Meeting transcript
BOE Meeting 7.8.26
July 8, 2026 · Watch on Zoom · All meetings
Okay. We'd like to welcome everyone to the regular board of ed meeting for the month of July. We are a tiny group tonight, we will go forward. So in terms of call to order, we'll do the budget of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America
and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Don't really have so much of an opening statement tonight. We'll get through the stuff we gotta get through. Bathroom project is coming along great, so I'm really excited to talk about that. We can move on to public comment. Scott? Nothing bad. Just watch out for him. And? Nothing. K. Liz? Not not right now. Thanks. Diane? Diane, we can't hear you. First one down. Well, the other one's gone now. Yeah. Oh. So Diane. She's not muted. Oh. Oh. Oh. You hear me? Okay. Diane, you're good. I'm all set. Okay. Thank you. And Jen? All set. Thank you.
Okay. In terms of communications, you guys have been CT'd on some communications between myself, the board of selectman chair, and the board of finance chair. And we've had communications regarding the construction project in the bathroom, which have been sent to you guys as well. Nothing that won't be addressed further on. So does anyone have other communications? Okay. How are we doing celebrations?
I do not have any celebrations. We are quiet. ESY did start yesterday. So those are our students who receive academic or related services in the summer. So it's nice to see a couple kids in the building. Always feels like they've aged ten years, you know, even though it's been three weeks. Yeah. So that is our celebration of just getting to see some kiddos, but it's been quiet on the kid front. Do want the kid ball name? The teachers. Is that a question? It is a question. Shannon, have a reputation to uphold. I only was injured for about six days after. We did. They did great, but, yeah, we did. Okay. Okay.
We'll move on to a verbal of minutes. So we have the regular meeting from June 10, and then we have the special meeting from the twenty fifth. You guys wanna We're
here on the tenth, so you guys take it away.
I read them earlier, and I wrote down a note. There was a word that said done.
It was supposed to say down. Do you know And I Where you were? Trying to find where it was. You think it was in the one from the tenth? Or Yes. Okay. Yep.
And I think it may have been to do with the budget, but I'm not sure. Sitting here trying to wreck my brain. You know what looks like? It is in grade 800 superintendent's
report. So the numbers are down. So the numbers are down. Yep. There we go. Yep. Okay.
I think these are what was that? I was like I wasn't here, so I guess there wasn't a liaison report. Okay? Yeah. You know?
K. Does anyone have any other features besides that? Your one word that you found? Okay.
I didn't found anything. Okay. I don't mind. I'm trying to remember what it was. There was something that was we were gonna send a report.
And For to you. This one. Yep. I brought it with me. It says for Marcy. Thank you.
Okay. I can make a motion to approve the notes from the meeting on June 10 with the change you already mentioned, Marcy. Second. Okay. I don't. Doesn't matter. K. All in favor? Aye. Aye. So
301. K. And then we'll move on to the notes from the twenty fifth.
Make a motion to accept these units from the special meeting of June 25. I'll circle. K. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed?
Marcio, the the notes from the twenty fifth? Yes. Yes. It's it's alright. It's fine. Okay.
So they Shannon made a move then to approve. Yeah.
You're good? Mhmm. Okay. K. So four Zero zero. Four two zero.
So we'll move on to opportunity to add or delete agenda items. I do need to ask if we could please add an executive session. So between it would be number 10 as another action item to add an executive session to discuss recommendations from our attorney regarding a legal matter, and we would invite the superintendent into that. Does anyone have anything else that they would like to
I just I got a note from somebody. They're they're concerned because they didn't have any any packet. There was no minutes or financials.
Is there anything that we have to give the public? Is there anything we're gonna discuss that they need to have?
I mean, the agenda was posted. The agenda was posted. So the meeting packet will be posted, like, after we're done with the meeting tonight. I know somebody. So the agenda was Okay. That's the law. Just
the agenda. So because we're not discussing the budget or anything financial, so we don't have to put that up. Right? No. Even those things don't
have to be posted. The agenda have to be posted. So it happens about once a year when Diane's on the cake. Jenna Goldrick just wrote that it is posted now. Yeah. So but then she met Brooke on Monday. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, we've made it till Monday. Usually, we're a week ahead of time, which is really good. It only has to be twenty four hours ahead of time, but Diane posted it on Monday. Sure. So not last week. She posted it.
And that's why none of us got it mailed to us as well. Yeah. You wouldn't have gotten any time. Yeah. I figured it'd a holiday. That's why she emailed me. Yeah.
Okay. So if you guys are okay, we'll vote on adding the executive session as item 10. I don't really have a whole lot to report that's not covered elsewhere as a topic. I've mostly just been pretty busy with the bathroom project. I should have taken some pictures upstairs.
Oh, I have to sleep. Invite a thousand. Don't worry. I keep track of it. It's wild looking. It's holy. Yeah. It is.
