School Committee - Regular Meeting

order this meeting of the Westford school committee for Monday March 3D we are going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance please stand and join us if you're able ALG to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all it's down the agenda so I never really say it but this meeting is being recorded and we're going to start with the consent agenda um so there's one um session of meeting minutes and very happy to um include two memorandum of agreements after some um productive negotiation sessions with our unit c Education Office professionals and Unit E educational support professionals so for those are that the next um three-year contract for both of those so the process usually is that this mou which captures what was negotiated gets signed and then the teams work on incorporating that into a new standing contract um any questions or concerns on the consent agenda I'll take a motion to approve so moved second Tom and Sean thank you do we have Mari on no I'm just texting her just to okay see if we can um we'll do hands then until we we have her so all in favor great thank you next step is public comment um a reminder that for 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 2 minutes per person please use

public 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 panelist and unmuted or in person at the microphone please make sure to start with your um name and address I have we have a hand on Zoom great Heather I'm promoting you to panelist you should be able to just give it one sec and have Mar Heather you should be able to speak now oh yeah hi I'm Heather Fitzpatrick from 13 CH Circle I just wanted to make a comment about the calendar and also moving town meeting um which I believe somebody had mentioned that one of the meetings would allow for there to be an additional Wednesday off I'm actually in the car right now because I just dropped off my daughter at basketball which is normally Wednesdays but they have had a lot of gym closures this year because all of the days off tend to see or the early releases seem to fall on Wednesdays so I just wanted to throw that out there um for you all to consider it makes it difficult for some of these teams that use the facilities afterwards to have a regularly scheduled practice and not mess up the rest of their week that's it thanks Heather thank you okay um anybody else I do I have I don't have a name it's down as Zoom user guest so I'm just going to promote them in as panelist um apologies if I don't have your name um sorry I have some I've promoted somebody who's under the name Zoom user you should be able to speak now just a

reminder to start by introducing yourself yeah sorry about that um Wendy Lloyd 16 Pleasant Street go ahead Wendy we can hear you okay thank you um so tonight the school committee will be um doing the final policy review and update for the P 5325 transgender non-conforming students I just wanted to mention that the Westford lgbtq friends and allies group encourages school committee to vote positively and accept the policy with no further edits or changes I'm very proud that Westford has such a robust policy that has served as an ex excellent example of protections for transgender and gender expansive youth in schools this is a very time for lgbtq community and the g transgender gender expansive community in particular as the current presidential Administration has clearly targeted transgender individuals for civil rights violations um and I just wanted to also mention this past Friday Iowa govern Governor Tim Reynolds signed a bill that stri gender identity from their State's civil rights laws which is a landmark event it's the first time a state has ever removed a protected class of citizens um prohibiting discrimination so I just wanted to

um mention those items and encourage folks um to to accept the policy as as it is written thank you thanks Wendy thank you anyone else on Zoom or in the room uh it doesn't look like we have anybody else okay um before we move into updates I just want to mention too that um on the agenda is an acknowledgement from our one of our previous executive minutes executive sessions for the actions we took as part of our procedure we do that in a follow-up agenda um showing those minutes okay updates we start with the students I'm out today all right so we have advisory six number six tomorrow um so that means we have advisory during long B I don't believe I know the seniors aren't doing anything but I'm not quite sure what the schedule where the other grades are yet um I'm presuming the Juniors have something College related um we also have an early release on Wednesday so that's kind of cool it's definitely a funky week um which is nice little break um we also have the empty bowls charity dinner on Thursday it is from 5:00 to 700 in the cafeteria wa and it's a fundraiser to benefit the senior center in Westford um and it's basically you come and you eat some soup and you um listen to presentations from service members and they talk about the community service they've done in the community um and it's just a really fun night to come I believe entry is $5 um there's also the SATs this Saturday March 8th at 7 a.m. um that's a lot of the junior class so good luck to them we also looking I'll actually say that till the end um we also next week on March 12th we have the best buddies dance party after school um that's their Club event but that's should be really exciting and I hope they have a great time um there's also the boosters trivia

night coming up Saturday this Saturday um it's from the doors open at 7:00 and trivia starts at 8:00 it is at the Westford regeny um individual tickets at 30 and to get a table of 10 it is$ 280 um there's hundreds of dollars in prizes and a couple tables are left this basically benefits W boosters and this is um the money raised at these fundraisers can go to um scholarships for students especially for us seniors applying to them right now that's really important but also just in general um money for the boosters for equipment and for um new uniforms for all the steams teams and it's just a great way to um give it to the WA Athletics um we also of course selections going on the portal closes this Friday at 2 p.m. for course selections for next year so make sure underclassman are getting in there um choices on time and also the seniors are applying to the wa trusty scholarship applications that is open um until Monday March 10th so a week from today at 2 p.m. it's a hard deadline um and there are a lot of scholarships to apply to so I encourage people to get on them um and then just looking ahead we do have in a couple weeks on March 17th the start of winter sport of spring Sports excuse me um everyone's having the preseason meetings right now and it's crazy that we're already here uh yeah so H to Haiti I believe on Thursday the 13th U they're hosting their student versus teacher basketball game um I believe detective Bernard and Mr Tumi will be in their in the teacher lineup so that's amazing it was a great hit last year and anticipate the same uh this weekend Westford Deca had their annual State Career Development conference in cport and roughly 120 uh members competed in their events some like doing presentations and others doing like case studies in all different areas of business uh roughly 40 of those students maybe or actually maybe closer to 50 will be or qualified and won their

event and will be moving on to compete in Orlando so that's amazing um and then Westford Academy will be hosting our first ever Polar Plunge here um in collaboration with Massachusetts Special Olympics um stuk has previously done the polar PL in different towns which just acting in Worcester but it's the first time here at Westford um and so we've raised about $2,500 so far and I expect it to go higher yeah great thank you so we'll uh move to Administration yeah the goal is to raise $3,000 with that Polar Plunge so hopefully we'll get there um they're going to encourage some of the public can jump in I think from 3: to 4:00 on that March 11th so that should be a little crazy a little fun um on Friday Blanchard held a schoolwide uh spirit to benefit um St Jude's Children's Research Hospital they did this um for one of their seventh grade students who is in Memphis Tennessee and going through some treatments right now um they were able to donate over $3,700 um all donations are going directly to St judees um this is from Pure Jo donations or students wearing all different types of hats and paying money to do so so um thank you to the Blanchard Middle School Community for that Outreach um Miller NAB NASA and Robinson schools will hold their preschool Lottery um this Thursday with we have a snow date that's written down for Friday I don't believe we're going to need that um but uh All Families will be notified following that public Lottery um that whether they student has been accepted for the 2526 school year or if they will be placed on a waiting list and then um that brings us to kindergarten inperson kindergarten registration is scheduled

for next Monday and next Tuesday families can sign up um for a spot to go in um and to um go through some of the shreen and and um sign up for the registration paperwork by going to our website clicking on student registration and then you will see the um link for kindergarten registration thank you um I know an email went to all of you about this as well too but uh the two editors and chief of the ghost writer uh were both named to the all New England High School journalism staff which is great and one of the pieces in that was that uh we were the only school that had two students that were ranked so high in in the competition as well too uh Alita and Alita Kiva and Deepa gum um they both worked on the Ghost Rider for the past four years so they're seniors now and they've been working on this um Deepa was also named Massachusetts journalist of the year which is kind of huge and Alita was a runnerup um so that's just kind of big and I mean we always appreciate I think the work that the ghost riters is doing and they always do really well in competitions but that was just fantastic um to hear that uh and I'm not sure if you had all received information from Mas but Mas the superintendent Association masc the school committees Association and masbo which is the association for school business officials they all created a joint statement around the fiscal climate in Massachusetts that um I'm GNA ask uh Kathy I'm going to send it to you and ask if we can put it in the packet for tonight so um I think it would be nice if you all wanted to take a look at it I will say honestly I think it's a year late for us um it's many of the talking points that we were discussing last year about special education about um uh Transportation costs about aid but so many districts in the state of

Massachusetts are going through budgetary issues that they created this joint statement to sort of talk about the impact across the entire state so I think it'd be important thing for us to just have it has some really good talking points in it if people are asking us questions which like I said I I would have loved to have received it last year um but it's it's it's nice to still have as we're continuing to look at challenging uh you know budget situations it's still relevant it's still relevant Y and that's good okay school committee updates uh just um Abit fifth grade musical is uh four or five weeks away at this point and there's a lot of uh energy around that and getting to see that firsthand the the work they're putting in so it should be a great show awesome thanks all right so uh about a month ago the town Dei committee met on February 6 and a number of members on that night expressed concerns about the sweeping actions of uh our new presidential Administration and how it affect the Committees in towns work um it was the main discussion point of the night it was an uh it's an obvious concern of our district I think too I'm going to go on a little personal Pulpit here uh there's been you know several Federal Executive Orders have been authorized to undermine uh the policies the basic civil rights the best practices of school systems and the people who constitute them um we're seeing a dismantling of diversity equity and inclusion efforts we're seeing a targeting of marginalized populations um and it undermines the safety and integrity of Public School Systems so um last Tuesday the select board issued a statement reaffirming its commitment to supporting a safe and inclusive community for all residents and that can be found in tonight's packet um as the liaison to the town Dei Committee in the weeks and months ahead

