Thank you. All right. So, good evening board. Um, today I'm here as the uh chairperson of the surplus property advisory committee or the 7-Eleven committee. Um in attendance I also have my co-chair uh Marty Michaels and a couple of other individuals who participated in the actual committee. So the committee was a Brown Act committee that allowed for um uh public attendance. Um we had a chance to meet three times starting on March 18th. Last meeting was on April 3rd and it did incorporate I mean sorry include 11 members. So you can see with the report these are the 11 members. they all made up pretty much um the um represented um I guess the demographic that was necessary um for this type of committee. Um so we were tasked with uh coming up with two recommendations. Uh the first being that we recommend the surplus of these properties.
added together with the 63,000 that we received from first for scholarships, it comes around to $81,000 um is what we receive. And the difference, if you look to the bottom left, um the difference is about $38,000 or $39,000 again if you round up. Um which means the district covers about um 4,000 each month uh to run the precal round. So, we're still uh even for this year with the increase, we're still just a little bit short. Um I did projections using the same method and same model. Um we're going to have a new prek teacher next year. Um cuz she's going to be in our office, which is awesome. Um so, the doing the same amount for the supplies projected over and the same amount because it's probably going to be the same aid. um the uh the the cost went down uh to about 97 or 98,000.
Um great deal of optimism across the board. And even in that 50 to 64 that I pointed out earlier, we do have a majority at 54%. And pretty much kids versus no kids is very similar as a result. So it starts in a good position. Now that is not to say you can just put, you know, the basket on the on the river and send it down and wave goodbye and hope for the best, but it does have a strong amount of viability here. Uh and there is an appetite for voters to make an investment. Just one second. Yes, sir. Just so you know, uh, when we did this in 20, it was 52% on the pre-EST. So, just for comparative analysis, when we went went out in in 20 when when Paul did the survey, that was, uh, I can't remember it was 52.4 or 52.6, but it was in the 52 range.
Um, one of the one of the things that we have talked about and um, Dr. Thomas will go into further when we talk about next steps are having having protocols developed. So, we're making clear um, what that decision- making process looks like when um, we're talking about student placement, when we're talking about student services. Um so that not only do the educators around the table have a clear understanding but the parents, the related services, all those individuals have a clear understanding of what that decision-making process looks like so we can have more um clear methodology around how we calculate those those IEP um services. And then also um it was also found in there that the IEP meeting process is collaborative but again just need some more structure around how do we actually provide and calculate those IEP services. Um again this was um an area that we know is an area that has been brought up um before but I think this is really twofold.
You can check a box. we know who to call on or or we don't check a box or we just announce the first ones and then after we say if anybody has any questions then come step up to the podium. There you go. If you invite them up then you're in line with policy and I'm happy over here. I'm fine with either way. I'm fine with leaving it in the beginning with the signin portion and yes. Sure. Okay. So, let's just do my suggestion is then we do the sign-in portion for the beginning and we make it kind of a more relaxed if anybody does it by show hands. If you have a question after each item then at the end we do that after discussion. Are we all good with something like that? Yes, I'm fine with that. Did then in your opinion does any of that language need to be changed?
So, take again this one data point with a grain of salt. Um, it is definitely when you first look at it, you're like, what? If we really wanted to delve deeper into this, what I would look at and what I would do um and what I would say uh three oaks has been working on, they are tracking what language students are receiving math during win time, right? Because third grade and on, it's in English. However, during win time, they have the ability to get it in Spanish. So, they are tracking that information. Also, when you're looking at students within the dual program, you actually should have up both how did they perform on the English and how did they perform on the math. And you add those two together to see the full picture, right? Because that's how they're learning. She again gave you the example in that presentation.
We do similar interventions with second grade students. Um, this year we are able to pass 37% of our second graders already, which is another 12 students than we had last year. Those 33 students will not have to take the test next year. They've passed it as second graders. They're good to go. Now for iLearn for math. So this year we've adopted a new curriculum in reveal. This new curriculum offers data tracking. It offers online assessments. So the students get immediate feedback so they can um that they know what they need to work on, what they don't know. And then they also um offer engaging uh online academic games which is which is nice. We always want to try to find different ways to get them engaged in all kinds of learning. So the previous three years you see a steady increase through our math scores.
