We now call the Arlington School Committee regular school committee meeting of Thursday, February 14th to order We welcome with us Eric Chen who is in grade 12 and is vice president of the student council and Eric Lee Who is a senior and treasurer of the student council? So thank you both for coming and we also welcome Ms. Hansen who is Union leader of the AA and This chance miss dr. Tessam will be joining us later. Yes, and that pretty much Gets us to everyone and now we have new art to admire This art is coming to us via the Stratton school With mr. Hannah and Ms. Dunnevin as principles of the Stratton and I'm sorry It's a Stratton school and is hosting the Thompson and some of these are Thompson students art And dark miss Dunnevin is the Thompson principle the art teacher is Deborah companion And we start with the kindergarten snowmen who are over there Kindergarten students read the book snowmen at night written by Carolyn Booner and Illustrated by Mark Booner this in this story in this book snowmen come alive and have all kinds of fun on a Wintery night after reading the book students were encouraged to think of the many things snowmen might do and Then create mixed media pictures to illustrate those. Oh Thank you For second grade they did me Matisse inspired collages that's over in this corner Second grade students looked at several of Matisse cutouts in particular. They studied Icarus from 1947 from the book jazz The students noted that the figure Icarus is a simplified form floating on a blue background they talked about the story of Icarus and wondered about the yellow shapes in the cutout where they stars or feathers and Then they got to make their own paper cutouts using a similar theme In third grade they've made imaginary creatures. I think that's yes this one They use their imaginations to create these fantastic creatures They were given the task of inventing an entirely new animal out of parts of at least three other animals It really exists. They were challenged to think about the characteristics of the animal that made it unique and that could be seen and then they said about drawing their new creation and In fifth grade And I do fourth grade no fourth grade got cough Fourth grade I think is along the back wall. They studied abstract art by exploring the art of was silly Kudinsky they looked at his paintings and saw how they became more simplified over time finally focusing on color and geometrical shape they discussed how the colors and shapes brought to mind different images and Then drew a design using geometrical and organic shapes in oil pastel and watercolors to finish it and Then in fifth grade Thank you They made imaginary maps Students were inspired by maps of places and fictional stories They looked at maps from a a melons hundred acre wood J. R. R. Tulk lines Middle Earth and CS Lewis Narnia They talked about the different geographical features They noticed and how they were depicted in the maps and then they drew one of their own trying to give their drawings a Sense of geographic logic so they appear to be real places with mountain chains river cities towns and beaches So it's a wonderful set of art and brings us for a colorful Valentine's Day And given our wonderful weather the past weekend and today. I managed to find a quote that has both snow and As appropriate for Valentine's Day This is from Margaret Atwood and she writes or said the Eskimos had 52 names for snow because it was important to them There ought to be as many for love And now we begin Mr. Jamison, would you like to come to the microphone? Yes, and you get three minutes and I know that we have a handout for me. Yes, and so This relates to a warrant article I filed for the town meeting. It's on the draft warrant It's number 11 and I apologize for not providing the text of that Basically, it's part of a three-pronged program that I'm hoping to have come to pass in town to consider The rules and regulation relating to firearms In particular in relation and I thought it was an important to put it on the warrant this year for consideration and That's sort of described in the first page of the handout second page is So as you know, there are various bodies in town that control property and the only one that has detailed restrictions on the possession or discharge of firearms beyond the Overriding townwide prohibition from discharging a firearm in the town limits is the park department And so the town council and I thought it was a good place to start for potentially drafting either by-law Or I'm personally open to expanding regulations I'm talking to I talked to the select man on Monday Cemetery Commission yesterday you Today tonight and I sense cursey something I thought previously. I don't know if it came through Relating to this and I have to talk to the ARB and the Conservation Commission as well so the that's a overall aim as far as to have a Thoughtful discussion of this issue in town. I think it's a relevant issue to this year for town meeting For each of the bodies that control property in town to determine how best to either Enhance through the enactment of a by-law amendment to the town by-laws or through regulation Their position on that issue You may find other aspects of the park department's by-law useful And we mr. Currow on the board of segments found perhaps the litter aspect would also be useful So you may find other things they're useful. That's why we provided that I assume this will be referred to your subcommittee for whatever regulations or Don't you have something that Policy maybe policy. Yes, and maybe that might be a place to start any questions Don't I don't know what it is the goal is The objective is to have you look at the restrictions Existing which I didn't I didn't find any in the by-laws to consider adding by-law restrictions to in particular to the possession and Discharge of firearms on school property beyond legal uses police and policemen Or and or to consider implementing additional restrictions through your regulations I'm sure you have regulations about what can and can't be done on school property So that the regulations on town properties, which is a six different agencies control them might be more uniform and Versus the park department having strict regulations and no one else that I know of having strict regulations And you say there's a town There's a townwide For prohibition for the discharge of a firearm in the town So part of this is also to work with the chief to publicize what the rules are and what are any rules or regulations or by-laws that you might see put forth as part of this Ward articles town meeting that were enacted would also be publicized As part of that public public publicizing of the rules and regulations in the town and the state level that apply obviously to Arlington and also Through him and in conjunction with the town council to hopefully Implement a surrender destroy program for people who realize that I have a gun. It's not licensed I don't want to license it. I want to get rid of it and have a method for that. So it's it's information Making sure that our laws and regulations coincide with what you all want for each each authority and providing for Just surrender if people wish to get rid of guns and ammo they have Thank you We have to talk okay And and we won't be taking up warrant articles today Yeah, okay, thank you Okay, at this point we go on to the Arlington High School program of studies Did you want to say a thing or just have this evening with us on Mary Vellano who is the principal of the high school? Every year the we go through this process of reviewing internally our program of studies Both looking at mainly looking at courses that we're going to be be adding to our program of studies And that's again the situation this year Ms. Vellano has brought those changes to the Curriculum and accountability subcommittee and had a vetting of this and Jeff who is the chair of that may want to talk to the recommended course additions But I think it would also be helpful to hear Actually, how these courses come about in terms of addition and I think another thing that's important for For people who are listening to know is that while we add these courses to the program of studies The courses we actually run are totally student driven And we look for some minimum minimum enrollments for that for those courses to run but they become options for students and Very often the courses that are offered usually come from an expressed need So they usually are courses that do get the enrollment We're looking for And and Mary may have some more things she might want to add to that as well as as well as the chair of the committee subcommittee Good evening. I have submitted a three-page Packet with the new courses we're proposing for this year The full pack for the program of studies is essentially the same and we've cleaned it up a little bit Did some formatting and editing of course numbers and things like that But for the most part there aren't any other significant changes in the program of studies So the first category for changes we have some new additions for our world language program And the first one is a two-year course called Latin language and culture and This is being Proposed to meet the needs of some students who really struggle taking foreign languages And in the past some of our students who are on eight IEPs or who have language-based disabilities Struggle with languages and we've waived the requirement in many cases But more and more schools require two years of a foreign language for admittance So it's really important that we provide something for students who really Find foreign languages difficult. So this is a two-year course It's basically a full-year Latin course at a slower pace. So students will be able to Take the class for two years. It'll count as a two-year Credit for Allington High's graduation requirement, and it'll also meet the two-year requirement for college admissions and basically It's it's a Latin one course just offered at a slower pace including Latin culture as well so it's listed as Culture a culture B The first course will be offered this year. The second one will be part two which would kick in the following year The next option is Italian one Catherine Ritz our world language director was able to acquire a grant that is going to fund a one-section Italian course and if we have enough enrollment and The interest is there will be able to reapply the following year and it's a renewable grant as long as the grants being offered So there's some potential for Expanding it after this this coming year And we have a part-time teacher on a staff already who can teach it So we don't even have to go out and find a person will teach one class of Italian So everything fell into place nicely for that course The last language course this meander in four as you know, we've had Mandarin grant for the last few years and we've been slowly building that program and now we're able to offer a Mandarin 4 for the Students that have been in that class for the last three years It's a small number. So those students will be merged with meandering 3 The first year we offered meander and there were many juniors and seniors that took the class So they're gone now, but we are slowly building a base of students that are starting with grade 9 and Continuing on so it looks very hopeful that our mandarin program is going to be solid and will grow continuously So it's great that we can offer Mandarin 4 at this point The next category is math and Matt Coleman our math director has started doing some reorganization of our math courses and is really looking at a grade 6 to 12 continuum and This year. He's offering. He's replacing actually math applications, which is a senior course and that students would take if they were not up to taking statistics or our calculus and It's called quantitative reasoning. It's being offered at curriculum a and curriculum B levels and there's just a change in the basic curriculum of the math applications course so it's more relevant and more suitable for what they may need as they move on to college after high school and The last course is a course that we've had in the past. It has not run in the last few years But Matt is hoping to get it back Running at the high school and that's AP statistics Next category is visual arts. We've had a very popular ceramics program for many years The teacher that has been teaching this class is really suffering from Significant health issues with her hand and her shoulders making it very difficult for her to continue working with the equipment in ceramics so Unfortunately, we have to phase that out or replace it with two other courses one is painting and one is mixed media and sculpture The good news about the mixed media courses that it's going to be able to use a lot of equipment that we have Available already that we've either Used in our ceramics course or we've had another courses in the past So we'll be able to make use of a lot of things that we have in our stock room and The final course in family consumer sciences is bake shop science. That's that is a course we had in the past and it was eliminated during one of our budget cut years and It's a baking course But it really focuses a lot on the chemistry of baking and there's a lot of science concepts built into the curriculum So it's a hands-on fun course, but really talking about the science behind Baking and that's it for the new courses that we're proposing Mr. Feynman So our subcommittee met on Monday February 4th Paul Bill and I and we approved this unanimously though It's revenue neutral and it's needed additional programming courses for the high school So we recommend it's why I move approval of the changes to the AHS Course of studies as described by the principal Okay, does anyone else want to speak to the motion or to ask questions? I just would like to thank The curriculum and I'm not gonna say your whole name subcommittee and the staff at the high school for reintroducing some of our more rigorous classes such as AP statistics and and The upper level Mandarin It's nice to know their students that want to push themselves will have more opportunities to do so. Thank you Anyone else I Had a couple of questions. I wonder if the Latin given our Recent problems with the MIA does the new Latin course with that fulfill their guidelines for I think first I had trouble hearing you Would the new Latin course fulfill the MIA guidelines? for Is it substantive enough? MIA the athletics mean and CAA that was in CAA Okay, they said that I was in a high school. Yeah, it's a curriculum a level course. So yes it will Okay, I'm not sure Yeah, CAA got involved There were some high schools that were not requiring Rigid courses and made students ineligible when they got to the college. I'm talking about the Massachusetts one They're only they're only concerned is whether they pass courses or not Okay, but anyway that so it would so that's not an issue, okay that's just because we don't want to have things where we're shunting people into and then we have and You had also mentioned on the sheet here that there's physics, which will now be cloth open the qualified 10th graders Yes, I think I skipped over that one Generally that's been offered for juniors and seniors But there has been some concern about students taking lots of AP courses during junior and senior year And so Larry Weathers director of science thought that for a small number This is really a very small number of students that would qualify for this who have a strong interest in science if they Took this as an elective. They're sophomore year providing that they have the skills. They need to take the course at that time They could take it as a sophomore and it would take it would reduce the number of AP classes that they would take junior senior year So