he is survived by his wife of 60 years charlotte seven children 27 grandchildren and six great grandchildren our our thoughts and heartfelt sympathies are with his loved ones we owe mr simon a great deal of gratitude and debt for what he brought to this district he and so many former board members are the reason why we are in such a place of excellence as we are today because of all the groundwork and legwork that they did before us we honor mr simon and again i ask after the pledge for a moment of silence please remain standing we will now rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance with liberty and justice thank you the new jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to advance notice oven to attend meetings of public bodies in accordance with the provisions of this act the east brunswick board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place posted at the board of education offices written notice is also provided to the sentinel the new york star ledger the home tribune and the municipal clerk of east brunswick all board of education meetings accept executive session discussions are videotaped for later broadcasts and individuals who speak at the board's public meetings should be aware of these videotaping rules good evening hope everyone is safe on this wintry night we will start off as always with our superintendent report dr valesky thank you president becker good evening everyone i'm proud to share with you that all 18 east brunswick high school national merit semi-finalists have moved on to become national merit funds wow this is a very impressive accomplishment for a single school and it's a testament to the great work of our students teachers and the entire east brunswick community this is a scholarship that requires high scores on the 11th grade psat as well as maintaining very high academic performance throughout high school high school careers only about one percent of students are eligible based on these requirements and they apply for this scholarship with an endorsement from their high school principal all 18 of the current students and finalist status will receive a certificate of merit and some will be selected to receive the national merit scholarship congratulations and good luck to all of them on friday february 12th over 1 000 certificated staff members and full-time instructional aides took part in 57 workshops that were offered for academic and student services personnel supervisors department chairpersons and teacher leaders took staff through various workshops focused on instruction along with student social and emotional learning the day consisted of two one and a half hour sessions in the morning and one two hour session in the afternoon where staff learn various types of technology implementations and assessment practices that ultimately will be utilized this school year and then finally on wednesday february 16th 41 11th and 12th graders from east brunswick high school were inducted into mu alpha theta math honor society the guest speaker was mr chiang kai-hoo he's an east brunswick high school alum and a 2017 graduate of columbia university who spoke on the importance of mathematics and critical thinking in the real world the virtual ceremony and celebration featured pictures of all inductees and invited family friends and faculty thank you i just have to say i am i am constantly amazed surprised and proud of the incredible dedication and commitment our students have especially to achieve such academic excellence during a year like this a year like no other and bravo bravo to all of you we are moving on to several presentations and we are going to start out with the annual audit presentation bernie yes um thank you very much good evening uh this evening um is the required uh report on uh the results of our school district audit uh ending the period june 30th 2020.
41. 41 well i guess we missed one and now arnold puts it in reverse i mean i i know from watching the broadcast that uh travis arnold has looked a lot better this year than previous years he's seen a lot has been in previous games but this year he's really taking this step up now puck out to the point o'connor incredibly wide i think that may have been intentional yes hopefully now walking in genevieve shot deflected and a few saves for sherwood number six for the falcons on the doorstep trying to make a play garvey hannah gets to sherwood sherwood's got nero mero working on o'connor he gets a shot on pollard go up saved uh strikes me similar to a previous uh spartan hockey player nick sarcino just that he always finds himself in the in the right position to get shots on net and now they may be physically different but just that same that same goal scoring nature for the freshman and now terzi trying to win the race but sherwood gets there and jersey maybe a little snow there on sherwood i think you tried the limit i i think if you really wanted to pull the whole brad marsh on snow the goalie then he could he could have dug in there but 42 saves for colin sherwood two and a half minutes ago and now calogi garvey hannah trying to work it cross ice turned over genevieve swings it back in see the spartans get on the board again here in the last two minutes uh you know get some momentum going i'm not gonna go home with a w today but need something here to fire him up a little yeah especially before saturday and another shot comes in what a snipe by joe hallick 6-1 falcons now these guys know how to first joe halleck cashes in the defenseman 6-1 falcons just you know it's the story of the falcons offense you know they were almost nearly shut out for the first two periods and then an explosion of goals here in the last 10 or 12 minutes arnold goes into the boards awkwardly arnold firing one on net it's redirected and garvey hannah i think got a piece of it but pollard ultimately making the save good night for pollard so far i know he's looked a little uneasy on some saves but made a lot of them look really easy 18 of 19.
so um i do want to correct i will get a correction on that ninth grade score because i know our kids scored considerably higher than the benchmark and i think i transposed some numbers so that covered the psat information we also had an sel update or a social emotional learning update and again you were provided with the slides that were presented at the curriculum committee meeting marlene solano provided the update she emphasized that cheshire high school is grounded in standards and for essay sel we use the castle standards meaning collaborative um for academic social and emotional learning for equity the measures um are self-awareness social awareness relationship skills and responsible decision making the district is using the following definition for equity it's the goal or identifying the goal of equity as addressing educational disparities and transformational ways to foster long-term change that sustains bias-free environments by redressing or remedying underlying organizational or institutional conditions that produce everyday manifestations of equity with guidance from serc the district is developing an equity policy and to date two committees have been formed a district equity leadership team which comprises teachers administrators parents and non-certified staff an administrative council which comprises people personnel services people personnel services director the k through a curriculum director building principals and assistant principals and special ed supervisors and then other components of the equity transition plans are interviews with families and students curriculum reviews and audits and creation of affinity groups just to name a few of the of the um initiatives underway um getting almost to the end promise um cirque will provide training for the uh development of protocols for um what are called courageous conversations and then ongoing um uh ongoing tasks are an equity policy that will be presented to the board for approval an equity transition plan equity audits um developing school equity equity leadership teams there will be a summer book club to review the book unconscious bias in schools the developmental approach of to exploring race and racism curriculum writing institute hiring recruiting practices continue to implement responsive classroom and continue to learn about and implement restorative practices um continue the ch uh chs club rams against racism and other groups and then um obviously coming down the pike is the african-american black puerto rican latino and latino course studies so and that's coming in 2021.
any questions okay seeing none um there is a uh there's a problem with the uh Finance uh minutes um Mr daily is it okay if we hold those minutes off to the next meeting uh I think that's very provent okay uh next we have the athletic committee Mr abrao are you yeah I'm good now I'm zoom zoom was spazzing out on me so I just had to reboot so I apologize to everybody um so the thugs committee minutes uh for February 17 2021 started at 7 :30 P I'm sorry 5:30 p.m and ended at 558m myself was present so it was presid Smith commissioner and commissioner Lucy Danny Dr Roberto and our ad Mal discussion topics were purpose of the committee to continue to support clipon students athletes continue to support atic program communicate with coaches and administrators on ways to improve the athletic experience at CHS point to uh facilities referendum three athletic subcommittee referendum uh four T the tennis courts um number five the athletic trainers possible retirement the summer next and next steps six creating a wish list for facility Supply staff Etc that's from Mr M to superintendent roberi uh meeting with coaches on um what expected uh needs are from our coaches and just to have transparency and communication with with the board last next meeting will include head coaches um meeting from the full season and the one thing I think not in here um president Smith and Dr roberi was the discussion about feeders programs in for the city so if we can just add that for the record I can certainly have those uh minutes of amended Mr adraa no problem at all I appreciate it and this is the first time we take we to we had to see that today because that meeting was yesterday so thank you to Mr mle for putting it together there any questions on the athletic minutes Mr Canova yeah I see um tennis courts are listed here um I know the last time we were in athletics we discussed a couple possibilities with tennis courts some being behind the high school some being uh using I think it was Robin Hood par and working with the city on that did any discussion ensue on those so there was so there was a discussion um luckily Miss Danny's also chair of the municipal lines committee so she was able to chime in um and Report or remind us from the mpal lines that there was conversation with the city in terms of using their tennis courts I believe we need four but there only three we're looking right now at um at various options in terms of what's be most effective and long-term um effective for our district whether it's to redo or um wait uh you know discussion with the city on um redoing Robin Hood or any other so it's still in discussion it was discussed about uh nothing imminent or nothing um no decisions were made yet but there are um reports that come back from Mr Maly on that aspect so that will be discussion all right um just just for for clarity can you add that going forward so we have some uh some view of what took place in the meeting instead of just like the general topic like a brief Mr mle did it yesterday I think it's his first time doing it for the board for us so yeah not a problem I appreciate it and Mr Robert if you can do that please absolutely not a problem I think Miss Danny wanted to add yes oh and we will be having a municipal Alli sence meeting we have put out dates um so when we get that we will ask about the tennis courts as well um just just to you know add to that thank you okay any other questions or comments on the athletic are there any other committee reports or committee minutes Mr Smith I actually had a question if possible sorry I wanted to ask Miss bassford U but I wasn't able because because my computer unmute uh in regards to I think it was 0154 I know it was first read today but it was in the policy uh minutes there was line number two it said the appointment to the position of mayor or other board committee can we just fix that line since we don't have a mayor on the board of ed um it's line two where you're adding in Clifton so if we can fix that to reflect the board and not the city side it's 0155 not 54 no5 is what discussion was with Mr daily4 I think is the other one that one's the that one that one is the um removal of member for missing unexcused three days that's 0145 oh 14 my apologies I didn't have it front of me I'll bring it back to the committee thank you anyone else all right uh next uh order of business is public recognition this portion of the meeting is open to the citizens of Clifton for the purpose of address addressing any subject matter pertinent to Andor directly related to the operation of the Clifton Public School District residents are requested to sign in the registry provided or state their name and their address for the purpose and to uh any subject matter comments are limited to five minutes per person issues raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate the board ask that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of the state of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will be liable for any comments made by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments in light of the legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments so if you would state your name and address for the record if you're a student you don't have to State your um your address Mr Smith um Max rubin's on the call right now and then I'm gonna let the next couple in while he's speaking okay uh we have a question from uh Miss bassford is there a phone number uh listed to call in yes let me get that while Mr Ruben's speaking okay um it went out in the communication it's on our website and social networking and email but I'll grab that and let you know uh in a moment thank you okay Max you're uh you're up first welcome to the meeting thank you Mr Smith good evening everyone um I have quite a few points to address tonight uh first off I want to talk about I think I might have mentioned it last meeting um the Clifton Student Union which is the organization I'm president of uh we were planning on creating a mental health survey for a while and we finally have a set time to meet with Mr doctor um and the two student assistant counselors for Clifton High School um Mr Baker and Miss Terry we're going to meet with them tomorrow afternoon me and the other executive members of CSU and we're going to finalize a list of questions asking students uh various questions about their mental health and the survey hopefully soon will be sent out to all the students in the high school and if it works out in the high school we can revise the questions and change the wording for middle school and Elementary School versions uh which would be really awesome if we were able to assess the mental health of everyone in the district um that would be our ultimate goal other than that I always mention that there's an SAT testing uh just give people an update on that uh the dates are still March 13th May 8th and June 5th uh and uh Mr doctor informed me to just tell everyone you should register as soon as possible um the space may or may not still be available at CHS um they might be taken but the only way to find out is just to try to register as soon as possible this is especially true for uh Juniors this is the time where most Juniors take their sat um and we're not sure whether colleges are requiring it for fall 2022 so I would just get on that as soon as possible um the referendum citizens committee um so I was lucky enough to be chosen to be a part of that committee and we had a meeting a few days ago um I just wanted to E a few statements that Dr Rober toy said earlier the link to the referendum website if anyone's still confused on how to get to the April 20th uh Clifton votes website for the referendum you can go to the Clifton schools website and there's a link in red bold with a little r rectangle it's at the very top of the website so you look for that if you need help finding the website um and also um if you're watching this meeting spread the word um Dr robertto said during the last referendum meeting you know if all all of the staff and all the parents vote and some of the students who are old enough to vote then the referendum should be passed so definitely spread the word about that website it's that red bold line at the top of the main page of the Clifton schools website um and then Wednesday March 3rd there's going to be a community Forum on the referendum for anyone who's still a bit confused on what's actually happening with the referendum um you can go to the community Forum meeting it's on Wednesday March 3rd and there's different 15 to 20 minute time slots for different topics of the referendum so you don't have to stay for the whole two hours if you're only interested in maybe the bathrooms you could probably go to one section of the meeting and don't have to attend the rest so it's very streamlined in order for as many people to attend and ask questions and listen to people who are involved in the referendum um and yeah I just also want to Echo a statement about I know a lot of people who have come to the board of ed meeting you know complained about how should we pass something that's going to improve the schools if we're not letting the students go to the school well now we are letting the students go back to the school but even without that the referendum is going to improve the district not just for students but for families and even the public you know the field at woodro and these improvements are going to last for who knows how long like decades so it's not just about right now it's even if we weren't going back to school you know everyone should really Vote for This referendum because it is going to improve the district for many many many years to come um oh yeah the other only other thing I wanted to mention is um the activists and academic Summit um that happened last last Saturday I believe um the two members who represented Clifton High School at that Summit I think are actually going to speak during the public portion and they should have more info on that um and then I just want to Echo in case anyone didn't hear the the um if you want to switch from hybrid to iners or in person to hybrid um I know uh remote to in person is definitely the harder one so just contact either your principal or your students guidance counselor and they should um the request should be made by either a parent or if you're a student who's younger than 18 your parent has to do it if you're 18 you can make the request yourself oh wait I'm getting oh 30 seconds left thanks just got a message that says 30 seconds left I probably just pushed it down to 20 by talking about how I have 30 seconds left all right anyway um check out the all right I I already talked about the okay check out the CHS Morning Show we're always posting important news and announcements and um yeah I hope everyone had stays safe and has a good night Max thank you very much for all the hard work you do for uh for the district for your fellow students and uh we appreciate you uh taking the time to come to our meeting so thank you very much Mr SMI if I may yes Dr uh M Smith I'm not sure and I defer to the board that Max as the student representative to the board is limited to five minutes absolutely not but that's Max just so you know Max you finish speaking Max oh I'm sorry what you're you don't have a time limit you can you're you can State any uh information that you have did you have more to say um no I I guess um I just hope that I was kind of I got a little lost in my words when I was talking about the hybrid iners uh dilemma so I just hope that wasn't confusing I basically what I was saying was that if you um if you want to switch from remote to iners or in person or remote in person or remote would be much easier just contact your child's principal or guidance counselor and the request has to be made by a parent or a student who's 18 or older that I just wanted to clarify that because I think I got got Mumble jumbled a little bit yeah thank you thank you for clarifying that and again thank you for all that you do and for coming to the meeting and uh making your reports the the board appreciates that a great deal thank you all right next up we yep next up we have Stephanie Langer followed by Mark runak to the April 20th votes website I do apologize I had the YouTube I had to pause in the background there thank you so much for giving me time to speak tonight I do have a few questions that I'd like to pose to Dr Robert toy and the board about our reopening uh I'm curious if you will be refreshing Administration and staff in our safety protocols it's been a couple of months since we were there and I think that in order to ensure everyone is on the same page maybe refresh those ideas would be helpful uh I have about the windows being open which is important since we don't have proper ventilation if we have some kind of storm whether it's rain or snow are we going to continue with the windows open if so how do we keep the kids dry because we can't necessarily move them away from Windows without moving them within six feet of one another um I'm curious as to some clarification about part of what we were told previously at one point teachers were reassured that if the covid questionnaire was not being completed that students would be switched to the remote learning track and I'm curious as to how many times it would take for that to appear as a pattern and for that to be enforced I know in the remote setting educationally I've been able to set my students up to work collaboratively in small groups using breakout rooms when we return to in-person learning it's my understanding that Middle School may be facing the challenge of teaching hybrid students as well as remote at the same time I'm wondering if the district has any headphones with microphones attached they might be able to provide to the in-person students to allow them to continue collaborating with their peers but more safely than trying to seat them together which we know we cannot do I'm also curious if we have extra Chromebook Chargers that can be placed in the schools in case the students devices run out I'm curious about what safety measures are being taken to make sure that we recognize and prepare for possible cases of hypothermia if students are sitting still in classrooms with all their windows open and they come ill-prepared maybe they don't have winter jackets we might miss signs like shivering or Blue Lips under masks and I'm wondering if we'll have places in the school where those students can warm up uh Dr Robert toosy you also mentioned a decrease in cases among schoolage children and you said you'd continue to monitor it I'm wondering what indicators you're going to be looking for specifically and at what point you would consider returning to remote learning I also know that we have spring break coming up in just a few weeks so students will have about six days of in-person learning before that happens afterwards will we be taking time to give families time to quarantine should they have chosen to travel on their spring break and I notice Mr Beagle from the health department isn't here tonight I'd be really I'd feel a lot more comfortable if I had a little more background on his opinion about this reopening process and I I just would love to hear his support of it and I'm hoping perhaps at the next board meeting when I imagine you'll be in person since the students will be perhaps he could join us in reassure those of us that are having some severe anxiety and fear over the threat to our lives from a a pandemic okay thank you very much Mr brunak Mr Brun how doing how you doing can you hear me yes thank you Dr Robert toy thank you uh president Smith vice president abrao and all the rest of the board members for me to speak tonight this is the first positive news we have had since November and I'm very thankful about the mar March 8th contingent uh contingency of having parents have the choice to send their kids back into school all we've heard over the past few months is a lot of negativity so again I'm very thankful for this positive news and uh in in a world that's been very dark and I want to know if the parents should feel confident that their kids will indeed be able to go back have that option to go back in person March 8th and does the board recommend that that the the parents who who choose this tell them now the issue is over the past almost calendar year now that the trust is essentially gone we've described in the past few meetings how devastated the kids the parents are are academically financially mentally it's taking a significant toll on them and so it's very important and on top of that I'm hoping that the district has some contingencies as well there's a lot of litigation going on in the neighboring district and the way I read the tea leaves it looks like it might be coming here too so I hope there's a contingency plan for that as well um regarding the referendum you made it Crystal Clear Dr robertto you made it Crystal Clear before so has nothing to do with the imperson learning it it has to do with safety protocol which you have made a decision in conjunction with the health department like you have said so I'm thankful for that and uh you know just so everybody knows that for this referendum all a sudden in the name of science that the voters are going to actually be allowed to vote in person so whatever change that's a possibility too and and the previous caller even mentioned regarding future board meetings if the kids are going to have a choice come back I sure is I sure hope that the Board of Ed is going to be having uh inperson sessions as well I look forward to that as well uh so I'm thankful for that and I'm begging you people to please do everything you can to keep these options open for the students it's absolutely been devastating again the positive news since November we need to try to keep the schools open for the parents that have that choice to Dr Robert toy also mentioned that the spread did not occur in school the mitigations are there everybody's got to wear a mask everybody's wear has a plastic divider between them this the closest thing that they can Pro so the mitigation is there so again all asking is that everybody do everything possible to keep these kids in class as they need it a lot of them need it Miss Yanina mentioned earlier that a lot of kids were doing okay remotely there are a lot of kids who aren't so that's what I wanted to say thank you everybody for listening and God bless America have a good night everybody thank you Mr brunak next okay the next three are Andrea orc Lori Lama then Victoria Olive evening everyone how is everyone as you know I'm Andrea