And our STEM coach, um has currently been in 52 coaching cycles at Anderson Elementary School this year. Um this is reflective of some of the literacy and STEM coaching cycles that we've had at Anderson Elementary School that have tied novel studies to a STEM project and really just transformed our hallways to make it a really cool learning environment. We have also been working together as a school to represent Anderson at at events such as our fall festival, spring fling, and Cubfest. As a building, we have also created a fun learning environment around literacy, including two book fairs, book blast, and a coaching cycle book raffle to gift books to teachers in coaching cycles. Anderson Elementary has been seen around the community at the holiday parade and the Molly Dutello race. We have also had many opportunities to invite the community into our building to explore learning in unique ways, including the fire department for fire safety and community leaders for guest readers.
Um, I don't have the purse strings, if you will, to to to fix this. Otherwise, I would. Uh, our budget that we're showing is truly an operating budget of the school system. You may ask, okay, what about athletics? Aren't you funding athletics? And we do with user fees, but they cover just enough to cover trans, not even transportation, but coaching salaries are picked up in the operating budget. uh transportation, uniforms. We're use utilizing 250 300,000 every year in school choice to help get athletics through. That's significant modular replacement. Again, if you ask me, how do I rank order? See that boiler at Pitway? Probably number one. We got to have heat. Roof replacement at the Pitway in the high school. The high school's 20 years old, believe it or not. And I still hear people say the new high school. Yeah, it's new. 20 years ago.
I'm sorry. I just my my point was that we say that we're going to spend that and we may, but um the past couple of years we were told that that was going to happen and it did not as far as that one went. and it is that one has over a million dollars. And I'm delighted that we have a wonderful reserve in the circuit breaker. I think that we're going to need it. And I'm glad that we have a reserve in um in the special ed revolving. I just think that to have a chart that says that we this is what would happen if I drained my whole bank account, I would be down to zero tomorrow. But there's no guarantee that I'm going to do that. So I'll let you finish what you wanted to say. Okay. So the reason why when it is and I go back to the workshop we did where we went through the bud I did the thing on budget management and the financial management.
It would be good. She said there's some water-based slime that like doesn't stick to like all your clothes. I my kids made me touch literally 20 different kinds of slime. So I can actually Yes. Any any any feedback would be It was awful. Yeah, that's the one thing we don't allow in the house. But you know, while everything else glitter, we have a we have a sign in in our kitchen about that slime is not allowed in this house because it is ruined and there is a list. Oh yeah. Every time Charlotte breaks that, we add it to Hopefully you don't have to write my face off that list. I seriously just just remember you know the poet Bonnie Burns best laid plans of mice and men gang after the glee. You opened your mouth by his mouth the fish is caught. Listen you know at the end of the day the number of children who are absolutely out of their minds excited for it is worth every bit of it.
Um, each school under the law is directed to designate an administrator to handle these interactions following guidelines laid out by the Connecticut State Department of Education and any applicable law. Staff under the new policy are directed to request identification, review any warrants presented, and consult with legal counsel before responding. Um if outside personnel, immigration personnel approach other employees, uh other personnel must direct the immigration authorities to be designated administrator for any requests involving school access or information. We are updating both the policy and the accompanying administrative regulation to comply with the the new law. Policy 1250, visitors in schools. Um both policy and the accompanying administrative regulation are being updated uh for the same reason as policy 1420. Um, the policy and regulation add a new paragraph with guidance for how to handle visits from federal immigration authorities and clarifies that school officials can direct visitors to refrain from engaging with students and/or staff unless doing so is approved by the school and consistent with the purpose of the visit.
Um and that might ripple through the system slightly. One question. Um, is there thought process of ever making Westside a neighborhood school to help eliminate some of that problem? Um, so I know that has been discussed in the past and I think you know always looking at decisions but that is not something I mean not going to this year obviously. No, but it is something that we talk about from time to Mr. Danella.
Okay. I have it in my mind though. I can picture. Can you picture it? Can you picture it? Teeny bit of red. [Music] Diagnostic growth on the right. Reading. Reading. Okay. And that's going to be that's where I was. I don't think that's what we want. All right. I'll send it to you. Go to diagnostic reading. Go diagnostic results. Click that. And then click diagnostic. There he is. You got to do prior diagnostic. But this is this is diagnosis number one here. So look at when he started the year in August when they first took this you've got 7% two kids who were mid or above grade level and 19% were earlier on. So now when he did the third was 34% in that hashtag and what was it 32 in the full green. Yes. So we still have our 4% down at the bottom, but he has moved that huge yellow section of kids or one grade level below to green.
