3.7.2024 Special/Alternative Education and Early Childhood Subcommittee

ready I'd like to call to order the special ed alternative Ed early challenge subc commmittee to order please call the role M here Mr here M Pera here please stand and United States of America the for stands Nation God indivisible jce to the open meeting La any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any meeting attendees are therefore advised that such

recordings all transmissions are being made whether perceived or UNP perceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permis do we have any citizen input we do not no citizen input we'll move right on 3.01 discussion and vote to refer prek 2501 South Main Street turn it over to the superintendent for her designate thank good evening everyone so um about a month ago um our subcommittee meeting

uh we had a subcommittee meeting where we discussed PR um and uh what we were we were tasked with um establishing a task force exploring our pre- options exploring our expansion physical space as we know physical space has been an issue throughout the district uh reviewing classroom reduction options developing a facility usage plan for 2501 right now uh 2501 is occupied by uh prek classrooms on the uh ground floor

as well as the first floor but it will be ready to go online fully uh for late August for the fall and to offer the school committee some recommendations to achieve these outcomes um through either a phase in approach or all in this is what we're doing so this is the task force uh Dr uh bronhard is on our way we put a task force uh together that that consisted of all the stakeholders that

would be um uh involved in in this work and this decision making in regards to creating a plan so to give you some backgrounds um follow public schools has expanded this pre program the last two years um including the addition of 12 classrooms right to accommodate this expansion and to fulfill the uh need for classrooms for special ed programming um fall Public Schools we renting uh Eastern

Avenue the site there uh which houses seven classrooms um as well as focusing classrooms at the newly uh required we need to we need to leave it open uh as well as establishing um you know uh some classrooms at the newly acquired site of 2501 uh space at 251 gives us an opportunity right that that gives us an opportunity to explore some options for the district we wanted we wanted to make sure what the right

use for um that building uh was and we really have um explored multiple options um in going through that process so our prek uh expansion Kristen do you want to yeah sure go through that so what our current um prek looks like is at this time we have 33 preschool classrooms and so that's an increase of 12 classrooms over the last 2 years 16 of those classrooms are current located at four

of the elementary schools and at the two Community Schools there's seven classrooms located at the rental space on nor Eastern Avenue and 10 classrooms at 2501 South Main Street the site at 300 nor Eastern Avenue is a temporary site we did um you recently approved us to extend that leas for one additional year so we have that site through next school year the class sizes um at that building are reduced because of the

physical space so those classrooms are tiny and so we aren't able to um fill them to capacity due to the spacing and we know that we do need to relocate those seven classrooms within the next year um we only have that rental for one more year once we next year yeah through fy2 yep and so once um we do identify new space assuming that we're able to find regular siiz classrooms we will gain um an additional

24 seats that we're not currently able to fill due to the size of the classrooms there at the Fall River Learning Center the 2501 South Main Street site we have 10 classrooms they're currently located on the ground in the first floor we're not able to bring the preschool students up additional flights um due to safety regulations and in case we had to ever evacuate them that building um as it

becomes populated and uh whatever is decided the four classrooms um plus one additional that are in spaces that will be used um for another purpose next year will need to be Rel relocated so we will need to move five preschool classrooms out of that building as we work to populate it um with something new moving into next school year the intent is though that the five classrooms on that

ground level will remain prek so that we will keep those five classrooms um in that site regardless of what um we move forward with with the upper floors and those classrooms will function independently right so it's going wa am I missed it so it's going from 10: to 5: right when we populate that whole building depending on how we decide that we're going to use that we're going to

need those classrooms for to be typical classrooms or however whatever we decide ultimately this is a work group so I would say um if you have questions along the way feel free to ask we don't have to go through the whole thing wait till the end because uh there's a lot of information we did a lot of work we want to make sure that certainly we can take feedback and then uh make you know make

decisions at the end as to how much additional space is in that building like as far as to have okay we're going to go through that that's why I take notes and ask abely all right go ahead sorry but I superintendent points both taken so if there's things that we can ask now feel free to stop and interrupt if it's something that you say you're going to answer later read that fine too

Mr Cory do you have something that you on this particular piece I do um it seems like it's it's a work in progress is it going to continue like in the years ahead is it going to continue to be a work in progress to find space and my other question was according to the safety Guidance Do all prees need to be ground level classrooms no they don't need to be ground level classrooms and

and they're not currently we do go up one flight we are on that first floor but we don't take children above that one flight of stairs and so um the ground floor and the first floor sign we do in a perfect world we keep kids at ground level when they're little um particularly our three-year-olds but we can let's say the program grows 5 years 6 years eight years down the road and we

need more space is this is the conducive space in the future need to be ground level of first floor yes it needs to be so that that would re that would kind of like limit it us the amount of buildings we might be able to prospect in order for this to carry out correct that's exactly you're exactly right exactly where we are right so ideally everybody and people out there can say okay we

have a building we have you know our PR just asked how many more classrooms so technically we have 18 more classrooms that we can fill but we can't fill them with pre students because if you have to have easy access to ESS for a little little babies right so we can't fill the top floors with um of course I I agree with that so I'm just wondering what it means for us to fill more spaces 10

years down the road what that's looking we do have some you know some um ideas some options we have some ideas as to you're going to see some numbers and part of our uh exploration and our research was to look at uh what's happening in our district currently what our Trends are and what that means for us right now we are limited as to expanding more classrooms because we don't have the physical space as you

know we've been researching looking at aable buildings throughout the city you know uh the Eastern Avenue posed as a good temporary solution but if we want to continue to expand which you know uh I think that we have to look at the the you know pros and the cons of that right but if we want to open up 10 more classrooms next year or the year after or five next year five the year after we

have to think seriously about where that would be what we would do as a district in regards to fining than thank you I think one of the questions and I meant to say this at the beginning when we talk about expanding pre we I have my own idea of what that means and we talked about it at the last meeting that uh what the state is talking about what everyone the you know the sort of uh

going thing is universal prek for all fourth grade grade foury yearolds so personally I think I'm in favor of that I think it's a great thing and we should be doing we have to decide if that's what we really want because if we as school committee say we want Universal pre and we charge you with doing a plan for Universal pre that's going to inform some of the decisions that we have to

make if we say no we're going to do only the minimum that we need to do by law relative to students disabilities and like that's a totally different conversation so I speak for myself my opinion is that we need to do Universal precare you talked about the other day that it's got to be a systemwide uh community and everything which I totally get that plan has never been presented to us I've asked multiple times what

does it cost what's the cost benefit analysis because that would imply we would need so I say Universal pre because I don't have the cost benefit analysis if you tell me pre cost us $6,000 a student in the negative because of the expenses if it doesn't make sense that might drive my decision because now we can't have the budget to so it's multifaceted but speaking for myself is universal prek should be done in

