Seeing the presence of a quorum I'll call this meeting of the Amherst Pellum Regional School Committee at 6 30 p.m. Wow runtime And seeing the presence of a quorum. I'll call this meeting of Union 26 to order also at 6 30 okay, and In accordance with mass general law chapter 30 a purpose to which Describes the need to conduct negotiations of the non-unipersonal and executive session if it would be detrimental to do so in public session I hereby move that the regional school committee entered to executive session. Is there a second? Then moved and seconded by Ms. McDonald it requires a roll call vote will begin down here Okay, we the regional school committee is an executive session The regional school committee did but Union 26 has to go in now hence why I was not looking forward to the interruption Are you back on thank you very much, so don't okay? And so I will move for Union 26 to enter executive session in accordance with mass general law chapter 30 a purpose to To conduct negotiations with non-union personnel Sean my gun, okay, and so roll call vote Starting on the end Demling I McDonald I or don't as I haul I all right my executive session great.  We're we're back Superintendent would you like to introduce the item? You're good So Yeah, so we're coming back to this item that was discussed at a prior meeting of the same two bodies and There were some changes one one that I want to really highlight from the prior discussion the topic was around Establishing an agreement with the school superintendent the town manager to utilize the school finance director to develop options and make recommendations for financing town and school capital projects and we talked last time about how that might work and One of the feedback that we received On the last page of the memo And the most significant change is on that back page and I appreciate the town manager for engaging with myself and Hearing that feedback Right above the paragraph where it says conclusion The changes the proposal proposal will be implemented as a pilot that will terminate on October 1st 2019 unless otherwise extended by agreement of the town manager superintendent of schools Amherst Pellum Regional School Committee and Union 26 Will committee so the prior version that you looked at had sort of a tentative End date, but it was it was loose and it was sort of like one could read the read the memo as That it would sort of continue unless someone wanted to end it and this has the actual opposite arrangement that it has a defined End date and if there is a continuation if this is a relationship between the committees in the town of the Amherst That's working effectively That we would want to have re-engaged conversation about how to move forward So I think one of the things that that I think I feel more comfortable with And you know I want to speak for the town manager But I think we're in agreement is that we want to actually have a time-defined end date And if things are going so swimmingly To actually reopen how this might look in the future to not make a you know what it might end up feeling like a long-term arrangement Now but to see how this goes and to actively re-engage instead of passively If this is something that we want to continue into the future So that's the the most significant change really the only Meaningful change in the memo from the last meeting to the current meeting Thank you for taking this up But I think that change that you suggested at the last meeting actually is better from my perspective I think for the district's perspective because it It clarifies for the employee also that this may not be an ongoing Relationship, so I think that it has a lot of positive outcomes and it doesn't it really creates the clarification that you were seeking So I thank you for suggesting that. Thank you Mr. Manganan, you don't have to have any examples. Okay Think I would give it a shot at so for the committees So would this take effect immediately I think it would I think you know for our vantage point We've been having conversations with the town about this for quite some time I think from I don't want to again learn to be cautious, but I think I can say confidently from the town's perspective that There's some time urgency to figuring out if this model is going to work If not then there's gonna be after a very quick plan B given where we are Capital planning for the town of Amherst on their end and from our end I think if we're going to start it this feels like the appropriate time to get going I think the longer we go without starting it the less effective kind of the relationship would be And and I'd be concerned about the catch-up time the mission one guy I would have to spend Picking up midstream of a capital process for the town and how that would impact his work in the for the regional schools and for the 26 Other questions or comments I just want to share my appreciation to the superintendent and to the town manager for into mr.. Mangano of course for Considering and you know an end date to this. I think that actually feels more doable Knowing that we can come back and have another conversation at some point and it's not just sort of a you know pre ordained conclusion So I appreciate that change So I just want to quickly check in with John again to make sure that given the updates to the Contracts, he still felt like it was a positive The thing that he was looking forward to is something positive for himself districts Yes I think exactly what Paul said which is it creates a defined term So it's sort of like a specific project and then we can come back to it. So I think yeah, I agree and approve Right, right and I appreciate the extra work that you put into clarify both the the agreement As well as honestly the financial arrangements in which I mean everything you do is precedent and Regardless of how swimmingly this will go You're always concerned if you're opening up a Special policy or a special approach to contracting and remuneration Particularly being being membered towns of a regional district that are all equal In the multiple districts and so it it's challenging, but I think of the solution he came up with it with his neat I guess one question I have is what What do we what are I'm trying to remember what we talked through or what we need to talk through in terms of the vote in terms of the terms of the agreement Yeah, yeah, I think I should share them publicly before that. That's what I that's what I was thinking too Sure, so the terms of the agreement are that To line up things financially and to make sure it's fair for the multiple districts as well as for the town of Amherst We're estimating that would this transition would be for this Transfer would be 15% of mr. Manganos time and What we tried to do is net that what we did is net that out As an equation so we looked at that financial implication On the other side to make sure it net it out would be 20% of the town procurement officer his role We're applying for many capital funds in all of our communities and that's going to be a huge help to the business office I think it's fair to say it's not mr. Mangano's favorite task is procurement It takes a lot of time and it's not I think Consistent with the leadership that mr. Mangano is able to offer. It's not the best use of his time And the town procurement officer happens to be very good at that Those two numbers don't equal out so it also would net a payment on an annualized basis of roughly $6,000 to the districts To make sure that there's an equal financial arrangement between arrangement between the districts and the town of Amherst and For me, you know, it was it's defensible if I ever got questioned on it It really comes out even Steven and I think it really needs to and I appreciate the perspective of Precedent setting that we want to work collectively and Collaborative of all of our member towns and we wanted to do that fairly to make sure the balance between our towns Any of the towns is kept live and active and feels fair. So I really I really appreciate you going over that because that to me that's In the end one of the most critical. I mean obviously how this works Both in terms of the end product for the town of Amherst and the end product for the districts But also and then the day-to-day working relationship that obviously I think then the concern expressed By every member of the committee pretty much at some point about hoping that I'm looking at you, Mr. McDonough. You're happy and you have like I mean you're going to be worked very hard So I guess I mean happy in the context working very hard and Productively, but we wanted that to work out but frankly in that context. We're also concerned that You know anybody from any one of our towns who might ask us so what are you guys doing? The answer is something that not only is completely transparent, but completely holds up anyone who could rationally look at it and say Okay, you're just a termination date on it You're going to be able to review whether this is really worked out for all parties and from a financial basis It's completely clean in terms of the transaction of resources. So I think that's a good summation of where we're at Are there additional comments? Otherwise for the regional committee with the two two votes I'd entertain a motion and to approve the agreement with the town of Amherst for the finance directors additional role So moved is it seconded it's been moved and second any further debate Seeing none This does not need to be a roll call vote all those in favor on the regional committee the signify I've been raising your hand It carries unanimously with the one two three four five six people present And I will make the same motion for Union 26 Debbie feel free to just copy and paste however you articulated that but to power phase mr. Nakajima to for the Union 26 to approve the arrangement with the town of Amherst and Mr. Morgano's time as Expressed and we've written close Second all those in favor and it's unanimous congratulations Okay, I will entertain a motion to adjourn Union 26 There is second all those in favor of adjourning Union 26 Okay, we're adjourned. It's a funny question by the way should we've had the Union 26 approve their minutes before the adjourned Just saying they're sitting there. So, you know, they got to be done sometime I suppose you're right actually, you know what I take it back approval of the minutes isn't on the agenda So there you are you're done, okay That is it's yeah Two wrongs Omega Ray Some of the parts of strong the all right approval of the minutes of January 15 2019 and January 22nd 2019 at the beginning I will note two things one the January 22nd minutes need to be edited because they currently say January 12 And then the second thing is for January 22nd what I'd ask to the committee is whether they've Read through them already because the last page of the minutes aren't actually published in this document And so you'd have to have looked at it already if you want to approve it. Otherwise, we'll do it some other time But with that feel free to look through your minutes Yes Miss castings and asked asked how sharing a ton of Amherst procurement officer will help him I think what I was trying to ask is how it would affect Okay Okay, it's good For other comments I'd entertain a motion for January 15th. Okay, is there a second? Second thanks as you can still edit after you second And obviously we're going to take them separately Okay seeing no other edits all those a favor of approving January 15th 2019 minutes, please signify by raising your hand Okay, they witness tension Okay So five zero one the abstention being this cast and some and for the 22nd We already have two changes the date and the item in Item four are there any other edits? Okay, I'll take a motion to approve The minutes of January 22nd with those amendments so moved so moved is there a second second moved and seconded any further changes Seeing none all those approving signify by raising your hand It carries unanimously six to nothing Great So we will move on to Announcements and public comment Are there any announcements from the committee members? Yes? Just a quick one to say that the Amherstown council last night heard a draft resolution and a statement regarding the resolution that we passed here in this body in favor of the fund our future campaign and They approved the resolution and I believe they were signing it today possibly. I don't know anyway Which is great. It's just showing you know more support outside of school committees and outside of communities and districts for this campaign and Hopefully we get enough of Interest in this around the state so that we can continue to build enthusiasm for changing the foundation budget is really very important great Miss Miss Warland Thank you very much wonderful this may this may sound Like an odd announcement for the schools, but you may recall that last year Was it two years ago a while ago? I think it was last year. This is the school committee Pursued support for undocumented families and students and also supported In general the effort of the town of Amherst also supports students more broadly we had workshops That helped giving resources and awareness and I just I thought it was worth noting That you know one of the activists who's been a central leader in our community one of our neighbors in Supported safe communities and undocumented citizens residents including Dreamers Eduardo Semen Diego Was has not only been detained which I think many of us are aware and have been writing letters and supporting him in detention in Georgia, but also that he now has at least Provided some agreement over the objection of his attorneys So it's one of those convoluted court things to accept voluntary deportation back to Mexico and You know he's lived in the United States for a long time I bring that up. I guess one because to the extent that there are members of our community Who are keenly aware of this issue either because of their friends They are allies of people who may be undocumented and there may be other members of our community who are in fact undocumented That this is this is an issue that may come back home to us because it's hit home pretty hard in this case I mean, it's not an announcement thing But if at some point for the superintendent updates you can provide additional, you know this year's sort of update on What we're doing. I think that'd be a valuable thing to do because it's often times we hear about these things in the news And you might hear about ice raids of restaurants in Boston or whatever But this is something that is acutely personal for our community anyway That's sober now I can't make it normally I make jokes and I try to be uplifting but this one doesn't really have enough lifting Ending right now, which I'm very sorry to say Are there any public comments if there are please come forward? You have three minutes to speak Please identify yourself and we would welcome hearing any of your thoughts I guess I always forget how much like the camera shows of the audience and whether people watching at home or aware of Other than a couple of people who are here to present to us. There's like nobody here except for Ambrose media who are awesome You guys are awesome Okay, we'll move on subcommittee updates. What do you have any subcommittee updates? I Can Update on the policy subcommittee week last week Reviewed some policies, and I believe we're bringing them back for set for our second read At our next meeting We reviewed fundraising policy And have a and we'll be meeting again next week We meet once a month, but because of all of our full-school committee meetings We got pushed off and submit last week, and we're going to be again in a couple weeks and be looking at Some other new policies that are out of date right other other updates Seeing none. We'll