. Thank you. If you ask me why we changed those, I couldn't tell you.

I know, I know. Oh, you do know? One was Veterans Day, one was the look at the conference. Yep. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we had a conference.

Oh, that's better than I remember, but I know I got it right, because I watched it a few times.

I'm sorry you had to watch her.

No, it was, it was wonderful.

So I have no doubt this will change over time, but.

I want to make sure, sorry, Lior, that we add on here somewhere um in regards to negotiations because we didn't have that in the previous year and it would be great if we could look at negotiations prior to the summer so that there's not retroactive pay for payroll you know how in the yeah but that's not typically in these right but like as far as like setting like how when do we set that those up I wasn't on the board when the negotiation started the first time. Like when I got on the board, negotiation calendar had already. So when does that calendar start to get developed?

It's typically January. We always want to start earlier. but I guess, I don't know if you've had any discussions with union leadership. So it usually starts with the teachers, paras, kind of custodians, but like, so, We can certainly, I mean, I think we'd all probably like to start earlier.

Right.

I think also for payroll, like retro. Well, that's if we can get it wrapped up in time. Right. So if we can get it wrapped up in time, that would be amazing. If we can't. Then, yeah, yeah. And it's usually not earlier. We like, yeah, it takes a lot. Of time, so anyway, that might just be something you touch base with union leadership. I'm guessing they wouldn't want to do it right away in the beginning in the fall or would probably want to do like, that's the HR director.

Yeah. Thank you.

I'm going to have to remember we have 1 now.

Okay. Great today, but we talked about. The concept of negotiations, but not like dates or anything.

Yeah.

Just so I'm clear, at this point, are you asking me to check with them about when they want to get going or?

Yeah, that would be great. I mean, I feel like definitely the last time at least one, my impression was, a lot of things got slowed down, because we couldn't even like find a date in the summer available.

In the summer became very difficult.

Well, even before that, it was like, yeah, and we have to get the attorney and write their people. I mean, it's a lot of scheduling this.

Yeah, the scheduling is in mind. I assume they're going to say, what are you thinking?

I mean, if we started in January, I would have no problem with that.

I know it always feels like we'll start in January.

It's like, okay, we start in January, but by the time it's scheduled. You know what?

It might not be an awful idea for us to pull an MASC and have a little training for us since two-fifths of us weren't, you know, it's, I mean, you know, it might not be a bad idea to see if we can get a workshop on, like, we're not doing impact, but...

Yeah, I was here for negotiations. I just wasn't here.

Yeah, no, I know you were here, but it was for the, I know you kind of came in, but. Yeah, but the beginning also has a lot. I don't know if you guys are interested in them and I wouldn't mind going through it. I'm happy to. Yeah, we have it free.

Another thing I'd like to see on the calendar, I've asked for a couple of years, I'd love for the PTO and PTG presidents to come in to give an update. Is that on the calendar?

No. We used to pair it with the school.

Yeah.

I don't remember, did they not?

No, we haven't had them, no.

It would make sense to come. We used to have them come with like South or North when we separated them, they would come and do it. and then we pulled them all jointly which makes sense um so i think it might make sense for them to come a little earlier in the year so they could talk about the group talk about what their plans are and like we do with um cpac right like right so say february 10th no excuse me In the fall.

Oh, in the fall. Oh, well, okay. You said earlier, so I did a week earlier, two weeks earlier. But we didn't have it all.

If they have time and are able, did you guys have, you had elections yesterday?

Yeah. Did people? People.

People, step up.

No.

No? Same board. Good. Amazing, you guys are amazing. Um, they're going to do what James is done now. Now we understand I'll come back, but it's really hard if you don't know anybody, you know, I miss it.

Yeah, I just know, like, the fall it's because it's too crazy. Well, I just South has Oktoberfest and we in North Grafton has fun run. So it's just a busy time. Um, so if maybe we paired it with, um. either like NGS or SG, you know, South Grafton, February, March is like a lull, like for at least, I could say for at least for North, we usually don't have anything going on those months.

So February 10th.

February 10th, great idea.

That sounds like a really good idea.

Do you want me to reach out? Yes, please.

Oh, and we also need, because the next school committee meeting is September, the year end, because we didn't have that report.

Yes, that would be it. That should be shared with you by the end of next week.

But we'll review it in the meeting. Okay, anything else? We have minutes to approve. Let's take a motion on the June 10th minutes.

Madam Chair, I move that the committee approve the minutes from June 10th, 2026 as written.

Second. Motion made and seconded. Any changes or comments or all in favor? Great, unanimous. All right, warrants. I abstain. I abstain because I wasn't that meeting. Oh, fair. Sorry, I thought I saw your hand up.

No.

One abstention. All right, let's talk about warrants. First, let's talk about the actual warrants that are in our packet. Does anyone have questions on any of the items on the warrants?

Okay.

Yep, they were pretty straightforward. So we have a larger discussion about the warrant signing process and review process. Christy, I know when you kind of took over the role, you had some questions, you pulled together some I know you've talked to the MASC. I've talked to the MASC about this process. Right. And I think, you know, we're batting about 500, 600 in terms of policy and, you know, mapping to the process.