Education and I think the school committee needs to weigh in on that so that we can give you solid Direction not here necessarily because it's only the subcommittee but as the full committee then you have to make decisions because then if we make decisions on we have no space but we have to do the following based on the data and the information we have if they're not politically popular

we have to make that decision so we can't be making decisions to say we want this but then you tell us the only ways we can do it is these and then we say no sorry you can't do that because it's political so I just want to ground the conversation and that's where my questions are going to be along the lines of I expect a long-term plan of Big Time expansion and my colleagues can

weigh in on where they feel we're only three of us it's not the whole committee but I just think as we go through this if we're not clear about that part we're going to just be spinning our wheels so that's good information to have I I will say Universal prek um means you're you're absolutely right fourth every four-year-old should have a seat that does not mean every four-year-old should

have a seat within follow Public Schools it means that I'm talking in regards to the governor's plan if a parent and four-year-old wants a seat in a prek classroom whether that's in a private uh institution or with us they should we should have a seat available you are right that right now we are doing the bare minimum because of spacing issues right now we are we have um we're opening classrooms in regards uh in

relation to the needs of students with disabilities who qualified who have been an early intervention and at their third birth day we are obligated by law to provide them with the services and we are providing those Services three and four year olds and creating some uh integrated classrooms for their IEPs so we are doing the bare minimum due to um spacing uh requirements so if the school committee decides and says

charges us with say listen I want you to we that this is where we want to be three years down the road in order for that to happen I will say without even doing any we're going to the first priori is to be finding a space physical space because right now we are limited we have ideas on physical space to continue with the way we're doing but to do some uh big expansion like you're

saying is going to require even more physical space than we are going to propose to you I just want to put that out there does anyone want to weigh in on on that issue I mean I think I agree with with Kevin we all and probably everybody at the table Universal PRK would be great but how do you pay for it and where's the space um but I I also know that those numbers we're talking about

serving our our special population those could change you could have higher numbers one year lower numbers another year it's not something we can just envir you know environmentally track so I think we need to have an abundance of space even so right now we definitely need to do some expansion I realize we don't have enough money to do anything um maybe in the way we would want it in

our Dream World um but I would certainly like to see empty seats over like that would be less of a worry cuz what would be more of a concern to me is all of a sudden these kids aren't even in our reach they're not in our we don't see them until they show up at the door these aren't we might have a good idea how many you know needs we're going to

have in kindergarten even that's sketchy but more than preschool right when it's the first time you're seeing it so my thing is let's expand as much as we can let's try to maybe reorganize these schools where it makes more sense than what we've done in the city in my opinion by just making these gigantic schools um and that still run out of space is good to hear because that's that that is what we've been thinking

about I will say we will have a cost analysis for what is costing us now for to put in the back up for tomorrow I will we will make sure we include what our prek is costing us to date with our kids so that we at least know what is costing us now what the reimbursement is and all that I we will have that for you tomorrow I also just have a couple of

brief questions also I think it's an evolutionary process anyway I think you can better gauge it you know as the years r FL can't gauge what's 5 years down the road right now if it's a a mandate from the state then it seems like all public education is going to move in that direction so if we're moving in that direction we will and we'll gauge it at that point and see

what we got you know my next question is are are any student opportunity acts monies used in this are they are they resourceful for these Ventures yes that's awesome that's all I wanted to know thanks I think that to Mr agar's point though um so we know that it's good for our kids we are in urban setting where our kids are coming to school uh uh considerably below grade

level as it is the earlier we can get our kids in school to get some language acquisition numeracy literacy is going to benefit us as a district right we know our kids need that so I think that we have to as a city as a district think think about okay if the benefits outweigh the pros and the cons and if it outweighs and this is an investment yet another investment in the future we have to I

mean I think that if it's if it becomes a mandate there's probably going to be I think the government they're all talking about what's attached to it so there may be funding available or the formula for reimbursement may change for four-year-olds we hope that happens but we also need to look at it as this is an opportunity to invest in our children as early as possible because we know that

that's what needs to happen so Madam superintendent I fully agree with that assessment and I would only add I wish there was something that we could mandate parental involvement to a higher degree from the prek all the way through high school I wish there was some magic formula if only thank you a so we don't have that magic formula um but my feeling would be is given what we have what we know why

would we not have them come in at 4 years old then at 5 years old so by expanding to Universal I think it helps that issue because we're not going to change 100% of the families and the situations that they're going through so the child's either going to come in with nothing or we can get them a year earlier before some of these things in uh referrals are going to go down all

that stuff is going to help so it sounds like we're all in favor of sort of going Universal but I would ask that you put this on the agenda for Monday night so that everybody can well this specific question to know what is the what is the district's perspective on school committee relative to what they're looking for relative to preet I need people to not only at campaign time when

we all sit there and they somebody says what do you think of universal pre and we go I I I I I now I want to as a vote so we say we're going to mandate that this is what we're going to do and you know at least give you some better Direction so you're not going against it I agree we need need direction uh in regards to that next step that's the

question on I have an early learning center says these classrooms must be relocated within the next year is only because of the so they have they told us they're no longer a lease well we have a lease for next year I'm saying have they said that after that last year we're going to use that for some other things so not yet you could always explore a future right longer term lease if we needed the it's

not out of the question is what right yeah absolutely um but then you said the class size is reduced to the smaller physical space and this is in the analysis yes there is because when you do the analysis these classrooms are going to cost you a lot more per pupil than the others correct so regulations for integrated classrooms at in at the preschool level we have two options we can do class size of 15 with seven

students with disabilities eight peers from the community or class size of 20 with five students with disabilities and 15 students students from the community we have a mix of both within the district the classes um the integrated classes at the Early Learning Center we are only able to put 12 students in so we're losing three seats in each session and there are eight integrated sessions

so we're losing 24 seats because we cannot fit 15 in the room in the I haven't been there but what are the rooms are the rooms uh were they built for us or classrooms are they what kind of no they were an existing it was in it used to be the montau School the church has also used it for religious education purposes so when you release a building sometimes you say to the owner I want to

knock that wall down and make this room bigger is that a possibility there no and some of the room some of the rooms do have um you know regular walls they're also used by the church during the summer and off hours and some have like the um accordion walls they have Dividing Walls um between them so there's not a lot of flexibility to be able to change going to show what the

number is like of course you x amount you only when you get so much reimbursement and yeah so what uh 251 South M the older plant is that we uh acquired the physical space in the neighborhood um you have some floor plans that we've included in there in the link but what it looks like the physical space there are 18 classrooms excluding ground floor where we have uh five additional classrooms for prek they are 18

additional classrooms there's also space class space for art and music and PE and there's a small meeting space pseudo Auditorium as well as a cafeteria there um I will say that the classrooms are smaller than our typical classrooms in um at um in our schools uh but they're larger than the classrooms um at um the um Eastern Avenue sites if you look at the 2501 we had the data file if somebody could just can ask

where those 18 classrooms are from the excluding ground floor they're on the first second and third floor6 yes well um yeah that's a lot it's it's a different configuration but there are it depend because that's uh uh chopped up a little bit differently but it's on the first second and third floors of those classrooms so how many classrooms are on the first floor four there are four

classrooms a lot of offic meeting space um for services so there's far on the first floor and the five are down on the ground floor and then there are six and six on each floor above as well as space for um PE for art and music and a meeting space what about a playground outside is there any space Oh there's playing space there for um my kids went to montau there so I remember the old

playground in the back at we're talking about the space at 251 right yeah my kids went used to be in the back yes yes that's right there's plenty of space for that as well as parking um Etc so it actually is so I'm better with thisly if not I'm putting on my glass oh 20 part of our part of our uh research and our work our analysis 2501 is located 1.1