move on superintendents update superintendent See if I can keep this nice pace rolling. No, no, no take your time So a good segue into Ambrose media thanking them so this afternoon at 1245 There's a reason I'm saying the time once we get to in a second and the opportunity to interview John Bechtold who was here at this body. I think the last meeting as well as a high school senior Who was involved in the Laramie project and It was a one I think people will find it to be one of the most engaging episodes of window into our so we've had Just because it truly turned into a conversation about the Laramie project the impact and it was wonderful having a student participate, so that's It's not the first I'd have to think about it's first time, but it's been it's not been the typical Usually about the educators or community members and this student I've known that she was a young student at Quarka farm. So this was another neat treat for me But it was just it was a wonderful Episode and so the reason I said it was filmed at 1245. Is that a 521 this afternoon? I got an email from Amherst media saying they'd edited it already and was live and on already online Oh, wow, that is a new record for timeliness Responsiveness or whatever word I can come up with it was they were absolutely wonderful working and making a student who hadn't done this before feel Very comfortable, and so I think it'd be a great episode. It'll be on our social media tomorrow and be in the superintendent update on Friday Can I offer a mild editorial that? We've had a couple meetings recently that have been really long one of them was region one was Like that joint meeting we had which included region 26 and oh my god are these meetings long and just you know One of the groups that we never hear complaints from that frankly have every right to complain to us I mean seriously because they don't make the agenda They have every right to complain is Amherst media, and they don't and they're awesome, and they do great work Absolutely, and we've been doing more windows episodes than we've done in past years, and they're excited and responsive and Organized themselves a little differently in a streamlined way both for themselves and for their district this year So they knew of a new intro for the episodes if you've watched them You've known that they've actually done an animated introduction, so I completely endorse and agree with that Yeah, please add a quick kudos since we're all loving Amherst media right now Just to say the importance of community television right and in community media And that's you know This is a non-profit organization that happens to be at every single one of our meetings But it's providing a window into not just districts You know work but also into our local government's work and everything so you know really appreciate the work of our Both our staff and interns for Amherst media Trying to delay ourselves back on this right the next one has to do with like weather So people won't be that excited so we hopefully will have a farm to school launch event Thursday morning and It's scheduled to be at Amherst College However, the temperatures are expected to plunge very very deeply Wednesday night to Thursday So I did talk to you know Sasha Palmer food service director who is organizing the event that if you do have a delay You know certainly I could still be there But if there's a lot of staff who are planning to attend and it may not be it may need to be rescheduled So I'm sort of if there's a normal school day on Thursday morning We'll go forward as planned if there's any sort of delay it'll have to be rescheduled So throw off the whole the whole warning So the conversation before the meeting started about school committee members were joking around requests for snow days and delays that we have some Complicated rather this week if you look at the Midwest, they have really complicated rather this week So well, I am prone to complain about the cold Friends of Minnesota shared me their temperatures of the last three days I will not be complaining publicly about the cold this week I will be complaining however about the governor's budget update that mr. Mangana will get into more detail as we do the budget the charter reimbursement formula Again, we'll do this in the budget, but I think it I wanted to highlight it and that's why I included in superintendent update Has significantly negative ramifications for the regional school district I also think a second mr. Brockman about this because as you can tell from me emphasizing this this is an area that I feel strongly about advocacy I actually don't believe that there's a logic model that makes a whole lot of sense As it relates to changes in the charter reimbursement formula again, we'll get into the weeds of that later I just want to highlight it so that when mr. Mangana was presenting there's some context to that one Professional development for staff this is just an update that we have a number of things going on You know the special ed department and the human resources department are partnering around the special education moderate disabilities license They have over 20 staff members who express some interest in participating. They're doing Meetings and was I interviews to assess for Where people are on their continuum what supports they would need which is really exciting that the interest from our staff to kind of Some of them are paraeducators, but some of them are regular, you know Our regular education teachers who want to further develop their skills and working with all students The Spanish classes started last week so that is A regional item because we do have regional teachers Taking it the feedback I heard already was it's fantastic. There's instructors are great and This is a serious course where people are actively practicing the feedback I heard I was at the high school Yesterday and I heard two teachers in the course trying to you know their their job although they're new They've taken one class in Spanish is to practice what they've learned and they were seriously proud and they didn't know I was just walking in the hallway, so people are a staff for taking it seriously and wanting to much more deeply and quickly Develop their skills at least set of you know base conversational survival level in Spanish. That's really exciting And we also have a intermediate level Spanish class that is also open to staff across the multiple districts for staff with some Spanish skills, but need to develop further develop it last Saturday there was the the annual Martin Luther King breakfast was there and Our one of our middle school co-principal Joseph Smith was awarded the Rumor Jean Anderson civil rights and an academic achievement award She was nominated. He was nominated by a student in middle school, which I think is worth mentioning and Our student Carrington Dow was a recipient of one of the Martin Luther King scholarships that are given to high school seniors and There was and we've talked about this family here before I've started the year this way actually talking about some of these folks But Barry Brooks was on hand for a special dedication to his wife Judy Brooks And the last thing Mr. Selden's aware of this I know he can't be here tonight because of the impending. I think maybe starting snow from text. I'm getting Is that on Thursday will be at Schuetsbury school committee? No matter how cold it will be will be at Schuetsbury elementary school to meet with Schuetsbury families talk to them about the middle school in high school So the co-principals as well as dr. Grimacky will be with me meeting with Schuetsbury families And I want to thank the Schuetsbury elementary school who have been blasting out emails reminding families and sending our flight around It's apparently everywhere in the school like one can't miss it So hopefully the cold doesn't keep families away, but in Schuetsbury. I don't think it will It's just all in his promise and baked goods as well Which is another draw and certainly I expect, you know, I don't you know, he's the representative Schuetsbury I just want to let the committee know that that was happening. The levered event is about a month from now Oh, actually, I want to add something to the update because mr. Knacky raised it about immigration. So just briefly we have had two events around supporting undocumented Students and families in our schools the first is we had our presentation Which I was able to participate or observe part of back in the kind of mid-fall for families Because it's been two years since we did that and right high schools That means half the school wasn't here have the high school student body wasn't here last time We did it for any student who is interested and we had a good turnout of students for the session Really interesting discussion and questions they asked as well And to mr. Nakajima's point one of the more poignant moments I've had in my career is just Seeing the real deep-seated Concern and I'm gonna use the word fear of the current climate and what how that would all play out for You know 14 to 18 year olds in our schools and they were able to voice that very clearly and ask questions about it This year what was new is we followed up and gave students and families the opportunity for individual sessions with folks who did the presentation Just to be clear because legally we have to be they weren't giving Official legal advice. They weren't the council of any families or students that would Play off in some some ways that we can't do but they were able to offer their Understand families who would come in to share. Here's where I am. Here's my experience What next steps would you recommend and be able to give them advice of what they can do to? In a range of scenarios that families and students were worried about so the difference was last time We did the whole one with students and this time we included a more Individual family and student connection and we had several families and students who did take us up on that offer and did have private meetings with The good folks from Pear, which is the organization based in Boston that we work with I want to also add to the point of any time there's something in the newspaper about someone being deported from our community What we hear immediately is the ripple effects within within our families in our community So I do I do appreciate you raising that and even if that person who I've met and many of you have isn't directly connected to the ARPS community Indirectly it affects everybody here and it affects particularly our most some of our more vulnerable families Much more so than everybody else. So it is being felt. We have gotten inquiries We've gotten questions and every time there's any Newspaper articles about raids or sweeps anywhere in Massachusetts even if it's in Chelsea or somewhere far from here Our family's called the next morning and one information and really want to acknowledge the family center Who are on the front lines of feeling those phone calls and supporting families and working actively with them to feel Feel that they're part of this community despite the national and sometimes local context for them So I want to offer that update. I know it wasn't written down, but I'm glad you prompted me Glad you offered it. Are there questions with the superintendent any comments? No, I really appreciate it and I had a brain cramp. It's 2019. That was two years ago. Yeah, good grief Imagine To we've lived with this for two years over to your little over two years. It's terrible So we just with the chairs report briefly and I don't know if mr. McGon is going to talk about a little bit but the but The non-regional assessment working group It's like prince But we've been meeting and we met again It looked like we were the still the The bias of the towns came in with so we're going to try to hold harmless The regional district is still held for the moment. I'm hopefully continues to hold the Governor's budget was also bad for that conversation because the minimum contribution went up for particularly lever at one of the towns and You know, as you know, it's just a formula, right? So like once you move one component of it It throws everything else out of whack to try to figure out. How do you how do you get to a series of ratios? That could be with be fair Would be approved by desi so they'd look at it and say this makes sense to us And also it doesn't have an immediate hit on any in a given town's budget in a way that's beyond what they can What they can expect and so we're going to meet again next week as that small group And I guess when you're talking later, you can offer an update if you have one on this subject The the spirit of the enterprise is still that people are trying to work well together and come out with something a formula that all the towns can support that can Work for our budget and I think even there's a hint of trying to find a solution that would carry us forward a couple years into the future At least so that the district and it's kind of funny once we stop trying to find a permanent solution We've started to come closer Actually finding a permanent solution and I think also I think the noise that happens in this is you know I think I'm happy about all everyone on the committee has had enough experience with this to see at least some of the spreadsheets and How the numbers move fly around this way and that is I think we're enough years into every town seeing How their ox could get gored by this that people understand that there's nothing Either mysterious or malicious about the formulas and we just got to work together to find one So I'm I just appreciate that as an update to folks and we're gonna come back to the committee obviously with more Anyways We are ahead of schedule. This is good. I know I was told not to jinx it, but I'm not sure the jinx anything So I'm gonna move on though that a master facilities use presentation And would love an introduction. Yeah, so Before I introduce our guests who'll be doing most of the talking I just want to bring back to last year's capital plan that was approved included a Commitment to higher architects to work with us to look at a range of options about how we're using our secondary facilities In particular the interest and this really came from four towns meeting multiple four towns meetings. I should say to understand better Two-fold one is do students in a variety configuration, which I'll be a two and a second can students fit You know in you know for it can six graders fit in the middle school can seven eighth graders fit in the high school Yes, no, and then the additional piece is how would they fit right? That's like question 1b Because just fitting is not going to be sufficient. We want to think about the educational reality of that the second question is what are some of the financial implications of Putting six graders in the middle school and what are some of the financial implications of putting seventh and eighth graders in the high school? And I want to draw the line in the sand that we were specific about not talking about educational implications writ large that the goal of this study is to Understand better the infrastructure the logistics the design And then for this to come back to the regional school committee this thing to have active conversation to say Are any of these worth pursuing? We want to put more resources and time and staff time and perhaps consultant time into developing a more fleshed out version of What this would actually look like for our students and staff? And I think it's been really helpful. We've actually received we had our last which I know our consultants will talk about we had our first advisory board meeting which we had conversation here We had a great showing we ended up just opening it up to everyone who wanted because it ended