Somerset K-8 School Committee - August 11, 2026

Are we ready? All right, please let the record show that we resumed our public session at 5:45 p.m. Moving on to our New business agenda. If the committee is amenable, I would like to take the agenda out of order tonight given that we have many people here this evening, which I anticipate is due to new business item number nine, discuss South school closure for the 2027-2028 school year. asking

you to take it out of order i did want to note so for everybody's benefit we're not going to be taking any action before we hear your public input so i just wanted you to be rest assured we're going to have our discussion i think that our discussion may benefit all of us and then you might be able to ask questions or make comments that are more specific to the matter

Is everybody amenable to that? Yes, but one more. Could we do 8 and 9? Yes. 8 and 9. Is everybody okay with that? Yeah. Item number 8 for everybody's benefit is the North Elementary schematic design conversation. And so these two agenda items go hand in hand. All right. So Dr.

Schoonover, do you want to start with the North schematic design overview? Sure. We'll go from there. Alright, so I figured I would start with something that the MSBA published this past year.

Last fall they visited every school in the state. and then publish their 2025 school survey report. There is one section in here that talks about open classroom concepts. And so I just copied and pasted in here what you see is everything that it references. I highlighted a couple of things that we've talked about over the years. But certainly the plan was really from the very late 60s, but mostly the early 70s,

And it says here in the middle, "In practice, the building's channeling did not provide effective learning environments." And we've seen that. Of all the schools that were built in that time, there are still 42 schools in the state that still have that open floor concept, and we are one of those. So just to show that the MSBA in this report is indicating that it was

a flawed design and there are a few of us left with those.

So with that we hired CGA who's our in-house architect to come up with some concept designs. So what I've done here, this is the bottom level of NORP. The only change here is the gray section off to the right. I know this is probably difficult to read from here, but of those two gray classrooms, this one right... The top one is a music classroom and bottom is art. Right now these

are three preschool classrooms where the students enter here, office space, and then we've got three classes here. But those would be under this concept, a music class and an art class. Mr. Swinney. Yes. Can you go back to the other slide? There's, I see the music and the art that's been blocked out and the blue, the white, the orange. Right. Across the hall there's something else that was written that I cannot

see. Is that something new or? Right here. There's no mouse. So right near the dry food storage. Above the dry food storage says office, below it says faculty, coffee, break room. And how about to the right of it? The yellow is our couple of bathrooms. And above that? That is... It's like a closet actually. It's a closet? Yeah. It's where the coffee machine is now, isn't it? Okay. Thank you. All right,

so this is a view of the entire north. You can see the gym off to the left. The maintenance in West Stone Hill would be on the right-hand side of this image. It's been broken down into units A, B, and C. A being the gymnasium, B the center part of the building, and C the rightmost part. So just looking at these one at a time, the concept here for the gym would be to remove the two

gymnasiums, the two gym floors, make it one. And then with the existing locker rooms, which are utilized now only for storage, those would be converted into five preschool classrooms, which are located down below. And in the darker shade of pink, like purple up top, would be for kindergarten classes. This works because as showers, blockings and showers, there's

already plumbing in both of those areas. So this would allow a bathroom to be installed in each one of those nine classrooms pretty easily. Part of that also would be to open up some space, create some windows for the kindergarten classes overlooking the soccer field side and the preschool classrooms overlooking the preschool playground. For the setup part, and these do have great assignments to them, I would

just say disregard you know, where it says grade one, grade two, it doesn't matter what grades are where. But this is currently in the upper left corner of the purple. It says grade one. This is where our grade four classes currently exist. To the right of that, sort of going clockwise around, upper right corner, it says grade two. That's where grade three currently is. Then you have the library. Down below in

the shade of blue, the lower right corner, it says grade three. That's where grade two is. And then central office is in that pink shade in the lower left corner with some green classroom in between. We have two fifth grade classrooms there now.

And then going up from there is our current fifth grade section. And there would be a lot of From this one, a couple of special education classrooms, a related arts, occupational therapy, and some flexible spaces. Flexible spaces, just other classrooms that we could create or spaces for different purposes.

Swinging over to the south side of the school, along West Stone Hill, in the lower right corner is our maintenance area, custodial maintenance.

So that would remain the same. You have in yellow, it's currently in grade one class, it's shown here as a grade five, but that doesn't really matter. Then you have the main office in the lower left corner. And swinging up from there, a lot of our related service offices are in there now, counseling. and so on in the middle with one classroom and a couple of flexible spaces. Right now one of those is an

art classroom and another is more of an open space and storage between a grade one class and that art classroom. The nurse's office is In that middle section, sort of a tan color, it has some bathrooms coming off the hallway in yellow. And then the kindergarten wing is along the top of this image, the current kindergarten wing. It shows as four

classrooms and a health classroom right now, with no real significant changes. A little bit with the Actually, I was going to say the second one from the left in green, I was going to say it still has the curved wall, the slanted wall that's in there. So no real significant changes at all to that wing. So anyway, so that's the concept of this by constructing. Walls, these are, you can see how many classrooms

you can get out of this. Going back to this image, upper left, there would be five classrooms there. Grade two, the one to the right of it, you can get six classrooms out of that, and six classrooms lower right. So in most of these spaces where there are currently four classrooms, you can get six. a much better use of space than what we currently have

because of the rolling cabinets that currently exist to be the barriers from one classroom to another. Our students and teachers at Chase and South have classrooms with an average class size of 850 to 900 square feet. The average class size at North is about twice that. They have huge spaces, but they need them as buffers from one classroom to another just because

of the noise associated with the classes and we have the space in order for them to stand as well. So that's just a really high-level overview of the plans that have been developed so far and I guess with I'm interested to see if you want CGA to continue working to get cost estimates With something like this, obviously there's a lot of work to be involved, but even if it's an order of magnitude type

of number so that we have a better understanding of what the cost of this work would be. I mean, I would assume that when we approve, when the town approved the feasibility study, that that study would end with some kind of a price tag. So I would say we should move forward. And also how long would it take to complete if we were to do this entire project? What would the timeline look like

and is it possible to do it in pieces?

over the course of several years or would we have to do it all at once given the HVAC work that would need to go into this and the electrical work I assume that's not reflected necessarily in this? And one of the things there are, go back to this one, the work would have to take place, there are only so much that can take place over a summer.

So the work would have to be ongoing either that or one section is done every summer for a number of years. Or if it's a little bit more comprehensive and quicker, the work would have to be done while school is in session and it would be one of those situations where you complete an area, move students to it, work on another area. this were a concept that

you would want to go with and let's just say that we completed the section on the left where we create the nine classrooms for preschool and kindergarten out of the locker rooms if something like that were to be done first then you could utilize move kids out of current preschool and kindergarten classes into there, opening up those

spaces, move some around so that you're constantly shuffling kids from one section of the building to another while work is being done in one of those areas. And then I guess the other thing is if central office were to be relocated, that could also be a space. This shows central office is staying as an office, but if central office were to move, then that could also open up six more classrooms

and be another space for students to move into while other sections of the building are being worked on.: Looking at this, I'm not sure, so this is why I'm asking. It looks to me like some classrooms would have two exit options and some classrooms would only have the one entrance/exit. Is that accurate, depending on where the...: Yes.: Yeah, okay. But in our other two elementary schools, I

think Chase Street School has a lot of connecting doors, so they probably have multiple exits from those classrooms. Chase and South, we have classrooms that are connected on the inside as well as the hallway. But the two exits, two entrances are not required. As you know, in this building, every classroom, with maybe the exception of just a few, have only the one door from

the hallway. The middle school, every two classrooms are connected, but nothing beyond those two. Okay. Mr. Machado, did you have something? Yeah, I think... with cda reviewing the costs i think they what they did in the msba project when we were doing the middle school uh when it was either reconstruction or whatever the case may be um when we were considering about reconstruction that was that

was the model we were going to use unit a we were going to build a new building And once that was completed, they were going to move the kids over, so that would be the process. The only one that I would be very interested in how they would do is really B, because would they divide B in half while others, you know, and obviously with the noise and things like that, that

would obviously, but we see that happening. When we were looking at other schools, rebuilds, we would see that happening during the school year. It's just the nature of the beast. Unfortunately, we don't have the old middle school still up that we could just move every kid and get it all done in two years. I'd be curious to see how long it would take, other than cost, obviously. Once we have that

idea, I also think we should try to take a third bite out of the apple or fourth bite out of the apple with the MSBA because obviously they do see open classrooms as an issue and they may be also interested in that as well. Are they factoring in technology infrastructure changes as well because Sometimes that's something that's thought of after

the fact, but my thought is if you're putting up walls and dividers, then you need to make sure you have access points in every classroom and that you have data drops and those types of things. So that's something that I would... That's really the next layer, because how does this impact a fire suppression system? A spherical head is going to need to be... does that point of stuff, that work, that's a

pretty extensive project. Just the electrical impact, HVAC, plumbing there are so many components that we need to be involved with a project like this as well in addition to the technology and then just you know from obviously the operational standpoint is your perspective but just for the purposes of discussion you know making sure that if we were to put this many students at North Elementary, do we, and I

see that we have some flexible spaces, but do we have enough small group instructional spaces for, you know, logistically the administrative team to successfully administer MCAS testing where there are students who require one-on-one or small group? Similarly, you know, with the specialist schedule, ensuring that we are abiding by the teacher's

contract and making sure everybody gets their prep time because we're going from two music classrooms to one. We're going from two gymnasiums to one, and those spaces previously have afforded the school some flexibility in scheduling specialists. that we wouldn't necessarily have now not to say that maybe in a phys ed class maybe like at Somerset middle school I'm pretty sure they have two

classes running at the same time it's hard I'm sure it's harder in the winter when nobody can you know really go outside so there's just that type of operational stuff and I I want to make sure that you know we're not just looking at this from our lens of resources and how many, you know, kids can we physically fit safely in this building, but we want to make sure that the administration can actually

operate in the circumstances that, you know, we provide them.

Other questions or comments related to this specifically? Hold the roof on that building. You're going to be doing all this work. I'd say 15.

15 to 20 years.

When I first moved in as a teacher, that was being put on. Yeah, 2007. 20 years. Okay. So we'll probably be thinking of more questions because that's how this goes. We'll have more thoughts and more wonderings. So I think related to this project specifically if you have anything that comes up after we exit this meeting tonight I would ask that you reach out to Dr.

Sklonova and CC Robin directly so that way he has your questions immediately and while he's you know working with CGA he can try to have them incorporate as much of our answers as they can. Do you need an official vote for us to continue? Okay, so I think that brings us into item number nine, which is the discussion about South School. I don't want to speak for Dr.

Schoonover. I get the impression that this and based on our previous conversation in our meeting on our zoom meeting in February that we had to talk about the window and door project at South I get the impression that you know this has caused Dr. Spoonover to think that perhaps we don't necessarily need three elementary school buildings for the number of students that we have is that accurate

one of the things I want to thank Mr. Ventura for asking this question earlier today. Let me just sort of pull something up here. So Mr. Ventura asked about the enrollment over the last, I think he said 10 or so years. So I went back to 2014-15, which was the first year, it was my first year, but it was also the first year that Wilbur was no

longer open. So this is this is the elementary enrollment since we've had three elementary schools. So in that first year we had a total K-5 enrollment of 1,126 students. You can see the fairly slow but steady decline in those numbers to what we currently have projected for this year. So that 891 I'm certain is going to climb a little bit as we do get some late summer registrations. But 901 was the actual October

1st enrollment last year. So you can see that it's almost a 9% reduction over that time. it just upon the dip right in the middle of this screen that was the COVID year so when we went from 1031 in 1920 for 957 in the 2021 school year and then back up to 2002. That's because of the high number of elementary kids who were homeschooled that year out of concerns with COVID. So we

had a dip, but then as a district we quickly rebounded. And the blue below, that represents South's enrollment over that same period of time. So 294 students that first year, 231 last year, 231 is the current projected enrollment for this coming year. So that also has a 21% decrease. So South's decrease in enrollment pretty much matches the district's decrease in enrollment over that time. So I

guess a long way of answering your question Mrs.

Ashley, we've lost over 200 almost 240 students. Is that my math right here? Yeah about 100, 235 students over the last 12 to 13 years. So we've actually lost in enrollment K-5 enrollment equal to what our current enrollment is this year itself. So yes, we can, we have enough space between our other two schools just in pure numbers to accommodate all of our students in two buildings. If enrollment climbs after that,

now we find ourselves in a situation where we've We've now, we've lost Wilbur, given that off to the town, it's been sold.

If we no longer have the ability to use South, then, and whether or not the town would support what we just saw for North, because I'm sure that that's not going to be an inexpensive project, we find ourselves in a situation where our two remaining schools would be pretty full.

And we don't know if this trend is going to continue. We do have an aging population in Somerset, but we've seen in all of the neighboring suburbs enrollment has been dropping faster than it has been in Somerset. Most districts have trains that are significantly steeper than this. And we've been insulated from that for a while, but over time we are seeing that trend also happen here. Have the apartments across from

Home Depot had an impact on enrollment? Not really. I mean, we've had some students enrolled. Some students are at South, some students are at the middle school, but given just the Families that are either moving out of town, aging, aging up, and just families moving out and not coming in with families with children. I think that the hotel is helping a little bit, but it's not having a, it's

not showing a significant impact in terms of increasing our enrollment.

