warrant briefing i mean president of the belmont league of women voters tonight the league is co sponsoring this meeting with the warren committee town meeting is wednesday october nineteenth at seven pm here at the chancery middle school at this time i would like to introduce you to the chairman of the warren committee  is for me to give a very brief overview of some issues that i think are factual in nature just to prepare the ground for discussion but i want to turn it open to the floor as quickly as possible where the purpose of this is for members of the audience to ask questions and we'd like to accommodate as many questions as possible so to that end i'm going to enforce just a couple of rules which i'll repeat before it starts which is that there are no speeches and no arguments tonight from the audience it's merely to pose questions and there are various people in attendance ranging from  belmont school department belmont government minuteman who can best or best place to answer those questions and we'll move through them as quickly as possible and to be really strict i'm going to impose a two minute limit on posing your question which i hope will be more than is really needed for everybody but in the interest of moving things along that will that's what we'll do there also copies of a some documents in front if you're interested in a hard copy of  powerpoint i'm about to show and then there's some other documents down there too by other presenters tonight and with that we can get started this document will also be available online hopefully by tomorrow but actually david if i could ask you to scroll through  ok just to be clear why we are meeting on wednesday night it's a special town meeting and the key part of the motion is a vote on whether belmont should request to withdraw from the minuteman school district and to avoid any mistake if you vote yes for that motion your voting to withdraw and if you're voting no you're voting to remain and this is a two thirds vote needed to carry next sli so why are we having this town meeting it's really the result of the district wide election in september where belmont as a town voted not to approve the debt for the new building which really triggered  town meeting that we're about to have on wednesday if the town meeting votes to withdraw from minuteman that in itself does not accomplish withdrawal that merely sets up a process where belmont then makes a formal request to the minuteman governing bodies to approve a withdrawal and that's when it would actually happen if belmont does withdraw it becomes a nonmember town and it has noticed belmont as a town as a nonmember town would have no responsibility for any debt associated with the new building and there are other ip implications that we can discuss if belmont remains then we carry on as we've been doing all these years and in addition dominant has a legal responsibility to help cover the debt next life just to be clear the school will be built no matter what the amount does so this is not a referendum on whether the school will be built belmont is the only town the voted to reject the debt and that ends up having no bearing on construction of the school it will be built it should be ready by the fiscal twenty one which means opening for the school year that begins in september two thousand and twenty  and let's go to the next life so there are privileges as a member town and certain possibilities as a nonmember town as a member town you can send a member town can send students to minutemen automatically  if belmont withdraws that process actually is staged over a three year period and students can continue to go to minutemen or enter minutemen through  and once you start minuteman you can state to graduation as a nonmember town then after two thousand and twenty in principle students can still go there provided there is space in the building that's the critical difference  next line in terms of paying for the school d e s c which is the state department of education elementary yes thank you elementary and secondary education in september announced that it would approve a mechanism for assessing what's called the capital charge that's to say that the debt for the new building is expected to to generate an obligation for debt service that's principal and interest on the building that would be approximately five and a half million dollars a year that charge will be covered by all towns that sends students to minutemen and approved a formula that would establish how that formula works essentially there are two categories there's a full payment which would be paid by member towns and so called type a nonmembers and then there's a reduced payment for so called type b towns and that would be a twenty five percent discount off the full rate  as a nonmember belmont would be in the type a category in terms of what the actual numbers are this is all the numbers that i present here are really estimates  that are my best there are generated by me and there my best estimates based on the information i have at this point for member towns and type a nonmembers the capital charge will be in the vicinity of ninety five hundred dollars per student it could be a bit less it could be a bit more but that's kind of midpoint the type b towns get a twenty five percent discount off that figure so that would be something like seventy one hundred dollars for student and that is a separate charge to cover the the mortgage for the new building that's wholly apart from the operating costs intuition and so forth and exactly what the number of depends on total enrollment at the school the mix of type a versus type b towns and so forth but these are reasonable estimates some of my colleagues on the warren committee have said that it is unknown if dessie will actually really really impose this charge or whether minuteman would offer nonmembers some discounts on the side to offset the charge which at this point is just conjecture if somebody wants to ask more about that i w do so during question period next like in terms of ball parking costs and more there's two periods there's an initial period of three years the takes us out to fiscal two thousand and twenty and then afterwards for the initial period if belmont withdraws in terms of paying for each the payment we make for each student for tuition and the operating costs and so forth that would continue just as we're doing today for students that we send minuteman but there would be no charge of any kind for the debt for this initial three year window  if town meeting votes to remain in terms of tuition and so forth it would be the same charge per student but the debt service would start to enter the this initial three year period the debt service would only be paid by member towns and exactly how much that is is unclear but i'm guessing it's around eight thousand dollars that's reflects two things there's less debt outstanding because the debts only going to be issued in stages so over the three years is only a fraction of the total debt outstanding and again the also in those first three years it's only going to the debt service will only be covered by member towns and those are fewer students so because of a lower debt service but a smaller number of students the charge per student is comparable to what it would have been and twenty one again based on assumptions which i'm happy to explain further if somebody wants to know if belmont withdraws i think the charge will be on the order of thirty three thousand dollars per student that's as a nonmember town give or take thirty three thousand if belmont remains the per student charge is likely to be somewhere in the forty thousand whether it's in the low forty's or the high forty's depends on enrollment assumptions and so forth and when you consider that belmont is probably going to send spend sorry send somewhere between twenty five and forty students it could be less it could be more but in that range the difference that we can call the delta is on the order of three hundred to four hundred thousand dollars a year again roughly estimated that's so that's the total and that that difference in the out years is bottom line that includes the operating cost component it includes the mortgage and the debt service and all that somewhere in the three to four hundred thousand dollars range is the difference next slide so i have developed a spreadsheet to summarize these types of analyses in various colleagues  will be close to what will it's not going to be easy to close it although my colleague jim gamble has done some experiments on that which you can ask him about it seems to me there's likely to be a gap even if the schools have full in rome and i  assume you've all heard discussions about whether the school is too big or too small but even at full in roman there's likely still to be a noticeable gap between member and nonmember an important component of achieving parity between member and nonmember is minuteman reducing its operating costs which superintendent bill killen discussed some last week and i understand there's a commitment to actually reduce their costs in the future  i mention a third way i don't know how likely it is but it is conceivable that if town meeting puts in a request to withdraw  that the minuteman school district may refuse to grant that request which would have the result that belmont would continue as a member town i guess you could say in voluntarily but in that circumstance as in that special circumstance belmont would remain as a member town but would not be subject to any capital charge for the new building and then it's a matter of analysis how that cuts you but that is a possibility that i'm happy to discuss more if you want later on next slide ok in terms of the size of the school it's been sized for approximately six hundred twenty eight as of this month there are five hundred eighty six students in the school so the schools a little large and there's going to be differences of views on whether the school will fill will fill rapidly world and that's where a lot of the difference in opinion is arising is exactly this question of will the school reach capacity and how quickly  slide why isn't roman so hard to predict and it really is typically there there is experience with new schools and in particular new vocational schools being built around massachusetts new schools  experience enrollment increases because the building is improved the programs are changed and so forth there's an increasing school age population