Um did there's another another requirement the uh the capital you >> oh so I mean the on the checks and balances so I look at I really did take to heart when we had this you know nice chart from medway >> residents are are at the top I always have taken to heart about the legislative through town meeting >> but the other checks and balances that the public should have is expectation of following the rules so it tags along with wait we are supposed to be getting these things we don't who is who is asking for them and holding accountable shame on us as the public if we don't ask so that's one of the reasons we're here asking >> um but we're supposed to have a capital improvement committee that is citizens serving government >> right >> and that has not been reconstituted for quite some time so I think that's sort of a problem and I think when those rules are ignored Just like we're now out of sequence of reviewing the charter.
Also, this is a really fun announcement. I'm sure all juniors are thrilled about it. They will be starting their standardized testing. They will take the SA SAT on April 16th and then the NGHS or NJ or NGSS assessment on the 21st. So, Maddie is not here obviously because she's preparing for the play. But we do want to kind of announce that you are all invited to come see it March 26th, 27th, and 28th. The production will be Pippen, which is a fun and exciting production following a young man's search for kind of purpose and an extraordinary life as the leading player, Maddie, takes him through a whole bunch of different realms. I think Maddie mentioned politics, um, revolution, pleasure. So, this show is going to mix a lot of humor. I know they break the fourth wall a ton. So, it'll be really a a fun watch and our cheshure drama program is always fantastic.
Uh, I will say the first year is $6.8 million. That's a big chunk is the turf which is 1.5. Last year uh the board approved $5.04 million that was ultimately reduced by the town for about $3 million and then two items failed at referendum. So we looked at about like $1.5 million of capital funding that we were able to access this year including a $1.1 million fire alarm control system. So that was the majority of the money we got from last year approved. Was that for Dodd or was that a year ago we did DOD? >> Yeah, that's not Dodd. Um the fire alarm. Yes, it's the high school and then DOD had been done recently the fire control panel. So that that was updated. >> Yes. >> So the turf is not on this list. >> Yes, it is. It's the Yeah, this one right here.
And uh again, we were going to talk about that in sites and I'll still give it a sort of cursory mention on Wednesday, but I wanted to make sure that there was an opportunity to just, you know, think through it, not feel rushed and ask any questions. Yes, Wanita, I see a hand up. >> Thank you. Um, Mike, um, let me begin by asking you, um, since we've brought sites and facilities issues into the community meeting, I'd like an update on, um, Endeavor and Reach. >> Sure. >> And their location. >> Yeah. >> Beginning in September. So, we had a uh a couple really good meetings with a realtor for a space that was over on Shelter Rock Road. Um, and we went saw the space. Uh, Rich, Kelly, myself, a few other people went over there. We walked the space. We really liked it.
So, we did have a slight our state aid we did get an overall increase of about 377,000 I think it was. Um I have it written down here. Um I think it was around 3 I wrote it on here $397,788. Um we did lose a little bit of money for the preschool expansion, but we're kind of leveling out at the five classrooms right now. So, we kind of expected uh we've also had a little bit of carryover the past couple years for preschool funding. So, we kind of expected them to kind of level that out and figure that out. >> Um >> overall, our tuition increases amongst all of our different tuitions that we pay for the high school for um special ed >> for the vocational school and for all of our private schools that went up $920,000. So, that's a huge increase. um it's kind of hard to to come back from that.
So just to get them to walk in the door, we've already accounted for over 80 cents of every dollar. Benefits alone takes up 22% of every dollar or 22 cents of every dollar. Just the health benefit portion alone. We are also required to transport our students to and from school, but not just transporting our students to and from our schools. We are required to transport our students to and from the schools in which they attend. So we have many students who attend out of district placements. We have to budget for that. That is seven cents of every dollar. In addition to that, we have a budget for special education. That is not that's 5 cents of every dollar special education. That is not our special education staffing cost. That's in our staffing numbers. That's just the special education department's budget for all of the service providers that we need to uh provide for our students.