up being a nice side So I think about 18 or so people 16. Thank you and one of the pieces that Feedback they received is as opposed to prior efforts to really being very focused on what the task is and not trying to take on every possible Implication Made people feel much more comfortable to participate to engage and to know what the role their role is as an advisory board What the district was doing what our team of consultants was doing so I really want to think that that was a lot of Conversation even last spring about what we were asking for in capital projects And I feel like sometimes you look back and you're like I wish I'd done this differently I think this is one that collectively the board the school committee rather that is made some really good decisions about What outcomes we want to have and I think that clarity is really helping the process move smoothly along with that I want to thank Doug Roberts and Jim Hoglund who are from JCJ architecture for coming tonight And though we talked about roughly half an hour of walking you through the slides and that that would leave 15 minutes I'm sorry 15 minutes of walking you through slides that would leave 15 minutes for a question and the answer And at this point we decided to have them come just one of at one wrinkle Or not wrinkle but just comment that we had just had them have them come at the front end So that the committee was fully abreast and aware of the developments what the work plan was one of deliverables would be Sometimes we wait too long and sometimes to have consultants come in and then the committee doesn't feel like they're in the loop And if we thought and for Scass and Simmons in that conversation of the rep to this that we wanted to have the consultants in To let you know how are things going and where are they going before we get to closure Fair Thank you, we're happy to be here dr. Morse. Thank you for the introduction Doug Roberts JCJ architecture Jim Hoglund You may remember JCJ architecture was the architect for the Wildwood elementary school study that was Completed a couple years ago, so we're happy to be back in the community and Using the information that we learned and knowledge to apply to this challenge ahead of us as well we were hired by the district and In the middle of December to embark on this task and given the goal of having it accomplished by the end of March Trying to advance the slide here Just advance to that too and In order to do that again We felt that it was important that we had a very detailed Detailed work plan so that we identified a series of meetings total of nine where we would be meeting with various Working groups and as dr. Morse mentioned the advisory board as well as yourselves So that we would read solicit feedback from the community so that we were tail-earing the study and the recommendations so that We were building consensus along the way that's one of the lessons that we learned from the previous study that The expectation is we don't know when but ultimately we're hopeful that this may lead to a statement of interest that would be received by the Massachusetts School of Building Authority, so we want to make sure that we had the groundwork there for a successful application In that three month period we've identified nine different meetings where we started off on January 2nd meeting with the working group Had representatives of the school committee the district administration and faculty and staff members from the middle and high school We're in fact finding mode So what we're trying to do is find out as dr. Morse touch upon the actual existing program We don't have an educational program looking ahead We're really testing what your programs are today and how we can solidate them in the different grade configurations To really have a baseline from which to make decisions in the future Building on that we then met with the Phillis facilities advise facility use advisory board last Thursday and again 16 members all members of the working group represented as well as members of the public It was a great exchange. We explained to the group what they are what they're not It's not a voting body. It really is a feedback Opportunity to get the pulse of the community so we give shape to the study one takeaway that we learned from that Feedback loop was that one of the voices that wasn't at the table is the voice of the student So we want to work with the district to understand how we can integrate that into the study as well So you'll see a series of steps in the middle of February We're forecasting to have our conceptual designs that Jim Hogan will talk about Available so that we can start developing some cost models because ultimately we would like to know what the impacts are on the facilities can we make use of Existing under you life space or their needs for additions and With that we can then have a draft study available middle of March. We're reviewing comment Ultimately presenting the final report at the end of March As I indicated we are in the fact-finding stage of the project right now Understanding the program again with the eye to other future towards MSBA participation We wanted to use the MSBA space program template as the baseline So we're using that to develop and the space models so that we can test What the existing facilities will support add to that from our previous work in Amherst We are aware that your class sizes are historically smaller than those that are typically embedded in the MSBA template On average about four students less per classroom less students per classroom You have more classroom needs so we want to make sure that that template actually is specific to Amherst And in addition to that you offer a very robust special education program So we want to make sure that we overlaid that on the space put a template So we're actually working with the Amherst template and as you can see in the charts there That's the different steps about how we were able to develop the different space programs for the multitude of great options That we were to consider So going hand-in-hand with the program studies Trying to understand the MSPA guidelines Amherst needs as well as what's physically in the building right now I think that's probably the biggest piece of the puzzle for us right now So we are currently spending time in the buildings walking through we've been given a series of packages of information But we're at this point very concerned well very interested in learning as much as we can about the physical condition of the buildings And that includes building codes The the years that these buildings were built, you know many many years 50 50 years ago building codes were much different Commonwealth just adopted the most recent international building code the 2015 version of that along with amendments that that make up the Massachusetts State Building Code It's all going to come into play here and that involves plumbing fixture counts how many toilets sinks you have in the building exit capacity for stairs As well as ADA accessibility as you try to move through this building there are some challenges Those are some of the pieces of information that have been given to us We're starting to really kind of go through understand and ultimately will be folded into the final report big big piece of the puzzle Another piece of the puzzle is how these buildings actually physically fit on the site themselves So we're going through understanding zoning analysis. So if some of the options that we are looking at Require an addition to any of these buildings We need to understand what the zoning is going to allow us if we're looking at a four-story addition not allowed by zoning So it somewhat brings us back to reality helps us focus on the possible options ahead of us But also once again a very important piece of the puzzle Understanding how the zones work and what we're really allowed to do that's going to involve The building site coverage how building how big the building can physically be on the site It will drive some of our parking decisions as to how parking lots get reconfigured So a very overarching idea, but a very important detail in what we're looking at currently The bullet points that you see on the screen right now is just a quick summary of the reports that we have been given We've given existing drawings of PDF form We have a couple of AutoCAD files that we've received as well as the recent athletic field study I believe that you were presented that Any addition that we may be looking at at the high school is going to impact Perhaps the preferred option that you're looking at so once again the building and site need to be looked at Comprehensively one's going to affect the other and we we need to understand what may be happening in the future Accessibility reports, I believe was just presented last week That that group went through the building identified series of ADA issues that that need to be corrected We are going to propose folding all of that into any renovation work that gets proposed and in some cases there may be scenarios that get presented and proposed that would preclude that work actually being done we may end up looking at some demolition in part of The building that would make some of those problems go away and then as part of renovation or new construction All of that gets corrected So once again a big piece of the puzzle there there were some some significant dollars that were attached to some of that corrective work We need to understand as part of the big picture Recent roof report was given to us as well as some some existing plans So what we were really charged with was getting into each of the buildings middle school and the high school really understanding Some of the adjacencies how the education is currently being delivered how that ties in with curriculum And then the physical condition of all these spaces the systems So I'm going to focus on the middle school first and we've gotten some wonderful feedback through our first four meetings Very interactive back and forth the people in the community really understand the buildings very well We've spent time in the buildings. We look at it through a slightly different lens So a lot of the things that we're hearing back are very helpful because it's from staff It's from the public. It's from parents in the school And we're looking at it from an architectural and engineering standpoint. So The middle school site we're looking at Understanding how the buses arrived how the parents drop off and this is just a very simple diagram identifying main entry points you have an entry point for the parents Central office the main entry for the building as well as leisure services share part of that So understanding how all of that gets separated How you control who gets to what part of the building I think is very important at this part And if we're truly looking at a facility use standpoint, I think it's important to know The utilization of each and every piece of that building and whether we can constrict that if we can move big chunks of space in and out So the site obviously compared, you know ties directly to the floor plans These are some high-level diagrams We did get CAD plans for the buildings and we're now able to do very precise area takeoffs within exact Classrooms and determine, you know that this classroom is 683 square feet. It's not 800 square feet And that that's going to be really helpful as we begin to try to fit all of these programs throughout the building I'm not going to get into a lot of detail. It can go through the first floor the second floor The next plan We did a series of very high-level diagrams that we've presented over the last few weeks And these high-level diagrams are really designed to look at big chunks of space and figure out how that big chunk of space Fits in the building and how it could potentially get moved to another building a different space within this building And I think these are very successful with the larger group that we dealt with last week I think they understood the proposal and looking at big chunks of square footage So this is one of the examples that we looked at for the six through eight scenario So you you currently have the seventh and eighth grade in this building This scenario proposes adding the sixth grade making a true six through eight middle school bumps up the student enrollment The population in the building So what we're proposing in this diagram would be to move the central office from its current location To the back part of the building So you see the red portion highlighted is actually a very underutilized section of the building where the old work wood shop is It's just being used for some storage and some workshops for custodians at this point If that were to move it actually frees up a significant chunk of space in a critical point in the middle school We could move the existing Main office for the middle school out to where central office is now create a very secured entry right now Central office has a secured entry, but the people that are coming to the middle school come into the main lobby Get buzzed in they're already into the school. They don't even you know, they could just run right up the stairs so by making that simple move It frees up a ton of space and it actually gives us enough space to do some minor renovations on the lower level Where we we could accommodate all of the sixth grades sixth graders. You would have two teams plus Possibly a half team on the first floor You would have acts direct access to the cafeteria an adjacency with a kitchen And then what what we would do is move the seventh and eighth graders to the upper level So it becomes a natural vertical separation so the sixth graders transition to the middle school occupy the first floor and Then we would do some minor renovations to to accommodate that the nice thing about this is that it keeps the auditorium in place utilizes all of the existing music rooms If you could go to the second floor So the diagram goes to the second floor. We would maintain the existing library In its configuration But we would rearrange some of Utilize some of the spaces all of the science rooms are at the front part of the building on the second floor. Those are larger rooms Typically the middle school Teams so you have the four classrooms that make up a team Science is included in that so we would actually propose doing some renovations to existing classrooms to turn those into science labs And then utilize the existing science labs as new art rooms There's a lot of infrastructure in those plumbing infrastructures in those current rooms We think it's a fairly straightforward renovation to be able to do that It would group all three art rooms In that area the teachers could share some time prep periods. You could share storage in that area And it's it's right at the front stairs So the sixth graders that would be located on the lower level would easily be able to traverse up and down that Stare to their art classroom and the library and then go right back down to their teams on the lower level You can see on the far left side of this diagram the pool Gymnasium and all the locker rooms would would remain pretty much as is we know we could do some some renovations Ultimately we're going to be proposing major renovations most likely to the mechanical electrical and plumbing systems Simply because of the age of those systems in this That's right and Rearranging this the spaces that you see labeled foreign language are currently windowless classrooms We feel that if you could offer foreign language, maybe two or three times a week The students would spend a minimal amount of time in those windowless classrooms You know that the lion's share of their time would be spent in the teams and all of those The intention would be for all of those classrooms to have