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Blackford you have a report no no report today okay all right any questions or comments pertaining to the superintendent report or minute at this point administrative items all right seeing none let's go into a roll call please mr. Barbour Giovanni yes this is Everhard yes mr. Fisk arrow yes miss Fleming yes mr. Canton yes mrs. Knoll yes mr. Lee is Alana yes mr. Meighan yes mrs. Ryan yes motion carries thank you all right we're gonna move on to curriculum and instruction I need a motion to approve items 8.1 through 8.5 do I have a motion main motion by mr. Barbour Giovanni seconded by mrs.
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Massey Anna Thank You mr. Perry Jeannie good evening everyone so I'd like to start with a little bit of an explanation I know the board members know that we have a school security and safety plan that covers many things it's a large document one of the sections in the school security and safety plan did cover a response to large-scale outbreaks however I will tell you that this is not what we were expecting to see this year so you know the one thing and I'm only gonna try and thank the staff and the managers one it's but you know the staff here in the schools you know certainly the teachers and the administrators our custodians our IAS you know our nurses all our managers they've been amazing everybody has responded extremely well and I think that's helped us keep things on an even keel because clearly the school system is not shut down by any stretch of the imagination all we did was took what we were doing inside our buildings and pulled them outside of our buildings and so we're doing everything remotely so with that said the first time on the agenda would be an update on school breakfast and lunch which is a grab-and-go program that we're doing out of Dodd Middle School we've never done this before in Cheshire um you know many school districts do offer a summer lunch program we've never done it so we had to ramp it up pretty quickly and it's going very well so I I do want to spend a couple minutes to explain how this works we had to get a waiver from the US Department of Agriculture to offer this program and so we're serving fully compliant USDA reimbursable breakfast and lunch were serving and distributing food three days a week Monday Wednesday Friday so Monday Wednesday would distributing breakfast and lunch for two days Fridays were distributing breakfast and lunch for three days Friday Saturday Sunday so this is tomorrow will be a fifth full distribution day and just to put a little perspective around what we've done by tomorrow we will have served sixteen thousand two hundred twenty two meals using this grabbing and go update and there's a this there's plenty of details beneath that that shows you day by day how many meals that we're serving per car but it is a quite an accomplishment to be able to put that out and it's been pretty flawless we've even figured out how to reduce the wait times as people pick up their meals throughout the day breakfast is very structured under the USDA so breakfast includes an 8 ounce milk a fruit such as apple slices fruit juice and a 2 ounce whole-grain lunch is an 8 ounce milk and entree such as a turkey and cheese sandwich dragon juice which is also known as vegetable juice and a fruit such as an orange so when we're talking about breakfast and lunch it's you know it's very very structured it's packaged and and it is reimbursable under the USDA so every breakfast we serve we're reimbursed a dollar 80 for every lunch is three dollars and 41 cents that is intended to cover cost of food cost of supply and our labor whether or not it will cover us fully is its to be determined we haven't gone through those numbers but I think it's important for the board and the community to understand that that is that is reimbursable so it's not out of you know out of pocket from the operating budget next week we are starting to offer lunch items that can be heated at home and this is an announcement such as shamrock shamrock shaped chicken nuggets and corn hot dog nuggets so you know those lunches will be packaged and people you know community members can heat them up at home this is available for all children 18 and under not just students of the Church of public schools we we do want to make a couple of acknowledgments you know first Madeline and Aiko who is our food service manager she has been leading the effort and I wanted to share some of her thoughts she said the teamwork has been amazing the staff from the other kitchens so that's a food service staff that worked at do little or Norton or at the high school they don't get to work together but under these conditions they they are working together and she said that this work at Dodd has brought the entire team much closer together so she was really pleased about that custodians and IAS have been terrific the nurses from our nursing program are there daily they're doing safety infection control they're taking the staffs temperature at the beginning of the work day and at the end of the work day they're also helping to make sure that we're distancing and doing everything that they need to do from a nursing perspective and when they're not doing that they've actually been helping to prepare the food packages so again an incredible team effort and also officers our SROs Dave Mahler and Gretchen events nee has been there with us inside the prep area as well as helping direct traffic so it's been going great we want to thank Doug and Andrew Wade of Wade's dairy we don't have enough area to store all the milk so what Wade's is doing is they're delivering milk and a truck and they're leaving us the truck with the refrigeration unit on so we can keep the milk code so you know we want to thank Wade's and Wade's is our milk contractor also Jerry nappy and bazoo dough's because they lent us a trailer like you see on an 18-wheeler and that's where we keep the refrigerated meals that are prepped for the following day so again if we didn't have that trailer we could not store all the food that's been prepped to be served so there's a big thank you for them and then we want to also thank Jim from Chester Tricia it's a nail he's provided free lunch to the food prep team this past Tuesday so a lot of community effort a lot of staff effort to make this happen we did have some excess milk and we were able to actually donate that to the Cheshire food pantry this week and the last thing that I wanted to mention is that bus drivers these are the Board of Ed bus drivers are delivering food to medically fragile or disabled children families that need to get their food delivered if they're ill or if they're on the quarantine for coalbed we don't have any of those yet but you know we will make those deliveries of the lunches and breakfasts to people's homes and all community member has to do is contact either their school or the food and nutrition office so that's the update on breakfast and lunch again probably the biggest add-on thing we're doing you know we're certainly supporting all the remote work but this was an add-on for us and I can pause there mr.
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Everett missus ever harder any questions or comments pertaining to curriculum and instruction just a quick comment Danny keep up the good work yes absolutely I heard it was a good meeting absolutely fabulous job I I do want to say something about curriculum and I say this is a board member and as a parent I've had the privilege of watching my daughter remotely learn the last a little most two weeks now it is unbelievable to see what what we're doing in evesham and I'm not saying that to say that I don't you know like to just you know blow smoke anywhere what what's going on here is incredible I'm Fred I am unbelievably proud of this staff I really in Danny you're you know what dynasty guys gave Supervisors down to every teacher and every staff member watching you know I got to actually be a part of quickly a morning meeting for my daughter you know get to see a bunch of first graders working together you know using using this better than me by the way I openly admit that watching them get together seeing lessons taught that way it is what is happening now is is tough for this entire world no we're talking about over a third of the world is isolated now but you know when when we come together as a community like this and and we we all batten down the hatches it really shows what amazing resolve this this township has and our staff has and our kids have and our parents have and and honestly I couldn't be prouder of what's going on here and I I say that with with such sincerity because I was scared I was scared to see how this will all happen and yeah it's hard work I can I can see it and I am proud of every individual who's part of this and I thought that in curriculum building was appropriate way to [Music] I didn't really catch you but I'm sure it was good any any questions of the questions for comments alright let's move to a roll call please mrs. Barwick Giovanni yes mrs.
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Perry Jeanne if you'd like if there's any questions on that yeah you need to come for air for a couple seconds so okay no in all seriousness and thank you for that update on the food service operation and we do have some questions and your first thank you it was a it was a hand yeah I'm ready and first then Adam sorry hi then thanks for the update I actually have talked with a parent or two about the the food process and just wondering you make it sound as if we're not taking any kind of a hit to our operating budget by giving out the food and I'm just wondering why that is so I mean I think it's the responses that I'm hearing is this is great that we're doing this but we're offering it to everybody and their siblings even right and so how is is this all being subsidized by the national agriculture department well the shorter answer is yes the reimbursement that we get of the dollar 84 for breakfast and three dollars and 41 cents per lunch applies to each meal that we distribute so you know that that's why the we had to get the waiver from the USDA which which we did apply for and receive and that authorized the payment under the program now whether or not the reimbursement is gonna cover all our costs this is what I was saying you know we won't know that until the end so but it definitely helps us to provide the program we won't profit from it but no I wasn't thanks man you explained it when you said I had forgotten that we put put in for that waiver it's the same waiver that school districts use for the summer you know breakfast and lunch programs that paint so there is a reimbursement that's provided the only thing that we don't know is the the reimbursement typically comes from the USDA through the state were paid monthly under the scenario that we're operating under we're not sure and the state's not sure if the payment is going to continue to come through that same mechanism or if it's going to be reimbursed through FEMA you know as part of the emergency declaration but either way they'll be a reimbursement the only thing that would be different if it's through FEMA is we're going to wait longer to get that reimbursement so we may have to cover some of that out of our operating budget but it's too early to know for sure okay thank you that answers my question and I think it answers the public questions as well at least the ones I've been hearing thank you very much I knew you had it under control I just wanted a little explanation okay thanks thanks again Adam you're up and then faith thank you Tony hi VIN so my first question is are are you do you track who is coming in for the meal at all like since is it all just you know do we know if it's all students do we know if it's people who you know children who don't attend Chester Public Schools and then to piggyback on that is there a possibility that if you were tracking that I know you know a lot of kids have their lunch accounts that they would use for hot lunch and stuff would there be a possibility where the money from their accounts could be used if they're coming for a meal in this fashion a great question so we are not tracking who's receiving the meals parents can go online and we ask them to go online to just let us know that they're reserving a meal or multiple meals but we are not using any of the students school lunch money we're not required to under this program in fact that the program is intended you know not to follow that process because there is the reimbursement through the US USDA so really the reason that we're we are taking names is just so that we know how many meals to prepare which you know we're getting it down to a science pretty much you know there are actually more meal reservations then we distribute so we've been able to keep up with demand we've never run out of meals to hand out so far preyus an unrelated question or you want to put me back in queue are gonna roll go ahead okay thanks so so it's sort of an unrelated matter one of our whenever we discuss finance at other normal business meetings we're always talking about you know our outplacement costs and so I'm guessing that since everyone's sort of in lockdown does that cost go away or do those students still how do we manage those students in this situation like this so the costs don't go away those out placement centers are providing remote services so the the question will be you know if there will be a discount off the normal billing because they are not providing services in the center and I don't have all the details obviously Tracy Hussey would be able to give us more of the details on that I did prepare a pro forma of what the koban saving or increased expenses might be and what I assumed on the out placement cost is that you know for the for the next month or so they'd be reduced about fifteen percent but that's just an estimate based on some of the early things that we're hearing but it doesn't go to zero thank you thanks and then to echo what we've said to Marlene and Jeff I just I do applaud you with how you've organized this whole feeding of the town essentially congratulations to you for that I do have basically a mess of questions I hope they're pretty easy you have applied for the waiver how long is that going to be and will you need to apply for an extension at all no this is granted for this COBIT period so as long as we need to keep serving lunch as the waiver applies okay and are you seeing any it granted we're only what one day one week in a day into it are you seeing any trends in demand either rising falling holding stable so they're increasing the number of and I'll go by number of cars first so day one which was last Wednesday we had a hundred eighty-five cars then 219 to forty to eighty four on Wednesday and tomorrow we're expecting about 300 if I look at the total number of children served it started at 325 went up to 597 749 811 Wednesday and we're estimating 850 for tomorrow so it's been increasing not dramatically but it has increased so at some point we will level off and again I think the important thing for us is that we've been able to you know keep up with the demand without you know telling anybody sorry you know we're not able to provide any food ok Tony do you mind if I ask a couple more or do you want me to get back in the queue okay then we'll have come out okay and you said real fast supply your your supply of lunch is exceeding demand what are you doing with those excess lunches if you have them are you distributing too besides the you know besides the food bank you've got prepared lunches are they going anywhere no I mean the the excess that we've had we've been able to keep refrigerated and use it on the next distribution I mean we're distributing every other day so you know at most the food is prepared one day before okay and then for school lunch money there's real school it's a regular school lunch money lunch money are you reimbursing families for unused school lunch money well your that money sits in their account until the end of the school year I can go over to the next year if they have students that won't like high schoolers at 12th grade if they graduate they can get that money we fund it or they can donate it so right now have to do anything that money's in the Student Activity account Service Student Activity count back okay thank you you're welcome thanks faith Europe now I'm good to me sorry I just put it doriga Ilyas next no problem sorry any other questions before we have VIN continue I see as there is none just to remind the public if if there is a baby watching this live on YouTube the public questioning commentary is coming right up after Vincent's update so any questions you have we'll be checking that email account shortly thank you then go ahead okay the the next series up updates will be much briefer I promise the next item we have is Human Resources staffing and remote work just a couple of updates first of all from an employee point of view I do want to say from the HR you know perspective we do have a couple of employees who can't report to work because they have childcare and they also may not be able to do remote work so we are obviously working to assist them if they have vacation days or personal days employees are allowed to take those we're excusing those employees and to the extent there's some government programs that are made available we'll certainly take advantage of those as well but so far it really has been a handful of employees and you know we owe it to them to do everything we can as far as the bargaining units you know there were memorandums of understanding as the board knows that will Point Place for the teachers and the instructional assistants and the other bargaining units which includes the administrators secretaries and technicians United custodians you know we're all in constant communication you know with the with the bargaining unit groups there were no issues everybody is rising to the occasion so you know we're very very pleased with how things are going from that perspective the the progress we've made on making arrangements for all staff with the exception about building maintainer and custodians they're working still in all our buildings they're not working remotely but everyone else is able to work remotely at this point we work through most of the details you know of any kind of software permissions that we had a grant and that that's going very very well for us and you know we we just started remote work you know governor announced it Friday and so we've been working remotely since Monday with all our groups other than than the teachers who've been you know educating remotely since last week the other thing that if employees you know because we are managing through you know remote work there are times that employees if they don't have an assignment from their supervisor we've assigned them through Safe Schools training that they can do online and so there's a long list of training that's been assigned and we're exploring some other potential training opportunities such as Google certification some specialized programs for the instructional assistants so you know that as we get into next week we'll be able to define those plans a little bit more specifically but at this point all remote employees are able to do their job effectively to the extent we have staff working in the buildings and and you know we do at central office we've been rotating some staff through we're making sure that people are doing social distancing even in the same building we are using this Google Hangouts meet to make sure people are apart from each other washing hands you know sanitizing