They OK Uh We on? We’re ready. Good evening. Um the meeting in the Hamilton Wyndham Regional School Committee on Thursday, December 5th, uh, 2024 at 7 p.m. and uh invite you to join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. P. like visible OK. Um, just want to remind everyone that this meeting is, um, being recorded and live streamed on HWAM, um, and before we get started, I just want to make sure we do have a remote member, um, Julia Campbell is remote. Julia, can you hear us? Yes, can you hear me? Yes, actually, everybody can hear Julia right? Very nice, excellent, um. OK, um, that does mean just so everyone knows that we’ll have any vote will be a roll call vote. Um Uh, first up we have Citizens comments. I am suspecting that there are no citizens comments in the room, is that accurate? OK, um, Eric, do we have anyone on Zoom who would like to offer a citizen’s comment. OK. Alright, in that case, I will spare you all my spiel about citizen’s comments, and we will just move forward. Um Next up, uh, David, would you, uh, be willing to read a portion of the school committee protocols. um, as elected members of the Hamilton and Regional School Committee, we, including the superintendent, except the high honor and trust that has been placed, excuse me, placed in us to ensure that the students of the district received the best education possible. To that end, we hereby commit to the following conduct of our business. School community members will attend meetings on time. And be well prepared. Discuss agenda items while meeting members will stay focused to the agenda items not engage in communications outside the agenda being discussed. When making decisions, school committee members will keep an open mind, utilizing the best information available, including research, best practices, public input, and financial considerations. Members will debate issues and not each other. Members will analyze carefully and debate fully. Whether necessary, um, I’m sorry, whenever necessary prior to making decisions. Thank you. Um, uh, Jen, would you be willing to read a portion of the mission statement. The Hamilton Wyndham Regional School District School Committee’s mission is to ensure our schools create. Graduates with a passion for lifelong learning together with the critical skills needed to maximize their potential. The Hamilton-Wynham Regional School Committee will lead and inspire a district that empowers administrators to seek innovation, responsiveness, and creativity in all aspects of district operations. Thank you. Um Alright, uh, next up on the agenda, uh, is the consent agenda. Does anyone have any items that they would like to hold from the consent agenda. OK, Like none, uh, David. I moved to the Hamilton Regional School Committee. Excuse me, approved the consent agenda, um. As prepared in tonight’s um. School committee meeting agenda. Second, seconded by Jen Carr, um, there is no discussion. We’ll have a roll call vote. Julia. Sorry, we have to do a roll call vote, yes, yes yes David, and that is unanimous of the 5 members present and the motion passes. Um, OK. Um First up on our, uh, new business, um. Brian Mannigoni is gonna discuss the um high school program of studies. Um Right, I’m gonna, uh, good good evening. I’m just gonna make sure that Julia can hear you, so if you could just do a little test test. Hi Julia. Yeah, OK, good. I can hear. OK, uh, good evening, everyone. I’m here to present, uh, the proposed program of studies for the 2025, 2026 school year. Uh, the creation of the program of studies is one of the first steps. On our scheduling process, uh, for the upcoming school year, um, and typically what we do. At the high school, uh, is gather. Input from our curriculum leaders on any changes they want, of course, descriptions, and are there any new courses they would like to propose or any courses uh that they would like to delete. Um, out of our program studies. So what I thought I would do here, Um, it’s just maybe quickly go over some of the new courses. And what are the courses that we are cutting out. Cause I think that’s those are the biggest changes. You may have some other questions that you you would want to ask about some other things as well. I’m happy to answer those. Um, so the new courses, uh, that we’ve proposed, uh, for 25, 26... 1st one is called geometry concepts. Um, and this is the 2nd year of a new math sequence we’ve put in place, uh, to help our students, uh, fill in some missing gaps in their math skills. This year we are running the algebra I concepts class, um, and the design of this two-year process is to really give kids more than a year. to develop the important foundational algebra one skills that they’re gonna need for success. and more advanced math courses. Um, in geometry concepts, they’re gonna really continue their study of algebra 1. Um, with some geometry concepts that they, they will need in their uh future course work, uh, but the idea is to really emphasize algebra cause we feel that those skills are the ones, uh, that are most transferable and needed, uh, as they move through their. math at the school. Um, we’re also adding in Um, to engineering type classes, advanced robotics, and advanced solid works. Um, and these are both 2nd or even 3rd year experiences if a kid wanted to do that, um, where if they’ve taken robotics or solid works, they can continue their study, um, and the reason why we can do this is that these students will be in classes, um, with, with, uh, students who are taking introductory robotics or the first year. Um, of solid works, uh, because the design of these advanced courses is that students will be working on largely independent pro uh projects where they are growing and applying the skills that they learned, um, in the first year of these courses and from a scheduling perspective that helps us out, um, because we don’t have to create a section of advanced robotics, they simply can go in the classes, uh, with the kids, for example, who are taking introductory robotics. Um, we’re going to add an AP course, uh, to the fine arts program, um, AP 2D art and design, um, and this is really, uh, where students can learn a lot more about two-dimensional design but also start to build out their portfolio that they may need. Um, for post-secondary purposes. Um, we’re still gonna have an art portfolio class, um, and we’ll see from a scheduling perspective where the signups are, um, is that a class that we can kind of run together and that the kids who want to do art portfolio, maybe it’s, there’s a little bit of a step down, uh, from the kids who were doing it uh for AP. purposes, but you know, the AP, uh, 2D art and design, you know, will allow kids to perhaps get college credit, um, you know, if, if their work merits that. courses that we are removing, uh, Mandarin one, it’s just we’ve never had students sign up for it and we continually offer it. Uh, the other issue that we would run into is a staffing issue and now we just don’t have enough, ah. Staffing in the Mandarin area, uh, to pull that off, um, we’re also gonna cut from the uh program of studies, uh, Mandarin 5, the college prep level. Um, Mandarin 5 is a hard class no matter. What? So I, we believe it’s worth at least honors credit, ah, most kids are choosing to take that senior year, Mandarin courses at the AP level, um, because they figure if I’m gonna take a really hard Mandarin class, I might as well position myself. Uh, to get some credit, uh, through the AP tests, and we can again concurrently schedule those kids. Um, we’re gonna cut our animation course, uh, but I can talk a little bit more about what we’re actually gonna do with that. And then music appreciation as a course that we had for a few years and it just the, the signups for it weren’t there. Um, we also don’t have the staffing, uh, for that either. Um Back to the animation. Um, deletion. We do, we have a course currently called Media Productions at the high school, um, and enrollment in that is very up and down, um, year over year, it changes. That’s sort of one of the things you see in small schools. Ah, but what we’re gonna do is merge that media productions course with animation, uh, call it video productions, so kids will be learning animation skills along with some of the other uh video-based media skills that they would have learned in media productions. It’s just a way to get signups for that. Um, sometimes when you have too many course offerings, um, in certain departments, kids spread out all over the place, and it can be difficult to schedule them. They sign up for a course thinking it’s gonna run, but because kids are spread out everywhere. It’s just, it’s really hard to Determine the correct number of sections of things to, to run, so consolidating some of these things, I think will help get students into the courses. Uh, that they want. Uh, and one final thing that I would want to point out before I answer any of your questions. We kept in the program of studies for now. Um, the MCAS requirement for graduation. Um I’ve been talking with the Cape An League principals. We, we