School Committee - Regular Meeting

welcome everybody today is Monday February 3rd and we are back from executive session we're going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance please stand and join us if you're able iedge to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic stands one nation under God indivisible Liberty Justice for All okay let's just get situated here um for the consent agenda tonight it's just a session of meeting minutes from last meeting any questions or concerns on the meeting minutes Jo marz panelist yeah yeah I'm just she's coming in she should be just before we take the vote be great there she is there we go okay great um I'm looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved Bill and a second second Tom thank you roll call vote Mari I Tom I bill I Sean I Lori I Katherine I and I'm an i next up is public comment we're back without our public hearings we're back to regular public comment um a reminder that public comment for any item or topic on or off the agenda is always available near the top of the agenda for individuals to share their thoughts speakers will be limited to two minutes per person please use public comment even if you refer to something later on the agenda virtual public comment is available through Zoom raise your hand and you'll be promoted to panelists unmuted or iners at the microphone and start with your name and address please we just give a minute to

see anybody on Zoom with their hands up no nobody hears for public comment no no okay thank you we'll start with student updates okay so uh early release on Wednesday so that's pretty cool it's a PD day unfortunately the teachers do not get a half day um I was talking to talk to you about this midar grades supposed to come out in the next couple days they were due for teachers uh this morning about 8 a.m. so they should be coming out tomorrow Wednesday I'm assuming um we also have the H to hati basketball game it's teachers first students on March 13th kind of looking ahead um but you can sign up till February 13th um and they a hands to Haiti raises money to give to the matoa matina I don't know if I'm saying that right Community Learning Center in Haiti um and they teach um that Learning Center teaches uh Haitian students in their native language Creole instead of French it's a really cool um Community Center they have a website and everything if you want to check that out uh we also have February break starting in a couple weeks which is really exciting on February 17th um we also I talked a little bit about the winter semi-formal That was supposed to happen I believe a couple weeks ago it moved um and pushed back to April 11th so you can and you can buy tickets up until the day of on my school books um and it's open to all grades now not just the underclassmen okay there's also the boosters trivia night coming up or kind of coming up March 8th um and individual tickets are $30 and then for a table of 10 it's 280 um it's a really fun night and it really benefits the athletes in the program and it's just an awesome night um typically a huge turnout and then again really looking ahead but kind of just wanted to put things on the radar there's also the junior job shadow uh it's on May Tuesday May 20th this year so it's kind of exciting it's when the first kind of step in the junior like college process

after they had that crazy financial aid meeting a couple weeks ago and and all that and parents are hit hard um so everything's kind of starting up for them as things are hopefully winding down for seniors um but that's about it okay thanks Maddy yeah we don't have Daniel online or anything right just check I'm just going to double check but no okay we'll move on to Administration updates oh I have had one person just put their hand up past public comments but they they've now since taken it down sorry how's the committee feel about extending if someone's interested okay I for it it is 7:05 so we kind of move quickly tonight yep okay if if there's interest on Zoom to raise your hand and speak for public comment please do so I I have Jessica Jessica I'm going to promote you to panelist so you can speak it should be switching over there now maybe I was talking too fast just zooming through ton nice Jessica can you hear us you need you're on mute hi Jessica Collins 10 po Road can you hear me now we can yes yes okay so um I just wanted a chance to speak up as um a family who is opposed to the time change um I have two students who will both be at wa next year and this will negatively impact them both for sports and for work um asking students to shoulder the burden for this this change just feels like one step forward but two steps back to me and I would ask that you consider

waiting to implement this change until you can um do it so it's fair to all the students um and take a look at changing those 30 to 40 minute early buses to wa in the meantime so that those students um are getting to school on time not you know a half an hour early that's all thank you thanks Jess nobody else has anyone else like joined zoom in the last few minutes that we should if you just want to check again okay Final Call for public comment for anything on or off the agenda even if it shows up later oh I do we've got Megan oconnell M Megan I'm promoting you to panelist so you should be able to speak now in a sec did I ask we didn't get J address right yep can you start with your name and address I forgot to would like to make comments on of the if I could first is on the um transgender policy which um spent a few times policy talking about that um if I were voting on it I would vote for the policy me Megan can you speak up a little bit we're having trouble hearing you is there feedback or anything um y I'm trying to speak up I said my first comment was on the transer policy Y which if I was voting on it passes I would not vote for it I against it because I think there's still some CH thatp particularly about official records like transcripts andas

I think that need be clear I think there also needs add guidelines as far as access to bathrooms and Facilities to become more with the desie guidelines so that's what I would that the second comment to S start times three quick comments there I get off one is that I know that there was a poll St that I be better to have because we're losing you again Megan sorry we we were just losing you on the last sentence the audio is fading but yes I think the demographics one that the respond represent closely possible demographics of the Town West and I think a to have demographics contr so that can more easily identify particular groups that might be more adversity affected by this change speakings that um thir the last point I think is that I think before you go ahead and make these changes I'm not arguing for or against right I would strongly suggest that it would be good practice to determine

beforeand objective measures of success and whether that be reduced instances of tress or reduced instances of disciplinary requirements or test but something that can be objectively measured one or two years show so strongly recommend that the committee consider adopt those measurements before adop CH thank you thanks Meg Megan anybody else no anybody else last call in public comments uh oh oh I have a Chris Sanders go ahead Chris hang on promoting into panelist there we go can you start with your name and address Chris there we go one yeah sorry Chris Sanders for quala barlan yeah I'll keep it quick um I would just say I want to address the later school start times It just strikes me that it's a this is an issue where we have consensus among scientists doctors School administrators teaching staff students and parents and I I can say that honestly doesn't happen very often and I realize and recognize that it is not going to be perfect for every student and every family but I think when you look at all the factors in play you look at the

health of every student that's going to eventually be a middle school or a high School in this District it's time for later school start times and I really appreciate the work of everyone committee um staff alike that has brought this forward that's it thank you thanks Chris okay Final Call don't want to miss anybody know we've got a lot on the agenda uh nobody else looking to speak I think that might that's say with nobody else joining there we go okay so we'll pick up where we left off with superintendent updates um I was just going to point everyone's attention again to the uh information that's included in the packet tonight um the valley collaborative FY 26 budget information and the tuition um rates for the next year that that was emailed to the committee but we we have a responsibility to make sure that um that everyone is aware of that and so I just wanted to highlight that information specifically that it's there for people to review if you of course if you have any questions um feel free to reach out to me and our preschool registration for the school year 2526 um opened up on Friday online it will remain open until February um 26th so families are encouraged to visit our website go to the school tabs and scroll all the way down to integrated preschool you'll find all the information in regards to the programming um the cost of the tuition and um the requirements in in order to apply uh for the um for the opening uh once again we are expecting that we'll probably have some high volume High interest like we have for the uh last several years and so we will be holding a public Lottery um on March 6 with a snow date of March

7th anything else thank you school committee updates uh Town Dei committee meeting on Thursday 7 P.M here or online so okay great thanks Sean anything yeah uh Thursday February 6 7 P.M CPAC the special education parent advisory Council will be having um a monthly meeting normally it is in this room it is not in this room it is in the Blanchard learning conference room learning learning Comm I think they thank you well yes there's a conference room off of the learning commment so it's kind of like it's going to be in that area find your way to one it's at Blanchard it's in the middle of the school the consensus is to M that's right yeah so okay thanks Sean anything Lori uh no thanks yeah Catherine policy will be up so I'll save myself for then Mari anything did thank you um I was goingon to add that um Dr Chu Jeff Goodwin and I have finished up our school tours and we're working on preparing space a space usage report to be able to bring to the committee hopefully at our next meeting um and all of that is we're trying to orchestrate a timeline that leads us to annual town meeting to be able to have some community Outreach open tours at the building in advance of that feasibility study warrant article um for annual town meeting um oh man I lost it I had another one I guess it'll come to me

