East Windsor, CT BOE Meeting - 5/14/25

001meeting at 7:02 and we're going to start with the pledge of allegiance of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for Sorry. All right. So, we don't have Fran or Gabby or Norine right now. Might be joining virtually and Fran might be a few minutes. Okay. Um. Oh, and here comes France. All right. Um, we do have join and Loren join. Okay. So, reset at 7:03. We have our meeting. Thank you, Ken. Just got it. There you go. Um, we do have need for an added agenda item um, regarding discussing uh, strategy for the public hearing and for the budget. So, I'm going to ask Heather to make a motion. I'll make a motion to add an agenda item to um, number 10, item three,

002discuss strategies for public hearing for FY 2526 budget. All right. So, going to say Heather has made the motion. Is there a second? I will second that. is all in favor? I All right. Uh motion passes. Any opposed? Oh, she norin did you want to register your vote? I think that's okay. Motion passes. Um let us know if you need to say something. Hey, I'm sorry. I was typing what she said for the agenda item. Who was the second? Betsy was the second. Thank you. All right. So, we will discuss that when we come to it on the agenda under item 10. All right. Uh, next on the agenda, we have our minutes for April 23rd. We'll make a motion to approve the meeting minutes for April 23rd regular meeting. Regular meeting. All right. So,

003I have a motion from Heather, second and a second from Denise to approve the regular meeting minutes from April 23rd. Were there any discussions or edits for those minutes that are in the packet? All right, a motion has been made and seconded. All in favor? Any opposed? Dorine is still on mute. So, all right. Uh, for April 24th, I'll make a motion to approve the April 24th special meeting with minutes. Second. This I had one on the phone board as far as the minutes. Wington for the 20 uh for the 20 board. Well, we'll get that. All right. So, the motion was made by Heather and seconded by Courtney. Courtney. Okay. Now, any discussion for those in the um in the new business section um I think it is like the third se uh um

004sentence and recognizing potential financial restraints. The board agreed that the phone run project could proceed. The little high school renovation would be prioritized. I think we talked about new building renovation. Yeah, I think that should say new construction. So, just clarify that. It does say um new construction over a built new approach earlier, but I think you're right for clarity. I think the middle high school new construction um or just to clarify that. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. No, I definitely think that is that do you understand what we're saying? in terms of clarifying that. Okay. Was there any other further discussion about the minutes from um April 24th special meeting? All right. All in favor with the amendment from Betsy. I. Any opposed? Okay. Motion passes. All right. Next on the agenda, we have public

005participation. Uh is there anybody from the general public that would like to speak? I think most people here are here for presentation. So, I don't think we have any public and we don't have any anybody else on the meeting besides Noren. Right. Okay. All right. Next, we have our student representative report. Marielle Broadick Elementary School students are working on end of the year assessments in math and reading. Students are also completing a safe school survey which will provide information we can use in planning for next year. With the spring weather getting warmer, family mileage club has moved outdoors. and families were excited to exercise together during ACES Day on May 7th. The park and recck department presented assemblies on water safety to all grades on May 8th. East Windsor Middle School students are currently working

006on their third eye Ready Diagnostic in both math and reading. On May 9th, students took part in our May incentive event to celebrate their hard work on the SBA and NGSS assessments. Students earned tickets to enter raffles for prizes and to attend the student versus staff basketball game. Thanks to Miss Mallaloy, East Windsor Middle School has been transformed into an art gallery. Our hallways are now filled with incredible student artwork. It's amazing to see the creativity and talent on display. East Windsor Middle School students are also busy with many after school activities, including the fifth and sixth grade band and chorus concert, seventh and eighth grade concert, softball games, and track meets. On Thursday, May 1st, the East Windsor High School band, chorus, and jazz band held their final concert of the year. The evening

007was filled with outstanding performances supported by a warm audience of family, friends, and faculty. One of the standout moments was when the concert band performed a challenging and dynamic piece titled Hexagon. It was clear how much time and dedication went into mastering this selection. The evening was also a time to honor our senior musicians who performed in their final concert as EWHS students. Whether they've been part of the program for all four years or joined just this year, each of them showcased their growth, talent, and panther pride. These students embody the portion of the graduate as lifelong learners who are self-aware and responsible citizens. A heartfelt congratulations and thank you to our seniors Rosera over there, Christina Kai, Evan Whitzky, myself, Robert Leone, Jaden Ortiz, Maria Ferrer, Addison Kronog, and Grace Meyer. Congratulations to all

008of our student musicians and to the department for not hiding their Panther Pride and having a fantastic year. Thank you very much. All right. Next on the agenda, we have a presentation from Rockville High School. Yes. And I would refer to the board page uh 57 your uh packet um um book. Um uh we do have three uh seniors from East Windsor that are graduating uh from uh the Rockville uh VO addict program and they wanted to use this as an opportunity um to thank the board for supporting their attendance and along with sharing some highlights. Uh so I believe we have a staff member as well. Yes. So my name is Grace Aroli. I'm one of the animal science teachers over at Rockville High School in their aeroscience program. Um, we just wanted to

009bring our seniors so that they can tell you about all the awesome things they do and thank you for your continued support of our program. So, so I'd like to say I started my education here at East Windsor First and I'm more than grateful for the opportunity that Rockville is the designated a school for East Windsor. So, I had many great opportunities at Rockville. Um, one of them is starting the RHSP club, one of the first of its kind. And that involves me educating all the students in um, the FFA program that we're able to learn about beekeeping and how it works. And last year, we even had a wonderful great honey harvest as well and um, able to generate money that was able to go straight back to the club. And I even have

010a couple kids that are very interested in taking over for my spot the next year. on on top of that as well as part of the officer team um for the FSA and that being part of that has given me wonderful leadership skills and um team building and I think that this as a whole is a wonderful growing opportunity. I would also like to thank the town of Eastert for supporting the AST program. I there have been so many highlights from the program that I wouldn't have got to experience if I didn't go. Like we got to go to Indiana my sophomore year for a field trip to see the national FFA convention which was one of the coolest experiences ever. And we also get to take leadership classes, which have probably been, if not

011the most, one of the most important classes that I've taken in my whole high school career, if not just ever, because it gave me leadership skills that I didn't have before. It also taught us how to write resumeumés and just how to interview and helped us for as many interviews as we could think. And yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. We really appreciate you coming and telling us more about the program. Something that um I know a lot of our board members have supported over the years and uh it's great to kind of hear more about it and I know we have a personal connection as well. What do you two plan to do next year? So, I'm actually going to be attending college at Delaware Valley University and my major will be animal

012science and livestock management. Nice. That's great. Come back and run my phone. Um, I'm going to college for early education to be an elementary school teacher and I'm so I'm going to MCC for the first two years because it's free and then I'll be transferring to a different college to get my bachelor's and masters. That's awesome. Yeah, that's really great. We're glad that it's been able been able to provide these opportunities. Did you have anything further that you want? I don't have any. Do you have any other questions for us our students just really hope the bees do make them this year? They found the queen yesterday. That is exciting. Who's taking care of them while you were gone? So, um, so right now I am going to be teaching someone more about the bees.

013Um, because well, obviously you need more than one year. I've been doing it for three years now. Um so the goal is I'll be helping out over the summer. Yeah. And when I go over um it's going to be a freshman this year's taking over. So that's good. Yeah. Nice. So I just like to thank you. Thank you Grace teaches. Thank you for coming to town to us. It always helps us when we see what happens. Congratulations on your coming graduation and onto a more exciting career and that's awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. So, next on the agenda, we have a presentation from our educators rising group. Yes. So, I'll ask uh Cheryl Gustson who's uh leading uh this project which is grant uh funded. We are

014in her second year and I'll have her introduce uh the program and the students that are joining her. Great. And you won't need your presentation. You guys can all come up and be with me too. All support each other. Thank you all for having us today. We're really excited to present about Educators Rising. So, as Patrick mentioned, the Educators Rising program is grant funded. We've been involved over the last two years in growing our program. The state of Connecticut has been very involved with the um PDK or by Delta Kappa or international organization, which is a program that's focused on elevating the teaching profession and growing our pipeline of teachers. So that being said, the state of Connecticut has really um focused a lot of attention on this educators rising program and the chapters around

015the state have grown. Um so the mission is that we are growing our own teachers so they'll come back and teach for us someday. Um so the the purpose of the program really is to elevate the profession. I think if we've any message has come forward in our time together is that teachers touch all professions that that it's got incredible power in in the profession of teaching and I want them all to know that um and the time that I've spent with them working with them. I've talked about the different avenues that they can take within the teaching profession whether they're a classroom teacher whether they're a school social worker administrator what have you. Um tonight I'm going to introduce our students. are actually going to introduce themselves and they're going to take some time

016to tell you about the different ways that we have um engaged in activities surrounding the education profession um through our work with Educators Rising. So, take it away, Thomas. Sure. So, my name is Thomas Farerk. I'm a junior at East Windsor High School in the Educators Rising program and I came to find this program just by chance. I was in a student meeting with a guidance counselor and sure enough Miss Gustafson was in the room and she introduced me to uh educators rising because I was aspiring to be an educator and through being introduced to this program and going through all the events and learning what it is to actually be an educator it has sort of inspired me more and has really brought forth this dream of mine to become an educator because I've

017found through my life that I've loved teaching things and introducing people to new ideas and going to Educators Rising has helped me bring that out a lot. Uh hello, my name is Jack Kitridge. Uh I feel a bad out in uniform, but uh uh I'm currently a senior uh at East Winder High School and I was introduced to this club by my guidance counselor like Thomas. Uh she told me about it because I was planning on going to college to become a special ed teacher and I could not have been more happy to join it. It's been an incredible experience. Um, and yeah, it's just been a great time. Hello, my name is Rosley. I'm a senior at East High School. Um, I was approached by my older sister who graduated last year about this

018program and it really helped her and she is now studying at Southern to become a PE teacher. And because of her and my mother who is also an educator um and this program, it really helped me understand that teaching is very important and that I'd really love to come back to this school and be an elementary school teacher. Um my name is Aelia. I'm a sophomore in high school and I got nominated to join randomly last year. So, I was like one of the first people to do the I never I don't really want to necessarily be a teacher, but I know I want to work with kids and become a doctor or nurse or something like that which works with a lot of kids. So, it's good practice. Absolutely. Thank you guys. Um, so