text each other once. About once a week, like what are you doing for the upcoming February biology tests and we all kind of So there, well, I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do that, and we’re really waiting for more guidance from the state, um, we’re not in a big hurry to push the program of studies out right now, we certainly would want to get it out probably mid to late January, um, and hopefully by then the state’s given us a little bit more direction, um, you know, we know what the vote said, uh, but then there’s really been no follow up after that in terms of what some next steps with any sort of state-based requirement. could be So that’s uh what I wanted to point out, the the big changes, the course additions and deletions and just a little bit about that MCAS requirement. Thank you. Um Questions I have a few questions. Julia, do you have any questions? No, I’m just, I’m sad to see, um, you know, Mandarin one go, but I don’t have any questions. Uh, I have a couple actually. Well, uh, the biggest one is um. This um. Geography concepts. Does this help at all with um helping sort of Uh, realign that. That that sort of gap we seem to be having with students coming out of the middle school who aren’t taking advanced math. That, um sort of at high school and and want to be taking advanced math, thinking that they Have that have that option or some I know some of them sort of end up getting surprised. That they do. So it’s a, it’s an interesting question because it’s, it depends what you mean by advanced math in some way, like the state looks at advanced math. If you take our senior year statistics course, which Everybody does at least that, like, by the time you get to your senior year, you will be taking an advanced math course, um, you know, if we’re defining it a little bit more narrowly, like, are you taking precalculus or AP stats or AP calc. I wouldn’t say that this necessarily. Allows a kid to take calculus, their senior year. However, um, the These courses were designed over a two-year sequence to really give kids almost like a year and a half or so to develop their algebra skills to fill in the gaps. That they had that were preventing them from making good progress in algebra. And so the hope is by the time they get to algebra 2, their junior year, they’re really on par with the rest of their peers, OK? And by the time they get to the end of algebra 2, you know, they do have the choice, OK, of going into statistics, taking precalculus or a bigger step up into AP stats, you know, the, the, the big thing is if you want to take calculus, um, you know, your senior year, you, you obviously have to have taken pre-calc your junior year, so this wouldn’t really get to that. But I, you know, I, I want to think a little bit differently about what advanced math really is. It’s not just calculus, especially in 2025, you know, looking at the application that statistics has, you know, for so many different kids, um, and all the different pathways that they’re going to pursue. What’s really important though is I think it, it’s gonna Um, build their math skills that are gonna be very transferable no matter what direction they want to go in. Yeah, no, I mean, I know personally I actually tell all my kids and everyone will listen to me that. That, uh, they should be taking statistics. Um, but I do know that there is sort of um. You know, some people that come in their freshman year and are, you know. Worry that they’re not going to be able, you know, if they might want to, you know, be thinking about becoming an engineer and. Um, you know, not having that calculus and and that there there is sort of a little bit of a a worry to to some people, excuse me, that thinking that like in middle school, I realize that they’re in middle school. Sort of be, you know, taking the. Um, non-acccelerated math course. can sort of slow down that process further down, you know, and I just want to make sure that we don’t forget about that. I mean the. The the students that uh are served by these courses, um. You know, these are kids that I think really need some, some extra help with their, their math skills and so they, they may or may not, I guess be the kids who are thinking I gotta, I gotta go ahead, gotta go ahead in math, you know, we want to make sure that they have those foundational skills, and you know, the funny thing is, is, you know, if you want to be an engineer and. Um, take calculus in high school. The fun thing is is they’re gonna make you take it in college too. So it’s, you know, it’s kind of strange how it operates. It’s almost like calculus for them serves as more of a gatekeeper. As opposed to like a a step in the process. Do you have other questions, the other thing was I’ve been pushing for the AP art courses for a few years now and um. I can’t wait to see it cause you can teach all three AP. There are 3 offerings for APR. That you can teach simultaneously all within the same room. I just speak from experience and I love, I just love hearing that that’s finally starting to come to fruition. Yeah, it’s nice to have kids who are, you know, their feet are kind of in that world. Most of the day, you know, give them a chance for that accelerated course option. Ja Um So I was looking at the revised biology description. And then I looked at the Honors biology description and they’re very, very different in writing style. Correct. Can you tell me what page you’re on because I have I am on page 29 and just now. Go ahead. So I guess that’s 32 and 33. Um Is there a reason they’re so different and so differently written. The description of honors biology seems kind of ha. Haphazard almost. While this description for biology seems very like. Somebody looked at the words and like focused it and. Yeah, I think it, it may. Be Um, and it, you know, language to reflect the, the fact that you go a little bit deeper into some of these topics a little bit, but. It’s what’s interesting is that the, the college prep description. I think because it hasn’t changed, you don’t see any um. Change is marked up there. It actually reflected a year earlier, you know, what they’re actually what they’re actually doing uh with the new program in biology, uh, which is more theme based and case-based than content-based like it used to be, um. So You know, like maybe they’ve had a year to refine that, um, a little bit more for CP biology. I think they’re just trying to add a little bit more depth. Um, with that longer description for honors biology. I mean, there’s still following the same state frameworks at the end of the day, um, but it might be. You know, again, the depth and then the pace at which it comes at you, but What we do like about Uh, the program for biology, no matter who you are, what class you’re in, um, is the hands-on approach that it takes, the thematic approach, um, and how it’s very case based and kids will kind of You know, read a story about something and then and then learn about the science behind it. I think it’s just, it’s more engaging for the students and I think uh. There are threads that run throughout the course that that just make it much more coherent than it used to be. And now that there’s no Biology MCAS tests in theory. Um, you know, that, that course description may evolve next year a little bit more cause we may have a little bit more. Uh, latitude, how we want to design that course. I guess my concern is if is if that if I was a parent reading honors biology versus the CP biology, I’d be concerned that the CP kids are missing some major topics that are listed in the honors biology course. Such as the ethics and ecology. Um And um biochemistry. Yeah, there’s still, there’s still gonna be attending to the same state frameworks. Everybody’s going to be hitting the same things, the kids in honors biology may be doing a little bit more. Just because of the pace of the course and like I said some of the depth of the chores. I mean, the The idea, um, of, you know, examining ethics and things like that. That’s really embedded in both of the levels just because of the instructional approach of the of the program that they’re using. OK, is, does anyone else have I, cause I, I, I’m a little bit lost. I had a similar question about mine was. Not as in depth like I don’t actually see exactly what you’re Like I don’t So Here’s my question. In the memo, there was listed. Uh, anatomy and physiology, biology, forensics, and humanities that had significantly new write-ups. Yep And when I looked, humanity is like red lined and I. And it was very clear what had been changed when I went to biology, which is what I think that Jen is talking about. It’s not red lined. This is. Just this and now you’re talking about ethics and I don’t really see a lot about, am I not see? I’m not sure. Cause I pulled the document off of the exhibit list. And I’m not seeing redlining in the biology or. Right, but I’m also not seeing what you were just talking about where it says something about ethics. I’m not, I don’t think I’m looking at maybe I’m it’s in the honors biology. OK Oh, I see. Oh, OK, you