okay first up today is the proposed FY 26 school calendar okay um in front of you you do see the uh revision a or the um our version a for the 2025 26 school year calendar um it's following a very similar pattern to what we had last year um we have classes beginning on August 27th and tentative last day of June 17th we have um put in all of our state and federal holidays as well as some major religious holidays that we have been observing over the past few years um we have professional development days three full days that are scheduled for August 26th November 4th and May 5th with two half days built in for February 4th and March 4th for the school year our um team that got together to discuss the um calendar um was we had representation from each grade level as well as from WEA and we really tried to do our best to find some momentum of some full weeks of Education as you can see from just looking at the graphics there are a lot of weeks that do get interrupted either um with half days because of parent teacher conferences or holidays or um what have you um so we're try to find the right balance um especially being sensitive to families who have students that span the K to2 to 3 to 5 to Middle School level because you know someone always has a half a day somewhere in there um so visually on this calendar similar to the one we have presented to um for this past year in the margins you

can see that we are calling out um which days might affect certain grade levels for clarity and we did receive some good feedback on this version of the calendar this past year so um if you have any questions we can certainly entertain them now the hope is that by the next meeting on March 3rd we would have an expected vote um and some of the information on the back might change depending on school start times and I would just add quickly um that there is a Citizens petition um in full disclosure I filed that as a resident in my capacity as a resident to have town meeting um no the voting to have the town election moved from a Tuesday to a Saturday the May 6th the May 6th Town local election moved from a Tuesday to Saturday that would be a change to our bylaws that um annual town meeting on March 22nd will consider if that happens the calendar committee did kind of talk through what we would do with that full professional development day um and one the the consensus was to move that full day of PD to January 20th 20 thank you um which you know is beneficial in terms of when in the year does good professional development makes sense um but that we also heard from the elementary principles that they benefit from an early release day in May to start working on class placements so if the change is approved at town meeting Not only would May 5th become a full day of learning we were thinking of adding a early release do we have a date for that one um it's the 13th Wednesday the 13th any questions I think the only thing I'd kind of raise is I'd love and I it's a bigger conversation I think

outside of everything is looking at those the parent teacher conferences those half days back to back you know can make a week really messy and if we do end up like if you look at January so um you know we've got we're just back a week and then we've got the Wednesday and Thursday early release stays Monday off and potentially the Tuesday now too and so um I just kind of Wonder is there yeah I think I think that we there was some discussion at with that at the calendar committee too um obviously our teacher parent teacher conferences caregiver family teacher conferences are dictated in our unit a um contract and we would be up for negotiations next year so I think that makes sense as a time to check in on this new recent change for the last three years that when it was moved from away from Thanksgiving um so we could take some time to reflect maybe get we could consider some family input on how the conferences have been working for families and staff input and see how that could come up in negotiations but for now we are locked into that no yeah completely understand Y and I'm just going to note that um I know that there are the um basically built-in snow days there but there is not much wiggle room for a really bad winter uh beyond that so we typically I would say this is typically what five days so once we get past the five days then we're looking at alternative okay considerations um one of the things that happened a number of years ago is that desie had made some sort of

um uh adjustments in if storms happen later in the year and a community has used all of their snow days then it it could it could it could release the need to necessarily make up the time um but that back back to this ice storm yes back to the no October storms when you used up all your snow days before winter Sean you had your hand raised earlier did you you hand you covered it my questions were surrounding the U Town Meeting potential change to um when the annual Town vote would be yes thank you yep thanks which I'm sorry can you articulate that one more time so that that date that may it's proposed is May 6th on this so that would become May 5th sorry May 5th that would become a full day of learning a full day of learning okay but the full day of PD would move adjacent to Martin Luther King Jr day so families would have a 4-day weekend and staff would have a three-day weekend got it and then we would add an extra early release in May on May 13th which would allow um some planning time for the next school year for our Elementary staff so is that is that an additional early release or would it be moving the March or February that would be an additional one so we can build in the May one we didn't build it in yet we just want to make sure we double check our time on learning yep y um before we just add in another half day and this may be a question for um outside of this body but if it does get past it town meeting does that mean the bylaws are just automatically amended as of that date or is there extra steps to this or my understanding is that it is not in the town Charter which is the part that would be would have to wait for a

legislature if that's that what you're asking yeah so in theory if this gets passed at town meeting the following day we could have an updated calendar route for the public right I I think it would come back to us right for another a of of revision okay I guess my my one concern would be if we're pushing this out in like August or something and we would have it long before then yeah is the idea right y okay thank you I just had a question about parent teacher conferences are those within this regular school day now because there used to be an evening uh where there were conferences as well yep that changed um with the most recent contracts so those are early release days and the window for the conferences is like I think it's staff have like an hour and then conferences start so they're usually it's a long extended afternoon okay so goes you could say it goes into early evening but it's not the same as it was where there were specifically evening 8:00 at night right when does it end now do you know off the top of my head I can't remember I wanted to say six o' I think somewhere around the five and they're they're both virtual and in person so I think parents have families have been it's been a good option yeah so is the first one the evening one and the second one the afternoon they're both afternoon both early releas both they're both afternoons yep wow yeah back you're right we used to have the morning yeah and then and now it's it's just the afternoons right we used to have a full day of no school their conferences and there was a half day right yeah it was a full day and then a 2our delay so that you could get evening hours the night before and morning hours to hit families at both ends that's that's how it was before I think with zoom now it's kind

of changed the fact that you can do a virtual meeting um and and like I said I I think you know it has been this will be our third year of this method of conferences and so we can think about as a committee you know how do we get feedback on this practice and whether to revisit it in negotiations right so I might just make one thing that if you do your petition does pass that maybe we don't look at January 20th for that full date of PD and I don't know if you consider like tag tagging it on to like the February vacation that Monday or something just because January is quite Messy as is already we're back a week then they've two early release days and then you're back for three day like it's I don't know just conversation chops up the month quite a bit it chops up January quite a b and when we had the when we had the full because we've had a full day in January before but I want to say it was before we moved the conferences to January so you're right it was there was an ear there was a full day of PD in January but that was outside of the holiday that was the only yeah Interruption as opposed to also having the the um half day it isn't it still makes it challenging but that's the other piece is that remember it's a half day for just the middle school and in December it's a half day for just the elementary schools yeah yeah so um it's actually not impacting everybody the same way yep um that reminds me of what my other update I was going to share which is just to remind the public watching and all the committee members that this is our meeting for February based on the weeks that fall and um vacation break so

our next meeting is March 3D which is when this will come back for a vote okay uh I did have one one comment on the back side of this and that's um the Elementary grades are listed by grade and the other schools are called out by school and it just you know just put in six to eight six right now it would be 6 to 12 you're right so it just it's not substantive it just it well it's just that we're not listing the names of that's true we've always separated Blanchard and Stony Brook and they're they're the same and on in this version it's the same six through 12 so yeah right yeah that's interesting good point just for consistency we'll fix that yeah thank you okay any final thoughts I can't see Mari she have I can see her okay okay everybody good on that we'll move on to our next order of business tonight our update on the policy P 5235 transgender and gender non-conform ing students okay I won't bring it up because you won't be able to see it I don't think anyone needs it um okay so prior to Christ to the winter break we had um we had our P5 325 up for public comment and um had done our first two readings through our meetings and based on some feedback that we received in the community towards the end of the public comments it just required us to step back and take a little bit more um uh time with it and so um we've since met a few more times and really looked at at this and so what we're proposing tonight is just to give everybody an update of where we

are and that on our March 3rd meeting that would essentially be our third and final reading and we would take a vote first that that night um the main uh addition or change um as you can you might see in your in the packet um in the draft form was just updating that um definition that KP law I think it was KP law had um come back to uh Courtney with recommending that we I it was update what was it it was nle nle sorry um to remove our harassment policies and kind of combine it into the one definition that covers Us um so which we've done which we've done um previously So based on the definition that's we've updated that to kind of include um every all those various parties then based on community feedback we then started looking at our um definitions in the policy and the idea was just to kind of use a explain a few terms that you know might rise through the policy and um so we updated a few of those there to make them more up to- date in language and we added the term gender Doria um after that the changes are are very minimal it's kind of updating any pronouns or where we say parent Guardian we're adding caregiver um just kind of rewrote one or two lines to kind of make it read easier um and I know we had um we had someone a public comment this evening who'd also you know given us feedback um in our school in our policy committee meetings