Yeah. Let's see. A couple other things are gonna be under. Winter. Yeah. So we don't need those. Alright. So in terms of,
I guess, in terms of usually, I do the three things. In terms of grants, we did have two grants that we were waiting for. The first one, unfortunately, we didn't get that would have funded books, not because Taylor did do a fantastic job making this video for it with the help of a committee here. I mean, she was just as surprised as us that she didn't get it. She thought she should get an Emmy for this one performance. It was so good. Okay. But we didn't get that one. The other one that we're waiting for, it'll be another week or two because they were just due this Friday, and that is the high quality special education incentive grant from the state. So, hopefully, by next meeting, we'll have the answer one way or another. It is highly competitive, though. They're gonna award probably about 20 in each category for a total of 40, and every single superintendent I've talked to has put one into their district. So I'm anticipating it's a 168 districts that could apply plus, you know, other,
like, nonprofits and things like that. And you can apply for both the Capital One as well as the operational one. And so I'm anticipating there's gonna probably be 500 of my my. So so, you know, we're gonna keep our fingers crossed. But We like cold. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So so we're gonna keep our fingers crossed on that one. Other than that, there aren't any new ones this month, unfortunately, to report. The
I guess we could wait till we get to the other one for the snowblower to talk about that.
What is the high quality incentive plan? So it is
what the state's looking at, you know, this year with a huge push toward trying to better fund not only small districts, but special education. When they talk to districts no matter the size of them and they say, so tell us what it is that you run out of money for the most. Every single district universally says, number one, they want more excess cost, but they also I mean, they have more ECS dollars. Formulary, but they want more excess cost because the current rate of reimbursement for special education students is 4.5 times your per pupil spending is what you have to spend on a special education facility before you can even ask for reimbursement.
So for small districts like us, that range could go from 90 to a $140,000 and then the difference. So if you have a kid that's a $150,000, you can put in for reimbursement for the other 10. Wow. And then the formula for what your rate of reimbursement is per district varies, and it's usually somewhere between 4870% of the difference of the 4.5. Which which is, like, you're very beginning to reach that in the first Right. Yeah. You hope don't hopefully, you don't even get there. Right. And well and that's for a child. Yeah. So if you're a district that has three kids that are potentially in need of outplacement, you have to start again with each kid. For each kid. It doesn't, like, add kids. Right. And so one of the things that the state is trying to do to assist is to really look at, you know, how do we incentivize districts, especially the Northeast and the Northwest corners because we're the smaller ones, how especially us. But how do we incentivize districts to try to prevent putting that burden on the district. And they know you don't do it on purpose, but they're like, in other words, how do we get them to keep kids either in house or to go to another neighboring
public school? So for example, in the Northwest Corner, which I work a lot with, you know, the 20 districts up there in my other role, there's one small district, for example, that has an in house autism program. And they opened it out of the necessity for their particular town because they had, like, three kids. And three kids doesn't sound like a lot to a lot of other districts, but to them, it was important. And, you know, that was a lot. And so they opened the program. And then there's another district in the Northeast Corner there that has a program that specializes in behavioral high needs behavioral students. So what they want you to do is to say, what can we do to make sure that we, like, kinda specialize in something? Like so we put in one of those grants up there with, like, seven towns to look at having the state fund re you know, reinforcing those. My other district, for example, does regional summer school. I have seven towns that currently go there. So in my other district, what was my contribution to that, you know, idea, it was that the program would be twelve months because those kids would come to me in the summer. So here in Andover, we already knew because, you know, Taylor and the team that is here already knows that we have a a number of students, probably a half a dozen, that we have been very successful in keeping in district. Mhmm. But
we could use more resources to really make sure that we are able to have what would be considered. I don't wanna use the word resource room because the idea of this is to keep kids integrated. Integrated. Right. But in the traditional sense, most people understand it when we explain it that way. A room where kids filter in and out and get what they need when they're in there like what they might get in a specialized program elsewhere and then return to the classroom as often as they can. And so we are, to some extent, doing that this year in the fall for a few of those kids that we know we we we we don't want to place kids out, but that we know we can't anyways. So we're trying to to to fit those needs here. So that's what the purpose of it is. And then the capital portion of it would be of those grants, which we didn't apply for those, would be towns that say, well, we do have, like, this one wing.
And if we were to redo the roof on it, we could build a program like that. Or if we were to reconfigure the four classrooms there, we'd be able to do that. So those are what the grants are. And Is there some kind of stipulation in that grant that if you get it approved about accepting students from other towns? Nope. It it's gonna depend on how you wrote it. So, like, the one that I'm part of in the other district there, it was written that way where those seven towns. Nope. Yes. Those seven towns would say, what do we need the money for is if Thompson, for example, has an autism owner. So they wanna say, we wanna be able to make sure there's always six spots here, and the seven towns would always own those spots. So we need to make sure that teacher is paid for whether Thompson has a kid in that program or not because maybe Scotland has to send a kid. Maybe Hampton has to send a kid. They do this I will say they do this very successfully. The guy name is Quentin. He's like a SPED director on the Northwest corner the state about ten years ago. A group of about eight towns out there, they actually, like, kind of created a special education department for all those towns separate from the towns,
and their budgets budget that. They pay him. All their paras are are hired through there. They all of their staff, yeah, is hired through there. So it's like a district for It's it's like yes. It is like a shared,
thing for those districts. And then the cost what's the cost savings, like, percentage wise versus, like, a traditional outplacement?
