All right, good evening. I really hope I have a pen. a I thought I had a pen All right, I called to order the meeting of the Hamilton Wyndham Regional School Committee on Thursday, August 21st, 2025 at 70 p.m. And I invite you to join us in the Pledge of. United States of America. As individual 13 justice or Alright, I just want to let everyone know that this meeting is being recorded and live streamed on HWCAM. um, and I am going to look and see Mr. Tracy, do we have anyone on Zoom who looks like they might want to offer a citizen comment. Is there anyone in the room who’s going to offer a public comment. Looks like no. OK. Seeing none, I will spare you all, uh, the, uh, rules about citizens’ comments, and we’ll move on. And uh comments are closed Uh. next up, I think Jan, would you be willing to read a portion of the protocols? Thank you. As elected members of the Hamilton-Wynham Regional School Committee. We, including the superintendent except the high honor and trust that has been 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 in the conduct of our business. One. members of the committee will make no independent commitments or take any independent actions that relate to the school district. When school committee members attend meetings of other committees or boards, they will speak as individuals. They may only speak for the committee when designated to represent the committee. Thank you Um, next up, uh, Megan, would you be willing to read a portion of the mission statement. The Hamilton Wenham 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 Wenham Regional School Committee will lead and inspire a district that attracts and retains high quality educators by acknowledging and respecting their expertise and professionalism. Thank you. Um, next up is the consent agenda. Does anyone have any items that they would like to hold from the consent agenda? Um, I have one, I would like to hold voucher number 4153. um, Julia, that’s on the 2nd page, um, it says electric bus next to it. I got it. I’ll get it I move that the Hamlins and wine Regional School Committee accepted consent to Jeddah. except for a voucher 4153. by Amy Kunberger. um, all those in favor. So that is unanimous of the six members present, and the motion passes. Um, I should just clarify, I should have said um. for our new members, um, that the consent agenda, um, the, um, there is no discussion, um, on the consent agenda, which is why I held the one item, um, so, so that we can discuss it. Um, Julia, can you start us off with a motion on the one that was held. What’s the motion Oh, just, can we start with a motion to approve the one that was held? Yes. Um, I move that we approve voucher number 4153 as presented in the agenda. seconded by Amy Kunberger, um, I just held this just, I was really just curious. Hi, Vinny, um, I was just curious typically if you look at the agenda, we don’t, uh, like I don’t know why it was singled out to say electric bus next to it like I didn’t, it was just one of our larger warrants. I wanted to signify and notify everyone that that was for the electric EPA grant. It was more informational. Yep, no, I just just wanted to make sure there wasn’t something about it that I needed to know more about it than that. Just letting you know that we’ve dispersed most of the grant. OK, yeah, that’s right, the grant has flowed through correct excellent most of it Um, anybody else have any other questions? question All right. Looks like we are ready to vote, um, all those in favor? That is unanimous of the six members present. and the motion passes. Thank you Mhm. OK Um uh, next up, so, um, this is, um, the election warrant. So um you want me to speak to it or you I mean, um, so. not typically, um, in a town election, um, the select board, um, would vote to approve the warrant in order to put it out to the voters. Um, in this case, as you all know, this body, um, voted to move forward with um this election, and this election is um being run by the committee and so it’s a little bit different. And so instead of the select board, it needs to be this body that approves the warrant. Um. it’s the same language that we have, um voted on already, um. you know, Eric, do you have more to say about it? The warrant is requirement of the law when you’re, when you’re opening the idea of an election, which we’ve voted for. months ago, um, you really codify it in the warm by speaking specifically to Times, dates and locations of votes, um, so those are listed in the warrant, then the base question and then the original um, motion that was voted by the committee. Um, at the bottom of the warrant, uh, we once, you know, we approve or not approve it, it will need to be signed. by members tonight, then it gets posted publicly, both in the town halls and also in newspapers. We’re going to post it in HW News and the Salem Evening News. Uh, that is also a requirement of the law. So we just, we’re just following, we’re following the law and as our attorneys have outlined it for us. Uh, yeah, let’s start with the motion. I move that the Hamiltony Regional School District approved the election warrant as listed in the agenda. Second by Jen Carr, um, let’s start with that. Does anyone have any questions? I, oh, go ahead, Will this be advertised on the district website or can we not put them on the district website. Good question. So we wanted to know that answer ourselves, so we talked with our attorney and they feel like we can post it on the district website because it’s much more of a public place, um the, the restrictions that we run into are mostly related to me as the paid employee of the district. I’m not like I can’t run an open forum. I can’t do anything like that, but we can, because the town’s also put it on their websites. They’ve already started that process. We’ll do this. This is approved tonight. We’ll do it tomorrow morning and it’ll be covered. Essentially, we’re supposed to anything we send out related to the election has to go to um, or try to get to all of the people in the community, all of the individual voters in the community. So it’d have to be a mass mailing. It couldn’t be just my newsletter that goes out on Friday afternoon. So you have to try to get the entire voting body but again, and and we did, I mean we did ask that the website is a public venue. Anyone can come to the website. It’s my only question. Um, other question you had a question? I had a question. Is there anything special we have to do considering the voting place for one of them is different than usual. Uh, no, it’s been used before. The Burnham Hall’s been used before in the 2024 presidential election, they used it, which is why we uh, leaned that way after talking to the town clerks. I spent some time trying to figure out. best places and, um, town hall, as you know, is under construction. Both town halls are under construction, so, uh, neither place is usable, but, uh, the when a museum has been, uh, agreed upon. They have agreed to host this and uh, Diane has, has done election setups there before, so she’s got all her ducks in a row already. It’s a great spot just considering it’s next door, so it’s the same. It’s right. I do think it does prevent in other words, if you were confused and accidentally went to the town hall. You’re right there. So like, um, so it’s essentially you’re parking in the same place. um OK, and you just get further discussion. Just one other thing that I want to ask as a question just because I think it’s unusual. The reason for the time, the 12 to 8, is due to the mass state law, not our, not our decision, that is correct. The law is very specific, um, that it needs to be consecutive 8 hours. Well, not less than 4, not more than more than 8, not less than 4, more than 8, but not more than correct. We, we could have I I don’t, I cannot imagine why someone would choose to have fewer hours, but you. could have, um, but, OK, just wanted to, we tried to overlap day and evening, yeah. um. OK, um substantial setup. That’s one of the other things we need to give Ro on both sides for set up and breakdown because I’ve learned so much about elections and what goes where and who takes what where and where it gets locked up. So there’s there’s substantial setup and breakdown after, before and after. um, and just so the committee knows this, uh, vote does require, uh, a 2/3 vote, so 55 votes, um, would be a, um. would be a pass Um, all right, anybody else have any questions? OK, looks like we’re ready to vote. All those in favor. That is unanimous of the six members present, and the motion passes. Um, would we, would we like to just sign it now? We really need to sign it. We don’t want people to leave without signing it. You could, I think there’s no reason we can’t sign, right? We’ll pass it around with a pen. I mean, I just don’t want to forget, that’s all. You mean drive off and then have to drive back, mostly exactly right. I didn’t really want to be driving to Peter’s house and text Jen frantically come back. That’s what I did last time. I use this pen it with the pen. Mine is purple, so, so I use that one. all right, do we want to take a pause while everyone’s? Sure. passing? I don’t think it will take too long. Oh yeah, that’s past the pen with it or unless like. Oh thanks. Here’s the pen. That’s my pen. Oh, that’s your pen. I, it’s a lovely, you don’t wanna lose that pen. It’s a really nice like yeah, I did. I saw that. I, I always enjoy a good pen. It’s like a little tip. I love it. Yeah Thank I do, but it’s not working, of course. Thank you Mike and your first warrant The first warrant they’ve signed. OK Um, thank you all and thank you for that. I just really, really wanted to not forget to get that signed, so that was good. Um, next up, I think it’s gonna be Mr. Menagoni talking to us about a couple of updated, uh, policies. Mr. Meaggoni Good evening, everyone. I have 3. additional updates to, uh, the student handbook for the coming school year. Um, two are, are new and relatively simple. The third one is an update to an update that probably will require a little bit more explanation. Uh, first update that I have um, has to do with our GPA scale and what I’m proposing to do. um, is to align our GPA scale with what the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education does when they recalculate our students’ GPAs when they apply to a state school. Um, and you could see what that, that proposed scale is, uh, for each of our three levels. Um, you can see them represented there, uh, if a student earns an A in a college prep level class, they would get a 4.0 for that particular, uh, class in honors, it would be 4.5, and AP 5.0. Uh, if you look, uh, to the left-hand side, you can see that currently, um, it would be a 4.0 and then honors and AP are both weighted on additional 0.3. Um, there’s some history there to explain why that was, um, really had to do with getting rid of another level, uh, that no longer exists, CP2. um, and kind of trying to align things and make them a little bit more fair. however, I’m just in thinking about this over time and talking with students and parents. um, I, I think that having a GPA scale that first of all, makes some sense that it’s aligned with our state board of Higher Education, but also, you know, just considering what our students look like to colleges. Now colleges typically recalculate GPAs anyways, uh, but just thinking that if our own internal GPA. gives a student a little bit of a better chance to fit into that bucket of students who are gonna get a little bit extra consideration at whatever college they apply to, it would make sense to just go ahead and do that because honestly, internally, it doesn’t impact us at all if we have one GPA scale or the other, um, I, but I do think it’s a good idea to have it aligned with what our state board of Higher Ed does, and also just, um, I think puts our kids in a better position outside of school. I did check to make sure. ahead of time that changing it like this won’t cause a gigantic churn. near the top end of the class, um. just because we are changing it after some kids have already been here for 3 years. Um, that was not the case, so everything, every kid has kind of remained in place. um Now, these changes would apply to all four grades, uh, that will be in the high school this year and also retroactively, um, applying the new GPA skill to all courses that have already been taken at the high school as well. Um, so for example, in the class of 2026, this will go back, um, a few years when they started in 20223. Well that’s the change to the GPA scale. Great questions Uh, thank you. Yeah, graduating senior. I had a, I just had a, I had, yeah, no, I just had a quick question. We, um we received today, we received several emails in support. I I’m just curious, like, have you gotten any um concerns from people or is it all