miles from the B school um and no less than 1.3 miles from henryy W right um certainly uh uh Brian Mr Michael AA can actually speak to that he looked at the the zones the boundary lines Etc because if you're creating an area for 251 we're not going to cross over the highway we're not going to go too far into the vas neighborhood so you have to um go from there and create an area where we

needed to look to see where what children are there and whether we could create a neighborhood School within 2501 in service that would be filled with 25 with with kids from that neighborhood right so we looked at that Brian do you need to add anything about that no obviously we're limited by Taunton River cook Pon and the RO Island border and I didn't want to go too far north I sort

of use poo Street as the cut off and within that that zone which is sort of like this map right here there were only 154 kids currently of our current K to five kids that live in that zone that go most of them go to either bis or um Henry Lord a few go to other schools and of that 154 122 are call typical either mainstream or inclusion um meaning that

there's 17 and the sub separate before and 12 that are Foundation currently not that changes every year but you know I could not get more without going rting into a very school I didn't want to go around coupon um so that's how we got the the most we could get out of that right so to fill that building with just neighborhood students there are only 122 students in the neighborhood typical students that

would go to that school so it's certainly not enough to fill rest of that building as a typical why didn't you stop at 1.3 miles 1.3 miles is because well you you trying to keep it a a walking School a neighborhood school without having buses involved but I I know why say I think that's relative to the really why and like when you're at like when we did um the original plan if you're at um

251 to go around cookon I'm at heavy Lord already if I go around the other way I'm willing in Henry Lord's the northern part of that District where get a long Peninsula Henry Lord and what happens if you went to 1.6 miles does that mean you automatically have to bus all those children I have to skip the pus separate from the pus just in general I'm skipping I I I so in other

words one the consider was does the northern part of Henry Lord the Coro area become something that we consider moving towards this new school and it be bust there instead of being bust to hem L that will get you more students but what does the law say 1.5 million we have to bus de it's one mile as the pro flies yeah is relatively one and a half miles away so the more that you expanded it we

would just increase it's making your point it would be more cost effective to do something else if you live on Slate Street I don't want to move you to you know right so we have to look at all all of those things right to to see what makes sense there so look at the next slide hang on keep scrolling the Dual language should have BR Brian can you go

back to that 2501 doc just to talk about our analyzation of the Dual language move well we're looking at all these I know but yeah this is the place where that conversation comes up right yeah there we go though right because one of one of our uh initial initial uh thoughts was okay so we have 1202 students we probably could one of the options would be we take our dle program

our dual language students many of which are already being transported from the Varys pulled out two its two strands put them in there K to 5 add another typical strand those 122 students that belong in the neighborhood and we have AK K to 5 School there with our dual language students that would free up that's a great idea so that's one of our ideas right that would free up classrooms um at theis right so

currently six classrooms y they could there a four unit school we could take those four prek classrooms place them at bis and they still would have two additional classrooms to um reduce some class size I like that idea the only thing is well because there's always you know we I will say one of the things that we did we looked at all the things and try to put holes to

see how how does that help us right doing that helps us to fill that building but it does nothing for our prek expansion because it doesn't not we move the four classrooms into the vars we have two additional classrooms to reduce some class size but we are not able to move any of the students from Eastern Avenue and we are not able to expand prek so it serves one of our goals which would be to populate

251 but we have to keep in mind it it fills that piece but it does nothing for pre- expansion okay we just need to we were looking at okay can we do this how does that help prek expansion how does that help our needs to try to uh um perhaps return kids to the neighborhood School create Open Spaces in their own neighborhood schools because we're we're sending kids all over the place right

and you will see that um so that piece serves one purpose but not the other so the only question I have Dr Curley um by taking the Dual language kids out of a virus would it U proactively affect their numbers um in terms of the desie the desie numbers how desie looks at a school a school's numbers you know so we don't have any none of that because we're just um K12 right now in that dle

program um we don't have any state testing data from them next year would actually be the first year that we actually start collecting that data so it's difficult to see at this point what the impact would be so so a as of this point uh there hasn't been like a negative number thing to the Vera school as a result of the Dual no I mean we are anticipating that when a dual language

program is is up and running and flourishing that we would actually see better numbers coming out of the dle program out of some of our other programs well I like the idea of putting it all together you know so that they can create their own solid number so my question was not to hurt vas's numbers and but to create its own numbers would be good enough for me sure and there are

there are definitely models in the state and outside of the state for dual language programs that sit um as their own program or as a large you know a large number of students in um a typical program which is what we had um explored for our da program move and I don't know do you want me to talk a little bit about why that wasn't an option or are

you going to do that well we're going to talk about that why that's an option but probably not the most um effective option I I will say um so and those and if we move the students from the D to uh 2501 55 of those students are from the VAR right from the varis neighborhood which will result in some of those students having to be transported over to to uh 2501 we just need to keep that

in mind also because there will be a cost attached to it and we also wouldn't have enough vars neighborhood kids to fill those empty classrooms now that we would be able to open up at the vars so that wouldn't make sense so moving on so the 20 2501 options that we considered that we looked at was it's first we thought okay two unit prek to8 school because I'm I'm

a firm um believer in the pre8 we looked at that as an option um we looked at a three-unit just a prek to 5 School three unit school three of each grade its own neighborhood school as I just said instead of a dle it would be three they we don't have enough neighborhood children to created a three unit school we looked at a one unit school plus a

dle uh program K to 5 and we also looked at we tried to think outside the box and we also looked at relocating the stone therapeutic school to 2501 all of those students are currently bust already those classrooms are smaller and the they're conducive to the program that principal Shaw has at 251 and we'll we'll explain why we even went down that road right because during our research

we uncovered other things within the district that we probably need to need to be addressed right so classrooms at 2501 are not the typical size generalized classrooms that we would find in our typical schools I will say probably in most of our schools class a typical classroom is around 900 square fet 850 900 square ft and the classroom sizes are at um 251 are much smaller probably half the size right so which

limits us to we can't have 25 26 students in a class we probably would also be limited to maybe 20 21 students in a classroom uh enrollment data shows us that 2501 does not support a walking neighborhood for k to8 or for a prek straight prek to 5 so our data we looked at current neighborhood model we looked at all the district zones we looked at student enrollment by neighborhood who's in and

who's out of our neighborhood schools we looked at tra Transportation needs and we looked at our special populations and our programs so okay our neighborhood populations have changed since 2008 that's when we did if you recall 28 200 um 2008 is when we opened up the three Mega schools right Pica lero the Varys right and what we did is we closed 10 schools and kind of fit them into each

of these schools based on location right that's when we districted the the the city over time what we've learned is that the boundaries they're mismatched to the student population across the community in some cases some of our existing schools carve out student populations that are much higher much much higher than the school can hold capacity in other cases the neighborhood student populations are much smaller

to green because they already have transportation there so we assign our students based on the the schools that already have assigned bus rots to make it um to allow some of those students to be transported can I ask go since 2008 we've seen either Maps or some variation of things the analysis of something I think we actually paid somebody to do analysis in your research did we find that anything about that or

am I just I don't remember ever being involved with any data research on um data analysis about students I know every year we send out data to it's called ndaq to give them a lot enrollment data and they come back with consistently for the last seven or eight years that we population is going down and projecti to go down and I always look at and say this is not make sense to me because