and increasing interest in technical education which nowadays is more than just auto mechanics it's robotics and automation in programming all sorts of things so those are a plus factors and i'm sure there are more there are a minus factors which is that c policies have changed in the last year or so which actually make it difficult for a minute man to enroll students from so called type b towns and that's a challenge for minuteman to deal with and also minuteman is expensive compared to other towns in the state in fact it's the most expensive vocational high school in massachusetts which clearly creates an incentive for nonmember towns to try to find an alternative  and that's the last bullet which at least for purpose for belmont purposes there are potential alternative programs in cambridge newton somerville and waltham which go into the mix next life so i ventured some what i'm calling strategic issues which are if belmont withdraws we can continue to send students there indefinitely and take advantage of all the minute man's programming is provided that there's capacity similarly by withdrawing the school department can negotiate with other towns for example the four that i just mentioned to see if students could be sent there as an alternative to minutemen at lower cost but at the same time there's the risk that minuteman could fill up and minuteman does fill an important place in the spectrum of vocational education and it fills up that that will be a problem next like if government remains a member town we can always send students there that's the whole point of membership member towns even if vocational enrollment expanded enormously member towns still get preference for entry over a nonmember town there's no one certainty for parents and there's no administrative obligation for belmont to figure out how to place occasional students and of course belmont would continue in  the governance of minuteman next like some of asked about whether belmont could somehow reverse the decision to withdraw that is not so easy if special town meeting votes to withdraw that that decision cannot be unilaterally withdrawn by belmont it would have to be a request put to the minuteman board and it requires unanimous approval by the board to take us back and then after twenty twenty one if we were non member and wish to come back in we would be essentially applying the novo as a new town and there's a procedure in the new regional agreement for accepting new towns but that's where we would be and finally i know this is hard to see from a distance but i just wanted to briefly indicate where minute man's programming stacks up against the for the schools that i mentioned and anything that seeing green is a course of study that is offered at minuteman and at least one other town in the four things that are in orange are programs that are not a that are not offered at minuteman and items that are in blue are offered at minuteman but not any of the other four schools and finally that concludes what i would call the factual overview just to sharpen up questions or eliminate obvious questions but by all means i welcome anybody who's curious to know more to step to the microphone and follow my very tough rules of two minutes per question  and will go to nine o'clock i'll entertain questions until nine o'clock and then we have to break but with that please come to m and the indication that down one has no grace period so in one situation if belmont withdraws and they decide later that it's advantageous to go back into minuteman  belmont would have to amend the agreement and that would be voted by three quarters of all members and then you would need the acceptance by all existing members and the approval of the commissioner so that it's not overly easy to come back into what you would be so you would be going through all those approvals i guess i'm looking for your and the school committee is here trying to defend us from leaving i would think it would be easy to get the unanimous consent thank you back in there's nothing codified the agreement terms are who the members are clearly it's codified in terms of the declaration towns but we're not at their current town where we're trying under a different procedure so i don't believe that it requires a regional agreement to be amended but i'm not certain in terms of the votes that would be necessary jack to have the answer to that for us to come back  meant school committee rep fred you had it right this as far as i know during that three year period after we have signalled that we want to leave but before that departure is effective unanimous vote of the school committee would stop it in its tracks what the minuteman school minuteman school committee once we have left as of fiscal year two thousand and twenty then we would be no different than any other non member community and in that case all the towns in the district have to affirmatively let in a new nonmember town all the towns all of the towns so i'm sorry exactly what criteria are used to select students from nonmember towns is not clear to me and when was the when was the last time that the current school was fall  that's hard to answer because the school is this current school that was sized for eleven hundred students and it was full of many at that level many many years ago so it's been many years since the current school it's been followed many years since it had eleven hundred students but as i indicated on the slide there are five hundred seventy six this month and the new school is sized for six hundred twenty eight so that the question becomes a little different ok and then you said that and i think mark or someone just clarified that in order to if we withdrew then in order to rejoin the the the n current member towns would have to vote unanimously to a prime minister rejoin that what i heard and so how many times have towns applied to join and been rejected well under the new agreement zero because the new agreement was just an act of this year but jack maybe some more to and how about under the prior agreement i don't remember the exact year chris but of the existing sixteen towns on the order of magnitude ten were original members and within a few years of minute man's creation in the seventies the additional number six in my example were added since then there have been no new members and as far as i know no thanks steve evans town meeting member precinct six with the four towns that we're looking at cambridge summerville new wall them i know we haven't made formal contact and that will come later but do we know if they are in the business of taking students from other towns any of them could i ask superintendent feelin to comment on that are open to discussions about doing so in the new school opens when they add additional programming some of the summer of old does not but is open to the discussion of creating an agreement new north of only takes students for a certain program that really wouldn't apply vocationally it's for the deaf and hearing impaired in med med ford does take out of district students and i think that's one of the key questions it just doesn't seem to take that much when you have thirty forty town sending students if each town sends one more student we're pretty much at capacity i don't ation both of the students in the parents need and also of the the financial cost either to the town or read it or put the kids in a new technique school about sins with i p s and whether they would be able to adjust properly and what the cost of trying to put them in different areas in the state and trying to show that they were properly happy and properly educated and ask if there had been a thought about that but my understanding is that belmont is obligated to provide a suitable educational environment but perhaps superintendent failing could also explain what or jim gamble which would what process is contemplated to identify the appropriate school for student minutemen does a terrific job with us students and our students with eyepiece and when we talk about the process by which will look to analyze different towns and different program offerings when we're asked to do so if in fact belmont does withdraw that will we be one of the points of analysis or research that will do with each town where we would need to provide the ip services by law but would also want to evaluate the quality of that programming as well i was just just put one quick follow up on has been evaluation of that prior to sort of this discussion i think that would be sort of i mean are we doing it after the fact are last spring in the budget presentation looking at at the school department we spent a couple of pages of the budget budgeting report taking a look at special education costs and the  when when we broke out what we identified as special ed services for in district belmont students that and then and then divide that by the number of special ed students we had within within the district  was about sixteen thousand dollars per student i'm not saying that's apples to apples because it's not we don't know but it's but it's not just a just a factual effect it's just a fashion statement there as well make sure that  either a family member who had had a program and gone and gone to the high school drama high school and really enjoyed the experience there and feel like they were given all the tools they need to succeed but but i do worry about other kids that minuteman and disruption for their families and for for the town and i just want to put that out there thank you fred paulson i think it's important for me to confirm what i said earlier and i looked at the agreement and the agreement has section roman numeral eight and it says by an amendment of this agreement  any other community communities may be admitted to the regional school district and when you go back into how you are man and the agreement it says that it must be initiated by a vote of at least three quarters of all the members and i think that that would be through that town meetings in order to make an amendment to the agreement and then in addition it would require acceptance of all the existing often are anybody else who studied it further has any more observations on this before fred you're right requires you know must consent to amend the agreement if you add a new term then i an amendment to the agreement i guess and say from my involvement as the liaison from the one committee to the minutemen and as a member of the task force that amended this agreement you