it's trying to spread it out a little bit But for the most for most students This would not be an opportunity for them. Okay, Mr. Hainer just to follow up on that Does the school have a Paula? Do we have a policy on on the amount of AP courses a student can have during their High school career. We do not have a policy at this time. We do have a committee that's working right now consisting of parents students and staff at the high school To talk about the overall Concerns around kids taking too many AP courses and stress So we've met a couple times and we're not sure if we'll come out with a recommendation or what the result will be But it's something worth talking about. Thank you. Okay, and then I had one other comment, which was that I've heard Since the agenda was posted from several parents who were very distressed to hear that ceramics was being dropped As a course I understand what you're saying that the teacher can't teach it, but it's something that they felt Is something that's kind of a basic foundation of a fine arts type of approach and I've asked them to communicate their concerns to the rest of the committee. I don't think that's happened yet But hopefully it's coming soon, but Mr. Hainer Well, I asked a similar question if it would have any effect on students deciding to go forward in an arts program on college level and what was The answer that I got was the program the courses that are now being offered in place of this are the more current courses That the universities the art universities are looking for ceramics is something I don't mean to Minimize it, but the newer courses are the better courses that the universities are looking for So I'm communicating what I heard from these parents and they were Significantly concerned and I was getting lots of notes and I was trying to send your notes to everybody But it hasn't happened yet. Mr. Schlockman. Yeah, I just just to reiterate the we were told that the Art schools are looking upon the ceramics courses as more as a craft-based Item than than a fine arts and that certain elements of ceramics will be incorporated into one of the new courses so You actually what we're doing is raising the bar and including that portion of that in a curriculum of a of a stronger course, so I Had that concern when I heard about it and the discussion in subcommittee Made it appear at least to me that what we're doing is we're improving our course offering Okay, again, I'm communicating what I heard and I think there is still concern about that But I'll ask them to mr. Will there be any any new hires? I know mr. Thielman said revenue neutral, but are will there be any With this plan, I don't think so There's a small number of students taking Mandarin I think sometimes students might move from one class to another but in the end, you know, it's it's an even swap Like this the math classes are replacing other math classes I Don't foresee that we're going to need to add staff for any of these no the Mandarin class will be merged in with a Mandarin 3 is it always a one one-to-one swap like in terms of ways But what happens is if if we had 25 students taking Italian that probably means one less section in some other language possibly So what we do is we look at our numbers and we base our staffing on that so another language could drop a little bit So we really look at the numbers of kids overall When we when we staff positions Does that make sense yeah one last question the kids do When when are it when's the due date for everyone to to select when well, we're just starting that process now During the month of March a Majority of the students will be selecting courses and we'll start looking at numbers in April And that's when we start deciding how many teachers we need for every subject There might be a little confusion when we look at the budget later because we have money set aside for Mandarin Chinese the situation is that that we have been able to staff some some of our Mandarin sections with a Teacher from from China provided through a grant from the State Department So we actually have someone who probably will return Who's that that person's money is already in the budget, but we are going to have to supplant The person who came through the State Department grant and add another point to to be able to do the other section So it's what the budget is reflecting is the money we need And but the actual people may be a little bit less than than that if that makes sense Okay, but we will be hiring. I'm sorry. We will be hiring that an additional point to the Italian I Had just one other question. I'll call the question For the Italian do does two years of two different languages count as that to fulfill the two-year language requirement we've actually Want to change that to two years of the same language for the same reason for college Admissions in the past we've had students Taking one language one year and a different language another year and that's been acceptable But now we are student colleges are looking for two years of the same language We're going to ask students to take to choose one language and do two years of that Okay, I'm just wondering if anyone starts Italian and then you're not able to do your two of Italian is that sending them down a Well for students coming in as freshmen, we will be talking to them about really thinking about the language They want if someone started a language This year and they weren't Pleased with it. They can start again with another language and take two years after that I mean, well, they'd really have to think about the college they were applying to and see what they're Asking them to take that's the key Where they want to go to school Okay, the grant is renewable and expandable so the first year will Fund a point two and when that program grows it will fund a point four Okay, does anyone else have any other questions? Okay all in favor. Hi. Any opposed? Now we move on to Central registration plan Well as last year as we we entered in the process of redistricting one of the changes that we needed to make within the district was how we Handled registration for elementary students at the moment. Nothing has changed for registration of students at the secondary level but because We have a new policy on redistricting and which involves buffer zones. This is not something that can continue to really registration can continue to be at the school level because there is no mechanism or ease of way of handling a students that might be might move into or lives in a particular buffer zone so we have been working on developing a process and I want to give a lot of credit to Leilani D'Agostino who is here this evening to present what we're doing with central registration and also to Adam Kowalski who Has been the architect of the software that will be behind the the registration process online and it has taken a lot of time to do this It's extremely detailed work To make sure that all of the links and the drop-downs all work the We have sent a letter today to to all perspective kindergarten families telling them of the new process and How to go to the to the website so tomorrow we will turn turn it on and it will be live but Leilani's here tonight who is our She has a very long title, but we're also adding Central registrar. I think that might be the part of it but she is the person who is our director of curriculum our data and Curriculum integration, so I'm going to turn this over to Leilani and We happy to have any questions at the end of this you're not going to see the live for what you are going to see our slides of of Pages that would come up in central registration So I'm always excited to talk to school committee I haven't been here for a while, but some of you know how excited I get when I come Because when I come to school committee, it's because I'm always presenting something new so dr. Bodie never wants me to be bored I don't think she always brings out these really interesting projects for me So this is one of the most interesting projects. She's brought before me because data in a different way So you are all familiar because you created it the district goal And your district goal is very clear that I'm supposed to Realize registration process for all new students that incorporate school committee approved redistricting guidelines and is widely communicated to all stakeholders That's good. I understand that But I don't know what to do with that information necessarily so when I met with dr. Bodie, she said okay, we'll break it down for you We'll make it really easy. I would like you to create a central location to register children I would like you to create a central and streamline process nice and streamlined and We'd like to make sure we're communicating to all the parents to all the principles to all the secretaries to all the teachers To all the parents children Administration upward administration just about everyone I could possibly find in Arlington. So That's a kind of tall order, but I like that And we want to make sure that at the end of this you can verify what is being done So I said okay I like that and the easiest part of it was to figure out where to do it because I have the most beautiful office in the town of Arlington So this is where you come to centrally register your children in my beautiful office in the media center If anyone would like to stop by and I even have a curried machine So if you do come by we can have a cup of coffee But seriously on a serious note the task is to look at seven different elementary schools To figure out what each one is doing and to find a way to make sure we're touching all those schools and all the incoming children Not just kindergarten first grade second grade third grade fourth grade fifth grade and when I looked at the seven elementary schools I realized that the end goal is the same children in classrooms But the way each school did it was very different and I I Congratulate all seven of our elementary schools because they they do an excellent job They bring those kids in and they bring the parents in and they do a great job But it's different enough that it's not centralized So I had to step back from the project and just stand there for a minute and that little person on the screen that's me and you'll see me throughout this presentation and That little person represents change You all know dr. Bode likes things to be progressive So when we began this process last year, it wasn't just to do it and finish it It was to do it and to make it up to the minute make sure it's always streamlined So you'll see where we started and we're about to go with kindergarten registration Which will then filter right into central registration So today for example, I was doing central registration Knowing that in two weeks, I'll be doing kindergarten registration knowing that I'll be doing central registration after that So they all work together So I want to communicate to the parents and we began the process with come on in and sit down with me and fill out some paperwork And so people were dropping by all the time anytime. I don't I couldn't leave my office So we decided that wasn't really that wasn't really gonna work and so then we decided let's put it up on the web So now I'm gonna walk you through a little bit of what it looks like if you were a parent and none of you have come For central registration, I would remember you so hopefully this is going to be new to all of you all of you a little bit we begin with a Request from a parent usually that says my name is John Doe and my son is going to be coming to the school Could you tell me what I need to do and so I was sending these nice little emails out to people and it kind of highlighted What the forms were that they needed to find and at this point you don't have to read what's up there But at this point I was saying if you go on to the website And you click on the parent form section. You can find all these great forms. Let's download them Let's fill them in and bring them into see me Not sure that's too realistic So we thought about it and we said we can't get them onto the website and then get them over to a central parent form Place you need to have a registration place. And so we have created this great spot called registration and it's all right there for you and The parent clicks on the on the form prints out the PDF Fills it in with a paint pen brings it in to see me and the process moves on now I just made a little mistake. I don't usually like to go back But I want to go back because you see me in the corner the time you see me that means I'm going to make a change So this is what we started with this very simple process and Now starting tomorrow morning dr. Bodie at 8 a.m. Our new website will be up there and When a parent goes on to registration now, they can select kindergarten They can select elementary or they can select middle and high school Kindergarten and elementary are pretty much the same This is all talking about where to call if you need some help give me a call I can help you walk through it Right here where it says click here to access Tomorrow that'll be a link Which you will click on which will bring you directly to the forms. We want you to fill out So if you remember my previous slide, I'm listing all these different forms And I'm asking you to fill out each of these things now You're going to click a button and type your answers and that's that's Adam's thing and that's fabulous What he did is just amazing. It's it's it's seven pages. So we condense everything down to seven pages In addition to doing that we are going to ask parents to bring us some information I want to see your driver's license. I need to see two forms of proof of residency We'd like to see your child's birth certificate. So we're going to be taking some back, too Originally when the parent came to sit with me and they brought all this stuff in we have this nice little checklist and I could check off What they brought him and I could let them know that they had to bring in their health stuff and You know, that was working well and we let them know what school they'd be going to now with the redistricting We can't release that information necessarily right off the top And the health the nurses were saying well if you're going to collect all this other stuff you might as well collect The nursing stuff and we agreed. I think that sounds fair But remember there's a little picture of me down here So we found a way to make this even more streamlined and a little more efficient. So Now you have a real checklist at the beginning not when you're sitting in my office When you're at home in your house and you're running your program You can check off that you have all these things if you want to write some notes about some questions You might have when you're sitting in registration. You can go ahead and do that there So we just tried to streamline it just a little bit I don't know how effective this is because we haven't used it yet But I will let you know after the third week in March because that's when we'll be done with kindergarten registration And we are hoping that all 400 and something families comes to see us in those days. So Then we want to move on that's what I do for the for the parent What happens when the parent walks out of my office and I'm holding all this paperwork? I've got to get it to the schools and I have to get it to the schools pretty quickly Because most children are very excited to begin their career in the Arlington public schools and they're there and they want to go so We usually end their meeting with me by making a phone call to the school and letting them know A child sitting here with their parents are going to come over to the school. Is that okay? And the school says oh, yes, we'd love to have you in the time It takes the parent to leave my office and go to a school I take