good evening everybody happy spring can actually say that i will call the meeting to order at seven o four pm our first item of business as always will be the pledge of allegiance so at every meeting we have a portion of our agenda that's set aside for citizens concerns the way the school committee proceedings proceed is that we ask folks who would like to share some questions or concerns to come up to the microphone state your name address and then we respectfully ask for a three minute count on statements seeing a number of people in the audience as we've done in the past when it's an agenda item that we suspect ever expecting people to speak to we do not respond in an open forum format we will listen to what people have to say and respond accordingly at a future time if someone has already spoken to a point that you were thinking of making please hold your comments or feel free to send an e mail to the school committee or superintendent failon as we do have a limited time on the agenda for the good citizens concerns about ten minutes we have some flexibility there with the chairpersons report being eliminated because of anticipated comments and no student report to comedy because evening so if there are any citizens who have any statements or concerned they'd like to make we invite you to come up to the microphone additional item sorry on the agenda this evening there is the presentation about the after school care so it's because of the way the agenda is ordered perhaps listening to that first you would be informed about things that would then change the statements  questions that you might have but we're sticking with it so that people can leave if they want to get home and things happen to take a longer time than they expect so i just want to say that the presentation will be up on our website the district website tomorrow  aftercare some of you have heard me speak and various things and meetings i'm here representing a lot of us at least at wellington but i am happy to speak for the other kids that couldn't get in their local aftercare programs at wellington it's at least seventy five there are projections that it's double that maybe even more because lots of families were told they don't even bother going in the wait list because there's no chance again so i'm the school committee trying to come up with some ideas one of the suggestions that supported a feeling came up with was why don't you get on the board so that you can voice your concerns the problem is at least at wellington if you're not currently a family in aftercare you can't get on the board so i went to a meeting and presented some some ideas along with some and could be here tonight and those ideas were presented and i'm was sure what was done with those ideas but it's it's a tough situation because the feeling that i got from everyone sitting on the board was that they empathized with our plight but they also are afraid of losing their spots because it's a really great program we all want to get in but everything that we are proposing like perhaps maybe people only get three days and that way it's more equitable across the board or what if we have an annual lottery because as it stands right now if you don't get in kindergarten you are locked out of potentially the entire elementary school career while some kids get to go every single year year after year and everyone was like yeah th but i'm afraid i might lose my own spot and so i can completely empathize because i think i would struggle with that too if i was sitting in the board and feeling like i don't want to have to go through what you're feeling it's  so i'm here just asking for help whether it be space working with the aftercare board to perhaps come up with some ideas that that i can't do from someone from the outside perhaps proposing an annual lottery i feel like that makes a lot of sense and this being public school it feels fair that people who are attending school get as many you know you're a few year we get a chance that the people before  i i i think that that what the wellington board has done is as created a really great program which is why i'm here i would like my kids to be in it but if there are other options that provide care for everyone else i would hope that is good it's that if it's good it should serve the entire school  hi good evening my name is jim mcgovern i'm the eco president of the wellington student care program and i wanted to provide some information to the half of our group just to make sure the facts are clear and also that person our perspective was accurately presented so i think i'd start by saying our program is actually an independent nonprofit organization we lease space from about the public schools we serve all children in the case through for community at wellington but we're based on a capacity for states are licensed by the state the state our state license accommodates one hundred seventy children per day we actually serve two hundred forty one children in the one community and we do that by trying to accommodate different schedules on different points of time we do have a list that is correct we that we can expand our programs so this is something we're an active dialogue with our school administration right now and superintendent failand and what's necessary is additional secure dedicated space that we can use on the everyday basis because you can imagine with one hundred seventy children per day from grade from dismissal to six o'clock you have to have a place to to look at them in the red tape that you're snacks activity that door time so it's logistically complex but we're willing to and we have a plan to expand if we can get that secure space so that's something we're working on right now and we're going to do so i want to make sure that everybody understands that in addition this is something we've been aware of her contacts i've been on the boards six years so i am actually my in my last months at wellington so i'm not protecting a spot in and none of us are taking us what we're trying we're actively exploring that those options and really want to do that work with the town in addition we are really supportive and would love to be a part of a town like solution to look at other options i think it's this is a growing problem and i want the demographics continue to grow most families are a lot of families and growing number have two parents who work after careful essential part of what we need as families as as a town so i think we're all struggling with capacity school the schools are struggling with capacity of the  current buildings so as this problem grows in the negro's we really need to expand beyond look beyond what we can do in our current infrastructure one of the solutions could come to play and i think we've come up with ideas of short medium and long term solutions that we'd love to bring forward and work on so it's something i've worked on them for six years and we actually were able to expand our program about three years ago from one forty five students to one seventy so that was a start but that's it's not going to fix the problem and i don't think getting don't have the space with st board member i'm also here as a parent i'm also here is a concerned community member so i just want to quickly something mention a few things that judge said with some additional information i'd like to start by just quickly touching on as a board our focus on the quality of our program and then quickly like to talk about a little bit more some of the constraints with the size of our country and its face we have her program and just have a few closing talk so i will go very fast so i think as a board member i just really want to impress because i think there has been some misinformation informally spreadin around on that we have a really special to strong program that wellington have a child care policy researcher i've been in child care programs both the early childhood programs and afterschool programs across the state and across the country and i've been to a lot of really mediocre program every day i think i have great respect for the leadership of the program for the staff who he has been able to retain over multiple years which is actually unusual again sort of in the context of most afterschool programs it's a difficult so when my now fifth grader entered kindergarten it was actually under the prior leadership the program was a very different one from what it is today what