we're going up up and up we're over 11,000 right now um which is the highest we've been in you know a decade so and the redistrict we did in 2008 was one thing we also another redistrict game where we opened up H Lord as a community school that's the last time we changed boundaries I might be thinking and mixing up busing yes did that for buing had like I've seen colorcoded like

things that are like overlapping and stuff so it's just strange to me that it almost looks like as if we didn't like why did we wait till now to deal with this uh I just think we we missed the ball somewhere whoever that we probably should have done this sooner but at least we're here now probably years ago before you move forward just to to your point just now is there any chance of

reorienting some of the old buildings the Deva School uh the Wy School the Old Stone school well I mean I think that that's uh the city would have to once a school is shuttered for more than a year then when to in order to reopen it it has to be brought up to code that's why it's a very expensive Endeavor for like the Wy is a one unit school yeah so that

will I think that that went before the school committee years ago I mean obviously I was in a different uh role but I believe cost effective right it wasn't cost effective because it was only for nine classrooms I see they couldn't be split they could physical size no I think Mr Cory's point though is well taken that we should be looking at everything so I want to commend you

for at least looking at this fin so now you're going to go through the presentation at the end we're going to realize that I think that you guys did a good job of trying to figure out what's here from here we're going to say what is next that means you got to look at all these other options so AG I think you're going to show you're going to show here CU I look through the slides

this other things that you've discussed at the end let's talk about what's the next steps that things that we should have looked at absolutely so in in our in our numbers we looked at uh I just said right before that the neighborhoods have shifted right they've changed like so some neighborhoods the the the number of children that belong to that neighborhood is actually gone down and

some of them the numbers have exploded right we look at fonsica here Citywide there if you look across the city there are 1,195 elementary students in Pre 5 who have an address in the fansa neighborhood in the fansa neighborhood 501 neighborhood students attend fansa 694 neighborhood students attend other elementary schools for various reasons the 11 1,19 950 students represents

22% of the elementary school population follow Public Schools so what I'm telling you is we have 1,195 elementary students for fansa and if you look right underneath fansa was built it has 655 students in prek to 5 590 in K to 5 only 89 of those students in fonsica don't live in the Fons neighborhood for different reasons right 34 of those of the 89 non FICA neighborhood students

are fansa in the foundational classroom right those are district placement the others could have been they started there they've moved but they're finishing off there but as you can see most of fansa is based it it's their own students but more than half of them are still out and about within our district because that school Can Only Hold half of the kids in that very densely populated neighborhood our biggest issue

there right which con's enrollment relative to The Last 5 Years it's been a little bit several years ago it's a little bit higher like close to seven right now we're like 650 so we're sort of in that that range um I think because adding much do you know how much it's built for how many students was typically ma capacity I do not know yeah that fanska neighborhood is it is we can find that out though

well you have think about it multif family homes a lot of families coming in and out in that area so because we have only half of the population actually at fansa where are the other kids if we look at this um grid you see that 501 students attend fansa we have 115 of them at Spencer bordon we have 93 fonsica students at Sylvia 29 at Watson 127 at lerno 100 at Green 56 at vas 42

at Lord 52 at Dorne and 80 at tany they're all over the place W right because they are where there's room because fansa can't accommodate the numbers from their own neighborhood it's eye opening isn't it demographics when you look at it and demographics is always a moving Target yep always but I think stands out what I'm just looking at is that the Zone when it was created whenever that was

should have been addressed earlier we shouldn't be sitting here today in 2024 saying we got 1100 kids there because there was probably five years ago if there's a thousand in there it wasn't like it went from 500 kids to there so we should have meaning we meaning everybody school committee included shouldn't have allowed that to happen M for the last 10 years yep right since 2008 right so what you

see that's okay sorry you don't want to take over you're part of the for task force so exactly that on the left you'll notice that that is the current vona Zone uh great out that is the G that is the current Zone and if you look to the left um those are all of the students who live in the fansa zone um by and and each color code is a different school that they currently live

at right oh right I'm sorry right this so if you can see all those students have spread through that what what's what road is that Brian can you talk what the the fansa zone is the the river to the pond basically where diamond is and it goes you know to you know where yeah that's the wupa yeah right so there used to be the Aldridge the Deval the Davis all of

those schools were in that district and the original redistricting was the reason when we open the new schools was they want them all the West kids to go to f as a community they want everyone to move together not do any districting back then they want to go as a commun to the new school that's yeah we could have done more after that but the end of the words a top that's biger Mr Cory for

your eyes that a thank you very much so we just wanted to provide a visual and then also drop a pin for every student just to show the con the concentration in certain parts of the zone at the same more than one kid if they in like a multi family house like AA it could have six kids in that for one this year I went to school in this District growing

up I was able will walk to every school I went to yeah yep all right so I'm going to bring you back westall 2.0 that's where principal shy is right that's the stone school it's the former westall facility it's right now is occupied by Stone this is why we were we what brought us to the stone piece of potentially moving Stone over to 2501 right Citywide those 1250 or 1100 95 students

who have addresses in the pona zone right as you see all of that what we did is and we've been obviously this we were trying to think outside the box of how we can address this and address our other issues right so we could actually create a new Zone as you see on the map there on the right because there are so many kids and they concentrated all over the place right it's not like they're in

one area and then other areas are left empty so we could create that and we could actually use the westall school 2.0 whatever we decide that we're going to call it and we could fill that school with 316 typical active fall Republic school students that are within one mile within a walking walking distance to 276 Maple Street M and that would eleviate some of the it would only reduce it by

about 50% right um because we still we will still have but we would be bringing kids back to their neighborhood and creating a neighborhood school for them walking it's insane this is like half the city I'm looking here I go I live way on the end near the water TR and I'm going down to the water I'm like that's a that's a neighborhood like what I'm not neighbors with the people that are

living on the waterfront yep and we use Robison presant Avenue Pleasant Street Central and Pleasant Street as the cut off to avoid Crossing major streets walk to create this walking neighborhood right we're trying to be thoughtful about creating this concentrated area looking to see how many students actually lived in that area and where would make sense for us to create this new little Zone to populate this school

with true neighborhood students yeah and and it would affect the absentee ASM numbers as well it could proactively okay thank so having said that and a team we've looked at this we've looked at our options we would be proposing as a team that five prek classrooms remain on the uh ground floor of 251 those we would keep there as prek we think the best option will be to move Stone to

2501 right those students are already transport uh transportation is already part of their um thing and it also would give us an opportunity to expand Stone we have a weit list there we'll be able to open additional classrooms there a couple of additional classrooms where we would be able to not only service our the needs of our district with some students that may require therapeutic

setting but also be able to open it up to other districts right because we do you know but we Al we have such a need and we're so full that we never get to that piece right and it also there are smaller classrooms and I said before at 2501 which are ideal for a stone the stone community so my my question is is How would how would it be Mary Ellen as far as the population of