and we do understand you know I think all the viewpoints that we were receiving but really we have to stay true to the law and the mgls and desie guidelines and MIAA and the sports and so we really have to make sure our policy is in line with with those laws and regulations um to ensure we're not I suppose leaning into areas of potential discrimination and so um we kind of made the decision after a lot of research conversation um that you know we could do one or two slight tweaks but that actually our policy was pretty solid um based on that information um I am very aware that right now um our federal government and president are having conversations and executive orders are being signed um but as of right now that hasn't that's not we haven't got any guidance out of Massachusetts as to any changes so and how it impacts our our schools exact at the local level so so I'm proposing that we vote on this on the 3rd of March as is and that we keep an eye and um what comes down the road and I think it would be helpful that the lawyers maybe you know have a copy of this and are keeping an eye on it as things may change um so that is kind of where we've We Stand it's my understanding is that the federal can have their laws state can have their laws can't be any more restrictive than the federal and we can have our own policies they can't be more restrictive than any of those they can't

take any additional rights away but we can be more welcoming and supportive than any level above us is that I'm gonna I'm gonna unmute for a second face I think that some of the things that have been happening with some of the executive orders is that they're tied to federal funds which is the complicating Factor depending on how funding is received and so as much as I understand what you're um saying uh with regard to you know the Constitution being a floor and not a ceiling is how Sean and I might refer to it but um but the the concerns are around um the linking between certain um actions that are being taken and actually the funding which is um is more complicated than that thank you nailed it Mari love having lawyers on the committee um anyone else have reactions or feedback for their policy subcommittee do you have any meeting scheduled or we have attentive meeting scheduled if we receive any other feedback um but uh other that and I will go on and just upload Lo this amended version on our public comment we're kind of okay okay with um leaving it up until March 3rd um and and again like I understand you know we've had feedback you know regarding um other viewpoints and thoughts but we really have to we we made the decision that you know that we stay within Jesse guidelines and um I know um Mr conell had mentioned Jesse guidelines earlier but I we specifically speically spoke about that it's kind of reading it's how we're interpreting kind

of some of the the guidelines around it so okay um we we have specifically looked at at that and what was the date that you think you want to leave it up for public comment until because it wouldn't be March 3rd right you wouldn't have a chance to react uh Noe but it would be up until February 26th thank you okay obviously if any members have feedback after tonight please just direct it to the chair of the policy subcommittee okay all good next we're going to Welcome Finance director Jenny Lynn to give us a Q2 fy2 financial report and as she sets up the other update the third update I forgot was that that we um um you know school committee had our yeah um fincom fincom Department review yeah um between last meeting and today um and that went really well we had a lot of good conversations about the non-general fund guide book um and I think it was the first year in a while that we didn't have followup didn't have a followup so y Kudos kudos to finance committee seriously you you got High Praise from fincom all right Jenny alet yeah great I'm getting this so Catherine can you help to pull up their presentations wise should be coming up there now that's it isn't it J yes yeah that's right uh thank you for having me and uh for fiscal year 25 quarter to general fund and other F financial status report let me start from the second slide and uh this is a summary of General funds

operating budget by individual function Cole as of December 31st 2024 so let me give you a overview for fiscal year 25's budget so fiscal year 25's total budget is 67 m585 355 with the actual spending Plus incumbrance for the total amount of 65,800 13 264 which results in available budget for 1, 7729 $90 representing 97.38 of projected usage by the end of the fisal year so the full amount for budgeted salary has been uh incumbered in the general fund and also the comp Reserve has been allocated to the individual function C so so after this snapshot and uh let's get into the detail for the general funds oper operating by individual function code I will highlight a couple uh variance uh as the end of quarter two compared to the budget so next slide let's look into the combin unit a salary so this include a function code from 2305 to 2800 so that covers classroom teachers special education teachers therapists Librarians guidance and uh adjustment counselor and also psychologist the overall available balance for the combined un a professional salary is

6377243 too so we will continue to monitor the salary estimate for the remainder of the fiscal year so you might not know so as we make a projection for salary incumbrance and uh on the employee turn over we need to make adjustment for the S incumbrance like when we have employee resign or retire when we hire new employee employee take a leave of absence either shortterm or long term or we have teacher they have colon changes so those all requires the salary in conference adjustment so that's one of the responsibility our assistant Finance director does so she make those Inc comence adjustment in the system as we seen the status change in the system so next one is our function called 2320 medical and therapeutical services uh there are two components under this function call the first component is therapy Sal uh that includes our speech therapist occupational therapist and bcba salary as you have seeing for the previous slide there's a remaining balance 64,000 for therapist salaries the second component for uh under dysfunction code is special education contract the service for fiscal year 25 the total budget for special education contractor service is 329,000 however at this point the projected expenses are currently at 665,000 so we have seen the spending increase from

217,000 in quarter one to three to to 330,000 deficit in quarter two so the spending increase in this area uh indicates that there's a ongoing needs for additional funding in this area so a need that remains unmet because of the budget constraint so this year the cost increase is primary driven by uh the psychological evaluation Services uh like if we have employee taking a family medical leave those Services needs to be provided the industri from outside provider that's part of the reason you have seen the increase in this area Jenny can I ask a quick quick question there so would you say that the previous slide is related like that this deficit is related to the previous slide so a portion of this t uh therapist salary is related to the previous SL in the 2320 for the therapist yeah that's part of unit a salary so there's a 64,000 remaining balance however in the second portion under that function code we see a deficit okay so I guess what I'm asking is do we see an increase in the contracted Services because of Staff absences uh part of the reason part of it could be a increased need for evaluations in the district yeah psychological evaluation Services as well and all kinds of contractor service for special education and right now we have one position that's been unfilled got it and so that is a position that um as a per DM or per evaluation is very very costly what what's that position a school psychologist oh okay yeah and are we

advertising for that currently oh yes yeah and whenever um an absence of family medical leave or a long-term absence occurs within special education you just you can't find a substitute for $100 don't be able to do that position so if it's feeling the need of a bcba or a speech pathologist or occupational therapist or school psychologist it's you know going to cost us more money big deficit so yeah teacher substitutes yeah yeah so this lies for Teacher substitutes uh for teach teacher subing cost uh we see the cost usually fluctuates year by year or sometimes quarter by quarter so in the past three years historically we see this cost range from 430,000 to 550,000 uh because we are currently at a halfe point the actual spending for Teacher subing cost is 240,000 so based on the project ction we might spend $450,000 uh under this function code because we usually do not incumber for our teacher substitute cost because uh we have unpredictable nature for the leave of absence so this function code still has $240,000 remaining uh for January after we post the two pay rolls uh due to the flu season we have seen lots of teachers they are taking sick time so we see uh the teacher substitute cost and increase significantly for just January so we are hoping the cost can go down so but we will keep monitoring the cost for the teacher

substitutes some of that you can also see a correlation with our Personnel um report for um this year um thankfully we have many students that return from college and are willing to substitute in the month of Jan January and so many times uh you know that bill might go up a little bit which is great because at least we're being able to fill those substituting positions rather than having them go unfilled yeah for this payroll we have not finalized for February 6 so we have seen the number going down so it just varies period by period so that's something we always need to pay closer attention to uh next one is our instruction assistant which is under the function code 2330 the available budget for this function code is $67,000 uh we continue to see a high turnover rate under the unit e members um fiscal year 25 we budgeted 130 FTE for esps uh currently we have 136 ESP in our immunis system so we have have to add 6 FTE for uh this school year due to the individual education plans student needs uh when we come to the FTE account for esps we need some flexibility because uh every year we have students transition into the next level we have to welcome an accommodate new student enroll in the new enroll in the school districts and also uh the special education department they might change uh you know the team decision to make a uh you know change for students

uh Services that's also require additional ESP support for those students uh next slide is for our function callede 3300 Transportation because this is the first year we Outsource the special educ flee I'm sure many of you will be interested to hear update for special education Transportation cost so so far we have received three months Bill uh September's Bill total is 167,000 October is 185,000 November is 154,000 and uh it's worth noting that for September and October we have more school days than any other months of the school years so the best projection we can make at this point we use the daily way times the remaining days for the school year so the total projected expenditure for special education Transportation cost will be approximately $1.7 million just for your reference for fiscal year 24 we spent a million n uh a m669 th000 so our current expenditure and projection seems pretty reasonable and uh because when we think about uh Outsourcing special education and lots people don't think about different factors we are saving because we are saving on annual employee salary increase we are saving on the flea lease cost flea maintenance cost the fuel cost those could be significant and uh there's another portion we are saving from the townside because on the school we do not pay for employees benefit so Town also save lots of expenditure for

