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Thank you for taking our students and teachers health seriously and thank you for not subjecting our students and teachers to even more uncertainty in this difficult draining emotional time. William Morgan Mooney and the next is from Mary Oler um says dearmon 2011 school board and superintendent Dr. Caracoglanes. There is no doubt in my mind that there is still division in the community, the teachers and the staff members, the board members and the parents of Cremon 2011 school this year when it comes to health and safety guidelines in our schools. As we have all heard by now, Sangaman County Circuit Court Judge Railene Griska declared Pritskar's emergency rules for CO 19 mitigations in schools null and void. and she issued the order in a lawsuit with more than 145 school districts across the state. I know Creek Moni was not on the list, but we all know there is we all but excuse me, I know Creekmon was not on the list, but we all know as many other local school districts around the surrounding area scrambled over the past weekend to have emergency meetings to determine if they were lifting their mask rules.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
people have it but it's not optimal and and again i always point this out when i took this job here and they did a survey in the town and uh the question he asked nothing questions but one of the questions was um what do you want the superintendent and the new superintendent to be able to achieve and the very first response was um low class sizes so it's a matter of fact it came up at least two more times in that survey result so it is something that both top value is a small class size so and the tops have been really great at supporting us i i i have to say both both house to make sure we maintain those but you know we always talk about surveys we always want to send surveys out but it was really clear when i and when i interviewed it was clear that that was one of the um you know that was one of the things that the town prides itself on that we have small class sizes and teachers are able to give more individual attention to students and certainly covert is you know pulling a lot of stuff out of the water but um you know before that that's exactly what was happening so we've got enough support from the town so far so you know this is a difficult budget and you'll see next week and well talked about it that you know special education costs really have really skyrocketed and not just in this community i talked to another superintendent just twice who who said the same things as their special education numbers that are really driving their budget more than any kind of plan and growth i think one of the things that these projections miss is a family like my own that who came to town to the existing home when our children were three four years old they weren't born of course and then they moved into the region because of the school and just the migration in and out because all the families do tend to sell and they're replaced by families like yourself who have kids so yeah and again because we have you know it's like our class our class our schools they're so small we look at that cash with us for example even this you know one or two students can consume the results and so when you only have a thousand if you only have a thousand students and you have a lot of building going on you have a lot of factors that you you know you really can't you know okay if you have one way or we have two that make an enormous difference in the capacity of our schools so you know we keep an eye on it and you know certainly school choice is one of the issues that comes up and and people usually the usually the rule of thumb the community starts to get a little antsy about community about school choice numbers when it gets to starts to edge up to about 25 percent of your population because because it translates to your graduating class you have a graduating class you know a quarter of them on from your towels anymore so it starts to become an issue we're not we're not there yet yes how long can these trends continue before you start thinking about needing new space new buildings um i had i had the principal to do projections a couple years ago when i have them they you know we have it's our past five years certainly like i said in berlin we have variable class sizes so there's not space but there's room to grow in the classroom boyles is just the opposite they have bigger classes but they have some more room to grow in the school so it again you know buying next year one of the things dave asked for is another teacher he doesn't need one this year next year would definitely be because he will have a big kindergarten class these classes come in over all 50 plus now and that's october one numbers by by mid-year they're closer to 60.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
they're there for different programs that we have going on but that's what the late bus is um we don't have six that we had a total of um late bus runs uh as you can see on a given day we might have uh five or six or seven uh not six hundreds just the way i i put it in the chart and they're eighty-two dollars a day too so at the bottom you see um there are in addition to our 83 buses there's another 14 buses that just do non-public schools uh immaculate and some of the parochial elementary schools there's 14 same price as we pay for those but that's a million dollars and then early release days that really are attributed to their early releases we think there were 15 days that they don't have as many buses as we do 14 so there's the math going across so those are separate categories that's the way the state of connecticut wants it reported at the end of the year and those numbers appear right in the line item budget that we talked about earlier and then the next slide mike is the special education um a little there it's just a little um there are more things going on um at the top there are type two uh that's what they call the mini buses the the 16 passengers we have 32 of those same 180 days the contract for them is next year i get the question a lot why don't the smaller buses cost less why do they cost more they're smaller there's less steel but that's what they cost when you buy them they cost more money and that's passed on back to us wc that's a wheelchair lift bus um you know a lift in the back a door we have seven of those uh same thing 180 days they're a little more expensive um we have some dale i apologize i didn't have more description there but we have some programs in special ed that run every day uh that take kids to different it might be a job a work training site or a site where they can improve their skills for later on in life and and just things like that we have uh 12 of those that go out every day they don't cost as much because generally that's um in the middle of the day and the bus is paid for the next two are really kind of transition programs that you know we have to educate our special education youngsters from ages 18 to 21.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
And as you know, most schools have lifted it and have given the students their right to choose. As of today 2822, some of the surrounding districts that have gone mask optional are Stagger, Mantino, Pietone, Beecher, Grant Park, Moments, Tinley Park, New Linux 122, Manhattan 114, Lincoln Way 210, Moina, Homewood, Philosoph, Frankfurt 157, Orland Park, and many more. Why was there no emergency meeting for this? You, as a school board, have had four days to call an emergency meeting. I am requesting as parent of the district that you hold an emergency meeting to discuss this more and to vote on having the school district in compliance with the newest court rulings. Thank you, Mary. Terry, was there any other public comment? No, sir. Okay. Um, next up, are there any board updates from any board members? I had one from IASB. Um it was a legislative report that I I as I'm the representative.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
you know when you look at all of these numbers um you know these october one numbers and they don't include the school choice kids and they don't know who the kids would come in not only do you need a teacher but i think that the parent professional demands the classes we have bigger class sizes also because everything is good i think it's important you know you mentioned the master plan um i think it's important i i'm sure they'll consider this role and stuff but the number of buildings you have such has such an enormous impact on schools um and and you know it's certainly the amount of taxes that the child gets you know if you have three kids in school that's that's basically sixty thousand dollars like well you know to educate those kids well if the town doesn't get that value it's not like one to one memorial school from the projections of the actual uh white cobra 2020 children right from 150 to 177 with bms but those are huge jumps yeah well you know they got any natural disaster they don't have anything that covered really what's happening but they haven't done a lot of research on the effect of natural disasters on growth rate and um it tends to suppress it initially and then um it increases um i don't know what happened with the enrollment enrollment um we did have a lot of kids school choice out and you know we had a lot of students that were whole school so uh during recreated the so that might have had an impact on it but given what the yell was it looks like it happened in both schools so my guess would be that it would be a covert related anything else you said in five years beyond five years before you're going to take a billion from the time you start thinking about it until it gets built is that six years ten years i i would say that um again our projections when you look at the 10 year when you're looking up to like 2030 and 2031 expected to have about a 300 350 student increase as a district but it's tough to tell i mean you'll only know really when when the you know the building gets under control and forward is over so i don't even it'd be tough to even guess that i mean we could we could if we had two fundamental kids you know that would be that's a lot of this it's only a thousand kids well that's my thought i mean i'm familiar with building it's not you know snappy things yeah i mean i think the numbers are projected to go up you know i've seen the graphs on it but well i think probably next year's enrollment project should be a little more accurate as we start to get past this and um once i know they are working on the master plan once they consider that we have to see for example in boston how we'll keep an eye on them and i i will look that up you know if you could just send me a reminder tomorrow i will look up the msba timeline from the time you actually applied to them does the town have to vote to build a new school or no that's what i thought because i know they just built a new school and i could have sworn it started years prior to the vote to make this point yeah you know because the taxes go up right some schools organized schools in 20 years before they voted before they had a positive involved right exactly so you could you might say we need it and the town's gonna say well we're not gonna give it to you and then you gotta make do whatever portables all that kind of stuff so i have one more question so it's a nonsense um looking at the projected and the actual so how those numbers uh obviously work with these data um okay how am i trying to think of how so 2017 is 18 it's the exact same number right and projected in actual and then in 2020 and 21 and then 212 we're done with all the exact same numbers projective and actually um six to twelve yet if we were to look at eight to nine we know kids are leaving the district so i'm just confused how those numbers can be the same when we're having i see the kids lead at the end of the year however the number well if you look at the right on the 2019-2020 and then these numbers [Music] that but it would reflect the kids that didn't transition yeah right and that's a but that's just i can get all of that all right so if you have something very specific i can find it thank you any more questions thank you thank you um a few amps to report on the first is just a donation from project red it's an organization that is mission to connect people in communities this organization has done a lot since the beginning of the pandemic in advocating things such as universal free meals across the state which is now in effect and we hope continues as part of their mission they also provide some grants to school districts and we received a small brand for staff appreciation they recognize how hard our staff is working and all staff across the state is working with green meals for selling more than you typically would so um so this money would go towards um i think it was going to be a police vest or some type of shirt for each of the staff members so that grant is something to vote on in the business items i just wanted to give you some background on that the next item is informational we participate as a district with about 20 something other districts in a collaborative bid for oil by grouping