supportive? Uh, it’s been all supportive. I mean, it’s, it tends to come from, uh parents of juniors and seniors just because your mind is there, you know, a freshman, sophomore year, you’re probably not thinking about that too much, but. you know, the kids start to talk about it quite a bit and the parents are certainly thinking it as well, so, you know, just after listening to parents having a few conversations, talking internally about it and doing some thinking. It’s just seems to make sense to. align it with the state board of Higher Ed, and it, it looks more like what other high schools do, you know, that being said, uh, GPA scales are kind of the wild west. I mean, you could go to a place that’s out of 100 points, a place that’s out of 6 points. It just depends how they do it there, but I think this is probably puts our kids in a better place. And you need a vote from us, correct? I have a I just have a question. Why weren’t we aligned with the state Board of Higher Ed. before. This was this has been around for probably almost 10 years, so like probably couldn’t really tell you that. It, it, it’s related to the fact that we had, um, CP2 level classes and you know getting rid of that level kind of that shift really made the, the GPA scale. very uneven, so this is where we sat. for a while and now I think the this updated scales. puts us all in a better place OK. You want a motion I move that the Hamilton Wyndham Regional School Committee approve the updated GPA scale as presented on the agenda. Second by Amy Kunberger. Anybody have any further questions? Yep. Do I need to abstain from this because I have a kid in high school that this is going to affect. No. Um uh, no, because we, like, anyone could have it, but you certainly can if you feel that that’s, I think like the budget will affect your kids too, you know, like should we abstain from the budget I hear you, I hear you. No, it’s OK. It’s up to you. to you. Um is any, is there further discussion All right, looks like we’re ready to vote. All those in favor? That is unanimous of the six members present, and the motion passes. Um, right, back to you, Brian. um next one is just an update to the grade scale, which is tied to the GPA a little bit. While I was doing some research about GPA, I was staring at our grade scale and and just and also the move to power school as well and kind of digging into things and making sure we’re all lined up and ready to go, um. I was looking at the the current grade scale to get an A you had to earn a 94 to 100 um in a class But when you look at the other letter grades, BC, D. the cutoff for that was always like an ’83. 73 or 163 And it just kind of didn’t make sense to me. Um, I’ve had it explained to me that because we don’t have A pluses, we raise the threshold for A’s, but, and I’d looked at a bunch of high schools around us and and their student handbooks, and they’re a great scale is all 93 is the, the A. and it’s consistent with the other letter grades that are there. So I’m just like to shift RA to be a 93. um because it makes more sense visually and is also in line with what other high schools do. um and this would again apply to all classes that have already been taken, uh, by our students at the high school. So there is an impact upon GPA as well, because students who earned exactly a 93, not a 92 or a 94, but exactly a 93 Um this would perhaps uh raise their GPA a little bit, just because the difference between an A and an A minus, you know, is represented there in the other, uh, the GPA scale Um, it’s really a, a very small occurrence, and we’re looking at maybe a couple 100 occurrences across like over 8000 grades that have been earned by our students who are currently at the high school. So it’s a very small amount, um and again, and just in looking at how it impacted GPA, um, it, it didn’t really have an impact. It was negligible but I do, I do think it, you know, you should honor the work of the students that make, and it just makes more sense to have it aligned the way the other letter grades are, in addition to being similar to other high schools as well. OK Questions Um, I’m just curious about how easy or difficult it is to do that retroactive. work. it’s very easy. OK. because that was my concern, it was a toggle in Aspen, um, for me to do all the check work on it. And because we were um, exporting grades, historical grades into power school that was really just writing a rule in the power of school, like this is how it’s gonna go. It was actually kind of good timing to do that. Great. So from a student point of view, like say a junior right now would be able to look once it everything gets turned up, they just can go back and see that like actually in freshman English, they got an A instead of an A minus like. OK, interesting Alright. Anybody else have any questions or discussion? All right. I move that the Hamilton Wine and Regional School Committee approved the updated grade scale as presented on the agenda. Second, seconded by Megan Benson. um is there any further discussion? All right, all those in favor That is unanimous of the six members present. and the motion passes Hey, one more, Mr. Menigoni. OK, this one is more complicated um, and will require um additional school committee deliberation about this because it is tied to a policy um. back in June, I had proposed the language in the student handbook, um, around the competency determination. Um, in order to earn a high school diploma in the state of Massachusetts. Students need to pass not only local graduation requirements, but also, uh, meet the competency determination. Prior to the vote in November, uh, students earn the competency determination by earning passing scores on the ELA math and science tests. Once that was voted out it was left up to districts to show how students met the competency determination. and that was really the guidance, uh, that was given because that part of earning a diploma. uh, in Massachusetts was not removed. The competency determination was not voted out. Uh, just you can’t use MCAS anymore, um, as the measure. So back in June, I proposed that students could meet the competency determination by passing following courses, English 10 geometry and biology. Uh, since that time though, we’ve received a couple of updates, um, additional guidance. We also have a new commissioner in place. My reading of the most recent guidance, OK. I think it, it gave a little bit more specificity to courses that students need to pass, um, but also added an additional dimension to it. as well. Um, so really, um what I’m proposing is that we have an interim competency determination requirement for the class of 2026. Um, and it’s important, uh, because these kids are seniors and they need to know their standing, um, for earning a diploma for us, you know, as the school year starts. So what I’m saying is that the students in the class of 2026 who have not yet earned their competency determination, um, as of January 3, 2025, um, because a large number of students had met it because they passed MCAS before it was voted out. Um. as being able to, uh, be used to meet the CD requirement. OK, but for students who have not yet met it, um, they will need to show that they have passed um two English courses, which you have to do anyways. They will need to show that they’ve passed algebra 1 and geometry. which you have to do anyways, because those are two first courses. You will need to show that you have passed uh, either biology, chemistry, or physics, one of those three science classes. Now, the additional dimension that was added that I hadn’t seen before was students need to show mastery in these subject areas. and the guidance that we have and Mr. Tracy could correct me if I’m wrong. uh, but the guidance, uh, as I read it, says that students need to. successfully complete according to our grading policy, um, and of course assessments in math and ELA Science in those courses that I’ve named. Or you could also do a portfolio or it says equivalent, whatever that may mean. So prior to this there was no mention of mastery necessarily now. there is, and they’re also pretty specific about it being tied to some sort of assessment. And I think this is important because we need to review students in classes of 2026, uh, who had not met, um, I see determination through MCAS, where their standing is with respect to grades, um, or passing classes and also grades that they’ve received on assessments. as well. Additionally the class of 2027. I know it’s a little bit beyond the scope of what I’m talking about here. Um, they’re going to add in um history becoming part of the competency determination as well. US history. Now. DESE has said that all districts must submit a final CD policy. by December 31, 2025. It’s my opinion that that date is too late for the class of 2026, um, because we need to plan for those students, provide them support, um, and make sure that they have what they need to be able to meet the competency determination. Uh, December 31st, 1, 2025, putting a policy into place by then is going to require a lot of work, um you know, in the high schools part, but also on the committee’s part as well. Um, and I, I’m sure there’s gonna be more guidance coming out that could pull us in a different direction as well, but I think um having a submission due almost halfway through the school year, really is something that should apply to the class of 2027 and beyond. That’s my reading of everything and that’s uh what I would propose. OK. Questions? I know I have a lot of them. I think my question is, is this is not a policy, these are recommendations for us to create a policy? to create and submit a policy by December 31st. When do you recommend that we need to do this by, I think we need to put an interim um competency determination in place. for the class of 2026. This may be something that Mr. Tracy has to check on because I, I just don’t see how we can hold students, uh, to an expectation that isn’t put before them until the middle of the school year. That doesn’t make any sense. Especially on a course that they took 3 years ago. So for example, we have students. not a lot, we have a students who um have passed a course but may not have passed the final exam, which is the mastery key. You have to have both of those pieces of the puzzle. So then what do you do for that child who took algebra 3 or 43 years ago, um, and has, has already moved far beyond that, so we need to be able to identify the kids which I think Brian has already kind of done and then figure out what types of remedial work might need to be done or follow up work and then give them the opportunity to try to meet the competency requirement. This, this, it’s. this is similar to what they used to call the EPP, so if a child didn’t pass the MCAS, schools would put them on an educational proficiency plan which was very similar to this. It was you had to pass, you know, if you didn’t pass math, you had to minimally pass algebra 2, the masterypiece was never included until this next update and I can tell you there will be another update because there is a statewide graduation think tank going right now, which, as you know, I’m on the legislative committee, so we’re eyeballing them, um, and they are looking to changing this again. Uh, so we’re hoping it’s not going to impact 2026, but what Brian is requesting is to put this in place now then I will take that information, bring it back to the committee to develop the policy with the understanding that we’ll probably have to rewrite the policy at least one more time after rewriting it this fall. So I have one more question. So getting rid of the MCAS requirement. which I was opposed to getting rid of that. Sorry. Um, that just creates this kind of wild west of every school district is kind of scrambling to create this competency determination for their own districts, and now we are expected to create this before the school year, um, so that we can give a roadmap to students that we think might not be on track. that what’s going on? OK. You could wait and and do the policy, but I think Brian and I talked a lot about that’s fair. I agree. We spent a lot of time talking about the kids who need that time, you know, they’ve already picked the schedule for the senior year. So now we have to figure out where that fits and then how they can meet the requirements and we, we, we have some ideas, but it’s still an interesting place for the state to put. kids in when they’ve already, when the courses were taken. 