East Windsor, CT BOE Meeting - 6/11/25

001to the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Um on our agenda, we actually do need an added agenda item regarding adspects because it uh mistakenly didn't get put on the agenda. So Fran, would you mind making a motion that we add an added agenda item to new business for a vote? Uh maybe number three is a vote on the dead specs for the middle school, high school project, and the Brookbrook school project. Second. All right. So, Fran has made the motion to add the agenda item and Courtney has seconded. All in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Motion passes. Does that work us? Are you good for perfect? All right. Next on our agenda, we have commendations tonight. Yes. Patrick,

002do you want to take it away? Yeah, absolutely. So, what we have is our Crystal Apple um recipients. What I can tell you is this is in partnership with Horse Man. Um unfort Unfortunately, Dave Moer could not be available. um today. Um but certainly um want to take the opportunity to recognize um our employees from each school. Uh just to give a little background on that award. Um uh the nominee is any staff member. So it could be certified or non-certified who has demonstrated understanding of the needs of students as an individual um andor as a group of students. Um they demonstrate through their actions uh supporting and caring relationships. They support a positive and compassionate school climate. Um they encourage a lot of learning. Um exhibit a collaborative approach and also challenge students to

003reach high standards um and expectations. Um so certainly it's uh something that we take great uh value um in and um enjoy the opportunity to do this on quarterly basis. Um so with that we might start with elementary and start with uh Broadbrook administration to uh share our Broadbrook School recipient up. So I have the pleasure of introducing Christy Gleason who is our Apple Crystal Apple award winner for Broadbrook School for the fourth quarter. So the person who nominated Mrs. Gleon wrote, "I believe this person is deserving of this award. Christy is consistently upbeat, positive presence at the Broadbrook Elementary School, and her impact on our school culture cannot be overstated. Christy's energy and optimism brighten every hallway she walks through. She is not only a joy to work with, but also someone who uplifts

004those around her and her genuine kindness entire with her genuine kindness and enthusiasm. This year, staff greatly appreciated when she coordinated several initiatives aimed at boosting morale and spreading positivity throughout Broadbrook School. Two standout efforts included her flower cart and snack cart, which brought much needed moments of joy to our staff. These thoughtful gestures were not just kind, they were deeply meaningful to our school community, and they per perfectly reflect Christiey's unwaving unwavering commitment to fostering a supportive and cheerful environment. As we approach the end of the school year, Christiey's positive demeanor continues to be a source of encouragement and comfort to both staff and students. And I could not agree more. So, congratulations. Be aware. That's what I was going to say. It is do not. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations again. Congratulations. Thank

005you. Uh next we call the middle school. So it's my pleasure to introduce Shagupta Mammoon. She is a seventh grade pair professional and one of the most amazing people that we've ever met. Um she's always willing to go above and beyond work with all the students, not just students that are on a certain case load. Um, but one of the things about Miss Mimmude is she will talk to students during lunch shooting, during home room, during the hallway. If they're struggling with something socially, emotionally, she's there to hear and listen to them and support them. If they're struggling with academics, she's there to support them. Whether they're in her group or not, she'll pull them right in. She's very inclusive. Make sure all the students get exactly what they need. Wherever they are, she meets

006them and supports them. Not only that, but she collaborates with the teacher. So, you know, it can be very difficult. you come in and you just want to get going, right? But she's like, "How can I help this student? What can we do here? How do we support them with this? I noticed they're struggling in this area." So, she is the one of the best educators we have regardless of level, and she supports everybody, staff, students, and even the administration. She's always asking, "What can I do to help?" Um, so we appreciate all that you do. Yes. Thank you so much. And we couldn't do it without you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Hi everyone. Um our Crystal Apple award winner couldn't be here this evening. Um but um her name is Nicole

007Walker and I'll read some great words about her. It is with great pride and wholehearted enthusiasm that I nominate Nicole Walker for the Crystal Apple Award. Nicole is a remarkable guidance counselor whose unwavering commitment to students and colleagues has made her a cornerstone of the EWHS community. She embodies every aspect of this awards criteria. Through her actions, leadership, and presence, she has built a culture of care, accountability, and student focused excellence. Nicole is a pivotable pivotal leader on the 10th grade team, providing consistent guidance, and compassionate support to both students and staff. Her work is marked by a deep understanding of student needs, and her decisions are always informed by data, equity, and a wide lens of perspective. Whether she's organizing student incentives, designing support systems, or problem solving in real time, Nicole keeps our

008school moving forward with grace, purpose, and heart. What sets Nicole apart is her rare ability to know her students fully academically, personally, and socially. She creates a space where students feel heard, valued, and safe. At the same time, she holds them to high expectations, always encourag them to rise to their potential. Her unique blend of empathy and accountability earns students trust and motivates them to grow into the best versions of themselves. As a colleague, Nicole is equally impactful. She's always available to listen, offer thoughtful support, or gently push us when we need it. Her presence brings calm and clarity, and when she is not here, her absence is truly felt. She's a sounding board, a problem solver, and a steady force that keeps our team ground in what matters most, our students. Nicole's influence reaches

009far beyond the counseling office. She has a hand in nearly everything that makes EWHS the special place it is. Her leadership, reliability, and compassion make her an invaluable member of our school community. Nicole Walker exemplifies what it means to support, uplift, and lead. She's deeply deserving of the Crystal Aqua Award, and I can think of no better person to be recognized for her profound impact. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much everybody and congratulations. Um people who were involved in that Crystal Apple award um commendation, you are more than welcome to stay for the meeting but we also understand if you want to head out. We understand it's the last day of school so you're more than welcome to go as well. Um again congratulations everyone and we appreciate your effort summer. Thank you

010everyone. Thank you. All right. Next on the agenda, we have um the minutes from May 28th, special meeting minutes. Did anybody uh Well, first I guess I would say I would entertain a motion. I'll make a motion to approve the May 28th, 2025 special meeting minutes. Second. All right. So, I have a motion by Courtney and a second from Heather. Was there any um discussion or any edits to the minutes? I think I saw anything. I think I was good with them. Did anybody else have any? All right. All in favor? I. Any opposed? The minutes pass. Okay, close the door. Yeah, we can't close the door. We have to leave. Sorry. Um Terry, are you all set with the minutes, too? Just for clarity. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Yep. All right. And next on

011the agenda, we do have public participation. Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak? Anyone from the public who'd like to speak at this time? All right. Thank you, All right. Uh, next on the agenda, we have our year and review school reports. CSG. Yeah. Are you good with that? Oh, good. All right. So, actually, we're gonna take um one of our items out of order just because we have a few guests in the audience. Um so, under new business for a vote, we had discussed adding that EDS specs. I'll make a motion to take item 103 out of order. Second that. All right. So, motion made by Denise and seconded by Heather to take item 103 out of order. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. So um we were going to

012have a little bit of discussion I think on the Especs and then we can um entertain a a vote. So did anybody do you want to start with a general review or did anybody have something in particular? I mean I think the memo I put together uh summarizes uh the documentation that CSG provided. Um certainly they're here in attendance uh to answer any questions. Um I know it was the agenda our last board meeting um um with the understanding um that is uh the need to be prepared to uh vote uh to continue work forward. Um I know there was some Q&A. I know you have the responses and obviously CSG's here if there's any further like clarification questions regarding some of those responses or any of the doc new documentation uh provided. Um, I

013do know Samantha provided a presentation as well too. So, I can put that up. Samantha, if you prefer, I defer to you. It's totally up to you guys. Whatever you guys want to talk about, I can go through it or if you guys have specific questions or discussions that you want to have, I'll leave it up to the board. I think it would probably be good to have the presentation up on the It's only like six slides. so that everybody knows what we're talking. All right, Patrick just needs a minute to get that up on there. And I think from when we had received these in our um for the last meeting, I think the main change like the well, let me put it this way. Believe the middle school high school edspecs are the

014same as they were when we we saw them originally. Yes. But there have been some slight changes to the um elementary school Yes. Ed specs um potentially on I think it's the second page where it talks about the area not part of the renovation project with the red area in red. Is that a new So um sorry if I'm jumping ahead in your document. No, no, I'm just trying to find where you're looking. Yeah, I was just looking at in our for the moment but in the binder this area that's in red right in the CSG. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you want me just to go through that? I can better that's what I was going to say. If that's part of the presentation, that's fine. I was just clarifying for the members what was

015new since last time we had reviewed it. Okay. Um so I wanted to put together something brief just to kind of summarize where we are with the EDS specs. Um if you want to go to the next slide, Patrick. So we have two sets of edspecs. One for um Broadbrook Elementary School and one for the middle school. Um that's okay. So we be okay. Um so for broad I'll just get right into broad book. So what we did for broadbrook is I know at the last meeting that I wasn't able to attend there were some questions on the sizing um and why the size was a little bit larger than anticipated. Um we investigated it a little bit further with the architect GWWO um and we realized that the scaling on their model was some

016got somehow skewed. So we quickly remedied that. So the edspecs um for Broadbrook reflect the existing sizes of spaces of the current uh building. Um so what we did was is we utilized those existing areas. We also tried to incorporate some areas that may not be may not have been specifically called out on um the existing layout that we were given to to review. Um and we made sure that that aligned with the edspec so that all the numbers kind of tied tied together with each other. So, if you look on the space matrix that you have in the actual edspec, um you'll see some areas highlighted in green versus red because um I believe it's the first grade wing and the special ed wing of the school. Um those were more recent projects um

017for the permanent modulars. Um so, we can't really do too much to these spaces. They can't really be considered as part of the renovation project. So all of those areas are uh noted in red um within the space matrix in the adspects. All the areas noted in green are areas that we are going to renovate and that that will be part of the renovation project. The reason why we had to include both of them is because the state is going to want to see um both kind of sets of scope of work for the school even though we're not necessarily doing stuff in the in the quote unquote red areas. Does that make sense to everybody? If that makes sense because that's what you would I'm sorry that's what you had said I think the

018meeting before last I think the thing that drew us was that when we got the headsp specs then it showed that the building was out of size which didn't make any sense. Yeah and after we looked at it further we were like wait a second let's like revisit this and make sure that you know there wasn't an error or something. Um so that's why the most recent version of the adsp reflects all the accurate sizes of the school um of each room. So, you'll note that um and I know we've talked about it multiple times, but the area that allow that's allowed per the space standards is a little over 58,000 square feet. Obviously, the existing school and the edtech are both over that. Um so, there may need to be some conversations with DAS

019or um your local legislators to figure out how to mitigate the the space requirement. Um because you are working within an existing school, the state is um lenient's not the word be immediable to yeah overage because it doesn't make sense to any part of it offline probably cost more to do that than them for reimbursement. I wouldn't suggest it, but what is it? Because of what is in those areas and would putting something else in those areas allow for I mean because we're talking population too though. Yeah, we're talking. So it's a combination of population and your existing square foot area. Now what we did was obviously we cut this and and the other wing out of it because this is about nine eight nine years old I think. Um, and the state would penalize

020you for doing a renovation to what you, you know, because you haven't gone through the total amorization yet. Um, so we pulled this out. Um, but now you have the existing exterior walls of your existing building. So, we're we're essentially bound by that, right? It really whatever you put in it, it doesn't matter. It's really it's just the the existing size of the existing building that makes sense. Okay. If you guys I mean if it's going to pass because of just based on logic then I mean I'll let it be. I mean we hope you know there's all things but I think in this situation there it's very minimal. Yeah. So, I I can't imagine that they would say, "Well, we're gonna, you know, and what do we I can't see." And if you look

021if you look at this green, you can't see it here, but if you look at the green line on the bottom, that's the total area that's part of the renovation project. And that's under the space standard. Like, we don't have the green line on our Oh, you don't have the green line. So, the total area for building renovation, not including those red areas, is 55,982. Um, the area that's allowed for Connecticut space standards, is 58,800. So, the area that you're actually going to be performing work in is less than the space standard. However, when we asked the state the question on how does the space standard get accounted for, they said even though you're not going to be essentially touching those areas, it still has to be denoted as part of the overall building. Um,

022but that's just something to note. I had asked a question at the last at a committee meeting about whether the students involved in FRC were included in the number here and um I see and you went and you said that CHC was included but was FRC FRC is part of the EDSPEC. Um I don't remember what I think you have F FRC you have F FRC footprint in the footprint but do you have F FRC because I believe we were talking to you and you didn't know if the students who are in the F FRC preschool were included in the student count yeah that would be that's a question for the demographer we did not do the No I don't think it's a dem No it's not a it's the students that go to school

023in this building currently Yeah. And the demographer looks at the enrollment of each school and each grade level. So when the demographer did their enrollment projections, which is how we got the um 490 kids, it's grades preK to 4. So FRC So was F FRC included in those numbers? If F FRC is preK, I would assume that it is, but I have to double check with them. Yeah, my understanding was um um F FRC was not part of the enrollment projections. Okay. So then and we have some prek like we have two different programs. Yes. So the prek that are through our schools and then we have prek that are through our F FRC. And that's what we were asking is if those kids were counted because it's a separate slightly separate class. We can

024nope that F FRC should be added to it. I can't say that the state is going to allow that because well we have square footage in I mean hold up. So, the FR the F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F FRC program, I did reach out to the state and ask if F FRC would be considered um as part of the renovation project. And based on the response back to me, it sounded like as long as it's within the existing building that it would be accounted for. Um in terms of the enrollment, we have our max enrollment at 490. I don't know, do you know like what your max enrollment would be for F FRC? because I don't know if that's something

025um we yeah I gave that number when we met um with uh GW um okay I have to look back something that um because I remember I actually had a call um but I think I want to make sure I'm clear that the state is only going to look at the demographers's report as to what's the highest because he did not may need a revision to that report to include FRC see if it wasn't included when he did his report. Well, we've asked that question what like two, three weeks ago and and Patrick I understand but I don't know what was communicated to the demographer when he did his um so because the that was um MP planning what was it was SLAM and then it transitioned to MP because the the the gentleman that