019we're going to pass it over to Jay, talk a little bit about things we've done this year. Uh, yeah. So, like I was saying, this year we've uh we've done a lot of great stuff. We've had weekly meetings during our advisory where we go over we create lesson plans and prepare for upcoming events. We went to um four I guess kind of out of school, one of them was in school, but we went to four events um where we were able to teach students. We were able to go to a youth empowerment symposium. And recently, like last week, me and Rosie were able to go to um a signing day for any uh Connecticut students planning to go to college to become teachers. So, we've had plenty of great experiences and um we have absolutely

020learned a lot through this club. Well, one of the places that we went, in fact, the first place was the youth summit. Well, it was leading the way to the future educators and also not even educators, just future leaders in general. We had a guest speaker who he talked about his experience in elementary school as kind of like an outsider. Um, I kind of like connected with the kids. how like it's good to find people who can like help you go through your differences and stuff and he kind of took his personal experiences and climbed up in the world and went back to those kids who were just like him and helped them out. Um it was a very inclusive environment. Um there was a part where they really very much interacted with the kids

021where it was kind of like a rhyming. We took took words of like youth empowerment and we like went to groups and we kind of made our own rhymes and they took those rhymes and made it into raps with the backing track and everything. Um, and me and Ay were one of the pe one of the groups went in went up and wrapped ourselves. You remember your rap? Um but yeah, it was these um activities that they did really helped us understand the barriers in the society and the inequality that's still left that we can really work on and how these young leaders and educators rising up can really be the stars and leaders to help make everything really And lastly, we discussed the power of youth voices. And that's kind of the whole reason

022they made us go up and rap. Um, and had activities where, um, for example, we did this kind of tugof-war, but there was one side with problems that the youth faces and one side the kids solutions. So we were given the problems and the kids got to pick their solution and in the end the solutions won. Um we also went to the Connecticut associations of elementary conference at lunch time. Um we had to teach fourth to sixth graders about selfawareness, responsible decision making and problem solving. So we would make like election plan and we go over there and teach it to them. There was over there was about 250 kids from 20 different schools around Connecticut. Oh, can I get all of them? Yeah. screen time. All right. So, one of the presentations that us

023at Educators Rising did at this leadership conference was uh safe screen time. And the premise of this um presentation was to educate kids on the safeties online through the web. You know, how to interact with people online, what daily screen time should be, limits for that, and teaching kids all the stuff about technology. But for us as the educators and educators rising, we use this as an opportunity to really put ourselves forth with the children and really begin to interact and start to feel the environment of being an educator. And so what we what we did was we were put into three different scenarios, three different groups to teach. And each time we would do it a little bit differently. The first time was the starter one. We would teach the kids and we start

024to got the fe get the feel of understanding how it is to be in the teaching environment. And each time that these scenarios or these groups would end, we would we had huddled. We literally we huddled together and we were planning just in the fragments of time in between. We were coming up with ideas. How can we make it better? And we were really honing in on how to make the teaching environment perfect for the kids. And by the third time that we did it, flawless. We went through it and it was really good. The kids loved it. They were interacting really well. They were participating. They loved the activities. We were doing things like te-charts with them. We were making sure that all of them participated and had a chance to share their voice

025and some of the things and some of the experiences that they've had with the technology. Um, and so the safe screen time presentation that we did was really, really impactful for the kids in the lessons of obviously safe screen time, but also for us, me and Jack did this presentation on us on how to be a really good educator and really start to interact with kids. It was a really really good um time that we had doing this. So my question for both of you that we talked about a little bit earlier is what surprised you when you um delivered your lesson plans about working with kids? Um, I'd say the biggest surprise for me was I I didn't realize how much the uh the kids were going to be like working together throughout the

026lesson and uh I guess interacting with each other. I I thought it'd be really hard to get them to uh participate and stuff, but even though a lot of them didn't know each other, like they got in there seemed like they're excited to be there and the whole thing went really smooth. It was it was a great time. Yeah, I was the same thing as Jack. It was really cool to watch all the kids interact with each other. The thing that surprised me was how rowdy they would get after the lunch. It was almost uncontrollable, but we had to manage. We hadn't managed. It was It was still It was still flawless. It was all right. Uh super soft advocacy is our next lesson. So the same thing at um our um presentations. I was

027in a group for super self- advocacy lesson and these kids are actually very awesome and they were teaching them how to like speak up for themselves and giving them like flashcards where like what would you do in this situation? And with like our different groups of the kids, we learned certain stuff in our lessons we had to cut out and manage to like think fast to find something else. But even that, like you said, cuddling quite literally like a football team. Um, we managed to think something up. And even with us just making something on the spot, this program really helped us develop the skills to be able to do so because I learned sometimes when you create a lesson for kids, especially kindergarteners, and you don't have certain time for things or you got

028to make up stuff on the spot, something didn't work. You can use your creativity and kind of like even chip into theirs cuz these kids have a lot of creativity. drawn all over the papers. Um, by the end when we were teaching them about how speaking up for yourself, even finding an adult that you can rely on, like a lot of kids are really scared, but for these kids at least, they're even trying to tell us the randomst things. They're just super excited. And I think us teaching them about self- advocacy really opened their eyes to be able to speak out and even not going to lie taught me a lot to speak out cuz sometimes I kind of lean towards the shut side speaking out towards things but he has really taught me students.

029Right. Our last um event that we that we attended this year over at East Windsor High School. All right. So very recently we had a symposium a half-day symposium with the American Leadership Association with all event rising East Windsor from both the middle school and the high school. And the premise of this event was to bring in people from the ALA, the American Leadership Association that were fairly new to the educating field. there are uh interns that have come in and have explained their backgrounds with educating and what inspired them to come to be an educator. And the symposium that we had was a set of activities that we would do where we would interact with each other and we'd get to understand what it is to um have these activities in a classroom environment.

030And it really helped a lot of the uh educators uh the interns too to understand being in that environment along with a lot of the children in educators rising from especially the middle school and the high school to really understand again that area of being an educator. It was a really really important time and it was really informative to us to understand these different scenarios that you'd run into as an educator and how to handle it and the inspirations that would come with being an educator and how impactful it is that an educator is to a child which is very important. I feel like my favorite part about this was even the middle schoolers who wanted to be future educators, they joined us and they we all worked together to figure out like what should

031you do if your lesson fails, how to make a new one. As you see here, me and a couple of kids, I'm teaching them one plus one. Um, and like we each got to turn to like kind of learn how to react to certain scenarios. Yeah, I mean this it it was a lot of fun because it wasn't anything that I've really quite done before. Um they brought in a bunch of students from the middle school that were interested in being teachers and they put us in groups with, you know, kids I've never met before and um it was a great experience to work together with them on a um a topic that we're all sort of interested in. Uh, one of the videos that they had showed us was about a teacher who was

032like he was struggling to come up with a lesson plan for the day. And then one of the last things that we wound up doing is they were like, "All right, you guys with your group work together for 20 minutes to try to come up with a lesson to teach everybody in there." And it was it was really interesting to work with uh some students that I'd never met before to, you know, sort of come up with a lesson to teach in the last couple minutes of this um what is it? Symposium, you know, to work together with them to to create a lesson. So it it was a lot of fun. It was a great experience. Um I think me personally my favorite thing about the symposium is how we talk about creating relationships

033with the students and finding ways to different ways to connect with them whether it's for school or like it's a personal problem knowing that your student is able to come to you if something is wrong or like whatever. Like it was there was one of these videos the teacher he retaught one of his lessons and all his students was just looking around and then at a point they finally told him that he retaugh the lesson. So they all found a way and they found something else to talk about like taxes or something. But yeah, um how going with the groups really helped because we also found ways to connect with the students. We also found ways to give students time to gather their thoughts and to share them out like if we were doing a

034group thing. Yeah. Further going into that, we learned very unique teacher skills like as a said like giving kids time like for example one of the videos examples were pulling on the class like for answer to a question and when one kid raises their hand let the rest of the kids have a chance to raise their hand and maybe even the last kid who raises their hand even if they don't have the correct answer you pick on them and even if they have it right are wrong. The whole class celebrates equally and not only teach like teaching the kids to like understand that we can be a provider to them not only through education but as a source of someone to talk to. Um sorry my brain just bad. Um, also teaching the kids to

035work together. Like again as a said, even though the teacher came tried to teach a lesson, accidentally taught the friend saying yes lessons from yesterday, the kids even teaching the kids to work together when one of their classmates isn't feeling wrong or feeling right or even the teacher is a love sent. I I have to just say in conclusion to all the stuff that you guys have done this year, you guys did such a good job at that workshop and I think their big takeaway was that representation is really important. Um that was a big takeaway from that that seminar that we had at the first ever first ever EWHSA head rising symposium at East High School. It was really great experience. Um, and I learned as much from you as like you learn from

036the presenter. So, I appreciate all of your participation in that. Uh, I want to speak a little bit to the event that we went to last week at Quinnipic. Um, I was very honored to attend Quinnipic with Jack Kitridge and Rosalyna um, who are our, uh, seniors in Ed Rising. They'll be headed off to college next year and have committed to, uh, studying education and to pursuing careers in education. Um, so we attended the signing day. We had some good food. We got to watch everyone sign. We had some good speakers talk about the the importance of education. Um, and just before we leave here today, um, I do have certificates for all of our students who participated in educators rising this year. Um, because without you, you know, this program can make this program

037successful. So there's a Kathy. Kathy is our our original um advisor. So, she's been here the longest. Um, Thomas, thank you so much. Thomas is a future math teacher. Rosie, future kindergarten teacher, and Jack is our future special ed teacher. So, um, I have a couple of things for our seniors because they're headed out to college. And, uh, I was going to get you a lesson planner, but you don't need that till your student teaching year. So, got you a few other things that will come handy when you do your student teaching. Um, so you might not need them just yet, but who knows? You might need some pre experience. And I got you an agenda. It's not quite a lesson planner. Um, you'll still need it in college. Just keep up with your work.

