With a mean score of 3.11, basically it means that the majority of folks that gave us an answer because mean scores take out those who don't give us an answer or don't know, um, is at 3.11. So those who know you generally believe that your overall the quality of the education being provided is somewhere between okay and very good. So that's that's a bit of good news. Uh certainly an opportunity for improvement. But when you see when you compare that to the portion of the electorate that thinks that education's headed in the wrong direction. It's actually a bit of good news. It's sort of the I don't like what Congress is doing but I like my congressman. It's the same approach. They don't necessarily generally believe K12 education, you know, nationally or whatever dialogue-wise is going the way that they want, but locally here, they're pretty inclined to believe that it's somewhere between okay and very good.
And then we also um and this is one of my kind of um pet peeves right now is these I shouldn't say these but our new generations we've taken away those opportunities to have productive struggle um and try at something and try of something and feel like and get a understanding for what does it feel like not to be successful at first and continue to work at something. We really need to talk about how we embed that. Our current math curriculum envisions allows for that but the roll out of envisions happened during COVID and so we really need to retune and refine that. That's why Miss Rivera said in in the coming months we will be bringing back um a re-renewal of envisions um to move forward with. Can I just jump in for a second of your 26 slides here? This is my favorite.
Welcome to email the entire board with any like us to consider for the meeting when we're making a a vote on something. I'm on board. I'm on board with what Dr. Thomas is saying, although I prefer to keep a captive audience. No. Um I think it both ways though. I mean, I think I do think they can have it both ways. And I because they were having it both ways when when we first got on the board. And I do understand not having to sit through a three-hour meeting just to say one thing or to say I'm back or whatever it is that you've come to say. I feel like there's two there's there's three ways really essentially that this could look or it stays one it stays the way that it is and the language gets changed. Two, we provide only a public comment option at the end or we provide three a public comment option at the beginning and the end or it's just a freaking free-for-all and we have a dis we discuss our topic and then we open it up for the community which is what the language is reading to me how the language the current language reads now.
Uh seventh grade as well remain steady. Everywhere else you see this upward momentum and growth in math as well. Again, I'm going to remind you the goal is that 80% of a grade level demonstrates proficiency. And so this is showing that we're moving in that direction.
With that, we know that when we provide those interventions and support, students are able to access their education in the classroom and they're ready to use the tools that they have to learn. We are providing several different types of services. Currently, you can see that we have preventive pushin, response pushin, pull out support, sensory, and positive alternative. Currently, we're sending about 43% of pull out, which is great that we're recognizing that those students have needs. But the other amazing piece is 27% of that is preventive pushin, meaning we've already created interventions for a large population of students that are getting in the classroom and meeting them where they are in the room. This reflects our commitment to providing targeted strategies and guides our goal of being preventative, re relational, and restorative. We hope to see an increase in push in. So restart, it's a fresh start for everyone.
Uh the the note I got today from uh the state senate is we don't know if it'll be fully funded next year. Uh I've been I've seen it probably Kelly you've seen it as low as 25%. So just think about that. Let's assume that 60,000 was reimbursed at 70% because I can only do the math easier. That's 42,000. So there's still another 18,000 that's out there that the district is responsible for. So now that 40 plus the 18 is 58,000. That's how it works. So every child, you know, we have to go through that calculation. Uh so this is always a year in in a rears. So we know we have this money the 1653 724 building rental. I I want to be clear to folks who are listening because I I know I've had emails and we don't rent fields. The fields are not rented by or through the Ash public schools.
That's where I'm at. Mayor, yes, please. So, I need to take we need to take the circuit breaker off the table because that's statutoily required as to what it is that we're allowed to carry over. Okay. And regarding the the prior year that goes to again I'm going to say the practices that have been in place here even when we haven't been here the two times previously previous and even when Liz Gilman was the business manager and when Liz Gilman went over to the city side was if indeed there was surplus available in the local budget come end of the year. The practice is and I in the May meeting of May 2024, the mayor asked the question of me as to what is the order in which we spend our funds and I answered we spend the local first to try and conserve and save what it is that's available.