reminding everybody you don't touch your face and staying at home when sick so you know so far so good so that's the update on HR staffing and remote I can either suppose I'll talk about facilities of maintenance next I'll be picked quick pause any questions on HR times Kathryn you're on mute if you're talking if you're talking you're still on mute you oh she says never mind we'll work it out sorry any other questions if Karen jumps on after she will well so facilities are maintenance the building maintained errs you know are reporting daily I mean they've been great in shifting priorities and shifting work assignments you know we pretty much have three building maintain errs you know working at odd to help with the food prep right now they're actually you know doing the things that you would expect and moving boxes they're loading the trucks unloading the trucks doing the things that you know enable the staff to get those food items prayer for the day I we are suspending our daily cleaning services which are provided by performance environmental as of tomorrow obviously we don't have any students of the building and and very little staff and we're making and keeping in close contact with with our key vendors including performance they stand ready to provide special services so that if we need to do and invest disinfection of a building you know they stand ready to do that but they we are suspending service tomorrow our building maintain errs and going forward will clean the bathrooms in the common areas until we reopen the buildings so that that does result in cost savings for us we've placed across all our campuses closed signs so if you drive up you'll see you know in the driveway although it's not blocking the driveway so that you know some staff what deliveries can still make it through but we have put closed signs due to the pandemic at all our sites and as Jeff mentioned tomorrow morning at 7:00 you know we'll be closing down the fields as well so you know we'll be showing up those signs we're also reducing building energy usage obviously less people in the building's so we're gonna try and save some utility from there and you'll see that there'll be minimal lighting at night in our buildings as well not to the point that it's unsafe but again just trying to reduce our energy consumption and in order to try and keep things moving I know Tim to this earlier but we do have some summer work that's planned major projects so we did hold the pre proposal walkthroughs for the Cheshire high school ad a compliance project last week I was pleased we saw six prospective bidders show up the window replacement project we had seven perspectives prospective bidders and then earlier this week we had the walkthrough for the school security improvements the man-traps at our buildings and we have five prospective bidders show up for that and we have not forgotten about the solar energy consulting that we agreed to hire ECG engineering before I did hear back from ECG I should be able to meet with the representative next week and again we're trying to keep those things going and I'm hopeful that we get good bids for the the three projects the three major projects that are out there and you know hope we could start because we know schools ending June 18th you know we've told those those bidders that they could start work as early as I believe June 22nd is the date if we end school earlier we'll try and start earlier so fingers crossed on that one that's the update on facilities thanks I think tim has a comment question for you Vincent yeah thank you Tony I know that the public health is I said it before and I appreciate you mentioning it public health is number one and at the same time we've got to keep people employed so if you know whatever we can do I appreciate that trying to make any of the projects move forward stuff that we will end up doing anyway stuff is delayed but I'd rather have people working or back to work as soon as possible I think most people would like that so anyway Thank You VIN for doing that and I know I know it's incredibly difficult right now but whatever you can do thank you as we're getting more organized I think next week it's not that things gonna be back to normal but we'll be able to focus our energies one were out of the mode of just gearing up to be able to do the remote work at least I'm hoping thanks Vincent Catherine you have a question yes can you hear me here now yes okay going back to the human resources then it might be helpful if you could just explain what the general purpose of a Memorandum of Understanding is so that people know what we're talking about not the details but just sort of you know why we might have needed to do that the best way to describe it is a memo Memorandum of Understanding takes the contract that we have with a bargaining unit and in this case adds a dimension of you know how we operate and I'll use the teachers as an example working and teaching remotely is not something that's outlined in the teacher contract so having teachers teach from home has a whole different set of skills and requirements so you know some of the things that are outlined in that memorandum of agreement you know talk about what the remote learning process will be the compensation is not changing during this period you know how they're reviewed was you know a concern for the teacher because it's difficult to review remote learning although we are doing that to some extent so just outlines an amendment to the contract that's temporary in this case thank you welcome thanks Vincent I think you have one more section operating budget or I had technology support just a couple of things I wanted to pepper because I know Marlene talked about the support you know we did move from a swap out that was being done in our schools and at Humiston we are now if a student needs a device swapped out you know we're prepping it here and actually using one of our driver to deliver it to the students home just so that you know we minimize contact the the actual number of tickets that our technology assistants have opened and up close has been pretty remarkable the technology assistants are providing a lot of remote support to parents and our staff we opened 80 tickets and we only have two that are open at this point the others have been completed and the two that are open work from today all the systems have been running well Google's been a little slow off and on but overall you know doing well and then last thing I want to mention is for our main office phone lines because we don't have secretaries in the building we're not answering calls live however we've updated all the greetings at our schools anyone that's calling the school will be able to leave a voicemail and our secretaries are checking that voicemail box you know regularly throughout the day so voicemails are being collected and returned and responded to as needed during you know regular work hours but that's the tech update I'm just gonna move into payroll accounting and accounting cuz it's pretty quick tomorrow is a pay day we did get payroll completed the next payroll is April 10th and work has begun on that I mean clearly you know keeping payroll running is an important aspect of what we have to do we do not outsource our payroll it's it's done by internal staff and that some of the staff who's been working at central office the next payroll will be based on scheduled hours for all staff with the exception of our daily substitutes you know the daily substitutes were advised and given information on how to apply for unemployment I think it's interesting to note that we've already received unemployment notices from the Department of Labor which we need to complete and my point is that the Department of Labor seems to be acting pretty swiftly on you know completing their end of the process so one we receive those we have seven days to respond and we've not gotten a lot but we you know we have responded to the house and then the other important function that we have to keep running is accounts payable so we do have two accounts payable clerks you know they're working in office or remotely on rotating days so that you know we can make sure we could process purchase orders and vendor payments as we need to so that's the payroll and accounting and I'll pause because the next and last section is operating budget thanks tens I think Adam had a question for you thank you because the governor I believe had deemed construction as an essential service or profession is it safe to assume that if you get good bids for the projects that you were talking about that regardless of what happens to the remainder school year or whatever that that those projects will be able to go forward and be completed before the beginning of the next school year yeah absolutely you know again I'm certainly hoping that by the time we get to when these construction projects would begin in June that you know things will be relatively back to normal but you know if there's one advantage to ending June 18th it's that we can get the project started you know before you know July get the abatements done in the schools and complete those projects I mean it will give us an opportunity to get a lot of work done not only the major projects but also some of the minor projects that you know how building maintain errs do or you know we hire our contractors to complete besides these you know three giant projects that we have thank you sure thanks Adam I think faith has a question for you yeah yeah I'm just real quick I may have missed this Tony I mean I've been have we had any layoffs other than suspension of contract services we have not okay all right and then I'm just a related are you gonna discuss what's going on with medical insurance claims in the next section I don't have a medical claims update for tonight I don't think we'll see any of the you know the claims until well I'm just kind of thinking out loud here a little bit so it's it's March 26 in the March 20 in the March month of March claims which we won't receive till about the 10th of April we may start to see lated claims but it's probably gonna take a couple of months before we start to see any claims specifically related to the pandemic thank you yeah course our fingers for that one they hope you won't see any exactly for their sake exactly thanks faith I see there's no other questions VIN you can continue on okay so the operating budget I really wanted to touch on just a couple of things what I what I did and I will email this to the board separately I did take a look at you know what would be the impact if we stage shutdown for you know the month of April you know what would the impact to the operating budget be and you know I'll start with the bottom-line number that I came up with is you know net cost reduction of about four hundred seventy eight thousand dollars part of that comes from not paying substitutes because we don't need substitutes at this point I think an important point to mention is you know I estimate will save about $75,000 in sub cost however when any employee goes and collects unemployment and assuming the substitutes are eligible we are self insured for our unimportant unemployment claim so essentially we're paying for unemployment so even though you would save $75,000 on the substitute line we would have to encumber and increase our unemployment line and I figured it would be about a 50% unemployment claim payout I mean it could vary as much as highs up to 60% but you know you spent you save 75,000 but you're gonna increase your unemployment claim line by thirty seven thousand five hundred so you know that's one of the things that you know I I'm not sure that we've talked about that much in recent years with the board because we do have a line in our budget for unemployment but it's not been very high because we've not had very many unemployment claims over the years but it is self insured and it would come out about our budget if we did have high unemployment claims so there's a downside to laying people off it is a savings but we're not in that mood that mode the other area that I you know I estimated savings on and this is a big question but you know obviously working and teaching remotely we're not running any of our buses Decco is a service provider so I assume that you know we would have one month of contract savings I assume that we would not have any of the field trip runs that we do normally during this time of year and I assume that we would save about 50% of the of the cost of our run so that would be $172,000 again that's for one month so and there's a you know several other mostly minuses reductions as I did this analysis again I'll send it to the board I just wanted to give the board a sense of what I think the savings would be for this month the bus contract issue is a big one and you know it's my understanding that there's been legislation proposed that the bus contractors wiii be paid in full they 180 days even though they wouldn't be running a hundred eighty days I don't know you know if that legislation was truly proposed and and how that would go but I have been in touch with the CFO of deco a couple of times you know we agreed to keep our conversations going so that goes position at this point is you know they they're actually waiting to see what happens if anything with this legislation but they're willing to certainly you know discuss it and you know figure a solution that would work for everybody so that's kind of the operating budget piece that I wanted to give and and I did want to also mention I know that we had touched on it at our last meeting but the opportunity or the possibility of taking advantage of the unexpended budget carryover of two percent I think it's something that would be helpful you know to to us as a as a school district that we can carry over some of our unexpended funds it certainly would help us manage through you know the early part of the summer because we do believe that will be related costs to provide compensatory special education services if nothing else but there may be other costs that I just can't identify yet that we would have to carry over so I'll pause there thanks Ven I'm the carrying over or the operating budget the 2% I know there's a general statute on that recommendation is either finance committee and probably most likely or policy a guarantor finance take out that discussion sooner than later you know get our eyes dieties cross you know I'm sure you understand what that is and I'd also like town have an idea that this may be coming and because we haven't talked to them yet you know and understand Lee they have their hands full themselves well we have the school district they also the rest of the town and then I know right now among the things that bill open as the 2020 2021 budget process it's kind of mumble right now so by the time we get to that hopefully have some kind of general discussion with them and see what their thoughts are was I'm sure didn't ask us soon what we're thinking about our own expended budget what they might look like we'll talk about tonight so you know I'd ask Adam if he doesn't mind putting a fan's committee meeting together or just I'll talk with you then he gets some more detail you sure the board but I think we do need to talk about that soon before you let before you start at Tim had a question Tim you still have something I yeah good yeah thank you thanks Tony then with regard to you had mentioned you know we get out of school on June 18th knock on wood and the construction season begins my only request is that you keep in mind what I do think is a real possibility which is we don't even go back to school this year and then just think about just have it in mind as you're you know negotiating contracts to whatever extent you could the possibility that you know some school districts are in school until June 30th well we've got this win to a time that other school districts don't you've got some free labor you've got have you got some free time for your people can we get a better rate or something like that just don't don't assume it would start after June 18th right now inside a contract next week because schools might be open who knows open for construction that's all yeah understood I keep telling people I wish I had a crystal ball right now I could make such good decisions thank you thanks - anything else that's it really yeah sorry know me facetiously I know there's a lot to cover and for the folks that may be watching I don't mike has any stats on our YouTube live be curious on that but I can't again really do justice the amount of work that Vincent and the team are doing behind the scenes as it said earlier even though the doings may be tiny closed still running a fully functioning school district and he's dealt with a lot of mo use and contract that lost oh thank you Vince on anything a lot of time into this so I'm really impressed you kept it that's short considering what you've been dealing with the last two weeks I mean as a compliment before we move on I actually do have a few questions from the board don't run turn over to public Q&A but Adam has a question and we're behind that so I just happen hi VIN I know we were just talking about that 2% carryover just so it seems like this virtual eating thing is among is working out pretty well where we may be able to conduct some of these subcommittee meetings in your opinion of which being I'm chair of both policy and Finance at which meeting at which subcommittee do you think should be called at this time thank you I think it's policy because right now the board doesn't have a policy around the unexpended funds carryover it's really not so much a finance question at this point but if we take it up a policy there's plenty of sample policies from other school districts that I was able to find online you know the statute it's pretty straightforward and that you know the big thing really is is gaining consensus of the board and making a request to the fiscal Authority the Town Council does have to approve the carry over so let's go policy okay and that's so then I'll contact with cabe and then some get some guidance on that to see if they have any draft policies there thank you thanks I thought we had more question but actually was nothing from Mike so meanie who by the way when I thank Mike for putting this whole live string together for us and working through a technical back-end and he's with us so far tonight so thank you Mike but Mike's just indicated you may see so much pop up that we've have 250 people we're watching us live I fans the most we've had a board meeting almost ever so good job Mike forget us up a hundred Vincente any more updates that you have or any more question from the board before we turn over to public commentary no I do not thank you for your indulgence and patience and all the assistance that you've provided as a board it truly is appreciated and and helped us you know get through at least the first part of this tough period thank you yeah and I guess we're not over but I think there's some people meant on this so I thank you again for all your work and your staff isn't [Music] - go on - I'm just watching the comments here make sure there's no more questions all right we're gonna go on to public question-and-answer so mr.
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Everhart yes mr. pizzicato yes miss Fleming yes mr. Canton yes mrs. noh yes mr. Lanza Lada yes mr. Meighan yes mrs. Rani yes motion carries Thank You mr. Shanti now we're going to move to item 9 finance and operations I need a motion to approve items nine point one through nine point eight driving motion humming Commission Liam right motion by miss Ryan do I have a second Janice no good lord uh-huh miss seconded by mr.