this information and I send it directly to the principal online So when the child walks through the door the information is already there on a really good day I get the child into power school So when the parent comes to the door the child comes right up in power school and they can place the child in a classroom So we are using the computer to speak We're speaking together on the phone and of course we send everything into office as well We want hard copies of everything at this point till it runs a little further When I'm sending things online I want to make sure the principal's alerted that I'm sending something so everything's written in capital letters Which I know you're not supposed to do but I'm not screaming at anyone. I'm just excited and I'm letting them know it says in central registration all in capital letters lets them know Please read this email immediately because chances are there's a child coming to your school just in case you didn't hear my phone It lets them know what we've done. I've put the child in the computer. I've put the child in power school There I am in the corner So there's something about this form that we didn't like and what we didn't like was what happens if the parent forget something The school wants to know that they don't want to have to go through 14 pages of data to figure out that the birth certificate was Missing so we have a second letter and the second letter reads Just like the first letter except it says oh wait This is missing And it's pretty clear that I've accepted the paperwork, but the child may not begin classes until whatever is missing is filled in So that seems to be working. I think we've gotten a lot of positive feedback from the principals about this So this is something where I don't have a little person on the bottom of the screen because it seems to be working I don't have to change that particular form So I finished with the with parents and I finished with the Principles and now it goes on to that verification part, which is which is what's very important to us because that's what makes my numbers become real and I don't know who this really represents that might actually be me. I'm just so happy when they finish But I'm going to say it's the child Again something that looks familiar to you is is that original form? We checked off the things to let everybody know I received these things What they're going to need to bring and what school they're going to go to we've changed this up a little bit and That this when they come for kindergarten registration, especially will now be signing off and Dating it. I think the date is important for Well, I could talk a little bit more about that but the date so remember this little date right here because this is an important piece right there This is their their receipt that they've come that they've turned everything in This is what central registration and kindergarten Registration looked to me like last year if you were to ask me to describe to you what it was like It was this army of people with these pencils and pens because they didn't do stuff or they sort of did stuff Or they maybe did stuff and they just came in and they had to sit for a long time. We've thought about it We've talked about it. I met with Adam several times When the parent walks to the door now for kindergarten registration They will be greeted by someone if their packet is incomplete They will immediately go to a computer lab and finish their forms If they have completed their forms but have forgotten to print something They will go to another area in which we will help them print if they have brought their birth certificate But forgot to Xerox it they'll go to a different area and they'll get their Xeroxing done And if they have come with everything done, they'll come to me So like yeah, I'm getting a little smarter about it They'll come to me. So I went from this chaos of little army men with pens to this nice streamlined process The only thing that they have to use paper and pencil for right now is The health form if they feel more comfortable printing it for confidentiality purposes They have the choice to do it online or to print it The only other piece of paper that they have to print and fill in is our home language survey And that's because it's new because the state had mandates on it Then they do the rest of it on the computer and then they're done It's as simple as that. So our process is pretty it is pretty streamlined. It is pretty pretty easy I'm trying to make my presentation a streamlined as the process I could never be the director of data and not end my presentation with some numbers, right? I mean that would just brighten you all if I did that. So I do have some numbers here I apologize the piece of paper in your packet has an addition error on it But I have reprinted. I know can you even believe that I know I was shocked too You know and I had got it up here too late the packet packets were printed But I have found the error we have fixed it We forgot to to hit some we hit the not the word some so I have fixed it for you You will notice though that August was a very popular month for central registration And that even January we've had 17 new students in grades K to 5 It's for the month of January We're totaling about 110 kids this these numbers show us that it is a good idea to have a central place to go to So I think my time is up. I promised dr. Bode I would go through this very Streamlines and quickly and so I am finished with mine and if you have any questions Just gonna add a couple more things and then more questions When we when a parent goes on the the software They're gonna type in their address. In fact, you do by a drop-down menu and you do a drop-down menu for the The number of the house as well and what will come up is an automatic fill-in of what your District is whether it's Stratton or it's going to be a Hardy Thompson Buffer zone and then you will have the opportunity to say what your preferred school is and that whether you want to be on a waitlist What the what the parents have been told is that the wait list will be determined by data registration and if there's more than One application on a particular day, then it's all by lottery within that that particular day So I think that we In doing this and having this particular incentive. I think that we're going to see a very heavy first week We've set up five nights for kindergarten registration All all of this now is going to be in the late afternoon evening from 4 30 to 7 30 at the high school They really have worked really hard and getting a very Streamline process going on so it should go very smoothly and it will go very fast for any and any family That comes in with everything filled out because you'll just go right through the the centers and move forward But I think that to the committee you wanted to know a report back in the fall as to how many By by each one of the the districts how many I should say the buffer areas how many had their first choice And how many came off the wait list and how that all looks and with the software that Adam has developed all of that data will Be possible the other nice thing about the software that Adam has created this It's very important to us, but it's not it's no it may not seem like a big thing But it's a really important all of this is this information will be on the system And then we're going to be able to download it into power school And so we're going to be able to populate right away our data management system, which is going to be Terrific so those are the main other features of this Mr. Heiner What I don't know if you're directly involved. What if there are illegal documents dealing with custodial is that? That's part of it, too. They have to bring in proof of guardianship but it's also There's also issues there as well and we have to have the original But there are also issues around J1 visas, but I don't want to we don't need to talk about that tonight Mike my question with that when you're sending documents over this some of those documents have to be in the school where the child is For them to potentially deal with that. Do you you're not transmitting that? How do they get to the school? We put we put the bit of sealed envelope and we send them to your office We only take the we have them bring the original But we only keep the copy. I understand that But it all goes like my Concern was the transmission of the document because it's a client. I sense itsivity of that document. It does not go scanned It goes hard copy. Thank you Thank you because this is very comprehensive and I work in a district that has a central registration so in Looking at this for the kindergartens. It's very clear very straightforward. I'm wondering for the elementary Level students. Are you making sure that you collect all records from their former school when they? centrally register as well we have us we have a particular form and It asks when what was your previous school and then it lists may we request your personal record your behavior record your MCAS record your IEP record they check those off and then we contact the school and the school sends us the files Okay, and they start they have to sign that that yesterday we can seek that information and does receipt of that information not necessarily the MCAS because they're going to get transferred to you anyhow by the state but The attendance the conduct and the transcript our receipt of those dependent before we assign them to their school or Can that be pending? It can be pending There's only a couple of things that are absolutely necessary before you can actually and that is your vaccination records Some of your health records Without that we can't admit you. I know that it's within our legal rights to require that when the child registers before we give them an assignment and I think it given the difficulty sometimes there isn't getting records after the fact It might be worth having a conversation about whether that's something you want central registration Sometimes that's one of the reasons why we haven't made it absolute because sometimes some schools are not timely in Getting us the documentation, but on the other hand with the permission forms. We're fairly dogged about getting it right and As I've learned recently The state does have a complaint system in place for when sending schools with Holt records and I just I feel that it's very important to a good placement for students to have as comprehensive Information as we can we do when when they when we finish that receipt at the end of their this part here I don't know if you can even read it But it says to complete the registration process And this was the one we used in the summer between now in the beginning of the year You will need to contact your child's school to complete the below and meet your child's principal And it was specifically for the immunization and the health records So that was not handled through my office because I wanted a nurse to be looking at it Mrs. Nicholson and I do have an agreement that if central stations taking place in my office I can call her and if she's on site she will come to meet the parents that makes sense and Does anyone else have a first question no mr. Hainer Regarding special education services if they don't provide if we don't have the IEP How long before we I mean we're not providing services until we do get the IEP am I correct Okay, is it our responsibility to chase it The parents responsibility and I understand that but I mean We may and we even had situations where we have not even known There wasn't checked off so we would know to pursue it. Okay, so There's gonna be individual situations on on that part that you get the release to seek the records. I Don't know if it's it's legal or not, but just Just a release of all student records Do we have to be specific of which records we're looking for? Okay, we don't even need a release Legally, we don't need a release once they're a resident. We can contact the school directly So what we did do I should have put a little I should have put the little one of me on that because we have We have had this come up a couple times like dr. Bodie said there was a few cases where we weren't aware so When we have a specific spot that says is there an IEP and if they say yes From hence forth the special education department will be notified as well If a child comes in who's clearly an ELL student doesn't speak any English When I'm sending that packet to the principal. I'm always carboning Carla on it. I think in the letter that I send to the principal's it says Carla has been carboned on We've included Carla Brezzi because the child's going to be assisted so the special education department has requested that as well So if I'm if I'm seeing that checked it'll say special education department has been carboned I Wondered how you're letting the elementary students know about the or in and middle and high school students the people moving in How are they finding out about? Central registration well it now when you go right on to the Arlington website right on the right is a whole thing called school registration and then Currently when it was it was the like the second slide.  They're directed to Karen Gillis at the middle school and Nancy Cacovaro at the high school But also there's some people who will come and not look at the website Yeah, and their tendency is to just call the school that they think that they they're going to go to and all of our Building secretaries. I've told them that directs them to Leilani Both the phone number and email address in fact in most of schools now I think they have a sheet of paper. They just give parents or they certainly give it over the phone and They call and make an appointment. So there's a Both an oral way to the schools as well as the website And all the school websites are being updated too because they've all had information about on The different elementary school websites and stuff have had That will all have to get updated. Yes. I think Claudia No, certainly we've to discuss them. She will break the links right and readjust them It's home one thing suggestion that was made by the redistricting subcommittee was some sort of outreach to the local real estate agents to actually Share some of that information because people will were still selling houses with the year in the this district or the that district I would wonder if that sheet that some of the schools have put together might be appropriate To actually just provide copies to all the agents in town And that might streamline the process further. We have not done that yet, but but I do remember that suggestion Okay, does anyone else have any other questions? I Guess one last thing I'm wondering if the parents come in and they don't speak English as their first language What accommodation do we have for them to communicate with them? Oh, I am very crafty on that All right, go ahead. We have had several of those actually so Sometimes I will call on Carla. I know at one case One case we actually found someone to interpret some of the materials I know the home language survey is in multiple languages So they will you know, let us know what they're kind of looking for And we've gotten knock on wood. We've gotten those who have come in through the process the letter that's going out to all the children that we've been identified through the census The there's besides the letter from me. There's also a Another letter which tells them in very in a several languages that if they need this translated to put a contact and we will get them translated But also one of the things that the This is a more of a general comment in addition to central registration is that the iPads have the ability To for two-way communication between people you can Go to list. I think there's 28 languages It's one of the things that we thought why we were really attracted to this so that Let's say a principal wants to talk to someone who doesn't know any English But they know the home language. They can type the question in on the iPad in that language there's a translator that the other person sees the question in their language and types back in their language and Then it's that's that can go back and forth now That is not the way we wanted to conduct it all the time, but We certainly have that as a tool in addition to translators Okay Anyone else? Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you And we look forward to updates on how it's proceeding Let you know it's the first three weeks in March And it's in the letter. I guess we probably should have put that up on a slide as to the dates As for people who are listening, but it's all going out to everyone Everyone that that has shown up on our census It was mailed today, and it should be there tomorrow or Saturday And the dates are the dates are the first three weeks of March their evening dates We've we've changed up the the days of the week So in case one date one week one particular weekday does not work But they all are from 430 to 730 here in the high school in the first week Leilani are Tuesday and Thursday, right Tuesday and Thursday of the first week And they are on the web but just so I can say this to see the invades listening On the first week of March, it's Tuesday and Thursday the 5th and the 7th And week two it is Wednesday and Thursday the 13th and 14th Week three is the 19th a Tuesday the 19th, and we've also have a snow day that week of Thursday Okay, so that's so these are all up on the web Okay Mr. Schluckman just to make sure there is no Advantage for people to show up at 430 on March 5th over any other time Over any other time? No We have a central registration process in Lowell and people think that the first person in the door has some advantage over Everybody else and it's very crowded. So can I clarify? I thought that there is no advantage if you don't live in a buffer zone If you do live in a buffer zone, there is an advantage There's I was gonna say there's an advantage you're coming on the first day But there's no advantage you're coming at 430 because because it's the date rather than the time that that Will create the wait list on a lottery basis Then you might have an interesting line there on March. We are planning to staff really well that first week Okay Okay, anything else? Nope. Okay, and we move on to budget But before I'd like to acknowledge that we are joined in our audience by our two-state reps Mr. Garber Lee and mr. Rogers. Thank you We appreciate your what can we ask them to come up and say hello? Sure. Would you like to come up and say hello? at the microphone I Know we're not on the agenda tonight, so thank you madam chair for taking us out of order members of the committee So I'm joined here with Representative Rogers who wanted to come and see a school committee meeting and we didn't want to be on the agenda because we thought we Would just come by and and say hello. I know you're about to get into the budget debate Which obviously will be a very interesting conversation I once chaired the budget subcommittee, so I know it's not easy to do that waiting for the state to do Their budget which we are heavily involved in right now We had our first ways and means committee hearing this afternoon and Gardner Earlier this morning that went into the afternoon and Gardner Auditorium with a full committee and it's going to be a great Conversation and actually one of the ways it means hearings will be held on March 4th in Arlington And I will will be hosting that hearing and it's going to be a 10 o'clock in the morning But I will send more information To the committee on that and the topic will be on health and human services But I will send information to you on that, but I'll let representative Rogers Speak well, it's great to be here. Thank you for as Representative garbally said taking us sort of out of out of order not really on the agenda I really just wanted to come to observe and plan to do it more than just today and Obviously, we're going to be strong advocates for the Arlington schools and as representative garbally said there's a coming Debate could be a pitched battle over the budget and the governor in his final two years is Chosen to perhaps advance his most ambitious agenda of his entire time in office and I for one am hopeful that There is success in convincing the legislature to invest more in education Which is I think vital and has been underfunded in my opinion For a lot of different reasons, so I don't want to intrude too much. I plan to Just observe today and but thank you for being so gracious to ask us to say a few words I really appreciate it and look forward to working with you and please call write email anytime and I'll get right back to you I'm gonna start by thanking you in advance mr. Rogers for everything you're going to be doing for us in the future But since mr. Garbally representative garbally is here. I want to take this advantage to publicly thank him On state civics day He went out of his way to help arrange for some of the students that were participating to get special tour of the state house gets actually said representative chairs and Left a very positive impact on a number of young people About what their role in future? politics and and just state of Massachusetts could be and so even though you're no longer on the school committee We appreciate everything you do to help the students of Massachusetts I know many of you have actually sent emails I received emails from a couple of school committee members today on Revenue and so we will have be having that conversation, but I do agree with that representative Rogers on that front so Great, thank you very much And thank you for joining us in our audience and now we move on to budget All right this evening Is our planned budget presentation this process began back in the fall and As we do every year we we take a look internally at where we are What we need to be doing the way of resources to improve some of the some of our improvement Isn't so much related to budget, but it has to do with systems or professional development The way we do things But as we as you're aware back in the fall we the administrative team created a list divided by tiers in terms of particular things that Felt that we needed for the FY 14 budget and for outgoing years So that process began as I said back in November. We had the principles come and present in December both Discussion about their perspective on the budgets and their needs for their schools as well as their Proven plans and how the improvement plans for their schools related to the budget as That as the process evolved with the budget subcommittee We're very much a part of this and setting up the timeline for where we are tonight Budget subcommittee looked at the the issue of where we needed to be able we needed to increase funds for next year and created categories That we were able to then align the particular Particular items or the staffing that we needed to those categories and the categories are here Let me go through them in just a second, but I just want to say how we're going to organize tonight's presentation I'm just gonna my role in this will give us sort of an overview of framework of where we are and Then Diane Johnson who is you all know as our CFO will go through the specific numbers We will then take a look at the budget books And I want people that are listening tonight to know that we have made the budget all these budget documents live earlier this evening and You can just go to our website and I think it's right actually on the day and it's right on the other homepage Right now isn't it our webmaster put it as the first news items first I'm not it'll take you right to the PDF of the budget So if you want to follow this we can actually get into line items or any line item discussion. You'll be able to do that All right, so in terms of budget priorities that the budget subcommittee This gave us sort of a framework for how what we needed to be doing with our FY 14 budget At at the beginning at the very beginning of this process We're looking to have a level service budget and a level service budget means that What we are doing this year the staffing that we have this year would be the same next year And if we were to have a level service budget What type of additional funds could be available either through town appropriation or from grants that will allow us to do improvements or to add additional staff and we'll talk about the the Numbers of that in a couple minutes, but in terms of the categories in which we would want to Align our increases As I said maintain level service the other is that we are opening Thompson school Which is the site is on time and when I have total confidence we're going to open in September Is we want Thompson school to open with the same complement of staffing? as all of our other elementary schools and some of those positions have been carried forward from when Thompson was a In existing school But some staffing were not and also since the last two years We have reorganized some of our special education staffing And so there's additional staffing that will need to be Hired in order to make sure that we have that that all of our elementary schools are equitable We very much need to have professional development as something we focus on next year both in terms of Aligning our curriculum providing teachers with an a deep understanding of the Standards in the common core and also as you know, we're we're entering to a new Form of teacher and actually all educator Evaluation system next year and and all and both of these initiatives major in and of themselves. It's going to require Professional development and we need to make sure that there are the resources resources for that But in addition and we'll talk more about this as we get into the spring is the training That's going to be required at the state level for SEI, which is a form of training for for differentiation for student ELL English language learners students in classrooms We also know that we have a had a focus this year and we'll continue to have a focus on Mathematics instruction both of the elementary in the middle school And we'll take a look at the ways that we're going to to enhance that support next year We wanted we know that we need as a district to become more competitive For substitutes our substitute Pay rate has I think was back in the late 90s when it was first set and it has not changed In in all these years and we had made a proposal to increase that We also know that we need to always update our materials and we particularly need with the common core standards to update our materials for mathematics and literacy We we know that it's going to be important next year for have equitable and more support at the administrative level at the middle and the high school with the new educator evaluation system and We also need to provide for Staffing reserves both for enrollment increases and and perhaps for any kind of special education services So that was became the framework for the types of Whether the specific items that we worked we included in the budget They fell into one of those kinds of frameworks so we look at the common core standards and Coaching and teaching. What is this going to look like in terms of particular? additions next year and We are looking for two elementary math coaches and one additional Middle school math support teacher We'll talk a little bit later up that one of one way that we're going to be able to fund one of the elementary math coaches And and and then the additional one would be through this through the operating budget We also are going to fund curriculum materials for Students in grades three through six mathematics materials. We need elementary literacy materials We are going to have additional world language staffing at the middle and the high school Increased instructional leadership at the middle and high school and of course as we have in the past year as we've always put in some reserve teachers because Enrollment changes can be Unpredictable as best as we can at this point know what they're going to be our hope of course is that the new buffer zone redistricting system we have will help Equalize that a little bit and perhaps make it a little bit less Unpredictable in terms of staffing So going to another Important focus is enhancing education for all of our students and as you know from Kathleen Lockyer's presentation back Earlier this in earlier January She talked about the way that we are going to be improved our delivery of special education services next year and The improvement is in several ways One is that we are going to have a learning to learning specialists To support students at each elementary school currently We have only one except for at Pierce well the elementary all the six six of the elementary school will have two Pierce will remain with four Learning specialists and each one of those learning specialists will have a teaching assistant that work that they work with and can help With the learning needs of the students and we're going to be dividing it Into a K2 grouping and a 3-5 grouping each one of the elementary schools As an aside we can talk a little bit more about this in terms of funding but a lot of the special education Changes that we're doing we've been able to identify ways to have That be somewhat of a wash with our current system by just how we've Reallocated teaching positions and TA positions going forward So we are also as I said looking to provide Related service people at Thompson. We're we're going to need a half-time psychologist and OT so that we can keep as we have done this year Building-based models we have found that the work. We've done this year already is is both Certainly anecdotally very successful It will be helpful to see what the data shows in terms of student achievement as we move forward But certainly in terms of how people are perceiving that they find the changes this year even very beneficial but we also need to have another board-certified behavior analyst and Some more bait behavior support personnel And then we will have teaching assistants for both short and long-term needs So moving forward in terms of another major category infrastructure support You you've already had the presentation on central registration, but one of the things that we We know already and in fact we've been sort of piecemealing it this year as best as we can is that we do need Support in and central registration which we call the student enrollment center another change is the currently we have one point four five vacant custodial positions and we're thinking of changing that and and Creating a night supervisor, so we'll have a day supervisor and then we'll also have an evening a night supervisor and then going back to the one of the Categories of substitute we are going to increase the rate of pay for both daily and long-term substitutes and Diane can tell you what she's figured out as to what we can actually be able to offer within our budget next year Which will be a marked improvement. So that's sort of an overview of What the categories were you've had that tiered list and we've been able to Slot pretty much in fact everything that we had in that tier one and tier two star levels We've been fits into one of the categories that the school committee has determined that there's the areas They want to see the enhancements and and we've been able to through some Create a budgeting looking at grants reorganization Within the district, but we're going to be able to fund next year in this in the budget in FY 14 So I think we're moving now and Diane can talk more about the specifics of the numbers But