Is there any discussion? All in favor of approving the minutes, please say I. I. Any opposed? Okay. It appears to be unanimous. Thank you. Now, um let's move on to the superintendent's update. Mr. um sorry, Dr. Uh, thank you, Wendy. I do appreciate it. Good evening, everybody. Nice to see everyone. Happy teacher and staff appreciation week. Uh, there's a lot of, uh, call it the food frenzy this week. And I'm I'm sure you guys at your school have the same thing going on. Sarah, I'm looking at you there. A lot of cookies and lunches and all kinds of great things provided by PTO's and others. So, um, it's good stuff. It was also National Principles Day last week, I think last Wednesday. So, good stuff there uh, for our principles. A couple of things under teaching and learning that I do want to share this evening.
So, we'll give you a few minutes to to go home and enjoy the rest of your night. And thank you again for being here. Thank you, staff and students and parents. Thank you, guys. Goodbye. Thank you, Silus. Congratulations. Thank you. Still as good looking as ever. Stop it. Your beard looks amazing, too. Okay, next up we have public comments. Visitors are welcome to speak on agenda and non-aggenda items.
Um that form is linked on all of the school's website, not only the corporate um website, but also every single school um to make sure that that can be rep anything can be reported anonymously. Um I will tell you we've been sharing that information, but we have not been getting reports. So we need to speak up. We need everybody's help to speak up. You can also contra contact contact the central office, Dr. Johnson, Carrie Manowitz, um Todd Ebinger, um Mandy Sullivan, um can all be reached here at the corporate office, that's 3464483 duro 812. Um if you feel like that you've tried to bring something forward, you haven't gotten resolutions, these individuals are your people. Um please come, please have a conversation with them. Maybe you want to do it via text or email. Schedule an appointment, come in, sit down. That's what we want.
Hope it wasn't over three minutes. Thank Thank you, Mr. Adams. I feel like even these glasses didn't help. Uh, our final report is from town manager Michael Herbert. M. Mr. Town Manager, the budget one? No, the regular one. Are you going to pass on that one? You Okay. The quickest town report you'll ever hear. And because and and because it's baseball season, we're going to start the evening off with a curveball. After some discussion uh about article two, we we came to the conclusion that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to transfer funds from a general stabilization fund into the general budget, the general fund to support a budget that hasn't been approved yet. So, I'm going to ask for a motion to put article two on the table. The intent will be to bring it back right after we approve the budget.
Just an update on kindergarten registration and I have some bullets there for the board in the report that you you know certainly can go back and reference but 118 students are now registered uh at CLES for kindergarten. Um this is approximately 30 more students than I reported last month. So we've had a you know a robust and April vacation was in there as well. So a robust two and a half three weeks of registrations or completed reg registrations I should say. Um this is 20 more students registered right now compared with the same time last year. So we're just watching that carefully as we always watch uh our kindergarten enrollment. Very difficult to project. Uh we are projecting in the budget 127 students in kindergarten for next year with eight classroom sections which is gives us a average of 15.8 or 16 students per classroom.
Comments are limited to three minutes. Please state your name and address prior to making your comments. Please note that members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda. Therefore, action taken is limited to directing the administration to look into the matter, responding to any criticism or scheduling matter for future consideration. And the first person we have, David Leco. I'll invite you up to the podium. Yes. Hi, my name is David Leco. I say my address 111 second Avenue here in Aaho. Uh so man, I wish we could kick everybody out. Um really want to tell everybody congratulations, especially Miss Cotch. She's a wonderful prek teacher. Um so what I'd like to talk about today real fast goes by quick is this whole firing residing firing residing. The only reason why we're even talking about all that is legality reasons, right?
We want to have a conversation. Um so please um let us know um if you are experiencing any issues. Um any students suspected of bullying behavior in our schools um may be placed on a bullying agreement or a safety plan. We do have processes in place to address these things. These plans are involve decisive monitoring actions to ensure that the behavior is stopped. Um actions could also include a variety of options. Other options such as increased supervision um changes in schedule up to um and including suspension or expulsion from the school. Obviously, that's not where we want this to go, but we have to address the concerns and the issues. If inst instances of mutual conflict between students are occurring, we can also use safety plans to support maintaining a positive learning environment. We know that discipline is critical. It's a critical part to stop bullying and unkind behavior.