windows to the outside We're just utilizing some of those interior windowless spaces in a slightly different way And I think scheduling that I think it makes sense We could we could actually introduce some storage spaces and some staff planning rooms in those interior spaces So the initial feedback we heard a lot of positives from from the group that we ran these diagrams by last week and And that was one of the big pluses being able to offer foreign language Do you want to take questions now or run through? Let me get through the the high school portion. Yeah, I have a scenario. I'm going to run through and then then we can always back Look at these Okay, so so we've taken a similar look at the high school building This is just an overall view to orient where the building is and I think in the high school scenario It's a little more important the relationship To the fields and the site and how the students traverse from the building to the site all the athletic fields so Just analyzing that you can see this quick overlay Highlights where the playfields are and in this case we have the buses coming across the front of the building doing drop-off And we also have vans for some of the academy somewhat complicates the vehicular circulation on site They do have a dedicated entry in and out With the recent renovation that was done there and in the high school scenario We also have student drivers coming which needs to be thought about I think there's a great opportunity to rethink how the site is organized somewhat Some of our past experiences we we had some conversations about emergency access throughout the entire building There may be if if this becomes a major renovation There may be a request made to create an emergency Loop around the back of the building which could potentially impact, you know where we might want to put an addition So all things that we're weighing right now and we're trying to look at this as a high-level View trying to identify all the potential issues with any of the scenarios that we begin to look at Relating the building and the site to get Just it's not a question. It's just an ad so just the emergency drive piece has been a request from the Amherst police department I know it's a regional school, but it happens to be located in the town of Amherst So they're the responding group that From a safety perspective all buildings now would be built with an ability to have emergency drive around the building and the high school In particular doesn't quite have one. That's that the police can use that's I just want to clarify that that's where the So another big piece of this puzzle is the field study recently done I think you need to be cognizant of the fact of what may be implemented here If the track and main competition field get relocated to where the preferred option is saying There may be an impact on some of the parking vehicular circulation So we certainly don't want to propose something as part of this study that would undo some really solid thinking on the field Study as well. So obviously what one goes with the other We've documented the existing building it is a big sprawling building It's over to you know, almost 240,000 square feet The wings are oriented and you can tell that certain things have been added on over the years So the general thought process behind it an organization of the building It is a big part of our thinking right now So if we're introducing more students different students, how can we reorganize this in a thoughtful way and one of the The the scenarios that we were presented with was looking at introducing seventh and eighth graders to this building So a significant chunk of space So some of the things that work well in the high school are the access to some of the Community related spaces the cafeteria the library that we're in right now as well as the auditorium All along that main spine So this scenario if we're introducing seventh and eighth grade significant chunk of Enrollment students that are adding to this building And one of the things that we've heard is that the seventh and eighth graders It's desired to be somewhat separate from the ninth through twelfth graders having a seventh grader interact with a 12th Grader, I know parents look and it's a big age discrepancy and how is my middle school are going to interact with some of these older students So what we tried to do in this scenario by the nature of the building was give the seventh and eighth graders really their own space So this scenario looks at putting all the seventh and eighth graders across the back part of the building And you can see that where the eighth grade is labeled It's actually some old wood shops and some tech labs that are back there and we feel are somewhat underutilized So with some renovations in those spaces we could actually turn them into nice classrooms Group the teams to operate in a middle school format and really be completely independent of the high school portion This scenario does displace some of those high school programs that are there So I believe we're going to need to propose some sort of addition to the high school to accommodate the larger enrollment you can see the three-story classroom addition which is Proposed on the backside It actually interferes with one of the multi-purpose fields that's being proposed in the field study and it could potentially appear with the emergency loop that that may be Required or requested as part of this project as well One of the feedback pieces that we got last Thursday was the potential of Creating a cafeteria solely for the seventh and eighth graders Because of the capacity the existing capacity in the cafeteria for the high schoolers Adding another wave to that. I think becomes a scheduling issue Throughout the day. We certainly don't want high school kids or seventh graders eating at 9 30 in the morning Just to accommodate that So any number of scenarios we could put a cafeteria addition on and expand that It would expand the capacity there. We could keep the same number of lunch waves But there would be more students in that space The other scenario would be to create a seventh and eighth grade cafeteria in the first story of that three-story classroom addition and what's labeled art right now May become a small cafeteria So all the food prep would happen in the kitchen and then we'd have a warming kitchen and the seventh and eighth graders would have their Own dedicated space potentially Plays right into how the program goes and how it all comes together So but the rest of the building remains similar the main entry would remain where it is library Yes for the high school sorry And the gymnasiums would all pretty much remain in the same location Once again, we'd be probably most likely looking at full mechanical electrical plumbing upgrades And that will delve into a little bit more detail in the future and we'll play a big part in the final number and budget The upper floors of this scenario Once again, we take advantage of the three-story classroom addition. We add High school classrooms at the back portion of that So you can see the second and third floors I believe we could probably leave the department structure very much as it is right now With the science and art department on the second floor And the math department split between the second and third and then social studies on the upper level I think we'd be able to add enough classrooms And on the second and third floor to accommodate all of the high school needs minimal departmental structure so At a very high level, I just want to remind everybody that at this point We're about two weeks in earnest into looking at these these diagrams. There's going to be many more diagrams to follow And it we find it's a great quick way to Explore some big picture ideas, you know, what if we move this group here? What if so Hopefully the diagrams kind of helped you get your mind into a little bit and as we told the group last Thursday We're very open to hearing ideas You're very familiar with the schools and at this point in the study, there's no no idea is a bad idea I feel like we need to explore every single option And so we're certainly open for for ideas options questions That's kind of where we are right now Mr. Gemel, you have a question or do you want to I just want to I Don't want to make a mistake procedurally with our overmeeting law So I just want to clarify a question because I want some advice because half this presentation is about moving six to the middle school And we have a quorum of a committee that Overseas six than our our our district our committee, right? Yeah does not oversee six so I really think the question should be about the building and the blocking in the usage around the middle school I Think I think the interaction of those elements is appropriate meaning is this going to work to have sixth grade and seventh grade both using The art room like that's a legitimate question Seeing just for the sake of argument saying let's talk about How we're going to organize how would the impact be on organizing our sixth grade and how well does that fit our current education model would not be Okay, that makes sense Well, I mean the only other thing we could say is don't ask any questions about the middle school And I don't think that makes a lot of sense So I saw a couple other questions. So you tell me if this is Because I'm trying to be hide it's really a little confused. So like the one we're talking about like is there space enough for the sixth graders I'm wondering what what numbers of those coming from is that from all four districts is that just from Amherst and there was also reference to this That's a reasonable question because it's about blocking out the space There was reference to the MSPA participation process driving this and I don't know what that was Well, that's certainly legitimate because that would be true of any change. So I'm trying the first one So we've looked at and we've talked about multiple scenarios I think one thing to note if you're looking at these is using an MSPA scenario, and I'm not talking about the funding I'm just saying to play that out and actually what most middle school and high schools use is that They're shared spaces for teachers because of our declining enrollment currently our secondary teachers have Quote-unquote ownership of their classrooms a hundred percent of the day So if they have two preps in a day, no one else comes and uses their classroom MSPA template or that what used to be, you know, and I'm not going to reference anyone's prior time in the Amherst regional schools particularly but When it was the enrollment was much higher It meant that you know the the classrooms were used every period of the day So that if I have two preps in the day, Mr. Mangano is the math teacher And we're both math teachers when I'm not teaching Mr. Mangano may be using by space So when you're looking at the number of classrooms dedicated You have to think in a mindset that's a little different than how our secondary mindset currently in our elementary mindset Currently is so we did look at multiple options the impact of Pelham-Leverton-Schutzbury You know increases the numbers by about 60 students if you include all three of those to the Amherst numbers And that's I think some of the future work We're planning to work on with with our team is you know What how what are the implications of those different models if there's 60 more six graders do they fit? How do they go, but it's certainly in the mindset that we've had lots of conversation about right and we use the nasty demographic data from 2021 that seemed to be the worst-case scenario again for any planning We wanted to make sure what would be a realistic target and layered on all of the six grades from the difference It's but to be clear what you said I don't think the superintendent was saying I thought I'd be here to say is that you're not This original sort of just rough blocking wasn't doing that but it would do that later So you could it's a currently does what I'm trying to anticipate that again It's a conversation that we're starting It's going to include all of the communities that would be impacted by just if it is move forward. Yeah. Yeah, it's exactly Right and then I could address the MSBA Reference we're using that to help benchmark our study It's something that is a constant within the Commonwealth and it's a foundation that can be built on for future efforts It's not to suggest that they're actively participating in it today or tomorrow in five years But if it does go down that path, you're on the solid foot And I want to add that I think a lot of the scenarios that we're talking through If it moves forward MSBA is going to ask you did you look at these scenarios? So we're trying to anticipate a lot of the questions at that level I mean we've been through the process many times and we kind of know the questions that they are going to ask The other thing I wanted to add was We're developing a matrix. So the two Scenarios that we showed you one at the middle school one at the high school obviously wouldn't get paired together So if we put seventh and eighth grade in the high school Sixth grade could potentially stay at the elementary schools And there would be no students in the middle school So that would be one scenario and then you start looking at what is the facility use of the middle school building If it's empty of students are there other town functions we could put in there So the matrix I think is going to Pair up the different scenarios So, you know, you'd never look at the middle school option that we showed you with the high school option side by side But standalone if you looked at the six through eight in a in the middle school There would be no impact at the high school. The high school would just remain as it is a nine through 12 So and then each of our budget and pricing options will then get folded into that matrix and paired up together I saw Ms. Ardonias and then Mr. Minino, but I wanted to piggyback on that So is there Is there is there not a third alternative in which The seventh and eighth grade moved to the high school And an alternative elementary educational use is conceived for the middle school Or not potentially. Yeah, we we did look at the enrollment. How many sixth graders would fit into the middle school building And they they filled a very small portion of the building. So once again, it begs the question What would that facility the rest of the facility be used for because it is no that makes sense I think you were asking let me just see if I can understand that if if the middle school was vacated could it be used for Well, I was just literally the scenarios. They just spoke about or binary That either you have the sixth and seventh and eighth grade in the Middle school and then nothing happens at the high school Or you move the seventh and eighth grade to the high school and the middle school doesn't have any educational use And so it begged the question of whether there was actually a third scenario In which there's still an educational use for the middle school, even if there's then some other Space that's left over and I didn't know if that's part of the study or not Yeah, so we've had, you know, the beginnings of those conversations. What would you know friends is what would the middle school Need to what would need to happen at the middle schools that are appropriate site for an elementary school And you know, what would need to happen? So we've I just I just want to know if it's part of the study That's all because I because it was literally A third point left off and I want to know if it was potentially in but mr. Donnie is the miscommunity So just a quick comment. I think about the earlier comment around Whether or not it was appropriate to consider the sixth grade thing I mean, I just