together this permitted one of the methods that's permitted for procurement in the state um by coming together as a group we get better pricing by being a part of this than otherwise because we're a small district we also um use a bid process because of the amount we purchased over the year is very significant we also want to be able to predict what we're going to pay for oil next year there's been huge fluctuations in oil prices and energy in general um so by going out to bid now in the winter we're able to then budget accurately for next year the bid was recently held the lowest bidder only bid on was disqualified because they didn't meet the terms of the bid the next lowest bidder was at two dollars and ninety cents per gallon uh it's a significant increase over what last year's price was which is just over just under 1.70 and however this is reflective of what's going on in the market it's not really a surprise in fact in the preliminary budget that i did i had estimated about the same increase that we have within within a thousand dollars so we will have an increase of eighteen thousand this is already baked into our budget um but i just wanted to give you that background on the collectors a little bit the last item i have to report on is access and deficiency filing which is finally coming close to completion i spoke with a representative of the division of local services today and yesterday working through some of the questions they had and i expect it will be certified very soon i'm hoping for next week's meeting i am getting a little tired starting over as a carryover item in each of my reports but i hope to have an update for next meeting we do need their certification in order to use env funds in our budget i'm budgeting to use emd next year provisionally assuming it gets accepted it gets accepted every year that is useful to have that certification as soon as we can that's the last time i have there's no questions thank you i wanted to start this evening first by thanking the superintendent's advisory council between that last thursday evening to go over the equity survey that we have put together with a great help on the council worked on the language for that survey and it will be coming out and we're looking at right after the vacation week because we're trying to switch over into a more efficient system for doing doing the surveys so we're working on that right now we also have a mask survey and items have also got their ideas related to kobet and the district we have we have the language for that in place we have a subcommittee invited from that group tomorrow evening um to meet with me and go through the language on that much shorter survey than the other and the equity survey our intention is to get that out to a google survey on friday so look for that in the superintendent's newsletter this week i also wanted to mention the massachusetts elementary and secondary education released its 2021 school and district report cards uh that will be coming to parents no later than the 18th of february it's already on this individual school websites and we'll be putting that on all three on the district website i think it's really important it's a comprehensive report it has an information student enrollment teacher workforce attendance discipline performance on state tests accountability and school spending all rolled up into one report card and then speaking of equity what i also like about this report is you can get it in many different languages that's the great thing you have to send them out just paper copy but now there's translations available on that site as well so please take a look at that and you'll also be getting the previous school principles as well finally i want to um just briefly speak about the real mentors program and thank mary sarah and jake for coming out this evening jake and i go back to the days of when jake and michael sanford brought in father and fathers into the elementary schools and i had an opportunity to work with both young people gentlemen in that program we had an opportunity to bring fathers and their sons together and to bond on weekends and they would go out and do all kinds of wonderful activities i remember geocaching right and some fishing and all kinds of great activities from there jake took this and started to expand into the program with the boys at the middle school with great piccarello and the opportunity to bring the girls program into toronto as well is a huge step for us so we're so grateful that both these individuals are willing to do this work and they've been they've been really trying very hard to get this off the ground we're looking at funding sources for the positions i think jake you mentioned all the positions i'll just mention them again we're looking at four school staff members who serve as mentors to the boys group to with the girls group to have a site coordinator for each program and then program organizers are hoping to add two additional job descriptions filled by men and women from the community and police departments i did want to let both of you know that we will be meeting with the berlin wilson crisis team this week on friday and we will be asking them for some volunteers from the police department we do have some uh we have a female officer in berlin and so we're going to be reaching out to them and they've been great department partners to us in the community so we're excited to have a possibility to come along i do just want to end with the quote i put in the report because i think it does speak volumes about this program jake and rather than break down the program i get a more concrete way i'm just going to read the quote because i love brene brown she speaks to my heart and i'll just share this with everybody because you included this connection is the energy that exists between people when they feel seen heard and valued when they can give and receive without judgment and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship and that's what this program is all about so very excited to to get this off and running so thank you to both of you [Music] any questions i'm not familiar i've [Music] a couple years now it came to be just one of my goals as well just as an effort to get some more community input and so we actually kind of thought about what they would you know what their function would be but what they really do now is they they advise myself and general community too on just initiative that we have um there are three positions on there this year and you know we've had people move in and out who were actually at our first first meeting and so we have a basically a colbit survey and masking survey they helped us with those questions um you know what to do it with us but basically they do just what the what the committee the name of it they advise the superintendent on you know just initiatives that i may be thinking about or something that you're going to get before them and um you know ask them just get their opinion on them they've gone through we have another equity survey going out they've gone through that entire survey and um they just look at things with a different lens and then just put questions up and they is looking at parents or as you know professionals that's basically what it started out as one of my goals and we just continued with it three people use it three people no i think there's a seven on it now [Music] um that's the only number i can find below the state is there a reason we are behind the state or that's a good question i can't i can't answer that right now i will take a look at it for you that's access to the parts access to the rtx i know when i was appointed to this committee last year uh one of the former members was a big advocate for the arts i was kind of on the same board but i noticed that's about the only number where it shows that we're behind the state that i could find it i'll definitely look into that for you i don't know why that number is lower than the state of this timeline objective well you know i don't know the specific answer to that but i will say it's something we recognize that's why i said that did you compromise and actually that scooping me remember about the first people i went to actually went to a shop and uh if you don't talk to him about the goal that we recognized a lot i remember [Music] yeah thank you before we move on i just wanted to thank you for bringing the mentoring program and julie and i will have children in the middle school and there's a real need for this so i just wanted to thank you it really warms my heart to think of guidance these children just need other voices and a place to be able to speak so thank you for that you're welcome absolutely sure so i have a few items um to report on as well i'm going to go a little bit out of order of my report um but i'm going to start last week we received updated um protocols for responding with over 19 um symptoms and scenarios it was updated last week by desi and the dph we put the full highlighted document into the drive for you to review there's a lot of information a lot of details there but i did want to point out a few you know highlights um and in pointing out these highlights i did work with our nursing staff to bring these to you um the first is that the copin 19 symptom list has been updated in the previous edition which was put out at the end of january the symptoms were differentiated for vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals we actually when we put together our symptomatic testing protocol we were able to anticipate that that was probably going away based on the trend of how things were moving excuse me so that list has been slightly updated on taking away that differentiation and we still have three protocols for responding to coca-19 scenarios um and they still you know follow the same order protocol a is about individuals who have actually tested positive um one really the only nuance or the biggest nuance i should say in that protocol is um that when individuals do return to the school setting um they need to remain masked for five days that's the same the difference is if they can remove their mass when outside apparently that was left off in january so that was a december that was updated again in january protocol b has quite a few changes to it and this really responds to there's different versions and multiple parts of protoculty we're following the new protocol because we have the new at home testing program um and so individuals students and staff are no longer identified as closed contacts in school but there are protocols to be followed if they are a close contact outside of school and then the third protocol c for symptomatic individuals um aligned with the dph guidance the update here that was highlighted for me by the nurses is that it is recommended that individuals test um to as opposed to just sort of monitoring symptoms but it's a recommendation not a requirement let's skip over and go to um the update on the at-home covenant testing program so we've just got that rolled out the at home covet testing program um because we had the weather cancellation on friday test kits just went out to students and families on monday um we had a short amount of time for families to actually opt into the program that was the way that the state had um set up the program so i'm going to estimate we sent home about 150 kids district-wide on monday and then when we redistribute to students again on february 18th if that number is going to be much larger the numbers that i pulled here on the report i pulled on friday afternoon that i checked on them today they've grown yet again so people are still opting in um and that's good um so i think that that program is you know up and running um and we're hearing from families if they have any questions and then the vaccination data i worked with the nursing staff on thursday this data came from our meeting on thursday so as you know um the nurses implemented a new health software program this school year that has a much better report and significantly improved reporting and although we still can't go in and just push a button and say tell us how many people meet the full vaccination criteria we can go in and pull multiple small reports and then crunch the numbers ourselves um and so although we've had that program in place for a little while it didn't even start to sync with the state data until very recently so we were just able to pull this data for the first time last week and it's only reporting the student data which i have the numbers there for you so both berlin and boylston elementary schools are just above 50 um and to honda is very close to 80 for student vaccination rates i think we figured that that is 11 or maybe 12 students away from meeting the 80 mark for vaccination um and then the staff vaccination rates is based on voluntary reporting from staff there isn't a program that we can pull that data from um so the nurses um all along have been sort of keeping lists from staff that are you know open and willing to share that data um and that's what we see there which are very high rates of vaccination anywhere from 87 to 97 percent any questions every question from the cover 19 symptoms which i continue to find very difficult to interpret so i look at