Amity Board of Education Regular Meeting - March 9, 2026

001home. Got three weeks home, went back and then helped take when I go back. >> Right there. Somebody between us. >> Hi. Welcome back. Good to see you, too. >> Weren't you on this side? I guess I just >> Oh, you know what? It must be where I do [laughter] my middle. Okay. But I was wondering which you would prefer. I mean I know you said for Rome to call to Shangh [laughter] today. So for it to be like almost 70. out the baby on >> you're going to see tomorrow start popping and then we're going to get a snowtorm. >> I have a coworker in Atlanta. >> Oh, no. I'm just saying usually you get like that storm. >> I know [applause] there is a March. >> Good evening. >> Family Board of Education

002special meeting for March 9th, 2026 is called to order. >> Regular meeting. [laughter] I guess we all make mistakes. >> Emergency exits are located on both sides of the back of the room. Please silence your cell phones. I remind members, staff, and guests to respect the business nature of our meeting. Comments may be made only when recognized, and applause is appropriate only in recognition of an individual, a group honor, or special presentation. Thank you. Please stand for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Next item on the agenda, approval of the minutes, the board of education special meeting February 27th, 2026 is on page four of the packet.

003Are there is there a motion to approve the minutes? Pat Jen second. Any comments? Any correctionships? >> If not, can we call the role? >> Miss Bradley, >> Miss Ingram, >> yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Dr. Cron, >> yes. >> Miss Lombardi, >> Mr. Reed, >> yes. >> Mr. Davis, >> yes. >> Mr. Mcdana, >> abstain. >> Dr. Ola Deleg, >> yes. Mr. Roose. >> Yes. >> Mr. Young. >> Yes. >> Motion carries. >> Correspondence. >> Pretty much all AI. There was nothing else but AI uh letters. >> Okay. Uh ju just for clarification and uh if anybody has any input of this, I don't know whether everyone on the board got everything that was sent to us. Uh so if uh you're aware of that, I um like to find that information out.

004Uh I know I received u 11 uh 11 [snorts] emails uh that were from one person on this issue and then a lot more from somebody else. Uh I think over 20. So is that about the number? Yeah. >> Okay, that's good. >> And from what I can, every one is going to the B board of ed address. So, everybody should have received those. Um I didn't see any that were going to say the individual [clears throat] address where it would have gone to say Mr. Davis and not anybody else. >> I got them individually to my personal email. >> So, that that's that's a different topic for another day. Right. Uh and as as far as correspondence with board members go, um board members would appreciate if you kept your board business to our

005board emails. Uh I also received something on a personal email and uh board information is public record and if you're mailing a board member on an issue regarding the school district uh or something about the school district, that should be part of public record. uh and there is exposure for board members if you get information on your private email about the district and respond. So if everybody keeps that in mind uh you could be asked to get your private emails and be part of a uh requirement to uh make that public. All right. Uh we go from uh correspondence to uh number five uh discussion and possible action recommending policy committee to develop a policy on artificial intelligence and prioritize it as a first order of business. Uh all of you th this was not

006something that uh I put on the agenda. Uh well I did but it was done as a result of um requests by several members of the board. All of us are aware that uh we've received uh quite a bit of information uh about AI and concerns and very honestly I think almost all the board members here do have concerns. Uh where we place the information about addressing those concerns is what this is all about. So, we're going to ask that we focus on the fact that we have a motion here to develop a policy uh which means we're sending it to the uh policy committee and uh also uh reflect a little bit about what should be in that policy. >> Was there a motion, Paul? >> There not yet. All right. >> I'll make

007a motion to uh that we recommend that the policy committee develop a policy on artificial intelligence and prioritize it our first order of business at our next meeting. >> Thank you. >> I apologize. I should have done that first. >> All right. So >> uh so what what I'd like to ask all the board members is uh please try and focus on >> the motion. >> We vote. >> Okay. >> No, we vote. We're going to vote after after the discussion. was his discussion time. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Uh and uh I'm try try [clears throat] not to go into anything but your particular concerns and why you feel that should be part of what's the policy. And for many of our new members, policy is the way we express the guidelines for everything

008that goes on in the district. And uh it's the strongest statement that we can make in expressing how the board feels when we're running things. All right. So Jen >> um so for this policy I think it's really important that there are two pieces within the policy. Um one piece is related to grading with AI. We are being told that there is no grading. Um the teachers are told there's no grading but students are telling [clears throat] us that there is. So, I think there needs to be a very clear piece of the policy that says that there will be no grading and perhaps also a way for students to report if they feel that they are being graded. Um, I'm wondering if there's a little bit of a miscommunication about grading versus assessment. Um,

009and having that sort of policy where they can say, "Hey, I think I'm being graded." And then administration or a teacher can come back and say, "No, that's not grading. That's assessment." And maybe that's a discussion that can happen with the student. Um, and then the other piece I think needs to be in the policy is an opting out option for students. Um, I think students should be allowed to opt out for moral reasons, um, for concerns about the environment, um, and data privacy reasons. Um, and it's possible that that's students have the option to opt out or parents have the option or both. Um, but I think it's something the policy committee should discuss. And then the last piece that I want to bring up is um I think that in the interim while

010a policy is being created, we should have the option or we should implement um chat bots being paused, the use of chat bots in these tools being paused until a policy is created. I think that's the one area that is concerning and potentially uh dangerous and and maybe it's not part of the policy. Maybe it's a some sort of a disclaimer, but I I'm concerned about the board and the school's liability of students using chat bots while we do not have a good policy in place. >> Jen, can I ask you to clarify something when you talk about grading? Mhm. >> Um, are you talking about absolutely no AI to be used in any type of grading or are you talking about I I think my my concern was that uh are we talking about

011strictly saying uh we can't turn our grading system over to any type of artificial intelligence because the school district does not permit that to begin with. Uh I think that's part of our guideline. Uh but it's not clear to many people. So that's I agree that has to be >> I think if it's a learning tool where there's an assessment portion of it, I think that's acceptable. I think that's very different from a learning tool where that assessment then is used to grade a student. Um if a if a teacher is looking at that and saying you you know you didn't perform well, therefore you get a bad grade, I think there's open for bias and and concern with that. Um and while we don't have a policy, I think for right now it should

012be absolutely no. and then maybe once there's a policy there can be more um clarity with that. >> Thank you. >> And you were very succinct and you did a good job in time. >> Carol, I >> I just have a follow-up question for Jen. When you uh mentioned the opt out >> portion that you're suggesting, is that students opting out of using it? Should it be incorporated in a classroom activity or or a lesson or >> Yeah. don't want any part of my I don't know whatever I'm turning in. >> Yeah. So, I don't think it's um acceptable that students don't learn about AI and how to use it, but I think if they don't want to use the tool that's being used, they can be given another there's lots of other tools that

013don't use AI first of all. Um or the teachers can have a different lesson for that, you know, a different implement a different lesson plan for them. Um [clears throat and cough] that's sort of where I was thinking with the opt out is either they get a different lesson or they use a different tool. >> Thank you. >> Um I guess for me like my question is like where does the line get drawn? Like for example if a student is opting out like does that mean that they also opt out of any assignments that the teacher created using the aid of AI? Like for me like because I think that if you have a moral objection to like for example the environmental use of AI like I think that some people might for example then

014be like I don't want to have anything to I don't want to be even complicit or associated with this tool that I think poses questions about like where that line gets drawn and how that would affect how teachers can really feasibly use AI in the classroom. I imagine that there will be a teacher policy and a student policy. So that might be something to talk about with the teacher policy. I don't know that we can opt out of lesson planning by AI unfortunately. But maybe the policy for the teachers can have something in there of responsible or minimal or you know something like that. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So two things um in addition that I think should be included in a policy is disclosure. Um, so a lot of example policies I saw

015online required disclosure. And to your point, there's likely going to be a educator piece and a student piece. [clears throat] So when you are using AI, you need to disclose what was used, how it was used. Um, and then um, we should probably given how rapidly evolving it is have a time frame with which we will revisit the policy. I would think at least on minimum of an annual basis at this point, if not even like maybe each semester. Um, and I lied. I had a third. [clears throat] One of the other things that I saw in a lot of the sample policies were sort of like um levels. So a teacher might give an assignment and say like this is a level zero AI assignment which means it cannot I'm going to mix up

016maybe the direction that went but at one extreme it's AI cannot be used at all at the other you know and then it might be can be used for idea generation can be used for you know there were varying degrees as to which and at the outset of an assignment a teacher would indicate you know what level of assignment this was. >> Very good. Thank you. And ju just a second Dr. Buyers uh a question uh which may explain something for everyone. [clears throat] Uh how come we don't have a policy yet? >> Um primarily because policy is so fixed and AI is changing so quickly. So we do have student guidelines which will probably be the basis of regulations that are student facing. We have teacher guidelines that will be the basis of the

017regulation that are teacher facing but and and we've been we update them we go to training three months later we're like oh we need to add this or change this or you know address this. So um a big part of it has been that we have just been using very fluid guidelines so far because the policies which are fixed are are just not responsive enough to to it. I basically um the policies that I've looked at even things like the levels I can see those as part of regulations. Um it's it's the and again you know you guys have looked at policy enough it's a big broad umbrella. It's really gonna we're really going to address this through the regulations that go behind the policy because like I said, you know, we six months after

018we go to one training, we go to a different one and we realize we have to have these other things in place. Um or take some things out because they don't even apply anymore. Um so that's pretty much why >> for what it's worth, like I talked to a friend who's a professor at a university and I asked her, I was like, "What is y'all's policy?" and she goes, "Well, we don't have one yet." Because so like many universities are in the same boat. Yeah. Just to be clear, >> somebody who teaches >> go ahead. So Paul um or Jen, I think it would be helpful if we could just see those policies because there's so much lack of clarity as to what we're doing today and they would at least be a foundation for

019the policy committee. [clears throat] Right. >> So a lot of the noise is lack of clarity. Yeah, I think I have emailed those to the board, but I'll do it again. >> Thank you. >> So, I think we have policies which are somewhat similar to >> I think we had definition. I don't think we had policy, >> right? >> We don't have policy. you do have uh and and for clarity uh what I mailed to the board knew uh almost I think it's almost a month and a half ago that we we need to have a statement about grading that's much clearer than what our uh um guidelines are because that kind of leaves it up to a lot of uh um decision as to what really can be done >> and I think since

020then we we've edited what we have so yep >> okay Right. Can I >> Yes, sure. >> So there are a few things like you know obviously I teach this uh to students uh you know I teach AI, I teach how to use AI, I do research on what it does for inequality what is bias all of these issues that all the students are very concerned about and uh so it's something that I spend a lot of time and I've been doing it since the time ch has arrived on the scene and so I I I want to say a few things. First I think what we said about grading I think it's clearly something that we uh you know should have clear guard rails against it like you know meaning again not not that

021for feedback it's obviously useful clearly it's a tool for learning but we something is entering power school we do want somebody to do this I think that is our policy if there is a misunderstanding or there is a lack of communication I think we should clearly clarify it uh students shouldn't have to go and fight about it right and so perhaps there is a system where I think you referred to this as Well, right like you know maybe we have a system where if students have a complaint let it go through a common system so that we can have schoolwide intelligence and knowledge around what are the complaints that are there so that everybody knows what's going on rather than like something that feels a little bit more private and then you know students are

022battling it. So those I think are [clears throat] are definitely things that we can agree on. uh you know uh the thing that was mentioned was about the issue of like you know let's have uh uh the opt out problem opt out as an option I worry a lot about that because what's the dividing line for opt out on any other issue that we are going to have and you know how do we decide and do how much knowledge do we have how much this thing do we have so that to me sounds like there are policy regulators at very many levels is talking about it. Cape might be one. There might be others who are thinking about it. We really have to follow something much higher than us with our limited knowledge, limited experience

023kind of trying to come up with a policy that I don't think is going to be that optimal for either the students or those things. So my view is that it's a it's a it's a reasonable request. I don't know and some of the arguments about climate etc. are completely you know not entirely correct. If you are going to use AI for and it cost you 10 more than a Google search, it also saves you a lot of work. People don't go to uh consulting with doctors and things like that. So the full effect of climate has not really been accounted for. And so for us to take a moral posture on this at this point where the information on this is very fluid, I don't think this is something that I I teach and

024I talk about like you know calculating and so on. So a lot of numbers out there. [cough] The instance of racial bias that article that was shared with us that sounds very that headline was written in a way that was like you know try to build emotion right but if you really looked at the data if you looked at what the prompt was given it was easy to see that the prompt actually almost got you the the kinds of problems that you have. And so we are not experts and you know I may consider myself an expert but I don't think I'm an expert on policy and regulation and all of this stuff but most of us are not. We should we should have some general idea but we also need to have a lot

025of humility in what we think we can do about this. And so I I come to this as you know in a [clears throat] uh not in an adversarial way like you know I don't want the students to feel like you know we are not responding. I would like us to be collaborative that the community, the teachers and the board, everyone looks at it in a very reasonable way and try to do what is best for our students and like you know and the and it is not at all obvious that the solutions that are proposed are actually good for our students. So I just wanted to say that like the opt- out stuff is much more tricky and I want to say that like I like the fact that the student is an AI

026counselor. Very few people have the humility and the willingness to kind of try to learn and understand what is a leading edge technology. The fact that our teachers are willing to learn, our students are willing to learn, our administrators, they're not getting everything right and we should not agree believe that we are getting everything right. We should be willing to learn. Uh but we should be willing to continue to learn. So this is something I'm very passionate about because I teach this all the time. I tell the students what is all the problems I list out. I'm going talking about AI in education. and I go to the social and public health schools and like lecture about how AI causes inequality. I do all of that every month and yet I don't think the solutions

027that are being proposed is right. So sorry for the long speech and the rant. >> Thank you Dana. >> I agree with what everyone said and what everyone's bringing. Um, we've heard from the students and I'd love to hear what a teacher's feelings are on this because I think their feelings are very important because whether we like it or not, AI is kind of like the calculator and the computer. We We're not going to be able to fight it and not embrace it. It's coming. It's here. We, you know, we couldn't fight the computer. I mean, look where we are now. Like, we really had to embrace it. And I'm probably the least I'm not embracing AI at all, but I'm going to have to because it's in it's here. So I think I'd love

028to hear from the teachers point of view. We know what the students point of view are. They've told us everything. I think all these comments really should be brought into the policy and I think policy really has to work on a really good policy that is workable that we can go back to every year. But I'd love to hear what the teachers have to say because they're in this. >> Okay. Don >> I was going to say um I respect everyone's opinion and time and the students um bringing it to the board's attention. I think that we need to seriously consider opt out. I believe that AI is a tool and it's a flawed tool from hallucinations to inappropriate feedback to there's many risks and I think it's something that you should definitely look at

029with caution just like social media. You don't want to be 10 [clears throat] years down the line and oh no, what did we do? So I think we need to maybe sort of jumping in the pool, maybe dipping our toe in first and definitely setting up guard rails and a code of ethics that is acceptable to all users and opting out I think definitely should stay in the policy. >> Thank you. Uh, Carol. >> Um, so just want to say that I agree with a few of the points that have been made and particularly particularly the one that Sudier made about us approaching this with humility. So my stance may be a little bit different as it concerns like this student population. So, you know, I too teach at the collegiate level and it's I'll

030say that policies are just not quite there anywhere. At least not that I've seen. So, I don't think that we should have any idea that we're going to look to some model policy anywhere. I I haven't seen a model policy anywhere. I I think it's going to come down to what we decide we want for our students. I do have a concern about AI is not going anywhere, right? AI has been around forever. Adaptive testing, the SAT, I mean that's that's AI, right? Like we've been doing that for forever. There are many examples of how AI is used that we don't think about because it wasn't chat GBT. Um, but I'm concerned about the use of AI and no guardrails for this particular age group because it's different. When I'm teaching my college students and

031I'm like, are you using a AI and they have to like have a disclosure? I use AI for blah blah blah blah blah. They've been to college, right? They have a degree. Like these kids are learning. Like this is like a real formative learning time for students. So that's that'll be my concern. And I, you know, I'll tell you that I'm going to bring these concerns to to policy as I'm on the committee, but my concern is like the age group and the appropriateness and you [snorts] know, where do we and I'm not saying this to say like, oh, we can't use it at all, but like I'm I I'll tell you I'm going to be a little bit more conservative about this because of the age of our students. >> Finish up. >> Yep.