Is there a second? Second. Any discussion hearing? None. All those in favor of tableabling article 2, please raise your green cards. Thank you. And opposed. That passes unanimously. Article three, transfer from the special education stabilization fund to the general fund sponsored by the town manager and finance director to see if the town will transfer $300,000 from the special education stabilization fund to the general fund or pass any vote or take any action relative there too. The finance comm finance committee recommends the town so vote. Mr. Herbert. Uh thank you, Mr.
Uh the new class size averages that the board passed uh for K in grade one are um in the range of 17 to 20 students per classroom. Just as a reminder for everybody. Uh which means that we if we were at the max of every kindergarten classroom, we could have up to 20 students in a classroom, which would be 160 students. So this is while there's 118 right now registered, it's not a time to panic or, you know, ring our hands or anything, but obviously pay very close attention like we do each year. In terms of the high school, uh the SATs were a few weeks back and actually about a month ago and the initial uh review of uh the data uh demonstrates a positive trend so far as compared with last year. Um total score is up 12 points. Reading and writing is up four points.
Because nobody has once said, "Mr. Leco, the evidence you've provided me is false." Which means if I was fired, I was fired under false pretenses. And we all know that changes the ball game. But I can tell you right now, I have no desire for a legality case against this district. Zero. That's not who I am. That wouldn't help. I never wanted to go this far. But what's wrong is wrong, and what's right is right. And that's my only thing. And what are we teaching these kids? What are you paying me for as a coach? What do you vote on? Right? You vote on am I going to have a strong leader? Somebody to teach these kids how to be morally and ethically responsive. Right? If you want to know why, because I do this out of kindness of my heart. We all know I don't need this job because I have an amazing wife and I am medically retired veteran.
Please know um and help your student to understand that we will take disciplinary steps as appropriate. We want all of our students to be successful. Having a school environment that is free from bullying is step one in that process in making sure that our kids are successful. upholding our shared commitment to a community and I truly do believe this is about community. Um commitment to a community where unkind words and actions are not accepted will remain a focus of our schools each and every day. So I thank you again for coming. Thank you again for being willing to step up and participate in public comment. So we'll move on down the um board agenda now that that part of the meeting is over. So we do have some old business. We have some Neiola approvals. Yes. Asking for approval of this group of miola policies.
Moderator, and uh good evening everyone. Thank you for spending a Wednesday night with us. Um, as the moderator has uh noted, this is a transfer from the special education stabilization fund in the amount of $300,000. Uh, this is being used to help balance the FY26 budget. Um, one of the primary uh drivers uh in uh some of our costs uh for the town um are related to some of the out of district special education costs. So, um, this is necessary to, uh, help maintain a balanced budget and, uh, maintain our commitment to our kids. Thank you, Mr. Herbert. To allow discussion, I'll entertain a motion that the town transfer $300,000 from the special education stabilization fund to the general fund. Do I have such a motion? Discussion. Come up to a microphone. We can't hear you from back there. Well, come up to the microphone, tell us who you are, and then you can ask me to ask him.
Math is up eight points. The percent of uh students uh meeting benchmark for reading and writing is up four and for meeting benchmark and math is up five. So good news thus far. passing, excuse me, meeting benchmark on both math and reading and writing uh is up five for our students. Uh Cape will receive a more detailed report next week um with uh Mr. Bland and the high school team that'll be there. So, I just wanted to let everybody know that. I did share it in the weekend update with the board, but I thought it was important for the public to know that the data starts to come in now, especially with things being computerized uh smarter balanced um at Whiskanir and CL uh is underway. Um excuse me, Whiskanir has been underway. CLS starts next week. So that's the other standardized testing, grades three through eight.
I don't need this job. I do it out of the kindness of my heart. And the reason why I will keep showing up and I will use every legal outlet possible at my exposure to make sure justice is done. I told you I already forget the kids, but the parents that were involved, especially the one that sits in a position who is there based on their sole purpose of being able to make decisions for the rest of us to have it instigated by that is a problem. And if you want to know why I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing, this is it. The last time I tried to hand you guys something, which is perfectly legal by the way, and the secretary told me, superintendent jumped in and told me, his legal team told me I have to hand it to him first.