before we move into that piece of it, I don't know if there's anything that you'd want to Ask and maybe it will come up and we actually get into the specifics Mr. Heiner just quick question Do we own the custodians or does the town? We hire them there are employees Fiscally, they're in our budget. We pay they come out of our money I understand do we hire them the hiring process has handled under Mark Miano who is technically under the DPW director Mark Miano is the facilities manager of the entire town. Okay, so we pay for them We manage well, can we can a principal authorize over time for them? It's usually done in concert with Mark. I mean it's discussed together and I'm always I sign the slips So I know about it. It's just a confusing thing. It is confusing It is kind of a hybrid model and and without the diplomacy of Mark Miano It wouldn't it wouldn't work very well, but it does work pretty well It works well because of the people that are doing it They people work very well together on this but absent that it could cause lots of issues Any other This level question. Okay. Nope. We move on Sorry, let me go past this. Yes, please right there. So we want to be yes. Thank you the total amount for the FY 13 budget was Just over is just shy of $51 million. We're into in our revenue anticipations for next year We have a solid number from the town appropriation that number continues to include the $970,000 offset for kindergarten fees. So there will be no kindergarten fees in this budget And it represents the growth that's been laid out in the multi-year plan that's done in cooperation between town and school Grants the entitlement grants are projected to drop by eight percent in this budget scenario That's very conservative, but since we don't know what's going to happen in Washington At the time we were building the budget that seemed like the safest model to make However, if you compare the numbers in actuality, it doesn't look like there's much of a drop And that's because of the influx of the project success grant that's coming online in this budget cycle And our revolving revenues are roughly flat. We're using our actual FY 13 Circuit Breaker number because we know what that'll be and that will be funding FY 14 and there's a slight reduction in And what we think we're going to take in for building building rental revenues and we've eliminated the lab credit So those are those are the basic revenue assumptions that That this budget is built on that gives us a total increase in revenue just shy of two million dollars and Just to graphically represent the allocation of our budget the town appropriation in this budget is roughly 90% of our total funding but it is important to remember that grants and Revolving fees and reimbursements make up a significant a Significant part of our budget It's particularly important when we get to town meeting because we're on you we're an unusual department for the town in that respect Sorry, mr. Schuchman. I'm just wondering we can't break this town appropriation dad out because I think it's really important to parcel out what's local tax revenue appropriated out of Local revenues versus what's coming into chapter 70? Well, that wouldn't really be consistent with how we we receive the revenues You know the town commits to our revenues regardless of what's happening on chapter 70 or other factors You know, they give us the money and they bear the flux It can be done certainly, but you know, they've they've committed to this number for us regardless They've committed that number regardless of what the number of the local aid is I understand the situation under the The fiscal stability plan, but When we're going before town meeting and making arguments the town about how much of town revenue is Local tax money is being contributed into the schools vis-a-vis how much in tax revenues collected I think it's important for us to to be able to be clear as to how much we're receiving from Locally generated tax dollars versus what's coming in under chapter 70 So just to clarify since I'm not sure so would you just break up what the current Another slice of the pie, right, but I'm saying you would just take what last year's Last year's we do have we do have an estimated number for chapter 70 under a house one And we should use that as our baseline number right now that that's I'm saying which number you're using last year If you're talking about the fiscal 13 budget, we use the number that was actually appropriated Yeah, okay by the legislature for fiscal 14. We're we're using their projection because You know, I think that you know in terms of dealing with town meeting and parents It's important for people to understand that difference and we're we are talking on the floor of town meeting But how much of the money is being raised from local tax revenue and that's sort of the bottom line on budget 20 Right. So are you really just interested in seeing the chapter 70 broken out? Are you going to want to follow the trail of free cash versus tax?  Okay Mr. Heyner That's doable. I I guess though. I mean if we're really going to try a PR thing in here and the major Taxpayer is looking at the how much the individual property taxes are the more slices we can put to that pie and Move that green back because right now that looks to me like the taxpayer Property is coming all that green reality. It isn't it's the chapter 70 and all the yet the other pieces of the buy I'm sorry. It's more work for you. No, no, it's fine. I just want to be clear on what's desired So I mean I suggest to the committee that Small we can make that property tax thing. I don't know it is it is still coming from from all of us It's coming in a much lower amount Mr. Schlock but I think but I think there's an important argument to be made here is that under the terms of the Of the fiscal revenue plan we've got if our chapter 78 increases The town will give us less money Because that's the agreement there they've agreed on the bottom line You mean the town will give us less money less money property on money So we're not because it's an unusual position that in most towns if the chapter 70 money goes up It's you know More money to the schools But if all of a sudden the newspaper reports that we're getting another One million dollars in chapter 78 all that's going to happen with this is that same number is going to go and that Pi is going to shift a little and these these are important things for us to be communicating with in our budget document in our budget process Okay, but I think we need to move on but thank you. Okay In terms of the proposed budget changes for FY 14 to meet our obligations of level service We need $1.5 million the bulk of that is steps lanes contract obligations We're proposing another one point a little bit more than $1.5 million in new initiatives and We are proposing a little bit more than one point one million dollars in restructuring to help fund those proposed new initiatives Which brings us back into balance with our available revenue and that's a Graphic representation of major categories within the proposed budget just so you can see Where our funds are going I? Always find this pie really interesting to look at because When I think of the things that worry me and take up a lot of my time that sometimes they seem to be relatively smaller segments of the pie, but It's just nice to see what what we're funding. Is that it? Oh good scared me. I pressed down and nothing was there. I was like, oh my god So turning to the budget books And if you are Viewing online you can go to the Arlington Public Schools main page and under the first news item click on the link It is a searchable PDF the budget is organized into sections as it was last year section 1 gives a very high-level overview of What's going on and has some graphs to? Two of the two graphs that were just shown here and a couple of other graphs that show Long-term trends based on end of year reporting categories Section 2 is the superintendent's budget message, which is the narrative Description of what we're trying to do with this budget It also includes a more detailed breakout of all of the changes that we're proposing And a line-by-line description of each of those changes Section 3 is the funding summary And again just to reiterate the assumptions the town appropriation amount is that from the multi-year plan The grants number assumes an 8% increase in our entitlement grants shows the influx of the project success grant the loss of the teaching American history grant all of which were have been known previously and the revolving the revolving fees picks up the FY 13 circuit break at number, which we will be spending in 14 because we're rolling our circuit breaker forward one year and the elimination of lab credit and A slight reduction in building rental fees We're gonna ask questions as we go through this I thought let's let her do the quick overview and then we'll come back and ask questions The budget section 4 is the budget transfer summary the top page Shows the FY 14 proposed budget broken out by major categories that were set by the school committee But it excludes grant funding So that's why the numbers look a little bit different We pull the grants out and we just look at town appropriation and revolving or fee-based money by major category and Then this the following pages in that section are just back up to each of those numbers Section 6 is the cost center summary So if you wanted to see what it's costing it a school or in a department, this is where you would look Thank you meant five five. I didn't mean five. I apologize Section 6 is the program summary This is if you're actually interested in sport by sport for athletics This is a great place to go to look and see what we're what we have spent and what we're expecting to spend sport by sport and other thematic Looks at our what we do here The next section is the object summary. This is where you would go to see total teacher salary All aggregated together Total out of district special education tuition major categories of expense This is where you would want to look if those are the numbers you're looking for The next section is the budget T detail By cost center program and object This is the most finally granulated part of the budget if you wanted to know specifically This is where you would look the other sections are higher levels of summary So depending on what you're interested in on the web. This section is searchable Which is I think is a really neat feature courtesy of our webmaster Claudia Bartoli who does an amazing job and that's very handy. You can put in a keyword like legal and Keep pressing next and it will take you to every reference of legal and the numbers associated with it The next position the next section is position control where we compare our Present salaries and what they will cost next year So this is this basically this is where you can see the contract increases at the smallest level of granularity And then there's two though the next two sections are specialty sections. The first is special ed This is where you see all of special ed pulled together the special ed department the special ed services based in each school the These special learning communities the SLC a b and c Special ed transportation are all aggregated in this section So if you want a big picture view of all of sped and you don't want to go pulling it through every part of the budget, this is where you would go And the next section is athletics This is where you see all of athletics aggregated in one place and finally it wraps up with a description of how the Charter of Accounts works and I believe there's an index on the final page To help guide you to a particular section if you're interested if you go to the PDF online Those are hot links so you can click on it and it will take you right to that section Additionally you have a pink sheet that looks like this that was tonight on your desk and this is an analysis of The substitute pay increases and I just like to take a moment to walk you through it On top you see the analysis for daily subs and on the bottom the analysis is repeated for long-term subs I Tried to think about how best to do this and what I decided to do was to back into an average Number of sub days. I really only have two full years of data FY 11 and FY 12 from which to draw This and a partial data for FY 13 So two and a half years isn't really a great average and so I don't want to put Too much stock in that which is why I want to be a little conservative in this But it's just a place to start from Based on that average daily sub days I Multiplied it by the current rate in the first column which is $60 a day and that gives us an estimated annual cost The line below that says the 14 budget as proposed and you'll notice that that is the same amount of money all the way across and The bottom line shows the differential So if we were to have the same number of sub days as our average presently We could afford to go up to 75 dollars with the proposed budget and that will keep us in the black Unless of course, you know sub days or something you can't lock down precisely But I did run the analysis out through you know starting at the current rate of 60 and up to a top rate of 90 But there is not sufficient in my opinion. There's not sufficient funding to support a day rate of 90 at this point It's the exact same analysis at the bottom, but the current daily rate is different for long-term subs and We're and based on this analysis I'm proposing that we raise the average daily sub rate to 75 dollars per day and the from 60 and that the Long-term sub rate go from a hundred dollars a day to a hundred and fifteen dollars a day Good Just get a clarification The average daily sub is that just for sick and personal days? So does that also include some curriculum days or that's all subs? Okay, and what what defines a long-term sub ten or more days? Yeah, I mean typically we put people in as long-term subs to cover for extended leaves Typically it's maternity leaves in the district It's usually when we know someone's going to be covering for eight to twelve weeks or even longer Those are really the long term so it doesn't start at the tenth consecutive night. I think We can do it sort of both ways that there's I'm just concerned because 1599 and I understand it's just two years, but if at ten days or It won't just a ten days. That's 15,099 days. That's an awful lot of absences Well, we've had I mean I think we've had quite a few maternity leaves in district the last few years, and I think that's what that reflects Does that reflect when you say 1599 for the average? Is that the amount of days for those two? Thank you that? That's not the amount of the individual people. Okay. No, that's days. Thank you. It's days of everybody. Okay That I feel much better about this the other change that we're proposing in this budget is that the The building subs that we have at the high school and the middle school will go to a TA Rate of pay they were below. They were significantly below that previously, but in this budget We're taking them up to the TA rate Any other words before we start diving in okay? So we didn't really discuss how we were going to discuss this, but I thought we can just go through and see if people have Clarification questions or something. Let's just start at section one and move on As you're going through this as you can see that our administrative team is not here tonight I thought that it would be better for you to think about there's any questions So for example, if there were questions about special education People know that we're going to ask them to come on the 28th, and that's also the day of the hearing But so we can get Department heads in here on the 28th if you'd like that Okay But isn't that also the night of the The hearing? Good