032I think related to that, um, a lot of times as a more wealthy school district, we are on the cutting edge. And I think in a lot of ways that's phenomenal, but the downside of that can sometimes be that the students are the guinea pigs. And I think that with AI, that's a little bit of what's happening where we have some tools that are we're not paying for that are free versions. Some teachers are using something, some teachers are using others. you know, some people, some teachers are using one version and another version. It's it's just it's a little bit too quick with our students then being the ones that it's tested on. So, that's my concern when you're talking about the age group is that we want to be on the cutting edge, but

033with these tools that are not fully tested, it makes me very nervous. So, >> so one more thing, Paul, I'd like I'd like to just understand the terms of use, too. We talk about it's free, but where is the student data going? Is it being [clears throat] used? I mean, nothing's ever free. >> Oh, okay. So, >> right. So, to that, I'm I'm very conservative with AI as well. I really don't support it for grading. I don't really support it for feedback either. I think that it really needs to be reigned in. >> Well, unfortunately, >> well, I'm on policy as well, >> right? Unfortunately, the result AI is a result of human thought and none of us are perfect. So, we're going to do just what we do. We pass it on to AI

034and it's not perfect. And I I I've yet to hear of a platform that is perfect. They all have problems. So, going out and buying different software and expecting a different result is not easy an easy thing to do. Our software and this was an issue for our students uh is vetted very carefully. uh we get uh information and recommendations from the state and that's that's another thing we haven't even put in uh [clears throat] the thought into is we're going to have coming down from the state statutes about what we have to do with AI department of education will send down information about regulations and uh we may see next year coming down say we have to give um our students uh uh a half a credit uh of uh work in uh educa

035AI education. So, we've got a lot of stuff to do and uh I think we're good at finishing this off now. I appreciate all the comments. Great comments and uh I wish the uh chair and the rest of the policy committee very good luck. And I I want to say something uh that that was a concern to some of our students. policy is very important to this school district. And when we say we're going to develop a policy, it means that we are going to work on it extremely hard and we're not going to put things in a in a closet and say, "Okay, that's our policy." Uh so uh I want to assure the students that when we put it to policy we work on it and make sure it's being used for the

036school district that to the best of our ability. >> So Paul can I just clarify one thing? So >> and maybe some of us are aware of this but not all of us. I think one of the things that is happening as AI evolves rapidly is there's not just like this is AI software and this is not. Um, what we're seeing happen a lot, for example, is like in digital media, the kids use Canva. Canva used to just be this photo editing and like graphic design software. Now it has an AI feature that helps you generate AI images, right? Like even in our own Microsoft interface, there's now, you know, one click for copilot. So it's not as simple as saying like these are AI things and these are not. Everything is now integrated. So

037we have to be aware of that. Okay. Uh, can we vote on the motion to send it uh as stated to uh policy? >> Miss Bradley? >> Yes. >> Miss Cloud Ingram? >> Yes. >> Mr. D? >> Yes. >> Dr. Kronicon? >> Yes. >> Miss Lombardi? >> Yes. >> Mr. Reed? >> Yes. >> Mr. Davis? >> Yes. >> Mr. Mcdana? >> Yes. >> Dr. Olive? >> Yes. >> Muse? >> Yes. >> Miss Schlake? >> Nope. Sorry. Miss Schustster. >> Yes. >> Mr. Young. >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you very much. It was a great discussion. And uh next we want to hear uh some [clears throat] public comment. So if uh anyone has public comment uh please step up and uh before you do that uh I think most of us are aware of the

038rules and requirements. Given you three minutes please make sure you don't say anything derogatory about anybody and just give us the information as you'd like us to hear it. >> Got it. Liam Roselle, Bethany, good evening. So, AI has been in education for a really long time. But generative AI, the AI that steals content from working artists, racially discriminates against our students, sells the data of our students against federal law, and gambles with my transcript, and that 161 students entirely oppose is brand new. If you can't find a vendor that sits the perfect needs of the students, then you don't buy the product. You know very well from all my emails that AI grading systems disproportionately penalize Asian-American students, Jewish students, and then black students in that order. These are protected classes. The ETS, the

039organization that administers the SAT, analyzed 13,000 essays and found that GPT 4.0, uh, the exact model that's powering Class Companion that we use, uh, penalizes Asian-American students more than any other group by a wide margin that researchers couldn't explain. and they called it a huge black box. >> This isn't like the calculator or the computer because the calculator didn't racially discriminate against Asian students. And then we pay $7500 for a chat GPT enterprise subscription for 25 administrator seats. Uh that the department or the district says they use write communications, draft emails, presentations. These are people with graduate degrees like doctorates in educations. And if they can't write an email, then what are we we pay them $2.4 4 million every year in the budget. What are we paying them so much for if they can't

040write an email without chat GPT and we said last meeting that what we want is regulation on behalf of the hundreds of students who have co-signed this movement that are all written on the back of my hoodie. We want it to be defunded. She's wholly and categorically wrong. Not opting out because why? Because it's too woke. Because I mean we said that WebMD was climate conscable because it saves us a doctor's trip. What are we scared of? Why are we in such a rush? Why are we so adamant about this staying in policy? We don't want it in policy. This isn't some activism civics project that a bunch of students are taking up. Full transparency, I can use my phone in like all of my senior classes. That's a policy. It's not followed. Uh, every

041student sitting over here has at least one video of themselves in the school. That's a policy that's not being followed and isn't enforced. It doesn't matter if there's a policy or the teachers have guidance. It's happening. We want the board to vote no on funding this. And that's what we've been asking for since February 10th. And I know you've seen my emails because you all you all saw it. Uh we have the names of 161 students who are asking this board to defund with a capital D. [clears throat] We can learn about AI with the great free programs. You have 28 days of students refusing to be quiet about something that matters. And now the only question is whether this board does too. Those are my comments. Thank you guys. >> Thank you. Anyone else

042for public comment? >> Thank you. >> State your first name. >> Okay. Uh so pull this up. Uh on home wood. Uh so good evening. What I want to talk about today is the privacy policy uh privacy policy of Magic School AI and why I'm truly against it. So first part is under the mergers, acquisitions, and business transfers. And I'm just going to read to you what it says. And I quote, "We may share your information, including personal information, with affiliates such as parent companies, subsidiaries, joint venture partners, and other companies that we are that we control that are under common control with us. In which case, we will require those companies to agree to use your personal information in a way that's consistent with magical AI's data protection and privacy policies. Now, first, I

043have two questions. We as students never sign anything to give our data away. All we do is type it on in magic school. So do I not uh so I do not agree with this um other students agreeing to this and so why are we why are they able to take our data if we're all going to put our name we never signed a legal contract and my second company is can you are you guys able to tell me which companies what data what are info about me is being given away like can you tell me where this is actually going and if I don't comply with this on an AI assignment what what that's going to show on the gradebook is not that oh he's standing up to protect his own data no it's

044going to show that I'm getting a zero on this assignment The next president's privacy policy and how it says um to use your personal information. We may use your personal uh we may use this uh deagregated deidentified and or anonymize data to share with third parties for our lawful business purposes including to analysize and improve service with promote our business. We do not attempt to reidentify it and do not share uh de um identify identing our unrelated commercial [clears throat] purposes. Now, it says they do not attempt to reidentify it, which what that really is saying is they can unident they can't identify the data. So, we are right now spending [clears throat] $11,000 from what I can see from the reports on Magic School AI, which right now from what I've stated so far,

045they can see they can do whatever they can do a lot of stuff with our data and they can also match our data back up to who we are when it's supposedly anonymous. Now again this leads me to two questions I stated before and now another question is if they can reidentify our data when we uh we do not attempt to reidentify or share like that they said so what does it say about my anonymous data being retraced to me and so uh I know we've had other data breaches such as with powers school and other things like that now I know that those have been hard for us to handle and if we are going to keep inconsistently all it's going to do is invite in new threats and I really don't want us

046to have be imposing to other new threats now what What does this truly mean though? This means our school district which is fighting over bunch of other issues and not throwing AI to take our data. Our school is more susceptible to a data breach. Our teachers will not be teaching as much. They will not be getting as much student hand-on feedback now. And I know as a student and the hund other 160 students who signed petition do not want that. And from my experience even teachers do not want that. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Another person. Barzeli. >> Thank you. >> Sorry. Far Oati Woodbridge. I'm 18 years old. I pay taxes, but right now I work I paid to the system. And tonight I want to talk about what this system did with

047that money without telling any of us. The district said that it spent $11,000 on AI. That number went to the budget document and went to the student newsletter. It was the official answer every time someone asked, but it was wrong. A classmate of mine filed a Freedom of Information, my apologies, a Freedom of Information request and receipts came in at $19,216.51. Five products, two of them routed through the staff development budget instead of the technology budget, which meant they did not show up where anyone was looking. All of it signed by the director of finance and the superintendent. Nobody volunteered that information. It took a 17-year-old in a public records to form to find it. I want to talk about one line specifically. The district spent $7,41653 on a chat GBT enterprise subscription for 19

048administrator seats. Based on district's own communications to students is used to draft emails and presentations. These are adults with graduate degrees. Their salaries run into the millions collectively [snorts] and we are paying extra. On top of that, for a software to write their PowerPoints. At the same time, the budget proudly announces $2 million in savings over 10 years. Like, that is something to celebrate. [snorts] And then it quietly spends 19,000 on AI tools spread across enough budget categories that nobody would notice unless they're specifically looking. I was looking, my classmate was looking. We are teenagers. And we found this because we asked, which raises a serious question about who else was supposed to be asking and wasn't. This board manages 58 million of the public money. The people in this room tonight are the public.

049We are not asking much. We are asking for a budget that says what it means. a district that spends what it says and a board that does not need an FOI a foya request from a high school senior to tell the community a real number. That's a pretty low bar and I hope you clear it. Thank you. >> Thank you. Theodore Anderson Woodbridge. A good way to get a tangible measure of whether or not something in general is worth it is seeing if the benefits can be guaranteed to outweigh the worst case scenario. So far, the benefits that have been explained to us to justify the current use of artificial intelligence at AMD are primarily based on efficiency. Teachers have a lot on their plates, and in a world where AI works perfectly with no

050risks, maybe it could help them get things like grading, communications, and lesson planning done faster. There are many problems with this way of thinking, but the biggest one I can think of is that AI does not in practice work perfectly. Many students have already raised concerns about their work being graded incorrectly by AI. And when checked by a real person, the grades did end up needing to be adjusted. AI is simply not flawless. And after seeing these instances in real [clears throat] time, I don't see how anyone here could say in good conscience that this is not the case. Artificial intelligence being used in the ways that it has been here at school needs far more regulation and supervised trial before it can continue. This is not to push this cause to the policy committee.

051Nor is it to put the blame on teachers for using it. It is mainly to request that the current usage of these programs is at the very least put on hold and not funded as planned until restrictions are in place and you all can give us an honest guarantee that no issues like the ones we've been seeing will keep showing up. If teachers already aren't follow following the policies against AI grading, why are our concerns being pushed to a policy committee that if the budget passes with continued funding for AI would only be able to create more restrictions after these platforms are paid for again? This is an issue that needs to be further deliberated on and readressed given what has already been happening with misuse. The inconsistency of AI grading has been observed during

052the time in which it has been in use at AI and that alone should be enough to warrant a serious reconsideration of if this is worth it by every member of the board before more money is put towards these programs. This should not be funded prior to a sufficient policy being created. Thank you. >> Any other public comments? >> Thank you all. And >> we have one more. I'm not a student, which you can tell because I had wrote something on the computer and printed it on a piece of paper. [laughter] Um, so I'm Robert Lim 956 Corn Cod Lane in orange. Um, and I want to kind of continue or get my thoughts on the conversation about surplus time. Uh, which I think is really a conversation about risk. Um because I believe the

053surplus comes from essentially very conservative budgeting practices which are practiced in many uh municipalities including the town of Orange uh such as zerobased budgeting. Um so fundamentally for me um they cannot be eliminated. The surplus cannot be eliminated unless you change the budgeting practices which I think people understand but I just want to kind of set that out there. Um, so comparing in [clears throat] terms of surpluses from the board perspective, uh, from a 4-year average, I came up with 3.81. So, um, 2% goes to CNR, um, or the formerly known as CNR account. And for the town of Orange, just looking at the audit reports for the town itself, that's average is three years because I I don't have access to the most recent one, but 3.1%. So, it's actually pretty similar. town also

054designates u money to capital expenses every year. Um so I thought it was interesting Mr. uh we talked about well um if we adjust our budget practices or however you framed it um the towns would gladly give uh support that the the district short of money um because you know that's what they would prefer in exchange for having less of a surplus and I'm apologize if I'm I'm not getting that exactly right uh but it's on YouTube everybody can see it um so To me, this is kind of a classic riskmanagement conversation. It's the risk of well, if you maintain a little bit of surplus as it is, um, you know, what's the risks associated with that versus what are the risks if you know, things don't go away and [clears throat] the district does

055run short of funds. Um, I don't think the conversation with the towns would be that straightforward. Um, just my opinion. Um, and I think my concern is that this district has been working for 25 years to restore confidence of the communities because of financial mismanagement. And I think probably if you know funds get tight, you'd probably draw on this the CNR account because you can now use it for operational expenses. But that itself I think to me doesn't show like a good um financial discipline. So I do think there might be a reputational loss there. And in terms of the surplus, well, I guess it's up to everybody um to determine, but I think a helpful conversation for the board would be what is your collective um like tolerable risk or appetite for surplus? Like

056what level of surplus would you stand and how does [snorts] that relate to the board's position on risk? So, just wanted to share that. >> Thank you. [clears throat] Good timing. Uh any other public comment? Okay. If not, we move on to uh number eight. Uh number seven, excuse me. Uh middle school schedule update. Uh Dr. Buyers, Dr. Carlson. All right. So, um before we get to our budget discussion, I did want um Mr. Davis had asked me to um talk a little bit about the work that [clears throat] Dr. Carlson, Dr. Tracy, and Mrs. Burke um have all been doing um in trying to address concerns around the middle school schedule but at the same time accomplish some of the goals which even in our last meeting I heard the board saying they were

057things that that you would like to see if we can possibly achieve it. Uh so this is where we are at this point. Um we have revisited the schedule [clears throat] and um have been able to develop a schedule that's going to maintain the current 42-minute class period. having heard there was some concerns around those longer class uh periods and it still has an eight um period schedule. So um the worries uh that students would forget things if they missed a class um for one day out of the four. Um we can uh sort of alleviate those two concerns. Um so it's essentially going to look somewhat similar to the current schedule that we have but with a [clears throat] few um pretty significant changes. Um the first is the option to offer a choice

058in world language. [clears throat and laughter] Um we haven't really changed from this um this spot. Um it would still require us to take world language off of the team. Um eighth grade students, at least for this year, would be able to um pick a preference from between Chinese and Spanish. Seventh grade students, we would look to have a preference between French, Chinese, and Spanish. And then beginning um the following year, all students seventh and eighth grade would have that opportunity of looking um of taking French Chinese or Spanish. Um in terms of Mrs. Reuse's question around the numbers and the [clears throat] impact if kids are no longer taking Spanish, um we were able to get um some idea of what kids would prefer. Um we had uh sent out surveys to um both

059um incoming seventh graders and our current seventh graders as they go on um into uh next year. We don't have a 100% return, but we have enough answers that we can take that those numbers and project them out. Um so basically um you know about 50 kids um are interested in French at both of the middle schools as a first choice. um about 25ish kids would um choose um uh Chinese and then the kids who are currently in Chinese and Spanish who would be going into 8th grade um around uh 30ish um or so students would like to take Chinese as their sole language. Um and then what we were able to do is kind of extrapolate what the Spanish enrollment would be. Um very easy to do with eighth grade because we know how

060many kids are currently taking Spanish as seventh graders. If we take out um the 22 well 44 students across both schools but 22 a class of 22 kids from Chinese um in each school you can see that in eighth grade next year we have about 140 students who would be taking um Spanish. Um in seventh grade we would actually remove 44 students from the Spanish enrollment. Um and so all we did was use the projections of students currently in sixth grade. we subtracted 44 and that gave us our approximate enrollment for Spanish. Um what this means in terms of uh teaching and average class sizes, if we maintain the eight Spanish teachers that we currently have, the one Chinese teacher that we have and added a French teacher, um the average class sizes would have

061been around 14 and 15 respectively at the two schools. If however we um do a reduction in force and we lose one Spanish teacher and replace them with a French teacher, in other words, without adding a teacher, then the average class sizes are around 17 and 18 respectively in each schools. So we certainly can achieve the world language goal if the board supports a reduction in force in our Spanish teachers. Um so again, the bottom sort of summarizes it. You would do a riff of one Spanish teacher. You would add one French teacher. The French and Mandarin teachers would be shared between the two schools. Sort of picture it. They go to one school in the morning, the other school in the afternoon. We would also have to share a Spanish teacher between the the

062two schools because we would have seven and that's an odd number. And so we need to have three and three and then a person who's traveling. Um, and if for some reason we are sort of um underestimating our Spanish enrollment, we do have enough space at the high school where we could use high school teachers to supplement um, Spanish classes at the middle school and um, you know, provide instruction probably for one period a day. Um, so in other words, we can accomplish the world language goals without any additional teacher if we do the reduction in force of Spanish. Can I ask one question on the slide before? >> Yeah. >> Um, you said their projected preferences. How many responses did you actually get out of the incoming seventh graders? >> Out of incoming seventh

