School Committee - Regular Meeting

It is 8.02 and I'm going to call to order the June 25th, 2026 school committee meeting. First item of business is to approve the consent agenda, which is the minutes from the May 28th meeting and the oath to bills and payroll. So could I get a motion to approve the consent agenda?

So moved.

Second. We'll have to do a roll call vote because we are virtual. So I think I'll just go in order of who I see on the screen. So Janine? Janine, aye. Annalise?

Annalise Tabor, aye.

Sean?

Sean Ahern, aye.

Justin?

Justin McCarthy, aye.

And Elaine Sandelman, aye. So that motion carries. This is our first opportunity for interested citizens. Is there, Sean, you are the co-host now, right? Do you see anybody in the waiting room?

No, I just see panelists. Everyone who's supposed to be on the meeting is in the meeting.

Awesome.

Okay, so our first order of business is the FinCom school representative interview appointment. So I'd like to welcome Karen McCloskey. Thank you very much for your letter of intent and for sharing your resume with us. So this is to appoint... the FinCom school representative seat for a three-year term ending June, 2029. This replaces Mike Prue, whose term is ending this month. I can't believe it's already been three years. Like I feel like it was yesterday that we appointed him, but it's he's at the end of his term and didn't express interest in continuing. So very grateful that Karen has expressed interest and I'm So Karen's letter of interest is in the packet. Karen's resume is also in the packet. So would like to just open the floor if anybody has any questions or conversation with Karen.

No particular question, but I'd love to give Karen the opportunity to say hello, introduce herself. I know we got the cover letter and the resume, but maybe she could just do a verbal introduction.

Yeah, sure. Hi, everyone. Thank you for inviting me to be considered for this appointment. It didn't really occur to me to consider the finance committee. So I got the outreach email where you were looking for volunteers and my experience with the charter committee. I'm kind of in the mood for town volunteering and civic engagement. So that really kind of sparked my interest in getting to know more about what's going on. in the town. And I thought, what better way than through finance? Uh, that's really where you get to see the ins and outs and the priorities and how things get, um, moved around real time as new opportunities and challenges come forward. Um, as you saw in my letter, my resume, I do have a finance background from a few years ago at this point. Um, but the skillset still kind of there, maybe the tools are different, but the principles I think are the same. Um, You know, and I'm just willing to learn what needs to get done and see what I can do to help Littleton continue in its fine financial position, considering what other towns are going through in our area. So.

Sean, go ahead.

Yeah. Thank you again, Karen, for stepping up. I think your background with the charter committee, your background being a comptroller for public company is phenomenal. I think now your work in Lowell is great. And I believe you said that your husband is also an educator. So I just think it's a great fit and I appreciate your experience and I'm looking forward to working with you.

Thank you. Retired educator.

Well-deserved, I'm sure.

Janine? hi karen thank you so very very much for coming forward um it is the this is a wonderful service to the town to be the intermediary because um the school budget as i'm sure you're aware is very so important and it's such a huge part of the town budget overall Not to put you on the spot, but I just wonder if, and you can say that this is kind of like too big of a question, but I just wondered if you had kind of a philosophical thought about the difference between the private companies you've worked for, the budgeting in a private company and the budgeting in a public entity like a town and a public school district.

That's actually a cool question. I think one thing is transparency. you know, private company, you're doing it all, you know, for your own purposes, you know, obviously with the town, everything's going to be sort of documented and clearly articulated as to why things are changing or not changing and why amounts are being allocated to different groups or departments. That's probably the first thing that comes to mind on that. I don't know if that's.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a great observation.

Yeah.

Thank you. Thanks. Annalise? Hi, Karen. So as volunteers ourselves, we thank you for stepping up. So on your resume, you listed stakeholder engagement as a core skill. I was curious how you plan to work with stakeholders across town boards and town employees within sort of crafting the budget.

