She Her hair was covering her. And Mac Whitwer and Taylor back up on the draw. Spartans now all up only only up five. Whitwer and Taylor. Ball goes up and Kylie Marino comes up and away with it. She gets the ball up over the restraining line. Now Minichog switched up a little bit more and now they have Kozub playing defense. Normally she's always up on attack. Kekney with the ball. Let's see how long they can eat that clock. And see now you turn around you start seeing some seams right >> There we go. Yep. >> Cuz see how now they're playing out. >> It's wide open now. Pellegrino with the ball turns around gets knocked away. Now Minichog off as Lee with the ball. Can Kylie Marino get in front of her? Kylie Marino slows the play down and Lee with the ball behind the cage looking to set up Minnechaug's offense.
But to get in front of the insubordination, it basically takes a lot of effort. It takes building a relationship with the student. It takes building the supports with the parents or our our uh counseling or counselors, including our our um Jamie Westway, who's our counselor in our office, but also the rest of the counseling staff. Uh it it's really it takes a team, it takes a village. Miss Medina always says it takes a village. It takes a village. It does. We we all need to be on the same page. We need to work together and and building that helps to restore all the classroom safety and to make sure that we're actually having a productive environment in the classroom. It also builds the accountability for the individual student. And again, I I can't emphasize enough, we need to have the therapeutic rapport. So when a kid's anxious and their level of anxiety is up here and they are maybe the insubordination is very obvious, we need to kind of bring them down to a space where we can have a conversation that will help them grow.
Any questions with that? The Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds. That was the latest one. Our current Director of Public Works was our Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds. During last budget cycle, I would say there's no science to this, but 70% was most likely school, 30% was town. Town may say that 80% or 90% was school, 10% was So, when that individual became Tom Richardson became the Director of Public Works, there was posting for that job, and we had a candidate that had less experience than the candidate who was offered by the town less of a salary. The way it followed up on that that candidate was here for approximately 6 months, 7 months. So, that's when in conversations with the CAO, the CAO said, "You can have the position. We'll try to work it out internally." And we said, "Fine." In transparency, we needed to go back to what was paying the former uh Richardson's position, what he was being paid when we hired the new Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds, based on experience.
O'Reilly Memorial Scholarship, Cheshure Education Foundation General Scholarship, Don Walon School, sponsored by the DAP PTA, and the Balso Scholarship. Abigail Martin, Chester Police Benevolent Association Community Foundation, Chiefs Memorial Scholarship. Mia Soberani, Chester High School Band Parents Association Scholarship. Sucha Shir Shernney Vasan, the Cheshire Junior Women's Club, Janette Richardson Memorial Scholarship, the Cheshure High School Band Parents Association Scholarship, Bartlett and Griff Scholarship. Liam Sumala, the Greg Skina Memorial Scholarship. James Sutherland, Chester Fire Department, William M. Grove 2 Memorial Scholarship, and the Chester Lacrosse Club James Dempsey Memorial Lacrosse Scholarship. Maline Taber, Joseph H. Fagan Memorial Scholarship, parent teacher organization scholarship sponsored by the CHSP PTO and the Greg J. Florio Ed Scholarship. Hanan Talapan Paneedo, the Austrian Community Foundation and the Cheshure Travel Basketball Scholarship. Mattaline Tessier, the Booster Club athletic scholarship and the Chester High School girls indoor track scholarship. Francisco Torres, the Lois Row Memorial Scholarship.
I'm here because I strongly believe we need to reconsider how much screen exposure we are normalizing in schools. Children today are growing up surrounded by technology specifically designed to capture and hold their attention. Schools should serve as a counterbalance. A place that strengthens focus, patience, and creativity. Instead, we're increasingly replacing books and hands-on activities with screens despite mounting evidence about the negative impact on their developing brains. I'm also deeply concerned about my child accessing YouTube at school. Independent testing by child safety researchers has found that YouTube's restricted mode regularly misses 20 to 30% of inappropriate or mature content. I do not believe the perceived benefits from using YouTube in school justifies this exposure. I also don't think that children should be spending their day their school day on a platform intentionally engineered to maximize engagement, prolong screen time, and make it difficult for them to disengage.
So, that's why sometimes it's in here and sometimes it's not. The legislature will uh usually pass a law, for example, before an election to say, "Yep, you can't have school on that day." or or that type of thing. Um but right now, this reflects like what's in the law currently, but it does change somewhat regularly. Does it change then in the AP updates? Yes. Okay. Mhm. Yeah, whenever you see updates in the policy, the exhibits and or procedures may also be changed, depending on what the change was. So, if it's a legal reference change, those legal references don't necessarily show up in procedure because they're in the policy. Um but if it's any kind of substance change that gets reflected in bold. Thank you. Yeah, I saw that in the webinar for the press Robin webinar and it so when I oh, this will be exciting to see and then I didn't the language didn't change, but I get it now.
