There was over 150 juniors and seniors going, and ticket sales have now concluded. Next week is the start of AP testing. It'll start May 4th, and it will conclude May 15th. So, good luck to everyone. Moving on, March 27th, about la- last month, our BBHS Performing Arts had their annual spring show, and they performed Little Shop of Horrors. Rho Kappa, our social study honor society, joined the class of 2029 history classes on a trip into Philadelphia. They visited the National Constitution Center and enjoyed lots of Philly cheesesteaks. Then, our Spanish honor society also had a field trip this Monday. They visited New York City, and they saw the American Museum of Natural History. Um and yeah, that's it. That's enough. Well done. Clearly a lot going on. Always great to hear the updates. Thank you very much, Harrison.
And then the second part of it is you actually have to appropriate that money. So you have to actually authorize what department you know that goes to. Um and so that is what the town meeting vote is is to authorize the expenditure that includes the additional money from the override. And so you have to have you know town meeting has to vote on that. So typically when we have town meeting when there's no override the the money that's has been raised the money that then we're going to vote on is money that's been raised through pro you know our property taxes and that so that already that includes basically 2 and a half% >> uh new growth and and so that money already exists. >> Well it's what we plan on collecting. Yes. >> Yeah. And so then we're just voting to to appropriate it to how we're going to how we're going to spend it.
And, uh, into the fall of next year, we're finally going to get an enrichment program off the ground, which is great. Uh, we are a regional program. In addition to serving Danbury, we serve seven other municipalities that pay into our program. So they give Danbury public schools funding to support their residents with that programming. Um in the last three years alone, we've brought in over a million and a half in grants that we hadn't previously gotten. Um in that time alone, so uh in addition to the presentation that's up on the board, you guys have three handouts in front of you. Um I know some of you guys were here uh in the old building when I first presented and I got to Danberry. Um when we first got here and kind of revamped the program, we were at 240 students. Uh so far to this to two days ago, we've served 1327, right?
Any questions for Mr. Musick? All right. Hearing none, we are up to our committee reports. First up is education committee, Mr. Dawson, the floor is yours. Okay. Uh we had a great uh education committee uh meeting earlier this month. Uh three main topics of our committee were looking at the high school science curriculum. We had a wonderful um presentation from one of our teachers, a very enthusiastic teacher about a program called Physics First, and generally the idea is that the freshman students would have physics as their first high school science class. Physics is a good foundational course to understand the other sciences, and it also pairs really well with algebra, which most of our ninth graders are taking at the first level. There's wonderful opportunities for collaboration and learning between those two disciplines. We were all excited about the idea and the potential that it has for getting kids really excited about science.
Right? This year we because of the override, we're going to do the same thing, but we have the additional funds that we would raise from the override that we are then appropriating saying how this is how those are going to be spent. >> That's correct. Let's just say you have a department of one in in a town, right? and let's just say it's $2 million and to fund it at $2 million and you meet your two and a half that you have to go to the two and a half cap. Um, and if you wanted to do more than that, you would have to vote at the ballot to go over that, let's just say by $100,000. So, and then you would need to do a town meeting appropriation vote, like a budget vote of $2.1 million. So you have the the vote at the ballot to raise the taxes above the cap and then you have the town meeting vote that authorizes where it's expended.
Um we're not in a new building yet. We're looking forward to that soon. Um but we have kind of leveled out with our enrollment. Um you know, the last two years we've had 30 uh student differences from last year to this year. Um so we have expanded exponentially. Uh we are the only provider in the state out of 44 adult ed providers across the entire state that has seen this type of expansion um an increase in enrollment. Um and as of last year we were the lowest the second lowest in the entire state in per pupil u expenditures and investment. Right? So we're really stretching every dollar as far as we can. Um and it's paying off. Uh we're going to talk a little bit about that uh shortly. So in the state of Connecticut, there are three pathways to complete high school. Uh in the state of Connecticut, every municipality has to offer their residents high school completion for those that didn't find success in a traditional high school.