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song and even washing the email account do we have any sounds like we do that's a shaking your hope yeah we do and I I really appreciate people last Monday and again throughout tonight's broadcast sending in questions I think it's interesting as they watch some board members say I have a question and then they they kind of retract it as it gets answered potentially there's some of that going on tonight via email as well we had a viewer asked parent ask about special needs progress and I know Marlene addressed that one of the typical terms we look at we know in education that's often used at the end of summer is regression recoupment and so you look at to what degree did a child regress what sort of supports are they gonna need to you know recover or recoup what they've lost and so that is going to occur across our district for all students when we return but certainly in our special needs population right now we're in close contact through their providers through the special education teacher or case manager is in touch with those parents I know miss Huskies sent out several letters to parents I just read another one to go out tomorrow so we are you know like pretty much everything we're trying to maintain close communication and that's the best way to make sure if you're if you have a concern about your child or you have a question about anything please reach out to us you can always use that kovat CPS koban 19 email address if you're just not sure who to write to those come directly to me and and Carol Jasinski and my office and we get that stuff routed to the right place one question we had is why aren't high school teacher streaming videos in real time and I think Tim addressed it to a certain degree where we have a lot of different things going on for our staff during the day some are streaming in real time and there's a little bit of a you know testing process that we have going on how is that working is that working for our students those that are getting streamed in real time I was it not so we're in the process of kind of shaking that out and we're going to adapt more as you know to meet the needs of our students so we are definitely looking at streaming in real time we have a number of teachers doing that at this point we'll end of year course assessments be modified and I know Marlene talked about our state assessments the smarter balance the SAT those assessments have been waived science for this year the end-of-course assessments we are definitely going to be considerate of what our students have experienced so I know that will be flexible depending on you know when we come back again we'll have to assess you know what where are our students what do they need and I am more inclined to think that our students would be better served by providing more instruction than more assessment at the end of the year if we can if we're back in session Tony you talked about you know I don't sound like we're bragging here or anything but we did get a very early jump on this and we have a number of folks who have recognized that fact we and not just the fact that we got an early jump on this from technology and the learning tool kits in grades K through 3 are scheduling our communications and the fact that Marlene and in Kevin Hamlin and our curriculum team we aspired to really support students doing some review initially and then moving forward in our regular curriculum so I know some other districts have kind of been in a position where they're providing alright well maybe this will just kind of get you through today and I don't want to disparage anybody with the idea of busy work but we've really tried to focus on flowing with our curriculum and just the other day we were asked by district administration magazine which is a national publication they interviewed us about what are we you know what are we doing so that they can kind of set a template nationally to so other people have taken notice about the work that's being done in our school system will remote learning satisfy Connecticut State Department of Education requirements per grade promotion was another question that we had and absolutely is the answer to that question the CSD the Connecticut State Department of Ed has been very clear with us about providing the appropriate supports so that our students may be promoted and you know like I said our our work is very closely aligned to the curriculum so I have even less of the question than perhaps you know in some places where that may not be the case I do again want to just give a shout out to our bargaining unit they recognize their leadership laurie delcor in also the teaching leadership with John Redford those guys immediately recognized the what our priorities were to educate our students first like like I said earlier that's our primary focus how are we going to take this centuries-old institution of brick and mortar learning and transform ourselves into a remote learning school system and Laurie was very patient as we work through that process with the IAS and right to the point where I think we were signing the MOU last week she and Maryanne Kish another member of the leadership team in the IAS where they're helping serve lunch so they were very invested in variable and I really appreciate their their patients as we focused initially on providing direct instruction then food and feeding all these kids and they were right there helping out so thank you to Lori and her team with the IAS and I know somebody already gave a shout out Tony I appreciate you acknowledging Mike's ala meaty but that man is always there for us you know always there to film whatever you saved my butt more than once or twice with an oddball cord or whatever you needed from technology so he spends a lot of time prepping for this so that we can have 250 viewers and I really do appreciate the effort Mike puts forth and I know everybody on the board does too so thanks a lot that was that was pretty much it that we had for questions thanks Jeff not surprised we had a lot of questions tonight because I think all the board members have been receiving a lot of questions as yet you Jeff I know a lot of coming in through our website for online learning so it's nice to see that the constant flow of information coming through and just for just a couple more shot outside then they got forward to the board w4t Jeff I've received a few emails from parents thanking the teachers specific teachers in fact so it's nicely the post engage the parents and engaged and not sure if you have more questions while trying to stress us out but before we go to a motion for adjournment is there any any other comments or questions from the board members before we adjourn for this evening no one's tired as well huh Oh Michael what up Tim go ahead yeah Jeff I had mentioned I'd mentioned calling a personnel meeting this weekend as soon as this weekend are you aware of any legal drawbacks or anything to doing that I mean could we meet on assuming we're the three of us the four of us are available and Mike hopefully - Mike saw me the four being the three personnel meeting personnel committee members and you Jeff is there anything holding that back making that illegal or difficult or anything um I know that everything has been relaxed with the current circumstances so my inclination would be no but I will double-check that okay we'll check that first thing tomorrow but like I said my inclination is that that's not gonna be a problem okay so I'll probably I'll probably look for something for Saturday or Sunday which would still be you know 24 hours notice anyway so it wouldn't necessarily be an emergency meeting or anything like that just a rushed meeting thank you tonight I appreciate you bringing this up it's you know something we really never think about until now and really the topic is succession planning you know and again I'm marching Jeff on a screen it was pretty healthy to me so well you know so far the staff looks tired but number two is away number three is be good for us to get a refresher on that I've never had to deal with the only any veteran board member how to deal with that in the past so kudos to you for bringing that up and I won't visit that being a long long meeting but will pan out so thank you Tim on that was there any other comments from board members I I did get one other questions the question was about supporting primary use with our IAS we have been working the last couple days to try and employ some of those I is so that we can get more support in the early primary grades as well to answer questions and support those students do thank you any other board members any other comments before we just want to say I've just gotten a notification by somebody who has said that their teens are well-rested these days and this brings us to the school start times issue that I think we need to bring up again when things begin to settle down it might be really interesting to see what happens in this climate where our students our teenage students aren't getting out of bed and getting on a bus and trying to get to school by 7:30 maybe they're actually doing a better job at their studies when they don't have to get up and out of bed until 8 o'clock so we might we might revisit that in light of some opportunities that might come out of this whole what can only be described as a fiasco right now it sure is thank you and we'll definitely keep that on the forefront any other members that want to come out awesome oh not in their mine so that's about it for those they've been watching thank you on behalf of the board administration CPS and I want to appreciate your patience this has been almost a two-hour meeting hopefully how the information on a lot of stuffs been covered if you did have a question you couldn't get it in or you think of something after this meeting you can still eat me all that email address will still respond to it you can always reach any board member you can reach a superintendent it's even so please keep the information flowing the more communication we have the better this is going to be for permanent also that being said is there a motion to adjourn Andrew buzzer so Andrew seconds all those in favor aye unanimous thank you everyone thank you Jeff and team and again appreciate your time on this and sticking out the meeting is adjourned I've had a versatile gavel I would actually get it right now
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awful this is fun I'm enjoying this are there any questions or comments the finance and operations all right seeing the homeless little roll call please mrs. barber Giovanni yes mrs. Everhart yes mr. physic are up yes I mean yes mr. Canton yes this is null yes mr. Lanz Ilana yes mr. Meighan yes mrs. Ryan yes motion carries thank you watching the motions in seconds like it's like watching a really bad TV show like yeah one of those like game shows hey there's no prize at the end of this now we're gonna move to personnel need a motion to approve items 10 1 through 10 10 do I have a motion I make a motion for second mrs. barber Giovanni mr.
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barber Giovanni made the motion second please Melissa funny miss Fleming with the second any questions or comments on personnel I have a comment okay this Eberhardt I'd like to send a congratulatory message to mrs. Williams at MMS who's gonna be leaving us happy retirement was a great pleasure working with you my daughter was it I'm a mess so all the best of luck to you as well as all the other retirees thank you yes I would like to UM a shout out to carolyn lance and mes i worked with her in different school she's wonderful and i wish her a happy retirement and to everybody else who's retiring to miss Fleming yes congratulations to all the retirees and thank you for all your dedication right anybody else I just have something real quick to say we had a couple of teachers have babies over this past couple weeks so I just want to give a shout out it's miss teevan at Van Zant's and our teacher at Rice congratulations on your baby girls that's awesome yes very good any more questions or comments on personnel all right let's move to a roll call please mrs.
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Barwick Giovanni yes mrs. Everhart yes mr. physik era yes miss Fleming yes mr. Canton yes mrs. nul yes mr. LAN celada yes mr. Meighan yes mrs. Ryan yes motion carries all right we're gonna move to policy but we have no policy in store for right now so we're gonna move past policy I can interrupt we have a policy meeting scheduled for the end of them yes correct let's make sure everyone's aware that that we are on top of things and still meeting yes yeah we should thank thank you miss Ryan I appreciate that and I should have mentioned that myself you know just just to let you know we are our committees are still meeting our policy community committee is meeting on March 31st so though probably there may be first readings next month on on certain policies and we financing operations has met and curriculum has been met so we are as a Board of Education we are operating in the best capacity we can thank you miss Ryan I appreciate you putting an injection in all right personal meant to correct yes yes yes and finance is meeting April 9th and curriculum is April 20th okay well that takes me right to committee reports yeah we know we know what no no it's okay this is fun it's fine we're we're consolidating so we're all right so we have we have our meetings down for we're gonna meet again limit instruction and finance and operations didn't meet we have obviously their agendas are there anybody from either committee have anything they wish to speak about or all right we're gonna we're gonna move on then we're gonna move to old business but there is no old business so we're gonna skip over that and we are going to move to new business we do have a resolution here mr.
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doneö for the the motion of this how would you you know want me to what would you like me to read here in terms of this resolution Joe I think you know for the benefits on Mourdock's so people do have access to it I believe under the new business and I think you just read the the salient parts that you feel are necessary to be read with regards to resolution podcasting opportune you see but I don't think you need to read all the whereas is if you just want to read the resolution of actual board as to what the effect of the resolution that's more than adequate as of right now the resolution is only in executive content we the board can say it once the meetings over I will move it to public some public will have access to read all resolution I'm gonna read the title is the motion and then you know during the board comment partically need to explain anything we will okay yeah I think that's fine if you want to just like read from excerpts of the actual resolution the resolved part in this way the public will get a flavor as to what you actually have in the board or requesting it to board pass all right which the the entire there's there's four resolved parts there's actually there's seven resolved parts I think the bottom one on the first page says a lot I just to read the now therefore be it resolved part Joe that's like the very first residing I see I see I know what it is and I'll read that that's that's enough all right I'll read that paragraph so public please bear with me I'm gonna read this paragraph as as the as a resolution to go into motion all right so I need a motion for the resolution that upon the recommendation of the state of New Jersey the New Jersey Department of Education and the chief school administrator for the ischium Township School District and subject to laws rules regulations and orders that may supersede the action the board authorized the chief school administrator to place all hourly employees of the board as reference wherein who are unable to provide services under their job descriptions for who the chief school administrator or his designee has determined should not report to work regularly or at all or cannot work remotely on extended leave of absence at a rate equivalent to their current base wages during the temporary closure to students of school buildings within the district for a period of 19 sporting days which begins on March 16 2020 presently scheduled to continue through April 9 to 2020 such employees may include without limitations instructional aides one-on-one aides teaching assistants clerk typists health aides lunch aides library aides and clerks bus drivers bus aides part-time custodians CCC workers teddybear academy workers where other employees who are direct who are directed or directed not to report to work not to work remotely or may be placed on an intimate or rotating work of schedule okay I'm gonna stop there do I have a motion for that a motion by this and all seconded by Miss Fleming you have that Joan you okay yes yes all right this point any questions or comments pertaining to this motion to pay hourly workers in you shoot Township School District this water so if we guess yes is to pay them thank you and just for the record that motion is for the entire resolution but the word presents only read that exerted part of it that's correct yes any other questions or comments all right with that being said let's move to a roll call please mrs.
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barber Giovanni yes mrs. Everhart yes mr. physic Harrow yes mr. Fleming yes mr. Canton yes missus no yes mr. Lanz alotta yes mr. Meighan yes this is Ryan yes but I'm gonna abstain from just the ECC conflict okay thank you motion carries all right I I want to say to the board thank you for doing this you know this we are in such uncharted times that nothing right now is normal and by doing this you have given relief and whether that is mental emotional or financial relief to people who who may very well need it and I appreciate everyone's efforts in working on that resolution and getting it done so thank you all for your hard work on that all right at this point we are going to move to open public comment Frank I'm going to read the rules of the open public comment and then I will give it to you and when you and Frederick are ready this meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items of interest however if your questions or comments pertain the litigation student or personnel items for negotiations we would ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person mr.
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summers mr. case okay give us absolutely your number back further quick video slide from the number back up there just make note that you will not see us at this moment okay the numbers back up if you want to count you know two minutes wait for a phone call let me do it you'll hear the phone ring they can still hear us right yes I have youtube on and yes we can still be heard there you go okay oh yeah they cannot see us okay and that's what I wanted to state if you are watching this and it comes on you are purposely you you cannot see us just to see the number on there so don't don't panic don't call okay good caller state your name and address before you start hi my name is Masonic injure my address is 132 briar Court Marlton New Jersey I just want to define the board very much for this for allowing entire professionals and obviously raises hourly to get paid because it's been a stressful couple weeks for a lot of us do you know that guys we did and thank you thank you for your comment we can't it's hard for us to we can't communicate with you one-on-one but we do hear you and we thank you for your comedy okay thank you car call your own with the board please state your name and address please hi my name is Lisa Millington I'm at a crossroads Marlton go ahead um I just want to say thank you I'm a classroom aide and thank you very much that's all I wanted to say thank you just waiting for some we freeze are we there we're still waiting for some more coffee okay so Joe when you get back on will you just say thank you to those that called in and you're all with the board state your name and address please hey vice president of yes only had to be moving forward to pay our hourly employees there's an important thing pushing with unprecedented times take anything off work for doing it thanks for us I lost connection from your on with the board I think you name an address first go ahead your hi everyone is rosemary good or anytime go ahead hi everyone for his method or you hear me yes we check good res minority and help I 1010 health expertise I just wanted to say congratulations everyone been touching and fun and you guys I'm breaking the technology so I we watch the livestream actually be a YouTube and i suspended thank you for being first one to embrace it it takes to work well and also i wanted to give a shout out to the teachers I've been asked for community and you know that positive feedback so just to shout out to the teachers and sports support staff and the administration for all day for all the work that they start to really get the online learning up so quickly again these are customers time but however you guys fits together and again stronger together so this Wednesday grant as good job with the meeting tonight thank you thank you Miss Bernardi just in between calls again it's okay Frank you good please state your name and address to the board sure hi everyone this is Annie pays off at 1:39 good bride I just wanted to thank everyone that first birthday as an ever 166 help me out financially thank you so much everyone and have a great evening thank you she say it was her birthday yes happy birthday you're on with the board state your name and address please yes my name is Joan Stryker and on that 2:01 piolin Marlton yes Jones strike yeah you're gonna turn excuse me you need to turn down okay when you won't get confused okay thank you very much I am okay I'm turning accounting okay so I am a jaggers paraprofessional and I just want to thank you for making the right decision many ESP staff can take a really deep breath of relief now so thank you very much we really appreciate it thank you call thank you you too [Music] good caller state your name and address you're on the air with my name is Boris Connell on the 15 line hem surprise for you and this was a jacquard and a parent of children in the district I want to thank the board very much you might proceed everything is individually so I thank you all very much thank you very much hi hello you're on with the board please state your name and address hello you're on with the board please state your name and address now Kurt 103 here turn your Jersey I've been a bus driver with you guys for almost 25 years and I'd like to say thank you for your consideration of us at this time thank you very much thank you Frank anything nothing yet all right give it another minute yeah give another minute take it to seven to thirty nine okay you're on with the board please state your name and address hi my name is Michelle Wright and I recited 17 Hastings Blaine and he's sort New Jersey and I'm a paraprofessional and jagged elementary school I just wanted to thank the board for approving to pay for the paraprofessionals in our district and I thank you for your time thank you very much take care of me I welcome your all with the board please state your name and address please hi my name is sue Beck I live at 5:48 to drive I've been a classroom aide with the district for 15 years and I wanted to thank you very much for your decision thanks thank you very much thank you thank you you're with the board please state your name and address hi Donna is Nero three strewed loss to Dorothy I'm the rep for of the Transportation Department and I just wanted to thank you guys for making their disbelief ethereum on on behalf of our department we appreciate it and everybody stay healthy and well take care you too thank you very much stay healthy too please Frank anymore welcome yet you think we should close hold on you're not you're wrong with the board please state your name and address Leah Perlmutter eight plus four quarters more often go ahead I just wanted to sign Sigalert and the staff very much and there's been a trying time and a lot of hard work I need to put in a lot of hours and on behalf of the PCPD and categorical thank you thank you Frank I think maybe we should close I'm thinking one hit 42 okay you [Music] go ahead you're all over the board please state your name and address my fellow 24th Blanchard Road I wanted to thank everyone for their decision and a teddybear Academy but I think in the body some have a PHY for unemployment how would that work you'll have the borders and take any questions you'll have to to speak to the superintendent or your principal or somebody like that you a chance and then they would get it for that cut employee I believe so where you can call your state representative or your state let's uncheck what a minute the board is not taking any questions this is just this is just public comment so the opening I stirred up it in thank you so much for everything I know you're all working really hard you really appreciate it very good thank you take care bye bye YouTube for the person who just called you know if you have if you have any questions please please email email us particularly dr.