wanted to echo what mr. Nakajima said about I think because we're looking at facilities use In space right now. I'm perfectly comfortable having this conversation I think when we come to the educational plan in the spring, we definitely want to have a joint meeting So that we can actually have that conversation without breaking open meeting law I guess my only question that I had, thank you so much for the details with You know with this presentation I meant I heard you mention a couple of different times that there were some wood shops and sort of unused or underutilized space That would be used potentially for other Things and so that just made me think, you know, are we putting ourselves in a situation Potentially with these either of these options or both of these options where we're not leaving any extra room for You know, I don't know You know maker space or whatever other like if we're utilizing every square inch Of these buildings, are we kind of painting ourselves into a box in a certain length? Yeah I think maker space is a perfect example because it did come up several times over the last few weeks I think there's a desire to integrate spaces like that more into the academic side And currently the building is organized so that the wood shop to kind of often the back corner Out of the mainstream of circulation So there's there's a very strong desire to integrate things like that into the academic side I don't see any reason why you couldn't do that, especially the middle school level The the equipment that's associated with that Could be located in a classroom within a team and any one of the middle school teams And I feel like there's enough space within the existing footprint to accommodate that One of the other comments had to do with project-based learning. Yeah, that's the trend and it requires different spacemen So that is part of the feedback loop that we're going to fill the layer on to the planning So as we go into the next renditions of the plans, that's integrated into the solution Great. Yeah, just very briefly. I think the other challenge we have now of those spaces in addition to the fact That they would need to be significantly upgraded as they're If you've been to the middle school, they're on the lssc side of the building So students don't necessarily have access even to get to that side of the building to use the spaces that are vacant So I think, you know, just want to further that point and one of the reasons we haven't put a significant amount of money into that is That it's literally in the part of the building that's not available to students without an adult swiping Them all the way around and just the physical proximity or the lack of physical proximity to anything else They might use is is a real challenge for us. Yeah, excuse me. Yeah ice characterizes as a feasibility study And earlier you mentioned consensus. What kind of consensus are you talking about? Uh, what about a feasibility study? Either it is or is not unless you're talking about opposition to moving the sixth grade The reference was this is a facilities use study That may ultimately lead to a feasibility study And the consensus is making sure that we have public participation in it's an open transparent process So that we begin that conversation And we're trying to lay a foundation for future conversations relative to the overall facilities here. So there's no I can't help but assume there's an assumption behind the study because it says sixth grade You've made it you've made a value judgment already as one of the options My understanding of this work as we discussed it last year was that in order to Have kind of a rational analysis and a public conversation We're going to have to pose some scenarios Even if the scenarios can be more open into them not just binary as we talked about earlier not just six seven eight or seven eight to the high school If i'm not wrong if that's where this comes from and I think Superintendent you took pains to say More times than I can count last year that this was not this was precisely not Trying to get a free train running down a track toward anything but that If we didn't understand the actual capacities and configurations And any changes or upgrades that we needed to do made to the building then we couldn't even We'd be spinning our wheels if we then got into an educational probing conversation And you know demographic conversation because we'd say all right well now We've decided we want to do it does anyone have any idea if these buildings could even be used in this way And it's changing it's turning it around the other way and I just to even though I posed or reinserted the third scenario um I think part of the value of the work is that if you get to door number three your door number three Which is that seven and eight moved to the high school in the middle school In fact isn't used for any educational purpose then there's intense interest on the part of the region of What do you do with this building and what is it good for right and so that so it's it's a valuable exercise If you want to add anything that yeah, I think that was right I did you know to answer your question very directly about consensus what I think What I feel like the district trying to get out of it and I think last Thursday was a good start that We have an interested group of uh and diverse group of stakeholders Who come to agreement that we have a couple options that uh people agree You know potentially could work that we could bring to the community and the school committee To say you know these students can fit and this is the ramifications that it's not a closed process where I work with a group of consultants to come up with something and say like where did that come from And why does it cost that much that it really is this interactive process? So it's not a consensus that the district should make a change But it's a consensus that we have very realistic options and cost estimates That then can be considered by the committee and the and the community to say do we want to go further down this road that From the inception community feedback has been a major part And you think about recent lessons learned from Other projects that you may have been involved in it isn't it isn't It's it's it's a learned experience to say that if you don't build a broad understanding in acceptance even of what are otherwise considered to be Data or engineering or analysis Then people may not accept the conclusions of that data that engineering or that analysis and so As crazy as this may sound especially in america 2019 Getting agreement on facts isn't actually a crazy crazy consensus to build Let alone an understanding of what those scenarios in fact are and what they entail What I want to do right now is I want to run around the table and see if anyone has any additional Questions because this is your first kickoff with us. It is not your last conversation with us And I think there are other points of entry including through miss castinson For for the school committee to have input into this committee And also weirdly enough we're on time if you look at the schedule So I thought why why ruin things now? So I want to go around the table starting here Do you have anything else you want to ask? Well, just the next step When do we discuss the wisdom of moving the sixth grade to the out of the grade schools? So the as as our team suggested that the reports do at the end of march and You know that report would be brought back to this regional school committee to have that discussion So I do anticipate that this spring we would have active dialogue about The report itself and what the committees want to do to the earlier conversation There's the potential to have joint meetings because it may free up conversation for elementary committee members and thinking also about Leverett and chutesbury. So I'm not presupposing that but I think that would be the reasonable timeline to have a more in-depth Conversation of which and that but that would be really about getting the facilities you study And then where that's a launch a more in-depth effort That would be a launch point for more in depth, right? Okay, so the point is that would not be a decision being made about this at that point when do we get to Express opposition to the movement You can do that whenever you except for right this second at any time you want And and I'm sure no that'll be part of the dialogue in march. I'm just saying it's not going to be conclusory. It's gonna You know, it'll be like steps. It'll be whatever it is, right? One just briefly it'd be great to have our facilities director involved in this as much as you possibly can given all his other demands And it's just general observation that I mean so one I think you've done a great job with this level of detail in a short amount of time. So so thank you It I did find it surprising the the level of addition that we would need Given that we've the the declining enrollment we've had the high school and the the original size that the high school was built for and it's something like 300 students we've decreased over the last 10 years. So I wasn't really expecting Much of an addition if at all so to see this size I was just curious dr. Morrison. I don't know if if if there was something Explanatory in it for you that like oh it just just these days. We need more space per student or You know what that is? Sure, I can just give you some of the factors of some of the academy being in the high school While not that many students is a pretty sizable amount of space Uh those years ago. We didn't have the bright program. We didn't have restorative practice program We didn't have the PIP program that four years ago That we expended the space some of the specialized programs That while they don't serve a tremendous number of the quantity of students is a great the space needs of Supporting those students is significant So I think all of those factors really play into when you look at the square footage and look at the number of students This kind of was shared earlier We have so many more in-house special education and counseling supports for students that really require significant chunks of space Both at the middle school and high school not just referring to the high school So that's why it's not the great overlay to look 20 years ago when we didn't have those other programs in place And and you know, it doesn't it doesn't fit quite as neatly Because our programming looks quite different Thank you One of my questions was was about the shops, but also the Wasn't really clear what you said about the science rooms and in the middle school if you could Describe that because I don't see science spelled out here and I know that's a Yeah, the science rooms are integrated into the team So a typical seventh grade team made up of a math room social studies English and a science so it it's better to have that integrated So if you have a group of four one of the four would be a science room and at the middle school level It's science light. You know, we provide some sinks some demonstration tables But it really doesn't have to be much bigger than a typical classroom And I think building in flexibility into what is formerly known as a science room It is very advantageous. So you can do science in there, but you can do many other things in there as well Because there are programs that are up and coming that they're going to want to include and mainstream into the teams You know, you might want to have have you might want to call that a maker space And there might be a cabinet with equipment that you could pull out and put on a science table And use it as a maker space. So I think building in that flexibility into the rooms I think will serve well for the long term and I take it that the The front corner I don't know what it is the south West corner of the building over to on top of central office that used to be science classrooms I take it they still Are laid out like they have the tables and the other stuff Of science rooms. Yeah Yeah, I just want to reiterate again I think that the level of detail that you've provided here is is really great It helps us a lot to in conversations with the community to understand, you know, the scheduled meetings, for example I also really appreciate the care that you're taking to walk through, you know, a process With the community for getting that feedback You know, I think that A lot of this will come down to how we talk about this facility's use study because a lot of folks in the community are hearing So many different initiatives that we have across the different districts And we're soliciting a lot of community feedback at this point for all those different projects Which I'm sure you've heard about and that can create a lot of confusion among community because they don't quite get What's happening when and why they they don't always even understand the differences in the school committees, right? It's you know, it's just all one school committee So I think the more that we can communicate around that and I think this is mostly for the superintendent But also just as you will perceive in this project The more that we communicate about the reasons for this facility's use study, the better off we all are, you know, further down the road One comment that I just interested in collecting feedback Is that we at the high school level have a very robust theater program And a lot of it is not just contained in the you know, the the auditorium anymore, right? And on the stage it's all over the place exactly and so thinking about how That might impact, you know, any potential renovations or anything like that creating additional, you know, speaker spaces You know for different types of audio visual, you know engagement with the students They've been cooking up these most amazing things And a lot of it takes place in the hallways in the cafeteria, you know Classrooms in different places like that But I think if we're going to be taking a look at how to use space and if there's any potential pieces Like, you know, that are added to the renovations or anything like that that can help enhance those experiences I think we're all off better for it. So Thank you I don't have much to add I just want to say thank you to mr. Robert and Robert so Hoagland it's been um I really enjoyed sitting around the meetings and I've been very impressed with their Their professionals and their dedication to this and they've been here a lot of hours so far and we've had a lot of Really productive meetings where I can tell they're listening and they're working hard to gather the information And also with their creativity. I mean, I I feel confident that You know, if we were to pursue any of these options, there would be educational benefits to to our schools. So Yep, and just keep in touch with me. I mean if you anybody else has anything else you'd like me to bring Thank you great But I was gonna Yeah, I think just if I could add one I think the brief comment to mr. Mini knows question about next steps I think the other piece that when this comes back to the committee We also want to share this back with the four towns that you know Some of the origin of people asking for this information wasn't just on the educational side It was elected officials from the four communities and on that note I think an additional piece of study that if the committee wants to pursue this particularly is the six less so in the 7-12 model, but on the sixth grade model is what are the financial implications for the member towns If one town or two towns or three towns are all four towns suggest A desire to pursue having their sixth graders at the middle school You know, it's something that mr. Mangano and I have had initial conversations about it's something that I think elected officials who Not just the ones here, but the