Oro I am a teacher at school 12 and also the Clifton Education Association Pride chair I just wanted to um relay some emails we received um recently at school 12 we had a Valentine's cooking event and from our parents let me just go on my phone right here uh we received the email after the event with pictures this was from one of our parents Alan had so much fun thank you for taking the time to do these activities with the kids it means a lot to them especially due to covid so our parents are enjoying these family events we just wanted to invite the entire Community next week we have um An Invisible Thread the author Laura scof she is a number one New York Times and international best-selling author and keynote speaker is passionate and compelling voice on the power of small acts of kindness and mentorship Laura has fully committed herself to advocating and inspiring others through her books An Invisible Thread An Invisible Thread Christmas Story and Angels On Earth as a keynote speaker at over 300 events Laura encourages her audience to look for their own Invisible Thread connections and highlights the importance of opening up their eyes and hearts to the opportunities where they can make a difference to the lives in others this event EV is co-sponsored with the Clifton High School Key Club uh the participating members while supplies last will receive a copy of the book so we invite everyone it is on the Clifton um Public Schools site and also on our social media it will be on Thursday February 25th at 7:30 via Zoom other events we will be hosting for this month will be um 223 will be School 17 they're going to be having a paint in March uh school 12 will be having a Dr Seuss Cafe as you could tell I'm a little obsessed uh 311 School 14 will be doing a St Patrick's Day mindfulness activity 3:16 woodro Wilson Middle School will be having a day in clay where they're having um artist come in and through zoom and we'll be doing clay with Clay um projects with them and then uh saila at the end of the month will be doing some spring planting so we hope everyone in the community will join us for these events also we would love to push for the referendum as well like we Max stated and everyone stated this is a perfect opportunity for our district to improve um it's not just a one-time deal it will be for future Generations so with that said I hope everyone has a good night thank you for your time thank you Miss Oro all right next we have mama L Lama hi good evening to all my name is Lor L Lama and I'm the president of the cea I'm coming to you tonight to talk about returning to school at the beginning of March I know many of my members were surprised to know we're coming back before the end of winter and be and before the staff members who choose to be vaccinated could be fully vaccinated which is the change from the governor and nothing to do with our District I know Dr Rober toy that you and your team met with Mr beagle the health director of Clifton uh for Clifton and discuss the health and safety of the kids and the staff regarding the reopening of the school district I know there are important CDC guidelines that must be followed as well as protocols that all schools and universities must follow we are actually in the orange high-risk m Matrix according to the covid-19 regional risk Matrix but it SK still gives the district the right to remain open pending a list of recommendations to make sure the students and staff are protected and to make sure no one brings it home to the respective families we need to be mindful of masking social distancing hand sanitizing and please fill out the daily screening before or students Andor staff enter the building these protocols must be followed by everyone my ask Dr Rober toy is to make sure that all of the air filters before we go back are changed in the district the dampers in all of the univ vents are open to 10% the windows must remain open to circulate fresh air into the classroom the rooms that do not have Windows please make sure there are HEPA filters or air scrubbers I just want to get the reassurance also that there'll be 6 feet distance in the elementary school from seat to seat because I know during um October uh that six feet was very difficult in some of the classrooms um we also need to operate the HVAC system uh in occupied mode one week prior to 31 if that could be done and HEPA filters are not electric static and not ionization just the regular HEPA filters and I also want to mention the referendum um I spoke to Renee from the pr group and I have the list of njaa members that do not teach in Clifton so as soon as the infographic or the brochure is complete I will would be glad to send it out to the rest of the members that live in Clifton because we need to get this ped this is for generations to come it's not for the now it's for it's for the next 60 years because to be in a classroom that has a a univent that's older than I am that's not cool so I think it's important that the community does understand this and that it'll be for their grandkids their great grandkids so this is a definite plus for the education for the community and for selling your property or buying property people look at the Education First and we have a darn good educational system here in Clifton so thank you very much and have a great evening thank you Miss Lama Miss uh oliv hi hello everyone and good evening my name is Victoria Olive and I'm a junior at clipton high school I recently represented the clipton Student Union at a summit on youth organizing which was hosted by the UCLA civil rights project and teens take charge a student activist organization in New York City the summit focused on racial Justice in the school system and I would urge all who can to visit the teens take charge website to visit the panels the summit allowed myself and ran aala the other representative to the CSU to see the action that other students and organiz ganizations are taking across the country to address racial inequities in education um okay the Clifton Student Union hosted a talk speaking on the power of student organizing and advised attendees on what to do in situations where they feel they are not being heard by adults what I was able to take from this meeting is that while Clifton is certainly on the right track when it comes to racial equity in schools there are still steps that we can take to give every student the best footing to succeed in the world listening to the summit has made me genuinely appreciate the willingness of our board to um the willingness of our board to listen to student speaking and their problems one young woman at the summit was banned from speaking at her school's Board of Education after bringing to their attention the abuse she suffered in her District special education program ran and myself are reaching out to help her and assist her in getting heard by the Board of Education and hearing stories like hers made me very proud of the Clifton Board of Education I would especially like to urge all members of the Board of Education to watch the panels from the summit they provide a view of the importance of racial Equity from the perspective of students Educators and professionals I would also like to urge any members of the diversity and inclusion committee who are watching to see these videos as well to get ideas for initiatives they can Implement in the Clifton School District in the future for anyone who would like to watch videos from The Summit please go to teamstake charge.com and find the event activists X academics thank you thank you thank you very much okay next we have um a phone number ending in 5380 caller with phone number hero you're up yes good evening this is Mary sraa uh number one I don't understand why this meeting is not on channel 77 or channel 40 while you're on Zoom it was able to be done with the council I don't understand why it's not there I'm getting lots of complaints uh with Texas from people no that's number one number two we've got to do a better scheduling of meetings and I'm not sure if this is your regular scheduled date but there are there were two important meetings going on today at the same time that's why I'm on my phone because it's the planning board meeting at the same time regarding the valley Regency so it's impossible for the citizens of clipon to be at two different meetings at the same time but the purpose of my call today is number one I did leave a message for the superintendent today but I didn't get a return call um I question is or comment with the referendum and I learned this with the leri park referendum when the school board puts out information about this referendum they are required to give all the facts not estimated cost based on an average assessment of a house it's a simple calculation what is the cost of this referendum per $100 of assessed value so each property owner can figure out what this will cost them each year for the next 25 years additionally I don't know who runs your uh Facebook page Clifton Public Schools this referendum is not just about HVAC and bathrooms each time you publicize this you must put in that it also includes Turf and the weight room and you are also required to show the cons of the turf the full picture must be presented again this was learned way back when in 2006 so I sure hope that it is changed lastly maybe it's time the board sells latii Park to the city of Clifton the city is more than willing and have has in the past has talked to the board about it and I think those Board needs money there's property sitting there that can be sold to the city but again I really hope and I will be watch looking to make sure that the the board gives all the information this chart that you put up today first it was was terrible I got so many calls about it first it's it's talking about monthly then it's talking about this most for example my property doesn't even fit on that because unfortunately in this case my property is assessed over $300,000 you need to tell all the facts it's a requirement by law you just can't be one-sided again I hope everyone has a safe evening I guess everyone is home from Zoom but I do hope that this meeting while on Zoom can be put on channel 77 I was expecting it to be on channel 77 this evening I believe there was some indication that it would so instead what was being oh it actually was shown on the screen that it said the Board of Ed meeting will be on so instead it showed something from 2020 with something a a a screen on the bottom saying it won't be shown again I'm a huge proponent of transparency we're in a pandemic people need to be able to look at these meetings and see it I mean these numbers calling in seniors were calling me today they were like what me what number do I call in which meeting how will I know if I really wanted to talk at the planning board or if I wanted to talk at the school board we've got to do a better job of not scheduling meetings at the same time again I hope everyone has a lovely evening and thank you for your time councilwoman councilwoman this is Dr Robert toy I just want to let you know I called you back today at 3:47 p.m.
first we'll have joseph crotchfelt director of financial services provide some background information and then mr scott clelland partner with wisson company our independent auditor will report on his work and the results of the audit so um joe uh bernie are you going to pull up the it's coming okay great thank you um so first of all thank you for allowing me to present the 2020 comprehensive annual financial report um as you can see on the screen um we have received the two awards for several years in a row the first one for seven years in a row the second one for five years in a row so that's a pretty good accomplishment um and very proud of that uh bernie next slide so the governmental funds have four separate funds the general fund special revenue capital projects and debt service next slide party the general fund captures the day-to-day operations of this the district salary benefits utilities uh supplies and materials um the expenditures were up a little bit from the prior year uh but very consistent under fund balance the again very consistent fund balance of 25 million dollars that's not free balance there's reserves legally required items the new item for the 2020 year was the the last item reported the 93 63 000 um due to the savings uh of transportation not running in the negotiations that mr juliana did with the transportation companies who are able to bring that money forward and offset uh some items in the current uh budget next slide special revenue fund that captures all the the grants uh whether it's federal state um local including the evf and uh pta uh you can see there's slight increases in the ida and nclb which is the title funds the new item there is the last item reported the cares act due to covet that was the federal um stimulus bill that they put out we received 529 000 for that and mainly it went to the purchase of computers so we had total expenditures of 14 million dollars again very consistent with the prior year the other item the last item reported did increase about five million dollars that captures the items the construction the capital purchases that we we purchased through these purchase funds so we account for that in the special revenue fund and board by all means if you have any questions please chime in the capital projects fund that's where we do construction not related to lease purchase we had 5.9 million dollars and about a 3 million dollar increase over the prior year and that was mainly due to the ecip program that we are involved in bernie if you hit an accident it'll pop up um as the board and publics know we entered into an energy savings initiative program we did various improvements uh and it's paid for through the savings so you know the district has been very proactive in trying to reduce our carbon footprint and i'll be being energy efficient next slide the last governmental fund is uh debt service our balance of bonds payable as of the end of the year was 70 million dollars about a decrease of 5 million dollars due to refunding due to paying down of debt next slide debt service fund analysis uh the most important thing to take off this slide is the last bullet point um we are legally able to borrow four percent of the annual uh people average equalized value so if the board chose we could go out for bonds for an additional 233 million dollars and that's been consistent over over the last several years next slide then we have our enterprise funds the enterprise funds operate with a motive to to make money um the child nutrition program you know we we had a difficult year due to covet we totally had to change how we operate um the grab-and-go meal program since march we did you know had a decrease in operating revenue of about six hundred and fifty thousand dollars uh we had a decrease in operating expenses of about five hundred thousand but it wasn't you know the revenue going down because of the type of service we were doing really impacted the change in that position typically we we bring in about 100 000 profit a year which is uh you know a low amount but where we want to be with child nutrition so we can make various improvements this year we lost twenty three thousand dollars it's the first time i would say in seven probably eight years that we lost money in this fund in the the lunches uh the bottom bullet there were also decreased compared to the prior year next slide um excuse me joe before you move on to the next slide i had a question um you use the term when you introduce a slide the enterprise funds um are geared to make money for the district and that's not a phrase one usually associates with a school district so if you could just explain for anyone who's watching just briefly uh embellish a bit on that concept sure so yes right the district is not in the business of making money right we're here to educate to have a budget that's balanced in accounting terms the enterprise fund allows the district to make money now in child nutrition we don't want to make money we're not trying to overcharge the parents or the students for the meals that they're they're taking but as we get into the other slides you'll see community programs and facility rentals it's an opportunity for the district to bring in money make a profit and put that profit towards the general fund to offset taxes to allow the district to balance the budget and implement programs so it i believe our district has done an excellent job especially in community programs of returning money to the district to allow us to to not cut things you know over the last several years so you you know we're always looking for those opportunities it's provide a service and also try to make a little bit of money so kobe definitely had an impact on on these financials for june 30th thank you for that clarification so when we get into community programs um you'll see we had a loss of 374 000 so our revenues decreased um 1.2 million because we we were offering the number of programs the early morning the after school programs for the last three or four months of the school year so if we're not running programs there's no revenue coming in unfortunately we still not from a financial standpoint unfortunately we still had the same expenses we were required to pay all of our staff per state law which helped people through and prevented unemployment but the bottom line is it had a negative impact on our financials so typically we make 800 000 in this in the community programs fund so it's a decrease of 1.2 million that you know we made and we were not able to transfer any funds over to the general fund so again as a direct result of co-fit next slide so for some of these rentals um we did make a profit of 138 000 but our revenues were down 550 000 uh marks through uh the beginning of june is really the the uh the hot spot for dance recitals and that's where we take in most of our our facility rental money from jm pack and we weren't able to do that so we saw a decrease in revenue of 550 we also had a decrease in expenditures the net result we made 138 000 typically we're around 500 000 so it was a 370 000 decrease from prior years next slide financial facts we had cash inflows and outflows very consistently prior year we have a a good cash on hand balance next slide uh bernie you can just flip through the next several slides um and as you're doing that i just want to make a comment you know for just like the education piece of pivoting to remote and continuing to educate students we had to pivot in so many ways from the financial operation whether it's hr how we were operating through payroll paying vendors serving children meals offering virtual enrichment programs we we continue to offer virtual early learning academy so you know in a school district before covet working from home doing remote just like instruction it was a foreign concept um but i'm proud to say from a financial aspect we were able to do that and still stay in compliance still maintain separation of duties still make sure that the district is in good financial position despite the impact of copen and that's not done by me that's done by you know the board dr gillespie uh mr juliana uh and the whole central office team and all the support staff that go along with it so um you know i just wanted to make that comment and really this final slide says it it's a team effort i i've done this slide a couple times uh last prior years and it really is a team you know we all have our roles and we try to do it the best we can um and i think we do a really good job so in the audit kind of supports that so that's my presentation i know scott has his presentation more on the audit and the outcome of that and i'll turn it over to him unless the board has any questions thank you joe i appreciate the hard work and the success of of what's been achieved ernie i couldn't see everyone did any board members have any questions indicate that they had any question on joe's presentation um i don't have a view of all the board members with uh the screen up in this manner but um i don't i didn't hear anyone uh asking uh to comment all right when we go back to gallery view if anybody uh did want to ask a question please just raise your hand or chat me thank you so um welcoming scott clelland from wisson company good evening scott good evening bernie thank you for inviting me tonight as well and um i look forward to presenting the results to the audit you're going to control the screen again yes good evening members of the board i appreciate again the opportunity to be here to present the audit for the 2020 fiscal year earlier in the week i had the opportunity to meet with the administration and finance committee to go over the audit in detail and what i'd like to do tonight is just piggyback off of what joe had gone over and speak more from the results of the order perspective and some of the obstacles that we had to deal with from a covey perspective first of all i want to thank dr valesky and bernie and and joe and tara and all the administrative staff for really going above and beyond this year with helping us get an audit done we did the entire audit remote and it involved a lot of questions and feedback going back and forth with various phone call meetings encrypting data sharing back and forth and as usual the administrative staff stepped up and did a tremendous job helping us get the audit done with the covet crisis the audit is normally due on december 5th and due to the covet situation and the lack of information being provided by the state division of pensions the deadline was moved to february 5th of 2021 just a week or so ago and i'm reporting that the report was filed on time with the state in accordance with the revised statutory requirements the audit takes a bit of time and again it again you guys did not miss a beat we were very concerned going in regarding how are districts going to handle the compliance to all the statutory requirements and also to handle not letting the internal controls slip and during our testing of all the major systems and all the key controls that are operated by the district the district did not miss a beat controls remain strong you have a very very strong administrative finance team in place that you should be very very proud of because they really really do a great job as joe kind of mentioned the audit is all inclusive on this slide we look at administration we look at instruction we look at student services we look at transportation related items and there was extra time spent with bernie this year going over how he settled up the transportation contracts because it was a unique situation out there and he did a very good job managing through and negotiating those contracts operations the enterprise fund operations like your facility rentals like joe mentioned and then also you have internal service fund operations or your self-insurance for your health plan which is administered in a separate fund we look at your capital improvements and we also look at your debt service and one thing to mention in the debt service area uh the district is very very proactive in looking at your existing debt and when the opportunity does arise they take full advantage of refunding a debt to identify savings and the refunding of older debt from a 2010 or 2012 that took place this year will result in over three million dollars of savings to the school district over the next several years from the interest perspective uh scott i just want to interject here for a moment uh because uh for clarity of the you know in in terms of the public refunding of debt that's um a term uh in the industry but essentially it's a refinancing so by refinancing the debt uh in our um our capital debt uh we were able to um to ultimately uh see that the district will save in excess of three million dollars as uh mr clelland noted the order's objective is we are required to perform procedures which includes inquiry observation confirmation testing transactions testing for controls and testing for compliance and the ultimate goal is that we have to provide an opinion an opinion on those financial statements as to whether they are accurate and in performing our procedures this year even under the covid 19 situation and the pandemic everything we requested everything we had to verify all the procedures we were required to perform by our standards were performed were able to be performed and we were able to become comfortable that the financial statements are fairly presented in accordance with u.s general accepted accounting principles for us to render an unmodified or a clean opinion on those financial statements which is the highest level of opinion that can be placed on any entity's financial statements as part of the procedures of the audit we also look at as i mentioned previously internal controls over those financial statements and we also have to look at internal controls over compliance for such things as bidding and quotes and all the other requirements of the state of new jersey and i'm happy to report that there were no findings that were identified that uh would result in any issues or and no findings at all identified during the course of the order which again something you should be very proud of especially under the pandemic circumstances next slide um we also are required to look at your federal and state programs your largest federal program normally is your idea program for special ed students and that's the program we looked at again this year and we also look at various state programs and in all of our procedures we did not identify any internal control matters or lack of compliance for how your funds were spent for your federal and state programs uh next slide uh the report that was presented this evening when you have in your hands is a comprehensive annual financial report which includes the introductory section which is a district prepared area which talks about all the nice accomplishments and some of the issues that were dealt with from covet 19 the financial section is where the orders opinion is located as well as the financial numbers and related notes the statistical section is an area in the back of the report that has 20 schedules that have statistical data such as debt limits number of teachers teacher student ratios it's a good document to look at for general information and then the fourth category is your single audit section which is where the information related to your testing of your federal and state programs is documented next slide uh so i mentioned earlier the results of this year the operating results were very very good again uh district is remains in a very strong financial position uh even though we had some losses in some of the enterprise funds due to covid and as usual the financial records were in excellent condition as joe mentioned you should be very proud of the fact that you've received the international asbo certificate of excellence for seven consecutive years and the gfo certificate of achievements for five consecutive years you are one of i think two or three districts that actually is able to receive both of these awards um so that's again