Amity Board of Education Regular Meeting - December 8, 2025

001regular and uh bianual organizational meeting for December 8, 2025 is called to order at 6:39. Uh 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 or group honor or special presentation. I'd like to thank you all and we'll 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. >> The next item on the agenda is the oath of office. We have uh our newly elected members uh have a returning newly elected member and one on the telephone and uh and our very newly elected

002members and we welcome you all. Uh I know many of you have taken an oath of office already. Uh but uh we have a special one that we're going to do here to cover all the bases. And so I'll ask you who have just recently been elected uh to stand your right hand and I will administer the oath of office. >> Donna, are you there? >> It's all still on here. Yes, there's three lights. >> Yeah, there should be. >> Why is Carol standing? >> Is the mic on? >> She told me to. >> She's reelected. She was re-elected. >> It's She was just reelected. >> She's re-elected. >> She's reelected here today. >> Okay. Uh, do you solemnly swear or sincerely affirm as the case may be that you will faithfully discharge according to

003law your duties as a member of the Amony Regional School District number five board of education to the best of your abilities so help you God or upon penalty of perjury. Please say the affirmative hopefully. >> Thank you so much. >> Congratulations. Thank you and welcome. >> Thank you. Uh as part of our bienial meeting, we will go through the election of officers now. Uh and uh we'll begin with the election of the chair. In this uh election, I turn the um chair over to uh Dr. buyers who will conduct the election of the chair and then that person would conduct the election of all the other officers. So Dr. Buyers. >> Yes. So according to the bylaw of the board 9121, the board chairperson shall preside at all meetings of the board. He or

004she may call special meetings of the board when necessary. The chairperson with the assistance of the superintendent shall prepare an agenda of the items of business to come before the board at each regular and special meeting. It is the duty of the board chairperson to sign official papers when so authorized by the board except as otherwise provided in bylaw 9132. The board chairperson shall annually appoint standing committees and appoint chairs of the standing committees. Ad hoc committees may be established by the board chairperson with the approval of the board of education with a fixed objective and for a limited period of time. The board chair shall appoint the committee members and chair. The board shall take formal action to dissolve such committees once the task has been resolved or completed. The chair may serve as

005an exofficio member of any standing committee or ad hoc committee. As exeicio, the board chairperson can make and second motions and can vote on motions but cannot be counted to compromise a quorum. Moreover, the chairperson shall perform all other duties imposed by state statute and shall perform such other duties as may be prescribed by law or by action of the board. At this time, I would ask for nominations for the chairperson. Each nomination should also be accompanied by a second. >> Nominate Kathy Bradley. >> Second. >> I nominate Paul Davis for chair. >> Okay. So we had Dana and Mike for Kathy Bradley. >> Oh, sorry you wanted me to wait. >> Dr. Karuna Karan and Dr. Oladelli. >> Okay. >> Or yes. Are there any other nominations for chair? At this time, I will

006ask Miss Alleski to call the vote for >> Dr. Buyers. >> Yes. >> The uh policy, and I'm not sure which one specifically calls for a show of hands. >> Yes. for the correct election. >> Um, >> and then the chair or the secretary has to >> So, if you could please put your hands up and hold them up nice and high. Um, but Mr. Davis, the problem is is we have one board member attending by phone. >> Right. Okay. So, >> so when they attend by phone, it supersedes and we have to do >> all of them all of them the same way. >> Yes. >> Donna, are you still there? >> Yes. >> Okay, good. All right. So, you can call the role on this one then. >> Okay. Uh, so this will

007be the nomination for Kathy Bradley will be the first vote since it was the first motion made. >> Um, I think the easiest is just to go through and just write who votes for whom. >> Got it. Okay, >> that's probably the easiest way to do that. >> Perfect. >> Miss Bradley, >> Kathy, >> Miss Cloud Ingram, >> Kathy. >> Miss Jac, >> Dr. Kronicron >> five >> Miss Lombardi >> Kathy >> Mr. Reed >> Mr. Davis >> myself >> Mr. Mcdana >> Kathy >> Dr. Oland >> Mr. Davis Muse >> Kathy >> Miss Schlank D Mr. Davis. >> Miss Schustster. Miss Schustster, >> I'm sorry it's really hard to hear. Are we voting for Kathy or Paul right now? >> Yeah. Yes. >> Yes. That's the question. >> Which one do you want? >>

008Um Paul >> and Mr. Young. >> Kathy. >> Six for Kathy. Seven for Paul. Mr. Davis. Mr. Davis remains chair. >> Thank you. Thank you all. >> Can you hand that to Mr. Davis, please? >> Next election will be for elections of vice chair. Go to 2122. Vice chairperson will act in place of the chairperson when necessary and preside at meetings when the chairperson is temporarily absent. Vice chair cannot fill vacancies required to be filled by the chairperson and does not serve as an exeicio member of committees. Work with the chairperson and superintendent to become generally informed of board business. In the absence of the chairperson, act as a resource to the superintendent on decisions which may require further input between board meetings. In case of illness, resignation or death of the chairperson, the vice

009chairperson as deemed by the board becomes chairperson for the unexpired term. In the event that the in the event that the secretary is incapacitated or out of state by chairperson's signature, shall be an alternate signature. all legal documents requiring the signature of the secretary. And with that, uh, do we have nominations for the vice chair? >> I'd like to nominate Kathy Bradley. >> I'll second. >> Pat Reed. >> I'll second. >> Any further nominations? Objection to nominations being closed? Not nominations are closed. And now we will go through that. >> Okay. >> Uh, Miss Bradley, >> thank you. >> Miss Cloud Ingram >> Pat Miss Jacet >> Patrick >> Dr. Kronicron >> Patrick >> Miss Lombardi >> Kathy >> Mr. Reed >> myself >> Mr. Davis >> Patrick >> Mr. Mcdana >> Kathy >> Dr.