251 being affected by your population would they be able to interact peacefully and coexist with the other type of students what I can tell you now is that we have it set up so that it's elementary middle and high and they don't meet um they once in a while we meet for assemblies or we might have an activity outside where everybody goes but for the most part the high school

kids stay in the high school the middle stay in the middle and the elementary stay in the middle and they don't really um every once in a while we'll have somebody who's floating around the building but for the most part I don't see that as a problem so it's it'd be communities within the community right the stone community that's how we work it out so if that were the case if we were successful in

moving a stone 22501 then we would propose that we open up Stone as westall 2.0 right absolutely and fill it as a k to 5 school a 2unit school it absorbs 300 students from fonsica District creating its own little Zone create a West doall neighborhood school where kids could actually walk to the school opens up seats if we're pulling these kids from let's say we have kids that 100 kids that were

sending to Green I'm just I don't remember all then we're wherever we're pulling kids were opening up seats in other schools where some of their neighborhood uh students some of their students could actually we could return kids back to the neighbor okay can you tell me where the EXP waiting list at Stone is like where I just don't understand what that means so what happens um at Stone is we have an

ongoing Referral List so right now probably have 12 students on my Referral List what's different about stone is that we have kids who are always in some sort of transition so I have a boy who goes to dery for most of the day and then we pick him up and they have kids go to different elementary schools so the it's the population is always changing because we don't keep kids

there forever we move them on as we can move them on yeah I don't want to divert the conversation because this is a whole meeting when you say when I see here that we have an expansion I've already felt and I've made my point clear that what we did in Far River is we created situations where students didn't belong leaving their school we changed their IEPs to be a day school a

therapeutic day school and now we have no room at Stone because we have students at Stone that don't have the proper didn't have the proper uh IEP and we've changed their IEPs over the years to morph into so they can go to Stone I don't want to look for a whole conversation about it but if you told me just now this based on that answer you have 12 kids on the waiting list at

Stone I would say then on a Friday email you tell us how many of those have a therapeutic Day School IEP that's what I want to know by tomorrow and the thing because I think we're having a different conversation here about filling up Stone than we have the alt part of this subcommittee that's alternative education that we should be talking about as well when we have that so I just don't see that you have 12 students

in my opinion or however many on the waiting list with a therapeutic IEP to come into stone because if you did you're out of compliance and you have to put them in a therapeutic day placement so I don't want to divert the conversation but please get us a one page around that okay I I didn't say 12 but what we're saying is there's an opportunity for expansion if we moved

Stone there yeah no I get it I just don't want it to say that the opportunity for expansion is because we're going to put kids in a therapeutic Day School that don't have that IEP and it's my belief that that's what we''ve done well it that's not what we're going to do but that is yes we would bring that to uh a um subcommittee can I just clarify and maybe it's because I didn't

understand what you were saying but I wanted to clarify something from Mr Cory the the prek students that are on the ground floor presently of 251 would not be part of the stone therapeutic Day School stand Community they would remain a standalone program and stone would carry on as they do right now on the first second and third floors yeah it's fine okay so I just want I just want to be clear that this

option moving Stone opening up westall again as a standalone option it doesn't answer our prek expansion issue right but but we have a potential solution right now so how do we address the prek needs so we have option one is what we've been doing looking for additional space to rent or to purchase E Avenue is not a permanent option right now it's a temporary option we would have to

continue but that's really not a viable option with the concrete answer right option two would be to repurpose existing fall Republic schools facilities as we've said we've looked at our numbers Who belongs where neighborhoods have shifted right what we learned is for instance tany and Spencer Bardon neighborhood enrollment totals show that we really don't need two elementary schools in the same

neighborhood I mean you can throw a ball from one to the other right and the numbers don't warrant two elementary schools servicing the same neighborhood right tany Elementary neighborhood totals 163 children and Spence AB bordon totals 376 children if you combine both of those numbers Spencer bordon has the physical capacity to serve the Highland neighborhood zone right by itself it absolutely could and there as

Miss per just said there are Stones throw away they're in the same neighborhood yeah this a better facility having said that Brian Brian can we go to the next slide if you look at the spener board and student breakdown if this was updated today just try put the wrong one in this is where all the students are from Spencer Bard as you see 273 spenc bord students at expensive Bardon but they also take in kids from

all over the district I I'm not going to run through every single number unless you want me to but it just shows how spread out and this is probably the equivalent for most of our schools they're all over the place right and if you look at the next slide you have a tany breakdown if you look at tany they're actually look at they have 80 F0 kids from F exactly only 109 students from actually from tany

neighborhood attend tany yeah right and the rest of the makeup of the composition of that enrollment is students from all over our our city so what would happen to the other kids so if if this was to go through Spencer bordon can't take all the tcy kids only the ones like so they you tell me that they have 109 open seats at Spencer bordon or we have to remove some seats

from Spencer bordon to right it would give us an opportunity to Spencer bord also has I believe 80 some f students right F students right so what what we would require us to do is to actually send kids it opens up spots and allows us to send kids to their neighborhood school and what I'm saying is that would in order to make any plan work so and to just go based on the data and the

information you have to make some decisions that are going to be difficult and you're going to have to just say this is what's in order to put us all in a room we have to make sure these five are going to go that way no choice you go back I I just think as we present we need to make sure we're clear about that that absolutely may I say one thing yes

so this going back to the um the westall 2.0 and the remaining fansa school I took all thousand what other kids that live that are in the fansa zone and I classified him either as W4 West do kid mean they're going to go to the West do Zone and F they're going to remain in fanska like they live you know on be street they're going to go to fanska they live on Rock Street they're

going to go to West M I also took kids that are in Parts Spencer Borden Zone um and move them into West like President Avenue was currently spener bordon but President Avenue on this plan would now be Wester I took kids out of spener bordon that would possibly move back to West if this plan goes forward up seats from Spencer Barden and then the seats that and also the kids that are at Spencer Bard that actually

going in fans they became resp for kids again classifi that way I knew I had seats opened up there so return them there so that frees up seat that SP to board in two different ways so as this if you did something with tany there are seat now I'm not saying it's be a perfect fit you still have to go through it you know again and you know families that are moving you know may have a

choice to say I want to stay here cuz my grandmother livs across the street she watches my kid or you know for whatever reason but um it's a moving Target that things one room one school's uh thing opens up other schools there's going to be people that may be an issue like ones that are moving but as far as taking any kids we take from tany and move to spener bordon I mean where's the

complaint it's the same literally know so we're just talking about the other children who we may have to but that may actually be helpful to parents who after work I pick up my child at this end of the city and then yay I get to drive through the entire city in traffic before I go home and start din I think it might be H they might be there's going to be always right when it's when

something changes but I think it it'll be a good change for most of them honestly I think Mr AAR is right I mean hard conversations have to be had we have to communication needs to be a huge piece we need to hold uh meetings and and really talk about the benefits the pros and the cons of each of these and and certainly the you're right the rest of the committee needs to weigh in on

this but if we want to expand prek and we want to look at our existing facilities what we have in place and how that could support some of that work we do have some opportunities to do some of that work now that we could do moving forward so I want to say again I commend you all for doing this we had the meeting we took the 30 days and it was

like that's important because we put the pressure on but it's March 7th today so as we're seeing this I'm saying even the best laid plans it's March 7th school year next year's coming so we we don't have time to spend 4 months going to listen to this talk about that we need to do it Monday night in my opinion and then we say we're going to have Community meetings whatever you say and

then you we have to give you the opportunity to make these we just can't keep waiting and that's why I think when we vote to refer it needs to go for Monday yep it's not for that's what the Sunday would do we can't necessarily vote we can vote on having a meeting probably on Monday we can't necessarily say we're going to do this then what's the point of having a community meeting

unless we say we're going to do it and the community meeting is just to go over the details of how it's going to go which that's up to you to figure out that's exactly what said that when we talked about you'll see that at the end of next steps that the community meeting at that point would be more around information seeking so we can be as proactive with families but not asking

for permission or feedback from families per se right that's what I I just think time is of the essence that's I agree with you we know that we're going to have to make some hard decisions make some movements so because we're going to have to you know we want to be ready for the fall period right as far as populating 2501 maybe opening up you know uh westall U as an elementary school moving