know, OK, I, I, OK, I, I was looking, I was confused about whether you were looking in the CP versus honors. I get it. OK. Um, yeah, so I just, so this is, even though it’s not red lined, this is a new write up for honors biology. Is that correct? If it’s um Sorry, I got Sure, sure. I think I was sort of stuck at the like just the sort of Logistics detail and Jen has actually dived into the content, but I was sort of just like confused about which thing was actually changed the red line version that I’m looking at is different than what is displayed up there. OK. So because the like the AP. OK. Cause the, the humanities definitely like it was listed as having a new description and then when you went to humanities, I don’t, I don’t know what page that was, but when you went to humanities, it was red lined with a new description, um, but I didn’t find that to be true for the rest of them for anatomy and physiology, biology, and forensics. Um So I don’t know if that’s just a problem with the. with the document that we have. Yeah, I don’t know. I You know, the one I’m looking at is the one that we, we shared and that so I’m I’m looking at the red lining on this. But than the one I’m looking at, which is a Google Doc and there’s, you know, a. red line edits for all of the uh courses that we’ve talked about. Mm I wonder if the brown one was uploaded? Maybe. So we got Yeah, so, um. My Other question and and. I have to do this cause I’m an anatomy and physiology instructor, um. In the descriptions of the organ systems, most of them are correct, but special senses is not an organ system, it’s part of the nervous system. So what page is that. Um, according to the on the manual. And I guess that sort of just raises the same question like is this document what we’re looking at is that Is that The current most updated one, or is this the, or is there a more redlined version of this. Is it OK if I step around? And the same for the honors AMP. the honors 10, this is CP. Yeah, they both have special census listed as organ systems, but special senses is not it’s an organ system. The. But special senses is part of the nervous system, not part of the. Yeah, it doesn’t, but so the red line version that I have doesn’t. Um, speak to that really. If you’d like, I could read it part of it and it’s what I’m seeing here in my version that we, we edited, I’m not seeing that up there. It looks different. Yeah. I can shared version. Mm And I was also going to ask about the honors AMP. Does that involve dissection? They both do. Should we put that in the description so the students are aware. It’s, it’s in the, the one I just shared with Eric. We have the right one right here. Well, can I just ask while we’re doing that? I just wanted to clarify the elimination of Mandarin one doesn’t change anything about all the students that, in other words, the reason we don’t have a lot of people taking mandarin one is because they. Start because they take it in the middle school and then they started Mandarin too. So eliminating Amanda and one doesn’t change anything about it just changes a student who didn’t have the opportunity either because they didn’t go to our schools or they didn’t choose to take Mandarin. I just want to make sure it’s not limiting don’t really have the numbers just to make sure I Yeah, we do not have this red red. Version, so At least it wasn’t what was attached to the exhibit. It’s all gone. There it is. Mm Um, is there Alternative to animal dissection Yes, yes, they’ll, they’ll offer that. They’ll usually an online uh experience. Um, and then I’m assuming that I failed biology because I wouldn’t dissect a fetal pig FYI. It made for a really good college admission. Interview because they’re like, you got straight A’s, but you failed biology. They didn’t, they needed to figure out the 90s. It was the 90s, but yeah. I’m glad that we have alternatives now. Oh, So I, I think my only that I assume that forensics is also red lined on here. Um Yeah We get we’ve seen on TV. Um And uh to, to be honest, I actually Don’t have tremendous concerns about you rewriting the course description I just was pointing out that it wasn’t, I wasn’t able to look back. Um, it’s weird. It must have been when I converted to PDF, probably, yeah. Yeah. Um OK. Um, other people have questions? OK, um. What do you need from us, Mr. Menigoni? Um, I just think we look for an approval, um, for the program of studies, knowing that, you know, the MCAS thing is hanging out there a little bit. That’s a change that we would. Have to make, but I, I believe it’s really just looking for. On the news at the end of the day. You wanna, you wanna make a motion or do you? Um It’s tricky to sort of tease out that MCAS part. Um, we’ll probably, we’re waiting for state guidance, so we’ll probably have to come back. OK. I mean, realistically. Realistically, there’s there’s, it sounds like it’s gonna be two options. Keep it in your requirements for graduation or not. It’s currently you’ve left it in. Yeah. So it’s no change in the current program of studies. Cause then we’ll have to go back and revisit the graduation requirement uh policy. Hm Um Alright, Somebody ready to make a motion. Try to think of how to And we Can we make a motion when we don’t have the current version. That’s sort of what I was thinking of because After the fact. Oh yeah Oh yeah Yeah, so yeah, the real, I mean, just to just to, but the sort of our responsibility in terms of is to provide that the public needs to have access to the documents at the same time that the committee does. Which is right now. So, um so it’s, it’s OK that it wasn’t on the agenda. It can be, it was presented here, so. If that’s your concern. I wasn’t sure about. Um I moved to the Hamilton Wyndham Regional School Committee. Approve the Hamilton and Regional High School program of studies 2025, 2026, as presented in the agenda. That was a 2nd, seconded by Amy. Um Is there any discussion? Um, I guess my only discussion is just so Eric, that the way that if this were to pass right now, then if you were to make any changes, you in the MCAS, then you just come back to us and say we’ve changed the portion. Have it changed in the policy and then that would studies. Um, anybody else have any? Further discussion on that. Mhm No, just I’d love to see the APR. Offered to 11th graders. quick. OK. Um, all right, so roll call vote, David, I’m gonna start with you, Amy, yes. Uh, Jen. Uh, yes, Julia. Yes, yes, um, and the, that is unanimous of the 5 members present and the motion passes. Thanks Brian. All right, thank you. Yeah, move cover up. Yeah, yeah. Um, if, um, if, if there’s no objection, um, I’d like to, um, take out of order, take the sale of the bond, um, since Kevin is here rather than making him stay later. Is there anyone? No, that’s fine. OK sorry. ban Oh What, what did I think last time? I thought we were selling a van. I was like, what? What? Um, all right, it’s up to you, Kevin. Hi, good evening, Kevin Mur District treasurer. So, every year I come here because uh we need to borrow money, uh, for some of our capital purchases. So, uh, on Tuesday, the district held a bond anticipation note sale totaling $10,477,405 and there was a total of 6 bids and truest securities was the winning bidder with a net interest cost of 2.64%, uh, just to put that in perspective last year, our bond sale, uh, it was 3. 39%. So we dropped by about 3/45%. So it saves us some interest. Uh, the projects that are were authorized for this borrowing include the athletic field project, the feasibility study, uh, the fiscal year 21 capital plan and the fire suppression system project. Prior to that sale, Standard and Poor’s awarded Hamilton Wyndham Regional School District, the highest rating, uh, of SP1 plus for our short term borrowing here and uh confirmed our AAA rating on our existing bonds, uh, Vinny spoke with, uh, the, the analysts of S&P and did a fantastic job of really, uh, letting them know how well this district is run and how strong they are financially, uh, so it. It helped us get our highest rating. Uh, so our district’s bond council has prepared the following motion to approve this borrowing and I’ll read it, um, to make it easy on you to move to approve the sale of $10,477,405 4% general obligation bond anticipation notes parentheses the notes of the district dated December 19, 2024, and will be payable December 18, 2025 to truest securities Inc at par and accrued. interest, if any, plus a premium of $141,968.84 to further move that in connection with the marketing and sale of the notes, the preparation and distribution of a notice of sale and preliminary official statement dated November 26, 2024, and a final official statement dated December 3, 2024, each in such form as may be approved by the district treasurer, being hereby our ratified, confirmed, adopted and approved. To further move that the district treasury and the chairperson of the committee be and hereby are authorized to execute and deliver a significant events disclosure undertaking in compliance with SEC rule 15C2-12 in such form as may be approved by bond