026did the projections at SLAM went off on their own and still continued to work for Slam. So, I I'll reach back out to them. I didn't realize that that was still um I so I do recall it came up with uh Slam um to whoever they transitions to. And I do remember the conversation though. It was indicated um at least it was my understanding that they weren't taking account because it was a separate entity. it didn't fall under um uh East Windsor public schools even though obviously it's a a community uh resource and it takes up space and per legislation it needs to be housed um in your library school um but um and then after that and isn't that when Samantha got clarification about that from the state yeah so we can include FRC

027as part of the ED specs I don't want to say not having them in the enrollment is not the biggest deal. We can verify that, but it is part of the EDS specs. It is included within the square footage. Um, but it might make us not over as much. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. We're going to have to ask the states how they how they view the TFRC enrollment portion. Enrollment portion. It depends on because I remember I asked the question. It depends on how you count enrollment because if you count just the preschool, what's it 15 kids at a time? There's multiple sessions, but it's 15 kids at a time. But then they also bring in uh play groups. And so that's in addition to the preschool doing play groups. They're occupanting

028space. They're coming. I mean, the parking lot fills up when they're here. I know they were here the other day. Um I forgot what the number. Do you recall what the number was that 15 to 20? So I think we had the number 20 because we used the max uh number. Um so it was a total another 20 25 students. Uh if you count the preschool and the play groups, it's 35. And well, the preschool should be counted in. It's not our preschool. This is so we we have four preschool programs. They have one um that is an additional F FRC. Oh. Oh. And then they have play groups that bring in another 20 kids. So is F FRC outside an outside program outside? Yep, it is. And then they have before and after school

029programs, but those are the kids that are in our school already. So those kids are, you know, part of what's counted. But for the prek and the play groups, it's like a different Yeah. It's selfunding. It's it's heavily uh supported by state grants. It's a community resources essentially like it provides um preschool at a very low affordable rate to families and I don't believe there's any cost to the play groups. Correct. No, there's no cost. just more about getting the early childhood um play experience. Okay. Um that takes place. But as far as you knew, Patrick, that the the monitor did not include the FRC. That was my understanding. Um um uh because it wasn't like even though it was taking up space, it wasn't East Windsor Public School. Now, I don't know how like

030the birth rate calculations and all that factor in uh with that. Um yeah because he does account for birth rate to in the town. So is F FRC specific to town residents or is it anyone outside the town? I think the the birth the three part anybody can come but the prek is well you can be staff too. It could be staff. Yeah. Would one would one classroom of children help with the 7050? I mean we're not talking 100 kids. We're talking I mean it'll help some. not going to eliminate all and so to go back to the demographer and then kind of talk about all these adjustments take more time and more cost I guess I mean so like I I can again like we can ask them just to clarify but um in

031terms I don't think essentially the size of your edspec would change because we still accounted for F FRC in the space number so the only number that would change is the enrollment and how much you're over the space standard by which we could do that after the fact. Um because again slightly after you guys approve if you guys approve the ESP specs tonight. I'm saying because the only again the only thing that would change would be the max enrollment number and then how that affects how much your allowable square footage is. That's really the only thing that would change because FRC is still included in that final square foot number. It's not going to go up to anything over 25. So, I just wanted to clarify because it had been a point of discussion slice

032the old. All right. Did anybody else have any other questions about the um Broadbrook ones particularly? Um I think I had asked the question and I don't recall seeing the answer but again I the packet for I just recently saw um the can the gym at the elementary school is bigger than the gym at the proposed high school right middle school high school. Is it possible to tweak that a little bit in order to Gymnasiums are hard. I think I did answer the question in the memo that gymnasiums are hard because their volume just because of the high ceilings to move an existing or make any adjustments to the existing gym. It's a lot more than just kind of shifting a wall here and there. So the existing gym is essentially the the going to

033be the size of the new gym. Just the internal part of it will get renovated. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Okay. I have a question relative to the kindergarten bathrooms. Um, in the narrative within here, the narrative shows that says there are bathrooms in those kindergarten rooms. Yes. But in the matrix, it does not say that there's bathrooms included. Can we change that, please? So, because most people aren't going to read the narrative, they're going to go look at at the space matrix and yeah. Um, it's if you look at the matrix, the prek bathroom, but kindergarten do not. And so, kindergarten the bathrooms are called out in the narrative. Um, I I have to load back because just to verify Yeah, we can make the adjustment to say bathroom with with the

034kindergarten classrooms. That's that's fine. My only concern is that, you know, once this gets out there publicly, people aren't going to read that. They're going to say, "Oh, here, let me go look." And they're going to go, "Oh my god, there's no bathroom in the kingdom," which is exactly what I said when I read. Yeah. Yeah. It is in a narrative, but we can include it on the space matrix. That's fine. That's fairly easy to do. Any other questions on Brad Brook? My only other question talked about this the last time you guys were here. Is there no way of getting the F FRC rooms moved up with our other small children put down here way at the end of our existing. So that that plan that you have is very is a preliminary plan.

035It's not going to be the final end all be all of where things go. That's just where we put them to make sure that the program fits within your existing space. So once we get through, you know, if we get to a a point of schematic design, design development, construction documents, all the adjacencies of rooms will all get flushed out. Then that was just to show that all of your spaces that you're requiring fit within the existing space. It's not necessarily the end all be all of that's where everybody needs to go. I just want to be clear that should that they should not be over here by themselves in a back parking lot with no playground equipment. They they need to be located over here with the kindergarten and prek classrooms to have access

036to these areas. So that's fine. We can we can get that during the next you know phase of design. because I'm sure a lot of things within that plant that layout that I sent are going to get shifted around during design just based on beads and adjacencies and that type of thing. I just want Yeah, I just want to reiterate that really this is just a preliminary review of your space, seeing how it fits within your current um configuration. Um but when uh it broad goes forward and we hire an architect there's another round of we're going to sit down with the administration what works what doesn't work you know and kind of go through the ed spec again to make sure that everything works the way that the school operates. So there is you

037know there is an another opportunity to move things around should you want to move things around. obviously within the the confines of the existing exterior rules and oh I'm sorry go ahead and then I'll be quiet there's no mean of moving the gym backwards I mean because I mean we could look at it potentially but like I said because of the way that gyms are built and because of the just the volume of the space it's hard to just you would essentially have to put an addition on additional gym yeah I mean we have all of that space in the back that that they could be using without having to trapes through the entire building to get there. And I may be out of my mind, but as I was here at Mileage Club last

038week, um the there is an area back there that has a higher pitched roof there where the kindergarten classrooms currently are. Those roofs are pitched. And I was looking at it going, "Well, looks like a gym roof to me if you just level it out." Um, and it's honestly just a thought of mine that when you do the architectural rendings, renderings, because there is space out there that is recreationalbased that perhaps if the gym were located on the back side of the building, they could utilize that outdoor space in an easier manner. What would the existing gym be utilized that for? Cafeteria. We already have You already have the cafeteria built in. Cafeteria for the nurse. So, I mean again like like I mean I don't want to tell you where to put anything. I'm

039not an architect so like that very well could be they could maybe to me it makes sense. Yeah. And that's something the gym near the space but I the gym is not the biggest issue. Mine is the FRC rooms can't be off in their own land with No. That's all. All right. Fran, did you have something else? Thank you. Okay, Carrie, I just want to check in with you if you had any questions about the elementary school specifically. Um, I'm good. You guys asked some stuff I had wanted to ask. So, I'm good. Okay. Thanks. All right. And just for clarification, in in the in the packet, there was a a sheet that said questions and then there were the questions and answers behind that. I didn't realize that earlier, honestly. I just thought it

040was like if we had questions from the slide. So, I was just realizing that some of those that like you mentioned the gym and some of those others are outlined in there. Anything that people submitted within that form link that I sent um it closed last Saturday. So, I pulled all the questions that I could from um by that Friday. I checked on Monday. There was nothing else. So, those are the final responses. Okay. And then did you have um further that you wanted to present as far as your slides in terms of I know we kind of went off on that. Yeah, the middle school. That was it for broadband. Talk about the middle high school unless anyone has any other question. Okay, one last question on Broadbrook. Broad. Yes. If we approve these

041EDS specs as they stand tonight at these square footages, which is over the 7,000 square feet, whatever happens with the rest of it. Um That's what you submit our application for. Based on our inspects, the building will be 7,000 over there, whatever. Correct. Can we change that after the fact or I mean you could if you had a spike in um enrollment and we can demonstrate that to the state or if you decided that you want to lop off 7,000 square feet of the existing building. Um, you know, again, you get the cost benefit analysis of doing that. So, it's it's all adjustable. We're not stopping to this is what you're going in at at this exact square footage. This is your reimbursement receps have been done after they've been approved. Um, so it's not,

042you know, don't, you know, because there may, you got to remember we're doing these ad specs based off of a very conceptual uh design at this point is what I'll sell. And again, I want to make sure everybody understands that what you see in front of you right now, especially the layout of the rooms doesn't mean that that's that's it. That's what we have to, you know, do. We have a lot of flexibility after school um because things come up, you know, we'll get room in the gym or, you know, um put the bathrooms in the kindergarten. Um so we do have that flexibility. You can't just change it. You you can't change it from a elementary school to a middle school. That would raise for me. So I just have one question. I just

043want to understand. So what we would be uh submitting is or what we're looking at now is plan like overall plan conceptual plan and it would be with the overage as far as space and what we're anticipating is that the state will say to us we will give you a waiver for that for that space. Is that is that we're we make the request that they give us a waiver as a result of the existing space existing space. So we're probably good because of that. But it will go in with this you know with um the 7,000. Yeah. And if we if we well if in the meantime we find out that you know FRC you know we can include those students or whatever it'll be a little bit less than Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's

044so I just want to make sure that it goes in this way. Yes. All right. I think we're good to talk about middle high school. Okay. Um, middle high school is a little bit more straightforward. So, um, based on an ad hoc meeting, not the last one, probably the one before, um, we were told that the board feels more comfortable doing a new construction versus renovating the existing high school. So with that said, we looked at the edspec again um because we were still over um for to build a new school um in terms of programming and what the state would allow. So we took another pass at it and we reduced it even further. Now we're still over by um about 4,800 square feet. However, that is a significant improvement to as to where

045we were a few weeks ago um where we were up I think we were closer to maybe 9 or 10,000 over. So um that's where we landed for the edspec. Um, in terms of space, the maximum enrollment would be grades 5 to 12. Um, it'd be 596. Um, and then Patrick, if you go to the next slide. Um, that's just a general overview of the EDS spec. I just like I did for Broadbrook, I just took the the highle totals from each area just to show everyone where we're at. Yes. Uh, Sam, um, so um, there was a prior PowerPoint, that's what you have in your packet. Uh, Samantha submitted. the updated one around 3 4:00 today. So, some of the slides might be slightly different, but I imagine the majority information Yeah, majority of

046them like this one is definitely the same. Um, I just can I ask in the future if you came to slide like that if you could bring copies of every for everybody because it's I I can't read that from there. Yeah, it should be what's in your packet, but it's the one before. Is that the one before? If you go back just one that one. Yeah, she has it in here. That one we did. We don't have this one. I I don't think we saw this slide. Yeah, that one's not in there, but the next one is with the right. Um does anyone have any questions on the middle high school? I have a question. Um because the reason why with the waiver with the elementary school that we're saying more than likely that it'll

047be fine. We've had a problem with the waiver on this one is because it's new. Yes. Yes. Okay. Because it's a brand new building. Build it. Yeah. They're saying you can build it within your state standards and you're electing not to. Perfect. And we did look at and I believe we presented it to you looked at using the existing high school. Yeah. But just the way that the the layout of the existing high school, it makes more sense to do new because you can configure the layout in a way that makes logically more sense in terms of how kids would circulate through the building and that type of thing. So where we've talked here about the high school middle school potentially being they're saying 4,800 square feet over the way we have it right now.

048Mhm. And is this what was discussed in terms of putting in first base waiver through that we had discussed with our state rep? Yeah, I will tell you like giving uh the numbers uh the fact that it's less than 5% over um um and talking with our state legislator, she did not feel like that was a significant overage. Um so that sounded like a number that she was uh comfortable working for is my impression of the conversation. Okay. And nothing happened with that in this legislative session that ended in June. Is that correct? We didn't bring that, but it may come up in October. Is that a potential or we don't really know? We anticipate a special session and it could be Well, we we always knew that we had next session as well too.