So what would we do with that school if we were to move our students between Chase and? Well, going back to the slides that we had for North, obviously that's, we're not going to have preschool and kindergarten classrooms occupying the locker rooms anytime soon. So the only thing that I think would make sense is for central office to move to south, which would open up additional space at north.

And we've talked in the past, does preschool move to south, which would open up five classrooms, five additional classrooms at north. And then we haven't talked about what grade configurations would be either. I know that was part of the study group that worked this past winter and spring. But with two remaining schools, would they both be K-5s? Would one be, you know, K-2 and

another be a 3-5 or something like that? You know, those are the discussions that we would still need to have.

So, Madam Chair, if I could just ask or just make a couple of comments and then you can just let me know when I've said enough. But I'm just going to give a brief history of my tenure here.

First, let's speak about South. South is a great school.

I remember when this school committee had to make the tough decision to close Wilbur. When we closed Wilbur, original plan was we were going to move all the Wilbur students to North. And of course, uh those that had children at south chase and north were happy that hey we're not going to be affected by it we're going to take these kids and we're going to move them into three other schools i

quickly said to the committee at that time i said i understand but my daughter is going to leave our street drive up reed and go to south Meanwhile, a kid who's living, let's say, on Angus Street is going to go by Reed Street, my house, Chase, to North. I said, how does that even make sense? So it was easy to do it that way, but what we did is

we put our heads together and I, as sad as it seems, but we had five school committee members who had children at all the schools.

Every one of our child got displaced to another school. So we felt the pains, I know the pains of a child moving from one school to another. So that's the first thing. Also, we did this 12 years ago and Dr. Skudinov actually shared something with me. The last class that would have been, that was affected actually graduated this year. Or was it last year? - The last year's graduation, graduated class was the

last kindergarten class from Wilbur. - From Wilbur. So it's been a while.

Regarding enrollment, about what happens if enrollment goes up, A few years ago during the regional school committee meeting I did mention that in the next four, four and a half years, five years, our enrollment would be about 800 students. I've seen this happen, as you can tell. It's not that I'm a math genius, but when I see the MSBA who was arguing with

the high school that we were going to... We said we need 1,100, 1,200 kids, and they said, "No, you're going to get school that's 950." And then we negotiated, and we ended up getting to 1050. And still, we were like, "Oh, this is not going to be enough." Well, the numbers are correct. Same thing with the middle school. The MSVA provided those numbers and we're like, "We have 650 kids in the

school. We need more space." And they said, "No, we're going to give you a school for $590." And as you can see, we have less than $590 in the schools. So the numbers that the state does is not by throw. They're actually using birth rate statistics and everything that else is going around. Our fellow school committee member, Melissa Terrish, she wanted us to really look at 5-8 for the middle school. And we did

look into that and it was going to cost $10 million more to add the fifth graders in the middle school. Give or take probably more because COVID happened right afterwards. But we just could not justify asking the town to spend $10 million on Well, I can just say as a school committee, I couldn't justify that because one thing that I have heard for 20 plus years

is only one complaint, regardless of COVID, administration, teachers, unions, but there's been always one complaint that I've heard every single year.

North has no walls. That's the only consistent complaint that I have heard from the school system. It might be food one year, it might be something, but that's the number one concern, the complaint that I hear since day one, even during the campaign trail. The reason why we did not go with the 5-8, besides being $10 million, we said we were better off spending that money into North to

build the walls. That's where I'm going with this. And we did not. Another reason why I wasn't really fighting for the $10 million and being the punch bag, you know, as the school committee was getting punched around about spending more money on a new building was one, we didn't know if our other elementary schools needed to be replaced. We didn't know at that time because we've never had MSBA come in. And

we were always afraid that is this the next step that we're going to need a new elementary school. Luckily, knock on wood, we do not need a new elementary school. But I think the key point is, when I was looking at these numbers, knowing that the high school has a building for 1,100, knowing that we have a middle school that holds 590, there will be a time

in the next few years that eighth graders will have to go to the high school. Because we can't run a high school with 800 kids and a middle school with 600 kids when we can move the fourth or fifth graders into the middle school. And now you only have an elementary school from pre-K to 4. So when I hear people saying, oh, but families are going to

have more kids, I'm looking at it differently. We're going to have too much room that we're not going to be able to fill all three schools. We have a high school district that is struggling to keep its bills paid. You know, every year you've seen the reductions, you know, those that have served or are currently serving in the region. We're going to have to start shipping some of that money there. But

also, when we're building in a K-8 budget or pre-K-8 budget, we too are seeing the struggles. This is not strictly a financial matter, this is an enrollment issue. We don't have enough, many, we don't have children filling the hallways like we did. So later, I'm sure parents are going to be concerned about losing their playground, I mean

their neighborhood schools or anything like that. And I understand that. Listen, I was there, but the only thing is I couldn't be, I couldn't advocate to keep South the way it was because my daughter was going there. I had to look at the whole district. I think this decision and the savings of not running a new, a third elementary school could average, after that building is complete and

we have all the students move, we could see a savings that we are currently seeing with Wilbur closed about a half a million dollars every year. If Wilbur hadn't been closed, our budget would be a half a million or more today. In a few years when our building is open, we will see those another, we won't have to pay for an administration at an

elementary school. We may at first because the middle school and the administration may have to move there, but we're not going to see an administration cost. That's a 1.4% of a person, you know, because we'll probably have to make a full VP. We're not going to see utility costs. Those, if we save about $300,000 a year at least, which I believe we would, that would be a

great way to sell to the town that we do need walls in the school, that we do have a plan on how to pay for the bond and not just ask the taxpayers to pay more. This isn't a tough decision, paper-wise. Emotionally, it's extremely a difficult situation. because we're talking about our neighborhood schools. I loved when Mr. Green and my daughter would fight over mozzarella sticks. I loved Beth Townsend, the way she ran

that school, brought community. I understand that. It's just that this day and age, we just don't have the funding anymore. We have power plants that closed down. We don't have the resources. And I would hate to keep a building open because of emotional, or my kids are cricket.

Well, the kids are crickets for five years. Well, guess what? My daughter was a cricket for three years. My daughter was a dolphin for three years. She was a raider for seven years. In a few years, we will be talking about the last elementary school at South graduating from the high school. That is what I'm trying to say.

Let's please not when we're making these decisions. Let's look at the long term Let's look at what is better for our education system and then also make sure that we have the resources for any student that does suffer from the move because there will be there will be some students that will regress and we know that not Some of Morgan's friends did but they all finished strong. They're in college

now So that is that's just my say this is not a really a decision for me anymore because you know My days are over, but I'm really thinking I don't want to hear Six years from today that you are making reductions in the budget like we have been doing and because we're paying utilities, higher utilities, higher administration costs, more classrooms.

But the other thing is, regarding about the... And I'm going to end it with this, because I don't want my chair to get the mallet out, the gavel out. But I just want to, just one thing, I just feel that we really need to know is that... Our kids. Going to the same school as a group There's a very good chance That it will be easier for them when they go

to the most difficult school Which is the middle school because they're not additional stress of all these students coming from three schools I do believe that if we have great schools and the old the other thing is it's It's fair on all students because this year's enrollments, it looks like one of our kindergarten classes are going to have how many students? At some of the schools and at North

it may hit like in the mid-20s while the other school is going to be 18. This is going to be a better issue where the students will be in equal sized classrooms other than having one school. And I hate to say this, that was the driving force of closing Wilbur is when I knew that my daughter and other students were in class of 18 and 20 and there were

classes in Wilbur of 12. We were able to close a Wilbur class because we had financial issues. and merged two kindergarten classes together and there's still less kids than it was in North. So, tough decisions. I understand we're going to hear from parents and all of that, but let's really look at what is really the best student-focused decision. It may not be popular, it won't be

popular, And I know we're going to hear about bus costs that's going to go up and things like that. Yes, it may. But you know what? It really shouldn't because the buses are still going from the same streets to the same streets. Thank you. I do want to hear from others. The only request that I have related to grade level schools is that if we are

entertaining that, that I would ask for the courtesy of reconvening the redistricting subcommittee because we had begun, you know, working on this extensively and I think that we should reconvene those people in the event that we want to explore what redistricting looks like between two schools instead of three because what we spent a lot of time looking at was three schools, not two. And

I wouldn't be doing my due diligence as the previous chairperson of that subcommittee if I didn't at least say out loud to all of you we did not find in our research any academic benefits of doing grade level schools while i do understand mr machado's position about an equitable number of students in each section of each grade level so if we do go that route again I would urge not

to bring back the subcommittee. It's to bring the outside consultant that does not have any emotions involved because a lot of these districts now are using an outside company to do the assessment because of that particular reason. I don't really want to go too far down in my redistricting rabbit hole. I know that it is part of this conversation. I just don't want us to get consumed by that. I know I

still have questions related to like a South School closure, you know, especially in advance of us having any guarantee that there would be funding from the wall project at North, right? I did express some of my concerns to Dr. Schoonover in advance of this meeting, but I obviously will say them publicly, but I don't want to monopolize the meeting. So I would like to hear from my fellow committee members.

So I mean my only concern would be if we're gonna do the work at North and it has to be sectioned like they talked about, is moving extra students into that school going to put a burden on that project and a burden on the students because now there's extra couple hundred extra students in the store. I know we have room for them, but if we're gonna do the move, I guess that's I'm trying

to wrap my head around if we take a group of students and move them into North because we have the room and then we try to do the wall project is the moving of the 200 students going to affect those students during that move, I guess. If I worded that right. So that's a... I understand what you're saying. And I don't even know if we can answer that tonight, but that's a

concern for me. So we're gonna uproot people, move them, and then maybe that has a negative effect on our ability to even do the job in the first place.

Because you have more people that you have to relocate for construction. Yes. That's my question. I'm not sure And maybe it doesn't affect it. I don't know.

I'm not a construction guy at all, but that would just be something I'd like to hear from somebody that does that, just to see what the differences would be. Or keep self-open while the construction's going on. Well, that's what I mean. If we're thinking about doing the move, but it's going to negatively affect the north wall job Then it might be proven to wait, I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm just not sure. Yeah,

as I expressed to Dr. Sloan over I've been have concerns before we even consider construction because you know if we were to put Hundreds of more kids at North and we don't have walls. It's already loud between the classrooms and if we don't have any way to do any type of acoustical tampering, I'll call it, or tamping, I don't know what the real term is, but that's what

I'm going to call it. And I know that there are companies that do this because when we built the middle school, those collaborative spaces and every grade level floor The ceiling is not a drop ceiling, and I wish I had a photo for you, but the ceiling is more of an industrial, I think it's kind of wavy, and it's got this coating on, and the company that did that, it's meant to

help with the acoustics so that it absorbs the noise instead of the echoes. North Elementary used to have carpets everywhere that absorbed sound, right? But then of course the carpets had to get changed out for health reasons and so the tile is great for cleaning purposes, but now it's just more echoes.

And then of course, you know, I've seen nearby cities create these sort of mega schools and they're serving lunch. You know, it's the operational stuff. They have to serve lunch starting at 9:30, 10 o'clock in the morning to have enough lunches, right? That was actually another thing on the North Project we didn't really talk about.

There's not gonna be any additional seating in the cafeteria. So these are just like the operational things. I would hate to, I'm all about thinking for the long term.

I definitely, you know, I'm so grateful that we have people here tonight to listen to this conversation and to speak to us because normally we're talking to ourselves and I do think that we should get as much community feedback as possible. And I totally understand there's such a strong sense of community at South School. I was fortunate to work there a little bit. My husband worked there as well actually. We took

turns. But, um, I was always welcomed there and it was always a place that everybody was proud to be a cricket, you know? So it's hard for me too.

And I'm a parent. I'm not a self-parent, but I'm a parent. And you think about your kids and we all just want what's best for our children. And I totally respect that. And we want to hear what you have to say and just know that whatever decisions we make on whatever timeline we make it, We are trying to think about what's best for the whole community and it's not something that's personal

and it's not always something that brings us a lot of joy in the moment.

