Farmington Board of Education Special Meeting - 01/28/26

001I'd like to call to order the Farmington High uh Farmington Board of Education special meeting for Wednesday, January 28th, 2026 at 7:02. Um, can we all rise for the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag to the reps nationis? Liberty for all. Um, so next item on the agenda, item three, inviting and receiving public communications. Um, do we have the signin sheet? Do we have public comment tonight? Um I have going once, going twice. All right, we'll close public comment. Um next item on the agenda, item four, approval of minutes. Item A, approval of the minutes for the January 12th, 2020 6 Board of Ed regular meeting. Can I have a motion? >> I move to approve the January 12th, 2026 board of education regular meeting minutes as presented. >> Second. >> Any discussion? >>

002Okay. All those in favor? I >> abstensions. >> Yeah. U Matt is uh joining us remotely, so he's on a We will be right now. Right. Motion passes. Next item on the agenda, item five, consideration of superintendent report. Item A, preliminary special services budget 2026 2027. >> All right. Well, good evening everyone. Um, tonight on our agenda, we have two preliminary budget presentations that will help set the stage for our work together on Saturday. Uh, as you'll see referenced in the opening letter of your budget binders, the proposals to the special services budget are one of our major drivers uh for our work together this coming year. Our director of student services, special services, Wendy Shepard Banish, is here to share these proposals with you. In addition to the preliminary budget, Wendy's presentation will provide

003a nice overview of our district's programming and services. Thank you. Thank you, Superintendent, Madame Board Chair, our distinguished board members, our viewing audience. Um, so pleased to be able to be here and actually give the presentation finally with all of this weather. Um, I'd be remiss to not um thank my uh supervisor of special services, Molina Rodriguez. Um we did intend to present together but we had to divide and conquer um to be able to facilitate two meetings at once this evening. Um but she was a strong part of being able to pull this presentation together and provide the information um we're delivering tonight. Um, so what we uh what I will attempt to do this evening without her is to really bring together to you all the information in the data that will align

004this plan to really um put together a plan that is sustainable for the changing needs of our children and our families in the district as well as our staff. So I'm going to walk through just the mission and the goals of the department. Um, I always like to, um, compare ourselves to others and the other statewide and data trends that you see across the state of Connecticut, um, for children with special needs. And then we'll compare that to our overall comprehensive programming and making some of the budget um, uh, recommendations that we need to make this evening. Um, and we're also going to be talking about some of the legislative updates that happened um during the course of this year that also support these proposals moving forward. Um, I always start a budget presentation and

005how I practice special education is my grandmother has always been my guiding light and I always start every presentation because one of the theories of my practice and it stands true with many things is an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Um and for special education services and when we talk about delivering services for children, early intervention services and being proactive is always a better response and system design over being reactive in nature. So you'll see a lot of that through the course of the development this evening. Um our special services mission in the department is not different than any other department within the district. Our core mission is aligned to the um the global citizen and we want post-secary art outcomes for our students with exceptionalities with the same rigor and

006expectation to live thriving and meaningful lives in in their contributions to the community that we do for any children. So the buckets that you have that up there that we divide our department work into are the same that our building principles use to develop their school development plans. So you'll see representation within the um recommendations that we make this evening that will support culture and climate um academic achievement making sure that our students are accessing the curriculum and getting rigorous curriculum but then also teaching and learning and specifically for our department it means writing quality IEPs that actually allow children to access and that all comes with comprehensive ensive um uh programming, professional development, technical assistance, and our goal this year is to really put in place a system of general supervision to be able

007to support our staff and our teachers with the assistance that they need to um develop those plans and that programming. Um across the state of Connecticut, you'll there's lots of discussion about the rising prevalence rate for children that have exceptionalities and need special education services. The story in Farmington has been a little different. So, I've been here since July of 2024 and gathering the information and data, um we're really going to unpack this this evening. So even though the state we've seen, you know, rises from 15% to 17.8 17.9, it looks as though here in Farmington we've been flat um with, you know, prevalence rates that hover around 12 13%. Um but what we're going to talk about tonight and I think some of the um recommend some of the recommendations that we're making and

008some of the strains that we hear from the district actually looking closer at our population of students and their changing needs. Although enrollment stays consistent, their needs are very drastically changing and it's causing us to make recommendations that better support them. Um, and then you can see down at the bottom, it just gives some estimates there. 2025, we were about 528. This year, there is a rise. We're at 556 students with special needs. Um, across the state of Connecticut, everybody has concerns about the rising costs of special education. Um, so that chart just kind of captures where we've been from 2013 and that drastic increase. The buckets that are concerning for being able to support these costs are really the same in every district. Um, consultants to be able to support needs for students. um

009students that require outofdist placements is a rising concern and then of course they the requirement for specialized transportation often associated with those out of district placements because it is a trend across the state of Connecticut. the uh state of Connecticut um did some work this year and they did put together um a special education funding increase of about $70 million and we'll talk about that in a minute and that's being put up put forward in grants to districts to be able to support their programming. Um and we'll talk about that with some of the new changes in legislation. Um so with the legislative updates because of those concerns of the rising cost of education and control over it, there's about three buckets um of legislation that made a lot of changes. Um I've been practicing

010special education for about 30 years. Um this was probably one of the most active years legislatively for special education. really I parsed out the recommendations that they made in the legislation in three different buckets. One of the recommendations that was made um and originally when the legislation came out, the mandate was school districts will be required to in the 26 27th school year ensure that there is instructional coaches in every building who will need to spend 50% of their time being able to attend PBTs, support building staff with technical assistance and supervision, support our building principles, and um be able to monitor that. They they pulled back a little bit on that language and rather than making it a mandate, it's now out there as a recommendation, but that is in consideration with some of

011the concerns that we saw earlier. Um that $70 million that's being spread out across the state of Connecticut is um captured in the special education expansion and development grant, the seed grant. The grant was um developed to help create and expand districts either build or expand on their in district programming to be able to keep children in district and support their service needs. Um different distributions of that money were sent. Some districts got more than others. we have around $30,000 that those funds will be spent to support curriculum needs for our specialized programs which I will go into in a few minutes. Um and then of course the last bucket of outofd education is all around cost control and then monitoring and supervision for any student that is out of district. So, um, it's not

012developed yet, but in the coming months and into next year, the state will be looking more closely at tuition and billing and making sure that they are putting in place a systematic and aligned um, system of billing to ensure that there's some cost control for when um, there are out of district placements and to make sure they're leveling the playing field for districts. Um but the other piece of that legislation with that is districts are they've always been required but now it's even kind of doubled down in the mandate that we are making sure before we move to placing a student in an outof district placement. We are exhausting all our options in district. Um there are some re it's always been in the law but they double down making sure they've done like a

013functional behavior assessment that you've tried all your indistrict programming and you've really tried to support student in district to the greatest extent possible. >> Um continued on with those uh legislative updates. The other piece was and again on those outofd district placements really making sure that when students are in an outofd district placement that the districts are taking responsibility to closely monitor and support those students. So those recommend those those um requirements on districts we have always scheduled the PPTs and attended the PPTs that's part of our regular work but now there is um recommendations that the districts have to be regularly doing site visits ensuring that the schools are implementing the services and the um delivery of services properly verifying that the student is attending school conducting those site visits It's currently that that

014load is um underneath my case management responsibilities and so it's figuring out how to continue to support that with these new requirements and recommendations that are put out by the legislative updates. Um specialized programs within district follow evidence-based strategies. So in the district we have the continuum of services for students who have exceptionalities. Some students have very mild needs um and they can access the regular curriculum within the regular education classroom. We program that to the greatest extent possible for all students. However, there are some students that need more highly specialized programs and they're not able to access the regular education curriculum. So in those highly specialized programs, there are tenants of evidence-based practices that you will regularly find and that we do have here in the district. So you'll typically find that there are