Yeah. It's hard to get people's attention. First of all, as you know, from some of the work that you did on the school committee, which I thought was fantastic to draw attention to the new school. You know, it's hard to get people to say like, why is this important to me? And then once you do, then you can engage it. So it's kind of two pronged. I don't know exactly how I might do that as part of the, Finance Committee, but I do think efforts, you know, to put more in the newsletter or, you know, different outreach opportunities, because we found a lot of that with the Charter Committee, is try as we can to get people to pay attention to what it is. You know, I don't think anyone's really going to be like, oh, wait, a charter? What is this? Until it comes before the Midtown meeting. So whatever little bits and pieces that that can be done to educate people along the way, I think are helpful, you know, and it's, I don't know what the opportunities for that are, but I would encourage that and, you know, support those efforts as well.

Yeah. Excellent. And we're here to help however we can too. That's right. Thanks very much.

Yeah, I have a question as well. You have a lot of accomplishments on your resume. You've got a great background that aligns with the role that you would be taking on FinCom. I'm wondering, out of all of those accomplishments, which one you see connecting most to the work of FinCom? What aspect of your background are you most excited about applying to the FinCom position?

So maybe a couple of different areas. But obviously, when I was doing financial planning and analysis, my job was to do the budget for the companies. And always the first time in was kind of a challenge because you're like, what are all these pieces? Where is this coming from? What are all these people and vendors and things and projects? So it's a super learning experience to get the first round through. And then once you get one round, then you're like, okay, now how do you plan? Now that you sort of know how the mechanics work, then you can kind of focus on the planning. You know, is there something we need to, you know, spend money on and invest in either maintenance or something else? Is there a new opportunity to go out and buy something that maybe we weren't seeing? And how do you leave enough room to do the day to day, but also build in the flexibility so that you can take advantage of opportunities or deal with unexpected expenses?

Well, that sounds like a fantastic skill set and approach to bring to this position. Justin?

My audio is a little choppy. I don't know if it's me or if it's you guys, but am I coming through okay?

Yeah, you're fine.

Maybe it's just me. So, Karen, thanks for your interest and thanks for the work on the charter committee. I know that was probably a lot of work. I'll say the finance committee is a big role, so I really appreciate your interest in that. And I just want to share with you that over the past couple of years, as you're probably aware, I hope you're aware, the school committee has had a pretty good working relationship with the finance committee. There's been a lot of collaboration, a lot of joint effort here. So... I wanted you to hear it first. We look forward to continuing that collaboration and looking forward to you being a member of that team.

Yeah, great. I appreciate that. What I've learned from the charter committee is the working relationships are really key to getting things done. And I've seen a lot of great examples of that across the different committees and boards.

Well, we appreciate your dedication to your work. being an active citizen in Littleton and getting involved. Could I ask for a motion to appoint Carrie McCloskey as the FinCom school representative from July 2026 to June 2029? So moved. Oh, sorry. That's okay.

I'll second that.

There we go. Okay. Let's do a roll call vote. So Justin.

Justin McCarthy, aye.

Janine. Aye. Shanine Wood, aye. Annalise? Annalise Tabor, aye. Sean?

Sean O'Hearn, aye.

And Elaine Sandlin, aye. So the motion carries. And welcome to FinCon, Karen. We really appreciate you stepping up and look forward to working with you.

Thank you all for your consideration and your faith in me. Oh, absolutely.

Okay, so our next order of business is to talk about the Littleton Education Association Memorandum of Agreement. So Karen, you're welcome to stay if you'd like to hear about that, but we are done with the section of the agenda that you were part of. So you can stay or leave. Either way, we are fine with that.

Okay, I will say good night. Thank you all. Appreciate your attention. your work that you do as well. So thank you all. Great. Thank you so much.

Bye-bye. Thank you.

Thanks, Karen.

Okay. So our new business is to talk about the memorandum of agreement with the LEA. So they have already ratified this MOA. So now it's our turn to ratify it. Once we ratify this, It'll get incorporated into the existing language of their contract and we'll have a full contract that will be signed by both parties. So Jim Duggan is also here because it's part of our town bylaws that the town administrator has a vote on the LEA contract. So hopefully you all had a chance to read through it. And so Justin and I were on the negotiating subcommittee and are happy to answer any questions or clarify anything that you may want to talk about. Kelly as well was also there with all the negotiations. Sean?