this and see there are five symptoms at the top fever difficulty breathing new laws of taste or smell musculature body aches cough on their own any of those five symptoms were born being tested is that correct on our symptomatic testing protocol yes yes of that doctor so below that we have sore throat headache fatigue nasal congestion those all say when in combination with other symptoms now i understand that two of those symptoms like sore throat nausea or headache congestion would prompt a student to be symptomatically tested within the school and to be recommended to the test division of protocol so my so there's nurse discretion here for sure i'm agreeing with you that that my interpretation would be that if there's head say headache and fatigue um that those two symptoms would prompt um a nurse to say that the student might be symptomatic and would be looking to see whether or not the student had consent for symptomatic testing in school and to test them i know i would agree with your interpretation yeah this should be aligned between the top five which are on their own then the bottom six it's any of those two potentially of the six unrelated to the topic they used to be they're used to i was just gonna say that's one of the changes there used to be that you had a hat if you had one of the bottom symptoms it had to be two it used to be very valid i know it's different though my understanding of the previous where it was bolded actually referred to vaccinated and unvaccinated status that that was what the boldin was on that that version or iteration and and and i i know right going through it looking at what's holding and what's italicized so if memory serves me correctly that the bolding referred to an individual staff individual's vaccination right um but this um right this is it puts that aside and has never heard from that it is just based on the symptoms regardless of the vaccination status thank you i have one quick question for you now will families be able to opt in to this for as long as the vehicle tours yeah families are welcome to opt in and staff are welcome to opt-in it's on a rolling basis um for sure and um you know we're now that we have placed our first order we're getting in our first inventory um i think once we're past that first distribution we have more flexibility and more ability to print labels for those um test kits and send them home like just the day before whereas that first one was like really tight we needed to know a whole week in advance um in order to get the supplies from the state but now again now that we've got a little bit of a supply we can be more flexible so to answer your questions families are welcome to continue opting in and then if they wanted to opt out um for some reason they just need to you know send an email either the principal or myself we'll you know we'll get that handled thank you so now for the opting in will that be enough in the friday newsletter the link or their place on the website that they can go to yeah it's um it's already on the um website it went out on school messenger and um my thing is to put that into the weekly update again this friday i think it will continue to appear there um for some time the reminders with the links and i'll be honest i mean the acronym testing program there's a lot of components to it and it's a lot of um i think information for failings you know the process like during the you know within the at home testing we ask um families to use a you know a form to report positive results that's only a result of the actual testing and i think you know some it could be mistaken that you go in there and if you've got a positive result at a you know from a doctor's office that you go in and put in there so it's just a lot of moving pieces and we're just working with families to clarify that as we go thank you for that it's a lot of people but yeah it is yeah thank you sure good evening um i will be like very brief um i just wanted to pass along some of the information about newcast prep um as you see from the numbers of about 60 of our students we'll take at least one guest in the spring um [Music] currently that's 632 students we have already begun doing testing for making sure infrastructure and that number of students make sure we have devices available it's always tight but you know we always manage somehow and again as the spring goes on teachers begin to bring their classes down and do some of those practice exams so it's twofold purpose for us it helps us find out that yes we are in fact ready to go in terms of network infrastructure wireless and such but it also gets the students more comfortable with the types of questions or the types of tools that are are in the exam itself so anybody have any questions for me about that i have a question is that voluntary just whatever teacher decides that they want to bring their class correct um principals especially at the elementary school highly encouraged um yeah and i would say in the middle school here um it again it tends to be world class um at the high school it is basically only 10th grade for the most part um it's they're probably more specific they're looking at particular writing problems and whatever it's less to do with technology and for them most of them have have done it since grade 3 of war so the technology isn't isn't the drawback there that they just can practice with the so the election subcommittee um and like [Music] to christy afterwards so their school committee members administration and members of the public in our meeting last week one member of the public brought up the fact that the current school committee is made up of five appointed members there's also been discussion on social media and we understand that there might be a letter circulating in the community in regards to the upcoming election although we have not yet seen it we do look forward to any input that the community has on this matter the election subcommittee would like to offer the following update and review of the regional school committee election before we get into a discussion of several items for your book tonight when the district regionalized some years ago it was decided that of the various options available for regional school committee elections the committee at that time chose to have district-wide elections during the state's biennial election these are held in november of those years it is our understanding that this was one of several options to choose from and the first such opportunity for a regional committee election after the regionalization would have been november 2020.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
uh western connect that should be connections um that's a uh transitional program there are only three buses but um it's it's different um and then the uh the academy and there's a danbury high school program that that runs out transitional academy it's just um all of that is really driven by the um you know the iep process and and those things uh we dismiss our our pre-k in the middle of the day um it's a little cheaper but there's 34 uh buses to take uh half the kids home and and bring the other half back the way back um we also um you know many of those runs need um monitors on them so that you know the monitor um an onboard uh monitor there they'll watch the students so that the driver can keep their eyes on the road if if something happens so we have 40 of those you can see the price there it extends out and then those midday runs that i just mentioned uh they'll have monitors on them too you you want monitors on your pre-k runs because uh those kids are strapped in or seat belted in they need help uh getting into their seat and out at the stops and then what follows after that is our special ed summer school uh we use type 2 buses we use wheelchairs we have a special midday or shorter program in there um some of the monitors work for four days in summer school some work for i'm sorry four hours a day others work one hour a day so we've we've broken that out and then finally those last two lines those are um those are the we contract out for all of our white fans like everything with sta is yellow but you've seen some of those white fans that's carrying school children at the top and usually a sign on the back there going out of town they're much more fuel efficient than a big bus per all perfectly legal so we have a a couple companies that um do that out of district service uh for us every day and and this is the amounts that we're we're paying this year we're not thinking we need much of an increase uh at all next year so uh that's the special ed piece the the five million three that's also a line item you can track in uh the budget we had up there earlier so that's uh that's transportation for next year kevin i had two questions on transportation uh john for the other non-public schools that includes all of the parochial schools in danbury saint joe's saint gregs st peters uh emmanuel lutheran immaculate um there may be others that i'm forgetting does that also include worcester um you know i should know that and i don't um they may not have enough to need a bus but yeah well no the rule is if you have um more than 50 of your students are our residents of connecticut not danbury residents of connecticut then the public school has to give you service the following year okay um and in border towns like us sometimes that goes up and down uh because there are a number of westchester kids come over and attend this school so i i just and worcester worcester's enrollment's pretty low so it could that could be affected right yeah it's the percentage uh that does but all the others that you mentioned uh yes they're they're in that network um of uh we call them non-publics but uh they're primarily parochial schools here okay and one other question and kevin this kind of goes back to the question i asked last week about sta and services this year i'm looking and this is a good budget breakdown i like how this lays out transportation because i can follow it um you know we have 83 buses times 180 days times 399.72 number this year we didn't get we didn't we certainly didn't receive this year however many number of buses however many number of days times whatever the price is um are we able to take some of that budgeted money that we did not receive from sda enrolled into next year from this year so joe the last time we met um john actually had some folks in from sta the very next day um so john can you provide an update from that discussion yes um and uh joe one of the things uh not just with transportation but with any of our budget lines you know it's a 12 month budget and at the end of june really what we haven't spent um goes back to the city and we get a fresh new budget so um but there are a few things you can do you can top off your tanks there might be some tires inventory but um to answer the the question so it's hard to you really can't roll a savings over but what we have done with them is uh two things um of course you know in early january when uh omicron really gripped um there were certain runs that just didn't go you know bus 44 56 whatever for example my son's bus is a double bus right now so there's at least one run not running because his bus is carrying two right so on the ones that um on ones that didn't run at all uh we're not paying for period we just okay that's what we're just gonna deduct it and we won't pay it but on the ones you're talking about um what we've said to them is we we're not going to pay for a full run if it's doubled up um what we'd be willing to do is pay any extra driver cost for sure yeah but but nothing more and they've been quite agreeable to that um apparently we're not the first district that has said that to them um and it sounded like they had a a menu for when districts ask and we'll start to spend less um in those cases i it began in december we just haven't gotten all the bills uh tallied up yet so and i wasn't looking i wasn't looking for a number i was just the concept is good and we can always if there's a savings there we can always ask the city to let us keep that savings the city let us roll over some budget savings in 20 in 1920 we can ask them to let us hold that savings and not give it back so it is impossible to ask them from the surplus you're absolutely right and also you know a board has a complete autonomy on its operating budget so you could if you had a need in some other area you can transfer it to that need and it's perfectly legal and goes on all the time so you'll have some choices thank you ask a question as well please yes um so john just so i understand we're looking at a one and a half million dollar increase for transportation based on that that budget drivers and again i don't know i'm assuming that that summary is accurate for transportation i believe it is okay um and it looks like the intention is to have that applied to you know from grant monies um well um i'm not no we look carefully at the grant i don't want to get ahead of things too much but um you know there are three grants the cares act which is ending sr2 and sr3 sr2 is where we're paying for brookfield this year and with that going away there'll be capacity in that grant um the just the motion you saw um looks to tap that grant but we think it's