I would ask this school committee to remain steadfast to our expressed mission and vision as a district to continue the hard work and attesting to our goals and objectives through careful planning and execution of our strategic District improve strategic District Improvement plan our committee goals our school Improvement plans and West Republic school policies and that we stay focused on the values and practices that our students faculty and staff our families and community members have come to expect from Westford Public Schools and that they rely on daily um I would ask the public to send us your questions and concerns and we will try to do our best to address them as they arise also that night we took a vote which was unanimous to add a second studeny to the town Dei committee um we emphasize the need uh for that student to be aware of the work that Ed T and there's a lot of work coming ahead on the town Dei committee so I know that uh co-chair Joe Diamond has reached out to you Valerie and we're going to be taking a vote as a committee for the next scheduled meeting which will be March 17th so that's all that I have great awesome thanks Bill appreciate those statements yes Sean um special education parent advisory Council met this week in banard which I hadn't been to for a while so it was really nice to get to the plard Library uh Mr Coughlin was with us um one of the things that was nice is he kind of did a presentation on the status of the special education and social emotional learning department and where we stand well one of the things that was nice is that it was a lot of unfamiliar faces and he was able to talk about some of the concepts that we talk here and Dr Chu and U assistant superintendant Moran talked about particularly Universal Design on learning and people had a lot of questions about that and what it meant and how that actually is being integrated into classrooms and the like

um big discussion on the roots program uh unified Athletics just really exciting things that kind of make Westford a special place and it was um nice to see that being talked about on the ground right as opposed to outside of these four walls on Tuesday nights um and see that people care and are interested in in what we're doing as a district so it's cool great thanks yeah Lori anything I attended the Westford cat uh board meeting on February 20th uh they were still looking for more subscriptions to their print 12we trial um and they're continuing on with their strategic plan work uh part of that is they're thinking cautiously of some regionalization uh with other cats around the state possibly neighboring cats to share equip that was a couple of the highlights thank you you're welcome um I just have two things of note um first of all I know we're a couple of weeks out but I'm going to start plugging it now because it's March neur diversity celebration week is coming up starting the week of March 17th which is a global initiative um to kind of celebrate um people um with neur diversity um and uh I know the schools have been doing a great job that in recent years um and last year uh CPAC hosted an event uh Lego Community build um which was very popular and it is coming back um March 21st go on you can distress you before town meeting um March 21st from 3:00 p.m. to 6: p.m. at First Parish church and last year we did a sculptural build this year we are doing a mosaic awesome um and uh there will be snacks and arts and

crafts and it was just a really lovely afternoon um when it's miserable and cold outside and it's for all ages zero to 100 and above so I'll be there come on come on What's the timing again from 3: to 6 Friday afternoon Friday afternoon it's easy there'll be snacks there bring the kids just you know a Friday before town meeting yeah um and just one other thing to note um I know policy were on the agenda for later um but I just want to raise this issue policy we are going to meet next week um but we have kind of a new um area that we're going to start working on is looking at graduation requirements and um just to keep everybody updated on the committee um part a component of that which as you all know with the mcast um change after the vote last November um we now have to look at um the competency determination in each district until the state I think have kind of figured that one out on a Statewide issue so um I spoke with Dr Chu um last week um and really the compet competency determination is really something that um our curriculum coordinators um and kind of really should be looking at and determining so I've asked for um the staff to come back to us with that in the next couple of weeks and I think the state have already kind of desie have already started having conversations about what interm competency determination might look like so you can have a look at that but I've also been doing some research and there's a lot of examples a lot of people we we will be prepared to bring you um some language and a recommendation on the 17th perfect and I think then in the meantime policy can start working looking at more of the graduation requirements and and then this will all kind of intertwine so

we're just finishing one policy and we're kicking off on another so much for a quiet year this year yeah I'm sorry I missed you Mar did you have anything to add um okay I for an update I wanted to I know we'll talk about this a little bit but um just a plug for anyone watching that annual T meeting is coming up on Saturday March 22nd at 9:00 a. at Westford Academy child care for ages five and up is open sign up is on Westford w.com um and that sign up is closes next Wednesday so tell anybody that you think might be using that service to um sign up um the warrant and articles are on the town website um and there is a town on the town website is also a like sort of that RSVP survey that they've been doing the last couple times to try to gauge um attendance attendance um the other townwide update I wanted to share was that there is a new um strategic plan a townwide strategic plan um the select board approved that at their February 11th meeting that's also on the town website if you want to read it it has a mission and vision for the town which I'd love to share with you in case you haven't read it yourself um the vision is that Westford strives to be a welcoming and inclusive community that honors its history and traditions we are are driven towards Innovation and progress balancing growth with preservation and a commitment to creating a sustainable future the mission is that we are a team of dedicated professionals that take pride in fostering a Vibrant Community by delivering excellent public service and there are three four five six seven seven strategic outcome areas one of which is quality educational opportunities which says Westford is

Comm committed to Quality educational opportunities the town supports its exceptional public and Regional School Systems and encourages opportunities that support a lifelong Endeavor to enrich grow and expand residents knowledge so just in case I want to overlap in case not everybody watches selectboard meetings make sure everybody knows that that is um out there did I miss anybody anything great okay we're going to right on time move to um first order of business is the school calendar okay you have in your packet um the revision B for our school calendar for the 2526 Academic Year um as a result of some of the initial feedback that you shared last time as well as some um follow-up suggestions some slight edits were made um we called out April 27th which is a Monday the first uh day following our April vacation of next year will um be no school for kindergarten students so that our staff can do kindergarten screening for our newcomers and that is something that started last year is continuing this year and then obviously we're planning it for the 25 26 school year um on the reverse side you can see um the new start and uh dismissal times for all of our schools um Tom you had made a nice suggestion to kind of succinct everything but then it got a little bit crazy um uh once we realized is that um we had some variation uh Miller and NAB you can see line up with their start time but with um Robinson we will have um a 10-minute variance and so it was important for us to call out each one of those including the prek um options so uh what could have been a little bit uh

cleaner got a little bit longer um but it fit it did fit it did fit consistent so that's yeah and and it is consistent and families will just have to highlight where their students and I think they're going to appreciate us doing the math for them right I agree um slight margins were adjusted and we also added a full URL for the Dei Multicultural calendar at the um bottom of the calendar as well thank you that was it any feedback from the committee there's a couple um in this early dismissals where am would be p.m so that half days don't end at midnight okay oh that is a long half day yeah oh I think we have a problem good call oh yeah that makes sense the three to fives okay all all three of them long long day so it is interesting to think about um oh sorry Tom I thought you were going to say something um the the potential there's the February and March professional development days that are early released on Wednesdays just to Echo what we've heard what we heard earlier in a public comment we purposely put them on the same day yeah for because that was a comment that was made last year that um for consistency purposes it would be nice to have them landing on each day so and and I think it's um the facilities on a on an early releasee they close the facilities for extracurricular activities right corre impact [Music] okay I know it's on on the sorry Val you want to no I mean I know the other thing

point I don't know if you want to vote on it first or but and we have it noted on the agenda about um the potential I just want to make sure everyone has a chance to to weigh in other things yeah just the format any final thoughts on that the only you know just looking simply at the calendar do we think parents or community members would be confused by looking at April 27th I'm school day I'm so torn on it cuz so it was actually something just kindergarteners something I had suggested was sort of bringing that onto this calendar but I think and I compared it to the wa for back to school right like the wa has an early release and it only applies to wa and that doesn't hasn't created issues that we know of but the difference is that that's just a slash versus the red is like yeah your your brain is like oh wow April vacation is longer could we put like a could we make those dates like just bold in those sections just a bold line from 27 no school grade K only screening just make that entire bold face instead of just the grade K only yeah yeah to get rid so just you know it maybe do that for the wa only early release maybe capitals too I I actually I I'm less worried about the wording because I feel like if you if you see the wording then you are reading that line it's the red box to me that the red box that we can remove the red box and just keep the notation yeah in the margin okay mhm does everybody feel like that's it just looks like it extends the school vacation week a little bit for sure might get really excited about that not read anything else mean thrilled to me another sort of

compromise would have been listing it on the back with the conferences and the back to school nights so to at least so that it's not a surprise to yeah and I I know the the principes that the the buildings are doing a great job educ um communic ating that to families as it gets closer but I just think the calendar is another way to memorialize that so I hear I think I hear a consensus to remove the red yeah but I still like it yeah honest you still want it on the front first page yeah not the second page sure yeah I think if you put it on the back it will get lost but if you put it on the front yeah I know on our fridge it it's it's always posted the front side only right that's okay yeah and one thing to note not changes I think it looks great I funny enough this year I had come I had a few conversations come to me from different places um and it was the same question regarding um the different religious holidays that we've been taking and there was questions as to why were we taking some you know over others and I I think it might be worth against you know stating that or sharing that we had made a conscious decision I think two years ago now where the idea is that you know if they fall during a school day certain days we would look at taking them so I think for the last two years we never took um Lunar New Year because it was on a weekend um but we took it this year because it was on a school day and I think if my memory service been correct we didn't take yam kapor this year because it was a weekend but we had taken a previous and so I just had a few people not realize that this was actually it wasn't that we were picking some over other it's based on when they fall um so I

think it's worth just while we're having this conversation to to note that that um that's kind of the approach we're taking at the moment and with this any final thoughts calendar let's move the the actual for calendar on onward and then you can bring that next topic up so I'll take a motion to approve the FY 26 Calendar with as amended so moved seconded and Bill okay all in favor Tom hi Bill hi Sean hi Lori hi Mari I Katherine I and I'm an I thank you pass our thanks along to Sandy please um okay and then so we do we do have um I opened it up to the committee to see if anybody wanted to take a position on the article that's at annual town meeting to consider moving the election day from a Tuesday to a Saturday um full disclosure I am the lead petitioner on that citizens petition so I'm really trying to balance my role at this table versus as a citizen that put that forward I will say um it came out of a lot of discussions that I've been a part of through school committee um when we brought together our calendar committee um you know it's one of the things we talk about about the days off and is there any flexibility in some of the ones that we're sort of constrained into and especially the ones that are tied to a full day of professional development and is that the most effective time of year for five to six hours hours of professional development um so um and

