today we have public schools school superintendent john failon with us there are a variety of things that we want to talk about today with john thanks for stopping over i know you've got an incredibly busy schedule we appreciate it thank you for having  is budget season in the town of belmont and the there is a draft budget for a proposed budget for the schools for the next school year correct and are you seeking more money the same money that you give us an update of where we are absolutely the the school department in the school committee work hard in the budget starting in the fall we meet with the war committee liaison's from the war committee to the school committee in the school department through that time to give them updates on what the needs are of the district and what the hopes are for the district as relates to the budget we presented that budget to the finance committee in the war committee early in then presented it to a joint session of the if we had the same amount of students next year as we have this year and if all things are made equal that would really be what our budget would be just bring all the folks we have now and bring them into the next fiscal year zero you know that that's not the case we know that that's not the case that's the st piece that we look ok what does it take and what do we have for needs and so then we start to look at what our needs are and where our bills are that we have to pay those the next two chapters of the budget so our needs are many because we have continued unromantic creases continue class size challenges continued pieces of our district that we would like to grow or establish that we don't have currently so we talk about what's the impact on the should teach it plan what pieces of which is really some guidance counselor support at the elementary school so we could have each elementary school have a full time guidance counselor it's hard to say out loud as a superintendent that right now there's not a full time guidance counselor in three of our four e schools we consider social emotional learning vital and how we meet the needs of our families and our children as people and human beings as well as students in the guidance role is essential to that so that's part of the ask the other part of the ask a support at the high school for a assistant principal part time and also some f t ease at the middle school so we're doing things in chunks of like point five which is part time pieces that add up to three dollars so that's what we're asking for in addition to th budget and that brings us to about a one percent additional increase ok we're moving forward so that brings us to about four dollars more important yes and then we talk about what bills do we have to pay that we don't have a choice as a district our health insurance cost is estimated to go up by eight percent we have five hundred and seventy eight dollars and poise when you multiply their health insurance by eight percent that number alone is almost a one million dollars so that's a bill that you have to pay so we know that we have to pay that bill and we know that the funds that we seek for our students who need minted services that we ensure quality services for some of us special education students some of our students who don't speak the language there are pieces of that mediated work that we have to do and that's also a bill that we have to pay so when you combine those three dollars components of the budget it comes out to about a six percent increase i think that that is similar that the town's budget in general all things in is somewhere around five plus so where we're a growing town were a growing district and we're filling in line with the other town departments as relates to you know needs moving forward and what i didn't hear you talk about is there's nothing in the operating budget yet having to anything to do with the new school career there perhaps there are no preparation costs or i don't know what the term might be there there  is we are building our budget over time incrementally to bring the district staffing level to the point where we can support four hundred students a grade because that's what we're moving toward so whether we build the new school or not we know that we needed to increase our budget incrementally to serve that many students so we're continually doing that as a relief so moving into the new school as relates to the short term do we need any extra money next year to support the transition times the answer that question is yes we have less playing fields we will have no paul will need to transport our staff i mean our student athletes to different places to practice we might have more away games so we've added money to the athletic budget to support that  that's one dollar example of how we would need extra money to support we also see the additional point for f t e of assistant principal as a way that we can provide a little more safety and accountability for our students and staff while they are living next to a construction project we really think about the we wanted to add more hallway waters and wanted to add a few more pieces to that as well the budget didn't allow but we really take seriously that we're bringing our students in our staff into a situation next year that that needs more attention around safety security and generally be an actual construction site so those are all plot parts of what we thought about as well ok i like to turn our attention to perhaps a politically sensitive topic because a good part of the school's budget comes from the state but there are a good many people who believe that the state school funding formula is unfair to communities such as belmont well two questions i guess do you share that opinion in two can you explain any efforts that are ongoing to change therefore no absolutely yes i agree i think that the  is in the current formula state wide between what a boston or a brockton receives in state funds versus what a burlington or another town receives the state funds has a wide range of concerns related to it  there is a massachusetts association of school superintendents video that we publish to the mayor sessoms working hard to advocate for this new bill at the state level and has produced some great facts for folks to consider when considering a vote for funding formula i will be at the state testimony on state house on friday to support the teachers union the mass association of school superintendents in the massive social school committees we're all going together to  lawmakers to consider this work vital to the to the equity and wellbeing of all students across the state as it relates to belmont this could mean an additional three million dollars in funding for belmont if the formula was done in a way that was modeled in the in the report in way that increased school funding or with that supplant property tax funded i would see that is additional chapter seventy four dollars money that would add to the school budget now the town would decide how they use that revenue and