The funny thing is because we've had a lot of talks with them about that because I know Quentin well when I was a spend director up there. It was that region. And so the thing is is some years, it's a significant savings to town. So a 100,000, 200,000 depending on how many kids they have in that program. Other years, if they don't have any, it's not a savings. What it is is a consistency in budgeting. Instead of up down, up down. But yeah. So they're always pegging the same percentage or whatever. Yeah. And if they don't have any kids this year, okay. It's they're losing money next year. Three of those spots are theirs. They're making out. Yeah. Right? You're not adding, like, 300,000 to your budget for three of them. Yes. And so I think that's what they're hoping to do because for a long time you guys know my sped love here, so I could go out forever. I'll stop in a second. But for a long time, people thought the answer was just simply,
you know, bake universal so that get rid of excess costs altogether and just have the state completely fund special ed in every district. Mhmm. But that's really not the answer either because then a district's almost encouraged to outplace. Right. If they said all of those excess costs for a district where a kid has to be placed out are gonna be covered, well, then why would you try? What would be the incentive to keep them in house? And we can't have that either. That's not fair to kids. So, so we'll see how it works. Even if I don't get it, I will come back to the table in September and fill you guys in on kind of, you know, where that went because that will affect us moving forward. The intent is for them to continue to have those grants. So Thank you. So that's grants. In terms of updates, we're gonna be talking about the only real update that I have for, facilities besides the bathroom there is, the, issue with the snowblower. So we'll talk about that a bit there on food b. K. Anyone have questions for Val? Are you? Nope. K. Gail?
So even though there are no kiddos here, lots of work to be done. So this week, we are doing a lot of work on finalizing and fine tuning the strategic plan for next year. So I'll be looking forward to presenting that to the board. As we know, whenever the state decides to unembargo the state testing score, they should do all that together, so likely September. So we're doing a lot of that work. And even though we're not necessarily having PD right now, we are certainly planning for it. So we've been working on our PMT training, getting that set up, which is our de escalation and physical restraints or holds training that some of the staff participate in CPR training. So a lot of our pre KK staff or NIACC, they are getting that set up into the fall. I just went to Detroit to a leadership conference, so that was exciting professional development in my own area. And then I'm working with EastCon currently to do a principal. We're finding, like, a principal leadership retreat in September at EastCon that I'll co present for our surrounding principals. So lots of PD development happening in the summer, of course, even though not live. In terms of curriculum, not no big changes that I think you'll anticipate. We've talked about that going into the fall.
So I don't anticipate big discussions around that in August and September. We are moving forward, as you know, with the new fly. So there's just a couple of teachers that will didn't pilot it last year that will go ahead and take that on this year. Are there any other programs besides that that you guys have to
put in that you don't currently Nope. So we'll continue with Bookworms.
YouFly and Hegrity, that will be our reading compendium. That's the waiver we're under is the compendium. Not I guess, not waiver anymore, but the and DIBELS is our state required assessment. And then in math, we'll continue with illustrative, which is our open source math curriculum that we use, k six. And then we are, I suppose, not curriculum, but the new will be in restorative practice practice work. Work. So the state has done a lot of new mandating this year about restorative practices. And the good news is we are, as always, in Andover ahead of the curve. It's a lot of what we do. That. Sure. So you bend anything. Sorry. Yeah. So if you think about traditional discipline and maybe when you were were in school and you think about suspensions and expulsions and detention and right? And so that is not ideal. As you can imagine, the research shows kids need to be in school, and exclusionary
practices, what we call those, are not what's best for kids and don't have positive long term effects. So restorative practices is exactly kind of what it sounds like. Jerry and I are having a disagreement and something happens. We now need to have a restorative process to fix our relationship. And so that's simply conflict resolution. It's communication, but it's also systems. So it might look like closing circles in classrooms where we're reflecting on the day. It might look like restorative conversations between two kids or small groups. And it's really about, we say, like, connection over correction. And so it's it's focusing on the relationship and the harm. So could be physical. Kiddo, you know, draws on a table. What's the restorative practice? Well, he should clean the table. Right? Having missing out on recess doesn't really connect to I drew on the table. So while it's simple in conversation, it's complicated in practice, right, in terms of when you have 20 kiddos in a room and what that can look like. So we are doing it naturally in a lot of places, but we will more formally study. We had three staff members attend a state training on it this past year, and so they'll start our year off bringing some of those practices to the staff. And, really, next year is about building a rollout plan and making sure we're looking kind of in the crevices of of our discipline and of our student culture and where
we might need to
look in. So not necessarily curriculum, but certainly in the social emotional. Can I ask you a question in line with that? So, like, as a parent, right, my older son was, like, here with the previous principal to you. We used to get, like, a report sent home of, like, if they had to go to the principal's office and Sure. A, and c or whatever was done. Mhmm. It seems like maybe you guys don't do that so much anymore, and it's just like parent to teacher communication about what Mhmm. Occurred. Would that be Yeah. Our sixth graders this past year, they do what's called reflect they have reflection sheets, which is a a piece of restorative practice. So,
again, they're out in the hall and hanging out and playing by the lockers, and they were supposed they told the teacher they're going over to bed. I'm just making it up. They might fill out a reflection sheet, and that's on that is what's the restorative piece that needs to happen. And those did go home to parents. The sixth grade is really that pseudo middle school. I know we're in elementary, but that kind of is a shift in developmental, needs and what those are. Three, four, five has various they might do some reflection written work. It might not necessarily always go home. Certainly, students, it doesn't mean that there aren't higher level discipline moments that I have to intervene on. And in those, I would I communicate directly, just the family via phone usually. So we're really talking. But but I will say it's not only the minor. Those major incidents often, even if they require an exclusionary practice, they also need to require restorative one. And so you'll often hear sometimes if a student is suspended, when they come back, they have a reentry plan. They don't just said, have a nice time. They might come in. We'll talk. What's the plan for the day? What harm do we need to repair? Those kind of things. So it doesn't eliminate necessarily some of that traditional discipline you're familiar with, but it's certainly the goal is to reduce it from before it needs to happen. That's good. That's really good. Yeah. It's exciting. So it's it's it's good work. And like I said, we were already kind of doing it. This is a more formal way of looking at it. We didn't know what it was called, almost. You know what I mean? Yeah. Can't name it. So Yeah. We'll keep doing
keep on going. Anyone else got questions for Taylor?