Stone there's a lot of moving Targets in order for all of that that has to be coordinated that can't be done we can't make that decision in May or June so so our prek expansion recommendation as a group would be to repurpose tany to and and to to convert it to an early Elementary uh Early Learning Center right repurpose that as an Early Learning Center the tany facility is an

ideal Place one level one ground it's an ideal for prek five prek classrooms could move over from the those classrooms from 2501 could move over we would be able to absorb the why would you want to move them over if we have to not the on FL the first flow on got you got you okay got you so we could right right move um the they have a spot there absolutely the Eastern Avenue we could

absorb that if we so chose or if we wanted how many if we absorb Eastern Avenue we absorb if we absorb let's say we absorb um from uh 251 and E AB how many would give us leftover classrooms in that two all right so right now we don't need to for further expansion if we wanted to I think we just need to be nice to that priest and I think he'll let us stay oh

yeah that's not an issue yeah I don't think we need to be rushed out of there I'm not saying we should shouldn't when you're renting scary but I wouldn't rush is we are we're not using our classrooms to capacity there right exactly they have been wonderful but we can't fill the classrooms to capacity because they're just too small yeah but that just wouldn't be much of an expansion it would be more of a

relocation you know saying number three says five classrooms would move but then earlier we said there's only four classrooms on 251 how is that what what am I missing that's your you're you we can count on you all the time right excuse me that's because in the ground floor we have um one classroom we would move out because it's a smaller space and we would want to make space

for um a clerk to be there and uh because that's going to be a standalone we would want some support there so we would move a classroom out of there uh out of that ground Flor the only question I would have and this doesn't have to be answered now is the first I'm not convinced yet because of the issue we I just mentioned relative to the stone of why we need all of those flaws

the stone so I would be asking for info on why that can't happen and then the second if if PRK was really the issue we could keep theoretically the first it's not it's illegal to have those five classrooms on the first floor maybe four because of right the four so I wouldn't want to just dismiss it without KN we could keep those there period no but what saying is I don't want to dismiss

it with the fact that we need it for the stone and I admittedly haven't been to there I haven't seen the layout of this what was it Stone so if you told me that look at we look at all this and we can't do the second and third floor as Stone based on this and that like that's the analysis I'm looking for it sounds like he probably I'm the concern to do the

second and third floor as Stone and keep the prek on the first floor would be be the integration of the two so there's no access to the second and third floor without going into the first floor so there would no be no way to keep Stone and the preschool completely separate so if that was the case Stone can fit on the second and third floor then by that logic I don't know in terms of classroom

space I don't know if they right now Mrs Mrs um uh Shaw is using 13 classrooms at Stone in addition to all I'm saying is based on what you just said was that we could keep them there but the issue why we wouldn't do it that way well one of the issues right so what I'm saying is why would we we have to explore that or whatever you know to me

because if that's the case then we retrofit it so that they don't integrate and spend the money on that if we were able to gain for I don't know if there's a way to do that the way the school a main office is on that floor I'm just saying cafeteria it's a weirdly like set up I think it used to be a Convent then it was a school or something so it's

very I used to work there the only reason I know but elevator there are a lot of logistical things that my other question that and I'm not looking for an answer now is where else did we look at to relocate the stone and I don't need the answer now that's just another food for thr right okay okay okay so so and acting now we we know at we just heard

time is of the essence right we want to make sure we also have uh in our budget proposal we have a tentative we know we have to populate um uh 251 that will be impacted because shifting tany MH to the um westall we could ship that staff so which would limit we wouldn't have to you know hire a holding staff for 251 so all those decisions you want to make as early as

possible so that we can start moving as early as possible Kevin I just wanted a question is is your thought process on that um not moving the stone kids to 251 in order to keep the stone kids separate from the other population is that your motivation yeah or did they look at any other place so that so that we could I'm worried and I've always been worried about mixing alternative Therapeutics

kids in the same building as a that's what I was question I do think that that's an issue I have I have similar concerns M I don't personally if you're looking at and I think that like if we were let's say Stone if we moved Stone to a another small like like a Watson or uh that's the only small school you only have three small schools right if we were moving it there then

it's just a swap one for one we wanted to make sure if we're going to make moves like this they need to have a purpose behind it so I I think that as a team we'll we'll explore that possibility as what if it was somewhere else well I think it also just helps to say we looked at all the options and there is not you know what I'm saying so

like I think there's a benefit to saying we looked at it and there just is not right or do we put them together and do we add one you know like so I probably think that it's probably going to say that you don't have one right to do or how is what's going to be the game plan to make sure that the kids aren't integrated and then that's a whole another thing that you say we've thought

about it this is how we're going to have this door that doesn't open we're going to have that so we don't see it here but if this is going to come to fruition you're going to have to get yes those details do they already have that in the building I think they do right so and that is one of the things that we discussed and so if Stone were to occupy

floors one 2 and three and that pre room just in the ground flooor we are able to lock off the ground floor from the first second and third floors and so we have our separate entrance that we currently use we do not use the main entrance for prek currently we use the ground floor entrances for prek and so we would be able we would have the ability to have separate entrances we have separate you know

bathroom facilities we'd have separate um main office with the clerk um that school is the best as far as separating the population as far as plag ground cafeteria all that kind of stuff it would be it would it would be completely separate so the playground that um preschool uses is not the main playground in the back it's um a playground that's sort of tucked between the ground floor of the building that

we've fenced off as a play area for preschool and so that would be a completely separate area than the stone school would use and we do not use the cafeteria and preschool um due to the size of the children in the transitioning we in the classrooms okay so our next steps would be um obviously we're looking I already did that the I did I did so um the next steps

would be that we would be looking for a referral right we' be looking for a referral to the full committee so we can talk about this I mean we've gotten good feedback that we can um uh refine and tighten up for Monday to talk about this a determination of the of so that we can determine the Staffing because we're going to have to uh do some have some conversations uh in regards to how

we staff what we do if we're going to shift people we would want to meet with with the tany staff for instance if it if it impacted if it impacts them um we also need to do some retrofitting and and do some physical space like make bathrooms accessible for for little ones um at the school Etc so we need to plan um as we said so that the time we have a

time crunch we want to make sure that everything is thought out intentional planned out so that we can be ready to open and make any moves that need to be moved and ready to go for the fall all right so motion to refer motions made to refer positive second second all in favor I I I just had one further question and not um as we do the all of this analysis which I've said three

times already that I think it was good I'd like to get the analysis of other schools and their lines as well so that if we're going to take this on we might as well take it all on and say oh is there other schools that have this which we should have corrected so that we now say we're going to I know we probably can't do that much of moving kids in

buildings but we can definitely look at the lines and say as of 2024 we redid our lines they make more sense talk to Transportation figure out is there things that we should be doing and making a decision at the same time if we're talking about budgets and money we have to be looking at start times and end times now for how do we can we do another tier can we do it are we doing