010ola delay Patrick Miss Reuse >> Kathy Miss Schlank >> Patrick Miss Schustster >> Patrick >> and Mr. Young >> Kathy >> can you read the results please? >> Yes. Eight for Patrick and five for Kathy. >> Patrick Reed vice chair >> election of secretary. Are we doing secretary now? >> Yes. >> Daniel Lombardi read the response. >> Got to read. Got to read this. >> You got to read it. >> Oh well. Got you though on record. >> The secretary of the board shall keep minutes which is not something that's required at our regular meetings. cause minutes to be kept at all meetings of the board and shall cause copies of such minutes to be forwarded to each member of the board. In accordance with the general statutes, the board secretary shall cause a c

011a copy of the minutes for all board meetings to be placed on file in the board office no later than seven days after the date on which the board shall have met. Such meeting minutes shall be available for public inspection except that such minutes will not be termed official minutes until approved by the board of education at a duly convened meeting of the board. Board secretary shall also make provisions that members of the board are notified of all regular and special meetings. Board secretary shall attend to the official correspondence of the board. And with that, are there nominations for the position of secretary? >> Copy for dinner. >> Any additional nominations? >> Congratulations. >> If not, and there's no >> If not, there are no objections. Uh, nominations will be closed. >> Dana Lombardi for

012Secretary of Ed. >> Still have to do a >> vote. I think last time we did. >> Have to do a vote. >> Okay. Okay. Sorry. Uh, Miss Bradley. >> Dana. >> Should we just do yes, no, or should we just say Dana? >> Yes. I I think I think since we're for consistency, I think they can say >> the name. Okay. Miss Cloud Ingram. >> Dana. >> Miss Jack A. >> Dana. >> Dr. Dr. Kunicron >> Dana >> Miss Lombardi >> Dana >> Mr. Reed >> Dana >> Mr. Davis >> Dana >> Mr. Mcdana >> Dana >> Dr. Deleg >> Dana >> Miss Rebuse >> Dana >> Miss Schlank Dana >> Miss Schustster >> Dana >> Mr. Young. >> Excellent. Dana Lombardi. >> Okay, we move on to the election of the treasurer. The

013treasurer elected by the board of education in accordance with general uh assembly uh Connecticut general statutes 10-46 shall give bond to the board the amount determined by the members of the board cost of which shall be borne by the school district pay out and authorize a payment to monies of the regional school district as may be directed by the board perform such other duties as may be authorized by the board for each school year commencing July 1. The treasurer shall be bonded for the faithful performance of his or her duties and shall and said bond to be written by the insurance company licensed to do business in the state of Connecticut and an amount to be determined by the board. Board shall indemnify and hold a treasurer harmless against any liabilities imposed as a result

014of his or her actions as treasurer except for his or her own willful misconduct and shall also indemnify and hold the treasurer harmless as provided by section 10-235 the Connecticut general statutes. And with that we open up nominations for the position of trigger. Megan reviews. >> I'll second it. >> I'm sorry. I didn't hear >> Megan. >> Any additional nominations? Are there any additional nominations? If not, without objection, the nominations will be closed. No objections. >> Miss Bradley. >> Megan. >> Miss Cloud Incrim. >> Megan. >> Miss Jac. >> Megan. >> Dr. Mr. Kernicron >> Megan >> Miss Lombardi >> Megan >> Mr. Mcdana >> Megan >> Mr. Reed >> Megan >> Mr. Davis >> Megan >> Dr. Delay >> Megan >> Mr. Ruse >> Miss Schlank uh Miss Schustster >> Megan >> Mr. Young

015>> Okay. >> Congratulations. And lastly, the election of the deputy treasurer. 9727. Deputy Treasurer elected by the board of education in accordance with Connecticut General Statute 10-46 shall give bond to the board in the amount determined by the members of the board the cost of which shall be borne by the school district payout and or authorize the payment of monies of the regional school district as may be directed by the board and in the absence of the treasurer perform such other duties as may be authorized by the board or treasurer. For each school year commencing July 1, the deputy treasurer shall be bonded for the faithful performance of his or her duties, said bond to be written by an insurance company licensed to do business in the state of Connecticut and in the amount to

016be determined by the board. The board shall indemnify and hold the deputy treasurer harmless against any liabilities as a result of his or her actions as treasurer except for his or her own willful conduct and shall also indemnify and hold deputy treasurer harmless as provided by section 10-235 of the Connecticut General Statutes. Deputy treasurer will execute the role of treasur if the treasur is out of state. The treasur is incapacitated or otherwise unable to perform uh duties of the treasur as directed by the treasurer. Uh the deputy treasurer serves under the treasur and perform the duties uh assigned duties of the treasur under the direction of the treasurer. And with that we open up nominations for the deputy treasur. And I'd like to nominate uh Donna Schlang. I'll second. >> I'll second. >> Are there

017any other nominations? Any other nominations? >> If not, and without objection, I'll move the nominations be closed. They are closed. >> Miss Bradley, >> Donna, >> Miss Cloud Ingram, >> Donna, >> Mr. Shak, >> Donna, >> Dr. Kuna, >> Donna, >> Miss Lombardi, >> Donna, >> Mr. Mcdana, >> Donna, >> Mr. Reed >> Donna >> Mr. Davis >> Donna >> Dr. Olive >> Donna >> Muse >> Donna >> Miss Schlank >> Donna >> Miss Schustster >> Donna >> what did you say Donna >> Donna >> Mr. Young >> okay with that nominations or election of officers are now closed. Thank everyone who is going to serve in those positions and uh if there's any questions or concerns uh please uh let me know. We move on to uh number five, approval of minutes. Board of

018Education regular meeting November 24th, 2025. I have a motion to approve the minutes. >> I'll make motions. >> Okay. Arrol made it a suitor. Uh yes, a second. Any additional uh any comments, questions, concerns, changes? >> If not, uh can we call the role, please? >> Miss Bradley, >> yes. >> Miss Claude Ingram, >> are you going to >> I'm sorry. >> Yes. Uh yes to the minutes. >> Yes. It's okay. Miss Jay, >> yes. >> Dr. Fredron, >> yes. >> Miss Lombardi, >> yes. >> Mr. Reed, >> yes. >> Mr. Davis, >> yes. >> Mr. Mcdana, >> yes. >> Dr. Oligle, >> yes. >> Mr. Reuse, >> yes. >> Miss Schlank, >> abstain. >> Miss Juster, Miss Schustster, >> and Mr. Young. >> Okay, the motion carries. The minutes are approved. Uh, next we

019move on to public comment. Uh, at this time the board would like to invite members of the public up to the lectern for public comment. Please state your full name and address. If you are a student or under the age of 18, please state only your first name. Each speaker will be allowed up to three minutes for public comment with a maximum 20 minutes per meeting allocated for any one item. Speakers are reminded that presentations are to be made in a respectful manner. Personal issues related to students or staff are not permitted in derogatory language which maligns the character of staff members, board members, and other members of the public is unacceptable and not in keeping with board policy and core values. Please note that as a matter of board policy, the board does not

020respond to public comments or questions immediately, but may discuss the subject and respond if appropriate at a future time. And with that, >> Michelle Tenny, >> good evening. >> How are you? >> I'm here tonight to request that the board um amend the recently passed policy that blocks taxpayers from filing concerns about books in our school's libraries. I want to start with something very simple. Um taxpayers fund the school. Uh we fund the school system. We fund the salaries. We fund the buildings. We fund the programs including the library collections. When you remove taxpayers from the ability to raise concerns, you are removing the very people who make this school district possible. That is not partnership. that it is and it is certainly not good governance. The justification for this policy that it aligns with