015lower toteer student ratios. They need extra supports and more specialized curriculum that things that look like visual schedules or special um equipment to adapt sensory spaces. um assisted technology to help with communication. They usually have a higher ratio of PAR educators to be able to support those children because they have more special needs. Um and then of course all of the instruction is more specialized. So you will have more of the related service providers attached to those people be those students because they will require speech and language and OT and PT and then with those programs we are always expanding and supplementing and reaching out to community partners with the specialized programs that I'll um uh describe in a few minutes for the district. Originally when the district partner we partnered with CCS uh the

016center of um children with special needs CCSN to develop our programmings and they continue to be a partner in district. Last year we partnered with Connecticut behavioral health and we sponsored a um school-based mental health clinic here at the high school to support our students who actually needed access to clinical based needs. That's gone really well. um so well that we had some outcry from our middle school parents to say, "Hey, can we roll that support down into the district that is a partnership of no cost to us and but it provides a supplemental resource that's able to support our children with social and emotional needs. Um and and so that's and we also partner with Connecticut Behavioral Health in the area of if we need para educators that need extensive amount of training or

017to be able to support students with behavioral needs, they're able to provide those supports and services. Our comprehensive programming in the district covers our students from preK through 22. Um what that means is our children will come in and they might be identified we'll talk about it a little bit more from the state agency which is the birth three agency before they are even school ready and then we will have to provide them um IEP and services for when they are um of preschool age and some students require comprehensive programming that continues on through the age of 22. too um until they're able to graduate into an adult agency that will then support them from there. We have all of that um continuum of services in district. Um for our specialized programs, there are two

018kind of buckets that they fall in. Our specialized learning centers or our SLC programs support our students with um more comprehensive needs. Those would be the students that you would see probably needing the programs through 22. Um, and they usually have intellectual disabilities, autism, multiple um, disabilities, and they need that specialized programming. And then we also have um, specialized programs across the district to support our students with social and emotional learning needs um, from kindergarten up through um, 12th grade. So uh again those services require um intensive amounts of related services from occupational therapists uh our BCBAS um speech and language they all get provided with comprehensive programming for transition services and again we are always looking for connections with those community partners. Um so our SAL programs in the district we have the seed

019program at Noah Wallace um that gives you the current enrollment numbers there um at that age is developmentally appropriate to support them with play-based learning inclusive um peer interactions um that their teachers and paraprofessionals support. In the middle school, grades five through eight, we have um social and emotional learning programs, our SEAL programs. The enrollments are up there. And you can see we have the steps, the sales program up at the high school levels. And then for our students that need those transition services through the age of 22, we do have our own cooperative partnership with Simsbury for our Farmington Valley Transition Academy. And that's some of that legislative language that the seed grant was supposed to support for districts that don't have the advantage of already having co-op programs like that. Um those are

020the enrollment trends for all of those specialized learning centers, the SLC's um that we just discussed. And as you can see, there's some eb and flow, but overall we've got gradual increasing um enrollment within those programs. And then this is the context that I really wanted to dig into a little deeper. So if you think back to that original slide where we saw the prevalence rate increasing across the state but Farmington being rather flat around that 13%. Although that hasn't changed, the dynamic and the need of the students within this demographic circle has changed. Um, in my practice as an educator, I can tell you 30 years ago, the majority of that circle would just be captured with learning disabilities. You could and then those supports could happen basically by a special education teacher some

021push in supports in the classroom and the needs looked very very different. Now you can see the composition of that circle with an increasing rise um in in autism and uh pieces like speech and language. 68% of that circle now requires more intensive supports across the continuum of supports for special services. So there are more children now that require those related services. They require more of that highly specialized programming. And that highly specialized program requires a lot more supervision and intense support to make sure that our um staff has the support that they need and our parents have the support and our children have the support that they need to be able to um continue to devel develop that programming comprehensively. Um birth to three is a special group um and they are the area

022of the highest impact and change on the prevalence rate for the birth to three system is um the state system that captures when um a child might not be making their developmentally um milestones. So we all when you have the baby, the baby comes out and the doctor right away gives that AFGAR score and tests if they're, you know, moving all their fingers and they're laughing, you know, or they have a cough. My son had a laugh, they're coughing right away, right? The doctors can catch early on and then as they go through um their typical pediatric appointments, sometimes we will find that children have needs that are identified early on. Now within um special education, what we're finding is that children are coming to us more and more with already diagnosed disabilities. Used to

023be that maybe there were some developmental delays and we would see how they would do for a while, put in some early intervention services and many times they might even be exited from special education and they'd be moving along their way. It looks a little bit different now. children are coming now more with already um determined diagnosis that we are then responsible and obligated to provide an IEP at the age of three. Um and then you know you know better you do better. Our science advances we know more. Many of our children too are also coming in with medically complex needs where in years past they might not have been able to thrive but now with the miracle of science families are able to live to fullterm um deliveries and our children come in and

024they have needs that we're required to support. So you can see those birth to three that is the biggest indication of our prevalence rate but that is also setting the stage for the context of what we will need to support moving forward. Typically those children because their needs are so intense they will also be the children that are going to continue to need um supports and services through the age of 22. So, it's our due diligence to get prepared and make the most sustainable plan that we can to be able to support that those growing needs. Um, as a special education administrator and I was able to have the privilege of sharing with some of our new board members all of the responsibilities that fall under the umbrella of um the administrative work for the

025department. So that just gives kind of a glimpse. So not only do we support our students with special needs, but we also support our students that are covered under the American with Disabilities Act and may have 504 plans. The work of the department also encompasses um support for title N support for uh McKini Vinto, which would be our families experiencing homelessness. There's a whole breath of supervision that um is also the work of the department. And so really the story of special education numbers is not alone. We're supporting minimally a work of at least 25% of the population in the district. Um and that would be the workload for special education um special education administrators. So right now it's myself and our supervisor Molina Rodriguez. And Wendy, your numbers there don't account for all the

026times you're involved in pre-work leading up to potential PPTs, students who are receiving intervention services when you're consulting on plans with schools, uh, cases where students have yet to be identified. >> Appreciate that input and that's why I said the low bar there for the support is 25% of the population. >> We know how often we pull you in. We do. Um, once upon a time, and I'm dating myself with this, but in um, chapter 164, section 107g law, right, there used to be a metric um, that actually in order for districts to get funding, there was a prescribed metric for what the supervision should look like um, for a special education administrator. That language was removed from the law long long ago, but it's still out there for as guidance that the state will

027use if if districts have question about like, well, what should we look like with special education administrator? It was removed from the law because they wanted the districts to have more local control and make decisions about that. But the old metric just to have something to compare this to to used to state that for every one special education administrator, that one special education administrator should have a case load of 23 to 44 personnel. For every two special education administrators, it would be 45 to 74 staff or personnel to supervise and then add one more for every additional 33 on top of that. If we compare that metric to what we currently have in place, so Molina made a nice graphic to kind of just chunk it on 50. Right? right now presently we are two

028administrators that are covering a staff of 250. So just for comparison for the metric um so with that um our first recommendation is in order to create a sustainable plan that better supports the district we're looking at the resources that we already have in place and looking to expand and supplement on them. So, if you'll go back to that legislation about the instructional coaches, we already have in place within the district a department leader at the high school and three care team members. Um, our care team members are there for precisely those reasons that the instructional coach legislation supported support at PPTs, supervision and um technical assistance to staff. They oversee our specialized programs and support our staff within our specialized programs. In order for us to meet the level that the legislation is recommending,