063graders in Orange, it's 47% and at Bethany it was 31. Um, and that was as of this morning. So again, I just used those numbers and then kind of extrapolated out where I think their preferences are. That's why I I think it's important that we c that I do mention that we would have Spanish teachers available potentially from the high school if my projections >> I mean I just wonder if because a lot of times when you have people respond to surveys they're the ones who are most interested in whatever the change is. So you may be overly weeding like if you're extending whatever that ratio is to everybody you may be over accounting >> and and that's and remember I mean out of the French in grade seven only 22 kids are going to

064get that preference. So even if we are overextending it we're still not meeting all of those requests. Um there would only be 22 students in Chinese in grade seven and only 22 students in Chinese in grade eight. So the students are not every kid is going to get their first preference. >> I thought you said it was 44. It was 22 in each class. >> 22 plus 22 is 44. French and Spanish in seventh grade. >> Thank you for the math lesson. [laughter] >> Secondly, I thought that what you [clears throat] said was you were taking a French teacher and having two classes at each middle school at 22 each, therefore 44 in each school. >> So no, because then we wouldn't be able to extend it the next year into eighth grade. So, >>

065we're going to hire So, we're going to hire a a French teacher to teach one class in each middle school. >> They're going to teach two classes in each middle school so that they have a full teaching load. Um, and but those two classes will be smaller in year one so that it can allow for the growth going into >> year two. >> So, we're going to have them teach two classes >> at 11 students each >> in one middle school and then in the other middle school. So they're going to have a a whole load of 44 kids for the entire academic year. >> For one year? Yes. >> Why would you if there's that much interest, why would you not allow them to teach two full sections? >> Because then the following year,

066unless the board is willing to support it, you would then need to hire a second French teacher >> because >> you would eliminate another language teacher that the children are not like supporting anymore by their choice. >> Right. But that also might be that I think we just have to be aware of the consequences that would come in the 2017. >> This is the consequence from offering choice language teacher at that point. >> Right. The other thing is that students [clears throat] may try French and decide they don't want to take it the next year and they might switch a language. So that's always possible as well. >> And we may also have another year a year from now have a very low number of students that want to take French. So we like >>

067right >> the the the plan that she's presenting is the most prudent. I think my concern is looking at the reduction in force and looking at how many Spanish teachers do we have in this district and how many do we have do we have any that are uh anywhere near retirement age because as someone who's who's been an educator who's gotten a pink slip I don't want to do that to somebody if we don't have to and especially when we get rid of you know getting rid of positions >> um in a time when it is so hard to find teachers >> and that that for me is a huge concern. So, um I I can't make a prediction of staff turnover, but um we certainly experience it almost all the time. And the reduction

068in force is truly a reduction in your number of Spanish teachers. I don't know if it's actually translating to a current employee if if I can. So, that's I think that's the ciest way I can answer that. It's not a direct correlation that that somebody is getting a pink slip. Dr. Bars, has the union heard of this possibility? Is it >> of the reduction in force? Yes, I I did make the the union president aware of that. >> What about the teachers? >> That's the the union. >> No, the teachers themselves, not the union president. >> So the teachers all know that the Spanish teachers the Spanish teachers all know [clears throat] that that person impacted by this the teacher. >> Yes. Okay. >> So, how would the impact be? I know you you don't

069want to go further, but like you know what exactly are we talking about? >> I I mean it it can it can play out any number of ways. Um we could have somebody retire and then we would do an involuntary transfer of the least senior person to that vacancy. We could have somebody resign um and again it would be that same process. We could have somebody who miraculously is working on a dual certification in French that I can then involuntarily transfer to cover the French position. So there are a couple different ways that that can play out. I just don't have an answer for us right now because I can say as of today I do not have any retirements in our amongst our Spanish teachers. But that's it's still pretty early in the year

070before people make those decisions. >> Okay, thank you. So, um, okay. So, but I do want to point out sort of that last bullet point. Um, that ability to access the high school teachers for Spanish. I think this is probably one of the biggest weaknesses we have with our schedule. Um, we are too small of a district that we can't share uh teachers between the high school and the middle school. Um, and um it it's it's just not an efficient use of our resources. So, we would take the middle school schedule and create um the periods would still change. Um but we definitely really want it aligned to a 4-day rotation and ABCD that's matched up with the ABCD for the high school. So, when we do have opportunities to share teachers, we can do

071that much more easily. And I do think that's a much more efficient way of of using our our staff. Um, so we would um change the schedule so that we would have a 4-day rotation. The other piece is um is implementing the rotating win period. So again, it's going to still be 42 minutes, but unlike current academic success, that's just during period 8. Each team would have it at a different point during the day. We just think the benefits for the intervention services are just too great to sort of have that one fixed period um at at a certain point for the entire school. Um and um it will also again help us with providing our developmental counseling lessons, the work we do around portrait of the graduate, um special programming without having to constantly

072change [clears throat] the schedule and then like I said intervention support, EL services and special education services. Um, so those two, um, those two pieces sort of go with that four-day rotation. Um, PE is the biggest piece of the puzzle with the middle school schedule. Um, so we really kind of have, uh, two choices. Um, the first is our current structure where we offer music opposite PE. Um, and just sort of an explanation for why this works, but then also the limitation to it. Um, PE is a year-long course. It's offered every other day and contractually a PE class can have up to 35 students in it. Um, music is the only other year-long course that we have that's offered every other day. And contractually, there is no class maximum for our music ensembles. So,

073if we continue to offer PE with music opposite it, it works from sort of a numbers standpoint. It works from contract alignment, but it does mean that every student would have to take one of the ensembles, band, chorus, or strings. Um, which is one of the big pieces of feedback we've received that people wish was different in our schedule is that kids weren't forced into taking music. [clears throat] Um, and then the other thing, you know, I I remember, um, some of the concerns that came from the teachers perspective, um, when we were looking at those longer class periods was, um, behavioral issues. Um, I will say that, um, if you don't play an instrument, you end up having to take chorus. And if you don't want to be in a chorus class, sometimes your

074behaviors are not always your best choices. So the sort of forced music does kind of create some of those behavioral challenges um that we would hopefully want to avoid. And I think that's good for the kids who want to be in a chorus class and it's good for the kids who who don't want to be in the chorus class. So then the other option is to look at health opposite PE. Um it currently isn't. Health is taught as part of the life arts rotation. So it's pulled out. Um, and th in this case, we would look at offering PE for about three4s of the school year. How it's offered is going to is going to depend on the board's support. Um, for staffing, um, again, PE still has a maximum class size of 35. Health

075would be offered for a quarter of the time. Again, how it's going to look is going to be dependent on staffing, but because it's a class, it's got a cap size of 22 students. So, it's a numbers challenge when we offer health opposite PE um because we actually become limited by the class size for health. So, we looked at two options. Um we went through everything. Um if we add two additional PE teachers, well, sorry, health health PE teachers, one in each school, um we would have 88 students at a time [clears throat] assigned to four teachers. PE classes would be around 22 or no more. Health classes would be no more than 22 students per contract. We would still be able to have separate seventh grade PE classes and eighth grade PE classes. And

076we would do PE three out of the four days of the rotation and health one day out of the rotation. So PE would be a year long as would health. Just PE would meet three days and health would meet one day over the course of the year. If we opt not to add the additional PE teachers, we can still do this. Um, we would have 88 students assigned to three teachers each period. Um, the PE class sizes would be 33. So that takes care of 66 of your kids. Um, they would have to be combined seventh and eighth. Maybe not every single period of the day, but at least some of them would be combined 78. The health classes would be 22 students. And what we would do is we would essentially pull off 22

077students and put them into health for one quarter and the remaining 66 would be in PE and then the next quarter we would pull off a different set of 22 students for health and then all the rest of the kids would be in PE. So it would run a little bit differently. You'd still have more PE. Um you'd still have about the same amount of health. it would just be structured um differently from the um from the three on and then one health um in a four-day cycle. Um so then another benefit or another side to this is that if you are pulling health and putting it opposite PE you open up more blocks for electives for choices for kids. So, that was another thing that we have sort of heard um is that students,

078[clears throat] it'd be nice if students could have more choices. Um we would have options for year-long electives because this is if music isn't opposite PE. So, our music ensembles could still be year-long. Um and then we would have semester electives um which could also be your music ensembles, but then that would include the art, the digital media, general music, and then our CTE classes. um we still would look at expanding those elective choices for eighth grade students. So you can see um we sort of took the technology and broke it at least for right now into architecture and robotics. Those are two of the big sort of um subsets of our our CTE courses. So now kids can choose one of those, both of those. And we would look to do the same with

079art and digital media going forward. um in terms of where we are and again these are just projections and I don't know that first choice really matters because kids are going to have to make three choices or four choices anyway. Um so this is probably not the best um it's it's not telling you the whole picture. Um I think what is um interest you know what is sort of I draw out of this is that um the first choices are kind of evenly distributed amongst the four possible life arts areas. Um obviously um we have many more kids who would pick band or chorus as their music ensemble over strings. Um but I think there's you know it's showing us there's some balance and we we do have this data sort of going down into

080second choice, third choice, fourth choice. It's just a lot to sort of try to capture in a slide um neatly. Um and then the eighth grade data again we sort of see kind of that distribution um across most of the courses um a little bit more um uh I guess picky in um for some of the classes at the middle school. And then again you see kind of that same distribution for the music ensembles with um chorus and strings and not or sorry chorus and band and not strings. Um so overall um the outcome of what we what we did for the past two weeks is we still allow for three world language choices. We still are able to increase the idea the option of electives and to give students choice. Um the schedule will

081still maintain a team model amongst the math, social studies, science and English teacher. Um we'll still have advisory built in as part of that schedule. we would rotate the wind so that we um are in a better position to provide interventions and support. Um it increases um PE time if we are able to add those additional teachers or at least look at putting health opposite PE. Um it maintains the 42-minute instructional period and it aligns to the high school schedule so that we can more efficiently use our resources. The two big things that the other schedule did that this one doesn't do is we do not see an increase in academic time. We also don't see a decrease. It just stays the same. Um and we certainly haven't decrease the transitions of kids going from

082class to class. That also remains the same. Um but we were able to accomplish many of the goals with it, just not all of them. So, Jen, whatever happened to Shape Up >> as an elective at the middle school two years ago? As a shape up, there was an elective. It was like a gym class. >> I'm going to defer to my middle school principles because I have no idea. [clears throat] >> And so, when the teachers had to go and work on team, so then they filled up their five classes. That was to be their fifth class. So, all the life arts teachers had those electives as their fifth class. Right now they teach five classes um because the class size is 22. So when the class size was 28 they could have more

083kids. We had four sections of rounds and one section of electives. Now the class size is 22. And so the students um in order to provide for all the students um their fifth classes on the team rather than >> what happened to shape up >> that was the elective that was that eighth period. It happened during academic success class and it was the fifth class for all those life arts teachers. >> Okay. >> Now they don't need that fifth class because they already have five. They can't teach six by contract. >> Okay. So they can teach up to five classes which is what we discussed last time. Um so just so I understand does this mean that you'll have the students will have art every single day if they have an elective? They would have

084it every other day for a semester and then there would be another elective. So think that they would have it on A and C days and then they B and D day would be a different elective. >> Can you go back to the slide that had the >> keep going the So >> this one? >> Yeah. So if I am I reading this right that like if you took like would you take choir band and strings and then choose something that goes opposite that >> you could. So I could so there so again this is where the choice the flexibility comes in. So I could take choir for an entire year >> and then opposite first semester I could have art second semester I could have digital media >> or you could take four >>

085or I could take four or I could be a music kid and take choir and band for the whole year. >> Okay. Um, so that's where we get a type of flexibility that we really don't have in our current schedule. >> So the feedback we had was that the teachers weren't interested in seeing they wanted to see their kids every day. So what what you're proposing is an every other day >> for the elective areas. The um the team and the world language will see them every day >> but not art. But again, right now, band and chorus and strings don't see their students every day. So, half of the elective areas are already structured that way. So, now all the elective areas can be structured that way. >> And have we gotten teacher feedback

086on that? >> At this point, no. Um, and and again, the union knew that we were pulling this together pretty quickly. Um, but I mean for 3/4ers of the staff, nothing about this schedule is any different than the current schedule that they have. >> Jen, how long was the rotation before? You said this is a 4-day rotation and it's going to mirror the high school schedule. What? Can you remind me what it was? >> Right now, we're at the six day rotation and the high school has a 4-day rotation. So, our days never line up. >> Okay. >> And nobody knows why. We tried to figure that out. No one knows why we have EF day. >> Figure it out. >> So what will be the impact of changing to a 4 day versus a

087six? >> So if if if I have a teacher, so like one of the things that's most common for us is we have a strings teacher here who um often does not have enough sections of strings to create for a full day. So, she will go to one of the middle schools for one of her instructional periods. Um, we are able to kind of piece it together for her because whoever she's going to doesn't necessarily offer strings every day or every other day, just on the days when she's able to get there and it happens to line up. What it will help us do is we could say, okay, at the end of the day when the high school is having its last two periods, you are going to go to orange on A and

088C days and Bethany on B and D days and you're going to teach their strings classes. We could do the same with world language teachers. We could do the same with um I most of our CTE classes fill up. But if we have these options where teachers do not have a full course load here at the high school, we could actually use them at the middle school to provide elective offerings and we can't do that right now. >> So what is the reason that we want to change that you want to change the middle school schedule other than language choice? >> I'm sorry. Can you can you >> What is the reason we want to change the middle school schedule? I think it's been the the biggest piece of feedback has been that limiting um

089options available for students that I think we see most notably through the language choice, having to double up in the Spanish and the Mandarin, having to take a music class, um and then not having and then the electives like you just said, the the step stand up step up to have those shape and we don't have those choices anymore. And so bringing those electives back that we had two or three years ago. Um those were driving factors. Um I think we've discovered in this process that the rotation of the win is actually going to be very helpful for us. Um so I think that was an added benefit that we kind of came to along the way. >> Now is that a combination of the academic success and advisory? Um, no, it's really just a

090it's a re it's a repurposing of academic success. Um, because we will use we can use that period now [clears throat] to do some of the things where we run special schedules like PG activities or um developmental counseling lessons. >> So advisory will stay. >> Advisory stays as part of the schedule. Yes. And what is the reason we wouldn't offer language choice without the addition of French not requiring a reduction in force to actually get a feel for what people or what students will take and how this will look to give even to give our teachers preparation that um maybe the feeling like it's sort of rushed and we're bringing it together in two weeks um offering only Spanish and mandarin to sort of >> um I mean we certainly could but I don't think

091that that's actually offering choice and I guess my question would be what's the what's I mean when when would we do a reduction in force? >> How about when there's a reduction in force naturally? I mean that that's my that I mean that's that's what I that's what I've written down here is that why not hold that off until we have something that changes because >> we know that bilingual education when we look at the state website it's the first area listed as an area of shortage. So we're going to roll the dice that we're going to get rid of somebody and then we're going to try to replace them which we may or may not be able to do and then did we burn that bridge with somebody if we needed to get them

092back. And so for me, I would just feel more comfortable with the idea of of a natural this is >> and >> we are choosing we're choosing to make this change now. >> And if it and if it were if I were to say it can occur naturally but not really say much more because I really can't >> if it if it if it if it occurs naturally [laughter] my my I just as a an educator my feeling is I I want these things to occur naturally. >> Yeah. I I would like to. So, right now there isn't really um language choice. There is no language choice at all. But if you get somebody a choice between Spanish and Mandarin, that's a choice. And we already have those teachers. And you will see what will

093happen. Will you get more kids? You might get more kids who want to take Mandarin because they don't have to take two languages. >> Well, and I and and again, that's where these projection numbers come from. We asked them to give us their choice. >> Yes. 31% respect. And honestly, what we really saw was that every kid who's currently taking Mandarin see as seventh graders seemed to want to continue that into eighth grade, whereas I didn't. There was one student who picked Spanish over Mandarin as their choice. Um, so it seems that once they start in seventh grade, they wanted to continue to eighth grade. Jen, am I understanding the schedule correctly that um years after, you know, years ahead you might be able to offer additional elective options because the schedule at the high

094school and middle schools are aligned. >> Not to say, okay, >> yes, we could >> it opens up the possibility to to do that. >> Yes. Um a and even just with the idea of the electives, I mean the reason why we sort of expanded architecture and robotics out of CTE because we had those as electives three years ago and they were they were they were fairly well um uh crafted um classes that it didn't take us a lot to add those for next year. um we would look to add um to look at digital media and to see if it becomes a broadcast journalism and a photography elective because those are two big areas that occur within digital media. Um or if the students have another area of preference coming out of there. We

095could look at art and instead of just having it big blanket art, you might be able to split it into 2D and 3D art. Um, so now we have two different So I think there is a potential both pulling staff from the high school if they're available, [clears throat] but then also just working within the structures we have to bring back the electives that we used to offer during period 8 that we don't anymore. So, go ahead. >> Um, I was just going to say I appreciate that you heard a lot of our feedback in terms of, you know, what concerns were and I feel like this has gone a long way to accomplishing the objectives without also respecting a lot of the concerns that I think were raised. Um, two points of feedback that

096I've heard kind of within all of this, um, from students and also staff is I do think there's concern among life arts teachers that by having this alternating day schedule, they will potentially carry over the 125 students at a time limit. Um, I think that that is a source of concern and stress for them. Um, the other thing I've heard from students is on the rotating win period by not having it at the end of the day. Um, a lot of kids, and I won't speak for all kids, I know my kids use it a lot because they know as soon as I pick them up, they're off to dance [snorts] and baseball and softball. So, like they get their work done. Um, so when it's not at the end of the day, you know

097what happens when I have when first period and then I get homework all the rest of the day and I don't and the next day I have it at the end of the you know you have like that mismatch. There's also teachers that don't post assignments until last period. So maybe that needs to change if it's moving around. So just >> so um and you guys can correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think so. The the the drastic rotation that we have right now where a seventh period class can occur at the start of of the day because we want to because we're going to have to have some alignment to the high school which has a much more sort of fixed periods through the day. [clears throat] While we will still have rotation,

098it won't be quite as as dramatic. Okay. So, if I knew that my wind class was period 2, so to speak, I could assume it's going to happen in the morning um and and not occur at the end of the day. So, that hopefully. So, again, yes, we'll have to get we'll do have to do a little planning and adjustment as teachers and students to get used to that, but it's not going to change every single day tremendously. Um, and I had an answer to to your other question, but I >> 125 student limit. That's um it's contractually um it's allowable by the contract. So, it's certainly um a consideration that I think [snorts] the union has at some point given. We do have teachers who are teaching that way with those um offcycle classes.