Is there anything going on in the summer? Any summer school classes or anything? Yep. So ESY is Tuesday and Thursdays of July. So yesterday, we got to see some of our kiddos come in, and it's not a not a large amount. We have a really small ESY here. So ESY. It's in the school year. Yeah. So kids who qualify for those services. So, yeah, so that happens on Tuesdays and Thursdays in July. And then the cool summer camp is here, not our program, but so that's nice because Who who teaches, though? You guess what? Kathy Hartnett and Jen LaRosey are two special education centers. And then if there's related services, like speech or OT or PT, it's our staff. We're very lucky here that our staff is interested and and happy to do that. So it's to maintain the bar. Yeah. Because that's not always the case, especially in larger districts. So it's nice to have that continuity.
They're the ones that got to jump on the bounce house out there? That was the pool summer camp.
Yeah. Yeah. My kids are at cool summer camp, so they had a very good day. Yeah. They were very A little pool or something. Yeah. And Hailey Keckler is running that this summer, and she's one of our paras, which is cool. So a lot of our our staff working on that, which is nice. Cool. Cool. Hear you. For the financial report. Okay. So,
yeah, I just wanna say one reason it wasn't in your packet aside from Diane being out is right now, everything we're getting bills in. It's in flux. We're closing out the end of the year. Also, over and starting the new budget. You know? So this is a time where we're paying bills out of two fiscal years depending on when that that work happens. So I literally and we had a payroll. So I just wanted to give you the most up to date numbers. So I literally ran this report today. And it's not much different. If you look at it, it's really not much different from last month. I'm actually gonna take you to the last page first. Okay? So you could see, and this is formatted to have our adopted budget was 4.56. Our amended budget was adding that $97.05 from the 2% nonlapsing. Disregard the zero at the end there. Transfers are in there if you look at the different line items. And then the balance of $1.26 $6.06 $5.05 3. But I wanna point out two things. One is that balance includes that $97,500. So I don't want you to look at it and say, oh, we have an extra $126,000. So you have to would have to minus that to see if if we didn't transfer the money, what would what we where we would be. And that would be around 29,000, which is about less than 1% of the overall budget. It's actually
point zero And six the other thing I do wanna also say that at this point, I'd say I'm 99% of the bills, but there are still some bills that are going to come in. So that was another reason why I didn't wanna put in the packet and have people think, oh, this is where we are at the end of June. Like, things are still
coming in and changing. And when do you think like, when will those finalize trickling in? Like, the end of July? I would say the end of July. I'm actually Sometimes August. August. On when they So really having, like, a real final final is not gonna happen until the end of August?
Yeah. And that and then, of course, then the real final final hasn't come till the auditor really does it. Right? So but we'll have a better sense of, like I'm literally contacting companies now and saying, give me your invoice, you know, because you I encumber the money as soon as we know we're gonna purchase it or we have a quote. You know? And then sometimes, you know, the work doesn't happen right away or or it's something on back order. So I'm literally reaching out to companies saying, I need your invoice. I need your invoice.
And, ideally, we want that to be like, I mean, less than 1% is pretty pretty good. It's close. And, again, and I stand by the decisions
yeah. Point zero six. I stand by the decision to transfer that $97,500 because it's close. It's very close. And all it would take is, you know, something breaking down that would have kind of could have put us over over the edge there. So and the other thing so you also have budget transfers. So we did preliminary transfers based on where we were, and we got the bulk of the transfers done. Now when I look at them with all the, you know, being very close to final, we just have two areas. And now we're looking at not all the individual line items, but the object codes. Right? So if you look at the numbers, for example, O zero two, one zero one, all those one zero one, one zero two, one zero three are all salary. Right? So now I'm looking at things within the the big
object code. And then so She's talking about the beginning. Yes. Yeah. Sorry. Back to the first. Sorry.
I'm the same way when when I'm on the other side of looking at numbers. So, anyway, so we're in great shift. So we just need two, right now, two more trans cleanup transfers between object rooms, and that is $750 going from salaries to benefits. So and then 5,200 going from salaries, the bigger bucket of salaries to repair and maintenance. So I'll just have Kate kind of sign off on that. And then there still might be little cleanup transfers. You know? And I'll talk to Val and and Terry about diff different schools do those different ways. So I wanna look at the the past. Do we need a motion to do those transfers?
Well, they're not new ones. You could motion if you want, but they're not new transfers. Just curious. Okay. Thanks.