and I had also asked raised the issue last May um to our select board counterparts and town manager um and it it didn't go further so when the because somebody else El asked me why wasn't this um School Comm a school committee sponsored article and those just have different deadlines um so it's possible that we could have con talked about it as a group and made that step um but the way the calendar committee meetings fell and um and the deadlines for town meeting that just didn't work out that way um as part of the follow-up to the calendar committee Dr Chu and I had a meeting with Chief Chambers um to also revisit and have a check a an update on um a risk ass updated risk assessment on school closure on an election day um because that would be another way to sort of mitigate this may day off um and both well if you want to chime in sure I mean that that had come out of the conversations at the task force the school and Safety Town task force had talked about it and one of the things he was he was specifically saying is that to try and have school while you're also having um voters coming in and out of the buildings um it's he he he only has so many resources and so the they have to actually have an officer with the ballots um and so it's would be difficult to have an additional officer at say a hallway keeping um the public from going further into the school or keeping you know the way in which you would be controlling traffic and so now the wa is one of the major um polling places like the idea of trying to do

that in the different buildings and trying to make sure that you don't have um you just don't have access from the general public to to the students is incredibly difficult and challenging so it was his suggestion he would prefer to see us not have students in in the buildings for um the election days so that's why we were saying okay well what is it that we can do someone's asked in the past well could the elementary schools still go but the but you you still have to then challenge how do you make that up and how do you how do you balance that and so that that isn't that isn't necessarily a viable option right um so that's kind of the how how it ex came to exist on the um town meeting uh article for March 22nd but I leave it up to the committee to decide for a discussion and whether or not to take a position on it do you want to stop sharing the calendar just so Mari up oh oh I got you thanks um yeah no I mean for my thoughts on this is that I think we should be T considering taking a position on it because I you know clearly it's come out of a school committee calendar and I think it's kind of conversations that we've had um in the past about you know how do we make our calendar and school year as efficient as possible um and this is more I think just than just about uh you know the quality like the timing of professional development for our staff in May and I mean I don't know Laria you can speak to being pre prior um staff member but I think also for families you know trying to minimize those kind of you know almost random days during the week I know we're trying to streamline the the the professional development early release days to a Wednesday so at least there's some um consistency with

that but um I know uh for me I think it just makes a little bit of sense that we would consider asking the town I mean I know it means a change of resources and I've heard some of the conversations that they've had regarding and I think you've included them in the packet tonight um you know there's some worries about trying to staff polls on a Saturday versus a Tuesday you know you may not have some people who are available on Tuesdays but you may now have people who are available on Saturdays um would be potentially great Capstone project or something for some of our seniors to get involved in I believe they they can you know it happens in other towns um and again I suppose the other feedback they was about um having our uh police officers having to come in on a a weekend um you know I think for one day it's worth considering in my mind it's like what are we what's the cost we're paying an entire staff for professional development on a Tuesday in May you know to try and weigh up the value of potentially having a Saturday um you know a smaller impact on a Saturday vote versus a Tuesday and I think Valerie you had shared some really interesting information and one of the um I think was it at the at select board last meeting on was it Bill R have done this yeah so part of the research for the for my petition I've looked at what other towns have done that are that are similar in size to us um all of these towns have Saturday local elections deam has 20,000 voters um W by the way Westford has 19,000 so just to orient you um Easton 18,000 Bedford 10,000 Arlington 32,000 Pembrook 15,000 um hangam

19,000 Bill R actually has 32,000 voters and has a Saturday local election and they manage 12 precincts in six polling locations and I asked the town clerk if she had issues Staffing um her Saturday elections and she said no more than she would expect on any other day of the week so did any of them comment on voter turnout so most of them have had it this way for so long that it's not that they can measure like a before and an after can I ask a clarifying question uh is that uh do we have a standing practice or policy on taking positions on citizen petitions uh so the only reason I ask is some communities select board and standing committees don't take a position because it is we typic typically in Sean KCK me because you've been on the longest you're the the town Elder here um is if there's something connected to the schools is when we would consider we take positions on it um as opposed to being an official coming from regardless of where it's been proposed from because it impacts the school account because it impact yeah I think we did take a position in the Indigenous people's day sure renaming one um I will also say that when I was presenting this to the select board they asked if the committee had taken a position yet and they waited to take their position but again like I um I I want this to be a decis discussion among the committee not related to we have an access to town

meeting Committee in town uh the charge of that committee is to take uh to encourage attendance and increase participation at town meeting including but not limited to consideration of the date time of town meeting what services the town might offer etc etc I think in a similar vein we're talking about election day um you know I think it's helpful to our families in this District uh to be able to better participate in this process um so that's my feeling on it might also be easier to find sign holders on a Saturday for when we're running volunteers and you could make sure you could be there you know people I think because there it's such a high level of Civic involvement for the town it makes sense for it to be on the weekend um it's more it's a more family friendly Community friendly day than a Tuesday and bearing in mind we have early voting for like the entire week before you we have mail and voting you know there's so many more Avenues options it would be one option yeah um I think my only hang up on it is from the staff perspective of it is then requiring some staff to work a weekend day um and I'm just having the other side of you know if the select board were to propose something that required the teachers to come in on a Saturday would you know you know so it it I I could see um positives and negatives of it um you know I would hope that it would encourage more um turnout uh but I also know that it would conflict with other community

activities on on Saturdays and there's always something right we're we're going to hear that as well so um you know we'll have hear complaints that it's on a Saturday impacting practices and games I mean most people are working on Tuesday right but not until 7 or 8:00 when I assume it will be the same hourss with 7 a.m. to 8 just 7 to 8 yeah so even if you're going to do something on a Saturday you could just go earlier on your way out yeah yeah yeah I would think it's more flexible on a Saturday home exactly and there's a lot more flexibility for most people unless you work weekends but even so you could still handle it I mean I I I have to say I would absolutely support this you know even if we find you know it doesn't work on the town side longer term we can always change it or I know there's been conversations about is may even the right time for local elections all right you know certainly towns are all over the board as to when they do it exactly jump It's couple weeks yeah yeah or closer to to town meeting and stuff so maybe this even opens up a conversation more on the town side and future select board members might um consider uh you know seeing you know again access to town meeting came up with a lot of information that I think would also be helpful on the town election side so I'm I'm happy to support this I think it's connected to the schools you know I know Valerie put it in as a Citizens petition but it's really purely just down to time and Logistics I think if if our if our calendar kind of came earlier in the year in this conversation happen then you know I could have seen us as a group making the conver the the proposal to select boards so I guess the one like the the part that's tough for me right is that we

don't have anything to compare it to to say that it'll increase voter turnout right and that like if we had that piece I would say absolutely I mean let's just this is an easy lot right because I mean we've all been we've all seen what the counter argument ments are I mean there is a concern about um overtime wages to staff if they have to work an additional day or something like that so so what for by staff we're talking about police and custodians office office the entire office clerk's office oh they'd have to but the town clerk's office is three people sorry I just you know what I mean point point that you know because the most of it is all volunteer L the most are volunteer staff all the people who are staffed at the voting pools are all volunteer yes and that's what I mean when you kind of weigh up you know I mean I can't imagine and I did mean to email Jenny actually earlier about this like what does it actually cost us for one day to run to pay all our our teacher salaries you know what's the cost of what to us to to run a day where we don't have students in front of them so that are we getting value out of our professional development that day but are we we're just looking to shift that to a different day right it's not that's not actually cost savings just to be clear well we may not need a full day of professional development at you know at that time of the year or I think we still do I I wouldn't I wouldn't want to see us have less professional development I think it's about the timing of it and you could do it earlier in the year where it would be more useful so that that's my only thing is it's not actually it wouldn't be an efficiency in in dollar it would be efficiency in when training is more value value yeah once May and June June once May and June hit the school systems all

bets are off I it's kind of like it's kind things just get more and more packed with activity people are tired right um people are thinking about the the next year in May and June they're planning for the next year but it I think it probably would be helpful to have it a little bit earlier if possible what kind of PG do we typically run on on that may it's changed each year depends on what's going what we've been working on you know this year we're we're going to be doing another one of the Ed Camp style opportunities for people to have a lot of choice in what they're doing but as we were trying to roll out the El curriculum we needed to use every single moment of PD that we had um and that's where it kind of gets to you know sometimes to try to do something in where you are planning for next year that's also not really useful because to try to expect somebody to retain something from one day in May and then apply it in August so but but to have a preview planning for the future there are things that you can do um you know there's also there has been conversation as to whether are you better off with instead of the full day there there's there's opinions about everything as you can imagine imagine right there definitely there's people who feel like the full day PD is more valuable there are people who feel like the half day PD is more valuable and so if you were to replace a full day with two half day PDS then that impacts the calendar as well too because then you are getting school days in right and so then for when when anybody gets worried about the snow days and the weather and you know are we pushing too too far into June yeah then if we were to rethink that that but I think that's a much bigger conversation um than it it does Prov I guess it provides you that option though yeah which having

the election in the schools does not so is the question do we want to take a position first and then the second is I'm going to so I think it's up to the six of you whether you'd like to now or or we could always you could always decide to on town meeting floor or on the 17th or tonight if we take a position if you take a position tonight it gets printed in the motion booklet which I think a lot of people versus if we wait till that would be helpful C day of day of we would be asked most likely for our position I don't know I feel like it's been a while since we've been asked for something on the floor what our position was on something and had to take a vote on the fly like that so I don't know in in reality as I think through it most people at town meeting would not recognize this as a um School impact school issue yeah issue so um they may not that position so do you think Tom if we should be would you like us to take a position what do you I don't know okay nobody has to worry about hurting my feelings I have no ego in this I was just it was being practical it was just let's push the conversation have the discussion well and and citizen petitions are generally advisory anyway they're not a binding is that correct oh no that's a resolution no this would change the bylaws and legal has approved the language resolutions that are kind of like with Sean and that like I don't have any data in front of me and so I'm having a hard time because I feel like I'm thinking