we've built over the past couple of years he had a very difficult time in kindergarten he died almost every day all of the kids of multiple grades were often not together in the cafeteria and when i arrived the staff were not sort of attuned to his needs he was a very typical student otherwise happy  day and i saw just through the lack of structure and i think through the large groups what a program should not be now when i felt that the program every day including today i show up at five thirty five forty five and my kids want to stay for ten more minutes  and i think a lot of parents had that experience as well so i just want to make sure those facts are known i think as a community members jen said i'm really concerned about we where we currently are in terms of afterschool options and i think that much probably a little bit behind the curve and i think we've read we are reaching a crisis point and facing even many of the same issues as the district even though our program is run by the district and in terms of enrollment and in terms of as you can see down there are a variety of different kinds of programs both provided in schools and often provided out of schools included the capacity information so you just had some data on the size of those programs as well as the school enrollment for each school i actually just got access to some data late in the date that i'm happy to email so in the greater boston region of the department relate to patient care which is sort of the ring that surrounds the city of boston there are two hundred twenty five afterschool programs and arsons the third biggest ellington so i actually think there's a reason why programs often are not much bigger than this in terms of the challenges that a program faces in terms of  again always balancing on what the individual kid needs with what the program this able to provide so i've heard a lot of recent discussions about sort of keeping either keeping the way things are or maybe centralized the provider and i think i would just like to caution us to not decide prematurely on what the options are for town it's really important to me and i think i speak for a lot of parents that this process be transparent that i you open in that if you inclusive and i hope that there can be some sort of group formed with a variety of stakeholders to really look at all of the vip available options the present kinds of each option and then maybe making a recommendation about  again i i think it's really important that we're not divisive i have no interest in another program but i think we have felt like we're been being criticised and that's why we really wanted to hear you know just make sure you have the facts and that you're hearing daughter and her husband and two grandchildren went to be a kindergartner and the other to be a second grader hopefully wellington but they can have been apply because  they are going to be here till july but i was rather taken aback when i found out that school age sir indices were really not available for so many families in belmont my own personal background is like gamey i had worked at the department of early education and care of been in policy and planning for subsidized child care particularly for over thirty years before i retired i want to say that i've heard wonderful things about the existing program the quality of it staff but i think that the the demand in need for working parents really is huge i mean there's a little you know the neighborhood a that we have this good neighbors that we had this lengthy discussion and there are people who'd been on the wait lists with three children who are working parents who have no you know outside help for that it means of one parent works later or they work in shifts or so it seems like a very very difficult situation and from my perspective being new to it all my questions really been what are the barriers to expansion at the school again from a child centered point of view school based services at school are infinitely better for the  child and better for the parent who's not been worrying oh my kids get on the bus where are they going to get off i worked at the department of social services when child care was housed there there have been numerous problems with transportation so i just would caution us to think about that i don't know we are the very least why is it that within the school for instance wellington i've heard there's six hundred children during the day albeit it is much preferable for school age program to have their own space absolutely it's easier for everybody but as a partial solution along the way there are many programs that share space the teachers leave and after school comes in and there is shared space for that period of time there are problems with that the quality can suffer with them it does mean everybody has to work together to make that work but i think that  from my perspective that would clearly be at least the initial steps that could be taken in terms of trying to meet this demand of parents who've been on that weakness for so long i mean think about your own families it creates tremendous strain on them so i mean as i say it would be helpful to me as a planner to know is it the teachers who are  having not wanting to have shared space and what their concerns might be about that is there something one could do to make sure that you know there was screaming that took place afterwards there are many school systems where they have both designated space and shared space for instance brookline schools all of the school age is is based in the schools some of the classrooms are shared some are designated so i would encourage us to at least look at what the barriers are and think about creative solutions and if it does mean that some place else then then in the end the barriers are so so insurmountable that that is the answer then i think we should all work together for that but i do think that place a school day services for the school they're really good for kids and parents you know from my perspective it's not available i was not able to get in last year and it's also not equal in the sense that i want some out of that lottery i'm out for five years which means that for my family we need to find babysitters arrangements driving from you know end of town to another in the town with significant strain on the family life and obviously the on on on on from the expenses as well so i just want to emphasize that point that i'm emily peterson i live in twenty two glendale road i'm a happy recipient of well the care and very i didn't plan on making a statement today but i want to empathize with the parents didn't get it and i could imagine you feel that they also want to say that i think a yearly lottery would be destructive for everyone because you might give yours that are and then you have to get it again the one you're getting after care and that's not the solution the solution should disruption for everyone i doubt that any public school child that moves into belmont would be banned from the school but that same public school child will be prohibited from needy rational aftercare in the school petitioned by parents who need the help so my perspective is no child should be turned down if that means you've got to you know get the pitchforks and the flaming torches and shit you know shoot something over the bow of the boat go ahead and do it but we have more and more school age kids moving into belmont to live in this town if you're not you know a million dollar baby then you're out there working two jobs and everybody knows it ok the people who can stay home and be stay home parents with their kids are fortunate ok maybe there are survivors of the dot com bubble somehow i don't know but the fact of the matter is most people have to work children need care what better place to do it and tension around the after school crisis is an effort to take over programs in a hostile or aggressive way as afterschool parents herself we recognize the private comes with our all of our beloved programs and understand the urge to defend something if you think it's under attack we don't want to go in and take over we're not wanted and that's the gist of this as we recently noted in a statement on our website  we believe that a comprehensive plan led by the element public schools will provide for august the most equitable access to programming the most cost effective for families keep as many students as possible