We also heard from our technology team. The district has done a lot of work in researching how we can leverage the use of AI in education. What was impressive about these ideas was that they were really collaborative in nature. The district's technology leadership has done a lot of work with our teaching staff to gauge their comfort level with using AI and design a really differentiated approach to how we can design professional learning around that, what resources our staff and our students might benefit from. So, we're all very excited about the things that are coming out in the next few months in the upcoming school year that will deepen our knowledge of that. We also heard great news about our preschool program and the addition of some additional dual language sections. We're excited about the work that has been taking place in the dual language and the preschool program.
>> So quick question because I know that we've gotten some questions about um because when we had the building projects on um on the ballot and and at town meeting they were separate warrant articles and that's because it was it was borrowing. Correct. We were borrowing that money. So there was a separate warrant article for each of the projects because of that and it needed twothirds I think. Right. >> That's correct. >> So um which is why which is why it's a little bit different for an override and we haven't had an override on the ballot in 10 years. >> Correct. So, um, so I think I think just walking, you know, being able to to kind of point to that is like important for people to understand why, >> yeah, >> you know, why we're only presenting one budget, why we're only um putting in the override within the budget warrant article.
Uh the first option is a credit diploma program. It mirrors a traditional high school diploma. They complete 25 credits. They're awarded a high school diploma at the com at the end of that. The second is probably the one that all of you are familiar with the GED, right? We prepare students to take those four exams in each of the the core subjects upon completion of those four exams or getting a GED certificate. The third is the national exter external diploma program. This is often for people that are coming in from another country or that didn't find success in a traditional high school but have life experiences that would amount to a high school graduate. So, this is less of a preparation program and more of an assessment program. We're assessing that they have the skills when they come into us. They're working with an assessor to show those skills over the course of eight modules and that awards a high school diploma.
Information just came out. This is my spokesmodel version. This evening about parents who can learn more information about the programming at the preschool level and some upcoming sessions. If you have a preschool age child, we would encourage you to attend and learn about all of the wonderful programming that is available at the preschool level. So, very exciting meeting. We left really encouraged and excited about all the work that's happening within the district. Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Dawson.
So because it can it can be confusing >> can be confusing and and what I just explained to you I've developed a one pager and we can put that online and and it can be shared from wherever we post it to to anybody who would >> okay >> want to use it. >> So when um I know we'll probably talk about town meeting I think we have >> or maybe not we have we don't have town meeting >> I think this is to talk about it. >> But so when when we do the town reports as part of the um as part of town meeting, I just want to make sure like I don't know if if Fincom is going to talk about that because FINCOM is going to present the budget or if you or Cindy or however we're going to do it talks about that or if it's or if it's the moderator.
We currently offer all three of these, which is great. Um, we're one of very few providers in the state that offer all three of these. Um, we have about 200 students that utilize across all three of these um for high school completion. The other two uh requirements in the state of Connecticut are ESL, which is English as a second language. Uh I know in a traditional uh preK12 school, it goes by a different term. Uh in the federal grants that support adult education, this is how it's listed. So this is how we refer to it in the adult ed world. Um you will notice on this fact sheet that I uh provided you guys, that is by far our largest population, right? Um, I'm going to share with you guys briefly. A vast majority of the people that we serve are parents of current DPS students.
Any questions or comments regarding education? All right. Hearing none, we are up to governance. Mr. Bell is not with us tonight, but Mrs. High has generously offered to give us a report. This is going to be very quick. We had very We had one item on the agenda, and that was dealing with the cell phone policy and usage in the in the schools. We're It's on hold until we receive a little bit further information from the state. Um and it's just we're looking at use of instructional non-instructional areas. So, that's something that we'll fill you in as soon as we get filled in. Thank you, Mrs. High.
But I just want to make sure we're very clear at town meeting like why why things are structured the way they are and why we're doing and for instance like why we're going to have two two nights of planned town meeting. I just want to make sure that everyone kind of is on the same page and that it gets covered so people don't feel like surprised at town meeting. >> Yeah. I think between the people that you named at least one of us would cover that. >> Okay. Um I would assume Adam, we would need to check with Adam, but um that sounds like something Adam would love to do. >> Okay. As long as it's covered and we kind of know that that one, you know, kind of going. >> Okay. >> And so the the budget that will be presented at town meeting includes the override.