021a mandate, but let's be clear, mandates are not laws. Mandates do not carry the same weight as statutes passed by the Connecticut General Assembly and they absolutely should not be used as a tool to silence an entire group of stakeholders. If this district is choosing compliance out of fear of losing funding, then we really have lost our compass. Funding is not more important than community trust, transparency, or constitutional principles. We are talking about school library books, materials accessible to minors. Some contain graphic sexual explicit descriptions that many families find inappropriate. Taxpayers have every right to question whether such content belongs in a public school. Parents, students, and taxpayers share a common interest, which is ensuring our schools remain a safe, educational, age appropriate environment. When you silence one group, you diminish the integrity of the

022entire process. So tonight, I am respectfully asking that this board go and revisit and amend this policy. Bring taxpayers back into the conversation. Restore the public's right to raise concerns about how its money is being used. Accountability should not depend on whether someone happens to have a current student in the district. And while we're speaking about library transparency, I would also like to request clarification on a simple question. Are Bibles available in these libraries? If not, why? If we're allowing books with explicit sexual content, but excluding one of the most historically influential and widely read texts in the world, that is a conversation worth having. This isn't about pushing religion. It's about consistency. If we're truly committed to broad representation and diverse perspectives, then this question deserves a straightforward answer. At the end of the

023day, policies should strengthen trust, not weaken it. They should welcome community input, not shut it out. and they should reflect the values of the people who live here, pay here, and care about what happens in these schools. Please consider this policy. Taxpayers deserve a voice and our students deserve a school system that puts openness and accountability above convenience or >> clients theater. Okay. Uh just uh clarification uh which we are allowed to give. Uh the policy committee and making changes were acting on uh state statutes that had recently been passed by the uh state legislature. And secondly, if you have um some suggestions that you'd like, uh you can get them to me and I'll make sure the policy committee gets that. >> Perfect. Thank you. >> You're welcome. Uh any other public comment? >>

024All right. Uh we move on uh to uh discussion and possible action on setting the 2026 2027 calendar, school calendar. This is on uh page six of your packet. This was uh presented at our last meeting. And uh Dr. Buyers, do we know if anybody came up with any comments? I did not receive any >> um I have not received any comments. I do not believe anybody from uh the Bo Bose have received any comments either. Bethany Board of Education has already approved the calendar as it was presented to them. Um in November we discussed the alignment of our days with the three elementary districts and um the same calendars that we all cons looked at in November are also going forward to Orange and Woodbridge this month. Uh so no no changes between any

025of us. >> Any board members have any comments to make about the calendar? >> I have a >> question. >> Yeah. >> And maybe we've um someone else has asked this in years prior, but why do we start on a Monday after such a long like summer break? >> They come back and they have like a full week. Um, you know, mo I know >> I mean we have in the past started on different days. Um, but it this has been the pattern we've had I guess for the last six years and we start with those two half days that was at the request of the elementary districts. They preferred that and so we've always aligned ourselves to what they have asked for. >> Any other comments? I know the orange board of ed uh

026felt that the calendar was the most aligned they've ever had. So just bringing that up. >> No know the superintendent made a very serious strong effort to >> alignment with each other days maybe that are different. >> No, it's pretty close. >> Okay. Any additional comments? If not, can we have a motion to approve the calendar? Oh, did you have >> I was just going to say as representing families that have kids in both systems, it's greatly appreciated when it is more aligned than not. >> Right. >> And your voices were heard motion. >> Motion. Donna makes a motion to approve the calendar. Pass. Second. >> Can you call the role, please? Miss >> Bradley. Yes. >> Miss Cloud Ingram. >> Yes. >> M. >> Yes. >> Dr. Mr. Kronicron, >> yes. >> Miss Lombardi,

027>> yes. >> Mr. Reed, >> yes. >> Mr. Davis, >> yes. >> Mr. Mcdana, >> yes. >> Dr. Lib, >> yes. >> Mr. V, >> yes. >> Miss Flank, >> yes. >> Muster, >> yes. >> Mr. Young, >> yes. >> Okay, motion carries. School calendar for the 2627 school year is set. Okay, we move on to correspondence. Uh uh so >> we received um one letter um regarding uh our um media center and the content at the media center. >> Right. Okay. Yes, I remember. Right. Any additional? Nothing else. Anybody receive correspondence that uh they'd like to share with the board? If not, thank you very much. we move on to the chair's report and uh just a couple of things. Uh first of all uh I sent out uh committee uh assignments. I want

028to let you know that I was looking at a couple of things. Number one uh those of you that sent in requests, I tried to assign you to the committees that were like number one and number two on your request. Uh secondly, uh I wanted to try and spread the workload out among the board members and not duplicate memberships or chairmanships for members. So each committee now uh has its own chair and that person is the chair of just that committee. Uh and uh there were some people that uh we pulled off committees because we needed to fill in uh with some of the new members who were looking to get on those committees. Uh but uh we're we're still moving around a little bit. Uh some people that have asked and uh there's a

029couple of situations uh that I want you to be aware of. I think there's uh one uh opening on the ad hoc committee. Uh we're looking for five members of each committee with a quorum on each one of those committees uh of three members so that two people can uh not be there and we can still have the meeting. Uh this of course does not include the uh finance committee which is made up of one person from each of the uh three communities uh Bethany Orange and Woodbridge and uh one member of the board of finance from each one of those three comm communities. That's the only committees that have uh outside school district uh members appointed by another uh elected body. Uh also uh the building committee uh the building committees are established uh

030as needed for special projects and uh we'll discuss that a little bit later on because those committees uh can change. Uh so that that was uh my thinking on those committees and if you would like to talk to me about that uh be happy to uh do that uh with you just get a hold of me. Uh, I do want to >> if I can just put one plug, we haven't had a board rep on our district technology committee um for four or five years. And so if anybody would like to participate in that, we do meet during the school day because we have a lot of school members, but it's only four times a year. >> Uh, and it's for about an hour, so it's not a prolonged commitment, but um, it's just been

031a vacancy for a while. So, >> and we do you meet >> uh Wednesdays usually. >> Yes. Yeah, it's almost the same as health and wellness. >> I can volunteer. >> Okay. >> Thank you so much. >> Send me information. >> Um lost my train of thought there for a second. >> Just want to mention the situation uh for Bethany. Uh and Autumn, you should be aware of this. I think you saw your name there as the finance committee. Uh because Bethany only has two reps, we would uh decided that uh in the past to split the two years in half and that the newly elected individual each time would be the person who takes the uh finance position and that that's why you're there with that. Okay. >> Yeah. >> All good. >> Thank

032you. >> All right. And uh Ni, you now are relieved of that. It's a good committee. Very good people on that committee. >> All right. Uh, any questions? Yes, Jenna. >> Can I ask that for transparency that be put our committee assignments be put into the minutes once it's official or once it's finalized? >> Yes, it actually will uh we can put it in the minutes and uh but it is also on going to be on the website. >> And you'll get a a a handout cheat sheet with all kinds of information on it once we get it all updated. Okay. Uh any questions from the administration about my assignments there? >> No. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh we go on to um some of our uh uh other uh committees. ACES. Do we have