038And I wish you both the very best next year. I'm really proud of you guys. Thank you very much. That was a really great presentation. You definitely covered a lot of topics. Did anybody have any specific questions or anything that they uh It's a great program. Thank you. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you guys for listening. Thank you. If you guys need to go, you can. Yeah. I was just going to say thank you very much to all of our student um presenters tonight from Rockville and when they're about feel free to go. We know it's a school night and we have other things on our agenda, but thank you for coming. Thank you very much. night. Have a good night. Cheryl, before you lose, I do want to recognize Cheryl because this is

039a competitive grant. I will tell you this came across my table I think two years ago. I said, "Cheryl, I think this would be great. By the way, do you mind applying for fun running it and basically doing all the work?" she took off uh has done a fantastic job. Certainly speaks credit to her, but she really is taking it really from the grant writing all the way through. So certainly she deserves credit as well. We appreciate it. As part of my school climate role, I was just talking about this part of school climate is ensuring that your educators feel like they are valued. Um, and I, as I mentioned at the beginning, something that I've really tried to impress upon these guys is how valued they are as future educators. And I've really tried

040to elevate them and celebrate them. Um, and the same thing goes for my new teachers. I'm the team district facilitator, so supporting those year one, year two teachers, elevating them, supporting them, making sure that they have what they need. And the same thing goes for our future teachers who are out there. And I'm so happy to hear that one of my head risers from last year is being a teacher. I didn't know that. I'm gonna go make sure that they get out the door. All right. But I'll do that. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for letting them present. I appreciate that. Great. Okay. Next on our agenda, we have um new business for discussion. Uh, we have the policies 5000 series here, but I believe that was for first reading for people

041to review. I think this is for first reading because they haven't come forward to us yet. It was the one uh series that we just haven't run. We have half the series the 5000s I think is the largest series. So, you've seen the first half. Now, what you have here is an entire series. we felt like um it made more sense to give you the entire series in context, but you actually have done a first reading on um half of it. So, I know there was a link I don't know if people had specific things, but I think what we had said is if you have questions, you can forward them to um Heather. Yep. I think the goal is because we've had all of them come to us at the meeting and we've also

042had DPR review everything obviously uh the goal is for us to have everybody read them via the link again and then for us to be able to vote on as a whole. Um Patrick and Jessica did a really good job of kind of giving and just a whole layout of everything. So, please get in there when you can look at it and then let us know if you have any questions. And do you plan on going in next meeting? I think it so um uh so just emailed out for the BPR agenda, but the board has copied on all subcommittee meetings, but it does have the link what you what I have on the share drive here, and that link gives you every series to date um for the second reading. So, like if I

043go on the 1000s, I see the table of contents. Each one is labeled. It's numbered um all the way through. Um so, if I click on it, like I have the policy. Um they're all formatted the same way um and prepped uh for it. So, BPR will be looking at this on the 21st. Um it uh will be on the agenda for the 28th. Um uh but the entire board has access of reviewing right now. And I think the goal is has always been is for us to vote all at once because in that way we don't have any overlapping and policies that aren't existing because we've got other ones we're dealing with. So um and I think the goal is to get through these and then have the whole series come up for that

044vote right by in June I believe. Well, so to vote on it but have the effective date be July 1st, right? Um, so so it I know there's a lot in there and kind of depending on what you've reviewed along the way, it's it's a big chunk, but um if people could take the time to kind of look at that so that if you have any questions, we can address those. Um, and then we'll be kind of passing that along to get them so that they can be activated for July. So when we can't fall asleep, you can just Absolutely. And pick up Norin, I don't think we can hear you either. Do you want to try and volume's up? She's unmuted. She's unmuted. Yeah. Are you speaking now? Yeah, we're not hearing anything with

045the Do we need to check TV? I mean, the volume is up on the Is that all right? Yeah, we're going to double check, Norin. Yeah, it's up. Yeah, I can see the So, do we want to Do you want to try to text me if we can't hear you? Yeah, maybe back out. Go back in. Oh. something. She raised her hand. Oh, it seems she raised her hand. What was she? The other option we were saying if you can still hear us, either you could try and go out and come back in and see if it works or you can give us a call and I can put you on speaker phone on my phone. She or she'll just leave. Well, she may try to come back in. That's what we were saying. amend.

046So when Patrick when they had the um I was going to ask when they had the um the meeting here in high school was it for other students as well just it's a good question. I believe I thought it was our students only. Okay. I think it was our students. They have a group of students at the middle school who also Okay. I don't Norin we're seeing that you're in again. Do you want to try to speak again? She's unmuted from what you're saying. Yeah. I'm not sure why it's not working. Yeah. She's still at the high school. You have to get it like permission to connect to your microphone. Like you go like phone and you have to give it permission to like connect to your like there's a popup where you can click

047she had texted me originally that she said she didn't think we could hear her. So that's why this came up that she was trying to speak and we couldn't hear her. So, I'm not sure Noren if you're coming through on your phone if you have to give your phone permission to use the microphone or something like that or if you want to call call me or text me if you have certain comments. I don't know if this is specifically regarding the policies. She's on a solo. She can't be on this and then like she can text me but she can't call me at the same time she'll call them. You know what I mean? Like how about we she's able to fix it. We'll come back to this whatever it is that she has to

048talk about. Yeah. Okay. So, I just got a text from her saying we can move on. So, let me know if you want to call me. I'll I'll keep my phone right here so that I I just turned the chat on to the meeting as well. So, Norin, if you want to say anything in the chat, we just turned that on. Okay. So, next on the agenda, we do have um new business about the family resource center and I think Patrick has a has some information that he wants to share. Yes. So, I'll just refer to you in the pack on pages uh 13 and 14. Um and actually the following pages on uh 15. Um but I did put together a memo just uh providing um some context. I know our last board meeting

049I kind of um gave a heads up uh that I wanted to bring it forward so uh people weren't caught off uh off offguard. Um I did uh provide a uh program review that was done in December of 2013. Um, as I indicated in the memo, um, much of the information, even though it's over, uh, 10 years old, is still relevant regarding like current operations, the foundational goals, like service delivery, um, you know, the community needs. Um, uh, that being said, there are some things that certainly need um, um, some oversight and some updating. A perfect example are the bylaws. Um like within the bylaws, just one example, it mentions that their board is 12 members. Um um uh it back then um 12 years ago um it was easy to get 12 men versus

050the feedback I've gotten um they're struggling to get a four member board. Um um there's been a couple other um towns that have um had their board of event um absorbed um like the board functions. Um Bloomfield's one. Uh I think it was North Branford was another one. I think Laneville was another one. Um so we wouldn't be the first one to consider this. Um I do think it is worth considering. I think if we're looking at the long-term sustainability of the program, um there should be oversight. Otherwise, you're leaving. And we have a good director. So, it's has nothing to do with the effectiveness of the position, but it should always be about the systems and not the individual people because uh you know, god forbid something happens. Um you know, what's there left

051to ensure that the programming is taking place, making sure that we're meeting uh the community needs, and there's additional oversight, too. Um although we've made vast improvements with the financial uh management um and R and gang thanks on this um u we could complete the transition with um providing more accessibility more dayto-day uh they do use QuickBooks for a number of functions um um we would like to see that and um um completely on munice um uh contracts you know like having reviews of of those such um the director's contract had I believe is still the original one. Um so although raises have been awarded um the contract has not been updated um since uh since she started um the contract was approved by the board that uh that board correct and now um uh

052very little. So like it's essentially what members can be gathered together to provide some type of feedback regarding like contractual raises. um uh there is some um support provided by school administration. So, one of the things really um that I would be working to do too is provide job descriptions on those because those responsibilities should be outlined so there's not overlap or redundancy or conflict. Um with board's responsibilities as well and again um I have mentioned integration into board subcommittees. I'm not thinking like it would be something that would be on every monthly agenda, but certainly something quarterly to include as a review. Like if we're talking about programming, um having our curriculum subcommittee really seems like an appropriate place to talk about that when we're talking about like like whether it's birth to three

053or preschool or or such. Um to get valuable feedback um regarding that and again having a little bit more depth and re review from our board uh finance subcommittee. I think would bring value increased oversight. Again, um it's been a value a valued asset to the community and just reviewing um wasn't something I could really tackle in uh year one, two or three. Um but as you know, we are improving our operations. We're making strides in other places. Um I think this is something that now needs to come and um some decisions need to be made. Um certainly I didn't put this on for a vote. Certainly I can um answer any questions to the best of my knowledge but I wanted to bring this forward for consideration uh for the reasons mentioned. Can I

054just have one question? This is a thank you. This is a pretty complete rule and I and I hear what you're saying as as far as the recommendations. One of the things I would just do you know if Bloomfield and Rand or Department other brothers did they have to talk to the department of education as far as you know kind of changing the policies because I know through the grant there are certain criteria and I and I know that there's all kinds of you know that was before what's going on now. Is there have you had contact with a school or so? Not not directly. Certainly that's something I could could do. I mean before I I wanted to take any of those steps and wanted to kind of know what the appetite was. Um

055it's funny when um for George Croft's uh track um uh rededication I ran into uh MIJ. Yeah. And so I was actually talking I said, "Hey, I just renewed this." Yeah. And uh I believe um when I was talking about the bylaws, I believe it was um um it was uh she that led the work uh to developing the bylaws. I don't believe there was like based on my brief conversation with her regarding it. I don't believe it was connected to like any legislation or anything at that. I think it's just a you have to you know and then and then she probably she probably led that at that time. So that's interesting. Yeah. So that would be that would be my own, you know, if we move forward in what we do. We just

056don't want to put our foot in any place, you know, misstep as far as funding. So, just kind of Yeah. No, they're really good questions. I haven't taken any want to make sure that this is a direction that the board wants to investigate. Wanted to see if there's specific things such as that to investigate and really wanted to see where people like stood and thought on this. I think it's a good idea. I think as Patrick has said, as we're kind of bringing other things into, you know, to make sure everything is up to standards, I think it makes sense to kind of have this as part of the financial subcommittee, as part of the curriculum committee. It's kind of having more oversight where they haven't been able to kind of get those board members