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Blatchford or or any of the supervisors it's a look though the format's a little different for us today it's it's unusual for us we're trying our best so I apologize it feels a little different good you're on with the board please state your name and address you - thank you very much you're a call Joe I think I think we're ready I think we're okay that's that let's move on Frank now it's good thank you listen thank you Frank to everyone who called we appreciate your phone calls like I said I'd said this previously it's a little different for us this time a lot of times you come in front of the board and it's then nine or eleven of us mister doneö and dr. 12 of us dr. Blackford and mr. Ashanti sitting there and sometimes we can have a little bit more of a back-and-forth it's a little different here because the ability for us to hear each other while you're on the phone you more likely enough to turn your volume down when you call us but if you do have a serious question you do want to answer I mean always know email email us or that would we'll do our best to contact you particularly any of the administrators here okay or of course you know myself too if you need me thank you all for your comments and I do appreciate it we are going to move from there and we're going to go to board member announcements are there any announcements by the board I have one miss everyone yes glad so I just wanted to say thank you to the interim superintendent who never really thought he was going to have this on his plate when he came in shâm I'm sure but grateful for the your communications to board leadership and to the board members and it's just been really great so thank you for that and leading us ahead in these on unprecedented times I also want to say thank you to the cabinet been talking to a lot of these folks over the last couple days and everybody's just putting in so much time and know their home and they're walking their dogs or doing whatever - but they are really putting in more time I think probably than they would if we business as usual so that shoutout goes cabinet it goes to all the people that were helping us this week from Cooper Levinson and also to the board members who just had me time to go over all of this critical stuff and to make time for the dress rehearsal yesterday so thank you Lord and thank you everyone who's on the screen thank you and Frank great job you and Frederick so as Judah Julius used to say thank you for the cookies thank you [Laughter] absolutely I will yeah let me say one thing real quick dr.
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Glassman please go ahead thank you very much miss Earhart but it really has been a total team approach rich John Danni spectacular and the board is unbelievable you guys have worked through some very very difficult decisions and I appreciate everything you've done and mr. doneö the wording we went back and forth about five times with that resolution and you put up with us so thank you that's what we're here for thank you thank you to everyone - and dr. Blinn's Berg well Danny my fellow board members rich John it's wonderful working with you all and the teachers I'm so proud of the power professionals I'm glad we were able to get this resolution passed yes thank you to everyone yes I think we definitely created a lot of decrease in panic decrease anxiety so I think that's a great thing mm-hmm I'd like to add something it's Janice snow and I want to say so many of the callers are calling and saying thank you for working so hard for us but I just want to say that the teachers have been working overtime in terms of I know many of them have their own their own children at home and they're helping them also with their home school instruction and I am a stay Oh mother I have two boys and I'm struggling with it and so I can only imagine how these teachers are feeling having to manage all this and they're doing it with smiles on their faces of course I peek in on morning meetings all week and the teachers are amazing with smiles on their faces happy to see their students so everything's been working really smoothly and I know that all the teachers and administrators Danny all the principals and vice principals worked an entire weekend since we were notified on a Friday that we would be shutdown on Monday and I know all the hard work that went into getting everybody up and running on Monday and my students had um my children had morning meetings that Monday morning so it really was just so impressive to me how smooth everything went and the format is consistent for both of my children so it's easy for parents to follow so we know what's expected of the students so I want to thank all the teachers and on top of all this I believe they're working on report cards because report cards will be posted tomorrow so they're also work on that and um as far as the resolution I know all of our hourly employees they are so loyal to us and to our children and I'm just so happy that we can return the favor and do the right thing and be loyal to them so thanks thank you to all to everyone out there and if we can make your life a little less stressful we are all under a tremendous amount of stress with all of this so thank you for for everything nobody else Danielle it's Melissa I just wanted to check in real quick are you gonna send out an email about the board Technology Committee meeting to do it this way and okay okay all right listen anybody who's watching and listening stay safe stay healthy you know keep your keep your social distancing intact make sure you get some fresh air out there - all right try to enjoy some of the warm weather I do miss seeing all of you it is comfortable as this is right now it's it's not the same as being there and I hope everyone's doing okay and I hope your families are healthy and safe and on my own my love for all of you thank you he was well Jim thank you Jim Joe at this point in time or eight yeah great oh yes this is this is definitely not a living for me at this point in time i need my all-time favorite emotions they will thank you good night everyone tonight thanks for your help okay bye-bye leaving the meeting as my kids would say hit leave meaning the directions recording is stopped by the way Frank you
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I'm Tim white here chairman of the purse of the Board of Ed Personnel Committee calling for the role Tony parody me here and Harrigan here and Tim white I'm here so we have a full we have a full committee today to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible pretty and so thank you everybody for coming here today notice weekend I think the gravity of the situation and in light of that we you know I think the idea is we need to we need to plan for for a bad situation and that's why I've asked the superintendent to give us some his plans for succession in an emergency I'm not thinking for me personally I'm not thinking about a long-term situation but you know someone people become incapacitated and go to the hospital a short-term situation someone I'm looking just to have an idea that we have people in place who can step up immediately have the confidence of the public the students the parents all the different stakeholders that things will that the ship will be steady and there will be continuity with our schools and with that I'll start with the superintendent wondering about succession planning unfortunately specifically for you and before you get into if you're if you're gonna share with us an idea of who you would recommend to the board before going there just are there any legal parameters that we would have to follow not necessarily short-term you know if I were to be replaced there are a lot of parameters in place for that you know the person would have to hold a superintendent certification and nobody currently in central office nor our building principals hold superintendent certification the the Charter indicates somebody would have to live in Cheshire within the first year my my successor would have to do that things like that short term and I I think you know I would shift from that idea of succession and probably use the term you know contingency planning I've developed a love documents to share with you that kind of indicate you know some some guidelines as far as that goes I do want to remind anybody who's watching too that they can submit any questions if they're not you know members of the board the the you know if you want to write to cps cove in nineteen at Cheshire dot k12 dot C T dot us that's the the email that we and I appreciate the community has gotten familiar with submitting questions through that so that we can we can respond to any questions and concerns that people have and this is no different how do we respond to that topic go ahead and submit through that email but in the board policy it does address organizationally what we would do in the case of you know incapacitation I guess so I'm gonna present you know on my screen if you just bear with me one second here some information as it relates to that I think every but he can see my screen now correct yes yes so a couple of key points here board policy two one three two addresses now this was written in 1998 so you know it's 20 plus years old none of us had any hand in crafting this policy and I think you know from a traditional traditional like military structure let's say where there's one person at the top making calls and there's a subordinate nature to the organization the public schools at least the treasurer of public schools are not necessarily designed that way the treasurer public schools were a pretty flat organization in terms of our leaders leadership structure at least in the way that we facilitate our leadership structure and I'll share it share our organizational chart momentarily but the board policy indicated in this case that the CEO Oh would be responsible for the running of the schools absent the superintendent oh oh and superintendent these assistant superintendent for instructional services would be responsible but I want to reiterate again I mean it's not really how we run our organization now in a very top-down authoritarian way I run our organization very collaboratively so I mean there are certainly many instances I'm sure you've seen where I'll defer to Marlene and her expertise on a lot of it so you know at the end of the day if I were you know God forbid permanently incapacitated or unable to put you know chances are we would for a long term we would want to probably bring somebody in to to serve as an interim somebody who holds that certification like you know like Scott Dietrich or somebody like you just kind of help coordinate things and the reason I suggest that even if say Marlene we're temporarily is the superintendent and Scott served temporarily as the assistant superintendent if it's a short term sort of thing because we don't have a lot of folks in our central office team so you know we have a very lean organization I've shared that four in different shapes and forms our central office team if you look at the ratio of students per central office administrators it's relevant you know our central office team sees about a thousand students per every central office administrator whereas the average Derby has you know about twice as many support staff in central office so the the upside of that is that our building principals are other folks in the organization our PPS supervisor take on a lot of responsibility have a lot of capacity and we all rely on each other so that's what I'm saying about kind of a flat organizational structure because we kind of need to there isn't a significant hierarchical chain like might exist in some other districts so this is an overview of our organizational chart where you can see that you know a superintendent I'm listed at the top with Marlene and then they share you know equal responsibilities you know per their their titles then handles a lot of operations all the operational stuff Marlene hands handles all the instructional stuff and I was an offshoot of that Tracy handles a special education and and we have like I said not a lot of layers in central office and because of that we also run things past each other quite a bit so there aren't a lot of major decisions that any of us make in autonomy we work together and in almost every situation so and at the bottom I indicated in terms of contingency planning and the in event that an individual is unavailable those above and below that individual on the chart collaborate to fulfill those responsibilities of the person that's unavailable so you know when Sean our former assistant superintendent for instruction left you know Marlene at the time she was the key curriculum coordinator worked with Donna lowness as an interim you know I was taking up more of the slack there than might typically be the case you know certainly is it's more than what is the case now with Marlene but we kind of just rally around each other around that position and support now if multiple positions are incapacitated and I gotta be honest here I feel like there's probably a greater likelihood that you know Thomaston collapsed on a day not that that's you know that's not a high likelihood then several of us become uncompassionate incapacitated due to kovat for an extended period I mean we should be able to work from home cover a lot of the bases things like that but you know I really don't foresee a situation where several people on this organizational chart are not available it would it would take a pretty catastrophic situation in that case if that many people on this chart were unavailable I think it would be also reflected in the community so our priorities would shift dramatically in a situation like that do you have any questions on you know either this document here with the board policy or the organizational chart that I might be able to answer thinking had a question earlier my mistaken yeah I do have a question thank you [Music] my question was came before you showed this but it still kind of exists which is so we we do have an organizational structure and the only remaining question I have is if you go to the first page Jeff no is this would indicate that assistant superintendent for management services would be next in line over assistant superintendent for instructional services well this is 22 years old - right right yeah I'm just wondering why it would be that that order and not the other way around the question I was thinking the same thing yeah and you know I I saw it and I was a little bit surprised myself but and I don't know that it makes sense I think that's probably something for policy to look at and I you know the thing is that the organization really couldn't function to the best capacity without these individuals in myself working very closely together you know and that I guess if if push came to shove then I would think the instructional side should probably take the lead because we are an instructional organization but you know I like I indicated at the outset that you know this was 22 years ago and none of us were here to even you know consider any of this information back then so you know probably something for policy to look at yeah I agree with that and and I also agree with your assessment of what you how you just explained it so thank you and the thing is you know and I know the individual players now you know I can't foresee 22 years from today who will be jeweled players b-but I can say that you know in the organization as we run it today but I just want to reiterate again that you know there's a a and B sort of situation where you know both people are really critical to the organization and the because both people have such different roles but they're both really talented and you know I think that's where why we are in a good position or why we're able to maintain our success with such a flat leadership structure we you know all these people that you see on this are really I mean I and that's I don't want to sound too conceited but there's a lot of talent on this page who have been well versed and we can get away with less people because of that I mean that's when you look at the ratios you know this is we're a lot different than everybody else in our district reference group when it comes to central office leadership I would agree with that and I would also just ask one more question in that organizational chart that you had where does care where does Carroll fall because she is and we consider if we lost her what what we would do but a lot and I'd be in trouble but you know this I don't know why and I have to try and figure that out I think when I downloaded this in PDF because I had Carol's name underneath mine with me auntie whose bins assistant and leslie dean below who's Marlene's those folks are also very key in the organization because without absent other layers of administration that other districts may have those those folks are really talented and do a lot of things for us to to make sure that we're on track in the download yeah okay thanks I think this is just a top level like a level one or turn it was like if it would I mean I have a person love to see Leslie its Carol's and everyone's you know admin mains the key supporters on however each one of those air areas also has another team so if we were to blow out the entire world short yeah we will see it on a PDF so I know there's more to it yeah but that that high level definitely helps before we go any further I just want to highlight Mike does it switch over the camera or stop yeah so I just want to say thank you Jeff for this and I want to be clear on what I just heard you say which is we are an instructional organization and in a bad situation you know stuff is happening we don't even have necessarily I mean we need to have one person to turn to ultimately and I feel like the schools need to have one person who they know because it's not just I don't feel like it's just your team which I appreciate everything you just said but it's not just that close-knit team right at the top it's set what is it seven hundred people who report to you right I want to have those seven hundred people know if something happened to you and I don't want that to happen but if something did happen to you who is the boss and the Board of Ed is the boss the voters are the boss but if they need to turn to someone and make something happen I want to know that everyone knows there's one person what I heard you say is that we are an instructional organization you provide instructional services and for at least you know say a few days a few weeks that person is going to be Marlene right well I want to know that there is someone one person that could be that can be spoken to and can make thing happen make things happen in and carry weight and have the weight of being the acting superintendent sure and the decision is the decision yeah and I think you know we have a variety of folks with that you know capacity that could run the organization and on a day to day basis over an interim period you they wouldn't fulfill certification but law provides for that short term that a non-certified could do that but the the board policy says the CEO oh you know and I as I just indicated this is a learning organization and I think probably makes sense to look at this from a policy perspective if we were gonna make an adjustment there and either equalize or reverse those okay yeah so I mean what could happen is we could you know Adam could call a policy meeting within you know 24 hours we could do something for me if we if we want to go if we want to go down down that direction we could do we could do that and we have an idea of where we're headed right now and I'm not talking long term I'm just talking for a short term emergency situation which is what this is we're on lockdown right now you'll have a question observation oh yes all right thanks Tommy okay thanks Tim so prior to the school closure lockdown of the building's two weeks ago if you saw the planning as I happen to walk in Jeff's office a couple times and we had a Ingles work policy at one of the meetings in the board room right you would have seen Marlene in corner working Jeff as desk and yet Benson you know a floor down below you know the three headed leadership team you know well Jeff's the cernium lead so you know just are seeing a lot of things yeah my meeting focus on instruction and you know working with tracing team yet Tencent who we saw there at night and our board meeting you know coronate the the management I guess opera operational aspects of the school buildings infrastructure security etc that's that's a team so I so so we want we keep seeing one Jeff gets sick we don't want to get sick so god forbid it happens but so Jeff cannot do this role I would imagine you know our policy says it's you know the basic is CEO oh and then the instructional stuff Scott but in reality it's it's gonna be you know Marlene and Vincent the single point of contact the core entire policy would be Vincent today I'll let the board aside over I posture change it but the bottom line is that's a team so you know if next week or week after we had initiate this I think all Tim is asking it okay do we does he email Marlene will has questions what we day or Vincent or you know that kind of thing so I think we can iron that out I think the policy should they be taking a look at and if that was done 98 when dr.