about this issue and kind of trying to analyze it but mostly kind of basing it on information that's not in front of us and so I think I'm having a hard time with deciding how I would vote on it and also whether or not I think it's relevant for this committee saying that Mari then the other alternative we have is we don't make any decision tonight which means obviously we don't get printed in the packet but that we consider coming back on our March 17th meeting and making a decision one way or the other right and do if we do decide we vote that night so we know in advance and it can be announced at at time meeting that's too we yeah yeah so it gives everybody two weeks to kind of just have a think have a conversation look for whatever data they want might want and then we could revisit this on the 17th sure have any other boards waited in or would we be the first okay they select boards specifically said they were waiting they they wanted to see what we could said sure as someone who's probably for this um I I think it would I think it still probably makes sense to wait a meeting just see if so but as was the cter of that is what information are we going to have that's different than we have tonight and maybe we don't so and I I think this is a chicken in the egg U recommendation um whether we would recommend first or select board to me it would make more sense for select board to take a position because it does have um Town staff impact as well um

but you so yeah I I don't know that I'd want to U take a position first on this Phil um if we don't take a position tonight I know I'll be doing some homework so preparation for next meeting and I would advise this committee to do so as well sure I think it doesn't hurt to have a little more time to think about it for people who aren't sure okay great I'm going to move us right along then we have plenty more to cover tonight um and we'll switch gears to our district Improvement plan um none of Master Plan wow great okay someone check on me later um District Master Plan so this is really two meaty um pieces from um as part under the district ma under the master plan umbrella the first one is an update from the space usage working group um this shouldn't be a surprise it's been in our school committee goals our superintendent goals our estp to and I know I know we've been giving brief updates um at our meetings along the way that Dr Chu Jeff Goodwin and I have been touring all of the buildings reviewing floor plans with the principles talking about how spaces are being used and what um um increased usage might look like and what reconfigurations might look like so what we were trying to do is have a deadline of giving an update to the committee and the public really um because it does sort of interwoven with the Robinson School building committees um ask for a feasibility study so just Dive Right it sure so yeah so um the slide one uh just just talk about the working group like we said we

talked about this a number of times throughout the year that um it was me uh Jeff Goodwin and and Valerie who were um doing this and Jeff is um not able to join us this evening but he has most of the information that you'll see tonight are things that uh he's in terms of any Capital things he's actually already shared with you as well too um if we go to the next slide it kind of talks about why we were doing this so and to remind everybody it is part of our master plan it's it's um it is in our district Improvement plan that we would be doing this both last year and this year uh it's layered into U my goals as well as the school committee goals and this is coming out of the work that we were doing with smma with the facilities assessment because not our our our overall usage wasn't necessarily um Quantified in the facilities assessment they were asking different questions right and so while they were looking at the way that the space would relate to msba expectations and so we remember if you remember seeing those Maps um perhaps not every and for the members who who weren't with us at that moment in time but in that assessment it has maps of our buildings that shows which which rooms are larger than um you know what the msba would expect which are smaller the majority of them are smaller we didn't have too many that were that were larger but that work was in there but we wanted to say okay well how are we currently using this and even some of the data changed from 2023 just because of the needs in the building so we're talking about our special education programming and different things like that things have already changed from there um out of the facilities assessment we knew that we were we based on that information um little teaser for the next presentation we about to give um we submitted the statement of interest for the Robinson school right so that's the preliminary work of the Massachusetts school building authority which is and part of the Robinson project it was important

for us to know the msba wants to know um what the what it looks like um throughout the district what your enrollment looks like and how that's being supported in your buildings and it's just a it's a critical piece for us to say okay well how are we going to use our buildings is are there opportunities that we are not thinking of with our buildings uh during last year's budget um conversations there were questions about okay wait a second as we're looking at you know looking for efficiencies people asked are we using our spaces efficiently so we already knew that we were going to be doing this work um and so that was just another piece that kind of really drove this year uh and then the other piece is that there was a space usage report that was done um in 2014 uh and it hasn't really been evaluated since then so that was something that we had uh we wanted to make sure that we were looking at as well too so if you go to the next slide we'll talk about the process we we shared with you throughout the year as we were visiting the schools and so we did we evaluated all the floor plans we um Valerie Jeff and I went to each building and met with the principles the principles would have copies of their floor plans they had multiple copies of the floor plans one that would have the current use um that was taking place right now and then we asked them to consider if we were to reconfigure grade levels at the elementary schools what might that look like in your building and so they provided us with possible options there quick quick pause here to remind everybody because this H this blurring happens a lot but reconfigure means change the grades that attend a school versus redistrict means redraw the lines of who's going but keep the grades the same okay so those lines will blur a little bit and especially from the public so just a reminder and just to that for that piece of it a number of years ago we had looked at redistricting um that was something that that was a conversation that had started I I was a

building principal at the time I served on that committee we did a lot of work looking to see and that at that time we were doing that primarily because there was a significant imbalance between the two middle schools in terms of the number of students that were going to them and then the impact on some of the elementary schools that's when we were really talking about redistricting um when I became superintendent we started talking about reconfiguration that's when we started saying okay we heard significant feedback from teachers and from families about that transition between second and third grade is it necessary not other districts do this we're one of very few District that have the model of the prek to2 schools and the 3 to 5 schools so that was something that we did ask smma to include in the conversation so when we in that facili assessment our community meetings we talked about the the configurations um and that's kind of where that came up so just to kind of help that so still part of this process here back we evaluated the floor plans we toured the buildings because we wanted to look at the different spaces um Valerie did an excellent job taking photos of all the different um buildings and all the different spaces so we can compare different types of spaces um some are very similar some are very different um and so we're looking at okay what are the what are the resources that our students have and and our staff have access to and then finally we needed to summarize all this data we say okay well how do what does this look like in this report um and this is where we needed to figure out how many rooms exist in each building that could actually fit a specific section so so we decided that we would then take how many um of those rooms are now need to be dedicated for certain causes for certain practices for programs that might not necessarily be a typical classroom um and then finally what we did is we took that in order to determine the usage we took the number of class sections divided it by the

available rooms is that the right way or the other way around no that's right yep um and that's kind of how we summarize this I also want to say at this time um when we started looking at the data because we were also doing the work with um the msba and the and we were submit we had we were in enrollment conversations with the msba um there was a an intersection here with the Robinson School building committee and Lindsay um Lindsay Richard I forgot to last um Lindsay who's the vice chair she actually joined Valerie and I um for a couple of conversations about looking at the data so we could as we were looking at the sections cuz that has an impact on that as well too which you'll see in the next presentation so we just I want to thank Lindsay for the help that she gave us in in thinking through the data here and and because what you'll see is it's it's there's so much data yeah and so what we were really struggling with was how do you boil it down and and how do you make it digestible so so we have some assumptions and some definitions we want to share again with everybody a section we talk about sections I think you're all familiar with this but anybody body listening in might not be a section is really we can think of that as a home room which makes a lot of sense in the elementary schools it gets confusing in 6 through 12 because they don't really have home rooms they have advisories but they're but that that's when it really just becomes a class of sections right it's typically 22 to 25 we know that that's gotten a little bit higher in some classes that's not what we're debating right now um and as we go through this uh as we we're boiling this down we use the terminology category a classrooms which is a room large enough for a section so it is a it is a room where a typical class of 20 to 25 students could meet regularly right where the teacher and the staff would meet with the students that would be

their home base for that class would be in that category a now here we know that we have a variety that we have the size sizes range here right so we have 650 some rooms at Abbot are only 650 squ ft the Robinson Suites the actual learning space in each area is really around 650 square feet right the suite itself is larger but you have to have furniture pet moving movement there whereas you know the typical rooms at Chris ofy are 975 sare F feet right so that's a that's a significant difference and one of the things that we now know is in the past we had smaller class sizes say at Abbot for a number of years that's not happening anymore we now actually have the same number of students pretty much at all the elementary schools for the most part so that's something um just to remember um then we talk about a designated classroom so this is a category a room that is required for a program or a service based on the building layout so for example at NAB and Abbot they're using some of the category they use a category a room for the art classroom because they don't have a dedic they don't have a room that was designed by architect like chrisop Foley has that's this gorgeous art room with all this natural light right Robinson has a room right in the middle of the building um with no natural light very small space it's the only room that didn't have well it's one of the rooms that didn't have carpeting is that's the one that they use for right um Miller uses some of their category a rooms for their mtss supports because their small group spaces have been used up have been they had to dedicate speech um elll services the bcba different types of small group Services they needed to they needed to use up all those spaces so they're actually using a category a classroom

for some of their interventionists and um other mtss supports so that's just an example of we actually these things have to happen and they need to have space they need to have a dedicated space and so they start using a category a now what we've learned is that some spaces some of the buildings had a little bit more flexibility and so they've used we what we're calling alternative use of category a right um in a couple of other spaces so you might see um for example Blanchard doesn't have a dedicated conference room so they're using a category a space as the conference room now where they can meet with families and they can meet you know have have Team meetings and have different types of um things such as that um mindfulness spaces sensory rooms have been utilized categor a rooms have been utilized for those spaces in some of our buildings uh in some examples it's become a copy room um the teacher room the teacher room might not exist and so they might have used a category a room for for a teacher room so you'll see some of that and and there are a couple not many that are that are open that are that are not use that we don't have anything going on right um so so really what we did was look at a floor plan and walk through and say okay how many total category a rooms are there in a building and then removed what what Dr Chu was just describing as designated so for some you there's some examples above for this um preschool to two building slideshow uh um slide is there's two preschool rooms in each of these buildings that are in the designated column as as sort of discounted from the total there's an otpt room um and based on the building there might there would also be special education programs in that designated sort of reserved earmarked category that we're removing from the total that what