ones who are in the finance committee select boards Town councils may have some questions about so that's another level of next step that I know Other stakeholders will be expecting us to have information about not at the end of this study But certainly as that pursues, so I just I don't want to leave that point out because I think it's an important I think that would be Desirable to do that if there's more involved from a cost perspective or a time perspective It'd be nice to have that as an agenda on a future regional committee Uh, you know meetings so we can talk about it. Yeah, right? Who decides that question as to whether to move the sixth grade from Pellum to the regional I think it's a practical matter. It would have to be a combination of the regional school committee Perhaps even their member towns and then also the Amherst school committee In the town of Amherst, I mean, I think you would there be multi I think I'm wrong I think there'd be multi parties involved given the nature of the building. Yeah, so just briefly I had a conversation with Someone who works at mars, which is the massachusetts association of regional schools And you know, this is not the first time that some districts have explored this and there's two ways districts have managed it one is to amend the regional agreement which would require the Votes of all four communities and sometimes there's memorandums of agreements that are passed Um That you know don't involve full Changing of the regional agreement because some communities don't want to open up the regional agreement for a whole host of reasons But that get added. So um, she was able to share Barbara Rippa was able to share multiple models Uh for how this might work, but I think to your point it wouldn't just be the regional school committee I agree with the Mr. Dr. Jima said but the chair said it would have to be multiple bodies For example, the Pellum the Pellum Tom meeting Well, I mean, let's I get an idea. Why don't we get back to you? I mean in all seriousness because You're asking a serious question and I think it requires A legally vetted answer rather than winging it clearly there would have to be Entity, you know duly authorized entities on the part of the Patana Pellum that would have to act on this I want to move on but mr. Dillon So I just want to clarify that because I think when this Renino asked about Pellum You had said the Amherst school committee would be voting and I think you just misspoke and you meant to say the Pellum school No, I'm at the Amherst school committee. I mean if you voting on Pellum No, not Pellum. That's what I mean. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was thinking of well both Pellum school committee No, that's a that's a Forgive me. I was I was giving you an extraordinarily Amherst centric answer Because I don't I mean to be honest with you Theoretically the Amherst school committee, which has been talking about this more than the Pellum school committee, maybe Could actually vote to move their sixth sixth grade Hypothetically to the to the middle school and the Pellum school committee could choose not to And then your school your sixth grade for those, you know for people who are watching with you know, those are separate decisions At least at the moment And if they ever are not we'll bring up some other committee that can talk to us about what happened there Uh, I was also going to say, uh, I'm not sure to be facetious. I mean if these is really that complicated as crazy as it is Um, miss miss castinson. One is going to say is uh It would be great If during our subcommittee updates and future meetings that this item being sort of keep in mind That i'm going to look toward you and i'll be staring They'll be like you're making men comfortable. You're staring at me and it's going to be because you want you to talk about the facility You study and see how it's going All right, that sounds awesome. Thank you so much Hope the snow is not too bad out there safe travels We are now safely no longer ahead of time by the way Uh, but we're doing well second quarter budget update Sean, miss, we're going on. Thank you. So It should be in your packets the second quarter report After six months the immerse palom regional school district budget is projected to finish under budget due to savings in tuitions and health insurance Um payroll is tracking over budget by 96,000 due to a few things which are listed below And we won't spend too much time on them because most of them are the same as last time go to the One thing I want to say on the payroll section is we have had quite a bit of a staff turnover this year Most of which you know about so we've got a domino effect with like the high school principal retiring Then there's uh assistant principal has stepped into that and then a new person stepped into that So some of the savings that you're seeing or some of the overage and payroll or savings and payroll Is related to that domino effect of people changing positions Hold on Yep, you just simultaneously said underage and overage Can you just clarify sure so 96,000 over budget So and that's why I just go through it. It'll be it'll be easier to start from the beginning Because there's a lot of pieces here. So 96,000 over budget Um middle school principal model was 28,000 more expensive than we originally anticipated We had just one principal and assistant principal and having the dual principal model Um business office and HR staffing is 27,000 higher than anticipated That's due to the health insurance trust fund going away that supported a portion of salaries in the business office and HR That that's gone Additional ELL support 0.15 fte totaling 10,000 In special education 109,000 over budget due to a couple things the first piece is actually a savings. We have a few unfilled positions That we've been trying to fill just haven't been able to fill those positions because they're very Specialized positions. So we've tried to some of the payroll pieces unfilled We've contracted out what we have to have had to do From the expense side Like the bcba work and some of the psychology work, but on the payroll side those positions are still unfilled Um We shifted $200,000 of employee salaries off the id a grant and onto the general fund So what that looks like is a increase in payroll because these salaries are no longer being paid by the id a grant Instead we're paying tuition off the id a grant and that was a budget move we made During the budget process to try to actually get more out of the id a grant than we have in the past And then we've also have three additional para educators at summit academy for a total of $50,000 Staff turnover savings, that's savings the staff turnover piece Is driven by staffing pattern changes and some of the turnover we've seen And I just gave a couple examples to one being the high school principal Um, and we have a few leave of absences too for staff that The position's open. We've had a higher temporary staff to fill that position And the temporary staff come out of the contract section not the payroll section. So that's the savings Any questions on the payroll section for Yes, mr. Yes, sorry, no, it's okay. It was confusing. I apologize So, um I'm a little I'm a little confused about the middle school principal model being 28,000 more than anticipated I remember if I remember correctly When we decided to go with that model it was said to the committee at the time that the cost Basically the transferring of administrators within the middle school Would actually kind of more or less break even I don't think we ever heard that it was going to be this much more Um, how did this come about? Sure, so I think two things happen one is that you know, we based on what we think Contracts will come out to and that based on experience and so Sometimes we have to make adjustments to how much people Will get paid in addition to what we slot based on the experience they come with So some of it's based on the experience that the two people came with I think the other piece is we decided to increase In the old model the assistant principal at the middle school was only a school year position Uh, given the needs of the middle school We made the decision to have both principles be present in the summer And so that increased the cost, but we felt like it fit the need that the community had for Stability and to start the year off the way we wanted to start it If I can just um, so it totally makes sense I think though for Future conversations around these kinds of staffing changes. It would be helpful to hear You know if if at all being able to forecast This we we're not sure or you know Because it really does create a false sense of security about you know, what we expect the cost to be And I'll say also that I think that there are community members who are paying very close attention to You know how we are hiring administrators in our schools And so this sets off a flag To say that we are you know promising extra money or doing, you know So it it just doesn't sit right with a lot of community members. So I really would appreciate I think in the future hearing You know, we're we're unsure or there may be some changes based on the information that you just gave Which again is completely, you know, makes a perfect sense But this definitely caught my attention. It's you know, it's a high enough. This is potentially a salary for another person And Just looking to next year. We have projected the same model for next year. So it's built into the fy20 budget at this point That's good. Thank you So you were saying is uh Were you saying something about enrollments in charter schools? I think that'll be more in that way. It's on your it's on your thingy here. Yes. Yeah, so Um One second So in expense accounts special education is tracking higher than expected We shifted that $200,000 of grant funds from payroll to Tuitions, so we would think we would see like a $200,000 savings and tuitions But we've had more out of district placements than we were expecting going into the year So special education costs are actually tracking higher than expected Going to enrollments Enrollments in charter schools vocational schools and other public schools are much lower than expected. You can see the charts below What I've given you for each category is the fy18 Either actual enrollment or the q2 enrollment, whatever we had sort of when we were doing the budget What we then budgeted for fy19 based on that information and then what the current enrollment looks like either Based on that fy19 q2 information. So for charter school, you see we had 93 Last year or an fy18 a q2 Our projection method was pretty simple for that. It was sort of rolling it down a grade and then looking at what our average has been Coming into seventh grade However, as you can see what we're actually looking at is many fewer students 12 fewer students than what we're expecting And it's not all at the seventh grade level like you might expect We've actually had You know quite a few in ninth grade which that sort of makes sense coming to the high school You can expect but we also had quite a few in other grades as well Students either come back to us or leave the move out of town. So they're not our students anymore So one one question you can probably anticipate later on the budget. He's just How are we Sort of prudently or conservatively projecting into the next year's budget because I'd much rather have you next next january Say hey, look there were fewer in than we thought then oh crap We had a minor trend that was favorable and that would reverse itself Right and we're in tough trip, you know, you can figure that out. Yeah, I think that's right And I think we are starting to see the harder part is trying to build in Consider that some of the trend is students coming back to us in ninth grade And it's not every year, but I think there's some years where we have seen it So that's a hard part in terms of the project sure because it's such a personal decision for students Vocational again, we had this another really Sort of positive year in terms of students coming back to us So in f y 17 we had roughly 50 students that dropped down to about 40 for f y 18 And now for f y 19 it's dropped down to 31.5. So It's pretty low relative To what we've had in the past five to 10 years 7.5 less than what we budgeted And most of that is is in the ninth grade level. You can see we budgeted 12 we only had seven ninth graders The average has been around 13. So we have fewer seventh graders or ninth graders go out to vocational schools Choice enrollment again the pattern just continues projected to be 24 last year we projected 24 this year And we have 18 and again, let's sort of spread out across many grades So all together though the savings from all the tuitions From all the tuitions coming back in Was about 343 thousand dollars. So it's a really large number just good in some ways and Things we have to think about in other ways in terms of planning for next year Utilities are tracking under budget, but this area will shift as the way I get really cold like it's supposed to on thursday Risk and benefits are tracking significantly under budget due to some changes that you've heard about in particular We have fewer many fewer plans in the region unlike Amherst where we had a little drop in plans And the number of plans in region we actually have a pretty significant drop in the number of health insurance plans You can see the chart below. We had 249 last october We have 229 this october. So A drop of 20 plans one year to the next Some of those are opt-outs. We have an opt-out program. So Unplay can choose to take their spouse's insurance and we pay them an incentive to do so That definitely went up, but it doesn't account for all of the all of the change We also had a shift from ppo's to hmo's which has financial savings And then the surcharge going away halfway through the year was another big one. So the surcharge was roughly 11 of the total premium So you can imagine that's a pretty big chunk to go away halfway through the year We were also able to lower our liability insurance. We did a competitive quote process over the summer So that lower our building liability insurance by 22 000 And our unemployment insurance costs are tracking 45 000 under budget Given the nature of last year's budget process. We expected the unemployment insurance costs to be Higher than average. It's actually tracking the other way, which is a bit of a surprise So at the midway point in the year, the district is on track with expected savings and tuitions and health insurances And as the U.S. says more information will be available and we'll update the projections The last piece of this is just the revenue side Revenues are mostly coming in on track So chapter 70 Brought in a little bit more than we projected charters coming in less, but it's driven by the enrollment coming in lower That's the reimbursement. It's a function of that Transportation is coming in a little bit higher because they increased the reimbursement rate after the budget was finalized There was a lot of advocacy to increase the regional transportation reimbursement last year And that's some minor fluctuations below, but overall revenues are on track Any questions Q2 what's your report Was the 343 and the savings mentioned a moment ago net of the reduction in chapter tuition reimbursement No, it's it's just the separate That's not just on the expense side. Yeah, if you wanted to net it out, you'd subtract this 74 from it. Yeah That would make sense Okay, let us roll into the next section of Our what can I add one other positive thing? I wanted to see what you had a question you wanted us to ask No, I wanted to I wanted to pose something we're considering doing and look for confirmation So because the budget's in good shape and we've heard