057and have that. And I think it will um as we said, it's not about the people currently doing the program. It's more about having these systems in place so that in the future there's oversight. I think it makes sense. They probably would be relieved, honestly. in some ways. Denise, I do have a concern. This this board of education is already a lot of work. How much how much more would it be adding to the curriculum committee, the finance board? Um, is it I mean, I think what Patrick was saying it was it wouldn't be like an agenda on those every month. It would just like what it has been is like a quarterly update and I don't even know if it was like three or four times a year in terms of but a lot

058of decision making and all of that. I'm not thinking I think regarding input on process and procedure. Um so initially we might have to make some more more decisions than it and then it turn and then it would be more like maintaining I would think so too to set it up. I think there would be some initial work on the front end. Um because I mean as we've seen there has been uh no updates since 2013. Like what you have is essentially like the last time there's been a review of the program or overview of the operations. Um um a lot of it is still relevant and operational. So I don't think there's a ton of work. Uh but there would be a little bit more on the front end. And then I think it's

059really just like quarterly meetings three to four times a year. I don't I don't think you would really need to meet over the summer. Um again, you have um you have uh administration like part of it too is um defining what the responsibilities are the building administrations. They have statements in their contract for support um as well. home. So, um so there is like day-to-day support. There is um um um this is more like like I think like I'll use some examples. Um uh looking at the preschool program um a lot of times it rotates between like two half day programs and full day program. I think, you know, having um some oversight as far as direction as far as what type of programming and saying like, hey, you know, based on the community needs

060um uh we should be pushing for more full day versus half day or vice versa, like families are not looking to put their kids in that young into a full day. um um uh like after school programming, before school programming. Um I think that again I think you know once or twice a year through curriculum to get that feedback I think would be helpful and then uh um um FRC is in good financial state as far as Munis and and where they are with uh Ryan but then you know sometimes where we're putting our resources um um I think would be value valuable um input like I mean obviously like this board has been incredible ly um um helpful and valuable with helping us redefine our processes. Now obviously the school budget is much much

061big uh bigger um but a perfect example is like uh like the pension um there's a uh there's um recently it was brought to our attention um that some members had were reaching the threshold for hours um prior to the pandemic you could get more people to work they're struggling to find people to work so um people are working more hours than becoming pension eligible which then adds an additional cost to the someone's budget whether the board of ed um or uh the FRC. So, in one way or the other, it actually does that actually does come back to the board of ed in some capacity for decision- making. Um so, um so again, I I hear what you're saying and I I completely agree. I'm not thinking though that um this is something that

062would be like a regular agenda item. um even on the like um even up front like uh like even if we weren't putting it on agenda, I don't see it being on like three consecutive agendas um for any regular meeting or subcommittee meeting. And the alternative would be for them to continue with the or to to look to find members for this 12 member board. They would need a more robust board than what they have. Well, so the other part too is I don't believe like they the bylaws need to be revised, but they don't have a board to revise them by it's like who's on first like you know um uh so I I there there's there's not a need to have a 12 member board but you you have to start by revising

063revising but I also don't think it should be the autonomy of the director to um do the bylaws in which they report to either right Um so um you know is it three people enough to like that's where you start to question um and you just want to make sure that decisions are being made and they're being sound and their processes are in place that are leading to making sound decisions. I could say if this is something that we could do and we don't do that would be irresponsible of us to not take this on and fix it up because it's well and even if it's something that we fix the bylaws but then determine it should be a five member board or a six member board and it can't be us then that could

064be like a like the next step maybe. But I think if we need to revisit these at least then it probably needs to be us who does that if there you know this board that does that if there isn't another board in place and then if it's determined that that would be instead. Yeah. Well, let me do it because there's some good questions being raised. So, um why don't I um I won't be able to do this for the next meeting. Um but I can um what I can do is uh meet with uh Katie from F FRC, Laura, um Ryan too from and uh I can research your question Beth as far as the steps that uh they had to take. Was that like a um was that a pretty simple process as simple

065as a vote or is there like initial work and let me put together like like essentially the tasks that really need like immediate attention and bring that back to the board and then it would actually provide some insight as far as what we're really looking at uh work if uh if that makes sense to every Yeah, that makes sense if we don't get out. Um, Norine had raised her hand, so let me just see if she can input. She looks like she's on differently. Norine, are you able to speak? Can you hear me? Hey. Yay. Okay. Um, technical issue on my side. Um, I fixed it. If you unplug everything, eventually something's going to work. Um, relative to the F FRC, um, the F FRC is near and dear to my heart. I actually was

066part of it when it started back in Phil Morton's day. Um, and my kids used it and Evelyn has used it and continues to use it. Um, whatever we decide to do. Um, um, I I think it's a good thing that we maybe look into it. I'll volunteer to be on whatever needs to to get it organized and straightened out. And um I just think it's it's a very important thing for our community and whatever we can do to strengthen it and get it to be the program and remain the program that it is and maybe bolster it up some even um is very important for our community as a whole. Um, I have some things, Patrick, I'll email you separately um about them, but um I will I'll volunteer for the committee if we

067have to have one. All right. And I think part of what we were discussing is it may not need a separate committee per se if we can move some of the items into like finance. Yeah. Just to be clear, I wasn't I wasn't um I so I'm not um proposing an additional committee. I was thinking like No, no. So what I was thinking was there would be I meant for the initial thing to get it going in the right direction. Yeah. No, I don't want to serve on it forever. Thank you. Yeah. But I thought occasionally like if there's something that really pertained as the board, you know, either once a quarter, once or three times a year, they would just be on our regular agenda. And then the other like the financials and programming

068would be on um the curriculum and finance uh subcommittees um just during like the routine cycle. Again, not at each monthly meeting, but like as needed. As needed. Yeah. Um, and I will just to piggyback off of something Norine said. I do think there's some untapped potential there as well to uh to booster some programming. All right. So, for next steps, Patrick's going to gather some more information from from things that were raised and if you have any things other things you think of regarding uh F FRC or questions that you have. I know. I was kind of looking at if they really still charge a dollar for breakfast or not or if that's kind of worked its way into a different programming now. You know, their meals are all covered under Yeah. So, they're

069u uh they're free lunch and breakfast uh similar for all our programs, right? And what would happen with that if we're no longer receiving free lunch and breakfast, you know, like things like that. So, if if we have questions, feel free to um let Patrick or Jessica know about those. Um and then it'll come up for discussion again before it comes up for a vote. Oh, yeah. I'll put it on just let me get the information. I'll put it up for discussion and then um so in a couple meetings depending on how long it takes to kind of gather that information, we can bring it up again. Um my question or concern maybe it's farfetched. Um, I don't how I feel nec like agree with the sustainability thing and I think this isn't the best

070decision. Um, I just don't know how I feel about necessarily like amending and updating bylaws for a group that we don't necessarily like partake in. Well, that's why it would change that the board of ed would be that. So, yeah, I get that. But I'd say without anybody's input, like no input from the parents, from the faculty that are engaged in the F FRC. Um, but I get that again they can't vote because there's no advisory board. So is there a way you maybe this is a consideration for you and maybe Patrick to just think about um is there a way that we can at least get recommendations from those that are currently involved in FRC at the time that we would be voting on bylaws? like could they provide some recommendations or feedback or

071any thoughts and bring those to us for consideration? I just feel like these people have I think the rough thing is people are absolutely they've said can you volunteer and be on this and no parents have stepped up to do that. This has been ongoing for a few years now that they've asked like we have these board vacancies. Would anybody be interested in serving on this board? And we have had people do it in the past. I've been on it at different times, but it went from six people to four people to no people to having trouble getting people to asking parents to do it and no one stepping up to do it. So, I get the wanting to get input, but I also feel like we've been asking for that for at least a

072few years now. And and I get it. Some people just don't have the time to do and maybe there's an easier like if there could be a survey or if there could be something that we could talk to Keith. Um I feel like it's quite like and Laura about that a little bit like is there a way that we could gather some input but I think we've kind of asked people to be involved and they just I think it's a different ask when you're when you're requesting somebody to like sit on the board rather than like yeah maybe sending out survey like can you review these I mean the bylaw like if this is all the bylaws it's just a couple pages like asking you know sending out a blast email to the parents and

073you know well it may have to be like specific questions I don't know about reviewing bylaws per se But maybe we could come up with some questions question just so they can offer some type of input and not necessarily have have to make the commitment of being you sitting on board. But yeah, just some way to like engage them and maybe it's unrealistic but just you know a thought that I think couldn't important. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah. Yeah, I could because I think Kate, you know that that whole thing about family resource centers in the beginning anyway, you know, there was parent there was almost mandatory parent participation and um I would think that that still is the case. So, you know, maybe kind of starting maybe we could help to get, you

074know, two or three parents that might because I think what you're saying is we're not taking it over. We're helping them. Well, that's the question is if the this board would take it over that that was what was presented that Patrick was talking about is the board of ed would become that advisory board and that's what's happened in other towns because they've had the same issue that the advisory board just two other towns, right? Well, that we know of. I mean, I I think there's three. Uh yeah, there could be more. Those were just Yeah. Yeah. get I guess I I see Gabby's point that they're asking for help and we become the overbearing parent that says great I'll just do it for you know something maybe Kate can come and talk to us about

075I mean when I sat on that board when I first became a board member there was like four people but I mean she's been in the game for a very long time at the MRC and so maybe hearing you know yeah I can have her attend but I put the information um it's understanding that she very much would appreciate if the board uh took on um and became the existing board. I mean, it was a request from the director that we consider this. I think it's a good idea for us to take it over. I just want to make sure that we're still engaging the people that are involved in. Yeah, I think she's begging and pleading uh people that essentially like please just show up. It's three meetings a year. Um um like I

