plus a whole other bunch of stuff that we have coming with um events and like discounted tickets to like Wolfpack and the Yard Goats and I think there in January we've had um Disney on ice and everything. So, those are always fun, too. And please do not hesitate to reach out to anybody on the PTA if there are questions, especially around the playground, so that we do get information accurately disseminated to the public at large, especially with the very lovely termin terminology of bonds versus grants versus donations. >> Thank you very much. uh a lot of our communications people reach out to your communication. >> Is there any quick question? So, as it relates to the bond, what's the legal entity that contracted with the bond? Is it PTA or is it the town? So, I think that would probably also clarify for for >> I I hate to give out the wrong answer.
I believe it has to go through the town for the for specifically for the playground for the public. So it's not so the town I believe um and I can clarify that um I'm sending you an email about that too Ashley um that the town has to receive the funding and then like it's not like we can go and go use it for something else. passing because that was what the the bonding grant was written for was specifically for a all acceptable program. >> It's currently out for bid on the town website I believe. Um any other any community meetings anyone has to report on a little bit? >> Uh now turn things over to the superintendent for tonight's superintendent report. >> Hey, good evening everybody. This is a slightly abbreviated report tonight because uh we have the budget presentation. Um, Bolton Hoops Night was one one event that we uh put on um last two Fridays ago.
Um, we had student council and a bunch of high school students and staff um host Bolton oops night. Mr. Humson was able to rearrange some schedules and have two home games, uh, a girls game and a boys game, uh, which was really well attended. We invited all the students from BCS. We invited students from Horus Porter. Um we had games, um halftime competitions, uh and it was a lot of fun. I think that uh there was a lot of energy in the in the gymnasium and it was nice to see the whole whole community come out which was was fantastic. Uh our next coffee and conversation, speaking of communication, uh next coffee and conversation is going to be at town hall Thursday, February 19th at 5:00. looking forward to participating in another one of those and um keeping everybody up to date on what's going on with the schools and in the budget specifically.
I know we'll get a lot of questions again about that. Uh last but not least, the governor's budget came out last night and then a revision this morning. Um and we're currently taking a look at how that may impact us moving forward. Uh we do think Cassaul and I looked at it this morning and talked about a couple of things that may have an impact on us, but it's too early to tell exactly what that impact's going to be. So, more to come on that. The impact would not be giving us more money. Why is that never? We're pretty certain of that. >> Yeah. PowerPoint fired up. You guys might want to move your seats or spin them around like that's hurt your neck. >> All right. So, I know we sent you a packet last week for you to look at and uh we put something together tonight to kind of summarize all the work that's been going on for the past few months.
Um, I feel like I've been working on this budget since mid August when the last one passed. Um, it's been a really a great learning experience for me and I want to give a lot of give a shout out to the whole team in district. Uh, this really was a true team effort. Uh, a lot of people came together, the teachers, teacher leaders, the administrators, central office staff. Um, everybody really put their heads together and um, I I asked some challenging questions. We had some difficult conversations. uh we looked at everything and wanted to make sure that we were providing our kids with exactly what they need and what they deserve uh while being as fiscally responsible as we possibly can be. So, is the clicker in there, Miss >> Did someone shut it off on the side? Is there power off? It's on. >> There we go.
>> You see that Monica? Was that me? >> Just trying to get back to >> I feel like technologist. >> Okay. All right. So, here we go. Superintendent recommended budget for uh 2627. Um just a little little agenda of order of things for the presentation. >> I don't know why it's good. >> Really throwing me off my pacing here. >> That's right. We got like this song take 35 minutes. Okay, the slides timed. >> Nope. >> Okay, >> I don't know how to do that. >> Go back to the page. >> All right, seems like there's some sort of picture. Another one. >> Well, yeah. Just from the app on the >> It's nice to do that. >> Think we're good. >> Just kidding. >> No, I did this. Okay. Okay. Did you do it? >> I did that. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Are you sure you >> Yeah.