will note the provisions in agreement whereby special deals can be cut in order to entice new members to come in the minutemen district for thirty years has been trying to get watered down in medford in other towns to join and again i point out the number of people here including mister fred again looking at the regional agreement that the vote to admit a new member which is an amendment to the original agreement requires a three quarter vote of the school committee but then it must go to each town and every town must approve that through their town meeting next question singler precinct six i have a question about the financing for member towns in subsequent years after fiscal twenty one attended a minute the minuteman presentation last week and they showed a member town cost of around thirty one thousand dollars and in the documents tonight it shows forty three to forty eight thousand dollars as a town meeting member how do i how do i rectify that this is apples and oranges here that's a fair question so i can i've studied the minuteman projection in some detail and it seems to me that it's predicated on some assumptions that were there clearly assumptions that were different from the ones i was working with as far as i can tell the minuteman projection is based on achieving cost savings in the future essentially sufficient to achieve parity so it's  terms of dollars it's an assumption that in the future the operating costs will be reduced on the order of two to three million dollars as far as i can tell combined with an assumption that there will be full in ro and full in roman with a heavier concentration of member towns and those factors combine to bring it to parity or something much closer to parity but perhaps jim gamble has another view on that and that the key thing really is that this cost gap hinges on what the enrollment story is because if you think of the member towns as member towns as the owners of a minuteman and the nonmember towns as you know as the customers given the state rules the customer rate is much less volatile given the enrollment but but if if if there's a shortfall of enrollment it is the member towns that have to have to either pick up the slack or force or a budget cut within within a minute man to bring the cost within within a parity and so and so i can i can get to the number that kevin mahoney the c f o of a minuteman has by by just saying that that we're going that we will get the full enrollment by fiscal year twenty twenty one and the other aspect of the enrollment to take a look at is i think in terms of the projections sort of seeing where we are now in this year's freshman class is probably the best case to start looking for for a couple of different reasons within the members there was a recruitment effort by jump there on the flip side this type b issue where freshmen from the large cities can no longer stand i mean can no longer come to a minuteman has been has been tamping down the nonmember  enrollment and so if you if you juggle that if you if you sort of keep the freshman class as is going forward and say that some of those students who would have come as freshman will show up as show up as a soft morse you'll get a a total enrollment number in four years of of about five hundred ninety five that if you say that the new students want to come to a new school and that the member town enrollment goes up by a total of fifteen percent over the next four years then you'll get up to and the roman number of of six forty or six forty five and that will that will get you to parity in terms of the in terms of the i'm a member member and i'm done member so it's all based on what you think the enrollment story is and let me just add one more thing that this calculation has some different dimensions to it what i what my slide presented was a comparison of belmont is the cost belmont  incurred by sending students to minutemen as a member town and as a nonmember town as a nonmember town it's also possible and probably likely the belmont would send some students to minutemen and other students elsewhere where the cost would be actually significantly lower even dramatically lower so in terms of the overall financial impact it's probably a little bit  the cost of being a member is probably a bit larger than what i've indicated here because the slide did not discuss the potential for sending students to some place completely different the minutemen  precinct seven jack this is probably a question you can answer and one that is still need some clarification from me so if we elect to leave the minuteman district and with the understanding that all of the other district members need to vote to allow us to leave is that accurate they have to they have to vote to let us leave is that correct two conditions to be allowed to leave one is  approval by a majority of the remaining towns right so there are sixteen towns those withdrawing towns have not left yet so eight of the remaining towns would have to approve the belmont's request to withdraw assuming we take the vote this year ok there are those communities who do not explicitly vote no and call a town meeting and have that town meeting vote no are deemed to have approved the withdraw so in order for belmont not to be allowed out seven of the remaining minuteman communities would have to call town meetings and those town meetings would have to vote no the second condition is provable by the commissioner of education the commissioner of dessie originally we were thinking way back way back last year that the commissioner would issue that approval or denial based on what the specific plan alternative plan was in fact we got communication from dessie before the town meeting vote that their approval will be conditioned only upon making sure that people follow the prescribed procedure so that those are the conditions ok so for clarification purposes if those eight remaining if eight remaining towns call the special town meeting with the understanding that a special town meeting runs the community i don't know twenty thousand dollars it would behoove them to not allow belmont to leave because we would be contributing more to minuteman operations as a member as a to the operating expense versus what their contribution would be in nonmember tuition plus as a nonmember presumably belmont is going to have to contribute a capital fee if it remained a member after voting to leave they would pay zero towards capital so spate other communities would have to say that it was more important to have belmont remain out on that ok and then the second question i know that it sounds as if we're looking at incoming high school students over the next four years but is there are the numbers available of what our incoming kindergartners through eight look like in terms of increased in roman both in belmont and in at least the member communities so that we can see what the numbers look like that are coming down the pike a little bit longer term th has a good answer to that question that well i guess and i know i don't really go over too many questions but i think a good bill i mean for us i mean you know if other communities are experiencing the enrollment increase that we're seeing here in town and if that's the case that's going to impact at all of our schools it's clearly a very important question and unfortunately sorry and rima hony tell me a member precinct one chairman of the council budget committee in the course of discussing this with  capital budget committee and other groups it has become apparent that despite the dramatic in roman increases in belmont and specifically in belmont high school there has not been a commensurate increase in the number of students going to minute man from belmont in fact those numbers are either steady or in decline if you go back to the eighty's and ninety's when roman at the high school was quite low and roman it minuteman was in the mid thirty's it's now i believe this year belmont students are twenty eight at minuteman so there is no correlation well it's i think the question is little it's even trickier because even if enrollment from belmont remained constant or even declined demand for vocational education in the entire area may go up and the minuteman filled for reasons other than belmont belmont would still have to deal with that kind of constraint yes thank you mr chairman jim williams tell me to member from precinct one and selectman i have two question or one question but i'd like the programs at ten or it's my understanding that if i'm a parent in watertown or if i'm a parent in belmont if i want to send my child to vocational technical education i can send my child to minuteman if i'm from and it's so it's not as if the school district is making a determination that that child needs to go to belmont it's i f i as a parent and my child we decide that we want to go to minutemen then we go to minutemen is that is that the case well that's an important question who controls the decision is it something that the town of belmont determines or is it up to the parent and you could get very different outcomes on in rome and so actually a superintendent could discuss that and perhaps superintendent feel and see if it was or was not the last presentation and i think it's an important question for you i agree it's very important thank you i had book one superintendent your question has a couple dimensions well let me try to answer the simple one first by explaining how we look at applicants we are blind to their status when it comes to i e peace until the student is accepted once a student is accepted we send that acceptance information back to the home school and we request all the records associated with that child so that we can prepare for their entry in september over the summer transition meetings are held if the student does require some special ed services or five zero four plan needs to remain in place while they enter but so we don't have any idea what their status is in regards to special education the second point about the families choosing where to apply that's correct that's consistent with the last reason taishan thank you ed and what that means is when we're talking about the number of students who will go to vocational technical education at minuteman if we choose to stay in the district because they can't go anyplace else i believe that's correct as a member town they know they need to go to the minutemen is that correct if we were a member town if we remember a town they only choice the only choice is