A lot about our facility needs one of the things we're considering doing with Some of the savings is refurbishing the seats in the auditoriums Both of them the high school and the middle school auditorium We've got a proposal from the mass department of corrections who they do this To come during breaks. They will take the seats out Not inmates the staff that would come to Well, some schools do that, but we pose could we do it without so it'll be their staff that do that They'll bring it back The inmates do the refurbishing. It's a sort of a work skills program where they teach they just they train them And so it's lower cost for us and it has a benefit for them as well It'll be inter agency in terms of two state agents or two state Entities And then they would come and reinstall them We've worked out a tentative schedule with theater departments to see if it could work because there's a lot of performances And so it probably to be done in a couple phases But I think if you've seen the condition of our Auditorium seats, particularly at the middle school, but also at the high school It's long overdue It was on our capital plan So it's another way of lightning some of the capital plan in the future And it could be done before june 30th, which it would have to be I know or to use the funds to share You don't have to vote for it. Um, you could but you used to if you'd like to I think it'd make more sense to vote on it. Um, I mean, obviously Assuming it doesn't I guess under we didn't hear of any potential scenarios or I'm building use in which you don't want to have New auditorium seats right refurbished. No, I mean nobody mean that's not funny about this But like there's nothing happening there. I guess the grade we know that the grade at the middle school Auditorium isn't what it should be But if that was redone presumably get on both the seats regraded and put the seats back down So and honestly I think if you want to get I'm not that you're looking for cheers, but if you're looking for cheers from the public Uh, this would be one thing that would get cheers Yeah, I seem to fit with what we've heard both from mr. Becktold and just others that you know And the community would benefit too because obviously lots of community events. Um, they use the Seats, so why don't we why don't we revisit them? I mean bring it forward. Yeah And I think if I could just add to Just very briefly. I think one of the things that we're looking at Why we pick that as compared to some of the other things that were on the capital plan that are deferred is It's something that we can get done before june 30th, right? So it's it's it's important I agree with everything that was stated As opposed to some work that would involve intensive design that would take months and procurement that would take months We're saying, you know, if we're in a advantageous year, what can we get done that we actually Can functionally get done that would have an impact on student experience in the community So I just want to because a legitimate question could be and it could be for future meeting Why this and not that and and that's a major factor I think I think you should still anticipate that the future meeting listing what you think you could have done That we're not changing it out. Yeah, so we can just answer that question before you're asked it Absolutely, mr. Demily um back on the revenue summary for the key to update Does the circuit breaker not get called out as a specific He's trying to understand exactly the order of magnitude that impact us and yeah So it's not uh, these are general fund revenues So these are the revenues that would support the overall budget that you vote circuit breaker by statute is a separate Revenue source. So it has a separate fund So it's just not part of this Yeah, but it's about $500,000 for the region. Okay. Does that does that pay? Some of the additional out-of-district expenses that you were yeah, we didn't find in the expense accounts I'm just trying to understand like, you know, what what how big is that cost growing and given that it's underfunded One of the many underfunded mandates by the state and in the governor's budget You know what potential impact that should have For our budget planning and for advocacy. Yeah, um, it's a it's a large piece There's actually a chart. I'll try to give you the page as a chart in the information section of the budget That has out-of-district tuitions and it breaks it down into funding source. So it shows general fund circuit breaker Now it'll include IDA And it'll sort of give you that sense of what portion but it's a pretty big chunk of our tuitions is paid by circuit breaker I'm moving on. I'm not going to look around. I'm not going to see if any of those are hands up We're going to move forward. We're now well behind our publishing agenda By the way, I've been always curious But I mean all the useful stuff so I'm not criticizing My questions or yours Dude keep rolling Okay, actually, sorry. Um, all right I'll take a book by the way. I don't want to Why do you look upset Sorry No, this is this see this big binder the whole the whole thing is gonna is now in that device That's yours Take good care of it or uh, mr. Champagne will be upset So I just gave you a chromebook. You can use it if you want if you don't want you can give it back to me It's a way of replacing these big binders The main benefit from my standpoint is We have many updates throughout the budget process and if you do the binders I have to bring like whole punch pages with little red update tags at the bottom and you have to like stick them in if you do And so doing it electronically at least until the end Seems to make sense because I can just give you an updated version And I can still highlight for you what's changed, but you don't have to okay You want to give it back to me? I feel appropriately shamed So if if we forgot our iPads From last week at home the this budget that was pushed to those iPads Or okay. Oh wait. That's the one I'd already have at home. Yes. It's already pushed to it. Yeah, I think give me the binder back So that's the other nice thing if you want to use this for other agenda items He can uh, mr. Champagne can push anything to it and it just shows up in the that left hand side and he just click on and it pulls up well all right, so Getting into this budget highlight. So the proposed f y 20 budget Maintains all the things that you see there things that the district values has valued over the past The proposed budget is 32 million 230 thousand 193 dollars, which is a 1.3 percent increase Over the prior year budget and that budget includes 57 thousand 100 dollars of net additions Um So we'll talk about this when we get to the assessment. There was sort of a commitment by the towns the fund level services There because of the nature of this year's budget. We may need to propose some additions and level services Happens to be coming in lower this year than usual So this budget is based on a 30 statutory assessment method There's the advisory group that's meeting to discuss assessment method options They haven't we haven't zeroed in on a method that Feel confident enough to project here yet. So we used forward a method that could potentially be a fallback option um, this method has some potential because Last year we did this method, but with 20 percent so increases the percentage a little bit. So it's consistent with Trying to factor in more wealth into the assessment method, which satisfies one town's Interests in particular. Um, it also sort of from a desi standpoint. It's consistent with the method we used last year So I want to be a huge Shift for them to consider this method For f y 20 And it also and more importantly actually this method we consider this method because it produces assessments that are reasonable for each town From at least my perspective reasonable for each town So again, it's a method that could work for next year Level services 1.3 percent Driven by a lot of things a lot of things you'll see here are similar to the q2 report They're just projected forward one more year. So positive level services budget because it out of district tuitions and because of health insurances And that idea shift that I was talking about so that was a shift between payroll and expense This is a more global shift So we have a large idea grant that supports all three districts. Um in the past it's Funded the elementary schools more heavily. We're trying to get that corrected to be more Equal to like enrollment or proportional to enrollment We've just been trying to wait for a year that all three districts It could work so it wasn't really hurting one district financially to do it And this is the year where it seems to be a good time for all three districts to try to get that lined up correctly This is just a graphic view of level services and the changes to level services So wages and staffing are going up about four hundred and twenty thousand dollars Special education tuitions Including transportation going up a little over two hundred thousand dollars Other programs, which is where charter choice and vocational are located going down About a hundred and eighty thousand our pension liability usually grows somewhere between fifty and a hundred thousand each year and it's continuing to do so Health insurance obviously is the really big one going down Over about four hundred and twenty thousand Important to note this health insurance savings is based on the six percent increase To health insurance. We haven't built in the actual increase that we just received So that number is going to improve the next time you see this information it'll improve it'll get even better And then all the other costs are going up about two hundred two hundred and fifty thousand some of those other costs are the substitutes food services Some contingencies and control accounts that were cut last year that we're putting back in place as a as a safety net Budget calendar so tonight we're meeting to present the budget So the timeline is a little funky this year So we try to get you the detail ads and cuts a week before the budget hearing so that you have time to go over it And we also try to present post it online so the community can see it So if we follow that week schedule, we will get you the detail ads and cuts Next week So which should we're pretty much in in position to do that. It might be a little bit after that We'll see how that goes But it'll you'll get it in advance so that you can go through it before the meeting We'll have the public hearing on the 12th The four-ton meeting hasn't been scheduled yet, but somewhere between the 12th and when we vote the budget We'll have some sort of coming back together of the four towns Then the vote by the regional school committee would be the 26th or There's another meeting earlier. I don't know if it's sat yet. Whether it'd be the 26th or the earlier meeting March 12th is the earlier meeting. Yeah And so the capital plan would sort of follow the same process So you vote on the capital plan at the whatever meeting you vote the budget Um At the amherst level I gave sort of additional details in terms of how the new town council will work In terms of timing That's mostly all the same. There's a little wrinkle with Region capital. So the regional agreement says that The towns will consider the debt authorization by the school committee within 60 days of that authorization So if you approve the debt authorization on the 26th, which is sort of the typical process Um town council would have to consider that probably within 60 days, which is a little bit Different from their Schedule that they're considering everything else. So I've made the town aware We're going to probably have to look into that a little bit more in terms of timing But it's a little wrinkle that I think is unique to the region. So For those people who don't live in amherst Nothing will change Well, no, but they shouldn't they be aware that this year The amherst town council would be approving their portion of the budget later Right, so if I'm just saying couple of the word at those meetings Yeah, if that so because of the switch to town council If they consider the regional assessment the same way they consider everything else, right? It'll be they'll be considering it much later than they have in the past Their process the way their process is laid out in their charter if they stick, you know to the Every day They would be approving their regional assessment Somewhere between june 1st and june 30th In the past that's usually in may Late may but some time in may So it puts a fine point on whatever agreement we think we have We better really have Because also it's not just going to be bad for the regional school District and committee or whatever, but also for your towns It would be disruptive Not to say that'll happen. I'm just saying it's yeah, and it's just a different dynamic. It's a wrinkle. Yeah going through a town council as opposed to a town meeting Okay, so budget process We've gathered all the input from principals and directors and we continue to gather input We've started doing the budget guidance process with you all budget presentation tonight budget hearing in a couple weeks and school committee vote at 12 to 26 we also have a Meeting scheduled next week with staff to go over some of the budget information and hear their questions and concerns We're scheduling some meetings with the pgo the cpac As well to try to get input on the budget. See what their thoughts are So is it the 12th of the 13th? Sorry Maybe someone can clarify 12th. Sorry type of 12 Sorry So revenue budget So we f y 19 is the current budget that's been approved f y 20 is what we're proposing So I might talk about the the chart piece that dr. Morris mentioned earlier on this page So we're projecting a 25 dollar per pupil increase for chapter 70 That's five dollars more than what the governor's budget included his was 20 dollars per pupil We'll have to see how the next version of the budget comes out. Hopefully that will be increased So this will be on track. It's not a huge difference the five dollars, but Right now we're a little bit above the governor's budget Transportation reimbursement is more in line with what we're receiving for f y 19 And it's based on sort of level funding of transportation aid Medicare Part D Medicare Medicaid reimbursements just based on what we expect to get this year. So we're increasing it a little bit Medicare Part D went away So one of the reasons our health insurance numbers are coming in better is because this Medicare Part D reimbursement that we used to get as a subsidy when we were fully insured is now applied directly to our retiree rates Now that we're with my that's how they do it so, um You just said for transportation reimbursement You're showing a modest increase I thought the I thought the governor's budget level funded it did so our estimate for f y If you go back to the q4 report or the q2 report, you'll see that what we budgeted For our transportation reimbursement. We're actually supposed to get more than that So this is acknowledging that We under budgeted for f y 19. So we're correcting it for f y 20 So we're projecting level funding in terms of the reimbursement rate Might be helpful. Yeah. So when the budget was passed last year, we were anticipating a lower Uh a significantly lower number of transportation reimbursement because there was so much advocacy both, you know Yeah, it was so the real number is higher than what was budgeted. So The 720 that was budgeted for what's the real number? So the real number from the actual is about 770,000. Okay. Yeah. So you're going to roll that forward or something? Yeah, so the 760 is acknowledging that it should be higher than the 720 going forward So these are all budgeted numbers. So the numbers in the past are