All right. So, why are we here? Um, we're here because our schools are the pride of Baltimore and I've said that in a lot of emails and I really believe that to be true. Um, I felt that as a resident and I know I feel that when I talk to people that are in town, we talk to people that move to town. Why did you move here? They say because our schools are great. And so, uh, our schools are the pride of Bolton and it's our responsibility to make sure that we continue the proud tradition that we have of providing our kids with an awesome education. One of our board goals is to champion the needs of our school system and be responsible stewards of the public investment. I added a couple pictures of students here that are a little difficult to see, but I'm glad we had a student performance tonight because uh there's no better illustration of tonight and our students to remind us why we're here and to remind us why we're putting this budget together.
to make sure that we continue to support uh the learning experiences that our kids have in and out of the classroom. try to put some pictures together and I know you've seen some of these already in some of the updates um of some different activities, the college fair, the uh Friday morning dance party on the top left and just an illustration of some of the things that our staff does above and beyond the classroom uh to make sure that we're educating the whole child and making sure they have a great experience. This budget was founded in our core beliefs. Uh we believe that quality education is indispensable community investment in the future and students and society. Quality education requires commitment, communication, collaboration among students, families, schools, and the community. All students have value in the right to an education that meets their academic, physical, social, emotional needs.
Students be recognized for uh recognized and value excellence and high expectations, shared accountability are essential for the success of each student. So, I I kind of went through some of our guiding documents, our mission statement, our beliefs um at the beginning of this and just to remind me like this is why we're doing what we do. And so, every budget decision was made with this as a backdrop. I want to include some things that people have said recently about why Bolton Public Schools is so special. Um what our identity is, and these are things that came directly from our uh participants in the strategic planning committee. And I think if if you asked people around town, you would hear these things echoed over and over again. Our climate surveys um surveys indicate that our families feel engaged in the process. They feel like that we're communicating well with them.
Um our students feel like doing well is really important to them. Um and what this tells us is that all the ores are rowing in the same direction. we're all on the same page and uh things are moving in in the right direction for kids in our school district. Again, the mission is to inspire all students to grow as learners, individuals, and citizens. That is closely aligned to our vision statement. And at the end of the day, we want to make sure our kids become engaged global citizens. And that includes making sure that they have the transferable skills that they need to be successful in school and beyond. Um, I talked a lot lately about the strategic plan and our current strategic plan is what also is guiding this work. So, you'll see this woven through uh the presentation and everything that we do. Um, our plan goals being at the top of the list is student success.
So you'll see things uh in regards to making sure that we have all the instructional materials that the teachers need, that we have professional learning for our staff, that uh make sure that we're pushing our students, have high expectations for them, accompanied with the appropriate level of support that they need. Caring culture, you see that in our schools, you see it in the senior center. You see it when our kids are out in the community. Um, you see that when other coaches communicate with our schools about how respectful our student athletes are when they went to their gymnasium or their soccer field. Um, and that's always nice to see. Again, talent development, making sure that we have the highest qualified people in front of our kids every single day. That's that's the biggest thing we can do for our students. Um, and another reason why we're here right now is resource stewardship.
making sure that um we're championing the needs of our school system and we're responsible stewards again of the public's investment. Our budget approach um we want to make decisions that are grounded what administrators, principles and teachers need. Um and so we start with zerobased budgeting. We ask them what they need. What do you need to maintain? What do you need to improve your program? Uh and we go from there. The team heard me talk a lot about ROI the past couple months and return on investment. And we really took a look at everything that we are spending money on, all our resources, and try to examine the return on investment that we're getting and making sure that we are getting the return on investment that we need and that we deserve. And if not, then we're already talking about plans to make adjustments moving forward to make sure that that we do.
Again, I I half joked that development process started at the end of the summertime. Um but really as we were going through last budget cycle, a lot of things were popping into my head as far as um what we would look at going moving into this budget season. Um but the official talks started back in October. Um teacher leaders were submitting recommendations based on classroom instructional needs to their principles. The principles were then relaying it to central office and myself. Um they brought proposals to me. Then in December and January, we looked at all that continuously on a weekly basis. Um I think Cass will tell you probably multiple times per day basis. Um and really digging into what's in our budgets and what do our teachers and kids absolutely need. Um and trying to differentiate between some needs and some nice to haves and making sure that we're being responsible and putting our needs in there.
