All right, welcome everyone. You guys missed the uh first 10 minutes. We had an executive session that uh if you stay long enough, you can find out what it. So, we're going to pick up where we left off. We're on page two already. Um, so we're going to approve the minutes. Uh, Miss Rico, our superintendent, is going to give her presentation. We're gonna have a presentation u about the DC trip. Um, a couple small reports and then we'll get to the award stuff, just so you guys know. So, with that is to approve the minutes from our April 14th. >> I move to approve the governing board. I'll second it. Lewis, >> yes. >> Miss Peters, yes, >> yes, Mr. >> Thank you. And with that, we'll segue right over to the superintendent. >> All right. Good evening, President Australian, members of the board, all you amazing students and parents and family members.
Board members, do we have any questions? Ms. Huit, do we have any public comments? All right. Hearing that we have no board member additional comments or public com- Okay, that's not for the budget hearing. Okay, perfect. >> [snorts] >> All right, with that we will conclude our public budget hearing and I will move over to our regular board meeting. The Creighton School District understands that our community of schools is located on the ancestral land of the O'odham and Akimel O'odham people who descended from the Hohokam and have inhabited these lands since time immemorial. The O'odham, whose name translates literally to people, are a vibrant culture and community's founding countless of generations into the past, continuing to thrive in the present, and carrying a powerful legacy for generations into the future. With this acknowledgement, the Creighton School District formally recognizes that the traditional care and keeping of these lands by indigenous people is an aspirational model of community stewardship that we are committed to honor with practices, policy, and human relations.
>> I. >> Thank you very much. And moving right into uh the part that most of you are here for, the Superintendent's Recognition Awards. Um I'll turn it over to Dr. McCord. >> Thank you, Mr. President, governing board members. If you'd join me in front of the dais for tonight's recognitions.
So, that'll be fun. >> Wow. >> Yeah. It's wrapping up pretty quick. It seems like a lot of the sports and activities are having senior nights, so it's getting close. I think the 21st is the last day. So, it's >> it's it's good, but it's sad. >> Thursday, uh, middle school graduation. When is that? >> The 20th. >> Oh, that's the 20th. Okay. >> Yeah. >> I think that's what next Wednesday. >> Next Wednesday. >> And it should be at the high school main gym. >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. Great. Any other board updates? >> I'll share, too. Um, I had the privilege and honor of going to the softball field, um, the naming ceremony for Coach G. >> And so the, um, the response from the community, I I wish I played softball because she was so well respected and um, the community really showed up for her.
I know it was a tough one this year, Al. Several cuts and reductions and things, but it did pass and we're we'll move forward with that. All right. We did receive So, if you all probably remember, back in August we got an open meeting law complaint from Lindsay Tierney. We met with Sean, our attorney. He drafted a response to her. Basically, the committee stating that there was no violation based on what she accused. She didn't like that answer, so she asked for the state to take a further look at it. And we got a response from the state on April 13th. And I'll just read a little bit about their response. So, it's addressed to Attorney Sweeney. This office received the complaint from Lindsay McKinney Tierney on October 10th, 2025, alleging that the Bromfield-Boylston Regional School Committee violated the open meeting law. The complaint originally was filed with the committee on August 27th, and you responded on behalf of the committee by letter dated September 17th.
So, it's just a picture night. So, please feel free um to take pictures, but I promise you you you get a shot because I'll make sure that I say does anybody else need a picture? Okay, Mr. Sh. Not sure if this can pick up my voice, but we're going to try it. We're going to start by calling up Kate Gert and Liam in Low. Pete and Liam have worked very hard over their three years at CIS and are now and are now playing in Harmony Winds at the University of Hartford. They joined several other students who received their recognition in the fall. Ma'am, are new to that group. Congratulations, ma'am. There we go. >> See, I promise you with me. is being celebrated for her role in advisory. As a sixth grader, Addie helps to create a fun and welcoming environment for our group. Addy continuously helps foster conversations while encouraging others to share their ideas through laughter.
I don't blame them. Um, I think that they had to do a lot on their end to try and make this budget adoption work. and uh I give them a lot of credit for listening to the people in our community and um you know moving it forward. So anyway um let me see here the uh just a quick overview. I just wanted to touch real quick on our you know um recommended budget I guess the the town council uh approved budget. Just this whole idea of budget fluidity and how things you know eb and flow throughout the course of a year. uh my proposed adjust adjustments and then the board of ed adoption of the budget. So if you recall going all the way back to January, um we have an operating budget for the current fiscal year of 93 million in round numbers. Uh my recommendation to the board in January was 1013.