very proud accomplishment that you should always abort be very proud of thank you next one as i mentioned earlier there were no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies and really were not any findings this year's all for two consecutive years and in auditing your grants we also had a clean unmodified opinion on compliance next slide i think that's it right yes so just in summary um you have a very very strong financial picture you have very very strong financial people in place that do a very very good job and take their job very very seriously and you're very lucky to have a strong administrative group like you like you do there in east brunswick and the boards be very proud of of what you have accomplished from dealing with this pandemic as well as all the different accolades that continue to come forward to east brunswick public schools so with that i'd be more than happy to open it up for any questions you have and again thank you again for inviting me to tonight's presentation thank you scott um any questions from board members i did want to also um offer congratulations to our finance team for consistently being awarded those two certificates of financial excellence it's a testimony to their work and dedication but joe i'm going to go back to the slide that you showed in your presentation of the puzzle pieces because it is a great slide because i think that rules and regulations are only as good as they are carried out um not just in terms of accuracy but in terms of collaboration and coordination and i think every single member of this district administrators support staff all employees of this district share in these awards to a certain extent because it is the way that they carry out the financial efficiency of what is said to them that makes us so successful so um kudos to everyone did i say something of course um i just wanted to to um along with you thank mr giuliana mr crossfelt mrs rosaving they are key players in making the finances of our district so solid but i also want to thank the board of education because for the community who's listening uh behind the scenes when we had to remove ourselves from our buildings march 18th of 2020 the board quickly geared up with what i believe where were frequent uh meetings we had meetings almost every week and finance meetings were reconstructed uh by breaking the board down into components of three members a piece we would have them all the same night so we would have compliance but we would go through and and we were sharing information with the board at that time about what the immediate impacts of the pandemic were looking like what we were going to have to do to balance our budget last year what we were going to have to do to plan for this year so scott i appreciate your audit and your team and um it just goes to show all the hard work that was put in behind the scenes and such a positive result for the uh for the taxpayers of east brunswick and the the prudent uh fiscal operation of the district i can't say enough about these people mrs becker yep so um before moving on i would like to express my sincere thanks to the team we have a number of members of the financial services department online tonight and i want them to know from me how much it's appreciated uh the hard work and the dedication that they put forth uh each and every day um i i don't think they approach um their responsibilities as just being a job they truly care about this district and it is a family and um i'm very proud to be associated with this team and for the diligence that they show each and every day and i thank you very very much for all of your work you make all of our lives much calmer and we breathe easier because of the work that you do now that was very very lovely bernie thank you um before we proceed i just want to mention that i've been getting text messages from several board members who are experiencing various internet problems either with visual or audio and um just apologize if they have to keep going in and out or rebooting so uh just wanted to let everyone know that's what's going on okay um great audit presentation thank you skin scott now i believe we have three budget reports bernie jeff yes we do um so let me uh just take a moment here to get the right slide up and and we're off to the races so this is continuation of our budget discussions and presentations uh on the 2020 or 2122 school district budget um tonight we have three presentations the first one i ask dr figueroa to speak with regard to athletics thank you very much mr giuliani can everyone hear me okay yep okay great good evening everyone i'd like to review with you to propose budget for athletics for the 2021-2022 school year athletics helps our students develop positive character traits lifelong values and leadership skills it also helps our students explore their physical abilities and healthy and social environment with their peers during covert times we've had our athletes tell us that sports have helped them relieve stress both physically and mentally provided them with something relatively normal during these difficult times we can go on so these some of the areas covered by the budget the athletic programs and the competitions uh tonight i'd like to review for you some of the areas that take up most of the athletic budget so if we can go to the pie chart okay let's start with athletic uniforms athletic uniforms are 13 of the budget we're on a four year cycle this is a cycle that was created by mr juliana uh mr crotchfeld mr yanazzo four years ago we're actually we'll be starting again 2022 on the new cycle what's good about this cycle is that every four years the teams get new uniforms not just the varsity team what that means is that there are no more hand-me-downs so there's no more varsity to jv they'll be the freshman everyone will get new uniforms and i think our our athletes really appreciate that also i'd like to point out another big area athletic officials fees 26 on your screen now the new jersey interscholastic athletic association or the njsia have three-year contracts for officials that we must adhere to and that's what those numbers are for uh last i just want to talk a little bit about the contracted transportation oh that's 28 as you see on your screen that's transportation that's needed for athletic events that we cannot cover with in-house buses now last year our transportation costs and mr giuliani correct me if i'm wrong we're about 55 percent of our athletic budget uh but thanks to the board and the work of dr valesky and mr juliana we were able to have two additional buses that we can have in use next year that will save us an additional 123 000 i also want to just mention uh that when he is aboard our new supervisor of athletics mr malta and i will review each sport this spring and this fall and we'll come up with some recommendations as we move forward for the coming years do you have any questions on the athletic budget bernie can we go back to the full gallery view thank you any board members have any questions comments jeff anything you wanted to add i did get a chance to preview this the other night but i'll tell you uh the reporting of the budgets i did mentions to uh mr julian the other night and uh mr crossfelt and at all uh the reporting and the way that they're laid out the pie chart uh it makes it so clear uh and really easy to understand i know these budgets which i've dealt with for years you can get lost in the muck and and uh so i can just let you know i greatly appreciate and hopefully the public does too that um the explanation of uh where things go and how and how they'll be spent uh i think it's great so i do apprec for both myself and uh all that uh have an interest in seeing it thank you okay any other questions thank you so much lou um bernie special ed yes so next is special education and we will be coming back to dr figaro in a moment but first we have special education and uh i would invite miss kelly bond mrs bond to speak on her department thank you very much and and good evening to everyone thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening and to share the proposed special education budget i'm always happy and proud to share the the important work of the special education department uh i have sincere respect for all the people within it that make the department great so i want to take a moment to thank all of them and also uh to thank this board dr valesky and dr figueroa for all the support that has been given to me um since joining the team uh the department and then in turn the students uh within it the proposed budget supports the mission and the principles of the special education department the heart of our work is truly to take care of students in addition our actions must align with the new jersey administrative code and federal regulations um this slide demonstrates many of the requirements the staff within the special education department are responsible for so we our goal is to strive to create quality programs to meet the needs of all learners the proposed budget helps us provide the many services needed to ensure the fidelity of all of those programs that we offer while remaining in compliance with the law the next slide lists many of the services that are offered by the special education department in order to meet the needs of the whole child we do perform a variety of different types of evaluations to ensure that we look at each child through various lenses and in turn to ensure that we're providing an individualized and exemplary educational experience that truly meets all of their needs the social and emotional supports that are offered within the special education department are critical always but even more so as we enter a school year following an extended school closure due to covid the next slide uh demonstrates a downward trend of out of district placements over the past 10 years you can see on this slide here in 2010 2011 we had 93 students in out of district placements uh fast forward to our proposed 21 22 where we anticipate having 46 students out of district this number can fluctuate dependent on student needs however we do based upon at the actual numbers in which we have at this time and and this downward trend is something our department is really really uh proud of and um you know the reason that this can happen is because east brunswick has successfully created many specialty programs that allow us to educate students in the least restrictive environment and in their community schools due to the support of the board and the hard work of the entire department we offer a wide variety of specialized programs to meet the needs of our diverse population one change that will occur for next year is we're going to be adding an elementary autism section and um this does not require any additional teaching staff because we will be decreasing a preschool section so we really look at our projections to make those decisions on what is needed and the last slide is a visual representation of the proposed special education budget inclusive of many of the items that were included in the previous slides so our budget is um you know truly fiscally responsible but but keeping in mind at the heart of what we do and and that's making sure that we meet the needs of all of our kids and uh and take care of the students in our in the best of our ability so thank you so much again for your support and your time and i'm happy to answer any questions that anyone might have um i see a hand raised um jeff barbara was that your hand raised you have laurie you have jeff okay i saw jefferson laurie then who bernie we will then lee will jeff flory lee thank you um you're breaking up your return to that slide with [Music] can you hear me now is that better yes yeah uh i all right so apparently there's a thing a camera thing so ms bond can you if yeah uh the slide before that one please can can you speak to for those who don't quite understand the mechanics uh behind out of district placement what this actually means from a savings standpoint and and and why this is so important that we're uh able to contain uh many of the other uh many of the areas that are needed right within the district as opposed to out of district placement um tell us can you tell or either you or mr giuliana speak to the impact of this uh drastic change over a ten year period um i don't know if mr giuliani if you want us to speak to more of the fiscal impact um for for us it's important to have students in district schools and in their community schools as often as possible um to comply with the law number you know one of the reasons for the least restrictive environment but also for students it's it's it's wonderful to have the opportunity to be in your community school so because we've increased in our self-contained offerings and our specialty programs we're able to educate students within our um within our schools the fiscal impact is is quite great given that out of district placements are are quite expensive so looking at this shift over time and and you know we chose to put three different years on but it has steadily decreased since 1011.
collard has answered the call on now dobeck trying to slip it to haynes haynes looking in front and now dobeck he's run into by worse a lot of high checks here today devin yeah and i think it's just because miniature is so much taller than these spartans they're so much bigger in size yep now doveck two on two with hanes he's somani now dobak walking in haynes shot i don't know just like got away with i think it was just the wrong side to be on and shot big save by john pollard now arnold a blast [Music] i'm looking for a clone floating on the ice is he 45 seconds to go now arnold the other way two on two with haynes arnold fakes the slap shot walking in hanes didn't get a good stick on it now nero swinging it around under 30 seconds to go and now dom this kid i think is just good you can give him four strides he's gonna be down the ice and he finds in front noel looking for the hat trick and save maiden it's covered and terzi and o'brien have some words and now we got a little fight breaking out i believe jersey in the middle of it [Applause] dom terzi who's been making some dirty plays throughout the past few matchups and you know you got to be a sportsman when you're up 6-1 and unfortunately kind of uh you know not showing much class there by a little cheap shot there by sherwood wasn't exactly no yeah absolutely sure would also in the wrong shouldn't have done that but jersey no need to retaliate you know you're up 6-1 let the score talk for itself he's such a great player too not enough positive things to be said about that miniature top 13 seconds to go and soon we'll just have a uh hopefully a quiet end to the period into the game well to the period end game i guess and this is 6-1 without drew vanzant we can't forget who is let me tell you a marksman with the puck and um we're gonna i think we're just gonna forfeit the rest of the game gonna end the game here probably not a terrible idea 6-1 the final at olympia center john pollard earns the win colin sherwood 43 saves on 49 shots and 20 saves on 21 shots for john powers we'll be back tomorrow night against the ludlow lions uh looking forward to calling that one myself along colin casey but connor we are happy to have you on board any thoughts going forward to tomorrow night's game connor i think you
so a quick overview of a very informative meeting and i don't know if anyone has any questions okay adam was first then tim close enough tim was very fast it was that was that was close that was that could have been a tie um thank you for the uh excellent overview um i guess i'll uh direct my questions to marlene um you gave an excellent presentation i just happened to watch the curriculum meeting that night and i saw your presentation on equity um and so uh particularly on the on the equity policy is that something that's going to be coming before the policy board soon is that or is is that and is that a policy that's written by cabe or is that um come from somewhere else so those are all great questions um the policy is not written yet that's something that those groups are working on with circ um and we've also been looking at other districts policies i'm unaware if there is currently a cave policy but that's part of our are looking i'm seeing jeff shake his head no um i know that some other districts have them so we'll put something together and then you know bring it forward to the policy committee great um let's see secondly was the uh the summer reading book uh i didn't see an author there um i certainly would like to read it i don't know if any of the other board members have read it or would like to read it um could you supply us with that information so that we could i guess purchase the book so that you know we can get informed on that i i can it's called unconscious bias in schools it's written by tracy benson and sarah fireman and this is um only being read by our administrative cohort oftentimes in the summer we read a number of books and this one is one that has been recommended by a number of different groups in connecticut that we work with and so that will be something that that the administrative team will meet together to discuss and really um i think the point of that is to have a starting point for some conversation so that we have something in common to talk about and something to support you know a collegial discussion on this this vast topic but we definitely get anyone who would like won a copy of the book thank you because i know uh just going back to the personalized learning task force um i remember reading the book that the uh facilitator was using for the members and by reading that book it shed a lot of light on you know where the facilitator was coming from and and how he was shaping conversation and it was so it was it was a good thing to know and i think this book may have the same effect of you know going forward um for all of us to read i can also share with you some of the other articles that the administrative team has read as a part of that and i can get those out to you even sooner than i can get you the book so right as well um and lastly um there is mention of a training um is that something that board of ed members can attend i think you had mentioned something like that at the meeting uh you know if it's something you know for me personally if i have to plan for it to take a day off from work or something i would like to you know be able to know in advance so the at the end of that meeting there was conversation from some of the members about would it be possible to get a training put together for board members and i did look into a couple of different places who would do that work and i'm waiting on some some pricing so i know that circ also you know because they've been working with us that might be an avenue that we we could pursue but i can get that information together for the board and um and we can proceed from there fantastic thank you you're very welcome yeah thank you um yeah so the first thing i just wanted to say is uh with regard to investors comments i i just i'm sympathetic to where he's coming from i've never been particularly comfortable with um standardized testing my own experience you know 10 years apart i took the gmat 20 years ago 10 years ago both times i got a 680 it measured it i think it probably did a fair measurement on me because i got the same score both times i put a lot of time into it to study other people don't that's more an indication to me of how someone studies rather than what they actually know so it i mean it could be a piece of it and i know i've read the um i read your uh your email marlene so thank you for that because it said this is really just a piece of student evaluation so that's good i still i frankly though it still makes me feel uncomfortable i don't really like standardized testing so i i am sympathetic um but i mean my understanding is it's basically state law i i well we could vote and say we don't like it and that's what i'm saying i'm not going to make a motion or anything right now about it um i'm just not really i've never really been that comfortable standardized standardized testing um if they with regard to the psats you were talking about the numbers and honestly i apologize i i couldn't i didn't follow it i'm wondering i couldn't i just want to i just wanted was there was there like in the 30 second elevator story was there a trend that you were talking about you know what actually um that was actually going to be one of my questions i do want to make a correction on the ninth on the ninth graders i did have a typo in there and and just to go back on the ninth grade scores um you know the benchmark for reading writing was 410 the chs average is 486 so above the above the benchmark and the math benchmark was 450 and the chs um average was 472.
left left you a message on your voicemail uh so if you can please check please check your voicemail I called you from my personal cell phone number I didn't get it I didn't get it I have been checking my cell phone I don't know what the problem was but that's okay um those were my questions I asked were gonna ask you but I asked them tonight no problem thank you I just wanted I just wouldn't want you to think that I wouldn't return your call that's all okay thank you thank you good night everyone good night uh next Mr Mountain another phone caller um it doesn't have a number it just says Callin user so if you're calling in by phone this is you hello hi we can hear you you have five minutes okay um well my first question that I quot about was just answered I was going to call and ask why the meeting's not on TV my second question is it's to my understanding that our students when in school um like whether it's regular or or um alternating schedules or whatnot um we have a dress code and it's to my understanding that nobody's allowed to wear anything that um portrays a iCal statement which I'm actually against I'm a big supporter of the First Amendment and freedom of speech um I don't understand why Mr aad thinks it's okay to wear a black lives matter shirt uh to a board event meeting when we have students that have been sent home for wearing the shirt like that and or students that have been sent home for wearing other shirts um I have a student in the district who was sent home for wearing a 911 me me memory t-shirt on 911 was asked to take it off and change his shirt my wife had to bring him a separate shirt or he was going to be sent home um the rule shouldn't be do as I say not as I do and I have no problem with him wearing that shirt to the meeting like I said I'm you you I'm a big supporter in freedom of speech but if if the Board of Ed members are allowed to wear it then students when school returns should not be sent home for wearing black lives matter all lives matter abiding shirt a trump shirt a 911 shirt or anything else that states a political statement because that's a violation of freedom of speech and [Music] um I believe that anytime that the board of the school administrators or anyone tries to suppress that the the board or District should be facing a lawsuit that's that's why I called that that was my second thing to call to call about because I think it's I I I commend him actually for wearing that shirt because it's what he believes and there's nothing wrong with that but when school returns if my son or daughter gets sent home for wearing something to that matter to that shirt or an all lives matter or a 911 shirt I could promise you guys you will have so much my lawyer and so much litigation you won't know what to do because that's not right and I tried speaking with people about this when it first happened a over a year ago was about you know just not last September September before and I got the runaround I got we'll call you back I got this I got that fin I got to the point to where you know what I was like I'm just going to let it go and if it happens again next year then I'm going to get my lawyer involved and while next year we were in covid and not in school anyway but I just yeah if you guys are going to be allowed to wear it which and have a political statement then the students and teachers should be allowed to it shouldn't be one way or the other it's not something that should be taken lightly um everybody today is a snowflake with oh it offends me the the the black the seeing of black lives matter instead of an all lives matter shirt does offend me but it's freedom of speech it's our first amendment it's the Constitution and nobody not you not the principal not the governor has the right to stop that sir excuse me could you state your name and uh address for the record please um I'd rather remain anonymous um but I am a Clifton resident and I do have two children in in the school one in one in middle school one in high school okay hey thank you very much Mr Smith if I I would like ask that caller not to use the snow word because that could be very derogatory well I agree with him on on freedom of speech that should not be used if you'd like to you can do that with the administration at a later Point not during this meeting not to use the what word okay uh Mr Mountain if you give us the next caller please the next caller is also a phone caller phone number ending in 3640 okay 36 you have the floor Hi how are you can you hear me yes we can hear you okay uh my name is Kaitlyn white I live in Clifton my whole life and I still reside here um I know this probably doesn't matter because over the years when I've when we were live and in person voices of non-parents or non-educators in this town were ignored and bantly told to me you don't have kids in this system and I replied it takes a village to raise a child and my tax dollars do pay for it so my concern is one I it's frustrating for me to have to watch these meetings on my laptop it's just annoying um my family who was elderly and in Clifton have complained about how they cannot watch these meetings because they do not have internet they do not have computers and laptops because they are older they're seniors and yet they you guys want them to vote on a referendum I completely understand now when I was in school and the teachers used to tell us go home and tell the your neighbors that don't have children to vote the referendum to vote I get why they the adults would say nope not doing it because as I heard the auditor say you have 1.2 million in Revenue you have 1.2 million and some of these things have not been done I graduated in 2004 some of these facilities have not been updated before May and that's on you that's on people that came before you I hate to say this but half of our tax bills go to the school board and then there's fun so I don't understand why things weren't done like in a house when a toilet goes you go and replace it you go and fix things the fact that bathrooms haven't been updated in 60 years doesn't say anything about us not wanting to pay for it we have funded it but you guys haven't done your due diligence to keep infrastructures functioning when a roof needs to be replaced on a home we replace it people cting can't afford it anymore