2 and 3 years ago. other questions Um so I I don’t want to get, I don’t wanna disclose information that might sort of call out students specifically, but in general, can you give us a is it appropriate to tell us approximately how many students in the class of 2026. fall into this category. And, and again, if that’s not an appropriate question, it’s OK not to answer that. It’s, it’s more than definitely more than we are used to. Yeah um, and, and that’s because That’s because of many factors, a lot of it comes down to. uh passing and of course assessments, like because you, because they didn’t pass MCAS. So in other words, they would, they in the past, they, if they didn’t pass the MCAS, they were able to pass the course, but now, if you pass the course by doing the coursework but not by passing the final exam. Now you fall into a new bucket. OK so I just want to share I, because I, maybe other people are, I’m not quite following what you’re asking for tonight is would look I understand we’re looking for ultimately a policy for the class of 2027 and beyond. That’s one thing. and I think that seems doable because we have a little bit more time with them, but you’re looking right now for us, I’m not quite clear on what you’re looking for the for the class of 2026. So it’s that those bullet points right there for students in the class of 2026 who have not earned the CD as of January 3, 2025. uh, what Mr. Tracy just, no, I, I guess I’m sorry that I didn’t make. I’m not sure what we’re looking for from us. Are we looking for us to say this would be an interim policy that we’re adopting. What are we looking for? That’s what I’m asking. The first version of this was in the original handbook that you approved. This would replace what’s currently in the handbook. that’s what I’m looking for. So you’re looking to replace that, we would still call it interim because it’s gonna change again. Hopefully not for the class of 2026, but the state is still adamant that they the governor and the Department of Education are doing two different things. They’re not on the same page with us. So the governor did not want to wait and created a graduation think tank. That group is still doing work related to this. It could change the outcome. So we just need something in place that we can publish in the handbook to all of our families that will outline exactly what they need to do, those, those kids who haven’t obtained. competency determination and it also give us an idea of what we have to do and across the school year to make sure the kids meet. meet the requirements I guess I have another question. So, you want to vote on the interim policy for the class of 2026 with the stipulation that we will revisit it. for 2027 I think we just have to wait to see what the state’s gonna do. 20, yeah. OK, so it’s like the handbook we review it every year. It’s a policy we’re going to review every year. OK. so realistically we could do the interim policy for the class of 2026. right? And I think so, yeah. Well, I, I guess, and this is more, I guess more debate than question, but I, I I’m wondering about a student in the class of 27, right? Is if like we want to give them as much information as they can also. I mean, I, it’s much, I mean, it’s breaking my heart to think about a student in the class of 26. not having all the information to make sure that they have everything that they need in order, I mean, like it’s good to have as much information as you can so that you can try to get this done. Um, but at the same time, if you’re sitting in the class of 27, you want to know. what the expectation is for you as well. Like it’s I. I 27 I understand it’s likely to change, right? I, I get like we could, we could adopt this just as the interim policy without a year on it but we would all know that the chances are that in 20 for the class of 27 it’s going to change, so I don’t know if that’s helpful or hurtful. I think my recommendation would be adopted as it’s presented here. knowing that we, we, we all know it’s prob more than likely gonna change, but that gives Brian and his team the ability to get to these two groups of kids and families because this will be a surprise for families, you know, if you’re a junior in high school and all of a sudden, by the way, your US history course counts towards graduation and um along with all the other components of that. So it’s it’s interesting. They they almost matched what they were trying to do with MCAS because I think the 27 would have been the group that would have seen the US history MCAS requirement come in right around this time, so. yeah, I think, I think if people are comfortable approve what’s being presented now knowing that Brian will be back again and it’s really for the handbook. and what I will do is work with the policy committee to get this. documented so we could submit it to the state. We actually have to submit the district policy to the state. once it’s complete. So we’ll have some work to do in the fall and then prepare for it to change again. in the next handbook update Do you want a motion and then debate or? yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, OK. I move that the Hamilton Wyndham Regional School Committee approved the interim updated competency determination, policy for the class of 2026 as presented in the agenda. Second, seconded by Jen Carr. OK. Any other discussion? or questions I uh OK. I agree. I feel the same way as you. I just have one more question. I mean, I have a lot of questions, but I feel heartbroken for kids that are I mean I just trying to imagine like, uh, you know, I definitely passed geometry and I would not like to take the final exam in geometry right now, like, um, you know, I, I just that’s a difficult thing to do. I guess I’m concerned about, I, I unders I, I guess I feel I hope I feel reassured from you. It sounds like that if someone really is in that situation where they would have to take a math test from a course that they took 3 years prior. that there are other ways that they could, like you said, there are other ways to demonstrate straight mastery other than just taking the final exam. Yeah, well, it’s part of the language there, or equivalent, I see it. I’m just at the bottom. It also nervous about it don’t, who don’t meet the above may appeal to the principal. as well. The idea is for students to show that they’ve mastered the standards. Um. and the end of course assessment is something that the state identified pretty clearly as being one of those things. However, assessments, which is where the or equivalent comes in. And so we do have curriculum leaders, um, who can um, step in and help. maybe design another assessment that would show students mastery of those standards instead of having to go back and take exact same final exam from 3 years ago or whatever it is. OK Other questions I don’t think so. complicated. Yes, very complicated, um. um it’s like we’re ready to vote Yeah. All right. All those in favor That is unanimous of the 5 members present, and the motion passes. Um. thank you. And we’ll look forward to hearing more about past 2027 and what the state has to say. Um all right. Um. I’ll take a quick part Um yeah, we might just take a, we’re just gonna take like a two-minute quick recess. Cough OK. All right. OK. uh, and we are back, uh, calls back to order. Um thanks for that Um all right, next up, we received a communication from the Board of Health, um, back in June. um, and so the letter is, um, what uh write to us back in June and it is on the agenda. um so this represents a, uh, recommendation, um from the Board of Health Um, it’s actually interesting. It’s from uh, a joint it’s a joint letter from the Hamilton and Wenham Boards of Health. Um and after receiving this letter, um. I know Eric did a little bit of work, um, I know, um I don’t know, Eric, if you want to speak to um any of your conversations about how to respond to it in general to a letter of this. type. Sure, there were, I did speak with our attorney Mark Terry and, and try to get some information just about this is, this is new for us to receive a letter like this, and I thought it was important to just really dig into the the heart of the letter, and it’s um not only uh specifying an instrument to use, but it’s also talking about um some of the some of the things that, uh, we should be taking on as, um maybe policy uh, which are attorneys are strongly advising against because. once you lock yourself into a policy like that without digging into what, uh, is happening at the state level, it becomes uh possible hindrance, so the, the information that he and I talked about was really when a letter like this comes, you can review the letter, um. read it, review it, and then um as a committee so thank you for the recommendation and, and, um, move on and, and then uh just to our the the big note was more about um, being careful about creating policy based on um some of the information in this letter. So it was, it was, it was, it was more of just like this is good, useful information. I think it’s important for us to review that and know and understand it and then um talk about it as we have in our uh capital improvement projects. meetings, which is the our, uh, place where these things are talked about. So it’s really, he was just more on a cautionary side of creating policy that was outside of what’s currently acceptable in the state of Massachusetts. Um thank you for that. um people might have about what Eric just said, but, but also maybe we wanna sort of back up, maybe if, I mean if the committee wants to just have sort of a discussion around sort of the information before us also, so I don’t know. I don’t. I don’t have a strong plan on how to direct the conversation, um, but David. Yeah, and my reading of that letter was not that it necessarily called for, um, define a new policy, it was specific about accepting or not accepting a donation of or a an offer of 140 Corsey Rosenthal boxes. and I’m gonna just stop you right there because because I. I’m not. Keep going and to that end, um, I’ve done a little bit of calculations. The we assigned Curtis Whiteman to investigate ways to meet Ash Ras 241. in time for the next um budget period. It turns out that the, the, if you did, um install the the courseyros love boxes, you would actually be in compliance with, uh, Ashray 241, and it would have cost you nothing but the labor of assembling those units. So that’s a way to a way to meet ashtray 241. Well, I think, I think my question is how do we proceed when we get a recommendation like this. And um it’s not to me it’s not whether we’re opposed or uh. for it, pro and con. It’s more what do we do and then what’s the appropriate body and what’s the appropriate like protocol and what are the next steps to take when we get a recommendation like this. For me, I would like to know that first before we, you know, debate whether. anything. So and I am always at the will of the committee, and if I’m speaking out of turn, please. My reading of this, I’m gonna speak to David’s point first and then, but my reading of this um. it in my opinion, I do not think this says, nor do I think it would be appropriate ever. for the Board of Health to speak to whether we should accept a grant. That I do not think that this says that. first of all nor do I think that that would be appropriate for the Board of Health What I read this as is the Board of Health strongly recommending the use of Corzy Rosenthal Corsi, I have a terrible time saying that. CRB boxes. in the classrooms That is my interpretation. I do not think, and please, if someone reads it differently, I do not think that this is the Board of Health. saying how we should obtain those or what funding we should use. So I I just want to be clear about that. I I’m gonna stop for a minute. I have more to say, but I but to Julia’s point we recommendations a lot, not from maybe official boards, but we receive recommendations and ideas and things from the public and I’m actually quite um open to hearing a recommendation from the Board of Health regarding indoor air quality that I’m that’s that what feels uncomfortable and why I’m struggling. and then I really will stop is there was and we have discussed it in this. body before a grant was applied for. and I expressed the grant was applied for outside of the approved ways that we apply for grants. And I, I don’t think that that grant conversation has anything to do doesn’t fall into this. the purview of the Board of Health at all. This So I’m gonna stop. I think a recommendation is great. I don’t disagree with having clean air in school. I had questions about this particular method of clean air. like budgetary questions, like replacing. um, the filters on the boxes. I also have safety concerns, lots of little fingers belong to our students and uh, boxan can be dangerous. I also, I know in the letter, this is addressed about how they um, are not loud. I have taught in a classroom with these boxes before. I do think they’re allowed. So they also take up a lot of space. So I had those questions last time we talked about it, and I agree that I think with what Julia was asking about, you know, resetting a