it right do we we do that all at the last minute right before the budget and then we sit there and say we have to go with it versus let's have a transportation subcommittee meeting where they can say here's what the tearing is here's what the we have cases that have happened where we voted on a tier that doesn't make any sense because the the bus can't physically be there

you know what I'm saying like they can't cross over so if we do it on uh August 30th that's what we get so all I would say is this is great we the pressure was on you guys did a great job now let's finish the rest of the district I think what it did is opened our eyes we I agree there's work to be done and I think that this is the beginning of that

work we do as we did our analysis and looked at where kids are we know that if we looked at every single School we're going to find similar and what what our goal should be as a district is to try to return as many students as possible to the new neighborhood right we create neighborhood schools for a reason can't imagine when they built these going across City so I think it's the

beginning of the work that needs to be done I agree Mr you had a question no I was just saying I can't believe they didn't think about it back then just for a point of clarity just for my own Clarity um Madam superintendent um this is going to be an evolutionary thing because prek is obviously going to grow into the future so if we outgrow first of all I want to

commend all of you on this plan I think it's a really good plan uh I'm going to vote to approve it um moving forward even after this plan if we outgrow this plan do we spend money to repurpose some of the old buildings that we have to bring them up to code to house specifically the prek movement well I think that that first of all I think to house the prek movement is probably not

something with that because they're multifloor buildings we will have the exact same issue right for a Wy three floors we're not going to be able might that mean we'd have to build a new building well or we'd have to we have to explore like we looked at um the Old Stone school on globe globe street right to see what the you know if it was feasible to put some modular units there

I think that we need to look at that we own think modular units are great econom that might be where it has to go but that that's something school committee needs to weigh in I think that what it does is is if we're going to be serious if if Mr agar is saying is is is correct if the school committee is serious about Universal prek then we need to be serious about okay so what does that

mean for us where will we put up we we can all say we want all these kids in school but we need to have places where we're going to put them so where are we willing to invest how much are we willing to invest so that we can create spaces for this KS to come so modular units seem to make a lot of sense to me you can plant them at different sites

you know keep a neighborhood concept alive and U I worked in a modular unit at Henry Lord back in the80s I loved it I loved it it was like my own domicile you know was great but I think that that's totally a potential alternative can I ask that the um we've had prior task force we've had prior um people looking at buildings and stuff we as a school committee never receive

any information from any of these so if we can dig up from the powers that be were that have been here over the last 5 six years we've had these discussions and I've made recommendations I've never heard anything to say that was not a good one it was a good one we never so we've keep calling these task force this is the most active task force that was and I think setting the 30-day window is

what got us but we need to these copies of these things because we can all say it like the globe Street I told you the other day I thought we wasted $400,000 to tell us something that we knew was going to happen because common sense says it we didn't get told that ahead of time we just paid the bill for 400,000 gone because we we're going to spend $10 million on the modular so Mr Cy brings

up a good point what would a modular cost for two classrooms at 2501 on the other side can we make an outk at the other school what we don't know that information because it's never really been explored other than we just spent 400,000 to tell us what that the whatever so you get the point but whatever you can dig up with would help us to answer some questions so I appreciate everyone on this thank you

very much one more right and yep and we're going to move to number whatever it is the good work folks good work the apartment organizational chart 3.02 and Miss Mrs PS or your designate my designate this time so what a team wow look at this right can um holy SM do we have any extra copies of that I don't is it in

the I have it all right so again I wanted on behalf of my department I do want to say how much we appreciate the school committee support and the subcommittee support on expanding special education we' I've heard since I started here about a year ago or a little over a year ago um that you know special ed was was something that needed to change needed to grow needed to develop to meet the

everchanging needs of our kids and we need the people to do that so now you can see that um you know I have uh a chief office of uh chief officer special education compliance directly under me so again um supporting the work that I do and um being able to step in when I'm not in the district um is certainly helpful um I two now administrative assistance um that falls under me one

really handles the circuit breaker um pieces out of District tuition pieces um tutoring all of those aspects and then um my other Administrative Assistant handles a lot of our um contracted provider work our payroll uh for staff and then again supports be with any um task that I need um the layer under myself and the the chief officer of special education compliance is all of our supervisors and we were able to take

I think last year when I presented um the need for more supervisors their case loads were like 800 kids and they could not meet the needs of the kids and they could not support the building so by the addition of um I think at least three supervisors last year most of them are able to stay within two buildings and their case loads now are you know under 600 probably a piece and then we've

added more layers of support our cluster coordinator layer which I mentioned last time has been a huge asset to us this year to support the instruction along with um our office of instruction team and then um we have our bcba layer our team chair layer um which you know the goal for me for team chairs is to really be the um connection to families at the building level right because they are

the ones that are cons assistent at the building level where a supervisor goes back and forth between yes they might be between buildings but they're actually present more often um so that would be our initial connection so by uh adding them to our department or increasing the numbers that we had my hope is that they will be able to share all of our meetings at some point and be able to

really be that um connection with our families because I think that that piece of it with special education is missing just because they're so many different people that are around um and then obviously our right now our special education supervisors do evaluate all of our substantially separate classroom um teachers that was a change for this year um just because I wanted to see the

consistency you know we have strands across the district so I wanted to see some consistency in programming but also in staff supervision accountability of those pieces so that and to help the principles and the building Administration with their evaluation pieces and then we broke up the related service providers so they are really spread out all over the district but what I had um our chief officer Jim do

was really look at which service providers are supporting which schools and so they support the supervisors evaluate our slps our OTS our PT who's contracted but they do consult with her and then they um those people the slps the OTS they super supervis the kodas the slpas those pieces so that's just our layout Early Childhood um is still part of my department but they have their own or chart I used Kristen's

honestly from last year that she had developed so it it is similar but again the new additional classrooms at 2501 are not there so um just any questions any questions as far as as far as delivery of services is concerned is a delivery happening at a at a decent rate I mean it depends honestly In Pockets we're doing the best we can with the Staffing that we have Staffing continues to be a major problem

so we have 70 special ed openings it's hard for me to tell you we're doing the best that we can right we are constantly recruiting yes kids are getting service I don't want people to think they're not getting service if they're not getting serviced for example speech is one of our very very short departments parent have been notified where they're on a compensatory service list last year we

offered summer um programming for just for speech so we could bring kids in for compensatory services that they miss during the year but instructionally this the buildings have shifted around staff to cover so that the services are being provided um that way refresh my uh my memory are the collaboratives helping it all as far as that's concerned so the collaborative we we do have um smck uh a

couple of bcba supporting us right now from smck but they don't have the staff to send us so we have agency Staffing supporting us but not our collaborative Staffing because they're short too yeah so what you're telling me is the issue of shortage isn't just us oh no no no no it's I mean I'm I'm part of a special ed director group across the state of Massachusetts there's not one District

that doesn't have shortages especially in special education how are we to alleviate the issues then moving forward I think for us as a district honestly we need to look at our tier one pieces so that again we're finding students eligible for special education who truly have disabilities and addressing weaknesses or kids that are struggling with our you know core content because we certainly rais the expectation for

them that we're providing a robust general education um intervention piece before they get to special education number one and then looking at our models right so the whole point of looking at substantially separ separate um groups first was to say how many of these kids could be in inclusion with additional support because then we have the additional Staffing that are already in our substantially separate programs