leaves us then with is an available category a um number of rooms then we looked at what our current um gened sections enrollment is to show you what our usage calculates out to be I guess that was more complicated in my head cuz I see a lot of head nods grid looks good yeah yeah you can do the math okay great go to the next one yeah so so then the same analysis for our grades three to five buildings sorry actually on the previous slide so I did calculate like a total usage at the top to to group this grade level um is 91% usage and you'll see why in a couple slides that was just to draw a through line from the 2014 analysis so if if you go to grades 3 to 5 this this these buildings are averaging 78% usage um a lot of designated uh uh rooms here for our special education programs um again just uh to Dr Chu's examples um a room in Abbot for art or Library could technically hold a section but it's been used as a library for years and that Library service would have to have an alternative um here's a couple examples of the alternative uses and you'll see that they're more in the 70s to um 85% usage any questions on these okay so for our secondary schools um it gets a little bit more more complicated um the middle both middle schools have two teams of four home room/ advisories plus two student support service rooms

per grade so those are that's kind of like counts as their gened sections um or like the um home rooms and then we have the designated examples of designated B based on the building um and so there's really not a lot open here they're up in the '90s um the Westford Academy floor plan is also very heavily utilized with 84 category a rooms and 79 of those are used for five of the seven schedule blocks so there's not the same breakout grid as in the elementary levels but trying to show that which of the rooms are used for most of the day because that's the best way to sort of summarize the um middle and high school so um really the question a question I heard a couple times last year during the f25 budget was you know enrollment has decreased so that tells me that you should have rooms that are empty and you should be able to close a school um and there there's this data from 2014 that shows what um utilization was calculated to be at that point in time so on the second table you can see that first column is showing in 2014 our usage was 62% 83% 89% and 105% and that usage has been recalculated based on our work that I that we just walked through for those slides so the enrollment has decreased which is on the first table but the usage has changed and as part of this um process one of the things we didn't talk about on slide two or three was we went

back and looked at carefully the 2014 report to understand their methodology um what assumptions they were making at the time they were using 12% of students receive special ed services um currently our number is 18.7% of our population and that doesn't include the 3.5% elll population that we now have that we didn't have in 2014 right in 2014 El percent was one yeah um um the other they they did have some special ed assumptions built into their report one fullsize otpt room a half-size speech language room and then as you can see they had seven rooms districtwide that they were accounting for for specialized programs when you say one full size was that per per room per per building I'm sorry you're right I should add that thank you there's also an assumption that they had that all the classrooms were equal sizes um and we just although it hasn't really impacted um what we were looking at because we're talking about the usage of it but we were trying to how do we compare these things because it wasn't um Apples to Apples yeah it it is it is slightly different so similar to their report we considered special education needs immediately and that was something that they looked at as well too and so the big change here is that our our programming for special education has changed a great deal since 2014 and I I think what's important too is that when I first saw the 2014 report it the summary table really just shows enrollment at the time um a maximum functional capacity that that that they calculated um using 22 students in a room for the elementary and 25 students

in a room for the secondary um but they don't talk about the rooms like the floor plan the same way we did so in in my mind it was almost hard to say well okay you have a 100 kids and so therefore you need this many rooms because there's so much variability in that how many of those kids need special ed services did you count for um mtss did you count for elll well I'm sorry but once you even once you say that okay you have so many rooms and we're going to assume that there's 22 to 25 students in every single room then immediately that's our whole point is that we know that we have to have more rooms dedicated to special education and you are not going to have 22 students in a room that is dedicated to special education and matter of fact we have some programs that are so um I think intense that we might only have two or three students in that room now a lot of them will have eight 8 to 16 it depends on the the the the the type of the program but never 22 like that's not going to happen and I think that in itself is just a big change and it's it's baked into the enrollment and the assumptions but I guess the way my brain works I needed to see a floor plan and say no that room is going to be this that room is going to be this that leaves us with this many that could be sections how many is that well and to Dr tr's point it's not like we can say oh well that class only has two to five students so we can cut a room in half because just it doesn't right work to have a half siize class for and isn't there also something I know I think it it came up in our tours was a westf Academy the conversation about even the placement of where some of those classrooms um be like there's a state kind of guidance that sure that's actually one of the things we'll even talk about in our next presentation um

because that is true the the I mean Courtney um not the not that that that is not your hat to wear but but IDE is that she knows very well that um uh desie has certain expectations that your special education programming is embedded into the life of the school and that they're right next to General Ed classrooms that you're not taking all of your special education programs and putting them off in the middle of nowhere and that's one of the concerns that that we have currently in Robinson is that it might not actually meet um desie expectations the way that it's set up right now and that like so the floor P floor plans can absolutely kind of impact that one thing that I'd like to point out here is that this does show that we have done some reconfiguration by moving the prek from this building here to the the Community Schools right and reducing that transition um and utilizing the space more fully for that purpose yeah if we we're kind of we kind of started going to the next Slide by saying some of the things that because we've talked about some of the things that have changed um and so I was just going to say like we you know we we need more spaces these are things that have evolved over time so we know that we we we have more adjustment counselors now than we did um that was something that that was very important that this that the committee was that that we've been able to invest in over the number of years to meet the social emotional needs of our students um we you know we've had a lot of conversations about our mtss model and it does require space uh the English language Learners that has increased um space for the psych ologists the expansion of the program since 2014 right so we have we have more reach classrooms we have medically fragile classrooms um we have a sale program that didn't exist Pathways did exist um life skills has exist for a while the the alt the alt Ed in the therapeutic Student Center program at wa that wasn't

that didn't really exist in 2013 2014 it was coming into play just around then and and and built up since then um and then just the idea that also at that time we didn't have full day kindergart right um and that's also going to impact how the how those K to2 buildings were being used even though there was a halfday program in the morning and the afternoon there's still it's still going to impact how that was used and then we already talked about the fact that our um our percentage has increased 18.7 um students with disabilities so go J it might be good to clarify that number in difference like just you know take take our enrollment currently and just do that sort of math I like what is the what is the like a ballpark number I know it changes based on decisions but just put a number out there estimate I think it's important understand and I I think the other piece about that is that it isn't just a number too right like because you're right but it's not just a number because what I think the more important thing is to understand the programs the programs that we have that we wouldn't have been meeting students needs correct and now we are and some of the some of that 16.7 I mean that 6.7 increase is also significant um significant needs that we might not have we not have been may not have been able to support and that we fiscally Maybe by building it inhouse are this are saving money on by not sending it out to collaborative settings or private days or each one of those rooms all the square footage is accounted for we might not have as many students but we certainly have adults that are supporting those students we have equipment um of all sorts of adaptive equipment so um it is wall toall being used it it might be worth adding in some

of those extra numbers like in terms of the elll numbers and I know we kind of we also have a term like of high need students which in incorporates all of this like that also brings Services they may not need a designated classroom so I think it might be worth because that that was quite a high number as well 28.4 yeah so it was 16% in 2014 so it might be worth just adding those data points in on this slide just to and give a rer to okay okay so the question that has come up I mean as part of this people always want to know can we close a school yeah you they'll to say that the numbers have have uh have decreased and so why can't you you or can you close a school um then I the recommendation is no um we can't do that and the this is the reason why while specifically yes there are some elementary schools that Cate they're using category spaces um in alternative ways the openings don't match what the need is and the best example here is with our current grade level structure right so with our current grade level structure we could not take for example the 14 sections from day school and bring them to a fuler abits nine open rooms right and you couldn't even do it the other way right because that's the the the issue here is that it doesn't match with what you have um and in the K to2 programs we're not really seeing available space right right um they were more utilized right uh if if we if the remaining schools were were reconfigured to be prek to5 uh it would require um facility investment right to accomodate the the larger range of Ages um the flexibility that we have right now some of our schools we might have more flexibility than than we need but we still need flexibility and if we were to reconfigure the other schools and close

a school we would lose that and we would have limited room for growth we would risk overcrowding um and we do know that our projections are that they're leveling out and that they'll they'll increase again it doesn't seem that they'll increase dramatically but go back to basically where they were 100 around 100 more students um but that's telling me that we we don't necessarily want to lose that flexibility that could happen at any time with when you have a an influx of of in a in any given grade um it it would have a significant impact on the current educational environments at each of our buildings right now if we were to put more students into any one of them you would lose the way in which you you're able to use the space in the first place and again it kind of comes back to we do not have an overcrowding problem we would risk moving towards an overcrowding problem which seems to be uh we'd be working against ourselves um there would still be significant Capital needs at the remaining buildings um that's a little bit part of our next presentation as well too um as we're we're these are two separate conversations although they inform each other so um that's why we didn't put them all together because we're also this was one of the pieces that we said we were going to work on outside of the msba process as well I think it it's also important that we can't just say oh well we don't need a building this year and then in two years we reopen so that's the third bullet point right there right the idea that if we were to close a school that's a complicated and lengthy process right you can't just decommission a building once it's closed it's no longer grandfathered and so everything would have to all building codes would have to be brought up um whereas some of them are they're not existing on current code many of them are not existing on current codes um the current codes right now but we know that they're still okay um the possibility of of we'd have to refund money if it was closed within 10 years of any state reimbursement as well too so that could

that could have an impact if that was the case to that specific schools okay yep um and the bigger thing is that if we were to close a building if we were we would be at a disadvantage if we tried to then compete for State reimbursement for other projects in the following years so the question comes up like so as we were talking about we went back and forth as to redistricting and Rec reconfiguration right so what would reconfiguration look like so right now some of our schools could handle it better than others um some could handle it with very little if if almost no work Miller NAB and chrisa Foy specifically would not have as big a trouble NAB nasset was actually built to be a um a full elementary school right um all of the the grades in it while Miller was built specifically to be a a prek to2 building and chrisy was built to ba 3 to5 building they have they have their newer buildings and they have I think you'd be able to change those grades in those buildings with greater ease um the Robinson open plan the suets themselves they just wouldn't be appropriate for grades three to five yes it was built to be in elementary school yes grades three four and five have been in Robinson in the past but that it's just no longer an appropriate um use of that and that's just something we're looking at in general right now we're saying that it's manageable with the younger students because they are smaller um and that physically makes a difference both in the sound in their distraction in their ability to be working every time I I would go there and visit one of the things Mr lost would say if you sit down and you put yourself where the kids are you'll see that the kids aren't necessarily going to be as distracted as the adults are in the space three third fourth and fifth graders are going to be larger than those barriers and they're going to be more apt to be distracted by what's going on in the other half of the

