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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-01-16-SC-min LEXINGTON SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING Tuesday,January 16, 2024 Meeting Minutes AGENDA: CALL TO ORDER AND WELCOME: 8:03 AM SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT Deepika Sawhney, Vice-chair Kathleen Lenihan, Clerk Eileen Jay Sara Cuthbertson, Chairperson, and Mr. Freeman did not attend. Ms. Sawhney chaired the meeting. SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS PRESENT Dr. Julie Hackett, Superintendent, and Dave Coelho, the Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations. The minutes were taken by Julie Kaye, School Committee Meeting Recording Secretary. The School Committee convened remotely. Members of the public can view and participate in the meeting webinar from their computer or tablet by clicking on the link provided with the meeting agenda. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and that attendees are participating by video conference. This meeting is being taped by LexMedia for future on-demand viewing. All supporting materials provided to members of this body are available on the Town's website unless otherwise noted. Public hearing to discuss the Suerinten ent o Schools' Y 2 eco ended School ude . Mr. Coelho reviewed the slideshow presentation. He explained that this is the Fiscal Year 2025 Budget, a level service recommendation to the School Committee. He added that one of the School Committee's collaborative goals was to create a new and improved budget book that "not only works for folks in terms of their digestion of this information but also conveys it in a very simple, straightforward fashion." School Committee Questions/Comments: Ms. Lenihan would like to know what our per-pupil expenditure is. Mr. Coelho explained that this is hard to calculate because that's part of the end-of-year report process. On slide 16, there's a chart comparing our per pupil to other districts. Ms. Lenihan asked if this is our most recent calculation, and Mr. Coelho confirmed. JK 1/16/24-APPROVED Ms. Lenihan had another question about transportation, she would like to know if there has been any thought about the consolidation of bus stops. Mr. Coelho answered that this is something that the Transportation Office thinks about every year. We use a transplanter system that looks at where our students live, it then tries to plot where bus stops can be either consolidated or moved. Mr. Coelho added that there are other things that need to be considered, such as the safety of where the stop is and the distance the student has to walk to get to the stop. He also mentioned that many students getting on at one stop could take longer to load. Ms. Lenihan asked what the cut-off distance to a school is, and Mr. Coelho answered there is no set distance. If a student lives across the street from a school, but the street is highly traveled, then the bus would pick that student up for safety reasons. Mr. Coelho explained that there is a cut-off of two miles for free versus paid transportation. Ms. Jay asked about slides 14 & 15, Staffing and Expenses. She would like to know why there was a reduction from last year's base of 17.8 FTE in Special Education. She broke down the number by explaining, "I think if you look further, roughly three to four of those are Special Ed teachers, and about 14 or so are Unit C." Her question is whether this is due to changes in the program or if some of those positions (especially the Unit C ones) are being filled by using other money (such as use of outside consultants). Mr. Coelho replied that we meet with staff in the fall and determine what they can do without and what they need. Students aging out, students moving to different programs, and students going out of district are examples of impacts on caseloads. The reduction represents Special Education and Unit C staff not needed in the same capacity going into FY 25. Mr. Coelho added that we put in an unallocated allotment for staff for new students who could come in. Ms. Jay reiterated that this is not due to a loss or a program reduction, Mr. Coelho confirmed. The FTE number is a general assessment of what the needs are. Mr. Coelho explained that, "it's probably across many programs, at many levels. You might have a reduction in elementary programs because the students are moving into the middle school or the high school from the middle school. Programs will ebb and flow in terms of where those needs are and where those transitions happen to take place" Ms. Jay asked if we still need to fill some of those Unit C positions through the outside consultant mechanism, and Mr. Coelho confirmed yes. He explained that there is an account used for behavioral staffing, OT/PT, and for addressing gaps and vacancies. Ms. Jay asked, "On the expense side, I think your slide showed that the bulk of the reduction in expenses was from tuition and out-of-district transportation. What's changed? Is that based on the students we have or students that we are predicting, and is it just that we have fewer students who need those placements? What do we do if there are more expenses?And I know we have a lot of measures to fill that unpredictability. I'm just curious: What brought that number down this year?" Mr. Coelho replied that, most significantly, it was brought down by reviewing the high-risk list and looking strategically at what had been left over in that category in previous years. He added that "some of those students have been on that list for a number of years, and we've been able to successfully keep them within the District programs. That's been a great success for us, so we took a strategic look at balancing that unknown-but-known cohort with what happens if we need additional funding. We have the reserve funds and then we have the stabilization fund" JK 1/16/24-APPROVED Ms. Jay added that she really likes the way the narratives are explained in this budget book, "It's a really, really nice snapshot of what's going on programmatically with each of those areas. I think it makes it not just an explanation of the numbers, but an explanation of what we're doing in each of those programs....it makes this budget book very much connected to what we're doing and what we're aiming to do." Dr. Hackett added, "I think it's a very honest look at what happens. And for the Town Meeting members who will ultimately hear this presentation and look at the budget book, it reflects what is not able to happen in programs as well. So we document the changes that are positive and that we're grateful for and what we can't do. And one of the things that we worked hard on is making sure that there's a more accurate reflection because sometimes we just have one slide, and it looks like, "oh, you got everything that you wanted," when, in fact, that doesn't reflect the reality." Ms. Sawhney agreed that this document makes it so much easier to understand. She requested one change; on slide 8, she would like an asterisk in the box "4 vs. 5" explaining this change. She would also like others who are from another lens to look at the slideshow to see if there's anything that we know but others might not understand. She mentioned that Town Meeting members will want to know more about the minus 8.61% (in FTEs). Ms. Sawhney asked if this will be the same presentation shown at the Town Budget Meeting. Dr. Hackett replied that it will be similar, we only have 5 minutes to present. Mr. Coelho added that it will be the Executive Summary presented, which still depicts the process we went through. Ms. Sawhney brought up the sheltered families and Pre-K evaluations for students who are not currently in our school system; she thinks this may be a cost coming in 2025 and in LCP. She suggested allocating a little budget line for this going forward. COMMUNITY SPEAK Taylor Singh, Hancock Street: She would like to know if increasing the budget to increase the number of Orton Gillingham or Wilson certified teachers was discussed. Dr. Hackett responded, "We have a number of Orton Gillingham trained teachers. We do not have additional money allocated for that purpose, but we can certainly get the School Committee additional information about how many are trained and so forth. And I also want to emphasize the fact that we did have to make some reductions in order to make this budget work." ADJOURNMENT Ms. Jay made a motion to adjourn at 8:46 a.m., Ms. Lenihan seconded. Ms. Sawhney took a roll call vote Passed 3-0. JK 1/16/24-APPROVED