049So we always knew we had two opportunities and then based on a couple things is that were pending for reimbursement. Um we made this um as reported that at August we made this uh strategic uh decision to hold uh to see how all that was panned out. Now, I did talk to the first select and I haven't seen it yet, but um it's his understanding that the 15% um yes did pass and that we would uh be potentially eligible for approximately 78%. So, I do have information on that that's not in your packet because I was doing some research today in preparation for this meeting. Um Patrick, if you could go a little bit further and I could talk a little bit about the legislation and how like some of the special ledge would work

050if you guys want. Um, you know, Sam, if the if the 15% did go did pass. So, this is what I will say. I was looking through today and if you go to Keep going, Patrick. Keep going. So, if you look at some of the schools that have exemptions currently in the legislative session that came out um earlier today, one of them, Cheshure being uh North Elementary School and Cheshure actually received an exemption to to get an additional 15% rate reimbursement for the early childhood education prek. That legislation is actually something that's I believe has been passed that the governor has until June 30th to sign off on on all the new legislation. So if the governor signs off on it, then it passes. This is promising though that this was an exemption made for

051a specific school. So I will say that, but I can't guarantee that the governor is going to sign off on everything within the special legislation as well. Um there's the 15% reimbursement for early childhood and prek. um that's on the entire building. It's not just on the prek areas. There's also an additional 15% for special ed, but the 15% additional only applies to the spaces where special ed programming is occurring. Um and there's some time limits like you I believe for the can look back, but I believe for the prek you have to have prek for at least 20 years in your district. Um and same thing for special ed. I think there's a time limit on that. the bill. Do you know the bill number? The bill number 7288, I believe. Um, and I

052actually, yeah, it's 72. It's House Bill 72.88. I actually before I c got here this evening, I sent um a summary email to Patrick and Denise and Jason and Joe that has a link to the bill. Um, it also has these special bill didn't pass. The Senate bill never got pulled off the but anyway, that's my So that the summary email that I sent to Patrick has these examples for special legislation. So there's about 12 different schools that had special legislation related to space waiverss, increased reimbursement rate, um, and application for, um, the grant application submission due date extended. Um, but I did send the link to the bill and the researcher that kind of explains what all the changes were. Um, so Pat, they have that in their inbox, so he could, if you

053want to forward it to all of them, you could just take a look for for yourself. It's a pretty Thank you. It's a pretty dense document, so it took me a little bit to kind of figure out and and get through. Um, but like I said, there's about 12 schools that did get some special legislation passed. those two 15% reimbursement rates looks like they're going to be passed, but again, we just have to wait for the governor to sign off on everything and he technically has until the end of June. So, I can't guarantee that they're passing, but this makes at least the early preK one promising. The fact that this one school has it, it's the whole school and the prek is the whole building. Special ed is only the special ed rooms. I

054think that district because again you got to remember that that 15% won't take effect until July 1st. The submissions of the grant applications have to be in by June 30th. So I what I do believe that they did was take advantage. we're going to get special legislation. And I guess regardless of whether or not the 15% was going to pass um the legislation, they just got it anyway. But it was more of an insurance policy that they would, you know, go for that 15% because they would not have uh they would not have qualified for it um even if it passed because they already did. They're actually in construction already. The school is I didn't know that. Sure. Yeah. started construction here, but we can't still. So, does that answer questions on legislation and the

055reimbursement and stuff? I know we kind of jumped from the middle high school, but we have more questions after we read this updated packet. Can we send them to you? Absolutely. Yeah. Yep. I want to be a little digest. Yeah, it it literally just it came out fairly recently and like I said, it's a dense document, but the researcher document that I sent um better explains what the changes were um and you can kind of like cross reference that with the bill because sometimes the bill gets a little bit wordy. out. I I appreciate all the options, the possible space waiverss, possibly this bill, possibly, but I I honestly think that's not relevant to our EDS specs. I we need to pass the ED specs in order for things to progress, to get to a

056point to determine if what our reimbursement rates are, what our all that is. No, that's correct. I just I figured this question would come up, so I wanted to be prepared. I'm just trying We have a specific goal that we must or a specific thing we must get these heads fixed settled in order for everybody else to progress on to start dealing with all of the crazy of financing and all of that. So, to that point, let's get back to the middle high school. Does anyone have any questions on the middle high school? I just want further um I guess insight on the the cafeteria setup for the middle of the high school whether it's two separate areas or a village because they're dividing walls one area with a divider which is kind of what

057the narrative sounds like but I thought we were doing so the cafeteria last right the cafeteria does have a divider in there. However, if that's not what you want to do, you can put a hard one in there. That's really I think it's the verbage because the last we had to have a meeting at the ad meeting, I brought that up and I was just kind of hoping that you would change the narrative so that it made it seem in there or the description, but it sounds like you can take it away so you can use the space as a whole. gives you gives you an option of opening it up and giving you a larger um assembly area. So, it's not two rooms. It is two Well, it is two rooms. The divider would

058be divider, which I'm assuming would be all the time unless you have a larger event that you would need to hold in that space. Or again, if you don't want the divider, they can be as long. It doesn't matter. We put in the divider for the option of having a larger assembly space should you want it. If you don't want it, we can just make it a regular old. I think I recall like when we got that when we saw the the floor plans that like earlier on floor plans. I think it has a cap and then the kitchen in the middle and then the two off to the side. So there was no share of things. So I mean I I think that that's kind of what our intent was. So if we can

059just make sure that that messaging I think so but intent if you have a divide no you can't have a dividing wall and you've got the cafeteria in the opposite side of the kitchen. No the kitchen that's not what they're explaining is the kitchen is here the wall is here one big room one kitchen feeds into both I understand what she's saying. I think there was a plan that had a kitchen in the middle with with either side. I think where we landed was we'll do just one room with the kitchen kind of in front and then the divider. But if that's not what you guys want, that's I I can change the narrative. Well, I guess I'm picturing like a divider like they used to have in town hall where there's like this little

060uh accordion kind of thing that you pushed back and forth and not very sturdy, right? Something that big is a little bit more. I don't particularly like the new virus because they're extremely expensive. Um it's usually budget as you um but then if you wanted the option of having a larger census space those div because those dividers have to meet certain um sol criteria. Um so they're not flimsy. They're pretty heavy duty and they're typically bows because they're so heavy. So, it's not something that you would not It's on a track, but it's like a It's not um a manual. A manual. That's the word. It's like a It's like an automated one. So, you press the button and it comes and usually it'll lock depending on if they go the full length of the

061room or only partial length. But, if they go full length, they'll lock on the other side so they can't be moved. Again, it's really what you wanted. We felt that it was just an option for you when you know you get down to the nitty-gritty. We get there, you generally do, you either can have it optimal or you can have it as a hard wall, fixed hard wall. It's that will be, you know, we can have that discussion again at that point. Would that make that configuration would that make the kitchen less expensive because you don't have two sides? is as I understand the way you're thinking of it now kitchen's like at one end of the room right so that's like it's all together up here as where we had thought originally the kitchen

062would be in the middle dividing the room and so that there would be a cafeteria I mean I don't think it would make it it wouldn't make a difference because whatever's in the kitchen is going to be in the kitchen whether you know regardless of where you place it it's not the location of the kitchen that's going to make increase or decrease the costs. It's what's in the kitchen and you know what you you know where from a from a trans point affect one side to the other what what affects the cost is whether or not it's an operable. Yeah. Because we have to have structure for it because those things are heavy. Um again it's not a flimsy you know pull it yourself bulb on the divider. It is a very sturdy, heavy um

063mechanically obligated divider. And again, I don't particularly like them because they're expensive. Usually, we have a budget issue. You know, you're looking to take those things to take out because they you need structure for it. They're just expensive in general. Um, you know, they're a system. Um so you know it doesn't matter but I I thought there was discussion during the ad specs maybe not about having that um be a divider so that we would have another assembly space if you don't want that I just I I guess I had envisioned two separate cafeterias with one shared kitchen. So but it's not going to be that at all. It is one big room with possibly a divider or a hard wall. No, no, it would be a divider. It would either be a a divider

064or it would be a hard wall. It it or you do what she was talking about with the kitchen. Not two separate entities anymore. No, it is two separate. It is two separate. Just depends on how you want to separate it. Will there be two serveries? Yes. Yes. And how are we okay? That's so middle schoolers and high schools won't be across any and they're both entrances. So So they they enter they have their own separate entrance. And the idea would be that the middle school cafeteria would be on the middle side of the building. So kids would come from their middle school classes walk into the middle school cafeteria. The same thing for the high school. Whether the kitchen's in, you know, in the middle of the room or or at the front, there's

065always going to be one kitchen in in two separate rooms essentially. I think the means in which we separate those rooms is what we would decide at design time depending on pricing and things like that. everything would be separate and I don't I don't I see an advantage to possibly having flexibility, you know, to you have a larger gathering and you have to have it indoor graduating and kind of and you have overflow or something. It might not be a bad idea to have something that maybe gets used once a year as as two as one big room, but you have the potential. It's always good to have the option, right? what we've done on a couple of schools. Um, we typically do this in the middle school because you're not allowed to have or

066state doesn't recognize a auditorium for middle school. So, what we'll do is we'll put a gymnasium in the in the cafeteria next to each other next to each other with a divider and that divider stays closed unless they have a special occasion where they need to get the whole school together. they can open up that divider and then there's a little stage usually um yeah within the gymnasium uh platform. We can't call it a stage. Um so uh you open up that divider uh you're in the cafeteria where the kids eat in the cafeteria and it opens up to the gym and now you have one large assembly space. So that's what we were thinking that you know could be an option for you uh by having milk or kitchen um in the cafeteria. But

067again like I said you don't want that. It would just be your regular wall but you are going to have one kitchen, two servaries, two cafeterias. Um so and again access from their respective school and then we'll decide it afterwards. I'm sorry. We can decide that afterwards we don't. Yes. Yeah. During the design any other questions or Gabby, do you have any questions about the middle school high school part of the project? Oh, Gabby may have followed up. Carrie, do you have any questions about the middle school, high school parts of the project? Um, I just have one question that Heather had said something about the gymnasium being smaller at the middle school high school. Is that what you said earlier, Heather? Yeah, what I said was the gymnasium at the elementary school was bigger

068than the gymnasium for the middle school portion of the middle school high school. So, if we're building new, why couldn't that be something that was reconfigured if we're not using existing walls of anything? Like, I get at the elementary school because high school gym and then there's a middle there's a Yeah, there's a high school gym and there's a middle school gym. Okay. And there's also a training room and a wellness center with a weight room. And elementary is bigger than our middle school gym now. Oh, is it? I'm sorry. I think our elementary gym I don't know why our square footage off the end of our current, but I mean I've been in both gyms frequently. I wouldn't um I would bet that our current elementary gym is actually bigger than our middle school

069gym. Yeah. Yeah. So you essentially all when all said and done you would have three gyms in operation in the district which is what you have now I believe. Yes. Because you obviously have a gym at each school. So period. I think the reason why is I I think that the uh she had said um Samantha had said that the existing elementary school probably was a regular size gymnasium and the middle school that we're drawing or building is what would normally be for that size middle school. Yeah, we we reviewed with the architect and um the Frandandy Fiori who is our educational specialist and th the 5,000 square feet for the middle school and then the 8,000 square feet for the high school are typical gym sizes for those respective age groups. So the middle

070schoolers would be able to play a basketball game against another school in that gym. Yes, you would have two separate gyms. It really comes down to it comes down to the bleachers for high school. They're gonna most likely have bleachers. So you need that additional space to come. The middle school hasn't enough. You can have smaller bleachers. Not we wouldn't anticipate you're going to have bleachers like you would in a high school. Now we do have we do have bleachers, but they are smaller than school. The capacities would be different for each gym obviously because the high school gym is 3,000 square feet larger. make sure because right now we use the middle school for like recreational outside stuff. I want to make sure we can still middle school uses it for assemblies and stuff

071too. So yeah, so you would have two. So you could essentially have a high school and middle school assembly at the same time because they'd be in two different locations. So right now it's listed with the middle school gymnasium at 5,000 square feet and the high school one at 8,000. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. And they have to be current size of our middle school gymnasium. Now, do you know what the current size is? I don't know what the current size is. I could probably get that for you at some point, but I don't know off the top of my head. Yeah. But I'm I'm assuming that you I mean, there are certain specs that you're that you're also looking at as far as Department of Ed specs that you have to follow for the

072new construction, right, for the gymnasium. Well, the gym came up at one point before because we thought it was too small from what the state said, but once we talked about what makes sense for a gym where you can play a basketball game and have bleachers, that's why they're actually larger now than they were in their space. Are we asking for? No. No. So, GWWO actually does they design schools all the time and that those are the typical sizes that they would use. Okay. when they're designing a school. Yeah. Um like I said, for the elementary school, it's a little bit different because that's existing and it's harder. It's a little bit more difficult. Yeah. Um as an example though, I will say at um our JFK middle school project, they kept the gym kind

073of in its shell and they renovated the inside and it it looks great and it functions for them just how they they needed it to. So that would kind of be a similar thing that you would do at the elementary school. Just to clarify because you had mentioned something about an auditorium and how they're not usually in middle schools but we do in this middle school high school project we do have an auditorium with a stage and wing space and is that potentially in the shared space or that would be in the common area. So I think things like um like the high school gym the high school that was my question that was my like clarification that it's for the high school but again like right now we have middle school graduation at the

074high school. So if we were going to have a larger what you do with it afterwards it's the word the high school a larger event like that we could potentially use it to I'm clarifying that we actually have an auditorium. The idea would be too and I think the way that they showed it at the one of the meetings was to have things like the auditorium essentially be in the core area because those are areas that are used for like community events and stuff and keeping the more academic things towards the outside of the building. But again, that can all be shifted, you know, once we get further into that was just an idea. It doesn't mean that that's what it has to Yeah. No, I think it makes sense to me. It was just

075to lay everything out to make sure they fit and see how someone media I think we talked about the media center for the arts and the offering and some of that being that core shared. I think it makes conceptual design was pretty clear what they showed as far as what was in the center where the middle school was located where the high school was uh would locate like the cafeteria was in the back. So like middle school side was on the middle school high school the kitchen was obviously where only kitchen staff could access the feed at the both serving lines. I have a question about the band room. We have one and we have band at the middle school and band at the high school. Yeah. So we talked to Dr. Do you want

076to speak to that? Yeah, I can speak to that. So as far as curriculum and like our our uh teachers, I mean they really do see our band program really I mean I know we're talking 5 through 12, but right now they really see our band program as a 4 through 12. And um that was something that they advocated for and um um would allow us to greater access like our resources when you put in perspective. I mean they're doing a heck of a job. I mean we have 200 kids in band but it's two people doing all that along with chorus. So to get them together allow greater you know collaboration um for music and band made uh the most sense. So music a band the band then well there's chorus rooms too so

077you got to remember that um so one they're on different schedules two um they can't be in um um uh two spots at one time. So if you were doing middle school uh course, you could have the band room for a high school vice versa because you um monitoring stage two we talked about. Correct. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Thank you. There's going to be one music area. They're sharing essentially all of the music programs will be well they will they'll access they can access that at different times. But let's say they, you know, they wanted to prepare for concerts and they do a lot of combine. It does allow for that flexibility as well too. But daytoday it's a scheduling thing as to who's there. It's not the right. Correct. And that's what we really saw.