especially with a pandemic people have lost their jobs you know I could understand agac I could understand updating some things you have 1.2 million in Revenue left over you have more of our tax dollars coming in you know really we got to hunker down we can't just just because it's there doesn't mean that we can all afford it because we can't and I want those kids I say I always say academic over Athletics and teachers over Turf we are turfing everything and we need to get back to basics we you can't the the well is running dry and I hate to say it but it it really is we can't afford it especially in times like this we need to hunger down and honestly the people we feel left out because the people that don't have kids and you're not putting our the things on cable we have no idea about this referendum we have no idea the date if it's in person how much this election is costing we have no one has given anything to the average citizen in this town it's the village that raised the children I'm part of the village I I don't know most of this information and people that don't have Facebook or social media or Internet they have no idea they're even more in the dark than I am so maybe we need to like revamp something and think about the average person that's living living in this town that either doesn't have children doesn't have school AG children or can't have kids but they still pay the bill so it's just some food for thought just from the other spectrum of a non- educator in the town non parent of a child in the town but a person that's funding you know everything year there's a lot of us and there's a lot of seniors in this town and they're in the dark so we can get on cable so uh some food for thought and I hope you have a all good night thank you Miss White Mr Smith uh Mr Smith if I may only because it's been mentioned a couple times tonight uh by Mrs White and also by councilwoman cedra hula I'd like to address the issue with Channel 77 may I yeah I just want to see is there anyone else waiting in the in the no Mr Smith there's no one in the waiting room so that's it uh board entertain a motion motion to close motion Clos second by vice president alao uh superintendent thank you Mr Smith so um it the the previous meetings that we've had that have been on Zoom have also been on channel 77 what happened today was because of the storm the high school building was closed a staff member needs to get into to the building to have those meetings run they can't they couldn't do it from home the staff member was going to drive to the building in the middle of the snowstorm to make sure um that it was aired on channel 77 uh I didn't think that that was uh that was a great idea didn't want to put that staff member uh in danger so you got to remember this is the first time something like this has happened in the past uh before the whole Zoom meeting stuff has happened over the last year if there was a snow day in school the board meeting would also have been cancelled because uh the buildings were closed and it was a snow day so this is the first time we've actually had buildings closed but still had a board meeting virtually so unfortunately the the meeting did not air on channel 77 tonight um we will in the future have some sort of workaround in case something like this happens again so I apologize to the community I'm hoping that people uh were able to access it on on the other various formats that we have just an unfortunate set of circumstances that happened today and also just to add to that this tonight is not a special meeting this is our regularly scheduled board meeting um so uh other city meetings that are on the same night um we have no control over uh but our board meetings are um posted and uh listed and this was our regularly scheduled uh board meeting okay moving on okay we any unfinished business seeing none we'll move on to um education Administration uh we have one uh um expression of condolence two second reading of policy three abolishment of policies four attendance report five tuition students received and six appointment of special education services um Mr Smith if I may make a motion to pull ea1 and have a separate vote on the expression of condolence okay so we'll vote on ea uh two uh through seven is there a motion so move by Mr Daly second by Mr Casper discussion question Mr Smith yes M passord ea1 should be written out loud it is going to be yes thank you Mr Smith if I may um after hearing discussion happening earlier I'd like to pull aa2 to go back to policy and vote on it next agenda this way we can see the changes in writing I feel more comforable doing that ea2 the second reading of policy second reading of policy yes uh I'm okay with the change what do you want to do with 0155 you want to send it back to committee yes see the changes in writing and then we'll bring it back to for next agenda all right uh Mr da you're okay with that change yes I'm okay okay any other discussion so leaving ea1 as a separate vote sending ea2 to committee so we're voting on ea3 through 7 roll call Mr aad I see him said yes Miss bassford I am um voting yes everything and I think the policy is fine to go so I'm going to vote to send it back to policy Miss Beltran yes Mr Kenova yes Mr daily yes Miss Miss Danny yes Mr Casper yes Mr abrao yes Mr Smith yes motion carries uh ea1 uh vice president abraa would you like to read that please thank you president Smith ea1 Express of condolence whereas on February 13 2021 the community noted with sorrow the passing of Emanuel cologne Rodriguez whereas Emanuel was a lifelong student the Clifton School District having attended School 16 wooder Wilson Middle School and most recently the banan high school in Little Falls New Jersey now therefore be it resolved that the resolution be forwarded to his bere family to serve as an expression of condolences in the passing of their child Emanuel colog Rodriguez from the Board of Education the Administration Employees and the pupils of the Clifton public schools and be it further resolved that the contents of this resolution be noted in their entirety in the official minutes of the Clifton Board of Education for future generations to pursue dated February 18 2021 signed by superintendent Danny Robert toi uh business Minister Michel Uchi and the board education members do I have a motion motion motion byra second by Mr Casper any comments or discussion seeing none roll call Mr aad I see I'm saying yes Miss bassford yes yes um yeah I would like to vote Yes I would like to send my my extreme condolences to Manny Rodriguez's family number 20 on the praise uh softball team um their family is very involved in the praise uh um special needs um committee and um the whole the whole organization is really quite sorrowful about this major loss to our community this kid was a great kid a great kid very sorry to his mom and dad Miss Belin I'm Sorry Miss belan are you there yes Mr Kenova yes Mr Daly yes Miss Danny yes Mr Casper yes Mr abdrabo absolutely and Mr Smith yes motion carries okay next we have uh Personnel uh P1 is retirement two leave of absence three amendment of maternity leaves of absence four amendment of appointments five change in appointment status six administrative leave seven six period assignments eight additional stipid uh appointments for the high school nine additional appointments for the after school programs 10 additional appointments uh for the PBIS team members uh 11 stage lighting and sound technicians for the auditorium volunteers 12 student teacher practicum field observation placements 13 board conferences 14 conference requests and 15 Personnel appointments what's the pleasure Mr Mr Smith can we pull item six for executive okay item six being pulled for executive session do I have a motion on the rest of the group move the group except for six Mr daily second second second by Miss Danny discussion seeing none roll call Mr aad yes Miss bassford yes Miss Bel yes Mr Kenova yes Mr Daly yes Miss Danny yes Mr Casper I'm gonna vote Yes and upstand on my my name only on p13 Mr abravo yes Mr Smith I have to stay on p113 I didn't think added it as fast as they did I requested that this afternoon so I'm staying on P3 my name only okay make that adjustment okay motion carries next financing facilities uh F1 is acceptance of the comprehensive annual financial report for the 20192020 school year two two is approval of the corrective Action Plan Three is approval to designate date and times regarding special school election four is approval to set compensation for pole workers five is use of facilities six is the claims list do I have a motion so move by Mr Casper second by vice president abrao discussion seeing none roll call okay Mr aad yes Miss bassford uh yes yes and I'm voting no on check number 201 868 Miss Beltran yes Mr Kenova yes Mr Daly yes Miss Danny yes yes Mr Casper yes Mr abbyrao yes and Mr Smith yes motion carries all right next we have uh board member comments and I believe we're starting with uh Miss beltron yes I think it is up to me tonight um I want to think thank you to dry for um for making the hard decision to open the schools I think is the best decision and it puts students first uh which is should be thank you to all the callers tonight I really hope this level of participation continues when we don't have so much controversy uh we went years with you know having one or two people come in um and I hope that all these people once we are back in person continue to participate so actively um some callers tonight like to point out that there was a referendum in 2006 I was 16 years old in 2006 half of my life ago things have changed the needs of the school dist get changed we will continue to change and the needs will continue to change the main portion of our dis of our budget goes to salary Insurance of teachers the callers like to focus on that we need to focus on education that we need to um improve those things before we worry about the bathrooms but where would you like us to get that money from because the only way for us to get you know another $200 million would be to not have any teachers or take 20 years to do all these projects peace meal and once we were done we'd have to start again so it just really doesn't make sense to me anyway fiscally and I'm a very dollars and cense person I also am childless taxpayer so I represent the childless taxpayers by the same time I realize that if I were to have children one day or that these children will one day be my doctor the president the mayor they need to have a good education they also need to be comfortable as well as safe while doing so um and that's pretty much all I have for tonight I hope everyone continues to be safe um if you're celebrating uh the Lenton season I hope that you have um a meaningful fast and that's all I have thank you thank you Miss belchan Mr Kenova he good evening uh so first of all uh I want to say prayers are with the Gibson family wishing wishing bill that you get well soon um condolences to the Rodriguez family uh to uh to our finance team you know great job with the budget managing a district our size with our our type of budget and and our uh length of of budget is is a very difficult task and to see an outcome like that is really great to see um as for the referendum um and addressing some of the colors and addressing some of the things I've been hearing on you know out there in social media land uh yes it is a lot of money absolutely it's a lot of money but these are things that we need um things like like the ventilation right who would have thought that Co would be such such a big uh concern in these ages who would have thought that we need things like M 13 filters and HEPA filters and and uh different filtrations in schools to to be able to be hospital grade um these things sort of came out out of the left field for us uh and in addition to that with the everchanging society and Dynamics we need to worry about things like security you know there's there's been things that happened over the past five six years that are very concerning um and when you look at our schools as a whole none of these things have changed for many many years and we all know that's the case um and and we were in one of the the referendum meetings and the woman asked uh everyone who's here who has air who doesn't have air conditioning in your hand leave in your house leave your hand up and everyone here who doesn't have air conditioning in your workplace and and she went down the whole list and the only people who had their hands up at the end were the teachers because those are the ones that go to school and they don't have air conditioning in their schools um and there's concerns with with asthma and there's you know students who have issues and we have to put air conditioning in in the wall now um so those are our concern we want the students when they're doing these tests at the end of the year and and the schools are hot and we're showing the proficiencies throughout the year we want them to do well uh and the best way to do that is to give them an environment to do well you need to give them an environment to succeed and to flourish and uh it was mentioned that we have a $1.2 million um overage in our in our budget so if I was to take that and calculate it out at this $168 million referendum we're talking about 140 years um and here's the chance to have the state you know I I was very very much an advocate for getting State funding because we've been in in deficit from the state year over year over year over year and it continues to be that way starting to make the turn now but hopefully continues um here's a chance where we get to go to the state and give them 33% of this to fund that's an opportunity that just doesn't exist anywhere else um and and with the money that we're not spending on these things we can do things like go to zero percent which we have been very which we did this past year and I think it was 0 eight% the year prior um and we could do things like put money into alternate sources for Education um because that budget money will be there so for me you know this referendum is is a no-brainer to get out there and uh and make sure people vote um whether you support it or not uh your voice should be heard and you should get out and vote so please make sure that you register to be a voter if you're 18 if you're a student and you're 18 students could vote as well if they're 18 years old um so please register and get out to vote as for the decision to open school as many of you know I've been in support of that uh I think it's time I think we're ready and I think that when we were in school that when we look at the statistics there we had less spread in school than we did outside of school or less less students in school who who had uh an issue with the virus then outside of school and we also had zero spread within the schools so to me that's a very safe place to be I think when you put people outside of that environment and you have the the everyday life that pulls you in different directions and have parents who have to work and juggle schedules and I'm going to drop my kid off here today and tomorrow by their ant the next day by their Uncle this person's off that person's off you're getting people around and I think you're having more spread that way to be honest um so I'm I'm glad to see this decision and not only that for obviously you know our special needs team and the uh the mental the mental stability of our students so I am I'm absolutely in support of this and I'm glad to see it and hopefully you know it sounds like like saying I one day when I win the lottery but hopefully one day when we have no more Corona virus um you know this will be a thing of the past and we'll we'll sort of laugh it off um and that is all the updates I had for tonight thank you thank you Mr Kenova Mr daily uh thank you Mr President um I'll just be brief um a lot of good things going on tonight one of them is the announcement that we're opening the schools um it's it's a challenge no matter how you look at it but it's it's it's time to uh go take that next step and I fully support the superintendent and I know he'll always keep an eye on the staff and the students and their safety as we move forward I like to also uh pass on my condolences to the Rodriguez family and um I I could talk for hours about the referendum um just I just want to point out I think a very important fact amongst other very important facts the reason why we're doing a referendum as my colleagues have said is that we have the ability to get over $50 million back from the state we cannot I mean we could do this without a vote there's mechanisms to do it but we don't have the ability to do the 50 plus million almost $55 million uh we have an opportunity to do it we would be crazy not to do this this board as long as I've been on it and and all current members included we've worked very hard to keep our tax levy low we do not have the luxury that the city has of passing Bond issues without any voter scrutiny whatsoever um it it's an important fact in a fiscal decision uh the these projects have been at over the years some of them since I've been on the board uh ever since the uh ktic shooting the uh we've been ahead of the curve in terms of putting safety our students we now have the opportunity to address a myriad of safety issues as well as other issues that face this District the this will serve the districts for decades in the future this is an investment prudent investment to say the least I can in terms of transparency the job that our superintendent has done with his team and putting out the information is Second To None So if you if you don't what's going on if you can't find it there's people around to assist you and direct you where the information is we have been fully Beyond fully transparent both in our budget hearings our Capital Improvements over the last 10 plus years uh and all at the uh keeping the tax rate under 2% and as Mr kova said we did a zero last year and a 087 before that and uh and a05 before that so you cannot say this board has not been overly fiscally responsible and attune what what cost the taxpayers and at the same time addressing the needs the real needs of this District I wish everybody have a great evening stay warm sa safe and avoid the co at all possible thank you thank you Mr Daly Miss Danny uh yes I'll keep my comments very brief um just feeling a little under the weather today so I would like to thank all the speakers and um deep condolences to the Rodriguez family and keeping in my prayers um Bill Gibson uh thank you very much good evening thank you Miss Danny Mr Casper okay uh my condolences also go out to the Rodriguez family um on a a very tragic loss um I'm also sending out my thoughts to the Gibson family to a speedy recovery with Mr Gibson uh as always I'd like to congratulate our retirees so Mr Hoy congratulations on your retirement and thank you so much for your service to our district uh and I'd just like to add about um I'd like to thank Dr Robert toy and Mr Lurch on our reports this evening um I'm hoping that we can get our students and our staff safely back into the building um the only thing that I still working in a district that is working hybrid um the re uh some of the realities is the fact that when we I know the CDC has up you know lifted um some of the restrictions I'll just give you a quick example in the district I'm in now we went virtual two weeks after a uh after our Christmas break we were in four days and during those four days we had two separate cases at each building so we were closed down for another two weeks so I'm just concerned about the yo-yo effect that might uh occur once we start going back all right thank you everybody thank you Mr Casper Mr Awad thank you uh president Smith uh first and foremost my condolences to the Rodriguez family and uh prayers to the Gibson family for Speed recovery for councilman bill um I'd also like to send out my prayers uh and thoughts for you know our fellow Americans in Texas as we all know watching the news uh they're going through uh hard times right now uh prayers for everybody there hopefully everybody safe throughout Texas and throughout our entire nation um I would also like to ask uh Dr robery um it um if we may you know look into Why students are being sent home um or you know clothing if they're wearing or um you know if you know you know freedom of speech is something I take you know with great pride and something that's a blessing to be an American and I feel like you know if there is something implemented with a student's clothing as long as it's not showing any type of violence or profanity um I feel like you know we should always be able to let our students exercise of freedom of speech uh it is an amendment for us and it's something you know I really take to heart uh if we could uh look into that um also you know sorry um I'm really excited for the students to get back into and our staff to get back into school in person but you know uh after hearing everybody's comments I still haven't heard you know I've said it time and time again if the students and staff it's safe enough for them to go back in person then we should lead by example as the leaders of our district for us to also go back in person for our meetings because nobody is held to a higher pedestal than the other um you know and I'm for students and staff going back into school after you know Dr Robert toy meeting with the health department and and you know if they're seeing everything is uh safe and manageable then we should also be able to hold our meetings in person besides that to our fellow residents in Clifton I will always you know serve in the most honorable and respectful way uh no matter our differences of opinion uh I always put the staff the students and our district first and I really really am proud of what this board has been doing fiscally for the past uh years before even me uh becoming a member uh hopefully you know with this referendum in the near future we're not just setting up our students for one two years you know as you can tell our buildings are extremely old you know our referendum hopefully once it's passed with these upgrades are we're bringing our schools into the 21st centuries our schools are extremely outdated it's not just you know slight plumbing and ventilations in here that we basically got to do as parents you know as Citizens and as taxpayers we got to basically be able to put forth the highest quality possible for our future Generations because these students that are walking in our hallways now are Future Leaders for our nation future Community leaders future doctors Engineers future teachers and likewise um future um uh musicians you know our students you know we have to be able to give them all the resources possible to succeed as you could tell you know not just Clifton and other districts and throughout our nation we are sometimes lacking these resources compared to other nations around the world around uh and you know I I have visited many times in many different parts of our country and I've seen these modernized schools and you know it does take a toll on the students and hopefully this referendum does pass and we're able to you know tell a future Generations we have succeeded we have set you guys and we're able to uh pass over the pedestal to them so they may get the highest quality of Education possible and those are my comments thank you very much thank you Mr Awad uh Miss bassford um yes good evening everyone I'd like to thank all the speakers that came out tonight I'd like to thank them for their courage to get up and speak even though some people may not think it's favorable I put the policy 0142 uh 01 43.2 that's the student representative policy it speaks to the student representative that he speaks during committee reports so I just want them to know that they're part of the committee report as well and there was no time limit on a committee report um the other thing is through you U Mr President to our superintendent I emailed you a copy of New Jersey school board's um mental health an eye on Mental Health um if it's possible could you share that with the Student Union especially Max I think it would be very insightful for him to see what the adults are saying in in the State uh with their mental health as well um what else um I'd like to know if we're going to be uh if the rest of the board is going to be made aware when there are committee meetings so if we have input we can com uh we can email the chair with our concerns and questions so that U maybe some of those things can be resolved and uh be addressed um I have to say condolence to the pise family I forgot to mention them because there's a bunch of little young men women hurting right now because they lost their friend Manny um and uh the parents that run praise and especially to Gabby and Robert um I know this is really hard for you to take and I know how close you were to this young man so my my condolences go out to you as well um let's see to the people that celebrate lent uh those that are very close to me I hope that your reflection in the next 40 days bring some Enlightenment to your soul that you can uh move forward and find a better way and a better path that's all I have to say good night thank you Miss bassford uh vice president abaj jabro thank you president Smith um to miss all that spoke as the chair of the diversity committee uh I'll be sure to take a look at the teens take charge Summit and I'll forward it to our uh diversity committee members as well to take a look at it diversity is not just about race but it's about um uh disability gender all kinds of facets in in in our in today's world but I'll be sure to pass us around to our diversity committee Mr uh super roberi if we can perhaps our next diversity meeting have her I believe I don't know the last name but ran uh if we can have them maybe at our next meeting um to talk about this and perhaps what I would like to do is every diver every diversity meeting will tackle a certain um aspect of diversity in our district and I'll be sure to notify all our board members this way if anybody has any questions or or if they' like to join uh if we have any extra spots um so speaking of diversity um I to Super robbert You' like to revisit um what kind of clothing could be worn to school and whato kind of clothing can not be worn to school I have my own personal stance I'm sure people know and I'm pretty outspoken about it um between and I won't I won't say it here but there's a difference between freedom of speech and there's a difference on clothing and a difference between wearing something to initiate confrontation or conversation there's a difference me black lives matter shirt is a freedom of speech because once black lives matter all lives matter but that's all that's all I'm going to say um so I'll leave that there uh to the col spoke about transparency I think the board has been transparent I am darn happy for our superintendent um I think he's brought nothing but transparency and I am I applaud him for everything he's doing um if a person um you know spills out everything to all the board members and to the public as much as possible maybe we