029we would need to add one care team member to be able to spread enough of the supervision responsibilities um to be able to cover all of the schools. Um and then this is also support to our building administrators who are consumed much of the time with many of these PPTs. It would add a layer of support and service to them so they can return to being the instructional leaders of our building too. Um and then for the the top level, what we are proposing this year is the introduction of an additional supervisor to be able to um split the district and be able to have coverage for an elementary supervisor of special services and then a secondary supervisor of special services. and then allowing me to be more proactive with my supports and development with

030programming in a better support and being more responsive to families, to students, and to um our buildings. So, that's recommendation number one. The other recommendations come and they really relate to those students with those more specialized needs that require more intensive delivery around the um support they need for their related services. And what is good about the plan is that we've been able to offset these areas and use the resources that are already existing in place with some shifting of staff. but then also shifting of some of our financial resources that make more financial sense for sustainability for the district. So, we're proposing an additional occupational therapists for the district that would be offset by um reduction in a consultation line. Right now, we're using outside supports to support, but when you have so many

031needs, it just makes sense as a district to build your own team. Uh the OT would be supported by what's called a certified occupational assistant. Um so that supports that would also be offset by a consultation line. We're making a recommendation for a 0.4 increase in the area of speech and language um to add support and services there also offset by a the consultation line. Um, as I said, those children coming in have more intense medical needs, requiring more and more of our nurses support. Um, we're making a recommendation for.5 nurse um, addition to the district, which we feel can be offset by a reduction in a nurse clerk position. um the uh supports and services that we need around school testing and the work of school psychologists um is very strange right now. So,

032we're asking for an additional 0.5 position um for a school psychologist to um support Farmington High School specifically. Um that can be offset in through natural attrition just with the everchanging um situation with our PAR educators. So, we're suggesting a reduction in 2.0 PAR educators and then the additional care team member that we just discussed as well as um the administrator. So overall um the the additional um administrator one of the ways that we have learned to bring in more funding in the district is while the needs of the students are increasing. What has also happened is because those needs are increasing and it's costing us more to be able to support them. Children who typically would not have been able to be eligible to be applied to the excess cost grant can now we

033can now apply to the excess cost grant for our in district students because we have such comprehensive programming to be able to support them. And so we are collecting more revenue back from the excess cost grant that would be able to offset the supervisor of special education. So with that, we believe that this is a sustainable plan that supports our everchanging and evolving needs for our students and puts us in a better position to be able to be more responsive to our students, our families, and our staff and put us in a much more sustainable position that's supporting these everchanging needs around um special education. Thank you. And if I have questions, I can certainly answer them now or if you need to absorb the information. I'm certainly happy to be with you on Saturday

034as well. >> Well, thank you, Wendy. That was um that was wonderful and very comprehensive and um it's always great to have an overview of all the programs that we do offer in special education. I always feel like I learn something new every time I hear your presentation. >> Thank you. Um, so I'd like to open it up to the board with questions. >> Um, I have a few questions. So I only have the page numbers down. I know you don't have numbers on your slide, so I'm going off our agenda pages. On page 15, you have a chart where it shows the percentage of students in Farmington in special education versus the state. And I think it quotes that it's like 13% are in the teens. But then there's another slide there's another slide

035on page 24 where it says there's 25% of our students our total population are Can you explain am I reading something wrong there? >> No, you're not. And if if it's okay, I can go right back because I think it's easier to show it. So you'll see across the bottom, right? So you'll capture the students with IEPs is at 554. the um the information I was trying to capture for you there is that alone is not what we are responsible for as administrators. There's also a whole another group of students that have service plans and that's underneath 504. Right? So when you combine the numbers of 504 student and special education students, it's really closer to 25% of the population that we are constantly doing support consultation for. Um and then those little bars where

036you see referral, consent, and then eligibility that um talks about what the superintendent was just talking about is like we're involved in the process of supporting buildings, families, and students even before they end up with a plan many of the time. Um so 25% is just your solid paper number, but our our work is actually much more expansive than that. So when you're saying that they have a 504, so your work that you just went through is really only covering the fi the IEP section that bar like the 504 who covers what is that all covered in everything your team does as well the 50. >> So so overall my the responsibilities under my supervision to make sure the district is in good harbor with the law and doing everything they should is both of

037those things. Okay. 504 plans though because they are um a regular education plan rather than the special services team being part of that usually that's covered by regular education >> you could be brought into it >> and I and I am brought into it and I do have to surv um advise so as well as Molina so usually it is our school counselors that function as our case managers for our 504s um obviously there is responsibilities for the regular education teacher. Our elementary building administrators do cover those meetings and they function as case managers. Right now, one of the shifts in the proposals that we're making is removing that work from them and then dividing it out among those care team members, which releases them back to being more present within the classrooms and able

038to function on those meetings. But overall, the district looks to the department administration to be able to have the coaching and the guidance that they need to support all of that population. >> Okay, that makes sense. And that actually like just goes into my next question, which the care team slide that you had up there. So, I just want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly or maybe it it might be helpful for me. I don't know anyone else like is this is the proposed do you have what the current state looks like? So, is this all new or >> It's not all new. Okay. Currently right now there's myself the director the top >> and then one elementary supervisor >> Molina Rodriguez >> is the elementary and then is this whole um rectangle on

039the bottom does that exist already >> mostly >> four out of the five exist so the department leader exists care team member one exists care team member two exists care team member three exists and then that fourth one is the one that we're looking to add to recommend to add for 26 27 >> you're asking for care team member four and you're asking for secondary supervisor special services. So, this is two positions, >> correct? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> One would be an administrative position, one would be like a certified teaching position. >> Okay. Got it. And then I don't know if we'll cover this on Saturday, but you mentioned the seed grant. So, the state the $70 million. How are we able to calc like how do we get how do we get some

040of that? Like is are we will >> How much do you anticipate us getting? Like is there do we already have an idea of how much Bington's going to get? >> Yep. It's it's a little over $30,000, right? >> Yeah. >> Out of 70 million. >> I'm sorry. YES. >> I MEAN YEAH. >> YEAH. UM, you know, really the intention of the grant was to help support those districts who didn't have any specialized programming like we already do have. And then like the co-op, like we have the Farmington Valley Transition Academy, it's to support those districts that don't have that and encourage districts to operate in that way. Um, we can dig a little deeper and I'm not going to promise that I ever understand the algorithms that the state uses to dispense money. Um

041but that is um we've already been told what our aotment is. Where I know I need supports and services is because our students in our u specialized learning centers require such um unique curriculum, right? like putting the money and supports into adapting and really getting them quality curriculum that they need is the best way that we can support what we already have existing in the programs already. So that's that's where that money is is being allocated and then we access that the same way we access any of our other grants. >> Okay, perfect. Thank you for the clarification. And you'll see in in our proposal, you'll see what look like additions of OT as an example. Um, but as Wendy mentioned, we're going to offset that with reducing costs, hiring outside consultants to come in

042and do that work, outside contractors. So that's where you'll see like an overall addition uh in addition to the supervisor and the care team member, but from the cost perspective for our district, that's where the offset comes in. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. And actually, so let me just pick up on what you just said just to for clarification. The offset is that we're bringing a lot of those some of those consulting values back into house and building that. >> Correct. in building our own staff to build that capacity rather than relying on an outside agency. >> And and that is from my understanding of the legislation that passed through the special education is really to align with what they're encouraging districts to do that qualify for that percentage is to bring in house

