good evening everybody welcome to the regular meeting of the school committee the town of foxborough january fourth two thousand and sixteen happy new year everybody we have thank you we have kind of a kind of a short meeting anticipated short you never know right that's the curse of the visitors followed by approval of minutes and then primarily a financial discussion tonight we're going to do the f y seventeen budget continued discussion we have dr sandra ancyl here tonight to help us with some of the special ed discussion that came up in the last meeting mr you know well and give us our first discussion of the twenty sixteen twenty seventeen capital improvement plan he'll give us a sixteen budget update misspell a has a bike  county collaborative quarterly report we have an acceptance of a donation and then we'll take up other matters i usually ask at this time for other visitors but i think they're all in watching the basketball game but i do see one hand up yes  ago about instead of doing through full professional development days in the school year what we usually do we should do it because it still counts of the full school day fave time instead of making up all the days in several years but we're not a great fan of those half day early release so it's unlikely while other towns do it yes but i've worked in another town that does it not that as has dr bird and we didn't have very good bring up to the teachers union about half the i've done that before but didn't work right all right thank you joe ok you don't see no other visitors i'd like to start with the regular meeting minutes which might be behind the other minutes on your packet these are the regular meeting minutes of december twenty first session meeting minutes from december seventh had no com for zero i want to take just a minute while we are on these minutes the public of course doesn't have the the minutes and we'll all motion to release them in just a minute but i just want to share with the public since they can't see these at home what the content was of these we spent some time last month taking a look at the superintendent salary again and just for public reminder we did that back in august and at the time of course we had come off an exemplary rating of mrs spinelli once again for her what we thought was a great year and we had approved a two and a half percent raise one of the things that the main thing that these minutes reflect going to put him on course once a copy they can see it will be on public file but we did in december agreed to expand expand her raise from a two and a half percent raise approval from august to a three and a half percent raise so we approved an additional one percent increase  sorry i thought it was three total it was from two to three i think it's you know i have said from two to three that you want to have to three i believe although i didn't have it with that i will i will i do i don't have my notes with me but i know i wrote him wrote the minutes from my no then we have to take a look at the that we signed because that's what i'm thinking of which is what i saw i don't see the these in this one i'm not there so we need to superintendent which at the time we thought was conservative but we wanted to ensure that she had a raise but the more we thought about it as a committee and in light of her exemplary rating and in light of some work we've done to  to add some flexibility into the nonunion personnel raise approach or process we decided it was right to work to offer the superintendent an additional one percent increase so that's what the minutes reflect as an additional one percent increase to the superintendent's two and a half percent raise approved in august and that's consistent with what i recollect the case being and if there is any confusion bill genet will make sure the adenomas right you know thank you i appreciate that i'm  sure there is confusion but i remember when we went to payroll about it that bill and i both not in the same thing when we went to payroll about the injust right after that which is before the holidays the adjustment was only in the other half percent souce so i think we need to check you know how it was worded or or something so we'll take your that but i think i think it may be very much it was also a one thousand dollar increase to the travel and phone conversation benefit as well right just after all the confusion i just you reflect cost of living increases and merit when for people who aren't on unionize who don't have steps in in the in lanes to move across or down that once you get into a salaried position education which which is the minority of our staff members it's only a few people ministers that you know it's hard to do that and we've certainly had a lot of discussion about that in terms of how other public entities do would include in the town appreciate that because that's not an easy thing to tackle so thank you very much and we didn't have this as an agenda item anywhere but i just wanted to be transparent with the public to make sure they were aware that we had taken that action last month we certainly think it's  in line with the way that he has served our district and we also as part of that process went through a committee knows this but again for public basis went through a survey of other areas superintendents we certainly looked at what some of our municipal leaders in town were receiving as raises what was affordable from the standpoint of the finance director in town so we're very pleased to increase the superintendents raised by an additional one percent so that's what these minutes reflect and again i know that dean and i have talked i'm sure steve in maryland betty would feel the same that was important that we you know just be open and and what we've done so thank you for the committee for approving the minutes and now would we like to take a motion to release these minutes i will make the motion to release i just wanted to add to that it was a copy of the major components to include the full day universe of kindergarden notation and how that that was actually the right year one would talk about the ninety five thousand but the kindergarten grant which you know is fully expected by next year so whether or not the town really wish to move forward full day kindergarten that fifty five thousand is not going to be part of our budget for next year anyway reset the stage for anyone tuning in tonight i wasn't here on the december twenty first meeting the preliminary discussion of our proposed to fly seventeen budget calls for a request of three point nine percent a lot of the increase we discussed at that meeting is around special lead and the increase of the placements out of district placements from twenty to twenty nine but on the point you're talking about this was a request i had i think initiated where we're also looking at the implementation of full day universal kindergarten which is really the only other significant incremental change or add to our expense line from a program matic standpoint so our budget again for those just tuning in our budget approach for this year is level services with the addition of the universal kindergarten program and now the special education incremental cost that we're going to spend most of the source of the mean so so back to your point bill and i appreciate you clarifying it a little bit  so is the net i still want to just be very clear in my own thinking in the public by implementing the full day kindergarten which increases to the door to this three point nine seven percent increase proposal which included in it includes including the us the incremental cost that contributes is that the right to think that that's a ninety thousand dollar incremental it's a ninety five thousand per year for four years ok so of our three point nine percent increase three point nine seven percent increase ninety five thousand of that is this universe looking at which i think is you know we all support we've talked in this at this table but how we all support the program i just want to be very clear in how much of the increase that  s being driven by that particular program matic ninety five thousand dollars to make sense yes of the of the entire budget cuts correct and it's the first year we want to make sure people are watching to somebody the first year of a four year phase out plan which as you remember was the committee request last year when we couldn't do it all in one when you requested a financial plan that would help phase that out so it wouldn't hurt quite as much and that's what we're hopefully going to implement next year is year one of you know what we actually have but there are more questions what can you guess it's reminding me to say something else we actually have one more programatic edition that is not costing any money that i can't believe i forgot to say in december because i'm a student and i had a very exciting harmer sation about it before the meeting and i forgot and now here we are again so we've talked about the implementation of a computer science course at the high school and we do still plan to go forward with that for september however it's one course one class period and we feel that we can fold that into our existing structure at the high school so you'll see as you did in december there were no staff changes at the high school at all there were no additions but we expect to be able to accommodate that within the staffing budget that we have at the high school so that is a program addict in hansen but it is not included in the budget and we haven't called it