078I think we saw that in South Windsor. Yeah. Some of those combinations. All right. Were there any further questions about uh Norine? Um, I'm a little concerned about the bathrooms, the high school, middle school. Um, it's calling for two set and I know they're gang bathrooms, you know, not a bathroom. It's calling for two girls and two boys. So, that would mean top floor gets girls and boys. The bottom floor gets girls and boys. Is that really enough bathrooms for the amount of children that we have in this school? I'll defer to I can't tell you I know what the bathroom traffic is. I spent a long time actually checking out the bathrooms. Is it just Yeah. So the student population we have u having a boys and girls on the top floor and then

079boys and girls on the bottom. Yeah, it it works. It's not It doesn't cause an issue with all of the children utilizing the same. No, because we No, because the way the Yeah, they're same. No, we we're looking at the building, we've talked about having like a stop for seventh and eighth graders, and that's fifth and sixth. We've gone one floor. Right now, we have uh the way the building is, the fifth and sixth share uh a girl's bathroom, and fifth and sixth shares boys bathroom, seventh, and eighth share boys and girls bathroom. There's really not much to do between that. So that's your the plan with a twotory Yeah. twotory building. Your plan as the middle school principles would be five and six or down or whatever. Yeah. Whatever we could figure out. Uh

080yes. Yeah. Two great levels of gate. That's fine by me. I'm just trying I was envisioning something where five through eight are all together all trying to use this one. No. No. We try to keep our fifth and bears away. There's also in addition to student bathrooms, we have staff toilet rooms and all inclusive. I'm not concerned about adults. They can deal with themselves. The high school, like the high school, it's not a problem. Yeah. I'm just envisioning how many bathrooms we now have and I've walked by some of those bathrooms and been like, "Oh, good god." Now to see them. There's not. We only use one. And we don't open them all. I was gonna say not of all of our bathrooms are open at the high school right now currently. I don't believe

081so. I think it would, you know, deferring to the administration to what is appropriate. Well, it's fine. I don't know if that's right. And then our um special ed room would have their own bathroom. Well, that's what I was That's one of Yeah. So, that's a that's a special ed. I see. And that's the all toilet room. Is that what? No, the special ed rooms if they h if they need to have their own bathroom or restroom, it should be called out um in an area of space typically. Yes. Or in the same vicinity next door, however it ends up getting laid out. So, is there any handicap, you know, bathroom if like if people are coming in other than students, is there a handicap bathroom anywhere? So, there's three public toilets for men and

082three for women. So, if you were to have a community event, the idea would be, and hypothetically speaking, is let's say you were to have an event in the auditorium and that's the center of the building. Ideally, you would shut down access to both the middle school and high school wings. Yeah. And that area would have the public bathrooms for the community to use if there's an event. So, there those would have handicap access if needed. Yeah. Yep. Those would probably be gang bathrooms with handicap stalls. Okay, Carrie, did you have anything else? Or Gabby, did you have anything else about middle school, high school aspects? I'm good. I just had another question. I think you answered it for me. And it was the art classroom. I appreciate that. That was the 850 square ft.

083So, both both art classrooms, u middle and high school, 850 square ft. Um that includes um pottery. How many pottery? How many? You know, you check with the AR, you check with the Arab teacher on this one, right? Well, yeah, we with all the aspects, we interviewed pretty much every teacher and or department head to verify the space that they need. Um, so art does have the 850 foot classroom. There's also art storage room. I believe there's two art storage rooms if I'm remembering correctly. And there's also a kiln room. But I'm talking about like po, you know, like um you know, different things that probably would be happening in a high school art classroom. I don't know how the teachers run their class, but I don't know if I would think pottery wheels get

084stored and then they get taken out when they need to be used. No, but we did talk to the art teachers about it and that that was I so long. I mean, I know they have a separate room off their main room. Um, like it's a smaller room. I don't think they move it in or out, but I'd have to go. As long as as long as the art teacher was aware of it, there's there's no room that they we allocated for the kil and then the middle school doesn't utilize that right now. There's only we took that one out of the middle school specs and put that in specs and so that the middle school if they ever wanted to do that project, the art teachers could coordinate together. Definitely. But I'm just talking

085about the actual wheels. How many wheels? You know, you know that. Yeah. Yeah, they just take up space. That's all I'm saying. I'm sure. Yeah, as long as as long as the art teachers were um were looking at that space and thought that that could I know we've kind of gotten into the weeds on these. So, I think we're probably, as we said, things may change with the actual um architectural things once we get a little bit more forward, but we do have this on our agenda for a vote tonight. So I would entertain a motion. Do we need to do them separately? I would think in terms of like middle school and then middle school, high school. I mean my first time around, but I think that's probably the safe. Yeah, I would do

086them separately. I think I put the motions in the PowerPoint presentation you guys should have. I put example motions. I'll make I got it. So it's at the end of the this July. Oh, I will make a motion to authorize the East Lorther Board of Education to approve the educational specifications for the Broadick Elementary School project state project number to be preserved. Second. All right. So motion made by Norine, seconded by Heather for the Broadbrook initially. Right. All right. All in favor? Any opposed? All right, motion passes. Um, Carrie and Gabby, do you want to register your Are you both in favor as well? Yes. Gabby, you you muted Gabby, I see. Yeah, I'm all set with that. There you go. Okay. Thank you. All right. So, motion passes. And then for the um middle

087school high school projects, I'll make a motion to authorize the East Windsor Board of Education to approve the educational specifications for the East Windsor Middle High School project, state project number 047. Right. Motion made by Betsy, seconded by Courtney. All in favor? Any opposed? Gabby and Carrie, are you both in favor of that one as well? Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you. All right. Motion pass. Thank you very much everybody. I know that's been a Thank you. ongoing discussion. Appreciate your time on that. Okay. All right. go back to our regularly scheduled agenda. We have our year and review school reports next on the agenda. Thank you. So, what we'll do is we'll uh start with uh Brock Brook. We will take it out of order. I just said we will take it out of order,

088you're next. Um this feels very light now compared to sir. Um yeah so we're um very excited to share with you our year in there's definitely some celebrations and um a lot of work that we have planned for the year ahead that we'd like to share with you as well. Um so of course uh with everything that we do it is aligned with our portrait of the graduate and our strategic plan. Um, we are always looking at our lifelong learners as we give them the foundational skills that they need to be those learners. Um, being self-aware as individuals through our SEAL, but also through things like purposeful play and our activities that we do with them and the responsible citizens piece. Um, you'll see in our community section um, how we're doing that as well.

089So, I want to share some student data with you. Uh first of all, big celebration for our reading. Um we are seeing that our tier one instruction and programs that we've implemented, they're working. Um and our reading is continuing, our reading is continuing to show that um very strongly. Uh so 69% of our students are reading at or above benchmark for our whole school by the end of the year. That is um a high point for us as you will see in an upcoming slide. uh each of these are the domains um that are measured through I ready uh and you can see the um significant increase in the green over the course of the year and the fact that our foundational skills learning with awareness phonics and high frequency words are all above 80%.

090Um which is definitely showing that again our tier one instruction and the programs that we put in place um are giving us those giving our students those skills that they need uh to grow and develop as readers. Um, how does this compare to last year? I got a slide. That's what that means. Just to clarify, um, so the second like lighter line, is that where it was at the beginning? At the beginning of the year. Yeah. And the darker line at top is where we ended off. Yeah. So, just to clarify where you can see there's more green and less red on. Um and uh what's actually not on this slide yet, but uh what wasn't shown was that um from the beginning of the year to the end of the year um grades K

091and one had no red at the end of the year, which was awesome. And that grades two, three, and four, it was single digits for students. Fantastic. So it was really great. Um and then this is showing now that's uh so this is looking at it across the years. Um so you will see the purple on the left is May 25 and for each grade level as well as for our whole school um it is higher. So our trend is definitely up from where we were four years ago. For some grade levels it's a steady climb, others not so much a steady climb but everybody ended off um higher than they had been previously. Um whole school in four out of five grade level scored highest in their four years. Um, and what also is

092not shown is that when we look at those domains that were on the previous page, six out of seven of the domains were higher than they were last year as well. So, very proud of our reading. Math is definitely an area that we need to uh focus in on and um do some strategic planning around for the year to come. Um while we see some really nice gains from beginning of the year to end of the year, uh what we're seeing across the years is not as um fantastic. So um our high point, uh kindergarters, 80% of them scored proficient um at the end of the year for math, which was great. Um there significant decreases again in red and yellow from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. Grades K

093and one had no red at the end of the year. again um and greatly within the single digits. So looking at to the next slide, you can see what I was talking about. Um where this needs to be truly an area of focus for us. Um looking at it across the past four years. Um data goes up and down. Um and so we need to really hone in on this. Uh there are some high points where two domains scored higher over four years. They're not shown here, but number operations and measurement and data. Um, we do have plans. Our math coach will be working very closely with teams to address areas that are in need of improvement. Um, we have our wind block which we'll be looking at um in a couple of slides and

094that will become much more of a focus with our tier 2 instruction using vetted materials and uh data collection methods. And then we'll also be continuing to work um with an out outside consultant to implement better thinking classrooms which should also help our tier one instruction. Is there anything specific that you think you may have contributed to that? Just it it is a question. So um conversations with the coaches um Darl we've we've all sat and kind of pondered come up with different things. Are we um grade three had a really great conversation that they had around are they really focusing in on those um standing about the ESPA that the ESPA focuses on. Um do they need to add more instruction in certain areas um that the math curriculum doesn't tend like geometry that

095doesn't tend to dig deep in. Um so there's that piece. Uh looking at number corner that we implemented this year. We're hoping to see that as it the years progress with that number sense come up. Um but definitely also looking at the student assessments and um using that data to inform more specific instruction around where they're where they're falling down. Problem solving and the conversations the students are having in class from IM has definitely improved. You could hear that in the classrooms when you're there. You're doing walkthroughs, you're doing observations. Now the question is okay why isn't that all that conversation now coming over and showing the numbers um when taking these kinds of I'm sure you guys will get there it's it's I think we will too. So looking at our initiatives from this

096past year. So these are the things that we uh came to you back in the fall and said here's our plan for this coming year. So, um, one of our biggest pieces we've done worked on this year with MTSS, um, multi-tered system supports, uh, this was our building year. Uh, so we've spent the year working with our East consultant, created our leadership team, um, and we are ready to roll for next year. So, we have, um, documents that we needed, our tier one toolbox, um, a flowchart for responding behavior, behavior management tracker, and database decision-m that will all be used um, as we start the year. and really roll out the MTSS process at the Robert Brook School. And we are very excited um because it will change the way we do business uh for

097the better, of course. But um we're very excited to implement this program next year. Number Corner. Um if you remember, this is the one we came back in the winter. We showed you the video from Karen Spencer's class. Um so number Corner continued this year. These are three examples of charts that were used. Uh the two on the sides are from first grade and the one in the middle is from a second grade. Um so it's a K through2 program to improve number sense. I've in asking the teachers just kind of what they noticed anecdotally. Um kindergarten noticed that more students were able to count to 100 earlier than they were in past years and this was due to the 10 frames, the number lines and the chains that they used to count the days.

098Uh grade one noticed that students were excited to look for patterns in the calendar activities and they were also uh learning about money. Uh grade two noticed that the student discourse this student discourse in math thinking had greatly improved and that they were able to identify numbers greater than a thousand um due to the different visual that the program uses. So again, we're hoping to see that play as the students move through the years of that program that that play more of an impact with our as well. Um, wind blast, as you know, this was our first year implementing windblast. This is the what I need. Uh, so it was a way to be able to increase individualized instruction as well group instruction based on what students need, whether it was remediation or enrichment. Um

099we had classrooms that were doing enrichment groups around math. Um had student led small groups. Uh we had reading book clubs that were happening. Um students working in pairs to co-author writing pieces. Um the book clubs were a big hit especially in the older grades. And then there was also targeted um interventions that were provided by the classroom teacher. Um and that is an area that we're going to more formalize through the MTSS process next year. Um but being able to use the data around um the math assessments that are given, the reading assessments that are given to be uh provide great targeted instruction and then track that data to be able to look for student growth. Um as I said, looking ahead to next year, this will have to be much more structured um

100more fidelity across grade levels and be an inal part of our NPSS process. purposeful play. Um, as we talked about before, preK and kindergarten have been working with our instructional coaches to learn about purposeful play and also do some of that planning around it. Uh, the goal is to provide students with genuine opportunities to problem solve as they are playing. Um, one of the things that teachers ended the year learning about was uh planned provocations. And so that's where they're asking a question that's going to require the students to problem solve, create a plan, and then um carry it out. So um thinking like using Legos, can you create your favorite character from the story? So they have to use the information they have from the story and the Legos create a plan to create

101that character and then um explain about it. Um if they have a garage with their cars, we need a gas pump for our garage. What would be the plan for creating that using the materials that we have here in the classroom? what would it look like? How would it work? So, those are the thesis. Continuing on to next year, uh the coaches are going to continue to meet with preK and K um to take that in further so that they are writing those provocation opportunities into the their units. So, this way it is happening throughout the course of the year in a very purposeful way. Uh want to of course celebrate our teacher of the year, Shandra Valk. um she was our she's a kindergarten teacher and uh fantastic point at that certainly was very