This reminded me of what was missing from the, minutes was, there was a mention of getting a list of jobs for a care maintenance. Yeah. I'm I'm gonna be very honest, Marcy. Right now, I am You said you would do it this Yeah. This meeting. Mhmm. Oh, I never said I'd have that in July. That was At the end of the year. Yeah. Well, that's what was said. So that's why I was thinking about it when Okay. I was looking at the minutes. Yeah. I'm gonna be honest right now.
My plate is full hour, and already the auditors contacted them starting to put stuff together for the auditor. So, like, right so right now, July is it it's really crazy for me. So I would just ask that we, you know, table that parking lot that till That's the most November. Yeah. I think it would make sense because next month is going to be
all of our, like, our board review and policy review or the certificate review.
Then we have an admin system who's not supposed to be able to, like, just pull things off. So we can do it very easily
by, a vendor. Like, if somebody said, you know, can you just tell us how much we spend on NatureScape? Mhmm. That she can pull out. But what takes her a longer time is to then go through all of our vendors that we would use, and that's why that's on the list. It's just not on the top of the list. Do we have a major vendor that's you know, that we spent a lot of money with? Would she have to go through it and find that out? So it usually works out that way, yes, depending on the year. So, like, this year would be bad. But it does usually work out that way, but she's gotta run through them to be able to do that. And it's not gonna give you the information. So I could run USA Mechanical,
but it's not gonna tell you illness. It's not good for me. That in Encore is the first sprinkler system. So USA but it's not gonna tell you what the work is. Like, what it was for. It just says how much we paid to them on the A lot of them are service contracts for, like, the fire extinguishers or something like that. So she does need time to go through. Right. If you really wanna look at it the right way or in, you know, in any meaningful way Well, I think it makes sense to to try to look at that, like, meaningfully
before we start budget season for next year so that we can actually fully understand where For sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's
it. That's all, folks. Any questions? I don't there's nothing you hear, but I'm, like, a little surprised, but I
No. It's very and, again, it's very close to last time. We I had encumbered all of that to try to give us Yeah. A good sense of where we'd be, and so we're not we're very close to the.
There was money that was transferred from the 2% to make up for our budget, and then did that go back in? No. That's the 97. So that's still on there at the at your end total. It will go back in. Well, good thing about that one, Marcy, is because it wasn't,
money from a fiscal year, that can go in and out by the board at any time. So you can always this board can always take from that account and then put back into that account, and it doesn't have to be done in the parameters of a fiscal year because that's what that account is for. That's the contingency. So
so it can stay in there right now until she finishes all this. Well, and I do recommend we wait till the audit's done. At this point, I just think it's safer
to when you're back post, because we've had audits before where we were off by, you know, thirty thirty thousand. Like Yep. You wanna
have might as well as it's out there. Yeah. I mean, there's there's really not a rush to put it back. No. You know? So what we think it just makes sense to wait for the autogran. Okay. Anyone else have questions financial wise?
Do we have liaison reports? No CIP meeting last month, so I'm talking to the board. K. Anything from the earliest in the school that is Yep. Collaborative?
They finished the parent survey, and so we had a big you know, we had a great turnout for Andover in terms of our for Andover, Lebanon, Hebron. Yeah. We far outpaced in your survey results than I a podcast assistant. Superintendent. Sure. And so then a small subcommittee of the LGP put together the kind of community improvement plan. It's not exactly what it's called. The name's escape me. But, essentially, based on all that parent feedback, what are the areas of focus? And that was submitted to the state at the state level. Okay. And, again, because it's all new, now we just kind of wait To see what this says. Yeah. We're not exactly sure. And then there's still yeah. They're working on we are excited because we were waiting on some funding that we used to get with school readiness
that should help with professional development for our pre K. So that has come, and so we're just waiting on the allocation because now we're at three town. You know? All that has to be but that that's good because
things like CPR and stuff that I'm scheduling. I was just hoping that was tough. That made me think of vowel email to all of us just to mention that you whether or not you guys saw it about the governor's plan in terms of the money that is Yes. Set for peaceful. Like, that fund is already There. Funded. It's there. It's not, like, a fictitious Sitting in the cloppers. Yeah.
So, hopefully That's good. Good to see. Yeah. So it's moving along, I think. And our preschool enrollment is doing great. So we just Diane just filled all of our seats in terms of grant seats. Okay. So that's good.
Which means that when you look at the, let me go, the financial that we do, the sheet, the rebate sheet Mhmm. On the bottom, once all said and done over the summer, there will be any anticipated revenue for tuition. We don't know that yet. And then it will be this early start grant, which if all of our slots are full, then there that'll be a set amount. We'll be able to accept that for the year, and then there's Smart Start as well. Yes. Sorry. Thank you. And so Elaborating. The beginning of the school year starts and we say this is our anticipated revenue with those three sources, it should be a solid one as an anticipated. Doesn't mean nothing would change during the course of the year, but we'll be able to guarantee that we'll get those two grant sources. So K.