Diane Leia who was the lit coach when I was there and I was the STEM coach. Um we kind of got that in and we sent a couple of groups up. Okay. because you you think they need some kind of reward or something or award or some recognition for all their hard work. Yeah, we're going to I think we're going to keep them going and then we're going to we're going to give them some shine kind of in the fall as they're going. They've been really working hard. It's awesome. Okay. And is there some other like like a math organization that does the same type of thing? There are some different math competitions. Um I haven't kind of narrowed out the one that I want to go after. There's also some like creativity ones. So there'll be like Odyssey of the mind, uh, future problem solvers.
So, we're we're a little bit lucky in that respect. we're able to cover a lot of our sub postings and positions with our daily subs and some of our daily subs do have um bachelor's degrees at least. So, we're we do put those people into the classrooms to cover the longer sub positions. And what is their uh how many hours do they are they teachers hours? Yes. Yeah. Yes. That's what seven seven I think are they make seven hours or Yeah, they do a seven hour day. Seven hour day. Is the increased rate already accounted for in our proposed budget for next year? Mhm. Yes. When did we go to uh like we had a service before co was well we started right around the co time. It's been a huge improvement. Yeah. we couldn't so we have a continuity of subs so that people are familiar with the building they never fully staff different people never been before so when a sub we have now or daily sub is not in a specific classroom we have they have things where they'll go into the math classroom with a small group of students so they're never just not working so they in for a teacher who's out or they have other tasks that we do so it are they treated as contract employees treated as temporary employees, but if they're here, I mean, does the is the IRS okay with that?
Thank you. Um so as we uh may remember we had initial uh request of 494964 as the uh superintendent and a and a board budget. Um we received um the information that we were going to get the mayor's proposed of 172,000 um sorry um with an additional $4 million of expected uh excess in ARPA funds. The original ARPA fund we had was $7.7 million. So the unused portion of that um there was a number a figure of 1.154 in CIP 9.1 in alliance 12,800,000 in in kind uh in kind is the uh the services that the the finan the dollar value of the services that the city provides for us such as um gardening services and and 300,000 in Head Start for a total of $199,391410 $199 million I'm sorry 1999 million thank you 199 million what was that number 391 Thank you Mike I'd also like to review an update of uh our core uh we earlier this evening had a presentation.
Um and that came directly from teachers. So, that was a direct teacher response. So, and they love that document and we're it's actually turning into more than that. It's turning into where they'll say, "Can you highlight this for in the ARC manual for us so it's quicker for us to grab it for students." Um, and if you want to see what that looks like, I'm sure we can get that to you as well. Definitely. Thank you. Thank you. Michelle. Um, so just I'm looking at the staffing comparisons with Norwalk and it looks like it's like 26 and a half positions. How many have we considered for the upcoming budget? Like how will we address that at all as far as how many positions is that Kelly? Yeah. Oh, are you referring to like right now? I'm looking at a comparison of Oh, it looks like they exceed in general education, teachers, instructors, par you know, you've listed this this uh chart here that shows how we are un unstaffed staffing.
um if there's sort of different qualifications. If they're like low performing, then they can be up for like a renewal but for a shorter amount of time, like a two-year renewal instead of maybe a 5year renewal. Um, and then it's important for me to point out to you that um, we also will have anou, a memorandum of understanding to the side of the petition that deals with special education because we are responsible for those types of services. And so currently we have legal reviewing that. and Glenn's been fantastic with having conversations with me about those expectations and and what we can do and not do. Um and so we are having that drafted and then the two of us will look at that and um I have you know the board has authorized me to move forward with anus. We'll agree on those get that signed off and then it'll come to you for ratification.
Um, so everybody has it its own jurisdiction and as a school board you have your jurisdiction across our community. So it's applying those rules. Oh, I see. Okay, fair enough. Okay, any more comments? Could I have a motion for approval? I'll move to approve this. Second. It's been moved and seconded. All right. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. Motion is carried. All right. Roman numeral number five, board exhibit new E19220 governing board elections. Dr. Fuentes, um I've already reported that one with the previous um the previous bylaw. It is recommended that the board approve for a first reading. We still have to vote on this one. Okay. Could any comments or could I have a motion for approval? Move to approve. Second. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. Motion is carried. Let's continue on to Roman numeral six, board bylaw 9223, filling vacancies.