minute man provided minuteman offers the program that ok but but we have no control if one hundred parents next year decide to send their children to minutemen for vote reasons they'll make the applications and if they're accepted th n we'll have one hundred children going to minutemen it's not something that the school district but the belmont school district controls well i think it's important to have as much clarity on that question as we can so i entirely up to the parent the parent and the student and the and the belmont school department cannot veto that decision that's one scenario and the other scenario is that the school the school apartment actually can at least influence where the student goes and i've actually heard different responses that question i don't know of the belmont school department is in any better position now to explain the situation john failed to protect the school's read think that it might be able to it's this better than i but we owe every student the right to if they choose to have a chapter seventy four vocational experience we owe them that option so therefore if there  needs to be made i think is that the same is true in watertown if two hundred parents and children want to go to vote they can apply to minuteman or wherever they want which is not what i want to talk about but let's say if two hundred students and parents decide to go to minuteman for vote they can apply and then minutemen will have two hundred kids in the school it's it's up to the parents and the student it's not up to the  standing school districts is my point ok so to project you know how many students will be from what what town next year is very difficult because it's not up to the towns the second point i'd like to make about this which is clarification mr chairman if you will is that there seems to be a drift towards an understanding that somehow minuteman is absorbing the students in special ed students but as ed said you know they that's not a consideration that they make when they're considering the applications and so they're it's not information that they consider each school district water town name all the towns and certainly belmont we provide i e p programs in special ed for children in students who don't want to go to minuteman for vote back you know and we're required to do that aren't we so you know it's not a special ed or an i p program decision it's whether your child wants to go to vote would you say that's fair ok all right and then if i could ask a financial question now in some of this i know from previous town meetings and not necessarily what we've learned as selectman but i believe last year  i want to talk about the balance sheet so i think that the minuteman school district has a positive net position is that correct so the assets exceed the liabilities and i believe that the six towns that are leaving the district are leaving that net position behind is that correct and i also believe that if we leave the district we are leaving our portion of that net position behind what is the net position are in fact leaving behind a positive net position and if we decide to do that we will be doing the same thing and converse lee i believe that they're off balance sheet liabilities that are not not on the balance sheet in which will impact the net position and whether maybe by is it wednesday that we're having the town meeting maybe by wednesday we can have these numbers because i'd like to know what the net unfunded pension liability is and i'd like to know what the unfunded liability is i believe from previous discussions that we understand that the pension fund is almost fully funded so that's not a big issue  eighteen and i think in order to make this decision you know it was complete information we need to know what the balance sheet impact is how much you know how much net position are we leaving behind and how much  liability are we exit in sorry jim that was my little beeper going off so i'll restate that as a question if minute man could come on wednesday and be prepared to answer more detailed questions about the balance sheet that would be appreciated  thank you very much kevin mahoney we don't have the the audit with us tonight however the geisha is somewhere around eighteen million dollars we'll have that information i would say that next question ok is my name is wayne what is and i'm from precinct five and basically a ton member friend of mine put together a list basically about the quality of different schools so belmont high was rated as a level  one school she got the information from the desk site and from individual school sites so high school was a level one school but it didn't meet its target for its target for students with disabilities so like learning disabilities is that true because some people who have children with dyslexia or some other learning problems may prefer to send their child to minuteman it is correct that high school in all six schools in bellmore a level one schools in when you look at the charts that are available on the d e s c website it rates schools for overall students and subgroups of students and at belmore high school the high needs group which represents special education students low income in the services did not meet the target by four points i would suggest that you look at the presentation that we did on the web at our school committee at the end of september there's a lot of complicated factors that go into what makes that algorithm but you are correct in the data that you're presenting ok thank you so you have a daughter who goes to belmont high and it's great for her not necessarily for my son we still want the option of minutemen and from the timing of all this it will be an option for my son it may not be an option for kids who are younger than my son ok thank you you thank i christo a precinct when i had two questions that jack made a comment that i wanted to understand better you said that in order if a town meeting voted to leave that  majority of the towns would have to then vote to i guess ratify or sort of affirm our decision and you mention the number of eight versus seven and i think you said that the towns that had voted to leave are still in the district and therefore those towns will be amongst the number that would that would be eligible to vote to affirm our decision is that do you understand my question i do and that is my understanding they that those towns voted in this past september election those towns will be members of the minutemen district up until july first two thousand and seventeen there is nothing in the regional agreement that says declan towns will no longer be able to exercise their past certain powers that they have as school committee members so my understanding is that fifty of the remaining fifteen towns eight would have to veto the departure and any town who does not call a town meeting and vote no at that town meeting is presume to to or have deemed to approved this which are all and how many towns voted to leave six so out of a in the majority that's required to affirm if we if they voted to leave in a majority when you say majority you don't mean by population or by number of what you just mean by individual town so that a town like westin has the same voting power as a town like lexington even though they have much different enrollments in population correct ok ari and then one other i guess it's a i'm sorry i can only ask one question well no actually two but you're welcome to come back as long as other people have a chance to ask questions too but actually i need to interrupt for one second to convene the warren committee so as of eight o'clock we are now in session as a work committee also  we are scattered about the audience that you may not have noticed with and that we're good ok thank you next question i'm juliet jenkins town meeting member from precinct three and i believe it's a follow up to christmas so there were six towns that recently voted to leave and mentioned that maybe it would be difficult for us to leave should we decide to leave and i'm curious was there any action taken by any of the towns when those preceding six towns try to l e the amended the regional agreement that we all voted on including our town meeting in february explicitly identified seven towns who had the option as part of the amendment of the regional agreement to elect to leave six of them exercise that option it required no other vote because by approving the regional agreement we defacto allowed any of those seven towns who wanted to leave to leave without any further action therefore our situation will be unique or new our situation will be subject to what then other provision in the regional agreement is  i started preaching three time you remember one of the arguments that i hear for in favor of remaining in the district is that as a nonmember town our students would be at the back of the line for applying for popular classes do we have any data on how often that happens to to nonmembers sending towns today in this year and recent academic years how often how many students are impacted and if and which classes are impacted i think the superintendent book will and should address the whole issue of access both in terms of getting into minutemen in the first place in the treatment of a student once they are enrolled as as a student yeah the chairman makes a good point there there's two opportunities for nonmembers to be treated differently the first opportunity is when they apply were required by statute now to accept all member applications prior to acting upon any nonmember applications once the student is in there is an intention of the school committee to amend our admissions policy so that member districts students would receive preference in the program that they actually wanted to enroll in they're in the freshman year for about half of the year all freshmen explore seven different vocational programs and then they choose one and that's the one they stay in for four years over the last few years we've had a waiting list in a number of individual programs such as environmental technology this year i believe we have a waiting list in biotechnology and right now the waiting list doesn't discriminate between member or a nonmember but as we move into this new regional agreement and move towards a new building and we continue to see an interest and increased interest we're going to have to make those changes in the admissions policy so member ten students have an advantage when they actually