If you have any questions or comments um about any of these, please do not hesitate to let me know. I'd be more than happy to sit down and talk with you about any of these or make any adjustments as necessary as our legal counsel would advise us to do. And so I'm just uh this is just the first reading tonight. Mr. Allen. Thank you, Mr. Trout.
Any questions for Mr. Trout? This is the first reading. You'll have a chance to have a look at it and bill it'll come up for a vote next time. Hearing nothing, we'll move on to item I at items of discussion by board members. Um I'll go ahead and start um the last uh I guess four or five days. Uh the year- end breakfast was fantastic. Um thank you Mr. Trout and congratulations to those that were honored. Um We just have an amazing group of educators in this county that work for this this school corporation and I'm just honored and proud uh to be able to serve on the board that uh supports that. So, um and then the graduation is honestly the best thing we get to do. Um standing there and handing people diplom diplomas um they are not confident when they get to the bottom of that ramp.
And uh when they look up at you and they are pretty sure they're not going to make it up that ramp when their name's called and you look at them and and it always makes me smile because I see the look on their face. It just it's it's entertaining. I'm sorry. Um and when they see me see me smile, they just rush up there and smile and get that stuff going. It is just the best job we could ever have. Um yeah, thank you guys. And Mr. D, Dr. DS did an amazing job getting that thing going. It was smooth and and congratulations to all the graduates. I would just reiterate the same thing. I've had that conversation. I know I had a conversation with this group about that as well. Um that is the best job as a school board member you do is to be able to handle those diplomas.
Um and you're correct. The the look on some of those kids faces as they're coming up those it is priceless. Uh, and I may be the only one that could see it at my group, but it's a wonderful time and uh, it's great and I did not mind sharing the stage with some of the other people that came up and handed out diplomas um, because I think those kids really enjoyed that as well. I was really happy for Angela to be able to come up and do that. Um, and it's great. So, kudos to the team. Mr. Trout, uh, Mr. Allen board, I'd like to take a moment and just interject here. I see a uh newest employee uh in the crowd tonight. He's been very patient with us and I want to welcome uh Mel Talbot uh to our Huntington North team in Teched.
I see your wife is here with you and I just want to acknowledge you here. I saw you here. Uh Tiffany Drummond pointed that out and I just want to make sure. Welcome to Huntington North and thank you for being here tonight. So So if you do you have anything you'd like to say to the board while you're here? You didn't know I was gonna do this to you either. I apologize now for what I just did. I guess I'd like to say when I first graduated from high school years came up. Well, we're thrilled to have you. I'm happy to be here and I work with a lot of equipment. Well, thank you. Yeah. Congratulations. Welcome. Anything else from the board? Then we'll move on to item J1. Motion to adjurnn from anyone. So moved. Thank you, Mr. Wall. And a second. Thank you, Mr.
Good evening and welcome to the May 28th, 2025 Ashlin School Committee meeting. Uh I will be chairing the meeting just for a moment as we have a reorganization of the school committee as typical after the uh board of the elections through the town. So, but let me get the agenda started first as we always do uh with our vision statement. The Ashen Public Schools strives to be a model district that creates a culture of inclusivity for our diverse students and staff who feel safe and supported, are empowered with the academic and social emotional skills to pursue their chosen path and embrace their roles as positive contributors to local and global communities. We are having this recorded through WACA cable TV. our opening procedures, agenda review and adoption first uh public participation uh administrative item re reorganization of the school committee and we'll go back to those items uh reports and presentations.
[Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Hallelujah. [Music] Oh, I am. [Music] Hallelujah. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Good evening. My name is Shannon Donnelly and I am the assistant superintendent principal at Essex Northshore Agricultural and Technical School. I am pleased to welcome members of our school committee, faculty, staff members, and all of you to the graduation ceremony for the class of 2025. [Music] [Applause] I would like the members of the audience who are veterans, active members of the military or first responders to please stand. [Applause] In addition, I would like to invite the members of the class of 2025 who are entering the military to please [Applause] stand. We would like to recognize you and thank you for your service. At this time, I would like to ask Owen Adessa, Kevin Chrisman, Jake Dion, Greg D Roachmont, Timothy Egan, Aiden Hollerin, Tristan Kindle, Nicholas Ostagai, James Porer, and Aiden Walsh to join me on the stage.
here. Sam Rosenberg here. Awesome. Great. And Jeff. All right. Gonna show our beautiful American flag and do the pledge of allegiance. Let's get this going. All right. All right. 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, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Uh before I jump into our two topics for tonight, I have the audience listed in the agenda. I am not aware of any comments or questions that came through the email. Jeff, are you aware of any? Okay. No. Okay. Uh so we have two things to talk about tonight. Uh we're going to start talking about some school start and end time proposals for postmodernization. So, starting in school year 26 and 27, I'm going to share a presentation with you. Uh, so I'll be screen sharing, but I'm also going to put this in the chat if you prefer to have this on your own computer.
Pledge of Aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [Music] Al present. Teresa present. Michelle here. Kate here. Glattis here. Lauren here. Richard. Julie here. And then the most uh important part of our recognition is to recognize our young people and the administration. So I'm going to turn it over to our superintendent at this time.