102deserving of that honor. Our ILT uh worked very hard this year um around our targeted learning focus which is around communication and increasing vocabulary with our students. We have two areas in particular that we're working on. um countable talks, which is that discourse that's through more than just the turning and talking to your neighbor, but being able to build on each other's conversations. Um so there's these some of the sentence stems that are up in classrooms that the kids will use with each other. Um in fact when uh Summers came to come visit us uh about a month or so ago they heard some of the kids using this and were were quite impressed as they heard them turn to their neighbor and say I disagree with you because and then give their and give

103their reason. So um we are seeing it eventually. Exactly. Yes. Say that hopefully see that's where that fortunately graduate we teach them these skills now. So this way again. Thank you. I disagree with you because give the rationale. Um the other area that we're working on that we're just starting is um accessing prior knowledge. So that'll be something that the ILT will be working on over the course of this year uh to provide AD and also uh resources for the teachers to use. Um the IL of course uh also leads uh looking at student work. So, one of our meetings before school each month, um, each grade level sits down and they take a look at their student data, um, and problem solve around it and then look to see what next steps are. So,

104that's something that the ILT leaders lead as well. Just a reminder, ILT is instructional leadership. Oh, sure. So, it's essentially those teacher leaders identified in the building um to identify as Mrs. Fox indicated best teaching practices and you know to support the important work uh throughout the entire school and a teacher leadership level and working in collaboration with our administrators. So um I would guess you may hear that term at the high school middle school too because each one has um has their own uh teacher leadership team. So you've heard a lot about how things were going in the classroom. Now you've talked about the greater community. So when we're looking at the greater community, we're not just talking about the school community. We're also talking about how we were able to reach out to

105the community of East Winder and Broadbrook. So you'll see we're going to have a lot of pictures that come up through here. Um so you can see um we started off with our open house, but inviting our fire and safety um the warehouse fire department and the Broadber fire department coming to our school when it's fire safety week. Again, having them see people um it's very special for me too. I see former students who are now there and then they'll say how do you know them and they'll say well I had Mr. Ryan as a teacher or I had Mr. Ryan. So they see that that community has been built upon and that that opportunity for them oh that's something maybe I could want to do later. Again the arts commission having them paint the

106the the walkway within the um school. You're going to see a couple of times where we have um the Eastman Police Department here. Um not only our SO doing our our uh Halloween safety presentation um but our SO also helps us out when we do um our March uh presentation when they're doing the reading. She um she's able to get us quite a few of the police department people to come and read to the students here in school. So there's another picture of that also in the presentation. Our Veterans Day has been a huge hit over the years. Um although we do not have a veteran come in traditionally. Um a lot of our veterans who are parents do talk about that with their children and we ask for community members to send in pictures.

107We have a board that goes up in the in the uh hallway so they can see it. But our students get a little bit of a a taste of what that's like to be able to um be a military person for the day. Um, our December concert, if anybody ever tries to park around Broadbrook around that time period, knows it is a huge, huge event here at Broadbrook. Um, we do not tell the fire chief what is going on at that point, although he's usually here. Um, building in on also how learning in the community. So, we are looking at times when we're not in school, how can we also continue to um, educate ourselves? So, a lot of our vacation reading challenges. Um, one of the great things that we also do is the

108principal of the day. Um, principal of day is a huge hit for the winter reading challenge because who doesn't want to be principal and vice principal for the day. Um, we also continue with the great kindness challenge. We were recognized over the last couple years. We've been putting our name in under the great kindness challenge to make sure that they students understand that it's not just our community we're trying to be kind to, but this is happening throughout the entire country where other schools are also being, you know, focusing on that kindness um for one another so that they can all understand that that's the most important thing. Uh once again, we bring together monthly our mileage club. We know our participants who are here. Um, but it is a great thing for our community

109because it's also times where families actually see each other once a month and actually have conversations out on the either outside when we're outside or inside the building and they're having those conversations with each other about what's been going on. Um, one of the things that we started this year was caught being pawsome. Um, students were recognized by their teacher and got a paw and then the students all got their names put in a bucket. on Fridays they would get their name pulled and they would get either a magnet or something with a paw on it and then if they won the monthly one they got a picture with biscuit. So it was a big hit. Um and it also just kind of those things again if we're going to go with the great kindness

110challenge to go along with our that bigger community that we're looking for. Uh reaching out to the community obviously our kindergarten info night was a huge wasn't a huge hit. Um it was we had quite a few people come. Uh the reason it's not I wouldn't say it's a huge hit. A lot of our four-year-olds are going to move right up into So one of the big things that we've seen is by putting a four-year-old program into the school, we're not getting as many outside families to come because they're already in the program. But there were a few families that did come and we did give them some more information about that. And we've even had them where they're doing uh making a choice to have their children tested ahead of time to see if

111they're ready for kindergarten. So, it does give them that opportunity, but it's not as big as it once was because we have so many four-year-olds already from reading. Um our one school, one book is a huge uh huge hit. Uh we can't thank the PTO enough because they are the ones who help support that and be able to get the books for every family that we have here in school. Again, you could see that read across America where we talked about not only the East Windsor uh police department came. Um we even have a couple of firefighters who have come in the past to work on that. Again, with that with the police department and our sor our uh grade four deer graduation is huge. Uh this year also we had don't let the pigeon

112drive the bus performance. Um, once again, it gives us an opportunity to have an outside um, community theater come in and present to the students. For some students, it's the first time they really get an opportunity to see a stage performance done for them. Um, our ACES day is always a hit and it is a hit not only with our students, but we get a lot of volunteers to come and participate as well. And you can see the um the number chart number chart that was created um by our former student uh Anna Anna Noli um which I know she's going to be hopefully coming to one of the future board meeting to um share her project with the board at the August meeting. Uh fourth grade band concert was a huge hit again. Uh

113we've now we're part of that bigger music community. It's no longer a 5 through 12, but a 4 through 12 community for band. Um and what was really nice also is not only that our students being able to present in the concert, but also that meeting of the instrument night, the high schoolers ran it and they ran it very very well. Like they were the ones who were presenting to the students. Um and if you have a few students who are going to be picking on the French horn more than I thought we would ever have. very interesting. Um, once again, we've reached out to our community. So, our second graders go out to sign farm. And then this year, our students, our fourth grade students went to the old state house uh to participate

114in different activities. And our STEM program went to the uh Harvard athletic uh STEM day day. Yeah, I was going to say there's no other STEM day to uh not only show their projects that they created, but also go on around and see some of the other projects that other students had created throughout the state. It actually was on there on grade three went to the East Historical Historical Society. Oh, as well. So, yes. Y um once again, author's day, a huge event here. Um if you try to park on that day, it's very difficult. Uh but it's really nice for for families to be able to come and hear their own children's writing. And then field day is usually our big cap off of the end of the year. And we look forward to

115building on our successes in 25 and 26. Thank you very much. That's really Yeah, it's great to hear kind of at the end of the year how everything's been. Yeah. Um high school. That's the last. There you go. All right. So, uh we'd like to do our year in review for the high school this year. We had a really successful year. I think um some of the data will really show you that and also some of our community events that we were able to participate in and outreach that we did. So all of um our presentation will link back to one of these three goals for you. Goal one being the push to graduate, goal two being the equitable um things that we provide for for our families and goal three is community out and

116four excuse me, goal four is the community outreach. We'll start with goal one about staying the porch of the graduate. And we we've been fortunate enough that we are we are um in year three of our MTSS. And so we have seen the results of um putting that system into place in the high school and using data to really drive our um decisions. Um as you recall from some of the other board members I board meetings I've been at, we look to see if um our data is saying that 80% of our students are hitting where we want them to. If they are, then it's not a tier one problem. if if um it's a tier two or tier three problem. If they aren't, then we have to go whole school and figure out an

117intervention for everybody. And if not, we want to drill down and figure out what's going on. So, when we do that with all our areas, so um we have we have we have a system of meetings within the schools where we have now grade level teams that meet twice a week to talk about student information. We have communication structures in place where we communicate all our things to the school at a whole. And we once again we have those data systems for 80% looking for that. So we'll start with attendance. So last year um we attendance was a tier one issue. This year it's not. Um we developed based on the MTSS data data, we developed an attendance team. And this team really looked at what were the trends, who is absent, why are they

118absent, how can we support, how can we get them to come back to school because if you're not in school, you're not learning. Um and so we had different communication systems. We uh as a team, we talked with students, we talked with parents, we went on home visits. Um we really really tried hard to get kids to come back to school. Um the one thing we found with our high schoolers that we didn't know if it would work, but we're happy to say it did is we started incentives. Um and I'm just cracking up at this photo because the one incentive that the kids really really love is playing bingo with Mrs. You haven't ever been in our building when bingo is happening. It is time. It's it's the event and they and you know

119what they get along so fabulously but it's such an event. Um but I'm happy to report like I said last year it was a tier one problem. We said oh my gosh we really need to do something about this and this year it's not. Um and the majority of our days you've been in 90% or higher attendance. So that's really um a really great um accomplishment. You can just go to the next slide Patrick. So what this is showing um this is last year. The gray the light gray color is last year. So, as you see, as the year progressed, our attendance did not get better. But this year, as the year progressed, we were getting better and better. And I like just to point out because we're really proud of this April, May, spring,

120right? Oh, that's mess up school, go to the beach, whatever. We look at our numbers. We were at 30% last April, 19% in April, and then 19% in May. And that's chronic absenteeism. So, um, you know, it we're really proud of our success. Um, and then this is just a one quarter grade nine. These guys, uh, so thank you to the middle school for honing in on attendance in their eighth grade year. They came to school 90% of the time and we're doing great and, um, we're seeing that across the way. So, good job middle school because they continued it at the base. Um, okay. So, as part of the MTSS process, we have a be um, we have a behavior component to that. And so what we started to do is this year we

121developed a behavior team about midway through the the year to really understand why students are behaving the way they are and our response to the behavior. Um and to really figure out ways how we can support students so this way they can learn from their behaviors and and and you know grow as students. Um so what we've done so far this year that we're going to carry on to next year is we're really looking at what kind of behaviors are happening. How are we using our reset room? How can we use restorative competences in other ways? All those things we do those strategies to to address behavior and really help students learn from the behavior. So, we're going to continue that work next year. Um, but overall referrals, if you take a look last year,

122we were kind of steady. Um, this year, I know this number, you remember, it looks scary. We have 204 and I can completely explain this to you. um our freshman team said, "Wow, we're really noticing our ninth graders are late to class. This is not a really good life skill to be late to class. So, we're really going to hone in on tardies." So, this is why in November the numbers skewed because they were like, "Yep, we're going to do our tardy system." Um but as you can see overall improvements as the year went on, our referrals, you know, kind of went a little less and less. Little spike in May. Um but other than that, our overall referrals are down. And if you can go to the next slide, just want to show one

123cohort. This is the class of 2027 last year. Um, you could see in the light greenish color. Um, and you could see the sign the significant drop in overall force for grade grade 10. So definitely, you know, we know our kids are getting older. They're becoming more mature, but also I think some of the systems we put in place for behavior are we're seeing benefits. All right. And so now we have students that come to school and every day and they're they're behaving pretty well. Um, so now we want to talk about acade academics. Yay. Finally. So, um, so we can talk about academics and try to figure out how we can, um, get our students to achieve. Our goal at the school, high school is 80% proficiency on, um, our summit of assessments with

124100% growth. Um, so I'm going to go through some, um, SAT, PSAT data that very similar to what we did in March when I went through the data from last year. So, next slide. So, this is grade 11. If you remember, grade 11 takes the PSAT in the fall and the SAT in the spring. So, this is not comparing apples to apples. It's a different assessment. Um, and it's also a different that's a different assessment with a different benchmark. So, the benchmark for the spring is um 480 for um the sorry, I need my glasses. 460 for the PSATs and for the SATs is 480. So, you can see um the state is the gray bar, we are the yellow bar. So at um in reading and writing we were at 44% in the fall

125and we we got we went to 47% in the spring um whereas the state flatlined. So we increased a little bit more. Obviously we want to increase more than that. And then um our math we went from 19 to 22. So if you go to the next slide um you could see that that's our fall to spring um increases for the grade 11 data. Okay. Obviously, we have a lot a lot of work to do here in this area and we know that and we we have plans in place to do that. Next slide. Our grade 10 cohort. Okay. So, this is how they did they take the same assessment in the fall and in the spring. So, it's not this is this is comparing the same assessment. So, you can see how we did

126in the um in the spring and you can see how they did in the fall. Um they did very they did I mean sorry they did in the fall and into the spring. You can see that our particularly in reading and writing, we made huge gains in this cohort from uh the fall to spring. If you go to the next slide, okay, you could see that from reading and writing went from 43% to 55%. So, we're definitely seeing some growth with that cohort in that area. And um in math, it went from 17 to 20%. You might ask like why is the both down if if both went up? Well, some kids went up and they didn't go up in the other area and they went up. They only went up in one. Grade nine,

127we saw them come in in the fall. Um, there you go. Same same situation. We're comparing the same assessment. Okay. So, they have 47% in um reading and writing in the fall, 47% in the spring, and 25% in math in the fall and 36% in the spring. This is a highlight for us because we actually outperform the state of Connecticut with that cohort was I mean, it's not great. Okay, 35. it's not wonderful, but we did do better than the other of the the rest of the state as far as that. And that's huge for us because as we know, math has been a struggle for us. Um, and so we're really excited about that. And so I think that speaks a little bit to the work of the um, illustrative of math stuff that

128we're doing in middle school and then how the kids are coming up to school ready to do that. You go to the next slide. So that was one of another one of our cohort highlights for um, for that for that assessment for the math for the um, the fall spring. Sorry. Um, so now we're going to switch over to goal two for equitable opportunities. What we did is we did apply for the FASA grant again. This year we have our pathways program and our leadership opportunities. So I'll speak a little bit to FASA. We every year I've applied for the FASA grant and I've been awarded the grant. So what we do is we provide families with workshops to come into the high school and have um someone from the college admissions offices come in