And two of the bases for you to exempt yourself from the surplus land act uh is one that you had a 7-Eleven committee process which you've just completed and two is that proceeds from any sale or lease of the props district program which obviously would be the case. It's all you can do with it. Uh so when you put all of that together uh we now have to go through the step of having the board adopt a resolution that formally declares yourself as exempt that then gets submitted to a state agency housing and community development that has 30 days to agree or disagree with they don't within 30 days um it's automatically determined that you are exempt. Good news is that housing and community development essentially grants all of these. So, I don't know why the legislature makes us go through this extra step, but they make us go through this extra step.
325. So 325 right now. Or um the ones who enrolled after October, but the ones who grandfathered in, we kept them at 275. Okay. So we're increasing it by 50 next year. Motion to decide. Got it. Just has a difference in here. That's why. Yes. So if there's no further discussion, we'll call for vote. Okay. All those in favor say I. I. I.
But again, all of these are above four and are incredibly well regarded by the overall electorate. When we get down to a couple of the other items, extracurricular facilities at 3.75, synthetic turf was the lowest one that we measured. I would say at 2.61, I've talked to many schools, they said, well, it actually, you know, it saves taxpayer money and, you know, it actually is a fiscally responsible investment. spent a couple years talking to voters about that because right now it's not considered as the high priority from the electorate when it comes to some of the other items that are on here. Restroom renovation at 3.46 and modern technology at 4.17. Um you'll see some of these sound similar and the reason we measure them different ways is because words matter. Um I will give you an example. School buses do better than pupil transportation vehicles.
I appreciate that clarification. Thank you. No problem. Can you send us um a the reference you're using on least restrictive um settings? You said article 7. Yep. Can you So we're kind of we could read and we're all on the same page. Sure. And what we can do is we can even make sure that some of that information is on our website. Um Dr. Thomas though, who is our guru in special education, is going to talk a lot about our current state and she's going to go deeper into a lot of these terms. Thank you for that because I meant to give that disclaimer at the beginning. I am trying to stay away from acronyms. IEP, individual education plan. That's the plan that's there. But I really tried to do this first half, but stop me if I throw in an acronym or a title that is not understood.
Um also with 2150 um gosh exhibit there is forgive me when I was reading through 2150. What is a current superintendent committee? It should be listed on in the board's policy. Um, it's a board committee. It's required. It's a state requirement. It was the parent teacher superintendent advisory committee was the parent teacher advisory committee and behavioral interventions committee. However, the behavioral interventions committee I believe um let me let me just read you footnote here from press on the two. So what we're talking about is kind of between policy 2150 and 21E which was taken out but there is a committee that is there are two committees that are currently superintendent committees and here is the footnote here um from press and it says 105 ILCS5-10 20.14 requires all districts to establish and maintain a parent teacher advisory committee to develop with the board policy guidelines on student discipline um etc.
Well, the one before um yeah, it's so we would have to look at a district specifically with dual language eighth grade. So, I just want to clarify it's we're not talking about the whole but even even still you look at eighth grade English are our 77% of our eighth graders are showing proficiency. Um 8th grade it's at 73% of our student population is demonstrating proficiency. It's still it's still a celebratory number right like I know we see a dip from 77 to 73. The goal is to get to 80%. We are still there and this is one data point out of the school year. Who knows what we're going to see when we head to to the end of the school year. [Music] Yeah. So much to be celebrated. Moral of the story. Awesome. This Yeah, this is I agree, Mr. River. This is great.
So, we touched on PLC's earlier. Um, I just want to stress the importance of the PLC's. These ear early releases on Wednesdays have allowed our teachers to have time to collaborate, um, and improve their collegiality. Um, that was not something that was offered previously. They really have to have that time to dig in, look at their data, understand how to use the data. Um, this allows them to improve their instruction as teachers and professionals, which translates into student success. um we we're looking at our interventions, making sure that the data points to where we need to look at, not just a broad group. We are going to really target and be intentional with what we want to do. Um and it really improves and increases that concept of this is these are our kids, not my kids in my classroom. It's my grade level. If I see someone struggling in another classroom, I will tell them how I've done or been successful with that strategy or I will offer support to maybe even take that student into my room during interventions because I have students that are similar um or have similar deficits with that student.