043that sort of that specialized learning curriculum that is more um higher sort of has a higher level of need for the student. So I that that aligns with that ability to be able to apply for those funds to be brought in excess. >> We're not using those funds in that way. But >> that's what the legislation >> districts that are getting more of that money. They would not be allowed to be able to access the money if they were using outside consultants and support. So part of the um hope for the state in cost control is that they are encouraging districts to build their own infrastructure rather than relying on high-cost consultants. And yeah, and just uh to add to that, uh Saturday we will go in depth and we'll show you where that money

044is going and where it's being offset in the various, you know, uh object lines and and and you'll be able to see kind of that the shifting of the dollars where where it should, you know, balance out and be, you know, like I said, relatively cost neutral, you know, on there. And you know, to that point, you know, the the the other piece of that is with the consultation services, you know, when when you only need, you know, partial of it, right? it makes more sense to kind of outsource that and kind of consult it because then you're not taking on additional staffing and the benefits and all the pieces that kind of come with it. It just makes more economic sense to to you know to just go to consulting services. But then there

045becomes this point where you know this capacity where once your need gets up to a certain level it just makes one more financial sense to bring the person inhouse but then the advantage of it just also increases the quality of program because once you have like your own person they're there full-time they can build relationships with staff families um students and so there's a consistency in that right now when we do the consultation services and we bring an OT we might get you know anywhere between you know they try to assign just you know a few within there but sometimes you might get three four different ones who are kind of coming in and so >> yeah and just not and you know they're kind of in and they're out and so you just don't

046have like said that same quality of care as with your own so you know we've been analyzing that we actually started that last year with uh the first uh OT position that we did it and then we're kind of continuing there and then uh also with a with a PT position so you know like I said our needs have gotten to the point where it does we believe it makes sense financially and from a quality of programming to bring that in house >> and that's not to you know I remiss to say that like the partnerships that we have have been wonderful and we work with extremely competent highquality vendors but to Dan's point like at once upon a time I think that made sense for Farmington where we are at this point in time

047and that landscape that we change of the that we see of the everchanging needs for students it no longer makes sense for us to move in that direction. >> And a little preview to Saturday's presentation, you know, >> and I would say that the state agrees with you as well. Very much so. Yeah. And I would I know that at some point we're going to have our legislators come to the and this is an area of that I you know just there was significant work that was done in Connecticut around the passing a lot of these you know uh dollars and so forth for special education that encourage you to continue to um advocate for you know our district and and having those programming. I'm just going to go up the the chain here. I

048don't have too many but in regards to you know if you were going back to Angela's point about the the slide that shows the 25%. I just you know I think there's an opportunity doesn't have to be today but you know the level setting around what happens before those three steps about the referral you know I can't see from here so my glasses I don't have eligibility and all that you know when you go through it as a parent you realize the amount of effort it takes from the moment you ask for some kind of a request for you you know you notice that something's going on with your child you notice that there's something going on you're getting those ongoing call phone calls from the school then you're making that request and doing those

049to determine what is what's going on to determine how you know is there something that's needed there all of those steps before that even the IP IEP or even that 504 for those kids that are the students that arrive there you know are diagnosed or needing some IOP 504 services that is a lot of steps it is a lot of supports from the elementary schools or or whatever that school is this personnel there and I have witnessed it myself to see the amount of staff that are at those tables to help answer the questions, to review those assessments, to review all of those, it is a lot. And so I just, you know, I I I think that it's um we don't that whole piece right there needs to be more of an education around

050what it takes to get to those other levels. And so I just highly encourage in the sense of better understanding what all those steps are because >> our desire is to be as responsive as possible as quickly as possible to support that >> and then so the other thing that I was going to say very excited to see I was about the school behave the behavioral health work there and the partnership we have love that and I'm happy to hear that it's going well and I'm happy to see that we have this uh proposal for this pilot at IR for the schoolbased health centers that's another base there. I guess some of my questions for future as you're all developing this is that I do know through the state again there's been a lot of

051of um discussions around schoolbased health clinics and billable services and all of that and just you know I'd be curious to see how there's any cost savings to our own district around that around around that and also then I saw the ABA um and there was some legislation that got passed this year around extending the coverage of private and public insurance from 21 to 26 for ABA services. And so just wanting to you know how are we also I know that along with those special ed dollars I know that the state is looking to do a has passed some legislation around ensuring increasing the access to billing for billable services like that to offset some of the costs to the district. So just wondering you know some of the things that we could I may

052have some questions about on Saturday to dig further into but those are also offset dollars for our district. >> Thank you. Andrea, I got one. Matt, do you want to let Matt go first? Okay, Matt, you go first. >> Thanks. Thanks everyone. Thanks for your patience. While I'm remote here, um, hey Wendy, uh, thanks for this presentation. I just want to go back to the the, uh, consultation line quick. Can you just confirm for me what consultation services you're proposing to reduce? I wasn't sure if it was OT or PT or or a combination of of those. >> So it it would be right directly within the line that they're impacting. So right now um a big chunk historically in Farmington OT OT services were all provided by an outside vendor. Last year we made

053a shift and we brought aboard one. What we're proposing is bringing aboard our own team. Um so it would be specifically for the consultation for OT services. >> Got it. Okay. So just O so we're just reducing OT consultants >> um >> yeah OT consultants and then in other areas where there are consultation lines we would look to see where there can be some um advantages there to be able to reduce outside consultants and support in different ways. >> Got it. So just I guess a non-financial part of consultants, you know, can you talk about the experience and skill set of a consultant who maybe works for CCSN or Cheshure Fitness versus someone you bring in house? And is is one more experienced or would an individual who works for you know CCSN be a

054more highly qualified person than someone who may want to work for a public school system just thinking about the you know the qualifications of in-house versus consultation >> the the license sure is the same um certainly CCSN is a very expert group um and has been very supportive to the district um in developing our programs and overseeing our programs. They're still an active part um and and we we look to them to consult sometimes. Um the and then you know in in some areas we have to use consultation specifically if the PPT calls for it. Um and a student need calls for individual supports and services through a consult agency. We are we this would not impact children that have individual needs that the PPT determined is a need for a specific person or or

055agency to be able to support. Does that make sense? >> Yeah. I think I think what you're saying is if the individual student with the individual IEP needs that sort of skill set from CCSN for example that would still continue I think is what you're saying. >> Yes. >> Okay. Um just the last one par training and development you touched on I was curious I know we talked about professional development days last meeting. How does paraprofessional training occur in the district? Does it occur during professional development days? Does some of these consu uh consultants do that? How does that work? >> Yep. So, um as as as you know, we've been working hard to um launch the special education parent team organization. That's where we kind of divided and conquered. They had that. We're providing

056those opportunities there. But then it is the obligation of the district that during a PPT not only are we supporting the students needs but there if there is an area of need where the district can also support the family by providing an individual parent training then that would be discussed at the PPT and we would we would look at that >> para trainer. >> Oh >> par profofessional training. Were you now were you asking about par like pareducator training or parent training? I was but that was also good info as well. >> Yeah, I was I was thinking about the paraprofessional. >> Yes. And and we have done a lot of work on that this year to actually Dan has been in partnership with me to work with the union to convene a committee. We've

057actually had very planned and meaningful professional development provided to the paras to your point Matt and questions about CCSN that is one of the partnerships in the way that we partner with them. They have provided some professional development to our PAR educators. Farmington Valley Health District also came in and provided um a very um we got outstanding reviews for a youth mental health first aid training with our PAR educators and then um just with our internal staff. We're making sure that we're continuing to develop along those lines. So we've done a lot of work around that this this year and and that work is continuing >> and you know we'll take Matt we'll take uh advantage of you know like elementary conference days so when the paras are still working that day those days uh