precedent here if we’re taking recommendations from other boards. Um, I like the recommendation, but I think. putting the idea in facilities’ hands makes more sense. Julia, did you, I’m sorry, I feel like you got a little bit cut off there. Did you have, I didn’t. Jen I mean, we, we have a process for this, and is it a fast process? Absolutely not. But it is a process that takes all the projects that everybody wants and puts them in order. I think we need to let the process work the way it’s supposed to work. um so if we’re unhappy with how the process works at the end of the. budgetary cycle then we can talk about that too, but I think right now throwing this in as a wrench in the process, because not only do we have to talk about getting these and noise pollution, but we’ve got to run them too, and they ain’t cheap. I have air cleaners in my house. They cost me about 50 bucks a month in electricity. Um. I have one in every room and I just don’t think that we’ve done enough research on the entire cost of this project and how it fits in with how the schools are going to deal with indoor air quality going forward. So OK, maybe I’m not sure. I want to know if part of what you’re saying is what I’m thinking or not, is part of what you’re saying about the process. and maybe this is me projecting, but part of what I’m concerned about is that this recommends a specific product. Is that part of the process that you’re talking about I’m talking about our pri our capital finance project process. Like we have it set up. It’s been going through the steps. Um, and I think that’s the way to do something like this, and I think it needs to be administratively driven. It’s not our job to put anything in a school. be it a book, an air cleaner. a shoe rack. That’s the people whose boots are on the ground. The superintendent, the administrators, and the teachers. It’s not our purview, and we need to let the process as Vinnie and Superintendent Tracy. are dealing with it, work its way through. other people I mean I’m new. I wasn’t here for any previous discussions, so, um, I guess I had questions related to the operational costs of running them, installation costs, um, and then at this point, right, it’s you know, August 21st, school starts September 2nd. Would there, would it be able? you know, like, would there be, it’s not going to happen before September 2nd at this point. Um, would there be, so I had those kinds of questions. Um. So, I do think timing wise, I think that it’s not specified a time here, so I think. yeah, that’s um that part of it Um. I don’t know, other people respond to that, I think it’s really about like to me, and I never get, I try not to get emotionally invested in things like I the only, I mean, I, I try not to, but I think it’s more about when we get a recommendation, what do we do with it? And I think what Jen said, we cannot get invested in if it’s right, if it’s wrong, if we want, if we don’t want it, like how much it’s going to cost? Like we’re like even going down roads that are too far to go down. I think. um what Eric said, it’s like we, we take the recommendation, we process it. but I, I’m not sure where it goes from there. I also do have concerns. I didn’t even think about that, recommending a specific product that’s kind of concerning to me, um, because I think everything we do goes out to bed, um but I I guess I just have a concern like it, it people send us this recommendation that is very clearly well thought out and they’re obviously, you know, through the Board of Health, they have a lot of credibility, but what is our role here? and is this something a subcommittee can deal with is this like a capital finance? Can we put it in capital finance projects, um I just think we need to figure out what’s the next step what do we need, what do we do with these recommendations. I don’t really have the answer, but that’s for me the main question. It’s really not, is it good, is it bad? Like obviously air quality is good, right? But it’s, that’s not the question. The question is really, and you know, bureaucracy really stinks. Bureaucracy, things take time. That’s what I found out getting on this committee, yeah, passion projects, things really do take a lot of time and there’s a lot of steps and everything has to be done in public. Yeah, so for me, that’s the clarifying question. um, is, is sort of what are we being asked to do with this information and what’s the next step and I don’t really have those answers. Sure the direction of the conversation I had with Mark Terry it was more of consider your role, hiring fire superintendents. big budget and manage the really outside of that operations is my team. So it’s, it’s more of really looking at it from that perspective that I don’t know that and he agreed with me that there’s anything to do. more of, you know we, we do have devices in all the classrooms we have just spent a lot of money on filters to put clean filters in the mall for the beginning of the school year, so there are already devices in there. Are we willing to toss all of those devices, which we spent considerable money on and trade them out for a homemade pro product that uh may not last, you know, I’d have to be rebuilt or replaced over a shorter period of time. to David’s point, we are we did ask for information, and that is something we can do. We are concerned about indoor air quality. We did ask, we will get more information over time about indoor air quality in particular, things about the potential new school and right, so it’s Can I just make a point to Eric the state of Connecticut, for, for example, has provided one of these uh kits for every single classroom is inaccurate. That’s not true. That’s what the publicity. It is not true. I did a lot of research on a lot of things that are in this letter. The state of Connecticut provided money during COVID that schools could access to purchase Corcy Rosenthal boxes. That is very different than saying what this says, which is that the state of Connecticut purchased a CRB for every classroom, of every public school in the state. The state of Connecticut did provide money that schools could access if that was what they chose to do, to use for these products. And that is really, to be honest, it is where I am coming from. I am really struggling with this because the idea that we want as a body, we want to promote clean air for our children is something that I really value. At the same time, I am really struggling because the way that this letter came to be presented to us was not in my view did not go through the proper channels, was not handled correctly, and some of the information in this letter is incorrect. And so I am really struggling with what I believe to be. I really genuinely do believe good intentions on the part of everyone involved. Like, I really do believe that everyone involved has good intentions, that they want clean air for our children. I really do believe that. At the same time, I think process and procedure. and rules are important. And we did not get this letter you know. and, and I, I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but this letter came about because a member of our committee serves on our committee and on the Board of Health. And when it didn’t get the ideas didn’t get accepted here. They got taken to the Board of Health to get it done in a different way. and I’m uncomfortable with that I’m talking about indoor air quality, but they’ve been talking a lot. I, I, you know how all of, I mean if you’ve served with me, you know how I feel. I do think we hire people that are smart and capable. Um, and to me, this could fit into a district goal. where, you know, when we’re talking about district goals of having safe and healthy schools and um I, I just see my role as taking this information and saying wow, this is kind of interesting, like, um, and passing it on to someone and say research it and see what you can do with it and then come back to us with a recommendation because for me, I, this is not my specialty, and I don’t need to be a specialist in this. I need to hire and fire the superintendent, manage the budget, oversee the policies So I think for me I I know that is very clear, um, but I know it gets, it gets kind of muddied. That’s just me and I’d love to hear from other people to some extent and to some extent I would maybe disagree to say I feel like Eric just answered. the district made a different decision. They didn’t get CRB boxes instead they got the MERV filters for all the classrooms, they took an action. that they did that work. We tasked them with an issue. They made a decision, correct, and they made a decision that’s what they did. just like as my example that in the state of Connecticut, some classrooms chose us to go, chose to go this way, but not every single classroom did. I, we, we have assigned Curtis to look for the ways to comply with Ashtra 241. He, you know, this is one way that he could put in amongst the various options that he looks at. a quote right? That was the ask that we had voted on and there’s, you know, there’s multiple ways to, to meet Ash ray 241. This just happens to be. to work out what the cost would be. Um Do we want to invite the chair of, um, the Board of Health to speak to, to Otari’s letter had to say. I mean, I think that setting a dangerous precedent if we let a member of a board speak outside the period, no, I, I, I, I will say, um, to just full transparency, David, who’s here? Did say, do, do you think? you know, when you do, and I said, you’re welcome to come. I said I don’t, I feel like the information is here. I, I, and I, this is hard. Like it’s hard because I know I’m, I’ve said a lot of things about this. letter but I think the letter is clear. I don’t, I’m not confused about what the Board of Health is. asking Um, I, I will leave it to the committee. I, I I. take your point, Jen. I I don’t think we need to vote. I don’t know that it sets a precedent. I, I think it just my concern, no it’s a valid. Yeah, no, no, no, I, I I. that would be the board of something. Yeah, I mean, I I don’t necessarily feel personally like we necessarily need from to hear from the chair. I don’t think it would be inappropriate to hear from the chair. I think it would be fine. So if, if the committee would like to hear from the chair, that’s something I’m completely comfortable with, but I’m open to hearing different. ideas I don’t have. I, I don’t have questions. I’m not a but I’m open to that. I don’t think there’s any reason I. stuck, but David, what do you think would be the what are we missing? Well, I think there is a disturbing motive that hasn’t been spoken out by Eric, which is that the disturbing, I’m disturbing motive. which is the current filter boxes in the room are too noisy and the teachers turn them down or off, so they’re not effective, but even at their best capacity, they don’t meet ashuary 241. So my personal view is that we need to do something that at least meets 241, which I would remind you is to prevent disease transmission in the cla in wherever they’re deployed. So what’s the best way to get there? I, I don’t know, maybe it’s through the capital Finance Committee, maybe it’s just having um some homework done by um Curtis. as to what the options are and what their relative costs are and then making it a cost benefit decision. I just, I feel like they did that. Don’t you think they did? No,, we, we assigned them to do that and I, I just feel like we need to have faith in the people hiring. As far as I know, there was no assignment in choosing those filter boxes. They was made, it wasn’t voted on by the committee, but I don’t think that’s our job to vote on specific boxes. Our job is to vote on assigning someone to do something and then. No, no, no, no, but you, you’re, you’re both correct, right? You’re both correct that David, you’re correct. Like the committee did not vote on specific products and Julia is also correct that we didn’t vote on it because it’s operational. So like in the same way that we are not voting on what products they MacBooks or Chromebooks or we’re not voting on that, um. so like that you’re both correct in that I don’t think it was assigned as a goal either. the clean air go, in fact, there was a lot of resistance to even discussing clean air at the time. so. um, and it should be a goal in my view Can I call the question I don’t think there’s any motion. There’s a motion. So yeah, I mean, so I’m looking to the committee. I put this, I, I’ll just be full disclosure. I put it on the agenda because I think I really do and I, I know it may not come off this way, but I have a tremendous respect for the other boards in town. They sent us this letter. I thought it was important for us to have a conversation about it. That’s why we put it on here. It was the right thing to do but I didn’t really have a