have to work better on the channel 70 but hopefully when we get back into person um things will get back to normal on that aspect to the caller who mentioned about fixing um your home as things happen when you are able to pay for them this district is all our homes whether you went to in this District or you are paying property taxes in this District it's all of our homes um so things need to be fixed this as Mr Canova said the state is paying onethird of the bill so now is the time to do it um I know Mr Healey has said um in in other aspects and other principles have said coming out of wro that you know that field is not just for wws students it will be open for for I'm sorry athletes but it be also open for a gym and and for other facets of the district um you know look back from 10 20 20 is when I graduated but 20 30 years ago when you graduated from CHS how bad was were those bathrooms what are they today what do you think think about any what are they today honestly I haven't seen a bathroom in quite a while I can imagine that they're pretty pretty disgusting um so if it's not not now the question is going to be then when um and the audacity that certain people have to say that opening schools is tied or the referendum is to open tied to opening schools how dare you I'm going to say that right here and then and people be upset of what I'm about to say and honestly at this point if you go one way and super th I tell I tell you this all the time if you go one way you'll have upset people if you go the other way you're going to have upset people the fact that schools are reopening because on numbers is truly what they are all about so it's not like all right you know let's open up because we need these people to to to to vote for the referendum no no these the referendum is something we've been discussing for quite a while and as super RI said it just happens to fall short because of the pandemic and honestly I ask you to really rethink to separate the two from each other and put in your mind what is very important at the Forefront of what the district needs and what how do we move forward we're we're losing students to other districts because they are fixing things within their District not just academics but the facilities and also in in outside the classroom so we need to do the same thing to keep up with what we're dealing with unfortunately education in this country whether it's K through 12 or in higher education has become a business unfortunately and it's not within the public schools it's outside the public schools but the public schools have to stay step by step with these non-public schools unfortunately and Tech schools so we need to update what we have to make sure we keep our district our kids in our district Money Follows a student um and also last but Mr President Smith if you can I know we talked about it but maybe if you can give board members because I know Mr Awad has said every single meeting um when would when would our next inperson meeting be um you know whether it's next meeting and two meetings and three meetings also people can mentally prepare for it as well so that's all I have to say and I thank you thank you uh vice president abaj jaabo um yes I was going to discuss uh with the board members on uh on uh going back uh when we go back uh to school uh on March 8th uh our next uh our next board Mee meeting after that is March 18th uh so we should be live uh back at the high school uh on that date it just is easier for us at the high school to keep the six foot distance the screens are set up uh Etc um so our next board meeting on March 4th we would still be uh remote and then when schools open up on the 8th uh March 18th we would go back uh live um at the high school Dr Robos is that the administration absolutely will make that work Mr Smith the uh the mar we do have the March 8th training that's going to be remote because it's of our presenter right correct just a quick clarification our next meeting is March 4th is a regular meeting and then March 25th March 18th 25th the board meeting is the 25th I'm counting March 18th we have a negotiations meeting yes we typically are the first and third but this was to to to fit the budget schedule correct my mistake yep okay so the first uh inperson meeting would be March the 25th um I just have quick comments um uh the February 14 through the 20th um is kindness week at the high school a kindness week in our district and I'd like to congratulate our Key Club uh they received a award for making Clifton High School a kindness certified school so a great accomplishment by our Key Club and let us uh all take lessons from our students and spread kindness and be kind to one another uh schools are also in the midst of celebrating their 100th day of school and um I compliment the teachers on having some creative ideas um in celebrating that 100th day uh many of the schools have posted it online and uh it's been very interesting to see how they are celebrating their 100 days of school um and not actually physically being in school um my condolences also to the Rodriguez family and of course Getwell wishes to councilman Gibson and Mr USI and Mr tomasovich um again um as Mr Lurch had said um kudos to you both for uh doing a wonderful job in handling the finances of our district um the citizens should be uh proud to know that our finances are in good hands and uh I compliment you both on great report and um and our M and our maintenance Mr Smith you're muted sorry I hit that on mistake uh and our maintenance crew uh for a fantastic job in the snow removal in our district um they always do a fantastic job but again with the weather being the way it was I know that they cleared our schools and uh had our properties in great shape so uh I commend our uh our maintenance crew and uh Mr Casper you had mentioned Mr hoey uh for those that don't know Mr hoey um he came aboard uh back when I was on the board my first time um he is an expert in the uh next to Mr Kenova he's probably uh the next best expert in the uh uh communication field and technology and uh he has served the district for about 20 years and um I know um Chris oey uh personally and I thank him for the service that he gave to our district and I wish him all the best in his retirement sorry to see him leave um and that's all I have Dr Robi thank you Mr Smith I'll be very brief tonight as I spoke a lot earlier uh first and foremost um my deepest condolences um to the Rodriguez family um I just can't imagine uh in my prayers second um I just want to touch base about the referendum communication um it's February 18th so we have two months uh we didn't put everything out all at once so within the next week people and the citizens of Clifton will be getting postcards in the mail the postcards will have referendum we'll also have uh a link to direct people to the website if you can get to the website there is so much information there all the information you could ask for is on that website we do have the social media posts we had a meeting last night with the HSA leadership we're getting the student vote engagement and and most importantly we're having a public Community form that everyone is welcome to attend virtually on March 3D um we just can't have that many people at a live meeting yet so that's still going to have to take place virtually so we understand not everybody is on social media not everybody is going to be online but there will be other opportunities to learn about the referendum the information is there if you'd like to know um that's really all I have to say tonight Mr Smith so uh I want to thank the board for their support uh in everything that we do here in Clifton and um that's it thank you thank you Dr roboy okay next we move on to new business is there any new business Dr roboy Mr Smith I just like some feedback from the board the board really is in charge of the school calendar so for the referendum uh vote on April 20th the polls will be open from 1:30 to 8 so we could still run our regular hybrid school day the the options are this for the calendar we could run our regular hybrid school day and then cancel after care we don't want students in the building when there's voting we could just run a district virtual day or we could close that day so before um we make that decision I'd just like some to get a consensus from the board I I think the best option is um I don't know if it's the best option but what I'm leaning towards is a regular hybrid day in school and we canceled the uh after care sounds good for everybody wants to give me a thumbs up and we don't even need to discuss it unless uh somebody feels strongly about it good with that I am good with that can can we hold off I mean when do you have to make because canceling I mean listen Virgo back to school when canceling after care could be a shot in the foot for a lot of people um but also if you go remote there it's like canceling after anyway um yeah I mean the three options are hybrid regular day cancel after care uh go fully remote or make it uh you know use one of our snow days and make it make it no school I think the least bad decision is cancelling after care but we don't have to make that decision ton I just want to get a consensus and hear what you're thinking we have we have time Dr Robert to uh as I understand that the the polls every school is not going to be utilize as a polling station so maybe you can look into that and still have your after care and depending on what buildings are going to be available for for voting or not you just cont that's right Mr D that's a very good point it will be limited locations Mike we don't have those yet though do we do we know the locations no we we have an inquiry to to the PA County Board of Elections but it should only be five or six locations if I had to guess similar to similar to November sorry yeah so then I think that makes the decision even easier I think that's uh that's good so can we not every building School building has Aftercare correct so if it's those five or six buildings can we work around and still have after care and the polls running at the same time at separate location I don't know how the County Board of Elections picks the locations that's what I'm not sure of Mike do you have any insight to that is it just can we at least maybe write in and request and tell them why do they keep it in mind I thought the governor had ruled that this was going to be an all person in-person election so all voting sites of a regular election will be in place if that's the case we're waiting confirmation from them I believe that's what the governor had stated okay so then let's just wait for further guidance again it's not a drastic decision if I'd like to give parents a few weeks notice so we have time but just just keep that in the back of your mind Mr Kenova yeah just the one point I would make is that U bringing them back hybrid they already know that if something happens and their child explosed within six feet to someone who's tested positive for covid that they're going to be quarantined um so this I think they're already on their toes and they know that that's something to be to be worried about and if we give this dateway in advance I think if they go to school and then they don't have after care I'm I'm sure they could figure it out just like a half day if you have a half day snow day just my opinion anyone else that's all I have Mr Smith anyone else for new business Mr Kenova yeah um so it was brought up to uh to go back with today's meetings in person so I just want to bring it up officially and see whatever how everyone feels about it I mean I've never I've never had a problem with it so I don't know if you want to bring it up here and then we we take a vote to go back in person if we need a vote well didn't we last time do same thing hybrid whoever wants to be remote can be remote whoever wants to be in person can be in person yeah correct so so we're going to plan on being back uh at the high school live for our March 25th meeting and anyone who wishes to be remote can still do remote and obviously if um if schools should have to uh be shut down for any reason we would go back to remote and anyone who wanted to speak they would come to this to the high school correct yep yeah we would have no no Callin um no call-in public portion it would all be a live public portion when we're back at the high school live okay anyone else comment on that okay we'll move on to excuse me Mr Smith I had a delayed reaction there uh you're gonna have to allow uh if any board member needs to be hybrid uh because after the what I went through being quarantined and I got exposed twice I had I had quarantine because I got a phone call say you were you were exposed so so you we're going to have to make a Arrangements if that happens to one of our board members that we have that um that option to quar to uh be remote as as I stated just before I haven't gotten the vaccination yet and and the other question I have is everybody GNA wear masks the whole time at the meeting because if anybody does not wear masks I Haven been gotten a vaccination I'm on the list I probably you'll get one in 2014 the way this list this whole distribution thing is going but um I have underlining health issues that I shouldn't even have to explain but if people are not going to wear masks I want to know how because I am not gonna sit on a day where people are not wearing masks I have to I have to worry about what I bring home to my home and to my family and that's my real concern with this whole thing I'm an elderly person I'm middle-aged I have serious health condition that I'm dealing with right now so I want to know is everybody gonna wear a mask Mr I think she had a deleted reaction to her audio so she probably didn't hear when you said whoever wants to stay home St do remote whoever wants to come in person come in person is that what you said Mr Smith yes yes okay but I'm asking the question is everybody gonna wear a mask on the day the whole time at the meeting Miss Gutierrez do we have have uh do you know off hand do we have a policy on that or uh Dr roosi do you have directive in the schools uh they have to wear masks if we follow our we have a universal masking policy in the district so everybody who in the building should be wearing a mask okay so there we go so all board members would be required to wear masks and any board member that is quarantined or does not feel comfortable attending the meeting they can attend the meeting virtually we will have that option available as well thank you yes Miss Gutierrez thank you Mr Smith not just board members whoever is going to be present at the meeting correct I was just answering on the day is Mr Smith do we know if the indoor limits have changed or or their lease I I I don't know I'm going to check that okay well we'll just have to check the numbers prior to but we have time for that but that's important to know yes I think originally he said they were and then he rended it it's hard to tell I I don't know I have to check it because now that the numbers that in restaurants are different I don't know if they've changed something um in the last couple of days so I'll find that back to we have time we have time to get that all in order for the uh for the March 25th meeting okay uh executive session uh M Gutierrez we have something for executive session we do we have a couple of issues uh one a Personnel item uh and another uh possibly a contract item um for a executive session and there will be action taken uh at the end okay and we it would I don't anticipate that we'll be very long right M Dr Roberto I think my uh Personnel portion should take no longer than seven minutes and the other portion probably not that long either so Dan I'm gonna hold you to it all right do I have a motion to motion executive session second uh vice president abravo second by Mr Kenova roll call Mr aad Miss bassford yes Miss Beltran yes Mr kova yes Mr Dy yes Miss Danny yes Mr Casper yes Mr abrao yes Mr Smith yes Mr Mountain if you take us in e e e okay return from uh executive session roll call Mr aad I see I'm saying Miss bassford she's still entering just one second everyone's still getting out of the break room I'm sorry there she is M bord Miss Beltran yes Mr Kenova here Mr daily yes Miss Danny here Mr Casper here Mr abrao here Mr Smith here have a okay the board met in uh executive session and we have a resolution to uh approve uh E6 and to change our uh board regular meeting date from scheduled uh March 25th to March 18 2021 so moved so move by Mr C second second by Mr Kenova discussion seeing none roll call Mr aad yes Miss bassford Miss Beltran yes Mr kova yes Mr daily yes Miss Danny yes Mr Casper yes Mr abido yes and Mr Smith yes motion carries okay motion to adjourn don't moved second by vice president abrao second by Mr Casper any objection meeting adjourned thank you all good night everybody good night
um you know there were no spikes or anything it was a true decrease over time i'll speak to the the fiscal aspect for a moment um and uh mrs bond is absolutely correct this has been a steady decrease over the years uh just put some some dollars uh to this and miss bond is absolutely correct the um in terms of the tuition costs um are are costly they are they are expensive and and because they do they are for specialized programs uh that students require um if we use an average of 75 000 per student as a benchmark some would be more some would be less but if we use that as a benchmark the reduction in the number of students in out-of-district placements since 2010-11 has resulted in an excess of 3.5 million dollars in reduced costs now some of that has gone to offset uh creating programs in district but certainly uh the net impact is favorable to the bottom line and the children more importantly and just as and just as a follow-up to that and with that with those savings um could you speak to there's been no compromise uh in bringing this back in-house and is there any indicators that say we may actually be doing uh a better job uh how bringing these students back in keeping the controls the psychological impact of staying in the district and all the accoutrements that go along with that what have been your findings uh as as both uh from the um instructive instruction along with the book called the psychological impact of being able to stay home you know having a student in our schools has a variety of benefits one of which we have the ability because our continuum of programs that we have in districts we have the ability to have students participate with their general education peers as often as possible when they are in house with us we also have connections with athletics so we have students who serve on athletic teams in a variety of different ways participate in our clubs when they're a member of our school community at a district student certainly have that opportunity but with transportation and the travel time it's it's it's much more readily available for them when they're a member of our school community so we find it to be extremely beneficial i think it's also beneficial as students move on we support students ages 3 to 21.
so again above so i want that corrected in the record um was there a trend i see in perhaps marlene you can you can speak to this what i see are really really strong reading writing scores um like well above the um the the benchmark um i don't it and correct me if i'm wrong i'm just not sure that i see the same strength in the math scores and i'm can you address that sure sure um first of all tim um if you you do have you you everyone has access to the slides that were reviewed at curriculum in case you want to go back and and check that out uh as far as the math i think that um we are going to continue to look to strengthen the math program i think that there's there's room for improvement there i think the scores are good scores but i think you know we're in a community where we always want to strive to do better and i think that's part of why we have looked at our middle school we've looked at our elementary curriculum and implemented eureka as a new program we redid our resource for our algebra one class and what's offered at the middle school we saw some great improvements there when we focused on that and our our efforts moving forward will be to look at the alignment between our algebra one and algebra ii um curriculum look at our algebra 2 textbook and update that resource we have a committee looking to do that now so i think we have a number of things in place um to so that we will in the years to come see an even greater increase in our math scores okay um and do do you so the textbooks you said like update algebra 2.
so when you have students who are remaining with us through the age of 21 our in-house child study team high school child study team and counseling department working with those students on post-secondary goals where they're going you know i i would love to keep you know every child we can keep in district we should be working towards thank you very much welcome bernie could you put us back on gallery view please thank you lori did you have a follow-up question no actually that was the comment i was gonna make was um you know looking back at those slides 10 years ago when i first got on board that was one of the criticisms is how much we spent to send kids out of district it was something we always wanted to work on so to see that a decade later we cut that number in half this is particularly um encouraging so thanks thanks appreciate it thank you uh leewoo yes uh i have two easy questions for miss van so totally how many students are receiving the special education at this moment amounts 46 among them so by the cost percentage how what kind of percentage of those 46 out of district placement in the entire uh special ed budget sorry i'm muted i apologize um so we have approximately we have about are you asking how many total students we have receiving special education services yeah this is my question number one so we have about 1500 students that are receiving special education services speech you know and full ieps and then your second question was the percentage of the budget 46 students are out of district placement the cost on those 46 by percentage uh amount of entire food entire budget by percentage how much is that so i'm looking back at the pie chart here and it looks like um we have so if we look at uh strictly um the special education department budget um 36 of the special education department's budget is allocated toward out-of-district tuition however uh that's there's also uh out-of-district tuition that is paid under the idea grant so that's not the the total amount that is within the district general fund budget is not all of the tuition to look at it in terms of a percentage of the special education department budget really doesn't uh provide the information that i think you're really looking for i don't have a bottom line on the current budget at this moment but keep in mind that the various services that are provided in the in-district programs child study teams and so forth those are not contained within the special education department budget those are salaries and those are accounted for separately but mr hong i i will provide that information i'm making a note of it and i will get that information to you in terms of the the percentage of the overall budget the reason why i ask this question is to help taxpayers understand that why we are trying our best to expand in-district placement instead of sending our students to other school districts doing so will save us a lot of money that's it thank you yeah there's a and if i can supplement i mean there's no question um in my mind that um an in-district program is much more efficient um in terms of services for students not only in terms of its effectiveness in the program that's provided the quality of the program that we can control but also in terms of the financial impacts um without without a doubt without a doubt in my mind thank you very much you're welcome so that's why i said my question is easy question heather i see your hand raised well i have a comment and then a question i just wanted to say kudos to the administrative team for bringing back so many students from out of district placement i know it is a huge financial gain but also from a special ed perspective and actually from the full full school population it's not just the least restrictive environment that we're required to provide which is fantastic but it's also a better experience on the whole i mean what ms bond was saying about the access to sports is completely true but also the access to clubs and peers and the people that you grew up with around you i also think it's worthwhile to mention that it's important for the other students that you need the full diverse community to be in your school where you can know and grow up with all kinds of other students when kids go out of district they are you know travel as far and they're not so much present in the community so i think that's really valuable and the other thing is i wanted to thank the administrative team because bringing back students in district is not just i think people often think it's just creating like one classroom it's hire one teacher create one classroom get paraprofessionals and we're good and it's very very intensive on the administrative side on the child study team it is a lot of work to create strong programs and i think east brunswick has that and i just think it's fabulous my question is super simple though i think it's for bernie is esy included on the budget for the summer in the like is this budget esy for 2022 or is this budget esy for 2021 so um not reflected in the pie charts but the budget that we are we are working on is esy 2021 because the fiscal year begins july 2021.
i mean has it changed a lot since when i took it 30 30 years ago or so i mean i understand you know you need new textbooks and stuff but has it really changed that much um well i think the standards have have changed i don't know that the content of algebra 2 has changed all that much but when you look at the sat and how the sat is morphed and changed as a result of the new standards i think it's important that we continue to look at that and update texts as new research comes out on a better ways to teach kids that material and that's the bent that i'm coming from yeah i can i can i can appreciate that in the not not too distant future we evaluated the resources we were using for elementary school math and decided to shift to the eureka resources which do a very good job of storytelling if you will contextualizing the math learning and you know we've seen tremendous growth with that resource and so it is important to continue to review our resources to ensure that as marlene just said is the way that we're teaching it uh you know really working for our kids or not and if we think we can do better i think it's really incumbent upon us to to check that you tim you asked for takeaways too i think when we look at we like to compare ourselves to the dirt because it gives us an apples to apples comparison you know we look at average growth between psat 10 and 11.