I don't understand sports metaphor. Sorry. I don't know what that means.

That's good.

Right? Like... So I did prepare some slides which are in the drive. Yeah, I think we've gone through them. Yeah, where the process is now is that the finance director prepares it and then it comes to the committee to sign. My concern with this after talking also with MASC and reviewing the policy is that there's not typically you'd have somebody internal that would review the documentation prior to it coming to us. Usually the preparer is not the signer of the material because For example, I don't work in payroll here. I don't know every single detail. It doesn't make sense. I would not have any knowledge as to every invoice or every piece of payroll that would come through. Typically, it would be the superintendent would sign off on it. For example, I was looking at payroll this past week and there was an issue with the fiscal years that I caught that I had to send back. That's not typically what a school committee member would look for in finding errors to go back to the.

Wait a minute, you say you found an error in the payroll?

Yeah, as far as what fiscal year it was coming out of. Yeah, so it was written 2007, down 30 lines, it's 2027 was our fiscal year.

So it was a typo on the, it's not like we were paying the wrong amount.

You weren't paying the wrong amount, but the point is is that the school committee should not see typos or errors to that effect. It should be internally caught prior to coming to us. Our role is the school committee as signing off on it. is just to ensure that those internal steps have been taken that is prepared and that typically it's been signed off by by somebody else an administrator within to double check and then um yeah we don't review it all and that the expenses fall within the allocated budget so that part was hard too, because it's not broken down by cost center. We don't see it broken down by allocation, right? And in our policy, that's up to the superintendent as well. The superintendent's responsible for ensuring the budget allocations are observed and that total expenditures don't exceed the amount allocated in the budget for all items. So that's the MASC policy. That's what we all accepted. So when talking with MASC, that's typically why the superintendent would be that second step of the signer, right? Before it gets tough. us as the school committee so then after we sign it it goes to the town accountant process payment and then we receive the warrants to review at the next meeting to review so what's not happening on us right now is we don't receive the payroll warrants if you look in your drive those are right we get the the other but we should be getting every warrant so that's very reasonable so we need to be receiving all of them so um yeah so that's that's kind of where we're at so um that's the batting 500 we get half of the warrants that's the metaphor we get half of the warrants but i i feel very strongly that there should be an independent independent internal review prior to it coming to the school committee typically like i said in any municipality you

you think i'm going to review every expense no but like you were the you're the person that would have to just oh i could sign off i sign off on stuff all day every day is that yeah would that please you right yes oh okay i could like that i can do so but in your conversations like with kathleen right like it does go through several levels right like stuff to me all the time well and chris startesky let's say sees the expenditures from his building and then it comes over here and then kathleen looks at like

Nicole Gurr, our accounts payable person, that is her job.

Well, that's to verify the purchase and stuff. But once it's been verified, that's verifying. That part that you're talking about is verifying. Which is important, right? Which is important. Like somebody needs to do that. And then it's prepared, but then somebody else still needs to sign off on it that they have reviewed the preparation of this looks. Reasonable with internally, I don't know nobody else on this board either would know internally what is going on to sign off on that without anybody else.

No, so Rebecca, you've been in the role before, right? I assume you looked through something looked wonky. You would ask Kathleen for back up the person to ask, but you, you would note things right? Like.

And I mean, even sometimes they're, I mean, often they're just completely normal things. I just have no idea why we would be spending $500,000 on miscellaneous, you know, like what is it? But then she has a reasonable answer, obviously.

Right, so at this point, if we're just signing off on it, and that's what I spoke with MASC, if you're signing off on something that you don't know what it is and nobody else signed off prior to it, after preparation has been made. It's a rubber stamping. That's all that is.

Yep.

And I personally am not comfortable with that. And given how other districts handle this, I would suggest that the superintendent sign off on it to be also with our policy.

I'm happy to do that. What was the other thing, the payroll? The payroll warrant, that's easy to put in there.

And we're signing them electronically. So can we just have a double electronic signature?

I don't know. Yes, because right now we double the electronics. Right, yeah, okay.

So I'm done. Great. Fine. Perfect. Awesome. Easy peasy. Policy.

Oh.

You're up.

Yeah. So Stella and I have not met yet because this is just a lingering policy that actually, Christy and I work together. It's a second read. No changes have been made. So Madam Chair, I would like to make a motion to approve JKAA physical restraint of students as a second reading, please.

Second. Motion made and seconded. Any comments, questions?

Okay, all in favor and as of now, the policy manual is well, not as of now, it's not but before that's it's been up to date with everything that we approved the last meeting. So we'll get this 1 up and we should be rocking and rolling for the opening of the year.

Okay. School committee goal check.

I do not have any correspondence. We do not need executive session. So unless somebody has something else they want to add to the agenda. No, just kidding. No, I do not recognize you. It is the summer. It is the summer. All right.

All in favor of adjourning?

Great. Meeting is adjourned. Good night, Grafton.

Thank you.