balance it versus what they asked for in tax base that's always the town's right to do so sure but i would hope that that would money would be in addition to for the school department and would help balance out the needs of the other town departments while we look at the towns budgets across schools fire police etc i will say in the budget present that we are doing and it is on media when you can go back and play some of the tapes  students if we just had the same amount per child as the state average two thousand six hundred dollars times four thousand eight hundred dollars comes almost nine million dollars so there are districts out there that are spending a lot more money to educate their children we're not asking for one million dollars more we think the state formula could recognize and help support the needs in our budget at about a three million dollars mark but i think it goes to show the level of the great outcomes in opportunities were able to provide and don't  want come on a very lean budget and those are apples to apples datapoints at the state level that we are spending two thousand six hundred dollars less per child than the average state district and what i hear you saying and tell me if i'm just  putting words in your mouth i don't mean to do this but the town is moving toward and over right and people always say well we just need to cut expenses that i'm hearing you say that there's really no fat in the budget to  believe that the town in the schools have done a great job of putting money away each year from that override that gave us two dollars more fiscal years we'll get five fiscal years out of that override and i think that we were really responsible with the taxpayers dollars not to spend all that money in the st three years and then turn around and wonder why we didn't have any more we were conservative in our approach we were methodical in our approach and i believe this is the cost of doing business in a municipality that given the funding formula review four biggest pressures on other towns as well and that's why i think the state needs to universally step in and equitably distribute funds of course across the whole state to support local towns that are struggling with providing that kind of funding so we are looking to seek additional funding for f y twenty as i described with three different positions but while we've been growing in population and staff the fire department hasn't gotten any bigger the police department hasn't grown the d p w needs finds the libraries looking for a new space there are other challenges in other departments that equally need added support and didn't really grow as much in their added positions during the overall time they just remained in place so i think the entire  town would be would benefit by a real look at strategic planning and having overrides potentially every so many years fit into that formula so we could actually build up the revenue to match the expenses while questioning and challenging the expenses that's ok to that we have to how challenge ourselves in that department as well ok let's close the door on the budget and talk about some i call them disturbing activity or is in addressing that both well let me say let me stop the question there ok there are a couple of questions in there but what the schools role role is to do you react let's start out with the reaction to react to that so the st statement is that the belmont public schools in the belmont community doesn't accept any expression of hate towards any one group it's it's not ok it's not welcome it's not the culture of the community it and we work hard to uphold that level of expectation in our schools as well as relates to how do we respond when those actions happened the example in both of the cases you mentioned was principal mcallister putting an e mail out to his entire  community into a staff in creating a learning opportunity around that to take the wall back and i think that if you remember they spent a whole day with the whole school ready notes that they put on that wall to demonstrate the student voice  in that teacher voice that they have higher expectations of that for how they treat each other and what they want to see moving forward how they don't accept that kind of language or those words or tolerate that in this school and i thought that was a great example of an individual making a really bad mistake middle schools filled with young people who learn and make mistakes and learn from mistakes and we're hoping that that person did and we're also glad that the school community rallied around the higher expectation in the higher core value of valuing and respecting everybody that works in the school and there was a real difference i thought in their reaction there not a difference but a difference from what one may have expected it wasn't a fin the violator and punish them it was really bringing the community together to talk about it correct you know especially at middle school but even at the high school in k to twelve we are working with young people who are we hope to be able to through our s c l work create cultures and climates in every school that's welcoming where students feel known in welcome in understood and then they were learned through that this isn't nath and science this is how to be a responsible young person and work your way through this world of being twelve being fourteen being eighteen so schools becoming much more than just math algebra science biology in history and so those lessons are important so i think that we we hope to respond in these situations we were using there was learning opportunities there they're not ok the acts are not acceptable we set that line and set that tone but we also know that young people need to learn to move forward because they're going to be part of our society for a long time and we want to make sure that they learn from these lessons as well and then from a proactive flipping the question from a proactive point of view given belmont's increasing diversity in today's world  of the community and become included in the community feel included part of the community so we can bark four years ago on a social motion role learning initiative that was for the st three  years our primary objective should teach objective for the district and what that really means is how do you create school buildings in school communities that are welcoming and make children in families feel known and welcomed and one of the strateg specific strategies in a classroom in a school building in a district that we can take to fulfill that so that's the umbrella of of all the work that we do underneath that that if we have to start with that climate and culture in a school we do learning circles at the elementary school we do nd step at the elementary school and we have a s c l committee in every building that s c l is as you know a social emotional learning ok they have their own school based groups of educators to talk about one of the needs in their school and how do they want to bring this