058but you know the teachers and the students are gone we'll take a couple hour chunk there during those days and provide some training opportunities that are that are there so yes we look for PD days we look at for you know any of those opportunities where students aren't in the building but the pairs are still in the and turn those into training and professional development optimally. >> And we're required by law to do 18 hours. >> Correct. >> So that takes place on a blend of full half days, the conference days throughout the school year just like our certified staff. >> No, that's good to hear. Obviously for for the SLC student population, you know, that's that's sort of a high highly skilled area. So it's good to hear about the uh the background on

059the training. Um, almost all said, thank you. >> Thank you. Um, Wendy, I just wanted to commend you and Molina on um, your commitment, dedication, and hard work. Um when I saw the workload analysis graph, I was pretty floored. Um just know like personally like in my professional um job what I do and um you know just you and one other person support 25% of the district and that includes you know teachers, parents, kids. So um you guys are superheroes. So yeah. Thank you. >> What questions this? Um, so Wendy, the out of district cost control, that's one of those buckets with the legislative updates. I'm sure we've been doing a lot of that anyway, but can you talk about maybe different requirements or or how it might change under the new legislation for >>

060So I I am very hope so there is not a lot of um consistency for how private special education facilities built, right? Some are some are more expensive than others. Everybody uses a different algorithm or formula and they're really trying to level the playing field and make it consistent so that you can predict what costs are. Certainly um when we make PPT decisions, we try to find the best support for our students, right? Um this endeavor by the state to level the playing field really is important for all the students that need that required support to have a guarantee that they will get it right and districts wouldn't be reserved to not give a child what they need because there is no level playing field with the cost. So I am I am very hopeful

061with that. Um we of we of course take all of that consideration when we're um supporting our students. >> Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> Um I had one question um with the reduction of two paras. Correct. So paras how how do you staff for pairs? Is it based on IEP only that that a student is identified as needing a para or is it >> there are two ways? Yeah, there are two ways and we are doing a lot of work in district with making sure that we are making appropriate recommendations for PAR educators because um so good programming right wants to make sure that we are providing supports and services that make our children that will help support our children to be as viably independent as possible. So as they're getting up into those

062secondary years, they're able to access because not all of those children are going to have the ability to access an adult agency and be continued to be supportive. So they need to be independent. Some children we require one-to-one supports for PAR educators. That's determined through the PPT process. um we're working with the district around really collecting data and fine-tuning when that is appropriate and then putting in goals and objectives to the IEP that foster independence and continually grow. So that's one way paras are recommended. But there are also parah educators that we have that just provide more of um kind of like a continuum support or classroom support within the environment. Um, so looking at that that level of staffing and we've heard this since COVID, right? Like when there's like there's no bus drivers,

063right? And where are the really really tenuous places of of being able to provide consistent quality staffing? There is a huge turnover in the PAR educator staffing. Um, they're constantly rolling over. So we know through attrition in between looking at just what's natural attrition and resignations that are submitted to us throughout the year and then looking at how we're currently supporting students. We're pretty confident that we're able to pull back and support with a certified school psychologist and some of that work to um what Erica had pinpointed before around like putting in those early intervention services and making sure that we're supporting the st student early on is the more proactive measure to be able to support and kind of offset confidently that we won't be impacting students with that reduction. and staff. >> Thank

064you. >> Any other questions? >> Um I was just thinking about the thinking back on that the pair of professionals. Is there in the district is there like a differential in in jobs for pair of professionals like first in district program versus a related a pair of professional who might support a a student who is um you know included or in like a resource model. Yeah, there's not in Farmington. Some districts do, right? They they there is because there are differences in the levels and degrees of support and the training that's needed to Matt's point. Um we have discussed that with the union and historically it's not something that's been supported in Farmington. So there's not right now. >> Thank you. Any other questions? I just want to make a final comment. Just thank you

065for all the work you do to support our students with exceptional needs, exceptional students. Um, you know, yes, it there's cost savings, you know, to developing these programs and not sending students out of district, but I think more important is that we're supporting our students and our families to keep them in district where they can be with their peers and their friends and be able to um access all the, you know, extracurricular activities that are available um that they would not be able to do if they were out of district. So, thank you again for all your work and also for, you know, supporting the faculty and staff so that they can better support our students. >> Thank you, Ben. All right. Next item on the agenda, item 5B, preliminary professional staffing budget 2026 2027.

066>> Thank you. So, as a district, our greatest expenditure and also our our largest asset um is our people. And so, Assistant Superintendent Ruseek is going to share with you our recommendations for the 2026 2027 school year. Um, our team has worked through these recommendations several times, balancing out insights from school leaders, guidance from policy and regulation 6151, uh, retention of staff, all while making responsible recommendations based on current enrollment and student needs. Great. I'd like to also thank Wendy because I think she's going to have made my job very easy today and this report is going to be quite short compared to that just because she's already done a lot of the the work um of this report this this evening. I'm not turn on this um microphone. Um and so just to Jesse's

067point that he just uh talked about uh the the amount of our uh budget that is in people um is a very large percentage of the total budget. So you could see it there. In terms of the proposal, we're talking about 80% um of the budget. And I would say that the part that I'm talking about today is our certified staff, which is about 75% of this 80% which in an overall budget um is 60% of the entire budget is what we're talking about in this report today. Um, and so this is our professional staff staffing report. And I would just say that this is a preliminary um, staffing report, but it has gone through uh, quite a few uh, steps in order to get to what we're recommending here today. Um, I want to

068begin uh, with that process just a little bit just to give you a sense of the full scope of, you know, how vetted this list is that we bring to you. So Dan and I very early on in the in the budget process um we produce a book there's uh about the the budget manual like this and all the principles uh receive this and it kind of gives our forecast of the year. What are we talking about in terms of enrollment for next year and all those things um and we meet with each principal probably as early as November. The beginning of November is when this budget starts to become um put you know starts put together. So, we look at the projected enrollments, um, school programming priorities, and other factors, um, that affect our

069ability to run the school. And, you know, to Wendy's point, all the different needs that we have that we know of, um, in our population. Um, one of the things we look at at the elementary level, of course, are class size projections. Um, and so I have those, I want you to also at this time, um, sort of have these pages open. So, if you could look, if you have your board packet, um somewhere pages five and six are really the key ones to be looking at. If you have questions about how we came to some of the numbers that you'll see on the next slide, um >> what's like 34 and 35? >> Oh, you have a different different numbering. >> They're numbered, but in our >> Oh, online. So, so this report is

070numbered. So in the report it's uh five and six and in sort of on the screen you said 35 page 35. >> Yeah. >> Um so so that's what's going to make up um now uh h you know how we staff for our school for next year. We're looking at these kinds of numbers. Um, and so what you can see here already on the slide here, um, is that what we're proposing is it seems like a very large number, um, minus 7.4 district-wide elementary teachers. Um, and, uh, so I'll I'll break that down in a minute, but um, one of the things you should know is that that is well, it's that's really based on policy, and you have the policy in that in the in the in the booklet as well. Um, and so

071I guess I'll just say quickly here, minus 7.4. Um, probably wondering how we got to that. So, three of those I just want to say were not filled. So, for those of you who remember last year we had staff for kindergartens, we didn't need those positions. And so, that reduction um did not hit our budget this year uh but will be hitting the budget next year. So, that's not positions that are being cut. there are already positions that don't exist right now in our budget. On top of that, just given the numbers, you can see that we're also able to cut another four positions at elementary schools. Um, and that is just to keep us within the policy. And our policy there is uh class sizes of of uh 19.5. So, this what we're proposing