employees benefit and we are saving for negotiation related legal cost as well Jen can I ask a quick question there um in the FY 24 number 1.6 million is that um what what does that represent is that just the the leases and the employee salaries and uh that's everything for special education Transportation cost in uh including the lease cost maintenance cost like a parent Transportation reimbursement just everything for the special education okay thanks okay so so essentially we're on track to be matching pretty close our savings is that we are not seeing the increase we're not seeing a significant increase that means we are saving and and we're not seeing the the capital expenditure this year of the replacing however many correct Vans it was going to be yes okay there was 18 Vans we will need a lot of re replacement of Purchase New Capital uh Vehicles so next slide is our function code 4,000 operation and maintenance the total remaining balance for uh under facility department is 69,4 71 so this visual illustration just give you uh the disparity between the two fiscal year uh the chart uh the orange bar represents fiscal year 25 quarter 2 the blue bar represents fiscal year 24 quarter 2 from this visual illustration it's very you know clear to tell uh the heating cost and utility cost are more than last fiscal year uh probably because we have a colder

temperature this fiscal year along with a slight decrease for the building maintenance uh for a dollar amount of increase for a custodial Services uh that does line up with our contract uh settl settlement and uh for the 2.5% for custodial uh salary increase and something we know that for this uh quarter is um uh because we are able to hire custodian Subs so we were able to save like a $5,000 for the overtime cost which is good the next slide is the last function call and the general f out of District tuition uh the the the chart on the top uh gives you a overview for their out of District tution total budget for fiscal year 25 there are three funding sources from uh Foreigner special education out of District tution uh the first one is net general fund which is $3.2 million uh the second one is Grand $240 $820,000 the last one is circuit breaker 2.6 uh so total fiscal year 25 out of district tution is budgeted for $6.6 million on the chart below gives you detailed breakdown for the general funds operating budget so out of the $3.2 million in general farm at the end of the quarter two we actually spent $1.7 million special education department incumber $2.6 million in the system which leaves uh a projected uh deficit

for $1.1 million uh in the system so I'm currently coordinating with Jan the special education director I just spoke to him this afternoon and uh he's investigating and uh so for the total incumbrance amount in Unice he's pretty confident there's a overstatement as uh as the Quarter Two for the incumbrance for the projection so those adjustment will be made in quarter three so after posting uh January's payroll there are two payrolls in January so uh we evaluated the situation and the decision is a budget freeze is not needed at this point and so we will continue uh closely monitor uh forer special education out of District tuition and make sure you know if there's any changes uh we will keep you updated so one one of the things when J and I were talking about this I I was that can be alarming when you start talking about a million dollars right um understandably um the the thing that we also looked at though is when we look at that column that I find so helpful and she as she's giving us these updates is the percentage used and when we look historically at the special education costs and we look at the the column of the percentage used it's actually consistent with what we've seen in the past at this point in the year we see a but we will see a a a large increase in what has been encumbered it hasn't been spent but it's been we've said we we potentially have this bill coming as we look to the spring in some cases it's it's because it's supporting students that we've said we're preparing to pay this cost but it might not end up being that amount but the point being is that we've seen this same

percentage in in when we look at last year's quarter um two update the percentage was I think for the um tuition to collaboratives it was 2 51 or 91 I can't remember if it was a five or or a nine but it was like 21% and the overall grand total was 120% where we're right now we're looking at 136% so that just then reminded me that because special education is so fluid that as we're trying to encumber funds to make sure that we're prepared to pay the bills it's increasing what we budgeted but as we go into the spring and as we look at what the actual expenditures are they they they even out and for someone watching at home or something um this we the like you've SE you've showed some under usage in other areas right and so there would be transfers so the deficit area will be covered by other remaining function C they have positive balance so we still will end up with a positive ending balance in our general f and the bottom line right and this isn't this isn't a budgeting problem right it's just the nature of out of District tuitions Yes actually next slide give you some uh explanation so why we see some significant variance because out of District Tu all always plays a vital or crucial role in the whole General FS operating budget and uh so there are several reasons and uh the first one is because of the unpredictable nature for students enrollment so uh for the school

year during the summer time we have two new student enroll in the school district which require Aur special education tuition cost that's about $150,000 so that information was not received uh before the budget was finalized and uh also for the students requireed out of District placement uh they may fluctuate uh throughout the year due to the change for student needs so if there's uh further needs for student and uh that will lead to a higher cost the last reason is the legal and compliance requirement uh Wester takes in pride in providing free and appropriate education for all students and uh so if we have student and require IEP so that's additional tuition cost and uh there could be unforeseen tuition expenditure as well so this why wrap up our general funds operating budget and next one uh we will jump into the federal grants I will focus on two federal grants the first one is Title One this is one of our entitlement Grant in fiscal year 25 uh we have been awarded 100,000 for the title one funding so this allocation allow us to hire point6 FTE for counselor at day school and point4 FTE for school counselor at Miller uh this will also uh allow us to staben uh administrator to take lead on implementing all title one uh requirements uh we will also provide professional development for teacher and counselor working directly with title one uh students uh something uh we

recently reive for fiscal year 26 preliminary update for uh Title One funding that's fiscal year 26 is marked as the second consecutive year we receive a warning flag for the title F uh Title One funding because we have seen uh Desi projected there will be a 19% decrease for the percentage of children in poverty that's a good thing however that means we can lose this uh $100,000 in fiscal year 26 there's a potential so the final decision will be released uh during the summer time I will keep you updated for that uh the next uh Federal gr uh is Ida is that two individuals split or is that one individual split one person split okay thank you go ahead sorry Jenny so on the next one is Grand Ida Grand 240 and the total awarded amount is a little bit more than a million dollars uh this grant has two years duration uh and a full amount of $820,000 has been allocated to Grant 240 to help us to offset a general f operating uh special education Contract Services uh this grant allow us to hire 1.5 FTE for psychologist to provide direct service and support for student across the district and also we can help our staff and uh deliver the PD uh for employees uh next one is the last slide for the F 0285 and F 0295 that's our revolving fund and

special Revenue fund for revolving account and uh we are utilizing the projected offset to help us to support a general funs operating budget the total spending level is on check as we uh budgeted for the projection so uh for the special Revenue fund there are three major account so the first one is school choice there's a ending balance for a million 92,000 out of the total of that 528,000 uh we use around 50% uh 256,000 has been transferred from school choice into general f to support the general fund's operating budget we are also on check for the one uh for circuit breaker the quality reimbursement is 760,000 uh the four fiscal year reimbursement will be uh $3,400 as you know that's $400,000 more than last fiscal Year's reimbursement we will reserve the $43 Million by the end of fiscal year 25 to offset fiscal year 26 out of District tuition and and uh this approach does align with D's recommended best practice uh the last one is our special education reserve the ending balance is 720,000 so we will access whether it's possible uh by the end of the fiscal year if we have any remaining budget uh to do a transfer into special education stabilization fund so if we see a lot of spending on special educ ation in the general father's year probably we don't have that additional remaining if we do

we can do something similar as last fiscal year to do the transfer into Reserve remind me Jenny what what would be ideal for that balance uh I think uh for the finance subcommittee so uh for non General guy B so our Target and goal for special education stabilization f is around a million dollar there's a cap we can put in the special education Reserve fund which should be 2% of our overall 2.5 2.5 or 2% of our overall budget which is around $1.4 million okay thank you thank you last one do you have any questions any questions from the committee or our usual round of kudos for breaking it down in a digestible way and explaining everything so thoroughly we really appreciate that one quick thing I was just going to mention earlier when we were talking about the esps just kind of remind everybody that there was a time when we carried a contingency for to have a couple of esps in the case that we need them and we took that out of our budget planning because we wanted to just deal with the actual numbers that we saw so at but we do know that each year we might need to add some um so when she was talking about you know we we actually have 136 this year we were budgeted for 130 that is something that we're um that we are looking at in the budget but we used to have a specific line item that was just this contingency piece that we had kind of removed because if we didn't need that then we didn't necessarily want that sitting there so just kind of reminding everybody that I'm guessing we keep some historical data on esps and where the trends go year to year so just informs our