099So again, it's not going to be something different than what other members of our faculty are are already engaged in. >> So I I just want to say I I appreciate um the language choice and when I say language choice, I mean language choice beyond Chinese and Spanish. Um there probably um some portion of our population that really wants to take Mandarin. The feedback I've heard from a lot of students is that they would have loved they would have liked to take have taken French in middle school and initially they plan to like transition to French in high school but then after having years because they get Spanish in elementary school then you go to middle school you get two more years a lot of them are like why am I going to change now?

100So, I do think it gives them more option and I suspect that you will see um higher numbers in the high school French classes. >> I I suspect we'll start to see that translate up too. >> Yeah. >> Um I also wanted to kind of like give the perspective of like when students are able to start a language earlier at the middle school that opens up more equitable opportunities for them when they get to the high school. Because right now, like if you want to get to AP French or AP Chinese, um, and you start like French or Chinese as a freshman, you'd have to double up in language or you'd have to like study yourself and test out of a class or skip multiple classes in order to get to the highest level of

101that language. Um, whereas on the other hand, if you're studying Spanish, you can take two AP classes. So, for example, I have maxed out the Spanish AP Spanish curriculum and I didn't have to like test out or self-study during a summer to do that. Um, but that is not an opportunity that's currently accessible to students who are interested in other languages. >> Uh, we're going to try and finish this up. So, uh, so >> go ahead. Uh, yeah. know I appreciate all the changes and I think this feedback uh response to the feedback and it's great that you know you might find an answer place to um rotate out somebody uh that's great. So the one question that I had is not connected to the middle school but like you know but the thing that

102we removed is the STEM instructional coach and I I I I think you know I I spoke to them what is the cost we're paying for that like you know is that something that is it's okay to do to postpone or is there a real cost that the students are paying for not having a instructional coach. So, so I think we both feel that it's something that it will not um adversely impact us if we delay it. And every other one of our instructional coaches has come from our existing faculty. Um and so I don't I I do not see any reason why we can't do the same with the STEM instructional coach. Um it's just going to take a little bit more finessing. um honestly probably more the high school schedule in order to

103make that happen. There's only so many scheduling changes you can make in one year. So um [laughter] this is enough for right now. Um and and and I will say also the timing with where we are in curriculum revision delay for a year is not is not going to adversely impact us. >> That's great. Thank you. Can we go back to the PE opposite music versus PE opposite health? And [clears throat] um it seems like opposite music is not what anybody wants. Um, and the health opposite PE. I have real concern about not adding the extra teachers and doing health for a quarter of the year. Especially for seventh graders who have come from having recess to go to seventh grade and not have PE for an entire quarter of the year. I think you're

104going to see major behavioral issues. um especially for the seventh graders, but I would imagine the eighth graders too, to not have, you know, I know with the original um schedule, part of it was giving them more like physical activity. And so that would be my concern is um if you're able to do it three out of four days. That's a lot different than having a whole, you know, couple of months where you have no physical activity, no recess, no movement. Um, so I personally would not vote for this schedule if we don't add two more teachers in order to do that. >> And and I have to say the the bigger concerns for me, um, probably the biggest one is combined seventh and eighth grade PE classes. Um, the difference in developmental size of

105a seventh grader compared to an eighth grader can be fairly significant, >> especially beginning [clears throat] of the year. >> So that is a bit of a safety concern. Um, we don't even have PE classes. um not very many approaching 35 here at the high school. Um 30 33 kids would be a lot of students to have in a PE class. And remember, they're sharing the gym space, so you're really putting 66 kids into the gym space. Um now that, you know, nicer weather, they can go outside. We can, you know, sort of use the fitness rooms and sort of spread ourselves out a little bit more. But those are the two um bigger challenges honestly without adding the teachers is really um and you know Donna's been on health and safety every year they

106do the floor hockey unit the nurse comes and tells us how many more you know broken fingers they have and injuries because it's floor hockey um and so I just sort of see you know that kind of plays in my head when I think of 33 students and a PE class. Um but it is doable and it is contractually allowable and we do have a handful of classes sometimes that approach that that half number. Um we just never have had that happen. >> I guess just a point maybe on the other side of that is we currently have athletic teams that are composed of seventh and eighth graders together across all sports at the middle school. >> I'd like to follow up on Germany on Jen's question. um you know because you indicated uh and

107really without getting to the content of uh your comment concern that uh you know you wouldn't vote on um the middle school presentation and that kind of brings to my mind a question that that I need clarity on. Uh and that's to the extent that we have talked um a number of days on a number of iterations of proposed middle school schedule changes. It's my understanding that the ultimate proposed iteration that may go forward still requires a board uh majority vote of ratification before it can actually be implemented. Um and that's I guess my question is is that not the case where uh however we finally propose a a finally crafted iteration does it not come to the board for a majority vote before it can be implemented? Uh to my to my knowledge we

108have never voted on that any change like that. >> We change schedules all the time and don't [clears throat] it doesn't come to the board. You know when we have to run a extended Spartan seminar because the kids are registering >> operational daytoday. [laughter] >> Yeah >> that's very different I think. >> Well we've talked about a number of times about changing you know teachers changing length of class days to the extent where we're even talking to union reps and we're talking getting legal advice. I mean, that doesn't really sound like a day-to-day operation. So, what I would like to do to bring clarity to it is first, if if need, chair, and I'm sure you'll instruct me, uh is I'd like to make a motion uh that um the proposed middle school uh schedule

109change does not go forward without the uh ratification and author authorization of a majority board vote. If for some reason in in a talismanic reading of our um uh our uh agenda for the evening, it could be argued that we uh didn't give the community fair notice of that motion that I would make first a motion that we by majority uh rule that the circumstances are appropriate that we add it to the evening and then we move uh to require that the board uh vote by a majority before a middle school schedule change is implemented. uh something that we haven't discussed before. Uh I don't my my concern is I don't see any precedence for this. We have never taken this up in that manner. And to say we should now kind of leaves me

110concerned that why are we doing that? Why are we suddenly changing the procedure that we've used for years and years and years? >> Not in this manner though. This is a very different I think protocol that we're talking about changing a schedule. Uh, you know, years and years ago, you know, we're changing not length of class days, not uh addition or subtraction of FTAs, not moving teachers from one, you know, place to the other. I don't believe, and you'll stand, you know, correct me if you think I'm wrong, that we've had to actually consult and get legal advice and get union advice before we could proceed. And to the extent that some of these changes do bear and impugn contracts that the board uh has uh engaged in I I think it's my opinion and

111I'm I'm certainly curious as to the uh opinion of the rest of our board members that this is something that rises to the level uh requiring you know board authorization unlike an average day-to-day operational need. So, the first motion would be to um require there be board approval um prior to any uh of this middle school change going forward. And is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. >> Is there any discussion? >> Uh I I have concerns about >> having discussion now. >> Well, yeah, she just said there discussion. >> Yeah. Uh a motion was made and second it. Uh could you repeat the motion exactly as you said it if if you can? What' you say? >> Yeah. No, no, thanks. I I'll do rolling back. Um the motion was that the

112uh proposed change to the middle school schedule not be implemented without uh majority board authorization. >> Okay. And there was a second. Uh the chair at this time does not does not feel that we can uh say that that motion should not be taken up. I do believe the motion uh was made legitimately. Uh if at some time in the future uh we get a legal opinion that this is not appropriate for the board to take up uh then we'd have to look at that. But at this particular time, I do believe that that motion should be considered. Uh so we will have a discussion. If >> I might just say something because I don't want there to be misinformation. We have not made had any legal consultation regarding this schedule. I don't need to

113speak with the board's attorney to know whether or not I'm operating within the contract language. I will meet with the union president because he is the best person to interpret that contract language and that I have done because I did not want to create a schedule that would subsequently result in a grievance from the union. So I I don't want there to be an impression that we've somehow had >> consultation just >> and and one more question for the superintendent before we have a discussion. Um, in the years that you've been here, have you made major schoolwide schedule changes that board didn't vote on? >> Um, I think the last significant one would have been the high school switching to the eight drop six. That was before I was here, but I don't believe that

114there I've never heard that there was a board vote around that. Dr. Tracy, I will defer to you because you created it and I didn't know. >> I don't think the board voted. I don't I don't know. I don't remember that I think it was I don't think at that point I was summoned to the board >> as you were presenting these it was presented to the board as any changes in staff because we were going to that schedule >> we definitely made changes around co we made changes after co we put life arts on the team took away electives so those are things that we have done pretty major changes >> okay Mr. Davis, I'm sorry. Do we have to amend the agenda first before we add the motion because it's not on the

115agenda at all? >> Well, >> or does the motion add that? >> I I think the motion is essentially adding >> That's how I I took the motion is it's essentially an amendment to the agenda to take up this as a vote >> then. Okay. Before we do that, then then we have to vote on whether or not uh >> Yeah. whether or not we're we're doing that >> on the schedule. So, we're having discussion. >> Discussion. Yes. >> So Paul, to your question, um, why are we bringing this up, right? I think there was so much lack of clarity around the school schedule and then we got so much information, maybe right, maybe wrong, right, that teachers weren't informed or teachers didn't support it and I think that created a lot of aa for

116the board, right? Or at least for me, right? there was a whole lack of clarity and we were kind of the train was going right so I think that's the why in my mind and so for me it's it's major changes right not minor changes but major changes that affect the children the teachers right in in that in that respect I think the board needs to be informed and have some say >> okay >> related to this discussion Just in terms of the budget, what we've been presented, what does the budget show? >> Um, so after going through this, the budget would have um included the two PE teachers, >> not a world language teacher and >> because you would switch to French. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Um, yes. and we would be at

117what the number there's a couple other adjustments in there but it's 1.35. >> So we will be at 1.35 if we proceed >> with the two teachers. >> Correct. >> I I just I have tremendous concern with the the the direction that this board is taking that we hire the superintendent to run the school on a day-to-day basis. >> It is [snorts] her job to do so. She is present. She presented something. We gave feedback. Changes were made and now we're trying to say, well, we want to vote on this decision. I think that opens up the the Pandora's box of saying anything that the majority decides that we want to change her decision on, we're going to bring it up and say we want to vote and let us decide. The superintendent has always

118been the person responsible for running the school district. That is what she's doing. that's why she's here. I think it is wholly and totally inappropriate for us to to say we're gonna we're gonna oversee we are the board. I I feel the same like you know operational we've always conceded that the operational uh you know operations of the school is the superintendence and uh and the only reason this thing came up right now is because there was a change in the budgetary needs and so while we should definitely be talking about the budgetary aspects I'm very uncomfortable with changing what our norms are with respect to the operational operations of the school. Can Can we make a motion to table this until we have a a judgment? I I mean, we clearly people are concerned

119whether or not we have a legal standing with some of these decisions. Why don't we get a legal decision on whether or not we should do >> Patrick, if I may, I actually reached out to Cape to find out what the board's authority is and isn't. And Cab basically said that, you know, that superintendent needs the board's permission. The board can always override any administrative um decision is the board of education has the authority over school schedule changes including approving the annual calendar and structural shifts to school schedules. The board retains the right to direct operations while the superintendent holds the executive authority for supervision often implementing changes by the board and this includes calendar approval, scheduling uh restructuring and operational control. So yes, it is. So Jen, you know, she she does the day-to-day.

120So whether we're having a seminar and how that all works, but when changes like this come, it is the board. And actually Stanford just their board of education just vetoed a type of scheduled change that the administrators were attempting to implement at their school district. So at the board level, they vetoed it as well. So just to answer the question, yes, it is under the purview of the board. >> Appreciate your work. I'd like to hear from I'd like [laughter] to hear what she's saying before she's interrupted, please. Sorry. >> Thank you. So, yes, it is the purview of the board to approve any type of schedule change. These are big deals. We're talking about the, you know, changes that impact all of our stakeholders and we are hearing a lot about this. And so,

121yes, it is under the board's purview. However, we choose to vote, that is the board's choice and how they choose to vote. But it's not simply, oh, we're adding an FTE and we have a say. That's simply not true. We have we vote on a calendar when the first day of school begins, when the last day is, we set the graduation dates. We issue all of the diplomas in the school. >> Okay. I have a motion to table. >> I um I have >> Yes. just on the I guess legal reference. If you actually look at the teacher contract, it says the board holds I don't know the exact verbiage, but it's something to the effect that the board holds the ultimate responsibility over scheduling staff assignments, etc. So, I think that's another point that

122this is ultimately a decision to us and frankly we're the ones who are ultimately going to be accountable for it. If it's sta if a staff is reduced as part of this process, she's going to say, well, the board chose to reduce staff. So, I think that the board should be voting on this decision and it's more than a budget issue. Um, I think part of the reason that the board has this level of concern and wants to be on the record with what the decision is is because whether you want to call it missspoken or misstatements or misrepresentations. I think at the outset the way this was presented to us was highly contradictory with what ultimately came forward and what we heard from [snorts] teachers and that is the source of a lot of

123the concern of the board. I don't won't speak for everybody. I'll speak for myself. To me that was very concerning to have administration stand up there and say the teachers were unanimously in favor of this. I watched teachers sitting behind her their mouths drop open when she said that. And then we get a survey from the teachers union that said 50 out of 58 teachers across both middle schools. Who, by the way, that meant every single teacher in the middle school responded. >> It did not. >> No, there's more more than 50. There's more than 59 teachers at the two middle schools. I believe it's up in the 80s. >> It's 75 people or so. >> 75. >> Okay. Well, it's a very high percentage relative to any of the other surveys that are conducted.