90% of the people that we serve, so 90% of that,300 people that we serve currently have a kid in our Danbury public schools and a vast majority of them are coming to us for ESL services. The last piece is naturalization preparation. So, we walk them through the immigration process, the different applications that they have to fill out, and we prepare them to take the civics tests. The piece that I am most proud of in our work over the last three years is our family literacy programming. So, uh if you were on the board last year, you heard me talk about how we have branched into elementary schools. Um, and what we're doing there is is pretty remarkable. Um, parents of the elementary schools are coming at night. They're bringing their kids. Their kids are engaging in early childhood and elementary education at night. So, they're getting additional time with those academic skills to build additional foundations in addition to what they get during the day while their parents attend ESL classes, right, or GED classes.
Any questions regarding governance? All right. Hearing none, we're going to stay with Mrs. High for human resources. Okay. Um as always, we started off with the personnel just as status updates. And right now, we're looking at filling six positions and are in the process of interviewing. Um and it's you know, for teachers, maintenance, ESL coaches, pre-K TAs, etc. Um we also looked at the updating of two two job descriptions. One was a central office secretary who actually started last week. Um the previous uh policy or excuse me, the previous job description was outdated, and so it was recently updated just to um really encompass everything that this you know this position entail entails. We also updated the student information specialist {slash} data support policy. Um just so that people know who to report to where you know just with uh student information Genesis the state reporting just so that it is very well defined within that person's role.
>> Yes. So it includes the override which u the override which is 2.75 million which you'll see that as part of the schools >> right for the in the schools. >> Yeah. And then if it fails then in either it has to pass in both places. Um and if it fails then that's why we already have a second night of town meeting scheduled because then we'll have to vote a new budget. Now, I've been asked why did we do it this way as opposed to another way? I And I know that I remember and I this may have been different because I'm not sure if it was an override at the time or if it was a school building, the high school at the time, but we had a special town meeting. There was also the the town meeting and um the ballot, you know, were flipped in those days.
In addition to that, they're also getting parenting education. So, we're coaching them and teaching them about these are the norms of a child growing up. This is how you can support your kid at home. This is how the American school system works because for many of them, they're not as familiar with those norms as we would expect. It also allows us a very captive audience, right? We're seeing almost 13 more than 1300 people on a regular basis that are coming to us because they want to. We don't have to chase them. We don't have to call them and say, "Hey, you know, are you coming to class?" They're coming to us because they know that we can help them and their families. And so what we have spent a lot of time doing over the last two years is trying to purposely plan our program so that we're supporting the district's goals, the larger district's goals, right?
And the last thing that we discussed was the FMLA updates. Um this is something that uh will be implemented in July of 2026. Um we just went over the what the current law was with um illnesses, taking care of family, etc. etc. and the time limits required on that. And that's all that I have. Very good. Any question for Mrs. High on human resources? We're going to stay with Mrs. High, the queen of the committees, for operations in place of Mr. Supka. All right. Um so we had a a very interesting um presentation and it was on the uh insurance costs and this is something that is on the on the agenda tonight. It was Integrity Consulting Group presentation and it was very informative. It was um we had a lot of questions and as you know the cost of insurance has gone up quite a bit but this was a way that we could keep it within within reason.
So that the ballot actually happened first and then you'd have So we had a special town meeting in the Mendes gym to hold everybody where um there was a a vote and like I said I'm not sure if it was the building or the override and and then and then we had a ballot after the fact and that actually I think it was the um the the high school building so it is a little bit different but because it's a debt exclusion But nonetheless, you still have to meet those two um you know criteria that it has to pass in both places. And so we had the meeting in the gym, town meeting in the gym and then a vote at the ballot. It won in the gym at town meeting lost at the ballot by like 27 votes. Um because people didn't realize that they had to vote.