buting ahead so any final questions or feedback okay thanks so much Jenny appreciate it thank you okay so we are oh 6 minutes early for our school start time proposal um as we all know this is our scheduled sort of final discussion after um the recomend recommendation was brought from the subcommittee in December we had a um sort of public hearing format for questions and ansers at our last meeting um we have done a community survey a student survey we've had the principles talking about um staff feedback that they had at their building level meetings um and so we're going to discuss tonight and um see where that takes us mhm you do you want to so Katherine work worked on a couple slides to just um speak to some of the concerns that we were seeing in the emails yep and Sean had asked this question at our last meeting to include um the emails we've received as part of our public packet so those are uploaded thank you Kathy um and so you know we those have all I think all but one or two have gotten a response um but you know I just felt like we're can show our due diligence by thinking or or by talking through some of the major concerns that we know are there and how we feel about them and how we're trying to mitigate them um awesome yeah

um so I I put together the the slides I'm not going to go through them all um Kathy must make sure that we add this to the packet but it's really as um kind of a snapshot of um everything that's been happening um and I I I think I really did want to speak to I think some of the comments that we received both in emails um probably mainly emails was um a concern that school committee was pushing an agenda or that um we were just pushing through something without doing our homework and um I really want to refute that that idea we've been working this group has been working on it since October 23 with our subcommittee we've had numerous meetings numerous um data research input um we've had multiple Community opportunities for like input feedback we've reached out we worked with the student advisory committee and getting feedback requests for further data further explanation yeah so this is not you know any agenda that's being pushed or that we're just blaz kind of you know voting voting something through potentially CU I have no idea we made a recommendation and and this is this is where it is so again just to put us all on the same page um these are the proposed new schedules that um we we are voting on tonight um which would be having grades 6 through 12 starting at 8:00 a.m. and finishing at 2:20 p.m. and our grades 3

to5 starting at 850 and ending at 255 and our Kade through 2 starting at 910 and finishing at 3:15 um so that's what we're voting on tonight again I'm not going to go through this this was everybody I could think of that we reached out to got some feedback um but again I just wanted one place where this was all there um Community input again this was all the various um feedback and Avenues in which we we received feedback um we didn't just do the survey in January to remind people we we had done a kind of not a survey but an open ended feedback form last February as well so um I had even thrown some of that in information in there this was obviously the data we received from M wa at in December which we only saw at our last meeting um I just added in because tonight we might want to discuss a bit more on concerns um the bus ridership um information kind of current versus with the change and also another concern that we're hearing is our k to5 early arrival not concern I suppose question so I wanted to include that data just in case we wanted to refer back to tonight um our email feedback I know the emails are in the um packet but I kind of tried to summarize um the kind of topics we were seeing coming through in the different emails so uh these are kind of the slides I just thought we would kind of discuss um looking at the specific kind of the frequent questions we're getting

um and to kind of try and um give some more information or Clarity on on those so the big one that I know we talked a lot about at stack and um what and we got a lot of feedback was um regarding the impact on Sports um Jeff bunan was involved with the group from last October when we were giving him that initial potential of an 8 a.m. start time which in September in October he was seing as having minimal impact on after school sports and practice times um and I actually went back in and spoke with um um Jeff last week in wa just to confirm again those conversations and um he was saying again those um that the main concern being you know in terms of games and stuff most of the DCL games are happening later anyway we're one of the earlier game schools to finish so it's not really going it's not impacting our ability to get to DCL games so the next section was about the next question we were getting about was that offsite facilities m madd's a a swimmer so the the pool was a big one the uh hockey rink and uh golf time those off-site facilities and again speaking with um Jeff bunan he he has since had like more detailed conversations with all of those facility rental um places they have all kind of started looking at potential Logistics but until we voted they can actually start signing contracts they they don't obviously commit anything in black and white but from what um Mr bunan is saying is seeing that swim can be completely accommodated and westfit

he actually spoke extremely highly of westfit and the conversations they've had um uh Gulf again um he's had conversations with I can't remember the course where they they practiced but again they were accommodating without losing any practice time um the hockey teams boys and girls again all Rink time seems to be um available he said there is currently only one team um that may have a few minutes of an issue on a like a Friday practice and they practice four times a week um and so he said it's it's a matter of about 10 or 15 minutes um is what they're working on so you know um that's you know I appreciate Jeff um kind of you know really doing his due diligence being able to drill it down into one particular team one particular practice um and so that's where and again there's no just to reiterate there's no cost involved so by shifting our use of these um facilities to a different time we're not seeing like an increase in cost associated with that shift um the other concern we were kind of hearing about was child care about impact on early arrival and the parks and wreck after school at the elementary um the first one with the after school care that's run by our Recreation um director Michelle kette um Michelle her only concern with this change would have been Staffing seeing as we have a lot of high schoolers who work within the program and she felt that having that you know by the high school still releasing before the elementary schools

she was confident that she would have um her staff would be able to to make it where they need to go um the other the other question regarding Char care was the early arrival morning um option at the elementary schools and so what I just did there was based on a recent survey I actually looked at the number of respondents as percentages I kind of assume maybe one child per respondent at least um it's saying 489 respond respondents won't use e the early arrival option if there's a change whereas currently we have 677 um 125 respondents will use EA currently we have 91 um and 155 respondents we're not sure um and just a note there for um for us fees currently $500 for the full year um at 7: a.m. to 8:30 a.m. at K2 and 7: a.m. to 8:00 a.m. at 3 to5 do you want to hang here for a minute because I do feel like this is one area where we saw concerns that I think we can think about ways to mitigate the challenges for Working Families um you know uh a lot of the survey wends were this is great but I'm still like you know my job will still require me to use early arrival and the concern that that the early arrival start times were shifting too so I think um you know we could discuss and and recommend that they stay the same um and I would volunteer that the finance subcommittee might be able to kind of evaluate what if there's a change in the fee format that could give families a little bit more flexibility

um instead of just a flat rate for the whole year maybe we break it up in some way that that balances the that balances the overhead of you know our business office processing payments but also gives families a little bit more flexibility um if if you keep the time the same there would be a cost increase because the hours that you're paying the people to support it would increase yeah and um I think I'd also like to con see see how the committee feels one thing I was thinking about was do we do a trial early arrival at the middle schools because we know that like the high schoolers the building opens they kind of are independent in the building at at some at some set time but middle schoolers I think would still need um supervision if their family schedule requires that they get dropped off at say 7:30 for the 8 AM start time is there as a formal I mean we didn't ask that question of our of our two Middle School principles as a former Middle School principal myself I will say that will definitely be a cost increase because yes you would have to supervise them and I wouldn't recommend that we do that um I don't I I wouldn't recommend it uh but if we wanted to if we wanted to explore that you would have to find somebody who because that's another piece of this thing that is actually just as a district it's difficult for us to staff the early morning y piece um some buildings it's more difficult than in other buildings and so that's something that I I totally appreciate the concern and I appreciate us considering it but that's one of the things that as a district that in itself is a challenge I I think that besides

the challenges I I I think it would be sending a really mixed message if we're leaning on the science of later wakeup time for middle and high school and then saying but you could still come early right I I just and I I think I think middle and high school it it's a little bit I I know sixth grade is very different than in 12th grade I'm going to lay that out right now but I think middle and high school is also a little bit easier to say okay I'm going off to work you get out to the bus right then you know you can't do that with a third grader to just say we're I'm going get get yourself to school so um I I think before school at the middle school would be I'd have a hard time with that um I know it's a mixed message I guess I just think it could really be saving a handful of families that don't have any wiggle room and you know want to know that their kid is at school um you know we do charge fees I know you're talking about a cost we if we could do it in a way that a fee like it would be cost neutral essentially well I think it's different if you were to consider starting it at the middle school um that doesn't exist you could have the fee you know you could try to set the fee at a at a way that it might pay for that yeah I my original thought was if you're looking you're looking at trying to adjust consider the fees and the way in which you collect the fees at the elementary level and at the same time extending the overall hours so I wasn't assuming that you were