124>> Just one comment. uh um having having spent a lot of time in Hartford, every state statute about secondary schools gives the board the responsibility and if you read into many of those state statutes, the board's chap passes and hires the superintendent to fulfill many of those duties that are passed on. So when they say the board, it's it's a >> well this is our contract like our teachers contract. I'm not talking about the state statute. >> Same thing. We hire uh we hire the te we hire the superintendent who actually negotiates the contract with our legal uh team. So I I I think we can not worry about that. We understand what the board means. But right now we have a motion to table >> and uh motion to table uh takes precedent. Uh

125so um >> is there a second? I didn't hear one. >> Was there a second here? >> Motion. Is there a second? I think Megan seconded it. >> No, I didn't. I I second. >> So, no, not not his not his motion. My motion to table. >> There's no second to table. >> Well, can you um as I'm still learning, can you explain a little bit more about what to table like what that what that >> the table means that we're taking it off current discussion and we're waiting to the next opportunity. >> Kick it down the road for later. with no specified that's kind of more what I would know. >> Um >> I think my worry is that I totally understand that there was a lot of um confusion and worry from different

126parties at the onset. I also now feel like [clears throat] teachers were heard and a lot of board members were heard in this current um you know iteration that we're being shared with this evening. And so, um, I just want to be mindful that we're now not pushing or moving forward with something that I think does a really nice job of answering a lot of the concerns both from board members um, and from the information and surveys that we received from students because we're holding on to how it was first presented. And I totally hear and understand that, you know, that that's how people were feeling. But, um, I I guess think I say that just as a as a reminder, too. I I feel like what we were presented with, what we are presented

127with this evening does a really nice job of answering um and providing what was upsetting to the teachers and addressing a lot of the student needs. So, I just want to be mindful of that that we're not just saying, "Well, well, now we want to have the say because we didn't like how it was first presented." Um, and let's focus on where we're at tonight. >> Great point. >> All right. >> If if I can just so Yes. One more [clears throat] thing just because I just want again sort of also some clarifying context. [clears throat] I think there was a question of how we were pulled this together so quickly in sort of a twoe time like it was rushed. Um you have to remember we had looked at multiple different types of schedules

128as we went through this process. So this wasn't necessarily just creating something from new. We already had a version of this to begin with um where we had kept the original 42minute classes and we're trying to see how all of the pieces would fit together [clears throat] with some more choice. So please don't think that we pulled off a miracle in two weeks. We really just had to go back to some of the other iterations of different schedules that we were looking at. Um the second thing again is there is change in this schedule but the basic structure of it is exactly the same schedule that we currently have. 42-minute classes, eight periods, academic um subjects on the team. [clears throat] And what we've really the the two major changes is more student choice for

129electives and world languages and rotating that windblock so that we can do a better job at providing intervention services. But I would say that 75% of our staff are not going to feel that this schedule is any different than the one that they're currently living under because for the most part the the foundation of it is identical to the schedule we currently have. >> Okay. I want to echo what Autumn said like you know to me like when I was hearing it I felt like you were very responsive to what was commented upon and I think it it it it felt good that you were responsive and and and for that reason I'm a little uncomfortable with changing the general uh protocol around uh uh you know how we normally allowed for schedule changes. Indeed,

130if it was something egregious and like you know really something that I would I would also maybe think that maybe board intervention might be necessary. I just feel given what we are talking about to change a precedent maybe a bit too much in this context. Uh and so I I'm not sure that I do want to second the table of the motion but I guess to the extent maybe getting a sense of the room is useful I'm willing to second the tableabling. Uh but I I I just feel like, you know, this has been done reasonably well. I uh I think most of our concerns have been taken and therefore I don't know why we want to change the president a little bit. So I'm willing to uh second the motion if uh we want

131to have that table motion. >> Can I just ask a question? I guess my concern and my desire to like have a vote affirming whatever schedule we're deciding is to affirm that that's what's going to happen next year regardless of the budget that we pass. There's significant flexibility in the budget no matter what amount increase we approve as we've seen consistently over the last several years having multi-million dollar surpluses. So I would like to know that what we if this if this is what we move forward with and we all agree to it then this is what we move forward with not oh well we have room and we can actually do what was proposed before. So I I guess that is another reason to have a vote to have the certainty that this is

132what the board agreed on. This is what's moving forward. Kathy, >> just just a a comment about the motion that we had even though we're going to postpone it or >> Well, is if we did not have this motion, right? >> And we would have not had this plan, right? If we didn't ask for more input around what the schedule was going to be, that first schedule would have just gone forward, >> right? Unless we [clears throat] pushed it for the board to have more information and maybe board approval. >> Right. Right. >> And we also asked we also asked the administration to come up with a proposal. >> It changed not because we but but I I think your question was it's changing because we're taking this vote tonight. It didn't change because we're

133taking we would take a vote tonight. It's changed because we >> went to the because we heard about what the plan was. We said we weren't happy with it and there were changes but it's not necess >> but all those changes but those changes happened without us having an al having a vote of yay or nay on her plan. >> I think what Kathy is trying to say is the schedule presentation was kind of fluffed over in the beginning of the year and then it was asked by a board member for the schedule to be represented to us because we felt we really didn't know a lot about it. So that's why we are here. because a board member asked for it to be Michael presented. >> If I can I've been quietly watching and

134I missed the last meeting. >> Everybody's concerned about how the schedule's going to turn out. I have my own concerns watching everything and listening to everybody's concerns coming through. If you can start going through in the beginning, these changes I don't think anybody had an issue with. The only thing I'm really seeing changing wise is if you get back to the PE teachers, that seemed to be the biggest concern. Does anybody really have a concern with how the language arts changes or how the arts changes? We're keeping the same routine schedule. Is that the biggest piece? That's >> No, it's not. It's >> I I'm asking I'm asking Donna that's and I'm doing it as an open question. >> Donna, >> where is the concern? What do we need to see or what do we

135need to ask Jen to give us like here? This is what we want as the schedule. I'm assuming taking it word for word. You guys want some kind of a schedule so that we know this is what's the schedule is going to be next year. >> If I may only because you like the questions directed this way. Is that okay? >> How do we get the details out? I guess is how I'm asking. >> This isn't even a vote on on on what's proposed. It's simply a discussion amongst the board to say, hey, let the board have the final say when when ultimately we've had a number of different very very different proposals brought to us and initially um I think I'll speak for myself and perhaps for others where uh it was initially accepted

136by us in one light and then after additional information came out there was a different light that it was viewed in that wasn't quite the same. Um and then I think as more information was developed I think there was a collective effort amongst the entire board with the superintendent to refine some issues that we saw. Uh, and ultimately what I heard tonight, speaking for myself, I think it sounds pretty good. So, so the request um my motion to uh keep the board involved and ultimately have the board be able to give the final say in the final ratification, which I don't we almost we could almost maybe do it tonight just theoretically because I know it's not on the agenda. Um the the merit of what we heard tonight is not the impetus for the

137motion and and it has nothing to do with the budget. nothing whatsoever. Uh this is simply when we as a board as a school system are talking about implementing changes that that are not insignificant. I mean they're they're actually multi- school multi- district impacting a lot more than usual. Let's stay involved. And Patrick to your point I mean years past man I think there was a lot of apathy. I think there was a uh you know generally a board that um you know had a great superintendent and and really um said you know what whatever you say is great. And I think we still have a fre an awesome you know superintendent very capable but it's just having seen how over this time how we collaboratively together uh have I think really come up with

138a really good idea together we may not have Dr. buyers here that forever. And so it's more positional. It's more in the future, whoever's sitting in these chairs and whoever's sitting there, let's do it the way we just did it. And by having a motion that keeps the board um required to be involved, that's all I was trying to propose. >> Can I just respond to that second? So, one of the things is that [clears throat] >> we have I would I would strenuously disagree with the idea that any board that has been here has been apathetic ever. And I and I'll say that and you can have that opinion and it's wrong. But the I the reason like you said Dr. Buyers may not be here, Dr. Buyers may not be here forever. And

139one of the things that when she leaves, we'll be looking to hire another superintendent. And when superintendent candidates come in and they say, "This is a board that wants to have their thumb on every decision that you make. You're going to make it harder for us to have to hire another superintendent." And that's one of the things that we should be keep we you know part of it is she's hired to do a job she's doing a job why do we there we have a great school system that we have done it this way for the whole time why now change it other than the fact that we want to that we want to show like puff out our chest and have control over something that's been done a certain way >> I think I

140think our discussion is getting emotional and unfortunately that's Uh, >> sorry. >> I'm sorry. Christian, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. >> Okay. Yeah, Carol. >> So, I just Yeah. Just want to offer a few things. >> Um, >> this issue is clearly distinct from the schedule, right? This is a larger issue that I'm hearing everyone bring up. I think a larger issue that probably requires some time for us to talk as a board and make decisions about how we operate and like what our be very clear or have you know clear sort of um uh details about sort of what our purview is, how we function. Boards function differently, right? I know lots of districts where yeah people would say okay the board is very like super involved and like micromanaging the the superintendent and there

141may be other boards where that's not the case but that's it it's a there's a spectrum right so we have to decide as a board like how are we going to function what's our identity as a board right and I don't think this is the place to to figure that out I think the place is like we come together which I think I'm always going to every year I think the board needs to come together and have a retreat but I think it's like coming away and really talking about like our identity like who who are we and how are we going to function as a group and we collectively make that decision and we don't have to collectively make that decision with Dr. require is just like our board. But I think that's necessary

142and I think that's necessary yearly because we have people that cycle on and off. But like how you function is like a a core thing you have to establish. So just want to offer that I don't think it's unimportant. I I see your point. I just think we need to take this up like in a different space. >> Um okay. Uh [clears throat] there is a motion to table. Uh when that motion, if it passes, uh the board can take it off the table at any time and bring it up back up. Uh which indicates that we're going to be going into the budget next. If uh if we want to do that and uh if the motion to table um is achieved, we could possibly take it up after the budget, but that will

143have to be uh also something that uh we'll have to bring forward. >> All right. >> Well, if I may just also just one last thing >> and there's the I'm not going either way. I just want to say just because we've always done something one way doesn't mean that we need to keep it that way and that's not for or against what we're talking about here but just for us to be open and that's why dialogue among us board members is really important >> so that's very much in the spirit of what I was trying to say as well we are trying to institute a change in the way we operate >> right >> is this the day and is this the time given the outcome is something that seems to be satisfactory Do

144we want to make that change today in the way we operate? And that is mostly I think that Carol, you said that very well. Thank you. And again, I think that was kind of what I was trying. >> Okay. Can we >> Well, can I just I'm sorry. Um Lisa, can you read the motion back? >> This is a motion to table. >> The previous we still have to vote on that, right? >> This is a motion to table. We've discussed it. It comes before anything else we do. >> But we vote on the motion to table, right? Can I ask >> We do vote on the motion to table. >> How about How about I ask what we're tableing? What are we tableling? >> We're we're tableabling the previous motion. >> Can I hear

145the motion, please? >> Okay. >> As best as I was able to copy it down. Um, the proposed changes to the middle school schedule will not be implemented without a majority Amity Board of Education authorization. >> Okay. So, Paul, I I think what I'm hearing, if I'm hearing everyone's concerns about is this we want to take it up now here, is this the place? It's not does the board have the authority. It's does the board want to exercise that authority? Am I hearing that correctly from everyone? Okay. >> Um um I I want to get a legal interpretation. You read everything you did and that's great, but I want our I want I want our attorney to tell us yes, what you said was absolutely correct and the board has the authority to do this.

146And that's why I asked the table because uh and maybe Christian can confirm that if you have a legal opinion that you're discussing, you discuss it with people who know what the uh the laws are and can give you a legal opinion. Sometimes it may be wrong also too. So >> then how does that affect the schedule then? Let's say we let's say we do table it >> and we wait for a legal opinion. Does that mean we let's say we come back >> in two weeks or whatever our next meeting is and we say, "Oh, by the way, now we're going to say if you know legally the our our attorney comes back, the board attorney comes back and says, "Yes, this is within the board's purview." You say, "Okay, thank you." And then

147how does that affect the middle school schedule at that point? >> Because then the board has to vote on it. >> Okay. >> Well, it may be difficult to vote on the budget tonight if >> I don't think so. >> We don't have clarity on what's going to happen with the schedule. >> I mean, I just heard almost everybody say this has nothing to do with the budget. >> Well, there's two options up there budget wise, >> right? >> There are. >> So, just again observation. Um, you have to adopt a budget by March 15th, um, which is this coming Sunday. So, if you don't do it tonight, we'll be back here probably tomorrow night or Wednesday night, um, until you adopt a budget by March 15th. That said, you also have a public um

148hearing that's scheduled at the beginning of April. And at the public hearing um a the concept of it is to get feedback from the public at which point the board could change the budget again. But in other words, I think you have time built in quite naturally between March 15th, the date of the public hearing that if [snorts] you had to make adjustments because you took up a schedule vote later, you would be able to. Um I don't think you would necessarily well I I can't say that one way or the other whether you increase it or decrease it. But again by March 15th you would have to have a budget that you have approved and then you have time to still sort of get that feedback [clears throat] up through the public hearing which

149is the beginning of April. >> Okay. The the chair >> I don't know if that answers the question or not but >> here here's the thing. The chair has called for a vote on a motion to table. Uh once that's done, we are going to move on to the next item on the agenda is the budget. >> Correct. >> Depending on the water depending on the water be >> unless you vote. Yeah. But but that's that's the next thing. >> So can you call the role, please? >> I'm sorry. Like would you mind could you just state the motion again? >> This is a motion to table >> the motion. The motion [clears throat] was that the proposed changes to the middle school vote, excuse me, to the middle school schedule not be implemented without

150a majority board authorization. >> So if you say yes, you're saying we're not going to have this discussion. And if you say no, you're saying I still want to continue this discussion of >> discussion and have a vote. >> We're going to have the vote on the original >> and have the vote. >> We're going to have the vote. >> So if we're going to table it, discussion ends >> on on this. Right. So, a yes. >> Everyone good? >> Yes. >> So, if you say yes, you're tableabling. If you say no, you want to vote on the original >> yes [clears throat] kicks the can. >> I'm not done with my conversation, but I guess I [laughter] say yes. >> Yes. >> Wait, what did you say? You you want to table it? >>

151Yes. >> I don't want to table it. >> So, you're no [laughter] >> cuz you said yes, I want to table it. >> This is to table the motion. Miss Bradley, for the record, no. Miss Cloud Ingram, >> yes. >> Miss Shake, >> yes. >> Dr. Kuna Kuran, >> yes. >> Miss Lombardi, >> no. >> Mr. Reed, >> yes. >> Mr. Davis, >> yes. >> Mr. Mcdana, >> no. >> Dr. Ola Delay, >> yes. >> Miss Rebuse, >> no. >> Miss Schustster, >> no. >> Mr. Young, >> no. >> Okay. The motion uh the table does not carry. Uh can we do the budget presentation? >> No, you still have to vote on the other motion. >> What motion? >> The original motion that was made out. >> Oh, you I understand what you're saying.

152You're right. 66. So So it didn't pass. >> Okay. Okay. >> So the table fails. >> So we're voting on the other motion. >> So now we're going to vote on the other motion. >> So can you repeat the motion that we're now voting on? >> Yes. Thank you. Sorry. So the motion >> before before you >> uh we can still discuss this a little bit more now. >> We finished the we finished the discussion and that's why we went to the table. No or >> let's discuss cuz right the the table the table stops the discussion. >> All right. Is there anyone that has anything to say? >> Okay. Just want to treat everybody fairly. [laughter] Are we going to >> Are we going to vote on the first motion? >> Yes. >> What

153comes next? >> Can we repeat the first motion? >> Yes. >> Um the motion is that proposed changes to the middle school schedule not be implemented without a majority board authorization. >> Can you just reiterate the no, what the no means and what the yes means? >> I cannot, Mr. Davis. [laughter] >> All right, hold on. I cannot. >> Yes, they would have we'd have to have a majority for Jen's schedule to pass. No, we would not. >> Well, not voting on the schedule. >> Uh, you know, I think the chair uh made a mis call before because now that I'm thinking about it, uh, >> this is not on the agenda. >> We did not agenda. >> We didn't add anything to the agenda. We >> he he voted to move it to the

154agenda. >> He made the motion to move it to the agenda first. >> He said we didn't Dr. >> Bar to me. I think that's >> she said he said making the motion adding it to the >> There has to be a separate motion to add something to the agenda and then you can add that item to the agenda. Make the motion and discuss it. >> You can't right? I made it. I made the motion. I said to the extent that in our agenda it could be argued that the public was not put on notice of the motion before the board. We then moved that vote as unked if it was necessary and I think we decided >> and then and our chair said we'll proceed with the vote and then we had a table.

155So, >> right. Okay. >> Are you overruling yourself? >> Yeah. Yeah. I think we need to vote on your your >> So, we go back to my initial motion of adding this to the agenda. >> I very honestly believe that's a correct procedure. >> I'll make a motion to add it to the agenda. >> Mr. McDonald, you'd like to >> I'll make the motion to add it to the agenda. >> Oh, it's already made. >> You can second it. >> I'll second it. >> Okay. Then who do we need to second it? Yes or no? I do second. Second. >> Hold on. Just for the record, I have the motion was originally made by um Mr. Young and it was seconded by Miss Reuse. >> Yes. >> Am I using that motion to add to

156the agenda? >> And then the rest of >> So that was already those two motions were already made. [snorts] >> So the motions were already made. We just have to vote to add it and then we'll vote on the motion. >> Okay. >> Excellent. So Miss Bradley, >> we're adding it, right? >> Yes. Miss Cloud Ingram, >> this is I'm sorry. >> This is just to add the vote. We're not voting actually on the motion yet, but just to even add it to the agenda at all so that we can even have a vote >> and a discussion. >> Yes, >> Miss Jet. >> Yes. >> Dr. Kakra. [laughter] >> Miss Lombardi. >> Yes. >> Mr. Reed, >> no. >> Mr. Davis, >> no. >> Mr. Mcdana, >> yes. >> Dr. Dr. Ola Delay, >>

157yes. >> Miss Rebuse, >> yes. >> Miss Schustster, >> yes. >> Mr. Young, >> yes. >> Motion carries >> for clarification. Uh, and >> the chair's interpretation. Uh, that motion was made and passed to add that as item number eight on the agenda. And every other item on there is now pushed back one. >> Where are we? >> So discussion now. So now are we going to vote on that? >> Now now we discuss it. >> Yeah. >> Vote on that. >> So now can someone >> vote on the motion? >> Yeah. >> I'm sorry. What's that? We have discussion now. >> I mean I mean if the board if the board is okay with this, we've discussed this endlessly. We need to rem >> I think the clarification is that what we are voting

158on is not the schedule itself. We are voting on whether >> the board makes the decision >> right >> about the schedule >> in general. >> Yes. >> Finalize it. >> Yes. >> Exactly. >> Can I clarify something? If if we did not have this vote, is there any scenario where the schedule would not be as you presented it tonight? [clears throat] Um >> I mean like when it when it's implemented >> I think the the biggest limiting factor is we would have to make some decisions if we do not have the teachers for the health and PE um because I don't think any one of us want combined classes of seventh and eighth grade students that of 33. So, we would have to probably revisit the issue of offering music off of opposite PE.