structure for what you all want to do with this. So I’m looking to you. Maybe it’s to assign it for consideration to um Curtis. as part of For me, I disagree. I think we should just take it into consideration. That’s, that’s me personally. Terry I can’t speak for anyone else. I guess if I were to is it just as a human, if I were to read this, what I read it as coming from the Board of Health. Even though it has these really specific recommendations about using this specific box and using this grant and, and all of this. I, I think that the genuine intent behind this is that the final paragraph here, coming from the Board of Health, it says ensuring superior indoor air quality is an essential investment in our students’ health, cognitive development, and future academic success. We appreciate your attention to this matter. I, I I feel like that intent is important that the Board of Health is saying to us, we want to make sure that you’re paying attention to indoor air quality. And I don’t know how to respond to that in a way that like I, because I do think that’s, that’s their job and it’s an important job. I take a lot of issue with sort of the specificity, but I so I don’t know if either of what you’re trying to say is like, is there a way or is there any action or is it something that just gets like in other words well I see, I see the headline tomorrow. School committee opposes Board of Health’s recommendation or something and there’s some kind of headline in there. But I think I I’ve really, I, and I’ll stop talking. Um, it’s just to me, I don’t like to be told what to do. That’s me, but also I appreciate recommendations and I also appreciate very thoughtful researched recommendations from experts. I appreciate them, but I don’t think we have to take every recommendation that comes to the committee and vote on it immediately. I think we can sit on it and process it and and maybe put it in the capital finance bucket. I just don’t think it needs all of them need to be acted on immediately, but then again this is just me and I will stop talking. All right, I agree. Like I think. yeah. The other thing to think about from a budgetary perspective is we did not budget for this. right Right. And if I have to choose next year between keeping teachers and air cleaners. It’s a no-brainer. Like I’m gonna choose keeping teachers. We don’t have an infinite pot of money. and we’re already asking the community a very big ask. Um the the big pot of money when these are available without cost. It costs money to run them. It’s like getting a free, it’s like getting a puppy for free. I think my questions were exactly that, like how much do they cost per month to run Extrapolate that out for the school year. How much do they cost to install? It takes time to install them. We have to, I’m assuming we have to take out the existing air purifiers and install these, so that’s purely where I was coming from. I, I appreciate your perspective, Julia, right? As I’m, I’m new and I’m learning like that’s, is that numbers, numbers, numbers. Yeah, and so that’s where I was coming from. And if it’s not budgeted for next year, and I, and I, I haven’t done the budget for next year yet. Well, right, or if it’s not budgeted for this year, sorry, this school year coming up. I think that was Jen’s point about there being a process that the conversation could take place. now if like, in other words, that is a com that is an appropriate conversation for next year’s budget, and the filters only last 68, 10 months. So school year. Yeah, no, not quite. you know, that’s a considerable cost times the amount of filters for a box times the amount of rooms per that adds up. right? And I mean I did watch, I’m sure a lot of you did. I watched a lot. I have, I mean, in the past I’ve watched because we’ve been hearing about this for quite a while. I’ve watched the videos on how to build it and how to take it apart and how to, and um you know, it takes some time and there are a lot of like, so there are costs that are not, that are labor costs, right? And, and I understand that some of that could be, like there are all, so. they’re just considerations, that’s all. I, I don’t think we need to get into the minutia of um, but I think it’s just an important point that like, it sounds a certain way on paper, it sounds good. It’s free. We all want clean air, great, but there’s. considerations that say like we didn’t think about and we installed all these and then we’re like, oh my gosh, we have to replace all these filters. So who’s going to follow this together? It’s loud. My kid got their fingers stuck in the fan, like, you know, those things. you know, that’s why we’re here, right? It’s just sort of anticipate what can happen down the road. So that’s why I kind of dug into the minutiae. All right, I I usually like to have sort of, but I’m not sure we’re going anywhere. Does anyone have anything I think what I heard Megan say, just, you need more information. Um, potentially for a, a future year budget ask. That’s what I heard you say. Yeah, I mean, it’s not in the budget for this year. So is it reasonable to say that one of the many things that would get discussed in that this is a recommendation from another local board. It would get discussed, I guess, as part of the I mean, I it’s important information from. another board that I mean like to Jenn’s point about in the process. But I also think it’s important too to remember like what Julie was saying, that this is someone else’s purview. Like this isn’t really within our purview. So I don’t know if we want to ask for more information because I don’t think it’s our decision Whose is it? No, they don’t make that, that’s in effect valuing indoor air quality is but choosing a select product is not us. I think the bus contract was an exception. but I don’t see us choosing that specific products. It’s a contract. Oh, that’s a contract. I, I would say that my that again valuing which you know as we get to the district goals and fleshing them out as an example, I’m not saying this is going to be, but like, you know, like valuing, um, health and safety in facilities. is our purview. The specific products that are being used is and methods are not for us to say, except in the way that we evaluate the superintendent. So, you know, in other words, while we would not say we want you to use a specific kind of floor wax. If the floor wax that we chose failed that would, we would reflect back on the superintendent and say, well, that was something we’re concerned about because that didn’t work out as an example. There’s no problem with the floor wax as far as I know, just making that. So now we’re opening up a can of, sorry, and I don’t mean to, now I’m getting punchy. I mean, like, if we, if we, if it was our purview to evaluate every single operational item at the product level. This, this would be a full-time position for us. There’s no way we can do that, so I I appreciate that perspective. Like I think we leave that to. facilities and the experts, right, who manage the this at the operational level at school and I, and, and. and I, I’ve already said I do think that the important takeaway from this is that our local boards of health have shared with us that they have a vested interest in ensuring indoor air quality and that that’s important information that I think we really like it’s important for us to hear and I’m glad we’re discussing it publicly, no matter what the headline is tomorrow, I think. it’s important Um right Are we done? Does anyone have anything else they want to say? OK. Um moving on and not related to that conversation in any way. The next item is to appoint a school physician and medical or medical consultant for, um, the district, and I am going to recuse myself from this item, and I’m actually going to leave the room. So, Amy, it’s not silly gavel. OK, um, so Eric, do you want to explain what we are voting on? Yes, so each year we are required to have, uh, what I would call consulting physician that’s available for um, consults for injuries, medical issues, questions from our nursing staff, questions from our sports staff, uh, our sports medical staff, excuse me, and, um, each year we’re required to appoint reappoint or appoint a new one. we have um, information for Doctor Michael Yoon, who was, uh, the person who was appointed last year who has agreed to do it again this year. Um, it really gives our nurses an opportunity to to call an expert when we we’re not quite sure what to do. Um, he becomes part of our medical team. So he’s on call, available for any questions that come up related to medical issues. For example, if if, um, you know, there’s a concussion protocol issue we could call and say, OK, what’s going on? Um, so this is, uh, just, uh a follow-up to last year. We approved this same individual last year. He’s been great for us and is willing to consider doing it again this year if the committee is willing to reappoint. And this is a requirement from the state, right, to have a, yeah, we’re required to have it, yep. Do you want a motion. I move that we approve the school of physician Medical consultant Michael Youon as presented in the agenda. Um, any further questions or discussion? So. I guess the only question I have, um, Eric, you said he was appointed to this role last year. OK, so he’s already been there for at least a year, any longer than that or no? 2 years. I think last year and the year before, uh, previous to that, there was a different individual who retired and recommended this individual to us. Any questions or discussion? All right. Ready to vote All in favor That is unanimous of the five of us passes. I’m gonna get Here she comes. She’s coming. She’s coming. I didn’t get to use the gavel I You’re always excited toga. out of order and one OK Thank you for that OK Um, so next up, we had um because we had a member who, um, left the committee, um, we have an open subcommittee seat on the um capital finance subcommittee and as the year is getting started, we want to make sure to fill that seat. Can I make a nomination Certainly. I nominate Megan Benson to sit on the Capital Finance Subcommittee. Second, um, I heard a nomination and as a 2nd, um, Megan, is that a nomination that you would be willing to accept. I accept the nomination. OK. Are there other nominations for that seat? OK. Anybody have any questions discussion No. Are you sure. That’s fine. It’s not, it’s not. Um, all right, looks like we’re ready to vote. All those in favor? I vote too. You can or you don’t have to. Of course you can. It’s unanimous. Do you, did you vote? Yes, unanimous of the six members present and the motion passes. Thank you very much. Congratulations. Congratulations. Um, I did wanna just take a moment here to just chime in and say, um, typically or many times, not always, but many times in the past, we also ask a new member to take on a role, um, sometimes that role as secretary. Um, we’re definitely not going to talk about it tonight. It’s not on the agenda, um, and our secretary is not here this evening, but I’m just going to put it out there that, um, just sort of fair warning that I’d like to sort of have a discussion about that, um uh I I’ll just put it out there because many of us have been the secretary when we were new. Um, it’s a little bit of, not all of us, Dave would like that? Yeah, and he’s not here, so we’ll, we’ll discuss. can’t speak for him, yes, um, and. yes, Dave is absolutely willing to be the secretary, but I would say also maybe ready not to be. We’ll see. So, um, I just wanted to give everyone sort of a heads up that that’s oftentimes. I know several of us have done it when we were new. something to think about. I just wanted you to warn, warning, all right. uh, Vinnie doesn’t I know pull it up and I can just tell you to click. to me. separate I don’t think I even read it. I thought it was junk. for the chord junk I think I, I think I didn’t even open it. Man, why did they make it so high? Oh don’t fall. Let’s ask about that. Mm Mm Mm turns blue Aw we love a cute baby at the beach picture. We need an updated picture. teething so it’s so cute. Little teeth OK, thank you for letting me present tonight. We are here to review our FOI 25, uh, year-end actual expenditure balances as of June 30th. 2025 So, the district ended, um Disco 25, uh, in a fairly well position. We ended with approximately $107,000 left over at the end of the year. Um, when you build a budget, your goal is to be as accurate as possible. Uh, so the best outcome would be exactly 0, if you look at it from a budget perspective but to be honest, I’m a finance guy, a money guy. I really like when it’s a bigger value. Uh, we get to reinvest some of that money into capital in the next year or help us out with the next budget. Uh, but in theory, the closer you get to zero, is the more accurate you were when