Uh, and we we have concerns about failing roofs at Pitway and the high school. Um, object, you've probably never seen any drips in that high school. Only a few. Right. So again, as we look at things, we are we are trying to pluck things off this list the best we can. At town meeting, you know, in the fall and when they start um at the in the fall town meeting, we figure out how much free cash is available. Uh and then it's divvied up into a variety of buckets. Uh some of it goes to capital and Chris and John Murray, our director of facilities, they meet regularly with town management uh to determine okay what should be on the capital list from the school side and then they rank order them and try to figure out what's the best way always keeping in mind safety number one making sure we can open our buildings.
The cliche I like to say is a budget is a plan and plans change. And what ended up happening in the past years was that we wrote the Easter grants for specific purposes that when they did not come to fruition we had two choices. amend the grant or we turn the money back to the federal government because we didn't spend it all. I don't think anyone here would want us to turn back the money to the federal government. So, we amended the grant and we did what I remember I called the legitimate shell game of moved expenses that were originally planned from whether it be the local funding or one of the other revolving accounts. We moved it to the ESER grant to fully expend the ESER grant and therefore free up money in the local budget or the other revolving accounts to use as statutoily allowed.
It's a big deal every time it fine. I think maybe some adults should sign up for that one too. No throwing them ahead. I mean, it's not taking it. You're joining. Is the slime date on that list? So, please No, no. Yeah, we got to figure that out. We got We have to try and find a way to shoehorn that in. Yeah, we'll probably add it to um to the April community meeting. Oh, great. Okay. A pie throwing contest should be fun. That was that was last year. My poor tuxedo can only take so much. All right. Hey, I got one for you. Here we go. You ready? Uh oh. Couple years ago, we did a survey. Yep. And some of the biggest things, three things that came out of that survey was our building and our bathrooms were dirty. No one felt safe and no one's felt appreciated.
Because the law that led to these revisions of the policy directs superintendent to designate the point person at each school no later than April 1st, 2025. That's why we need to try to get the policy and the administrative regulation in place as soon as possible so that we can comply with any questions. Could we have a motion to approve policies 1250 and 1420? So move. I'll second. Anyone have any other questions or comments regarding this? All those in favor, please say I. I. Anyone opposed or abstaining? Uh, future business? No seem to have any. So then, could we have a motion to go into executive session for a discussion concerning a temporary adjustment of job responsibilities and contract amendment for the director of HR and student support services? Second. All those in favor, please say I. I. opposed or abstaining. All right, thank you for coming everyone.
Do you have any questions? Yes, I do. Mike Weaver. Mike, I'm a bit uh confused on the $4 million of the offer money. Is that new in addition to the 7.5 we received last year uh from the state? Uh no, Mr. Janelli, it's not. There was originally 7.5 plus later on the year we had uh an addition of another 202,000. Currently, we're reporting that out as 7 uh I'm sorry, I keep saying thousand, 7.7 million. Um the four million is what the mayor has anticipated us to have left uh after this year going into the new fiscal year. So what you're saying is that of the 7.7 we've got $4 million that we haven't spent yet. That's what the city is anticipating. Um currently we have not um had anything charged against that 7.7. Uh we're working uh right now with the city to get uh some of the IT purchases for this year process, but there's currently nothing against it as we speak.
So I just like to show it's kind of awesome. It's hard to see like on a on a micro level when you see all of it, but I wanted you guys to see that cuz he's amazing. I mean, we got to go, but okay, side. I digress. Uh, so it is definitely spring. I'm sure the other two principles will uh attest to that. The kids are feeling it. Couple good snow days and then pollen and spring and hormones and that's awesome. So, uh we're going to start our afternoon pentatlon kids. Uh they did amazingly in our first in their competition. Uh the team took second place overall. that that picture on the upper right corner was the moment that they realized that they had actually won something kind of big. Uh, and so I was so happy I caught that. Uh, the super quiz team took third place overall.