Much of their work is representative uh is a representative culmination of the lead their leadership developing a culture of collaborative inquiry within our professional learning communities at Stag High School. Um so uh recognized being recognized this evening and here we have Mr. Mike McMahon and Mr. Brian Smith. Um also there was Mary Katherine Swanson and Tom Lai. Um and then administrators were also presenting there. Um we have the division chair for PE health and drivers, Ed, Christina Douglas, and our EL coordinator, Amanda Melgar. And then along with >> Doug Doug Bozage also um presented with uh Christina as well. So he's a presenter even though he's from Andrew High School. So please join me in congratulating these amazing educational leaders as they represented not only Stag and Andrew but also District 230 um uh as statewide leaders. So congratulations to Good evening. Uh with Doug Bozich, our uh PE division chair, PE health drivers ed division chair.
>> So funny. >> Any further questions regarding the transportation department position, summer help, and transportation secretary. If not, I'll entertain a motion to accept those recommendations. >> So, second that. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Next is the up for is the is the superintendent report. >> Okay. Before we get to that, I just wanted to mention to you guys that we are happy to have Madison St. John with us from Vincent's University. She's doing her student teaching and she is in middle school special education with Jana Frederick. So, we're always happy whenever we can help out the profession and be able to give those experiences. is and I know she's going to have a wonderful experience um in our middle school. So excited to have her with us. And then for the strategic planning, this is always a unique time of year because we are still very active in one school year but looking at closing it out and then also looking towards the next school year.
I had a fail on the first one when I moved out of the way. I thought >> Oh, no. >> Bonus. Love it. wonderful achievements. Our next order of business is public comments and I see that we do not have any this evening. After that is the consent items.
>> So, you're cooking, huh? Thanks. >> Sounds Sounds pretty good in the hallway. So, I got a message back if anybody can hear this. Apparently, it's clear over the phoneap that they got. >> We're gonna have the Neiel ratings going tonight. If you all remember what the Neiel ratings were, >> are they? >> Yeah. >> You just don't hear that much about Mr. probably reme. >> So, we're going to move on to the the middle school schedule. And I just kind of want to start with reminding everybody in April of 2024, the board asked a fundamental question, is teaming best for our middle school students? That question launched a rigorous 18month inquiry into how we how we can most effectively drive student achievement. To share their findings of this uh process and the vision for our schools moving forward, I'm joined by the two leaders that have been the forefront of this work.
Now maybe there will be no changes out of the charter. Maybe there will. But again, why are the public processes of checks and balances completely ignored in our town? >> Yeah. I don't know. We're going to be talk of government we have in in a little bit. Um so Oh, did you want to talk about Monson? Well, I I when we were talking about checks and balances, the the moderator there, I I was actually surprised because he wrote, >> you know, a short short essay on social media, which meant he was serious and he wanted people to try to look and it was >> really um I don't know if I should read some, but he wanted people to be aware of how town meeting worked and how the finance committee worked. Um >> I >> Okay. As as of now, you're two months out from annual town meeting.
So, we're all very excited to see how it turns out. But, thank you for having us tonight and uh we hope well we hope to be back soon, too. >> Thanks, Connor. Any board members? Oh, Dr. Sing. >> Um, you talked about the spring sports season. I have the opportunity to have lunch with Connor and a bunch of other students uh about every month to just kind of connect and and um this year they decided to set a goal around uh engaging more students in in connecting with their peers around different events. Uh because usually we get a ton of people at high school football games, the occasional basketball, hockey game, but um we have a lot of impressive performers in the arts, music, other sports that don't get a lot of recognition. You want to talk about the goal you guys set and what you're working toward a little bit?
The >> Yes. >> Okay. And that's all in year one because we have the usually we have a a design year, but because we we've done that so far with um with SLR, we can absorb some of those other permitting if the house gets all approved in capital. >> Couple questions. Um okay, window replacement $500,000. >> That's the referendum cut off. >> Yes. >> But is it 5001 or is it 499? Where does >> 500 even goes to? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yes. And and what I'd have to look back for this specific one is if other projects are considered like if we have prior approved for windows which I can double check like anything that puts us above 500 would have to go to referendum. Like if they said 100,000 but we had had money approved in the past if it pushes us over 500 it's going to referendum >> and approved being not necessarily at referendum but say $200,000 approved by the council at their threshold.