in programs in their neighborhood schools where individual needs can be math and foster alignment with school values and enhanced communication with school faculty so that our out of school time programs are part of a network of support aimed at a positive student outcomes and the facts as outlined by superintendent feelin in this march twenty sixth emails to parents is precisely basics understanding of the facts and of the situation and we thank the superintendent for being proactive in offering clarity to the community and we will continue our constructive conversations with the other after school programs the belmont public schools ad hoc characters and dozens of concerned individual parents and caregivers united in a common a collaborative desire to provide the best services for belmont families we look forward to helping find a solution and i thank you john for having i personally have been and i was in the conversation in the fall and i was at the policy subcommittee meeting and i really appreciate the attention that's being paid i mean personally i got in i was interested in this issue just because i my heart went out to parents who have been struggling to find care and i think it's an issue of equity and access in our community and trying to make sure that all families are able to you know make ends meet in this town which is expensive  and hard to live in and so that women don't feel the need to stay home because they don't have adequate care for their children i think is that it's truly a feminist issue and so i feel very passionately about it to keep need to  and i'm speaking personally right now i feel very passionately about it that we need to find a way forward on this issue that serves all of our famil thirty unity have so as most of you i think know what i do my homework i gather data and then i report back to you and the issues that i hear on the street not like franklin talk or don't with media lies i do it kind of you know under the scenes i have to agree with absolutely everybody here that clearly there's an issue with lack of space for our students and of course the increase in role meant and i get that you guys are solving that hopefully if the m s b approves the building for the high school we can in five years solve this but in the meantime we're going to struggle so what i propose is that we find a solution whether off site which has a transportation logistical nightmare issues or elsewhere to help the parents the overflow will i also wanted to let you know i'm a wellington parent but in my discussions i spoke with a butler represent i represent a representative who loves their aftercare program and i spoke to many parents who also love that aftercare program so i want to let you know that there are independent aftercare programs that have their ready to guard against releasing our aftercare i also john you know this i truly believe that each of our staff that are on aftercare at each of the elementary schools need to know right now if not yesterday that they are protected and it's not just for one year they are protected for five years anything less than that is absolutely unacceptable these people and john i've heard you say it before for looking for a high school principal to a sorry an elementary school principal now a high school principal and right now is the prime opportunity for teachers to look for jobs i'm not losing by aftercare teachers i am one of many who are going to fight about this and we're not going to take no we're not going to take standardizing we're not going to take any other answer other then we'll help we'll we'll offer another program that may be an overflow can attend but we're going to leave our independent after care programs very well intact for the next five years about i think you right thank you everybody who took the time to come this evening and share your thoughts and feelings and think child care is one of the most challenging issues in our country really just are down to much appreciated and i will hope that the information you here tonight will provide some answers to some of the questions and concerns that you have and then as always we encourage people to contact us if you have additional questions but see we've been on so all i really wanted to see there are so many things we could mention on our website which is always packed but just wanted to give a quick shout out to the f b i for a phenomenal fund raising event as always a sort of thrown off with her we are in terms of the calendar because of our snowstorms and missing are the first days i think we've had to call for snow our years but thank you so much the foundation for bowman education to you members who participated in that fundraising effort either in person or on line or however we did that it's truly a wonderful resource to the community so thank   the season has ended we have spring i felt excited for starting with students working out in the cafeteria in the field house the parking lot i don't feel jet but we'll get him on field soon all of our all state music students did fantastic in middle school high school over the last few weeks and our globe also lost a card contest time test winners from middle school high school that were also in the boston globe last week we had a ninety five play at the high school so we'd like to congratulate the students who participated in extra flamm our teacher who does a great job in drama of the high schools it would also like to thank the fire department as we had a bit of a fire interruption on saturday night in the five hundred or so phone parents who were in attendance had to step out for a bit and come back so we think the fire department for working with us and fixing the panel over the weekend and having school yesterday today without incident as many of you know  we did have a walk out with our students last week i would like to thank the students and the staff in the administration who worked collaboratively to organize that from middle school and high school students who are very very thankful to our police and fire departments who did this work with our students teachers in the ministration in a very safe and thoughtful way we are glad that our students were able to partake in a very unique learning opportunity and able to voice their opinion and work with their teachers in their administrators to do it in a way that was safe and able to create a nice learning outcome in the end as alluded to earlier and the discussion we have two principal searches that are active and ongoing right now one from the wellington school we have three finalists that were interviewed by the parent group a leadership group in that group over the last week and one of those three resumes decided which candidates would be interviewed in which candidates would be forwarded to the last round to meet with parents in leadership and teachers and janice in myself so we look forward to the finals coming to the belmont high school community sometime next week and meeting them and i encourage everyone to take part in the afternoon into our night sessions to ask you questions to get a good feel for the candidates these are both very very important positions  i also want to say thank you to the school committee and the don't want educators association we ratified contracts for our teachers in our structure late last week in a school committee meeting we're very happy that that work is done so we with the afterschool providers for a little bit over a year we have had some small meetings of parents we have gotten together at several occasions to commiserate on the challenges that we share drugs lack of space and increasing roman for the public to classrooms for the burbank schools but we are trying to increase our footprint to fit all the students that continue to fill our schools we're happy to have everybody we just need more space to have the mitigation appropriately when we meet with our afterschool providers where we're hearing that they are having the same kind of challenges around space that they need to have and secure in a way that is able to secure a licensure for a certain amount of students in their public schools just the assumption is that we work with the situation that we're in and some of the short term long term solutions that we would like to explore there was a significant amount of e mail traffic and social networking  in maybe ten years ago my kids were little bit talk on the soccer field but it