select their program ok but it's your intention to give preferential treatment i admission to programs not individual classes within this program well we have to give preference when it comes to being admitted to being accepted and then we will be giving preference to member towns once they're admitted thank quick not to to disagree because i do agree pretty much with what dr but quillan said but i think it's important to know that as of now as he made clear at the the previous presentation of the beech tree chatter once the student is in the door there is no differentiation in terms of their access to programs whether they are a member or nonmember it may be if there's a scarcity it may be a good thing for the school committee to decide to give preference to member towns but where i would take issue with dr brook willem is that topic has not been discussed at all in my recollection from my participation school committee that has not been discussed it could be where minuteman goes but it's not something that the school committee has discussed in a formal or informal way to the best of my knowledge krista a precinct one i had a clarifying question to in follow up to something that a selectman williams and superintendent failon said i think i heard that if someone in belmont right now is a member town wanted to apply to vote case knowledge occasion program that our only option is to have to go to a minute man program in less the student was interested in a topic that is not offered by minuteman and then i think i also heard and i'm asking for clarification if my understanding is correct that if i'm from watertown for example or some other nonmember town i could apply to minuteman but i also could apply to other programs that have met students so i would have a choice amongst a variety of programs that admit nonmember students is that correct it's  i think the answer is yes because watertown is a nonmember town everywhere so that they are not required to send students to any particular institution they they send students where they can find space for them steve evans tell meaning member precinct six just a question of how we finance this so if we are a member town and we stay and we're on the hook for the capital charge for the thirty years or whatever it is and it seems like we would have the option of going you know playing for debt exclusion to pay for it and you can correct me if that assumption is wrong but contrast that with if we withdraw we're under this one thousand five hundred a  charge and maybe it's also part it doesn't seem as feasible to me to go for a dentist who is going to pay for that so it seems like it could be of you know close to three hundred thousand dollar operating budget item but i'm not sure if i'm minuteman or sending students to minutemen broadly as a nonmember town if it's the case that the person who didn't cost comes in in the thirty thousand dollars range that is close enough to what we're paying today that i don't think they'll be a change in the budget because it would be we'd be incurring roughly similar charges if  belmont remains as a member town and the cost really does go up into the somewhere in the forty to forty five or fifty thousand dollar range i know that superintendent palo has said he thought the debt exclusion was most advisable but i have not been part of any discussions about that versus drawing down free cash at least in the initial years or some other strategy but i don't know if the selectmen have any further comments on this it's a good question we have discussed that from a debt service perspective it's likely that we would need to exclusion to pay that level of service each year that additional three hundred fifty to perhaps five hundred thousand dollars of debt service at this point in the out years in one thousand and twenty we don't see that we have room within our operating budget this is in addition to the eight hundred fifty thousand where we've spent today for operating purposes but you know what we haven't really run the numbers but we speculated that we likely would need to do that yes no mercy a precinct day i'd like to ask me a minute means superintendent again i might have missed it what percentage of us do in the programs  currently about forty seven percent of the total student population are receiving some services through an individual education plan i think that's you know that's and then while i have you  can tell us again huh many towns outside of the membership that you have to do say there was about thirty towns outside of the membership in any given year there's about thirty towns that send us students from outside the sixteen towns most of them send us one or two students i would think that that was one of the reasons why you know the talk about your cost being so high and of course if those students on our own system we're going to be paying higher than the average also you know the question i have for the moderator well there's two things i was looking at a list of the special election there was one jones there's a total of four towns that voted for the towns towns and did vote no but but three of the towns the other three towns other than belmont were already slated to leave as of july twenty seventeen you know so i mean so roy was really talking just about the ten member towns that are that are currently currently in for now and you know could you give me voice full more description over what is a member what is and either no vocational programming or up to four tracks different subject areas a type b town offers five or more vocational tracks currently and i suppose as compensation for already offering a fair amount of vocational programming they would get a discount of twenty five percent on the capital charge daryn just a quick clarification that offering five programs does not necessarily mean that they offer them within their own school system if they are a member of a regional district for example burlington or bill rekha who are i let me you're welcome to come back after somebody else as attorn do we have to then accept the responsibility for all the capital costs which we avoided in jack w now if we go back ten years from now we assume it would responsible for as a member of the capital charge from the ten years going forward we do not owe back ten years that we were not a member thank you jack are you in agreement with with bob on that yes it's going forward if you wouldn't have to pay a make up payment for the ten years but you would become obligated to at that point in time for any debt that the district had on sheet so that i think the question was for this initial period until two thousand and twenty is there any retroactive reach back if we give notice to withdraw then we are not liable of the debt even though we are a full member for the next three years as crystal clear in the agreement and if their member towns don't let us out and the seal doesn't let us out we're not liable on that debt but but as soon as we come back in regardless of when that happens we're obligated at that point going forward from that there's no club back prior to the election the special election about five days prior and the word came out that nonmember towns would have to contribute to the capital expenses is that what that is identifying that is implementing the formula in the letter that dessie released just before the district election in september but for people who read that letter just be warned that the example calculation that i gave was not correct the formula was correct but it was illustrated using an amount for debt service that was incorrect so and this is correct as resists is much more this is much closer to the truth ok and so then my second question  is i think it's always been a conversation a town meeting for many years when we've been going back and forth that the nonmember to wish and rate seems obscene li lo for the nonmember communities that we there's always been  a feeling that there should be a little bit you know they should have more skin in the game because they're not paying some of the other expenses is that is there how does that number get changed let's fee and can that change easily i mean i guess my question is is there the potential that we're going to turn around as nonmembers and that now it's going to double well it's unlikely because the system is there's a system in place where and there may be details that jack can correct me on but nonmember towns would pay a tuitions rate to a school like minute man or other schools at a rate that's determined by destiny and what's happened recently is that dessie has changed their formula by which they arrive at tuitions and the result of that is that the commission for minuteman was actually significantly reduced by about fifteen hundred dollars we minuteman is been placed in a top tier so there are five or sixty years of tuition minuteman is currently in the top tier but in terms of a dollar amount it's fifteen hundred or two thousand dollars less than  had been two or three years ago and i would imagine first off it's this is now subject to dessie decisions but i would imagine that going forward these two years would be increased at roughly the inflation rate which would be two and a half or maybe three percent per year there's not going to be a significant realignment because jesse has changed their formula very recently and they indicated in the letter to jim gamble that they're not going to revisit that issue in the near in some ways the more major aspect is the value of book ational education and we all know that children have variable ways of learning and it's up to us as a community to provide the best quality education for those children and i would like to ask the two superintendents minuteman and belmont how that fits in obviously these towns that have been mentioned in superintendent failand attachments do not provide the same breath of training and schooling as does minuteman so that's one question but more importantly in terms of responding to the needs of students in belmont what is the sense of thought about whether we want to keep minuteman versus  school is a level one district for special education students as well so i apologize for this information the question is would you rather be a part of a regional district that offers a broader and deeper program offering that some of the local schools that we've identified as potentially and i think that we've enjoyed a long relationship with minutemen this provided that programming and i don't know