room um the there we would need to make more significant adjustments at Abbott we have to remember Abbot was actually built to be a high school right an old high school with very small desks in rows very small rooms none of those bathrooms would be appropriate for younger students some of them are barely appropriate now for but we make it work for the three to five um but it wouldn't it wouldn't work for um prek to2 uh it wouldn't be a good idea and Day School was built to be a middle school um it wouldn't it's it's not as big of a difference but it also just has that there would we would have to do some infrastructure changes more work on their bathrooms alone just for that um Additionally the the the playground equipments and the in the buildings we'd need to make sure that all of the playgrounds were appropriate for all of the age ranges that they'd be supporting and that would take um some significant investment um now in doing that if we were to change the any of the prek any of the schools to become prek to 5 if we were to do that districtwide there would be a natural redistricting of boundaries right so that's where that kind of comes into play um and just some some other thoughts that we talked about as we were touring with the buildings with principles to say okay what you're you're pre2 principal what kind of things do you think about for your population that we need to sort of bring those learnings into the grades three to five in into a different building that um hasn't had that age range like things like the preschool pickup and drop off or preschool eats in their eats lunch in their classroom things like grade five having a school play are where would that take place in all of our smaller in all of our um lower elementary buildings um grades three to five have Bandon

strings so it's just a list none of these are deal breakers they're all just things that we have started some conversations about that they would be further considerations on the other side I could see a further consideration would be Transportation cost if it were reconfigured because you would have more families that would be within that uh the the radius of the school of their local school mhm right the whole time as opposed to when they might have been for half of the time and then they went to another school right so you know it wouldn't necessarily reduce the number of buses we'd be using but one of the main considerations that we didn't talk about though is and and I think everybody kind of Express this concern is the number of sections per grade level at a school once you get once you extend those grade levels then you can't fit as many sections in the school and so what is that what is too small right and so we talked about that ideally it would always be more than two sections hopefully um yes small country schools work with two sections all the time but if we don't have to necessarily do that we would rather not do that just makes like class placement and everything I was say that there is a a definite thing of student to teacher matching right and and if you only have one or two sections your student is essentially stuck with I mean all of our teachers are great don't get me wrong but personalities don't always line up I've seen it I'm GNA go I'm going to go as far as to say and I do believe yes our faculty is great the staff is great that is not my concern my concern is there are times when the children don't all get along with each other right and we're trying to how are we able to really expand their friend groups and expand their ability year after year to meet more and more people and when it's all like you're hey you're all in the same section forever I mean it works and you can do that and you learn things that way way too I mean someone will say you you have to work

through conflicts in a different way but I just think that is a that is a challenge that's not something we necessarily want to create for ourselves I once taught at the Cameron school where there were four classes grade one grade two grade three and I think there were two sections the first grade and the second grade uh was an unforgettable year there were about 20 boys and two girls oh my gosh but they that was only second grade section so they were there I was going to say two just think about my kids experiences at NAB having five teachers five sections they all get to learn from each other and work together you reduce that down to two you don't have as much mingling and professional collaboration and you know I me you don't but if you can have it around District sure but I mean it's you know having it you get you can get it vertically two the other thing to think about too because the other piece is in between two and three what you can do is it's easier to develop common planning time yes right and so you're actually able to build into the schedule in an easier way for the teachers to collaborate with each other in a ways that you can't if there's more sections and and I will say I I taught in a school where it was two sections per grade and I loved having like we were a team the two of us you know we worked really well and across the across the school I wouldn't have any concerns about that I actually think there's more benefits to having the mix of having second grade teachers be able to work with third grade teachers and vice versa you know because like students in front of you aren't always at a second grade level or a third grade level so knowing there's that expertise across the whole school and you have the older kids helping the younger kids doing things with them it's a that's a

great Advantage y there I mean it's it's definitely a bigger conversation this was like with the space usage lens and the facilities um sort of considerations and I think we just added a a quick slide at the end to for if there was any questions about visualizing our enrollment this was provided by the MBA um so not when we say increase I almost think we need to add a qualify and added number in there but by what is the um y AIS showing it's not like an earth shattering increase it's just that there has been a little bit of a dip and we expect overall sort of a re ruding the reality is no one truly knows what the no yeah um MBTA communities oh sure or how to predict going be uh I don't think we many of us expect it to be an explosion of school age population but we just don't know so so that's an on the school usage work that we've been doing yep like there's still more you've really done nothing this year still more for us to digest and and you know one of the other things that's kind of an open is I like just a a curiosity for me was how to compare it to um like if you reverse engineer the 2014 report into from an enrollment number into a number of rooms and then use that to compare our current what we think is now our available rooms anyway so so we'll keep meeting there's more to come but I mean I I think you know it's important because I think it came up so much about reconfiguration redistricting in the last year with the conversation um it's not you know I feel like it's homework but there's still almost like a pause until we see what

happens with the msba because you know thanks for that segue right we don't like this is a good information to have now no to give us to inform more what our next steps are right there so we have another slide show yeah sorry it should be coming up so and for anyone watching this is um an article up for uh vote at annual town meeting on March 22nd this will be article 7 I can remove that Aster now that the warrant has been set set we had is she using the same slide this is the one that's that was in the pocket yes okay I don't think we made any changes except for that I think I moved her slide around but it's fine we'll get there yep so this is email me do you want to let me share with you right now and you can bring it up um so the you all know this but the Robinson School building committee has several members of um the uh public I think Lindsay might be joining us on Zoom as Vice chair um we also have Jeff Goodwin um Christen L Town manager members of the select board the fin committee permanent Town building committee and we've been really lucky that several of the members of the um several of the resident members have strong expertise in their professional role with this type of work um it's just been really um valuable for for the work so get it yet yeah y um I'll also use this minute to explain that the as part of our Outreach to the community the Robinson School building committee want to leave Lindsay into this sorry yeah that would be great yeah just in case we have questions for just before um the Robinson School building committee is is hosting a forum at Robinson next Wednesday night and the building will be open to the community for like tours beforehand from 6:30 to 7:30 from 6:30 70 7:30 thank you um and then we're also

opening the building for tours the Saturday before town meeting so that's March 15th from 10:30 10:30 1 o' thank you and we're hosting a forum at the Cameron Senior Center as well for that population and just trying to push out as much information about this um article as possible so want to jump right in um so what what we're here tonight to talk about obviously is for the school committee to hopefully take a position on this article um again if we take a position tonight we get it into the packet um the warrant motions booklet and I I don't think there's much new here that you haven't been updated about along the way um we did get unanimous support from the finance committee and the select board which is great um just to start off with some clarity on what the article does and doesn't do it does not increased taxes it is not a debt exclusion it is not an override it is $1.6 million of spending for a feasibility study and schematic report of the Robinson school that basically covers several months 10 to 12 months of owner's project manager architect fees and a full analysis of two sites this is a requirement I cannot say that strongly enough this is a requirement to get in the msba process which is tied to which is a grant program so it's tied to their reimbursement we if we if this fails we are not in the the msba program at all and would be funding our Capital fixes ourselves and it blocks us from getting back into the msba process again for a number of years I believe well makes it difficult there's no actual amount of time that you're excluded but you do go to the bottom of the list and they do and ites you don't get to like hold your spot you have to reapply yeah you have to you

have to go through the entire process again and um it was it was um it was not typical that we got in the first try yeah oh yeah um but that that just kind of shows the needs of the Robinson right and and that's an external validation that the state this state organization looks at needs across all districts and ranks them by urgency and need and chose Robinson on the first try other districts like Dr shua said have um resubmitted for five 10 years to try to get um into the program so West they they determine a base reimbursement rate for each Community westford's for the current count calendar year is 48.0 5% of eligible costs so the authorization that you may know this from previous Town meetings but the vote has to be for the full amount of authorization however we don't expect that full amount to be expended so what is a feasibility study right so the scope of the feasibility study the it is again we've already said this before it's a required phase of the msba process it assesses the need for a school building project it's going to evaluate the existing conditions explore idential outcomes and the determining costs and I think this is the most important part it's going to recommend the most effective and educationally appropriate preferred solution so the actual feasibility study and we have we have examples of other feasibility studies that have been done in other communities so that people can see what does this $1.6 million what does that end up look you know what do you get for that um out out of a feasibility study the msba requires these potential outcomes to be explored what if we make no changes what if we just bring the existing facility up to code what if we renovate Andor do an addition to the building to help it meet the needs and then what if there's a new construction so those are the four things that the

msba for any school that goes into this process the msba requires that the feasibility study explores those things for us specifically because Robinson is a pre to2 building we know that they're going to look at is could a new construction be a prek to2 building or could we look at a prek to 5 building and look at possible consolidation and reconfiguration that was part of our SOI that was part of what we submitted for the Robinson school um so we we were already talking about our willingness to do that and that's something that the msba thinks is very important that we are willing to actually consider consolidating our resources so now one thing that's important for us to look at is when we first started this process we were looking at if we were to consolidate the Robinson and the Abbott schools into a new pre-i building with the remaining four elementary schools reconfigured as prek to 5 buildings right so that would leave us with five elementary schools as we were doing the space utilization process we started looking at the spaces and looking at the reconfiguration potential of each building and we realized wait a second if we actually build a slightly larger new construction we could in essence go down to four elementary schools because we could have a new building the re redistrict the three the um three pre- to 5 elementary schools Chris ay Miller and NAB and then reassign the Day School population to those buildings and to the new building now that's a big piece of what this Fe feasibility study is going to explore all of these different possible outcomes and then they they will recommend what they think that we should do but the community votes on what the decisions the community will vote as to to whether they want to fund a project or not so this will all come back to the community again so and just a quick note here is that the reason these are these examples have Robinson and Abbott is that the smma facilities