seems to be social media talking about certain aspects of this so i sent the e mail out yes to try to clarify a little bit where we were with the facts of this work and how we're trying to move forward this presentation will be a little more information in our goal is to just make sure that we're on the same page about that we're trying to do behalf of this challenge so first of all i want to just  we're working with each day in our schools we have wonderful programs that are building these programs located in our schools and that have been for a period of time at the burbank school we have  roman of one seventy two with a program license capacity of one forty in the school roman of three ninety three if you know that the enrollment for the program is above the capacity that's because some folks take two days some folks at three days but they can only have one hundred students a day and the next three schools we have wind up with one hundred thirty eight students in the program one forty that they have a license for four hundred needs that they have in their school each day at the wellington there are two hundred forty one students which is a pain in the program a license for one hundred seventy five hundred seventy one students that are old and i believe that numbers that k through four number not the pre k through four number at the reporting that the only school with this point in time with students that are not able to enter the program is the well until there were some wait list issues that believe it when burke and there were some witless issues i believe in butler at the beginning of the year when i met with the providers in the fall but as we know and as was reported tonight there's a lot of comings and goings and some of the enrollment slots in the book and it's been reported to me by our principals that that is no longer a challenge as the would work or at the bar in the main challenge that we have is we all know that the iran with that we've seen over the last six years has had a corresponding pressure on our back to school or afterschool programs and we are working to retrace the capacity even if it's incrementally at any of or all of our schools we have given principals the directive to meet with our teachers which they have and the teachers are open to this conversation with the program program directors which they have and they are open to this conversation about what kind of space were they often really like to have and where some of the spaces that we can provide at the wellington which is the main subject that we have here tonight principal stuart has reported that she is at least has two more spaces that we believe we can contribute and we're meeting with the board of the wellington after school program this week to talk about those spaces and potentially anymore that we can talk with the teachers about and sharing spaces dedicated space is hard for schools to commit because teachers are there after school and they're working out the school in their rooms and we're actually glad to some extent that they're working for some period of time in their rooms after school we don't want them there five because you want them with their own feelings but they have children after school with a live so they're trying to get their work done so they can go home  ridgewood program and i know that some of our schools have success and teaming those two groups of the not competing for space but they're actually puttering on space so when we are meeting with our program directors we're sharing those best practices from the group of folks that we view with have been very open about the things that work and their programs are they actually are in those best practices and i think it's a healthy thing just to get those folks together even if we didn't have this this job which together there is no doubt that  our space needs will change in five years and that they will be in a better position than they are right now but it is really really clear and it not lost on me or the folks at this table that that is a long time away when you don't have childcare five years is  elementary career and a family cannot wait five years for the new school to be built and have corresponding space opened up and it was schools we have had conversations with the directors about puttering in going out looking for offsite space i believe two of those directors reported to me that they do i don't think there's any suitable space off site at this point in time that we can access we have volunteered to say that we will potter and transportation if we can in around logistics to get folks places that might be beyond their school to see if we can support that and we will do that if those spaces arise are of that need comes up we don't want harboring them on them so we hope that the process for dialogue that we have  in our meetings with the directors in the in the small group of parents what we ship best practices identify challenges and discuss short term long term goals we believe it was a good work to go through in our current short term goals result blinded by the letter yesterday  for next year we are keeping this as a local government process it's in my knowledge no one is asking their provider to leave because that's their choice and to my knowledge no one is doing that school department start advocating that anybody take anybody over that's not in anybody's purview but the board's purview that's the board's job to decide who their provider is and they have contracts and they have arrangements with those groups the school department started to beaning in that way we do seek incremental success in adding space i don't know if we can add seventy spaces of wellington but we should certainly try to add more square footage so we can go back to the requirements of the state and ask them to renew the license at a higher level and we are working with the wellington group to do that we are working with all four buildings to do that space in any school is helpful space across the time we hope to align our communication with the out of school program how we roll our students we actually are trying to roll our kindergarten folks and have the alignment with their enrolment into registration for afterschool programs and one of the riddles in this process is that when we enroll students it doesn't mean that you automatically get into your home district school anymore because sometimes the schools are full so some parents are very very challenged by the white house in front of the positron my home school and should i put a deposit somewhere else in case i get assigned to that school we have gotten an agreement from all four providers that they will give deposits back and no would be left harmed financially by putting deposits in two different places we tried to get them to see if they could have one deposit system so no one had to actually put out more than one check but we couldn't get the organizations to agree and i respectfully and statewide a short period of time so we will continue to provide oversight of the contracts that we provide the after school providers the insurance that they must provide us and ensure they have the the licensure to be in our schools and operate and we will leave the governing up to the board at each of the schools in the long term we offer to provide logistical support or potentially to the transportation support if it exists the opportunity arises to alleviate the wait list at any of the schools we do believe that moving students between building and building are essential eyesight is a short term solution if you can find one but ideally we'd like to see students take their after school in their own building as well the transitional piece for us is also a worry to challenge and we know it would be for the schools and a worry for a parents we were very open about some of the options in the long run that we would  and i think when some folks say when you say this you might make some of the program folks nervous we're saying this because we are absolutely looking at the long term because of the parents who at least explore these options the options could be could the district run this work the other options could one vendor run this work and the other option is just to keep it the way we have it and just try to make inroads on providing more space at each one of our schools to see if we can alleviate the waitlist i don't know what the volume of parents that we have it's