But we're going to, I'm committed and I know that my counterparts are committed to do the work and really do the research and the you know, all the ins and outs of all of this that need to be done so we can come back to you and say, "Here's a plan that we think will work for the kids, the staff, the community, and here's why." And have something that you at least

feel comfortable with. My concern with doing this for next year is that we have no plan, we have no information, we have no guarantee for funding for walls. And so if this is a long-term goal, it's kind of like, what's the rush? Why would we rush and do this abruptly next year without having all the information? And I don't know how quickly you'll even be able to get the cost estimate. but even then there's

no guarantee that there's going to be funding so are we going to be comfortable right putting all these kids in a building that we don't even necessarily know if there will ever be walls in our time right do you have anything mr jr it's just a lot right to think about and being a parent and having kids move i do agree we have to get across the walls if it's feasible to

do and then we got to look at redistricting right because we can't send kids halfway across town or to the opposite side of town that's going to affect chase as well in those families yeah i think we have to redistrict either way whether we do leveled schools or neighborhood schools do we have to no but i suppose there would be there only be one neighborhood school left and it would be door

because Mr. Machado was talking about moving Wilbur students to North back with that original plan. So if South students or, you know, Southern part of town were to go to Chase, right now the North Chase line actually is Chase Street. So if you are, if you live anywhere along Chase Street School, along Mohawk, along Regan Road, on the side roads, any of those houses that actually that

physically abut properties with Chase, you're at North Elementary. You're not even at Chase Street School because you have to live south of Chase Street on the south side in order to go to the school. So if that line were to get shifted even farther south, and so if all of Chase is at north, and probably everything from maybe Buffington Street or so north

would go north and everything south of Buffington roughly would be going to Chase. With the exception of the kids who live close to north, that would be the only neighborhood school, the only neighborhood students remaining. So can I go back to what you mentioned earlier about South being used for central office and preschool? Is that like a long term or would that be like for construction,

the construction period? I think it depends on if the project that we talked about, if that proceeds then it would be a short-term fix. If there isn't the financial support to do that work, it might be a little bit longer because I don't know without with preschool staying at North and occupying those classrooms with central offices staying there and occupying that sizable space, you know,

there's 10 or so classrooms that would or or space for 10 classrooms that we could otherwise put in there uh so if they stay i i don't i don't know what would happen and then you know to this corporal's point um if south if a wall project were to happen utilizing you know it's it's far from ideal but say when fifth grade section is being worked on every fifth grader would go

south for a period of time. That would be their school. We utilized that as the place, the temporary school where kids would go while construction was happening in their part of the building. We talked about that I think with potentially with the middle school and if we need to do a project keeping the old middle school open for something like that for an old project.

I think if we're having this conversation about going down to two schools, I think we would have to go down to the two schools because the savings, we'd still have to run utilities in a building if there's going to be any humans in there. And there's going to have to be some maintenance that was done. And we just passed on a window and doors project because we didn't think that the community

would support that and the wall project so you know I feel like I feel like if we're gonna do it we have to do it and make it all work as outlined on this plan just you know just for the committee's and I think I have mentioned this at the school committee level but and obviously again, we need town support, but when we were meeting or when I

was meeting with Dr. Schoonover with the town administrator and the Board of Selectmen, correct me if I'm wrong, they seemed very supportive if they knew that there was a savings of a school closing that those funds to be allocated for a capital project. But I also I kind of agree with Mr. Venterra that perhaps we have unit A, unit section A done first before we even stop. But again, we have

to make these decisions. We can't ask for the town for more money.

We can't ask for the town, we have to first make a decision on is this what we want to do. We can't, oh well, if the town is going to approve, well are we ready to ask the town to approve? That's, all those other pieces, we can't just say, well we don't know if the town is going to approve. We need to go ask the town if

they're going to approve. If they say yes, then we start working on step two.

That's what we need to figure out together is what are the A, B, C, D, E, F. Okay, we have the funding. Okay, Unit A is going to be done. Now while Unit A is being done, now we're moving kids over and things like that. But first the concept has to be approved. If the concept is not approved, we can't just say, well, let's kick the can down. We already kicked the

can down the road last year, in my opinion. We already lost a year. But that's just my opinion. And I supported that opinion. But I don't know how many more times I'm going to kick the can down the road because there's always going to be a new kindergarten cricket coming in. There's always going to be a fourth grade cricket coming in. The fourth grade cricket is the one that's the most difficult

to move, in my opinion, because they're not going to be a cricket in the following year when they graduated from middle school. That's the most, but there's always going to be a fourth grade cricket, in my opinion. And there's always going to be a fourth grade dolphin and a fourth grade tiger or whatever. There will always be a fourth grade that's not going to graduate with their regular class, just as

Bob Camara, who was our chairperson at the time during the Wilbur closure, his daughter at that time was a fourth grade and she finished in, I believe, Chase or North. You know, so those are, first we have to approve the concept and I think that's when we need to decide if that's a concept that we want to look at. I think what I'm struggling with is that the agenda item specifically says next year. That's what we

put. That's what we put to stop the conversation. In a couple of weeks. I don't think that's reasonable. Okay. Let's worry about not closing school next year. Let's worry about what concept do we want to go with. Do we all agree that we're... I don't want to be out and I'll live here. Yeah, I think it's premature. I think that timeline is too premature because we need to go back to

the schematics. We need to get the... We need to see how much this is going to cost. We need to bring that to the town. We need to see if the MFBA is going to cover any of this money. I mean, it's going to cost millions of dollars to put walls at school. And it's going to take time. So we're going to need self-reliance. to transport those kids because all those kids

in this in these schools it's not gonna it's not gonna be it's not you you had said just with the acoustics alone so yeah this this is just too premature for me sorry John? Yeah, I mean, I had emailed you about putting this on the agenda and I, not in this form, like I, when you said, oh, it's already on the agenda, once I saw it, I knew obviously, but I didn't

realize we were shooting for next year. I just wanted to start talking about it because of all of this stuff. Like, I want to have... like I want to bring in a company or bring in this company, I don't know who it will be, to tell us, hey, there's no way you can keep this many kids in this school if we're working on it. And then we know that we, then we

know a certain concept won't work. So we would have to do something else. So that's where I thought we were going. I wouldn't have been comfortable voting on that tonight by any means anyway. But not for next year. Agreed. I think, I know it's a conversation piece to get it started on the agenda for the 2027-28 school year, but we all know it's not doable. The amount of

walls, there's 41 classrooms to be built at North. It's way too much to get done in three months. Right, because even if construction aside and acoustics aside, we have to make sure we have enough cubbies. Like I'm joking, but I'm not joking, right? We need enough physical dividers to make that quantity of classrooms that, you know, even back when North had four sections of every grade level,

did they ever have, I know it was a middle school, but did they ever have more than four sections of a grade level in each little nook?

Yes, there were. there was at least well there was some section that had five yeah second well it's currently second grade at north used to have five rooms because one of them is first grade and the other four were second grade and the current fourth grade the fourth grade you don't use that for fourth grade classrooms plus the health class yeah so they had five in that one so i

think it fit five but we've never had six and that's what this plan has.

I believe the middle school originally was six in each one of those sections. Oh, I would be interested to see those plans. I believe it was. I was looking at the plans. And how many sections? But they only had four sections back then. I think it was only five, six, seven, eight back then. So that was 20, I'm not sure what the school was built for. I'm just trying to remember.

I wasn't around. I've been told that that middle school was designed, North Middle School was designed for almost 1,000 students. But that's also when it was pretty standard to have 35 kids in the class. And no flexible seating and no specific... areas in the classroom like classrooms now you've got a zone for this you've got it you know question if we do go through the msba

for grant funding how long is that process uh it's several years for the approval because we would be applying for a core project for north elementary Not alone, I think that the application window, the statements of interest were due this past spring. So now we would get the next, we have to apply for the next cohort. Then oftentimes you don't

get approved the very first time you apply, you have to resubmit. Then maybe in your second year you can get it and then that begins about a five year period. So for the middle school which opened in 2024, I originally submitted my first statement of interest for that, I think it was in 2016. So it does take some time. And I just, and maybe it's a just

a refresher for the committee and for information for those in the public, but the reason why we did not do the south window project, Mr. Machado mentioned just not having the support It's because the window project was supposed to cost a little over two million dollars and then when we received the assessed value of the building, the assessed value was I think 1.7, 1.8 million. So

the actual work to replace the windows was going to be more expensive than the actual cost or assessed value of the building itself. And for a project, I think without having the ADA upgrades, as soon as it passes 30% or so of the assessed value is when you need to go with the accessibility compliance. So then that took a $2.2 million window project and made it $5 million or something. So that's the reason why we

backed out for South. I don't know if roof projects are included, if the cost of a roof is also factors into that same equation.

So you asked a question earlier about the north roof. Both north and Chase roofs were completed in 2007. South's was done in 2004. It had a 15-year warranty. In 2021, we had a coating put on it to preserve, to get extra life out. So that had about a 10-year extension.

So in 2031, thereabouts, we're expecting to replace the roof on south. That is over a million dollar estimate. So that alone is going to exceed the cost or the assessed value of the building, again, or at least that 30% threshold. So in just five short years to do a roof project, we're going to be in that same situation where if we need to replace the roof,

we're going to have to do this full ADA upgrade. At some point, if that building remains in the town of Somerset Sands or the school department, we are going to have to do that necessary work. Or it's going to reach a point where...

Or we can just do it... I don't know if we did it without funding from the MSBA, if we still have to. fulfill those, that obligation or not.

If it's a roof job and if it's over 30% of the assessed value, I believe 521 CMR kicks it in. So I just put that out there because of the assessed value of that building and any of the upcoming projects that are necessary is going to have that status kicked in. So just another piece of food for thought. Well, I mean, for me, that roof information, I think it creates our timeline, honestly,

because we're not going to put a new roof on a building that we're not going to be able to keep long term. So to me, now we have an end date that we have to we have to do something by, right? Backwards by design. What do we need to do now? So when we get to 2031, we're not scrambling. And we may not, and what I also heard tonight

is we may not know if we have MSBA funding. So we need to figure out what we're going to do if we don't have an answer or we didn't get it, right? I'm not saying I know what that plan is, but... My deep concern is waiting for the MSBA for approval is going to cost more money. I just want to give us an example. Our middle school costs $91 million. Swansea's middle school's price tag five years

later is about $150 million. So construction costs are going up. So that... 33% that the state is going to reimburse us, because it usually comes down to about 33% in cash, will be taking over by inflation. So just this may be one of those projects where we, the town, may have to take on its own. I don't believe we can continue to afford to wait for MSBA to continue seeing

that a school five years later is costing $500,000. 500 million, no not 500 million, but 140, 50 million dollars more. Almost a third more than what we believe. Is it 140 I think? What is Swansea looking at right now? I'm going to show a button. When this building opened, it was a little over 300 dollars per square foot.

When the middle school opened 10 years later, it was a little over $600 per square foot. The MSGA projects that are being approved now are $1,000 per square foot on average. Or $950 to $1,000 for a new build.

We're not talking new construction, but those are the construction costs right now. Can I go back to the north design for a second? In that design, is there any part of the north building that's going to become more ADA compliant since we're talking about it? Like, are there still bathrooms where the doors are not compliant? The whole building will

be, yes. The whole building? The whole building. So the two significant areas right now where it's not ADA compliant, the wing in the kindergarten, the ramp in the kindergarten wing is too steep. The railings in that hallway are too tall for elementary school age children. We have one or two ADA compliant bathrooms, but the rest are not.

So the significant costs are going to be for the ADA compliance. But the entrances are compliant. We have the elevator to access all four levels in the building. It's just the bathrooms that would be the bathrooms, water fountains. And then the classroom doors, would they be inset so that when they open? Yeah, they would have, when with walls come doors, the doors would be ADA compliant, yeah.

handles, lights, switches, everything would have to be ADA compliant because we will exceed the 30%. The only thing that I noticed and I because I know we're going to be looking at this I noticed that you kept or the designer of the North Elementary if we can go back to North Elementary they keep the gym in the middle If we were able to keep the

gym on one corner and doing all the classrooms, the pre-K and the kindergarten on the bottom, I would love to see a second floor on that. I think that there would be no windows. Not that every classroom would have windows, but I'm just saying. But I'm also thinking that even if we do keep with the windows, it would be interesting, those are some high

ceilings. Why not consider putting a second floor for administration and giving us more room? I don't remember the ceilings in the locker room area. The ceilings are, so it's... So right now here you have the two gym floors, the two locker rooms. So this part is taller than the sides. We don't have space above these for second floor. This is where the ceiling is high, so this would create

two hallways carving into some of the existing gym floors. and then providing a little bit more space for these bleachers. So this is really, if you needed some space for a second floor, it would really be here and here.

Oh, so that gym that we're seeing is the same base, except for the hallways? The tall part of the gym is from here to here. These two, this area and this area are similar. Do we really need a gym that large? Right, that's a huge... It's a massive gym. With the divider right now through the middle, you really have one gym floor here, one gym floor here, and

then the main... How many gyms... What is normally used in both gyms right now?

The lower half is used for PE class and the upper half for breaks for students, indoor recess, different... And I've seen multiple in the past, there have been multiple phys ed classes happening at the same time or maybe like adaptive PE happening on one side. So I take that my second floor idea because I didn't realize, I really thought we were a limit, like the bottom side i understand that was where

the old school committee room used to be yes uh bottom right corner yeah so i was aware of that piece but i didn't realize we're leaving the gym the same size, but... I do think a larger gym gives the flexibility of if we needed to have two PE classes running at the same time, we could make it work in the winter in that indoor space. And, you know, not that we do

things based on like rentals, but it makes it more rentable. I know that youth basketballers use that a lot in the past. I don't know if they still do, but... They do. Yeah.