best to to use it uh because there's so little time left for one-time occurrences not for uh staffing and the one-time occurrence we'd like to put into that grant would be uh what you're going to see next a part of the if we can part of the k-5 literacy uh upgrade uh we think that's uh more likely to fit with the state guidelines as we read them today we don't think the buses would fit as as snuggly okay so maybe that's an adjustment that just needs to be made on that page then because it looks like it's yes it's still okay um thank you and then the other question was in terms of that one half million dollar increase um you know i certainly appreciate the way you laid it out because that makes it very clear uh you know how the different types of transportation that we need to provide and how often we're providing it so that's that's very helpful just as an overall glance um the one and a half million is that attributable to um uh increases to the contract or you know are we getting like a certain number of additional buses that are that we need yeah i um i i i st i don't fully understand the calculations that went into this year's budget um that would lead to the increase uh we've been looking at as much as we can i haven't been able to explain it yet it's certainly on our list of things we have to do i'm not finding as much detail as you saw tonight so i just i can't i wish i could answer it okay thank you dr casemiro yeah yep so just just before i start to talk a little bit about the right to read legislation i do want to go back and just correct myself a little bit al you had asked a question about um if the numbers i mentioned included reach uh and ace and i just uh looking back in my notes i just want to clarify that the projected enrollment for denver high school was 3589 the overall high school enrollment for next year was projected at 37.01 so just a distinct that the high school versus total high school enrollment of which ace and reach are our programs within the high school at the high school level so i just wanted to clarify that number thank you thanks um and so this is um just a little bit of information about the right to read legislation i did mention this a few um subcommittees uh back uh that this was something that was on our radar um so past uh this last past june in 2021 um kind of quietly was the legislation that was basically going to change the face of reading in connecticut and really put in sort of a statewide effort and initiative to improve reading outcomes for for all students particularly at the pre-k to three level um the goals are as listed is really to create a system across the state of connecticut to be able to create targeted professional development so that there's a collective of professional development and offerings and trainings for all connecticut um teachers uh dedicated in a particular targeted area um our teacher prep programs which we have known for some time now are in need of of greater alignment particularly with the teaching of reading and phonics at the youngest levels um the the push is really based on the science of reading so i'm really the sort of declarative statement about what is considered to be critical within a reading program and then again overall improved outcomes for for students in connecticut um connecticut will select five reading programs there's a timeline for that which i'll explain on the next slide um but basically the the tenants are that they have to be evidence-based which is research based and then focus on competencies which are listed on um on the slide there as well next slide please so really uh since the implementer bill was passed there's a process of research selection um then adoption and then of course districts will have to implement so starting in july 2021 of this past year um the state of connecticut was required to establish a center for literacy research and reading something that we've been really lacking at the state level for some time that we've had some some experts up there but not really a fully dedicated group um that that meets regularly with with with these goals in mind um so in between 2021 and 2022 of this year um danbury as a group decided to start to begin to try to predict these five reading programs that will appear on the state list and so we've begun to delve into our own research to explore programs that have been rated by by neutral uh rating systems to see proactively you know which ones might make it we've invited a couple of a couple of of these uh these folks in to provide demonstrations to us and to begin to explain uh a little bit about some of their programs so that we can get a head start um one of the things that we know that we'll face uh which is pretty typical in these kinds of situations is that once they post the list for these five literacy programs that districts will adopt um every district in connecticut is going to be scrambling to reach out to those same organizations and to secure professional development and technical services so there'll be quite a run on a few of the top programs so we've begun to start to get familiar with some of these um and and be proactive while we're waiting for for this list to be posted so um danbury will eventually select and adopt a program um once this is posted we have heard from some folks at the state department that we're likely to see that list even as early as the spring but definitely by june so we might not have to wait until on july 1st um but then by july 2023 each district is going to have to begin to adopt a program we'll have to identify what that is and work with the state um and then 2024 will be somewhat of an evaluation across the state now there is a waiver process that districts can can elect if they feel that they have a similar or better uh reading program than the ones that have been posted by the state of connecticut um um but so we have some some time to go before we kind of make those decisions and um you know as a as a curriculum group and as our and with our building leaders we'll start to to delve into what the state posts and and make some selections over the course of next year so the implications for this school uh year coming up is that we will have to purchase at some point over the course of next year at least uh all or some parts of the program to begin a particular rollout so you see that there is a a ballpark number that's listed in the budget that uh represents uh sort of a middle range of some of the quotes that we've been hearing from a couple of the top programs on what it would take to implement in a school district our size and bring that to scale and so while the program is mainly targeted at k3 reading alignment is very important so we would look to at least begin k3 and then we'll also include grades four and grades five as well um so for right now for next year um we'll be waiting on this list and we'll begin to delve into and understand exactly uh how much of this program we would have to implement if if at all it could be that uh some of the programs that we use now are currently on the list but we uh we do not know that at this time so for now we will be um putting a placeholder in um to in our budget to be prepared for that next year so that we're ready to roll eric thank you let me ask a quick question please sure um i just want to understand cara because it looks like we've we've set aside 1.3 million for that curriculum um can you just give us a sense of when you do a purchase like that what what what parts are part of what what the parts are yes sure so um yeah so it's definitely sticker shock when you see uh you know 1.3 million so currently with just the two programs that we've brought in so far getting very baseline broad stroke implementation um so purchasing the actual curriculum so curriculum curriculum these days is a little bit different it used to be the districts everyone wrote their own curriculum there is still some of that that goes on but now there's uh there's so there's such technical components and complex opponents to curriculum and embedded assessments and so when you actually purchase from a company uh you're buying the proprietary rights to their curriculum materials and so that's that is part of it so one and but there's also open source material that's available as well however um a big part of the purchase is really student workbooks uh access digital licensing um and when literacy in particular there is just a massive amount of literacy texts that go with this and so when you are talking about several hundred books in a collection for for students at a grade level times the number of sections that you saw in the enrollment slide times the number of teachers teaching those sections who all need the teacher materials times the number of students in all those sections who need the student materials to go with that um and then there's the professional development and technical support um in order to help access the programs unpack the complexities and the different iterations within the program itself which will be new to our teachers and even to our teacher leaders who would normally help with this we have a couple of literacy coaches that will be helping but they too will need training um in any new program so when you multiply all of that times 13 schools the price adds up very quickly and of course refreshing libraries that will be needed to go with you know research collections that go with certain units or modules will also need to be refreshed as well so yeah so the the cost of curriculum materials scales pretty quickly um at the elementary level for sure thank you very much so it's about a hundred thousand dollars per school it's expensive curriculum yes thank you thank you thank you cara um so return on investment and certainly there may be some additional questions by the committee but i i just have one slide remaining from from my desk but i want to start off by summarizing in this way one um the the team and i we consistently as in previous years um we project uh a savings of at least uh 500 000 next year um through attrition and i thank kim earlier she had alluded to the fact that um during hiring seizing typically we are looking uh for staff typically at the at the bachelor's degree level and so we will interview and try to find the best candidates possible for the various openings that we may have across the district um but because typically we are losing staff uh to retirement um and a few staff members perhaps to transfer into different school districts but oftentimes these staff members are more seasoned staff and by bringing in younger staff oftentimes not all the time this does not always happen but we typically yield a savings of revenue to the district um close to 500 000 a year we will do our due diligence this year as in previous years to find a similar revenue for the district secondly on the district we are also exploring commercial spaces throughout the city of danbury to see if we can't find ways to consolidate the various offices that we have across the city so we can also propose something to our cycling facilities committee and then ultimately the board and try to find another another savings for for the board um and for the city of danbury um so i just want to make it clear we're also doing our due diligence on that side um and being as respectful and responsible of the budget as we possibly can um as well um this slide in particular is very is significant importance to me because one i just want to start by acknowledging our staff and acknowledging our administrators and acknowledging our teachers across the system a term that's been often associated with our team and when i say team i'm talking about everyone i'm talking about our teachers certified non-certified and our administrators across the district and that is we've consistently done more with less and then we've also that is associated with on the ongoing growth in our city ongoing growth in our schools across the system um i don't know if all the board members are familiar with uh but we have the connecticut's next connecticut's next generation accountability system it's a set of 12 different indicators and it tells the story of how well our students are being prepared for college and career and beyond in this regard our district our schools are doing really well we've had several schools of distinction over the last five plus years we've had two blue ribbon schools and we continue to experience success particularly in growth and this is because our administrators are amazing our teachers are amazing and everyone in this district quite frankly they work hard but i also know that our city is continuing to grow and so our families like probably everyone on this call who owns a home or a condo they look up the school systems when they're looking to interview or interview a potential city and the city of danbury certainly we have ranked well in this regard in terms of schools of distinction and blue ribbon schools but they will also look up websites like great schools and and niche uh to find out what the rate what the rankings and the ratings are of our school district of our schools um we we want to continue to do everything that we can to make danbury um a an attractive place to live and oftentimes it's the schools in the city