Glenn Hawthorne, assistant principal, and Tim Colgate, assistant principal and athletic director. >> [applause] >> And now, please rec uh please welcome our 2026 Pine Creek High School student representatives. Our validictorian, Emma Louu. [applause] Our saludiatoran, Luke Chung. Our 2026 student speaker, Adiel Buyers, your senior class president, Barton Lee, and Pine Creek High School's very own student body president, Cadence Carlson. [cheering] [applause] Thank you. You may be seated. I'd also like to take a quick moment to recognize our outstanding uh music for our ceremony today. Please give it up to the members of the Pine Creek Concert Band under the direction of Miss Hannah Mancini and Colleen Gorski. [applause] And then later today, you will hear from our members of Fusion, our boys ac capella group, under the direction of Mr. Dan Jeffson and Miss Heidi Lopez. Thank you for sharing your talents. We are fortunate to have an exceptional staff at Pine Creek and several of them attended Pine Creek as students.
And then the last little piece of an incentive is every one of those sheets that's turned in. Uh parents, you'll get a 5% discount on enrollment fees. Now, that only applies for kindergarten through. We won't have an uh discount for preK, but for kindergarten on up, we will have an enrollment discount of 5% for every sheet that's turned in. And so, that's quite an incentive uh for your students to be able if you're sitting at home in an evening, uh it's raining a little bit, they're waking up in the morning or taking the opportunity to just take 20 minutes, 30 minutes each night to read um before they go to bed, take that opportunity. Your parent, you're getting at a discount on enrollment. So, we think this is an all-around winning situation to help our students read during the summer and continue reading so that when they come back to school in August, they have been reading and gaining some background knowledge as well as practicing those reading skills they learned during the year.
>> One was probably participation with the music merch music madness. Um a couple of tribes weren't exactly participating and it wasn't exactly made very clear that that's something we wanted people to do. So next year we're going to have to step up on that and make sure that there's announcements for that and make sure that all the tribe time teachers know that we need them to vote. Another another um issue that I personally had as like the person who like put kind of put it out on the trophy case this year um was um the bracket. The bracket was kind of wonky for lack of a better word um since we had to go from six down to four two teams. And so that made that rose a lot of questions and created a few conflicts between people. Um, but overall it worked out. It went great.
>> No, I don't have any questions. >> Any questions? If not, did you have another? >> Nope, that's it. >> All righty. Excellent. Thank you so much, Miss Miss Carlo. >> Thank you. I will note thank you so much for your effort, everyone's effort. I I think um the difference of almost a million dollars in what we initially had adopted to what we're changing it to increase pretty good >> conservative >> very conservative. So I really appreciate that. Thank you so much everyone for the effort. >> We'll go ahead and adjourn the public hearing. Uh I'll motion. Is there a second? Second. >> Oh, second by Miss Dion. >> All those in favor of the motion. >> Kathleen Vance Leonard. >> Motion carries. >> Okay, we are journ the public hearing. Uh 5:26 p.m. We'll start our regular meeting at 5:30 just to let staff me let parents get here who were scheduled for 5:30.
Um and Bryson Goss is one of those kids. Um he came to us from Globe and uh had some really low foundational skills and was really struggling, but he got involved in the afterchool tutoring, after school programs. Um and he's done a really good job. In fact, he went from, and I don't want to, you know, his grades were a struggle. Um, and he's got straight A's and B's all the way from wondering if he was going to make it. And so, I think it's really important to recognize kids like that that make a conscious decision with them and their family to say we're going on a different path. So, I wanted to recognize Bryson Gus for uh for for his efforts, and I wish he was here. Looks like Mr. Grace is passing it off to Miss Penrod tonight, huh? Uh, the high school would like to honor Faith Weissy tonight.
coming to the end of the we're in our last month and we've had such a busy April and gonna have a busy end of the school year. So, just a few highlights to share with you. Okay, first thing a great physics trip. We had an amazing time. I was fortunate to be able to go this year. It was my second time going. I think I went during my second year as superintendent. So these eighth graders were kindergarteners when I started here at Continental. So it was really neat um to see and be a part of this eighth grade um trip with them. So you can see highlights um the amount of money it was $96,890 total. 32,000 of it was raised by individual um general tax credit donations by the students. So those students who are um moving up get ready to to save and have this great experience.
That brings us to 3B, which is our roll call. We have Ms. Ayers, Ms. Gibson-McLean, myself, Mr. Jones, and Ms. Marquez present. We want to welcome everyone to tonight's meeting and remind the audience of the request to address board cards that must be completed and submitted to the board secretary, Ms. Cuadis, if they wish to speak to an agenda item. Board policy provides for two cards. White cards are to be submitted in order to speak to an agenda item, and blue cards to be submitted in order to speak during public comments. Due to our open meeting laws, we are not able to address items that are not in the agenda. So, if you have a blue card, we cannot address those directly. That moves us to item four, which is our approval of agenda. I move the governing board approve the agenda as presented. May I have a second?