building the budget. Uh, comparatively, this is we have not, uh, ended this close to 0 in the past 6 years. Uh, the last time we were close to that was in at the end of FY 19, uh, when we ended, I believe, just around $10,000 which is a little too close for my comfort, uh, but nonetheless, this is, uh, as close as we’ve gotten in the past 6 years. Before I dive a little bit into the numbers, I always like to explain how the presentation works. This one is a little different than my normal quarterly forecast updates and the fact that this is the year-end, so there’s another section. Uh, so it’s broken down into three major sections. The first section is the variance between what I predicted in quarter 3 to what we actually ended with. Uh, the second section is the total difference budget to actual. So what’s the difference from what we approved, uh, in February of 2024 to how we ended uh on June 30th, 2025. And then the last section, uh, just like my forecast is the complete detail, uh, broken out by school location, uh, and then furthermore, broken out by the 11 DEI categories. Uh, so to start off, you’re viewing now the summary by location or department. So this is all of our 5 schools, uh, plus our major district-wide departments. Uh, you can see that we ended the year again with $17,000 balance, uh, distributed out into these categories. This is that same financial information just broken down by DEI category. Uh, so for those of you who have been here or for new members, um, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education requires a regional school district to approve and to monitor their budget throughout the year, uh, based on these predefined DESI categories. Uh, so I’m required to present it as such during the budget process and throughout the year during my quarterly presentations. Uh, so this is that same chart and it again, uh, shows a balance of $107,000. Uh, this really isn’t how we monitor the budget on a day to day basis. It’s more off the first chart by the school location or department. Uh, but again, this is a requirement from DESE. So again, these first few slides, I’m trying to explain to you the variance between what I presented to you on May 1st for my quarter 3, prediction on where we’re going to end the year to where we actually ended it in quarter 4. Um, some of the big variances where we had balances left over or around our capital items. If you remember during quarter 3, we requested a budget transfer to transfer approximately $180,000. uh, to help rebuild our high school library AC that failed us and to do some minor repairs to the Cutler parking lot. Uh, what ended up happening here is by the time we got this approved by the school committee and we were able to get our ducks in a row. Uh, we had to go out and get design firms to help us design the AC replacements, uh, and help us, uh, design some of the leveling at the Cutler School. That estimate from the design firm was gonna take too long, because we needed those documents before we were then able to issue the invitations for bid, which has a mandatory window that we have to remain open for 2 weeks. Uh, Curtis and I and Eric really thought it was too much of a time crunch, uh, to get this in before the year ended. Uh, so unfortunately, we could not get around to those major projects, uh, but we were able to do some smaller things around the district. Uh, we had a lot of drain repairs and slop sink repairs here at the, uh, Bucher Elementary School. We had a, the main water main break and leak at the Cutler Elementary School. Uh, we continued to do window replacement work at the middle school just like we did at the end of last fiscal year, uh, and we continued to do some um design work. on the um, high school, middle school boilers. Uh, these project altogether still left a residual balance within our capital items. Uh, so that’s why they are still presented on this slide. Uh, in addition to these residual balances, uh, Eric and I do have contingency funds, uh, within our budget accounts. Um, we hold those funds until the end of the year as kind of a just in case basis if any teachers come to us with kind of any, any new innovative ideas, uh, to help with learning or if the principles come to us with kind of any unbudgeted requests, we hold on to those funds, uh, to help make those things happen, uh, at the end of the year, we did not need those funds and between our two accounts, uh, we released approximately $70,000 in contingency funds. Uh, next item is a change in our school choice. Um, now this is an increase to an offset, which leaves a residual balance at the end of the year, just so you know, again, this is the change from Q3 to Q4. This isn’t the ending balance in our school choice. During Q3, I predicted that we were going to uh take in $40,000 less in school choice than what we budgeted. by the end of the year, the state sent us approximately $11,000 more than what we budgeted. That’s the difference between what I predicted in Q3 and what actually happened. Uh, on the flip side of things, we did have some items that I did not include in my um Q3 forecast or did not, uh, include accurately, I should say. Uh, the biggest item is around prepaid tuitions. Uh, we did have a number in there in Q3 for prepaid tuitions. However, we did end up paying, uh, paying 480 000 additional dollars for FY 26 out of district tuitions. Uh, in addition, where, uh, excited about the project that the IT team put into place this summer. Uh, they went through, uh, are still in the process of changing it all out, but they went through and changed our entire phone system to be classroom E 911 ready, uh, which means, you know, from a basic level, if before this happened, if a teacher or someone in the building picked up the phone and called 911. Uh, the emergency response would show up to the front door and have to find out where they need to go Now with this, um, new E911 system when the emergency response, uh, shows up, they know exactly what room that phone call came from. They get a uh not a detailed map of the building, but uh I would say a generic map of the buildings. So when they know when they come to the front door, they know that if they have to go left or right, depending on where that phone call came from. Uh, so it will reduce the time required for an emergency response to get to wherever the uh emergency is in the building. Uh, so that’s something where, uh, definitely excited about to enhance, um, our security and our emergency response across the district. Uh, in addition, we were able to purchase a 15 passenger fan that we are going to use, uh, to help reduce the cost of the athletic athletic event transportations, uh, that will ultimately lower their user fee needed for our athletic, uh, participants. Uh, in addition, at the end of the year, we did order, um, a lot of new Chromebooks and iPads to help replenish our dwindling, uh, supply as some of our equipment is aged out because we bought a lot of these items during COVID, roughly 5 years ago, which is just about the useful life of a lot of these products. Um, so this is a summary chart of all the changes between Q3 and Q4, I really only highlighted on kind of the highest 3 and lowest 3. as you can see down at the bottom here, there’s a difference of $300,000. This represents the difference in my forecast. So when I presented to you on May 1st, uh, I predicted that we were gonna have roughly $407,000 left at the end of the year, as you saw on the previous slides, it ended up being roughly 107,000, a difference of approximately 300,000. Uh, now this next section, as I remember, as I, uh, told you a minute ago is the difference between our original budget that we passed in February of 2024 to how we actually ended the year. Again, I took the highest 3 and lowest 3, to discuss in terms of savings and balances at the end of FY 24, um, the school committee authorized me to prepay FY 25 tuitions. Uh, we did that to the tune of approximately 1.3 million, uh, just to stay on prepaid tuitions. We also did the same at the end of FY 25 for FY 26 tuitions. That was approximately 1.4 million. Uh, so when you net the two together, we did spend approximately $100,000 more in our prepaid tuitions for FY 25. Going back to our savings, uh, the second biggest ticket item is health insurance. If you go back to my Q2 and Q3 forecast. I talk a lot more in detail on where this balance comes from. Uh, tonight I’m kind of just gonna do a high-level view. Um, health insurance has a few moving parts. Uh, the biggest one I would say is around our premium rate increase. So if you rewind back, uh, about a year and a half ago, I met with Harvard Pilgrim, our insurance carrier, uh, NFPR insurance broker, uh, in some uh, insurance uh, experts in the arena. All of them were telling me plan for double digit premium rate increases. So when we built our FY 25 budget, I included, uh, a premium rate increase of 10%. If you fast forward from that point about 6 months, I then went and negotiated the premium rate increase with Harvard Pilgrim. We settled on a 4.9% increase, which was, which was much better than a lot of our peers in the area. Uh, this reduction of roughly 5% had savings of just under $200,000. So just that, uh, 5% premium rate increase alone, uh, accounts for nearly a third of our savings. In addition, when we go to build our FY 20, uh, when we go to build any budget when we set our health insurance, we look at exactly who is enrolled on a certain date. and then budget appropriately for the following year based on who’s enrolled and what plans they have. But if there are any vacant positions during that time. uh, to cover the liability that could happen. I always budget a full health insurance cost for those vacant positions. I believe we had about 13 vacant positions at the time we set the 25 budget. Therefore, I included health insurance for all of those individuals. That alone was $277,000. So very quickly, uh, do the numbers for health insurance add up to where this residual balance comes from. The 3rd biggest item like we have every year is our vacant is savings from vacancies. Um, so this isn’t necessarily a good thing because this isn’t um teachers in front of the staff. So this is vacant position where there is nobody or a long-term sub, depending on what position it is in front of the students. So even though we might create savings, and that’s a good thing. It really is time away from the students, so it’s not necessarily a good thing. However, just to explain it a little bit, uh, we had two major positions that were vacant for almost, uh, the majority of the year. That was my district accountant position was vacant starting in January and was not filled for the rest of the year. And then we had a full-time psychologist position that was vacant for the entire year. That psychologist’s position alone is $110,000 position. So just from two positions alone, we’ve almost accumulated half of our va c an c y savings from last year Moving on to some of the deficits, um, I, we talked about our prepayment of FY 26 tuitions. Um, the next item here is the additional cola. Now, when I was doing this, I said to myself, no way that should be on here. That was so long ago, but it was really only 8 months ago. It just feels like it’s been a long time. So as you remember when we go, when we went to build the 25 budget, we were in negotiations with the majority of our unions, so we did not know, um, what cola they were going to receive in FY 25. The placeholder that I put in was nowhere near enough to what actually happened. The net result was we agreed to salary increases of roughly $950,000 more than what we budgeted. Um, that’s why that number is so large because we didn’t know the cola when we went to set the budget. Uh, the next item is around out of district uh, students and placements. Last year FY 25 was a difficult year for out of district transportation. Uh, we ended with a deficit of I, I believe, about $250,000 in just our out of district transportation alone, uh, and then in addition, we ended with a deficit of about $450,000 for our out of district tuition costs. So combined, uh, we were looking at a deficit of about $692,000 for FY 2 5 just for these two items alone. And this is another reason why you saw those kind of big increases in our FY 26 budget as it relates to transportation and, uh, out of district tuition. Yes. In terms of the increase in tuition. Do you know what the percent increase in tuition was? on average approximately I believe it was 3.5% was the OSD rate increase. I, I. 62 I think it was, yeah. And we budgeted for like 2 to 2.5. Um. we budgeted for, I believe, at 3%, but the problem was the placements, the type of placements, so not to get it wasn’t the increase in tuition, it was somebody needed more service. Correct. They went to a different school