We're anticipating 200,000 in revenue. So, just do the extrapolate it out over a couple years. Those funds will be gone. That being said, um, we typically budget about 500,000 in uh, school choice funds to be utilized. School choice can be used for anything that impacts the district. So we have we have full discretion on how we spend those funds. Um I know you've all seen this you questions on that after if you want. So this is a slide I am always hesitant but I think it's important that the community understands the picture of where we are and the things that we have not included in this budget that are necessary and there are components of this and this is not in rank order. I want to be clear. This is not meaning this does not mean the first thing if you gave me $100,000 the first thing we're going to do is add an elected teacher at the high school because I'm telling you that's not the first thing we're going to do, right?
Our FY26 budget is bu built on 2.2 2 million going into FI27, we would only have $600,000. That's creating the gap that the mayor is already talking about on the city side. What we are doing is sound fiscal practice of management at the same time trying to balance the needs of the district for FY26, FY27 and beyond. There's no shenanigans here going on regarding what it is that we're doing with these revolving accounts. Any other questions from any other members? Member Den. Andy, I have a question that might be really silly. It's just a question about the chart. Your percentage change. Are these just positive changes? Is this a positive number? Brackets or negative? Yeah, brackets. Okay. Okay, you're higher than number 16. Thank you. I'm Yep. You know, math was a while ago. Thank you. So, these are negative numbers, right? If you look and see, but I I want to It's worthy of going account by account in two years from our school choice balance that were projected to use at the beginning of FY25 to the projected ending balance as of FY26 is a 48% decrease in the funds available in school choice.
God bless you. Okay. Do you Sorry. Go ahead. For the children that are part of your um the reading competition because it extends into doing something internally this fall. Is there like a structure that's provided to them on what they can do over the summer to keep up those reading skills so they don't kind of fall behind? Yeah. So, so part of it, one part of it is like kind of pushing them and the other part of it is is empowering them. And so, we've really been talking a lot about like, you know, a kid will come to me and they go, "Well, I I didn't finish my book." And I go, "Okay." Like, "No one's here yelling at you." Like, you know, like it's kind of like, "Did you have a catch over the, you know, over the winter before you came to baseball practice?" Like, we're trying.
They can't commit to five. So, we try to balance that with somebody who maybe wants to do the other two days a week. But if we get somebody who's really good, um we'll take them for the three days if they can commit to that. We've made it work. Five people. Sometimes it is a day for a bit. Sometimes there's a period there's a lot of turnover for two months trying to get hired right now. Have they ever transitioned into a full-time employee? And we've offered a few people positions as like as paras to see if they wanted to switch from a daily sub to a parah because um they've worked out really well and we thought it would be a good match and that they would be getting full benefits and some have opted to do that and others have said no I want to stay doing what I'm doing.
Um but really the the team has done a wonderful effort um and I'm excited for things to come in the years to come related to our literacy. Um the last item I just wanted to overview um is a start times for the 2526 school year. Uh Dr. Casemiro had shared some information on this in an earlier board of education meeting. Um with the addition of uh Danbury West, we are looking at our tiered busing system and with that um we have not made a final decision but are in the process of slight adjustments to our tiers which would in of our busing or transportation services um which could slightly impact the start times of some of our schools for next school year. They will not be significant changes, but they will be slight adjustments. And we are hoping to finalize those decisions in the coming weeks, and you will receive an update um in either the next board meeting or the one thereafter um on final decisions that we've made there.
Thank you. And that's been rolled out K5. Uh Michelle, I think you're the slide that you're referring to. I think what they're trying to do is compare the fact that Norark has got more people and we got less and we're put we're doing a lot more or close to that with that short period. Yeah. I just want to know the numbers four we're looking for. Thank you. Any other questions? Just to clarify to the math curriculum, although we we finished rolling out K5, that curriculum is K12. So that's it's rolled out. Thank you. Do you have a question? I know you guys are. Yeah. Mr. Janelli, I don't know if she ask question. Mr. Janelli, do you have a question? Hello. Well, thank you so much. No, I don't have a question. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much everybody. U before everyone leaves, I just want to say thank you on behalf of the board of ed and our superintendent and everyone that you have came out and gave us great presentation and we thank you.