not oh, I'm sorry. So forgive me I'm sorry to be thick but So you're just saying that if it is level funded this year Level funded would be 760 because the base they're operating off is the 770 from last year our share of 770 From last year not 720. Yeah, and then you're you're taking into account inflation and saying well, it isn't really going to be 770 It's going to be a knockoff of that. So we'll say it's 760. Yeah, we try to be a little conservative on it. Okay Medicare Part D that's folded into our rates. So that's no longer a revenue source But it does make our retiree health insurance rates lower Charter reimbursement. So this is 205 here Based on the formula that was in place for this year Um, the next time I present this to you, it'll probably be 90 80 or 90 thousand It's going to go down quite a bit based on the information. I sort of figured out today just by probing So the the new formula should I go into a little bit? So the new the old formula they looked at your this year's tuition compared to last year's tuition if it went up they reimbursed you a percentage of that difference They didn't look at number of students or anything like that. I was just looking at the actual tuition that you're paying The new formula I'm not going to have it exact, but it's much more seems much more complicated than that So what they look at is your current year's enrollment for charter school For charter schools They look at your last five years of enrollment and they look to see is your current year enrollment higher than any of Is higher than any of those prior five years if any of those prior five years are higher Then they don't give you any reimbursement Because they don't don't look at it as true growth as I think sort of where they're going But if your current year is higher than any of your prior five years, they'll give you some transitional aid So it's basically taking that trend. Don't you're getting mad I'm mad not at you I know So the transitional aid that you kind of get to smooth out the increases in your tuition You know, so this You know when you look at the numbers that they're using we're going up about 140 thousand dollars in tuition from fy 19 to fy 20 But because our enrollment had that dip in fy From fy 18 to fy 19 fy 20 isn't actually higher So we're not actually getting any transitional assistance for that 140 thousand that our tuition is actually going up So they're not looking at inflation at the tuition rate. That's not really being counted It's really just looking at enrollment to be the the mechanic for whether you get a reimbursement or not Is this this is the proposed government is proposed. Yeah So obviously the point is there's advocacy around changing that And seeing how it comes out in the wash later Okay, so yeah, so I was going to ask you if you could take what you sort of just described and maybe I don't send that off in a one paragraph description maybe to Work to us Just because so this is a weird year for education advocacy at the state level right because fund our future and the foundation budget Is rightfully getting the attention it deserves to overcome it The the fallacies fallacies and that but there's all you know another a number of other line items that have a Real danger of getting overlooked in this and you know in the governor's budget has several prime example of this Prime examples including this, you know, also regional transportation and circuit breaker and all that so As we're trying to get the you know the limited amount of attention of our of our legislatures and getting them to pay attention specific things So they don't overlook this That would be good that would be good to have And the other sort of you know just from my just a year and a half of advocacy the governor's budget I mean we do have to Sort of remember so it's good to budget conservatively, you know But it is he's he's of one party and the other party controls the house in the senate So without making any personal opinionating about The goodness or badness of the parties the fact of the matter is it's kind of like his values document and it Every year gets substantially changed. So, you know, hopefully It gets improved about what gets from this worst case scenario But you know, you're you're good to be budgeting conservatively The funny thing about it is that Even before when you had one party control of the state government It's it might have worked the same way The governor puts the word of their value statement and then the house and senate just change it anyway I mean, so I think I think there's there's interesting There's like two dynamics involved one whatever his ideological bias is and then or practical bias Then the second one is that the house and senate always screw with whatever the governor proposes and and then in fact the budget documents are always Put forward knowing that and so sometimes line items are potentially put At a certain level because they know That there might be an item that Delia really cares about or something or whatever the issue is And they'll they'll precisely low-ball it Knowing that the speaker will have to increase it later and the house and senate is, you know, do the same same thing One of the things that we talked about in that regional assessment group the other day is the is the I think fact that The for us for our if we are concerned about our own bottom line Um, and it doesn't mean as you're suggesting mr. Delman doesn't mean we don't care about other school districts What happens in other parts of the state? We could be very supportive of that and I think we should be but that if we're really concerned about ameliorating the negative fiscal effects on our own district The line items are regional transportation circuit breaker the charter reimbursement formula and funding level. Is that right? And and that may not be on the radar screen right now And I think if our towns among others don't put it on it We could be in trouble We could be in real trouble Anything on this Okay, so the assessments are the next piece so you can see Let's talk about the assessments being reasonable This is what the 30% method would produce. So amherst is 3.14. That's probably the toughest one here I mean when we looked at a range of assessments most of the time amherst is between three and 3.5 percent So it's not this particular assessment method. That's making them higher It's just based on the factors and amherst of eqv shifting upward and their enrollment is growing that they tend to be a Higher share higher increase this year Palom is going down. That's pretty consistent among all the options. We've looked at Leverett is going up 1.46 percent, which is within the guidance we received from Leverett of 1.5 percent And shootsberry is going down 1.8 percent, which is Within their guidance and I think it's consistent with what some of the members have been looking for which is to get Factoring the wealth which should decrease their assessment and this already includes The increase minimum the changes a minute. Yeah, okay for lever Yeah, for all of them yet. Yeah, okay And then reserves so because again because of the Advantages savings that we have this year because of health insurance intuitions. We're proposing increasing E&D for budget support a little bit to 600,000 from 500,000 It's not it's been there before you can't see it on the screen, but it's been as high as six It's been higher than 600,000 in the past The contingency for e&d would still stay 280. We don't usually touch that unless there's an emergency And then the piece below that was sort of a temporary thing Interest revenues the last piece so the total budget would be the 32,230,193 1.3 percent increase questions This sort of summarizes What mr. Nakajima and you know, we've all been discussing about the advisory group that's been looking at different options There is a lot of positive momentum it seems like and goodwill and We are looking at some things that are a little bit different than we've looked at in the past In terms of trying to control the volatility of assessment changes, which is usually what spurs a disagreement over the assessment So we're taking a little bit of a different approach at looking at it, which is Hopeful, which is which really just involves floors and ceilings that you might say for example that no town This assessment will drop more than 1 percent But no town's assessment will increase more than 4 percent in any given year And then there's various ways of apportioning The reductions amongst the other towns And I think it's sort of we're meeting next week. We'll have more information If if we're going to try something different than the 30 percent method. We should know after next week's meeting So this is the expense budget very high level So highlights salaries are up 2.55 percent. It's just a combination of steps koalas retirements some other staff turnover pieces Substitutes are up 22,491 We have sort of a series of rate increases Expected for substitutes because of the minimum wage going up to 15 dollars over the next few years So we're sort of stick keeping pace without Expects accounts are down 93,841 I'm comprised of a few factors. The first one I mentioned special education is actually up Due to some additional out of district placements. We went from about 15 out of district placements A couple years ago. We have 20 this year and we're projecting 20 again next year Other programs are down 172 750 due to the lowered out of district enrollment for charter choice invoke Those little charts below show each of those different categories. So Charters the trend is still up, but you can see it's flattening out Compared to the last couple years where it was really a steep increase Um vocational has dropped significantly and choices has dropped as well So all the most for the most part they're all moving in the direction we would hope Health insurance is the big one down 431,000 due to the changes that I mentioned before Um, just a similar chart they saw in the q2 report in terms of what we have last year what we projected for Fy19 and what we're projecting for next year These are a couple trend charts that are in the budget Document for all the departments that I just pulled out a couple of the interesting ones This is classroom support spending this includes the writing center at the High school, which is pretty popular and helps support students after school Recently they were able to increase the FTE of that writing center This is library spending looks sort of Looks funny, but it's mostly driven by staff turnover. So as you you had a presentation from miss Lamason she retired and so we have a different librarian. So it's The overall staffing level is state consistent, but you can see what staff turnover does to the cost And just just to put a fine point on it if anyone's looking at this At home You're projecting out a couple years and so it's not That we went down last year And we're going up right now steeply. This is actually the bottom of the trough, right? You put it Yeah, yeah, we just we include a couple projection years Just to show you what it would look like if if we keep the same staffing model But we pick some estimates about steps and call as what would the cost look like in the future? So you'll see that sort of Direction most of the charts So additions and reductions are not the detailed ones that you'll get next week It's a very high level, but we have $68,000 of adjustments proposed $326,700 of additions proposed and 201,600 of reductions the net Increases 57,100 which includes 4.85 staff And you'll get much more detail next week Capital and debt so The big thing in capital is we moved the roof project forward It was originally on there for FY 21 and FY 22 Given the field stuff that we learned about This is actually a good time to try to get maybe one of the bigger projects approved now So they're not coming up at the same exact time So we moved the roof forward to FY 20. It is 25 years old. We just had leaks Last week this week Thursday Thursday In computer labs and classrooms and libraries new leaks that we didn't aren't the same ones that we patched So the patching worked, but we have new leaks that are popping up So it is it is still a need And you'll be considering the SOI later tonight. So right now the all the projections are so we know msba funds But obviously that would have a big impact if we got msba funds The capital plan has been updated. I've sent it to rooper to start digging into The new facility director start digging into You just heard from jcj about studying the high school and middle school buildings that could have a future impact on the capital plan I'll show you the debt assessments in a little bit. They're going to be pretty stable over the next couple years for town So the debt assessment is a separate assessment outside of the operating budget that the Four-member towns have to consider and approve It's going to be stable until the roof project and then it will go up a little bit And the full capital plan will be available tomorrow morning on the website The link I tried to use the google link condenser. I think they stopped doing it So you'll just have to copy and paste that link. I don't recommend typing it But that's what the google when they're on google drive. So the links are all kind of crazy like that If I can just add to the capital one of the things that's a follow-up to last week's presentation Is will be continuing to work with kma on the accessibility audit and prioritization That's not yet on the capital plan because we need time to work with them So that'll be an updated right future meeting, but I don't want to it's not on there And I I don't want anyone to think like oh, why do we have that presentation? It's not being included It's just we're not at the place yet in our work with them where we have that prioritization and then can build that into the capital plan Capital and debt so this is just the specific project. Thank you. Mr. Demling for pointing out a typo that's in your packets Instead of saying middle school roof is as high school middle school building study because that was last year's project So I fixed it here, but in your packet just still has the wrong thing Just in terms of future capital planning so field improvements Put a wide range because we really don't know what the outcome of that stuff that piece is going to be There's the preferred option, but there's other options You know less more expensive. So put a wide range there the high school roof It's not much younger than the middle school roof It's it wasn't on the capital plan before I put a placeholder there Not in terms of a dollar amount, but I created a spot for it and highlighted it It's something we're going to have to look at it's probably five to ten years away But that's maybe a ten year capital plan. It'll be a big ticket item as well There's an older part of the roof and a newer part of the roof. So it's the older part of the roof that We'll have to start thinking about in the next five to ten years and then all the parking lots They're not in terrible shape But there's just parts of you've probably seen of all the parking lots at the middle school The where the parent pickup is and then the back corner of the high school that are pretty rough shape That will need to do something eventually for safety Um Walking and things like that Mr. Sullivan's honor since he's not here I'll just say I think he would say It'd be great if there were effects Like you said that yeah, yeah, okay there you go He's right. Here's mr. Sullivan. Hope he's doing all right and we'll work We're going to try to work with a ton of Amherst to to Do some patching this spring to get them in better shape, but then only last so long So these this is the capital and that Different pieces of FY 13 15, which is bonded the FY 16 to 19 Which is a