>> Good evening everyone. How are you? >> Good. Um, this is our last recognitions for the school year. We don't do these in June, and this is my last one as superintendent, my favorite part of a board meeting. If you've ever attended a board meeting in 9 years, and you stayed past tonight, you'd understand why this is my favorite part. No offense to any of you. Um, but uh we got some really great people to recognize tonight. We've got organizations, we've got uh employees, and we have students. And so, let's kick it off with our first place winners from Quartz Hill. If you guys would come up here. Are you here? There you are. >> [applause] >> This is the winners of the GPS Battle of the Books. Now, Jane, where are you? Jane Glenn, what grade are you in? >> Sixth grade. And Delaney, hi Delaney.
Past players showed up for her, her family showed up for her. So, it was really nice and uh, it just made me proud. >> Excellent. Excellent. Uh, I wanted to say I felt really bad that I couldn't make it. I did not even realize it's nobody's fault. It was my own fault. I didn't realize that it was that night. And that was something I really wanted to be at because I always have a a great respect for people of her status who've done what she's done. And she is still here. >> She hasn't left. She's working concessions. Like, and I'm not saying anybody doesn't like her, but like her or not, frustrated, whatever, she is still here. dedicated >> doing stuff for this uh for the school district regardless and and and I I that's admirable for me. I I really appreciate >> I've been volunteering with her for just about 18 years >> and and I don't really know her.
The complaint alleges that the notice of a meeting the committee held on August 12th was not sufficiently specific. And that the committee did not provide notice of the cancellation of an August 26th meeting. Following our review, and our review this is from the office of the Attorney General. Following our review, we find that the notice of the committee's August 12th meeting was sufficiently specific as to the topics referenced in the complaint. We decline to review the remaining allegations of the complaint. In reaching this determination, we reviewed the original complaint, the committee's response to the complaint, and the complaints the complainant's request for further review. In addition, we reviewed minutes of a meeting the committee held on June 10th, and the notice of the August 12th meeting. We also reviewed portions of a recording of the August 12th meeting. It goes on to list several facts.
Next up we have GP Dominico composition titled Keep the Beat for a solo tubo. was selected for the composition and songwriting gallery at the CMEA conference this spring. Congratulations Hazel Co. Congratulations to fifth grader Hazel Coach for winning the Connecticut Fire Prevention Poster Contest for all of Canada. I'm gonna call up Samantha Lee and Maddie Dezere. Congratulations to sixth graders Samantha and Maddie for their strengths in the visual arts, citizenship, and cooperative skills. Both Samantha and Maddie were honored at the Connecticut Association of Schools 26th annual Elementary Celebration of the Arts this past February. Another of our future problem solvers, Quinnarthy, Cindy Jiang, and Joselyn listen. Cindy and Joselyn are sixth grade ACT students who took the year to study the future problem solving sixstep method. They worked in teams of four and these teams competed and practiced covering different topics that are set at least 25 years in the future.
Uh the board of education spent a lot of time working through this identifying priorities uh understanding the fiscal pressures in the community and uh ultimately recommended a budget of 100 million14980. That's a total increase of 7 million and change roughly 7.54%. So that got passed on to the town council to review in March and April. Uh I think everybody here is aware we went through the entire process over that time period. Ultimately uh the council made a reduction of $300,000 in total bringing our budget the amount of money that we were allocated was $99,849,080. And that's important because the town council, they do not have the authority to line item veto, line item adjust our budget in any way, shape, or form. They pass a certain dollar amount on to the town council and it's your job. Um, and Marlene and and Emily and Vin and principles and myself, we all try and advise you of where we think that money should go aligning with the priorities that the board of ed has adopted.
Um and we still have staff working in the building from when the school opened. If I um staff, if this applies to you, please stand and be recognized. Uh this year we are going to celebrate several special recognitions. Pine Creek and Academy School District 20 secondary educator of the year, Miss Christianne Saunders. [cheering] [applause] Our classified staff member of the year, building manager, Bob Kuna, who is back at the school running things. Our team of the year could also not be with with us today as they're supporting with AP testing, but it's our IT team, Miss Jennifer Wood and Clinton Spencer. We also want to recognize our retirees from Pine Creek this year. We would like to thank Rick Joyce for his years of students to our service and community. We wish you the rest of we wish the rest of those staff members flying the nest for new opportunities the best of luck.