Again, these are the ones centered around AI. I have a motion by Pat. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Chelsea. Really? Um any discussion? All those in favor? 7 Um, next under old business we have summer school update and this is an inform. This is just an inform just a reminder that we will have summer school for the high school um credit it's a credit recovery like we have for many years and then um new this year second graders um third graders did it last year but second and third graders um who did not pass IE will have the opportunity to mediation through um summer school this year. Again, this item isn't in form. Next, under old business property, we have Halo smart sensors. Yes, you have a flyer in your packet that looks like this. Um, you we are continuing on in the long-term project, we've been working with vaping prevention.
Hi. Um, I'm Penny Black and I live in Ashland. Um, I'm concerned about $300,000 when I think about the importance of spe special special education and I'm wondering if we have fewer special ed kids and that's why we can go down or are the teachers saying that they want less money. This is going the other way. It's increasing funding to special educ. It's coming from the special education fund to move into the general fund to fund special education. I didn't understand. Could you explain it one more time, Mr. Herbert? Sure. Um, it's actually a good question. So, what we do each year, um, in the fall when we get what's known as our free cash appropriation is we take some of that money and put it in this special education stabilization fund. So when we do in incur some larger out of district special education costs, we've got savings built up that we can use to help educate them.
Next week, I think Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, the students from 8th grade Wiskanir will be on the DC trip. So that's very exciting. And our French exch exchange visit that I mentioned last month uh when the students were here. Um Katherine and Keith will be here to give a a nice report and an update and share some pictures at next week's uh May 21st meeting for the board. CLS. Uh they had their first inaugural um culture night where multiple families were involved in highlighting their cultures. Um dressed in authentic clothing, brought in food samples uh and uh mu music samples, maybe played some music, and also had some presentations. So, it was a great night uh had by all and a lot of fun. So, we're happy to see that CS was able to do that last week. Under business and operations, um the board is very well aware of this.
I don't know if you guys ever got it. I'm not sure. Thank you for coming again. wish for me to kick everybody out to hear this because there was several students in here that were involved and I would love the opportunity to tell them that I forgive them. I owned up to my mistake immediately for cussing immediately because the nights that I teach, we have three letters on our shield, D, H, and I. Discipline, honor, integrity. Everybody makes a mistake. Everybody own up to it. Deal with it. Move on. That's what we need to show our youth. Too many times, staff members here have been thrown off to the bur because it's easier than dealing with the actual problem because we live in a poor community and nobody has the resources to fight back. I volunteered for the infantry in a time of war. Not got pushed into the infantry.
So, using those dollars from that class action lawsuit against vape manufacturers and our recent safety bond, we are going to purchase the Halo smart sensors to install in high school, middle school, and JCEC bathrooms for next school year. Um, these sensors are uh pretty pretty neat. They not only detect vaping um but they also have other built-in safety features. uh they can alert administrators when there's large crowds gathering um in a restroom, fights in restroom, requests for help. There's a lot of other safety features embedded in the monitors and so those will go in all the secondary school bathrooms um and JC. Again, that item wasn't informed. Now we move under new business. We have some recommendations. Please asking for the following recommendations to be approved, please. Casey, Mississippi Elementary summer school teacher. Aaron Green, Hayden Elementary summer school teacher. Crystal Hammond, Jennings County High School summer school teacher.
Thank you very much. You're welcome. Anything further? Because this involves removing money from a stabilization fund. This will require a twothirds vote. We'll start with cards. All those in favor of the motion article 3, please raise your cards. Thank you. and opposed. That passes unanimously. Article four, fiscal year 2026 budget sponsored by the town manager finance director to see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate from available funds and or transfer from available funds in the treasury. Such sums of money as are necessary to defay charges and expenses of the town, including debt and interest for the ensuing fiscal year or pass on your vote or take any action relative there too. I've made some changes this year and I'm providing both the school committee and town manager with a few minutes to make comments on the budget before we hear from the finance committee.