Um So, I I can tell you that there We were one of four districts that submitted a letter with the intent to leave. I do know that two of the other districts have rescinded their letters. I don't I I can't say with certainty that the third one it is, but I our recommendation our recommendation is to ultimately leave uh and for you guys to consider that in June. Um as far as the number of students, there's over 4,000 uh special education students in the co-op. So, the co-op itself is larger than one [clears throat] of the districts. So, potential, we we will we accept out-of-district transfers. So, if if parents want to send their children to the Cat Central, there's an application process, and so we will we will look at those accordingly. And with the hiring of certain people that those parents of those students have been used to now could quickly transfer to us if they are following someone they know as we know.
This is the end of the game. Every possession this is this close of a game really really makes a difference. Spartans really don't want to force anything. Want to just take the clock on our our side. Ball bounces loose as Goodrow's in there. Byron in there. Byron giving chase. Good job by Gianna playing good defense on Goodrow. Goodrow gets the ball behind Oh, good grab. Behind the net by Lee. Lee with the ball. Lee turning around and Lee finding the open Stackowitz. That shouldn't I don't Mary Devoy ends up getting a yellow card. For Gianna Byron? For I don't know. I think I think one of our girls. Also, Mary Mary Devoy. Mary Devoy gets a yellow card. That's a tough one cuz like we saw earlier in the game, she brought a lot of versatility on attack, too. So, they got to play down for what?
So we have a list here of a bunch of different violations which are basic to any school. You'll have stuff like this. Um we have to address these. We do. Again, it's all about holding students accountable. It's always about having a safe classroom environment and a productive learning environment as well. Um, again, there's we could have gone on and made pages of these because everything's different, but when we when we when we uh actually put it into the the power school system, it could say violation of rules and we have a description underneath. Um, that's typically how they are reported to us in general. Tardiness is a big issue. Uh I think again I it's not uncommon. My other school that I worked in uh dealing with student tardiness, it seems to be the same students over and over and over. We have two different types of tardiness.
People may disagree with that, but that is exactly what happened. So, four new positions, I I guess people can look at it that it's four new positions to the Board of Ed. It's four positions that the town already had. But, that affects our mutual benefits. We changed the the name to Human Resources/Benefits. I'm going to pause there before I can because I want to make sure that this board understands where we are. That's a That's been a topic that maybe I didn't do a good enough job explaining it to you. We did this work at the Finance Committee, but now we're explaining it to the whole board in here. Questions, gentlemen? I have a Sure. So, I know that this was discussed at the Finance Committee and I this answer was given during that committee, but can you for the public give the answer of what the the difference is in salary?
Braden Terski, the Alfons Embraaso Memorial Scholarship, Stephen Freedler Memorial Scholarship, and Greg Skina Memorial Scholarship. Matthew Watson, Chester High School Band Parents Association Scholarship, David Ringer President's Scholarship, and the Matthew Costa Memorial Scholarship, and Jeffrey Yam, the Rotary Club of Cheshure Scholarship. Congratulations, [applause] >> [applause] >> The investments are great and the accomplishments are even uh more tremendous. Let's give another round of applause to all of the [applause] Uh we'd be remiss if we also um didn't acknowledge and thank parents, guardians, family, friends, teachers, counselors, and many unseen others for all the effort and care they have given to these students. I think we can all recognize that it takes a village and I am confident the recipients thank you for all of your efforts uh along the way and support over the years. Uh Dr. Reed mentioned many of the behind thes scenes folk folks who makes this night possible.
Especially during the very years their brains are still developing the ability to focus and self-regulate. I respectfully ask the district to make the following changes for the benefit of our children. Remove YouTube access on student devices. Provide parents with transparency around student screen use during the school day. And develop district-wide screen time guidelines informed by child development research and cognitive science. This is not an argument against technology. It is an argument for appropriate use. Less screen use during school isn't a step backward. It is a deliberate step towards protecting the very skills education is meant to build. Thank you. Okay. That concludes our public Very much. All right. Our next item is consent agenda according to our board policy. We designate a portion of the action items on the agenda as a consent agenda for those items that usually do not require extensive discussion before These items generally are routine recurring and can be grouped together for efficiency.
Uh the next one is an exhibit. Um I'm sorry. I almost skipped one. 2: colon uh which is Board of Education Procedure. Uh Board of Education Meeting Procedure and in this one, sorry, I'm working on two different sheets here. Um On page one, there is a uh just a minor change. Uh but it has for Committee of the Whole meetings like ours at committee meetings, um you can add a board member can request to add a topic with unanimous approval of the board. This also allows discussion items that are suggested by residents. If they are fully approved by the board, then things coming from the audience actually could be added to the agenda that night as well. So that's the change in that one. So okay, do we have to then change this acceptance of agenda paragraph in here to include the audience? Um I guess we would need to update that to just ask that question at the audience if a board member or audience member has a change.