i knew that's when the fiscal year begins but i wasn't sure when we started esy and i really didn't know thank you yes y will begin in july i forget the exact date but it's um i think around mid-july second week or so thank you you're welcome anyone else um something i like to just point out to everyone every year to those who are watching that um the district the schools the private schools that accept our out of district placements are under no legal um there are no laws or regulations in the state to cap their tuition correct kelly so we are literally at their mercy if they want to increase the tuition rates every single year they can and again we if a student needs that kind of specialized education we are more than happy to provide it but i i have often thought it unfair that these schools that school districts are have a cap on their budgets but yet these private schools can increase their tuition whenever they want i just want you to mention that that's a good point yes thank you for mentioning that i appreciate that anyone else thank you kelly thank you very much so we are now back to dr figueroa welcome back and um dr figueroa will now speak to the student services budget thank you mr giuliani i'm happy to review with you the proposed student services budget for the 2021-2022 school year in student services we make time to strengthen relationships help our students find peace in their day we work with students academic or social and emotional challenges we work to make sure that we know when a student needs extra supports so you see here some of the base parts of the budget the student services budget encompasses school counseling student assistance specialists and nursing needs tonight i'd like to point out a couple of additional areas and a little bit more detail so thank you mr juliana going to the pie chart um i want to point your attention first to the health and physical education instruction budget which is only two percent but i just want to um remind you that uh although it's only two percent for this coming year each building has funds for health and physical education that we will utilize as well so our new supervisor of health and physical education uh mr meyer and i will be working closely with our principals uh to take stock of what each school has and what each school needs and will look to make sure that schools are equitable and resources are shared accordingly i just wanted to point that out to you i'd like to take a make a quick mention actually to improvement of instruction that's six percent of our budget for the coming year this is for cultural diversity and equity this includes aligning curriculum teaching practices maintaining a culture that reflects the value and diversity of the entire community this year we're working on needs assessment focus groups and administrator and staff training that's i would like to discuss briefly with you some health services which is obviously the lion's share of our student services budget 87 percent of our budget um effective school solutions or ess which i'd like to discuss further with you in a moment is a big part of that uh part of the health services is also health supplies 504 needs nursing substitutes medical services flex program screenings also our school physician consults on policies for us physical exams for students in need also approves medical home instruction and medical he's consulted on medical emergencies as well so just talking about effective school solutions which you can see in front of you is such a big part of that pie effective school solutions or ess that we contracted with this year ess clinicians offer psychiatric care supports to students with behavioral social or emotional challenges they conduct weekly individual group therapy conduct monthly or bi-monthly family therapy there are monthly parent support groups and monthly newsletters this year the ess worked closely with students with school avoidance uh de-escalation and with reducing stress mr juliana has up the therapeutic counseling chart which i'd like to go through with you in a little bit of detail um if we look at 2020 2021 this year you'll see that east brunswick high school had one clinician the case of 11 the total possible could have been 15 churchill one clinician again the maximum would have been 15 may not have been optimum but maximum would have been 15.
and we see that we're outpacing the dirt durg in terms of our growth uh it both both uh 10 to 11 and excuse me 10 to 11 psat and psat 10 to sat11 so you know those are are good things as marlene said we still have work to do but um you know at least we're we're making progress our kids are making progress year over year okay i'll just i'm sorry i just i want to go back to the the um assessments for a moment if i could and i i think this might alleviate some folks concern by me sharing that in third through fifth grade the total amount of testing time predicted at four hours and the total for six through eight four and a half hours for the smarter balance so i i just want to share that and i also would like people to know that um we can stop the test when kids need to we could administer it over multiple days it's not as if um you know it's all we do it day in and day out so i i just wanted you to have that piece of information now back to math what were you going to say no thank you for that i guess my general my general concern is you know fast and i'm not saying that that's what happens in large part and like my own experience with gmat i mean some of it you just have to learn you know three times five is 15.
hammershould had half a clinician queso to five the flex program had half a clinician uh with a case of seven there was no focus from this group on professional development it was done as needed when it could be done he proposed for next year 2021 2022 would be to add 1.5 clinicians to what we have this year that would allow us to have one clinician at high school with caseload maximum case load of 15. churchill one clinician also 15 hammer shoulder one full-time clinician a case of 15 and the flex program one full-time clinician with a case soda 15. in addition we would have half of a clinician or half-time clinician that can focus on professional development the professional development piece um is important for our staff um and that's something that will help our staff to work with the needs of some of the students that have behavioral issues now looking ahead which would be two years down the road what i will propose to you next year but i just want to give you an idea where we're going um and this does have an impact on what ms bond's presentation fantastic presentation ms bond had done what i'd like to propose two years from now will be two clinicians with a potential caseload of 30 for the high school two clinicians a churchill with a 30 caseload potential hammer schultz still would have one full-time clinician a soda 15 flex program also won full-time clinician with a case sort of 15.
it's rote you learn it um anyway uh with regard to the the content i totally get that one of the probably the best uh professor that i ever had he taught that's improbability in dr seuss it made it fun it made it enjoyable and i learned the stuff actually um with moving on from that it is president it was presidents day weekend we had the day off and i am just wondering if in school this week there is you know any part of the curriculum does it touch on george washington and what i consider to be probably uh the single greatest precedent in american history that was ever set by him which is a peaceful transition of power i think it's highly meaningful right now i'm just curious does something like that gets touched on anywhere in in k through 12th grade yeah not to get into the politics but the fact that it has existed all of our students know about george washington for sure it gets introduced at the younger grades and then on throughout especially obviously when we're dealing with american history great thank you are there any other questions from board members on the curriculum committee report adam adam i just had one comment on the smarter balance um that um if i recall correctly uh connecticut is one of the states where a parent can choose not if they feel strongly about those tests a parent can choose to have their child not take the test is that correct is there a procedure for that go ahead jeff not necessarily um we're required to have all students take the test now you know we don't strap kids to desks and you know force their arms to take exams and stuff like that and we respond to parents and try and work with them through the situation but there's no opt-out i think that's a fallacy that you know i'm glad you brought it up because that's there's not a formal opt out state doesn't permit that okay thank you for that clarification sure could i before we close can i just make one more comment and that that is just going back to the um the unbiased unconscious bias in schools the book um i did buy it and i think and i'm about a third of the way through um i just i do recommend that we as a board read it if you can get it it's um it's tough to get it takes a few months if you want the hardcover you can get it on kindle um but i i just think it's important that we we see um what's being proposed and and be a part of the conversation so that's all thanks faith uh i just had a comment uh actually i'm glad you mentioned that faith because uh even at the last quick community ann uh asked uh if we can also get some of that cert training or stuff that's relevant for us and as board members i've heard from everyone actually that uh we definitely want more training more education but the right education right there's so many resources out there on diversity equity inclusion um it could be my numbing of where to start so i know we're gonna work closely with marlene and make sure we're all bringing the same resources uh the only i can add is for board members uh if you the cave has a uh equity diversity and inclusion series of webinars you know that there are well should be free for us because we're part of their uh cave process but they're like hour-long sessions i was on one today and um i think if you take those in total i think it's four or five they're helpful um i'm not knocking cave the one i saw today was okay but it seemed to point back to circ and the things that circus doing so the point is any education we think we need we can certainly find it and get it done it's definitely helping conversation uh the only thing i would ask is if it's possible can we publish the slides we showed we showed earlier tonight on the test scores and the social entertainment update on the cps website on because as we all know we get questions on these topics and there's some really good things to talk about there uh more than we can share tonight so if we can make that available um they'll be happy to share the link to folks that ask for it another uh faith that's all i had i don't think there's anyone else with questions um if not i'm gonna move we'll move on to our finance committee report finance report mr grippo thank you mr chairman um as usual i will defer to mr maciana for the wonderful finance report thank you and good evening everyone i'm going to preface my report by saying i have no bad news tonight and some of it you might want to consider good news so the um the finance report for the month of january 31st which we did provide to the board members everything that we reported previously is is still on track you know that we're through seven months of the fiscal year we did receive approval for the coronavirus relief funds and we've submitted our request to get that funded which we are expecting imminently so the budget is holding you know very soundly at this point in time the only thing that i did want to let the board members know because things are tracking you know very well at this point that we increased the expenditure cap that we had on our non-payroll accounts from 40 to 60 percent and we're going to hold it there for the next couple of months but we do need to make you know start making some of the purchases or lining them up for year-end so we're in good shape right now with the finance report the medical benefits update i did want to share my screen on that and then i'll take questions on both but we did get the medical benefits report for the month of january as we expected claims um did come to a more normal level and hopefully you could see the screen uh jeff can you just acknowledge you see the screen i did i see it okay thank you so i know the board members are familiar with the report but we started the year with 2.8 million dollars in the reserve fund these are the monthly claims that i'm cursing over or cursoring over i should say and you can see that the first six months of the year as the board members know we were over a million dollars per month in claims but in january claims did drop to 735 000 for the month this is the beginning of the new hsa plan year so employees are just going to be meeting their deductibles over the next few months which helps bring the claim cost for the board of ed down you can see over here on the right that our trust fund balance actually went up thirty four thousand dollars this month part of that is because claims did drop and also uh just highlighting up near the top of the report we received seventy five thousand eight hundred fifty three dollars in stop loss reimbursements um that was up from thirty five thousand the prior month so you know the good news here and it's good it's not great our reserve fund balance is back over a million dollars it's a million four six nineteen assuming that claims normalized at eight hundred thousand a month that would give us 1.26 months worth of claim of balance as a claim reserve and then the lower portion of this report you could see that our claims were expected to be 800 000 a month you know on a year-to-date basis they're still a million 36 000 but it's better than um you know it was over the prior six months so hopefully that that trend continues and we can you know end the fiscal year you know with a a reasonable reserve balance the board members know that we did ask for it a substantial increase for next year's budget so that our contributions equal our expected claims for next year but that's the uh that's the good news on the medical benefits hopefully the um you know the rate of loss of reserve balance uh will improve from from here on out this year so um any questions on either the finance report or medical benefits i'll be glad to answer um i'm not i saw a comment from ann is that was that something you meant to type man no no comment at all okay very good i was just commenting that vin is it's perfectly acceptable to curse the medical dentals all things i agree was quite appropriate adam i had a question uh for instance jeff i i i believe if not mistaken a week or two ago maybe a little longer time seems to be flying by this year uh did the that were any discussions have a town council on the state of the medical benefits reserve and if there's any feedback on that yes i there was a meeting of the town council budget committee that i attended with sean kimball and gave the town council budget committee members an update on where we were on the board of ed side and and sean presented on the town side where they were you know both board of ed and town has experienced a pretty significant reduction in the reserve balance from the beginning of the year to um you know to the midpoint in the year and now now we're into january i did present to the budget committee some of the information that was shared as part of the budget deliberations this year so everybody i think on the budget committee appreciated having the heads up on on what to expect when the board of ed's budget is reviewed by the town council so you know we we answered several questions but i think that um there wasn't a shock there because sean had forewarned that we were both experiencing pretty significant claims this year great thanks ben that's all i had adam thanks tony um i have no real que well i guess my only question is so just to to reiterate the the reason that the the claims decreased so much was because it's just a new claims here and uh people are still under their deductible so far this year that's certainly i would i would guess it's the majority of the contributing factor it is exactly what we expected to see it's what we've seen in past years when you hit january and employees you know are basically paying for their claims out of pocket for the first if they're in to if they're in two person or family coverage the first four thousand dollars in claims they cover and if it's you know single coverage the first two thousand dollars in claims they cover so i think it's safe to say that uh because of the the claims breakdown that you showed us at our budget meetings that if these claims uh that were you know from last year if they're still on the books then we'll probably see a rise most likely even next this month in february we'll be able to see it as as quickly as that um i would say that february should be you know more in the january range than in the december range would be my guess and as we we talked about i mean there is an unpredictability of claims some what we saw the first part of this year were high cost claims and the point i think you're making adam is that some of those high cost claims if someone you know is in cancer treatment those claims will continue to come through so it's a combination of what's lingering for high cost claims you know combined with just routine uh claims that employees are now paying for so again i i think we hope for the best and we'll deal with uh with the months to come as they come right well no i just want to admit because i know that there was like 38 that were like more of the joint replacement yeah uh you know that those those are more one-off type you know maybe there's rehab involved and stuff but um that that's what i'm more you know interested to see if there's more joint replacements from different people you know moving forward or if that was just sort of like a you know just everyone thought it was all the right time over the summer to do something like that so you know it'll be interesting to see what happens yeah we'll keep tracking it and then you know i'll report i'll i'll look at that you know at the end of you know the first quarter you know we'll look at january february march as a group and see what we're seeing within the claims okay great um sir are there any other questions all right seeing none this uh oh faith go ahead um this is just i understand there's a lot of a lot that can happen between what the governor proposed last week and and what comes out of the you know what ultimately emerges but can you just generally speak to what you see in that budget and assuming we stay on you know get something similar to what um has been proposed what impact it's going to have on us well i mean the parts of the governor's budget that impact education directly you know outside of any legislation that's that's mandated right because there's two things that are happening the governor's presented its budget and the legislators are making new laws as far as the governor's budget the most important thing that's been done is educational cost sharing grant which cheshire receives about 9.3 million dollars per year that's intact in the governor's budget most of the other grants that i saw are also intact but the big one is certainly ecs so for the next two years um in the governor's proposed budget ecs will remain flat there was some controversy as to how that's going to happen whether or not the state will be using some of the esser funds to buoy the budget um i i don't know that that's a risk at this point or not it's just a something that's being discussed so yeah we'll be okay yeah i can tell you that yesterday the alliance districts and many of the larger uh municipalities across connecticut met with together because the state statute was basically uh slated to reduce uh ecs funding to many of the more affluent communities across connecticut and i think you know i can't get inside the head of the governor he hasn't articulated this but it seems as if perhaps when the federal money came in they kept the ecs money flat what that amounted to for cheshire is about four hundred thousand dollars over two years um that we wouldn't have received had he not done that uh on the flip side it cost waterbury about 20 million dollars so there is a lot of um angst across the state about how do you make that up and then if it is through the federal money i can't imagine in our budget trying to all right we're going to cover 10 million a year with federal money that's going to disappear in two years hot like how does the taxpayer in waterbury make that up two years from now it's uh unconscionable so i you know there really i think there's going to still be a lot of debate deliberation my dog seems quite unhappy about it but i think he'll get over it i i don't know but uh they're still working on it i wouldn't call it absolutely settled yet right thank you any other questions or comments okay seeing none thank you mr maciana and this will conclude the finance report thank you adam and everyone moving on to uh section three c which is planning committee update uh andrew thank you mr chair we had a planning committee meeting back on february the 4th um tim catherine van and myself where we heard the report from ecg engineering if you remember back a few months back um ecg was retained by us to take a look at all of the school facilities for possible rooftop and ground mount solar installations ecg did a presentation where they showed their first pass at where potential locations could be um not gonna get into all the details of me but most notably um they pointed out there's a three acre wooded site at cheshire high school um that could be down in the back towards the um towards the canal and the linear trail that could be essentially clear-cut for ground mount installation that could potentially generate 90 percent of the power required for treasure high school um after a little bit of debate and back and forth the committee thought that that idea was a little bit much to consider right now especially with school modernization moving forward um just balancing you know the environmental benefits of clear cutting three acres of forested property with the installation of solar and how that might be perceived and what the real benefit would be in the long run um ecg also identified other potential locations at doolittle school along one of the entrance drives as well as at highland elementary on the front portico as well as along some of the parking bays adjacent to the police department and they're gonna do further exploration and look into that for another pass in about two weeks sir week and a half or so we're gonna get another report from ecg about where um additional installations might be able to be integrated onto some of our school sites while also taking into mind the ever evolving coming school modernization plan for the district um we do have a deadline but there's going to be a application for the state between april and june and so we do have to make some decisions in order to get into that funding round and we're still moving forward towards that we don't have a project yet and before we do have a project we'll come to the share what our thoughts are on that happy to entertain any questions or tim catherine if you guys want to add anything time thanks andrew yeah just one thing so i follow lots of energy stuff and one um chatter that i i've heard is uh joe biden is thinking about shovel ready projects um so i think it would be behoove us to have to move forward a little bit on to continue moving forward on this um because who knows maybe there'll be something out there more funding and give us even you know a better deal on our electric rates thank you andrew sure ann yeah i think it um the committee has expressed this cautious proceeding forward which makes all the sense in the world to me because if there are places that are identified that that's great information to have but as we go to modernize our all of our buildings down the road over the years um part of what we will be doing is uh readjusting some of those the roots and the the outside portions of our school buildings and you know we shouldn't be doing anything before those plans are solidified down the road but um i think it's great that we're having the uh research done so that we are ready to go we have some idea of what we're looking at when when we do get to that place thank you catherine [Music] thanks andrew um yeah i think while we are all i think very much in favor of trying to figure out how to do this kind of project one of the things that was clear to me was you know it it will be hard to make decisions without having some sense of you know where the school modernization plan is going to come out and so where although we will be getting more information from i forgot the guy's name um we'll be getting more information thank you um you know i i don't know how quickly we'll feel comfortable as a board saying okay this will do x y z but if we can i mean that would be terrific to at least get things started so um i'm just sort of i guess emphasizing what ann just said really which is we you know things are so much up in the air right this moment that we're just gonna have to take it as we can and um work as quickly as we can to get the benefit of whatever funding is available so um that was not all that helpful but there you go thanks valuable nonetheless tim thanks andrew yeah just um i know i've said it to i'm i'm confident i've said this to the full board before but for the viewing public as well just some of my thoughts include with regard to the school modernization but our we're probably going to continue using the parcels that we use there could be some changes but we'll be using electricity at them and we're still going to have parking lots at them and what at those schools and what goes through my mind is carports solar carports so it's not necessarily rooftops where things could get adjusted but we will have parking we will use electricity and granted the footprint of any building could change but generally speaking these things will still exist and the other piece as catherine just alluded to is the incentives so there's state and federal incentives which based on current law will be ramping down over the next uh 12 to 24 months now i just pointed out that there's talk about different incentives coming in so it's fluid um but i definitely think you know moving forward as expeditiously as possible getting ourselves in the queue for any possible incentives while balancing it with the modernization committee i think it's the prudent thing to do so thank you any other questions or comments thank you thanks everyone thanks andrew uh moving on to the school monetization committee update been a lot of uh activity happening uh from that committee so andrew and ann if uh want to give us uh update i unfortunately missed last night's meeting i've been under the weather this week uh so i'm sure we'll get an update but uh you guys can kick it off sure um and would you like me to start yes i would okay so what i did here last night we um for those of you that watched those of you at home are here tonight um we had a spirited discussion last night about where we are and where we still need to go with the school modernization plan and i just kind of want to start by saying we're making big decisions for a long-term plan it's a big committee there's a lot on the table so what i did in preparation for tonight is i made kind of a cheat sheet of what the options are kind of breaking it down what the costs are and again this is my sheet this didn't come from coliers i did this on my own just to kind of give a flavor as to the two different options that are on the table now um and then i've got a little bit more to talk about after we go through this so i'm gonna i'm bad at this as we all know so i'm gonna share my screen and share i'm gonna bring up this word document can everybody see what's on my screen yes yes okay i can't which i don't like because i love body language and i can't get any of it off of the committee so i'm off the board so here we go so scenario 1a i'm going to go through this and then we can i'll switch back and then we could i'll take any questions so in scenario 1a phase 1 we'll see the creation of a new north end elementary school which is forecasted for 850 to 1 000 students that total project cost is about 62.6 million dollars with a 35.72 percent rate for reimbursement from the state of connecticut which will leave a local sheriff about 40 million dollars also in phase one at the same time running concurrently with the new elementary school construction will be the renovation of the existing dodd building which would become a 7-8 middle school as it is today just a gut renovation so renovate as new as i had to know in the document here that total project cost is about 85 million there's a 45 rebate or reimbursement from the state of connecticut higher for renovation versus the new construction as you can see there those are the two rates i pulled those out so local share there would be about 46 million dollars in phase one darcy and chapman schools would be closed and the darcy program would move to highland and renovations would be conducted at highland and those would be absorbed through some cip projects product would start in september of 2023 with estimated completion of september of 2025 so the total phase one project cost would be about 105 million to local share around 86 million phase two would see the renovation of norton elementary school for 34.5 million with a local share would be 18.7 million do a little school renovated for 42 million with the local share at 23 million dollars and then phase three again phase three would remain fluid as cheshire high school you know as we get forward towards that project it might be renovated as new or it might be completely reconstructed but the renovation cost would be about 194 million with a local share of 105 million total project cost of scenario 1a would be 419 million dollars with a local share cost of 253 million dollars what scenario 1a does not take into consideration is um project cost for hummuston for either relocating the central office or the programs at hummuston school and the renovation projects or all these products will take place for you know for norton or for doolittle or for highland school these these schools will be renovated with the students actually in place um just to project it out cheshire high school would be open for the spring or rather for the fall of completed by the spring of 2034.
