Summer Update (10 minutes)

Transcript (~6 min @ 31:33)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 31:34 Jennifer McAndrew: mcandrew good evening everyone uh welcome to finance and facilities we have one item on our agenda this evening which is the update on our summer programming and skills classes superintendent

▶ 31:50 Speaker 2: do you want to talk about this yes so again for background information we stopped doing a high school credit recovery program many years ago it must be six years ago I would defer to Mr. Driscoll's memory on that one and we refer students who need credit recovery at the high school to other programs whether it's a community college or Woburn High runs a very big program and then we accept it from there it was not a cost-effective for us what we kept was a middle school program for students who needed skill building and every year that program has diminished this is not credit recovery it's skill building and as you can see we had

▶ 32:36 Speaker 2: absolutely nobody this year and my recommendation would be that we do not continue with this going forward luckily we had not hired anybody obviously there is not an interest there is a great deal of interest in students without borders many of our students without in with it which is a integrated class in the sense that I have both students who are on an ESY an extended school year program plus general ed students it's a it what can I tell you it's just it's a great program it's a wonderful program for the kids that are in it if you're entering the sixth grade it's a great way to become comfortable with with staff and with the campus and the buildings for some of our students it gives them great social structure over the summer and for a lot of kids it's just plain fun we lost money this year because what we've discovered is as miss chernisky explains to you she runs these programs is parents are getting more savvy about which week to send their kids and they're sending them on the weeks that have the more expensive field trips so it's sort of like a loss leader you know that's the best way i can explain it

▶ 33:55 Speaker 2: we also saw an increase in some field trip costs and probably the biggest problem is we have not raised the tuition on this in six years so that is a consideration for the committee come next winter

▶ 34:12 Jennifer McAndrew: thank you um are there any questions from the committee mr. Ozzie Thomas I'm

▶ 34:16 Speaker 5: wondering just what the cost is per week just to give us a lot of numbers I okay

▶ 34:25 Speaker 2: I couldn't I would I can't tell you that off the top of my head I would have to

▶ 34:31 Speaker 5: ask her for the cost per week maybe next year you know yeah obviously I don't really need to have that but it would be good to have a comparison of like where you've been and then we're probably where you need to go and to write it

▶ 34:40 Speaker 2: making it exactly I think we charge the same cost for each week you know because I think when this program originally started especially for your ESY kids they get it in the program anyway sometimes parents pay if it's not in their IEP but you know that a lot of kids came for the six weeks originally the five weeks originally you know and now you know families are more involved they have other options so that's why we're discovering they pick and choose which weeks to send the kids to so it's not unusual for a student to go to let's say soccer camp one week and then the next week show up at students without

▶ 35:20 Speaker 5: borders yeah we just be interesting because I know parents are always trying to figure out exactly what to do with their kids if they're working parents they have to work through it straight through the summer exactly it's so complex and just to have a comparison to the cost per week here versus like we do

▶ 35:37 Speaker 5: with the other program yeah like it just is good for us to understand yeah competitively and fairly what are we charging and obviously an increase not having increased in six years means a lot it's great that we didn't increase that maybe we should have done it two years ago I don't know but you know

▶ 35:58 Speaker 7: thank you are there any other questions I did you have another one I'm sorry

▶ 36:01 Speaker 5: Thomas um the student the other program that you mentioned at the beginning was not special education no real thing summer skills no that's no that was

▶ 36:12 Speaker 2: purely voluntary it's purely voluntary if your skills aren't up to what you think they should be or your parents don't think they should be and you'd like a little boost over the summer that's what that was kind of like group

▶ 36:25 Jennifer McAndrew: tutoring yeah okay thank you good analogy and if I can just follow up on that last point so would educators ever recommend students for that I think they

▶ 36:34 Speaker 2: have when they're concerned but it's not necessary to be promoted and because you're not concerned with credit recovery at the middle school there is

▶ 36:47 Jennifer McAndrew: no motivating factor okay thank you so it sounds like we should look at the tuition going forward when that comes up are there any other questions on this topic seeing none that concludes finance and facilities thank you Thank You miss