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Portillo was here it's on at a time you didn't break out management from his drawl it was basically him and Scott Dietrich great super fencing forget anyway so the seal broke out I think when they hired Vincent Massey Anna and that's when I became the CEO so I think was after 1998 so it may be worthwhile to look at that but I mean look at the arch are it's clear but you know there's got a good point you know if Betty she ate this who's the point of contact with a leader yeah just to build off of what Tony was saying he's absolutely correct and that the CFO position was created after Ben was hired but at the time we did have an individual Paul catalyst running special education and facility so they kind of morphed on the org chart and Paul was a former educator was our special ed director so things have kind of changed in that policy the two one three two there I just don't think kid has been up to reflect the org chart hey Timmy only suggestion I would make is since since policy is playing a review the access education funding account policy anyway soon I'll put throw this on you and just clean it up if we need to right but those are head thank you a quick comment I agree that we need to look at that policy through policy committee I don't think that it is an emergency situation we can do it soon but we don't have to do it tomorrow yeah I don't know I mean ultimately you know I don't know how you guys feel I I don't know that it needs to be done in 24 hours but you know at some point this week we probably want to put both the policy that Tony just brought up the two percent carry over that Ben mentioned the other day in our meeting and then this policy as well yeah I would do with in the next week at the least in just so folks know every organization prior Republic is going through a business continuity plan exercise where they had one or not they're all going through summer discussion I just stood out like my employers at work we're going this discussion and we found some gaps and you learn from these things and will correct so I don't think it's an emergency either however I would like to get it buttoned up you know within the next week along with the other policy for the budget accounts like a thought to Anna about that yes I I'm totally I'm totally fine with that I don't wanna use the word emergency and as if it's something you know emergency to me is really at least in fire they're responding within seconds it's not so much that this is more like Public Works emergency you know the storm is coming it's good and probably I mean ports I've seen is you know I think the Northeast is supposed to get hit really hard the second week of April I'm guessing that's you know the first week starts in a few days so yeah if we could hopefully Adam and the policy committee would be able to meet in the next in the next few days but it's not I don't mean to use it you know by definition I think an emergency meeting will be something scheduled in less than 24 hours I don't mean to say that understood that this needs to be this needs to be rushed I feel and so in the next few days would be the next few days would be fine with me I think that would be I think that should be adequate you're healthy right now Jeff right you don't know coughing you're okay all right any other questions from Tony you're in no I thought that our chart and posture is very helpful maybe I saw him look at the policy yes okay yeah thank you thank you for that Jeff next topic is basically your direct reports just want to know that you know I mean it could be a it could be a couple principles got incapacitated even just even just one principle do you have an idea a plan in mind for for a temporary acting principal or for your for Marlene Ervin your assistant superintendent or your CEO oh do you have ideas in mind and a plan in place at least in your head if not written down I'm thinking something written down probably or maybe not written down but discussion with Marlene and then just to know that there's you can act quickly sure yeah in this in this situation I mean and I hate to even talk like this let's say I'm one of our principals hit Powerball tomorrow and was gone okay just resigned tomorrow gone [Music] that's even different than in a co-ed situation where we would have days of preparation recognizing that an individual is sick recognizing perhaps that things weren't going well and you know you have probably you know four days at the short end of that in terms of preparation so the art plan would be like a kind of setting that contingency plan even at the principle level you have supports both above and below the individual on the organizational chart so if it's a building principle in Cheshire high school their assistant principals who would step in and fulfill that role with the support of most likely myself having been a former high school principal at the elementary level you know again I would look toward one of our two assistant principals at the elementary level to provide more leadership support with Marlene who has great experiences in elementary principals so those you know that's kind of what we do at the at the principal level in terms of PPS director that's a challenging hole to fill but we have you know two or three really capable special education supervisors and is you know in Harrigan in Harrigan and Donner II is looking at retirement at the end of this year and she will be retiring so those what I say two or possibly three that say this happened after and retired might and be able to support but one of the things that we've done historically this kind of a bullpen approach where we look at some folks that are recent retirees or who have tremendous experience that's why Don aloneness was the assistant superintendent last you know last year for six months so well people in done could pinch-hit anywhere and he's got the talent and capacity to do that we've had jaecheon former PBS directors that in and hold down that role for a while a time so it's a combination of you know kind of dry supports from within the organization and pulling people out of the bullpen for the record I'm not planning to apply for the Ferrand honorees job clarification there thank you for thank you for that Jeff thank you answer and I saw you had a comment about we have assistant principals yeah no that makes absolute sense and if it was one assistant principal in one school I could see the hierarchy where it goes straight up but I could also foresee a situation where you have and I don't know I don't even I don't know really know that much at all about the high school but I could foresee a situation in which we have a principal and we also have more than one assistant principal Jeff and I've never had this conversation with Jeff at all but I'm just saying Jeff may feel that the person who is not the most senior is the most qualified yet the principal is gone Jeff has gone incapacitated and then all of a sudden the senior the most senior assistant principal feels that's the role to be taken you know I I will act as the principal that is the situation I'm hoping to avoid just by ensuring that there is a plan in place I want to know that that that's really it I mean the same thing happened I think many of us probably remember Alex Haig he's the secretary of state number five in line Ronald Reagan Jacquet shot and he says I'm in charge it was not charged George Bush was or George HW Bush was the vice president of time I don't want it I don't want to have a situation like that I just want to have a I want to know that we have a plan in place for for what happens kind of new 'ti planning succession planning contingency planning so that's basically it any topic any any other comments or questions no I I was add that I think over the last few years me a little longer I think from my point of view that the depth of assistant principals is built up quite a bit then I think a lot and again this is not saying we ever had a bad you know any lack of qualified folks but I think there's been a lot of promotions people stepping up and I think we still have mr.
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Jeffries still working so a lot of people and flush them at that level I don't really have a concern there but imagine it's something that major happens and and you know superintendent would say okay it's like he's done in the past I would imagine whether it's a high school dad or whoever he would you know tell the board you know your situation here's I'd like to have run into him but I think there's a quite a qualified pool of candidates right now at that level if not mistaken but I think we're good there okay Micah my opinion and so the last topic what's the how did you word it the last topic on the agenda Jeff the central office staffing specifically for me the concern across my mind is we are having board meetings right now remotely and I think that's the way the rules are basically written by Lamont right well there's been relaxation of rules across the board because of the executive order so yeah we can have remote meetings we can I think you know we've done a great job I don't know many of our peers actually I don't know any peers that are holding online visual meetings like this streaming for YouTube but you know we we are obviously continuing to work to make sure that everything that we're doing is visible to the community to help assure them what's going on and everything is above board you know we do provide for that public comment there aren't any public comments today but at least you know as I check my email here periodically I haven't seen any come in but everything we're doing is aboveboard and it would you know venture to say leading the way in terms of what we're doing i forwarded I think was during the week when communication from cabe we learned they relaxed executive executive order on the on the board I think it's any public agency quite frankly right rules so as long as we're posting the doesn't mean we cannot not post an agenda I have a meeting we saw the post agenda but it's basically for board like actually almost all the boards that don't have a policy on conference call meeting or virtual meetings this helps a lot so when it all this is over which I which I hope is going you know we we come up there dialogue the future and determine if we want to have those kind of meetings you know in a non murder situation but but back reporting tonight put you off it quick question so what Mike said tremendous job he's also here if folks watching you know organizing this behind the scenes so you have Micro Center office working F Carol working on it so even though there's no physical meetings central office still much involved my go to you know Carol or Leslie the others you know get ill and chemo you know people they do best make us run you know pearly Falls like how's it up there you know I know you guys are kind of lean as it is so I know if Carol's audio office plan I know every kind of steps off but any concerns there we need to worry about with backup and actually well we have definitely looked at not only those positions but on the organizational chart I'll show you real quick again [Music] let's see the folks who work for VIN there's not a tremendous depth there underneath these people so what we've you know we're discussing and have discussed before I mean one of ins goals is here and here I'd pulled up this one because you can see like heather and Beryl and Lesley listed there and I'm not sure why they didn't show up in the download but the individuals here have such niche skill sets Luther for example our transportation coordinator couldn't easily step over and do Madeline duikers foodservice job and vice versa so what we've tried to do is is cultivate not only leadership in those areas or additional folks who could try and step in but where that's not necessarily possible so a technology there are great leadership folks who could try and step in and cover for Mike on a short-period in in most cases just like with principles and everything like that we wouldn't just say one individual typically oh because that person probably can't vacate their role very easily and leave a short-handed there so it's a team effort to step in but we've talked about you know if if we needed HR support there's consulting services that can come in and help with that same with with finance if you lost great gibbons it's an incredible amount of institutional knowledge and skill but we could in a short term have a consultant come in and help us in that that area losing our secretarial staff there's somebody in Leslie's office that Michelle Mills lega works very closely with her who would probably try and step up and cover it along with Kevin and Marlene pitching in in my office we have Jen who could vent rody canal could could help with Carroll and myself so that again on all these situations it wouldn't necessarily be an individual per se as much as it would be a team effort trying to cover the bases okay thank you sure thanks all right so I appreciate I appreciate what you've given us or shared today Jeff Tony and any other questions I don't see anything in the comments hearing nothing Jeff do you have any questions on the email address I'm looking real quick here faith ham had commented you know to possibly look at putting in a flexible flowchart to deal with simultaneous sudden loss of multiple administrators across multiple divisions you know and I think you know she recognizes that we do have deep benches and schools and there's the there is that concern in financing yeah but the I think again the likelihood in this scenario of losing multiple people across the organization we're a pretty young fit and might I add attractive looking work so I think you know our chances of surviving this are pretty good I mean but it doesn't mean we don't plan and that's why I have that org chart but as I said at the outset if we lost several people across the organization all at the same time the likelihood is that that is mirrored in society which at that point we're probably just shutting down school all together in trying like hell to hold on and and make our schools you know quasi medical facilities more than we are worried about providing education but that that's just I thought and by the way we are prepping for those sort of things just to be prepared but you know we'll look at what if there were multiple immigration I think that I think the key thing for me with regard to similar to what similar to faiths concern is that you and VIN and Marlene or haven't you you have conversations if not you know in the past hopefully the past week or two but also ongoing about you know sort of who you see in roles you know having the potential to do things but definitely having some conversations right now nothing that needs to be made public but that
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okay i call the policy meeting to order um all rise for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one name under god individual for liberty that's a little bumpy that that part there yeah you need a court you need uh yeah we need to do the roll call yeah mr grippo here dwight here ms halland here mr chairman you have a qualm thank you um mr sullivan i guess i'll hand it over to you thank you mr grippo so uh i'm just going to present our agenda for this evening we were hoping to review a few policies for first readings uh the first one stems from a conversation we had saturday on the personnel committee administration what we did was in the language for that conversation from personnel i think most people were there if you uh recall we were discussing the uh basically the contingency plan uh if you know let's say i got incapacitated or something else um and what we did was build in the language changes as you can see highlighted in gray here so i just you know kind of present that for everybody's review um i just have a really small point which is why do we replace the sort of the singular references pronouns to the um sure what am i trying to say oh my god yeah you know the proper etiquette today i guess in in policy creation is you know gender neutral but you know that's that's up to you okay no that's fine i okay i can deal with that um this is the question of curiosity this is not you know the quote proper english we were rated but that's fine as you know that's the reason for it than that absolutely no it looks pretty straightforward to me tim go ahead i gotta i i understand the point you're making jeff but honestly it makes it confusing to me okay it goes from a singular person to like multiple it doesn't it doesn't make sense to me i understand the point you're making how about if we say upon such person or such individual by the law instead of them well that's fine i mean i i hear what you're saying tim but i also yeah something like that yeah all right so we can go through and um all right okay i'll just take them out okay so we can we can correct that language throughout okay it's not a problem any other questions or comments about that policy um just so i'm i'm understanding um so it seems like that uh the superintendent of uh what was it curricular learning effort for instructional assistant superintendent for instruction yeah for instruction okay so so the the chain of command would be super uh assistant superintendent and then the chief operating officer in that order right that's that's how i'm reading that that's correct okay okay that that seems to be yeah one of the points we talked about was you know given the fact that it's a a learning organization um that that seemed to make sense uh when we talked about that the other day and so that was the proposal i made and this is the language i'm proposing um so i think we're i think if this reflects the conversation from personnel i just wanted to you know if you guys are okay with this we can move on to the next one which is the the two percent carryover policy um jeff i could just make a uh comment first um and i'm pretty sure tony had shared this with you um that there was some guidance from cabe um just so so people know i'm you know i don't know how many people are watching this or if someone watches this in the future um that we're gonna have this policy which will take some time to get through you know the usual channels um but in the meantime cape had suggested that you would uh write a administrative i forget the term the administrative guidelines yeah we can write a regulation tomorrow right and that you know if this is in process uh you know i don't i don't want to jinx anything i i think i should be around for the next three readings but um that the regulations are elaborate yeah yeah right unless it's powerball related to be around yeah so okay but yeah we can fit the regulation i can amend without um board approval and we'll do that tomorrow but uh as long as this is the way that we're going yeah i think so okay uh question adam sure yeah so i just want to be uh sorry i'm okay uh i just want to be clear on this so we'll um what we're saying is we are not going to dispense with the three readings for this policy we're going to do three readings of it yes oh catholic i guess i was just gonna i was just thinking that we could just dispense with the three readings in light of the circumstances if you want to do that that's fine i guess the the only thing i want to highlight is that i feel as though we probably have had base i've been in both of these meetings so myself tony and you adam and catherine i think we all have a sense that if something comes up this is where we are the assistant superintendent becomes marlene becomes the acting superintendent if something happens to jeff for the next for covid the next hopefully no more than a few weeks or months so we're basically on board i mean that's five out of seven people so we have direction that's really what i just want to know whether or not this is a policy um well i i think as as we just discussed um the the policy is is something that i don't think had been updated since the 90s um so we're updating the policy um and as jeff said tomorrow he can amend the administrative yeah so that it's essentially in force tomorrow yeah okay and i know i guess uh when we make our our motions at the end here we could you know put in a recommendation to forego the um the three readings uh and then you know just pass it through it at our next uh meeting if we so this if we so choose tonight to make that recommendation but i just felt that since jeff uh would be able to put in the administrative process yeah tomorrow that i don't know if it was necessary to just wave the three readings you know no and