assessment ranked those as the two buildings with the highest needs Robinson and then Abbot so that's our next slide right so and can I can I just ask to clarify um I think I know the answer but again for people at home the potential outcomes obviously is kind of within these four um areas those kind of four areas would obviously be written about and discussed about in the report although msba say but our recommendation is so while these are all the options our recommendation is a new construction or renovation or renovation whichever yeah but if we say say they recommend renovation and and an addition but we um choose the new construction op option that discussed in the feasibility study do would we still get the reimbursement or do we only get reimbursement on their recommendation L if Lindsay's with us Lindsay can chime in and she has a little bit more experience with different um projects but I do I do believe that they will they will share what they're preferred what what they think that we should do but in my experience in another District yeah I know we still the the district still had options within that even if they didn't go with exactly what the msba thought thought that we should be doing they weren't pulling out right there are some things they won't do they will say we're not doing this right so they could come down and say this is the most effective and most educationally appropriate and this is the only one that will support but they could also say well this is what we think but these are your these are your options so it really kind of depends like they're choosing on how to invest on where to invest their that msba money so they do have a stake yeah go ahead Lindsay did you have anything to add no that that sums up my understanding as well Dr CH okay thank you um and we will get one one one clarifying thing though

we as part of the feasibility study like we will get cost estimates associated with the options and so there may be you know that's that's one component of the kind of cost benefit and you know programmatic and cost decision- making process right yeah and part of that would be you know just look at that last one the larer the largest brand new building type thing we'd also have to look at the cost savings future uh Capital get other yeah so we have other slides here information so we've kind of already talked about this and I think you're all aware of this but some people watching for the first time might not be so they were wondering why are we even talking about Rob and these are slides we've created for fincom and for the forums so if they're old news to you right we can skip so Robinson did when we did the proc we were going through the facilities assessment smma were they were evaluating all our schools and they actually said Robinson has is in your greatest need that is your school with the greatest needs they identified the Robinson Abbott and day as being the three schools with the greatest needs but they said Robinson really has the greatest needs now the also the strange thing you may remember that we talked about this in the past is that the msba process you're only allowed to submit one school to be a primary project um and you are recommended by Consultants by the MSB by everybody you want to put your worst foot forward right you want to put what is the neediest building and the fact that Robinson was the neediest and this open concept which is just truly outdated is something that the msba has recognize for a while now and they're like yeah we these these schools just aren't what we should have for for for our kids anymore um so if you get then accepted then what you're able to do is you're able to bring other other potential consolidations into the project right

but that's why the project might just be about Robinson but it might expand to bring Abbot and potentially even um some of the day population into it but that's kind of where that's how that happened and so we have all that information about Robinson um I think you're all familiar with this this is something that Jeff has shared with us as well if you go to the next slide it talks about the current state of facilities for these three schools specifically and what what what their needs are um I think more importantly is the next slide um if we even just want to move along because this is what and this is what Jeff has shared Jeff Goodwin has shared with us we pulled out one of the things we did last year when we were looking at before we got to the space utili utilization and the usage this year last year we really prioritized what those needs were from the smma report and so this is what we look at is that each one of these buildings over the next 5 to 10 years they have significant needs that that will need to be addressed and if you look at the bottom um if you can see the totals there we're looking at between these three buildings close to $30 million and that's in 2023 numbers so these numbers are already two years old um and in some cases this I don't know the answer to whether we do it but but you you you're probably also all aware that when you're doing work on a building once you get past a certain percentage of work on the building it can then trip all of the other codes that you have to do and that that's not addressed in in this list is if any in if if if this list of things would ever get you to where you actually had to bring the entire building up to code this is what we know this is what we know it doesn't tell us the unknown yeah and there are other things that Jeff didn't include here these aren't the only needs that these buildings have and we have other buildings that have needs as well too

we added that's one of the Reas why we're saying this feasibility stud is important because this is kind of what you would ask Tom right about what are the needs that these buildings are going to have if you don't move forward with a feasibility and you then have to take on all of these things potentially on your own are there any questions with all that so then we'll go to the next slide which I'm gonna um pass it over to Lindsay because Lindsay has the most experience with this and she can really talk about what this means sure thank you um so the 1.6 million for the feasibility study scope um really pays for three categories during this phase um the services of an owner's project manager um as well as architect and Engineers both of those um firms will be brought on board if the feasibility study passes so so the immediate next step is to issue an our a request for um qualifications to get an OPM on board and in that firm um represents the town during the feasibility study and stays on through the duration of the project if if a project does go forward and they manage they manage all of the work um they're really the technical person that manages the work on behalf of the Town The Architects and the engineers are doing the leading the diligence and design work during the feasibility and schematic um initial schematic stage page for the potential options and then there's some diligence um work surveys environmental some soil testing um traffic analysis that we'll be doing um at uh two different sites and anything that's not used uh can be rolled into a potential project Lindsay I don't know if you can speak to this in that architectural section

um they're not designing buildings they're literally just looking at the existing facilities and kind of what design the engineers would be kind of looking at what would need to be done within those current buildings is is that right looking at the current structure they will also do what's called like a test fit um so taking um putting together a program of what you need in a renovated or new building okay and lay it out in in kind of blocks like not a true design uh but lay it out so that you can see how it would fit um on a site or how we would take down walls at Robinson and try to fit reconfigure um because then we are also going to have cost estimates associated with these so it really is the design work not detail technical drawings but design work and this is where I would encourage any of you and anybody watching these links on this slide right here in the bottom corner there those are links to an actual feasibility study um that Wilmington Rec so it's a very very very long document but it has a whole bunch of I took a screenshot from that report of this eval this Alternatives table which is really it's like on you know one of in the executive summary basically of that Wilmington report to show that they actually looked at like a prek Tok building a small prek Tok building a slightly larger prek to 3 building and then a larger prek to 5 building they have repair add Rena and new for each one of those it's like this really inv comprehensive Matrix of options that they do this ranking I mean the report that is that this was taken from is like 1,700 pages long oh jeez it's it's some light reading but it's to to try to show I I know there's been some conversations

in the community about what does the 1.6 million get us that seems really high it it really will flush all of this out to to help guide the next step and say what should we do so if you want to just jump us back because this is I should have put a back button oh Lindsay go first yeah if I could just add one thing too just to piggyback on the the earlier presentation um Valerie is is you know the the architect that we will hire during this stage in this study will take the work that's been done by the space usage team and pick up on that and start to play out you know just to look at all the programming thinking that went into that and start to play out what um a potential new building or renovated Robinson could look like in Ultimate scenarios and and um I think just like all of the work done to date like what's you know you're left with like at the end of that last last slide deck is like what's next well like this is what's next in in being able to pick up on all that work um it's a really great opportunity that that the town has right now okay so this is just and Lindsay this next slide really you can speak to as well too this kind of breaks that down a little bit more um I think some of the information on the left hand side is is even more important but um if you want to talk to that yeah this is the GTL um broken down 1.6 you know the between the OPM The Architects and Engineers that's the a& E Line and then the diligence items I spoke up about before um under environment and site to Total just under 1.6 um and you know we really just looked at picking up off of the facilities assessment work done in by smma um previous to this and and set a budget um based on like real assumed

kind of scope of work um and then and then you um looked at similar projects from other communities to just check that that this was the appropriate cost range for for a study of this size and duration and in in order to give us um really what we're looking for out of it um at the end yeah and I I think some people might not you might not know other people might not realize that again the like what Lindsay's talking about is again she's the vice chair of the Robinson School building committee and that's the rsbc group that looked at this and the experts that we have on that group they looked at it and said this makes sense based on their professional experience and what they see on a regular basis these numbers make sense we brought it to the capital planning committee who then suggested that the request be $1.6 million because if you see the scope is one 1.5720 million for annual town meeting and then Lindsay had already shared that we we looked at the ranges here um and we just want to remind people again one more time that this is reimbursable at 48.5% of the eligible costs just to put that in numbers that would basically be the town would be paying about [Music] 88,9 8800 88,000 sorry off by Factor there um in the long run we we have we would put all the money out but we' get that correct 48 48% back and you actually Lindsay um and we we actually got this verified but we actually start receiving if we do this and it's approved we actually start receiving reimbursement once we start getting invoiced right so it's not like it's not like you even have to spend all of it to then get the reimbursement you actually get it as your as your spending pretty quick turnaround I think it's 15 days oh wow and again that's not

contingent on us to siging us I mean the town colloquially electing to do anything to these buildings right correct corre okay yep just this pH just this is this is finding out getting getting Professional Engineers in Architects to come in and really look and tell us what our options are but I think that that's I mean that's going to be a selling point of this which is that because 1.6 is a tough pill to swallow right um but half of that irrespective of whether or not the town likes to do option A B C or X Y and Z or nothing you know get like a real work product out of this exactly help guide like to I love when Lindsay describes it as an opportunity like this is like a crossroad to be able to say what does our district configuration look like in the next 20 years this is a vital component of a true master plan across the district y can I can I in balancing the The Upfront costs of the options with the long-term potential savings um across all of the district facilities right there's a lot of bang for your book there can can I just check on this grid we say existing site I assume that's the Robinson site yeah so they have to do some evaluation of the existing site to see it can handle a renovation an addition whatever so that's that y so when we say site two is that some is that a site already determined by your group is that determined does that site too get determined during the process we do we are thinking that it would be here on this abbit site on the on the Hill there was when they had looked in the past about a potential Administrative building a number of years ago that was an area that was explored for that but that's not set okay right that's not that that that but that's what we've