033anything on ASUS? And uh >> um we'll keep some of our same leazison. >> Um so uh nothing much to to report from ASUS. We are still in the process I mentioned last month of um finding a um a firm to help us with the search for the new executive director. So that's mostly what we've been focused on. >> Okay. Questions on ACES >> area Cooperative Educational Services and that's our uh local u group. >> And please if if any of you ever have questions, I'm happy to bring them back to to that board. Uh the ad hoc school start time. Donna, can you hear me? >> I can. Can you hear me? Okay. >> Yep. >> Okay. So, um the next step is that we will convene another meeting. Uh in the weekly update,

034Jen shared that during the Bowen superintendent meeting that she did get some feedback. So, I will reach out to current committee members and to Jen for next availability. I hope we can schedule something. This week might be tight, but maybe next week or the week after. And I will reach out to Jen. We do need and are hoping that we can get a member from Bethany to join us. It's our previous Bethany board member um is no longer on the committee. So, you can reach out to me. Uh I believe we have uh our new members email addresses and I will reach out individually and see if you have some time in >> Okay. Uh >> and just an update from the the BOA superintendent. Um it kind of went to the back burner as

035they went through election and are onboarding new boards. So, we had originally set a January kind of feedback date from them. That may get pushed to February because they're really just meeting with their boards the first time through. Um, and um, so we just may have to wait a little bit longer to to hear back. >> And have most of the meetings been by his >> So, I'm sorry, Paul. So, Jen, um, we're we would like to meet, we'd like committee members came to me, would like to have a debrief and said next step. So, I can email you uh this week. Thank you. >> Okay. Uh, most of the meetings have been by Zoom, right? >> Yes. >> Okay. For those people on the committee who may be new, uh, the ad hoc committee

036meets by Zoom. So, we'll let you know that. All right. We move on to CABE. Michael, >> not a whole lot to report. I will I want to talk to you later about actually starting to show up in Hartford since I've been doing a lot of work up there because there's not a whole lot you can gleam off of the website and some of these 40inut lunchtime meetings. >> Sure. >> But I guess I need something from the school. You just can't show up. >> I can help you with that. >> I tried. We say, "Did you learn the hard way?" >> Yeah, he did walk in. I had a reason to be in the building, but they thought I was a little crazy. >> Oh jeez. >> Oh, we thank you for your efforts

037and your contribution there, Michael. Thank you. Uh, communications. >> Uh, we have our next meeting tomorrow. >> Tomorrow. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Is that going to be in person or Zoom also? >> Uh, that will be Zoom. >> Zoom. Okay. Communications Committee curriculum. Well, we have uh >> So, we're meeting January 12th is our meeting. >> All right. >> When do we January 12th? I emailed you and Miss Schustster yesterday. Probably just didn't get >> maybe a good idea for you to sit down with Shan and >> Yeah, we just talked about >> Okay, great. >> Looking forward to it. >> Uh, district health and safety. Donna, anything? >> Uh, no. Our next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, December 11th. >> Okay. >> And Paul, >> thank you, but the guidance for um flu season

038did go out to the community and also me that was something that you have to go. >> Okay. Uh we move on to district technology. This is on page seven. It's monthly report. Uh, anything special on technology? >> No. >> All right. Facilities. >> Okay. >> Monthly report page eight. Uh, >> Patrick. Well, I usually end with this, but I will start with our fuel cell test on November 22nd. Uh, was a failure. One of the only things around the fails. Everything else we do really well, but that fuel cell is not working out so well. Uh we have actually had a lot going on with facilities. Uh there was the uh lighting board at the Bradley Center uh failed. Uh we're looking to replace that. Uh and we'll get to that with finance. Um

039there's a fuel pump or fire pump at AMSB that needs to be replaced and we're going to uh under finance. We're also going to look at the contract for that. and we met uh for the media center projects at the middle schools and uh we recently selected uh Silver Petrael and Associates to be the architect for those projects. Uh you'll remember they are also the architects working on the current media center project here at the high school. Yeah, we have we have a motion that do we have to have that kind of motion considered because uh the uh the facilities committee is making a recommendation and that has to be approved by the board. >> Yes. Uh the motion the Emity Board of Education approves the appointment of Silver Petraelli and Associates, excuse me, at

040a base salary of 34,000 for the middle school AMD Middle School Bethany and Amity Middle School orange library for design and cost estimation of the media center renovation projects. Uh this was considered by the facilities committee and was it also considered by the >> just the school building committee? This goes. Okay. >> All right. >> And again, just as a point of clarification, this is to conduct the feasibility study that the board approved uh like six months ago. They are not actually it's sort of like one step before where they silver Petraelli is currently engaged in at the high school library media center. Um so this is really just for the feasibility. They're not actually the architect putting together the whole plans. That's what they're doing at the high school. >> Okay. >> So, the

041driver, you mentioned library. I know Jen, we had some early conversations about the space and the windows and the courtyard. And so, the driver here, the number one driver is additional classrooms. Is that right? >> Our number one driver is full reimbursement from the state of Connecticut for any construction costs. That's that's our number one driver. But I I mean I think you're saying our driver our driver for why we're doing why we want to go with the project is to is to update the media number to the architect. So we're specific about the bid >> up updating the library media center and adding additional classroom space if possible but ensuring that we receive 100% state reimbursement monies. So if your square footage is too big you don't get 100%. And so >> it's a

042it's not a it's 100 100% of what we're eligible. So it's usually around 42 43% of the project. >> But if you build bigger than your enrollment requires, they will reduce that percentage back >> and we give we've given those requirements to the architect. >> Yes, that was in the bid documents. >> Thank you. >> Good. Thanks. Thanks for the questions. Good point. Uh so uh the before we move on, can we have uh uh somebody make the motion to Michael? A second. Do we have a second? Tonna, >> thank you. Motion uh is what I read before. Is there any other comments or questions? Uh thoughts on this. >> Read the motion. Paul, I didn't hear what you articulated. >> Uh the the motion was what I read. um appointment of Silver Petraelli and

043Associates base price of 34,000 for the two middle schools for design and cost estimation of the improvements and renovations. Okay. >> Okay. If not, can we call the role, please? >> Mr. Bradley. >> Miss Cloudingham. >> Yes. >> Miss Shak. >> Yes. >> Dr. Kronicron. >> Yes. >> Miss Lombardi? >> Yes. >> Mr. Reed? >> Yes. >> Mr. Davis? >> Yes. >> Mr. Mcdana? >> Yes. >> Dr. Yes. Miss Ruse, >> yes. >> Miss Le, >> yes. >> Miss Schustster, >> yes. >> And Mr. Young, >> yes. >> Okay. Uh secondly, um discussion and possible action on the school middle. Well, we we did that. Um I I just want to announce that the board must appoint the chairperson of the Emin Middle School's building committee. Uh this does not require a motion. This is