that's that's that's fine with me i just i'm just highlighting it there's people who are probably watching who are necessarily watching on saturday may not have seen that meeting i think myself and jeff have actually been in the meetings that's that's what i'm hearing and i'm totally comfortable with that we have a basic we're jeff and marlene have direction yeah i think that's pretty clear at this point okay yeah captain do you have any comment or i know that there is a mechanism to um you know forego the second and third reading but i i think we're good never mind you know i think we're all okay we're all on the same page with this yeah okay and that was 2132 right correct yep okay thank you so the next item is the non-lapsing educational fund and if you don't mind i'm going to defer to on this one for um walking through it he's he's been pretty close to this and has a lot of input on the financial okay thanks jeff good evening everyone there is a draft policy that correlates to um connecticut general statute 10-248a i know we talked about this actually at the last couple of meetings but this connecticut general statute allows for if the fiscal authority of the town in this case our town council permits the board of ed can recommend up to two percent of the budget at the end of the year to be deposited in a non-lapsing account that can be used to pay for education expenses in the following fiscal year so the just a quick background this particular general um connecticut general statute was in effect since june 30th of 2011 it used to be a one percent carryover and now the law was changed effective june 30th of 2019 so that's the last fiscal year it increased from one percent to two percent could be carried over the key here is it does need board needs to have a policy and the town council um needs to approve it so the question um for the policy committee tonight is whether to adopt this policy and then align with that to request that the town council um be prepared to commit this at the close of the fiscal year the reason that we're bringing this up in particular has to do with you know the current remote learning environment that we're in you know we do expect that some of the expenses that we would have incurred and expended this year especially around special education we may not be able to conclude and provide those services in this fiscal year so we provide them in the summer so this will give us flexibility on our year-end clothes basically is what this would do so that's in a nutshell the um reason this is on policy committee meeting agenda tonight um vin you had mentioned that the the two percent carryover needed to be used in the next fiscal year is that something that you wanted in the policy or is that state law um you know the state the law i'm just taking a look at this it says that the town made the made deposit into a non-lapsing account any unexpended funds from the prior fiscal year from the budget appropriation for education for the town it isn't specific as to when the funds have to be used by you know our intent would be to use it in the following fiscal year but it does talk about just a non-lapsing account as as the statutes uh i think we have some room in the policy if we wanted to um leave that open um so so i guess the because i don't know i would be even for just not having a a a deadline to the money itself if we happen to have i i guess it would be it's a weird way of putting a windfall it's sort of a strange way of putting it but because i don't think that's that usually ever happens right uh but in this case it it could um and you know i know we had there was discussion about a possibility of you know we don't know what the medical benefit trust fund might look like because of kovid that if we have additional money set aside that it could be used for special education unexpected special education expenses over the summer or possibly even showing up an article benefit account again um so i so i don't recall if that was actually in the policy if that line about um yeah do you have to get it in the next year yeah it does say that the board shall review the fund balance on an annual basis now yeah so you can carry multiple years um yeah um so i i just have a couple of questions if that's okay uh so the we approve okay we would request that that the town council create the non-lapsing account and then the board decides how that money is going to be spent but it has to be spent for educational purposes which i think adam would preclude us from using it for the medical benefit fund i assuming that it is for educational purposes um but so would we have to ask the town council for permission to use the fund at all or is it because it says it's authorized solely by the board of education but i just want to make sure no you you have to request that they uh create the account um you have to they they would need to give us that blessing then at that point we could carry over two percent i think you know there are a couple of um the caveat there is educational purposes and what is how does one define that is is that written with the intent uh to indicate that it can only be spent on board of ed items both educational purposes or is it more restrictive as you're suggesting catherine and it can only be spent on things that would be considered instructional in nature so right yeah you know because one could say well if we did two percent a year for the next three years you you have roughly four and a half million dollars is that like now is that safe to use on a renovation of a building so you know we would probably want some guidance on that but um and what what does educational truly mean in this sense and one other question i have is if does that non-lapsing fund would we have to um reduce our budget for the next year by the amount of that fund no no and or not no i i you know the town council may ultimately move to reduce our budget but the reason that we're establishing this fund and that we're pushing it is that covet has created a circumstance where we will have a significant well not significant but uh a surplus yeah end of this year um probably significant you know when you consider if we are out of school for an extended period and we're not paying for athletics and transportation and um heating our buildings the way that you know we would have over the last month or you know all these other things uh substitute costs and whatnot we'll have this a bit of money at the end of the year the problem is that we'll also have a lot of bills to pay come july when we are able to come back and students need regression recruitment instruction yeah or out placements and things like that so that that cost will be significant too so the goal is you know can we squirrel this money away for july when those bills come due and not take it out of the operating expenses because what you had approved as a budget for our school system we still need that for next year so um that's that's really the genesis of this whole right now yeah i mean just in a nutshell the town council has to authorize the deposit into the non-lapsing account and then the board of education decides you know the educational purposes for which it would be used a lot of communities do this just um year over year to take care of um you know overruns in special education maybe from one year to the other so we've just never done it in cheshire but it's fairly commonly used across connecticut um you know as a way to just carry you know some of the leftover operating budget into the next fiscal year to be used for educational purposes tim you had a comment thanks adam yeah uh just to be clear um with regard to the way the budget works every year and this is my first year on the board but you know i was on the council i pay attention to it a bit typically and vinder jeff correct me if i'm wrong here but typically there is a few hundred thousand dollars left at the end of every year and that gets moved over to maintenance and operations not every year but it does happen and the i think the the legal difference is that that money is encumbered and it's promised for maintenance by june 30th whereas this is basically saying we're not we don't know what we what bills we'll have on july 1st so we do not want it encumbered we don't we do not want it committed anything in particular generally that that's accurate tim you know but i would just add to that it's two things one part of what we do as we go through our budget year because at the end of the year we have to balance is we will not spend out of certain accounts until we get to april may june before we encounter those funds so that we know that you know we won't exceed our budget so part of the reason that we um you know do get aggressive at encumbering funds as we hit you know may and june is because we know you know pretty precisely that we will have able to end the year in balance so this year i would envision that we'll still do some of those encumbrances for the things we need to purchase you know whether it's technology furniture fixture assuming that we can do those things um and then the the things that we're not sure about we would you know basically recommend depositing it into the laptop and the other thing i want to mention is because the law allows for two percent you know that doesn't mean we'll have two percent which would be about 1.4 million the estimate that i had and it was an early estimate i shared with the board last week was about 000 is what i was envisioning right now but there's a lot of unknowns still at this point yes um yeah so i didn't just to be clear i i'm totally comfortable with the idea that there is a few hundred thousand dollars left at the end of the year i mean you're talking about a right now it's just what a 75 million dollar budget 750 000 would be one percent so you're talking probably a half of a percent it's a budget there's no it's no plowing in a given year or something i get that completely that's that's i'm that's not a concern on my part at all um uh i'm just trying to i mean i was just trying to articulate it for the public that the money there is typically some money that's left there that's all um but this would be unencumbered so you'd have more flexibility and with regard to that i support the idea and i would i would request that the council do it the only my only thing is i'm wondering uh you know could we just sunset this after a year or you might be able to then yeah i mean the policy could just be revisited or could we draft it where it could be sunsetted and also vin some of the towns you said a lot of towns of i think it's eight towns that surround cheshire or border chester do you know which towns have this in place yeah i know like southington you know does have this in place um i think wolcott was the other one that i saw they have a policy because we have the policy doesn't necessarily mean we'll we'll use it every year but once the policy is adopted you can use it if you do need to use it and i think i just want to jump in if i may about the piece around having that money left over is vin's talking about we manage it that way to ensure that there are a few hundred thousand dollars left in may and june because god forbid we get a significant bill you know i don't want to be in the red so we manage that way and then what we're doing is encumbering it late in the game like you're saying tim and we lose a little bit of flexibility there i i like the idea of having if i had two hundred thousand dollars you know it's it's you can encumber on things and we're responsible about it you know we could buy advanced paper for example or something like that but having the flexibility of putting it into an account that we can then later tap not having to worry about encumbering the money uh just i think it provides us greater flexibility this year is like oh my gosh we're going to need it but most years it would kind of serve for us as a bit of a insurance policy so that we can um spend more on things that we know we need right now and not have to worry about just like advanced buying things and stuff like that i think it just adds a little bit more flexibility on a year-over-year basis catherine you had a comment yes um so i think that the way that this would work and i'm addressing the uh tim's comment about you know sunsetting it after the after a year it this policy would basically be um something that the cheshire the board of bed would have to decide at the end of every year whether they were going to ask the town council to make the deposit uh i assume so if that's the case then i don't know that we should build in a sunsetting sunset time or anything like that because this is just you know this just enables us to do it um to ask the town council to deposit the you know a percentage of the surplus or whatever um as it arises so my preference would be to to have the policy just be the way it is and then the board can take it up you know on an annual basis to see whether we want to um actually set aside you know if it looks like we're going to have a surplus set aside a piece of that um sort of the council does and it's in a rainy day fund it's the same principle first on our side of the street and you know we don't know how special ed costs are so uncertain um year to year that you know this would really be i think a prudent way of trying to address that is to you know if we can set aside some money let's do that like um so anyway i was just trying to address tim's sunset provision um which i don't agree with or i just don't think it's necessary if if we didn't uh have a sunset um so would this end up being if the policy were approved by the board would this end up being just an basically an agenda item on our at our june 30th meeting or our june whatever you know end of end of the year meeting where we then just decide if we're moving anything to the um what are we calling this non-lapsing education fund uh i think we would probably do it i think we would probably try and set up for this um in may actually i put it on mesa this way you know because the council does have to approve the deposit so it's the type of thing you know certainly i think we would you know talk to the town council in advance and let them know that we would be requesting a deposit into the non-lapsing account at your end just so that they're prepared and there's a general agreement that it would be permitted and so um i guess the other thing that i'm a little confused upon is that so we're creating this policy and our policy derives from this uh 10-248-a so it's a state law that allows us to request the setup but it's actually the town council because we don't have a board of finance or whatever it's the the town council who ultimately decides if we are allowed to have the non-lapsing account is that my understanding yes the town council has to allow for the deposit into a non-lapsing account right of unexpended funds and so then they could take away the non-lacked lapsing account whenever they chose to regardless if we had a policy i don't think so okay so once they establish it then it's permanent they have nothing in it but right so once money's deposit here's the point once the money is deposited it has to be used for educational purposes as directed by the board of education that's the way the policies written which is consistent with the law so the council could say no you can't deposit into that then there's there's no non-lapsing account deposit for that year but if they do allow for the deposit then it's to the board to dictate the use of those funds but the actual formation of the account is non-revocable i don't know about that i would think that they still close the account they could just quote seize the money it would have to still then be spent on educational you know stuff at the direction of the board right so so the account couldn't be swept right by the town correct right okay so if money was in there it's specific for education and it could not be swept if there was some sort of budget emergency and we had you know a half a million dollars in there well what they they would probably do to take it out of our operating budget from doing that and then um at that point we would have to say well i mean it is it is a little bit of dirty pool if they wanted to say you know take a hundred thousand dollars they could say well yeah we're gonna reclaim the hundred thousand out of your and then we'd have to say well we have a choice to make do we eat it or take it out of this non-lapsing account and you know it's obviously not the intention of the it's not designed to be a rainy day fund for the council uh but for the board and the intention for this year it seems like you know our budget is is normally designed to go through june 30 and then the next budget kind of takes over but now we're sort of running into like a june 30 plus because of the closings exactly yeah you know you talked about that june 30th is our fiscal end-of-year meeting so we on that day we close out the books we zero out and um you're right so this school year will be extended beyond june 30th for us we know we will have 1920 expenditures in july which is technically the next fiscal year in august as well maybe further so that's why we're proposing this policy and this policy would need the you know the one reading um we need to vote to uh put this in place because vince said you know in may we need to make this request to the council they'll need to process it and then you know at the end of the fiscal year is when we would be looking to deposit the money okay to cover costs that will incur over the summer understood are there any other questions on this one nope i i'm okay with this i think it's i think it seems reasonable particularly go ahead particularly for just for the circumstances i think it's i think it makes a lot of sense to do okay and so that one we would move to wave yeah right okay all right well i guess if we were doing that way i guess we could do it for the other one too i suppose as long as we're waving huh yeah right so yeah as long as we're winging so the last um policy that we are slated to review this evening is um 6114 it's a new policy to consider uh around pandemic emergency and disaster preparedness so basically you know this was the it's kind of specific to the uh covid 19 and it provides temporary powers granted to superintendent schools i believe stuttington uh just passed this and uh it just gives temporary authority uh for me to to navigate things like with uh public health and governmental authority to provide for effective response you know a lot of this is stuff that we're doing already but what it's asking for i i don't see us really having a significant need to employ like number two um but you know that we're gonna make well we have made adjustments to the curriculum you know right now uh marlene kevin and i are having conversations with our principals about you know what are the priority items that we need to tackle in each grade level over the course of the next quarter because it's it'll blow out our students and families and educators if we tried to cover everything to the same degree that we were so what are the absolute priorities and so we haven't identified any of that yet but that's that's our thinking is that we have to really start to to focus on that um for our students sake we're not making massive adjustments to curriculum we're still teaching our curriculum a lot of other districts around and i said that earlier in the meeting i think we had last week a lot of our peers are just providing something for kids to do that may not be directly related to curriculum and we've really tried to focus on making sure that we're doing that number three enter into contracts without board approval for any dollar amount um i have to tell you i i probably wouldn't necessarily go there for any dollar amount i have a lot of authority now to enter into contracts um if it was going to be you know really exorbitant then you know obviously i would come to you but things like cleaning and sanitation technology we're pretty well covered on all of these things because we have been prepared authority to close any facility without further action on the board um you know all of our facilities are closed now but let's say that um we came back to school in may and and then all of a sudden things got terrible again and chesapeake came to me and said you know we really need to to really commandeer a certain school um to provide healthcare workers a place to sleep at night you know that's all i could envision something like this but i would certainly you know i think you know me after four years i would come to you with with something um of that nature