um that make it attractive for families we we know that we've consistently done more with less here in danbury and so in that regard we feel like the investment that the city has continued to make in our school system we've been able to yield tremendous results um i think we have shared some facts when showing our dirk schools across the state of connecticut um in and quite frankly we've outperformed those schools not only in our dirk but some schools who actually pay significantly more per student our challenge however is we're at this interesting intersection in which we have increased number of meteor students coming to our school district and when i say meteor i mean high need students that require services that continue to put a strain on our budget and so that's why you are hearing um the request uh for additional staffing and special ed and for english language learners um and then you'll also continue to hear uh particularly from the slides that you see this evening about the growth across the school system particularly at the 612 level over this last couple of years we are in need of continued investment um to not only continue the success that we've had over these last five plus years but but to also continue to make this city an attractive place for families to move to and to live we we are confident that with an investment um we will realize the successes that we've had in the past um but you will learn if you talk to our teachers and talk to our administrators or anyone on this call this last school year has been unique um the the challenges that are coming to our classrooms on the heels of the pandemic have created different kind of needs for our staff different kind of needs for our administrators and so the investments that you see help to keep class size down across the school system it helped to ensure that we have social emotional support for kids across the school system and the in terms of percentage you will find although the 6.2 is higher than in previous years it's it's i believe it's about 60 percent of our overall increases in salary and the rest of those increases are coming in areas like program improvement but the 60 of our increases in salary and benefits were the remaining items uh you'll find are in transportation um you'll find them in some of those improvements that we need to make in facilities in some of those areas um i i just want to just reiterate to the board we we find ourselves at a critical stage right now on the hills of the pandemic um we're already behind um due to covet i know we're not alone in this regard but when state reports start to come out again state accountability reports are starting to be shared in the 22 and 23 and 24 school year we want to make sure we're on top of those charts like we have been in previous years and so i've actually worked with my team to find some reports to kind of demonstrate our return on investment in this district um and and so mike if you can go to the next slide and i just want to walk on the committee through this and so i and i recall teresa asking the question clarification um about cities like stanford and norwalk um the other the other um comparison of those three dots in green is actually middletown and these are three of the higher districts their per student expenditure three of the districts that are higher in our in our dirk schools and danbury you'll see that a little over 13 000 we spend per student however we are in in terms of the next generation accountability index there are multiple indicators that make up this index um and you know the indicators include and i'll just go through some of the lists ela and math growth rates chronic absenteeism college and career readiness course taking four year graduation rates six year graduation rates um the number and percentage of kids going into college and our students who are passing physical fitness exams and so those indicators make up this next generation accountability index you can see norwalk stanford in middletown as an example although they're spending almost five thousand dollars more per student we are outperforming all of them um i i have i i have every um every and every i have confidence that we will continue to experience that kind of success but on the heels of the pandemic we need to make sure we invest to make sure we continue to experience this success um and so we feel strongly and we wanted to share this page we feel like we've been responsible stewards of the board's budget these past few years uh for all of these years um and and request a budget um that matches the needs that we need right now on the hills um on the hills of the pandemic um and so i hope this evening helped a little bit with a little further drill down into these errors regarding enrollment and staffing transportation um and and the uh the mandated um scientific reading program and then of course if there are any additional questions we'll be happy to respond any questions from board members i'm just curious if i could ask questions please go ahead kate thank you um i know we talked a little bit about this last time and i i keep bringing it up because i guess i'm just um i'm thinking about like a portrait of a graduate work and and sort of how we're trying to tie in you know the academy piece on this and talking about you know building up our staff according to what our expectation is to be able to open that facility and i know we're adding students based on enrollment and additional needs that are within the district i'm just thinking also about some of the staff expenditures we're going to hit when we open a new building that wouldn't necessarily be covered by those enrollment that enrollment piece um and trying to figure out you know is there some way that we could tie in parts of this presentation to sort of that that anticipated goal um and and sort of giving you know sort of a sense of you know as we go for the through the next few years what our plan is as far as bringing that staffing up so that when we get to the point of opening the academy you know we're ready to do that all right so mike one mike can you go to the next slide and and kate i i'm not suggesting this bullet number three answers your question in full um but we are planned um we started conversations with the city of danbury um to begin to evaluate and address the short and learn some financial needs of the district and this is specifically about um staffing on the new academy and helping the city understand um specifically how what kind of numbers we would need in terms of staffing for danbury high school where it is now uh with 28 2900 students and then how many staff we would need to open up a new building um and i think we will need a little time to kind of walk the city through this process in terms of actual numbers we will need but in the meantime if we don't meet the basic needs of the enrollment growth now we will not be in position to open up the school at that time and so i i feel confidently as long as we can continue to meet the needs of where we are right now with the 32 300 students at danbury high school um we will be we will be in position to open up the new building uh but if we are behind with staffing then we're going to be troubled with opening up the new building because we would have an ask way beyond numbers that we're asking for now okay so it sounds like you guys are working on that piece of it to be able to to bring that to city officials and talk about actual numbers yes yes and so engaging with the city officials is a a concrete next step um that we're looking to realize in the hopefully in the next couple of weeks um many of the members of the task force have been identified and really right now it's just a matter of aligning up schedules um and clarifying and clarifying the list from the city side for the team okay thank you and kate that just gives us an opportunity to um do a deeper dive in the challenges before us um because as you know we haven't had an opportunity to have this kind of comprehensive discussion about staffing needs um at the city level and i think we all agreed last year um i understand it was a different board but i think we agreed last year that this kind of strategy was necessary to make sure that we can open up that building staffed 24-25 thank you um let me ask one more question please of course sorry um i just want to talk a little bit about um you know the background concern i think we've we've had for a while now which is that funding cliff and in particular i'm looking at the health insurance claims um which you know is one of the major budget drivers here and i know that probably in this coming year you know we're going to see a lot more people we're anticipating a lot more people um you know making claims because they're going to be able to go to the doctor or put you know have surgeries that they put off or whatever um so that 3.2 million that's earmarked for it which is going to come out of reserves are are there any concerns about future years that we're going to see a high number you know more than one year in a row that we're going to be depleting our reserves and sort of put ourselves in a a dangerous spot going forward that was actually my question kate too is is how much are we depleting our reserves by what would we be left with after that 3 million that projected 3 million um and then i i don't recall what the max was that we were the goal was to have in the reserves right so i i don't know what the goal was for to have to keep in the reserves i don't know if there's a a reserve kind of number there is i could get some help from john on that um but i recall john saying earlier i know we have reviewed these numbers early in the school year um there's close to 10 million dollars in reserves right now given the surplus from the 1920 and 2021 school year um and so the three million dollars um if we were to use the reserves for the 3.2 million dollars projected cost for next year um that would mean at least in my eyes anyway um any um that would mean and i think we'd have to talk to our consultant in this regard but if we're covering it all with the reserves in my eyes we would have additional monies left over that we're already budgeted for but john perhaps you can help clarify that for me yeah that's exactly right the of the 10 million at least half of it is designated for health insurance or more than five million and we wouldn't be drawing down um you know if we probably look to draw any reserve at least over a three year period no no quicker than that just by coincidence uh cigna is coming in tomorrow afternoon at two o'clock uh to talk about trends and and to give us information on what's the latest um certainly we can share any reports that we get um with the board and um see what they say i we do know it's a um it's these have been very uh unprecedented years um for healthcare i'm just restating the obvious particularly at hospitals and things like that so um but i think we really need to rely on our experts like cigna in um you know unprecedented times like this so uh i'm i'm really looking forward to hearing what how they predict the future next 12 months let us know how it goes yeah absolutely well well we're meeting again tomorrow if only they could predict lottery ticket numbers there's a game on sunday if they can just tell us how that's going to come out um i actually have a follow-up if i may rachel on on health insurance then one other question in i don't know whether this is john or kim this may even be you as we're as we have staff i think i heard before that we're anticipating some increase in retirements and replacing staff the net effect of that usually is we're replacing staff with people who make less correspondingly they usually make less because they're younger do we anticipate that to have any effect on health care claims considering the older you get the more often you make a health care claim usually you know it's really it's really tricky i mean i i took a quick advance look at the deck for tomorrow and you know it's funny year to year you know our claims experience is so different you know this year it seems to be a lot of um rheumatoid arthritis and you know gastro things some years it's depression and anxiety so it really is all over the place and and it's hard to connect it up to younger workforce older workforce the thing that we're seeing about replacing though is and the thing that bears noting is it really depends on the area that we're replacing so if we have to replace for example hard to find special ed teacher we're rarely bringing somebody in a ba too we're bringing them in you know top of the scale can't find anyone so it really is hard to predict the other metric that i think is interesting this year and i actually just got a request for information that we just pulled the data today since october 1st we've had 35 teachers leave that's really unusual for us and they're leaving either to some are going other districts some are going you know to different jobs some are leaving teaching um and and i think that's just something that we haven't seen those kinds of numbers since october um and we're continuing you know the other metric that i think is a good indicator is we just surpassed our 200th certified staff higher this year since june we've