044an appointment that the chair shall make, but it has to be in the minutes uh as required by state statute. Uh so um as we've done in the past, the chair of the facilities committee will also act as the chair of the building committee and appoint Patrick Reid as a chair of that committee. >> Okay, >> got it. >> Thank you. And we move on to finance. Uh a presentation and discussion of third quarter 2025 executive summary review of the AMD pension fund oped trust and six and severance pay fund page 10. >> Uh we had Mr. Chris Kashmar from Freducian at the AFC meeting to give us an overview of the third quarter for 2025. And um our plans, the OPED pan plan and the pension plan are well funded. We com they did

045the comparison year-over-year. Uh the OPED plan is at 85.5% and the pension plan is at 81.7%. The pension plan is slightly above state average which is around 74% and the OPED uh there's very few towns uh less than 50% who have established a fund. So we are well ahead of the curve on the OPED plan. Uh returns were um favorable uh for the quarter and for the year and we are meeting our tal target allocations. Uh we are within range of meeting all our target allocations all three plans. >> Uh we have some new people here. Could you just mention OPED? What did it mean? >> Sure. So, um, algebra pension is, um, for non-certified staff of the district, but it was closed in 2016 to, uh, new hires, and we developed a 401A plan,

046a defined contribution plan for, uh, non-certified staff hired after Janu uh, July 1 of 2016. OPED is other postemployment uh, benefits, and so that's people who would like to stay on our health insurance in retirement. um currently it's at 100% cost of their own but it does change um the overall cost of health insurance. So there's actuarial formulas that uh for all the active employees what we should be contributing uh should they decide to stay on retirement and those people who are on the plans and it's evaluated by the benefits that they um the claims that actually come in through our self- insurance. And the last one is sick and severance which is also a closed fund. Um, I believe it was closed back in 2006 and there's probably less than 25 30 people in

047that plan who are entitled to benefits under the sick and severance plan. >> Thank you. Appreciate that. >> And uh, now we move on to uh, next uh, uh, discussions and possible action on contracts over 35,000 page 27. And I noticed we have the lighting system here, but that's been removed as I understand it. Can you mention that? Uh, it's under 30 35,000, right? >> The lighting. No, no, >> it's a different one. Not the lighting. A different one. >> Not the lighting. I'm sorry. There was >> That's 45,000. >> The finance committee made the recommendation for all three of these. >> Okay. >> So, the first one is for the um lighting controls and the lighting dimmer rack in the Brady Center. as we announced last month that the system had failed on November

0484th and was not operational. We were able to get a technician in to give us a loner device. Uh it is very outdated, over 30 years old. Um so we utilized the state contract portal and found a contractor Mercury Electric uh that can that can do the project. quoted it at $45,861 then and they do believe they could do this project in January. The board had put aside $19,900 last month in the off chance that we found a project that would be under 20,000 and we could move forward without waiting. Um that obviously did not happen. um the but in in the time that elapsed and we got the actual price, we looked at funds available and in the capital non-reoccurring um account, you may remember for those who have been here a while that

049there was a lighting project we had where we received reimbursement when we upgraded our lights and over the years uh we've spent it down. We've uh addressed parking lot lights and uh fixtures. it was about 100,000, but since there's still 47,000, this is a lighting project, it seems the most sense to spend down this account and uh not have it hit the the operating budget. So, um we will be taking those funds out of the capital non-reoccurring. If the board approves this contract, the money that was transferred uh last month, the 19,000 as it would be, we have another piece of equipment that failed the um or is is out of date. The fire panel uh here at the high school cannot take software updates because it's out of date. So, one, when we had

050the fire suppression system, we had to do a workaround in order to manage getting that online, but knowing that we're redoing the library this summer, there's going to be a whole lot more that needs to be updated there. So, we're going to get the live the fire panel uh updated here at the high school. >> Okay. So, we're looking at a motion to award the contract to Mercury Electric LLC state bid portal contract for the lighting module control and dimmer rack for the Brady Center for 45,861. >> Okay. Do we have a motion there? Can I >> then we'll have to question we'll get the motion then answer the questions. Patrick motion. Michael second. All right. Now, questions. >> Is the fire panel and the fire suppression system with the workaround we have now, is

051it adequate? Is it working? >> Yes, it is working. >> We had to have it inspected by the >> And how long do we have till we implement something new? I mean, is it is it temporary? I mean, I know it's not our number one choice. >> Well, we would like to have it when we have the library media center renovated, which is this summer. So essentially >> this summer >> we'll we'll we'll keep what we currently have at least through this school year. It's a little difficult to take them offline especially when kids are in school and then once the summer hits we would do the update. >> Okay. So the end date is this summer. >> Yes. But what we have is working and approved by the fire marshall. It's just not the

052best system. >> Any other questions, comments? If not, we call the role, please. >> Miss Bradley, >> yes. >> Miss Cloud Ingram, >> yes. >> Mr. Kay, >> yes. >> Dr. Kronicron, >> yes. >> Miss Lombardi? >> Yes. >> Mr. Reed? >> Yes. >> Mr. Davis? >> Yes. >> Mr. Mcdana? >> Yes. >> Dr. Ollet? >> Yes. >> Muse? >> Yes. >> Miss Schlank? >> Yes. >> Miss Schustster? >> Yes. >> Mr. Young? >> Yes. >> Okay. Motion carries. Uh, next we move on to two Hamilton Middle School Bethany fire pump. >> Um, if you may remember um for the board members who've been here that we contracted with Vanzel who has uh been an engineer who's done a lot of work with the district over the decades um to look at the fire pump

053that is housed in an underground vault in Bethany and Bethany is served by uh wellwater. This uh pump is being corroded ding to the conditions of being underground and it being wet. We had Venzelms design the scope of it and prepare the bid for us. We did look at different options at one point if whether it was possible to bring this above ground and that uh would have been quite uh more uh expensive and costly of a project. So they are looking at ways to uh improve the amount of uh moisture that is there when we replace this. Uh four vendors walked through the uh site and looked at the the project and two vendors submitted proposals. Southport Contracting and Encore Fire Protection. Southport contractors bid 99,900 for the pro project and Encore 148250. We

054use the following criteria to evaluate the proposals. So one is understanding of the bid process. the amount of questions that we received during, you know, from um the contractor. Southport seemed to have a lot of questions that were easily accessible within the bid document. Um when Encore came through on the walkthrough, they actually had researched who would be the manufacturer of the pump and brought the a representative from the company there to look at the pump, make sure they fully understood the scope and how the replacement would go. Uh we checked references and we looked at the size of the workforce. Uh Southport contractor had a much smaller workforce, maybe 10 to 20 people where Encore had 200 over 200 employees. Um and that did seem to come into a factor with references. Um Encore