So I think I would really like to see this priced out in phases because in my mind, okay, we're going to be, and this is just my thought, we're going to be planning for applying for MSBA funding. But that first phase, which I think is that one, that first phase maybe we can see if the town is open to getting a bond to do that work, right? Like

I don't know. And obviously we're gonna have to talk to Mr. Iulucci and you know none of this happens without community approval and we're not, you know, that's not happening tomorrow, I understand that, but these are just the processes that I know to exist that I think maybe could get us started with something like this.

Oh, the other thing that I just wanted to mention about, because these are just things that come to mind, right? And this will continue to happen to me all night. I won't sleep tonight. I'll be thinking about all of this.

But if South were to temporarily or long-term become administration and preschool, I don't know about other types of funding, but I know about E-rate funding. You become ineligible. They will not fund. That's technology infrastructure federal funds. So they will not fund a preschool-only building, and they will not fund a central office administration-only building. And even

if those two things are combined, it makes no difference. And I'm assuming that we use our E-rate reimbursement to update our network infrastructure based on the fact that I don't see it in the operating budget. So I'm just throwing that out there because if we're not getting a reimbursement for that third school, even if it's just for

a few years, it's going to impact the district's financial finances related to network infrastructure.

Because if you have three classrooms like 3K and kindergarten, would it cover? Yes. Is there? Yes. Well, it has to be a certain percentage. Yeah. But I can circle back with that. That's my wheelhouse. usually it's for like your wide area network, your local area network, like the Comcast internet service, right? That's kind of the big one. And then there's also hardware that can

be purchased like network switches and cabling and things like that. So firewalls. I'm just saying it out loud. So I think I think we need to give Jeff some action items so he knows clearly what information he's going to retrieve. I think he has a pretty good idea so far. Is there anything else that you need from him that we know of in this moment in terms of information

gathering? No. Jeff, do you have any questions about what you need to gather for us? No, I don't think so.

I just want to add when you mentioned E-rate, South Elementary, South School is our only Title I funded school right now too. It doesn't mean that we, that the school department would lose Title I funding, but another school would have to be designated as the Title I school. So wherever the highest population of socioeconomic needs exists would be the title of school. So whether or not that would be Chase or

the middle school assuming that but you know, I don't know. But anyway that would be another impact but we'd have to work with the state on that too. Okay.

So obviously we're going to put this on the next meeting agenda. I don't know, I know it's Well it's August 11th. Our next meeting is about a month away. You might be able to get some information to bring back to us. I think that further, there needs to be some further conversations with Town Hall. I don't know at this point, you know, if we, if we do any, you know,

official like school committee members and That kind of thing, but I think at the very least if you can talk to Mr. Iulucci, talk about our conversation tonight, see how he might advise us financially, but you know, I don't know everything about municipal financing, so. Yeah, and we also don't know how much it's gonna cost. It's a little bit of a mystery, but he might have some ideas.

And sometimes, I'm sorry? But we are moving forward and getting pricing right. Oh yeah, we need that. That's the question we need. We need that sooner than later. So I guess my question is, when it's on the next agenda, what's it going to say? It's going to be any, that's a good question.

Only because I don't... I don't think we should be dragging people out of their homes every month or twice a month if we have extra meetings because they keep saying that we're going to close the school. I mean, it's nice to see people. Maybe we should. So we've taken no official action, but I feel like there's a consensus that next year we will not be closing South School. Is that accurate? Yeah. But it sounds

like we are committed to 2031 2031 the last possible Well, I wouldn't go through 2031 that's when this the roof should have replaced but if the roof's not leaking then it doesn't have to be replaced what we should be what we should be saying is our goal is to get our school district buildings up to speed as soon as possible. You know, I don't want, because when

you stop putting dates like 2020, 2031, it kind of, then we don't, let's not get pricing, because those prices are going to be so obsolete that it's not even worth it. All I know is our North School, if we do any type of project, will be in in 15 to 20 million dollars because just the ADA compliance, the walls and all that, and we also received a report saying

that it was going to be 9 million dollars at one time. You know, I also feel getting that number is really necessary because this is CGA who designed this concept. But I would also need to have a company like AI3 to tell me if it's educational like we did with them, where they're meeting with teachers, where they're meeting with, you know, this is a bigger project.

You know, this is just a concept. That whole design may not even be the right design for us. But let's get an all-proc figure, rough figures. So... I think that's what we're looking for. Yeah, so the 2020, the 2031... i i would say let's just not use a number i that would be my recommendation let's just say we are looking forward and what the topic should be in future agendas is the

future look of Somerset Public Schools because that's exactly what it is. It's the future look of Somerset Public, of the K-5, pre-K-5 program. Because we may, by the time this design happens, like I had mentioned earlier, 8th grade might be in the high school. 5th grade might be in, I mean 5th grade might be in the middle school. There's a lot is going to happen in the next two years and you're

going to need that, you know, so I just don't want to make the agenda item so vague though that it's not reflective of what we're discussing. So I would say consolidation of elementary schools.

Future consolidation plans for elementary schools, right? Because that is clear about, I mean that's what we're doing, we're consolidating. Or that's our intent. We have to vote on that. Well, we're not voting on anything until we hear public input. And I, I mean, I like to sleep on things, but I also want all these people to sleep tonight, so. So unless there's

further discussion, I would once again suggest that we take the agenda out of order and the next thing that I would take would be public input on topics on the agenda. I'm sorry. That's okay. For the past several years in our budget proposals, we originally started with working with NASDAQ to get the enrollment trends and projections. We haven't had them now in a

few years. Sounds like it's about that time. I think it's this year. I know We haven't really started this school year yet or I'm going to mention FY28 but I think having and if there is some way where I can get a NESDEC enrollment to happen this year. It wasn't budgeted but if there's if I can fast track that is that something that you would want to

see this year or it's usually I think not done until around December. So if we wait, it would be December of 27 when we would get the report. I think we need to sort of... I would rather get it sooner. Yeah, I think that, along with the other stuff that we're going to discuss, are the things that we need to be able to move forward with whatever the plan is going to

be. But I think we need all that information to do that. The thing about the enrollment that, you know, and I know that it's, I know there's a lot of people who are experts in this and I'm not one of them, but it's just, you know, there's only a few short years until, that we have of like, birth rate data and census data before kids enter kindergarten and then back it up before that

preschool, right, three and four. So it is a little scary.

The enrollment piece is a little scary for me and I would, I personally would benefit from some more official data. Okay.

okay so um with that i will open it to public input if you would like to speak for public input i'm very bad at keeping time so i literally set a timer for three minutes if you could keep your comments to three minutes also state your name and address for the record and we would really like to hear from you come on down with steel I'm sorry I was late. I was trying to get in the

building. I couldn't get in. I just spent a lot of time looking at the birth rate. I went down to the town hall, asked for the birth rate from 2000 to present. I also forgot to ask for, which we should also be considering, is building permits. How many building permits have been pulled in Somerset? Because that will reflect the growth in Somerset is not growing. You can put a high-rise up over

on Route 6, but that is not being filled with school-age children, not with just two apartments. Those are being filled with people like me, who are retired, who are now looking to downsize, and so we're going to sell our home, which I had four kids, but nobody's going to buy my home and have four more kids, because people are not having that many children any longer. And I went and got the

enrollment from 2000, I went back to 19 something or other, but I just figured we would just do the past 10 years, okay? Especially where we build a new middle school, I mean high school, we build a new middle school. And just in the middle school, I mean just 2018, I'm enrollment from K to 8, pre-K, excuse me, pre-K. Because pre-grade keeps rising. It's 1771. Okay? Last year, we're

down to 1523. The superintendent actually shared those numbers. I don't want to use your three minutes on that. What I'm saying is, people, 1771, just like eight years ago, 1523, 1523 now we've been talking about this i think we can't keep postponing what we're going to do like victor said we have to look at how are we going to provide the great educational services that our

kids deserve how are we going to get back to the 70s with somerset people moved into somerset because of the school system all the accolades we got i I know we don't have the two-pile plans to fund it anymore, but we have really intelligent people here and we have data. We know enrollment is not going to go up. As of August, there was only 43 kids born in Somerset. On an average,

95 to 100 are born in Somerset. Massachusetts has the fourth lowest birth rate, although with the thing that was on TV today, supposedly Massachusetts is one of the best states to have a baby. So maybe it will go up in Massachusetts. But the point being is there's no more places to build here in Somerset. You're not going to see Americano Terraces, rustic acres, copper flags. You're not going to see that. So

you have to work with what you've got and you already can predict where it's going. And it's probably going to be eighth grade in high school and fifth grade in the middle school. And that's the stuff we need to talk about. We talked about redistricting two years ago. Okay? Two years ago it was mentioned at the budget meeting. We had our meetings last year. Ended up, we were not in a point

where we could make any decisions. We've got to keep looking at that though because we can't go out to 2031 and then if we do need to build a new building, have it cost $200 million. Because the other thing you have to look at is that pie chart when you get your taxes. Our birth from 0 to 18 is down to about 17% of the people in the town. There's only

one pie, guys. We have to separate it evenly and equally. The over 50 people are starting to skyrocket. We've got to look at the data and we can't wait. Please, let's not wait another year. Anybody else for public input?

Jan Martell, 141 Ingus Street. Two concerns I generally have. The first being when Mr.

Machado said, oh, we're shrinking the gym. If you're adding more students in there, you need a space where you can have assemblies for the entire school. Sorry, for some reason I'm losing my voice. And the middle school doesn't have that right now. They can't even have a 6, 7, 8... and have all the parents there. All of their presentations were standing outside like this. I have kids this upcoming year in all

three schools. South, middle school, and high school. So, I'm concerned about the entire thing.

But that is a huge issue. You need to have some place for an assembly for everybody. And with the increased numbers, I don't know if that will fit in the gym. My other question, Mr. Machado said, the fourth grader that has to switch over is the biggest problem, not problem, but the biggest concern, have we ever thought about doing a progression? Like next year's

kindergarteners don't go there. Kindergarten is only in, you know, Chase and North or, you know, kindergarten and first grade and let the older kids graduate out. Then that won't be an issue.

So just two things to consider. Thank you very much.

That's the greatest creative problem for them. Justin Silva, 18 Milan Ave. A couple points I have. My first is kind of a question about class sizes and if we're reducing our enrollments down and our classes are only like 20, but that's the reason a lot of us move to Somerset as a parent of young children and knowing other people, we moved to Somerset because the class sizes were low. I have a

lot of friends in Swansea who their class sizes are in the high 20s and they send their kids to private school. They don't send them to the public school because of the class sizes. I think that's an issue you're going to run into, like attract young families if you end up with large class sizes it's something that we do not want for our children a class size of 20 with this generation

is hard enough to take care of I spent six years as a psych nurse this is a different generation than generations ago it is much harder to manage a classroom of 20 the to the comment about we can save the 10 million dollars and we can put up the walls we already said that we saved the 10 million dollars when we didn't move the fifth grade to the middle school and now

we're going to say oh we're going to use the money from south to do it well you said you were going to do it before and you didn't do it then so i don't know how much sense that really makes um and talking about like not using emotions in our judgment i think It's important that emotions are part of it, not the whole part of it, but emotions are like having emotionally

present teachers and families make a big difference in a school community. We have a hard time with our PTOs already at all the schools getting parents involved. We are asking parents to travel farther. I think you're gonna have a much harder time keeping parents involved. It's much harder to go to events at farther places. But having a school that has a close-knit community makes a big difference for kids in their

social-emotional development. And I think that's kind of an important thing to consider. Saying emotions don't matter doesn't, doesn't, or shouldn't fly. Thank you. Hello, Brian Michaud, 222 Highview Avenue. Just a couple of thoughts I jotted down. I'm glad that you said that South won't close for the '27-'28 school year because having lived through a building project, you need to have a building

that's got moving parts When we did it at Dighton Elementary, you needed to have a section of the school that you just couldn't use because while they were working on that, you had this grade go here, and when they worked on that part of it, that grade moved there. So you needed to have the flexibility. You couldn't be at max capacity. And then the other thought is depending on how many, and

I think it was alluded to contractual obligations as far as prep time, you might need one and a half of the various specialists. So that would also mean two art rooms, two music rooms, or at least space for that. So that would be something in consideration. The third point, just briefly, redistricting committee came up. I was on it. We put a significant amount of time into that. If it is reconvened, I

think that it should be the original committee or those people who want to be part of it not to outsource for that. We have a very intelligent group of people who are very dedicated to the process. And as an educator, just to give you a quick overview, there is no evidence of any benefit of doing leveled schools.

All of the research that's out there says that having neighborhood schools where the longer you can keep students in one school the better. It develops relationships between the students and administration. It develops relationships between the parents and the teachers. And the less transitions you have in a student's educational journey, the more they succeed. So do the research

yourself, or I could share all the research that I've done. There's nothing out there that says leveled schools are better. And all the thought behind it makes sense, though.

Teachers can collaborate, and everybody can get on the same page. There's not one shred of evidence that said it works. And it's all about how kids feel about their neighborhood school and the relationships that they build there. So, that's my two cents. Thank you. Deb Boudreau, 223 Houghton Cole Lane.

I have two kids that go to South School. Two completely different kids as their teachers that are here in the room would say. One is special needs, has dyslexia and has a lot of support at South School. I can't tell you the amount, I understand you say take the emotion out of it and I agree with Jocelyn.