good. Okay, so does anyone have any questions on section number one? No Does anyone have any questions in section number two just on section one uh-huh in the Budget expenditures over time and budget expenditures is a percentage of total budget I'm just you know, I can understand everything in here except Minuteman, which really isn't ours It is part of our report to the DSE so when I originally started doing this report I was pulling the numbers back from the DSE and so I didn't I didn't extract them So I'm just following precedent and continuing to carry that it also has employee health benefits, which is not in our budget either Well, it's a local item that's coming from here Minuteman is a separate entity indeed Yeah, and and I think that just telling our store It's important for us to tell our story if we're going to tell a story of the percentage of Expenditures the Minuteman vis-a-vis the expenditures in our links and pulling it out making a separate chart I think it'd be totally appropriate for getting it into our budget expenditures chart is muddying things for Discussion of where are 40? Whatever you'll look I mean this is this budget is running around 70 million dollars because that's the total end of year report That includes all town expenditures and the Department of Education asks us to report on Minuteman as a town expenditure But in terms of this is a document not for the state. This is for the community and going to town meeting and When we're talking about town meeting They're taking a look at that bottom line number that we're getting from them the appropriation plus the chapter 70 So that when we're doing an analysis of our you know It is definitely appropriate to pull out another chart and show how much is going to the school system How much is an indirect expense being charged elsewhere in the report and how much is being? It's not subject to our appropriation and how much is going to Minuteman That's that's certainly an appropriate conversation to have But in this chart here when we're talking about how we split out our expenditures as a district I think we need to keep that clean and keep that limited to stuff that's being spent in in our length Would it help if underneath that Rubrik we have on the side there. We put in parentheses underneath that Something to the effect that not school department budget so that they know that that so but at least it would be able to keep in the growth Columns here But at your point is well taken that is that it does muddy it a bit. Yeah, I mean I I think you know We do have you know if we're looking is is policy people and making a clear presentation to town meeting they do need to know that What we're spending and why and how and how it's allocated and because people often will go to the state website and take a look at minimum local spending and Local contribution by the way the local contribution to Minuteman doesn't show up under ours It shows up on the Minuteman, so it's not going to be within it within our desi Calculation, but yeah, I mean these are these are multiple arguments that really need to be made and out there and the budget expenditures locally I think is an important thing to be showing and Not and not having Minuteman because that's what we're controlling for is is really important That's our story to tell okay miss. Hi. I was just going to piggyback a little bit on mr. Schlickman's point. I think all we need to do is change the title of that table to town-wide educational budget expenditures and Then the telling our story The second portion becomes budget expenditures as a town-wide Educational budget expenditures telling our story. We had a third chart in with Arlington public schools budget expenditures Added in because You know we want we want them to get that all of the towns what the town spends on education doesn't all come to this Body it is important for them to see that contrast but we also want to show them how much we do with what we do get and So seeing that that fact that some of this is Like a fifth of what the town spends on education never makes it in to this Organization is an important part of the story Okay, that's right, but that's not actually true because it's employee benefits for our teachers Even though it doesn't it's not controlled by When I say this part of the story, I mean the budget that this school committee controls okay, okay, and the budget that the superintendent and Ministers and we work very closely with the town manager when it is time to discuss Salary and compensation of the employees here. So while we do have input that is also a town decision, right? Okay I'd like to keep moving on So into section two Do people have questions at this point I'm gonna ask questions later, okay Sorry, I have to look at my questions, too, and sorry Okay, moving on to section three any questions. Mr. Hainer on the I think it's the Under-revolving fees and reimbursements when you come down to building rental fees is a reduction of $50,000 We have an additional school coming online next year How why are we anticipating 50,000 less with another school available when we had been When I did the first budget in FY 11, which was the first budget I did I lowered our building fee expectations based on the run rates I was seeing at the time and Then in FY 12 we had a banner a year that far exceeded the $200,000 we were counting on So for FY 13, I increased it to 350 to reflect the great year We had an FY 12. I do not believe that 350 is the long-term run rate having more years of data now I think 300 is a more reasonable run rate on building rentals with the Thompson coming online If we see it spike up and stay up, I will adjust that in future years Okay, but as I have more years of data, I'm just going to try to correct you understand where I was coming from Thank you. Okay Moving on this section for does anyone have any questions? And I've seen that moving on to section. Whoops. Sorry couldn't stop them all The Tell us what page you're on. I'm sorry page one of two It's I guess it's under transfer detailed curriculum instructions. It's Under it's professional development is Well, there's two there are different groups here. So there was a second one. I'm sorry. Oh Yeah, unfortunately, I was having PDF problems and converting my Excel files to PDF and the page This is the second or last page in the tab. Yes, that helps under professional development Is this does this section here this money here does this include the Inclusion professional development for inclusion Okay But it would not include any professional development money that is grant funded So there is professional development money that resides in title to a title What do we use that father? What what would we use that for title to a is all about professional development? Okay? I'm sorry. So remember. This is just Town appropriation and revolving revenues. This doesn't this excludes grants in this section and the page just prior to that the sped testing there's a pretty big increase Again, one of the things that makes us a little complex is that in some budget in some years the sped grant carries certain kinds of Expenses and then it carries others So you may not be seeing an actual drop in expenses. You may be seeing a different revenue source So if you're really looking to see if so if what we're spending on something This is not the section to be looking at because it excludes the grants. Okay, but Right beside the expiry you budgeted for fifth. We budgeted for 13 38 our expended Expected expenditures 22. What is the program, please? I'm sorry 45 Testing and assessment And you're anticipating 68 60. I'm sorry. Thank you You're anticipating $16,000 less than we budgeted, which is fine But now we're budgeting back to the 39,000 again with it. It's a slight increase from what's budgeted from 13 So that we are we anticipating is that what you were just talking about the differences in the grants. Thank you Okay Seeing no more questions moving on to section five any questions here Mr. Heyner On I think it's page one of one cost center is 60 superintendent The superintendent's budget is $822,000 we've shifted well because it contains legal fees. I Saw that later Do I wait for later for the legal fees to discuss it? Okay, fine for later And also some professional development money that had been sitting in the superintendent's budget has been shifted to the assistant superintendent That's a decrease not an increase. That's fine. Thank you There is a decrease in the superintendent in the assistance in the superintendent's budget Moving on to question to section six any questions here See none we move on. Oh, sorry, Mr. Heyner Page Three or four three or four. All right, I got a I got a whole The six nine six five custodial services, thank you We have a decrease in custodial services Where do you see a decrease? It's under F. Way. This is under F. Way 14 restructuring. Yes. Yes, that that is the That is the The 65,000 is the two That is the increase. What am I looking at? What the the money is coming out of custodial and the management is in facilities maintenance just above it Okay, that would be the nighttime person. Correct. Thank you They're moving on to section seven Mr. Heyner eight one one one seven It's on page one of three Could you just tell me what other full-time salaries and wages means sure other full-time salaries incorporates our nurses It incorporates our IT staff. It incorporates some of one of my staff it Incorporates who are some of the other full-time other category people? Long-term subs are in here. Okay People that are not in a union But are You know sort of the odd duck people who are non unionized would be in this category for the most part But that wouldn't include our secretary of the superintendent secretary. No, those would be those would be clerical Thank you Okay Any more questions here? Yes. Okay eight one three oh five. What is night watch? There is an additional There is an additional charge for Custodians who have to work a it's like a shift differential for night when they come in in the past two years It's gone up considerably. No in the past two years. We've started tracking it So, you know basically some of these things were just Disaggregating okay, so to get a better beat on what we're spending on these things down further at eight one three one eight teacher Moving allowances aren't we into are we anticipating that people going back to Thompson in this fiscal year? Yes, but those are project costs So what we what did we pay twenty six thousand dollars for our teaching moving allowance two years ago? Well, it wasn't just Thompson people that were moving lots of people were shuffling around as a result of things Thank you It's contractual. No, I understand that mr. Schlickman gets answer. Ask a question Where where do the traffic supervisors fall in here? They are under part-time other Part-time other so they would be eight one one one eight Okay, okay, mr. Hinner There were two things in here eight one seven six five We it says auto cell phone allowance, but later on some in a couple places. We have pagers. Are those two different things? Yes Okay, and our anticipated cost for fiscal 13 is only $692 Yes, but remember this is a gas You know when I do these projections, it's my best guess of how things are going to play out. Well Without going into much detail. We have Two contracts right within the room that are over a hundred dollars. They were a hundred dollars a month So that would take it to two thousand dollars, but they may not necessarily land on this line Those expenses may be landing on another line remember I'm in the process of Chasing all these expenses and making sure they're landing in the right way and over these years I'm going for the low-hanging fruit things like telephone expenses may not be hitting to exactly the right place Okay, that's how much we're spending district-wide, but we may not be seeing those expenses on that line right yet So we're all right Okay, mr. Hinner next page eight three one oh two legal services is that Both How can I say it all our legal services or that represents our special ed legal services and our general legal services We have an additional two hundred thousand dollars. Yes for settlements under eight seven six oh one Does that include the legal services we were talking about earlier under the superintendents yes So some of them live in sped some of them live under the superintendents budget so You I take those two and that should add up to this three three seventy correct. Thank you Okay, the next one is the telephone pages you've already answered that one. Thank you On this page eight three four oh four and then on the next page eight five one oh one This page calls for Reproduction printing at eight three four oh four and then we have eight five one oh one reproduction supplies Yeah, well printing Printing jobs would be you know actually sending it out to a printer. Thank you, you know business cards letterhead The budget documents the other is paper toner and ink that's being chewed up Next line eight three four oh five postage We've got a dramatic increase there Can you well I've put some money there because it does seem to be creeping up And I don't know how much we're going to need so that's placeholder money But again remember this is not how we control the budget a principle gets x amount of money Whether it's budgeted in postage books Instructional materials the principal has a discretion on that amount of money to the bottom line to spend it on those items that they need I understand but to go from 289 290 estimated this year at 875 to 2200 just seems like a big jump Thank you Anything more in section 7 Moving on to section 8 Okay, and I'm gonna give other people a chance No, no, no, I'm not I'm not high school to you No, you don't have any Okay, so no one has I'm looking for other people for a question no one has questions and I'm gonna start in online cuz I've got one I Am confused overall how facilities maintenance is budgeted For all the facility for all the schools Can you explain I can it is very confusing. I'm trying to get the best of both worlds I want to see what our expenditures are for facilities in each of the individual buildings However to try to guess how much we're gonna need in plumbing HVAC and all the other Things that we want to look at because we want to know how much we're spending on plumbing district-wide and HVAC and windows and masonry We want to know those things so I'm keeping that level of detail But if I try to budget it out to every single school, I will drive myself to madness So what I'm doing is I'm budgeting it in Cost center 75 facilities, but I'm expending it out in each school So I can go back if you look in the actuals You can go back through each of those schools and see what's been spent in facilities But if you look in 14, you won't see budget for those kind of repairs in the schools themselves the money's all sitting in cost center 75 How can we look at what was spent in prior years and compare it to what is budgeted? I can look at it because I obviously have the data in a live format So I can pull all the schools You know by pro by object or by program you can aggregate all of those things I understand you can see it, but how can we see it here because when I looked at it It's like there's money and then it disappears and then it appears down here We can't you cannot see budget versus actual except at say the program level Level six nine or six nine six five six nine six oh That would show you all of the facilities maintenance district-wide and you would see budget versus actual because that's aggregated that way You can't see it by cost center because expenses at the schools are sitting in the cost school cost center They're not sitting in cost center 75 right so programmatically would be one way to capture