055also listed a lot of work in the fire protection area. Um where Southport had more boiler work referenced in their in their list of references. Ben Zelms also reviewed the contracts and felt that the response from Encore really uh was much more uh appropriate and they had provided drawings of the works they would do and there really wasn't any other backup to the bid that um Southport had uh provided. So we were comfortable making the recommendation of Encore Fire Protection. The board had set aside $250,000 at the end of last year from the 2% allocation of funds. So this is still under budget even at 148,250 and our budget was just really a guess at that point. >> All right. Uh before we go any further, uh sud >> yeah the AFC had a detailed

056discussion and then recommended okay we go with the 150,000. So, I'll ask for a motion first uh award the contract to Encore Fire Protection for the replacement of the fire pump in the Amity Middle School Bethany well vault for 148,250. Have somebody make that motion, please? Michael make the motion. Donna second. All right. Uh questions and comments. >> I have a comment. Um yes, I really appreciate um you sharing the criteria that you use >> to determine which uh contractor to go with. Um that was very helpful. >> No one else. >> Was the measurable difference for the additional almost 50,000. Was it the detail in the quality or were there measurable differences in what they were going to do? Well, we really can't tell what South Park was going to do because there was

057not enough information. I mean, the assumption was they would have met the bid specs, but Encore really provided the detail with with drawings and pictures and um and it it it is notable that 99,900 is just under the state threshold of 100,000 of the prevailing wage. So, I don't know if that's the target they were looking at and if there'd be change orders after. It's it it just draws your attention to that, >> right? >> Thank you. >> Uh any anything else that the U AFC uh spoke about? >> Well, most of the discussion was around why the difference, you know, why were we going with the budget increased budget and we seem convinced. >> Did the committee agree in full? Yes. We we also talked about if this would be if part of the

058issue is where it's located and if they evaluate it changing the location, but it sounds like it's going to be housed better. >> Right. >> Okay. >> All right. >> I had a question. >> Quick question. Um in that it's in such a challenging area um where it's going to cause more difficulty to the materials based underground and moisture. Was there any warranty that comes with their work either uh workmanship or product? I know product is manufacturer but you know if they would stand behind their work for a period of time that would be further you know corroboration of quality. >> I don't remember specific workmanship warranty but I believe there there was a mention of that. Um you know it's it's a fire pump. I mean it's a typical mechanical uh project but it's

059just the uniqueness is is just the location that it is. So, you know, we are making efforts to better waterproof the vault. Like I said, we've made improvements outside the vault to uh keep moisture and water from coming in. Um part of the project is also putting in bigger sump pumps uh bigger discharge line get in evacuate it better. So, you know, we are taking steps to try and mitigate any more moisture that's in there. And then we'll look at the uh we'll look at the warranty work from court. >> That did require them to the successful bidder does have to submit a 100% performance bond on the project. >> Yeah. Uh don't want to stop the project but if we can get more more >> application April um I know that you had mentioned

060uh bringing it above ground would be more but did we get any estimates on that? Well, we had the engineers look at that before they wrote the bit specs whether they thought that was even the best option to do right and if it and it so they determined that the best option was to improve the current situation. >> Any more questions? Thank you very much for those questions. Very helpful. >> Uh go to call the role, please. >> Miss Bradley, >> yes. >> Miss Cloud Ingram, >> yes. >> Mr. K. >> Yes. >> Dr. Kronicron. >> Yes. >> Miss Lombardi. >> Yes. >> Mr. Reed. >> Yes. >> Mr. Davis. >> Yes. >> Mr. Mcdana. >> Yes. >> Dr. Ollet. >> Yes. >> M. Reuse. >> Yes. >> Miss Blank. >> Yes. >> M. Schustster.

061>> Oh, Miss Schuster. >> Mr. Young. >> Yes. >> Okay. Motion carries. And we move on to the copers. >> So, the last uh contract is to um replace the current contract we have in place with Xerox. which is from a a consortium bid correct in pepum that uh they have pricing that they've proposed. The pricing does expire at the end of this month. We typically when we're our lease is about to expire have uh both our technology people, a representative from Xerox and um the school personnel principal um walk through discuss the current location of the copers. Is that the best place for them? How are they utilized? We look at the overall usage and from that walkthrough that happened a few months ago, we are proposing reducing our number of copers from 29

062down to 24. Um, we are all also looking at reducing our number of copies per month on the pool plan which will be part of the savings. We are looking to move our fax lines from dedicated phone lines to um uh a method that will come to through through the email, but you still using the same phone number partnered with Xerox as part of this proposal. Overall, the uh new lease would be about $24,000 less per year plus another $4,500 on the phone line. So those savings, if the board approves this, uh we start to save in January because the copers would be installed over the the holiday break and then there would be um a further reduction in next year's budget. >> Okay. Uh so uh board of finance, >> yes, >> approved. Okay.

063Uh motion uh to authorize a director of finance to sign the Xerox contract for copers faxing capabilities and the laser printer management program for the monthly charge of 12,324 with the period of December 31, 2025 through December 31, 2030. This is a five-year contract. >> Yes. >> Okay. Uh, can we have that motion, please, Jen? Thank you. Second, Megan. Thank you. Uh, any further comments on this? Uh, are are we using less paper than now? >> Well, the fact that we can lower our copy of pool because we haven't hit the higher threshold is an indication that we are. >> Yeah. >> Not as much as I'd like, but we are. So it's 25,000 less, right? So what's our base rate? Like you know, maybe >> how many pages do we use? Actually, >> you

064want to know? Yeah. >> These are the fact of what I copy. >> Okay. So we have the motion. Any other comments? Call the RO, please. >> Miss Bradley. Miss Cloud Ingram, >> yes. >> Miss J, >> yes. >> Dr. Krona, >> yes. >> Miss Lombardi, >> yes. >> Mr. Reed, >> yes. >> Mr. Davis, >> yes. >> Mr. Mcdana, >> yes. >> Dr. Llay, >> yes. >> Uh, Miss Reuse, >> yes. >> Miss Schlank, >> yes. >> Miss Schustster, >> yes. >> Mr. Young, >> yes. >> Okay. Motion carries. >> Uh, we move on to C, the update on the 26 uh 2026 2027 proposed budget. This is on page 30. Uh, Miss Lumis. >> So, uh, you have an update which, uh, reminds you that we had a meeting at the end of

065November where the department all showed you their request. That was a 2.97 7% increase. And since then, we had both our group administrative meeting to further review the requests, the priorities, where uh, reductions could be made. Then Miss Kovaleick and I had individual meetings with each departments to look at their individual line items, their historical use of their budgets, and to take in um any other request uh reductions we can make. At this time, we have $440,000 worth of reductions. That brings the budget down to a 2.21% increase. The little chart there on page 29 shows you basically the areas we took them from. and technology being a negative just means that we found that something was omitted from during the budget process had to be added back in. So, but still overall 449,000 right

066now um and a 2.21% increase. The um the chart on page 30 shows you what we presented when we did the October one enrollment. If there was no change in enrollment, how Bethany and Woodbridge would still see an increase but orange would go down based on the enrollment shift. Um the bottom of that page shows higher revenues. Most of those are due to um more revenue due to special education, not because necessarily the state's going to give us more, but because we'll have more expenses for special ed tuition. Um, and then the last chart kind of sums it all up with both considering the enrollment shift, the higher revenues, the prior credit that we will be reducing the town's allocation for in March, and the higher operating expense to give an overall budget-to-budget um variance.