You can't take all the emotion out of it. We can't just be robots and just form things and say, "Oh, no, this works better because, you know, we save money. Great, we save money, but at what cost?" My daughter is going into second grade in kindergarten. It took her almost a full year to adjust to school. She cried, cried, cried, cried, and she wasn't behavioral. She's not a behavioral kid at all.

They love her. However, it took her a full year to adjust. She loves self.

She is adjusted, even though some of the teachers have left, we've had a new principal. You know, kids can handle all that, but when you take kids out of their environment and move them to a different place, now you're going to have construction.

Now you're going to have these kids and move them. I mean, how many times are we going to reroute our kids? I think Brian had a great thing that says, you know, kids learn better in their own environment the longer they stay. However, our proposal is let's move kids 55 times in order to get this construction done.

You're gonna move one grade to this grade and then this grade to South. Then you're talking about maybe using South as kindergarten and preschool or whatever you're using. Either way you still have to put money into South. If we keep South open, how do we not pay for South? And if that's the case, why are we moving kids around just to pay for the stuff for South? Why can't we just keep

our kids there? It makes no sense to me at all. I think it's detrimental.

I think that teachers are going to lose their job. I'd like to know how many classrooms. You know, they're going to be for each grade, how many kids are going to be in these grades, how many parents are going to be with these kids, how many special needs teachers are going to be, because I'm telling you right now, my kid gets tons of stuff. I am overwhelmed with the amount of support

that my child gets. And it's just not my child. There's tons of kids that are one-to-one and inclusion and have all kinds of needs. You know, my kid is just one piece of the puzzle. However, you know, you disrupt all these kids that already struggle on a daily basis, and what do we get? We want to bring back, as that lady said, we want to bring back how wonderful we were in

the 70s. Well, we keep moving kids around. They don't get an education. We ain't bringing nothing back. So that's my two cents. Thank you. I'm going to have to talk to them that I live in Somerset. I did write for an hour to get here. My name is Karen Ferriera. I'm a teacher at South. I have been a teacher here for I want to say this is my 17th year. I was at Wilbur.

I was actually one of the kindergarten teachers that Victor mentioned where my classroom was closed halfway through the year. My class went from 12 kids to 21 kids in January. We absorbed that. I went to every meeting to advocate for Wilbur to stay open. I think I was naive back then, being a younger teacher, wanting that small school. There was a lot of emotion in it. Coming to this meeting today, I

kind of just want to throw this lens at you. I understand the need to close South, and I know that's kind of like, but I see it now as, you know, an older professional and the benefit to the kids. We were in Wilbur with buckets in our room with every time it rained because the roof needed to be fixed, but we didn't have the money for it. I don't want to see

that happen to South. I don't want to see us postpone to postpone, and we're not going to put money into this school when we need it. You know, I want our kids to have a safe, welcoming, warm environment. Coming from a staff perspective, Closing Wilbur and moving to South for me was really traumatic. We were not given boxes to pack up our rooms. We had to buy our own boxes. We were

not given time to pack up our rooms. When I moved to South, my summer was unpacking my classroom. So I want you to think about removing these classes that if that's how it has to be done, really think about supporting your staff because that's going to be a lot for us and we're going to put a lot of our own time into that because we love our job, we love our children

and that gives me anxiety thinking about moving them multiple times. It's just, I know this is way down the road but I, in case I don't make it here another time, you know, really think about what that's going to need for your staff.

Please talk to them and ask them what they need and how they can be helped because I feel like when Wilbur was closed that didn't happen and that was really traumatic and thinking of having to do that again is really difficult for me as an educator knowing the time that you want to put into that. So as you move forward with this project I understand it as an educator what needs to

be done. I grew up in Somerset. I have a very close tie to this community. Just think about how you can best help the staff to best help the kids. Thank you. Melon Crowley, 40 Clark Street. So my kids actually go to North. So obviously we're talking about changes and I know a lot of South parents are here, but this is the whole community of Somerset.

So the biggest thing I hear, and I know we've kind of taken the 27-28 timeline off of it, but I think to be very mindful to act quicker than later. I agree with the teacher from South from what I hear from all of my friends there. It's a matter of time and so not just to kick the can but be very mindful that like action needs to happen sooner than later. I

think enough people in the town talk about North Elementary and the walls that I think the community will be behind like finally we're coming into the 21st century like walls in the classroom, congratulations. And I think it has the space available there in the building to do it if the building is done correctly. I reiterate a lot

what was said already, like two specialty classrooms if needed. Like if we're thinking about having a number of students in there, there might be two arts that are going on at the same time. So just being very mindful of that or the quiet spaces that are needed for those one-on-one times and all the specialty resources that are going to be available there. I also wrote down the staggered start, starting with the

younger kids, like that unit A being the first part to transition where you have the younger grades and then you can just start with a fresh grade where you have your tiger crickets all together and what that looks like and then transition over to the older kids too and doing as much zoning as you possibly can. I know it's not always feasible, but the sound in there, if you have not ever

been in North Elementary, the sound, you can hear a pin drop two classrooms over with the way it is. So without those walls, putting more kids is just, it's not conducive to anybody's learning. Talk about trauma for the teachers. I walk out with a headache every day. I think too, just being aware of the limit movement for the kids. That's why I suggest the staggered start for the younger kids and the

teacher impact. I think that was a great lens to really throw out. What does this look like? What does this feel like for them? I know siblings was kind of briefly mentioned. Yes, it will be difficult from some siblings. I think we're very lucky in Somerset to have the ability that we do with the buses. I think that makes a huge difference for folks. Sometimes I see in my community not enough

parents taking advantage of the bus. And I know this is a whole different conversation.

I think it's because people don't understand the bus schedule, which is a weird thing to say. They don't know when it's coming to their house and how it works.

So I think some psychoeducation too to the community, especially if you're talking about potentially busing folks from south to north. What does that practically look like for you? What time am I putting my kid outside my door and what time does it get them to north? Parents worry about that because kids worry about that. So just kind of keeping that frame in mind. And then I agree with keeping the

previous redistricting committee together because redistricting is going to have to happen in some degree. So just keep that in mind. Thank you.

Hi, Kim Mitchell, 222 Highview Avenue. Just want to speak from a few different perspectives. So one is as a local realtor, we might see an increase in the population of school-aged children because some of the elderly are selling their homes as Patty had alluded to, and some young families may be moving into the area, especially maybe the Americana Terrace area where their homes are

a little bit smaller than some of the larger areas of the newer developments.

So that might be the only affordable, the more affordable option to some young families that are starting to grow and starting to have their families there.

And I can think of multiple examples of this that have happened in my own neighborhood of Americana Terrace. I have a daughter that just graduated from North Elementary School, and she'll be entering the middle school this year. Just a couple of other ideas.

The staggered start. which the other woman just spoke about, I had that jotted down, trailers or modulars for a piece of time to maybe use for either office space or a preschool space. I'm not sure of the logistics behind that or the space, the space at the Chase Street and North Elementary School campuses or the South School campus for that matter. But that's something just to kind of think about. I think we have to

look at it as making a well-informed decision and engage all the stakeholders, right? So we need to show the value of why the school committee makes a certain decision or proposal. based upon the facts and the research and the data, why is it valuable for a retiree who lives in the community to get behind this, right? Why is it valuable for a

middle-aged single person to get behind investing in our schools and the education of our youth, which might be a very simple answer for some of us, but some people might not have thought of things a certain way. Why would, it's pretty obvious as why a young family would be in favor of this. But I think that we need to show the value and that the work has been done and when

we're proposing these changes. I also think that we need to have an all-hands approach. So what can Kim Misho do to help move this along as a taxpayer in the town, as a parent in the town, as an employee of a health system that's neighboring? what can we do? How can we engage the talents of our seniors that might be able to help with elements of developing this

program or this plan? So I think it's more like You know, when somebody is going through a difficult time, I heard the timer, when somebody's going through a difficult time, our community comes together with GoFundMes or fundraising events. We almost need to treat this as this is a dire need for our community and how can we all get our hands on deck. Thank you. Thank you. And we hope we can

put it this time. Okay. Thank you all very much.

We appreciate your input. We appreciate you being here tonight.

Do we want to take a short recess so that people who would like to leave can do so without disrupting the meeting and we can take a little movement break before we resume our lengthy agenda? Sure. Okay. We will adjourn for 10 minutes. Thank you.

Good for him.

Where you guys working at? Oh, we got a job in the sauna we're doing. We got another job in Tivoli. We got a job in the farm. We got a job in the farm. Oh, yeah, yeah. You guys really are a big addition on that. Big addition on the back of it. Do they do the driveway? No. They do it in the back.

Yep.

I went by, it was a while ago, I was picking up my stuff from school. I had a dog from the province, headed in that way, and I just drove by him like, oh my gosh. Oh shit, the house is so much taller than it was.

So that's funny. Yeah, I put the big addition on with the garage and I put the addition during COVID on the back of the house. And then the last time we did the, put the second floor on. Prices went up through the roof when you were doing that addition though. Material wise? A buddy of mine just built a house. I helped him out. I did the kitchen. So you're still doing stuff

for him? I'm a teacher now. Okay. I teach you that. I taught at Derfus for 11 years, construction, labor. Anything labor we do on the job site, I'll do water sewer gas roadway sidewalks.

- I gave him my offer online. Okay. We signed the line. Good. I never thought I'd go back to teaching, but I love it. Don't break my back. I've made the kids go out in the cold, but you've got to get used to the elements. But it's good. I mean, how could I complain? I was doing commercial construction before I came to teach at Boston. I know you were working

for a while. I was going to my freshman year and I already had worked the whole summer for it.

You were doing interior to bank and restaurant? Everyone's going to do interior school, but very small. We do a lot of work at Cast and Pig.

We did that renovation there. His other restaurant, Boca. He just bought Soca, which used to be the old ice house. Oh, okay. He bought that too? Yeah. I'm actually going to Soca tomorrow. I'm going to go to Soca and fix some stuff in the cooler.

cash out And then I would rip off the entire teller line, the back line, redo the entire thing.

They'd be coming back in at 8 o'clock in the morning, and I was walking out. And I would work for about 13 hours, but they would walk into a brand new teller line, and then the floor guys would go in, put down the new flooring, and then be done all of the day. We'd have a whole brand new bank the next three years.

Oh, okay.

We did all the Webster Bank, all the Sontag and they came in. We did all the... Okay. And like their home office was there. Yeah. Yeah, we would just do the inside. We'd always be the subs on the job. We did a bunch of, like the ATMs. When they changed the ATMs, had to go in there, cut the wall. They came in, put the

ATM in, and then we shipped rockets back up. And all the people are like, oh, you see that inside the vault? It's crazy. We were all censored, computerized and everything. How many times I've moved a chair and working and all that.

No, no, no.

So, it already has all of the sprinkler systems, right?

It's in all brand new windows. So, now they have flexible heads? So, now, I mean, it's easier. I mean, what are you going to do? They're not pressurized. Take a little dry system. Yeah, dry system.

- We used to do a lot of work with Yeah. I know MSDA. I know it's a two-year project.

I just wanted to put it out there before somebody could say, Yeah.

yeah Yeah.

um Deborah Boudreau.

B-O-U-D-R-E-A-U.

um I just came from Florida, so I'm going to Bethel. Hi, Carlton. We went to school together. He was a freshman, and I was a senior. I was a senior, and he was a freshman. Yeah, that went well. - We get that.

- We get it. - I've heard from Mr. Moss's and all of Tyler. - Oh, you do? - Yeah. - We talked about phasing and it's like, we're not gonna, okay, demo half of the building, do something. Okay, everybody come in now, what are you gonna do? Just move the third, fourth graders? I get it, section one, and I get it. What are you gonna do with that building? Sell it? What

are you gonna do, add them to a continent? How much is that gonna cost?

How's that gonna help? - So they're saying they get money for section one. Okay, that gets approved. How many sections do they have? - Well, I would personally do, it's like you're gonna put an addition on your house. Right, you go to the bank. - Yeah, okay. - You go to the bank, right? - We live under construction, we get it. - You get a loan for, say, 20 million. You're gonna

say, hey, listen, we're going on five years on this loan, we're gonna do phase one, phase two, and the bank is just gonna give you that money, and you're gonna have that $20 million loan, Okay.

versus the six dollars They realize Right.

yeah Yeah.

There's an article in the paper. They want to spend $15 million on life and needs of governments that have been borrowing. Holy shit. I'll do it for $12 million. That government says, how long? An eighth of a mile? By what? Say, a quarter of a mile? Oh, they just jacked it up. It's incredible. It's so We're going to You know, I'm wondering.

Alright, let's reconvene so we don't stay all night. Jeff, what time do the custodians leave?

I'm just, what time do the custodians leave? Okay. Yep. We're gonna be, we're gonna be moving along.

Alright.

All right.

The records show that we resumed at 7:49 p.m. Moving back to our Agenda in order, new business item number one, discuss and act on the approval of the memorandum of agreement for custodians contract July 1st, 2026 to June 30th, 2029. Is there any discussion on this item? Madam Chair, I would like to make a motion that we approve the MOA, the memorandum of agreement with the

custodians, effective contract date being July 1st, 2026 to June 30th, 2029. So moved.