up in the budget because it's just sort of teacher one course some research another course so i did want to call that out though because that is something that we've been looking forward to i know as a community for quite a while so i want to thank the committee and the audience for letting me go through that because i think whenever we ask for an increase you know it i think i think it's important to recognize that we're trying to be as responsible as we can in this three point nine seven percent initial preliminary view really is not about adding a lot of programs it's about sustaining programs with a couple of additions all day kindergarten potentially recording program right in the fall they can it isn't really a program medical addition it's as a community do we believe that educational program should especially those that are academic should be to a very right so i think it's more of a philosophical  budget change in terms of what our community believes in and stands for and we don't have any other fees so i think we had reached the point since two thousand september two thousand and eight we've had full day kindergarten where we're saying it doesn't make sense to still have a fee for an academic program w don't have fees for other types of things in in this community so i think it's of our community value you know more than i was well out of for matic and i also i actually like to share something too that i received the day after we had that meeting and it was basically he sent an e mail to me saying it was his with his deepest appreciations that the school committee made this move to open the door to the full day kindergarten program to allow students of all to you know propose public school programs he has lawn for this for years that children who need it the most families who would struggle to harness to pay for it are now going to be included in this program going on for so i thought it was kind of a nice note to get from somebody on the outside but it does show that it's it's you know other people in the community that have been looking for this as well  and feeling that we should be doing this you know i actually pledge by that up because i actually received one as well from a new newark community member who has moved in the last two years here not anyone known to are still preschool age children who was recommended to move here by an administrator i used to work with another community who also became a school committee member upon retirement in that community and he had sent me an a note when he first moved here about two years ago saying this mutual acquaintance and friend had suggested that he really consider foxborough great schools there and you can't go wrong and and when he read this in the paper said could this really be true boy you know that was the one thing i contacted you about when i moved here and i read in the paper there was still a fee now i see why this community really takes its education seriously and continues to make moves and this made me really happy and reinforce decision to move here upon his recommendation so i think it really is a community value administration for getting the computer science curriculum rolling it is one of our superintendents goals it's it's now but you know like our music a lot of the program we're going to get to see more thank you so i think what i was trying to do was set the baseline for now the discussion with dr isom about ok well you're asking for a three point nine percent increase where is it going and there are some other line items i don't mean to sound like there's nothing else or some small much smaller pieces the bill presented the last meeting but no one wants to see them but we did talk about the special ed change your increase so never bill if you want to sure i don't mind starting we asked dr insel to be here and as we discussed in december in our hope is to and whoever else can add to it to give you and the and the community in the public have a general sense of what's driven this increase costs without giving so much specific information because as you know students with individual education programs we we can only talk about so much and so we'll talk in some cases in generalities but we want to be able to explain with transparency what has driven you know this increase this year because it's not something we've experiences what other communities have experienced often and i think we haven't been used to experiencing that and so we're facing it for the first time so dr i still has a few thoughts for you and then feel free to ask questions  thank you very much for inviting me to address them of these needs the reason we are having an increase in special ed costs both this year and next year are regarding the students with the social emotional and really significant behavioral challenges they're not your students with specific learning disabilities or the sole academic reasons they're really poor students with a social emotional and behavioral challenges and i think in general only generally speaking the cause that we  need that these students need additional adult support or even a different educational setting would be the students have it tendencies to have unsafe behavior towards themself or others or they cannot regulate themselves to learn in the public school environment so those are those the those are the that's the majority of reason for the increase this year and for next year and please feel free to ask me questions as we go forward so what are we doing about this i think that when you hired me two years ago one of the things that you brought up when i was interviewing was we got these students needs especially it needs for their social emotional needs and i'll let you know what we've been doing  we have been working with walker partnerships which is an outreach program for from walker public school in needham massachusetts and it's a private special ed school focusing on students with social emotional needs and behavioral challenges and we have a walker partner his name is joe who has been working with our team programs those are programs for students with social emotional concerns and team stand for a therapeutic environment with an academic mission and he's been helping me and the team people really get continuity of programming from elementary to middle to middle school so the processes and procedures or are in this very similar how we work with different students and their issues are very similar he also is a clinical assistance to with specific students that have been very challenging for us while working with them he has shared with us a connection with mass general hospital and it's called think kids and is a program run by dr stu avalon and he think kids is really about rethinking how we work with students with social motional issues and it's really about developing a kind of a social motional i q skills for all students and it's based on collaborative problem solving and primarily developing skills in the areas of flexibility problem solving and frustration tolerance so we invited him to come out and he and his his kids are collaborative problem solving and then his colleagues spent an entire day with the eddas systems and myself and a cohort of faculty such as guidance counselors adjustment counselors m s w school psychologist we had the team teachers there really so we could become experts and think kids at this point in time and the cohort will then work is working with mass general for the rest of the year again continuing to develop expertise within in addition to that job or solution he's our walker partner is going to be coming this winter to present a graduate course on trauma and learning so that staff who are interested in this will really understand that who is in front of us their experiences in life we really have to understand better so that we can actually respond to their learning style so those are some training opportunities that we've had recently and will continue hope hopefully with think kids for at least neurological aspect to their learning work with the professor from fitchburg state working with our pave program which is a program for partnership academic and vocational excellence that's primarily that's actually on all three levels as well we have a transition specialist who is working with us and particularly at the high school level because a lot of our are actually leaving or preparing to leave public education and going into adult services they'll either go to the department of developmental services they might go to go to work or they might go on to postsecondary so we have all these people working with us to develop programs here and have our students really have the opportunity to be educated here in the community and so they've been supporting both students and staff and as you already know we've asked for a point five increase for a school psychologist at the herne because of the some of the social emotional concerns we've had as well as a point to increase at the elementary level for an adjustment house or some take away points i just want you to remember as we talk to dine that we really are responding to the new challenges of social to know that we're working to step down our students that have been in substantially separate programs and have them come back to our our our community to our building to our programs because we really feel that if it's appropriate they really belong here  foxboro and lastly i want you to just want to remind you that when we budgeted last year we budgeted at twenty two people out by june there was twenty