129and they help families fill out the FAFSA if they need it. And so then we have them do it and it's kind of nice because it's someone that's not associated with the school that knows you looking at your financial information. So a third party. So they come in and they do that. So we and then we try to do really we incentivize them doing their FAFSA with raffle prizes and things like that. Um and so you can see that as the year went on, we had 54% of our students did complete the FAFSA this year. Uh we do a senior signing day at the end of the year kind of like you see for uh athletes that get signing day, but we do one for all the seniors because everyone should be able to sign

130where they're going and tell their plan. And we we top that off with field day and we have Kon ice come and we do some fun things outside of that. Okay. So pathways um this year we we started with three pathways, we added three more. So we're at construction, transportation, education, training, health sciences, hospitality and tourism and then law public safety. Um which is great. We're expanding the different paths our students could take. Um this year um Dr. Tudtor and I were um able to attend a chamber of commerce breakfast and really collaborate with our business and community members which has been great. Um we had surveyors come to the school and spend a good morning about surveying. Um and we're scheduled to have them come back next year for a day because that's how

131popular it really became. Um and then we worked with the water pollution authority as well. our students went out there to explore water pollution. What is it? Uh there's a difference that the water that you drink and the water on your toilet. So that's what they learned. That's what they learned. Um but you know it's definitely really exciting for our students um because collaborating with our community and business members, a lot of them which are part of our pathways advisory board. Um, we're building these opportunities and I'm happy to report we will have one student who will be drop shadowing with the water pollution authority this summer and as of today I was able to secure a drop shadow opportunity with the Harford Yard goats for a student for a couple days. So really just

132providing these opportunities for our kids at a really exciting game and that helps them get to school right because they're like oh I go to school I could do this too. So, um, just really I'm super grateful for the board's support for that, but they're doing a wonderful wonder job taking those opportunities. I think as well. All right. And then we always have things about your future week, which happens in March. Um, this year we went to six different places, college, and a technical school. We had over 25 guest speakers come in on that Friday to speak with our students. Um, and the wonderful thing about think about your futures week, every student is included. Whether you're going to college, a tech school, or military, there is something for everyone. Part of that week also,

133we we do our March spring testing, so PSAT, SAT. Um, in again another great event. Mrs. Wayland really works hard at planning this and it's one of our one of our most successful weeks that we have. Um, and speaking of enrichment, um, is in the audience, but we have educators rising. They went to three conferences this year. Um that group grew this year which was great. So we have a lot of future educators coming up. Super excited about that. The kids absolutely loved working with other schools planning lessons plans and I think they were heard the last word event meeting where they said my gosh it's really hard to teach. So um model UN went and competed. They did a great job. And then we had curricular field trips. Um, our students went and went

134to see Romeo and Juliet after reading and studying flag at Harford Station. They came back. So, they were really appreciative of those. All right. So, switching gears a little bit, we're going to go four involving the community, improving communication. What happened to three? I think three is like facilities. Oh, I think we didn't want to go back. I didn't want you to hit me. Um, okay. Go for it. Involving the community, improving communication and community outreach. Um, this year our our student group, student government, neo clubs, um, again did such a fantastic job. They hosted an Easter egg hunt. Um, our students went out with the local police department to abroad for and I believe the middle school as well. And then we had for the second year in a row our annual charity basketball

135game. Unfortunately, the police department won yet again, but we're going to change that next year. I'm hopeful. Um and and that effort was to raise um funds for Eastern Parks and Rex scholarships. I think we raised around $800, but it was a great community event. Um a lot of people were in attendance and the kids had fun, the police officers had fun. So, it was just a wonderful time. me. Um, we also did some around the community. We had some mentorship opportunities for we had our safe school leaders go down in the Broad School for Unity Day and those kind of days and do some activities with the with the younger students. And then we also had our veterans day and we honored our veterans and we had that event in November. So that's more

136community connections that we have that we from the high school out to community. Next, we also had a performing arts program. It's really starting to streamline from 4 to to 12, as you heard it already. We have now t town townwide band events that are occurring. Um, we implemented a pep band that came to basketball games and and played at some of our community events and as you all know, we did have the drama production as well. These are just some of our highlights. Um, our visual arts, she really did a nice job this year of trying to outreach to other to the community. So the AP students, they display their art at um up in West Harford at um Parkville. And then we have our annual graduation board. So with those you came to

137graduation, you saw them up. So that's with the East Windsor community um the art committee. And then we also have um she also did some other things with the obviously the art show and the library. And she has right now she's a student doing a mil uh mural at the pollution plant. Um, so we're trying to like expand the things that we do at the high school into the community. Our athletics as well, we had some really scholar athletic achievements this year with Bailey Winner getting the high points for the school. Um, we have Gio going into AIC. I know someone else went to AIC here, but but uh, Gio is going to go play football at AIC. And then we of course had all our senior banquet um, the other night. We had a

138huge event with our sports banquet and it was a well well um well participated in and it was a really fun night. Um as far as communicating we um we've also had a lot of events. We had our block party. Um I have the five things that I send out every Sunday and we as we know high school families they tend to um you know not be as involved as they are when they're little. And so all of our events we try to have multiple things happening at the high school all at the same time. So it's one-stop shopping. So if you're coming, you're coming to do your fastball, watch basketball games, meet your teachers, see the cooking program, do it all at once, have a game, those kinds of things. So that the more

139the more events we seem to have, the more people come. We've also done a lot more phone calls and personal personalizing our invitations for our portion of the graduate breakfast and things like that. And that seems to families come in more when we call them up directly. So we planned for next year. We did some data. We did some we did a needs assessment with the school. This is kind of some of the way things we did for our needs assessment. Um, and then we took all that information that we did from those siblings. Next slide. And we decided that we're going to kind of stick with our plan and have our instructional leadership team work on those be the overarching team with uh instructional commitment, professional development, curriculum need. Then we have our two

140teams with our MTSS school team. And then our um our safe school climate team, safe to school climate really working on our behavioral structures and our MTSS school team working on all of the school. And so next year our focus is on the okay levels again raising the rigor and level our three reads and we noticed that last five minutes um through our walkthrough data. Uh we're planning for last five minutes of class so we're not really implementing that plan. So we're going to really work at how to time management better with our classes and and kind of utilize that every instructional minute of the period. We talked about have implementing a tier one um curriculum K through 12 here next year called ruler. And so next year we're going to be teaching our teachers

141about that. And then intervention. We're going to do a lot of intervention to help get those scores up where we want them to be. We'll do obviously it's a tier one problem. We're not at 80%. So it's tier one school problem still. So based on the MTSS platform that we talked about. So we're going to continue to really push our tier one instruction. But we also are going to try to find those tier 2 students that we can kind of really hone in and intervene with and try to help them get right from like approaching to benchmark. So that's where we're going to start next year with our intervention structures. That is all. Any questions? Like your earrings. Everybody does a good job. All right. Before we get to the middle school, I think just

142because we still have a financial report and a couple things. Um we do need to take a um you need to have a motion to go past 9:00. I'll make a motion to go past 9:00. Oh, sorry. Go and get mated. No, I was just kind of looking around. All right. So, a motion by Heather and a second by Fran. All in favor? No. All right. So, are those real nos or not? I actually have to know. We start. I might have to have a financial time, but that's it. Okay. So, Carrie may have to drop off, but I'm sorry. Okay. I'm sorry though. I actually do need to know. Did you actually vote no? I didn't vote no. No. No. No. Sorry. Actually voted. Okay. I'm just matter. No, I'm just joking. I just

143have to record it. Our financial report is generally our second the second meeting after I just noticed it was on your phone. Um we did it in preparation for the FY 26. Um then so in the event that um the law did not pass um we were prepared to talk about end of the year projections then how did that impact where we were as far as maybe um which we fortunately do not have to discuss regarding uh staff reductions. So I think at that time we were just going to give an update as to what we talked about at the financial subcommittee too in terms of just that we didn't need to make that decision tonight after all which was so I was going to get to that after I hear mining off and I

144saw Ryan sitting here thinking I mean so the agenda went out last week prior to like not knowing what the outcome of the budget was going to be. Um, so I anticipate that's going to be very very brief. All right. Sorry. We can go back to the again back to the regular special programming and have the middle. We'd be happy to hear your your end report as well. Does anyone need a cookie or anything? Water. I can break stretch break. All right. East Windsor Middle School. not do this version to see but all right yeah so everything that we do is related to the portrait of the graduate and we really are looking for our students to be informed lifelong learners um and then self-aware individuals and responsible citizens we everything that we do we

145do try to connect it and then um we see that in our curriculum stu teachers are talking about it um it is on our report cards kids are very aware of it and parents are also aware so it is something that we are focused on and make sure that it's embedded um throughout every day. If you can recall your middle school years, I'm sure there were a couple years ago just like mine. Um, middle school's hard, right? We all know that. It's uh probably a lot, you know, people don't always want to go back to the middle school years, but one thing we really work on is continue to create a positive learning environment. So, everything we do is really connected to the students, making sure they're coming to school and making sure, you know,

146the environment is equitable, respect, empathy, and responsible for the students. So, kind of going with uh the MTSS process. So last year, this is last year's attendance for November, December, and January. Uh we this is a chronic absenteeism. So we had almost 30% of kids were chronic last year. November uh and then 31 and then 20. So we looked at that through our MTSS process. So this year we came up with a plan. Uh in November, we did a really good um we did bingo. Um so we looked at that. We did an incentive for all the students. If you were there, 90% of the time for the month of November, we played bingo as a school. Each grade level came up, they played bingo with Mrs. D, myself. They won prizes. Uh the kids

147really like that piece. Um so I think there's going to be a bingo color off between Miss D and Miss Anderson. I think I don't know win that, but it should be a good time. Schools and so I do have an upper hand because I had an extra experience. So, you know, okay, I sing. I sing. So, then in December, we're like, all right, December was also really uh 31 last year. So, this year we're like, all right, we got to 16. So, we did a rock, paper, scissor tournament. Uh each grade level that had 90%, each kid earned that. We did rock, paper, scissors. It was really fun. Uh and then kids who the champion of each grade level won a prize, too. So, it was very competitive. And then same in January too.

148We looked at that and uh we did another monthly one. Uh they won, we had raffle. And then in May, we also knew May was rough. So we did, if you weren't here 90% of the time, in May to the end of the year, you got to slime Mrs. Dyer, myself. Uh, so we did that in field day. On Monday, we were green. Uh, the kids got to spray us with slime, which uh, one, it's not great, but we It was fun. The kids love it. They just love slime. It's what we really want to know. Pictures and videos. So any student that was here 90% of the time from May to the end of the year gets a slime list. So really looking at the MTSS process and and coming up with ideas. So

149next year we really talked to the students and said like what really helps you come here and they're like we really like the monthly incentives. We're like oh really they're like yeah we like being we like feeling special. Um so who doesn't right? Um so gift cards were not it. They gift cards they love winning it but really there's only one student. So they really like that monthly incentive. So, one thing we're doing is we're coming up with a monthly incentive from J um from September all the way to the end of the year. And we're going to push post post it out there for the kids to see it. They're going to be excited about we're getting the student support and asking them for their feedback on which ones they'd like. So, um obviously

150we're forming positive relationships. That is one of our big things. Um we did send out a survey to parents, but also, you know, we really want that feedback from students. So, in the beginning of the year, we had students also fill out a survey and then they filled one out at the end of the year. Um, in the beginning of the year, we had 75% of the students saying they had a trusted adult in the building that they could go to, whether it's for something going on or they're just stressed out or whatever's going on. Um, so 75%. However, at the end of the year, um, we had 98% of the students saying that they had an adult to go to. So, we definitely worked on that. We looked at who's struggling, who doesn't have

151a connection somewhere, how do we make that connection? And that was done through lunch bunches. Um, just meeting with our guidance counselor or our social worker, having checkouts with kids, seeing how they're doing the day, greeting them at the door, seeing them at breakfast, just small conversations. Um, sitting down with them at lunch, hey, what's going on? What's happening? Anything good? Any good plans? Just simple conversations, just getting to know them, allowing them to get adults as well. Um but also we as you know surveyed uh parents and that was 94.5% of the parents agree that their child has a positive um connection with adult in the building which again this is middle school. So, not all the time students are going home and talking to their parents and telling them, "Hey, I have this

152great adult I can talk to." Right? But you can you kind of pick that up. And so, with that percentage, we were very very pleased to see that um you know, parents know. I have a middle schooler at home. He's in sixth grade right now. And I asked him, "How was good? That's it. Did you learn anything?" Yep. Okay. So, like our conversation, working really hard. That's what I get every day. So, and did you lose your sweatshirt? Yeah. All right. So, uh, just like Robert did, this is our ready data. This is our math data. Uh, the bottom one is from the fall. The top one is most recent, which was the spring. So, if you really look at it, we really grew a lot. Um, so, so our students on grade level or

153meeting benchmark has improved a lot. Uh, if you really look at it too, um, the next slide, Dr. Tudrant. So, we talked about, so this is over the last three years of I Ready growth. So, for example, you see the fall, winter, and spring. Uh, and the darker one is the most current one. So, we're on the right trend. Uh, definitely in our math, we're at 49, almost 50%. That 0.5 could round it up, but um, but we're right there. We're making great growth right there for I Ready. Uh, the teachers have really done a really good job. We've also do monthly incentives. Uh, some grade levels do weekly incentives for homework. So, that's one thing the students really worked on and we pushed for fourth grade parents. We talked about that. um about complete

