I mean, that's that's what our buildings are. They're schools and they're also community centers. Other board members with standing committees? Nope. Great. We're moving on. So, next item is to uh approval of minutes. If I can have a motion to approve the minutes, Mr. Gribble, if you can read the motion. Move that the Cheshire Board of Education approve the minutes from meetings held on February 20th, 2025. Is there a second? Mr. White, um, are there corrections that need to be made based on what you see? No. All right. Seeing no corrections, um, all those in favor of approval of the motion that's on the floor to approve the minutes for February 20th, 2025. It's unanimous. Thank you, Mr. Gripple. Back to you, sir. Correspondence. I have none. That was quick. Thank you. And just for clarification, the arts place is now located at the new ball and socket, right?
And we sure hope that we come back to you and show you benchmark 3 where we'll see a great increase. Here's our third grade cohort. Our expectations with the new goal is that all students and teachers will track student evidence to master the standards. Here is benchmark math for kindergarten to second grade. Here is our dibbles data for K one and two. All K one two have increased in dibble scores. So K one and second grade all increased their dibble scores. What I'm talking about is they all went all the proficients or highly proficients went up and the red bars went down. Here is our second grade core. Again, while the data dipped slightly in second grade, the Galileo benchmark target moves with the student throughout the year. Here's our first grade data. The first grade data shows a major increase in proficient to highly proficient from the beginning of the year to the middle of the year.
Yeah. You went to the ball and socket location. Yes. The ball and socket. Yes. Thank you. And an amazing amazing place, especially compared to the old arts place, which is, you know, an old hall essentially. So, it definitely fosters uh the creative juices, I'd have to say. Right. Did you treat yourself? No, I'm trying to be good. So, I didn't get any I don't uh Were they open yet? I Yes, they actually had just opened. So, yeah. No, I didn't go. I'll just say maybe they were closed. They closed by the time we got. All right. Um, next is the long awaited superintendence report. Dr. Solen, take it away. Thank you so much. I appreciate everybody's patience. I know the eager anticipation that builds throughout the meeting. Um, if you could take one each of those documents that I'm passing down. Uh the first item for discussion that I have for you this evening is the budget.
Teachers are reflecting and sharing practices that help to see this grade growth. Here is kindergarten. And again, we have great growth in the area of math. This is we created this in our PLC room. It's a data board based on what we learned in our Galileo scores. We knew it was clear that we had to have some sort of strong visual so we could watch how our kids are moving. So you'll look at the bottom which is red. That's the minimally proficient. So we have the kids names in the red and then the yellow is partially green is proficient and then blue is highly. And then so after we do progress monitoring the teachers come in and talk about it and then they move the students if they've moved up or down so that we can visually see how if a red goes to the yellow or red goes to the green or yellow to green and blue.
Um I know it's been alluded to a couple of times throughout the meeting. Um Marlene Vin and I uh had the benefit of presenting to the town council on Tuesday. Uh and the reality of the situation is that you know it was really kind of light late late in in coming that um the community realized what sort of budget shortfall existed. You know, there's a I think Adam mentioned the reduction of $4 million in state aid to the community. That's not all most of that's actually not educationbased. It's it's community based. But um the fact that the community used a million and a half of ARPA money last year that you know bit of a fiscal cliff uh the fact that um if you saw the headline in the Cheshire Herald today it's $35.5 million in um increased um grandless growth. Unfortunately, the absolute majority of that will go toward paying off for the development.
So we can actually see and watch and track their progress. Here is our SIM model. So the stars were last year and then the green circles is A36. That's where we just ended up when we did it in March. Um we've seen great growth in core instruction moving towards more student centered. Curriculum and assessment is showing an increase due to the Friday PDS when our teachers get to collaborate as a district level team and plan for engagement task and misconceptions that may come up. Here again is the the action board that all I don't have to go into because all the other principles have done it. But we again we meet daily. we talk about what our goals is, where we're going, and what hindered us or what is in our way, and how can we counteract that. Um, I would have to say that along with Julie, Stephanie is my IE coach, and as a first year principal, she has she has really just given me a wealth of information.
So, it's in essence a wash. So, all things being equal, there's a pretty substantial hole in the budget if we were to keep the mill rate and and the tax bill exactly as it was last year, which I think people anticipate it going up, but if it went up to everything that had been proposed in the budget, it'd be a roughly $1,200 annual impact for the average taxpayer. So, um, we are all the council and board collectively as well as the departments on the council side taking a really hard look at the budget. What I gave you was uh the budget um presentation that I uh shared with the council on Tuesday, but I really only I mean this is all old news for you frankly um with a few exceptions. on page six. Um there are two slides there that show our enrollment. Uh we literally received the enrollment update Tuesday, I think, maybe late Monday, uh from NASDAQ.