council to the district, which undertaking shall be incorporated by reference in the notes for the benefit of the holders of the notes from time to time. To further move that we authorize the and direct the district treasurer to establish post insurance federal tax compliance procedures in such form as the district treasurer and bond council deemed sufficient or if such procedures are currently in place to review and update said procedures in order to monitor the tax-exempt status of the notes to further move. That any certificates or documents relating to the notes collectively the documents may be executed in several counterparts, each of which shall be regarded as an original and all of which shall constitute one end of the same document, delivery of an executed counterpart of a signature page to a document by electronic mail in a PDF file or by other electronic transmission shall be as effective as delivery of a manually executed counterpart signature page to such document and electronics. signatures on any of the documents shall be deemed original signatures for the purposes of the documents and all matters relating there too, having the same legal effect as original signatures. To further move that each member of the committee, the district secretary and the district treasurer be and hereby are authorized to take any and all such actions and execute and deliver such certificates, receipts, or other documents as may be determined by them or any of them to be necessary or convenient to carry into effect the provisions of the foregoing votes. So moved. Uh, do we have a second? Seconded by Amy Kummberer. um. Anyone have Clarifying questions or discussion. I do, I’m page 11. Um, under authorization of the notes and use of proceeds. So the original bond authorization if I’m correct, is how much the town approved. Right? how much they how much we. We didn’t all Right, but that So the original bond authorization says like 850. I’m just focusing on the a lot the middle, the last one, the athletic fields project was 15 minutes we borrowed 15 million or we borrowed 10,500,000. Thank you. That’s. So the bond anticipation notes is what we’ve actually borrowed then. The, this issue is the first column. So we initially last a year ago, we borrowed the, the column that’s bond anticipation notes outstanding. The 12 million 100,000. So those are coming due, we’re gonna need to pay those off and now we’ve issued another one year bond anticipation note, which is the first column, which is this issue. So we did have some pay downs uh that uh Hamilton and one of them pay toward the principal and uh and so now last year our barn was 12,100. This year it’s 10. 477 So we’re taking The money that we’re borrowing this year and using it to pay off the bond that we issued last year. Correct. Thank you. to make sure I was on the same page. That Hamilton and Wenham paid yeah. OK Other questions? Anything? No. Yes, you look, no, OK. All right, looks like we’re ready to vote. Um, all those in favor. Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Hold on to the roll call, um, uh, Julia. Yes, done, yes. Amy, David and Dana is a yes, and that is unanimous of the 5 members present, and the motion passes. Thank you. Oh, this is purple, so that’s probably not OK. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. his name starts with D2. David, I started your name for you. This is great OK. Yeah David with the one I already started. Signing documents, Julia. Thank you so much, Kevin. Thank you. Much appreciated. Thank you. OK. Oh, Julia is very small now. We’re sharing. Um, OK, so, um, we are gonna get back on track to um the agenda. We are on item B under new business, which is our visual communications branding conversation. Um, and I am gonna turn that over to Amy. Eric. 3rd person. Yep. Um, speaking of which, I can see the exhibit. Through the Through this microphone and I won’t join the audio one. Yeah, no, I can totally hear you. OK Great. Alright. She’s gonna share a screen, Julia. So Here you go. Looks good. Um, so I put together. A new dock. This is an update to where the visual communications project is. Um, this is. I made a couple of edits since a little bit earlier today, so this is more of an FYI than a decision time. Um, but I formatted it more like a style guide. I hopefully address some of the um Questions and concerns from the last time we talked about this, um, so this is structured like a full brand style guide, um, some elements are missing because. We’re still making decisions, um. I have indicated where things are options. There’s a lot of little options in here that hopefully looking at this will help everybody visualize. Um And then where we will cover things in next steps. And just so everyone is clear, the items to the right are typically what lives in a brand style guide. So these are the things that we want to make decisions on. And we’ll want to plan for. I’ve mostly focused on logo guidelines, color and typography so far, um, but this will all be built out by the end of this project. And just as an update, um, I have a pending meeting with Chris Ford, a member of the community who works in branding and design, and he’s joining the team a little bit, so. Um, I’ll have more information on next steps with that, but I wanted to. show this tonight. As an FYI. Um, so just as a reminder, this is where we were the last time we had a conversation. This is the same, uh, shield logo that we’ve been working with and I know the screen in here looks terrible, so if you want to follow. in the exhibit on your own screen that might look better. Um, and just as a reminder, the symbolism behind this logo, 4 stars. As a nod to our generals. 6 stripes, one for each tenant of portrait of a learner, the shield is traditionally, um, used in school branding. It signifies stability, protection and safety, and the friendly typeface of the HW balances out the traditional crest shape. So that’s where we were. Um, and then you’ll see I made a lot of really small tweaks and variations based on the feedback that I received from last time. Um, so the old version is on the left in the following slides and the new. Sort of tweaks that I made are on the right, on the following pages. So. I labeled each one and I described what I did for each one, and hopefully this can work as comparison. That’s why I left the old one. On the left. So I’ll kind of just breeze through. Which Um, one which Uh, pieces of feedback each one addresses, and then I don’t think we need to make any decisions tonight, but I’ll take some questions. Um, so the first thing I did was try some removing the rounded sides of the HW. So this is what it looked like before. These versions have the HW. Uh, without those rounded sides. Um Is that different than what’s in the um Nope are reading so much thinner than that. that is terrible, like the, the, um, screen is not going to be as. Truthful as what You see in front of you because it’s so, you know, the light is different. Um And this version has slightly rounded edges to the type, so it’s not quite as harsh as the one on the left. He’s zoom back out a tiny bit so you can see where we are. This version, um, uses the dark blue background behind the HW, the left panel is filled. Which I would propose, um, I made the text a little larger in this one just because when it was the same size as this version, it felt a little bit lost. Um, but I would propose that we could use these. Interchangeably depending on um what’s in the background. The next page. Oops, I’m lost now because I zoomed in too much. Yeah. OK, so the next page, again, this is the original that I’ve been working with. Um, this is the filled fielded left half of shield. Um, this one tries it with the stars on top. And HW gets smaller. This version has no stripes. I, I feel like we’re veering into NFL territory with these, the way these look, um, but I just wanted to try them out and show you. This is variation 3, and this has more to do with the width of the stripes. Um, one of the pieces of feedback I got was concern about replicating the stripes and screen printing and embroidery. I reached out to a screen printer and got the feedback that as long as the stripes are at least one pixel with um it’s safe for screen printing, um, same with embroidery, you can achieve the same with a run stitch. Um, but here are some variations of The width of the stripes. Um, these are the half width of the outer lines, obviously like the actual sizing will change based on the scale of the logo. These are 2/3 the width of the outer lines. And these are just tried it with all lines being the same weight, which Not a huge fan of. Um next page. Um, I gave everybody a printout, the 3rd page is a printed out version of this where you can see the logo at small scale, obviously on the screen, we can’t really control what size, um, it’s going to be viewed at. But this is an example of the logo appearing at 1 inch wide. And print it out, um. I feel like the variation of stripe. size is successful between all four. Um These are the same the previous slide just a smaller