feasible that we will ever get enough slots in the current school space that we have to accommodate every single parent and i would never want to say or leave anybody with the impression that we can fix everything for of the family i'm not sure that that's feasible i hope it is but i want to be really transparent that i'm not sure that could happen when we're asking all programs to scale up if we find what space the scaling up for them requires no finding the more space it has to be shared probably rotated it's finding more staff and scaling up there were the zation in maintaining the quality of the program that i think is the balance here in one of the reasons why the data from one of the parents are provided  you can see that these programs are relatively similar in size because folks can find staff that can actually provide this function in a quality way in most cities and towns provide alternative sites like y m c a s boys and girls farms or other nonprofit groups that actually are in time they can provide that service we do have students that actually take after school here in programs that are outside the district and we have buses that can pick them up at two or three of our schools and so we do have other outside programs that that come to our schools pick up our children and take them so the programs that that alternative programming does exist currently in the district so this will be a long term piece that we will look at but it will not interrupt next year's work with our with our current providers in our respect for our current providers we have to give very very clear notice if we intend to do anything different at this point in time we do know we put on looking at this work seeing if we can identify spaces in the town see if we can incrementally create space within our schools finding how much room that they want to ultimately have and see if they can scale up to it and see if we can create success at our building based options so in summary we will leave our local boards in place to hire him to oversee and make a decision with their providers we're not provid changes to our fire district here because that's the building base choice incremental increase of capacity is our goal we're working on it as we speak here freesheet the work of the teachers have done what their principals in the providers will be doing with the but we're working towards that goal and we are exploring some of the bigger options as a district because we feel we owe it to our parents to partner in this work as best we can have one question which is to stay as a part of the worked into conversation with after your programs if there's any kind of need survey going out you know recognizing some folks aren't on the boards or part of an after care program i space and some space that could probably rotate so we're working with our teachers to see if we can squash the programs to access classrooms that teachers have to vacate at some schools maybe more than others of the other school programs have access to the g the space that we have it should be said that i love looking into the star resources to return to it's very difficult for the school department to have staff meetings and curriculum development or professional development because we don't have anywhere to go either and i know that's not as big of a challenge just finding a spot for your five year old because that's more important but it just puts an exclamation point on the true lack of afterschool space that the wellness program that we try to do for stuff that we struggled through the after school because we have we other question or thought which is i know people have looked at existing space within the town but i wonder to what extent are selected men planning board me silicate or make it easier as naturally that we received this kind of question because there are schools but it is beyond our i mean it's not just our scope and so i think taking it to the other entities in town that have some power to do something would be helpful for preschool we went to st joe's we went to other places to look for space that we could use during the day and we were obviously unsuccessful in that as well though it did just doesn't seem to be that kind of that kind of space available the town those types of structures that would provide open space that would support students in that school here are not case during the day school care which we're looking for that has it's amazing to me that it's such an entrepreneurial opportunity a of america our supply and demand problem is usually solved pretty quickly so but but we will i think people want to make sure that this the search for space and the review of these options  a way that has the voice of many folks so folks will feel like it's been done without their feedback serving folks i think will be something that we would want to do openly looking for space and talking openly about these options i think that right now as an example to schools took over all the aftercare tomorrow we would still have the same challenges around providing enough space and that there really wouldn't be much of a gain there and even if we asked one vendor to take it over we still have challenges with space so those aren't always challenges that are solve those ways but that does mean we should explore them and learn from unpacking them and see what they look like and so we will look through each one of those options those two options ha been kind of discussed at the table with the providers and i think the parents want to know more about them and they deserve to have them explore and so we'll do that for giving up a question options did we explore the use of a school middle school as an alternative location for programs so the middle schools is has an after school program that's run by one of the providers it to the schools has a capacity and we did think about using parts of the high school at one point in time namely the cafeteria but but it's full after school it's not a field dedicated space and we provide the after the high school is a busy place from three to nine o'clock at night of the middle school's a busy place from three you want to tell us what we're sure voting for when we decline participation sure every day the commonwealth of massachusetts asks every time to decide or whether or not they want to be a school choice district the majority of school choice program for the same reasons so we do not have school choice it currently and i do not recommend school choice w right so there's no discussion or questions we have in front of us the wording for the vote so it is very much to do in accord with mass general last chapter seven six section one twenty eight unanimously vote to decline so it's funny to vote affirmative it's my choice yeah ok next we have another vote which is on the rugby trip to spain if i played rugby here read actually i'm not sure this would be a vote because it was going to be  participate have high regard for the work that they do and the organization that they work with has has done great work and and who wouldn't want to go with a bunch of rugby players t and it's nice that there's actual games and practices to control the organization that they work with always arranges not only cultural visits and but also the opportunity to work with local teens and  ever win a state title in any state in the united states and it was don't want my girl so congratulations late to our girls team but they were the first public schools with the state championship in the sport of rugby in the history of the united states which is a pretty cool thing so over they could replicate that in two thousand and eighteen no pressure girls so the students have a chance to organize themselves or othe and we are truly a small town by square mile but a high volume town in terms of students taking the buses to school which is great to have them in buses and out walking is safe and  online last june that was the second year for busing registration online which was a great benefit to two parents it was a great benefit to the business of us all products together registrations and much sooner versus increase in total student roman and also the increased demand for bus services our examination about busting operations told us that we can probably we can provide a better level of service by strategically reconfiguring the bus stop so that there will actually be fewer stops but they'll be in strategic areas and