We have a motion and a second by Ms. Forvo. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? So voted. I'm sorry, I put the vote aye. Okay. I was typing. He missed the vote and then he didn't want to seem like a no, so thank you for making sure it was clear.

All right, moving on to item number two, discuss and act on the approval of side letter of agreement with paraprofessionals regarding long-term substitute teacher assignments. Is there any discussion on this item? Hearing none, I would entertain a motion to approve the side letter of agreement with paraprofessionals regarding long-term substitute teacher assignments. So moved. Second. We have a

motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye.

Any opposed? So voted. Item number three, discuss and act on the reappointment of Dr. Stacey Resnick as the school physician for the 2026-2027 school year. Is there any discussion on this item? Hearing none, I would entertain a motion to reappoint Dr. Stacey Resnick as a school physician for the 2026-2027 school year. So moved. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? So voted. All right, we have for item number four, the districts, the Somerset Public School Committee and the Somerset Berkeley Regional School Committee summer retreat follow-up. The first sub item on this agenda item is we are self-disclosing an open meeting law violation.

We had a brief conversation about artificial intelligence and school safety and it was not on the agenda so we are reporting out on that now. Michael. So, Just to, do you want to recap what you said though so that it's public? Yeah, so I went to a safety and security conference in Orlando and the things I brought up were about AI and cell phones really and what it's doing to

children. So right now 72% of all high schoolers have used AI as a companion. And 52% of all high schoolers use it as a companion on the regular. Some quite often. And then also the third factoid was that 44% of high school seniors feel alone weekly or daily. And then we just, we had a little bit of discussion about that, but those were the three facts that I introduced. Okay, thank you. Is

there any further discussion on that disclosure? Okay, thank you very much. The other item on the agenda is to consider an act on the draft operating protocols, but I would like to table this as what we discussed at the retreat was for... The operating purpose for the calls to go to the policy subcommittee as recommended by our MISD representative And then you know because this is really just a

first draft But I thought we would leave it on the agenda and give you You know copy to look at in the event that you have any feedback that you would like the policy subcommittee members to take back to the subcommittee Is there any feedback or thoughts at this point? Can I just ask? Is it appropriate to talk about any of the retreat at this point? Yes, absolutely. First of all, I think the committee, it's

been a long time since we had a retreat. The only pot that And this is not really criticizing any of the organized because you put in a lot of time So, please I just felt that the information that we got that meeting was more of an orientation So I hope that follow-up ones that we do have would be very more student focus or focusing on our roles but

one of the things that i have to leave early um one of the things that i thought that i feel like maybe the chair can reach out to our representative first i completely agree when a committee votes on something we should speak on that approval But there are times that only being a member of a school committee does not give, is not a reason to give up your rights. For instance, I'm going to

use a great example. I was at a town meeting and I want future school committee members never to feel like, "Okay, I was a four to one and I can't speak on this matter anymore." I think it's wrong to say that.

I was a 6 to 1 vote and at town meeting I was singled out which forced me to get up and speak. The town voted down the article because I said why I voted no. So we're a strong voice here but when we're at town meeting you have to remember you are citizen first. I disagree with our representative and I want just to let you

know that because you should always feel that you're an individual. Secondly, you cannot say that we should be great to each other, we should speak kind to each other, we should work well together, we should always find that the very first thing he did was he threw Fall River School Committee under the bus. That is very unprofessional, full of school committee members, are members of our association. I think

we need to direct that. I don't think it was right because we could have said something that was foolish in that meeting and now we being used at other school committees by name or by title. It should be, hey, at a school committee members sometimes do this, but to actually be singled out, I was very embarrassed. Being there, so I think we really need to say that because I personally will never

said sit in a committee where he's directing it because I don't know if he's going to use what I say to another committee. So, but besides that, it was very interesting to know that we can't use public input, we shouldn't be using public input, you know, to mention things. I would challenge that because, again, we are a member of the community, but But I think it was really good

to have a refresher, especially when, you know, we realized that we caused an open meeting violation, so, and we self-disclosed today. So, thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to touch on what you said initially about being more of an orientation at the beginning. I do think that there was some refresher material. The beginning of the training was about roles and responsibilities, but

after you had to leave, we did come to a point in the conversation where we talked about how what we did that night differed from the initial training, MASC training. Because in the space that we were in, we could revisit something that, you know, if you hadn't talked about it since your initial training after being elected, you know, it's a good refresher for everybody. But it also gave us an

opportunity, more so at the end, so, you know, it's obviously we're there for this and it wasn't filmed, so that's why I'm saying it now. There was an opportunity for us to talk about some of those things and how we interpret that, what it means to us and what it means to our counterparts to help us understand different people's interpretations of those things and why sometimes, you know, I might think it's

one way, you might think it's another, we both think we're right, we both think we're following the rule and how can we get on the same page about what these things mean collectively just so that we can work as well together as possible.

But I appreciate your feedback. Any other feedback about the retreat? Okay, thank you very much. Oh, the only other thing I wanted to mention that we did talk about having a budget workshop because we've talked about not, you know, having budget process and wanting to learn more about that. So we talked about, and I'll follow up in terms of getting, you know, a date set in stone, but we talked about December being

a possible date because it's right before we get into the thick of budget season after the new year. So I'll circle back when I have a date for that.

Okay, moving on to the superintendent's update. Dr. Spoonover. Okay, thank you.

First item is in the agenda is the South Coast Educational Collaborative and READS Collaborative quarterly reports that are in your folder. If you could, if you've reviewed that or if you can't review that, if you have any questions, just please let me know. But as I shared earlier, this, or I guess the previous school year now, we'll be sending you those reports every three months. We have a

number of staff appointments for you to review here from a variety of positions, lots of classroom teachers, support staff. We do have on here, at least, I did want to point out Crystal Burt, who is our new North Elementary Assistant Principal. uh and i think at our previous meeting we had the official approval for mr redfern is that correct and

with those appointments some of those were the result of the resignations that are just below them others are the result of the retirements that we were celebrating in the spring and then fill in some of those positions There is one other resignation that I learned of yesterday and unfortunately he's not here right now, but Mr. Mark Green, wishing him well. He's leaving South as our head

custodian and he is moving over to Town Hall and the library. So he's shifting, still in town, but shifting over to the municipal side. So we thank him for his nearly 23 years of service. to the Somerset Public Schools and wish him all the best. He had quite an impact on students, whether it was at Middle School, South, over the years, wherever he's been, and

his connection, just watching him in the hallway or in the cafeteria his connections with kids. He knows every kid fist-bumping. He has something unique with most of the kids and just as we heard from some of the parents with the public input the relationships matter and Mr. Green was always there creating positive relationships with our students. So thank him for his service and wish him the best.

I want to Continuing with facilities, I want to thank Mr. Poirier, saying it right. I shared with you a few weeks ago, I think, some of the work that he's been managing and some things that were totally unexpected when the summer began, but they happened anyway.

And Matt has just been handling each of these events like a seasoned pro, and I just, I can't thank him enough for everything he's done. We have at the elementary levels, we have chased windows and north windows that are underway. He's managing a bunch of projects at the high school and just everything else that happened over the summer with building inspections and

elevator inspections and elevator repairs and you name it. He's been handling it all and really well. So with some of those big projects at North Elementary, we started the asbestos removal of windows actually last Monday. So if you visit North Elementary on the west side of the building, starting around the main office side, You'll see that the windows are out, plywood is in, we

have temporary windows, the same ones that we used for Chase are being placed into those and they're going to work their way around the building. We decided this is the most opportune time to do it. The windows won't be installed. The permanent window is not until mid-October into the first or so week of November.

But to do the asbestos abatement now because of the windows were fine, but some of the material in the frame and that's... The mastic, yeah, the glues.

So it won't... So we figured this is just the safest option for our students. So that's happening now and that will be done before students and our staff return to school. But anyway, Mr. Poirier, thank you. He's doing a ton of work this summer. And then I think the only other thing I wanted to mention, we had Director of Teaching and Learning interviews last Thursday and

Friday, and I have two finalist interviews later on this week. So that is also some news, some good news I'll be sharing with you, if not the end of this week, the beginning of next week. Very good, thank you very much. Any questions or comments? Currently regarding like obviously with Mr. Green, Great Moss, I heard everything you said. Currently how many positions are not filled or, well let me rephrase that, that

hasn't had interviews or ready to be appointed? Because I know you probably have some that's getting ready to be appointed or whatever, so I was just curious. I don't know. I'd have to get back to you on that one. I'll share that information with all of you. Our principals have done a really amazing job filling all the appointments that we have. July was a busy month, as

you can see from this list. I don't think-- there are certainly not many, but I will get you that information, share it with the five of you. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Okay, moving on to item number six, public records request. You have listed June and July combined. Any questions for discussion about that? Okay, hearing none, we'll move on to item number seven, discuss and act on dates for annual building inspections. This was like the shortest summer ever in a while anyway. So, I need to do a talk with Jason. So Ms. Corville would

like to do North and Chase. Any other preferences? I would like to do North and Chase as well, if I could. Mm-hmm. I would like to go back to the middle school and see those art room floors in person. I'll meet you there. I'm joking. Okay. Where would you like to go? What's the ritual? I have no problem. If I, like I'm okay if I just do the middle school, you

know, you could do South. That was the other. Okay. Is that good? You can split the difference? Yeah. Okay. So looking at the weeks, I know that there was one year that I can't remember if it was the region or here, but we did a walkthrough on the first day of school and the custodians were very anxious about that. I would like to avoid that. They don't want us to see

their work after all the students have come through. They want us to see before it's been touched. See, Labor Day is the happiest. Whatever day makes them the happiest. I can come over any day.

What about the first week of September? How does that look? That's when school stops. Oh, I'm sorry. So the 31st and the 1st are the two professional days. Yeah. And then students start the 2nd and the 3rd.

How about the 31st? Yeah. 31st. 31st. So it's just staff, right? It's just staff? So that could be an option. Could we come in 19th?

I think anything will work, I'm sure. Some of the buildings might not be 100% done, but they're all very well, they're all actually fathered. Okay.

Especially with all the projects going on. Well then let's try to get in there before the staff come in, so we're not in the way.

I was looking at the 24th or 25th, if that's...

As long as it's the first thing in the morning. Oh, the high school is the 25th, like evening. We're looking at the week of the 17th for... Next week.

Yeah, for Chase and North. It's fine with me if it's fine with you. I think last year when we went to North, I think there was still some stuff in the hallways. The hallway is always the last thing. Yeah. So because... North was used for ESY, so if there is some of that, it causes a delay.

And South was a very busy school this summer between the Title I program and the Recreation Department. And I think the Rec Department is there through this Friday.

So they're still utilizing some of the spaces there. So it's just, they'll be still in the middle of cleaning some of the spaces. I'm sure Mark would love to have a final walk through. Just thinking. His last day is the 21st. I'm sure Mark would love that. We would have to post a public meeting. 19th? Alright, so we're here chasing north the 19th. Yep. Morning out, first thing in the morning. Well,

we're not doing 7:45 like you'd like to do. Well, I'm doing... We're walking out to custodians. I know. How about like 9-ish? Does that work for you? He's an early bird, I know that. Oh yeah. Is 9 okay? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. 9? Do you want to start chasing? Yeah. We'll start at chase? Start at chase? Yep.

on the 19th at nine do you have a day that you prefer um morning monday the 24th is that better for you what's better for the team in the middle school it doesn't matter that was six to two is their schedule so any time between those hours is fine okay I can do the 24th. Yeah, the 24th would be best for me if it works for you. I can make the 24th work. Can you

make the 24th? Because if they're going to do the middle school. Yeah, so whatever time you guys go, I'll do it later. Yeah, you know, tap out and you can tap in. Because I'm doing the middle school and he's doing soft book. Victor's doing both, so... Okay, so we're in the hour or so at the middle? Yeah. So 10 o'clock itself? Can I just stop you for

a quick second? How does your 21st look? I'm sorry, not you, Jen. I'm meaning... I can go any day. Would you like to go on the 21st so we can see Mark one last time?

Yeah, that's fine. Alright, so we'll put the both middle and south. No, no, no, we'll leave south as is because that's a bigger school anyways. I mean the middle school is a bigger school, so south will just go in. Do south on the 21st. Does that work? Yeah, the only thing is on the 24th, can we do earlier than that, please? no it's like 45 45. thank you

all right seven and middle yeah and 8 21 what time works for you and your team we're all in by seven so what time would you like i don't know anything whatever the question let's do seven okay

Now where did North fit in on this? I feel like I missed that. North and Chase are the 19th. So we're starting on it at Chase at 9. After Chase, okay. And then we're going North. 10-ish. 10-ish. So you're starting at Chase? Yep.

Then doing Head? Yep. 9 a.m. now. Yep. Great. Thank you very much. All right.

We've already had the first public input, so we're going to move on to teaching and learning, and I will turn it over to Ms. Corville to do the June Raiders of the Month. The middle school June raters of the month are: Congratulations guys.