She's constantly pushing me. She doesn't give me answers. She'll ask me questions of how we think outside the box and how can we move Diamondback forward. Our new 45day goal is 60% of teachers will use data from tracking student evidence of task aligned at the taxonomy level of the target of higher in order to take action by providing feedback and modify instruction. The celebrations in our classrooms is our PLC's are much more focused strategies discussed at PLC based on walks and look and learns planning is visible and being implemented in the classroom. So what that's talking about is at the beginning of the year we saw a lot of planning but then when we went into the classroom we didn't see it being implemented. So we've changed some things. So now the planning is visible and being implemented in the classroom. Agendas and CFAs have moved instruction in small group structure.
We had projected 70 more students uh for next year. It's now 154. So if you look at the bottom slide that shows the SLR enrollment projection from 2022, there are two lines on that graph. The green line is the high enrollment projection that they provided. The the blue line is the low enrollment projection. The high enrollment projection for next year was 4,415 kids. We are projected now at 4,411. So we're pretty much right at the high um projection for next year which um again you know it does it's on one hand complimentary because you know we appreciate that as I've said before people don't move here for the nightife but um it does put an additional strain on the system and requires additional funding. The other update that I think you would be interested in is on page 16 because um to say that there's been uncertainty around education in the federal government would be a gross understatement and um so I think there is anxiety around well what sort of funding implications are there for our community.
Teachers are using the MOI progression during coaching and feedback conversations. Having students engaged in learning has decreased behavior across campus. Student conversations are productive and focused on the target. Teachers are guiding, not lecturing. Meaningful activities are pushing and leaning forward. Student teaming and roll calls are visible and academic language is being used. Um, oh, sorry, Cassie, hold on. Um, I bought along brought I brought I'm getting tired. Goodness. Um, I brought my school counselor, Mrs. FP and my first grade teacher, Mr. Herabes, to talk to you a little bit about how MOI enhances their classroom or their practices. Um, good good evening everybody. So, I am Mr. Carlo Herabes. I am a first grade teacher at Diamondback Elementary School. It's my fourth school year teaching in Diamondback. So like I was observing like how my classroom was growing since the first year that I was teaching here.
that uh that chart you see at the top is the federal funding that Cheshire receives. The lion share of that 60% is provided through the individuals with dis with disabilities and education act. Uh that's roughly $1.28 million. And then you have child nutrition and other title grants and competitive grants. So, the um budget that you may recall was adopted by the Congress uh the federal budget last week that secures all of this funding. Um that is not controlled by the administration, right? So, that's controlled by Congress. Um and so when that budget was adopted that basically um solidified that funding. There is an element uh that is not part of this picture that you may have heard about and that's the um federal money that was provided to states around school lunches where you can um use federal money. For us, it was about $25,000 to purchase uh vegetables and fruits from local farms and we did do that um with great results.
So when I started teaching here like it was more of um teacher centered classroom. It it was way different like what I'm doing right now like students are just listening to the teachers and then students are just doing what the teachers are letting them do compared to right now. I mean I have to be honest with you it was difficult at first implementing all those strategies that we are I am imple implementing right now in my classroom you know like teaching the students especially teaching them what what the roles in their group what the roles in their team and as what I've I've heard from from the other principles and of course yes there are students that would you know like I want to do this and there are students who would just listen and I always explain to my kids that you know in reality um when you grow old like you have to you have to work with these people.
Uh that money was cut from next year's budget. So, it just means that we won't be supplementing lunch with those local produce uh products. Um there's no other implication for us. Uh the any other reductions you might have heard about with federal school lunch have to do what's called C. That's for communities um that everybody in the community, all the students receive free breakfast and lunch when there's a certain threshold for uh free and reduced lunch needs within the community. So, if 70% of your students qualify, let's say they the entire community receives free and reduced lunch, they've dropped that hypothetically from 70% to 50 uh excuse me, to they've raised it actually to make it harder for uh communities to qualify for C, which means less funding, but we weren't in that situation anyway, so it hasn't impacted us. Um the last uh piece that I want to draw your attention to on this particular uh presentation is page 22 where at the bottom it starts to talk about budget unknowns.