talking about a Inc increasing the fee but you could yeah right that's true yeah yeah Dr CH would it be your recommendation first that the early arrival times be slided to adjust with a later start time first before exploring I I will say one of the things that we talked about as a leadership team was not assuming that they would slide right and so the Assumption was that students would be in the early arrival program longer okay and that was concerning okay the idea that some of them some some of them would now be in an early arrival program longer than than they were so we we didn't make the assumption that they would slide um but I feel like that in that that makes sense that it would adjust and that that it would slide uh well if you look the K to2 is only but changing by five minutes and yet we still have it from 700 a.m. right yeah the bigger changes for the 3 to five so it's actually the three to five is y is the questionable one which they're actually essentially in at the like we're okay's extending it there so in terms of the concern of having students in um early arrival longer technically they wouldn't be on K to2 right and if it's okay for K to2 I would assume a similar time length at 3 to five would be manageable perhaps um you're just essentially running both of them kind of from 7: to 8:30 I know school doesn't start I I don't know why on the form it said 8:30 yes it's really to that's where it is

right now I think they I think they do that because they say that's the last drop off drop off yeah can't drop off at you know 15 minutes before just to kind of cut the car line yeah you you're the program is like you're either there at 8:30 or you're being you're arriving for school for school that's why that's is like that and but yeah the the kids are there until 9:05 the current start time so essentially moving 3 to 5 to say 7 to 8:30 yeah or 8:20 or whatever y okay sorry I just want to insert that discussion good okay this was the big one um BS and transport legistics um so I'm trying to take again summarize some of the main questions we're hearing um and there's a there's a few slides on this so concerns about combining Elementary bus riders again we're saying you know the same rules and routines and expectations apply with the buses now um we were saying you know it's common practice in surrounding districts that kto five students um ride the bus together and feedback that has been received has been you know no differences issues and with parents or families who've experienced this previously um uh we're also saying that there a shared bus ride also brings potential benefits by simpling simplifying Journeys to and from school um sorry that was a note to remind me just say um one thing that we would have to look at um for D is currently at the moment our K to2 students need to be met by a parent getting off the bus um at home time um but would we as a district be okay like if they're getting off the bus

with a fifth grade sibling that they can and how we would manage that um so um who is it that's receiving them who that the word um so um just stuffed Hil in on this one another comment I think we've gotten a lot or at least I've seen it a bunch is um the idea of why aren't we redistricting is how it's been phrased but it's not redistricting right um reconfiguring right reconfiguring would still lead to this yeah same concern so so just just put put you know those having concern with this but also potentially wanting that reconfigure our are um in conflict with each other so just that makes sense um there was another question we receiv received one of the emails about the cost increasing um so the the cost of bus wouldn't increase because we're not like changing and adding extra Roots um was something that the subcommittee was very strict on our guidelines that you know if adding a one bus route maybe um could make things happen but we it absolutely had to stay within kind of what our budget was essentially what's happening at the moment is the K to5 buses are doing roughly the same route twice um picking up K to2 students on the first go or three to five students in the first grade and going back and then getting the K to2 students essentially what would this would happen one route all the K to5 kids would board at the same you know across the same time so um the bus routes you you'll see are not getting necessarily longer um their bus fees are not based off length of bus ride bus fees remain the same um they're free for K to six students who

live more than two miles from their school K to six students who live within two miles pay their their fees um so there's no and we've spoken with Jenny as well about clarifying you know you know kind of our bus contracts and and how it would impact um the other question we're getting a lot about is buses dropping off early at wa we've had number of um conversations the starttime committee and Dr Chu about ongoing discussions with be with debus um rectifying the S situation as soon as possible um because I know we have definitely stressed in our meetings that there's no point in making this change if if debus Cil can't close that Gap if they can't close that Gap so um you know we've kind of committed to supporting D in in whatever way we can um to figure out logistics and I think that's really down with leadership then if if in in pushing that contract through um the con the details but maybe it's something that we can give guidelines on if we want to talk a bit more about you know what's an appropriate time for buses to be dropping off at at wa I mean if they're starting at 8:00 a.m. you know 74 40 a.m. potentially is kind of I you know I reached out to danant Tumi to ask his um in his experience as the principal and he kind of felt that 7:40 a.m. was an appropriate time for buses to be dropping off at wa so right and if you if you think about it all all of the other schools operate with 10 minutes right they drop off the kids are allowed off the bus yeah 10 minutes before classes start so I mean I think 20 minutes or less 7:40 or 7:45 would be may be good to have it that 10 minutes earlier just because you have the added factor of student drivers student drivers and traffic yeah at wa so so you know there's that tradeoff I think to reiterate based on some of those the earliest buses right now we're we're

talking a full hour now that could be realized yeah for the students the earli students at wa right now I'm this new schedule so it's significant I I I think that is absurd and you know frankly yeah I understand there's Staffing shortages but we have a contract with them and they should be upholding what our requirements are at this point yeah um so then this is kind of a summary of Because I know the bigger the big kind of question I think was coming through was bus ride length um I hope this is somewhat understandable um again it's in big letters at the bottom this is all subject to change this is very much draft format until they start getting registrations through um you know late spring early summer um this is all kind of subject to change but this is has been done with Renee D at DBS um and who's more than experienced inv vered in the various routes and stuff so what we've done is kind of giving you a rough idea of what each bus route would kind of take would look like and then um Renee was giving us the current ride time the first thing you see is kind of average you know they were saying kind of roughly about 25 minutes if you see bus five where it says Tech Valley Drive that's actually would be a new route for that for next year so that's why there's no kind of average Max she's kind of put it in there is just 20 minutes but everywhere else has kind of a rough roughly average to kind of Max time what we currently then put in in that next col is the new transition time where we're saying at the moment it's 20 minutes that's that you know getting to aish dropping to NAB getting to Chris ailly then dropping to Robinson but as I think we discussed at the last meeting um with some of the

principles with Chris ailly and Robinson literally being right next door to each other that 20 minutes of transition Time Katherine and that's something at some point I think we talk about all the buses first but then I wanted to share with the committee the conversation that I had with principal canelli principal lacost about the recommendation as to how we would approach the chrisop Foy Robinson time split but I think it could confuse things I just wanted to mention it here because this is says chrisop fole and Robinson then it says 20 minute transition time and what we're saying is that that won't exist there so the and I can explain a little bit more care well I'll do it I was to say this is so the conversation was as we were looking at the start times knowing that the three to fives we were expecting would have an 850 start time and then the um K to2 is a 910 start time what we actually think would be would make more sense and what we think would work great with the campus would be if we first anticipate a 9:00 start time for Robinson MH keeping the three to five times the same so Chris ofy would still be the 850 but the flexibility will exist in Robinson so Goa it wouldn't take 20 minutes we know that they know that so they said we could we could look at a 9:00 start time with then a 3:05 end time okay um and then it's but they also believe that the five minute flexibility that we should kind of prepare people before is that there's a possibility that Robinson could actually get even closer and be like 8:55 to 3:00 and they're on the same campus so to have those two schools almost follow the same schedule Y is is realistic so that means Robinson would just be slightly different than the other K to2 schools um but so that's the way that we'll approach it is that chrisop foi would stay the same the adjustment would take place with

Robinson which it are the younger Learners requires a little bit of different flexibility in the first place and so what we'll communicate what I would share with you tonight would be as we have that list really our recommend even though we've always from the beginning you've been talking about a range for the elementary schools that has been consistent anybody who's listening just tonight you have consistently talked about a range for the for the elementary schools the suggestion would be that we communicate with families that the the targeted start time for Robinson would be 9 o' and that that might be where we when we talked about that there might be some adjustments we don't think there would be any with Miller and day and we don't necessarily think there would be any with Abbott and NE but there could be so we should should be prepared for that but I think those adjustments would exist in the K to2 yeah time frames and so we'd be vote if we' take the vote tonight while we'd be voting on the star times for nain abbis and day and Miller we would be kind of saying okay and we're saying for Chris fi and Robinson in 8:50 and 9:00 a.m. that's what our recommendation would be yep for me for me the simplest way to think about this is that everybody agrees like an a parked Bus full of kids is not a good idea right right so exactly everybody agrees with that so we're going to do our best and principles are on board to minimize that as much as possible y that and I will say I think that was because that was my big concern was really just that transition time because if you look at the bus length the actual bus ride it's really not changing it's all within kind of the same time time frame um and for me it was that kind of transition time and I I know we're kind of giving it that 20 minutes but hearing um Mr Myers and from Abott kind of say