Thank you very much. Okay, moving on to item number two, a strategic plan update. Dr. Spoonover? Okay, so I shared with you the draft that's in there, and I know I could talk about this for a while, which I will not do this evening, but you have it there. I just wanted to give you sort of a quick overview of where we are right now. As we saw at the MASC retreat, this This plan influences my

goals, your goals, school improvement goals, administrator goals, right?

Everyone's collective work really feeds from this document and then with the ultimate goal with that pyramid that we saw was student achievements at the peak. So, I'll Like I said, you have the longer draft document right now. There's still some pieces that need to be populated that I worked with the administrators last week. I just need to input that. But just to give this overview for you. When this work

started last November, December with surveys, we surveyed all students grades 6 through 12. families, faculty and staff. We had several thousand surveys that initially fed into this system. Then we had that event that took place at the middle school in January, and then principals did work with their staff at faculty meetings in the winter and the spring.

Some work with students continued at the middle school and the high school. I worked with administrators gathering all the information and putting it together and discussing different components of it. So a lot of input and voices from all stakeholders went into this. There were a few, these are like the three big themes that were coming out. There was the importance of the relational trust.

We heard that from some of the parents tonight about, you know, the relationships really matter. So that was something that everyone kept saying, just saying that it is a strength of ours already and we need to maintain the focus on the relationships. Certainly a need that came out of this was the vertical alignment that exists. And obviously we have a unique system with two school districts, that kind

of functionally operate as one in many instances.

but still it is two unique school districts. But maintaining that pre-K to 12 vertical alignment and incorporating Berkeley and Berkeley, particularly Berkeley Middle School as one of our two primary feeders as much as we can as well. We can't force Berkeley to participate, but the importance of including them whenever we can and as much as they want

is also something that came out as being really important. This is not just from curriculum standards or what's happening in the classroom instructionally, but just the systems from central office and are there things that we can do to improve just that alignment for all teachers so that there aren't separate silos, everyone's rolling in the same direction. And then

the third thing was just this future ready learning. the need for financial literacy, the need for AI and digital readiness, importance of civics, early college from grades 6 through 12, and not just, early college and career readiness starting in grade 6. So these are the things that whoever we talked to, they were focusing on those big pieces. Just as a reminder, we know our Vision of

the Graduate, Rater, we want students to be resilient, academic, independent, digital citizens, empathetic and respectful. So with strategic plans, we tend to focus, there are usually four primary pillars.

And regardless of what school district you look at, whether it's in the Commonwealth or throughout the country, you tend to have Four areas: one is on improving teaching, one is on improving student learning, one is on management and operations, and another one is family and community engagement. There are exceptions, but primarily those are the four big buckets that school district strategic plans focus on. So

for our first pillar for teaching excellence, as I said, establishing this pre-K to 12 consistency as best we can. There was a frequent request for pre-K to 12 alignment committees. There were a lot of pre-K to 12 work that existed years back, so a lot of teachers we spoke with saw the importance of that work. So we want to bring that back as

best we can. Identifying what are our instructional non-negotiables. The idea of just more feedback for not just for teachers, but for all staff. We know that teachers are the number one factor in the so I'll insert teacher as much as I can here. But whether it's an administrator who's providing that non-evaluative coaching feedback, or the last one here,

teachers involved in observing themselves, each other, opening up their doors, letting other teachers come in, and learning, sharing and learning with each other without the administrators being part of that. That was something else that we heard pretty consistently. And having, so I skipped the professional learning, ensuring that we have a balanced

professional learning for our teachers, where we're offering meaningful PD, where we're balancing what the district needs. So for instance, this year at the elementary level, we're rolling out a new literacy curriculum. There isn't going to be as much choice this year for elementary teachers because that is such a big task that's ahead of us, so it will be more

focused for that, but we have to ensure that there are other opportunities so that they're also being offered things that is more unique to their specific needs and not just what the district wants. So, you know, what is that right balance between district priorities and personal choice? So we heard that loud and clear and we need to make sure that we do put all effort into making sure that

teachers are getting the PD that they need. The next pillar is student learning and growth. And these are, it's not everything, but you have the full document, but ensuring that a pre-K to 5 multi-tier system of supports, that's what MTSS is, is strengthen as best we can, but then we're also streamlining the SSD process, the student success team

process. So how are we identifying students who need academic support, social emotional support.

What is that system like? We want to make sure that it's easy for the teacher, the counselor, the administrator, whoever it is to recommend a student, but then also make sure we have the right supports and the time, the structures within the school day to provide those supports. Currently it says pre-k to 5, but really I think this is that will probably be adjusted because that is something that we need to

do pre-K to 12. We've had this emphasis on chronic absenteeism and reducing that. We've done a phenomenal job. We don't have the numbers yet for the 25-26 school year, but we know, if you recall from a year ago, the improvement that we saw from 24-25, 23-24 to 24-25 was amazing. It looks like we're on about the same track as we were the previous year, so we're

sustaining that But there's always, we could always improve that because we know the more kids are in school, the better they're going to do, the more they're going to succeed. A lot of this is also influenced by the state graduation requirements, even though this is Somerset, pre-K to 8. The work does not start in high school, right? So everything that we're doing in pre-k to 8,

we need to make sure that kids, if they're doing capstones as a graduation requirement in high school in 2031, that that's not the first time they're doing something. and where kids are getting those experiences, more project-based learning, MICAP readiness, all of this is going to start in grade six, if not sooner.

So there is a huge component there for for the career readiness that you see here. Along with that is the language expansion.

This past year we had a successful Spanish 1 in eighth grade and some exploratory in grade seven. We heard from students, you'll hear from students again this year I'm sure about how that's going, certainly from Dr. McKinnon. So we want to continue that and one of our goals is to have 25% of all eighth graders moving on to the high school with the equivalent of

Spanish 1 behind them. One of the things that we're trying to be creative with, we keep talking about early college at the high school, how can kids, seniors, juniors from high school take classes at UMass Dartmouth, Richard Pond, Bristol Community College or Bridgewater State and earn both high school credit and college credit and give them those experiences. We want to create the same system here.

So is there a way where we can have a student who wants to, say an eighth grade student, can they take a class at Berkeley? while they're still a student here in the middle school and get their begin to get their high school credit those experiences while they're still here, but we think we can take that early college model and move it down So that's one of the things that we want

to explore that's on the ladder and of this plan like years three through five the first couple but the planning would start soon and then for student learning I've shared with you about the achievement of our students with disabilities and how we're just not moving that needle. So we are already in the process of conducting a special education review just to get someone else to look at our service delivery model to

see if there is something that we can do to improve.

For facilities and operations, there are several different actions related to facilities master planning and maintenance plans, but whether it's Somerset or Somerset Berkeley, establishing a multi-year plan for our buildings, modernizing our spaces, implementing routine cleaning and maintenance plans for our schools, asset plans like for instance the middle school we know that and for this building

too an HVAC system that was installed in 2014 or 2024 what is the life expectancy of something like that when should we begin to expect repair so we need to really forecast all of those expenses because we know that they are They come pretty quickly, sometimes unexpectedly, but we can try to do a better job of being prepared for it. And we know that it always comes down to, "Okay,

this is not something we foresaw, so how do we handle this?" We talked a lot tonight, earlier, about enrollment. So how can we, what can we do to sustain the enrollment? And it's not, like we're not losing students to private schools like a lot of school districts are. We just don't have the students who are moving into, or the younger families moving into town. And we heard from a

real estate agent tonight about the older population selling their houses. But it's extremely expensive, no matter what town you're in. When you're buying a 1500 square foot ranch for $500,000 or $600,000, I don't know how young families are affording this. So it's a bigger problem, but still, we need to do the best job that we can to ensure that we are making everyone aware that Somerset is the place that you should

come to raise your family. And work has already begun at the middle school to look at the secondary schedule. This is what also happened at the high school. But we know that one of the most critical pieces for the teaching and for the learning is the time that kids have in the classroom with that highly qualified teacher. So reviewing that, maximizing instructional time, making sure that teachers

have enough professional learning time and collaboration with each other, and we're providing the right support for kids. So that's all part of pillar three. And then the last one, family and community engagement. We just want to almost create a communications handbook for us where we're identifying what the best communication should be and then utilizing all the channels that we have to communicate with families.

Increasing family engagement. do a talk about, let's look at what we're doing with our parent-teacher conferences and our back-to-school nights. And obviously that requires intense work with the Somerset Teachers Association. But there are some things that are working well, there are some things that aren't. So how do we look at the time that we have with

our families and is there anything that we can do better? Some of the principals are going to launch some elementary family events. throughout the year and to survey families annually about their engagement so we can use that information to make changes from one year to the next. Looking at our making sure that the information we have from our families and our students in Aspen is accurate and then

how can we provide resources for our families whether it's some type of parent portal Clearinghouse where we can put different resources like from MIFA, the Mass Ed Finance Authority. They have a number of great resources for career planning and financial aid and things like that. It might be more appropriate for high school students, but they have

a lot of things for middle school students there too. So we can provide access for families to these things, make it easy for them to find. And then establishing alumni network. We don't We currently don't collect or have the personal email addresses of our students when they graduate. So can we do a better job of that? And then when it's time for all the things that are going to be happening here

at the high school, capstones, internships, things like that, we're going to need mentors and what better mentor than to go back and find someone who graduated from Somerset High School, Somerset Berkeley Regional High School in recent years and just serve that capacity. So anyway, so that is, those are the, I know it doesn't seem like it was a quick rundown, but Those are the four pillars. And then these,

if you participated in the event in January, if you were there for that, one of the activities we did was this headline activity. So, you know, what does the headline look like in 2031? We're celebrating achievements from Somerset and Somerset Berkeley. And So the key impact focus of the things off to the side that people were talking about, like literacy rates of our third graders and capstone projects and so

on. So what we did was we're saying, okay, so some high-level targets. These are aspirational targets. Graduation rate 100%. Early college. 50% of all of our high school students, we want to earn at least $15,000. credits, whether it's through AP, Project Lead the Way, early action taking college classes, whatever it is, half of our seniors should graduate with at least 15 credits.

Advanced coursework, 75% of all of our students should complete advanced placement or dual enrollment classes, just even one experience, forget the 15 credits, but just have that experience. 100% of our students participating in internships, capstones, or work-based learning. 100% of our students are mentored. So we heard this, and I started with the relationships matter. Every student identifies as

one trusted adult mentor. That is critical. I think we already have a high percentage. We don't, I say I think, because we need some metrics here. We need to figure out what students are saying. But that's going to be a critical one. And then 90% of grade three students are reading at or above grade. Ideally that's 100%, but if we can shoot for 90%, on target, then we will have

done a really great job for our students over the next five years if we can accomplish these goals or even be on our way to accomplishing these.

Thank you for all the time, energy, effort that you put into this thus far.

And I will let you know how this unfolds because my son's going to graduate in 2031. So I could be posted. It's a busy year. Yeah. So it's kind of crazy that we're coming up with this plan. So the class of 2032 is the class that, if the graduation proposals haven't yet been approved by the board, but-- If it is it's really the class of 2032 our goal is not to wait

until 2032 We want to make sure that our kids are achieving those graduation standards at least one year in advance So that our kids are not doing capstone projects for the first time when it counts the year, you know in 2032 so anyway It won't be required, but you'll be doing Just when will this be officially voted on you know at what point i'm hoping in your next meeting at the

next meeting yeah do you need anything from us other than feedback if you can give me some feedback as to what based on what i just shared in the document that you have there that would be great and i think i shared with you a google doc so i'll as i update information you'll have to be updated in so as well my only question if the chair allows goals, you

know, like SMOT goals, are these something that are achievable? Because when I see 50% of early college AP having 15... Yeah, these are the aspirational targets. If we don't, we're going to strive for that, you know, what's the saying, like, you know, aim for the moon, aim for the... Shoot for the moon, if you imagine you're one of the stars, you know, whatever it is. So we're aiming

for that, whether or not, if we don't achieve it, you know, it's only, okay, well, we didn't have 50%, we had 38%. Wow, that is remarkable compared to where we are right now. So it's an aspiration, but we're not saying that we're going to meet these, our administrative smart goals. Because these are significant reaps. That's what I'm looking at. I'm looking at this like, for instance, 90% yes, let's go for it.

We want 100, but I'm just like, even 90 is a stretch. And 100% graduation rate. I mean, we're very close to that right now. We're close. Even with our six-year rates, we're getting close to that. But obviously, one kid. I just want to make sure... What I'm looking at is I want really more for the public to understand that this aren't SMART goals. These are goals that we are moving

towards. And it can't be affected in your or our staff's evaluation. That's what I just wanted to point out. But we know that when we go back to all of, you know, like say these particular things or For the student learning, when teachers are creating their own SMART goals, they can try to tie into something from here and then create their SMART goal from there. And the other piece

about this strategic plan, as we learned, this is part of our response. This is what builds everything, as you had mentioned in the beginning. there's funding necessary for this you know we need to understand when we're funding the budget every year that this is our goals this is where we're going with so this is even our strategic plan obviously because we have to be a working partner to

make sure that the funding for all these are being met as well so um this is that's why you know i review this um You know, I was very fortunate to be part of that class, you know, that day. I'm always motivated when I see that, but we can only make it happen as if we have a fun performer as well. So I think we need to make sure

that we're committed to something like that as well. And if you feel like there's something that we cannot commit, let's let the superintendent know ahead of time. So we're not already starting behind the eight ball. And I think in terms of positions, in order to achieve what's here, the middle school would need a second Spanish teacher. I think that that might be the only position on the Somerset side

that It's here. There might be one. I have a list. There might be one on the position, but Spanish is the one that sticks out right now.