And there was one hiccup and the uh the uh the broker said, "Listen, I think I can work through this hiccup." It was a land use restriction um that had been in place um due to some um just how close it was in proximity to the to the Metro North Rail track railroad tracks that were right there. He said, "I I I think I can work with um Connecticut uh Department of Environmental Protection. I think we can get this adjusted so that it'll be appropriate for that space." Um last I heard, we were not able to do that. That was some information I got just in the last few days. So, I have a conversation planned with him to see if there's any other way um that we can approach uh that that restriction. Um and if not, then we're going to be back to the drawing board looking at an additional space.
Salaries about 260. Um and then the benefits overall were about $450,000 increase. In the initial budget, we had um an additional staff member for student needs. We had uh another member in our custodial department and we had some uh construction, so some new flooring, um some waterline replacements. Everything except for the additional position which we need for staffing has been removed for the budget. Again, that only saved me about $175 to $200,000. So, um what we're getting at is that we had to go towards um some of we had to go use some of the adjustments that the budget system puts in there. Unfortunately, the budget system says you can spend this additional money over your 2%, but it's going to have tax implications. Um where do I find $1.4 million? We don't have a frivolous budget. Um it's pretty bare bones other than the essentials.
That's also all of the cost it takes for all of the special education mandates and the IEP requirements. 5 cents of every dollar. That is also our out of district tuition cost included in there as well for students who are placed out of district. We have to maintain our facilities. We have to pay for natural gas and electricity for our facilities. We have to operate our facilities. The operations budget in EVAM is three cents of every dollar. In addition to that, we have a curriculum department. We want to provide a robust curriculum for our students. We have a personnel department. The personnel's department here, they're like HR in a private industry. They are HR for us, but the personnel is in charge of onboarding every single staff member, separating from service, any staff member who needs to do it, handling retirements, resignations, sub callouts, and employee observations.
We also had a teacher, Emily Johnson, who couldn't be with us due to family situation tonight. So, I'd be remiss if we didn't recognize her as well for presenting with Doug at the state conference. So, congratulations to Doug as well as Emily at the conference. Thank you so much. and her topic. >> Yep. Uh Emily presented on uh classroom learning instructional strategies uh to make learning not only relevant uh from the teacher clarity standpoint but also highly engaged um and outside the box type lessons um and it was very well attended um as as well as all the other sessions from the stack teacher. So >> thank you. Congratulations you Thank you. Um, moving us uh forward, I would also now like to uh move us into the academic realm uh with our national merit finalists. As you know, the National Merit program identifies students who demonstrate exceptional academic ability, strong character, and commitment to excellence.
So we're we're kind of working in different phases but all at the same time. And so you guys have been a part of some of the meetings already as far as looking at the financial side as far as SEA1 the impacts that that has had on our school district and the what we're looking at for the future for that. So again planning in terms of that we have been meeting with all of the operational departments to look at what are needs that we have for all of our different departments. How are we functioning? What are some short-term goals, long-term goals? and then we can align those as well with the financial side of things. But we also have a lot of planning going on right now as far as staffing. As you can see, you know, we have some big shoes that we need to fill.
Do I have any discussion or questions on consent items? >> Mr. President, I move that we approve the consent items. >> A second. Thank you. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. Motion passes 30. Our next order of business is an action item. It is the second reading and approval of draft policy revisions. Dr. Long. >> Thank you, Mr. Russell. Um, tonight we're bringing back for a second reading as as required by our uh schoolboard policy. There are 14 policies uh that need to be updated. uh you reviewed those in detail last month when I was absent.
I'd like to welcome uh Dr. Harp at middle principal at Middle School North and Mr. Weisman, principal at Middle School Central. And uh we'll let them I don't know if you want to drive or you want me to drive or you drive. That's all right. follow along here on my slides. Um, first, thanks for letting us join you again and um opportunity to maybe explain further and then also answer some questions. So, if you take a look here um why consider a change, you're going to notice some of the slides are going to be very similar to our last presentation, but we hope to add some more context to some of those as well. But, Oh, that one. >> Um, >> that was the mystery box. Guess what was under under door number four? Yeah. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Um, so you can I'll give you a chance to read through those, but those really haven't changed, but I want to highlight that the ultimate goal and really anything we do at the middle school level and any school is to increase measurable student growth.