four people out and through the fall we really have been working with  number of students and we probably have at least five or six students that are in the process of being placed in and out of district placements which is really a concern to all of us working on these cases many of these students though are actually new to our district so i wanted to to let you know that as well so if you have any questions i'll be glad to take them questions for doct sandra i think that's a good overview of the fought for this that we've put in and i know it as you mention you've been here only a couple years last two years this year but i really appreciate you going through some of the programs and resources that you're tapping to help us treat these students as importantly as they should be and i appreciate bill you sharing mr author lots letter that you know this is an important part of what we do there's a lot of cost that goes into educating these folks the single biggest line the bill shared with us last week is around transportation and to wish and can you offer some thoughts about what that entails what that covers it's not it's not a negotiable item that we can now present in our budget you know where we are where do a lot of these students go maybe just provide a little more i think they'll go to a variety there's a programs throughout they have to be approved programs by the state and once they're approved by the state the rate setting commission determines the rate so each year you can go to the it's to the physical i can't remember what the exact exact agency is but you can get a printout of then what each program will be costing you whether it be a school year of full year or residential some of these programs are collaborative which is kind of an extension of a public school system the they exist in public schools or or on the grounds of public schools and there's private schools that are substantially separate than a public school setting and once the rate is set these private schools have the opportunity to actually ask for a rating crease and they have to go through a process of why they need rate increase so each year we plan for certain  wherever our students are going and they'll be will they will be noted whether that school has asked for a rate so we can plan for a certain rate but we also have to understand that if they if they have requested a and m increase that we have to be prepared to maybe add another two or three percent depending on what that is we just received a letter from i think the state asking us to attend a  discussion about whether whether one of our whether that the program that or some of our students attend should have that increase and that's the first time i've ever seen actually someone ask us to have a discussion of whether they should have increase or not but do we have a choice in the rate we pay no no and i think i can add to that virtually all of our students are in different programs so we were not and it really is the students needs so the a number of students that are in that program which is why we belong to a collaborative so that we can pay a member rate those rates are actually set by the board of directors which are the superintendents but once you go beyond michael collaborative the rates are set by agencies that control private special education schools in the second part under the baikal armor is that we do the transportation through the baikal program were the business managers and superintendents basically negotiate a program with outside carriers to to try to get you know keep our cost in line and what we've done is teamed up with obviously all of the other communities that are in the bike go community so that transportation contract is nearly four million dollars contract versus just our portion which obviously we would have a harder time getting better pricing so that's you know we try and probably all these cases and use efficiently as we can while providing the best services we can but there's limitations to how far you can go without her and those that  ship it is mandated by federal law the transportation intuition be provided locally and also if there's a move in you are responsible wants to move here so we have had a number of move ins that have  that sometimes in residential it depends we can sometimes cause share with the department of family and children services and sometimes we can crush the mh so it depends on how these students ended up in a thoughtful and deliberative process this is for our students and how diligently our special ed department is working to give our students the services they need in house in that the decision to send our students out of district is one that is made after much thought and deliberation and only when it is truly a need that cannot be met within our district and that and i think the class speak for themselves  they are high but it's because these are needs that are very serious and we cannot meet and we are required to do this i appreciated your presentation and i think it's very clear how hard our even for a few years where you have fewer students that need more adult support but so i think all districts experience that evan flow but everyone we've been lucky to avoid this but i think that everyone at some point experiences unanticipat and special education costs and that's really where we are now where this was not anticipated but it's here now and it will be here still next year as well so i think that's what you're seeing in the increase is an anticipated especially cost and it is certainly the hot topic at the superintendent's level are i think i mentioned our superintendents conference in july was entirely focused on mental health and social motional supports for students and how that's a growing problem the superintends mid winter meeting at the end of january is also focused on the same topic because this this is what has is the highest effect i'd say the hottest affecting factor going on in public education right now is that growing need so i think we're finally experience it to the level maybe others already have passed at ninety some point has an anticipated i'm going to pretend i know what the heck i'm talking about here but i don't but i noticed in the in the in the bike  training source so we've we do employ educational assistance who are who have behavioral training and in the in that that's an extra skill set that we price very registered behavior technician it's a little bit more involved than the old a b a applied behavior analysis it's forty hours of training so it's a little more rigorous and you have to refresh each year and that you have the a b a training that kind of did it for a lifetime but as we know we learn more and more about behavior modification and behaviors behavioral supports in public schools so they are supporting and helping us shift the training to this new venue which hopefully will pay off dividends to be a little bit more i will say in depth and hopefully more effective but that's what's being recommended now in the field of behavioral supports is the register behavior technician certification for paraprofessionals rather than the old a b so we'll see if that pays off but we as public schools in the bike go collaborative we're all we all agreed last month that we're all going to switch to this as the for a somewhat brief but summary kind of presentation and i could deliver that good i think i think the reason why i asked for it was not because it any of us question the importance or the the need to have this in our budget but i think when we go to the town and ask for a budget increase and this is one of the larger items it's just important that we have to have examined it and understand it and never have a public opportunity to comment on it so that i certainly come away with the same reaction reference and i think we all feel that you know you're doing a thoughtful our budget that would be nice to have versus we need to have this is a must do you know why this isn't a nice or in need it's really a must do it's a federal law so i think it makes it a little bit more intelligible and yet totally agree and yet you know it's fair for the public to say well why is the school system asking for another almost four percent increase and what are we getting out of a program magically and you know our goal is always level service high quality bang for the buck but you're right this is a must do and this year it's one that's going to cost us a little bit more than it has in the recent past right actually been extremely stable for a number of years as dave pointed out that we haven't seen this increase like other communities have so for probably the last four or five years are our numbers that are o district or you know in special programs have been really pretty consistent so this is you know this is kind of like the first wave of getting hit with and that's you know again that's why we're we're seeing kind of a financial difference than you know what we've seen in the past but you know again i think you know one of the big advantages this community has had is it's had for a number of years a desire to have in house programs and by doing that we've also been at occasions having doing for other districts t us which is help to make our cost a little bit more efficient right and so again i think being progressive in this field and having sandra in the team basically working to to do the best thing for the kids we can internally also sometimes gives us an aside advantage where we can mitigate or cost a little while by doing something for another