by having the extra clinicians professional development would be embedded throughout the buildings which is important for ongoing professional development for our staff but a big piece of this also we would have the ability to look at possibly bringing in even more students in district because of the additional supports and behavioral needs of our students that are out of district so that is uh a real a realism something that i would like to say i know this bond is working on that as well so that is that is our goal just something to if you look at uh what the next couple of years um may look like uh are there any questions on that or anything barbara oh thank you thank you for that rapport and uh mine's more of a comment uh and for for the public and for us in general as a thank you uh for this commitment to uh having these kind of support services as we all know the pandemic makes these kind of counseling services even more important than ever and it's amazing that you know our financial department and dr volesky and yourself mr farrow and everyone involved uh ms bond and all that to have this available uh when funds that we're bringing in are much lower and the fact that you planned ahead to have this available hopefully will help a lot of our students with a lot of issues that they may have pre pandemic post pandemic and moving forward uh in their lives so thank you thank you mrs i just want to mention that without the board's support and the vision of dr valesky and the support the financial workings of mr juliana and his team um you know we wouldn't be able to get to this point but thanks to you we're able to move forward and again it affects the students in our district greatly and that's that's what we're here for make things better for our students anyway possible any other board members have questions um heather now i just have a comment as well i appreciate the way this presentation fits with the special ed presentation because the increase in a clinician to the flex program and the increased numbers projected in the schools has a direct relationship on the emotional well-being and behavior of our students and that can actually stop students from needing the move to out of district or escalating to a point where their services are looked at in that way i think it's a great deal of forethought on the part of the administrative team to not have those students leave the district it's better for them to be here but also from a cost standpoint it's just wise so i appreciate that we're moving upwards especially with the full-time clinician for the flex program thank you ms gabs i appreciate you saying that um you know i do want to also mention um that the least restrictive environment is always what we're focusing on as responder told us earlier with our students so to bring students home and we'll keep students home um that's that's great fiscally but it's also best we believe for our students and our family lou i actually had a question um very good report thank you um our attendance i guess our virtual attendance at extracurricular activities that we've been able to maintain throughout this pandemic which is so crucial again to the social emotional development of our students to have that connection to extracurriculars um what would you say about the the attendance during the pandemic as opposed to uh pre-pandemic well we've always had very good attendance pre-pandemic surprisingly i think what happened uh during the pandemic is that we've had a lot of students that would normally maybe not stay after school or not be involved that were able to be involved because they can just click on so the numbers are are good some areas better than we expected some areas about what we expected but i think if you ask the students they would tell you and and i'm sure the the staff as well that uh we're all looking forward to everybody being back in school full-time and um hopefully we'll have even more students want to get involved and and realize that if i was wasn't involved before uh the pandemic i missed a golden opportunity but i still have an opportunity to get back into our clubs and activities and our sports so we're looking forward to that but what's interesting um totally agree what's interesting though about what you said is there's so many different reasons why a student may not be able to participate after school whether it's a transportation issue or a family responsibility issue and they have to get home it might be something to think about to continue even just limited several remote virtual extracurricular activities so that those students do have the opportunity the ones who really want to participate but just have to get home for whatever reason physically so i that you know it's another takeaway it's dr voliski you mentioned several times about um there are several things we've we've learned and accomplished during this pandemic that can be translated into what will be our regular normal quote-unquote school year and hopefully um and this this is definitely a good takeaway absolutely the the primary focus is getting students back in school and but we have we have clearly discovered uh some uh some some hidden benefits of using technology and we've all grown administratively and and in terms of our use of technology uh so i think our application of technology to augment our face-to-face instruction back in school and returning to some sense of normalcy is going to make us a better school district yep anyone else barbara just a quick question um about ppe uh was under um it said on the areas not yet approved is that uh something that we're gonna continue how like just maybe you could update us on the ppe situation we do have uh monies allotted for ppe what we did last uh or this year actually is we purchase ppe um when available and we do have some extra ppe um but we also have um some funds for additional ppe for next year this is juliana i don't know if you want to add anything to that so uh mrs reese what we are planning to do is uh continuing to look at uh what's uh what's happening in terms of the pandemic what kinds of uh steps we need to continue to take and those that won't be necessary so we're not just adding things into the budget that may not be required so um we're keeping those on hold right now until we get a better handle on what the future may bring for us okay thank you okay bernie want to bring it home certainly so uh just briefly um as a reminder we have a number of budget presentations coming up march 4th and march 18th when we will be coming into the closing days of the tentative budget the governor is still scheduled to provide his budget address february 23rd state aid data is released two days after that budget address so that's when we'll find out what our state aid is the tentative budget adoption is scheduled for march 18th um it cannot be delayed beyond that uh we will then have a public hearing on may 7th certainly the time from the tentative budget adoption through the up to the public hearing uh we will continue to have conversations and uh potentially make modifications to the tentative budget final modifications will need to be presented if there are any at the public hearing the final budget adoption will then occur may 13th and that is it for the budget for this week thank you good job everyone okay next we have a presentation on block scheduling at churchill junior high school in east brunswick high school uh dr velesky did you want to introduce us or just uh dr bully um i'm just going to introduce dr bolli who's going to drive the presentation we're going to present to the public an abbreviated presentation that we already presented to the board of education uh to give the community an overview of our proposal to the board for block scheduling and dr boley has members of her administrative team along with dr mike vanella principal at the brunswick high school mr matt hannah's principal at churchill junior high school uh these are the two schools where we would propose to implement uh block scheduling so they've been intimately involved in discussion and the analysis uh that went into this so dr boley you want to take it away certainly thank you good evening uh our slides burn ready here they come okay great okay so uh thank you block scheduling provides a better student learning experience understanding from our students and our parents the stress and the heavy workload that many of our adolescents bear the high school scheduling committee has been studying this topic for a few years now and we can say that one positive that the last year has provided us with is an opportunity to rethink how we are approaching teaching and learning and we know that as we transition back our classrooms now more than ever need to be more student-centered with time during the day for both social emotional learning and addressing potential learning gaps with that in mind this is the time to implement block scheduling to most effectively structure the school day for our students block scheduling also provides a better teaching experience longer periods will provide the time for teachers to get to know students better as they plan coherent instruction to thoughtfully improve student learning through collaboration coaching and providing individualized feedback the added time will allow teachers to make the important transition from the traditional role of giver of knowledge to the much more appropriate facilitator for learning the block period will be structured in a way to allow students to explore content in depth and make deeper connections be more active in their learning and provide time for reflection it's important to note that over the school year the total number of instructional hours will continue to exceed the minimum number the minimum number of hours per course that's required by the new jersey department of education currently students have a typical caseload of eight classes and this will remain the same with our modified a b block scheduling no course offerings or electives will be reduced with the move to the modified a b block schedule there will be no longer any quarter electives as they will all be modified into a semester or a full year course the quarter electives that were previously offered will be expanded to include a semester's worth of material or combined with other quarter electives to create new and exciting semester elective offerings for our students our students with special needs will benefit from the block schedule by having the opportunity to be exposed to extended time within each subject block scheduling will provide instructional benefits through increased time for small groups reinforcement of the lesson the practice of the skills introduced and instruction related to iep goals and objectives this structure also allows for flexibility that can be used for social breaks interaction and movement as needed block scheduling is better for higher level courses such as ap because of the depth of these courses this format will provide extended blocks of time for reading writing critical analysis and discussion without interruption block scheduling will provide more time for students to apply what they learned in the same room with an expert this format is better to cover big ideas concepts and texts in longer blocks of time it also allows for the day off for students to complete the substantial reading that all ap courses demand with longer periods students will be able to dig deep and sustain engagement in ap activities regular practice testing will be chunked into segments this schedule also provides the time for a daily standalone homeroom period for community building and social emotional learning activities a grade level cohort will stay together for their homeroom period all three years and have they all have the same counselor this schedule provides a midday longer lunch period break you can see here that lunch a will be scheduled before periods three or seven lunch b will be scheduled in the middle of periods 3 or and lunch c will be scheduled after periods 3 or 7.
so that's scenario 1a should i go right into scenario 2a or do are there questions andrew just uh i'm sorry point of clarification for folks that may be tuning in that are new to all of this um so there's very cereal when he has these phases as they exist today from smc and they're still you know going through the details um but essentially both options you're going to show i mean the initial focus is going to be on phase 1a um when the town council on board of ed you know deliberates i mean look at the plan in total but for those watching uh if this goes referendum this fall the entire 250 million project cost won't be in the ballot more likely the first phase so i just want people getting scared from that you know big ticket item um yeah and that's exactly right um but what's important to see here is is that phase one initially was just a new north end elementary school and since our last meeting it went from a new north end elementary school with a full renovate as new dodd middle school so i just want to make sure that you know keeping the board up to date as the project continues to evolve so i'm going to go on to scenario 2a i'm sorry i ca and throw the cap and she had a question oh sorry i can't see anybody yeah no sorry andrew um if you go back to one a the renovations of do little oh sorry didn't mean no no innovation of doolittle and norton are those renovated as new those are renovated okay i just wanted to clarify that okay thank you jordan okay so scenario 2a would be the creation of a new 68 middle school with a total project cost of 130 million that local share would be about 83 million and concurrently with the new middle school construction would be a new chapman elementary school on the chapman property which again i'm going to get into a redistricting conversation quickly after this which would be it's projected for about a 500 student occupancy with the total construction cost there of about 33 million with the local cost at 21 million both schools are slated to open for the september 2025.
we realize that successful implementation will require ongoing support and professional learning opportunities for staff some of the initial steps will include revisions to our curriculum our pacing guides and teacher planning to ensure that the additional time is utilized effectively for additional information one may visit the district website at www.ebnet.org and there you will also find a feature to pose any additional questions that you may have thank you thanks dr bowley any questions from the board questions comments leeway dr bollis thank you very much for a great presentation are you going to post your slides on the district website to help parents understand this blog scheduling thank you leo yes i am as well as the uh an overview video that was shown at the a couple board meetings prior that'll be on there as well as in addition the faqs that were compiled will be there for parents and we'll add to them as parents uh put features in through the chat on the website thank you very much um joyce i imagine that we're going to be incorporating a lot of um this introduction to block scheduling into our student orientations this summer would it be possible to provide some kind of even if it's virtual orientation for parents who who want to come kind of a town hall format but to give parents an opportunity to see the slide in detail and um perhaps submit questions but just to have a forum so that they have a total understanding of of um their pieces yeah that's a great idea um we are we are um planning for student orientation for those students who are incoming to the to the various buildings and also for students who due to covet and remote learning are not new to the school per se but have not physically been in the school yet so including the parent piece is a great idea okay thank you anyone else we would like to also look at using some of our opportunities with our pta parent nights at the schools to offer parents the opportunity to come and ask questions and and have more specific related to the building based um items that's a great idea yes whatever opportunities we can take pta meetings back to school nights i don't think that this is just going to be something that that parents and students but right now we're talking about the parents we'll just have questions about in august and september i think it'll be an ongoing ongoing process as it is for all of us the learning process and we also might get some some um good feedback from parents in terms of helping us to tweak things so i think it will also be um important to try and come up with some kind of mechanism to constantly get feedback from the students what's working what isn't working you know an ongoing not professional development for them but to provide ongoing forums for them where they do have an opportunity to let us know uh what's working and that's what what's not working president becker like like you suggested the feedback loop but we will include the teachers as well and that feedback loop oh well that goes without saying it but but also i think this is um this is a change uh that was was well thought out uh before it became as a recommendation to the board but the pandemic really created this environment as dr bully said for us to explore acceleration of implementation uh and align it with our recovery from the pandemic but i think um not just tonight and not just the pta meetings this this will require ongoing communication with the public and you know check in with them at a variety of board meetings between now and the start of the uh 2021-22 school year uh so they can understand what we're about to undertake and so we can kind of prompt their thinking about asking questions because i know everyone's lives are really busy right now and they will continue to be busy uh so it's our responsibility to keep it on the on the top top shelf so people understand it's important and we're ready to answer their questions uh dr valeski ongoing professional development for the staff is absolutely crucial totally agree and has to be ongoing has to be um seven days a week almost in terms of opportunity to get feedback and to ask questions and to discuss with their department chairs and supervisors and building administrators um i often think though that we we forget that the students can also provide valuable feedback to us because they're the ones along with the teachers in the classroom who are really seeing um our plans translated into what's working or what isn't totally great heather are you scratching your hand or raising it both okay um scratch it's all things um i didn't want to ask what are we planning to do or do we have a plan i'm sure we do but do we have a plan to evaluate the effectiveness of this as we move forward besides a feedback loop are there criteria that we'll be looking at long term to see the benefits dr bowie yes so of course um you know the feedback and the the qualitative uh data from the stakeholders is critical but also taking a look at um you know we have quarterly data reviews with the building administration so understanding any trends or changes in any of our student achievement data or social emotional data visits to the counselors anything such as that definitely will be monitored i know the counselors do a great job in tracking um the patterns and trends of what students are presenting with when they come down to talk so all of that will be taken into account i i want to emphasize what dr bully just said it's it's not just about the the quantitative data it's about the qualitative piece too and about the the uh the stress or the the change in feelings that students have in this kind of format and the teachers as well we think it's going to be successful we have every hope it will be successful but we that that's a piece of this that's why we are so passionate about this because we think this is a mechanism that will reduce the stress uh of many of our students and um and but professional development will have to be a piece of this implementation to reduce the stress for teachers uh so they they can be prepared to implement this seamlessly um dr bollier or dr volesky could you just speak for a minute to the process of looking at best practices from other districts and block scheduling models from other districts that you investigated as part of your process of coming up with a model for east brunswick well you want to talk to that you might want to involve some other members of the team at this point because they were directly involved in that definitely so i do know that the high school scheduling team of which mr hannis has been a part of um has been uh studying this for a few years now i'm not sure if dr vanilla is on the call here but uh matt if you'd like to speak to the process that the the group went through over the last few years sure sure dr bully so when we started the process what we wanted to do was look at schools that were in similar district factor groups similar performance levels size um and we also wanted to look at different types of schedule it wasn't that we settled in on one type of schedule saying this is what we want to move to we really did take the perspective of what is the optimal use of instructional time so we looked at several different models including was our current 42-minute period maybe the best fit some of the other schedules that we looked at were the a b style block where you have four periods one day and four periods another day um with classes in uh in a time frame of somewhere between 65 to 85 minutes range we looked at schools that use a rotating drop block where you have an eight period day and you drop two periods per day that entails a few things with lunch that are not feasible where this where the school would have to have a unit lunch where the entire student body is eating lunch at at a single time it also impacted some of the the um the senior privileges that our seniors at the high school have with things like late in and early out which are privileges that many students like when they get to their senior year and we still wanted to be able to offer to those students who are interested in that so that's why um when making the determination to look at the a b block that that seemed to be the best fit but we also did site visits getting out to different schools to look at the a b style block versus the rotating drop block and having students come along teachers come along so that we could get input from all the stakeholders and and see what does it look like when you're actually going through that schedule um and what would be the best fit for us do your teachers go along i didn't know that that's that's that's great i'm i'm glad we involved them at that level yes and we also in this analysis involved a critical piece of this was uh mr rochefelt whoever sees child nutrition operations and how do we accomplish uh serving students in this block um and so he was a he had to be a critical piece of that that factoring and could we make this could this be achievable could we actually accomplish this and miss becker if i may uh matt and the scheduling committee also um had a parent evening session at the high school and a student session where they got uh feedback from both the parent group and the student group who participated discussing the the um the need for something to change regarding the scheduling the workload and the daily stress and pressure great good to hear anybody else comments questions great presentation great work by all of you yeah thanks dr billy thanks mr hanna's thanks academics team all of you appreciate it good job okay uh sorry i just need to get back to the agenda okay okay thanks to everyone who gave presentations tonight we are now up to the good of the cause of the public members of the public may provide comment at this meeting through zoom by entering the url meeting id and password you see before you on the screen in order to be recognized use the chat feature select the zoom meeting host and enter and send your name to the host you will be recognized to speak when your name is called individuals will be invited to speak in the order in which we have received your request the board of education recognizes the value of public comment allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters of community interest to protect the privacy of all students and staff concerns regarding individual students and staff members should generally be addressed by first meeting with the appropriate administrative staff public participation will be limited to three minutes duration is there anyone wishing to address the board this evening bernie is there anyone in the queue i see no one no messages here asking to speak okay seeing none i close the public portion and we will move on to this evening's agenda uh for the board of education agenda we're going to be tabling item 2 the 2021-2022 school calendar at the request of several board members for further discussion so there are five items remaining on the agenda can i please have a motion for items one through five on the board of education agenda so mostly mobility is there any discussion mark mark says the numbers is uh policies still on that yes okay uh policy one no i'm sorry i'm sorry i i spoke too soon uh one one three four and five does not include policies okay so we're going to do six later mark you want to separate out um i'm sorry when i said i meant there were five items left i meant that um sorry i didn't mean to confuse you apparently the motion on the floor is uh for items one three four and five policies is not one of them okay uh and this is a roll call vote discussion i didn't see any other hands okay uh mr carangelo yes mrs two um i've seen from five and yes to the west mr sismar yes this is gloss yes yes this is lex yes this is reese yes mr winston yes and president becker yes motion carries can i please have a motion for item number six policies first reading moved by jeff second by laurie is there any discussion mark mark sismar hi thanks on policy 152 uh since the bylaws were opened up for board elections was there any discussion about adding a candidate's statement or a question and answer period where board members could ask a candidate questions that was not a conversation that arose during the policy committee meeting is that something that we can talk about to see if anybody else has interest in that i would uh i would like to see that as a part of the policy so bernie how would we um do we open a discussion on this now do we put it on the agenda can we take off this policy and put it on the next agenda for a full board discussion okay so i i think that uh part of what we will need i think for purposes of getting through this right now uh we can um modify the um the motion to exclude 152 that would be the first thing and we can go through that process and then uh with regard to the suggestion i think the first thing would be um to ask mr jacoby board attorney as to whether that is something that uh would be appropriate to put into uh the bylaw so the first thing would be and mr jacoby would do that separately of course would it be would it be is it appropriate also to put this as an agenda item for a full board discussion not just the policy um committing just so i understand president becker you want to take it out of post committee and you want to bring it to food yeah i want to give this way everybody will have an opportunity not just the people on the policy committee okay full board discussion marcus you were thinking of mark is that what you would since i was going to bring up 165 also um their bylaws to me that's separate than a policy introduction of change um i would feel that bylaws would be something that the entire board would have input on and i do have a comment about 165.