159We'd be right back. We we literally wouldn't be changing the schedule at all. Um except maybe offering some world language choice. Um [clears throat and cough] so, but but that would be the that would be the deciding factor. So, yes, it still could change, but then it becomes budget. It's somewhat budget interwoven. >> Yeah. And then also just for clarification, [clears throat] let's say this motion passes. We do not have to necessarily vote on this tonight. Correct? We could say >> yeah, we want more information. Like let's say somebody makes a mo we make this passes. We make a motion to take the vote on the schedule. We have a discussion and we say, you know what, the piece of information we're missing is we want another survey from the teachers. I want to know

160which Spanish teacher how this would work, right? We don't have to necessarily vote on this tonight. I just Okay. >> But I think it also sets a precedent of >> we don't ever end up in the situation that we were in say a month ago where the budget reflects an eight drop two schedule that none of us have been presented or are clear on what's going on. >> In my opinion, that's what this is for. would and what would it say at what would be the boundary condition on what would the superintendent need to come to the board with like you know I find that very difficult to decide on the fly as to what the boundaries are because A2 drop maybe it's big what is the uh the thing I think it we need

161very a fairly serious discussion about what is it that we are delegating to the superintendent versus not and today's vote seems to be a little bit we making some policy on the fly. changing something uh you know something big in terms of what the boundaries are because I don't know when the next uh what is the boundaries and you have to come to us and that is what makes me gives me pause in setting a president of this nature because it could be simply I need you to go and do a survey until you do it I'm not going to vote right what is that boundary and I understand that maybe we all have sense of it but I I just feel like a more detailed thoughtful way of thinking through is before we make

162a change on a policy that we seem pretty comfortable with I think might be the best step instead of saying oh you know we we're going to try to set a new president I think it's very important that we uh take this word fairly seriously I don't think it take it lightly and I hope others do too because we don't know what the boundaries we are trying to set for the superintendent >> okay Miss Bradley Miss Cloud Ingram, >> no. >> Miss Jack, >> no. >> Dr. Kunron, >> no. >> Miss Lombardi, >> yes. >> Mr. Reed, >> no. >> Mr. Davis, >> no. >> Mr. Mcdana, >> yes. >> Dr. Ola Delay, >> no. >> Miss Rebuse? >> Yes. >> Miss Schustster? >> Yes. >> Mr. Young? >> Yes. >> Can you announce the

163count, please? 66. >> Motion does not pass. >> Okay, we are now at the budget. >> So, I don't have a lot of slides for everybody, so I can hopefully go through this fairly quickly, although I'm sure the discussion will be robust. Um, so this is just where we currently sit. Um the um we have a um [clears throat] recommendation um currently to go no higher than 1.53% over the current fiscal year. Um that was approved on February 23rd. That includes four teachers. Um it included at that point in time two teachers, one world language teacher, one special education teacher and it had reduced the STEM instructional push. Um we obviously while we still can continue to look for um places where um we need to make adjustments. Um this is probably um the biggest

164um addition that we had. Um now that our high school has been able to put in their um course requests um for the students. We had 42 requests for the certified um nursing assistant course. We had um budgeted for 15 spots because we weren't sure how it was going to be seen by the students. Um we would like to increase to have 20 spots which is the maximum that we can carry for one class period. Um and so that is a total increase of $8,190. Um and then in terms of the personnel impact again um like I said um earlier in the world language I do believe that we can um we can offer the uh French choice without the addition of um another world language teacher and we would be able to um to

165uh repurpose or or to reduce a Spanish teacher at the middle schools and essentially replace that with a French teacher. So, um we would maintain our current dual language staffing. Um this does still include um uh the two PE teachers um again because I don't believe that we can make the changes to how [clears throat] PE is offered safely without having additional teachers and the one special education teacher. Um so where that brings us at this point and this is what I have um supposed is um a 1.35% increase over the current um budget year. This would include the three teachers as well as the additional spots in the certified nursing system. Um just for references um this is kind of where the rest of the state um currently is um hovering somewhere around three

166and a half for regional school districts board of education adopted budgets. So that's sort of where you're going hopefully tonight are around four um four and a half%. Um you can see the budgets for our three elementary school districts coming in. Um and Andy at 1.35 continues to be the lowest budget request in the state of Connecticut. Um upcoming meetings, like I said, the public hearing is on April 6. That's where people can come to this board meeting and give feedback in person about the budget, but it's also a place where you as a board can respond to that feedback and kind of gives you that chance to make final adjustments. after the public hearing, which is also when you set the date of the referendum. We can't make any more changes until it goes

167to referendum. So, that's kind of your last your last date. Um, and then the referendum is May 5th. That's where we are. >> Okay. Uh, so do we have a motion? >> We will discuss it. Motion >> motion to discuss the budget too accept >> to approve a budget [clears throat] of >> sorry >> 1.35.35 >> we have a second >> second >> I'd like to move to amend the motion >> second >> um in place of >> okay hold on we'll give her a chance to write Megan Okay. >> Um, >> ahead with your amendment. It's appropriate. Amendment is appropriate at this time. >> In place of the proposed budget at Are we proposing the 1.35%? >> Yeah. Just >> I move that the board adopt a revised budget with the following modifications. that

168the proposed budget increase by 1% with the roughly 200,000 reduction from the superintendent's proposed budget be taken from either the salary or purchase services line items which have consistently been overbudgeted by a combined one and a half million for the last four years. >> Uh that should not be part of the motion. >> Okay. Well, that's part of my discussion. Then make your motion >> that the proposed budget increase by 1% with the roughly 200,000 reduction from the superintendent's proposed budget be taken from the salary and/or purchase services line items. >> Okay, that's a good one. Do we have And we had a second. >> We did. Question. >> Okay. >> Is that a second? >> What? >> Yes. >> Made and seconded. And what was it? One point >> 1% >> Okay. >> Salary

169or purchase services. All right. >> Uh Kathy, do you have a want to comment? >> I was I was seconding her. >> Okay. >> We already had one. It was >> Christian. >> So now we have >> Christian beat you to it. >> Okay. Discussion. >> So can I just >> Now you can use it as a discussion. >> So one thing we keep highlighting that 1.35% is the lowest in the state. I would just like to refer everybody to the bottom of page four where it shows that this is actually a 3.3% increase if you remove the impact of the debt service offset which is what would be comparable to what most districts in the state have other than regional districts that um are carrying debt. So most districts do not have roughly a

170million dollar plus offsetting their operating expenditure increase. Um, the other thing I just would like to emphasize to the board is that as a whole, we obviously devote a significant amount of time to the budget itself, but we spend far less time reviewing actual financial performance once the budget is passed, at least beyond kind of the AFC. Um, and even in our monthly reports, we compare almost exclusively the current versus our estimated budget, never actually to actual historical numbers. um and never consistently to multiple years at a time. So 80% of our budget or of our surplus every year comes from really two buckets. About a third of it is from salaries which for the last four years have been overbudgeted by over $600,000 consistently every year [clears throat] for the last four years. And

171then almost half comes from purchase services. And really that comes from two buckets. Another third is tuition expense. and then about 14% from transportation. And I think it's important for those who may not have financial backgrounds to understand that the surplus, yes, it's related to risk, but it's also should be that risk is commensurate with the volatility associated with a budget. And a school budget with some exceptions is very predictable. Um, we know how many teachers we're going to have. There is some fluctuation, but to put it in there can be a little fluctuation in terms of exactly the teacher in that exact seat, but to put it in perspective, a $600,000 overbudgeting on salary is the equivalent of 12 teachers retiring at the highest salary threshold and being replaced by somebody at an entry

172level threshold every single year. um or the equivalent of five to six unfilled positions at high experience levels. So that to me just seems significant and given our hiring patterns and staffing stability, we don't have a lot of turnover, unexpected turnover. We don't have a lot of unexpected retirements, we tend to know kind of going into budget season what those will be. I just am not clear as to why that's so consistently happening. And so to try to, you know, get our town support because I'll remind you that at the AFC on the recommendation, the first vote you had all three town representatives vote no. The second time you had two of the three vote no and those two represent towns that account for 80% of the voters who are going to vote on the

173AMD referendum. So losing town support matters and I think it's important that we hear hear their concerns about the excessive surplus. So that's on the salary side, which frankly I think is more than [clears throat] enough to kind of account for the 200,000 reduction. And on purchase services side, that's been overbudgeted by on average about $900,000. It's ranged from 500,000 to one a.5 million over the last four years. We heard for I asked during AFC, Mr. Brandt some questions about what can we expect in terms of volatility. He said we've had at the high end one student that um cost roughly I think you said 447,000. Um there's been two unexpected instances similar to that over the last seven years. So when we have a 1 and a.5 million surplus coming from those two buckets,

174we're basically saying let's plan to have the worst case scenario in all these circumstances all at the same time in one year. And that just seems excessive in a business that has relative stability and predictability. >> That's my discussion. >> Okay, Christian. >> Thank you, sir. Um, and somewhat to my neighbor in Orange who spoke up earlier with his two minutes. Sorry, I forgot your name, but uh, apologize, I didn't catch you, but um, I I nodded my agreement with what you were saying and your observation. A lot of the dialogue or debate or and discussion about this budget surplus could could be um characterized as ideological. I mean and you know I think there's probably no disagreement that some amount of a buffer is not a bad idea is a good idea but the

175question is how much and how much is too much and then if we year after year after year after year uh provide for a buffer in the millions of dollars. Um, is there not at least the ideological uh notion that maybe maybe we could actually do a more accurate accountable budget? Uh, whereas we heard some of our younger constituents and students here saying, "Look, we really want to know where the money goes." you know, uh could we not provide more line item accuracy without having a millions millions of dollars at the end go into uh what could could be and I don't mean to you know uh suggest there's anything but like a slush fund like a general hey it's it's for the good it's for good purpose as my colleague Sadir says you know

176so what we're using it for good stuff it doesn't really matter does it no it actually does the town members want to know exactly what line item their money is going into um so Yes, it's ideological to a degree, but to to back up what back up or piggyback on or augment what Megan was saying, you know, in and these are our numbers. These are from, you know, our accounting. In the year 2021 through 2022, in January, it was projected we would have a surplus of 375,000 when at the end of the year we had one over 600,000. Uh same thing for 2223. In January, it was projected we'd have a $275,000. >> This about the salary line. >> Yeah, this is the salary line item. This is salary, right? Uh and then at the

177end of the year we had a $670,000 surplus. Uh on salary line item in 2324 it was projected we'd have a almost $300,000 surplus. In 2324 and we had a 633 uh surplus. And then in 2425 it was projected we'd have a 95,000 surplus when in fact we had a 650,000 surplus. At what point does surplus which seems to be almost like hey pleasant surprise we did a really good job this year. We've got a little extra money left over. But year after year after year after year, that's not an accident. That's an intentional overbudgeting by design to leave a significant amount of money in as as Megan said a nonvolatile line item. I mean, how under what circumstance even with COVID we didn't uh dip below a $650,000 um surplus? So, I support Megan's

178motion and the motion to pass a 1% budget with I'll say the difference coming out of the salary line item. [sighs and gasps] I don't want to denigrate saying as an ideological statement, but as a recognition that we as a board can do better. We have now realized every single year we have at what point can you say it's not intentional. we have intentionally built in with almost a 3/4 of a million surplus in one line item alone in the salary alone. So I am voting with a 1% uh and taking out the difference [laughter] out of the salary line item to try to bring some more reasonable risk tolerance to what I don't think is a reasonable buffer of 2 million every year. >> Okay. Before you're talking about the the salary line item.

179I was when I when I was referencing numbers. Thank you, Paul. When I was making reference to numbers of 21, here's 21 22 23 24. I was looking directly at our salary line item exclusively with our January projected followed by our actually realized. >> Okay. Before we go further, could I have uh either Terry or Dr. Buyers, how do we develop that line item, the salary line item? >> What's it based on? every single staff member who's working for us now or a position proposed in the budget is there. They're moved up on the appropriate salary step for the following year. Any stipens that they're entitled to um for all the salaries and then the we average out how much we've used for substitutes for coverage costs the other things that are not as finite.

180>> Okay. So basically, if we were to do this, we'd have to kind of say, okay, we we're we're taking this and where's it coming from? I mean, if you're going to take that much money out, where how do we get it? What are we what are we going to have to reduce in that salary line item if to make it lower? Because if you take all the salaries that you put in, they're all positions. Correct. >> Correct. Uh so can't take it from there because to do that you'd have to eliminate some positions. >> Well somehow at the end of the year you end up with 600 grand left over as a surplus. >> But is that how do but okay can I can I ask a question to >> how does that does

181that happen be because like we're seeing in in tonight's uh uh packet that there were a resignation of a teacher and a pair of professional. that because people leave and then we're not paying that salary for a teacher >> and then until we hire somebody there's nobody in that position but we obviously budgeted it for them to be here for the entire year. There are a lot of leave of absences that happen in the springtime. It's very common that teachers go out on maternity leave at the end of the year so they have the summer off after they they offer that up. So that's when you hit a lot of unpaid uh leave of absences. So, >> so cycle into right with the exception of the estimate on uh substitutes and so on, every dollar

182in there is spoken based on the positions that are in the school district that we're paying for it. >> It's some accounting >> positions and person right because right the person right different spot on the salary scale and this actually accounts for each actual person >> and with some projections for retirement that is actually removed. So it's not like so they have some projections for retirement uh so which they are reasonably confident of the resignations they cannot project but the retirements they do right so so there is something that they do take into account and the other thing that maybe might be worth clarifying is like even though the numbers look very large 600,000 salary Ryan there is some adjustment that comes from the professional services part right like perhaps there is a little bit

183of clarification that the number should not be literally taken because there is a substitution elsewhere that is going on perhaps A little clarification might help >> because we have to hire outside consultants to fill some of those positions. Especially in the special education area, we have to meet the services for students IEPs. >> So, but it's on a different line item, >> right? Okay. >> You said it's not a different line item. >> Oh, it's on. Okay. >> So, it's the 600,000 looks bigger than what it actually is because there's some the professional services line. >> It would fall under purchase services. Correct. >> Correct. So over the same time horizon that we have averaged a surplus of over 600,000 on the salary line item um we've in within purchase services we've averaged a n

184over $900,000 surplus >> and that also includes many other things besides those kind of >> if I pull out pupil transportation and tuition expense the other the remaining other bucket has averaged a deficit of $22,000 which a drop in the bucket compared to over 600,000. So if we're making the argument that there's an offset, that offset is has averaged to be very minimal relative to $600,000. >> Um Jen, >> so for clarification with what they are proposing, could you actually take on that risk and do the budget as it's written? But you know, we we go down to one, but you do everything you're still planning on doing that's in the budget currently or would you have to reduce teachers? >> We wouldn't. we the all of the new teacher proposals which would account for

185some of that um would have to be eliminated and then we would have to probably look in at other areas where you just take have to take a risk around substitute teachers is probably um if we're talking about salaries that's our biggest one and purchase services there's you know I don't know legal fees um I mean Terry knows everything that's in the purchase services more but we would redo some things, but most certainly to get to a 1% any of the new teacher proposals would not. >> All right. Uh would it be uh would it be reasonable to say if this passed, we'd have to eliminate the two individual physical education teachers that would go to that middle school plan? >> Yes. So, we are automatically directing the board to vote for a budget that

186would eliminate a particular schedule or plan for the middle schools. >> There's no way to have those people in the budget and then see where the surplus is at the end of the year and if you end up short, go to a referendum. >> No. >> Okay. I I mean, you can't I don't you can't deliberately plan your budget with the expectation that you go to a referendum. >> No. And I'm not saying that, but as they're trying to point out, we're we've been a million dollar surplus every year. We've got money coming back to the town every year since I've been on the board. >> For the sake of we're asking 200,000. There you go. >> Yeah. 3% of of >> 200,000 budget. >> I would be willing to take the risk >> that

187it's going to we're going to have some kind of a surplus at the end of the year. >> Yeah. I was going to ask >> it's amazing >> that would cover that and still have your teachers that you're proposing here. >> I would take that risk. >> So I I just want to say that um we do have to have money at the end of the year, right? like we are a school district, but I'm also thinking about like my town, right? We're having conversations about, you know, a new elementary school and um you know, people are concerned about taxes. I guess my question to you is, well, I'm I think about these things as like very different, right? Surplus. Yes. At the end of the day, you need something left over in your checkbook,