district that's local to us so i guess the other thought is that is the sols under the spirit of you know philosophy on budget which is the season we're in but you know i continue to even having been at this table for a few years i continue to deepen my appreciation for what foxboro school system really is which is a school system the tries to serve every student and find a fit for every student and  knew been a key part in helping me really appreciate what that means it's easy to say but i think that we i do believe in my heart we do as good a job as we can with that is our objective in as cost affordable manner as possible and i you know many of us at this table are taxpayers and you know none of us like to see the budget go up but i can sit here and feel very comfortable that least that what we're where we're at in the process this year and what we're asking for and as explained through say in his presentation we're being as responsible as we can and sticking to that notion that we are a school system that provides an opportunity for every ok so another part of the budget process is the capital improvement plan that we review every year and will thank you in advance for having assembled your initial thoughts on our sixteen seventeen capital improvement plan request which i guess you're going to present to us here to day ok in your package you know you nationally had what we do which is a five year projection forward of of the c i p we need to requests i always give you the previous year that was funded so you can see what that is but  r c i p tends to be static in some senses that there are a number of items that we have to deal with every single year the computer hardware and software and network operate costs that's been a program that's been in place since two thousand and ten  and it's helped to actually advance our system on a regular basis and to maintain what we have and in our computer equipment as you know we we run our own bus fleet we have twenty two full sized buses five   our special needs children from pre k all the way we do have our own copying capability within the district and so we have a constant replacement on that the i go paving curving is a is a one off the top four basic standard items what we did last last two years actually but last year made the best advantage of it as we had a little bit of money left over at the end of the year and we were able to to the towns  paving program that they were doing with the roads and use their contracts and their processes and it did save us a lot of money we were able to actually do a fair amount of if we have a little bit left as we discussed on that to do to complete the i go and then the final thing is the  so as far as the computer hardware as i said this is started and in two thousand and ten it's been a recurring article each year it has changed a little bit originally it was strictly to buy new computer equipment for the the different  classrooms or labs throughout the district we now obviously have fairly significantly advanced our technology throughout the district with the interactive whiteboards with projectors like you were using tonight with network capability with  wireless capability servers you know the entire nine yards and while most of it is used for our side we obviously still have a fair component that we share with the town as well the whole infrastructure backbone is ours at the at the school level here we now have close to seven hundred p c s are out the district a lot of that increase came from the growth in our computers on wheels or the how set up that we use throughout the schools now every school has those from the elementary up it's have helped us to significantly increase the accessibility of you know computers to the children and on the different levels in obviously one of the final benefits will be depending on how standardized testing moves forward it would give a more capability there and as i said the final thing is the tremendous amount of software support that we have to develop internally network and server upgrades on an annual basis so the money while similar for the last you know x five six  years has been really morphed into having to service a lot more needs and fortunately as pricing has come down it's given us that capability of moving forward their school bus replacement as i said and what we try to do here is  keep buses to ten years less than ten years old and under one hundred thousand miles we have two full sized buses of two thousand and five in two thousand and six model year that will be approaching one hundred thousand miles obviously they are once eleven years and once ten years they are the two oldest in the fleet that we would like to take out we have a minibus and eight which is a two thousand and seven but already has one hundred twelve thousand miles on it and you know what we have done you know while we have extra buses we try to rotate buses on a regular basis so that obviously we're not wearing one bus down quickly and then having to replace them faster so by having a few extra on both the full size in the minis it really helps when we either have breakdowns regular service or additional needs and a lot of that field trips you know sports athletic trips and stuff like that we can handle all within our own system so you're looking at basically two buses and the full size that about fifty seven thousand apiece and the minibus in about fifty seven and that would be net of a trade trades range every year three thousand seems to be the average couple years ago we got real lucky we got six thousand apiece but  you know what what's happening is with most of these trades they're going overseas are not overseas are going to mexico and south of the border because they don't want to have a liability in the in the country again it's a ten year old vehicle and you know so last year the two just turned away so that's why the values really aren't much there we don't do three every year it seems to be everything second or third year that we have the minibus that's in that configuration again it's the size of the fleet you've got you know three times four times more on the full sized buses than you have on the  rotation seems to work well that way copyright free replacement we do about eight million copies a year we have three vendors all of them are on the state bid list that we deal with we obviously been against each other because there are certain features that each one can do and trade values make a difference in some cases we've had extremely good luck with the fact that these state contracts all require these copiers to have three year warranty full service for mate it's so for the most part the copiers will make it a full three years before we hit the number of copies that you know would typically be a bad spot to be and but we're not paying any maintenance for him so we're effectively getting a good price on a front with full maintenance coverage for the three year period and typically based on the number of machines we have throughout the district and the number of copies are making we run around four machines a year sometimes five if we get you know a smaller one in the  mix a new item and we've discussed this with the town side with both rainey and bill at a meeting and they felt that we should be pushing this into the see ip budget this year to move forward as you know we started the same burns community feel project four years ago you know and the first year obviously was getting the turf field itself built come a couple years later we install the lighting so we've got the the field in the lighting complete at this point and last spring  thousand we feel that you know if with the school committees approval we could use fifty thousand of the schools building rental revolving account towards this but that would still leave us with a requirement of a hundred twenty five thousand dollars  ironically you know with the next two phases that come up the eight lane track and the concession bleachers without the concession stand with bathrooms were virtually kind of stuck so we've been trying to do everything you know in a need process basis so again the turf field was the first the lighting was the second because it gave us more access and use time on the field and this gives us the ability now to make the next move because without this without bathrooms on site we can't put up the bleachers that would be a requirement to be able to handle the the value of our number of people are becoming and to be honest with you because of the way it has to be located we've already done all the engineering with the bay colony doing our site layout so that we truly understand what the site requirements are and getting this piece done before we do the next two pieces is it's kind of critical because we have a lot of underground utility issues that we have to deal with and we like to have that done before we get into doing the track and in the bleachers so the other advantage obviously is  concession stands it is one of the major support for any of the organizations that support our our sports pretty much every organization whether it's football soccer track all have a booster club those boosters clubs put in a significant amount of financial resources into our our district on an annual basis i think people would be very surprised if they understood how much money each one of those boosters clubs puts into the sports programs as well as what happens on the u s side because obviously this field is also used by usaca use lacrosse and they have their own organizations as well so the