talked about as a committee that's something that we would work with whoever whoever was working with us they would say okay what what are the viable spaces well there's I I don't know what what LS are but there's also property at Robinson also right yeah yeah and the the the Robinson School building committee felt pretty strongly that we should add in do our due diligence at least to say have we flushed out a third site so that's why there's a third site TBD which we plan to sort of do internally slash with the OPM if this got approved to say some of that contingency or some of that on our own right so it's kind of like a balancing act right now to say where like it's we're not at that point to say where would this be M because it just all still needs to be flushed out okay Y and this is uh there's all the supporting documents are available on the website I would encourage people to go there um the if you're getting questions from the community this we have a brand new FAQ up there we've got a greatl looking flyer from our Robinson School building Committee Member Allison who designs Graphics like this for her day job so it's been really great to leverage that um like I we mentioned in the beginning these SE are the information sessions the tours available um if any of you would like your memories refreshed on Robinson feel free to stop by there's also the video tour that um is that is that posted on that on that site though well it is right yeah but um we made a 16 minute um tour for my February update with Mr Goodwin and and Mr lacost that 16 minutes will take you through the building that was good so lots of we're hoping to you know really Express Express to the community the risks of not doing this because it isn't just um

it isn't it doesn't lock us into a new building which is something I've heard assumed it um it is partially El um it is partially reimbursable you know there there are a lot of upsides to moving forward and then any discussion among the committee and then we could take a position on the article I think Bill said very well that this is the foundation of almost every other decision that we talked about the past two presentations yeah and it's I think it's something Tom that has also come out in conversations within the community um especially after recent votes within the community on on certain building projects that people would appreciate having a long-term plan available so that you know we know as a community what our kind of building projects look like and that cohesiveness between Town buildings and school buildings and stuff and this is giving us that data driven decision that commitment that we've kind of made to to make those plans and I even think that again plan a BC whatever we call it yeah you know there almost has to be a total cost of yeah all buildings under all of those options right because we're seeing 10 million against three buildings right right yeah y that number is going to grow on all of the buildings if we don't do something oh yeah so so I mean I certainly think that this is money well spent it's going to have a lot of uh um professional data behind it yeah it's

not just us going oh well I I think you know 5,000 foot Edition is going to be sufficient to do what we need to do yep it's well beyond what we can do as a community so I think it might be worth also just noting for community members who might be listening or watching tonight is the question of have have we not done something like this before in terms of we voted on a number of years years ago money for what was the I think we were calling it the feasibility study but it really was a facilities assessment yeah if I could go back in time um we we've we've really tried to um like go back in time to understand how that came to be so there was a placeholder back in like fy20 in the capital database calling it a central office feasibility study it was around 990,000 at the time that was the original like placeholder if if you're familiar with the capital planning committee how the how they um scope things out it then when super when Dr Chu came on board it became let's look to see can we look at all of our facilities and see is there space within our facilities to house central office right and that's kind of what we engaged with smma to do a full facilities assessment to look to see and that was one of the that was really the driving question was do we what what are the needs of the buildings and do we have space within any any of our existing schools for us to relocate central office out of the Millennium building and it's just unfortunate that the placeholder name stuck with it like you I I've even gone back to the Capitol planning committee meeting minutes at that time there Paul Fox was the director of facilities at the time gave a presentation to us talked about how it was a comprehensive master plan an um

assessment but that didn't didn't make it onto the town meeting warrant name or article name so it's still called that that was $250,000 that's the smma report that we're we keep referencing which was a facilities assessment and educational adequacy report um and another thing that um to just that once that process identified Robinson as a school with the largest needs and sort of helped us shepher us into the msba process the further work of potentially reding at that time was kind of put on hold right like what once we knew okay we're at a Crossroads here with Robinson it doesn't make sense to keep um digging at like this master plan until we know what the outcome of this would be yeah so did we end up feel bad because I was part of those discussion did we end up using those so though we ended up using those funds they just basically transition from the feasibility study to facilities assessment yeah which really ended up getting rolled into all the msba stuff which has brought us to where we are today right and and I will say smma throughout the process told us that you know they're doing a facilities they were doing a lot of this like 100,000 foot look at all of the buildings and then one of the things they said is that if you go into the msba process and work on a building then you're going to get the you know the the 20,000 foot view of that one building and it's going to be the work that they've done multiplied because now you're gonna be looking at every single nook and cranny at the spaces as opposed to sort of the general overview that they had but you're just going to get more and more specific with whichever building that you work on so that's where it gets confusing as to the terminology and it was still it was still a work product sometimes I carry

it around um it's like an 800 page report um it has the floor plans ranked against what the SBA guidelines are to show us which rooms are smaller or larger it has a really comprehensive extensive Capital list of repairs that's work that triggered a lot of the work last year it successfully got us to this point that we're talking about right now whereas the town right now is really beginning that process as they're looking at at all of the buildings right if anyone were to say that that was waste of money I don't think it is it it just misnamed and it probably helped get to a first first round acceptance as opposed to having to revise that application three four five times right so um and now granted that some people may look at that and say well that just accelerated when the money when we're asking for the money but um again I don't think that actually I know I know buildings do not heal themselves over time so if we were waiting another five years we would spend that 30 30 bilon right yeah the three three of course of the three buildings minimum minimum minimum so you know we would be spending that and then having a discussion about a new building because our buildings will now have been 80 years old or whatever it is new problems will arise yes but I would also suggest that this report also gave Jeff Goodwin a map of like you know day and and and Robinson aside and Abbot like of our standing buildings like this is my maintenance plan for the next 5 10 15 years you may remember a presentation we gave to you last spring exactly with that with a 5 to 10 year Capital plan so looking after our buildings yeah this is obviously an ongoing longer conversation

there's multi facets to this I just want to in the interest of time want to move to a recommendation we do have a final order of business tonight so um I don't hear any qualms about taking a position tonight so in that case I'll take a motion to a motion and leave it to uh recommend article s y okay yep and a second second Catherine okay thanks all in favor oh sorry any final thoughts all in favor Tom I bill I Sean hi Lori hi Katherine I maray I and I'm an i okay all right thanks everybody we're going to finish off the night with a policy review update thanks Lindsay thank you than thanks Lindy do you want to take off the I am doing that yes oh so we're we're doing a final re review of the update on P 5235 transgender and gender non-conforming students which has been up for a first reading a check-in public comment extended came back before the holiday January before the budget maybe was it it it we paused it um and then we kind of updated us you know in the meantime but then policy kind of took it over yep so no our our it's our final review of it this evening and um a vote of of the group on on the policy um we've had a lot of input from our community um we've had a lot of we've had input with um uh our the legal um and I will say we've had really robust

conversations um regarding it we have no changes to make um based on the last one I mean it's slight language tweaking and stuff but um what I would suggest is that what our final version tonight and I know things look different um politically I think right now there's some confusion maybe um regarding um various executive orders and stuff like that currently our policy right now is very much still within what the state guidelines state laws um are and so the recommendation I'm making as you know from policy is that we approve it tonight if things change we can always come back and revisit it but right now I think it it stands as is unless we get direction at any other point but um this is very much still within legal and state guidelines um we have extensively Lo looked at this so um I'm making this recommendation that we accept it as it is y any final input from the committee I'd just like to say that uh I know we have students possibly staff that this impacts they are real people who are harmed by taking no action the policy may not be perfect because we are humans but it makes a statement that they matter to us by approving this policy tonight my mind so that fully support it thanks Tom any other input I'll try not to say so much we only take public comment at the

beginning of the meeting sorry thanks Megan oh yeah um I I think Tom and Bill have already expressed a lot of what my sentiment is but um first of all it's been for public comment for quite some time I think that we have gotten some public comment and um in other ways it's been pretty quiet too last few weeks um uh of note I think just in my experience and dealing with policy and being on this committee um often times we have policy that are kind of policies that are um instructional in nature and then we have ones that are uh statement and I think that this is a good blend of both um I think it's a it's a statement policy and and what it stands for kind of philosophically and morally where we stand as a committee but it's also instructional to our staff as to um you know what we think they should be doing and the like and um my last point is is it's just at the end of the day it's a right thing to do I mean it's just at schools we um we need to be focusing on vulnerable populations and um you know so much of the population that this is referring to in the policy is more likely for self harm anxiety depression um and this is the least that we can do to uh try to curb those things so um I'm for it great anyone else well Mari I um in the past I I've told this group that um in my community of child Advocates that our policy was heralded as being one of the best in the Commonwealth and I think as we continue to strive for um to grow with um the

opinion and the thoughts in this area and to continue to be the model I'm grateful to be part of this committee and this work thanks for that reminder okay it i' I have thoughts that have been echoed and in the interest of time um ready for a motion go first okay I'll move to um approve the updated P 5235 transgender and gender non-conforming students policy second second I'll take Lori on that all in favor Tom I bill I Sean I Lori I Katherine I Mari I and I'm an i okay I'm not going to spend any time on this tonight you have time to look at this but there's also a first reading for p 3305 revolving and special fund accounts um it's part of the this was previewed back in November October with the finance subcommittee as part of our work on the non-general fund guide book we had um hinted that there would be a sort of written policy alongside that spreadsheet um guide book and this is finally it ready for um review it'll go up um I have the dates it'll go up for public comment tomorrow until the did I write it here nope March 4th until was it the 14th 1 two 3 four that sounds right 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 okay so it'll be on up on the website for public comment from the 4th to 19th and then the finance subcommittee will review it on the 24th and it'll be back for it'll be on our school committee agenda on the 17th to check in but also for the second reading um sorry for the final reading and a vote on February April 1st wow do

you have to wave the first reading though did I hear thank you yes thank you I know you're like we don't need to talk about it I'm like you might need to decide not to talk about it um I will move to wave the first reading of P 3305 second y second all in favor Tom hi Bill hi Sean hi Lori hi Katherine hi Mari hi and I'm an I thank you very much and so any feedback on that can be shared with me as chair of the finance subcommittee since we took ownership of that policy away from the policy subcommittee um and it'll be on a future agenda for discussion okay thanks everybody for can access the public comment on the Westford school committee web page yes thank you okay and a motion to adj motion to adjourn Bill and Tom Tom all in favor Tom Bill hi Sean hi Lori hi Catherine hi Mari hi and I'm an I thank you everybody e