I'm sure there are several factors that parents think about when they think about where to enroll their child. So, I think that would be appealing to some. Yes. If you have follow-up questions or there are obviously a lot of our staff our staff has all this information. Our co-op staff has all this information. So, everything's out there. You may get staff coming to you they feel comfortable coming to you that you can redirect them back to Kelly or Lori or I. We'd appreciate that or if you can send what questions or concerns they have so we can provide clarification. We want to make sure I know there's some people that are anxious about this next year's going to be you know depending on where their position is but I can tell you that we have a lot of people who are really excited about being able to take this on on our own.
2 minutes? >> yeah. 5:30. Not only that, we since it's a yellow card after the foul, I believe Minnechaug will start off with possession of the ball, as well. Yikes. So, that's a So, do they get it at half there? >> Yeah, they get it like as if it's a draw control. So, that's a It once again it's the same you can score can quickly change in this game. >> Yep. This is when the the rest of this game kind of want to get the ball in your sure stick handlers and keep every possession as Sergenko gets the ball dislodged by Pellegrino. Pellegrino gets hit with a call. Sergenko with the ball. She gets the ball over to Kozub. And the Spartans will be down a player until what, 5:30? Yep. So important here for the Spartans. Keep everything clean on defense. This is a a big stop right here.
One is tardy to school in the morning. If you ever see the traffic out here at 7:30, students, I think, think they should teleport from the light to their classroom and it doesn't happen. So, we have to build that with them and we work tirelessly on that. Our with in the attendance office, we'll have a line of students that are showing up late. Luckily, again, we have a policy that you guys have helped develop. Um, it's been around for a while now, but it helps hold the kids accountable because when they're showing up a few seconds or a few minutes late, they're then doubling or tripling or quadrupling the time that they're making up after school to to make up the time. uh tardiness to class is a little different. Um every teacher I think deals with it differently, but it is important for the teachers to be consistent.
>> Sure. This is from Thank you. So, in the area of the four positions at the faculty first grade non-school um the superintendent um of buildings and grounds was budgeted by the town at 95, Board of Ed is paying 105, difference there is $10,000. The animal person was budgeted by the town at 69,000, Board of Ed budgeted at 74,000, difference is $5,000. The AP person, 69,000 on the town budget, 74,000 on the Board of Ed budget, $5,000 difference. The HR benefits, 76,000 at the town, the Board of Ed 874, that's a $2,000 difference. The total um amount of the increase for those four people to change um would be $18,000. Thank you. So, the $20,000 number that we were out there saying for each of it is 20,000 for all. Yeah. Thank you for the question. Anybody else? Superintendent. So, I I just think it was important to um clarify that.
I would also like to thank her as well as Mrs. Pel and Mr. Tardelli for their efforts to make this night special. [applause] Uh the phones that were ringing during the ceremony, don't worry, you don't need to check your voicemail, was Dr. Soulen. He was letting me know there was a better than uh not chance that we might have an early release due to heat tomorrow. He'll confirm that at 5:30 a.m. It's not 100%. So, um I know all of you will be up at 5:28 listening for that message from Dr. Solen. So, be on the lookout for that. And yes, we will still have Rambie if we have an early release uh tomorrow. Uh if nothing else, I look forward to seeing all of you uh or almost all of you at 6 p.m. on June 10th for a very sunny graduation. Uh my suspicions are though with all the great things going on at the end uh this time of year with all the events and celebrations we'll see before then.
Steve, would you like to take us through them? Absolutely. 9.1 is the approval of the minutes from April 21st, 2026. 9.2 is the approval of our closed session minutes from April 21st, 2026. 9.3 is our monthly approval of payroll and bills. 9.4 is our monthly personnel report. 9.15 is the approval of donation. We would like to thank the women uh donation. 9.6 is the approval of the destruction of closed session recordings from November 19th, 2024. 9.7 is the approval of the stop loss insurance renewal. 9.8 is the approval of the appointment of an IMRF authorized agent. 9.19 is the approval of Tyler Technologies school ERP pro subscription renewal. 9.10 is the approval of textbook and display service. 9.11 is the approval of the CNI software renewals for 2026-2027. 9.12 is the approval of M-Class dibbles. 9.13 is the approval of Microsoft volume licensing agreement. 9.14 is the approval of our 2026-2027 K-8 meal price increase.
Again, if an audience member suggests a topic, it would have to be unanimously approved by the board member in order to add it. And then the only other change on this one is on page three. It adds in here for um reasons that somebody can attend not physically but by video is if they're uh performance of active military duty as a service member is another reason board member could attend electronically. This one also has a question that the board has to answer. Um on this one the question is Does the board take a roll call vote on all action items? And uh the answer is yes. Is that current practice? As long as that's okay with everybody, that's what I'll mark on here. Okay. Mhm. Okay, the next one is an exhibit that is just being moved over. Actually, the next one doesn't the next 10 or so are just exhibits moving over.