that, um cost a lot more than what we originally anticipated, so it wasn’t so much that we didn’t um, budget the increased correctly. It was, things changed that we could not have foreseen. Yeah. Um, OK, I think I’m good there. Um, I know this is small, which is why I included it as I believe exhibit number 2 or 3 on the agenda. This is the entire um difference from our original budget to what we ended with. Um, I again, I know you can’t read it all. I try to in the previous slide, just talk about the 3 highest and the 3 lowest, uh, but obviously ask any questions if there’s other information on here you want to see, uh, but there’s two things I would like you to at least take away from it. That $107,000 in the bottom is within a 0.26% accuracy to our entire budget. Um, in addition to that, you can see that there are major swings within our budget. You have $4.7 million or 4.6% depending on which column you look at of a variance. So to take away from that is we are setting the budget 18 months before some of these things actually come into play. A lot of things can change in that time frame. Just think about that for a second. What if we only had the 4.4.7 million dollars swing in the negative direction, and we didn’t have all of these other positives. We’d be talking a much different story uh throughout the year. which is why I try to be as conservative as I can during the budget building process. That’s one of the major reasons I always try to budget full health insurance costs for any vacant positions, because so many things can change throughout the year. We really need to build in coverage for ourselves in case anything happens. If you just compare these numbers to our overall budget. That’s almost a 10% swing in either direction when you look at our budget in total. So again, if you’re gonna take away anything from this, is there a lot of things change from when we go to build the budget, um, to win the year actually ends. So again, just like a lot of my presentations, the next 20 slides is a complete detail of absolutely everything that changed from when we set the budget to right now. I am obviously not going to go through all 20 slides. It is very repetitive, but just till it’s show you how it works, uh, just the first one, Buker Elementary School. They ended the year in a deficit of $33,000. That $33,000 is then broken out into the 11 deci categories that all work up to contribute to that negative 30 $33,000. So just looking at professional development, um, $9000 of that negative 33 comes from professional development. I tried to be as detailed as I can, uh, during these slides. I went and just kind of pulled other regional school districts in the area and sent them this section of the presentation, and they were absolutely shocked that I present to you guys a variance of $47,000 from supplies that we did not spend. Um, they’re really just doing kind of one line for every single school where I break out absolutely everything. I’m even telling you that there’s $520 because one teacher took one unpaid day back in September 8 months ago. The reason for that again, is so you can see that there are so many moving parts to our $4.2 million budget that so many things can change. um, from beginning to end. So again, I’m not going to go through all of these, but the next 20 slides, um, break that out in its entirety. If obviously you have any questions about this, uh, don’t hesitate to ask if tonight you go home and you take a second look at it. If a month from now you take another look at it. If you decide to look at this right before we do our FY 27 budget please don’t hesitate to ask about any numbers on here. I’ve looked through every number on here from every single direction. I might not be able to answer you in 2 seconds, you know, 6 months from now what it means, but I can certainly um hunt it down for you and get the information. So the last item for today is our transfers once I get to it. Um, so at the end of the year, we always do year-end transfers. Uh, so our auditors, our bond council, and our financial advisors have all warned us that our bond rating, they do not like to see negative balances at the end of the year, so they all recommend to us that we do budget transfers at the end of the year to kind of bail out these DEI categories. So just to go back to the DEI slide. You’ll notice in the last one, there are 4 negative DEI categories. These 6 transfers bailout those four, deficit DESI categories, if approved the end result would be no deficits anymore. It’s still the exact balance of $107,000 but we no longer have any deficit categories. I did uh make a transfer motion, uh, to help assist with the transfer tonight that does conclude my presentation. I can either go back to the transfer slide or answer any questions or whatever anyone would like. Thank you. Thank you. I have a question. so obviously there seemed to be more unexpected repairs then. usual and part of that’s just due to the fact that Cutler and Winthrop are coming to the end of their lifespan basically us over a quarter of a million dollars just to maintain heat over the winter. Yeah, um should we think about budgeting more in the next budget into the capital savings account. just so we’re buffered against these things practice to do. Are you talking about the capital stabilization, not only would that be a good idea, but just funding repairs in general through the budget would be a good idea. Uh, in addition to the capital stabilization. Both would be uh, excellent. Even this summer, uh, we’re currently on a path, uh, to exceed our maintenance budget. Um, so you’ll be seeing that throughout all of FY 26 as well. And there are a couple of ways we can do that. The capital stabilization fund is one, which ends up really being movement of excess and deficiencies, but the. the other way is to actually come forward at a town meeting with a capital request for specific items. So we’ll do that in April because the losing the lights again because of the uh high school roof project, we’ll have to go to make a capital request to the town, so this kind of two different ways we can do it. Thank you. questions I, I totally appreciate the detailed numbers. I think like what other trends are you kind of seeing. So we know we potentially need to look at more money for the capital stabilization fund, um we have the teacher’s contract. We have a lot of contracts solidified. What are some other like bigger pieces, maybe like one or two that you think we need to be really keeping our eye on employed when a teacher turns over is to hire a um younger, less seasoned employee Uh, what has the result of doing that though. is more maternity leaves. So we’ve seen an uptick in the need for long-term subs, uh, that kind of counters us hiring that. um younger teacher that um. less less experience. Yes, I was, so we probably will need to invest more in our long-term substitute line if we are continue um to employ that practice. Um, as you saw last month, our, um, bus contract came in much higher, uh, what maybe someone didn’t focus in on is the special ed portion of that in the athletic portion of that. So when we issued that invitation for bid, the company that won was based on our regular our general ed transportation routes. But if they win that, they also win our special ed transportation and our athletic events. Um, so those other two items. went up at a much higher rate than our general education transportation which is again one of the other reasons we went out and tried to purchase that van cause we know that athletic transportation is gonna shoot up in the budget next year because of the results of those bids. So that would kind of be two items. I know I’m at least gonna focus on during the next budget process. Thank you. in motion Oh, I didn’t know if you wanted a motion. No, I, well, I just wanted to say, um, which is not really a question, but it’s just a comment. I, I just wanted to put my two cents in that those 20 slides that you didn’t show. I just want to say they take forever. No, they take forever and I really, uh I find them to be, and I fully admit not to looking at every single one of them, but I, I do look through them and they are really helpful and it is for me, it’s a very clear way to understand. So I guess I understand it’s a lot of work and I’m really grateful for it. I just, that’s my two sons. I don’t know whether the rest of the committee finds those useful, but I do, um, I, I find it really useful to really understand, um, so, and for transparency because there are exhibits that anyone can access. So I think that’s really understandable and, and I imagine that the public does also that they’re really understandable. I would make a recommendation about those 20 slides is even if you don’t look at them in detail now, I would recommend looking them in detail when we go to create our next flood lake so you can at least kind of see what happens within those lines before we go to make 27 I think they’re very, very useful. So thank you. I move that the Hamilton Wyndham Regional School Committee approves the FY 25 operating expense budget transfers as recommended here, herein by the Assistant Superintendent of Finance and Administration and as presented on the previous slide entitled FY 25 year-end Transfer request. Seconded by Jen Carr Uh, anybody have any questions or discussion about the transport motion? All right. All those in favor? is unanimous of the six members present, and the motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Vinnie. OK Um uh. All right Committee reports you know that we’re gonna have but we’ll see. Capital finance. Um, so I sent out an email to find out when Vinnie and Superintendent Tracy want to meet for our first capital finance meeting and once they get back to me, I’ll send it to Julia and I’m sorry, I’m awful with names, Megan. Um, OK Great. Sounds like you’ve had some fun stuff to dig right into. Um all right, Policy. to do Mhm. This is our 2nd time bringing this to the full committee, and we’re asking for a vote tonight on the wellness. policy. Um right, uh do you wanna shout, what do you wanna start with? Do you wanna start off with emotion? Do you want to tell us about it? Do you wanna? Yeah there were no changes. The committee has already reviewed this in a previous meeting of the last meeting we had, and, um. as our policy dictates for policy, we read, review them twice publicly and this is just the 2nd review. So there’s no changes. that were made from the original reading. Sometimes there are, but not in this one. so you could just make a motion I move that the Halo Wyndham Regional School Committee approved the policy 8 ADF ADF wellness policy as updated on the agenda. Seconded by Amy Kumberger. um. is there any further discussion on this? Um. just for edification, the reason we updated this policy was to match the state, right? OK ready to vote All right, all those in favor That is unanimous of the six members present, and the motion passes. Um, thank you, Policy subcommittee. Um, and now, I’m gonna ask about my cheat sheet. Yes, uh, so we had planned to, I’m sorry, I should clarify for Megan. I’m sorry. Um, a while ago, um, we, the committee had, um, tasked policy with, um, kind of doing a review of our policy so that, um, so I don’t know, you could say in in the meetings, I wanted to cheat cheat. We wanted to cheat cheat. It’s about voting thresholds, so for some things, it’s just a simple majority. Sometimes it’s a 2/3 majority, and we just wanted a quick way to make sure we knew which ones were which so that we’re not scrambling for like, right, we, I can’t, I don’t even remember what happened, but we were in a situation where I was like. anyone know? Do we need how many votes do we need in the tasks this policy subcommittee with finding all that language, which we have started on, we were planning on meeting after our workshop, which in I’d say it was probably not the best. thing to just like get get it together. So I sent out an email today to schedule our next meeting at that meeting, we’ll finalize it and then bring it to you. Great. I’ll vote on it. All right. We have to vote on it? I’m not sure because I don’t think it’s an actual policy. It’s sort of just a stockpool it’s a reference doc document, um, but I think it would be useful to bring forward so that we have. it’s just useful information And it sounds like we have a lot of work to do within policies subcommittee coming up. So I, the email I sent out asked if her name was. available to me next week just because I know the three of us and there are teachers, and we might have some time next week. And then try to find like a standing time that we could meet. however much we need to to meet that December deadline. So we’ll see what people say OK. Um, negotiations chair is Dave Polito. He’s not here. We don’t really have