never done numbers that high and we've never done them consistently this time of year so i i think you know to john's point i think this cove post-covered world is just it it's really hard to predict and we're still going to kind of mine the data and see what we see um but it's hard to do generalizing about you know cost of bringing somebody in or its impact on health care it's just hard right now thank you just one general question about the budget and as point of reference i'm using page 15 of the budget detail and budget book that we received tonight but the total number that we're looking to increase the budget is 12.8 we're only asking for eight seven because we have five million we of other monies that will absorb that you know a third of the of the increase it see am i reading this right that of that 12 million 9 million is just enough just just keeping up with la with with this year is is that what maintenance budget means uh yes that's correct that's correct okay and then and then the remainder of the improvements right but improvements that the 25 credit mandate's done that's not voluntary we have to do that and in terms of dealing with enrollment growth students are here they're coming we have to teach them so well i was going to say the curriculum is a requirement too right so it seems like most of this is not really discretionary am i reading this correctly uh i think you are we're you know i'm trying to highlight what's new and and different and uh it's those four things that you know we had would be new that are right but but most of this is either programmed increases because they're contractually bargained for or things that we're required to do it all is um in fact um that's why i said at least um half of it is just salaries and benefits and then you know the rest is as you mentioned transportation special ed the usual suspects thank you that was it any other board members have any questions thoughts comments okay go ahead sorry i certainly don't want to monopolize this um but i am curious um you know given sort of the historical trend we've seen as far as funding what do you anticipate happening if we don't see this dollar amount in other words are there do you do you have a a game plan for um how to adjust the budget to to still meet the district needs if we get less than you know the 8.7 that we're looking for right so kate we will make the hard decisions that you know that are required of this office um no different than in previous years um but you know i'm i'm having a difficult time answering because i want to remain optimistic um that we can get to ask uh so that we can meet the needs that that was just outlined uh by joe and john just now um i you know when looking back at this ask and i'm talking about positions now um you know the majority of those ass support the recent growth that we experienced in these last couple of months um particularly growth in our secondary schools and english language learners and special ed students especially students required as you know john and joe were just talking about and english learners um if we're not supporting them we're literally pulling away from services from all of our students and so you know i those are i mean everything that we presented and our eyes are priorities um but certainly we will have to make hard decisions if we're not budgeted at the number as we has submitted okay thank you mr wilson and can i ask and i hate to put you on the spot and i appreciate that you know i was invited to sit on um you know a meeting with the city finance and our finance together at the table how are those conversations going i know the mayor his goal was to begin conversations around the budget earlier and more frequently um so just just curious you know if you could share a little bit about how those are going how you feel they're going and are we providing um everything that the city needs on their side right so um yeah thank you for bringing that operation i don't feel like you put me on a spot at all um i and plus i've had a little experience being on this spot these last couple of months so it's okay so so one um we've now had my office has had uh three meetings with the mayor's office the first and person the next two remotely um our last meeting focused primarily on um working on a conversation regarding lobbying for acceleration of the alliance funding and uh meeting with our legis our legislators in that in the community um and through our lobbyists um he kind of facilitated the conversation um and then also had the mayor um in his right hand um at the meeting as well um and in that conversation talked about the strategy about pushing on the state again for accelerating the alliance funding as we had previously discussed i believe at our last board meeting and the the legislators you know made it clear to me kevin um if danbury is going to be excel is going to get accelerated um on the schedule then that means someone has to be pulled from the schedule and have one year less funding and then of course as an advocate of danbury my position was well the rest of the state of connecticut you know and not pointing specifically at any school district but the rest of the state of connecticut is continuing to express a decline in enrollment while dan barry is experiencing an increase in enrollment and so for my seat um i think that's warranted for someone to lose a year of the payment schedule while we receive an increase um an accelerated schedule so i i didn't hear anyone on that call who disagreed um and i feel like our data can support um as much as any year um i think our data can support um an acceleration of payment uh particularly with the fact that you know we have more english like we have a greater percentage of english learners in our district than any district in the state of connecticut um and i again i i think we have all of the talking points you need to support an accelerated alliance payment uh so this was um some of the um heavier lifts if you will in our last conversation um the second meeting um the le the first two meetings were really trying to understand uh what the board's request might look like this year so really just a preliminary discussion the same way i shared with the board regarding the budget drivers i had reviewed those reviewed those budget drivers with the mayor's office and really just giving him a heads up as i had shared with the board i also shared with the mayor walking him through the budget drivers that were on the page that john ended with just before he handed it over um to kelly um i reviewed essentially that same page with the mayor and his finance director just walking them through so that they have a good understanding of um where our ask would be this year and why uh we spent a significant time along with john and eddie um walking um the city through the mayor mayor through um one of one of the biggest budget drivers and that's the health insurance claims um certainly something that the city can appreciate given on their experiences with health insurance claims as well and then also you know just kind of walking them through some of the other budget drivers that we've walked the board through um so it was really just a an opportunity to share with the city um as you know i continue to try to partner with these different offices across the city of danbury just think it's in our best in our best interest to do so um but really from my perspective it was an opportunity to educate the mayor and the finance department on our ask um rationale behind the ask um and what to expect um as we continue these discussions um and and hopefully with an approval from the board which you should expect um we'd have his office to review and the council to review when that time comes so we we we hope to have ongoing discussions it may or may not just be about the budget i anticipate our next discussion will be about the academy and hopefully we'll have some concrete updates regarding that as well but the important thing is is that we have some times carved out in our respective calendars for ongoing dialogue in the budget obviously given the season this was forefront at our discussions at the moment so that that's for the most part been been what the discussions have been about right thank you i i really appreciate that approach of of you know looking at it as a partnership with the city and and making them you know a part of this process as much as possible um and not just in discussions with them but also you know finding other ways to pull from from different sources of funding and you know proactively looking for for other savings with uh buildings and things like that so i you know i hope that they they see that as well that you know this is this is an effort of of coming from a place of being partners and um so i just i really appreciate that and i also appreciate the return on investment slide i know you know some of some of the council will say well look you're doing so great what what more do we need to invest in the city but um it shows that we're not we're spending wisely we're not spending willy-nilly um but i that also shows that we've hit a cap you know in in our student achievement and um we could go further we could take it further with a little bit more investment i think so i think that's a really important slide but also it has to have that narrative with it agreed um and and the same thing with the the schools of distinction you know um i've heard the argument well you have seven schools of distinction [Laughter] but um and i've also heard recently someone said um connecticut rewards growth to the detriment of proficiency so i mean that's those are two very different things and and the state you know rewards growth which is not necessarily the same as a blue ribbon school for for app for you know academic achievements right right so just to throw those things out there um but i appreciate all of the information that's been provided to us over the last few weeks um in finance committee and these uh past two workshops i appreciate everyone coming out and spending time to educate not just us but hopefully the communities watching and listening um [Music] and and i have to say thank you for the binder that was delivered today um that was a nice surprise and it's nice to follow have something to follow along with you as you present so i can make my notes on my end and um just i really appreciate all the effort that's been put into this and i hope that um you know tomorrow tomorrow's vote is go smoothly as we've had lots of opportunity to discuss and ask questions um so if there are any other questions i hope board members will have you know ask them now or forever hold your peace do i dare say is there a motion to adjourn or is there anything kevin before we adjourn no i i i just want to take so yes one more thing rachel number one thank you for your partnership in this process i know we've had an opportunity to meet and and discuss um strategies several strategies along the way in this process um and something tells me um tomorrow will not be the last time we talk about budget and strategies to help meet the needs of our kids and school community um but i i want to thank you for your partnership in that regard i i too am excited and optimistic about our partnership with the city um this is not to suggest the city is always going to honor uh the request that we made in in a given year every time we do i i understand it that's not the way it always works uh but but i but i'm also optimistic um that we're going to get something fair to meet the needs of our school district um and i'm i think the investment that we are making um in in this partnership is going to pay dividends not just this year uh but for years years to come um so so thank you for that for your partnership in this work and and then of course um you know my hats off to the city and the mayor for his commitment to education and look forward to to subsequent work and committee work with them to open up this night this new high school and realize some of our aspirational portrait of the graduate goals um and all the work that's um associated with that so i'm i'm looking forward to the exciting things that come for the school district thank you anything else from anyone motion to adjourn made by joe is there a second seconded by al all those in favor signify saying aye hi thank you
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
Um just to let everybody know that the evidence-based funding proposed will be increased to about 350 million. Um Isby initially asked in December of 21 for 475 million for that to be increased and Prrisker agreed to 350 million. There isn't much more information other um it'll come down the road a little bit but it's good that it's changed. Ken, right? I mean that it's been increased 350 million. Yes. Do you know what caused the increase? Last last year we decreased or a couple years ago because of because of attendance. Well, again, what you have to keep in mind what Mr. Swash is referring to is the entire evidence-based funding fund that state for education increased by 350 million. Now, statutoily, I believe that's what they have to do. And so, what that will do for the next year is we'll also fund like $50 million for property tax relief grant also.