076mean like crowd. Can can I just give a little background somewhat? Um, when the F FRC first started, there was no grant money involved with it. It started as a very grassroots effort and it it it blossomed with back in the day. I mean, we're going back to Phil Morton. Um, it blossomed from a lot of parents who were stay-at-home parents and wanted to have playgroups and it kind of started as that and then it got bigger and then more people and more people and um, back then there was no issue with getting people to volunteer for things. People were banging on the door to to volunteer to do it and to raise the money and to do all the things and then it kind of grew from there. So I think that just the

077society we live in, people are not that engaged anymore and it would be nice to do that. Um and um I think it would be very helpful to have Kate come because she lives that dayto-day and she knows her concerns and whatnot. And um and I agree with you, Gabby, that you know, you try to get parents involved and do it all, but um and take it all on, but it it's just not the world we're living in anymore where people have all of that time or even care to. It's more so now, okay, it's it's inexpensive daycare. I drop my kid off, I pick them up. And that's sad. And I wish it wasn't like that anymore. Um, so I I think if we can talk to Kate and get an idea of where

078she wants to go and then figure out from there, I think it would be um probably the best way to at least start to tackle it. Um, and it really is unfortunate. I mean, I I remember when there were they would have a meeting and you'd have 25 people there because everybody was very concerned about, you know, early childhood education and maybe because it wasn't there before. It was the new and shiny object and now it's the dull and not so much shiny anymore. So, yeah. No, I agree. I think having Kate and um if if Laura can offer information, you know, having them come to a meeting and kind of explain the situation. Yeah, I can have them whether you know they would like the board to take it over what they think the

079best next steps are. I'm the opposite of Norine. I have no experience whatsoever with that secret, but it was not around when my kids were. So, I don't really know. I I know what it is, but I don't know anything about how it started or the operation or so. All right. So, we'll get some more background and and again, if you have any other specific questions, let Patrick know. All right. Thank you very much. That was engaging. And I think we got some other good good things to check about that. All right. So, then yes, we just go back to the policy thing quickly. Yeah. Um I was trying to go through them and I realized I only have the second set of the 5000 series. I got a set of the policies, but it's

080part two of two. So, I don't have part one. Um, if somebody could I might have deleted it, Lord knows with all the emails, but if somebody could send me part one of that 5000 series, I'd appreciate it. Uh, Norie, um, there's a link earlier today that was sent to BPR, but the entire board was copied on it. The link gives you all the series to every um, all the policies in every series now, and they're separated by folder. So, there's a folder that says 10,00 series. You can open that and they're all there. 2,00 300s 4 thousands. So that would have been your email late uh later uh this afternoon. Um I can resend it too if uh if need be. No, no, I just opened it, Patrick. I didn't look at that one.

081I looked at one I had before from Yeah, there was there was an earlier one that was just the half half. Okay. All right. I've got it. Thank you. You're welcome. And did you have any other um questions or anything about that, Naren? Uh no, I'm good, Kate. I'm good. Okay. All right. So, next under new business, we have our added agenda item uh regarding discussion of the um public hearing that the board of finance will have next Tuesday and kind of a strategy of the budget. Um as an update, obviously we all know the budget referendum did not pass last night. Um, I believe it only faile failed by about 78 votes. Um, and again, it's kind of sad to me that we can't get more people out there voting. And I'm concerned that

082on a second referendum, again, people won't know what's coming. People won't know the date. Um, I believe it's May 27th. It is. So, I would say any any way like you guys can share like the next budget referendum, too. That would be great. I I know I didn't get the packet about the budget until kind of the last minute. I think there was an issue with mailing. So I know that concern this week I got mine I think on Monday. And the thing concerned me was I asked Bill Simo about it and um um Telini about it and I said hey I haven't got my budget and they oh yeah well we got it the week. I said I haven't gotten it. Well I don't know what to tell you. So I I was in

083the town hall yesterday and um the uh treasurer said uh that the issue was finance director that the thought that it was all one town with one zip code. So warehouse 20 got it earlier and she assumed when she mailed it that that was to everybody and it was only to that side of town. Once she found out they had to print the other side of town and get it out. I didn't get my children. So, did they not tell the board of finance that that was that? I don't know. Which is crazy because that's the bigger side of town that has their voting population than the other. Yeah. So, I just wonder if that impacted the like voter that the number of voters, but it did sometimes we know referendums are low, sometimes they're

084higher. It seemed a lot more people than last year. So, that's the thing I was going to say. On the other hand, it seemed like some people said there were more people than last year. So, much more in Bronco than where Yeah. So, it is kind of odd and I don't know. But anyway, much talk. I noticed like on social media there was not a whole lot of good evil, which is sometimes good that you don't get a whole lot of like horrible things being said. Um, depends on page you I mean I don't I don't really some of those pages very often but like just even looking at that um I personally feel like feedback that I've seen or heard from others and I think I shared this with a few people before the

085meeting started. People are highly upset in town about solar fields and so they're basically saying I'm not giving the town any more of my tax money because they're pissed off about the solar field. until this is a lot of feedback I've seen from people. I've heard from people even though they realize that it's connected to the school budget. It is connected to the school budget and they're pissed off at the town. But they also a lot of people yesterday came in thinking they were voting on the school. Correct. They don't even know what they're Facebook as well and people were trying to correct people. Um and so like people are just not understanding what the vote is on. Um well the same thing happened at community center and another thing that was going on. It

086wasn't even a vote. It was there were two issues happening at the same time and because of that there was so much confusion because I agree with you. You know people came up to me all the time and said you know I have a question about the solar. What do I where do I vote about the solar? Yeah. So, I mean, I think that's too bad, but I think part of it and and Heather can speak to this a little bit more because we um had talked earlier and she came up with some um wording, but I think we should go to the board of finance um we can decide um if all of us want to go next Tuesday or if I'm, you know, a majority of people can go, whoever can come next

087Tuesday, we can come make a list. But I and if you can't come, you can send Heather I, you know, if there's something you'd like to say particularly something um if you want to write something, one of us can speak. Yeah. Can speak to it. So that's totally fine. Definitely have something. Um but I think we should say a lot of the feedback that we've heard is that it's concerns on the town side or concerns about, you know, other things that didn't seem to be the school side. And I I know that they probably will reduce us to an extent, but I don't think that they should only look to the school side to make cuts. I think that they should look to, you know, whether it's an attorney line or whether it's some other

088type of situation. There were other things that were kind of out there and I don't think it's fair just to look to our side just because we're the bigger number bigger percentage. Yeah, I know. But so we will the per bigger go ahead. No, I would just say that that the only thing about that is I think we want to I think we want to promote ourselves and why that is the most important thing and to kind of pit the crown against the school board I don't think is a good look. I agree. I agree it's not a good look but I think we just have to kind of and and I don't know if Heather if you want to kind of speak to some of what you had. Well, I think the thing is

089is to focus on that. You're right. Put the focus on the great things that we've done. Y the fact that overall in the last I think two to three cycles our average increase has been more than 2%. Yeah. Which is within our line for the charter. So we've kind of done our part of the job. um you know, we've we've done all these things and we've not implemented no pro we're not implementing new programs. We're not doing this. We're at a point where we're good and we're just asking for the money that we need to keep doing what we're doing. And we've been very responsible when it comes to any of the grant money that we've had and we've had to make adjustments in order to, you know, absorb those costs into our budget and

090minimizing like the hiring piece and and what do we need, what don't we need. I think we've done a really really good job with that. I think the confusing part on the side town is or this town side is there a couple different things. People don't show up to meetings. people listen to what they want on TV or on on social media and word of mouth. Um, even I am not well educated in the whole workings of how the like you've got where the town makes money by having the savings. So they get revenue from that source, they have revenue from this source, we have that, we have, you know, bonding that we're paying off, we've got this. I'm not 100% on how all that stuff intertwines and I don't think someone who doesn't do

091any kind of participation in boards or committees, it's completely foreign to them. They look at the tax dollar number. They look at the fact we had rebal last year. They look at all of those things and they're pissed about something else. Excuse my language, but they are. They're upset about something else and they're making uninformed decisions. I think that what we need to do as us as a board is one try to educate people, but people aren't asking questions about us. They're asking questions on the town side and unfortunately I think the town side approaches things where let's just not even talk about it. It needs to be addressed. We're at a point where people are upset whether it's valid or not. Those questions don't get addressed. So then they create more of a momentum

092and it I think it becomes what it is now and then it impacts our budget. And I get what you're saying like we don't want to pit the town against and I wouldn't necessarily say at the public hearing something specifically about like the lawyer line item or whatever. But I do think we need to say something to the effect of you can't just look at one side and cut from the schools. I wish there was that we could way that like you know when people vote because it is the people who are voting who are saying no what it is that they would like we put something could we put something on like a create a um a questionnaire on our website would it be wrong to do that right now if you voted no

093why did you vote no I would not do that other than I would just say on Facebook on some of the If you voted no, please show up to the public hearing. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of what I was thinking the other like last night when I got frustrated about this. I'm like, I would rather go myself, you know, onto something where people are talking about it and say, if you voted no, please show up the public hearing and say why you voted no? But again, are those people actually going to do that? I mean, my suggestion with that would be um just input. If you have strong input, show up. Yeah, I agree. one way or the other if you have strong input as there's more discussion you may hear something new um

094um email go out to like parents I I don't think I we did not send an email um in consult with our our attorney she said once the date is posted essentially even if it's not like advocating one way or the other even if it's just informing you're sending it to a select group um you can send that information out before uh like the referendum date is uh posted, but once she advised now she said Facebook that's open to everything like if you have something posted on the lawn that's open to like everyone but to send something to a select group uh once the referendum um even if it's a very neutral statement uh she advised against it and we've heard that in the past too I believe in terms of that and I know

095the PTO did send out now yeah the PTO and boosters they can do that they can access those groups and they send those um to their membership. Yeah. I have a question. So um as a individual member, I know I'm on the board, but as an individual, can I write a letter to to uh a letter uh to the editor? You can um uh as a resident um you just can't use like board of ed like laptop to do it. Um obviously I mean you're a volunteer, but it's outside of like any board meeting time. So, um, and you're like in your home when you do it. So I think even a letter to the editor I don't know if we could get anything in this quickly but a letter to the editor um probably