072gets us to about that number across the district, but it certainly doesn't um mean that every single class is going to be 19.5 or thereabouts. It means that they're going to have some classes that are small on the smaller side, some classes that are on the higher side. And in fact, some classes that we think are kind of teetering on almost too too large and we consider those to be hot spots um where we've I've highlighted that in the in the in the sheet there to say those are sort of watch those sort of watch areas where we would say um you know we might have to do some moving around of personnel um if those were to get to that number or even more. Um so that's what we're talking about here. But you

073can see there then um looking at that how we were able to get the minus4 other ones. So it's not up here at that's really in the in the packet here. Um but by you know counting those up where we're um you know down positions you could see that the class sizes are relatively manageable there and like I said it keeps us within policy. Um I would like to add to that we do still uh as we did last year um we had one non-deployed um teacher um in our budget and so that's already in the budget. So in the number that you're seeing there's one additional teacher that we consider non-deployed that would help us address any of these hotspots. So, it's not assigned to a school. It's not just it's not assigned to

074any level. But these are sort of we can we can watch it over the summer um and see uh which uh you know class at which school uh sort of pops up in population um and we could address so that that uh class could be more in parody with all of the other uh classes that we have. Um the other uh minus.4 4 um is actually a cut in it says elementary teachers but it's really a point um to a library specialist that somebody was getting um in addition when we had schools that were very large there was somebody who needed to cover a 1.2 that's no longer necessary they're able to cover that with a 1.0 Well, that was still in the budget because again, last last time we were doing the budget, we

075didn't know that that we were going to be able to um reduce to 20 or fewer um sections at each school. So, that's an actual cut. Um and also, we had asked last year for uh a 0.2 languages for Westwoods that um would have alleviated class size uh pressure there, but it's very hard to fill a point. 2. We were hoping to be able to put that together with something else in the district and it didn't work out. We never filled it. So that's not a cut, but it is a cut in our budget because it's we're reducing that FTE. And FTE, I just wanted to clarify, is full-time equivalent. So full-time equivalent, each teacher um is a 1.0. Like there a full-time assignment is a 1.0, but we don't always need a 1.0 for

076every position that we have. Sometimes we need a 0.8 of that position. So that would be a 8 FTE. Um, and so when I talk about FTEES or partial FTEES, they're just uh parts of parts of teachers that um, you know, we're able to to utilize in differently. So I just want you to know that. So that's really the elementary. So you may have been wondering when you saw this, maybe you previewed it and you said, "Wow, that's a lot. We really haven't been in a position where where we've cut um, you know, 7.4 teachers." Again, three of those being not teachers that we currently have, four of them being teachers in the district. Um, and then um we are we are asking for a point two FHS business teacher. So that's what we're asking

077for there. And um really uh our if now if you look at page I guess that's 36 in your packet and six uh labeled at the bottom um that will really show you that at all of our other schools at Westwoods, Irving Robbins, Remington High School um we actually have uh instead of declining enrollment, those are rates that are you know going up. They're going to be a little bit larger uh classes. Um but really this ask is um just in order to expand our programming there. Um and so uh we have a lot of demand for business courses at the high school and last year a new requirement for personal finance um became a requirement. So many more students are accessing business classes. So that took a cut into our ability to to provide

078electives. Um, and we have some really interesting electives coming to you in a board presentation later on in April. And we'd love to support that department and give them just a little bit more in order to to provide really robust programming in the area of business. >> And just uh sorry, just to clarify on that, >> uh, as Ronco was mentioning with like the Westwoods world language point2, it's hard to find a point 2. There's already an existing 6 atmington high school. So the point 2 would just be an addition to that. So it's not like we need to try to find a point 2 business teacher if this was approved. You know, we already have an existing point 6 that has capacity to to take on a little >> that's a good clarification after

079I just mentioned >> really good addition to that. Um and so as I said Wendy Wendy did uh a lot of the work for me here because really uh on the second page are the same positions that she asked for. Now, you might have noticed she asked for some additional ones in her presentation, but remember those are in nursing services uh and nursing and related services is the category you would see those in the budget. I'm talking about professional staffing. Um and so I did include, which doesn't usually happen because very rarely are we adding um an administrator. Um I did add an administrator here. Usually you would just see the teacher like certified positions and teachers. Um but because it's a certified staff, I did include it here. Um and so um and you

080know all the rationale for that. I like I said I don't have to go into the rationale for why that's an important uh proposal and why that became a priority this year. So you can really see that our priorities are aligned to all the things that Wendy really spoke about. Um but what it really means for us is an overall new staffing change of minus4.3 in teachers minus 5.3 but because I added the administrator here it's minus 4.3. um here that we're asking for for next year. Um you know, it doesn't when you see it in the budget, I'm just going to warn you, you're going to see it. You're going to say it doesn't say minus 4.3. It says a different number. But I want you to know that that just has to do

081with things come off grants and then things go on grants in different ways like pieces like down to the hundth point and go on and off of grants. So really what I'm representing here is what's the new ask for new positions not already existing positions that need to be moved on the budget into different categories just what are the new positions that have been sort of vetted through this process that we talked about gone through you know the meeting with us back in October then another one with um superintendent Janini in actually December and and and January um and th those are the ones that were the ones that survived survived. Of course, there's many more requests, but because we know we prioritize um these are the only ones that we're bringing in front of

082the board. >> Yeah, just kind of to piggyback like as saying, this is really kind of a staffing the programming piece that'll be Saturday. We're going to focus on kind of like how it fits into the budget, how it gets programmed. And as we know, there's operating budget, there's grants and different pieces. And so, sometimes there's shifts and movements that u that that are there, which then changes the numbers a little bit. sometimes a 0 2.3 that goes to a grant or gets switched over back to operating and and so we'll we'll dive into that on Saturday. But that's why it does get a little complicated because there's two levels. There's the actual programming and what we're putting in the budget and then actually how we're paying for it across the budget. >> And I

083would say, you know, so two two um main takeaways is certainly it does fall within the board's class size policy. Um that's the first takeaway. Um and then of course supports our students. Um but also another place to look if you are curious to know more about how does this fit in with the board's uh class size policy is you can use the class size report that I presented in October. That one would give you more information about, you know, how our especially well, all those schools are staffed, but also how the high schools staffed and um, you know, what are their class sizes already now because whatever it was last year will most likely be pretty similar next year because we're not asking for much more. And there um is uh pretty much the

084same. I mean, this year we have 1,500 I mean 1,255 students. Um and next year we are projected to have 1,256 students at the high school. So, you know, since we know that that um October enrollment report was acceptable and was in board policy, um then this would also be questions. I've got one. >> Andrea. >> No, go ahead. >> Hi. >> Thanks. Hey, just a just a question on the policy just to make sure I I clearly understand it. So the 19.5 is that the is that the floor or the ceiling? Right. So we can't go over the 19.5 in terms of student toteer. But if you were at 18.5 or 17.5, would that be a fit into policy? >> It's really the minimum. you know, it's uh you know, uh put in there

085in order to be fiscally responsible. Um so it's really a minimum and the board policy is very clear that you could see there the the actual average with this is a 19.3. Um but it's it's it actually specifies that you can round to the 19.5. And so uh that's why it could be at the 19.3. Um and um it also specifies it has to be across the district that way. So it's not like you can notice there that there are some schools that are small you know that because they are smaller um they actually then need that extra section they need like instead of two sections need the third section um but other schools then um actually have to be larger because they have more students but can't have as many sections because the >>