to light organically from each school's point of view and that's not us to tell them how to do that from central office because i don't work at the butler every day i don't work at the church or day so that's how we do that work and that has extended in the last two years to how do we then want to reach that here and a little father out to the folks who might not feel automatically welcome because they don't look like you and i they might speak another language they may come from another country they might be african american black they might be hispanic or latino latino and so of the specific things that we can do around culturally responsive teaching so for two years now we've been taking on a cultural response of teaching professional development which has jumped over our s c l strategy to be the st goal of the district in the last two years we've been working on the entire faculty and staff of the belmont schools reflecting on who they are and what they bring to work every day as mostly a majority white community and how we can start to think about what means when someone else comes in who does not look like us and what some of the needs are and how do we start to have those hard conversations with the adults and then this year in preparation and working with students so this is long work this is not a one a vent thing this doesn't mean just because we have a diversity night this is imbedded into our curriculum embedded into ideally practices well and i wanted to ask you that because it sounds like that this does become part of i don't it is about i like to say in public schools and in schools in general where we're eighty five percent people you know our teachers our people our customers our parents their people are our product is students they are people we're all human beings so this is  a human element to how we want to do the work and it's essential that we we all understand who we are individually how we all can affirm our belief that all students can learn that all people should feel welcome regardless of who they are what they look like what they believe and then how do we create a culture where that's actually happening in supporting of that we have a long way to go there is no this because this is the nd year we can check it off the boxes done this is and there will never be  don't try to just plant really really solid seeds that grow along react in this community over time and i think that this is the perfect community to do it i think that that we have such like minded folks who feel similarly that all folks should feel welcome in valued and how we do that in schools every day is part of the work that we're learning so i'm excited that we've taken this work on over the last two years i think it fits underneath that larger and brawler of all folks should feel welcome to that to the next so what you do in the nd grade builds on what will be done in the th grade which will be done in the th grade not necessarily in the cultural response of teaching ok which because the the work of the we see the work at this point in time in culture responsive teaching being at every level k to twelve we were asking our teachers and educators to really to really reflect on who they are and have those hard conversations and then how do we work with children so that doesn't necessarily lend itself to that articulation you're going up ok however s c l does where we wanted to each in expose elementary children to certain deregulations skills and reflection skills and then when you're in a middle school that looks a little different because the peer pressure of middle school is a different dynamic for that age group and then how do i utilize that well at high school and how do i really make those skills and those things my own so when i leave belmont high not only have i experienced a rigorous academic curriculum and a great you know music drama be a death the ticket experience but i also have a good head on who i am and how i value other people so that's the that's the goal and we do see scaffolding there more in place than our work what's the culture response of teaching because we've think the culture response is teaching is everywhere all the time period yes ok let's close the door on that let's talk about there's a rumor about town that we're going to have a new school in town here and  yes a few years can you bring us up to date on what's going on with the new seven to twelve school yes we are we have been working for over three years to search for a long term solution for the district because of the increase in roman in for folks who may not who may get up and go to work every day and come home in and have their dinner and go to bed wake up and go to work again they might not know that the schools are experiencing  so we may have a short term plan a long term plan in the long term plan was to ask the state for money to build a new high school and extend that to try to support the in role that challenges at the elementary level the middle school level in the high school level so we have  over the last two years presented that reconfiguration to the town which means eventually we'd like to see our schools be potentially cater three primary schools one upper elementary school that would serve grades four  fifty six and then we are we've been blessed with an override of the town's vote of seventy six percent to support a two hundred and ninety million dollars dollar seven through twelve school that will support us seven through twelve student population so we are really excited about taking that work on and that's if it's seven to twelve rather than nine to twelve that's a significantly bigger school correct it will support about two thousand two hundred students are there special efforts that you have to take to or you could probably talk all day i could then about the special effort we have really have really focused on the the unique in careful separations that we need to provide when you have th and th graders on one side of the building that have a team model school that will be built just for that model and then the separation of the nine through twelve department based model that is a traditional high school so the schools actually look different inside the wing for seventy eight grade has its own interests and it will have its own  administration they will share services in classrooms on the st floor but the schools themselves will be separate the fantastic connections that you can make is that the learning that can happen with the educators together seven through twelve for the curriculums together seven through twelve with the ability to maybe do some cross curricular work or project based learning work and we have a new facility we've added robotics classes technology classes coding classes we're building those programs now leading up to the new building  we've been talking with the public schools school superintendent john failing and you've been watching this special edition of the belmont journal i'm your host roger colton i will talk to you again next time