096you know from whether you know somebody I you know I would be willing to kind of do they put it in there because a lot of times people do you know look at that or read it or could it be part of you know any of the little newspapers that are the reasons why there was something in the village voices actually a very nice that Patrick, you wrote a book, didn't you? Uh, I had input on it. Um, but it was uh through the first day. They broke it down pretty I thought it was really good. Pretty easy. I mean, but I don't read it. Who doesn't read it? I mean, it was Yeah. And I don't know for as far as like getting a letter to the editor in the news these days. I

097don't know how fast that gets turned around or how many people would see it. As much as I think that that's a wonderful idea, I think the thing is is we need to direct our comments to the board of finance. Yes, we do. right now that's where it needs to go first. The next step would be on the ruler side where that would be 100% thing to do afterwards. I I just I just sit there and I I'm thinking about the comments we got at the last when we had the board of finance and they voted in favor for us, but there was comments about not being happy with doing that. I I I worry that when we have you know we we have a right to give our opinions and thoughts and everything but

098it's not a a talking point conversation. It's I'm giving you this and the same goes with anybody who comes in from the public and they give their opinion. There's not going to be any back and forth which I think is the primary issue that some people have is I'm not getting answers. M so I I worry about it. I really don't think that it's going to I mean I want people to come I want people to come voice your opinion explain why you voted no. Yeah. Or why you voted the way I think. I mean, so I don't think it hurts to like and we're approaching the board of finance and speaking just to say that we actually really appreciate them putting it out to the public to vote and that the public has, you

099know, voted. And so this is we're aware that this was not accepted and you can and then we can go on and talk about like the positives that we've done, things that were going on in our school that we're hoping, you know, obviously for minimal cuts and even if there is a reduction that we're doing. Um and then you know it's like you know I definitely can't we need to work with the town site for a lot of things because I think that is difficult. Um, but I mean I don't know if it's a horrible thing to just even say like a lot of feedback that someone has seen if it's been that not like oh it's just the town but that people are really upset over certain issues in town and a lot of

100feedback that we've seen that hasn't really been that they were really necessarily upset with the board of education side but that there's other things going on in the town that people are not happy with. Um, and without being like oh it's the town's budget, you know what I mean? cuz I don't it might even just be solar the town didn't even ask for honestly they didn't ask for a huge increase in their side of the budget you know so and I think being appreciative that they gave us the opportunity and being respectful of that because obviously there were people that didn't want to give us that opportunity which is unfortunate because the one year they gave it to last year it gets voted down but I think if we're respectful of that then that does

101people do appreciate that I just want to when you're done if Norin has Yeah. And then I definitely just Yeah. be focusing on like our schools have really been going in the right direction and have had all these great successful programs and we're really just wanting to maintain what we have. We understand that it's hard right now, you know, financially. So, we want to be respectful of taxpayers with their money. Um, and we've both been in my Yeah. I guess I don't know that there's a whole lot more that we can say to them, but I think just trying to be respectful of that they have our decisions and we understand that and that we appreciate, you know, as few minimal cuts as we can have because it's going to be decisions for us and

102then have to cut things for our stuff, you know. Right. Norine, did you have any input on Yeah, a couple of things. um because of the way the charter is written and the way that um the failing of referendums and whatnot works, we need to be extremely cautious about what we're advocating for. Um because you're you're in this area of it resides solely with the board of finance right now. They make the decision. They have a public hearing. They make the decision. we as board members cannot advocate to anybody to go vote yes. So it and because we're in this election cycle thing that's going on, we just need to be very very cautious because there are a lot of people who just like to take you and bring you to FOYA and bring you

103to the SEC because you did this or you did that. So, it's really important to be careful about when you speak that you are not speaking in your capacity as a board of education member. You're speaking in your own personal capacity as a resident and taxpayer of East Windsor. Um, it's kind of different before the first referendum takes Yeah. effect. Once you're in this cycle of this this three vote thing and it could get a little hairy. Um, the other thing is that I'm sure that everybody on the board of finance, they understand the same things that we understand. They understand that this solar issue has caused an effect on it. Um, and people were confused. Same thing that happened with the community center and the blue barn thing. Um, so hopefully they're taking that

104into consideration when they're making the decision, but we also have to be aware of the fact that they need to make decisions quickly because there are time constraints that are now laid out there. like they've got to make this decision Tuesday night because they need to get it posted in the paper in order to have enough time to have legal notices out to accomplish the preset date from a charter that was done 14 years ago or whatever. Um, so they're kind of in a crunch time, but I know they understand the same things that we understand. So, and as far as the stuff with like the legal bills and the I I don't believe that the issues that you see on one particular site in this town were the driving force behind the failure of

105this. There there's like nine people that's like nine people who are just in that that weird cartoony thing that's going on. I think this really was more about the solar issue and people thinking that they're together when they're couldn't be farther apart from each other, but that doesn't change people's perception and doesn't change their feelings. Um, I mean I you I'm thinking that I may put a post out there somewhere just about the some understanding of the solar is bad and I don't want it here either. But it it's not the thing that should affect how we progress as a town from budgetary perspective because it has nothing to do with it. Yeah. It's not really connected, right? That's more and you know what I I because well nobody watches us anyways but you know

106think it out here people you you're you're going to hold the line on this solar panel that has nothing to do with it and cost us employees who have worked here longterm who depend on their pay. We need to find the middle ground. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to formulate that, but um so it seems like every time we have to go through this something else hits that just conflates in information. Um but I just just make sure that if you go and talk or speak or whatever that you make it very clear you're speaking as yourself because we're in this wonky land of referendum going on. Oh yeah. The other thing I would say is if you have networks, personally, let people know there's another vote because I think usually the second

107vote is lower than the first because people aren't, you know, say they didn't know about it or didn't know the date or didn't hear when it was rescheduled for it. And now we go to a next referendum when we fail. Like not everybody's as up on oh the budget failed. Like I don't even besides my texting people frantically last night and seeing at one place on Facebook I you know I don't know how widely that is. So I agree with you Kate in terms of everything that's going on but I think our goal for right now because because after they our goal when we go speak as Norine saying independently is we're trying to convince the board of right for a number that it's not a horrific number. So that's I think that's our goal

108in going and speaking, right? Once we get that, you know, once we get whatever it is and it comes back to us, you know, then we're in this next phase of trying to get people to vote for uh the second, you know, the second uh referendum. Would it be, you know, I'm just thinking in terms of, you know, if there are donation cuts, right? Um, I'm hoping not. But would it be bad to talk about like, you know, if if this in fact these are the these are the programs or these are the things that could affect without having the money. You know what I mean? Could we? And you're not saying it's going to happen, but you're going to say that there is if there's less money. It's just that happens really fast, too.

109Like Norine saying, they have to make decisions Tuesday night. We find out a number Tuesday night and the referendum's only a week after that. We can't go out and say we're going to lose this program and this program because it affects people. I'm saying overall I understand that but it affects people's jobs and so we can't say certain things in terms of that but I also think we have to be careful in terms of how much we can I mean I agree with you to an extent but I also know it's been a very careful line that we've had to kind of walk in the past on yeah I mean I think the one thing you could say if there was a significant cut I mean you are talking positions without referencing what positions well

110that's what I'm saying Patrick so that kind of stuff it could affect you know overall it will it will affect staffing and it will affect program we know that yeah I mean so when you look at the budget um I don't have the actual numbers but we're approximately 70% salaries another 25% is special ed however when you blend that together special ed does have salaries in it you're talking pretty close to 85% so if you're not so you're not touching special ed because that's mandating so then you really have 15% that you can null dime and then anything else is salaries and staffing. And so that's really like how the math works uh works. You know, I think you have a very good point and I agree with you like that brings attention to people,

111but I do recall I don't know if it was last year or the year before we kind of went into that territory and it ended up what territory the territory of mentioning like um cuts and stuff like that. And then I I think it was cuts. I would say I would I would say I would say cuts because I think that's too strong. Yeah. But that it will affect it will have an effect. Well, I think on our school system need to say to I know having been and nor but I mean I mean board of finance as well having been a member of board of finance and being told that we're going to have to cut positions if you cut us. They know that. Yeah. You know, I mean, I I think I think

112going the positive route that some of you have been talking about that, you know, say the good things that we've done and and ask them to minimum amount of a cut. Betsy, my question would be, are you talking about saying that after they've already said what the numbers to try to tell voters or what are you No, I'm talking about public speaking, right? So, we're going to public speaking. They're considering what they're doing. And so what I would be saying is as as a you know I know I'm board member but I'm a resident and I you know I could I don't want to without like telling my you know my colleagues what I'm thinking. Well, I think you have tacked. I mean, you know what is I mean being an educator and in the

113education world, I think you know the concerns that are teachers and and staff and administrators and all that. I mean, I think like you understand the concern that could be brought up if we go too far close to that line of saying we're gonna not use the word cuts, but you know what I mean? Yeah. I think like you have tacked based on where you come from professionally. So I I trust that you would say the right thing and I want you to speak from your heart personally. I want you to speak from your heart. Like you know you care about children, students, staff. So but I do agree with Denise. I think that the board of finance does know that absolutely you know that that's what's going to happen depending Yeah. Go ahead Norin.