086right so if you if you kept if we if you kept all the seven positions that 19.3 would be lower, right? Because we would have more teachers to students. >> Correct. Correct. And we would distribute it out over more teachers. And I can tell you that each teacher actually represents.3%. So each time you add to the teacher, it's another.3% that would go down. >> Got it. But that that wouldn't we wouldn't be out of policy. It's just we wouldn't be as close to the policy number. Is that fair to say? >> Right. Yeah. Yeah. So for like for example if we were to add another teacher like we were going to use that deploy the ratio would now go from 19.3 to 19 to 19 to one. I put in two teachers 18.7 to one

087right. >> Got it. Okay. And just to again to confirm the so the four teachers as part of the seven they're currently employed in the district and would I guess is that one yes and no and two how does that look kind of if if this proposal actually passes in terms of you know who the communication and how that's evaluated. So Matt, just so you know, we want to be um upfront with our staff because we invest a lot in our people and and as we said on the onset of this, right, they're our greatest asset. So we I met with uh the four teachers this past week to to make them aware that this would be part of our budget proposal. Um but also that we are invested in them and something they don't

088know because we're talking generally about first you know maybe second year teachers is how much change takes place between today and June and how you know we see attrition from lots of different factors uh and that we will be keeping a close eye on those numbers throughout the coming months because our hope is that they remain with us and if we look back historically you would see that for the most part, you know, when we're thinking about, you know, less than a half dozen teachers historically, statistically speaking, you know, by the time August rolls around, we we're replacing that number for lots of dis different reasons, like I said. So, um it's still a little scary for them, of course, but uh they understand the process and appreciate that, uh you know, upfront communication and

089that we're going to be uh keeping them updated throughout the spring. >> Got it. Thank you. >> Anything else, Matt? >> I'm all set. Thank you. >> Anybody else have questions? Um just curious on the class size projections and then the number of sections and the average. So I just found it interesting and maybe there's a reason behind it like at Union School first grade has 45 students but you did three sections. Second grade would have 46 students. So one more student but you would do two sections. >> Would there be a reason why you would do that? Yeah, I think that when we have first of all remember this is it's not a final so there would be some discretion so let's say one of those grades didn't get to that number the the

090uh principal can make a different decision at that point if we really needed to that's one and two I do think that when we can we prioritize K and one classes being on the smaller side um when we have to make when we have to make decisions and prioritize um we generally think you K and one if they could be smaller we try to accomplish that. >> So that would be the same reasoning of these farms. So like K and second have 66 projected students but the K sections you would have four for a R like an average of 16 kids but second you would have three sections for an just >> right but the one the one place and I didn't mark it as a hot spot here but you just because you mentioned

091it I'll say it. The other one I sort of have in my mind as a as a place where we'd be really monitoring closely is Noah Wallace in first grade because it's a 20.7 and it's a first grade class. So in another grade um maybe I wouldn't highlight it but sort of because it's a first grade I am I am think it is on my radar. >> It's okay in one. Okay. And then you mentioned that this for like you know proposal is for all current staffing is filled positions. Is so every position except the kindergarten teachers that you mentioned which were three that is every other position filled currently or do any of the positions are currently out there as open positions? Are they do you understand my question? So like you mentioned the

092kindergarten ones. Those are obviously not filled positions because they never were needed. But is every other >> So we never did have to obviously fill the non-deployed. So the non-deployed is not a a filled position. I'm trying to think if like right I mean right now we've had a resignation and we're trying to fill it. So there's positions like that that are somebody who resigned which maybe actually in the was in the board report last week. So I know they're working to maybe fill it but actually maybe at this point it is still >> much for like the element. I mean, I feel like those those teachers are probably filled and those are like great teachers, but like I'm not as familiar with like the high school or IR Westwoods where there's these um you

093know subject teachers or all those position. So I'm assuming those are all included in here again whatever we had but are those all filled positions currently? Um yeah, the only there is one position that is um currently unfilled and that's uh we have an IL which is a technology position that's not currently filled. >> But that would be on here again as like >> it's in the budget in the budget again. Okay. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> Thank you. Next item on the agenda, item 5C, professional appointments, resignations, and retirements. >> So, uh, as of the time of the printing of this book, we did not have any. I do think we received one this afternoon, but we'll hold off on that for next Monday. There were no other professional appointments, resignations,

094or retirements at this time. But, um, our teachers do have a February 1 date. I believe there's some contractual language that speaks to uh informing us by February 1st. So, we're uh we'll be awaiting seeing what happens the remainder of the >> might be some hot off the presses budget book kind of things because we've already published and you know we've already actually gotten one retirement. So, some little shifting there. We're going to try to for Saturday give you the most up-to-date information that we have because it always has a little shift. >> We actually have more retirements than that. I think we have five maybe four or five retirements. Um, but we just at this time of year because they're coming in, they have that February one date. We don't do them separately. Um,

095we give it to everyone package after that February one date. We just say everyone who has retired since really the beginning of the school year that we know for the next year that is retiring. Um, the only time we would give you a retirement before that is if somebody was like retiring mid year, which could which could happen. Um, then we would give it to you. But otherwise we wait until um the date that that February 1 date before we report retirements. >> So in the budget then is it budgeted? So those retirements are usually tenure people that have higher that are at higher steps. Is that budgeted for is this budget include those retired people at their current steps or does the budget include what we're likely to hire at um backfills for those

096positions? So, so currently, uh, but we'll use this, four out of the five retired positions are factored into the budget for 26 27 because one just came in this week after we've already gone to print. We haven't been able to kind of, you know, adjust that. Uh, but we will we'll make like a little, you know, a kind of like this. Yeah, the step adjustment. And there's two. remember the we'll make an adjustment on the salary line, but then we also have to make an adjustment on the uh retirement contribution line. So there's a little bit of an offset there to you know we still usually end up with a savings um on there and then once again we usually have a placeholder for a teacher salary. So usually there is that savings where you

097know let's say you know top step is you know something over $100,000 that's in there. Usually we we put a standard teacher at, you know, I think it's like 75 $80,000 is our kind of standard rate. So you'd have that savings just like anything else. Sometimes you materialize more of those savings if you get, you know, a first year teacher out of Yukon, you get a little bit bigger. Sometimes if it's like special services or, you know, like an AP physics teacher, which is really hard to find, you know, and you can find somebody and they're top step and sometimes it's neutral. Sometimes it cost you a little bit more. Typically, we usually find savings on the retirement. >> Any other questions? >> Um, next item, uh, 5D, deeper learning update. >> So, um, including

098your packet this evening are the deeper learning updates, uh, from all seven of our schools. This edition features some information about a mentoring experience that took place between IR and East Farms EL students and an author visit to Westwoods uh who presented on the extensive amount of research that goes into generating a non uh I'm sorry even a fiction text. So I found those to be interesting, but there's more uh available there from all seven of our schools. Hopefully you get a chance to take a look. Uh next item, item six, unfinished business. Uh item A, budget impact budget update. >> So uh everyone should have received their 26 27 uh budget book uh for Saturday. So we always want to give it to you with some advanced notice so we can kind of take

099a look at it. Um we'll be ready for Saturday. Although I feel like we're, you know, kind of uh covered a lot today. that can kind of help set a good foundation for for good conversation that we'll we'll do on Saturday. But uh like I said, we can kind of you know, we'll walk through that uh line by line. One of the things uh once again kind of previewing a little bit, but to give you a little primer inside the insert, there should be kind of a list of acronyms of all the uh you know, we are famous in in education for having little abbreviations for things, IEP, PPT, FBTA, and all those. So there's a little handy cheat sheet for you that we would encourage you to kind of uh take a look. Um