he gets three buses through in five minutes and all all of them through in 15 minutes just kind of shows you that you know we're I think we've been over generous in in that 20 minute transition time what was the 20 minute is that factoring the distance between I always get the name of the Schooler that's that's where it started where it started was we were trying to anticipate what could actually somebody just driving from those two schools and expect it really has to do with the car rider families right because the buses the buses won't be shared to be clear for for those in this plan and it's about an 11 to 15 minute drive from without day to Miller so that's why we kind of ended up on that 20 minutes um but bearing in mind if day starts at 8:50 you can drop off at day from 8:40 right so you nearly have a kind of a full almost 30 minutes of drop off time to get from one to the other if you so if I can just yeah take us on a little bit of a tangent yeah so in that case right we're we're factoring that 20 minute Gap for those two schools but we're not talking about that transition time for those those students will not be sitting on the bus for the additional 20 minutes they're not even included in the list there's seate buses right so if we're already looking at one one uh set of schools doing a a modified schedule we're really looking at the abbit now we we we'd be really I I would recommend that we actually look at trying to home that number down too to to minimize like before we get into the

school year just because changing is going to be hard when you're dealing with child care and all that I think those are the discussions that can continue to happen over the next couple months we have a decision by the end of the school year just to just to follow up on Tom's point because we did hear about like the concern for tweaks in our in some of the feedback we've gotten and it just hit me in one of the um meetings with de when they were like well we always kind of come out of the gate with the first day of school saying you should be out there at this time but everybody knows two weeks into the school year you're like actually changed yeah actually that bus isn't come like I know for me like we started going out at like 7:58 the bus doesn't come until 8:05 so now we get out there at like 8:04 you know so there is some of that is um built in every year some of those have the kindergarteners as well in that first the first few days so adding the kindergarteners as well also impacts that time y so I think I think I hear the concern about tweaks but I think though that's the magnitude we're talking about is five to 10 minutes yeah in terms of the ab and um abot and NAB um transition time done you you know I don't know if you've had discussions there about we we didn't specifically talk about it because the distance is further and there is a train yeah um so what we knew was that Robinson and chrisop Foley doesn't need it yeah yeah yeah yeah Abott and ABB I think I think we need to see what they need yeah and I think it's going to live within that I think it's going to be that or less yeah and so that's where adjustment would take place and I would I would say we would do the same thing where

the the we'll make the adjustments with the K to2 school to make them not as late yeah you know I think then maybe what would be helpful is to come up with maybe consider some sort of a um data sheet that's kind of common that would allow us to kind of track those kind of buses and arrival times dismissal times um that all each each of the the schools are kind of using or at least the four um so that we've got some kind of hard data then to properly um analyze it and make those decisions if if we need tweaking um and again just on the bus ride length with the Abott and NAB um students it's all kind of staying within the same time frame and I I think I think we've said in previous meetings but again for anyone that's kind of a visual learner like like me it's not that it's it's that the route is pretty much the same it's not that they're picking up these kids and then going to pick up this whole other Bus full of or route full of kids it's that you're doing the route but you're picking up more kids at each stop that stops so that's why you know the the the kind of worst case scenario people are like I don't want my kid on a bus for an hour you know I understand that I and I don't think that I don't think that that is what we're projecting to happen no and bearing in mind these are kind of the max times this is if you're the very first student on the bus and there are just to also put in there are the outliers um that dbus have said that are typically that little bit further away I

mean Westford westford's geography makes some of this challenging yeah and you know I think I think if you're an outlier you kind of know you are an outlier based on where your address is on that point it's something that always stuck with me out of the budget task force I think I saw a data point that on average I think of the surrounding towns the average square mile size is something like 16 miles and Westford is like 30 I mean we are literally double the size Geographic wise so um you know arrival and dismissal look like a cas to 5 um again we're saying all the students board the bus to get the you know at their bus stop they drive to I'm just going to say Abbott um students will who 3 to five will get off there and then the K to2 students say on the bus and then they drive up to NAB um and offload there and then it flips for the afternoon so the bus picks up 3 to 5 drives up to NAB picks up the k two students and then starts its route so really as well to note is that wait time at the schools only occurs once a day for a student it's not happening on both their their um their rides um that was that uh question about the TW tweaking we covered that um again parents dropping to two different schools will they have enough time we were kind of saying how we factored that in um at the uh day and Miller um of of that drop off time some other miscellaneous terms is just um students managing homework um our current policy suggests that you know the homework is purposal and appropriate challenge success has been working on kind of minimizing homework um I also believe

even know students have DTS there's advisory there's also time built within school day where homework can also and I I would add that that you know this was this was a theme in some of the wrin responses in the survey and um the emails and it's I think you back in December I remember when you Katherine and Bill like brought us the recommendation you were very clear right up front that like this is a tool in the toolbox this is not um some magic fix that gets kids their perfect sleep time there are things that we can see as other levers like um there was concerns about Club pickup times or activity pickup times like um those are all things that I think we can continue to finesse like that's our that's our homework policy we can decide to review that and see if that makes sense based on what we're hearing if if people are worried about 25 minutes change to their afternoon workload then maybe our workload needs to be reviewed right so I think I think we're I want to acknowledge that that is a is a theme in the feedback and that it's also something under our influence to revisit and and those are all the them those are the things that we have been working towards addressing so like this was actually the the last piece right of trying to make adjustments we've been making adjustments for 10 years yeah yeah and the last one um it's funny I feel like it's thrown me off because people we in part of our space you space what do we call it U utilization space us working group The Tourist that me Jeff and Dr have been doing um we talked so much about reconfiguration redistricting usage utilization um and I didn't it took me a while to realize that some of the feedback we were getting about redistricting actually means reconfiguration right so

redistricting is redrawing the boundary line so that this this um neighborhood now goes to this now goes to this other school and while of course that could still help find a minor efficiency in a bus route the real efficiencies in the bus route would really come if we have you're picking up a route and you're going to one school with all those K to five kids but why are we not doing that first well I mean our currently our facilities can't support it exactly yeah and it would take us if we wouldn't be able to make this adjustment that is in the benefit based on science based on everything that we know is what's good for kids we would have to be waiting a number of years before we re our facilities are in a position where we can while it's certainly part of our master plan to like work towards that you know you you there's Minor Adjustments that we've talked about in our tours like you know adjusting the size of um the bathrooms right if you have a building that was built for five six seven year olds now you're going to put 12y olds in there what kind of adjustments do you do um but also I mean some of our schools could do that some of them couldn't right and the limiting factor I think is trying to piter grade three to five at Robinson right so that become that becomes the constraint is that there's no feasible way to do a k to5 reconfiguration with Robinson in its current state so that that work becomes tied to the msba feasibility study if town meeting voters support that and we would have to to see what comes out of that work but it's not reconfiguration is not something we can do on our own feasibly with our means of course the flip side of that argument just just using that particular school is that we already talked that that's a campus that that would that

particular reconfiguring those two schools wouldn't produce that efficiency because they're at the same address basically right but sure there's definitely still it would be a big Capital ask to to do those reconfigurations so yep and I and I think it's a fair question to say like you know what order should we have done these things but if this proposal is a cost neutral way to make a modest yet meaningful impact in the next X number of years before we have the option to do reconfiguration I think that's why we've the committee has approved this as a goal and we've approved a subcommittee to work on it because we think it's worth working on now progress not Perfection is there anything after this one nope okay um do you want to go back to share um pictures just so we can see if Mario raised her hand I don't TR that um no I can see any other so open to discussion from the committee so one of my uh one of the themes that really came up when we were talking about graduation requirements was Equity um and I do see this as a a bit of an equity thing at the elementary level where the amount of time sitting on the bus is going to be potentially significantly different for one set of schools over the others um so that is definitely a concern of mine I'm not um I'm not concerned about the K through five as much I think that there there's behaviors on buses that are less desirable regardless if it was all kindergarteners or all fifth graders right there's going to unfortunately um