size. Um These are my recommended versions. So after making all these versions, these are the ones that I feel like are most successful based on the feedback that I received and just sort of trying out different things. Um, I like variation 2, where we fill the left half of the shield. I like the slightly thicker. Um, weight to the stripes. And I like the removal of the curved lines on the lettering. Um, I also, David Plato, you gave me feedback and I didn’t get a chance to send it to you before tonight, but this, it’s really hard to tell on screen, um. These stars have pointed ends and these are slightly rounded. Look, I’ll zoom way in. You can see. The original stars have slightly rounded ends, and I tried this version. Oh gosh, I’m so lost now is uh sort of. highlighted what I was worried about. Where they blur So I do think the sharper. Sort of helps alleviate that. I actually don’t see much of a difference, to be honest. I mean, part of the star, we can make some more variations. um. But I just wanted you to see it. To uh. That, so I tried to avoid the nautical star shape, and that’s why they’re a little bit, um. Wider on the inside, but we can definitely play with the ratio of body to arm for the stars. Yeah, and like I said, I just think with everything already existing. the stars. In this since we already have it on uniforms or whatever at that new. You know versus the sharper stars on the back of the uniforms and on the helmets and everything. Um You know, you’re at two different images as we replace things, we would replace them with new branding. Um, I, one of the reasons why not just to avoid like the nautical star shape with the ultra pointed ends. I just, I think it’s kind of a nice contrast to the more traditional, um. Shield shape to have like a little bit of a softer star. Just explaining. Um So in this recommended version, I would put in the style guide that this full shield. With the type. Um, should be used for all official documents and primary signage, including diplomas, transcripts, letters, digital communication, and the header of the websites. The idea would be more like if this is somebody’s first. Step into a building or first interaction with like a printed piece. They we would show this first so that they know where they are. Um, and then I talked a little bit last time about sub marks and alternative alternate logos rather. Which could be used to represent different parts of the district. So individual schools could use this, um, They could also be used on their own when we’ve already given that sufficient context. So if we had a printed piece where we had the full shield on the cover. These could live on the inside or the back, um, just to keep the brand, but we could use them on a smaller scale. And they could be slightly different, some variation. Um, I tried using just the stars without the shield, which I thought was kind of interesting. And then the 4 stars, um. I think I used in one of the mockups for in the basketball court. This can be used as a decorative mark, um, within our facilities if we have the opportunity. Um, Other places where these might live are like a PowerPoint document, um, inside of a school building on a poster, the places we already have the context of being within the district. You could also use these marks in places where the logo has to be smaller than 1 inch or 96 pixels wide. Um, I also, we had a long conversation about alternate alternate logos and sub marks last time, so I just pulled some examples of other places that use this system, um, it’s pretty common. So that It’s just an examples. Um, OK, and then color. I also passed out. What I would call a drawdown, so. we used to specify, um, a color using a matching system, which, um, I met with my commercial printer. And this is kind of what we do at school now too. We have been Um That matching system isn’t available to us anymore within our professional software. So I talked to the printer and he said, most, most times now because we print digitally so often. We make these sheets. They’re on the next slide, um, just to compare different shades of the same color to optimize for desktop printers. I would I would assume that most of the time we would be using these colors on a desktop printer or the printers that the district has, um, or on the website. So these colors. Um Down here, all the formulas for the colors for using them. For desktop printing or for. websites. And the reason that I printed them for you is because, as you can see, it’s a lot of variation between what actually comes out of a printer and what appears on a screen. Um So This denotes, um, just. The The usage, so the dark navy blue is larger because it’s our main burn color, um, these are all secondary colors, the detail cerulean cream and ice silver, and then the bright green. And be a tertiary color. I put on here web and apparel only. I’m actually pretty impressed with the way it printed. I didn’t think it was gonna come out. As bright as I wanted, so We could kind of talk about that too Um Do we want to talk about typography. I feel like there that was not very. We didn’t have much conversation about that. Um, but I will, I’ll just run through here. So this is the typeface I used for the logo. This is available to designers via Adobe Creative Cloud, um, but there’s also a Google. version of it, that’s free. That is pretty decent, so this could be used easily by anybody in the district who is making, um, a memo or PowerPoint. And then Lido is another typeface that Um, could be used for internal use, PowerPoints, Google Docs, memos. It has, oh, I have a typo. and I believe the district is already using it. Um, another thing that should belong in a good style guide is guidance for choosing photography. I just put this booklet in here because I remember when this was released, we talked about it and how great it was that it was full of really nice photography of our own students. Um, so typically brands will put in examples of Um, what We deem acceptable photography for brand and some language around. You know students working together, students having fun, ages of students, things like that. So I’m, I don’t know how much photography the district has, but we can definitely put a section in about. Um, what kind of photography we would like to see used in our materials. And then these are examples. So these are not, these are not icons that I want to use for the district, but this is, um, a screenshot from a different style guide where we could give guidance about what kind of iconography we would want to use like on a website or in a publication. Um And then this next slide is about voice and tone. I This is taken from another style guide as well. Um, typically brands will also have guidance about how to write to. Um, on our communications. I think this is really important. I’m not a writer. I’m happy to start this and tackle it, but I’m wondering if this, some of this work has already been done, or if there’s someone in the district who’s better suited to do this kind of writing. But again, it’s guidance for anyone who’s working within the district who is going to make some kind of communication. They can look at this and see, you know, if what they’re writing fits within our brand guidelines. Um, and then some brands would come in the next phase. So this would. for athletics or clubs, um. ing And then a good style guide will also have what not to do. Um, this is from the tea, obviously. So once we have all that figured out, the logo, the typography, the color. We’ll also give examples of what not to do, and this is really helpful for people using the guide to understand, um, the right way to use the elements. I also left all the application examples from last round. I didn’t recreate them with new versions of the logo just because it’s so similar, um, but I wanted to leave those things in because I think they help, uh, visualize what everything feels like together. I did make a new pen though. Um, I thought that was new. Yeah, you like that. Well, that’s a good example of a placement where it’s small logo would be small, so you would use that, um. Secondary logo. And then, so next steps, as I mentioned before, I have a pending meeting with Chris Ford where we’ll kind of see. Um What plan we want to make for next steps, but I’m happy to take questions and, you know, talk about. These little variations that I showed you and thank you. Thank you for that. Um, thank you for your work, um. It’s It was a lot of work. It was a lot. Um. So I guess we’ll just start. Does anyone have any questions? Um, no, not, I mean, not at this point. I had like emailed Amy a couple little things about like that star or whatnot, but I, I think that just want to reiterate, I really think that uh. I, I like where this is going a lot and I I love the colors. I love the uh. The addition of the detail and you know, a lot of the colors that you picked, and again, I’m really surprised at how. Yeah, but like, you know. I, I’m an old enough designer that I design for that screen. You know what I mean? Like just knowing like the worst