I'm um going to ask the school committee to allow for the superintendence report to be moved up and as part of my report I'm going to have the Ashlin Middle School do a presentation today uh with regard to the playbook and and they're here. So, um, then Warren School improvement plan update, warrant approvals, uh, short assistant superintendent report, right, Dr. Kyra? Excellent. Uh, and then some action items. Um, AHS crosscountry trip to Vermont. It's their second annual uh, Thatford. Yeah. Uh, the a Wacka request in terms of participation uh, for future school committee summer retreat dates, superintendent evaluation process, first read of a number of policies, and then the consent agenda. um and report to school committees then to adjourn. So are we okay with that agenda in the in adjustments? Great. Thanks. So the first we'll thing we'll do is reorganization of school committee.
These graduates have all earned their rank of Eagle Scout. We congratulate them for this commitment to service and ask them to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Stand right back here on the other for two pages. Okay. cover.
It's just a PDF. So, let's make sure that goes through this. All right. Are you all able to see my screen? should be okay. Yes. Great. Perfect. All right. So, this should take up probably the bulk of our meeting. I know that at the end we have just a little bit of an update on the energy performance contract, but that should be pretty quick. So, uh we are looking to mostly get your input on the school times for when we open up Barnum and New Norton and decommission Chapman in Darcy. So, there's a lot of information in this kind of presentation, so please stop, interject at any point. The idea here is we want to present some proposals for you all. Um, and I know Jeff, you originally had a timeline of wanting to get some community and parental input for this summer. I don't know if that's still the timeline you're wanting to work with, but the I is that still Yeah.
Good evening everyone. Evening. So tonight is a very special night. Um it's amazing how many students we have in the room and not a sound coming from the crowd. Um, but you're all here tonight for a very special event and that is to in some cases this is the second time you're receiving a recognition for your incredible behavior and your incredible academic achievements um and just for being really great kids. But tonight uh we're going to be uh awarding the Cave Student Leadership Award and also the Western Connecticut Superintendent Association award. So we're very excited. I'd like to read to you um the criteria for winning the cave uh award. Um and when I call your name u actually I'm going to come around the front here in the in the middle. I'm going to call your name along with your super well along with your principal.
As I mentioned after the elections we then um come before the committee to choose first the chair of the school committee for the next school year. So um I'm looking to take a motion for nominee for the chair of the school committee. I will nominate Miss Tosti to set a statewide record. Statewide record. Is there a second? Second.
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, with liberty and justice for all. [Music] [Applause] We now ask Sydney Bartlett to come to the stage for the singing of our national anthem. Sydney is a senior in our carpentry program from Manchester. [Music] [Applause] Oh, say can you see by the dawn early light, what so proudly we held at the twilight last gleaming. Who's brought stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight. Or the ramp parts we watched were so gallently streaming. And the rockets red glow. The bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say does that star spangled b or the land of the free and the home of the brave. [Applause] [Music] I am honored to welcome you here this evening as we navigated the whirlwind of senior activities over these past few weeks, including the awards night ceremony, a parking lot party, the scholar dinner, trivia night, the senior barbecue, the prom and now graduation.
So, um I think you know first of all I just want to preface this by saying that um I want to thank Emily and uh the team transportation doing a lot of work to take a look at what the impact of moving and opening these two buildings will be on our school system. First of all, you know, the the bus times that we have now really don't work uh for a lot of reasons over the years. the traffic on route 10. Um, you know, we probably actually Luther, our transportation coordinator, asked, you know, previously to try and change the times for next year and I, you know, I just didn't want to do that to our community when we were in the midst of knowing that we have to build these buildings much further apart and um, what is that going to do? We're going to have to change times in consecutive years and that was a lot to swallow.
Uh and we'll present your award to you and we'll take a couple of quick photos. Um but I want to read to you first what the criteria is for the cave student leadership award. Um, this award recognizes student achievement and leadership qualities. Leadership is a quality that is hard to define and not always demonstrated by all citizens. The CABE uh has developed the follow criteria that has helped to define leadership and our principles have selected these students based on following skills and characteristics. Willingness to take on challenges, capability to make difficult decisions, consu concern for others. Sorry, I'm tongue tied tonight. Uh, the ability to work well with others, a willingness to commit to a project, diplomacy, and the ability to understand issues clearly, and the ability to honor a commitment. So, all very, very important qualities. Um, and your principles have recognized you this evening.
Any discussion on Miss Tosti? And does Miss Tosti so accept the nomination? Okay. Um I don't know if we bring Yeah, I don't know if we need a roll call for this. Um but all in favor of Miss Tsy becoming the chair for the 2526 school year. I I right now I'm going to turn it back over to you. Did you Did you vote for yourself? I I abstain 301. Then next up is the um vote for the vice chair. We have any nominations for that? See any reason to change if still willing to do it? So I would do it. Mr. Terry, second. All in favor? I I I'll vote for throw monkey wrenches. Yeah, something to check. Okay. And uh we need to nominate a secretary. Tina to be our secretary. We have a second. All in favor? I I thank you. You want to vote for yourself?
I am so grateful for the collective effort that made every single moment shine. My deepest gratitude goes out to our incredible facilities, farm, and grounds crew along with the students and teachers in our CCL, carpentry, arbor, and landscape programs who help prepare our campus for these events. You really do set the stage and are appreciated. I would like to recognize several other career technical and agricultural programs that assisted with our preparations. Our culinary arts program has provided refreshments for many of our recent events. Design and media communications handled all of our printing needs, captured memories through photography, and managed tonight's live stream for our families watching from home. and our sustainable horiculture program for their stunning floral arrangements. Your skill and dedication do not go unnoticed. Behind the scenes, an army of people poured their hearts into making these senior events possible. Our senior class adviserss, our senior class officers, the ever supportive PTO, our amazing clerical team, and our administrators.