100so we have that going. Uh other than that as far as you know kind of this year um you know nothing you know uh nothing significant to report. >> Thank you. Uh next item 6, review of the 2026 2027 school year calendar. I need a motion. I move to approve the 2026 2027 school year calendar as presented for a second reading. >> Second. >> Okay. Um, so we have a full house here. >> We do that. I I don't think they were here to hear about >> Go ahead. Well, so at our last meeting, we had our first read of two versions of the 2627 calendar. Uh, and the board asked me to bring back uh the version of the 2627 calendar with the addition of the Eid holiday. Uh, and so presented in your

101packet uh for your consideration this evening is that calendar. Um, since that time, uh, in working with, um, Veronica and our teaching and learning team, we did make a few tweaks to some of the ways that the half day professional um, learning time falls, especially in September. So, if you have the version of the 26 27 calendar from last month and you have the proposed one here, um, you'll you'll primarily notice those four half days that fall in September. We moved two of them uh from the Thursday and the Friday of that week to the Monday and the Tuesday. Uh and so that way we felt like it it just made a little more sense to have that soft start and then you know pick up steam as the week moved on. And then again

102just looking at the way some of the holidays fell in September, we moved two of those half days uh out of September and into the beginning of October. So overall it's the same calendar and again not that those half PD days are the big news. Um I think the good news is that we're bringing forward the calendar with the addition of Eid but just uh so you know exactly what you're looking at and why it might look slightly different. Um that is the 2627 calendar as proposed. >> Any questions comments? Um I just uh can you just comment on um moving the two early dismissals to the first day of school versus the last two days of the first week? >> Sure. So um just thinking in terms of coming off of the summer and

103you know kind of that soft start if you will where everybody's getting ramped back up and what those first two days of the school year look like. The the thought was is it would make more sense to have those two days be half days than the two days later on in the week for lots of different reasons and it's not a soft start just for our youngest students. We know even at the secondary level we're changing schedules. Things are getting tweaked in in terms of the day. Everybody's fine in their locker and their way around the building. Uh and so you know again just thinking about one of the bullet points in our regulations is the way that we prioritize learning time. And it seems to make sense that those first two days would be

104half days versus those of Thursday and Friday. >> Thank you. >> Um any other questions, comments? >> Um just before we vote on this, I just have a comment. I just want to thank um all the public, the students, um the families, the allies, everybody who's come forward over the past few months um to give public comment. I know it's not easy to do to come before a board and talk about what's important to you and um or just just to come up and speak publicly. Um so again, thank you. um you know, we've listened and um we're really happy to support adding Eid as a uh recognized holiday with a a school closure. Um so with that, um >> all those in favor? >> I >> opposed. I none. Okay. Motion passes unanimously. Thank

105you. >> So, next item we have review of the 27 2027 2028 school year calendar for a second reading. I have a motion. I move to approve the 2027 2028 school school year calendar as presented for a second. >> Any discussion? >> I'll just add in for the record that what you'll see when you look at the 2728 calendar are those two PD days moved to, you know, consistent with the 26 27 calendar. Again, I just feel that makes sense for us to start with the two half days versus end the week with them. And then you will see the uh two other half days from the beginning of the year back in September. And that's just simply because you'll see just less impact in the way that holidays fall during the 2728 calendar year.

106So we felt comfortable returning those to September. We talked about this a little bit just that as we move forward and continue to look at calendars, it's something that the teaching and learning team's going to be working closely with the building leaders on to consider, you know, those pieces of the calendar like professional learning days that we have a lot of control over how we might need to move and adjust to ensure that we have good consistency of instruction in our schools. So you'll see those uh tweaks again, but other than that, the 2728 calendar should look pretty similar to what you discussed uh two weeks ago. >> Questions, comments? >> I just wanted to recognize your efforts in that regard with the PDA taking that extra step in meeting with the teaching learning group.

107And >> we got very positive feedback. I think the the leadership team felt like these were good shifts and they recognize and want the same thing we want which is to look at the month of September and see some consistency in those weeks. So they were happy with the changes but appreciate the feedback and we'll certainly make sure they're aware of that too. >> All those in favor? >> I opposed extensions. Motion carries. All right. Next item. Item seven, new business. A authorized signers of agreement for child nutrition nutrition programs. Motion. I move to approve Jess Sidi, superintendent of Farmington Public Schools, and Beth Habber, finance manager, to be authorized signers of the agreement for child maturation programs, ED-099, and to sign claims for reimbursement. >> Second session. >> Yeah. So, uh, you're really just

108approving me as an authorized signer. So, but just so just so you're aware, um, that that might be when we're putting in claims for free and reduced lunch. There's various grants and programs we can apply for. You need an authorized signer. So, >> any other questions or Okay. All those in favor? I >> abstensions. Okay, motion carries. Um item eight, consideration of assistant superintendent of finance and operations report. A approval of December 2025 financial statement report. Motion. >> I move to approve the December 2025 financial statement report as presented. Second >> discussion. >> Yeah, happy to report. Uh we keep you know uh you know moving along uh with the budget. Uh things are looking good. Um you know once again it's always uh you know comes a time of year where Wendy and I

109will have ongoing discussions about any type of surprises or different things to kind of absorb. Uh as we know sometimes that could just be a volatile area. Uh but overall uh you know moving along uh in a good place and uh you know I don't like making predictions because you know something could always happen from month to month but overall trending uh trending well and we hope it kind of continues on that but happy to answer any questions. >> All those in favor? >> I opposed abstensions. Okay. Motion carries. Uh, last item is item 10, report a board chair. Um, the only thing I have is, um, I'm going to distribute the committee liaison assignments. Um, and I did want to just read them for the record. Um, yeah. So on personnel and negotiations committee

110uh James Rcliffe will be the chair um and other members will be Erica Noacowski and Anna Malik Kerr policy committee chair will be Erica Noacowski along with Angela Siani and Beth Kitner. uh curriculum committee. James Radcliffe will be the chair um along with Matt Damichek. >> Damach. >> We're close. >> Okay. Um and Haley Pelgrren uh communications committee uh chair will be Beth Kitner along with Matt Huckfagner and Annie Kerb. Um liaons for uh Crack will be Erica. FHS extended learning opportunities, Matt Hutbagner, superintendent, intercolastic athletic advisory committee will be James, Farm Bington public school foundation, Haley, health and wellness, Angela, uh, cafeteria advisory, Ian, town uh, board of ed town board of ed green efforts committee, Matt D, um, community council for equity inclusion, Erica, and FHS building committee, Beth Um and then Noah

111Wallace committee is um automatically district one board members which will be myself and so um I know some of you have already attended meetings uh curriculum um maybe a couple of the liaison meetings but uh going forward you should be hearing from either the committee chair or um one of the administrators um with dates. Um, and then the only other thing I have is we have the board event workshop this Saturday. It starts at 9:00. Um, but I believe there's going to be like breakfast items. >> Breakfast and lunch. >> All right. So, like 8:30 if you want to have breakfast. >> Yeah, I think we should have it set up by like 8:00, but yes. So, you know. >> Okay. >> There's an agenda in the um >> Yeah, in the front of the

112you got the agenda, but yes. >> Okay. And other than that, I don't have anything else. Um, so motion to adjurnn. >> I move to adjourn at 8:42. Second. >> Okay. All those in favor? >> All right. You're a jerk.