K. We'll move on to bathroom project update. Ta da. So I did forward just before this meeting Eric's last sheet, which he meant to send last week and had some personal issues, so he sent it today. In terms of the bathroom project, so far as of today, from what our initial was, we they're anticipating, like, our total will be about 35,000 over, and about 29,000 of that is specifically related to removal of three sections of asbestos wrapped pipe. Uh-huh. So the asbestos removal was, like, 25,000, and then the, like, air quality safety inspection after the removal was about 35 So I think we have to pay the 3,500 separately to a different company. The other portion of that will be, like, to like, through our contractors. So it'll just be an additional cost over that. But aside from that, like, the majority of the rest of all of their demo is done. There's one remaining question about a section in the boys' bathroom and whether or not the concrete is solid enough with what they've had to remove to just repour concrete or if it needs additional,
like, steel support from underneath because it's, like, above where the tunnel is where all the pipes go through. Mhmm. And they're waiting to hear back from Foss and O'Neil from engineering regards to a. Aside from that, everything else is they like, they've had to move things, like, little distances to get away from a heater or, like, change slightly where the partition is going to be located, but there weren't any, like, major surprises. Bless you. And because most of the demo was done, they're anticipating, like, our total over what the estimated was. Well, probably today, he said thirty five to thirty six thousand total. So Great. No. That's incorrect. I think that was including these pastas, wasn't it? That was pregnant asbestos, was it? No?
No? Okay. Yeah. We don't have the complete number yet, but there's you know, those the three other change orders Right. And the asbestos. And the asbestos.
But Eric's been giving us these, and so next week or the week after, the one on the bottom should have It'll have those added into it. It has it has just the asbestos on there, I think, right now. It doesn't have the other. So I will we'll continue forwarding those to you guys. You kinda have to like, I have to zoom in and out of it just to look at the different sections. But it is it is pretty clearly laid out, and he's got good pictures in there too. Great. And he's been staying on top of stuff and answering questions that he's doing a lot of work that otherwise Would be done. Well, it would have to be done by valor, by me, by people who put that like, that is not an area of expertise. So I think it's very important that he is that we are paying him to do what he is doing. Sounds good. Finish date?
They still work their own target. Time. Let's knock on Fingers crossed. Yeah. So And the worst case scenario here, I mean, the biggest thing is getting the demo done. And so I'm not worried because in the end, if there's still some minor things to do, that can be done on a schedule that doesn't interfere with the opening of school. Because because there's no, like, hazard regarding, like, finishing stuff. I did forget one thing with my report, and it actually kinda fits into the plumbing thing now. And that is what I was really worried about in terms of, like, open the school was yes. I forgot about that. So it's right here in front of me to to tell you guys too. Was last year, the, state of Connecticut had changed with legislation. The public act in April 2025, was an act concerning remediation and testing for PFAS, PFAS, in certain waters and blasts. And so when this senate bill went through, people did get nervous because schools right next to fire departments where a lot of the PFAS is in the home, they were a little nervous because in essence, and I'm dumbing this down for myself, not for anybody else who does know about PFAS. In essence, there were always these chemicals that everybody knew kinda made its way into the water supply. But the state with this legislation not only, like, banned certain products from being made with these ingredients, but then they also lowered the threshold of what an acceptable amount of this stuff was to be in water. And so we always had had water tested. Everybody did. All the schools did. Most of us use Lefram. But what happened was by lowering that threshold, there were districts that 100%
knew. Like, I have a friend. They knew, let's say, that they were a four. They knew when this legislation went in that it was gonna drop it to a three, they were gonna fail. And so a lot of the districts were like, not like what when we had to do the air quality testing. They were like, I think we'll wait. But the testing has to be done two tests six months apart, and it has to be when your building's in use, regular use. So it has to be done during the school year or, like And that's by after by April. Right? April 2027. But the legislation went into effect in April 2025, and they said you have to have this done by April 2027. So this was in the news, and it was online because Columbia last year was like, okay. We're gonna get ours done in April. And they did. They got it done at the elementary school, and they failed miserably. And because the fire department, if you know Columbia at all, so bad that they had to bottle water from April till June to the tune of 30 thousand. Wow. Wow. So but the rest of us were scared. We were petrified. We were like, oh god. No. No. No. And, of course, I was a little optimistic. I'm like, we're off the top of the, you know, fire department's down there. Our work is downstairs. They're gonna come down to ours. So I was like, we're good. We're good. But inside, I was like, another
friend of mine in another district, the one that knew they were gonna fail by a little bit because of the new numbers, I did pay attention to what they were doing there and what their mediation was or remediation was that they had to put in a water filtration system because it wasn't that bad. So I kinda knew, and I was like, alright. We can always use those drip funds for that, but that's not really what we wanted to do. So we did get ours done the last week. We have our full report, and we are within the zone. We're good. Yes. So Congratulations. Gas. Them. They got it. Yeah. You have been drinking it back. Right. I am so puzzled. I mean, I I did know that we did have a resident in town that works for DEEP, so DEEP. So I did know that we would have assistance, you know, a professional assistance in helping us should there need to be something. But even my conversations with her, it you know, I was like, oh, I'm sure we're gonna be good, but she knows that there are lots of towns that weren't good. So we have this. I'll post this on the website so that everybody does know if they're interested that we were okay. And November will be our second round, But our numbers were I don't wanna say so low, but our numbers were so low in comparison to where they need to be that I'm not worried about November. So, you know, rest assured, I think we are absolutely fine. And so, thankfully, we can track that one off. Sounds great. Or Debbie?
There's something else for the vasopressin question. That's not bad. You No.