And so that's all going to be in the MOU so that we don't end up um in any potential legal issues down the road with um parents or advocates as far as services. And we receive funding through the county sula. um there's a portion with their ADA that goes into um our funding. Um so that if for those services to take place um you know we if they did need the services it's pretty rare that you get a student there that's on an IEP but if they did we have funding that's available that would take care of um those if we had to like contract with salient and do speech or anything like that which we have done in the past that um how that's taken care of. Our goal is to be invisible to you. We don't want you to even know we're there.
Um and you can see that we are go to page two where it's the one right there at the bottom. So we do recommend um that we do surplus these three properties. Um the three properties were uh Lane View, Cherrywood and Toy. Uh our second tasks task was to come up with a list of um acceptable uses or for these future properties. Um so you can see here that there's a list about you know 10 or so items that the board I mean not the board um the committee discussed and had some pretty good feelings and good discussions about what types of uses that we should have for these surplus properties. Um however we did have um some pretty strong um conversations around the first three and we felt that these were the these were the strongest ones that we felt are the most um acceptable to be used.
Um and if we keep with the nine students, which seems reasonable, um the six scholarship kiddos and then the nine um tuition students um at 325, which is what uh the board voted on in um December, um that makes it about 92,000. So we're closing the gap um that you know switching teachers um helped. So the difference on the left hand side um the 97,000 minus the um 92,000 um we're still about $5,000 uh total deficit if we just leave it at the 325 which means the district still covers about $600 monthly um from August to June if we stay everybody having tuition at 321. Um, and then I just did one up, which is another 50. Um, obviously the cost is all going to stay the same because it's going to be the same picture and the same date. The only thing that changed was that instead of 325, I went up to 375 um, which is um, 338, which means that um, basically odd number the district only covers $122.3 monthly for the year.
Just so you have perspective. We also chose to proceed with the bonds simply because what we have found is bonds do better than uh potentially an override or something else. overr I'd start with a high amount of unknown because that has speaking of that bout language I mentioned earlier exceeding the revenue control limit not to exceed seven years for purpose of fiscal year 25 26 the language behind an override is incredibly confusing and without explanation we generally find that they don't do as well um we also so the other thing that we find is if you give voters too many options we we tend to negotiate with them and say oh you don't want this but you want that and it creates a false positive so we start with the strategy that you pick a proposal that you might want to move forward with and you measure it to see where it starts.
So the finding was IEPs inconsistently ensure that students receive instruction in the least restrictive environment. What we found and what we dug deeper when we looked at the action after review with school works is that it's really making sure that all educators from general education teachers to building principles to even our parents have a clear understanding of what the law is surrounding leash restrictive environment. Often we have students that may have some very challenging behaviors and it is definitely understood that when those challenging behaviors present as teachers, as caring individuals, we instantly want to give them more. We want to put them in a more um an environment that's providing more supports. Well, article 7 and educ um special education laws don't allow for those immediate moves. We really have to make sure that we're trying strategies at all the tiers of our MTSS structure before we do that.
It's just conforming to the language. Correct. That is bringing our meetings in conformance with the policy. No problems now. Okay. Thanks for that uh historical tidbit there, Julie, and letting us know that that's how it used to be and everything was okay.
It cannot be compared apples to apples with just a straight mono monolingual classroom. What do you attribute the eighth grade loss to? What' you say? at eighth graders. Um, as a former eighth grade teacher, um, that I think that there could be some truth into what you said. They get a high high schoolitis is what we used to call it. Um, where it's kind of like, well, I'm already in high school, right? I'm I'm exiting out. Um, that is a great question and it's something worth delving a little deeper into. Um, I don't have that answer for you offhand, but I would gladly look further into that with uh the junior high to see what they think that could be. Um, we've also have new teachers across the district. And so I would say across the district, across programs, across teacher experience level. Again, this is one snapshot.