Any opposed? Motion carries four to zero. Next item business is approval of the prek tuition increase for the 2526 school. Mr. President, members of the board, at the October 2024 regular uh session meeting, governing board decided to increase prek tuition to $325 per month for all future enrolled students with a request to bring the increase back to the board in the spring for the 2526 school year. The attached survey was sent to 32 individuals which included all current prek parents and potential prek parents. Um you have uh there I believe as an attachment the responses how many we had. We reviewed this over u in detail of Monday. Missa has the numbers the budget numbers of what the potential uh deficit um will be she'll talk about next year right for for I believe at 325 and 375. So miss penalties. So this is I put three I put three papers together.
From there, we do a pretest. And what this is is a replication of what a potential ballot language would look like. Because if I asked money, if I back to the original question I asked, if I asked people, would you like more money for schools? A large number would say yes. Would you like to pay taxes for schools? the lower the number gets a little bit lower. But if you ask them, shall the district be authorized to issue and sell general obligation bonds in the form of class B general obligation bonds not to exceed you the number gets lower. But here's the thing, that's the only thing we can guarantee that a voter will see over the course of an election. So you have to replicate the ballot language. It's the best way to make sure that we get accurate, unbiased, reliable results. So, we pose it to the best of our ability to replicate the ballot language so we can get an understanding of where voters start.
This phrase is my favorite. I've never seen it before but I think The engage in productive struggle, the ability to try and fail and try again and edit and learn is something that I do think we could we certainly need to insert back in and focus on because there's a lot of people just trying to smooth it through. And this I I love this phrase. I'm stealing it. It's great. Right. No problem. And you'll probably hear me say this often, but none of this is on the backs of teachers. Absolutely none of this. We have amazing educators doing amazing work in our classrooms. It is the district's responsibility to set clear expectations around these and give teachers the tools so they can do these things. And that's where we're at. We're working with our teachers, building capacity, giving them space to try new things. And so although it may be challenging and stressful, I think of it as very exciting work um because we're giving them the space to try those new things and giving them giving them feedback, not being evaluative about about the work they do.
So does that make sense? Like for example, we would have discussed the the custodial bid this evening and then we would have said any comments and that when this was written that's how it operated. Yeah.
Again, according to STAR, any questions before I move on to the last one? Any additional comments? Dr. White? No. Okay. All right. So, this next one, if you're like me, the big question becomes, wait a minute, let's point out the obvious. third grade. Anybody say that? Think that when you saw this? All right. So, a couple caveats with this. This is now the same star. Well, not the same. It's the star assessment, but in Spanish. So, we also have to remember that when we're talking about students within the dual program as Miss Ozmeck, now Miss Kramer um presented, it's apples to oranges. We cannot view this data of English, right? Because this data includes all students who are in a monilingual classroom and a dual classroom. This data only includes students who are in a dual language classroom. So what that means is you have a group of students who are doing double the work than a student in a mono classroom because they're learning the language.
The most important part is that this work is about helping the kids feel seen, safe, and supported. I am very grateful to be part of the school community that prioritizes relationships and restorative practices over punishment. Thank you for believing in our vision for every student who walks through our doors. Thank you. And now I'll hand it over to Mr. Jones. Welcome. Our second goal at the school is focused around student academic achievement and growth. So our goal is to increase our I read and I learn math scores by at least 10%. So we're going to do that. We're going to monitor our students progress and we're going to improve our instructional strategies like targeted um small groupoup interventions. So we'll be able to track those goals through our state testing which we've already kind of gotten started with. I read. We start our iLearn next week.
All field rentals go through the the town uh Department of Public Works. Um many years ago, it was probably 11 years ago actually, um uh when we had uh then town manager um Tony Skiavi, um the town took over all field rentals uh and so they have an enterprise fund that they utilize that they collect the field rentals, etc. So, we don't have those funds to pay for school related concerns. we have building rental uh revenue that we do get and we can utilize that for anything that relates to the building. So it can be custodial fees, it could be um you know fixing floors, lockers, whatever it might be, but it has to specifically relate to the buildings international tuition. We used to have students pre-COVID um where we tuition students in. You can see we're utilizing that money this year to help offset salaries.