case scenario, um, so it’s always a pleasant surprise when you get. You know, stuff like this, um, but no, it’s really, really exciting seeing it start. They come together for all the work. Um, so I guess I my. It’s question is, I don’t, I don’t know how to ask this. Without sort of, I, I guess my thought is at this point, I very much appreciated your presentation. And it was very in the weeds for me, which I’m very appreciative and I know that we were I’m not, that’s not a criticism. It’s as I look forward. What is the best way to get this done without necessarily having people such as myself who are not experts in this area. Being in the weeds and that’s not, that’s not me saying I don’t want to do the work, that’s me sort of saying. What do you see as the best way to move because I think I I I see the value in having the style guide, I see, um. You know, I, but like. I, and I actually really, it was very helpful for me to see like the different widths of the lines and see how you did it. And I understand that there are probably 5000 other things exactly like that that I that probably need to be looked at with it. So I, so I kind of hope that I’m getting my, like, how do we move forward where we take this out of this body and kind of say, OK. Like make these little tiny decisions. I don’t, how does that work? I don’t want to drag anyone in the weeds, and I don’t wanna do this every meeting because I think it’s not a great use of time. So, I think. I don’t know, is it a matter of getting permission again from the Committee to like move forward and check in at certain points. I don’t know if it would be helpful for When I start working with Chris for us to sort of identify touch points within the process and decide when to bring them to you. So I also met with Chris separately only because Amy was tied up and think you’re in class. Um, so it, it’s one of the things he and I talked about is Really how this breaks into all those subcontexts of the district, whether it’s a club or an activity or a sport. And then Using that to connect the dots, if you will, like with the sub. Pieces, you know You may not use the shield on a lacrosse helmet you might use. The 4 stars in HW whatever it might be. He, um, seems to think he can help us to stretch that out a little bit more, refine that, um, and give us more options, but also push us in the direction of controlling the brand as well with this not only with the style guy but with setting up, OK, we now control what we sell and and what’s available to people or what gets, you know, put on uniforms and things like that. So it’s not, not left up to a different committee every time somebody needs something new, um, which makes sense. It’s all, it’s revenue generating as well, but it’s, it’s more of like taking control of it, being, making things much more available where people may want them. You and I had that conversation about when’s the school. door open. You know, so, so it’s uh he he had some pretty big ideas. This is what he does, branding, that’s his, that’s his, his company, so, um, I think it might make sense for. Amy Chris and maybe I to jump into that conversation. Build it out a little bit and then maybe create a couple of touch points to say, OK, we’ll do this, this, and then get to here, um. Try to try to make it make sense for everybody so that we’re not always come back saying, oh, what do you think of this 50, you know, yeah, no, and I, and again I, I, I guess I, I wasn’t, I, I genuinely wasn’t, it wasn’t a criticism. It was more of like that was great and now I kind of see how the detail is and Ideally, I guess, I mean, I guess I’ll just sort of just show my hand like I’m ready to just say like, Great. You guys go ahead and make this happen because my understanding from the way that you’ve played this all out is that I get it that this is going to look, we’re gonna be in this ballpark. It’s not suddenly gonna come back and have like a lion in the middle of it, you know, like it’s not gonna be so different that. Like Yeah, there I I can’t correct it. Right, I, but I, I guess I, so, and I, and I’m only speaking for myself. Other people might not feel that way, but I feel like I’m ready to sort of say, I feel like we’ve been. Properly We’ve probably kind of vetted like, is this the direction you want to go? Yes. And now I’m ready to kind of say go create a style guide, but other people might not be there, so I. No, I think that it’s Yeah, let’s start. See what this looks like for real. I think, I think we’re there and I think the last little sort of questions that. Or whatever all sort of sort themselves out as you start putting together. All the Right. Uh, Julia, do you have thoughts? Oh, I mean, I thought we were there the last time we talked about this. So I’m fully on board with. Moving forward with this. OK. Would we do we want to consider? Kind of public input or Move forward or You know me, I’m not in public. So I think that I, I guess I. It’s hard for me to know what that, because like I feel like we’ve been, we have presented it twice at our meetings, um. I haven’t received feedback from anyone in the public, right? Um, I haven’t heard a single word from the public. I think there might be opportunities within. What I guess we’re calling now because of me, the subbrand parts where we might want to tap certain people, you know, I’m thinking about the friends groups who order apparel, for example, and like the students who run the school store. Like I think it would be useful to Talk to them about what’s popular and what’s needed, and I think there’s definitely places for public input. I feel like. Since we haven’t received any. Yeah, I think the best way to go with with that type of thing is really sort of be presenting them with. You know, some stuff to say, and then at this point, can you think of anything else that we missed, but in the matter a little bit more, but for the most part. Sort of giving a very strict guardrails on where they can add in I mean that’s the point of ultimately of the style guide, right? So that like if someone says I’m thinking of doing. X and the style guide is there for them to look at that and say, yes, you can do that or you can’t or this is part of in the style guide in the table of contents will be links to templates, you know, places where you can download the color swatches, the fonts, uh, the logos, so yeah yeah and in the, I mean, in other words, if there’s some hypothetical that we haven’t thought of down the road, you know, someone decides. want to project it into the sky or something and we haven’t if there’s a bat logo, then you know. Um, But that can be addressed at a later date if there’s something that we haven’t. Addressed because we haven’t thought of it. I think the biggest challenge is that. Typically when you have a brand that has a style guide, you also have a dedicated designer or a team that can interpret it. So this will be. One of those things where like, I’m happy to do this work. When I can, and um. Hopefully we’ll have a few more volunteers to do it, but so. In making all these things, the templates. We’ll do it with that in mind that like the ultimate users of these will most likely not be designers, and that’s. And we can kind of plan for that and we also have experts within the district that do this, teach this work so we can, we can also tap them as well is that. That’s something we can do, that’d be great. Um, alright, so I guess I’m gonna just look to the members of the committee. The 4 of us who are here, um. Do we feel like there’s a vote to be taken here in terms of What are we, what are we I’m looking to you guys. I don’t think it. I mean, I think we’ve already at some point we’ve already taken a vote to authorize you to do this and Um I, I don’t, I guess I just don’t, I feel like people are ready to work. I, I don’t think we need to vote until there’s like. Something. Here’s the guide, and then. We sort of own it because right now we can just say it’s Eric’s project. I mean it’s. Yep the. Julia, you look pensive. No, I’m great, I’m agreeing. OK. Um, your thoughtfully agreeing apparently because you looked pensively agreeing Um, all right, well. You feel like you, you’re good, you’re gonna have that meeting, um, and Thank you so much for all that work. Um, I personally, I am a big fan of the little ones like with the with the little, the little shields like the individual ones for like the individual schools so I think those are cute. They’re great. Right, I appreciate your time, everybody. Thanks for your feedback. Thank you. Um, all right. Moving on, um, next up, this is um. Just, it’s something, uh, we have to do annually. It is the warrant we have to vote, um, to, uh, post the warrant for the election of school committee members. We do this every year, um. And um we actually have to sign it. It’s a Um It’s just basically publicly stating that there are 3 Uh Sets up for election in the spring and then You can see that it gives the details about. Getting your proper signatures with your um. Respect. So if you want to run for school committee and you live in Wenham, you need to meet with your, um, town clerk in Wenham if you want to, um, run for school committee and you live in Hamilton, you can meet with the town clerk in Hamilton and get your information and get your signatures. Um, I think it also does say on there, right, that it is in our regional agreement that those um that are currently already uh incumbents. You can write a form a letter, um, stating that you want to be up for re-election. Um, and it’s got all the dates, um. He And so I think we Need a motion to start off and then if anyone has any questions I can. Sure, uh. I moved up the Hamilton Regional School Committee, excuse me, vote to approve the warrant for elections of school committee members as presented in tonight’s agenda. 