154two lessons in reading and math every week. Uh we have competitions for creating teachers. They uh send it out every Sunday, the data to the teachers and they look at it and they text each other telling who's winning uh like who has the highest percentage uh rate and things like that. It's very competitive. Um the kids will actually call the other teacher up and say like, "Oh, this week, you know, fifth grade beats seventh grade." And they will tell the teacher when they see them in the hallway, they're reading you seventh graders and things like that. So, it's very competitive. Um, so really nice comp competition. So it's really helping though I think. So it turned into a student competition because those teachers started showing the students the percentages and where they are. And then

155the students were like, well, we're not going to lose again. So then we saw an increase in some lessons. So reading, same thing. We're seeing really great growth in reading. Um, so if you hit the next one. So again, the darkest one this year. Uh, one thing we did change about halfway through the year is, uh, we looked at the Salvis curriculum. We changed up how we were doing it. Uh, we met with our ELA teachers. We met with Daryl about it, too. Uh, Linda, myself, and our literacy coach, Kathy Kadori, we all met together. We're like, "All right, things are now working where they need to be." Uh, so we changed how reading was. Um, and I think really it helped improve really falling in soft curriculum to what it is meant to be

156used. Uh, and instead of modifying a little bit for our teachers. So the teachers really actually uh enjoy that more. Uh the kids actually are seeing growth. So I think next year our scores are going to go even up higher next year. So uh core beliefs really um every day uh we believe in circles the teachers do those uh making those connections with students lunch functions as Linda shared or lessons that's one thing like teaching the expectations of our school. We do that in the beginning of the year when we take a break and we come back the teachers uh teach the expectations of what to do in school. Uh check in check out we have students doing that all the time. For example, once for attendance I have the student I check in every

157day with or did because school year is over. If I check in with them every day because he was really struggling with attendance and I just check in how you doing today I'm glad to see you. If they missed I you know hey everything okay and then we'd have like goals to meet too like for example if he was here for a whole week straight we'd do something fun. you come to my office, we do laundry, you can invite some friends. Uh we do that for also burn behavior. Uh our weekly newsletter that goes to staff. Uh our buy with monthly goes out to families. Our advisory. So as the high school share too, we're changing how we do advisory. Right now um is generated by our state school climate. So we're going to be

158changing up a little bit and teaching the teachers the ruler, incorporating that for next year. and then after school activities. Uh this is the first year we've had four late buses almost every time. Uh so there's a lot of students staying after school and they're all generated by the students. So students come up with the club's ideas. Uh they let us know, we find an advisory to help them out and then they stay after school. We had a dungeon dragon club, we had the war uh game club, we have arts and crafts club, we had cooking club which is huge. Um we had art clubs. game club, bracelet club, all sorts of clubs. Yeah. And what's what's exciting is that when the fourth graders came with their parents um last week um they're already talking

159about what clubs they're going to make. So they're they're talking about a greenhouse club, a plans eating club. They are really excited about there's lots of clubs coming our way. We have a baby Beyblade club which I it's a lot. So but the kids it's what the kids want. So it's Um and then really our we do monthly incentives for all our students. So one was this year we uh had inflatable race. Sorry Miss Anderson, take notes. Um very intense. The students uh it was actually tied into a fundraiser, but every month we have an incentive. Uh so it really starts back in um when we come back to school with a welcome back party. Uh everybody participates in it and then every month we have a different one. Um, so they switch off and

160on of using the gym because we can't fit every grade level in the gym, but it's so we do two grade levels at a time. So one grade level use the gym and then they do a grade level incentives in the classroom. So they switch every month. Uh, but this was uh one of the ones we did was an inflable race. Uh, this kid got to pretty much pick the runners. Uh, it was very intense. No one got hurt, but it just the kids were out there cheering and made signs. Oh, and then we had a basketball game after that and I realized I need to, you know, practice playing basketball more. Stamina, stamina. Got tired back and forth. Yeah. So, but I think that really helps our students come to school, too, is those

161incentives. Uh, and this, you know, showing that we're human, right? Um, they really enjoyed cheering us on. And I think next year they get to pick the inflatables, too. So, one, uh, Mr. It was Hold on. It wasn't me, but it was between Mr. Saunders and Mr. Elliot who was very close. Mr. Saunders said Mr. Elliot won but I think uh Buzz Lightyear he was but his pieces were flying off so fast just like like picking them all. Um so I think Mr. Saunders won but he let Mr. Elliot win. And then after school cross country is huge. Uh we had over 50 students that were running cross country. They're going to the meets. We had our first home meet this year. Uh it was well attended. The students did a great job. Uh boys

162and girls basketball, which has always been great. Um and then softball this year was amazing. I actually was able to coach first base and third base a couple times. Uh which I thought was fun. The parents loved it. We had parent volunteers helping us out there. And track and field is another one that just uh we had 40 students participating track and field this year. And we had multiple students go to state. We had one student that made third in stakes in hurdles. I think it was 50 hurdles. Uh was a seventh grader. So that's really amazing. So they did a really good job. Concerts, uh as we all talked about, we have a lot of concerts, parades. Um so our music program is growing at the middle school. We have uh we had I

163think six different concerts this year at the middle school uh because we couldn't fit everybody in the our auditorium. So we have, you know, fifth and sixth usually goes together and then seventh and eighth grade and band and chorus. Um, but really it's really growing. Um, the students love it. I think having um, Miss Simpson really pushes the parades too. We did the torch light parade, uh, the Memorial Day parade and then just the field trips going to um, the high school to get graded on there and then going to six flags which is always a big hit. Um, did a really good job. the seventh in seventh band in eighth grade band and chorus uh earned gold this year. So it was amazing. And they played harder music. I didn't know that. I'm learning

164more about music every year. But they have different music they could play. Yeah. So they have different ratings. And they played hard they should play a harder song. So it's more complex number three instead of number five. Number two. I Yes. So I learned too. All right. I'm learning. Uh, also we had our um sixth grade science fair. Uh, we had field trips. The kids went to Serbridge Village this year. They went to uh the four museums in Springfield. They went to see a play at the Harford stage. They went to play compounds which they had to create their own roller coasters and Yeah. in science. So, uh, and they do a lot of calculations on how roller coasters works and physics and things like that. Uh, they went to the science center. Two grade

165levels went to the science center. So they we're trying to get the kids out and experience things as we talked already about the competitions and then yeah so then some of the things that we do are student celebrations um the North Central Act of kindness um we have students every month and then um they get their they have a little presentation at the school um which is really great. the kids get to see their classmates receive these um awards. So, that is always nice. We also have the positive problem solver which every month um one from each grade is nominated and they get their picture, they get a little certificate um the write up, parents are contacted and it just really demonstrates, you know, the students are solving problems. They're working on our um ROAR

166foundations with the respect, ownership, awareness, and responsibility. Um and they got a little token now. Um we also have our Wildcat Cafe which is the outside seating that was created a couple years ago by our math um intervention students. Um so we are utilizing that space where the students earn it based off of behavior in the cafeteria as well. Um and then they get to choose a few friends. They have been loving that space. Still sometimes when it's really cold out they still want to go out there. Um and then we have the grade level um awards at each grade level um at least every semester. Um, seventh grade does it every quarter, but it just really um shows and highlights the student success. Yeah. And one thing was new this year, too, is our

167bulletin boards. Our teachers are always trying to put student work up there. But one thing our art teacher did was a schoolwide art show. So throughout the whole building, she picked pieces of art for every student and it was up for about a month so students could walk by, look at the art. Um, so we talked about for next year to try to team it up, maybe do it a little earlier. I said during parents teacher conferences so that way the parents can all see it when they come in for conferences. But she did a really good job like it was amazing just walk through the hallways and it was just like walking through a gallery. You kind of see all the amazing artwork from the students. Uh also we participate in a warehouse point

168art show and just you know seeing the student work really like um the students really like to see it because you can see them stopping and looking at each other's artwork. So, and then really as we talk about the MTSS is really what drives our school. Um, starting with intervention, our so our intervention has done a really good amazing job. Our tier 2, tier three, it's always growing. Um, so we have reading and math intervention and you can see how uh every month we talk about the intervention, we see how the students are exiting or they're hitting their goal and they're getting another goal and they're leaving maybe tier three to go to tier two or they're leaving tier two to go to tier one. Uh it is just really through the MTS process has

169really helped our academics improve. Uh and then our behavior through the MTS process. Yep. So through behavior we are meeting weekly and we're talking about different students. What kind of plans do they need? Um do we do check-in checkout? Are we making phone calls home? And when we do that we typically know that if they're having behaviors it's impacting grades. So in the conversations that we're having weekly with our students or even daily, okay, what do you need to work on tonight? Here's your goal. I need you to focus on this tonight. just get this piece of work done because then tomorrow we're going to give you something else and honestly um that part just sometimes boosting them up in in the academic areas. We saw a drop in the behaviors, right? So, it's kind

170of that combined effort um and that's just really working with our behavior team and noticing, you know, that the kids do that want that one-on-one and have somebody listening to them and sometimes they need a little more guidance for whatever reason and we do see the impacts because we saw less referrals. still things to work on, but definitely we saw a decrease in referrals from those students. Um, they were earning weekly incentives. Basketball is huge with our students. Um, so they would get 10 minutes during home room and they would go play basketball with a group of friends. Um, so again, those incentives worked in the behavior program. Um, well, yeah, behavior program, I guess we'll call it. Uh, this year was really our first year with MTSS for our grade level. So last year,

171Linda and myself uh met about MTSS. We had a leadership team and this year we pushed it out to our grade level teams. Uh in the beginning of the year uh and you just see how these grade level teams have really shown um and flowed looking at student data, looking at tier one supports, coming up with student action plan. So if the student's not being successful, what can they do to help that before the student becomes, you know, before academic tier two or behavior for tier two, tier three? Uh and then so next year we're really excited that we're going to continue the MCS process and seeing how the students uh and then grade level teachers really uh work and coming up with tier one strategies and we came up with the tier one toolbox

172as uh I think it was during the JP meeting. So the teachers really wrote down looked at um scientifically based research interventions for the students uh came up with links so that teachers if they see a student struggling they can click on that link there's usually a video or something written and they're like all right I can use this you know and this should help the student and they're really putting those uh tier one strategies into place at our school so previously they were not so step in the right direction and then our library uh Miss Fischer had three book uh squad ing book fairs this year. Also, we had over 1,712. So, kids are reading at the middle school. I think that's one big thing we really are pushing to because we want kids

173to have books in their hands. Uh each average of five books per student were taken out this year. Some had a lot more, probably, some had a little less. Uh but really, we added 425 books to our collection, but Miss Fcher does a really good job um finding out what interests the kids have and trying books that would match up to their interests and pushing kids to try new books. So she does like book tastings and things like that with the students. Yeah. Mystery book or the Google. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. And then uh one thing like I think our school community has really done is really one thing uh probably since March we did um uh we all no one fights alone in East Middle School. So our staff has really come together to

174support each other. Our students have really come together to support each other too. uh especially that we have a staff member going through cancer right now and you know um the students have really wanted to be part of that so they really have fought um they have asked to you know participate they uh we weren't sure how you know to do that because it was new to most of us so the students were like no we want to buy bracelets we want to you know buy things to support that staff member but really our u just the community of our students and staff have really come together since really March what what was really great about this is you know it came out that she had cancer and students that she's had previously were just

175besides themselves and were like, "How can we help? What do we do?" Um, wrote letters, we're going to be here, you just tell us what you need. Um, so it's just that that connection that we've been talking about, right? Those connections are being made and you see it when when somebody needs support, right? They're really there. Awesome. And then for next steps for next year, really, uh, we're going to be really focusing on vocabulary. Uh, that's really starting on our August PD. Mrs. and the science and reading team is going to be doing PD for all teachers on vocabulary because that's one of the areas we need all the most important um so that's one area and we're also doing building thinking classroom which is through math uh and we're still continuing our student discourse

176uh and then probably November our feedback student uh teachers giving students feedback and students to student feedback is going to be our next really next step so thank you very much again we really enjoy kind of this end of the year snapshot to be able to see kind of all the progression and all the the good things that have been happening. Appreciate that. Good job. All right. Thank you to all of our administrators and last day of school. I know you guys still have, as we were saying before, still have school the next couple days just without the kids in the building, but we do appreciate all the hard work that you guys do and put into that. Yeah. If you guys want to go ahead and go, I know we have a few more

177things on our agenda, but you're more than that out if uh I might be following you right off the break if I don't see. Yeah. Okay. All right. I just didn't know where. All right. So, next on the agenda is financial report. And as we said, we here in case um thankfully the budget passed. Woohoo. And so we're not in as dire strength as um as we thought we might be. But I do think uh Patrick has a couple things and then I'll explain something about that about next year's budget as well. Sure. So uh and Ryan um can jump in with me. Um we had put this anticipation that obviously wherever we were with the projections will impact uh some of the potential u uh difficult choices u regarding uh next year's budget. Uh

178fortunately the flag passed. Um I will uh say that I mean Ryan does have an anticipated number. They did report at the finance subcommittee. I don't know if you want to share that number as far as you know obviously knowing there's multiple things that could change with that but yeah. So I mean we we kind of had the discussion during um the finance subcommittee. We said as of now um we're still anticipating that kind of like 60 to fire thing heard that noise. So uh around 60 to 90,000 or um kind of like our our replenishment of the 2% fund. Um again keep in mind that is subject to change just as we kind of shore up some things at the end of the year here. Um, does anyone have any questions as far as

179that number goes? No. And just to piggy back off of that because um I know it's uh come up in uh previous uh meetings, but um I know there was an inquiry regarding um uh the transition with our uh grounds next year. Um so um um do want to report uh formally to the board like in accordance with our policy 3323. um uh that BB landscaping uh wasn't worth the contract for mowing and leaf pickup services that'll be effective uh July 1st. Um so decision was made based on receiving um at least three submitted groups and uh BB did submit the lowest response. Um and they are also on the Connecticut state approved uh vendor list um assuring that we're in compliance with uh uh the state uh procurement requirements along with their policy. Um