what centralized that will really make the whole bussing function operate more efficiently and  is for change for next we have to for the remainder of the school year everything will be as it is right now so if we just think of a minute and actually think about everything that's a ball in the school bus actually makes a stop of course that big yellow school bus has to actually come to a complete stop again even just to say that out loud it takes it takes a fair amount of time and if you've got that over and some cases dozens of stops on a particular route that really kind of adds to the time that the  again by reducing the number of stops we significantly reduce the amount of time that it takes for the bus the complete the entire in to get the school oct in the afternoon to make the drop off in the afternoon so he's an example of a bus stop a bus route that we have now this i just happen to pick the want this with this is fast six in the morning to the wellington we could pick any one of any number of buses you see there are twenty two stops on that bus  you right now because i was very curious to know the wellington bus six there of forty students that take the bus in the morning so there are twenty three stops for those forty students and you can see if you look at the pathway or route you know where we're literally taking them the long and winding road to get through a car to town and you can see it which is fish that's not even a wellington school that's just the last stop and from there the bus makes its way into the school and if we were compare that to how we would be configuring two drawings that we think the twenty one about the students that were service in that part of the town but the streets of the buses driving on one well literally all the students are still serviced on the particular side street in this example so of walking to the middle of the street they've got to come to the end of the street and if you want to have to walk a short distance in which we're not concerned by that because our is it our expectation is that for elementary students and especially the younger elementary students in grades k to do expect parents to accompany students to the bus stop and to receive them at the bus stop so again the this in this particular example reconfiguration is around some of the side streets and it really streamlines the bus you the start time to have such stores the benefits for the future beginning next year as we talked about with decreasing the travel time in town because while fuel stops in some cases we're cutting the number of stops in half an example we just showed again we expect the  kind of hand done every year but will so it's the balance of optimizing the routes realizing the time and ensuring students safety but the vast majority of the routes in town will be set with minimal changes from year to year  as far as a timeline this work was reviewed completed in january in the changes will be posted to the district website we expect to have the changes submitted by the end of this week so they can be posted and we're sending a letter out to our parents this week that will be going out friday to do what we can really next week and that's going to the parents of all students who take the bus now and it's also going to the parents of all fourth grade students in it's a patient some of students and not everything for the routes now as to what capacity storm the buses that in some cases they may be a different situation but the routes can be set so we're excited about these changes and we wanted to present of the school cost and in thinking about these new routes and with every discussion about the cost and hopefully increasing i mean we would have to get a new boss but increasing participation to sort of decrease traffic twelve thirteen school year but the cost was increased based on the fact the amount that we were receiving from fees and the amount that we were budgeting from the general from the support the bussing i think the committee knows that the busing function is supported by a we would get there that that's that doesn't mean that we shouldn't and can't look at what there would be i guess would be difficult to ascertain i'm not sure how to call out how many people have not signed up for bus and because that because of the cost i can say that we like virtually all the other fees that we charge students for the rich program we offer a waiver system based on household size and income that families can submit their requests  saucer review that confidentially so there is a process in place for free relief but you know i don't have the answer about how many more people would participate if the feet were to be reduced in it if we reduce the fee now i don't know how when we would then have to raise the feet again as the cost of bussing itself increases every year so i don't have the answer that much and strategically as we would have to think about that i would want to get to a point to recommend fees to come down to a certain numbers to see of the eight hundred nine on many we call required to bus for free and from that remaining cohort what percent of those folks receive a waiver so the entire population seems to take the bus about every thirty thousand dollars that wouldn't even be half of the cost of the b l school bus not that bus would make potentially make runs to an elementary school generally in the high school so in theory possible for it to approach breakeven i suppose that it is but it's it's not kind of a marginal comma certain way that we don't know that we would necessarily have sixty and then sixty and sixty students three worth while there is this conversation right now about when we talk about our new upper and lower high school building which i keep saying that differently because i want to triple no it's a seven through twelve building and do we use more buses to get students to more safely or do we use less buses so students can actively walk in we can create better walk pathways and bike path ways to school because it is small town and this does this deserve this there's a conversation there of about how we want our folks to get to school i wasn't here when we raise fees but i think toward what we raise fees we did see a decrease in right of ship but at the middle school where it will fall that's the biggest that's the biggest backlog on middle school populations a for the i want to bus the to that so it's definitely a multi layered issue to take a look at i'm glad we were able to add the two buses that were utilized every member now we're actually because of our roman we're actually having students go to school outside their elementary district so we're actually using buses to kind of cross a little bit which might not be that which will not present the most efficient model of transportation but because of the situation where we are forced to kind of have students go across town so that provides a little bit of a minus in this conversation as well yes i have a question for tony but i also want to say i think when we talk about buses and sa routes that those aren't necessarily opposite dres are confronted with each other i think reducing traffic overall which my fear is that the fees have increased traffic because certainly there's a lot of congestion immediately around the schools and i for are mandated service for any other reason to be on the bus how do you you know is there a waiting list how do you determine who gets priority in though they do start from the outer ring and then move in their process sure a great question so in terms of registration the lion's share of the parents registered the students in june last year i was it was right around the time of school at all that this year is even earlier in june and so we appreciate have the capacity to transport those students at any point this year which only so on the net we haven't that we haven't really bumped into a wait list issue if if the question is about cost we do have a four partial waiver the pending upon where that the income falls in as many people as qualify for that of the people that receive that reduced or at least in some peace treaty bussing and the district just for goes that revenue so this anyone there's no cap on the number of waves we issue based on household size and income on the trip that's what it was i mean if you know anybody who's free because if you are two miles which would be the most needy students automatically you on the