There's a couple economic factors I wanted to point out because I think these these matter and um these have an impact on on our budget. Obviously, rate of inflation the past 12 months in Connecticut is 3.3%. And I think you know that's something that we're struggling with in school systems and in our own homes or at least I know we are. Um our health insurance is projected at 16% increase. While that sounds really high, that is lower than most areas superintendents have reported lately. Um I just talked to a superintendent this morning. She was at 20%. So um that is something that is is a significant increase for us. Transportation also is an increase by 15 at least 15%. We're in the process right now of uh going out to bid and uh hopefully we'll be working with a bus company in the next couple weeks.
Uh but we know that it's going to be at least 15% higher. And another impact is another factor that impacts is Connecticut minimum wage has increased to 1694 per hour this year. Um, and while it on the surface it may not feel like that has a tremendous impact, but that really moves the needle on all the other salaries. And one of the reasons why the bus company wasn't able to give us a number in the fall is because they were in a collective bargaining uh they were bargaining the agreement with their workers. And so with the minimum wage going up, they their costs are going up, which obviously gets passed on to us. So that minimum wage does end up impacting us on a lot of different levels. special education impact. We talk about that all the time. Um I'm really proud to say that, you know, Beth and her team has done an unbelievable job making sure that we are um doing the right things in our special education department.
Our two building principles are doing an unbelievable job making sure that we have high quality tier one instruction. Tier one instruction is instruction that all students get. Make sure that we're doing that on a really high level. Um and then also making sure that we are running our MTSS process as effectively as we possibly can. So we do those two things and we couple high quality tier one instruction with high quality MTSS then that lowers um the need oftent times for special special education services. So um we have an awesome identification process that we use uh criteria for eligibility make sure that we get kids what they need and and not things that they don't need. Um, and I really appreciate the work that that our support services team has done with that. Um, all that being said, um, we know that special education is extremely volatile and can change very quickly.
Um, and I know you've all experienced that in the past. Our enrollment right now, so um, as you can see, 26 27 projections going into next year. This year we have a high school class in the 60s. uh that tapers off and then for the cons for the foreseeable future uh we settle in in the low 50s high 40s um and on the right you can see a projected 26 27 um Bolton High School projections and again that's with uh losing a large class this year as seniors and then they kind of level off into the mid to high 40s. We've said before that it's not just Bolton that is feeling the um the enrollment crunch. Horus poor, you can see their projections over the next few years and what they have for students. Obviously, they look pretty good in seventh and eighth and then it drops off pretty significantly.
Um and so their enrollment is decreasing at a much higher rate than than ours. Columbia enrollment at BHS. Those are our projections and then you can see at the bottom um how those funds are allocated. On the right is the tuition for the 2627 school year for both uh for Columbia students. Some of the enrollment factors, I know we've talked about some of these, but as you can see in the last couple slides, Colombia enrollment has been decreasing um for and not only is their enrollment decreasing, but they also have more options. they can come here, they can go to RAM, EOSmith, Windham Techch, all the private schools and multiple magnet school options for them. Uh we currently have 10 Bolton students that are being homeschooled. We have students that are in magnet schools. We have students that are attending tech schools, VOAG. So all those competing forces uh make enrollment even that much more challenging.
Open choice enrollment continues to decline not only for Bolton but for surrounding communities that participate in the program. there are a larger number of communities that participate in the program, making the pool of students smaller. Um, and Hartford is working really hard to try to make sure their schools are as attractive as they possibly can be for their students to keep their students in Hartford. So, those are just some enrollment factors that um play a role in in what's going on here in Bolton. Just want to highlight some accomplishments. You know, I think it's important that to share out some of the awesome things that are going on um again inside the classroom, outside the classroom. As you look through these, I try to draw your attention to some of them by highlighting um some key words. Um I think what you'll see too is you'll see everything in here is uh directly aligned to the strategic plan.
And there's a through line and coherence that exists with with these accomplishments and everything else that's going on in the school. So when I look at these, I was putting these together and I asked u the building principles to share some celebrations with me. Um it was really overwhelming all the things that came in and for two small schools it's incredible the amount of things that we have going on. It's incredible the amount of students that are participating in our extracurricular activities. Um we probably have more students participating in ours at a school of a little over 200 kids and some high schools that have 500 students. Um and it's really really impressive and it speaks to the culture that exists here in Bolton. Again, really proud of the work that our students do with student engagement and service. Um, a couple of my favorite things this year were were lunch at the senior center.