concession stands not only serves what we need on a school full campus basis but it also serves the community again the community feel the concept here and the fund raising capabilities of that of those groups the i go paving as i said this is kind of phase two of it we've been fortunate to get about seventy percent of all the parking done i think if you remember last summer before we started the back parking was absolutely and in her end to shave it was a safety concern and quite honestly when they were plowing you'd watched the drivers go right through the windshield because they'd catch on parts of the pavement that were on two different levels so we were we were very fortunate as i said to use the town surgeon and basically what i had done is they already had two companies come out and actually price what would cost to redo the entire i go bids i got were in the two hundred thirty two will be less than one hundred and you know again it's it's a significant cost savings doing it this way using the town's resources but you know using some funding this way and it is something that we can do during the summer timeframe the reason i'm pulling this one forward and not hoping that we might have some money at the end of the year based on budget savings is that i really need to commit on the granite curving side in advance of the summer because it's such a long process to get that done in set first before we actually do our regular paving process that i couldn't do it last year i could do the section because i couldn't have take the chance of not being ready by time school started so you know so that's that's one of the issues but it's you know again it's thirty two thousand five hundred is inclusive of the curving and the paving the other side is we were placing everywhere we do this type of work we're replacing concrete curving which to tear rates i think if you remember the high school number of years ago it was literally the fact that more people didn't get her it was kind of amazing the i go is the same way in the front  product so we're trying to be very thoughtful and what we do from the meat it's perspective as well to reduce costs down the rumors in the process as far as the s b a study  basically you know we've applied through the school committee for the last three years with the m s b a last year we got very close and we are on the wait list or on the shortlist i guess we didn't quite make make it in the borough school itself is forty seven years old we've discussed a number of to times the amount of significant issues within the h p ac systems as well as all of the structural components windows doors you know is is really what you start the process you really every day every step you take creates another issue that you have to resolve one of the biggest problems we've always had there is it's not a v a compliance we've done small things to try to make doorways and certain access points workable but they do not meet any of the standards that are out there today and also one of the things that that we know is our pre k program which again if the state continues to follow through with its quest towards pre k will be a bigger issue down the road but we feel that if we could add two rooms to that building it serves a couple points first of all we don't have the appropriate room design for the pre k program which has a lot of special needs components to it a lot of therapy issues a lot of you know special trainings and i think sandra could speak to that probably better than i can and as a as a matter of fact standard i will be going to a couple districts who have put in new pre k rooms to to basically study them to see what would be the best thing that we can do in this but the other problem with the building is because a lot of the rooms have bathrooms in between each room they are not handicapped accessible they're very hard for a teacher to be able to maneuver within and his deal with the students that need him so my assumption is going to be in the in the program process here is that we actually of the building has one set of gang labs which are meeting any of the codes either that we will more than likely have to build a second set on the other end of the building which will mean that we're going to lose classroom space there so i think the our our feeling at this point is that you know even with the enrollment that's in that building the two additional classrooms and the redesigning of some of the spaces that we have we think this will make this building again you know a long term keeper for the town and from what we can see structurally the building is in fine shape the town has done a great job supporting us with repaving recurving you know doing everything we can do on the outside of the bill before we actually attack the inside so that will save us money  will be cost that we're not going to incur again because we want do any damage to that the way the process has been managed so far as dep said she received a call on that basically said that we were being considered to be pushed forward to  she received a follow up call saying that they have put us on the list to come forward which means the board at their january meeting will review the list that their staff has given them i have a strong assumption that obviously if the staff is recommending at a group of schools that the board unless they find some significant problem with our request would move us forward and again that puts us into the scenario that it's a basically it's a two hundred seventy day paperwork process time where we have a lot of work that we have to do to show our needs and then develop it but during that process we also have to show that we will come up with the funding to be able to do the full feasibility study which means with at that point after the two hundred seventy days we will have to hire the architect hire the p m and actually build a feasibility study on the building ironically it's almost the same process that we're doing with the town hall we're doing all that development stuff upfront and showing how our educational program you know this building will serve that going forward and if if the s b a agrees with that then we go back to the town with the final design and the final request for prove all funding and so i think it's it's a little bit different program that we've ever done on the  past but again it's still subject to their reimbursement side so i missed the meeting based on a couple conversations i've had with other school districts that the total cost would be six hundred which is what we would have to recommend a town meeting however we would get reimbursed on that six hundred by whatever the well regulated portion of the reimbursement rate would be last time it was around forty nine percent i know they're not quite as generous on that but in talking to one district just today they were at like forty six percent very similar district to us i'm assuming that that you know we're probably be up in that in that range as well and you know that you know that number may change a little bit between now and your final meeting this month just based on me trying to have more conversations with the state and with other districts just to make sure where their numbers coming from and and where are should come from as well so i think that's that's a it's a big component again we've been apprising the townsite so it's not you know randy and  know where we are with this program at this point and they understand that again it's reimbursable you know up to close to the fifty percent range so and then again it will come down to the final thing at the end that if everybody in the community agrees with the so i kind of broken into the two components basically are annual see i speak of the five eighty five five hundred and the girl project of six hundred thousand with a total request of a million one hundred eighty five thousand five hundred again there are different components to this as to how it will be funded on the town side again the the project on the burl side will be voted at six hundred but the assumption is funding only a little over three hundred so even though we have to state it this way again it's a it's a component of the the m s b a kind of being sure that everybody understands clearly what the cost that is being done but as you move forward with that six hundred they reimburse you as you go so the town does not need to session stand and bathrooms two hundred thousand dollars for some reason has gone through the various thinking is it really two hundred thousand dollars to fill up a building and do the plumbing but clearly it is can utility side of it we probably will in this process soak up fifty to sixty thousand dollars just getting in the sewer lines the power lines now  tried it upfront some of the power thing by when i built the shed for the lighting i actually already brought in the power for the concession stand as well so that would just have to go from there but we still have to go from there into this and put panels in  yeah and then the obvious thing is when you get into bathroom facilities themselves the design and development of those in an exterior environment so let's let's all remember that this is a building that doesn't have all the protections that the school has or that the town hall or any other building has where people are in it all the time it's not so this has to be a building that's designed and built from almost i now i don't want to say and you know indestructible because the kids will probably  but you know has to be one that can is extremely