it But it gives you no detail right the other way to look at it as you can look school by school through The the detailed section and you can see all you know that that we did X amount of masonry at the bracket or whatever You can see all those expenses sitting in FY 11 and FY 12 you can see them very clearly But there's no budget amount against that Okay, so you know what's a number for for for maintenance for program? Let me just going off the top of my head. That's always dangerous. I think it's six fives six nine six oh Six nine six oh is facilities maintenance. Okay So that's where you see it squished together. Okay, so it's I Mean I could arbitrarily break up the budgets for maintenance for each building But that just seems like an awful lot of number shuffling to no good. I just wanted to know how to and it got confusing Because we didn't have anything I struggle with this Okay, you know Initial when I initially inherited this budget facilities was only budgeted and only Expensed at the facilities level and so we didn't know how much we spent on this school versus that school and the MSBA when We were doing the process with the Stratton was like, well, what do you mean? You don't have Maintenance and expense totals for this building. I'm like, I don't have them. I like all you should So I'm trying to and it really does make sense to know how much are you spending on a building, right? So that's what I'm trying to do okay Mr. Pierce miss Johnson why six five six oh met go total That's dropped a little bit just wondering if this is on page 41 of 56 What section? Eight Well, remember we're projecting an 8% decrease in grants And so I would have it I would reduce that to fit within the grant budget grant. Okay. Thank you You know, and if the grant comes in, you know, Matt co will spend whatever we're granted. Okay Okay, I'm moving back to page 10 There are decreases I'm looking at six five one two and the following few columns. There's decreases in ELL in English and in Facts and they're not listed on the Reduction sheet and I'm just wondering what's happening there. They are They represent where bodies have shifted that the ELL position that may have been budgeted at Oddison may now be living at the high school Okay, so those are internal shiftings. They're going on. They're not they don't represent loss of positions. They just represent budget reallocations, okay On page 27, where's the Thompson heat? There heat is one of the things that I is still being budgeted centrally and I'm playing with the idea whether that should be Okay in or out so you would find heat for the entire district under cost center 75 Okay, excuse me. I'd like to make a recommendation if possible to Separate it per building because we're going to have fairly efficient building online next year We probably got the most inefficient building we're sitting in right now. We track the expenses I have spreadsheets where we maintain a Detailed history of what we spend building by building. I just don't think Budgeting it really saves me a lot of stuff. Okay. That makes sense as long as we know. Oh, we do good We're watching that we watch it and the energy group for the town watches it as well Page 33 What's why does health and wellness go up by so much? Because of the new grant that's coming online the project success is in that okay in that area and you'll notice that Conversely the social studies budget drops significantly, but the teacher salaries are those actually It's it's listed under 8 1 1 2 It's under 6 7 1 0 and then again This is this has been one of the areas I've struggled with with going from a more centralized budget to a decentralized budget You know are they phys ed teachers allocated to the school budgets, or are they allocated centrally art music and phys ed Are these areas I'm just picking up where things look anomalous. Yeah, okay. Yeah Okay, those were my main Lower level questions my bigger level thing is I continue to be Very concerned about the decrease in the inclusion TAs to offset the team-based changes to the team-based model and I Would like to hear More about how teachers I'm concerned about manpower in the classroom With all the kids as as they're moved into the classrooms in a bigger inclusion model And I'm not saying this is something this would be something I'd like to hear more about on the 28th We spent a lot of time. I worked very closely with Kathleen Lockyer Chris Carlson, Ben Hellfatt There was a lot of very thoughtful work that was done person by person thinking about how this would play out So this was not done haphazardly. It was very targeted. I'm not questioning that I just when I Think of what it's gonna look like to the all the children in the classroom I'm worried. There's going to be instances where there is not as much manpower in that classroom for Handling the needs of all the children and I'm just and I've run it by Some special ed parents and that and they agree with my gestalt thing, but I'm not saying I'm an expert. I'm just I'm concerned and Would like to hear more about that Actually It's really a shifting even if you think about Actual number of people the number of people really haven't Changed that much Say we have them five inclusion ta's at a building with one learning specialist Well, we're still going to have two inclusion ta's in a building ta, but we're increasing a licensed learning specialist at that school so in terms of People there's not a big change, but there is a really large change in terms of expertise Additionally, we've also by going to the building base model They have half a team chair and half a psychologist who are in the building in a way that was not previously So so they too provide support to the students in the teaching and all the elementary schools will now have a full-time social worker Who is providing support to all the people? I'm so the model of the ta's goes back to the time when we had none of those people Housed in the building and now we have all of these people housed in the right I'm just thinking they're not housed in the classroom Mr. Hanner would it be possible Kathy to give us a diagram of how the building is set up with but with instructional bodies and how Sort of a diagram how it's going to be serviced It'll make it a little clearer to me Thank you. Okay Anyone else have mr. Hanner. Oh, sorry miss. I'm sorry. I Think this in interpreting that it kind of comes to what your knowledge is in terms of different ways of administering special ed services as well and I'm wondering Since you know, I saw that there were some behavior Specialists also put in place elsewhere in the budget and so You know for me I was thinking oh, there's a redistribution of getting more specialization in but I think it would be helpful if Dr. Lockyer could give us the primer on where the model is going As we get that budget piece so that it's a little bit clearer to everybody how there actually is going to be Very significant specialized work with certain students as opposed to More generalists just being there to maintain Be happy to do this and she she would also be happy to come on the 28th In a very broad idea of this and I think that doing the chart will be helpful because it's great visual The philosophy of what's happening is that we're doing More into the classroom than we've ever done before whether it's speech and language or support services and It is fueled by the research The research out of Harvard ed school is that it's incontrovertible at this point that students Do achieve more when they are in the least restrictive environment in in an inclusion classroom What it has been the practice is doing more pull-outs Out of the regular curriculum and getting some support and I'm not saying that supports not helpful It is but on the other hand the student is now out of the classroom Instead of in the classroom It's not as though there's dead time in a regular day The math goes on the literacy goes on the science and so if you take a child out They're missing that curriculum. So we are moving toward a much more inclusive Environment with a lot more support to teachers and a lot more and more support for students that is has more expertise with it, but I think she talked about this, but I think it's an idea that The The clarity comes more with the more you hear about it and ask questions is as our own understanding evolves But I think your suggestion of a chart will be very helpful And even the same thing with speech and language is getting more into the classroom and not having a clinical model of a pullout and I When we are let's go back even a couple more steps in this when we're looking at our achievement gap We see a persistence And so you look at and say all right well there are lots of different things that we can do differentiation and so forth and professional development for our teachers but To not think about how we structure the day and how we structure support services would be Would be sort of actually I think really responsible in terms of not thinking of some of the structural issues that might be might change this and as Diane said is very thoughtful it's looking at the research and So we are really not only increasing our support for teachers, but we are really changing a structure, which I think Will we will this is what we're investing in and hoping we will see is a major change in student achievement over the next few years Miss I'm just to follow up though as the primer from Dr. Lockhear Going with that push in model for her to actually identify where the positions that are the push in positions Are and show that as a balance and and give us that That piece of these are going to be spent this translates into this child gain Very specific service for this amount of time Helps with the understanding of the budget and those position movements. Oh, that's who did now I also want to say it doesn't mean that we're not ever having any pull-outs. That's not the case But we're chained we're shifting to a much more push-in model Yeah And just to clarify I'm not saying it's a inferior model in any way I'm just concerned that there are some children who sometimes need additional one-on-one support just they need someone working with them to do what they're trying to get done and I Can't see I understand there's going to be specialists and they're working with them some of the times But I just don't see that there's going to be someone in there a whole bunch of the time if think of this way too if you have 18 classrooms and you have five inclusion TAs. We don't have someone that's in every classroom every minute of the day We just don't so we're looking at how to be more strategic about how we use our resources and If we were to have somebody an additional teacher TA in every classroom Our budget would go through the roof in terms of support. That's not that's not how how we're doing it even now Now that doesn't mean we don't have some students with one-to-one we do But that's that those assignments come through an IEP process and there's really very Good reasons why that would support would be there Mr. Family I'm going to presume that you're going to monitor this carefully Oh, yes, this if there are issues you're going to find a way to address it Okay, mr. Hanner, okay to the one yes page 54 It's object to square 81117 I got excited about what program by me what program Program school committee 6900 What did I do there? I got all excited. I thought we got it. We're going in to pay obviously a snafu on my cheese It says 239,000 for the salaries and wages What's that number divided by seven I I mean, it's $30,000 I'm sorry everyone Got all excited about that. It isn't it is actually transportation money. It is just well. I didn't send the wrong program code I apologize. Well, I Fine, but I mean Okay, so that it isn't 239,000 dollars for us it is but it's not for you Yeah, but it doesn't come it doesn't belong to transfer. It's it's the bus drivers. It's me right doesn't belong under the school Come not thank you. It is a program error there. So bill finally got one. That's right. Yeah, I'm sorry Wait, you win the gold-plated magnifying glass. I thought we were going to stop being online with Cambridge or something Okay, better Okay, anymore. I'm set. Okay. Well, that was a great one to take us home section 9 Mr.. Hanner on page 23 And the superintendent 6 9 10 it says Teacher salary and wages for 29,000 dollars Is that superintendent doing something on the side? No, no that that is a staff position That's been in the superintendent's budget for a long time Well, actually it hasn't been in the budget the teacher is the Now which one am I looking at? 81112 yeah, yeah under under the superintendent 6910 and it's a look at the description It's the AEA union reps portion of the salary and we keep that under the superintendents. Yes I mean you could put it anywhere you want It just seems like a logical place for me because I know to look for it there I mean and half of it is offset by the AA. No, I understand that I understand that part, but I Just recommend that we put it somewhere else Where would you recommend we put I don't know but it looks like the Teacher, I don't know at first. I thought there was a teacher in the room Then I thought maybe Kathy's teaching on the side somewhere and then I knew that none of that was there So it I had time would be great No, I'm fine, okay Just for the record. I'm fine with having it makes sense for me to have it there because it's a cost of our doing business It's a contractual obligation District-wide It's really one that we encounter so it might be under school committee, but it's yeah In this neighborhood is the right place for it.  