but if it was an absolute emergency that just gives me authority to do that um number five guidance from health government again um to direct staff assignments during district closures uh i'm already doing all of this now um authority to limit access to public grounds the the the town has already done that so a lot of this stuff is just kind of in case we need it um and you know authority to waive bids for competitive pricing on emergency situations so for example uh in a situation if i decided tomorrow with marlene came to me and said oh my god every second grader needs um you know uh something to facilitate the curriculum we need to buy every second grade or a microscope i'm throwing out an obviously hypothetical that's not reality but this would allow us to weigh bids if i needed to get one for everybody in order to facilitate learning um you know that that's a a possibility but most of these again are not likelihoods but but possibilities um suspension of policies um so you know again i there's not much here that i'm actually foreseeing that would we would have to do um and you remain in in constant communication but cabe sent this out so you know we put it out there for review and as i said some other other folks have done it um you know this is one that again we've already basically already done this um we are you know right now presenting virtually so i think we you know again i don't want to sound you know pat and the school system on the back too much but we're kind of ahead of most everything that's been presented um in terms of resources policies and anything else but this is a like i said a policy that came put forth so i just wanted to present it for your consideration because it is so relevant to the times we're living in tim go ahead yeah sure so my my reaction is i'm not really comfortable with this uh you know i think we said we were in the meeting on we were in the meeting on saturday morning and ann harrigan made the comment about this is she felt it wasn't an emergency not this topic but having a meeting regarding the chain of command and my response to her was okay so it's not an emergency sort of in the in the context of uh fire or police reporting within responding within seconds is more of like a public works type of emergency responding you know this we know the storm is coming respond within a couple days that's kind of how i envision most of these things that are here and so i don't really see the need to uh to do this and just very generally speaking i'm going to draw sort of a analogy that's really strong but this is what goes through my mind which is i'm going to go down to dc and say we haven't declared war since you know world war ii and it is literally i mean we have you know we're effectively the legislative body and you're the chief executive and that is upsetting to me and it has nothing to do with party i just feel that that authority should be controlled by the legislative body um if there were so i just don't really want to seed additional authority and in many of these situations you already have the authority uh some of which just came from lamont because the emergency order i'm sure so i'm just not really that comfortable i think i feel like when something happens we can have we mike salamini and you jeff everybody your whole team is doing a great job and we can have these meetings really quickly um and we don't have um for the town council i know that we could have emergency meetings on less than 24 hours notice we did it one time while i was on the council i'm assuming that if something comes up we could do it and we could at least hear um hear the concerns and i also feel it's better to have that because we're the ones who are ultimately held accountable by by the electorate and they can yell at us i i just i i really dislike the idea where you do something and then not you just a chief executive does something and then they say oh well the legislative and the legislators well we never voted on it even though it was like a wink and a nod and i'm not talking about here in cheshire but i see it happening in hartford and washington oh we don't know anything about that i i want to have it uh i i'd like to have this i would i would prefer to avoid having these powers uh additional authority given to the superintendent it also just it makes us more accountable the the the uh board of ed members so that's that's my feeling catherine you're on youtube yeah sorry i forgot i lost my mute hello everybody everybody's on youtube yeah okay i i understand what tim is [Music] i'm wondering if there are any aspects of this policy jeff any temporary powers that are you know specified here that you feel strongly about that you think you need to be able to make decisions like immediately without you know calling an emergency meeting or whatever and i'm not sure you know i haven't you know spent a ton of time looking at this but it seems i would agree that it seems to me that you already have a lot of this authority um but and i wouldn't want you to have to come to the board you know for every single thing if you need to um act quickly because of you know a pandemic you know this particular crisis so i i don't know if you have certain aspects of this that you really think are important i think we could talk about those and maybe build that in and have that be the right scope of the policy so yeah i i don't see this being a matter of anybody not trusting each other uh i i think that you know as you said catherine you know i is the chief executive officer of the school system i have a lot of authority to do most anything anyway um and i think that you know we rely on each other to make sure uh positive things that are in the school system so you know i i don't see anything in there that um i feel like oh this is something that we need to have in place to support uh vin and and marlene and myself our ability to facilitate us through this coveted process um so you know pretty much everything on there we've already gotten ahead of and i feel real good about the direction that we've come from and where we're going and i i don't see this as necessary for us but as i said kade put it out so i wanted to share it with you but i really don't see it as something necessary and um i guess i will agree with you jeff that i don't think this policy is necessary i think if anything has proven that the communication uh that you've had with the board and with tony um and that the additional power that you've been given by the executive orders of the governor and the state department of education have essentially given you what you've needed to ser to get the job done and even to go beyond that by putting us in a place where we've been sort of ahead of the game on distance learning i don't think there's any reason why we need to have a policy saying that we should suspend all policy for an emergency when it seems apparent that we've kind of you know worked together already without having that be necessary right so um at least for me i don't think i would support this policy to go forward anyone else have a thought no i i i think that that's probably right we're just yeah i don't know that we need it um and it is it does feel a little bit controversial and we don't really need that right now right and and i think it's been proven it is i mean this is the almost as extreme as you can get hopefully for a really long time uh that uh we seem to you know everyone's worked well under pressure and i think everything is going pretty well considering yeah so i agree yeah i'm curious you said that um jeff you said southington adopted this policy yeah they were an and so they just i believe i and please don't quote me on this what i caught in the nano second that was not covid coverage on the news it looked like they hired somebody who you know is an administrator without going through any sort of board process but i i don't know that for certain but i i they did reference in the quick article that i read that um they had kind of foregone typical board policy so i'm not exactly sure what element of the board policy that they they uh had skipped through in light of this but i i think it had something to do with everybody coming together and making approvals but i i only skimmed it uh because we got plenty of our own things to worry about right okay all right um that seems to be all the agenda items jeff is there are there any uh questions from the public i looked and i'll look again real quick but i didn't see any um no okay um so then i guess um can i have a motion to move to a first reading uh or see how do we do that it would be moved to a first reading with a recommendation would that be appropriate okay sure all right so uh move to a first reading with a recommendation to waive all other readings um policy number two one three two and policy number three one seven one dot one um and that was uh policy number two one three two was administration and policy number three one seven one dot one was for uh what was that non-love that was moving on non-lasting educational fund so moved is there a second mr white seconds second all in favor all right okay um i see no other um uh anything else agenda uh tim he has a comment before it's not on the agenda but a point of information so we're forwarding this to the board of ed i haven't seen anything to adam or you're the vice chair jeff do you have any idea if tony's thinking about scheduling a board of ed a full board yeah we were looking at a date next week um the i was hoping for wednesday or thursday of next week uh you know maybe wednesday i think holy thursday and not that many people have much in the way of plans or anything but uh i have my doctoral dissertation defense on tuesday so i'm trying to avoid monday and tuesday wednesday or thursday of next week that would be optimal we don't have anything formally scheduled until after the break but i think that's what we're looking for that's right and you're going to give them you're you're going to give an update this friday on the break correct yeah the april break i sent an email to all of our parents today and to the board about um you know when we started this right from the outset i had said you know april break we're going to keep it in the calendar but we're going to kind of measure how things are going at that point so i can't tell you how many games of uh you know google meet peek-a-boo we've had no stranger adam anyways yeah we'll make a decision friday and let the community know about what we're doing but we're doing that in consultation with chespercott to make sure that you know our kids and and staff are physically healthy enough to participate i do i did hear an update from the commissioner of ed today that apparently the epidemiologist says uh the week of april 11th is going to be the peak of covid in connecticut so that's our spring heading toward our spring break week there and um so we're nobody's going anywhere unfortunately um we probably have some balance of vacation in school okay thank you all right uh so is there any other business or any other comment no all right can i have a motion to adjourn all right we are adjourned thank you very much everyone thanks guys thanks adam all right
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
okay go ahead okay so good evening everyone I'm going to call the regular meeting of the Brookfield Board of Education to order if everyone could please stand where they are for the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God okay so we do have all of our members present on Paul so we can actually move on to our first agenda item which is a presentation from Tecton regarding the EHS boys locker room Tecton with us for the presentation he's about to present to all of you regarding the BHS locker room very comprehensive very clear I'm hoping that you know after conclusion of the presentation you know you can give us any questions that you have and we're hoping that the slides over there very clear and it's he did a really great job and you know I want to thank Eddie in advance it's enough for all thank you so just as a piece of housekeeping when we ran through this before he 6 o'clock meeting it seemed like there was a delay like when I would advance my slide it took a few seconds before it showed up on your end so if you see me talking about something that doesn't quite matched what's on the screen hopefully just give it a couple seconds and it'll get there everybody hopefully can see the presentation white screen with text on it right now and great all right so we'll first start off just kind of talk a little bit about because it's in conditions so a few pictures of a few of the rooms at the existing high school it's a lot of full station that hasn't been cleaned for a while you can see there are chemicals presents they've been busted to be removed it's the repeatedly over the last few years currently there is no physical sub to the home and visitor lock balloons or as they're used during the day the lock broom in the team room there's a request to replace the door repeatedly and hasn't happens right now the spaces are continuous on the hallway existing lockers are in pretty tough physical condition they're all dirty and busted and a lot of them are not functional anymore in terms of boards and operating hardware there's a couple of spaces that are not used there's some non-working showers that have been converted into storage rooms there's one bathroom that's been boarded up and instead of being fixed it's just inaccessible am i doing okay in terms of images matching up with what I'm talking about in terms of where there are athletic events that take place outdoors there's no bathrooms available from the buildings though there are one of the bathrooms and have to be brought in and we typically out in this area of building what do the doors get to them and as mentioned before there's just a number of spaces that are really not being used to their fullest and best potential so there are some spaces that could be taken over and converted it was targeted as a possible expansion to the weight room which you'll see in a little bit further detail as we go forward so show you we basically met with primarily with Steve Baldwin to develop the program of spaces for the project and this was existing conditions basically everything as it is right now the gray areas are existing walls that would be kept the dashed lines represents items that would be removed so um no you you see me cursor at all when I bring it out probably not gonna work do well alright so we'll start off kind of at the the bottoms part of the plan you see the locker room up in the top the team room the team room really has some tough sight lines because there's lockers and to haves essentially with a shower room in the center there is one toilet room that you can get to from the outside but it's a little bit of an odd vestibule and the spaces there are not accessible and then what you see on the right side in the middle of the big open rectangle is the weight room and immediately adjacent to that are the areas that are essentially boarded up and not used that we think could be a nice expansion for the weight room so take you through the those plans what you see separation routine and locker room that's simply done by really putting a door on the existing frame that's there we've pretty much keeping the same configuration for the PE locker room but just all new lockers and benches throughout really kind of overhauling the team room getting the shower an all-new shower area off to one side and storage rooms on the other side so that there's proper sight lines and a wide-open team room where everybody can meet benches there so that you can have the entire team sitting at a meeting toilet rooms that would be accessible from the exterior so both men's and women's with girls however you want to say it but fully accessible toilet rooms that would be access from the outside the expansion's to the weight training so you see room for approximately 20 bikes and three treadmills to create a nice cardio area off of the weight training additional offices for coaches and staff inside the locker rooms and further compartment ation of the storage rooms and again every saying all the elements all the spaces would be made fully accessible so what we did here I'm not going to bore you by going through this but this is the detailed lineman and I'm the estimate that we put together for the project so every item you see different types of partitions different types and it is toilet partitions we ended everything up we used unit costs that we typically see that we've been seeing on our construction projects so good amount of detail here I'll pin you to the summary page we have anything you'd like to you the one are the three items that we did not do detailed a cost on our looming the mechanical and electrical numbers and the reason is that those really until you get fully developed drawings square-foot costs are really what's pretty common for those as a comparison the project we're doing for the new elementary school where well maybe two-thirds three-quarters of the way through design on that we're in the middle of a design development phase and we're still using square foot numbers for those costs because the detail is just not there yet all told if you take the entire project it's about 8,500 square feet a total construction cost of 1.3 million dollars is what we came up with it equates to about a hundred and fifty-five dollars a square foot we typically see on public school projects in the state that are considered a renovate as new we see those usually about 350 dollars a square foot so while this does seem like a pretty sizable price tag it's actually pretty reasonable if you look at it for what's being I'm basically taking advantage of the fact that we're not changing structure around we're not really ripping down an awful lot of walls we're not changing roof we're not doing new mechanical units for the most part other than plumbing it's all existing utilities it's really kind of more finishes and amenities inside so that's why it's it's coming in at a pretty reasonable cost so because the project still of wealth far above the 605,000 that had been appropriated or or approved for financing we looked at taking out five we call them alternative pieces that could be done if bidding conditions were favorable but basically saying if we took out certain scopes of work how much would that save so you see five areas here superimposed on the existing plan we also have them on the new plan if that helps but so the first area of was the big one in red needs to remove the expansion of the weight training you know to to not do the new cardio area and to not renovate the existing weight training two would be if we didn't do the area in yellow which is essentially an office and a shower room that would become an office in the toilet room it was just to take the shower out but since programmatically it wasn't terribly different we thought maybe that was a good one to target the exterior toilet rooms to the area you see at the top in orange and then the two storage areas in blue and green four and five is really all that was being done there was just kind of subdividing the spaces you said they probably could live as they currently are so and you see those five areas superimposed on the proposed plan and what that would eventually be giving up if we didn't do this spaces so similar to the main project this is a summary page but we get the same line-item takeoffs for this as we did for a full project so we figured out you know what seem unit costs as we did for the other estimate and for each of these if we totaled all five areas if we said not doing any of those total cost would be about six hundred and sixteen thousand so would knock the project down to seven hundred and six thousand which is nice but it's still not quite what was approved in the budget we looked at a couple of different options so this plan is showing all of the areas this is if we did everything we're considering the area in purple to be the base work that would be done no matter what so this is everything all in full budgets are the full estimate that I mentioned before the 1.3 million dollars and you'll see this approve the number six hundred and five thousand dollars shot and all options will go through so this would be a requirement of an additional seven hundred and almost seven hundred eighteen thousand dollars would be needed to do all of the work so we looked at again as we have talked about for the storage rooms being maybe not the most important thing so if we took that out that's a savings of about a hundred thousand dollars so this would