But that would be a commitment for several years from now if that is something that we do end up implementing. Thank you very much. Okay, moving on to financial business. Item number one, the financial statements for June and July. You have those items in your folder. Dr. Schoonover, do you have any? additional comments about those statements? You will see for the June FinSTAP that it's showing a end of

year negative by $70,000 or so, but that's There will be some corrections that need to be made to move expenses from operating budget to one of the grants that we have. So that will be rectified. So there's nothing to worry about. But I think that was the only thing. I think all the encumbrances are there. But looking forward to having a CFO come in to wrap that up and begin

the end of year report for you. Any questions or discussion from the committee? Okay, thank you very much. So that being said, moving on to the next item, discuss and act on the prepayment of special education tuition. Yeah, we'll have to hold that off for our next meeting. So one, CFO is not in place and Ms. Ashton had had something medically related earlier this year so she's on the go to be

here this evening. Okay. So we can table that item and so you're ready to revisit. When do we have to make that vote though? Isn't it, I don't know, I remember doing it last year. We did it later. October? Yeah. Okay, as long as it's... Yeah, what was the, by June 30th or by July 1st, it was for the regional high school where we had to, when it's involving E&E, that's

the important one. I just want to make sure that the encumbrance, this portion doesn't need to be encumbered. That's the only thing. If you learned something differently, please let us know. OK, so moving on to financial business item number three, discuss and act on sound system upgrades.

So this was something that we had visited A while back now, I know that Mr. Levesque had put together a proposal. I don't think it included installation. I think it included only the hardware needed, but I could be remembering that incorrectly. So I would like to revisit this item so we can talk about Voice amplification for our meetings which are typically held at Somerset middle school but also voice amplification

for SATV and I think that if we buy the right system we can achieve both goals I'm assuming you don't have anything for us to consider yet. I don't. That's okay.

I know it's... One of the things, the past couple of months with the Flatiron proposal for Somerset, they've been holding monthly meetings at Somerset Middle School. So because in the summer there's less support, I've been going in, setting up the microphones for them, setting up last week's meeting with the screen on stage. It seems to be working well. I know it's a different feel, a room like this or at the

middle school, versus auditorium but the auditorium does have all of the mics, the adapters right there, plug and play essentially, we have a microphone for the audience, whenever we have a need a visual presentation we have a screen that's right there on stage, we can roll out and project, not project but it's the same size as what's here. It can be, it's really a simple fix, but I understand it's the

location of it too. That is something that there's no cost. We can do that starting at our next meeting. I just want to put that out there if that's something that you want to do even if it's in the meantime of us exploring some of these other options. Unfortunately tonight the ear handler hasn't been on here so I'm hoping the sound was better from the audience but I

can hear you better this evening because we don't have that interference. But we know the next time we have another meeting in here that probably will be on and then we'll be trying out some of these others. And again, both meetings, whether it's Somerset Berkeley meeting in this room or you meeting in the Somerset Middle School Library,

we're meeting in spaces that were designed to muffle sounds. So the only way that we can really do this well is if we have mics. So the other option would be I'm assuming wireless mics and some good speakers to put in that room that we can move in and out whenever we have a meeting.

So I'm open to moving our meeting location. It does feel a little cold, you know what I'm saying? So that'll be an adjustment. But I'm willing to try it out and see how that works. In the meantime, though, just because I know how long these things take, I would engage with a vendor to quote out what they think might work for the media center at the middle school. Additionally, even if we

have our full committee meetings, the auditorium we may want to have subcommittee meetings that are held in person in the media center so I think it gives us some flexibility also we don't want to be taking up the auditorium in the event that the students are having an event we don't want to take away from them so you know if you could have someone put a quote together that we can at

least understand the total cost I think that would go along any other discussion or comments My only discussion would be more of the impact on the staff.

Every time we meet in the media center, once we leave, you probably notice that the custodian team comes in and sets it all back to where it is. How would it be in the auditorium? Would they just have to bring folding tables, and that's it, and the chairs? the microphones, how much work goes into either one room versus the other. Because that would be a

very you know, the main take the maintaining or something and I hate to say this I'm very Frugal when it comes to my own money if I have money already spent on something Why would I want to spend it again on something else?

But I understand the purpose of us, you know small focus group type of thing but for our committee I would say especially if it's really expensive as some of the numbers that i'd see i would hate to spend money down something that i already have so that's just me thinking about so if we had uh you know what it sounds like we're going to need microphones so it's setting up and taking

down microphones whether they're plugged in or wireless there's going to be some work that's involved with that in either space Both the library and the auditorium are considered classrooms, but I think there would be, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I would assume that there'd be less setting up and taking down and moving things around if we're in the auditorium because it really would just be a couple

of, you know, a few tables and some chairs on the stage as opposed to moving all the tables around in the audience because first thing in the morning that library is someone's class. And it's the, you know, the chairs and everything else that need to get set up. The chairs don't need to be set up in the auditorium. They're there. So I think it would be a little bit easier lift if

we were to use the auditorium. But we could always We can try it once and then compare it and see how it is. So the setup would be quicker.

So, for whoever does it, and I've been there when they set it up, so the custodians come in, they set up however many tables across it is, the audio-visual people come in and hook up the mics, but like you said, all the hookups are there. So they're just plugging in the mics, there's a microphone, there's a podium in front of the stage for public input, so they have a mic. And that's

how they do it. And then, like you said, as soon as the meeting's over, the custodians, they're already on duty, they're already working. So they come in, they take the tables down. And then it's like they were never there. And the only other piece, Madam Chair, is I kind of like the security piece. You know, that school was designed to lock that door. And, you know, right now, the way it is,

people can still go into our building and they have free reign of the building.

They can go upstairs, they can go forward. I know they're on cameras and all of that, but when we were looking at designing that building, the purpose was to have the school committee meetings in the auditorium where we can close just like of any other school or non-school event. So that's, you know, that's always been a concern of mine here that this hallway is open They can't go any further than that

door, but I'm just thinking, you know, we don't have that at the middle school.

You can go down the hall and take a left and no one will see you. So just keep that as in mind. But I think your team and cost will be the fixture, but I would say, like the chair said, let's try it, you know. So our next meeting, can you please change the location to the auditorium and we'll get that aware? Don't forget your stage makeup, everyone. Stage

makeup? Yeah. Can we have a green room? Yeah. Okay, moving on to the policies for first reading. Now technically, yes, these are all first reading, and we can do it in a batch if you'd like, or I can pull anything out. However, item number two, special education transportation, EEAB, That one is a higher priority because it impacts the opening

of the school year. Can we please start with that one because what I'm going to ask is that we might consider doing the first and second readings on that one tonight so that the administration can implement the policy for the start of school.

Well, I looked at two of them that were on the fold. The first one had no, nothing was revised. The second one is the revision, I'm assuming. Reviewing it, I don't see any things that popped up that was a concern to mine.

So I would feel comfortable voting both first and second on that one. For EEAB? EEAB, correct. Okay. Any other questions? Okay.

And then at this point I would entertain a motion to approve the first and second reading of special education transportation EEAB as revised. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, so item number two has passed.

the other policies a lot of it was just housekeeping there was one that was totally rewritten item number one time out seclusion and physical restraint of students JK facility rental and administration of medical medication to students I didn't see any changes in At least not on the form I had. Maybe my Word document didn't present them, but I didn't see... Are there any

changes? Yes. There was? That's... You know, this is the first reading, so I can follow up more on the second one.

But the other one... that I have questions on was the bus driver examination and training, the EEAEA. And let me just call it up because I don't remember what my concerns were of trying to figure out why they're here. Let me just go up because this one has a lot of changes. But the first one, number two I believe, because the numbers got all messed up. Each tribal will file with school officials a medical

record. Okay. The one that I thought was kind of odd that we would get rid of, but this could be a federal thing, is each tribal will require to comply with the Federal Highway Administration regulations for a drug and alcoholic testing and so on. Why would we remove that? Because that was crossed out on mine.

And then where it says the original four, then it turned into two. So I know there's a number issue. I kind of liked it the way it was written prior to what we're changing it to. So I was just trying to figure out what those... Was that item number two you said? I'm sorry. Yeah, I think it was originally four, but now it says two. Only persons who have properly licensed by

the state and have completed a driver training program then it's crossed out, trained and according to the regulations of the Department of Education and the Registry of Multiple Vehicles, which includes a CORI. So all of that got removed and I'm trying to figure out, aren't they supposed to have a CORI check? But again, this could be a format issue that was, unless, this could be a My

Computer format issue or... So you're saying that's, on yours, that thing you just registered is number 21? just looking at my face yeah it really should be number three because one isn't changing two is changing to each driver world file official three is crossed out so number four becomes the new one all right so the old four is the new three so when i'm looking at mr ventura's and i don't

know because it is different than mine we have are trained in accordance to the regulation of the department of education and the registry of molecule vehicle which includes a quarry um Why was that removed? Why is it being advised asked to be removed and then number seven? About the drugs and alcoholic testing. Why is that being removed? We can look into that I wonder if it's for redundancy if if it's

already part of one of the previous Like the driver training program or something, I don't know but we're looking to that.

Okay. That's the only thing that I Because by removing the regulation of the Department of Education of Massachusetts, blah blah blah, and the Cory check, I don't know what's part of that training, but unless it has the drug and highway administration regulation, I'm like, I struggle with that.

So if you can find out more information from them for the second reading, those are the things that caught me. And the other two, obviously I have a format issue. I will see what the revisions are, but I wouldn't hold it back from being voted. Okay. All right. So at this point, I would entertain a motion to approve items 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6 for the first reading. So moved. Second. We have a

motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. So voted. Oh man, I missed 7 and 8 on that. I'm sorry because I had to flip the page. I apologize. So I'm going to have to do, entertain another motion to approve item 7 and 8 for the first reading as presented. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second.

Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? So voted. Okay, other matters informational. Item number one, topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair 48 hours in advance of the meeting. We all received yesterday from Robin the response from Fisher Bus related to signature gathering during bus routes. I assume you all read that response. So I just

wanted to acknowledge that response in our meeting. We only received it yesterday, which is why it's not on the agenda. My interpretation of that was that they sort of agreed to disagree that it was political organizing. My thought moving forward is in future contracts we could just be explicit that that is not permitted.

And then that'll... that will clear that up and that's our expectation any other thoughts or discussion i would my only thought was because they agreed to disagree and that's where it's going to go i would make it a school policy at some point where we don't have to wait for another two years or whatever the case may be I don't know if it's a school

policy that our vendors cannot use our time and our students. And that would go not only for the bus company, but for special organizations and things like that that are trying to do a political poll. But that's just throwing it out there for the policy subcommittee. I'm not saying-- but I'll leave it at that. OK. We can move into that. Anything else? Okay. Action items

for future meetings? No, three. Yep, consolidation of our elementary schools. The retreat for budget? Any way we can do it in November? I can ask. If possible. I'm just thinking because if we have certain items that we may want, it gives the administration a few extra thinking it through. Instead of over the holiday vacation? Yeah. Well, I think that would be during the retreat conversation, we

could talk about that. I think that would be an appropriate place to talk about that. Oh, that's it. Quick, can I? Quick? We're almost there. Okay, can we please have a report from the Somerset Berkeley Regional School Committee? Yeah, I'm a guy committed. I hope I'm meaningful. We all did. It's true.

We haven't had another single meeting since our last one. Okay. We did. It was really quick. It was just right after Alice and then Mrs. Cunogo was talking about the track, right? I mean... Was it the one on June 30th? June 29th, somewhere around there. Let's go back. It was June 11th. It was just a quick meeting. It was right after hours. Really

nothing much was said. It was just Mr. Suno was talking about the track. We talked about the same thing. We just had our assignments. That's all it really was.

It was a very quick meeting here at the high school. Okay. Thank you very much. That seems like a lifetime ago. Yeah. Okay, item number four, discuss and act on the approval of open session minutes of June 9th, 2026. You should have those in your folder. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none, I would entertain a motion to accept the opening session notes of June 9th, 2026 as presented. Move. Second. We

have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? hearing none all in favor say aye aye any opposed so devoted and then item number five consider approval of and release as redacted the executive session minutes of june 9th 2026 any questions or comments hearing none i would entertain a motion to accept the executive session minutes of june 9th 2026 and release them with the redactions as presented

Second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Our next item is public input.

I think the public has exited the meeting. And I would entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. All in favor say aye. Aye. Thank you everyone. It was a marathon. But we did it.

so so And that has to do with building a network of relationships with those kinds of organizations that will help you or that facilitate