anything now. Nothing now. Um and then maybe this is where I should have said about the secretary report is that I do hope at the next meeting we can just have a conversation with the committee about the role of the secretary and whether we, what we want to do with that. So we’d just be thinking about that. Um, this is also the place, um, where um, ideally, um we would have a report about just, just keeping up with the minutes, making sure that we’re, um, so as we’re starting off fresh for the new year, let’s make sure we keep on top of those minutes, um. they are really good. This the minute here are always up to date. It’s really our subcommittees that need always to be paying attention to that Um. right? Anybody else have anything else on committee reports? You, Eric Thank you. a couple of things for the superintendent’s report. The clearly the work is being put in this summer by the, uh, custodial staff getting our buildings ready. We are just about there. I toured in the past. last week, end of last week, um, and early this week toward, um, the buildings to see where we were at. We’re in good shape. There’ll be some final touch-up work, um, the blast buildings always come together as the Winthrop because we do summer programs there. So they get delayed a little bit, but it’ll be all hands on deck for that. Next week, our, uh, teachers come back. We have our teachers for 4 days. We have over 100 opportunities scheduled for them. uh, throughout the 4 days to take, take part in events, activities, trainings, things that are required by the state for them to do so it’s a nice opportunity for them to get those things out of the way. They also have some time to get into their classrooms and we’ll do uh, you know, the opening gathering on Monday with everybody and, and, and, uh, and let it, let it go from there. for the, for the week to make sure things like power school training and the mandatory trainings required by the district, the state required training. So all of those things can, we can get them off that those things off teacher’s plates before the kids show up on the 2nd. Just a reminder, we do start, start school on the 2nd, um, and it’s always a great time of year about a week ago, I was at the high school when the athletics teams started coming in and for me that’s like my burst of energy to be like, here we go, it’s a new year and we’re ready to go. So we’re excited for a new school year. There’s a lot going on. I want to make sure I invite people to the September 6th. 5th and 6th weekend actually, the, the whole week, I should say, from the 2nd through the 6th, um, we have games scheduled on the new fields, um, come to the events, support our kids. Friday night is, uh, uh, uh, kind of the opening football game, the first night football game ever here in Hamilton Wyndham, and then um on Saturday evening, 6 to 8 there’s been a subcommittee of parents working, uh, night and day to get, uh, nice little event set up to open the facility, kind of the grand opening, but also to let people see everything and tour it and be part of it. Um, there are a few things that we’re wrapping up this week. We have to get occupancy permits for things like the stands, uh, before those happens, but those should be all out of the way before we open up. So we want to make sure we invite anybody who wants to come on the 6th, 6 to 8th, there’ll be lots of events and activities, uh, for kids especially, uh, designed and set up. There’ll be swag for sale. They were looking at, um, food availability, just to be able to have, uh, the community come together and celebrate what they’ve done. This is a really a big community project. So we appreciate it and we want to celebrate that with everybody in the communities. Superintendent Tracy, yes, will all of the sports teams be playing games on those fields. Yeah, there’s a uh athletic director Craig Ginnualo has set up a rotation. and it’s set up so that I think every team, plays 3 games on the main, what they call the main field, which is the one where the track is. Um, so I know they’ve done that, they’ve done, they’ve been practicing on various fields, rotating through. um the one dilemma, not dilemma, the one thing we knew was going to happen, there are two fields way in the back of of the, um, new fields that are not finished yet. They’re grass. The grass needs to grow. Um, so they’re finishing up the final touches on the sprinkler system this week. They will put grass down, uh, seed down, excuse me, turn those sprinkles on, get the grass to grow. We will not be able to use those this season. So it limits us a little bit and who’s going where. So we’ve been asking the coaches to be flexible, but yeah, at different times, different locations. um, and the nice thing is you can, you, with the lights, you can do games right into the evening. We’re also trying to just be respectful to the neighbors and not have the lights on every single night all the time, so. um, trying to find that balance and we’ll do that throughout this year. This year will be really trial and error to to see how games fit Uh, we don’t always schedule our games. They get scheduled through across the league through various schedulers. So it’s kind of what, what you see is what you get. Sometimes you get 3 events and on the same day, and then you got to try to scramble and figure out where to, where to put games, but he is shooting to have at least um 3 home games on the main field for each of the varsity teams and JB teams will, will use the field as well. I mean, the one thing people probably don’t know is not only is this the main field is lying for all of our sport behind it is another full-size field that’s lying for all of our sports, so you can play in either one of them. It’d be nice to have everybody home Other questions Uh, I, um, what, what are the next steps in getting the latest start for the high school and the middle school. One of the last, the next step in moving the, um, the start time for the middle school and the high school. back and forward and now. Uh, it’s one of our goals this year. We’re just cleaning up the deliverables, how, what that looks like through the year. So we’ll work on that this year. That is one of the goals that we worked on in the workshop. We the proposed goals, uh, we honed them down to 4 or 5, I think, and then, uh, leadership team working on deliverables to those goals. So we’ll get a final set of goals at the next school committee meeting on the 4th. That’ll have the liberal deliverables that will outline how that process will go. It’s gonna take some time. There’s a lot, there’s a lot of moving pieces and parts for that one. Yeah, no, no. Thanks. Um, I, Amy just actually alerted me to this. I was gonna ask you were talking this is just for my own or our own understanding. It looks like in our inbox, we’ve got something about no be training? Is this something that No before. Are we all supposed to be doing that? Is this something that the district is doing. Tell us about that I I have to say I Amy, I said I didn’t get it either, and I had just assumed it was junk. The know before training is for staff. um, certainly you are welcome to take it. It’s part of a grant that we wrote last year which paid for it. We got a grant through the tech department. um, to help us with our fishing and spam education of our, um staff and faculty. We would love you to be involved in that. You should all, because you have an email, receive the link that says no B4 with the number 4, it’s part of our insurance requirements as well. Those, uh, insurance companies now because of the liabilities related to the outcomes of bad fishing expeditions, if you will, um, are really looking out and, and making decisions on insurance costs, uh, related to things like training, what types of training are we doing? Our, uh, tech team throughout the year does um fish. uh, legally they have a license to fish and they do, they do fish and send emails through our own systems. with this company, with the, with the, as part of the grant, um, to see if people will bite, and that gives them some information to say 30% of the people that got this email pushed the button basically. So we’re just trying to educate the staff to help them to understand what uh what to look for, what types of things pop out at you and just continue training. It’s an hour long training, which is, you know, is, is long when you’re looking at from a teacher perspective, you have probably 3 or 4 hour long trainings before you start your school year every year. So, uh, it’s just it’s an important piece of what we’re doing with all of our technology as we’ve seen schools get ransomed. um, for lots of money. We want to stay out of that realm. Our tech department does a lot of behind the scenes work with security. We have multiple levels of security and as aggravating as they are, it’s important to keep them in place and use them and learn about them. So that’s part of the process that been initiated. Thank you. So that’s something that is the school committee can take part in I would encourage you all to be part of it. If you didn’t get an email, send me an email and I will make sure you do. And if you didn’t, if you don’t find it in your inbox, like check your, yeah, let us know and yeah. I thought it was one of those emails that they send. I did too. I, I like I just I I just deleted it. We have a document going out to everybody tomorrow, which you’ll all see that we’ll list all the trainings next next week and that’s on the bottom document, so that’s how you know what it was in that and that it is real. I never ever need a gift card from any about the target one? I thought it was a scam. We got scam emails from Joe before at some Saks. It’s another, I’ve got to do it there too, and no. Um, thank you, Eric. um I don’t have a ton on my chair report. I’m looking forward to school starting. Um, I did want just for the committee to know that the MASC conference is, um, November 12th through 14th if you want to just put that write that down and sort of check it out, see if that works for you, um. we didn’t have anybody go last year, um. but I’ve been in the past, it’s you know, I know it’s a big commitment it’s during the week. I know it’s a lot, but it is also something that’s really I’ve found it to be really informative, really useful. Um, so just take a minute, look at it on the MSC MASC website and consider it and then if you are interested, you can sign up. um, just right there, and Janelle can help you to um. so um and is it appropriate to mention the election? So I think officially because we all just signed that. I think it’s important that I think the biggest information we want to give out is just the sort of the facts about, um, that there is going to be a ballot vote on um should I say September September 15th from 12 to 1 to 8, um, absentee ballots are available, um, absentee ballots are different than early voting, um. but they are available Um until September 8th September 8th Um and it is my I’ll, I feel safe saying this is my genuine hope that anyone and everyone who’s eligible to vote comes and votes. Um. right Hm I think that’s, oh, the only at the end of last year, we, we was 10,000 degrees in here, I think so I didn’t get to say the end of the year and we want to take a guess how long our average meeting was. 2 hours What did you say No, 15. No, it was less than that. 99 minutes, hour 1 hour and 39 minutes. Nice, um, so anyway, that excludes executive session. Fair. um so it’s just a I just I strive to have shorter readings, so that was like. Um, all right Uh, anybody have any questions for me No? Topics for future meetings OK. I would like to introduce a segment of our meeting, not necessarily every meeting, but we could if we wanted to, to a what’s in our inbox? feature session segment, um, where we can just, just sort of trying to come up with ideas to create more channels of communication um to give highlights of the types of questions or communications we’re getting in our emails from the community. OK. Um Discussion Is that what you want to discuss it first? So I think that the topic would be to discuss it. right? Is that, is that the question is whether we want to, yeah, do you want a discussion format on the agenda? Yeah, I don’t know what I had in mind I’d be open to feedback about that. OK, well, we can touch base about what it looks like, but I think I understand you’re looking for an agenda, uh, uh, ultimately an agenda item at least on some meetings that would that would allow segment like a new like a news program. You could, you know, no, I, OK. Thank you. Um, any other topics for future meetings? OK. I’m sure they will appear. I OK in the future OK Anybody have anything else I’ll move motion to adjourn. Do you have a second? 2 by Amy Kamburger. All those in favor. and we are officially adjourned