bus because that's the law  we have to provide those guys a bus so those guys are taken care of check the box so the fathers travelling students automatically get a bus they could be witnesses because it will be because a lot then the bus is filled with paying folks after that so i think what i've heard from some folks that they don't even they're not even eligible and they can't get on the bus route here it even if they want to pay the buses and serving that street or that so that that that group of you know i'm wondering how they're captured as we think about you know maybe it's more efficient we can make more runs maybe at the end so we speak with those parents a lot when you see the folks who maybe go to school outside the district or they just look father enough away from the school that might be a mile which is far to walk or drive but not enough to get a bus in the bus might not go through that neighborhood because it's just too close so we try circles around the schools and we work out like this so there are folks who don't have a bus that goes through the neighborhood they say look just close enough not to get one but far enough away that it's inconvenient for them to be able to access school in a way that's helpful for them whether they don't have a car or whether they have one car in the family of the one person le can ask parents to walk up to a mile just to this stop which is kind of strange you never do that but they that just shows you how kind of why vary in his time where we benefit by that's the lot so we benefit by folks probably asking them to maybe walk a block in this are we getting folks who want to be three blocks to the to the bus so we are trying to make it more efficient but there is a zone around the school that's a certain distance away that would be somewhere there that would be in the middle that would be serviced by bus and they would have to walk or bike or drive through if you could have any additional support in looking at that problem either increasing right or shipper making what would you want to see and what would what would help solve the congestion around schools the e increasing my ownership or increase in walking i don't think the bus is going to i think that we are i don't think any one of those things is going to solve the congestion around the schools if you go to the well into i mean if you go to the wellington the butler the burbank each one of our schools has not enough parking for the educators no parking for parents who coming in pick up children who have to go to the dentist or drop them off after the doctor we are in a condensed neighborhood situation where if we provided no buses and everybody would either walk or drive if we provided more buses than then it might be hard yes the pick everybody up will be will be neighborhoods and driving students a half a mile to school which might not just make sense with time perspective so what would be a nice study for someone to do work graduate school student to map out on we have every student not a dark we we know or every student lives we can identify with the roots are that's where we can do the work that tony did could we buy two more buses and maybe pick up more students who live close to the schools to get them in school by bus versus by walking probably  without saturation point as i don't know but adding to buses was a big piece of it and i still think that i worry about the middle schools more than a worry than any of the other two levels because the high school only has i think one hundred forty that but i think next year we get more official with our roots we can see how that goes who helped us with registration for kindergarten and all of our students to reach for school is a really big deal so what our proposal is is that we are asking that we create an contact the cater for meeting with the school chair to go through the proposal in person so he has the ability to make that request within his or her department as a teacher and its impact on the school or the work to see if it fits the criteria whether it should be granted or not so we're we're putting this on the agenda because it's part of what we should do publicly and part of our contractual obligation they were seeking all right then our file final item major business is a discussion about school officer had an opportunity to hear some bits and pieces we thought of the nice to have a conversation around the powerful an incident in florida the board selected called to me with myself the police chief to talk about some of the measures that we have in the schools regarding safety the training that we do the high school that actually does work with high school families middle school field was in elementary field we saw on different issues that come up either in the schools or in the community and so resource officer is a is a specially trained police officer who was about one police officer not a bad one public school employee their training is really around community based work meeting with children being proactive in schools was children in meeting with parents around issues of concerns and being another identified individual in the community and in the school building where students feel comfortable with they can build relationships with  and they can feel safe talking to we have had a resource officer at the high school now i believe this is the fourth year that was was hired the year that i started in receive this position is one that  creates good relationships with students it gives our yes very very direct access to green relationships with our with our students in the community and our parents in the community and they help us  resolve and take on challenges that come back to the schools either something that happened in the community and in plays out in school or something that have the school that we would like to support on we have a memorandum of agreement with the police department of the schools in the s office where we we try to support each other and how we can support families in a resource officer is a very big part of that process that doesn't mean that we see them as someone who can arrest folks as much as we see them him about it was recommended by folks on the table that maybe we would seek a second resource officer for the schools each year the police chief does put in a grant that i sign because we have sought this position earlier but we've never sought funding from the schools and that she has never sought funding from the town i believe the last few years since i've been here for this position and i believe it one time we did have two resource officers in the district and we'd only recently have been able to put one back in  one so that's the context i can say from experience in working with our current resource officer in working with resource officers at the building principal that i find this view valuable asset and just someone different that proactively does a lot of good relationship building  into issues so it's almost like steve is all or is a great technology director because the technology always works and you never have to see him fixing it thing i think melissa o'connor and the police department do a great job because they proactively well as we've discussed at this table with and with the other folks we have other things that we also need to district that we haven't been looking for a resource officer we could use a licensed social worker we could use another assistant principal we could use a family liaison we could use would teachers in classrooms we could use robotics teacher we don't have any math coaches so we we have a list of positions that we feel are in that not even second bucket of needs that are actually in the first are being forced out into the second bucket but resource officer is a great opportunity for the district and it's been offered to us by the board of selectmen to consider given our relationship with the police chief in our success with our our current resource officer i think it's a great opportunity of being in the context of one need that would be addressed along with some other positions that we just don't have the funds for but this is and this is something that i think is  recommendation is to accept the current and as is it would be considered a middle school resource officer the middle school also has a deer officer on site and this would be in addition to that officer so  contacting the as well as is in support of i think