require an additional six hundred and thirteen thousand dollars to do the work that you see here next priority we took out the the toilet and office that knocked it back almost another hundred thousand dollars getting down to where the betta is just over half a million five hundred and thirty two thousand to do the three scopes of work you see moving further we said that we understood that the toilet rooms to the exterior were really the priority so we said if what happens if he don't do weight training in the cardio and you can see that stuff belted now of 221,000 and then family if it was just a silly no matter what we didn't do any of the alternates it would still be about another hundred and one thousand that would be required so that is a presentation any questions I'll open it off man you can go back to any slides you like you anybody have any questions for Eddie or the committee I mean one of the most important things that we want to kind of gauge you know in addition to answer any questions that you had but what your feelings were far as you know financing this project what parts of it you know you deem as a priority what you would like to see go through for the project kind of the thoughts or conversations we didn't want it to focus on well I I would like to know where you know the committee stands as a sort of what you guys would feel is the best way I mean worried where are you guys generally sitting we we felt that if you can go back to option for any court we felt that the exterior toilet rooms are kind of non-negotiable that that was really an area of concern from safety we didn't feel that you know as a district that's that we should be in the position to have to only have exterior porta-johns have to go through that so we really felt like that was really non-negotiable for us yeah yeah so at the very least we felt that option were was was very those are our priority at least at the very least yeah I would agree with that I think you know that's long overdue is that everything really is but yeah I would loop that in as a sort of a non-negotiable where does everybody else stand with these plans any-any uh initial reactions I think sort of the obvious answer at least for me is we want it all you know it's it's all of it is long overdue I mean I can I it's very hard to prioritize any of it I feel like you could justify the need of everything all of it I mean our you know weight training area is very small you know we've got all the numbers and the statistics and the amount of activity that goes on in the weight training room and the locker room on a daily basis you know three days a year you know in the summer she's used all the time and there's just so many big volume of things and athletes that use it so a big chunk of the puzzle is the addition of the weight area and also Steve pointed out to me in our last meeting which I didn't really realize the weight training room and the cardio equipment is part of curriculum it's not just sort of a nice to have I was sort of looking at it initially months ago as sort of a luxury item you know thinking like well what why do we have to give these kids a you know up gym not gym like like the gym way play basketball but you know a workout space I mean you know if I think back to my high school we didn't have that but I didn't realize that it's part of the curriculum now so me you the malls I kind of II were you saying something joy I was just saying the PE class is using right lies on a daily basis yeah I think the only thing that we we sort of said well we could either wait and put it off was the exterior storage room the part that's you know that long rectangular piece that we said would be used like for parking of golf carts and some other equipment way over to the left side of the screen I think that to me I think that was the only one that we said well maybe we could find other storage place for that but even that was debatable I think so I have I have a question so on our honor capital improvement plan we have 110,000 that is supposedly for the 24 one-year that says design / construction of outdoor restrooms food service and storage was that is this sort of the outdoor restrooms part like maybe leave that some time I'm just trying to figure out where what sort of each one of those lines was supposed to okay that's a different project that was one that was going to be going out like between the fields which we didn't have restrooms store you know things then that hundred thousand dollars was free design money and that's been deferred year after year after year I think it was on the plan before I even started working here we so we would want to have in addition to this an additional set of outdoor restrooms yes I believe so okay I mean because I think like this project is very it's it's so incredibly important but I don't see I I don't know what else we can sort of and I think the other thing that's important to mention here and Ken please or joy correct me if I'm if I'm miss stating this but the six hundred thousand dollars that we're talking about that was originally put in as for this locker room project that has not even been approved yet right the $100,000 for the design which is what's being worked on by Tecton right now that was approved last year for the work going on right now hundred thousand is different fifty five thousand was approved last year for the design thank you Ken thank you for the correction on that and so the six hundred thousand worked that that 605,000 that Eddie was trying to get to that that funding has not even been approved yet in this budget cycles capital discussion with with the town folks our elected officials so you know or we don't even have the funds approved so there was also a mechanical kind of conversation with the Facilities Committee as to you know how we might increase that even though it's not on the efficiently adopted plan yet in that part that so I don't know joy if you wanted to expand on that a little bit part of that discussion so everybody's on the same page yeah so we talked about budget seasons do we you know if we start a scope of the work then it would really cost more for the project if we you know spread onto food you know to two different time frames so and we don't want to include you know more costs so we definitely have to you know discuss we want to discuss with the board all our different options and put a plan in moving forward to get this kind of ball get the ball moving rolling so we can propose it and bring it to the Board of Finance to in town okay and I think the Facilities Committee I mean it's pretty clear in terms of the realization for everybody to understand that the Facilities Committee is living in the real world and there's no way this project would be able to be worked on this summer I mean we're not talking about this summer even if the money was all approved I don't think we'd be able to get to it in terms of the timing right now so this is a next year project regardless is that correct right right so are you looking more for you know just just feedback in questions are you looking for you know just to sort of I mean it sounds like you're you would like to move forward with we definitely want to look for you know there were couple goals we wanted to make sure we got all the information out board and you know put forth any questions and answer any questions that you have or concerns we wanted to present you with all the options and but we definitely want to you know move forward with this and you know make some decisions that we can move forward and know where you guys as far as the other board members have as far as support with this and I I think you had mentioned before joy about if we had sort of piecemeal this and you know did everything that's here in the purple and in that orange which is you know those outdoor access toilets if does this cost more in the long run if we do it that way you know leaving the weight training in the cardio room for perhaps something know a year or two later of course we discussed that and talked with Eddie as well and I wouldn't you know crew more cost so that would a it's the project where's me you know wanted to look Wade but at the bare minimum we tried to at least use the positive Liberatore cause the project and then as for additional costs for what we felt was the non-negotiables as in option for seats just if I can comment on that if let's say you postponed you know work that works hey we did that you know the purple and the orange summer up play one or you know started at least then and and you did the Reds of a year later yes usually we're looking at on the average of an escalation about four percent you know you know that was forget exactly two hundred thousand dollars you know another four percent of that you probably pay a little bit more it might be as much as that's because you're there's some economy of scale obviously when you have contractor out and doing all at once as opposed to coming out you know two sets of mobilization and so the advantage of doing that at least is you know it's a separate room with two separate access if it was a case of you know say if it was that yellow area I wouldn't want to tell you to do that one separately because it's in the same room you really wouldn't want to come back to that multiple times but it is at least easier to do from a phasing standpoint though it obviously of course is more money I think as we consider this it's important for the the board members who are not part of the committee and the public to understand that and I know mister boland uh when he was part of these conversations kept coming back to this it's very important for everybody to realize facilities are a major part it's one major component of the the accreditation process and the locker room more than ten years ago was discussed as an issue and it was brought up as a significant need in our recent me ask accreditation so we need to address it and clearly the Facilities Committee is so we have to do something that's there's a no option there and in addition to that and while it's not critically important I think the optics of our community people are very sensitive I found in Brookfield looking at different ratings and how we compare to other communities and there's different ratings that people see that are in publications such as the neat ratings and things like that and many times facilities are a part of how people rank schools and share their opinion and that's how these different rankings come up and facilities again is a big part of that so if that matters to people in the community then it's just something I wanted to bring up as another note another component of thinking on this in terms of the overall big picture but the accreditation is very big for the high school and facilities it's an enormous part of that if a locker room was a specific recommendation to make a difference on Eddie do you have information on the alternate that has what you see here plus the weight training and cardio yep back a slide there we go maybe a second okay yes no that's if we were gonna do Hector 12 rooms MMA training party up in any from from that right there the 1.1 million dollars what's the difference if we had the rest of the project end I think um it's about two hundred thousand dollars two hundred thousand [Music] about a hundred between the two storage room areas they're roughly about 50 thousand each and then about another hundred for the toilet room and office gadget okay well I do agree with the committee's general opinion that you know the she alternate for I think it was called um you know with the what the exterior access toilets are sort of non-negotiable so do we have an idea how much it would cost to actually equip those rooms I mean we you said he had what 24 bikes was that one two three four yeah twenty buddy twenty bucks I mean that's you're not you're not approving that or if you know I think Steve said that he could probably get all that stuff donated didn't Steven mentioned that on there were a lot of grants that we could filed for and someone had brought up fundraising also and he said you know typically fundraising projects are more for the interior for that you know for the choreo seasoning like that you wouldn't really fundraise for the scope of the project fundraise for all those soft costs but I just want to mention again so we did a lot of work with you know Steve worked really hard to get all our data and answer our questions as far as the activity in there um he said that you know most teams are in their three to four times a week you know it's utilized every season an average team stays in there for two hours it's utilized 344 345 days that it's 365 it's utilized by all the PE classes during the day before it uses it and it's about on a daily basis is about 250 student to a day so and I know that our members of something that's Mike Debbie said to as part of the curriculum so it's definitely much-needed space and project that's afraid to pull just staging some quick comment like if I could you know I was you know I was like college athlete and you know we had we have really really good facilities and it does create excitement it does so there's I think there is an intangible like benefit to all of this that it you know you know you know state a yard or whatever you know a new weight room cardio room it does it does create creates a lot of buzz so I mean I don't actually know like to know what what Steve Dunn's a pain on all this his therapy you guys have reached out to him about all these different alternatives so I some information to the Board of Finance recently they requested it I know a big thing was initially they just heard the the project you know the number the final number and they you know had their opinions moving board with that but I mean you know we'd like to present the options yeah I think looks like you've done a lot of work and I think I do think they'd like to see that it's not just okay here's the number then hey alright let's look at the story behind the number I think I think you know we got you know we have to just do a really good job of telling them that I mean I was gonna go throw my two cents out there I mean yeah the the purple in the yellow yeah I think that has to be done so going yeah and that's like I know it's doubling the project but it does it's definitely an exciting project I think a lot of a lot of people would be happy to see something like this don't I do think it's important that we Wheatley be able to present them all of these options but it's it's important that we send sort of a unified message as a board as so what what we feel is is our non-negotiables and what we would prefer to see happen so and I I defer to the committee but it sounds like you know we pretty much are as a board in agreement right I mean in terms of one of those shovels on it so that we can tell the story and know that we have the sport or the full board exactly before we go out and give that information and I mean I'm sorry Rosa am i hearing that the full locker room the exterior access bathrooms and the weight room renovation are where the board is at in terms of what no I'm not hearing that in terms of the options I just want to make sure we're all together on the process tonight so just make sure I think I I myself agree with the committee that the the mean obviously the main lock area and the exterior access toilets are non-negotiable I would like to support actually the weight training in the cardio area as part of a plan that I would support I think beyond that it starts you know it's really start I mean it's it already is you know double what we had an initially thought but you know I think these are are sort of the really important parts yeah I don't know everybody out stands can you hear me okay yep very saw so the my view is we ought to take the whole project to the Board of Finance and ask for their assistance on figuring out how to finance it they're our partner as opposed to feeling like we're guilty I think we ought to just take it to them I agree with you Bob I mean that was my initial thought good Amy and Jen Debbie where do you guys stand you okay with that I'd like to see the whole project get done now do it do it right the first time and be done with it I agree I didn't realize I was muted I was trying to talk to him and I was wondering why no I'm listening to make sorry I apologize yes I think I agree with Bob we have to end the committee we have to say this is what we need and it's obvious that you look through multiple options you know and you really thought carefully about it and the CIM the members of the community for you know quite a few years now this is something that people were embarrassed about and that you know people have raised that this is a priority and this is something that's important so I support we had what three people show up for public comment two or three people showed up a few weeks ago yep South okay and you know I feel like when you when you look at I guess we're calling it option three at one point 1 million you know your spend your your spending over a million already and well I'm not I'm not at all trying to be frivolous with money I just feel like it's really not that much more than the 1.1 million to do the whole job right you know and and do everything that we need to do because I feel like we almost never get a chance to go back and you know do part two or or ask for more money and make more improvements after the fact so I agree with Bob I think we should just go in with the whole thing okay Joey is that helpful and kind of thinking about our next steps in preparing to work with the board financed that for Rosa and joy in terms of setting something up with them yeah that's that's very helpful I mean that that's great if everybody supports that you know that's what I truly felt from the beginning and I'm ready to paint that picture and you know you know push that forward as what we really feel that we want to do right thank you Thank You Eddie representing this yeah my pleasure thank you for having me thank you great have a good night everyone you too bye-bye so moving on with our agenda we have written correspondence okay Laura Orban wrote regarding the budget Ron Jaffe shared an article from the search Institute Kimberly Abreu Marisa LaFave Jennifer Ramos Marrero Elio Peto and Gina secara Watts wrote regarding reimbursement for the eighth grade Washington DC trip and Carrie Colombo wrote regarding school lunch pickups thank you up next we have approval of Board minutes so I'll make a motion that the board approve the minutes listed below as recommended the regular meeting on March 18th 2020 thank you okay thank you joy any discussion on these so all those in favor please raise your hand usually for a couple minutes seconds and say aye I thank you motions unanimous next we have our superintendent's update okay thanks Rosa so I have a number of items that I'd like to talk about and frankly it feels like we all of us have probably lived the last six months in just the past two to three weeks with a response to go in 19 and I have to commend the community the board our administrative team has been amazing our teachers parents students we've all really come together and really done a heck of a job and so I just want to Chronicle a few things for everybody in my report tonight in the first one actually is mr.
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I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible all right just make sure everybody's still here we'll do a quick roll call Joseph Britton yeah Rachael cholesky yeah Kate caneta here Gladys Cooper will be here shortly yes okay Catherine Hodgdon if you're on you're on mute there she is she's there you're on Gladys okay Gladys we can see you but we can't hear you because now we got you yes okay they're still working that out Richard Ginelli here Kathy Molinaro here Thank You al Russo here and Amy Cellino yeah excellent okay so the only absence I'm noting is Kathryn Hodgdon she says that she will be late cuz she don't get on the red thing go across it right correct okay sure so we're at the public comment and the due to the unique nature the kovat 19 crisis and the limitations of technology members of the public who are Danbury residents are invited to send brief comments and questions via email in advance to DPS that is DPS underscore public comment underscore b OE at Danbury k12 dot CT us so I guess I should ask Kara did we receive public comments yes this is sandy Sanchez Kara and I spoke earlier as of right now her and I both have access and there are no public comments as of right now 4:45 p.m.
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