114Um, from what Denise said, it's absolutely on their mind. It's first and foremost and on any board of finance member's mind is that not only, you know, if they cut us, they know they're looking at people. If they cut the town side, they know they're looking at people. Um, and then it gets really kind of difficult within trying to to figure out those parameters because we are the bulk of the budget. we we are the bulk of the budget. Um you know the town side is nowhere near where we are percentage increase wise. Um so you know they're looking at it and they they're thinking in the back of their mind as well you know DPW are we going to have to are we going to leave as a police offic it's it's definitely on

115their mind. Um the and and I as far as going from the cut perspective, that's dangerous. That never that never comes out well because they know they know it and they don't want to be the people who who think they're being they're the bad guys in it. Um but I understand the the rationale behind it. Personally, I'm gonna hope be there on Tuesday and not talk about what we're gonna lose, but what we've gained, what we've gained that we we have made great progress in four years. Um, our test scores are up. Our Broadbrook School is doing wonderfully. We need to continue that and we need the town's help in doing so. Um, and that they they are in a difficult position. The other thing to to kind of think about the referendum is the

116day after Memorial Day. A lot of people are it doesn't help that it's the day after Memorial Day. People take extended weekends. People take um so that can throw a wrench into this as well. Um, and I I don't like to see the education side pitted against the town side or the town side pitted against the education side. We're one community. This is all of our money. Um, we have had our years of struggles where we were the people that everybody was yelling about and saying, "What on earth are they doing over there and what are they doing with all our money?" Um, so that gets really touchy too for me. Um, I just think the more we can go from a positive perspective of what we've gained, what we've done, and how important it

117is will they they take more from that than getting the opinion that we're standing there saying if you do this to us, it's your fault. We're losing all these teachers. that doesn't go over well. Um because there are six people sitting in a very difficult place um having to make these decisions and having to make them on very limited amounts of time and trying to do it in the best interest of moving forward and getting it accomplished as quickly as possible because it's very expensive too to keep having referendums. You know, it's costing us thousands of dollars to vote. So that's where I'm going to come from is more the the you know so all right thank you Nor Fran did you have something and then we'll wrap this I just wanted to point out

118that whatever we say I would like us to make sure that we justify or defend our position of putting forward the budget that Patrick gave us as well as putting back the tutor, the math tutor. Thanks. Because there were several on the board of finance when we were presented that were disgusted that we had not cut what Patrick had given forth to us. although he had already gotten rid of positions and it was a a very wellput together budget and that we did it because we have faith and what he has put together and I think we have the proof over the past three or four years that he's got the best interests not only of the kids in the school but as of this town and all the efforts that he has made to

119be everywhere and do everything and know everything about his district. So, I just want to make sure that when we do go in front of the board of finance that we go completely I I totally stand behind what we put forth. And I really wish that um not to put townside against school board, school side, but when as Norine said years ago, this was the group that was under the gun. They cut the hell out of us. They slashed and burned us. And I would like them to know that this is a different group. This is a different board. This is a very different executive chief executive of this group and that we stand behind what it is the product that we're putting forward. We're very proud very proud of all those and I progress.

120I'd like to keep it going and I don't want it to be lost in them the fact that we're we have a bigger portion of the budget because we have a we have more stuff that we're doing. It's more expensive to run a school district than it is to run a town. And I think that I agree with Fran. I'm I'm being a very pessimistic person here because I really don't think that pessimistic, right? Negative. Yeah. Um I really think that they're going to come at us. I really think they're not going to listen to I understand a lot of it solar, but there are other things that are are out there. Those people should come to meetings. They should express their opinions in person and not hide behind a phone. But regardless, I think

121that it's challenging because we carry the board all the time and it frustrates me. Um, and it's hard for me to go into this with a positive attitude. I I So, I guess just because we need to to keep moving. Um, Courtney, definitely, you know, email um Yes. Um, Heather or I if there's a statement that you would like to made it make and I'm happy to read it. If anybody else feels like they can't be there Tuesday, um, feel free to email um, Fran or Heather or I and let us know. Um, but if you can come Tuesday, that would be great as well. We would appreciate people being there at the public hearing and speaking and um I know Heather had kind of was working on something that um she was that would

122be nice. So, so can I just ask a question? So, uh I plan on being there and do you want if we put together a statement um do you want to see what we're saying so that we're in comp or just you know I mean I don't know how you want to do it because I don't think I bought that rehearsed and Yeah, I was going to say I know Heather was working on something that kind of hit on some of the things we've talked about tonight in terms of like percentages over the last few years and overall, but I think you should just, you know, speak to what you're comfortable speaking to and that we all kind of trust each other. I think we're all on the same page. Yeah. Okay. So, um we're

123now on new business for a vote. However, it is 8:42 and I know we don't have a ton left, but we do have some things. So, I think we're going to have to take a vote on um going past 9:00. Make a motion to allow the meeting to extend past 9:00. All right. Fran has made the motion. I'll second. Heather will second the motion to go past 9:00. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Thank you. We appreciate that. Excuse me. Not at 9:00. It's just that I have a lot this week, so I may just walk away, but it's I'm opposed, but I'll hold. Yeah, we just keep shut. So, underneath this for a vote, um I think the next two should be pretty quick, but we have an appointment um for someone for a

124the Rockville Regional Agricultural Education Consulting Committee. The name is Jim um Strefer. Thank you. Yeah, I can give a little background real quick. Uh so it's on pages uh 48 through 50 in your packet. Uh one is the recommendation from uh the department head uh for um uh Mr. uh Shrenford uh to take uh this position and um 49 and 50 are his resume. I did do a little research just in case there was questions. Um Rockville Regional Agricultural Committee has two um um advisory members from each town. The seats do not have an expiration. Um they do check in with members every two years. Um as far as re um uh staying in their seats, the seat was open due to a vacancy from Jen Stein. Uh Joseph Bongelli uh currently holds the other

125seat. The last vacancy that required a board a vote was 2015 and again it's the recommendation from Rockville that this vote takes place. I would make a a motion to appoint Jim Stford for Rockville regional agricultural education committee. All right. So the motion has been made by Courtney and seconded by Fran. Uh all in favor of the appointment I Any opposed? All right. Motion passes. All right. The next thing is a change in the meeting date for a June meeting. I believe um Patrick is planning a vacation. Like to go away next to allow him to be able to do that. Um so I would respectfully ask that the board would consider to hold that meeting the week prior um week of the 16th. Um obviously not the 18th because that's typically a board of

126finance meeting on the town side. So I think on here it says the 26th. I believe it would be the 25th of a Wednesday. I'm sure it is. So it would have been the 25th meeting. I think we're proposing to hold it on the n or no. What were you talking about? I just said a any date other than the 18th. I don't know if there's any other I'm not sure if sele would usually be the 19th. It doesn't matter. It's my birthday. We're doing Oh, you don't want the 19th. Okay. No, the 18th. We're not because um I don't think we can do it on the It is Junth. Yeah. I was trying to figure out I say girls like that. Would the Tuesday work for most people? Yes. I don't think it and

127Courtney can't do Tuesdays. So that's two out. But we would still potentially have a forum and it's summer and it's summer like agendas. Yeah. So, does the 17th work for a majority of us? Okay. So, we'll we'll try for June 17th. Want to start earlier that day? Yeah, let's do it. Um, do we want to start at six? Is that what you're thinking? Or 6:30? What is that? I don't 6:30 6. So 6:30. All right. So because it's a special meeting anyway, we can adjust the time. Is that the situation? It actually You have 30 days. So it doesn't have to be a special meeting because June 17th is more than 30 days. Is it okay if we do the 6:30? Yep. Okay. So 6:30 on June 17th. And then and we would have a

128meeting the week before on the 11th. We're just talking about moving. We do we need to have even the 25th. I'm just wondering the 17th is mainly um we want to have that second meeting as a hold in case is there's anything we need to vote for or before July 1st right in I was thinking like depending on budget and where we are but and also selfishly um I will need to get my um superintendent evaluation in too. So that's on executive uh session too. So potentially superintendent evaluation and concerns about budget. But if it's something that ends up that we get everything done by the 11th and we can cancel us then then just be unless you wanted to pay back. Yeah. Okay. All right. So that's all set. Do you need to make

129a motion? Oh, sorry. Did we not actually vote on it? No. Sorry. Go ahead. Make a motion to move the regular meeting of June 25th to June 17th at 6:30. 6:30. Second. All right. So, motion made by Heather, seconded by uh Carrie. All in favor? Any opposed? Thank you very much. All right. Lazison and subcommittee reports. I attended the last board of selective meeting with primarily um there was peaceful protest outside the town hall about solar and the whole meeting apparently was about solar. It was a lot about solar. I was at that meeting as long as I could stand it. There is the Connecticut sighting council is tomorrow actually. Sorry. May 15th say the 15th. No, it's 14th. I closed on the 14th. May 15th. Oh, okay. Yeah. Going. Can Can I ask a

130question to I think one of these dates? Is it before when are we supposed to get more information about the architects too that will be coming to us? The 21st. Okay. So, at the latest at the latest. So if we could you know that 17th that meeting on June 17th no we're talking about May 21st is the next ad hoc subcommittee meeting I believe and we're hoping to get all the final specs ed and information and then potentially we would be taking a first look at EDS specs on the 28th at our meeting at our meeting if we have I'm just trying to understand okay if we have them. We would be looking that at them at the board of ed meeting on the 28th. That would be and then um just as a note

131if we're talking about ad for a second. So, we would talk about um EDS specs and if we need to make a vote on some of the things that we discussed in our workshop once we've seen the EDS specs and now that we've talked to the ad hoc committee, I would be more comfortable in um voting in terms of moving forward with new construction because I was kind of waiting to see the EDS specs. I thought that was one of the things we needed to see before and know some of that financial as well as get in the number. So, right the number. Yep. Thank you. Um I don't have any other liaison or subcommittee reports. Uh just because we've already kind of talked about board of finance and policy um and other things. DIP

132is not meeting uh building got cancelled last two weeks end of May end of sorry end of April. I have a meeting on Monday I think or Tuesday for that. I have nothing else. Norine, did you have anything as far as leaison or subcommittee? Yeah. Um, board of finance subcommittee was supposed to be tonight. We had to cancel that. So, we were going to catch that up in the beginning of June. There was no major no major shocking things um on the financials that Ryan just put out. Things are trending the way they are. So, we're going to catch that up in June. Um, uh, PTO had their final PTO meeting of the year last week. I did go and I did ask them to please get as many people out to vote as they

133possibly could. Um, and um, they had a successful year. They had the the um the special person dance the week prior and they made like $2,000 on that dance. It was like that's a real that's a real big money maker for them. Um but they had a good year. They're they were successful fundraisers and they're starting to plan for next year. They're um executive board pretty much is staying the same as it was. So that's a good thing. Um and then athletic subcommittee we met last I don't know remember when we met May 2nd. Um, and we just kind of went over fall sports and we did have some conversation about co-op sports and that policy we had talked about and the that it's going to need some more data and so that'll be looked