if this but it anytime anybody was going anywhere else because it's something they did not offer i think it's our job when we receive this vote to analyze the quality of each one of these programs that's why i will sit in for the folks in the audience and i will do so for a town meeting and find out what that quality looks like in gauging relationships with those communities and make that decision that one of those decisions are part of that decision is to try to also remain the option of being a new member at minimum and so is there going to be a quality difference between cambridge where there's a limited amount of offerings versus minute n course will have that be a wider range of options for us students i think that the chart that was offered showed the range of offerings between the four towns that was on that sheet offered earlier in the presentation that there are a good amount of programs  all these schools that are offered by minimum in some of those not offered by minutemen and vice versa so it's our job to make sure that we provide a quality menu of programming for us didn't and we dedicate ourselves to do that if in fact the t own votes to leave this regional agreement superintend the book willing to do want to respond to that also i apologize for my lack of being super human and healthy every day i agree with john's statements to an extent and as you get into looking at some of the other schools i'm sure you'll  see some market differences although time spent on task is certainly not the only measure of quality it is a distinctive difference between minuteman and the other schools that have been mentioned  for instance minuteman students spend six hundred thirty hours exploring different vocational technical programs first is seventy three hours at waltham one hundred sixty five at somerville one twenty six at medford and two hundred forty hours at cambridge that's six hundred thirty hours at minuteman once a student selects a career major how much time do they spend in that career major with licensed professional subject matter experts from the field at minute man they spend two thousand two hundred five hours being trained by subject matter experts at wal seven hundred thirty three hours almost a three fold difference summerville nine hundred ninety hours medford about fifteen hundred and twelve hundred hours said cambridge so there's a lot of things that are going to the study committee that is put together we're going to have to look at and that's one measure of the differences there are some very distinctive differences are there some programs in those other communities that could fill the need for some students in belmont absolutely absolutely whether or not that influences decision to withdraw or not i think needs to be considered it be nice it was being considered now rather than after the votes taken but the timing is what the timing is and whatever i can do to help the belmont school committee look at some of those other factors i'll be glad to do thank you thank you mister hope this is what i would come extends of course is i think it's very important i think we should hear from that of the town meeting and the other thing i want to find oh i wish we could find out from jesse why they think they want to play politics with our children and not requiring everybody be charging the same to wishing to go to the any of these schools i think it's completely out of what i think that i think them the school committee of the minuteman should be setting their own policies in the same way as we do in this in our own school systems and one example is why the base students are charged less for capital then and then will ya you know i assume when they talk would be paying the capital expenses for i assume that's on a purse student basis of we wind up with twenty stores not thirty seconds we're going to be paying as your example says you know ninety five hundred dollars per student is not a it's not a fix there's a limiting case of the enrollment goes to zero there are some minimum floor amount wired into the agreement but for an rowland's jim sorry a further comment i mean even a just on that zero student charge that if we stayed a member and just stop sending any students to a minuteman i've run the formula that's in the agreement and it would work out to about forty five thousand dollars per per year twenty five thousand per year at the zero rate so that's a fixed expense for the life of them alon and i think this is important for people to know people can handicap what's the probability of this but it's information that only became that i only became aware of and i suspect others in our town only became aware of as recently as friday we have always assumed or at least i have always assumed and i have not heard anybody who is assume differently that that dessie nonmember tuition rate is a cap on what minuteman could charge in fact with jesse has come out and said is no that nonmember tuition fee is a fee that applies if minute man doesn't have separately negotiated tuition agreements with other communities minuteman in the past has had some tuition agreements and those have been to give large sending communities a break on the tuition but it's possible and you'll have to make your own assessment as whether you think this is likely it's possible that minuteman could say set a policy and fact the amended regional agreement says the dessie non member tuitions he is minuteman will not accept nonmember students unless they pay the average cost of what a member town pace that is as we heard at the briefing at the beach street center something that arlington calls the belmont amendment belmont pushed really hard for that because we have objected to the benefit that nonmember communities have got you're going to have to make your own assessment as to whether or not particularly if minuteman is starving for nonmember students because they can't fill the school with member town students you're going to have to decide yourself whether you think the minutemen school committee will stay firm in that or well whether they will reduce it but it is new information about how that tuition works that i know i was unaware of until quite literally friday part of a further comment that i could just thank you jack for that clarification that's very helpful i just want to talk about this bill more provision because initially we asked for unanimity at the committee level that from our point of view would ensure perhaps if we had one vote that the school committee at minute mean could not waive the assessment of this capital fee to nonmember towns and in order to move forward with this revised regional agreement we compromised and now made it two thirds and the dialogue and discussion at the time and my sense was that they wanted two thirds not to be able to increase it but to have some negotiation with nonmember communities if they decided not to send their students here because if this is spent and even even though two thirds weighted vote is perhaps a higher hurdle it's not unanimous so it did weaken our provision although it's still exhausted i'm sorry so that the other people have an opportunity then you can come back next question pleas mean member precinct six i think this is a question for superintendent hale and i just wanted to get clarity on one of the flowchart boxes here it talks about the task force putting together and looking at whether or not  assess whether to remain at minuteman as nonmembers or underlined move forward with contracting with one or more districts for the chapter seventy four services does that does that actually mean that we would have to be exclusive to one of these other one or more of these other districts and we can't also send students to minuteman  i think generally speaking we could send students to mit it is not members and have relationships with districts that could have had a graph typographical error ok so that it does but that district belmont could enter into some agreements with other districts but i don't think it would preclude options for probably be subject to a debt override as mark said however the capital charge as i understand it we would not be able to issue a debt override to cover the capital charge and i believe that would have to come out of the operating income that's allocated to the school the schools is that your understanding i have no opinion one way or the other i don't know mark or david can you answer  clarify because you're talking to each other and it's hard to follow like chris right i thought i was speaking to the mike so jim asked the question that if we were a nonmember town and we were in fact assessed this capital fee that wasn't waived by the school committee and we decided to send our students there whatever the cap a fee would be would we be able to do a debt exclusion in order to pay for that and the answer is no because it's not debt it's just an assessment and so we would have to determine within our operating budget whether we can pay not only the eight hundred thousand dollars that we currently pay for operating assessment but other funds as well whether we can fund that either way we have to pay for this whether we do a day exclusion it's a not favorable not either on either side of the equation here we have to pay for minute if we enroll a minute me as a member or number that it's a thank you maybe i could say that i have a question now i have heard in previous discussions that there would be a need for a debt exclusion if minuteman remained as a member is is the scenario now that a debt exclusion is not the avenue that would be pursued there would be an override or something else because the as a nonmember are assessed a capital fee it's not per se a debt so we don't believe it qualifies for a debt exclusion like for a building would simply just be something that we would have to pay for roi out of our operating budget and we have to determine whether in fact we can afford to do that without having some type of an operating override i mean this is a consideration it's an additional cost for us educating our students for vocational ed in also within our schools and within the town i mean you've seen their projections in our budget i mean as we look at you know the out years of nineteen and twenty we start to see deficits within it so whether we decide then to have an operating override or not we have question is this six hundred twenty eight student school about fifty two slots available now i don't think it's unreasonable to think that