so I I think that's one of my concerns um you know we we certainly got a fair amount of emails uh in the past two weeks uh both sides of the argument uh but I I do feel without quantifying it that there was more support for this um as a tool that there were certainly a lot of it's great that you're looking at this but let's look at XYZ as well um which I I think is definitely a charge for us um anyone else yeah to respond to you know we heard a lot of uh comments about that K to 5 grouping on a bus now and you know to to Ali some of those fears as a as a School staff member you know I I have faith that our school staff are going to work with bus staff to you know send forth uh behavioral responsibilities of our students from kindergartens to fifth graders that are combined I think there's an obligation on parents to set positive behavioral support for their students as well and to be in communication with their schools um and so I think it's it's a two-way it's a mutual process and I think we're going to you know I was a k to five Rider and it was a long time ago but I think there are a lot of people that that have that experience and there are benefits to that experience too um there's a lot of modeling that happens there's a lot of um there's there's benefits to it so um you know that that was a comment that was communicated off to emails recently so and I mean in response to that again our our bus drivers drive the buses for K to 12 right and so they actually are already accustomed to working with all these age groups we're just talking

about combining a different group and one of the things that D shared with us in all these conversations for the historical aspect that we weren't aware of is that they've already done this right they've done this in the past where they did have K to five students on the same bus um and maybe there's you know there's opportunities for chrisop foan Robinson and abbid and nabnasset to kind of team together to think about some you know some right Spirit sort of activities that that align to the bus bus riding um and and as a company they actually do that for other districts already Yes like we're we're we're one of very few districts that have that that have this that have this divide other districts that they that they support are already driving all their Elementary School students together I also know of at least one District in New Hampshire but still that that is k through eight on one bus so right because that's how their schol some of those Regals so it it does happen um you know the the potential of uh you know close to an hour bus ride as a Max that that's concerning to me it it really is um you know and that idea if you know we've been told this is the max well we can't do anything if next year we're at 50 minutes and that's a regular thing of a of a bus ride so um so that that does kind of weigh on me a bit um I do as far as after school activities and whatnot I have full faith in our activity leaders that they're going to make appropriate adjustments um to to make it work yep um and I I think the the other big thing that I kept seeing was well it's

just going to me my students up later my students up later uh and I I would be I would be interested to hear from our student rep here uh yeah I don't know that students would actually be up later per se their homework might be getting done later but will they be going to bed any later than they currently are are I I my experience is no that you know they're they're programmed to go to sleep and get good sleep starting at a certain time I think it's just so unique I mean like you know it comes down to a lot of family routines at that point and it's not that we can influence that you know as a as a district and a community I mean what what families do in their own house yeah I think it's like I've heard a lot of some of the kids be like you know like I'm not going to you know get more sleep cuz it's you know I I'm just going to stay up later but I I don't I don't think you you know if you're if we have a what is it a 35 minute um change from 7:25 to 8:00 start time if a kid is going to bed say 10:00 around 10:00 consistently they're not going to be like oh now I have till 10:35 it's not it depends on the night it depends on the homework it depends on you know what show you're watching it it's really is like and it's up to that student to to kind of figure it out unfortunately and it's high school it's kind of like at least for the middle schoolers that kind of is more I guess maybe on the parents a little bit but for high schoolers your sleep time it's either going to stay the same or get a little bit better I don't necessarily think it'll get worse unless someone is really trying to make it that way um I teenagers are going to stay up as late as they want whether if they're staying up to 11: now they might do that again next year and that's that's just practice needing to practice better habits I think um but I wouldn't say that it's you know going to make

students stay up later like 100% I think that's a big generalization Bill Sean Lori any thoughts to add I mean I think at the end of the day this committee's work is around reviewing its policies and reviewing its budgets and there's a lot of things that happen outside of Westford uh Westford that's out of our control it's new federal Administration uh a state budget that fluctuates um a state education funding formula that probably needs some review um at the end of the day as valer said this is a cost neutral change that is going to extend the research says it's going to extend far more social emotional Wellness benefit than its disadvantages right now the the student and the district survey responses were strong um as someone who worked on the subcommittee I think we did a lot of diligence and paid a lot of attention to this so um that's all that I have all right um I've been on this committee for six years we've discussed it all six years and prior to that it was being discussed for years that the same thing um this is actually during my tenure uh there was even a discussion to implement this and on that stuff too so it this is been on this committee's radar for many many years um I I forget if it was Valerie or Dr Shu phrased it as that um this is kind of the tail end of a lot of social emotional policies that this committee has put into place um to provide the best educational

environment possible for our students to thrive in and um I think for me uh that's what's most Paramount is that we have to provide an environment that is best U for our students to thrive in I say this as someone who is a big supporter of Athletics and extracurriculars and how important they are on the development of our children but at the end of the day uh our priority is and always has to be the education that we are providing to our children um and the research suggests that this will um Aid in providing that um I was talking to Lori about this and she so aptly pointed out that even the emails that we were getting on this that were critical of it the vast majority of them were yeah we know this is important but right so even the people who who who took umbrage with what was being presented they still the vast majority of them still acknowledge that this should be helpful on some level um I think it's time I I'm ready to do it I'm excited to see how it how it plays out there's some question marks there's always going to be question marks this is a big uh change to the district um let's do it change is hard um I've seen this come around at least twice and go on for a while where and people just give up because it's hard and they get a lot of feedback and concern but I agree with Sean I think the time is now we need to do it the research shows that the Adolescent brain is not Alert in the morning and it's

very awake at night and we need to do something about that thanks Mary I don't have too much to add i' like to lean towards the concise but I I do think that the research supports this and there's been so much hard work that's been done to do this in a way that is thoughtful and economical and and works for kids and families um so I really don't have too much more to add okay thanks you want to say um I think just you know I was like Tom in terms of I was very hesitant on the bus right that was where I was getting hung up on on this one thing but again speaking to the principles that night and hearing that timeline first of all knowing that you know chrisop and Robinson you've had a really good discussion and you can tighten that up um you know it's not happening at at a day in Miller so we're really talking about those two schools and knowing that you know the timeline that Pete spoke about and that the schools are actually pretty close to begin with I don't think we're going to see 20 minute transition times in those schools but the big thing for me is you know and all the data and everything else aside it's it's actually been the personal stories that have really um spoken to me um it's something that um you know I've been involved in CPAC for many years and um to know families personally who have gone through mental health challenges with their kiddos in our district um is heartbreaking and I think anything that we can do as a district to support mental health not just for the students but for their parents like you know if I don't think people realize that the impact sometimes um a kiddo in crisis and and how that

bubbles out throughout the whole family and so um I think it's really important that we make this decision purely on on the mental health of our students thanks um I was just going to add that I think that you know the committee has it's in our estp right it's been a school committee goal so the belief in the research and the principle is there and what's in front of us is just deciding is this the best option to make it happen and I think it's as good as anything we could have really come up with being cost neutral and you know maneuvering all the complexities of this and I I also don't want to lose sight of you know we we have had a couple emails of in a couple of the um survey responses that were emotionally in the same emotional vein intensity but in opposition to it and even from like affecting staff commutes like we know that this is um complex and will affect family routines and we and I still believe that this is balancing all those things the good and those modest tradeoffs um so that we are doing this with the priority of the students in need it's the right thing to do um and I think that there's there you know there's things for us to continue to monitor right like I think the finance subcommittee should talk about early arrival I think we should talk about with Jen and Dr Chu about our bus bus pass registration and how to like maneuver that move that a little bit for earlier I also think that I you know none of us I I don't think would do this with blinders on right so like if bus ridership like we should continue to monitor bus ridership um

have a pulse on how things are going um so that it's not just checking a box and saying we did it and ignore any any possible um challenges to it but I feel confident that we can continue to to stay like this is not the last time it's on our agenda essentially you know there is some I me like like the conversation about the homework policy like I think there are things that we can just continue to keep working on so want to vote just regardless of how the vote goes I think it's very important to know that the public know that we hear we've heard all of the feedback I've read every email that has come to um to the school committee mail list it may not get responded to within 30 minutes but you know we are reading them um 1700 and I I did I I told someone that you know regardless of how I may feel one way or the other I have to vote for the um what is right for the majority of the community um and I understand there's going to be challenges and yeah we we we we're going to want to know what those challenges are as this get if this passes uh as it's implemented so that the district can make adjustments as needed so okay do you want to call your motion there um I don't have any wording planned but I guess it would just be motion to approve changing start times as outlined in the proposal for the start of the 2025 school year can I just add subject to modifications or modifications brought

back to the school committee sure further discussion everybody good with that motion okay and a second second okay uh roll call Tom I bill I Sean I Lori I Mari I Katherine I and I am an i okay there we go great motion to adjourn so moved seconded thank you all in favor Tom I bill I Sean I Lori I Mari I Katherine I and I'm an i e