188right? You can't like go down to zero. Um, however, I've always wondered, can we operate leaner with some line items? And does the reduction have to come from this budget? Can it not come from another line item where, you know, we see that we sort of usually have money left over or or a budget line item that we might be willing to take a risk in sort of reducing? I guess I'm just not sure that it has to come from here. I like this schedule. I like I I really appreciate um the responsiveness, you know, this uh schedule to all the comments that we had a couple weeks ago. Um but does it have to come from here? The reduction that um is being proposed? I no it doesn't but I I wouldn't advise it

189coming from any other place because all those other and and and you know line items um they are accounted for either off of real numbers when we talk about staff or off of three year real contracts [clears throat] right because we have a lot of those so we know what the contract costs are for next year or off of historic three-year averages. those are for the things that are least predictable, right? Like substitute usage. Um so unless and again I'll just use you know that as as an example unless we foraw some dramatic change in our staffing um and leave um provisions. I wouldn't think that we would see that much of a change in how we use substitutes unless we saw, you know, I mean, there are times when we may not need as

190much legal fees, but those are years when we're not negotiating contracts typically, so we don't necessarily So, we account for that. So, I just don't, you know, are our I mean, I I wouldn't make a reduction in electricity supply. that's only gone up every single year and is underbudgeted every single year for the past two years. So, we wouldn't make changes there. I don't think that, you know, we're locked in on fuel prices. We know about how much fuel we we spend over a 5year average. There there aren't a lot of places where we could make those changes. The the flexibility is in the new positions that have been proposed. What about I know as a district we've been really good about um you know cost efficiencies over the year, right? Like we get money

191back from a we get grants or we we get reimbursements, not special ed because that's probably a sore area, but like um reimbursements for other things. could we think about um you know areas where we are like really good at sort of saving money and >> so one of the the things with grants and it's it's written into almost all the language is that it is to supplement not supplant so we can never look to our grant sources whether it's title one or two or IDA as a place where we can put things that are in our budget now all of a sudden say the grant should pay for that. Um because that would be supplanting and it's literally prohibited in the the administration of the grant. Um our grants are sort are are locked

192in for that that um [snorts] that supplement piece. Um and and there really outside of those federal grants, there really aren't a lot of other grants that we we get. We we never get the security grant ever. Um, so we try every year, but it's always awarded to the three towns. Um, there there really aren't opportunities like that available for school districts. Um, can I just say one? So again, in the interest of framing this, right? So it'll be useful to think about I I think Christian said this some of it is ideological and like you know we try to think okay well we should really cut it down to the bone and like you know what exactly it is but I think even if you take the idea that because this year's number is

193low because the uh debt servicing amount is lower uh as Megan said it is 3.5% or 3.3% or whatever that is. Now think about a a budget in which we've guaranteed a salary hike of over 3.8% or what is the hike that we have guaranteed? >> Um the salary it's 3.87 I think >> 3.87 87 the inflation that we all know right we talking about cutting costs and things like that does it feel like a 3.3% even accounting for the increase is is extravagant right like is there something that like you know people are patting like you know is there not enough effort being made I think that is a quite a reasonable number given what we've contracted out and I get the idea that this thing like you know we can do a one-time

194reduction in the surplus loss and it's a one-time thing. We should remember this for you know and this is the part that I find it most difficult. We are for a onetime reduction to the taxpayer whatever that savings we are going to make because this is not going to happen next year right because next year you you got to pay the full amount uh for whatever the increase is. We are taking a risk for this one-time reduction that we want to give a taxpayer. It is not even money that this taxpayer paid because this has been sitting there for like many many many years. Some taxpayer over time had paid this amount and we are will we want to take this risk. We want to disrupt this budget for what is really a 3.38% given

1953.89% uh you know increases etc that we filed with the contract. So I think it's important to frame this as yes it can look like a million but like it is really you know not not incompatible with the kinds of expenses that the school district is facing year after year after year. I'm sorry. Excuse me. Um just clarification um [clears throat and cough] to what Sid here is saying that for the one for the 4.1 million that's currently sits in CNR and RE what are those designations and since now there it's no longer necessarily for CNR that can be used for any type of operational expenses that the school district incurs. Am I misunderstanding? So um so first you have some money in a capital non-recurring account that's the old one >> right that is

196only used >> that's like 1.7 I think something to that >> then remember we set up our educational reserve >> 1.9 >> and so that has money sitting in it and educational reserve fund does have more flexibility to it can be used for educational expenses by policy as a you decided to use that funding for capital projects unless the two/3s vote chooses to use it for something else. And yes, in theory a you could vote to use that money for something else. What's there right now is designated. It would have to be any monies available going forward that you would either not designate or change the designation on. >> Right. But they're designated, but just to be clear, >> they're going to be reimbursed. >> Funds designated in the educational reserve fund are currently designated

197for the library project, which we're going to receive grants back from the state. So, how much of that money that's designated? The point she's trying to make is right now there's 4.1 million sitting on our balance sheet. And while that is designated for projects, there's a big chunk of it that we're going to be getting back. there's going to be a surplus again at the end of this year that you're going to ask us to vote for another 2% to get set aside for. So to Sadir's point that this is a one-time it's not a onetime thing. Every year it's $2 million that then we keep and then we choose some projects that we want to spend it for. We're also going to go out and bond. We should be brainstorming what all those projects

198are, putting them into the bond, presenting them to voters to vote on, not having them vote to approve line items like salary and transportation and special ed tuition expense that we overbudget by $2 million and then keep and create a slush fund that we spend on projects that don't go out to voters to see. That is the fundamental issue that many of [clears throat] the taxpayers and towns board of finance have concern and I'm asking to try to respect some of those wishes and take a small chunk of the 2 million 200,000 10% not a whole lot and I don't think it means we have to eliminate anything that you're asking for. I just think it means that we don't end next year with a $2 million surplus. I would first like to address the

199characterization of our educational reserve fund as a slush fund. We have always been very clear that we identify projects that are in need of repair and fixing, but they're projects that we could defer for a certain amount of time. If funds are available, they are still projects and repairs that are necessary to continue to provide buildings that are appropriate for our students. and we use that money so that we can make those changes without having our taxpayers pay the interest on a larger bond. >> Why don't we include them in the budget? Why don't we come up with them during the budget process so that they're included as transparent line items? >> They are included as part of our five-year capital plan and at a certain point we identify whether or not these are going

200to go into bonding and operational budget or if we're going to use the educational reserve fund to to pay for them. That changes from year to year. If you look at our five-year capital plans, you will see things that were originally operational that then we had to move to the reserve fund or CNR. You'll see things that we designated for CNR that we said no, we need to put that into the operational budget. Every year it changes, but it is on our five-year plan and we identify which account it's going to come from. >> So, sorry, I I did have a second question if I may ask. I am looking at these budget references. I see AMD Regional at 1.35% increase that was proposed. I'm not proud of that. I think people think we're jumping

201for joy because we can make the lowest budget in the state. Does that include the um the STEM uh future that we were going to hire? >> No, that does not. Why' we take that out? What do we What was the reason we took that out? >> So that you can having a low budget, >> right? That's not what I call being a person committed to education. I think that should go back up in there. So yeah, we can find ways to find more money to do stuff, more money not to use. Uh however, I've worked with these people uh for uh six years now. And I'm proud of the work that they do with our budget. I'm proud of the work that they do in managing our money. 17, no, it's more than 17

202years ago is like 20 some odd years ago. We had 17 budget votes because of the mismanagement of the district money. And it took all that time and all this effort. And I don't hear people complaining other than a few people. I don't hear people complaining about the surplus, what we spend the surplus on. I hear people saying, "Oh, wow. You'll be able to do that uh media center and it won't cost the taxpayers a bond." Yes, we should be bonding. We should be bonding on certain items. Uh I I just can't go back and sit myself and feel good about myself because we are working so hard to not spend money where we should be spending money. more education, better education. There's so many things that some of those other school districts are spending

203their uh hard-earned taxpayer money to maintain the quality and improve the quality of their stu school district. Uh I know that uh there were numerous other places and we talk about uh employee numbers. We've added numbers and they've been added when they were really desperately needed. If we had done it before then, we might not have run into the problem. So, we can talk about this all night. Uh whether it's 1.35 or 1.0, I don't think either one of them are the type of number that I'd really feel that comfortable with. But if the superintendent says she can work with 1.35, I will support it. I will absolutely not go any lower than that. And I would recommend all of our members of the board remember that you're here to support education reasonably fair to

204the taxpayers and that's about the lowest thing in the state for the taxpayers. No matter how you handle it, the taxpayers of Bethany Woodbridge and Orange are getting a very very low rate on their budget. and the taxpayers will vote in favor of it like they did last year uh where we had people in Orange who voted against it in the budget meeting and yet came back in Orange after the town voted it uh by a 3 to1 margin victory. Same thing in Woodbridge 2 to one and Bethany was also 3 to one. So people are interested in quality education. It's going to cost money and I don't think being proud to get our budget down to 1.0 0 and tell everybody in the state, look how low we got our budget. I don't think

205that makes me proud. We have a person in orange who always uses a very famous uh term that he g passes to everybody else at at the finance committee meeting and friend of mine. I've gone out to dinner. We sat, we talked about it. He says, "We've got to learn to do more with less." Well, sometimes it takes more to do more. And that's what I think we should be looking at here, not how low we can go. >> Sorry, >> I take umbrage with your uh castation, Paul, that you're saying that some people here are just saying spend less, spend less, spend less. All I have heard here were people saying let's have less of a surplus. Let's have less of a surplus. It wasn't let's get the numbers down. It wasn't No one

206here has said let's spend less on education. The only thing I've heard in relation to a budget is let's have less of a surplus. So I'll pose a rhetorical question to you uh because I don't need to turn this into a debate although it could be interesting. How much of a surplus would you think is okay? 10% 15% 20. It's rhetorical. Okay. Uh so again no one here has said fire teachers take away classes reduce the per capita expense for a student. All right. So for you to say that veiled comments that there are people here who are saying take away from our education, take away from our students. That is not the case. All I've heard and all I've said myself is let's try to take away from the surplus. Not from the school,

207not from the administration, not from the kids. I do want to correct you on that. And if you have heard anyone say at this bench to anyone, I want to take away from our schools, please point them out tonight. Okay? Otherwise, I think you stand corrected. I think the only thing that's been said is let's have less of a surplus. Right? So the only thing I'm asking is let's have less of a surplus. I mean if the overall number isn't wasn't the focus. And by the way as as Sadir had said it's actually closer to 4%. But that's not it. It's we're only talking about the surplus. Okay? We're not talking about tearing away what we all are sitting here because we're volunteering our time because we care for the kids. We care for the

208schools. We care for the teachers. No one here is is predatorily trying to take away from our school system. >> My apologies. I appreciate Oh, hold on. My apologies for the way I stated that. My concern still is that the message that our administration gets is you've got to spend less money all the time. Spend less money. >> And and and we we get it back no matter for the last several years at least at least from the uh orange border finance, no matter how low we send the budget to them. this year. I think it was 1 point uh was it 1 point >> seven? >> I think it was 2.21 when we >> originally but when you did your presentation >> I think it was still they were very early. It was still

209it was still in the low twos. >> In any case, no matter how low we've gone in our budget and it seems each year we've gone lower and lower and lower. >> Uh they can't accept that. Even now when I hear you have to go below 1.0 and you you didn't make the 0.99 on your >> I was just keeping it simple. [laughter] >> So >> good. I'm glad >> one other thing I wanted to add could add this because I think you know our choices affect the way the surplus happens. We could do many things by contracting out and we would have predictable budgets, right? The fact that we in put all of the special education increases the variance because uh what it does is so so now we have bigger headcounts, right? There

210are more likely people to heard. So what it does is like you know instead of if we were to send this money out, we would have to pay a lot more. you would get more predictability because like you know many exactly you would be >> I actually said by insourcing it we've reduced the variability. >> No by insourcing it you can reduce variability but you the absolute magnitudes go up. So in terms of the numbers it the the surplus necessary to deal with it will increase. The second thing I'll say is so everything that we do right like you know okay well we are increasing the number of uh teachers the teachers have increased partly because of uh so when you do all of those things like the in so it's essentially kind of we

211are effectively doing so the reverse is Megan I think this is what maybe I misspoke and maybe you're catching on the uh the right point what I was trying to say is that by choosing to do a lot of things in house we are reducing the insurance premiums that we need to pay for elsewhere. [clears throat] Right? So that's so the fact that we are doing uh insurance self insurance means that we are not paying an insurance company to pay for that premium. That is money that we save for the uh taxpayer. When we do in-house special education, we do things at a lower cost. It's more work, but it also brings in lower cost. We never seem to give credit to this administration for the kinds of things that they continuing to choose to

212do which actually reduces the total cost year after year but we are so focused on that variance and the thing that about the surplus that we forgot forget to give credit to the things that actually makes the real costs go down and so I'm a big supporter of these budgets because I feel like this administration [clears throat] and like I and I was as skeptical as you were when I joined the board I went through every number. I was critical. I asked Terry for every kind of question. The more she answered me, the more trust I built. And that is why I find it very hard when words like lack of trust and slush fund and words like that really gives me rhetorically a bad feeling about what is going on. This district has can

213be trusted. Now, we might disagree on what that margin is, but let us not use words like they're not trying to bring down the cost. Let's not c use words like slash funds and things like that because that really is not the spirit of what this administration does. And I think it's important for the taxpayer to hear this because otherwise we're kind of you know corroing the trust of the taxpayer in this school district. >> Just just a quick comment. So first of all I take offense that you think we're trying to take things away from the children and take things away from the teacher. I know. I know. I think the way the budget process has been done, I'm talking about the process, right, over the last five, six, seven years has caused us

214to take a hard look, right, and ask the questions we're asking because the surplus is consistent year after year after year. And so you have a surplus of 600,000. Good year. Then you have it again the second year, then you have it again the third year. It says we really need to take a hard look at the process. And that's what we're asking. That's what we're talking about. We're not talking about taking away from We're not talking about people doing a bad job. We're not questioning. We're not saying take teachers away. We're saying the process needs to be more effective and more efficient. >> Okay. So, I just had a a second question for Jen. >> May I ask it? >> Yeah. You >> don't seem like you want me to ask it based on

215I'm just reading your face. Um [laughter] the the question is that if if um the amendment were to pass at a 1% instead of the 1.35. Um am I hearing you correctly that you would just not change the middle school schedule? Is that what I'm hearing? I I don't believe we could hire two additional teachers for health and PE. I am not comfortable having combined seventh eighth grade PE classes with 33 kids in them. So the changes we would want to make kind of the ideal changes for the middle school schedule. I don't believe that we could do. there might be some very small things we can do like um uh you know pulling world language off the team and giving world language choice but even then you know we've already taken out a world

216language teacher I've heard riffs so we have to see if we even have an opportunity to do that but but the PE would would be my my one [clears throat] pause I just I don't feel good about PE classes of 33 kids that have seventh and eighth graders in them >> but if we pass the 1% and said, "Keep all that in." Doesn't that fall on us as the ultimate responsibility? I mean, you'll have to deal with the headache, but the ultimate responsibility would come back to the people that passed it. >> It it would um and yeah, and I think the board just sort of getting to the public comment tonight. It has to be willing to understand the risk that you would now be you have a budget that really didn't account for

217every single position that we were going to hire for intended to employ and you're just hoping at the end everything turns out in the wash at the end of next school year. Yeah. So, just can I just follow up? >> And to be fair, Miss Lumis and I will actually have to find PL like if you say keep the teachers, we will have to go and find the line items that we do reduce. Um what those are would remain to be seen, but um you know like I mean maybe one of the options is we take out all of our contingency funds and you just say that there is no contingency um >> except for the surplus will carry over from this year into next year. um you know so again we we will actually

218have to make line item adjustments because that's what we have to have for a budget but what those are at this moment I don't have a good answer for >> okay so just I just want to follow up so I I just I do have a concern about the reduction [clears throat] in force um for the Spanish personally I would feel more comfortable if we just started out slowly and offered Spanish and uh Mandarin >> well again I think we have to respond flexibly because we don't know what happens between now and July. So or or August for that matter. So I think for us we still have we have to schedule. So at some point we have to make a decision based on [cough] for our staffing levels. I understand what you're saying. So

219you do you your request to me is no pink slipping of the future. Um, but other than that, I I don't want to say we're not going to offer French next year because we could have the cards fall into place and possibly be able to do it. Um, so I can't it gives me it I can't give you a timeline with under that kind of um uh desire. But if if you can understand that we will take advantage of an opportunity if it presents itself and we can live with that, then that's what we would sort of have to do. All right, I think we've discussed this long enough. Uh, we are voting on the amendment only. Uh, yes means the amendment goes into effect and we are at a 1.0. A no vote means