darcy school would close highland receive renovations through cip um dye would remain in swing space allowing other buildings to be renovated while they were empty so the total phase one project cost would be about 163 million 200 000 with a local share of 104 904 phase two again as tony pointed out these phase phases are subject to change doolittle and norton would both be renovated as new um you can see the numbers there in front of you and then phase three again would see the renovation of cheshire high school and or the recreation of cheshire high school depending on where we are at that time total project cost would be about 439 million with the local share of 274 million um so the delta between option 1a and 2a is approximately 20 million dollars with 2a being the more costly of the two options so questions before i get on to next steps right now catherine okay sorry maybe you're going to get to this but has the committee i was i watched the meeting from last night almost the whole thing but i wasn't getting a sense that the committee is yet sort of focused on one option or the other and so is the idea that both of these options will be coming to the board and the town council or am i getting too far ahead of myself here no no that's a great it's a great question so no we have not these are just as they are as of yesterday both of these options are still under refinement and review um and if i could i just i'll just get into it so what's happening now is is milo and mcbroom who's now known as slr for those of you watching um they are looking at a redistricting study based on the two options as proposed so what that means is we did an enrollment study and now we're going to look at what the redistricting study is and so there are two very different things and what the redistricting study is going to show is is how many actual bodies will be in each of the school buildings um so what that's going to do is it's going to give us a final option or final understanding as to how many students will be at highland elementary school how many students will need to go into the new elementary school if that's going to be the route that we're going to go and how many students will remain um district-wide and all the other school buildings so that's a valuable piece of information that we need we won't have that information until the end of next week um so i guess we'll just keep going and let you all know that one of the motions that was made at the school modernization committee meeting last night is to ask the town council for an extension of our march first deadline um to june 1st in order to bring the presentation to both the town council and to the board of education for final review we all felt that it was prudent for that we need a little bit more time in order to really take everything into consideration refine the numbers refine the plans look at the redistricting submit the redistricting potential study to the board of education for review and come up with the best plan possible additional questions yeah uh i'm sorry adam andrew ann thank you um there is so much to digest here this is different from even the last time you presented um so if i'm understanding it looks like in one a that in phase one that the smc voted on and all agreed that on top of a new elementary school that there would be a full renovation of dodd is that is that my understanding yes yes okay um and that it looks like and so i'm guessing maybe this is why smc has decided to extend their deadline or ask for an extensions you have cost for cip for highland but there's no number and it also looks like that homiston is going to remain open and not be included in any kind of new structure in this phase not in phase one no it was it was agreed that we would we would pull hummuston out of phase one okay um and then in the excuse me and then in the section second option you're building a new middle school um and and of course just for everyone that's watching at home the the the problem we're trying to solve is a population increase in the elementary school and so you're building a new sixth rate middle school so that alone will that solve the population problem by removing all the sixth grades from the elementary school no no it will not not for the full enrollment projected for the 20 um for the 2029 school year so this is all based on the final of the 2028-2029 school year which is the final enrollment projection numbers okay and school has to be enlarged one of the elementary schools has to be enlarged in order to grab it's about 200 additional students the if you built a new elementary school at least preliminarily you're feeling like that would be able to absorb the elementary school population bump yes and that's why if you look from my presentation last time to this presentation it went from a 700 student elementary school to now it's about 850 to 1 000 students it's and now compared to highland is that comparable or larger i'm not sure i think highland's about 8.25 so it's roughly the same that correct yeah that's that's bigger than highland bigger yeah andrew just for a second uh when you're not sharing your document you're sharing your google uh tiled view of everybody just yeah that's how i can see you guys i know i get it i get it i have to be able to see people it drives me nuts that's okay uh okay that's that's it for now thank you okay can i just can i just add to clarify something that adam is getting at so where that falls is that in the scenario 2a where those extra elementary kids that you are alluding to and that andrew was talking about that happens with the chapman school project that will include more elementary students if we build a new chapman on the same property we can increase the number of students that are going in there yeah and if i build on that before i get to tim uh so if the board remembers when the modernization committee ranked and graded all of the seven or eight other options were a lot more if you remember the ranking um on the categories drop that down to about four or five and then from there down to three now down to these two but in every one of those scenarios there were a lot more phases so if you look what when andrew's showing now in phase 2a there were more than three phases the new middle school was its own phase one i think chapman was in phase two and i and i from wrong and andrew i think after looking at all their own projections and timelines and other things i think the the committee or colliers or someone decided probably best to do these projects in parallel the the new sixth grade middle school and chapman school who ann just talked about to get the totality of addressing the enrollment crunch is that correct is that one of the reasons why at least those two were yes sorry about that tony and i think part of it also is these two scenarios uh are parallel in that they they take care of the whole enrollment issue that we're going to have at the elementary level and so they both include all of the things that we need to do to get to taking care of elementary enrollment increases up through tell me 29 20 28 29 yes and the same for scenario 1a right so we look at phase one there that's what i mean they're parallel these two scenarios you can compare as apples to apples yep awesome thank you guys uh tim you're up thanks tony thank you andrew um yeah and and i realized these questions could go off on a tangent that's not my intent i'm just trying to keep i'm hoping for relatively short answers just to keep the meeting going um so in general you know i the school i know best my alma mater and also my kids norton it seems okay to me what is renovated as new is there an easy answer oh yeah i mean i don't know if ann or andrew or tony analogy i've used with some of the ptos is like a capital improvement project would be like taking your kitchen and pulling out the dishwasher stove and fridge replacing those you know major utility items um and you know it's it's not necessarily addressing the paint your what um a renovate is new is is basically you're doing the cabinets the counters the you know you're bringing it up to speed you're keeping the bones but um fully updated okay now i get that i mean very high level you know comparison yeah no no no you argue that or yeah no it's tim just picture they're taking the building and taking everything from the inside walls and demoing it and replacing it as new and also there's there is the ability for some small additions and alterations to the actual structure of the building within that that plan so you'd get a brand new school essentially with out building a new school okay i mean i i can understand that i can understand that jeff i appreciate the i appreciate the analogy and i'll say it bluntly is that i don't see a lot of people knocking down their homes in cheshire i do see renovations i mean with kovit i mean i think the booming industry is home renovation uh so i can i can appreciate that and i imagine a lot of people in town can appreciate or yeah better appreciate that than let's take a wrecking ball to the buildings and just start over from start over new yeah i think the difference is that most people aren't adding 10 people to their family either over the course of and that's what we're seeing in terms of the enrollment increase so you know really in terms of knocking down buildings what we're trying to do is accomplish two goals at least at chapman the the amount of money it'd take to renovate that building versus building one slightly larger and cutting off the you know addressing the enrollment issue is relatively nominal you know it would just not make sense to renovate that facility when you could build a new one and add more space for additional students alleviating some of the enrollment pressure for not much more money it just doesn't make sense uh economically the dodd issue is also alleviating the pressures of enrollment by including sixth grade in it also fully updates uh you know provides a brand new school facility for all parts of town in about 25 of our student population three grades worth of of kids so you know that's it on top of that it opens up dodd for future swing space when we do want to renovate uh it's safer and cheaper to do so with dot is swing space than trying to renovate with students in the building the final i think component to this that you know we've talked about probably over the last seven years is that it also provides a location for central office hummus thin and a myriad of other if we choose to do that or you could just knock down parts of the dodd building um you know whenever 15 years out when everything else is complete or 20 years out or whatever the case may be and um with regard to so you said you said a minute ago that uh existing chapman what is that uh 300 kids or something and you would write in the proposal would be a new school for 500 kids those would be somewhere near cost parity and the driving factors as i understand it is you know well age of the school i'm guessing asbestos ada issues you'd have to remediate all these things that would be highly expensive right and to do new construction could just make more sense for that site exactly right so you know slapping an elevator shaft into chapman in the building that it is it just it's not economically it's it would be super expensive to do that almost cheaper to just build a new one um that's part of the the consideration there yeah on the property tim could be built while that school is still occupied right be able to hear the old chapman down and use that space for parking and field facilities and with regard to that because redistricting is not something that many people would look forward to at least i don't think um would it be possible to do say 500 kids there and then do with i mean i've heard numerous times norton and doolittle have space and do additions at those two schools i'm just curious like has that been discussed by the smc yeah and that that's where where andrew was talking about if you look at a new building is that that you could have a new building someplace else um with a massive you know massive building which i really wouldn't recommend right now we have 766 kids at highland it's i want to say like the fourth or fifth largest elementary school in connecticut um wow you know you that kind of puts it in perspective there are boatload elementary schools in connecticut and that's one of the biggest um so really that sweet spot i would say is 600 or smaller um and that's what we have it doolittle and norton so adding on to those you really i don't wanna i mean from a um an econo or an academic perspective don't wanna necessarily bloat those buildings uh traffic is a beast already at norton in order to accommodate a lot more students that you basically have to move the building i i don't know and that's what they've talked about you build a new norton that's much larger at the rear of the property if you're doing that now you're knocking down trees back there and not making a lot of friends in the neighborhood would be my guess um by doing so so i mean there it's every one of these is sophisticated i think school boards and in communities across connecticut face a headache when they try and create you know try and build a new building or they try and renovate a new building we're right now exploring eight buildings at one time and hence the uber migraine that andrew kind of referenced that was last night's meeting so you know it is very sophisticated but we we've collected not not anybody in these meetings it's it's happened over numer numerous years we're we're kind of painted into a bit of a dark corner and so what we're trying to just figure out is what is that first phase that we could do that will absolve the or at least you know to a certain extent ameliorate the the issue that's the enrollment at the elementary grades and then we gotta move past that because that's a pressing issue and and i say it when our pto meetings my fear is these trailers outside it you know doolittle and kids going outside for classes on a day like today where you do that at norton already and that's bad enough um it's their eyesores they're expensive for extended periods of time if we're gonna as a community invest in right-sizing schools i'd much rather do it the right way and much more economically uh intelligent than renting trailers yeah no i i i don't like trailers at all um but i just so this whole this conversation i think probably just changed andrew what you were saying last night where it jumped from like 700 up to a thousand um and i'm just curious has the smc which just crossed my mind is 500 to chapman totally new school argument that jeff just made it makes sense to me uh and then i don't know we have a piece of property and we put in a whole new elementary school three or four hundred i'm a huge believer in neighborhood elementary schools has that been a topic discussed by the smc at all you're saying a new middle sixth grade middle school in two new elementary schools no no no all i'm talking i've skipped the middle school entirely i'm just thinking looking at that thousand person thousand student number that you put up there 500 to chapman and then i don't know eriso farms a small elementary school over there has that been i mean now that we're up to a thousand has the smc looked at something like that you know the first time that a thousand student elementary school was talked about was last night okay the first time and um something i want to i'm in here with before so i think adam had his hand up for a question a few minutes ago is uh you know the smc coney goes so far right so they're they're not uh nor should they uh determine how many kids should be in this school and how that impacts education uh that's our role i mean that's actually superintendents right and we're gonna talk about that those scenarios when we get them from the smc but they certainly are looking at maximizing the value of these dollars and i think that's probably what's driving the large elementary school um but yeah tim it's uh that i didn't realize again i i'll watch the meeting tomorrow night when i get back home from work uh but yeah that definitely changed last night and um something i want to bring up too and and andrew and you guys i got more to talk about so you someone mentioned asked uh what options are coming from the smc we don't know yet uh you know i'm assuming we'll get two yeah i would imagine um because we're not just looking at this too it's also town council right so they're looking for an option or options and you know maybe it is these two i'm sure it'll evolve as uh collier's in slr gets the information back to smc whether it's one or both um or some other variation um we need to do our due diligence on educational programming specs and have deeper discussions on these topics especially what jeff bought out with the size of the school redistricting concerns and you know we have to get parental input and feedback so i uh i think smc needs to push forward as it's doing take the extra time get the options refined whatever they are the only thing i would would say is and i said this at ssc meetings in the past all the time is and now i'm almost changed there is no consensus on this board uh of anyone of uh of being vehemently against any one of these options right now so if there was something on the table that is just a non-starter for us as a whole you know they would know about it and to the best of my knowledge right now both of these options in a current form while they're still being refined they're still viable options if they come to us we'll discuss them and figure which one makes the most sense but you know if there is a we're not going to vote on this obviously but there's a consensus that one or both of these is not going to work uh you know we were told smc a long time ago so i'm curious to see what comes back from slr that data is going to help us a lot and uh i think i was talking to someone today it might have been adam that or andrew that you know we may have to wait for the entire report from snc to deliberations if the data from slr comes back by march and we get our hands on that you know maybe we can give some them some input uh before they finalize their report but uh these are still a work in progress although they're they're getting i guess more refined as as we get closer that's when i put that out there before we go on i'd like to respond to something that tim mentioned about um just renovating dodd as a seven building a new chapman that's bigger and building another elementary school for the other say first of all i'm going to go out on a limb and say yes the smc has entertained every single scenario that you can imagine at least it feels that way but tim one of the things that that what you just proposed does is something that we are really trying to go in the opposite direction of we're trying to decrease buildings not increase buildings because of the cost of maintenance after you have the more buildings that you have to maintain and um have personnel involved in the more expensive it is so it's always sort of it's always been much more to the forefront of our thinking of taking the eight buildings down to seven six not to um take eight buildings to eight or nine even so one of the things we're trying to do is take the sheer numbers down at least by one or two buildings good point and i'm going to turn it back to a couple folks online line on that note uh andrew and phase one a with the new elementary school does phase one does that do you have a share line initially i forgot i don't have anything say again so which which plan takes more buildings offline 1a okay thank you uh let's go uh adam was up about 15 minutes ago so adam catherine tim and then faith sorry thank you um so so just so when i'm watching along with smc as i normally do um i just want to have this in my head so it looks like for a scenario 1a the assumptions are that you'll you would construct a new elementary school whether it's 900 students or 700 or whatever the the number is settled upon because that was a bit of a surprise last night um and it's also assumed that the that dodd can handle the population bump without any other additions to the space because it sounds like if you renovate dodd it's it's to upgrade labs and classroom space or whatever but it's the space itself which if i recall in the past has held upwards of 900 students could handle a the population bump without any major square footage additions that is that the assumption that's being made in 1a yes that was a question tim actually had asked that question um and i missed that i'm sorry no no no not tonight not tonight had been asked previously and we did get that back from colliers okay uh if i could just say in terms of dodd in the enrollment because i was there at the peak and it was um a rough couple of years but it it you know we managed it right the difference now is that we have added some special education programming there that has taken up a few classrooms so um we couldn't get to that capacity that we had before adam but even looking at that um slr my loan whatever projections we should be okay and i think the difference is right now we were looking at capacity uh how much could we how many students like what's the capacity of the district and then what's the total enrollment at the elementary level and i think this was one of the things that was eaten at me as i tried to look at the um enrollment in each of the buildings so what's the total we were looking at what's the total enrollment at the elementary level what slr is doing right now is now focusing in a little bit tighter so where do these students live and what school would they be currently attending then they're going to look at you know like eight years out and then they're going to look at all right well if the numbers don't meet the capacity how many kids would we have to shift from school a to school b in order to make the enrollments and the capacities work over the course of an eight year period so it is taking it from up here where we're only worried about whole all schools totality enrollment now we're looking at individual schools enrollment and we're getting that much more of a granular view and i'm looking forward to seeing that um but it would have you know i think some people expressed it would have been nice to have a week and a half ago you know we're still not settled on scenarios so i think it's it's a tough spot and when um slr is determining this are they assuming like 18 kids a class or or 22 kids of class or are they are they using our assumed averages that are historical averages um and not like maximum capacity of classroom right where they're they're trying yeah they actually you know they're right about where we were in terms of average our historical enrollment and that's a great question because we don't want them assuming 32 kids in a fifth grade class you know no we would never do that so yeah they're they're close very close to our our numbers and so that 900 number for the new new elementary school isn't solid yet because we don't really know what the shift would be north we don't know exactly exactly yeah yeah okay exactly right um okay i'm good thanks uh catherine you had your hand up earlier yes thank you tony um so i think uh my question goes more to the process that we're going to undertake as a board and what time frame we're expecting that to you know i'm getting a little confused now as to um what the steps are going to be so assuming that a present you know the options are presented to the board on i i don't even know when but let's just say april first just to pick a day right um what is our plan for analyzing you know and dealing with the process that we have to go through do we have that do we understand because what we don't want to do is is like have it bogged down with us however we also want to have the time and the plan for okay these are the things that we're going to have to accomplish and this is how we're going to accomplish it and they'll just chime in and andrew and ann i think i'm getting an update more on that june timeline and what that means uh for this and as well as what may happen in the fall but uh you know that smc is fully you know where just talked about it quite a bit as well as the three of us that you know we're waiting for it out bringing the whole package from the smc right the cost breakdown et cetera we're going to redistribute thing if i from earlier last time we went through um you know some period of looking educational specs for programming a sixth grade middle school we we talked about it as a board uh quite a bit um and that process i don't think it took too long because there was only one really one scenario that we chose to move forward with so i i and jeff's going to talk about i think what what he and his team need to do right to come up with specs for these options and the timeline for that we as a board need to discuss that and make sure that we agree with whatever those specs are what could be the best fit with the administration and so we have a series of meetings on that but once we agree to some option and this is where i need jeff and andrew or maybe vinda to correct me on this um and by the way to further muddy this the town council is also getting a report and they're gonna be going through their analysis you know definitely looking at value the cost and what town could afford etc and we're gonna coalesce right so hopefully uh you know what we decide to do you know they can support but nonetheless um up until last night as i understand that you know we would have to have three readings of i believe the education specs you know have a motion approved uh because before it when the grant application is submitted that has to be in there uh not different that we plan to do last time five five years ago um but you know we can't speak to what jeff and his team have to do to prepare those specs for us to review so that being said jeff you want to talk a little bit about that yeah i i would add that um we talked briefly with colliers today uh ben and i spoke with chuck about you know kind of nailing down next steps and one of the things that you know he had thrown out and jen bates and chuck neth were on the call too was considering the new town attorney who has a lot of experience with ocr oscgr excuse me office of civil rights oscgr the construction grants but uh you know they can help kind of uh create like identify what the path that absolutely has to happen is i also know that catherine was only throwing out april fool's day as a freudian uh promotion that i i work here but it but tony spot on that when we do identify a you know path we then have to put together uh a formal town committee that's the school-built construction committee we have to do the ed specs that like tony said we have to have approved at the board level and so there's a very detailed protocol once it gets finalized but i think you're kind of asking like just to give the initial blessing before it goes to town council like what do we have to do and i i think there is still a little bit of gray around that and that you know we're working on trying to make clearer but timing right catholic okay can i say can i speak to that because please i am really optimistic that we do not need till june first to get this proposal to the board of ed and to the town council call me crazy um but that was um that proposal was with the caveat that we can certainly complete this earlier than that deadline but we don't want to have to go back again and ask for another extension so i'm i'm really hopeful and i'm very optimistic that well i just want to be clear that initially it was we needed to get to june 30th in order to submit to the state project so that was that was our deadline that was what was you know we're falling back into that schedule if we don't make the june 30th we can still have a project that is reviewed by the town by the town council by the board of education and could still go to referendum this coming november for vote by the town at that point we could then start the design phase for the school or for whatever it is that we're going to be doing with modernization and then submit the project june of 2022 to the state what that risk would be to the community would be whatever those architectural costs are if the state doesn't approve the project in june of 2022.