180so I know we had some discussions but I don't know if I ever officially um provided the formal communication. So certainly wanted to take the opportunity uh to do that. That has been budgeted uh through our budget workshops as well. Thank you. All right. So that's for the financial report. As far as FY26, like I said, we are all very thankful that the budget did pass on the third time and we didn't have to go to a 2%. Um due to that, Ryan is kind of still working on some um projections and looking at a few different things. Um, we talked in the financial committee about kind of whether we had voted last year and I believe in checking with Jessica that we did vote on a number um in July last year. So, what

181we're going to do is give Ryan a little bit more time to determine from the the cuts that were made from by the board of finance at the two different meetings um and where we stand now and what that what that impact is on our budget. Um, and then we can discuss. Obviously the number is the number that they gave you know that they'll give us um I don't know actually I guess I should say did they just approve the mill rate in the board of finance meeting tonight they did yeah the the exact amount but it's it's the number that they were communicating in the emails yeah so the board of finance met tonight to do that after the um referendum so at probably our July meeting we will um kind of go over

182that with Ryan in terms of you know what it means if there's changes that need to be made or with people retiring and new hires if some things kind of shake out um kind of what you know if we have any concerns. Yeah, I mean I mean just a back of uh one step. the finance subcommittee too. I know uh Ryan appreciates this uh uh process as well is um he'll coordinate with Norine to schedule a subcommittee meeting before our next board meeting um to review essentially um where we are with FY26 receive feedback then based on that feedback may gain minor adjustments and then uh bring a final one for the full board to review and then vote on. Yeah. So whether that ends up being the end of June or in July, we

183can we can determine depending on. Yeah. So our um um so the July meeting is I believe it's uh July 23rd for the regular board meeting and then um you know obviously the subcommittee meeting would be sometime before that and Ryan would need a couple weeks to do the necessary work to get that prepared for the subcommittee. Um but certainly by early July um certainly we would be ready for that. Yeah, because our next regular meeting is actually a special meeting on the 17th, right? Because we're not meeting in the that's active session for my evaluation. So, it's not it's not really a regular meeting. So, we're meeting tonight. Our next meeting would be next week, but we wouldn't have this full, you know, like this type of agenda. So, it would be the July

184meeting where where we would potentially um look to have a vote on that depending on what happens at the subcommittee meeting. uh this past school year, the one we're just completing now, uh you voted on July 31st, just in comparison. Yes. So July 31st um uh for the FY25 budget is what you like this like that's what we did last July. It was on the 31st that we voted on. All right. Did anybody have any questions about any of that? Or I know some of us were here for the subcommittee, but I don't know if Courtney or uh Carrie or Gabby had any questions regarding that. Carrie or Gabby, do you have any questions regarding those updates? No, I'm good. No, I'm also all set. All right. So, the next thing under new business for

185a vote, we did have the um policy 5130, the tuition for children of non-resident employees from East Windsor Public Schools. We discussed this at the last meeting, so I think um this was up for a vote. I didn't know if anybody had I had um I know the board was prepared to vote on it. I know the um uh board policy review um uh did recommend um putting it forward for a vote. Um we do have some staff members that are very um interested as far as uh the vote and would like to see it pass. I just the reason I held it was I didn't just want to share a little feedback um from Chris Shane was shared at um the board meeting. I just got to find it. So I apologize. This will

186just give me quite a Was it discussed at the meeting that I didn't know the time at earlier meeting? Because I don't remember discussing it. This was this was a policy meeting. This is a policy meeting. It was on our last meeting, but we didn't get to the short. We did. I think Patrick had some, you know, he had some discussion. He's looking for that, right? So we I think we stabled it. Yeah. I just want to pull up the note so that uh Yes. Yeah. There's kids that came from. So the language and the the policy um um ship Gerwin um uh has a similar language. I mean, we did um uh do it specifically for East Winder. Um I will say that um a number of other um uh school districts have uh

187similar uh language. The only thing that um uh Chris Shane did caution is and she understands uh Shipban Goodwin stance is um number five in the policy where it says special ed services. The policy does not obligate East Windsor public schools to provide special ed services beyond standard programs. If additional services are required, supplemental fees reflecting actual increased costs may be charged in compliance with actual laws. So she understands that ship and goodwin um um indicate you uh um uh you can uh do this. she she cautions that she doesn't um she's not as confident that if someone put a complaint with the office of civil rights that would uphold. Um now in that case it would be very extreme and rare to have that situation. Obviously that's to protect the uh district and obviously

188the taxpayers um for incurring um um any substantial uh costs. Um but that was the only part I did want to bring forward to the uh board. Um certainly you know we have had I think uh four staff members reach out um regarding um uh the opportunity of tuition um uh there's uh their kid into the district. I have a couple of questions. Um that was one of them and and if we had you said it's extremely rare that it would be exceptional costs but we talk all the time about special ed costing a lot. No saying um so you have to remember this would so one um they would have to be granted permission to be u um to allow their kids. So it's not like a McKin Vento or um um so there's

189a little bit more flexibility as far as allowing um now obviously you couldn't discriminate on their their disability, but certainly there's there's other factors as well too as far as like what's the enrollment for that grade level and uh and some of those other things that would seem to be potentially in here to to not allow child. Yeah. Now, now according to ship me a good one, you can you know um do that. Correct. Um Chris Shenny. Um so obviously the little conflicting but it was necessary the board has all the information you know be informed to make uh the decision. So this used to be a policy correct. Correct. Why did it stop? I'm not particularly uh uh sure. Um um was it dur Theresa King's time? It was. Yep. And um at some

190point um because I know we did have staff and they were grandfathered in. So I do know they were grandfathered in. Um um but as far as uh why I did I um I can tell you um I would have been special ed director so I can tell you it was not special ed related. Um but I'm not sure why. So, it just seems like a good idea to have your if your teachers want their children in your schools, they must know that they're pretty good programs here. So, I would think it's a good idea. The special ed issue is a little to me. Um, Patrick, you know, um, so there would be some kind of an agreement, right? It wouldn't be contract, but there would be some kind of an agreement that the teachers

191would sign with the school district so they would be aware of all these conditions. Does that work? It would be signed by you and by the by the parents. So they would be I mean we would we policy obviously. Yeah. Yes. But this would be this is really signing off on it as well. Um yeah preschool families they do um for payment what because part of it is the payment too. They sign um Correct. Yep. So they have all the conditions and they're signing up. I mean everything is part of the like the registration process essentially. Yeah. Did anybody else have any other questions? No. So I'm sorry Jessica. Well maybe it's in the minutes from the last one. Did we end up waving a first reading or we had the first reading last time

192or did we have the first reading? Well, I can double check. Oh, there was a motion to approve but then um I think it was withdrawn. I think we tabled it. I think we tabled it. It looks like Yeah, Norine made a motion second by Betsy that we tabled it last time and that passed. So on waiting the first meeting I I mean I just because we do have some staff members that are waiting and school year is done they want they would like to know for next year. Um so I I think if the board can take a stance one way or the other so that we could um notify those staff members that would be helpful. So, if we were to do that, is it two separate motions? One to wave the first

193reading and the second one to approve it to adopt the policy. To adopt the policy? Yes. All right. So, I would entertain a motion to wave the first reading for policy 5130. I'll make the move. I'm making the move. I'm making a motion to wave the first reading for series um tuition 5130 tuition for children of non-resident employees, East Windsor Public Schools. All right. Fran has made the motion. Second. And Denise has seconded it. All in favor of waving the first reading. I opposed. Gabby, do you have any objections? No. All right. Are you I'm good. Okay. All right. So, motion passes to wave the first reading. Then I would entertain a motion to adopt the policy. I would make a motion to adopt series tuition for children of non-resident employees East Windsor Public Schools.

194Motion motion made by Betsy, seconded by Fran. All in favor? Any opposed? Gabby, are you all set with that as well? Yep. All right. So, motion passes to adopt the policy. Thank you everybody. Thank you. All right, we've gone through the other items. All right, so next on our agenda is rea and subcommittee reports. I don't know if there's anything in particular that people want to report. Obviously, we had some board of finance meetings and other meetings, but I think all of that has kind of been resolved, though I don't know that we need to read that. I think we're ready. I don't know if there's anything else like board of suckman or anything uh Court Whitney that you have that you that I feel like I need to bring here. We had a curriculum

195council meeting um where the teacher of the year was and Darl had sent out a letter about that. Oh yeah, the teacher of the year that was included club had a successful um graduation safe party. So it would be done. I was actually going to ask you about that. Do you know how many like I'm not I I didn't go this year because I needed sleep. So I did not go. But um yeah, I mean it was successful enough that they're um again signing up for revolutions next year. So good. That's good. I know it's usually popular, but I don't know kind of what percentage of the senior class goes. I know not everybody does, but I was just curious. I'm not sure how many kids went. Um all right. Were there any further liaison

196or subcommittee reports? All right. Any public participation? It does not look like we have any public left in the uh there is we're here for um I believe um expected them to talk about public. Well, I was anticipating so um I so they had reached out um uh raving about their experience with Nicole Walker. I had shared with them because it was just coincidental. She had already been nominated as the Crystal Apple award and I had shared that information. Um um not knowing that um she was going to be unable so I did step out where I saw them explain but then they did stay for quite a bit. I didn't thought think they may um participate and I my um assumption was it was just to speak um on the positive impact um Nicole

197Walker um um has had um but that's just based on my previous Yeah, it could have been something else but it wasn't that important if it was They probably did all that later bingo before our meetings and see what she was sitting here for. And so as um Patrick mentioned there is a letter from Patrick uh mentioning the walk the letter of recommendation um regarding Miss Walker. Yeah. Um, so that's in our correspondence along with teacher of the year as we had just mentioned and a donation. I did have two miscellaneous kind of blend that in. That's fine. Go ahead. Um, I know the band was up there. I know um the community center is um this Saturday. Um, uh, we will I don't know if it's the entire band because school's out, but I

198know a number of them will be playing um this Saturday um with the ribbon cutting. And uh we had our graduation. I know we had high school graduation Monday, middle school uh promotion Tuesday, but uh during the day today, we had uh three students who graduated out of our transition program. And um it just so happened um I was running all over the place just um you know wanting to connect with staff um on the last day and coming back from the Broadbrook side. had stopped um at Pickle uh Jar Deli, pick up a quick lunch and um the owner um and Cara Carlander had uh stopped me because she went to um the transition uh graduation and uh was actually in tears about like how um it impacted her and the impact those kids

199have had u working. They do. And so um just sharing that experience is just very touching timing you know and uh you know and just the impact that program has within the community too. That is awesome. That is great feedback to hear a good person. Patrick I just want to say too just at the graduation I was very impressed. I know it was difficult for um you know for Joe and Carol to be there, but I was really impressed that the the class the high school class decided to donate money to to um you know Abby Aby's um foundation. Yes. I thought that was just speaks to that the yearbook was dedicated in her memory as well um from the high school and um they did attend to um promotion um middle school promotion because

200middle school um uh this year was the first one but going forward they'll have an annual student a kindness award and uh Aby's um so um it was a tough time for uh Mr. field. Um we did, you know, have a moment of breakdown um providing uh the background uh story and uh there was an eighth grade um uh girl that was the first recipient uh last night. That's very nice. And they were in attendance for that. So, all right. Was there any other miscellaneous? Go ahead. the graduation video, the video video that got put out on Facebook with the all the graduation and all of that. Um, awesome job. That was people. Jessica, thank you. I have gotten more people. I I posted it out on a couple of things and I've heard from

201a lot of people and people are just thinking, you know, like, oh, tear in my eye and it's so sweet and it's so cool and how great. And it really showed the connection from the kindergarteners all the way up and through. So, excellent. Yeah, they showed them walking through the Broadick School and the middle school and then graduation and the kindergarters walking by our seniors and our seniors applauding for them. Yeah, awesome job. Um, yeah, Jessica shared earlier today has 7,000 views. Really? That's You did that? 7,000 views. Wow, that's awesome. I am so bad. That's just on like your share. Even if you don't know any views that it has on that's what it has from all the shares and everything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. It has I still have to get um

202Sorry, it wasn't fair to me. No, that's okay. So, it has 155 either like likes or hearts or whatever and then 35 shares. It has Oh, we got over 7,000 views. 7,123 views as of right this second. Nice. That's all. You guys are doing a great job with that. Not that Facebook should be the the place where people gets all all their information, but obviously we've all been living, but um I think that you guys are doing a fantastic job with all those posts, especially at the end of the year. I I think you guys have done a fantastic job. Put as many of them. I share as many of them as I can knowing that there's kind of safe space and people really do appreciate that they get out there and it's a good

203way to show off things to people who have absolutely no clue about our schools. I'll just add that the uh the last um thing on the agenda like that corresponds the donation of the surveying equipment. It came from a gentleman who saw previous Facebook post and that's why he was even aware of it. He realized he had the stuff in his house and he said, "Here it is." But it was from a post. Yeah. So you never know like who's going to see something or who might you know either share it themselves or have a reaction where they want to donate something or get more involved. So I think that's great stuff the more content you can put out there. All right. And we do have need for an executive sessions that correct for contract

204negotiations or we I do I need um it'll take two minutes. I um I need to relay something. I need a yay or nay to on how to proceed. Sorry. Can we take just a couple minute? I could do it in a minute. I mean, all right. All right. I'll make a motion to go into executive session. Second. All right. So 940. Um second. Sorry. Who seconded it? Courtney. All right. All in favor? Motion. Motion passes to go on to executive. website.