some folks get nervous well we'll have a someone with a guard in the school that scares some folks we currently have dear officer who does come in uniform i mean carries a sidearm in school we have a resource officer at the high school and in in these folks the dear officer particular does good on him interact with the elementary staff at certain times as well so that it shouldn't be too unfamiliar to just the students and folks in the hope of being at the mortgage be relieved to attend the elementary schools more if a position or at the middle school so because we haven't put the position of place we haven't decided on what the the day to day responsibilities would be i can say that i have worked with m o'connor just this weekend on an elementary concern and in two or three weeks ago on a middle school concern and just an extra set of hands that can address the whole district they might be housed here the middle school because it's the second big school district  had fun at work as a as a principal we had a middle school resource officer high school officer and the dialogue that they had where middle school students would talk about geez my older sister said to my older brother said are you really getting really consider g around those conversations with students and it being really proactive so i think that just having more police presence with children because conversations are making relationships would go a long way proactively for for creating a safe environment for schools another headcount to the budget for the team so we currently don't fund the for the resource officer right now that comes out of the police budget given that the school district has asked for and has currently been  able to request nine teacher f t s for next year which we consider a huge ask and so far received well that in the last that would mean that we would be receiving up to twenty thousand by the schools of forty five thousand by the police but instead of you know we splitting it with them we were we were thinking in tony and i as our director of finance have been looking at how we can offset costs for another position and just reduce our general fund budget by that forty five thousand and give it to the police so we don't have to split the cost year to year kind of have that relationship where it's part of our budget and part of their budget that we would try to utilize offsets to our  technology we found a cost savings through truck the services that we currently provide if we hire an in house employee we may be able to save thirty thousand dollars by eliminating those contractors and hiring a tech and then we're looking to see if we can find another fifteen to make that forty five mark and then we would if that was the case and that was the will of the committee look at those numbers and go back and work with the town on the budget and see if there was a draft to production that could be reduced by forty five thousand so that if you were paid for that would be the mechanism that we would use you mentioned that the chief gets a grant for the one that he has now would it be possible did you have a discussion with him at all about if that would pay for two or if it's just covering but it would just cover winer because that would be another funding source and then that would be for the police department i don't know if the current one is provided by grant he has asked me to sign the grid for the second one and i don't know if the the current one is either paid out of the budget or over the ground i'm not sure but he has sought the grant for the second one in the last over the last three  with their employees and maybe having discussions with the chief or the deputy chief about what the characteristics are that we're looking for you know i think that the piece that makes a successful our sorrows that they want to be with the kids all day and th relationship building as opposed to someone who might go into that world of work for different reasons so you know i think having someone apply far as opposed to being appointed would be helpful because it was short desire to be there and if i would talk to the chief to see what show and i just wanted to add i think it's important to note that this discussion isn't coming about because of a perceived increase in danger or this element of threat that we're responding to but the conversation district we've got a track record of the high school we don't see any reason it would be detrimental things so i just wanted to make that clear that it's not an urgent threat that we're responding to but rather a mindful thoughtful intentional decision to consider and there are social work and aspects of the job that remembering correctly conversations so it's filling some need that we would find really beneficial that's what all right so how do we proceed from here with this positive to say that we would like to pursue it and give the green light that we would like to prove to pursue that position in the whether or not would like to actually contribute the health of the cost and then we just agreeing tonight that the schools are going to pay for half of the i think it's not just say that it's in two parts there so agree that we that we would like to pursue the position  impacted by this cost or anything else so the committee still does have an opportunity after tonight to actually vote on a budget that reflects or maybe does or does not reflect an additional school resource officer don't know if there is at least it's worth a conversation to talk to the select members to see if it makes more sense just to pay it out of increase their town side of the budget for the full position and that the school is already so tight from a resource prospective i understand that even the health health as myself or so i appreciate it but i think it might be worth checking handling the second officer the way they've been handling the first officer ok been very very busy at the belmont high school building committee we had a leadership meeting as have to do we went over the security pieces of the project we had the police department a fire department our current middle school a last week with our latest proposal and we are working on the final footprint of the building in the design of the building not necessarily all the pieces and where they go inside but the footprint and how many floors and the makeup of each area of the season programs is an ongoing discussion which i think is really exciting we have engaged our seven through twelve educator team our steering committee we have a second meeting with those folks tomorrow o  also given some real thought to reducing square footage were if we can and some of that has been accomplished over the last couple of days which we feel really thankful for in the design team has really kind of shrunk the volu members of the school committee and we presented the new hybrid version of what we were hoping to present to the building to be to our morning and it was absolutely a very a very good proposal that address the common sense practices of the district and what we need in the schools seven through seven eight on this side and then our nine to twelve in i think is really beginning to stake shape in forming this building as a tool around the learning that we want to see happen with us students  building is shaping is being shaped by the input of of right now the teachers who will work there in the administrators who work there what's good for kids and teaching and learning so we will be getting ready to vote as a building committee on that footprint tomorrow feedback being given and actually meetings where pepper villa going out to meet with different neighbors to talk about traffic and talk about being a neighbor of a large school project that are being planned  at the meeting today expressed my gratitude for what everyone around the table knows and brings to the conversation things that we don't necessarily the know to think about yet you know everything will detail from the fire safety and that police oversight and the sixty breeding ok and the community path update andrea is not here but that's also the first site planned for this school so that will be interesting to see how that evolves library long range planning i've heard mr express for both the transition for one member and a bigger transition for another member so just on behalf of the committee wanted to say thank you very much tom first of all for serving in this role