that will get filled up over the next five six years if we have capacity is there anything in it like a legacy program with the minuteman that would give belmont or any of the communities that have supported minimum for forty years a preference over other nonmember towns to enter if you want to superintend of a colony should just even if it's a one word answer should be on the microphone i understand your question is if belmont leaves and the school does fill up is there any sort of legacy per script for providing some sort of  an accommodation for towns that have left the district or are leaving the district in there there is no accommodation for that so if i would assume that some of the deals you know frankly i don't see that happening if we're filling up from our member towns and one or two larger nonmember towns actually join think we're going to be focusing on taking care of our this precinct when i had a question several people have brought up the issue of peace and vocational education and i just wanted to figure out if i hadn't misunderstanding or if there were if two issues are being conflated i thought that the district was under a legal and policy obligation to provide a quality education for students on ip regardless of whether they attended a standard school or vocational educational school is that a correct that are run are legal and policy can somebody answer that let me turn that question to superintendent failing of the maybe with the added condition suppose minute man did not have space at that point than what water belmont's alternatives but that's not actually my question oh sorry my question i just want to clarify is it correct that we are under a legal and policy obligation to provide a quality education for students on an i p regardless of what whether they go to standard or vocational educational school yes ok so ok i've a follow up then so then if the if that's a case of that's a requirement then i'm a little confused as to why people seem to be implying or stating maybe i misunderstood prior peoples questions that somehow not being a part of minuteman is denying people who are on an a p a quality education if in fact we're obligated to provide that no matter what i think the question let me infer that the question would be if a student was interested in the type of programming that currently let's say is only offered that minuteman and belmont were not a member and minutemen was filled up what would that student and what would he be able to offer that student and  i think that's an open question but that student would have the same problem whether they were on and i are not if they were interested in a program that's not offered at minuteman they would have a whether they were on an ip or not an ip they'd have they'd face a quandary of not having that program at minuteman the fact that they're on an ip sounds like it's irrelevant in other words if they're on an ip we have to meet that need either a standard school or invoke at i think i just heard so if they don't if there's if someone's interest in a beautician program and that's not for it minute man which i think it actually is but let's say it's not it's irrelevant whether the students on and they're going to their have their needs and i their needs and i have to be met regardless chris i just want to echo i think what the answer that's in your question is i think there's been i don't know whether it's confusion or what but there's been a conflating of i e p and minuteman and yes minutemen you know about half the students are in high p and my understanding is that there's not a material difference between the percentage of students on ip from member towns in aggregate versus nonmember towns but to assume that that's the only outlet for students that are on and i e p i rose because i want to talk to jack was talking about the cap and the fact that it really is a cap but while standing in line two other things came up and i want to address them the gentleman says is fifty two seats available for nonmember towns the fact of the matter is with all sixteen towns there are three hundred thirty one members the building is six hundred twenty eight schools students school and when the other six towns leave they'll be three hundred five members for a six hundred twenty eight school they'll be more than twice the capacity available point number one point number two the nuance between whether we have a debt that we can put on a debt override versus an operating because operating a capital charge is not  is really just illusionary because when the voters of the town voted seventy two percent we don't want this debt i don't want to lead that campaign exultant says now we want to that override because the town meeting didn't agree with you now to get back to what jack said in theory if there was a operating agreement or in the municipal agreement between the minuteman end some other municipality agreement is absolutely a theory alina just confuses the issue i have a letter from deputy commissioner walston to jim gamble who's been active in this and he says in paragraph two japa seventy four to wish and rates for nonresidents students sat by the pot meant the b s c that stands for board of education and of elementary and secondary education adopted new regulations in two thousand and fifteen that kept the non resident student tuition at one hundred twenty five percent of the chapter and seventy foundation budget rate for the current year the cap is sixteen thousand four hundred sixty four dollars districts may add to this the cost of special services provided to students with disability d e s c sets the cap it just confuses the issue to introduce the possibility that someone who came in and could buy an automobile for one hundred thousand dollars say no i want to pay two hundred thousand dollars  just two questions one i've hesitated on the enrollment issue a couple of times so i'm going to try to provide this information without kind of judgment just kind of the six hundred  twenty eight stew students or seats in minuteman minuteman is projecting that four hundred fifty eight of them will be filled by member students member ten students and one hundred  seventy will be filled by nonmembers belmont is included in the four hundred fifty eight because we are one of the ten member towns the four hundred fifty eight is basically or in essentially a forty percent growth in member town in romance to get to that number minutemen's assumptions is that forty percent growth happens by the time the school doors open because that's how they calculate all of the the charges you can make your own determination as to whether or not you think that is reasonable the four fifty eight includes belmont minuteman is projecting that our enrollment goes from twenty six to thirty nine that's our forty percent growth you can make your own determination as to whether or not you think reasonable but if you take our thirty nine students and add it to the hundred seventy that minuteman is projecting will be nonmember students that's over two hundred seats or over about a third of the school will be open for nonmember stu's bob mclachlan is right that three eighty six number that was put up on the screen as to what member town enroll them in is this year includes the six communities who are leaving they send fifty one students to minutemen so with ten member towns including belmont at twenty six students i think it's twenty eight this year the ten communities send three hundred thirty one students in a six hundred twenty eight students school that's just the math without any value that's what those projections are based on and the other thing there's been discussion i think dani you mentioned it about demographic growth think the bigger thing for nonmembers is something that roy touched on earlier is the change in the regulation that dessie promulgated that said if you are one of those beast school systems you say you have either five programs that you offer five or more programs that you offer within your community or you are part of a different regional vocational school district you cannot send your students to minuteman until they have completed the exploratory program is freshman in their own school that the impact of that edict is quite honestly i'll use the word dramatic this year the non member in rome and four freshman at minute this year is thirty students extrapolate that by four that's one hundred twenty nonmember seats at that rate virtually half of that thirty was watertown they were thirteen or fourteen or something of that thirty yes jack i'm sorry let me  approaching our nine o'clock hour so let's let me just say that enrollment is hard and there's no real definite answer and the minuteman projection of four fifty i think should be interpreted more broadly as if there is a perception that minuteman is filling up there is a greater incentive for nonmembers to become members and it's not essential that the four hundred fifty in the projection all come from current member towns but i think the bottom line of all of this is that the enrollment situation is just highly uncertain it could be it could be low and it could be full and we can't tell you exactly what it's going to be it's as simple as that sorry donna donna of low piecing seven a question for them i mean superintendent friends and colleagues in lexington speak extraordinarily of minuteman obviously they're a very close neighbor between minuteman in the high school but is there a special program or some kind of a reciprocal program that you have between current high school students in lexington and minuteman that you can speak of and would other member towns be invited to participate in that kind of programming i think the program you're referring to is the minuteman in the morning program where we have students from lexington and we have had in the past from arlington and wayland they come once they pass the m k s exam in the tenth grade they come to minuteman for half a day in the morning every day for their junior and senior year and they spend their time in the vocational program only so in the as a senior they're graduating from lexington high school and they're also getting a vocational technical certificate from minute man we got a ten thousand dollars planning grant to look at expanding this kind of program to increase access for all member town students in different ways in creative ways we're also looking at doing something in the afternoons so that is a program that belmont students are open