2nd, 2 by Amy. Um, does anybody have any? Questions or discussion. Looks like not. Um, all right, looks like we’re ready to vote, um, we’ll start with you, Julia. Yes Uh, Amy, David? Yes. Dana is a yes, and that is unanimous of the 4 members present and the motion passes. Um, there is a. Paper that needs to be Signed here and I actually think. It’s David, the secretary is the signer, but then it also needs to be signed by a majority of the school committee, so we will need some people to actually come into the, um. Of to physically sign cause we won’t have enough. Um I will make sure to get on that. Um, OK, OK. Um OK. Um Next up, uh, I, since there are only 4 of us here, I’m just gonna say this, but then I will contact everyone and um basically the subcommittee assignments, which is up next, um, we have an opening on the policy subcommittee. Um, and so I’m just gonna put that out there, um, and I will. Send it to everyone so that if anyone is interested in being on the policy subcommittee, just let me know and then we can talk about it the next. Um, upcoming Meeting, um. And then, um, Amy, you are on this policy subcommittee, um. It would be helpful if maybe we could. Set up a meeting so that whoever is um come to that meeting. I know you guys don’t you have a little bit of work to do, not, nothing that’s super pressing. Um Right, so it’s you and Jen and whoever the new member is. Um, if you, when you Are we doing this offline I mean you I mean you if, if you want, um, it’s you and Jen can set up a meeting. If it doesn’t work for that person, but just nice to, I’d like to just sort of get the policy. Back in the swing games. Um But yeah, I think we’ll need to vote at the next meeting, but just people can. I mean if they’re interested. So it may not be till January you actually meet, right? Um Alright, something to think about, David. I put my time in a policy um. Alright, uh, does anybody have anything else on that? Um, moving along, we already uh did part A of finance and operations, and next we are up to the FY 25 uh Q1 forecast. you any. I have to do it this way only because Vinny’s using the screen. So I’m gonna jump off the screen. You’ll be able to see You should still be able to see my screen share. I can see it. Can you see my screen share? Yeah, I can absolutely see it. Try to keep up with Vinnie. Yeah, we, we just. Yeah, no, it was very, it was short. This presentation, yeah, it’s very short. He said it was gonna be 4 minutes or less. I don’t know about that, but It takes 4 minutes for him to hook his laptop. We have to see the picture. There it is. Birthday today. So cute. to be 2. I want my kids to be 2 again. I, I love doing there. OK, so tonight I’m here to give a brief, uh sorry, brief presentation on our FY 25. Uh, year-end forecasts for the quarter ending for the quarter ending September 30th, 2024. Now this presentation you would normally see at the end of October, uh, or the beginning of November, but due to the ongoing negotiations. I delayed it a little bit. So I could incorporate the results of those negotiations into this uh forecast tonight. So one thing that I usually say about the quarter one forecast, it, it is the least accurate forecast of the 3, the reason for that. Mainly is because only 25% of the fiscal year is passed, and when you look at a percentage of the school year, uh, only 11% of the school year is passed. We’ve only had 20 days of the school year as of September 30th, of course. So with 89% of the school year remaining, which is obviously where the bulk of our expenses come from, uh, there is so much that’s gonna change between September 30th and June 30th. That we do not perform a line by line analysis of all 400 of our expense accounts, again, just because so much of it is going to change between now and then. Uh, what we do instead of going through a line by line like we do for the rest of our forecast is really just look at the big picture items. Uh, what do, what do we know that has changed between February 2024 when we voted the budget and between now and June 30th. Uh, when the fiscal year has ended. Uh, so those main things are our staff changes, and that’s all incorporated through September 30th. Uh, I’ve also included two out of district forecasts, both for our outer district tuitions and our out of district transportations, uh, that was provided by uh Stacy Busick, our student services director, and then I performed a health insurance uh analysis, uh, as you’ll see in a moment why I did that. So again, this is a little brief. I’m just gonna go over kind of those big ticket items that I just mentioned. Uh, so without a doubt, the biggest thing uh we’re working with so far this year is our FY 25 prepaid out of district tuitions. Uh, so what happened here is if you remember at the end of fiscal 24, uh, we were going to end the year with a substantial balance, so you had authorized me to use those excess funds in FY 24 to prepay FY 25 out of district. So what that does is free up money in our FY 25 budget. If nothing else were to change if we spent uh exactly what we thought we were going to spend in the 25 budget, we would still end the year with roughly 1.3 million because we prepaid those tuitions with prior year funds. Uh, the next big thing is the kind of additional health insurance that we usually budget for, uh, so a lot of you have been here and and seen uh both budget presentations and a few forecasts, uh, throughout the years. Uh, historically, we usually try to give a self selves a little bit of room in our budget. Uh, we usually aim to end around 2 to 3% overall at the end of the year, where that comes from is usually our health insurance. I’m very conservative when we budget for our health insurance, and I always build in uh additional enrollees or build in a full year of costs for any vacant positions. Uh, but we know fully that by the end of the year, that’s probably not all. going to come true and a lot of that residual balance at the end of the year comes from our uh historical uh conservative approach to budgeting for health insurance. So for FY 25, that amounts to approximately 277,000, um. Of uh Premiums that that that that did not increase. Uh, in addition to that, we have about $240,000 left over from salary savings. Uh, these come from anywhere from turnovers, from any internal reorganizations or from any salary scale advancement requests that didn’t get fulfilled. Uh, so, as you’ve heard me say before, when we budget, uh, we budget the exact salaries for someone, so if somebody’s in uh M30 step 12, if for whatever reason, they resign, uh, they, they have a late retirement notice, uh, or they are non-renewed, uh, historically, we bring somebody in at a lower step in scale. That’s what this is all the turnover, all the different people that are currently in our building that weren’t. Here, when we, when we built the FY 25 budget back in February. Uh, in addition, last year when we built the budget, We were listening to the news and heard everything about um the teacher negotiations in Newton and Woburn. At the time, while building the budget, we had incorporated a 3% cola into all our salary accounts. But to be honest, I did, I didn’t put the number up, sorry. But to be honest, I didn’t really think we were gonna end that way based on what was going on around the state, so I tried to incorporate about an additional 1%. Uh, in coal is overall across the district and built that in again to our health insurance accounts because that’s usually uh where we would put any kind of conservative, uh, budgeting, so that is equal to about 1% of our payroll at the time. So again, that’s about another 185,000. Uh, and then in addition, I was able to negotiate lower premiums with Harvard Pilgrim that ultimately saved us 164,000, uh, if you, if you rewind back a year ago. We have preliminary conversations with Harvard Pilgrim and with our insurance brokers, everyone at the time was saying anticipate 10% increase to our premiums. Once we finally negotiated and the amount was settled, I think we came in at about 4.9%, so less, uh, so more than a 50% reduction in what we anticipated, uh, that ultimately meant in additional savings of roughly 164,000. Um Next, so these are all kind of our surpluses, our positive numbers. Some of the numbers that we’re seeing at this time that are in that are causing a