durable and easy to maintain and so because of that you end up doing more things and block block interior walls and things like that which are more much more expensive than doing just similar you know six simple partitions  metal so so it ends up getting a little bit beefed up as far as the building goes the concession side also has its own issues relative to cancel systems and requirements for you know any kind of cooking that they would do in there to be decodes  you know we're not talking about buying all the equipment because a lot of the you know the youth groups by their own refrigeration by themself that way but we have to have it all developed in and put in place so that any of the major functions would be covered in that and the third component that we'd actually like to make this building like and do all three things would be that one end of it also would be the ticket booth type of set up so it would go as you come in the side of the ticket thing there you can run the concessions there you go on the other ass about them so much and so on the building basically encompasses three functions it's not real real large to your point but it's much more our systems and i think you know from my viewpoint it's something that we want to do right because if you think about the public other teams where the community is typically go over to your current fields track football field for events and we've gotten a lot of comments from people from other towns who say a series is where you hold all your events and we have to walk inside the school and find a what two or three generations maybe longer and everyone's always sort of accepted it here in foxboro but when you go elsewhere you are used to having restroom facilities on the campus that people can access publicly so it is a higher ticket item but we need to do it right we don't want to make the same mistake and have facilities at the high school that is not accessible to the public with the end rentable because it doesn't make any sense to do that again we have to unlock a school and have people go in there and then try to lock off the rest of the building so that when it's open for that that we have to have custodians there we have to have you know people restricted within that building so it needs to be independently self sufficient so it does require a lot of they have to be able to cook in their serve in there it will prevent that the temporary ticket table if you will that were used to do now and be able to have money in a safe place which we don't have now and lots of other things that  to hold probably somewhere between a thousand and fifteen hundred so all the numbers are based on that ironically the building code doesn't have a specific code for stadiums so what he did was the the tractor in the bleachers that we can start helping our community just create that maintenance and replace will account the where it'll be self sufficient and financially going to be this year at this point we're projecting about two hundred thousand dollars over what we had budgeted for and i went through all of the payroll information with jim account who is our you know kind of our payroll supervisor and we kind of scoured every account through each of the processes that we know of at this point for any kind of their changes that were done from the beginning of the year to now and what we put the project to savings there is about one hundred eighty thousand however we did shift one of those positions over to the i go it was a newer position so the value was less than the one that retired comes on that we picked up fifty five thousand and cost there  we have eight point five f t teacher at the taylor high which also is not in next year's budget it was one of the things that deborah talked about so but we didn't hire this year because we didn't feel we needed it so we about a forty two thousand dollars saving at least they have ten you're going to get right you know and again i think it's important to point out to the residents that even though we get it we have to obviously we do our budget nearly a year in advance but even though we get that at the time we do we don't lock down and don't commit any positions around until we actually know what our numbers are going to be and that is one of the reasons that we give money back to the town every year last year was about forty seven thousand that we gave back and you know we still look at obviously needs that we have with mr to try to to deal with those first but you know when he does go back because we don't just spend we deal with what we need to deal with in the special needs area we had some reductions in head assistance which basically saved us about twenty four thousand and it wasn't really the physicians dropping it was new hires of physicians of lower rates that it that something that the most but we also had  spoke his last period with the what the y m c a is doing there was with all the equipment that they were replacing there was three pieces that they couldn't commit on their side to do that were an issue and we were able to negotiate fairly good rate on this so you know we feel that it's our responsibility to fund that eight thousand dollars into the wellness program top of what we're already getting the why it's going to be quite quite a facility again  twenty seven thousand dollars technology position we've already discussed that shared with the town and it's our support position a part time position there transportation we've we've already pulled twenty four thousand out of our vehicle fuel expense line which is doing very well and hope to be able to pull some more out there before the year end if we have any other issues and side is where we spent that twenty four thousand basically just on a twenty five thousand for new vehicle for the for the vehicle that the tommy garage basically told us to take off the road and then the final piece to this is that i mean this is a point that i think i've made to this committee a number of times that our ability to maintain  our revolving accounts and even the use of our circuit breaker with a kind of a one year leeway in it is exactly for this purpose and this is exactly the problem that you could run into and not you know be able to deal with so what we're going to do is take a hundred thousand out of that circuit breaker account we had budget for foreigners seventy five we're going to take five seventy five it will still leave us with about four seventy five in that account and again i think that's a prudent way to to go through this process it's exactly what that fund supposed to be spent on so it's it's one hundred percent appropriate and again you know if you did not maintain the philosophy that you maintain as far as the revolvers in the circuit breakers and and the different  s we have that way you would be looking for another hundred thousand dollars somewhere right now that basically will get us to a favorable condition of just under twenty seven thousand dollars we obviously actually is out and you're not on pain that side of it but the long term sub so it can it can go get you both ways but there's a it's a high number this year but we still feel comfortable where we're able to manage that within our budgets as they stand today so we still have another question of something else comes up for these numbers after being a little bit more aggressive than they are today for the entire security system it's a two piece to component thing it's obviously your access door control access pieces and then it's all your cameras and and stuff that's all been signed we're  expecting the first parts of the equipment to probably come in with the next before the end of january and then it will be a kind of a build from there you can do you know along with that the phone system is also going to say time so we have some very large projects that the i t department is going to be dealing with as well as school issues but we did do it we did hire an outside firm in both cases to do the majority of the work so it's they're just going to be managing the process and how it connects with our d our school properties we we do fund quite a bit of it to them i think the you know the the real issue there quite honestly is that it's a shame because the field has just been worked on and some good money has been spen receding and you know fertilizing a top dressing and everything and now in the spring instead of having something you know immediately on a positive side we're going to have to go up do some repair work on it i know the tree in park is  especially to sit districts for that shelton english immersion certification or endorsement if you will that teachers will need for the next round of licensure so there are two routes to that either by taking shelter english immersion a professional development or by taking the the m tell the teacher test for teaching english language learners students some of our teachers are going that route so one of the latest things that they are offering in addition to the sci administrative course which amy actually arranged for us on site last year's varied amongst the many five hundred dollars toward the sam burns field concession stand fundraiser so we are actually if you accept this donation five hundred dollars to the group so let's deal with that first and john just put that in context we received what about nineteen thousand dollars if i remember we brought ballpark we're probably more close to the twenty five thousand dollars range because we've sold t shirts you know and we've had other fundraiser things other than the