to the way that we charge for that is on the assessment and the department of ed says this is fine there's an agreement between us and lexington we add an additional half of an f t for each student who's participating in that and that takes care of the costs associated with the program and that's one of clarifying question correct me if i'm wrong lexington sends up just i mean what happens in the future is a different issue but point in time now snapshot lexington sends about sixty students or thereabouts to minuteman and about six of them are half time students i think that is extraordinarily valuable information for a lot of families in belmont thank you jim gamble i just want to throw in a quick a quick fact fact point because because i've heard some numbers tossed around but just taking a look at fiscal seventeen budget for budget for a minute man that the portion of the assessment that we pay this year that's comparable to the nonmember tuition plus spent is twenty two thousand one hundred and some odd some odd dollars per student and so that is the comparison to the eighteen thousand six  hundred six hundred animal forty six it's not a forty eight thousand dollars number it's a twenty two twenty two one thousand dollars number based on this year's actual budget mr mercy no mercy appraising t college over the last few years between sixty two and sixty eight percent of our seniors go on to post secondary education increase that torsion based upon operating costs of some of these other figures did i understand that when you said earlier my understanding they stand email from  e as of friday was that the non member tuition rate does not act as a cap is the rate that applies if there is an independently or separately negotiated agreement with other communities now you can jack you can conjecture whether or not minute man is likely to try to enter into that at something higher than the nonmember tuition rate that's a decision or a value judgement not just saying that there is the legal authority as i understand it for a minute man to entering to try to enter into whatever such agreements so th about the fact that i looked at the very nice chart would give us about alternatives to minuteman and how far it would be for parents to gather kids get there either by driving themselves or having the school bus them as wondering just because i think that it does sort of matter but i because if some is on that it may be difficult for them to travel long distances and issues also about him just regular students about the destruction for parents disruption for students if they want to have of ok both tech experience in the now going to a new place a new school maybe in a wall fam or in watertown a rep or it would be an option as one to sort of have that addressed about if there's a plan for her moving kids around if we do leave minutemen and there are kids who want to go to like wall family or some other low tech school in the area and time time how long it would take for parents and students know superintend a failing if you want to respond i gather this is a planning process that would only start after the town meeting i just i know is that you had gives a chart saying like the average time for like record students and just other students the issue about if they want to go to a of a tech school how long would it be for them to commute from to other schools like if you want waltham how long will the will take with the pens be responsible with the students and or the school  know ninth grade or tenth grade or we have challenges going to school or a new place as wanted to dress that there was a document that provided the mileage in the estimated times that is provided here tonight of all the schools that we've mentioned so i think all the local schools were less than twenty minutes and we did list the regional schools that were within an hour or fifteen minutes in relation to transportation that would be a challenge in a pressure point if in fact we access minutely and or other options are just other options and how we provide that transportation as a release of two students acclimating to a new school i think when you leave eighth grade are going to have to acclimate to a new school if it's belmont high school of it's been a been or if it's walled him and i think that that's just part of the transition that what they will have and i don't  i would assume that that's something that's you know individual to the student as to what that transition looks like and how they handle that thank you you're welcome mr jones you have a question ralph jones precinct three i'd like to repeat what chris don't think we should conflate and then divisional educational plan with the desire to go to a tech high school they're independent you can have e p which has a particular condition the needs to be addressed that can be fully addressed in either situation the only thing that we have in front of us at this point is does someone want to go to a vocational technical school if so yes then we have an obligation to provide that but it doesn't have anything to do with i e p's and i think we should stop trying to conflate these two things next question we have four minutes i will be quick we start preaching three i had a question about the per student cos minutemen it's my understanding that it's considerably more expensive per student than the other level one vocational tech schools in the area the number they had for last year were ten thousand dollars more furnish obama and he thousand for shaw sheen is for anyone who wants to comment on it can you explain that discrepancy i think factually it's correct that minuteman per student costs are higher than any other vocational school in massachusetts i don't know the superintendent wants to discuss why that is or jim just i'm just the factual factual data that we've seen that that the tables are based on fiscal year fourteen fourteen on data which is which is the last year that the data is in use on the state web site looking at some of the individual budgets minute man's budget since then has been basically flat whereas whereas all of the  the other schools have gone up and that's because minuteman has been cutting back on staff for programs programs that are no longer longer planned so so so yes when you take a look at the best  regional transportation cost we did an analysis comparing our cost compared to the schools that were mentioned acet in the show and when you look at the geographical district you'll find that you know we go thirty miles north and south from you know down to you know west in dover we go from east to west from here out to l caster covering sixteen community and when you look at that cost transportation cost is pretty substantial because of the because of the geographical area in fact it's it's almost twice as much per bus when you compare it to new show or an ass a bit which have seven or eight communities in the school relatively central within the within the confines of the district what's your transportation costs as a percent of your budget it's about a million five hundred one thousand million dollars budget is a cost so  when you look at the population of special education isn't it is associated costs that goes with that too based upon the model teaching that we provide the support we provide for those students were extremely proud of the accomplishment those students achieve in but we invest in those students when we we we look at teaching staff aco teaching models we have a resource support room for those students and they're very successful but there's a cost that when you look at pupil cost it's about fifteen percent of budget operating budget and teaching staff which is in it's considerably less than the other two schools you mention the third factor that i think's important to know is where we stand in terms of teacher salaries relative to our other vocational schools around the high aside but when you compare average teacher salary cost to other member districts where we're right are right in the middle in terms of what other other member towns of paying and those are the towns that we're competing with an artifice staffing in fourth i think because of the vocational component of a school that we have to get subject matter experts to leave industry at at a wage scale commitment to the greater boston area to come teach vocational programming so i think those are the four main drivers that driving up her people cost i'm just wondering how a good amount of that is probably in part because the state is putting millions of dollars into grants is that part of the equation i'm just trying to say this is the some justification for thinking that a moment will go up and for the projections it's not just out of the blue i don't know superintendent and you have any observations about grants or know we're unlike others we're very confident unlike others in belmont maybe i should say we're very confident that our in rome it's going to increase we've seen a market level of support from this governor for vocational technical education that minuteman has been a beneficiary of we see that continuing we've received federal grants and state grants for new equipment that are exemplary and have helped us tremendously we also see that the the application rate from our member towns from last year to this year went up forty percent in one year that translated to about a fifteen percent increase in actual in roman from member ten students so there's a delta there that we need to work on and understand we also has been mentioned the other the only other four vocational schools that have been built in the commonwealth all opened with waiting lists in three of those four had struggled with an rollman for many many years prior to that new school opening and it's more than just a new school it's a school designed to serve the unique educational program plan of a vocational technical school in our school was designed during a time when they couldn't imagine some of the programs we have right now so we're very confident and if we see another year in ten months we'll see another round of applicants and we'll know if we're on the right track or not but we do need to do some work  my hope is that belmont would stay in will work together to increase and roman overall thank you mr chairman for a wonderful evening very welcome and thank you all for coming so this concludes the question and answer period committee members will remain for a vote but otherwise thank you all for coming and good evening