that can help out our general Ed right to push in my goal next year is look at that inclusion model how are we providing Services I know Mr agar has brought brought up before like is there a way to have um let's just say an extra General Leed kindergarten teacher supporting kindergarten classroom that has special education students in it so that we can have at least a teacher there for them right those are all

different models we need to explore um we're required to do a special education audit um yearly and I think next year we need to look at our related services and how we're providing this the um our service delivery model you know what I mean how we're assigning case flows all those pieces to make better recommendations because you can't hire the people if the people aren't there

right H as far as recruiting new people uh is there a major effort to try to recruit there is I mean we're going to have to look at you know our salary structure for special education teachers and Paris and all of those pieces I think we're ready for that yeah I think that um so that's what we're hoping you know with this you said in negotiations and with the school committee support

that's one way to recruit right because we know people leave because they can go make more money other places or they say no thank you because they don't want to take the salary that we offer when we know all our surrounding districts are also hiring you know thank you how how many uh regular red teachers did we hire over the last sever years on emergency licenses for regular classrooms not looking for an

answer but that's something we can get and I'd also like to know how many because of the shortage of uh teachers the state created a situation where we could do an emergency license for some somebody to get in the field I'd also like you to tell the committee how many teachers that we've had emergency special ed licenses I know the answer to that one you yeah yeah zero oh I was like do you

want to tell us because it's zero because they didn't offer those like in those so you get in specialed they didn't do it like they did for regular Ed and I think when we talk about like well even so they Chang at first in the beginning right after Co right everybody could get licenses including special ESL then they continue to allow general education teachers to do that but now they put

extra restrictions in order to get special ed and it was making it very difficult for people to get that emergency service in special ed so there was this huge discrepancy and i' have to look at the numbers versus a waiver versus they made them jump through hoops I just think my the point of the story was is that you shouldn't be blamed for saying and we don't have so if you don't

have teachers in the states that it's easier to just coming out of different field we can give you a license for now you get the person in you don't have that right as a it's a another Boop which is unfair so across the state everybody says we don't have special ed teachers but let's make it harder to try to get somebody in the door as a body is better than nobody and that's where I

think uh we need to reach out to the legislators for their uh which I've been talking about for a long time have meetings with them go over all these fields because you're up against it so the only comment I would make on this is that um I've said this in other meetings and I said it at the budget meeting that if we're going to look at the structure of our organization we have to have the

super and then we have our assistants we should have every Department under a silo of an assistant superintendent because we can't have direct in any organization you have to have that structure so here it says assistant superintendent all of the folks including the director of Early Childhood under Miss open chain when you look at other departments in this that doesn't isn't the case I think we really

need to change that so that either we have to hire another a deputy which I've always been in favor of or an assistant super we have to have that structure so it's like a lay that that's what you get once you get to be assistant superintendent you're watching all these things so you know the director of Early Childhood does her own thing within her department but she answers to miss

obenchain miss obenchain answers to the superintendent when we don't have that like structure we just lose I I think some of our own continuity in my opinion I hear you so can yeah Mr Cory Lori again so uh we worked hard to get the student opportunity after monies and I have to I have to praise the state legislature because they were right behind us and they really made it happen they

understood there were all kinds of meetings leading up to it and they had a real Bird's eyye view as to what was going on and they knew that we needed to funnel more monies into certain areas of public education so I'm thinking out of the box here if special education itself is almost at a crisis level because of short staffing shortages then we don't want to see the student Opportunity Act

monies go away at the end of that seven-year term so I just wonder what can we do at the state level you know with with other public school districts in Gateway cities you know to conjure up a movement to continue this in the name of bolstering special education um when the student Opportunity Act money end uh one of the questions given to me when I was running for offices do you see the state legislature

supporting you know public education after the 7-year student opportunity uh period so I don't know I'm thinking out of the box but I just want to know if we can create a movement like that may jump in I just want to be clear the student Opportunity Act the money that what that was is to change the formula right yeah so that students in Heins districts we fund them

at a higher rate than you know uh uh a district that doesn't have any High need students the the the money that's going to go way in that six it was s year but six year because of Co period it what they what the what they've done is they're trying to level the playing field right but in order to do that and to say we're going to change the form

and so now we're we're we're going to fund you at this level there was such a difference that they said okay we'll give you seven years we're going to we're going to divide up that difference in funding over seven years to catch us up to that so to seven years our formula includes it's we we're getting more money but they're catching us up I I joke around with Kevin all the time

and say they it's basically a payment plan to get us to where we're supposed to be before everybody got funded at the at the same level and now what they're saying is students in high needs districts poverty special ed ESL those students we should be receiving more money for those students because it costs more money to educate those students so that funding the the funding to catch us up to that will go away but

our the formula is going to be at a rate that's higher than what it used to be so it's always go now it moving forward it will be we will be funded at a higher rate so do you foresee the continuation of that funding after the seven-year period of yes of that the formula just won't be it won't be as drastic so right now it's drastic to get it up so let's

say it's 10 million a year exactly 10 million 10 million 10 million for 6 years after that year it's no longer going to be 10 more million but it's going to be the floor of what the new formula is so now if it goes up by 2% you get 2% you won't get the 10 million so I think that's the key when people say we passing all these positions and

we don't have the money it's because we know it's going up for this now if we keep spending 10 million a year for those years we're going to have a problem but that's where we've been saying no talk to the administration we it's got to kind of stop level up which I think is what we're absolutely what we're doing so it's to catch us up that's what it is I realize u u and and

I guess part of my question was can special ed be the next big area you know for this you know that we can fund at a high level of resources so that we can have the right equipment especially for OT especially to pay teachers and staff you know adequately for the level of services they have to provide that's really the bulk of my if you look at our well if you look at this or chart you

can see that we have prioritized special ed right I think that uh Miss Oben chain has come to the committee we the subcommittee as well as the full committee any time that we need to put resources in the department we have done that yeah and I'm not questioning you guys I'm I'm questioning the state legislature for them for them to be able to provide the resources so that districts like ours could use those

resources in an adequate way that's what I was really questioning absolutely so I think I think we need to all Champion that you know moving forward you know stay close to our state delegation and and talk turkey with them all the time thank you I would I would just say that when the uh Administration books a um legislative meeting with the local delegation when the administration works with the Mas

the masc the ma whatever the thing is for special ed all of those agencies the very simple thing for special ed is fully fund circuit breaker fully fund these accounts that you have so there's ways to do it in a way he's talking about but it's going to have to be a movement of everybody because I'm sick and tired of hearing that we got $3 billion of extra money and we still

don't fund homeless children at 100% I mean cut the crap already the same thing with the circuit breaker so what he's saying is right it's not going to be a big as big as the S SOA but we need to have the local meeting so that they can talk to them invite the committee if you want but I think that's where the advocacy's got to go so and Target Target the money you know and help help

you out that way that way you you got more resources to work with so I see do we have any new business no no uh thank you all again I want to just commend Brian and Scott and the folks that worked on these things these don't take like two seconds to do so they' spent a long time trying to do it and then we put we charge them now with going to do

more of these so I appreciate it guys you did a nice job but the 30-day thing was I think if we learned anything once we put a time limit on it we can get it done but let's add more time limits so motion to Second all in favor all so so voted thank you