donations that  you're referencing that you've accepted almost twenty thousand dollars in donations as would probably put us right up to that so it's been a very it's a it's only been eight months since we started fund raising so we had a pretty decent spring with all  fundraisers and the certainly is one of the highlights of it so i think in terms of the all the interest in town and people are so good about supporting things in the community that's the reason we put it forward for capital for the balance because we feel that that's a great effort to show that this community support and but we can't keep tapping the same people so at some point you say this is the community showing their support now we need to move it along ourselves for the rest so so yes of about twenty thousand roughly in specific donations and then another close to five thousand with us selling t shirts and we had a booth at the founders day you know we've had to get the ball rolling in bold splitsville and we had to have a table at the election day last april so we've done a participants from but if others feel similarly as we do that there they've spent some quality family time out there and want to contribute and join in please feel free to refute thank you very much very generous so our second one that just came to my attention today in i'm not sure what it's going to be used for so i was i think i'm just going to mention it tonight have you accept it and i will come back with another meeting perhaps with this person so  who's the executive director of the tri town chamber of commerce which in the chambers serves fox mommy instilled in norton has donated seven hundred seventy four dollars and eighty five cents to the foxboro schools initiatives regarding stem any stem initiatives so we actually had a call today to see if there's something in particular because it was such a specific amount i thought they already were supporting something in mind such as when scheider electric buy software for the high school indeed we can use it for any stem initiative that we choose so i'm going to janet spoke to her today i know karen myself but of homer and kind of get an idea she did give us ideas of what the other two communities she believes are purchasing it but you know we may start with the computer science program just my first thought because it's my goal so you know well we're going to have to support people in professional development next july so far i don't think there's a cost associate that with the probably is so could be materials curriculum materials so there's so many things we have going on in stem so i like to come back and speak to our people and get a handle on what we'd like to support with it and maybe have care from try to come because you know they do support a lot of with the schools do in many informal ways some of which i probably don't even know about so i think that's it was a terrific surprise and want to thank the tri talent chamber of commerce for their support of our three communities stem programs which is near so she and a couple board members would come in and they do a mock check but i thought you might be hearing about it the other two communities except as i thought might be best if you accept it and then we'll do a little bit something more formal with them thank you thank you with gratitude bar elementary school has been recognized by our state commissioner of elementary and secondary education as a two thousand and fifteen massachusetts commendations school in the year there so they are certified get says for narrowing proficiency gaps the letter that accompanied it said from the commissioner said that they were recognized for its high achievement high progress and or narrowing proficiency gaps so my guess is about marrying proficiency yes but actually we can't find a lot of information on specifically what data they use but we do know that they use the state testing assessment system data and so whatever it is they've done a great job over there at the borough school as all of our schools do so that's a happy note and i think that you know it's always wonderful  people's hard work especially when our state commission recognizes that they have made exceptional progress with just shows one out of twenty five schools that they forty five yeah that's right yeah forty five dollars most of our schools get recognition yeah that's right i only had one thing in almost falls under old matters but the calendar and i don't want to get into a lengthy counter discussion that's not on our agenda but we introduced it last meeting and it might require a request of a little bit of work that might be helpful for the public prior to our next meeting but we have recently been experiencing social media that i think will negative commented on that i publicly commented on it but i thought we had a really positive experience on social media recently with the special calendar which i don't know if you've seen it but i think it i think it's a tribute to you putting it on the agenda for discussion and putting it out there for a eness because it has spawned some really good discussion that i went through again today prior to the meeting and i'm sure tina is up to speed on it as our resident expert unfortunately the only conclusion i can draw from it is that this is one of those topics as we know that is really really hard to get to consensus on because there are some really valid points both ways and it's emotional and it's historic and it's legacy and it's passionate the only thought that occurred to me and i don't know if it's a good one would be could we come up with a third option you presented two very thoughtful options mind if i finish the one that i thing going in august generates some real hesitation i think we saw some benefits however to going pre labor day i wonder i know i know september first i think is a thursday and i think we usually think the friday off so it's hard to not start in august and still start before labor day i wonder i started looking at a little bit you guys going to have far more effectively than i can whether there is a way to start in september before labor day maybe take out a professional day or shorten or move it or something so that it it's meaningful i don't want to bring him in for a day or half a day to be gone three days and what's the point i can kind of see that but i just wonder if there's a way we can be a little creative with our d this year or the days that we typically recognize or something to try to get to a middle ground it's very hard to say publicly it's very hard i understand because you gave us some real good feedback i don't think it was quite as painful on the families as they thought maybe initially it seemed like a good transition for students but august i think people are really struggling with august now so i don't know that there's a way to do it very well let me ask a question so i can come up with another option that you'd like to see feel personally i know people think of it i don't it doesn't matter to me what you decide we will make it work which is what i said lashley know we will make it work and i i think i think this there are all good options and there's no terribly bad option and either way the kids who come to school will be educated now but start to the either way so the third option would be and i remember last year we had three options and i didn't do this year because of this but let me ask let me make sure to c n n so if if they were coming up on september first which is a thursday would you want to see students in school both thursday in friday because not having the four day labor day weekend friday you don't give a thought i do personally i do appreciate that instruction for earlier in the year is more effective than instruction in june so you know i'll go out on a limb if i had to vote right now and i know i said last meeting that i would prefer the later start but you know i do worry about the effectiveness of those late days and you're right so i really think it's our responsibility as a board to be as focused as we yeah i don't know as i don't know if there's an answer none of the new a committee has any feet any thoughts or reactions but my thought was can we go back one more time creatively and see if there's any alternative knowing that september first on thursday is part of the problem interested in i just want to know what the parameters are i know when i was going back to my staff and last year last year janet created this lovely live right of historical data on previous starts and maybe that would be  the kids i concern before labor day already but let's say it word the wednesday the thirty first i don't think there's a measurable difference in having your child back in school on the thirty first in the first as it is the thirty third because you still i have to block that week off i think it is a psychological thing but i don't i don't know that i'm that interested in the calendar that feels good psychologically because none of them do so i think it has to be something a practical option substantially different that offers people something meaty to talk about so if we were to say we don't like the sound of going back in august which is what i'm hearing you say then we'll go thursday the first but then i'm asking do what do you want me to include friday the second as the second day school that week or not because otherwise you're leaving the stand alone september first thursday where kids want to be there for the first day of school but the families have plans then they're going to miss the first day of