067That is a a net 52,298 for all three districts. Uh, where again Bethany and Woodbridge will see an increase and Orange will see a decrease in their allocations. Um we did point out that you know debt service is going down uh roughly a little under 2% in this budget. So that helps offset the 3.87% increase in salaries which is one of the biggest parts of the budget. Um and then there's important budget dates at the bottom of page 31. The first presentation will be to the AFC board and then the next night Dr. Buyers will present to the Bethany board of ed and Woodbridge and we're still working with Orange to get a date for the Orange finance. >> So the other thing that was highlighted was that the 250,000 reduction on the improvements in

068buildings is something that we are pushing to the bonding right so that's the reason why there is such a big drop. >> Okay. So that's another >> J. >> Does this take into consideration the unknowns of IDEIDA funding? >> Uh not really. >> No, essentially. So we went down I shared last month with AFC uh that although our special ed numbers went higher um our IDA funds had a very small uh decrease and next year we're anticipating even more students. Um but no it does not account for if all of a sudden no ITD funds became available. >> So that would be a case where if that happened we would have to go back to the towns to ask for more money. We the way I structure our IDEA grant is we while it has

069a large proportion of uh non-certified salaries on it. Uh in working with Miss Lumis, we would be able to ensure that we would be able to bring over those staff into the operating budget. It would definitely cause us to have to make some adjustments, but we would be able to because um IDA is very clear that it is used to uh supplement the operating budget and not supplant. So those staff who are covered through the IDA budget and the funds we have set aside, we would be able to absorb into the operating budget, but we'd have to look to my words, not Miss Lumises or Dr. Buyers, freeze andor pause some other uh areas within the budget to absorb that if we lost all IDEA funding. >> Thank you for the question and other comments.

070Carol, >> um Sudier, thanks for the clarification. I was going to ask about the big amount um that was um decreased. Um I have a question about the daily membership and which is related but maybe slightly unrelated but do we have any idea um so I I think this is a second or third year that we see a decrease in the number of students coming from Orange. Do we have any idea if this decrease sort of matches like what's happening in the town? So like demographically are there fewer students? I mean, my I guess my core question is do are fewer families with school age kids moving into Orange? Are they leave are they like leaving the town or are they choosing to go elsewhere? So, I'd love us to love for us to think

071about like Woodbridge. I know I can see it. I live in Woodbridge like people are moving in kids. I walk and I see new families with school age kids. But what's happening in in orange and does it match what's happening demographically? Can we look at like this like census estimates for like orange to see does this match? >> If you look October one enrollment. >> Yeah, you can look at the October one enrollment for any prior year and you can see how the bubble whe bubbles or smaller classes of kids how they shift each year. So you could go back and you could see that over the course of every budget book we've had prepared. >> So we looked at it last time and I thought who is increasing for orange after the next couple

072of years I think. So we show you prek through sixth grade on our total one enrollment. And you'll see you know we saw the bubble coming through Woodbridge that they were going to have this bump if you know all their their children came up through their elementarymentaries to us >> and you can see this decrease in orange in the elementary level before they get to us. So it's >> however I think it's also exacerbated if you compare ADM reports over the last couple of years. There's a good 30 to 40 kids that depart from Orange between the middle school and the high school. And I think that's something that we should probably look into more or at least ask families who are opting out why. >> So, um once they opt once they leave us,

073we don't have contact with them. But we've looked at the um the sort of changes um at least comparatively Mrs. plant has across other DerkB districts and that middle to high school transition is comparable. Um we also have students who choose to return to AMD or pay tuition to come here that we don't necessarily account for because they don't live in our three towns. They just show up as another number on our charts. But we're fairly close um to what we see in other derby schools. >> We don't see it out of AMSB. So it's a point of >> That's what I was going to ask. Do we see it the same >> to anywhere near the same degree? >> Yeah, we don't have that by town. No, >> related if you see it. >>

074That's true, >> but we can look into it. >> I I I think it would be good. I mean, this is something I've been thinking about for like the last we brought it up before, too. >> We've brought it up before. There's definitely >> Yeah, but >> a disconnect between the orange middle school and our or and kids coming to the high school. >> Yeah, that I I don't know. I think I did some analysis before, but I I'm not like I don't want to say anything without really looking through my numbers, but I will say that the numbers are increasing for orange in the lower classes. It's not like uh you know, as Carol was worried like you know, there is not a decline in the demographics. I don't think at least I don't

075remember seeing that that way. But >> no and I and I think all the analysis we did was districtwide for middle elementary to middle that part we didn't we didn't lit it out by schools when we looked at that. >> There's no way to see like how many kids in Orange are going to the tech schools or even like if you go to like in Notre Dame do we see that they're leaving from here and we're sending transcripts over. So, so because the tech schools because we provide we have those numbers. Those are included as part of your finance report, right? How many kids go to ECA? How many go to Plat if they choose to go someplace else? We don't necessarily have that information. And we don't even know if they don't come to

076us if they're even still living in Orange. Once they leave, they could have moved to Milford and be going to Milford public schools. And we don't necessarily know that. So tracking where they go when they leave or when they're no longer enrolled, we don't have a mechanism unless they're still somehow connected to us as a district. >> But you can see, you know, um and I mean we can look at our the number of kids who go to Plat and and sort of look at how many of them come from the three three towns. We have that information because they need a school bus. um or if they go to ECA or if they go to Nanowog or if they go to the Sound School or any one of the others that we pay pay

077for. >> Do we track um I mean I haven't been through this with my own kids, but do do we track um like sending records like you know if whatever school you're new school you're going to they're going to want some information on >> if they request it. Not all schools request it. >> Public schools will request it. So like if you move out >> of the district and go to West Haven, we'll get a request for that. Uh it's more inconsistent with the prochial schools like they choose to go to a prochial education. >> Just start fresh. >> Um that sometimes they start fresh for reason, sometimes they don't. you know that there's that um uh public to public school we don't uh we can just send those records but for us to send