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the state has a process to follow to hold school committee elections during that biannual election that committee the one from 2020 and the committee on which our last serving elected member had a seat failed to file the necessary paperwork with the state to get on the ballot steps were taken to attempt to correct this including the filing of multiple home rule petitions which would have required state legislature intervention a home rule petition is a request from a city or town for a new type of power from the state legislature and in this case that power would have been to have a different type of election than originally intended once the mistake was made the response to cohen and its related issues prevented this from being heard in boston and was abandoned in 2021 there seemed to be some confusion during part of the public comment from our meeting on february 1 2022.
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So, what you're what you're mentioning, Mr. Brown, is our funding that we received was decreased. Uh, well, the additional money that we received was decreased. our fed our evidence-based funding was not decreased, but we became a a tier 2 school instead of a tier one school. So, instead of receiving an additional $800,000, we only received an additional $400,000 this year. During the pandemic year, all those extra funds, whether you're in tier 1, two, three, or four, were suspended. Nobody got those. So, that had gone away. But now that was back starting this year, this fiscal year that we're in right now. And the allocation that Mr. Swal is talking about will then u fund additional money for the schools in tier one, two, three, and four. Okay. Okay. All right. Thanks. Thanks, Bill. Any other board updates? Um, can we have a little more discussion about the uh public comments about the mask mandates?
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it's unclear why someone claimed to be uninformed about the state of the election for members of the berlin boylston regional school committee the election has been discussed numerous times in past school committee meetings going back only about a year the election topic was on the agenda in some form on march 9th 2021 may 4th august 31st september 14th october 26th this was the date when the final discussion involved when the home rule petition took place again it was on the agenda on november 9th december 14th was when the election faq document that the subcommittee wrote up was voted on and voted the discussion took place and was voted on at that meeting and most recently our january 11th meeting there was an update about the election the election subcommittee comprised of mr wilbur mr talking has committed to me each month to continue to review the timeline and make sure we are on track to have this election in november 2022 we're working tirelessly to ensure we keep you and the public informed and we all have worked hard to ensure that you and the public have in-person full school committee meetings at which to communicate with us regarding this and other important matters since 2020 various committee members have decided that they could no longer serve out their terms on the committee and they stepped down or quit each had their reasons and many explained those reasons to the same committee in public at that time some did not address the committee or public directly but did so through email in the press that was their choice when an elected member decides to quit their seat should be filled otherwise the people who elected them will have no representation at all to review and for informational purposes the current committee was appointed in the following order lori hart is one of two advocates who applied to villa vacated seat in february 2020.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
We were I was going to hit that under new business. Under new business. Okay. Is that okay? That's fine. Thank you. Okay. Um, so if there are no other board updates, going once, going twice, I'll turn it over to Dr. Cara for um administrative updates. Great. Um, I'm going to turn this over to Mr. Surma. He's going to give some uh followup regarding our capital projects that are going on right now. Mr. Surma. Thank you, Dr. Car. Uh, board. Just wanted to give you a quick update on um the um capital projects that are going on right now and also this summer too. So uh I put this little cheat sheet together so you have it. Um I have we have also posted this online under under what Terry what did we put this under? uh we just put it under administrative update. Thank you.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
michael thompson was the only advocate who applied for the big gated seat in december of 2020. julie lee was the only advocate who would find a field vacated seat in the spring of 2021. adam wilder and megan grill were two of six advocates who applied to kill seats vacated in august 2021 these appointed members have chosen to serve out the remaining time of the term for those who decided to step down or quit because the previous committee of which the last elected member and former chair of the park failed to hold the election in 2020 it was unknown at the time of these appointments exactly how long this term would be nevertheless these members did step up to serve during unprecedented and altruist times we can now confidently say that this term will end in november 2022 the process to appoint these members whose carry out is required and will be exactly like the process to appoint the next member to fill the remainder of the terms of the current open valency there was a public announcement the seat was open there was a public request for advocates and there was a public interview by the committee of all those who expressed interest the committee including those who had been elected and previously appointed then voted to select the candidate in each case in the above cases it's important to note that all previously elected and appointed members serving at the time voted unanimously on these appointments even those who were the sole applicant for the vacated seats needed to be voted in by the committee at that time the vote could have been to not accept them it's unfortunate that the last elected member of the community will not be available on behalf of her constituents at the next appointment which we expect will be on march 1 2022.
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So it's under administrative update. So it is on the website. It's on board book our board doc and all that too. So let me just go through this again. If you have any questions, please stop me. But I'm just going to kind of go through to give you an idea. The um the temporary cooling rooms at Belmoral Creek Scott King and Mon Education Center. All of the electrical work has been completed for that. Um, our next step is to install actually the window air conditioning units, uh, and fix some of the window panels that need to go in. Uh, that'll be done over spring break. Everything will be operational. The project will be complete by April 1 of 2022. The demolition of the sixth grade center and dome, as you can see, is continuing. Uh, there was oil tank results showing contamination, and there are two options to mediate.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
i feel confident in saying that this committee consisting of the five appointed members is here tonight to assure the public that there will be a free and fair election as has been requested held november 8th 2022 and that regard the subcommittee has brought you several items to vote on tonight we've already voted to approve the faq document back in the summer which outlines in detail questions and answers surrounding this election such as the wimp how and why this is being held in november we're suggesting to post that on a separate dedicated election page on the district website as soon as possible we're also bringing to you language for a press release to approve this release will announce the election and our public question enhancer forum we would like to hold at the april school committee meeting we'd also suggest posting this on the district page and ask the superintendent if he would include it in a weekly newsletter this april day corresponds with the expected timing of what nomination papers will become available we also bring to you for a vote a letter required to be sent to the state informing them of the upcoming open seats for which we would like to hold an election as a review all six seats will be up for election in november 2022 proto-regional agreement berlin will have two seats available for a two-year term and one for a four-year term boston will have two seats available for a four-year term and one for a two-year term going forward after the november 22 election and beginning with the november 2024 election all seats will be for a four-year term and half of the seat will be vacated on the staggered basis going forward this is the way it was included in the regional agreement approved january 25th 2019.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
One is an option where you could drill some core uh samples and if it has not spread a lot, this is what EPA is telling us, you don't have to do anything with it. You can leave it because there was some seepage from the tank into the ground. The other option is you can begin digging that out and uh really excavating it and get rid of it rid of it. I'm working with uh our environmentalist to get a price on both of those options. Um I will say my preference would be to get it out of there. I would prefer not leaving the contamination there. Even though you could do that legally, I would prefer not to do that. But again, I will bring that to the board at some point. Uh you know, we'll have you guys can have a discussion on that, make a determination of that because we would have to award a contract on that.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
we've requested time at the april 5th 2022 school committee meeting to hold an open question and answer session at this meeting we'll entertain and answer any questions the public might have about the upcoming election logistics questions on how to run an individual campaign will not be addressed interested candidates should seek information from the state and their own advisors for that information regarding this election was also included in the school committee report to the town we would ask that it be highlighted at this year's town meetings we also commit to keeping the public informed of the election at each regularly scheduled school committee meeting up until the election part of our discussion in our last subcommittee may get centered around community outreach and awareness the idea of publicizing this on social media didn't come up we discussed that social media is a great tool to use to get the word out but we must be careful we've learned that committee members must be careful discussing committee business on social media so as to not violate law and social media can make this difficult we feel it's appropriate to dedicate a page on the district website to the election if possible we do not feel we should be posting this information on any non-town government related pages on social media such as the many private groups formed by community members that are not affiliated directly with the towns or schools but are simply forms of these topics if the school committee or its individual members were to post election information on private groups which may not include all of the public or if the administrators of those private pages were to close commenting on these posts that would not support the concept of equity for all that we hold dear this could violate open meeting law if a forum of committee members happens to subscribe to those pages and get involved in the posting or comments we do welcome the administrators of those pages to share the information from our meetings but for the committee to actively seek out those private pages could lead to a risk of not finding them all and unintentionally excluding some members of the community who are on other pages an example of this would be a recent committee agenda being shared on certain berlin neighbors facebook pages by a former community member but not on other pearl and resident related pages this including of one group and excluding of another is not how we should operate it is not evident we should entertain a policy update regarding this as soon as possible for those who have written and spoken recently about the failure of past committees and elected members to hold an election please note the public can rest assured that this committee is dedicated to bringing you a free fair election november 2022 thank you i don't have anything to add i just thank mike for providing what i believe is a very accurate representation of what's occurred over the last two or three years within this topic of the election i'll also comment that i personally as i think laurie mike injected the test to prior to doing the committee would be appointed to the committee did question on several occasions why an election hadn't happened when is factually accurate and um [Music] are there any updates from jesse regarding the last mandate um [Music] we're going to have an open discussion on the letters of jesse regarding the mass candy um i'll just comment