220the amendment does not go into effect and we are back to the original motion of 1.35. Everybody understand? Is that correct? >> Yes. >> I'm sorry, Paul. Could you say that one more time? >> Right now, we're voting on the amendment. Amendment only. >> Y >> for the 1%. Yes means you want it to go through. No means you don't. >> Okay. >> Miss Bradley. >> Yes. >> Miss Cloud Ingram. >> No. >> Miss Shay. >> No. >> Dr. Kunaran. >> No. >> Miss Lombardi? >> Yes. >> Mr. Reed? >> No. >> Mr. Davis? >> No. >> Mr. Mcdana? >> Yes. >> Dr. Ola Delay? >> Abstain. Muse. >> Yes. >> Miss Juster, >> what's what is the vote so far? >> Five nos. >> We should No. [clears throat] >> Oh, that's what she

221was asking. I'm sorry. >> Yes. >> No. >> But Mr. Young, >> yes. There was five nos, >> six yeses, one abstain. >> Okay. Uh so the uh budget is now at 1.0. All right. And uh we will be voting on that. >> Call the roll. Miss Bradley, >> can I can I can I ask Can I ask Can I ask a clarification? I'm sorry. I just I didn't realize people wanted the question. >> So, if we vote if this if we pass if we all vote yes on this, it's at 1%. If we vote no, can it can it go higher than 1%. Can we would we be able to make another motion higher than 1%. >> Are you an amendment? [clears throat] Sure. >> Okay. So, >> Oh, go ahead. No, I'm I'm

222asking. No, I'm I'm because I'm >> If if the motion fails, you can >> No, the amendment passed. >> The amendment passed. >> So, you have one. We're going to vote on the budget. >> Now, we're going to vote on that amended >> 1% for a 1%. >> Yeah. The amendment replaces the original motion. >> And but but if vote no, does that also open up an amendment to increase? Uh, well, if we voted, >> we're having a discussion now. >> We are having a discussion now. >> And >> I I don't want to I don't want to get everybody mixed up about this, but if you're going to make an amendment, you have to make an amendment to this particular uh item, the 1. >> Otherwise, we default to this 1.35. [clears throat] >>

223Otherwise, we default to the 1.35. >> What my So, my what my question I'm sorry, my question is if we if this if this 1.0 O does not pass. We would just have we would have a new motion a new motion at at whatever percent. We're not we're not limited to go below 1% is what I want to make sure. >> No. Okay. Okay. Thank you. >> Because procedurally we should have normally, right, we would have voted on the 1.35 before we had the motion for one, but instead it was an amendment instead of a >> Right. And and now the >> the amendment replaces the original motion. So if you want to make an amendment to this motion now, you have to do it now. >> An amendment to the motion of 1%. >>

224So we're voting on 1%. >> You either vote yes if you want the 1% or no if you don't. >> It's coming down to that simple. >> If it doesn't pass, then we >> I just want to make sure that everybody's getting the correct information. We are voting on uh the motion [clears throat] at 1.0. If you increase if you want to make an amendment to vote on something different that would replace if it passed the 1.0 has to be done now, not after a vote. >> Okay. I want to make it well, I don't know if this is an amendment, but I'd like to make an amendment that I want to see where the cuts are coming from. If we are voting on a 1.0, a 1% increase, I want to know what I

225I feel like I don't know what I'm voting for. It's like black box, just 1%. Where is that coming from? How is that impacting everything else? >> Megan Megan's motion was very specific with the line items where the money is salaries. I said from salaries andor purchase services and then I discussed the fact that over the last four years those have consistently been overbudgeted by one and a half million. >> Okay. Okay. >> So it's coming from those >> from those two >> those salary areas. >> Right. So and Carol I voted yes because I'm just worried I'm concerned about the big slip and you know Jen confirmed that she wouldn't be able to move forward with it. So that is the reason that I think that's important is that I have a concern about

226the budget. I mean I'm sorry the the middle school schedule and >> we need to have more I'm just let [clears throat] I I think it's important that we have a conversation around >> well it's a business meeting. You just can't carry a conversation on between people at the table. >> Right. I I'm I'm sharing it. It's not whispering. >> Okay. But so I want to kind of ask I think the implicit understanding for most of us is that we don't want a pink slip and we are going along with the idea that what Jennis [clears throat] kind of implicitly assured us that there will not likely be a pink slip. That's the reason. So I agree with you Donna that I was not going to go for the pink slip but I am trusting

227the fact that she has been willing to say it in so many different ways to us that there is unlikely to be a pink slip. And again, I know she I don't want to put words into her mouth, but that is the reason I'm also comfortable and I I agree with you, but I'm also taking a different stand. >> Just just a clarification, we don't micromanage the school district. >> Yeah. >> The superintendent's in charge of hiring and teachers and something. And uh we're not going to give her a direction to say you can fire this teacher or you can hire that teacher. That's her job. That's what we hire her for. We've expressed our feelings that we don't want to see a teacher get a pink slip. >> But if it ultimately comes down

228that, okay, I have to do this to meet the budget, she's going to have to find a way to do it. And if it's a pink slip, it's a pink slip. I don't want to see that. I don't think anybody on the board wants to see it. But, you know, we've just directed her to do a certain thing on the line items of the budget and she has to do it. And one of those line items was teacher salaries, the salary light item. >> We've asked her to take 200,000 out of a two line items that have had 1.5 surplus for the last seven years. That's true. >> That that that is exactly correct. But prior to that they said the line item is built on these factors and yes we've seen that surplus in

229that particular line item over a period of time but we're doing a budget now we're not doing and and the state says we do an estimate based on factual information history is to be included certainly but she has to I mean we're hiring a certain number of teachers we know what they're making all of those things go into this so my choice would and and I I think all of you probably agree somewhat is that the superintendent will do what she understands a board would like to do if it's possible and if she you know uh that's the way we should do it and I I I would not approve a motion to director not to give fire [clears throat] anyone. >> Jen, >> am I allowed to make a motion for an amendment now

230or do we have to vote first? Uh you the the motion is in the motion is in play. You have an amendment that you would like to make that affects the motion. Yes, that's in order. >> Okay. I would like to make a motion that we have an amendment that cuts the difference at 1.2 and specifically asks that those reductions come from risk, not from a specific loss of a teacher. >> Taking a bit more risk. Is there a second to that motion? Amendment. Second to that. >> I'll second. >> Second over here. Okay. So, we have an amendment. >> Read it the right way. Sorry. >> Well, I have >> Hold on. >> We We have an amendment to the motion. Uh that what 1.2 >> 1.2 and >> does not come directly from

231a loss of a full-time teacher and instead is >> I had a 1.2% 2% reduction from risk not >> discretion >> right so the the increase is now at 1.2 and it comes from risk rather than the specific line items. Okay, we have a uh a motion, an amendment, and a second. >> Okay, so Jen, how would that impact the middle school schedule? What Jennifer is has amended the motion to be, >> so [snorts] if we're looking at a risk area, um that's not going to be the salary accounts. So I don't think that that necessarily proposed teachers again are risk I mean and I'm going to defer to Terry eventually on this but the contingency lines which I don't remember where they live in the budget are the place where we try to um

232put in some factor in case we have something unexpected. So that might be the type of line that would be impacted. Um but to me salaries which really are people and we have headcounts and know exactly what they make. If that's not coming from there then it's not going to change the salary lines per se. It might change a little bit like [clears throat] assume risk in substitutes or something like that but positions it wouldn't impact. So, you're saying that that would support and move forward with the middle school schedule that you've presented? >> Can you repeat that again a little bit? >> Um, I'm sorry. [laughter] I'm sorry that it's getting a little late. Um, that that would move forward with the middle school schedule that you presented. >> Yes. We would not need

233to have >> Yep. Do we have a second? And this is >> There was a second. Carol, >> I got to tell you the motion. Um, I I uh I mean I appreciate it in that, you know, it's um it's it's a concession, but it's also a recognition. It's also, hey, look, you know what? We can do a little something about this surplus. We can pay attention to it. And you know what? I think we can take a little bit out of the surplus without really hurting where we really want to be as a school. Um I I'm good with I I just I really I can't tell you how much I appreciate at least there being, you know, a recognition of the and the conversation amongst people. We have different opinions. We have different

234ideologies, but at least we're all kind of working together for the same we want the same result. Um, and so I I I would go along with uh with Jen's motion for a 1.2. I think um it's uh it it I think there's been a lot of sir, like you said, there's been a lot of hard work done on a budget uh that is probably the lowest number presented in forever. Uh and uh it's almost risking becoming obstructionist to equivocate over what's essentially a $100,000 difference. Um, so I rather than be here all night, I And again, but that's not to not to minimize your your uh amendment, I I would go along with it. >> Um, okay. Before I said I would not go below 1.35, but in line with what Christian has suggested,

235um I I would support your amendment and I I would hope that all of our board members could look at it and say this is something I can support. >> I think it's a compromise. I think, you know, an attempt at a compromise with everybody while still funding our full-time teachers. you know, there's still the opportunity to discuss the middle school schedule if that's what the board decides to do. Um, but I think if we can find a way to have a compromise that still, you know, supports most of what you want and also says we're willing to take a little bit more risk, $100,000ish or a little more risk, I think, um, feels like a compromise that hopefully we can all feel comfortable with. >> Yeah. >> I just have a quick question. So,

236what happened to the schedule? So now we didn't we tabled them we didn't table the schedule and we didn't vote on the schedule. So the schedule now is >> it's >> back to where it was. >> It's it's basically the presentation we got tonight and we've I I think our discussion has spoken to [clears throat] what the board in general feels is important. I think uh the amendment also speaks to that uh same motion and should the amendment run I I think it sends a message to the superintendent. This is kind of what we'd like to see in the middle schools. >> Is that a decent statement? >> Okay. Any further comments on the amendment? >> Okay. We're I in the spirit of compromise is fine with me. If we think $100,000 collectively to the

237three towns somehow signals to them that we are careful with their money and uh and that is the signal that the board wants to present like you know many I think it's perfectly reasonable to me uh in the spirit of compromise to go ahead with that work. So, just just to clarify um to Jennifer's point, uh the tabled motion, are we going to take that back up tonight or at another point in time? >> It wasn't tabled. >> It was the tableing did not pass. >> Oh gosh. [laughter] >> So, uh now we're voting on the amendment. >> We're voting on 1.2%. >> I think I was just voting >> 1.2 You going to accept the amendment and then going to vote? >> Then we'd have to vote on the right. This is the amendment.

238>> This is the vote to accept the amended >> motion. Okay. >> Miss Bradley, >> come back to me. [laughter] >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Miss Shay, >> yes. >> Dr. Kunron, >> yes. >> Miss Lombardi, >> yes. >> Mr. Reed, >> yes. >> Mr. Davis, >> yes. >> Mr. Mcdana, >> yes. >> Dr. Dr. Olai. >> Yes. >> Miss Rebuse. >> Yes. >> Miss Schuster. >> Abstain. >> Mr. Young. >> Yes. >> Miss Bradley. >> So for me, my issue is the school schedule. It's hard for me to support. >> Abstain if you No. Says you didn't. >> I'll abstain. >> Yeah. Send a statement, too. Oh, we had nine yeses and three abstains. >> Okay. So, the amendment carries. We'll now be voting on the budget uh motion which is now 1.2. >>

239Basically the same vote we just did. >> Yes. >> But you have to go through the procedure. >> Miss Bradley, >> you're you're you're voting on the motion which is 1.2. So do >> voting on 1.2. to now. >> Abstain. >> Miss Clouding Ingram. >> Yes. >> Miss Shake. >> Yes. >> Dr. Kernicron. >> Yes. >> Miss Lombardi. >> Abstain. >> Mr. Reed. >> Yes. >> Mr. Davis. >> Yes. >> Mr. Mcdana. >> Yes. >> Dr. Ollet. >> Yes. >> Mr. Rebuse. >> Yes. >> M. Juster. >> Abstain. >> Mr. Young. >> Yes. [snorts] >> Yes. Three. Abstain. >> Okay. Motion carries. Budget comes in at 1.2. an increase over this year. >> We still have items on the agenda, everyone. >> There's a couple that we >> There's a a couple of items that

240I think we can go through quickly. Uh superintendent report. Do you have anything in addition to what you >> um No, because this was just an enclosure. I skipped remember the last meeting when we were virtual and I forgot it. So just an enclosure. >> Chairman's report. I think I spoken enough. [laughter] >> Uh ACES >> I don't have any >> nothing there. Ad hoc school start time. Um, >> it's in a few minutes. >> Apparently, [laughter] >> stay here long enough. Um, why not? Um, actually, I'm waiting for Carol and Jen to connect about uh transportation with you tomorrow and then we're going to set another meeting time. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Gabe. >> Oh, good. >> Communications. >> Um, we will not have a meeting tomorrow. We uh are scheduled to meet

241with our local PPSO bodies over the next six [clears throat] weeks or so. >> Okay. Curriculum. >> Our next meeting is Wednesday, March 18th. Um when Mrs. Schlank is back. >> Very good. [clears throat] Uh district health and safety >> two weeks from tomorrow, March 25th. >> Okay. District technology, the monthly report is on page 10. Uh facilities is next on page 11. Any comments or questions? >> Uh we have we had a meeting last week or two weeks ago regarding um looking at middle school upgrades as as how they could be bonded put into a bond. Tomorrow we have a meeting uh at AMSO and we're going to be looking at the HVAC over there and the uh presentation about the PA system at the school. >> All right. Uh there was a question

242that the chair received about uh a feasibility study which the board had discussed and you would give some >> clear clearance about the feasibility. >> So feas the feasibility study was looking do you want to take do you want to >> I mean they they can add 240 ft and then we'll be >> two 240 ft to Bethany. >> Yes to Bethany. and nothing to >> and anything over that we wouldn't be at the full reimbursement from the state. Um so I mean at some point the facilities committee if they want to go forward with the renovations for the library media center will have to decide if 240 ft is worth it. >> Um >> well that that's just that that's just part of it. So so the renovation would be one thing but it

243would be looking at do we want to add a 240 foot room >> office. Okay. So the feasibility study came out to be not feasible. >> That's accurate. >> Uh finance uh presentation discussion of fourth quarter uh 2025 executive summary review the amy pension fund sick and severance of account and op trust page 13 of the >> in short we're on target for all of our clients. >> That was a good report. uh discussion of monthly financial statements. Page 40, a special education update. >> I will just give you the highlight that um our utilities right now are trending uh quite a bit over budget. Electricity um may be 250,000 over budget by the end of the year and natural gas may be 57,000 and snow removal 70,000 over budget. >> Okay. Why is that?

244>> No surprise. >> Any questions? No questions. [clears throat] Uh we have uh the uh approved transfers under 3,000. Any questions on that? And next we go to uh discussion and possible action on budget transfers over 3,000 which is on page 75 and and we do have a vote that we're going to be taking. I believe three transfers there also special ed to transfer within your own area. um whether it's salaries from uh lines from the agency that we're hiring uh an outside professional um for homebound tutoring or for teaching staff and then for literacy um and finance approved all three is one motion. >> All right. Uh >> so we did all three. >> Yeah, all three. >> Can we have a motion? >> I'll make a motion. >> I'll second. >> All right.

245Oh, you guys are quick. [laughter] I didn't have time to read [clears throat] it. >> Oh, sorry. >> Uh, that's all right. So, we have a motion to approve all three of the special education transferred as listed. >> All right. Any comments? >> Can you call the role, please? >> Miss Bradley? >> Yes. >> Miss Cloud Ingram? >> Yes. >> Miss Sheke? >> Yes. >> Dr. Kunan? >> Yes. >> Miss Lombardi? >> Yes. >> Mr. Reid? >> Yes. >> Mr. Davis? >> Yes. >> Mr. McDonald? >> Yes. >> Dr. Ola Delay? >> Yes. >> Mr. Rebuse? >> Yes. >> Miss Schustster? >> Yes. >> Mr. Young? Yes. >> Okay. Motion carries unanimously. Uh personnel uh that's on page 77. Any questions on that? All right. We have uh new business and announcement. I do a

246little bit of an announcement. Uh the vote here we passed uh was probably one that none of us liked and yet we were able to come together after uh some blood was spilled on everybody's part uh and we could walk we could walk out of here saying we passed a bipartisan budget and take it back to our towns and say listen this was not a political event. It was a concern for the funding of the school district and retrospect uh we did a good job of coming together and that's something I wrote in my uh email last week if we can find a way to do that. I think we did and uh think we can walk out of here with our heads held high and knowing that we did a good job and uh

247now we just have to lay the problems with getting it fixed on our administration. Okay. All right. Uh regular meeting agenda uh due on March 27th. And with that it is uh 9:48. Is there any objection to motion to adjourn at 9:48? Any objection? We are adjourned at 9:48 without objection. [applause] No, it's not happening. Even if it was early