Okay section 10 Any questions about section 10 section 11 Mr. Hanner just a general question. Do we get money from the state for transportation for homeless? It goes into the town coffers. They would not come directly to us So that whole lawsuit to help schools And we don't helping schools because everything that goes to the town goes to the bottom line of free cash and extends the multi-year plan and funds us It's a roundabout way. It doesn't come directly to us. Okay, just before we go on to Under section 10 Could you just describe again the the reductions in in the school's budget details for Yeah, those are those are the the the teaching assistants coming out Predominantly and some teaching positions. You can tell whether they're teaching assistants or teachers by whether if they're in 811 1 6 They're teaching assistants if they're in 811 1 2 their teachers But it the really the easier place I mean this just details what What schools they're coming out of Okay, moving on section 11 No questions going once going to a section 12 and that should not have questions in it As I hear you goes for the budget you're using conservative revenue projections that's certainly wise You're anticipating an 8% reduction in Grant money, that's what $200,000 or something like that roughly We're in February the fiscal year our fiscal year ends the current fiscal year ends in June the new fiscal year starts on July 1 So we could get new information. We will get new information information in the next three four five months so I'm wondering I'm hoping I'm expecting that you're going to come back to us and say Maybe good news. Maybe we have $200,000 more and you're going to ask us Or tell us give us some ideas how you want to spend that money. Is that I'm hopeful and particularly with the special ed grant Which is our largest grant That the 8% will not happen. They've been Gently increasing us over the last several years. So I'm quite hopeful That that will be the case in this year too, but I don't want to commit to it at this point Okay, so I guess the one thing I just the one kind of reminder. I want to put out there is that It's quite possible. This is this is it's possible that this is a little too conservative We'll have a better idea in May or June or April and maybe not till August unfortunately Okay, but even when that occurs that's a that could be a chance to hire some additional people It could be a chance to put additional Bodies in the classroom. It could be a chance to hire additional TAs lots of different things correct So I think as that occurs we need to be kept informed We need to have some discussions at this table or its subcommittee about it Yes, if you'll recall through the fall I would bring you updated funding summaries as these changes would take place as we found out what circuit breaker would be and all Of that I would bring those to you and often in the summer There is an up if new money is available. We have an opportunity to hire some people Certainly July and August is the time Mr. Schlickman, did you have something or yeah, I just you know I think that in part and going through the budget and In critiquing the graphs and stuff it sounds like we're engaging in criticism And I just wanted to say on the other side There's a very thorough and thoughtful document and there's a lot of work that went into this and it's well organized And I'm very appreciative of the efforts to do this I Didn't want the session to Expire without making it clear that I'm very appreciative of what I have before me even though You know, I've been thinking critically about what's going to happen to us when we end up at town meeting Yes, this is a this is just a roadmap and and things can change in lots of different ways and I know that you're all aware of things that we haven't been able to fund We've identified what we can of that long list and it could even be that As we go along some of the other things change in their priority So I think that's something we need to have a discussion about I'm very hopeful that we actually will have additional money. That would be terrific And we'll also have a better idea where we are with enrollments and how many students actually are coming to us for kindergarten what that looks like with classroom sizes because right now This budget assumes the same number of kindergarten classrooms as we currently have And I'm I don't know that won't change So we'll look at all of that and maybe we at the budget subcommittee will bring some of our suggestions and Have this discussion of what we could do Mr. Heiner I hate to talk doom, but The potential sequestering that might take place. Will that have any direct effect on us? That we need to be considering in the near future or were to be down for next year That's why we went with the 8% Okay, so we were trying to cover against that. We won't see an immediate impact on today This year this fiscal year. Oh, not this fiscal year. No, thank you It was discussed at long-range plan not this time but last time and there was not felt to be a big impact and Nothing that we're that's affecting us from the town Thank you I'm sorry, yes, please Miss Hansen I actually want to go back to the green sheet for a minute on the infrastructure support And I'm just wondering about this one and a half vacant custodial positions. Where are those vacancies currently at the high school and Is there currently a night supervisor? No, and when was the last time there was one? I don't know that there has ever been one And does a night supervisor do the cleaning as well or the night supervisor will be Providing support to the people that work the second shift will be there to direct to manage to facilitate What that what we're really hoping to do with this shift is that? Traditionally the custodial supervisor has been housed here at the high school What what our plan is is that the day custodial supervisor will be housed at the oddison the night custodial supervisor will be housed here at The high school by having a supervisor permanently positioned up at the oddison They'll be in a position to monitor the subcontract that works every night to clean So that gives them an opportunity to provide management even though they're not on shift with the night cleaning crew They're walking in top of the morning every day They're going to see what did and didn't get done and will certainly be on top of those contractors to make sure that gets done One of the you know when you when you sub out Cleaning one of the things I've heard over and over through my professional organization is that you must manage them You must be on them you need to have People on your staff who manage the subcontractors and we had hoped to do that when we added the subcontractor at the Oddison and it just didn't work out and this is an opportunity to make that happen I think we'll have a cleaner oddison we'll get more value out of our subcontract by having a manager on site Predominantly every day and by having a night cleaning because a night custodial supervisor I think we're going to get a cleaner more efficiently or a more efficiently clean building here at the high school because that's been a struggle and So that's what we're really hoping that with this additional management support that things are really going to be better Okay, I'm asking you about it also related to kind of the heating issues that they've had here at the high school and not have in lack of plumbing People and other people so just kind of this all fits together somehow well They're really different issues. We have quite a number of Custodian was we have some custodians and maintenance people that have been out on comp for quite a while And in fact that is the case with our staff plumber at the moment and You know We would prefer to hire a new plumber, but we can't because they're out on comp and that that's where things get really kind of dicey We end up spending a lot of money to outsource the work It doesn't work as well. We don't have people on staff Our plan is to fully staff all those maintenance positions that are still in the budget But some of them are sitting there not filled because the person who owns the position is on comp and Would it be under section 7 where the Xerox machine? Budget line is actually not because that is largely funded by the capital budget So townside or it the portion of the bigger portion about two-thirds maybe a little more of the The photocopier maintenance lease agreement is in the capital budget and the rest of it is in The business office under equipment rental. That's the other piece of the photocopier lease So which section would that be under? You can look that would be cost center 66 I believe Under which so seven so if you go to your section Eight and you go to cost center 66. Let me find the page for you 49 Yep, it is page 49 of 56 and under equipment rental eight two seven oh three You'll notice that there's quite a bump up from FY 13 because we are going into a new lease agreement And I know that we are deficient in machines and some of the locations around the district and so I'm anticipating to have to I'm participating that obviously have to spend more in the new contract for the photocopiers So page 49 of 56 yes at which line? It's some equipment rental eight two seven oh three And then there was another line item for Printing cartridges and well, there's printing which is when you send things out like that toner toner paper toner and ink Right was a separate line correct Is that also in here somewhere right but that would just be paper toner and ink for the business office 6th floor That's not for the whole district So that big number of like a hundred thousand is for the whole district. That's everybody's Paper toner and ink and that's in this it's on index section or a different one since seven seven And that's what I thought I thought and it's not where you'd see it aggregated And it's on page But if you look at equipment rental in aggregation that also includes some equipment rental we do for facilities So that would kind of blur that number. That's not just photocopiers This yeah is another item that I know that we're looking at it's important going forward with the new evaluation system It's also important just with the day in and day out running of the schools right now. Absolutely all set Okay, I think at this point we will move on. Thank you very much So we now go on to the update on the Thompson Well, I don't I don't know if you've had a chance to drive by it. It's it's really looking Every time that I do I can see major changes one of our concerns, of course was the the deep snow and how that was going to affect things because With that slope with that slow the work down and I did receive an email to see the other day that that things were protected and They've clearing the snow and pretty much back to work on it. So it slowed things down but we are doing well in terms of a timeline and we've we the build Thompson building committee continues to meet once a month and has an up our project manager has a Monthly updated Schedule and we still are looking at actually even being able to have deliveries of furniture and Start even moving some of our technology in in July, I think that's a possibility though We've when we send it out to bid it'll be for early August. So in that area with furniture and That all is going to go out to bid In the next couple of weeks and With allowing a very generous 16 weeks for delivery. So we will have things that will be ready to be delivered in in July Same thing with technology all those bid documents are being prepared right now and that will go out to bid as well So we're in good shape in that respect We are opening a little earlier than we have in past years this year our we teacher days Are the last week of August, but we don't anticipate? Any issues Our contractor and our built and our project manager understand that teachers like to get in the building and get the room set up And so we want to make sure that that's the case in August so that teachers can get in there and Do that out all the furniture and the materials will be delivered directly to their rooms and then we also have A great success. It's been going with the books for bill We've met met the target in fact we're going over the target, which is fantastic because There'll be a committee that will be organized to think about Sort of long long range Supplies for Thompson that relate to library services and in perhaps media more general But that committee hasn't met yet They will meet so that even though there'll be materials to be bought for the opening of school We'll be able to have a fund there that can keep updates going So that's that's terrific, and I believe that they were in the process right now I don't know if it's been set yet. It's been a lot back and forth on a on a date in May for a community event for the the books for bill fundraising So it's it's going along quite well at town meeting We will plan to have the boards out there, which will give a picture of what the rendition is and also some interior Which you've seen and actually I was thinking it might be good to even try to get this up on our website too So people can click into taking a look at that. So we'll be doing trying to try to do that as well They've started painting on the third floor That's always a good sign. So it's going along quite well, and it's Besides being on time. It's going to be on budget our contingent. This is important. Our budget is still has a very Good contingency fund in case something happens, but we're now past the point where we anticipate big big ticket items on Contingency at this and all the windows are here. That was one of the big issues Because of the storms down in North Carolina That's where they were being manufactured where they're going to be a big delay and now I think they're all on site Great many in Okay, and now we move. Thank you Superintendent report well the first thing that I Want to report though. I believe that all of you are aware of this and as well as the hearty community it was with much sadness that I accepted the letter from Deb de Mico who is the principal of hearty elementary Notifying me that she was going to retire at the end of June and I Say that truly that will be a very We're both happy for her because she's certainly had a lifetime of Dedicating herself to the education of children and she has just done the exemplary job here in Arlington And she will be missed not only by her school and her parents They they took the news quite hard in fact but she will certainly be missed by all the whole administrative team because she's such a Valued member of it and you've heard her presentations here. She's just eloquent and thoughtful on And just about every topic in education. So it's really a sad thing for all of us but a very happy thing that that she was here for the years that she was and We've certainly benefited from that so going forward. We will be doing a search We actually just got this week it posted and I Will be meeting with the parents and the staff In March or probably all set it up from some time So we have a forum and talk about What they would be looking for in a principal and we'll be setting up a screening committee So all of those things that information will be forthcoming after vacation and we're moving forward So with respect to the other searches Thank you to the members of committee that met today with one of our special education candidates. We've had it's been a particularly Crazy last week and a half in the Arlington public school especially on this floor in this building because we've had four finalists For the Arlington high school position principal position Which has involved for all-day visits that included Meetings with different groups including the principal the administrative team special education coordinators teachers Staff people students and and we had two parent evenings this week and To meet we had two candidates each of those nights. So in all of these groups, I've been getting Feedback forms which I will take under consideration and been doing a fair amount of phone calling also References we were very fortunate to have Four strong very qualified candidates That each would be an asset to our school system. So it will be a difficult choice as we move forward We have now completed today the last of those visits, but along with those visits We've also had two finalists for special education and those visits have been concurrent Through the district and they have involved tours of the different programs We had meeting with special education coordinators administrators teachers trying to have as much Exposure to our candidates to have the feedback that will help make make a decision. So it's a it's a We've made a real effort to include as many of the stakeholders in this process as possible and I Expect to have a decision on director of special ed Fairly soon as well as the principal that that decision probably will not be announced until For the principal until next week sometime still have some Some work to be done on that for director of special ed probably the same or Possibly tomorrow, but more likely on next week So yeah just for clarification on the special ed director, you'll be bringing a name to us, correct? Yes. Thank you the process is for special education That is your duty under the under the right state regulations to actually make the appointment of director special education It's one of the positions you do so when I say a decision would be it be my recommendation that will come to you I'd actually hope to have a recommendation tonight, but the snow threw everything off Just my three of us this afternoon left before we had a chance to fill out any The form like we did for the prior yeah, it's very big. We were on our way down to the governance meeting So I just wanted to let you know Please please do that I Still have more phone calls to make so I mean I said tomorrow is very ambitious I just don't think that that's gonna happen tomorrow but