There are students that are not um they can't go along with your team. But what what I what I'm trying to to to tell my kids is that you know regardless who are you working with in reality you will be working with this different type of students. So again like the students engagement that I can that I have seen in my classroom has been increasing a lot you know I mean it was always you know like trial and error trial and error you know but again I've been learning a lot of um a lot of suggestions based from the results of what are in my classroom and I can tell that how my students are well engaged especially with um how they explain their answers your teams sharing answers and the wow factor is that I being their teacher always learn from from these students that you know that you won't like oh that's right you know like that that that wow factor that come up from those students like from those little ones especially first graders you know so yeah again like I mean my classroom is not perfect but um seeing I mean comparing my first ever teaching experience experience here in in Diamondback and my students that I'm having right now is way different.
So I earlier mentioned that legislation that would uh actually support our educational cost share grant uh by 211,000. It's still up in the air. the the state does not settle their budget until after the town does. So, we don't really know where that's going to land, but um you know, as I said, it there is a lot of momentum behind that bill and hopefully it really doesn't um impact our bottom line this year. Uh other because again, the budget will be resolved here anyway. Um we don't have the final medical benefits rate uh for next year until the middle of next month. Um, so we don't that's I think we're still pretty good in the projection, but it's not final. Same thing with other insurance quotes that we we have. Um, nor the final pension contribution amount when uh for it's a small portion of uh employees, but it's not final yet.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So the two things I want to mention. So I'm Nancy Papy. I'm a counselor and I've been a teacher for a really long time. So when I started, one of the things I noticed is that they took researchbased structures and they gave people a way to teach them and coach them through it. So things that we already knew were working, people are doing more consistently. One of the things that you guys I don't know if anybody mentioned, maybe I didn't listen, but your map that showed those or your graph that was showing the targets after um your rigger walks. Every time they're looking for a different thing. So the reason that your thing goes up and down is because this time they're looking for this. That's something fairly simple. and next time the goal is way more structured or way more difficult and so it goes that's why those aren't the same.
The actuarial number isn't available yet. The other thing we don't have is teacher retirements. And I did caution the you guys know, but I did caution the council and community that back in the day, we used to be able to budget 50 grand per retirement because we knew that we could hire teachers um who were out of school and would be, you know, really talented people, but also uh cheaper than the top step teacher who just retired. The reality is that well has dried up. um we are more than ever hiring people from other communities who have more experience because there just aren't people coming out of the collegiate ranks. So when we do hire somebody where there's a significant net savings is really a blessing. Um that's become more the exception than the rule. Uh the only place where I would say and I shared that we have more fortune is elementary classroom teachers.
The main thing I want to mention to you to Mr. Roy because as a counselor the I the programs of um the way they teach kids to team are life skills. So every time that they're teaching a teaming thing the first thing the kids do are reflect on what they think themselves. How often do you have kids discuss things and you don't give them time to think first? I used to do that all the time as a teacher. Now they think first. A lot of times they record first what they're going to say. Then they each share and then they all talk about what things they have in common or they discuss them. So you're learning how to hear every person in your group. The next thing that happens is that the structures of instructional empowerment tell you how to do it respectfully. So they have sentence stems they learn.
There's still a pool there. So Marlene, um, formerly Kevin, um, the elementary principles would jump on that early and we'd hire really talented people. Um, and so, you know, hopefully that trend will continue, but uh, that's really the only well that hasn't fully dried up. The other future considerations, in no particular order, how do we close this gap, right? Like I mean we know that the town budget is not going to make that full jump. I think it's like nearly $15 million. So there are going to have to be, you know, concessions across the community uh in education. Certainly the point was made earlier. I know Tony, you know, mentioned is a 2% carryover is available by state law. The reality is $1.8 million out of this year's budget. you don't have that money. You, you know, we don't all budget that way where there's a it would take an incredible break in our favor to come up with $1.8 million at the end of the budget.
I'd respectfully disagree with this. I see that, but I'd like to add more. So while we think of life skills, I'd like you to think about the people who come into this office sometimes. Have they learned those skills? Are our students all learning those skills? And one step further, could you imagine politics right now if everyone that spoke thought before they spoke, listened to each other tried to think about other perspectives, and then combine that before they said things. So, I just feel like these structures are giving our kids things that make a difference. And I see kids doing it. I've seen kids talking to each other on the playground saying, "I respectfully disagree with you. I think this and that." And so, we're giving them skills that going to last the rest of their lives and can make the world a better place. Thank you.