I just wanted to thank you, Justin, and Kelly for the hard work you put in. I know this stuff is never easy, and I'm glad that we got to this resolution. And so thank you.

You're very welcome. Elaine was part of the process too. And listen, I was looking, I was kind of laughing at this. I'm like, we spent, we spent like 10 meetings. It felt like 40 hours and it boiled down to seven pages of changes. But really Sean, I appreciate the words because it really was. And it always is. a lot of work to put these deals together. But at the end of the day, I'm grateful. I'm two for two in putting deals together where I think both sides can call it a win-win.

Annalise?

Oops, you're muted. Sorry. So I was really pleased to see... on it's on page 19 of the packet but the um the section about um providing a work environment with appropriate ventilation air quality and water quality um i think especially on the heels of shaker lane and sort of what we were finding out about that building and everything i think that goes a huge long way towards um sort of showing our staff that we care and we believe in them and we want to make sure that they are healthy and safe at their workplace as we obviously work to improve it by building the new school. So I was really, really encouraged to see that in there. I imagine that took some negotiation to get exactly where you wanted it to be, but I was really, really encouraged to see that there. Yeah, that and I was happy to see that there's a stipend for packing and unpacking a classroom. Like there's just like little things like that that I think go a long way to sort of showing that we respect the staff that, you know, the LPS staff. So I really, I think this is a great MOA and I can tell the amount of work that went into it must have been tremendous. So thank you again.

Oh, you're welcome. Well, it's funny when you highlight those. Those were things that we had long conversations about. Actually, when I read through it, most of these things are things we had long conversations about. But I think it was very thoughtfully done. I think both parties were respectful of each other and It was a good process. It took a lot longer than we were hoping it would. Justin was our spokesperson and did a phenomenal job interacting with the spokesperson for the LEA. They've worked together before, so they had a good dynamic going. So yeah, I'm very proud of the outcome here. Anybody else have any comments or questions, anything you want clarification on?

Any questions from the town administrator?

No, no, none at all. Thank you though. Good, thank you.

Okay, then are we ready to vote? Like a motion to ratify the memorandum of agreement between the Littleton Educators Association and the Littleton School Committee for the period of September 1st, 2026 through August 31st, 2029. So moved.

Seconded.

Okay, we'll do a roll call vote. So Annalise? Annalise Tabor, aye. Janine? Janine Wood, aye. Sean?

Sean Ahern, aye.

Justin?

Justin McCarthy, aye.

Jim?

Jim Duggan, aye.

And Elaine Sandelman, aye. So the motion carries.

Congratulations.

Nice job. Well, I'm so glad that we have a new contract before the other one expires. Brilliant job, you guys.

Brilliant. Very happy to get this done with Kelly, too. Yes, yes. Thank you, Kelly, for all of your hard work and guidance along the way, because we'll obviously negotiate, and then we'll need both parties' caucus, and we talk about things. And Kelly and Beth provided a lot of support to Elaine and I. So, Kelly, I want to say thank you one more time, because your leadership with the negotiation has been very valuable.

Thank you so much for saying that. And we were a strong negotiation team. So thank you, Justin and Elaine and Beth as well. It was a long process, but that was anticipated. And I feel, as you pointed out, Justin, that it's a win-win situation for both sides.

Well, and I'm glad we're able to give you this closure, Kelly, before you retire.

Yes.

Kelly, would you mind sticking around? I've got four union contracts to settle. Can I zoom in from Hawaii or somewhere? That rate is going to come from the town side, not the school side. Good catch. Good catch, Madam Chair.

Charge whatever you want, Kelly.

This sounds enticing.

Okay. So our next thing on the agenda is interested citizens, our second opportunity. Sean, is there anyone in the waiting room?

There is not.

Okay. We can speed right through that and go straight to adjournment. So I'd like to have a motion to adjourn.

So I'll second that.

Okay. All in favor. Again, we have to do a roll call vote. So Annalise. Annalise Tabor, aye. Janine. Janine Wood, aye. Sean.

Sean Ahern, aye.

Justin.

Justin McCarthy, aye.

And Elaine Sandelman, aye. So we have adjourned at 8.