We don't need to take any action right now. Oh, that was a good possible action. It doesn't I think we're just keeping it there in case something else comes up. We
kept it on there because if there is a decision that comes last minute instead of having to have, like, a special meeting or whatever, we keep the action on there because it needs a vote. We'll be able to do it. I just wanted to set up you guys have prepared to remember. The meetings for, like, that update,
they're every Wednesday at 08:30 in the morning. So it'll always be, like, the morning of when we have a board event meeting. And they and they've been pretty communicative about stuff. So Did you remember what it Yeah. I remember. The only other thing is we did get our first bill from the contractor for where we are so far. So Val and Doty will review that and then pass it on to the town administrator for the town to pay out of our capital.
Yeah. I'll I'll try to create a spreadsheet that can be shared with them so when it's paid Yeah. They can let us know when it's paid and get us That way, everything can be crossed clearly. Yeah.
And all the expenses should be on there, not just for that, but we had when we did the contract, that legal bill went over so we can add that so that the whole board will be able to see in the end and the board finance. Like, the total. Totally. Be able to see in total. So, you know, if we just separate it by category then. Yeah. We've got two legal bills, like, and then that one that just came through.
Right. That way everybody will be able to see them all on one spreadsheet. Yeah. And for the legal, just to review, and this is for people watching as well, we we looked through, like, past contracts for previous projects, both on the school side and on the town side, and couldn't actually find a contract that didn't favor the contractor, like, in, what, fifty years worth of contracts. So this is this contract, like, on a go forward for any future town capital project is actually a very well written contract that doesn't necessarily favor the facility, but it's not it doesn't super favor the contractor. Like, it's a more it's a more fair contract instead of just signing the loan that's given to you by the contractor. So we're gonna share with Matt to make sure that That they have it for the future. Because it was done by a professional achievements. Yeah. Great. So I think in terms of investment, I guess, it's important. That's good for Yeah.
That's why it's good to do a lot of preparation, prep a lot of planning before you sign on the dotted line. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of the the talking that we did ahead of time was worth it. Yeah. And I think also, right, just, like, having having someone like Eric, like, professional who's actually,
like, had skin in the game in terms of, like, he cares about the town and his kids that go to school here to to give an honest opinion instead of being like, oh, yeah. Looks so good. Great. Contract. And he said, I he said, I I've only used those other contracts. Go to your lawyer. Yeah. He said, make me have the lawyer do it. He said, I'm I'm not a lawyer. And so to have somebody that was humble, I was able to say that to us too. Like, nope. You you guys go to the lawyer. So K. Snowblower.
Ah, okay. So last time you guys had a copy of the capital plan draft that we said was almost done. So in there, if you don't have it Mm-mm.
Here. Give this one to Jared. I think I'm gonna understand. But and Marcy has it there. So if you if you look under the snowblower there's actually a picture in there, so that that'll help you. The snowblower I had put in our capital plan, that model, the nine two six five zero seven, was purchased in 2009. I think they're 2009 for $2,600, and it lasted seventeen years. They recently passed away. A of damage with that very large snowfall this past winter. We did try to repair the front cage damage. That was the the biggest part that, like, east on the front. But it is extinct, and so we were not able to bring it back to life. So dinosaur. It was dinosaurs. Yeah. So I met with Eric from Public Works and kind of said, like, hey. We only have this little itty bitty snowblower, and that's not gonna make it through next winter. So, you know, things aren't going well, like, with money. So do you think that we could talk about maybe sharing either
a snowblower or services if you guys had people that might be able to help us? And he said, well, I wish I could. He said, but we really don't have the extra manpower. We don't have an extra snowblower. So, you know, he said, I I really wish I could help you. I wish I could, but I can't. And then I met with Matt Streeter. Same thing. And, of course, of our conversation, you know, I I said to him, is it is it possible for us to do have any ideas? And, again, the answer was we don't have extra in that department. And so, you know, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you guys are probably gonna have to
replace, you know, old chippy there. And so then I worked with Scott here, and we went through our first, our preferred dealer, which is WH Proust and Sons. That's the one that we've had the most luck with in the past with some of our supplies in terms of our devices in the garage. They actually gave us a really good price for this Pro Hydro, and the price is $38.99, 3,899, which I haven't bought a snow blow. But to go back to our records that said in 2009, we paid $2,600, and now it's only $38.99. I actually thought that was actually pretty good for 8 Yes. I would've guessed, like, 7. Right? I was like my first instinct to Scott was, yeah, I know we're not gonna want this year. Because what are they gonna be? 20,000? He's like, no. No. So
then the second quote through a place outside of Connecticut called Tractor House or the same one, the Aaron's. It's that's the the brand there, 2025, is $4,799. So even if we were able to get, like, a free shipping on a big expensive one, it still is more there. Then I went to, another one, and they had two different quotes for us. And it was 41. Same model. I'm looking at the same model, so it's apples to apples because I I wouldn't know what the difference, so I have to compare apples to apples. $41.99 and $39.99, and with the $39.99, we're shipping. So, so in these four different places, we're still best to go with PRUCE. And so what I think we we need to do because, of of course, the other thing they say, at first, you wonder if it's, you know, just a scam where they say, well, they're gonna be sparse, so you better order it now.
I did ask a couple of other locations that I didn't get quotes from. Like, hey. If I wanted to, you know, order this, then what's the lead time on it? And they said, you know, it could be right now as as long as twelve to sixteen weeks. So I said, yep. We definitely have to do it over the summer. So it's odd that we're kinda talking about snow blowers, but, we really do have to replace that. And so I think what we need to do is we and I briefly mentioned to Rob, over on the board of finance, when I talked to him about a week or so ago. I said, you know, what is the preferred method for us? You know? Because it's still new, us taking money out of that account. And he said the preferred method would be for us to email this, the quotes and everything over to CIP as well as to the board of finance.