134at in the future. Um, and I think we just recapped um, you know what what sports were going on currently and all of that. So um, we'll meet again in July or I think July. Yeah. I said a date. We were supposed to set a date. I don't think I thought I think we were supposed to like look for No, we we set one for maybe we did. I don't think we did. I think we were talk about it and then email the dates that might I think we talked about emailing me when you guys are available so we could figure out a date. Um Okay. Yeah, we we didn't set a definite date. We talked about Julie, but we didn't say date. We could be flexible. Our normal meeting would be fall during the

135Fourth of July week, and I'm not going to be there. So, um, y'all can meet without me. Um, so we have to get that set. But, um, and I think that's all I have. I Yeah. Did you have anything under subcommittee? No, I mean we did um uh myself, Darl, Allison, Tim, we did speak with CSG and the architects. We did um we did knock down some additional square footage. Um so I want to say we're somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 square feet um over. Um should be ahead. Um so um so uh Samantha did send a followup, but by that time we were starting to head in. So, we're going to review that, get that back. But that really is the final piece to the EDS spec. So, they'll have um we'll check it

136off assuming that it's what we discussed. I'll have that first thing in the morning. I didn't did we get an answer from the town about what they thought we would actually be able to use for funding. Um no, that's a good point though. I will say so Jason and I did have a really good conversation about um um um he was um um appreciative of the letter as well too prior to I'm assuming it was the same um once received because um um he was uh concerned that you know the board may be asked the entire capacity of uh bonding. So to recognize that you know there are other projects. Uh my impression of the conversation there was a little bit of sense of relief. Um he also thought um um now he and I

137talked like the evening before like the letter was sent out. So like uh um u but did thought think a similar letter and I think there's a valid point should also go to the board of finance. So there's like wraparound conversations. Obviously the board of selectmen make the recommendation to the board of finance but to keep everyone in that same stream of communication. Um so um um so yeah thank you Bill for bringing that up um because uh um so that was his suggestion. So, um, so it'll be discussed by the board of finance. Um, or you know, we could send it like if, uh, if Kate wanted to, uh, put a letter on behalf of the board basically. I mean, it's already written, but essentially the same letter, but address to the board of

138finance, we can include it on their regular meeting agenda share with the letter um, like board. So, it keeps everyone in the same loop of communication. Kind of a go. I can do that. That's fine. All right. Were there I just have one other question. So they talked about a new marketing firm. Remember that? Yes. That was news to me too. I'm like what? Okay. So we have a new marketing firm and I I heard that they may come home because I'm just concerned about again the materials like you know where are we? Can we get materials? You know how fast can they turn some of this stuff around? especially if we're even talking about like maybe distributing materials at some of the summer concerts, right? So, that's that's happening quickly. I would love to

139have that connection with them so that we could, you know, that we could find out what their scope of service is, right? and how f quickly they can. So, were they invited to come to that next ad hoc or I'd have to go back to the minutes, but they did that there um there was a reference to them coming to a future meeting and I cannot recall if it was board of ed ad hoc and which one, but there was a reference. Yeah. So, we can follow up and find out what the next steps are with that. Um that actually reminded me too on Friday um I did um speak to uh state rep uh Jamie Foster um uh because it came up during the ad hoc um committee about regarding the um the like

140impending uh legislation the 15% for buildings that prioritize free school um along with special ed and um I had made the statement our assumption is that you cannot like essentially double dip. Like if you're like you have a building that's accommodating preschool programming, you get 15% but then you can't you you cannot also um um that same building that's prioritizing special ed programming get another 15% for 30%. and she said as currently um uh uh written or and obviously it'll go through many revisions uh you can oh um so that was quite surprising who knows if that stays um but session isn't over but you know but June 4th we'll know or shortly after um do you know do you know if the link ended at 9:00 or anything no it's still active okay did

141you pop in and out or anything she just switched over to to a different device. It looks like she doesn't want to talk in jail. Um but uh so I figured I would just share that tidbit of information. Again, I I mean obviously um hasn't gone through and we still don't know whether it's, you know, what year it really will be in. Yeah. It hasn't been passed or when it would be effective if it does pass. So there's a lot of ball in the air. Yeah. All right. Um public participation. I don't think it looks like we have any public tonight. All right. Miscellaneous. I did despite the um outcome of the budget referendum. I did want to thank Jessica and Cheryl and other people who may have sat outside at the table at the

142author's day at uh the Broadbrook School and encouraged people and Patrick encouraged people to go vote to go across the hall. They kind of said across the hall, across the road. They sat out and everybody left. They said, "Thank you for coming. Hope you had a great time. Don't forget to vote. Thank you for coming. Hope you had a great time. Don't forget to vote. And even just sitting there for I don't know the hour that I was able to kind of join. Um I really appreciated that effort and I think it probably did get some parents over across the street that might not have otherwise Yeah. Um voted. Even people with little kids who were like, "Oh my gosh, oh yeah, we got to do that now. Lots of little kids running." And I

143mean that's one good thing about having a small town where there wasn't a line. I mean I wish there had been a line at points obviously yesterday. But anyway, I just want to say give some appreciation because I know that you know took time out of your day where you could have been working on other things. Thankfully it was a nice sunny day and you know some of us may have gotten a little a little sun but I do great too. The fact that you guys had all those signs out that was fantastic. Yeah, I appreciated the signage attention for people. Middle school, high school, and elementary school letting people know about the vote because that was more signage than was you know it's a second year we've used that signage but because it says

144today we can continuously so we can use them in two uh two weeks again because again it just says today. Yeah. based on the voters thinking about it. So it's 80. So if 40 couples had come or even 50 couples and they all voted the same and they voted for their responsible we just get some more people out to vote and maybe just try to get somehow more people educated on what they're actually voting. I mean, it would have been a landslide, I think, if we didn't have the situation like the school helping out with it because I'd like to think most of those people voted in our favor. Yeah. The town that we got to cross the street. Yeah. I mean, true. You never know. But I mean, some people obviously, you know, have

145issues about not wanting their taxes to go up, which I totally understand, but and not everybody I think there was one funny thing where the wife said she was going to vote and the husband was like, "I don't vote. I'm not going over there." But other than that, Actually, they did go in opposite directions. All right. Did you have any other miscellaneous? I did. No, I don't. Does anybody else have miscellaneous? Okay. All right. Next. We had some correspondence. Oh, sorry. I have a quick one. Um I don't know if you all know the um townwide art show is going on at the Warehouse Point Library. Um all three schools have their art displayed. I think it goes for another two weeks. There was a reception tonight, which is why I was late. It was

146highly attended. Lots of parents, lots of kids there. If you get a chance to to go into the um the library, but before it shuts down, we have some super talented students. There's there's phenomenal art in that building right now, all the way from kindergarten up through high school. And the um the art teachers who arranged all of this deserve our thanks. Um it's it's really a site to see if you get a chance try to swing by there. Yeah, I do usually try and stop by and it is always a good show. Maybe that's something we could put on Facebook too that we have. Okay, that's awesome. Thank you, Norin, for bringing that up. All right, so correspondence, we have um a few different things. Patrick, was there anything you wanted to call out

147in particular? Um I mean just I mean the letter that was I I think I shared that in an email. Um um so I think that um had already been shared with the board. Um uh the emails regarding the high school woodline runoff um that's probably something that you might have to put on a future facilities uh subcommittee. Um uh Denise um apparently um uh like along the wood line at the high school um there's erosion. It's uh creeping up really close to the fields. Um, so there's some shared correspondence as far as uh some guidance and uh Kyle's communication to um uh uh DPW. I had suggested that uh Kyle reach out to um Lenny as the town engineer for guidance and which uh as far as going forward. So it's something that will

148have to go on future. Yeah, it seemed like there was a little back and forth about who's Yeah, I was the ball is in or who like who should be taking a look at it. So are we hopeful that the town engineer will come take a look and make room? No, not based on that. No, not based on that correspondence. There have been previous correspondence by the our previous uh director of facilities um um and so like Kyler kind of picked it off but he wasn't part of the original conversations. Um so my suggestion was to reach out um but certainly to bring it forward to our facilities uh subcommittee as far as next steps. Okay. So that will come up again. Can I ask a quick question Kyle? Is it coming from the Connecticut

149River? Is it the river coming up in flood stage? No ste. Yeah. And so where it happens is after like like if we get um correct me if I'm wrong, but if we get pounded by rain and uh snow and um essentially it's it's falling off. Correct. Correct. Yes. But it's it's not coming from the river flooding. No. No. No. Does the back of the school does our property does that above the river and far enough back but not? Wait. Yes. Not going to go down. We're gravity. We could have crew. Yeah. Wow. Fran, at one point we were seriously trying to get that going. That would be cool. No joke. No joke. Years ago. All right. And then there was one about a student who's in a theater production, which is always really neat.

150And then um Oh, the pension. Um I did uh have follow up with Amy. It was a good conversation. Uh she did share with me that um uh the request I made um uh the pension committee uh cannot make uh because there is a minimum um the minimum number of hours is state law for eligible employees. She did share that um she doesn't have a number for what the cost would be. Um she's also thinking um at this time based on all the information that won't be significant uh due to the fact it takes a couple years before employees can be eligible um along with most of those employees that um are shortterm um because you have to um one um you have to hit um the thousand hours first and then you have to

151uh work a second year before deduction started. So you have to be two years fully in of hitting the time before deductions um qualify. So um so it may not be um as significant as we originally thought. Um but we'll have more information um when she gets an estimate from uh the group that provides that information. All right. And the last bit of correspondence was actually asking the Rockville program asking to come to a meeting and that's what they did tonight. So, we were happy to have them and that was a great presentation. All right, we do have need for an executive session tonight. So, I would entertain a motion. I'll make a motion to go into executive session. Second. All right. So, motion made by Heather, seconded by Courtney. All I Yeah. Um, any

152opposed? All right. So, we will go into executive session at 9:06. We're going to take a quick break if anybody needs to run to the facilities and then we will do an executive session. So you can stop the recording. Yeah.