that the version you're able to see here in the drive road and drafted is primarily focusing on the decision-making authority and not the question of whether maths in um very much focused on the issue of which body is closest to this issue and able to be best listening to concerned citizens on this topic as well as focusing on the equity question around um the vaccination threshold and some issues i personally feel strongly developed in that case and finally noting that there had been some activity in the last 24 hours where some neighborhood governors needs to return this decision making for local school commitments and urging the department of education to do the same in massachusetts so i offered that for discussion and you'll see the version i provided that it includes the number of line numbers suggested for fully news are there any members that would like to comment on this um so so essentially we have two letters to deci that are proposed by two members or are we or are we doing away with the original one and this or is that what we're deciding now so i don't know as well yes i i just like that it's more focused on give us the facts um and it's it's not um i don't think it's giving up too much of the position of our community it's more um requesting that we have the science and the facts um so that we can make a decision and it's more requesting that you know they follow suit of other governments that have already released that decision down to localities or at least have set a date for that i mean obviously it's not going to happen tomorrow but i think those are all the points i think uh everything that's happened in the last few days over the weekend i wrote this last week so yep i think adam's much more aggressive and i think it's perfectly acceptable well mike i thought you i thought you wrote a really good letter i really i really appreciated that you put into it i thought it was wonderful and i mean the entire landscape changed over the weekend it did it changed so much emails from the community that have said you know if you're if you're writing a letter out to dusty and you're stating that you know we want mass we don't want math doesn't necessarily represent the whole town so the way that we're asking questions about asking for local control um and putting up you know that local um nearby states are sending or leaving it up to local control or having specific dates um i just i like that openness we're not necessarily looking for one thing or the other from asking or not asking we're looking for the ability to have discussion about it you know on the floor taking in so many different opinions and research and all the other pieces [Music] the first one is that our committee has been discussing the mass mandate and listening to citizens who are concerned about it regardless of what side of the museum beyond them we've done that at three meetings from the last month on the 11th 25th and february during this meeting we are both comments from parents medical professional scientists and teachers furthermore we on our listening session um as the public commenter mentioned earlier we have almost 300 people who watch that listening session that we did last week um that's almost double the number of people who watched a similar session back in august this topic was on the table the conclusion of that first section of the letter is understand that our committee understands our community better than desi because we are the ones who are listening to them the second point in my letter talks about the inequities of requiring all communities to reach a somewhat arbitrary 80 vaccination rate because all the communities in this state are not equal in terms of racial makeup in terms of economics or in terms of the willingness of the people in those times to have their children vaccinated i specifically know based on data that i sourced yesterday and in boylston it's 54 of our 11 year olds are fully vaccinated or 90 are vaccinated in the crossbar in worcester 21 of those children are vaccinated where 70 percent are vaccinated in wellesley whereas 95 of those same children are fully vaccinated in hopkinton my point in this section is to note that given the correlation between vaccination rate and race it is inequitable to require that every community measure to the same 80 vaccination threshold measurement state if the vaccinations are zone continues we will soon see that the predominantly white schools and wealthy communities we ask free while the schools who more racially do our student populations will remain mass power point of view talks about some of the recent activity that we've seen both from the secretary of education and secretary of health and human services as they've commented on the twin debt that exists within higher education specifically building profound impact that virus mitigation has had on our citizens mental health they urge higher ed leaders to reconsider protocols to help promote a return to healthy social interactions they stated that their letter around january 28th that these higher ed institutions should accelerate their efforts to transition college students back to new normal conditions our committee urges you as deci to accelerate efforts to transition the key to 12 students back to your normal conditions as well and finally yesterday the governors of new jersey in delaware announced they will return this decision-making authority to local school committees and district administrators these three states are joining about 41 other states that do not mandate nasa to stay well we agree with these recent sentiments from the secretaries as well as the decision of government from the states it's time to do the same in massachusetts by allowing local school districts to begin our efforts for transitioning back to near normal conditions for our k-12 students as well i think the letter is outstanding um yeah um i thought yours was awesome but i just thought yeah exactly right right the landscape changed um but this this part about you know when you see those percentages was in boxborough worcester wellesley holyoke and then you arrive at the statement um we will soon see that predominantly white schools and wealthy communities will be masquerading with more racially diverse student populations it's really well done really thoughtfully thank you to both of you for taking the time to write the letters it does take i mean i don't think anybody knows what it's like behind the scenes in the school community when you're given a task and you have to organize and get it all done it's a lot of work i really appreciate that um so i guess we will move on to our business um [Music] could i have a motion to approve the 2022-23 athletic fees uh so did there have no increase right now the motion passes and we will approve the 2022-23 athletic fees to remain standard did i have a motion to accept a donation of the project for a school meal support grant in the amount of 330.25 a second julian discussion all in favor aye aye as well opposed hey the motion to accept the donation yes did i have a motion to approve the letters to be sent to dusty regarding the mass mandate [Music] presented copying this to several other organizations individuals within the state so i've actually copied this letter to governor baker to uh any further discussion all in favor aye aye i'm an eye as well opposed promotion passes we will be sending adam's letter adam sorry about the letter of mass did i have a motion to approve a press release regarding the election megan second approval of a letter to the secretary of state to inform him of [Music] um [Music] i appreciate that any further discussion um i'm an eye as well opposed the motion passes to send the letter um the approval you put the letter to the secretary of state to inform our november election um and we had as a honda student handbook first read so we're not quite sure if the school committee proves that we're objective of that i'm sure official studies okay so disregard all right um so we're not doing anything with the handbook all right we can any comments that you have questions concerns um should we send them to diane no i'm just thinking yeah okay our upcoming school committee meetings will be on february 15th that's next tuesday while we'll be doing this budget presentation i encourage the community to watch that meeting i know it's not exciting but it's extremely important it follows your taxes i want to see those spreadsheets and then we have one on march 1st and one on march 8th and just a reminder that we do have an open seat in berlin if a berlin resident would like to um you know sign up for them for the for the seat hospital i apologize i'm using my brain right now if you have any members or anybody in the community that would like to be appointed to the committee we ask that you submit a resume you can email it to me or to christy and we will be discussing on march 1st any member any people from the community that would like to run for that seat and i would really encourage people you know there's a lot of um the school committee is a very interesting thing to be a part of um and it's very complicated there's a lot more to it than any of us i think knew until you were really here um but it is a wonderful thing to be a part of and i i value the members that are here um i'm grateful that to work with you and i'm grateful for your enthusiasm and i would encourage anybody that would like to work with us to step up some things a really important job so thank you for that can i ask one quick question about that is it going to be the same that we had before where you submit a resume and then we'll each ask a question yeah all right just so people know that yes so that you plan to come and you you'll speak a little bit and you know and i'll let anybody that supplies another protocol okay is there a motion to adjourn a second julie thank you adam [Music] julie yes megan yes mike yes as well this concludes our meeting thank you very much
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
Okay. So, just Yes. I'm sorry. When you said legally we could leave it. What? I missing something there. I thought we had to do something. Well, so there that's why there are two options. The one option is they say you could drill down. You can drill a core, take a core sample to see if the fuel has has leeched out into some ground there in a specific area. Yeah. In a specific area where the tank was because when they took the tank out, because I was there when they took the tank out. So I'll just tell you what happened. when they took the tank out, it was ruptured on the bottom of the tank and you could just see diesel coming out of there. You know, the fuel coming out of there. Now, the good news is diesel fuel does not or the fuel that they use, the oil that they use does not spread as much as like gasoline does in the ground.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
It's basically just kerosene. Yeah. So, what what EPA is saying is that you can take these core samples and if has not spread out, then you can actually leave it. You don't have to do anything with it. All right, that that that's an option. Okay. However, the other option is you can go and excavate that dirt out of there and then you take soil samples to see, okay, have I excavated enough of it and take it all of it out of there and then once that occurs, then you just fill it in with new dirt. Okay, that's what I was wondering. So again, as I sat back and analyzed both options, I think the best option is to get it out of there because especially if you know, as we had talked about future fields, quite honestly, you could go by there and smell it and and you don't want to do that, you know.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
So anyway, let me I I'll come back to the board with this. I'll come back with both recommendations so that there can be discussion and you guys can then we can decide as we move forward. Well, just two just two questions. Why did we not drain the oil or suck the oil out before we tried to escalate? Sure, that's a great question. It was done. And so, so what happened is when they went um to when they found the tank and they opened it up, there was still some oil that was in there and what was in there was actually pearl uh that was put in there to fill the tank. Uh so it wasn't an absorbent. So they were actually in the tank and sucked out as much as that as they could. All right. And but you know, they just didn't get all of it.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
So again, they didn't know if it was going to rupture, but you know, when they lifted it out, it ruptured. And you know, you could just, you know, there wasn't a lot that came out, but I mean, you could smell it. And so it's there. And uh again, I think the best course of action is to take care of it. Okay. And the last question, do um you you probably don't know, but if you could go back and see how we handled a similar situation at the middle school when we built that addition. Yeah, I could see if the same contractor did that and see I I don't know. I can look at the paperwork and see if I have paperwork to address that. I don't know if we abandoned it in place, left it in place or took it out. Well, I'm sure the tank had come out, but I don't know what they did to mediate if there was any seepage or anything like that.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above