Because even though it's a small amount of money, he just felt more comfortable with a representative from here and a representative from the board of selectmen so that the second he goes to the board of Finance, they can vote. And if you looked at their meetings, they're a day apart. Okay. So he understood that. Because I said, you know, we really would like Kate to then the board to be able to vote to have Kate send you guys a letter, and we're really hoping to be able to get this ordered by August. Okay. And so he said, you know, as long as we do this. He the mind's the third Thursday of the month, so that would be Yep. Next Thursday. Yeah. So we have something to talk about. Yep. So so I guess the for the action here, we just need action to allow Kate to send a letter, and I will give her the materials to send over to CIP and to the Board of Finance to, you know, take out 4,000 and account for.
Questions. A motion for what that was said. Questions. Yes.
Whenever I replace equipment for my business, I usually refer to my maintenance director or my lead man. Did you talk to who who do you have that's operating the equipment? Yeah. Scott. Scott.
And and he talked to you. You talked to him about what model would be good. Or Oh, Scott worked with me to get these. He's our head custodian. Alright. Absolutely. I yeah. Absolutely. I don't do anything without Scott. Right. Okay. I wanna make sure you're the guy that has to actually use it. Yeah. Absolutely. We don't we don't do anything around here without Scott. He's at the table in every one of these conversations. So absolutely. Yeah. Jody's gonna do the snow blowing this year.
No. But, Scott, even with bathroom project, like, he's he's been the person physically doing all of the things that he
And at the very beginning, even with the bathroom, you know, some of the things we asked him was, you know, as the custodian who's cleaning these bathrooms, you know, talk to us. You know? He's the reason why the toilets are gonna go in the wall instead of down. And why they're not going to be automatic flush. Like Mhmm. Yep. So you know? Because he was like, it's so much easier to clean the floors if they go into the wall. I mean, he gave us a lot. Yeah. Mhmm. So we listened to a lot of of what Scott had to say. Mhmm. Yeah. So so I think this is a really good price. And I did like I said, I compared apples to apples, and I don't think we're gonna get it any cheaper than through Pruce. And we've had a relationship with them in the past decade. We bought a number of products through them as a town and a school. And so I think that that's good relationship with Remy. That matters. Yeah. It does. Are they on a list?
I don't know if they're on a state list or not. They're in Vaultan, but we get the the tax exempt. Okay. And then there's no delivery. Great. So that helps too. Yeah. You know? So it's great. Yeah. And if you have any service issues, you know, they're right there. They do they do service some of our equipment already, both I think the town. I have to ask Matt or Eric's over there, Johansson, but they do service some of our equipment already.
So they're a trusted Yeah. I was thinking of Shannon's motion. Take care of it. Alright. So Shannon Made a motion for what? And Jerry's seconded. All in favor. Aye.
Aye. Right. Pour it here. I will get that together. You need it right then. Two questions. What are you gonna do with The the dinosaur. What? What are you gonna do with the dinosaur? Well, that's the thing donated to your business. Okay.
Normally, we would look for trade ins. We've traded in other things before, but because that front piece is not replaceable at all, they wouldn't be able to use the majority of it. And because it's extinct, they're not, you know, rebuilding it, sadly, any of the other ones. So I think I should break it down, give it to miss Wayne, and they should do some kind of, like, There you go. You go.
Maybe I should give him the chainsaw. I think it's just break
it. Anyway, my husband is a artist when it comes to equipment. Wonderful. So Yeah. If you're looking for a donut donor. Another question I had is, did you mention another snowblower?
We have the little tiny one that does the sidewalks, like, just a little hype household one, you know, kinda thing, but that can't do. It's not a a big commercial. Yeah. So Should that be on this list?
No. Because it it it's not on there only because it didn't reach the thresholds. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't reach the under Yeah. It it that's the only reason why it's not on there is it didn't reach the threshold. So
Like a vacuum cleaner for your house versus. Right. It's a dust mess.
K. So we'll move on to eight c. So the August 12 regular meeting, we had a move to cancel it. K. Second. I will second. All in favor? K. Aye. Excellent. K. You're channeling Celeste right now. No. No.
I just can read and said, nope. Cancel. We had August 5 all lined up, my dear. So we're set. Okay.
So we'll move on to comments from the public. And I am discussed. Okay. Diane? I'm all set. Thank you very much. Thank you. Liz? All set. Thank you.
Yeah. It's town town I don't know if that's Matt. Town of Andover? I I don't Is that Matt? Are you a person? No. It's Jeff Maguire. I'm all set. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. And, Jen, you're all set?
All set. Thanks. Okay. Thank you. Do we have a vote on the motion to cancel? Yeah. Yeah. You It was so fast. I mean, it was like, thanks.
That's a perfect day. He's like, Disney ride. That was so fast. What happened? Let's do it.
Okay. So we'll move on to our executive session and invite the superintendent
to stay. You have to make a motion. I'll make the motion. We move into executive session at 08:00, inviting the superintendent to stay. All set. Yeah. All in favor? Aye. Aye.