little bit of a deficit. is during um the end of FY 24, beginning of FY 25, we renegotiated our health insurance premiums. This is the portion, the district contributes to the premiums are original budget had it set at 60%, uh, the With the new negotiations for FY 25, it’s 62%. That additional 2% costs us approximately 112,000. So that will reduce our overall uh health insurance balance at the end of the year to cover that 2%. Uh, both the next two items were supplied by student services. It is our out of district transportation projection and our out of district tuition projection. Uh, at this time for Q1, uh, the department is forecasting a deficit in both areas for our transportation, it is approximately 167,000 and for our outer district tuitions. It’s 25,000. Just to point out the 205,000 would be if we did not prepay any tuitions. So if both those items came to be, we would really end the year with about 1.3 million, it’s the 1.3 and added, I’m sorry, 1.1. It’s the 1.3 in out of district tuitions minus their projected, uh, deficit at year end. And then the last item we have uh is a lot what we discussed during the budget process last week. Uh, it’s those additional FY 25 colis, those 4 contracts that we finally settled at the, uh, about a month ago that were not settled when we built the FY 25 budget. This is, uh, every position across the district, uh, every union, including, uh, administration, uh, so we are seeing a deficit in our salary accounts of about, uh, 1. 1 million Um, but again, as you can see here, we can cover it with the additional surpluses we are seeing from our health insurance, from our staff turnover, uh, and from the outer district tuitions that we prepaid in FY 25, uh, as a result for quarter 1, I am currently estimating that we will complete the year with approximately 675,000 left over at year end. Um, so again, This is going to change a lot between now and the end of June. This is really just the big ticket items that have have came up uh since July 1st through um technically September 30th, including any, um, Final contract negotiations. So I can take any questions if you guys have any. Thank you. Yeah. I have a question. Yep. Um, so I, I, uh, Vinny, I appreciate that you are so, you know, conservative budgeting with the health, um, the health insurance, but I think I’m, I’m just concerned. I mean, don’t we have to do this, this cola step every year. So how are we going to budget. For the next year, cause, cause this one is a million if you can go back to the slide. This one is over a million dollars. Uh, so if you rewind back to the presentation last week, uh, the insurance accounts that I’m projecting for an increase next year is only going up about $13,000. Uh, so we’re using Um, health insurance savings from FY 25 to cover that 1 million in colas. F2. Does that make sense? Yes, but what I’m saying is like the cola is going to happen every year. Correct. Correct? The cola is not the same as a step in the ladder. But the cola is gonna go up every year, but the cola has already been negotiated, so we don’t have to worry about it because we already negotiated the cola with the teachers. I’m just saying for people who don’t know about the contract negotiations. And they’re, they might be concerned that we’re gonna see this. Additional cola every year. We are seeing it in the 26 budget, so that was incorporated that additional million already incorporated, OK, and then from there once it’s built into the 26, you technically won’t see it at least added after that point. OK. No, that makes, that makes sense. Makes sense. Other questions? OK, thank you. Thanks. No problem. OK. Um Uh, next up, our committee reports, um. Capital finance. Uh, you all are meeting tomorrow, I think. I will be there. I’ll be there tomorrow. OK. Great Um. We talked about a little bit that hopefully they will, will get a new committee member next time and, uh, they’ll get something on the books. Uh, negotiations. Happy to say we are not. Meeting. Yeah, no, just a couple of emails, but. Don a few eyes, crossed a few T’s, but Yeah. OK. Uh, do you have your secretary report for us, David Chanel if there was anything outstanding, and she said she’d looked into it and never got back to me, so I’m assuming no news is good news and um and I can reach out to her or to you. I, um, I do my only concern is I do wanna. I really do want to look at the executive session minutes, um, I’ll I’ll note that you probably just got lost in that session. Um, I think I also do. It’s not surprising, so I think my reason to be concerned is maybe real, um, but I do think that we are doing a good job on everything else, which is Good Um Thank you for that, um. Anybody have any questions on any of those committee things? Alright, to you, Eric, for the superintendent report. Thank you. Uh, not a whole ton here because we, we just got back through Thanksgiving. I, I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving. I know I did with my family and uh this is an interesting time of year. It’s a. Oddly this year with Thanksgiving being so late, there’s really 3 weeks and we’re back on break again. Uh, so it’s kind of right in our face, but there are some things happening, um, next week and and through the next few weeks of school building committee will meet Monday night, uh, for the Cutlass School building project on uh Tuesday night. We’ll do a presentation for the abutters of the Cutler, uh, property. Uh, that will be at the high school and then on um Wednesday night, we have our annual. Winter concert and with the art show, the art show starts about a half hour earlier, usually around 6:30 and then the concert at 7 at the high school. And then, uh Other than that, you’ll start to see some of our kids, um. Shifting, we’re all shifting now into new sports and new sports seasons, so it’s officially started this week with the winter season, so that’s exciting to to see. A close out fall and bring in winter, and I think next meeting we’ll do a full presentation on the fall season, so. Thank you. Thank you. Questions for Eric. OK. Um I do not have a lot to report either. I did, um, just wanna report that I did spend some time, um, over the past weekend, um, at the Ed fund, uh, Christmas tree sales, um, I was there. Um, with a table and information to provide the public with information regarding the elementary school building project, um, it was a really nice as always, it’s it was a really nice community event, um, the scouts were there, you know, they do Christmas tree, um, pick up and recycling, so I got to talk to um the scouts from Hamilton and Wenham and the Edmund people and there were lots of. Um members of the public who had really good Questions and interest, um. You know about the project, so it was a Good time. Um, I’m gonna, huh? It was, it was, um, like I said, it was good, it was. Good, good connecting and, uh, you know, nice and cold, um. Um, And um I am gonna try to attend the meeting that Eric just mentioned on Tuesday evening, um, which is also providing information about Um, the school building project, which is at the high school, um. No, that Tuesday evening is at the art show is on Wednesday Wednesday. Our show is on Wednesday, Tuesday is the meeting for the um abutters and neighbors, um, and the cutler, uh, location. So if any other school committee members want to go. Um It should be a good time, um, one thing I forgot will be, we’ll be at the Winthrop. Uh Also at the table with the architects, uh, handing out materials boutique. Yes. Which is Saturday, be there for the holiday boutique. It’s always a great time. I, yeah, I think, yeah, you’ll be there with a different hat on. Yeah. OK. Um, great. Uh, anybody have any? on that. Anybody have any topics for future meetings? Um, the other thing is it said, um, is They’re really work going on on The regional agreement No, so. Um, Janelle tried. Uh And in almost infinite number of times. To get. A date Um, for us to meet on the regional agreement and it was not ultimately able to be scheduled. Um And at At this point, um, I mean. I can offer my thoughts which are that. I’d love to get started on it. Um I think as we continue to talk about the building project, I hope that the other members of the regional agreement, the two towns would be interested in in setting that up, so I think we will dive in and try again in the new year in January. Yeah, that’s it. Yep. Mm-hmm. Um OK. Anybody have anything else? All right. Yeah. one after that’s the tent, yeah. Yes, that, um, yes, because the one after that is the one on January 2nd. So we have one more. Meeting before the holiday break and then, yeah, so I think that would actually be really helpful because, yes, because um that January 2nd meeting, which everyone has on their calendar. Um, gonna be a Zoom meeting and hopefully brief. So, yeah, thank you. Um OK. In that case it looks like I’m ready for a motion if someone’s ready to make one. Uh, I moved to adjourn at 8:33. We have a 2 by Amy. Uh, Julia. Yes. Amy? Yes, David is a yes, and we are adjourned at 8:33. Thank you all. Thank you. Good to see