school so is that it's wonder if we're talking about a whole shift i mean if instruction is always going to be better the beginning of the year then the end of the hour then are we you know we discussed this last year was because labor day was struggling and now it's just kind of late for a little bit later but i mean really if we're talking about this week isn't it always going to be better to start the week before labor day not a few labor day is the second i mean when it when the calendar goes to say tuesday or you know is the second or th won't feel the same as it does last year and this year these are not going to wait your time in a couple or a half you have started very early i remember yes and and once or twice historically we've started before labor day it's just not tradition i say is the good word here mr post this is a procedural question we have to vote on this or we're scheduled to vote every day in the universe we come up with when at the next school com three weeks from tonight so if we're intrude if we're introducing a possible third option and here we are all very interested in doing this right as best as we clear should we push the vote to consider it because we're going to a third option that we don't even know what they are going to be and i don't think we have to stephen i'll tell you why i think that's why i was bring bring it up tonight to give us and give some time to see this or even a third option that we could consider that night but i think that night will know how people feel i think we know already how people feel and i think it's a divided issue so i think i think that my i don't know that we would need to give it any more time i think it'll just be what we most accomplish as a board i don't extra early this year because it is so difficult i know it doesn't sound like it should be but truly is a very difficult decision and i put it out in december so that it would be five weeks before the vote instead of just a couple and so in other years it's single like because we're not going back to live to recommend let's not go back till tuesday the third or whatever it is and everybody feels good about it it's a fairly easy vote many years so i put out five weeks before you have to vote three weeks from tonight which gives you more time to get feedback but we do need a vote that night for a couple of reasons number one the we can't roll the power school that the semesters forward which has to happen before kids through the course selection in february we need to have those dates in our system so that the dates are created and th roll forward correctly with the end of the terms and all that stuff the second reason is that we want to give families enough time to plan if there's going to be a change they are so i think you know six to seven months in advance is i wouldn't want to do any of it so i'm not looking for a solution of tonight i just wanted to ask is there a third option one idea was to go back on the first we've discussed why that's challenging the only other ideal throw out there again thinking back through the feedback i read about today on social media was is there a way to be creative that we could live with some time later on in the year and i think i know the short answer  that i understand well as an example people you know people asked a fair question you know which which i can understand you know do we need a family vacation and april radiation you know i'm not i'm not going out there a lot i'm not proposing that we do anything real radical necessarily but this is the sentiment you know so so again i'm just asking the question for you guys to spend a little time on between now and is is there a third option that gets created that in this case starts after labor day but it helps us a void getting into late june and every answer is no with the next meeting that you spent some time in there's really no feasible way then i think that's we've done our due diligence but that i would just ask you to take a look at one more time you know there are questions about long weekends p d you know so so a couple thoughts i personally i will if you want me to but i personally would publicly put out a discussion about taking two winter break in the spring winter and putting into one week for this reason many years ago but ten years ago some schools districts did that and unless an entire region does it say in the state it tends not to work because people live in one town so now you put your kids in school when you're working and it just it's a very strange thing but the districts that did do it for the most part and reverted back to the traditional the wheel and vacations because it  didn't work for them which is strictly so given that i know that that i personally wouldn't be in favor of supporting a counter option because if you think starting a few days before labor day versus the tuesday after labor day is a hard discussion you personally know appearing publicly or through the me they'd to be promoting that because that would be very difficult so i was using that as an example in terms of the you know we have for the teachers have a five hundred eighty five day calendar five days be on the students which we think a very important we front load three of them before the students come partly because we believe that has a lot of power and partly because then the during the year p t days impact families less so of our five days we do three before the kids come where families are impacted at all and only two during the year which is very reasonable and probably less than typical of interruption of the sport here so we're the only ones we know the front three p d days so i think the impact of the two p d days one of which is going to have to be in the election day to get which we discussed last time that the job pointed out so when you see the next iteration of all of these you're going to see the october p d day move to the election day because that is logistically very difficult to have school in session with that many people going for so every four years when there's a presidential election we move our p d day so i unless you're telling me differently tonight i'm going to move the p d day in october to that november date because it is the wisest thing to do and if it is the safest thing to do so that only leaves us one at the end of january to play with so that's the only alternative for that would be to put that on the day after the kids get out in june which logistically is difficult never mind that it has no value to teachers but we sometimes get speakers or people to come in and with the moving of the end of the year with snow days you don't really know what day you're contracting with or what day courses are starting in all of that so we're really only talking about the potential to use one p d day that interrupts the student school day just putting that out there so if you want us to think about moving the january date the only possibility for us is to put it then i will ask you the one question i have wondered about which if you wouldn't employees like if that if the holiday falls on this then you have that off so i do want to check that has just occurred to me but do you we have the second office we typically have the day after new year's off but if we have to check with our union contracts say but there's a possibility of one day right there but i don't know if one day whether it's that monday or whether it's the p d day we have to play with whether one day could make that much of a difference in the calendar i'm not  school for two days argued thirty furth and temper furth and then have a four day weekend right and then get out on june sixteenth two thousand and six so so that could be option three is to come back august thirty first and september first but then you're only gaining the as opposed to the yellow draft you see here draft two where we have the kids going back on the tuesday and only by that one day and i think if you're already a family that i can't go on vacation that week the one day probably isn't going to matter and might help to go so i just knew what would be the parameters of option three that you'd like us to create and we can send that out to you a s a p i don't think there are any parameters that i had in mind as the one who brought this up i just think you know was there a third option could exist and i think you've so far and it's helped me because i'm so there probably you know that so i think i think the analysis you're going through is all going to impact you know w know the more mines that are put to it though so last year i gave you three options this year i couldn't come up with a third that made any sense to entertain the notion of so i didn't but maybe somebody else could that's why i'm asking because i couldn't personally come up with anything else what so last may and june day of june is june nineteenth with the five snow days could be the twenty six o'clock we have to talk with the students coming back before labor day it would be june fourteenth and with the five snow days it would be at the outset june twenty one you don't have to you know to create something just because i brought this up tonight you know you've you've you've given a pretty good ok but if you know the very thing makes sense to you then bring it otherwise we'll move out on what we have ok ok if anyone thinks of anything let me know because if i could you know like i was hoping hill i didn't think of that and then i could create it so are you interested in the september first one day coming back to come back on the thirtieth or we come back