078any records we would the prochial school would either have to initiate it with sign consent or the parent >> so I have one last suggestion not to believe at this point but so I get what you're saying that you saw the bubble coming for Woodbridge and like there's one coming for orange that doesn't explain what's happening with the current cohorts I want to suggest at the end of like 8th grade before like the end of If we can even ask families or survey families about their intentions for nth grade just to get a idea of sort of who and then capture capture perspectives before they leave us and and have a firm idea about why if they're if if it's that they're choosing to go elsewhere and why. And there is some known because when

079the high school comes to do scheduling with the kids at the middle school, the kids who you know are not coming get put in a different room. >> But these numbers are elementary to middle school. So I I know that Orange had a big bubble the last two years from the elementary school to the middle school. My son was part of that. >> It's combined. So >> Right. Right. No, no, no. these these numbers could all are could also be affect like the timing of the numbers is probably more affected by elementary school to middle school not middle school to high school. >> I would uh suggest that last month's report actually has the numbers of how the things are transitioning. So if you see the October one report is there and last month it's

080there in our systems. So if you guys want to take a look at it later I think you'll have a better sense of what the data tells you. Yeah. >> Okay. I think we discussed this. I I think in general the concern is uh looking for an explanation of why Orange specifically has more kids leaving the school district than it appears from Bethany and Woodbridge. Is that the main concern? That's what we want want to see if we can figure out or determine a reason and or even how to figure it out. I appreciate uh looking into that. Thank you on that. Um, one more comment. I I noticed you mentioned the um uh lowering of payments for uh our previous bond bond bonding. And I I think I recall and this is for many

081of the members who weren't here in previous years that when we looked at the contract that was specifically considered in uh making sure that we weren't spending too much uh on the contract and not having a source of income that we were aware of in the future that would protect the uh uh citizens from too large an increase in taxes. So, uh that that was something that was considered like three or four years ago when when we looked at uh the monies that would be available to cover the uh the increases in contracts for >> what you're drink. Yeah. >> I'm sorry. >> I don't think it was >> I think it was for somebody else. >> Okay. All right. >> What contract are you >> the teachers contract when we passed it? there was

082a significant increase and the consideration that we were asked at the time where's the money coming from and so we examined that that was part of why we were able to provide our teachers with uh comparable uh increases as to other schools in our DUR and we're still kind of in the middle even though we've we gave them what we thought was a pretty good increase and many districts were still losing some teachers to other districts that are paying more money that's a real challenge for us Okay, let's uh move on here and we're going um monthly financial statements and special education update with that. >> So, you'll see on page 22 overall the uh funds available that we expect to have at the end of the year went down by about 210,000. Um that's

083mainly changes due to um some budget transfers you'll see at the end of the packet to cover for outside agencies. um to come in and cover for long-term absences both in certified and classified and the vacant uh special education position. Mr. Brandt only asked for part of the year hoping we'd find someone. We still haven't found someone. So, we're uh need more funds there. And then the the typical monthly changes in special ed where you see tuition and transportation based on student needs and professional services is where you'll see the request for subs. Um some equipment replacement is the um items that we discussed that you'll see later on. We had um we had the fire panel. We also had um a circulator pump go. So there's um different equipment needs for things that have

084failed in facilities. Uh insurance claims are still running at 102%. 6. So, still hovering at that spot, but thankfully at least not climbing higher than it was. And we're still seeing some credits come in from the virtual net metering. Though, given the uh less amount of sunshine, those credits are starting to um go down just, you know, due to that fact, we expect them to go back up uh come springtime. >> Okay. Any questions? Documentation that's in there you can take a look at. Uh, by the way, I might mention if if you're looking at some of these after a meeting and have a question, please send an email uh to Miss Lumis or myself. We'll get it to uh who it has to go to or make sure we get the questions answered. Uh

085and uh we move over to uh uh the director of finance and administration approved transfers under 3,000. They're listed there uh in the uh packet on page uh is page 65 and um and then uh F discussion of possible action on budget transfers over 3,000 page 67. Can we get to those? >> Okay. So, the first two requests are for um Mr. Brand. So, we as I mentioned earlier, that special ed teacher position that we haven't been able to fill and then a leave of absence that um we are contracting with outside agencies to cover. And then transportation. Uh one is just some you know overall budgeting uh that we had thought would cover the expenses and some of the transportation costs are coming in higher than anticipated and then the additional uh transportation costs

086associated with people who have unstable housing at the moment and we are uh complying with the Mckin Ventoro Act uh to make sure that we continue to provide transportation from them um even if they are not still housed within the BOA shirt. Um, there is a typo on the bottom of page 66 and the from and to amount should be uh 35,250 not 32,000 250. >> Okay. And uh in consideration of that when the uh ammon finance committee considered that they were aware of that, right? >> Yes. >> Okay. We approve amendment. >> All right. So we have uh first motion to consider to move to approve the transfer for special education services to cover certified positions that are not filled due to vacancy and leaves of absences and uh they are listed there with

087the certified salary professional technical services tuition and professional technical services and the amount of transfers uh are required. That's on page 66. I think it's listed bottom of 66 numbered 66 right. Uh so can we have that motion >> again and Donna Schlang and second all right and uh once again the AFC uh recommended approval. >> Thank you. Uh any comments, questions, concerns? Not. Can we call a roll, please? >> Miss Bradley? >> Yes. >> Miss Cloud Ingram? >> Yes. >> Mr. Kay? >> Yes. >> Dr. Kron? >> Yes. >> Miss Lombardi? >> Yes. >> Mr. Reed? >> Yes. >> Mr. Davis? >> Yes. >> Mr. McDonald? >> Yes. >> Dr. Olle? >> Yes. >> Mr. Abuse? >> Yes. >> Miss Schlank? >> Yes. >> Miss Schustster? >> Yes. >> Mr. Young? >> Yes. >>

088Okay. Motion carries. As we move on to the second one, to approve this transfer to special education services to cover an increased transportation cost. Those are all listed there on the top of page 67. uh transportation uh uh public out uh this is uh 23,616 transportation ECA 15,000 professional technical services 8,000 uh 616 uh transportation in 6310 tuition private out 6310 and those all balance out I assume uh recommendation from the AFC >> approved and recommended that we approve that. Uh, any other questions? Okay. Do we have to we have to have a Wait, did we do a motion? We didn't do a motion. We have to do a motion. >> Patrick approve the transfers. >> Uh, Sudter. Second. >> I'm sorry. I missed the first one. Patrick. >> Patrick. Patrick. >> Okay. >> Miss

089Bradley. >> Yes. >> Miss Cloud Ingram. >> Yes. >> M. Yes. >> Dr. Prun. >> Yes. >> Miss Lombardi. >> Yes. >> Mr. Reed. >> Yes. >> Mr. Davis. >> Yes. >> Mr. Mcdana. >> Yes. >> Dr. Earl Dele. >> Yes. >> M. Ribuse. >> Yes. Miss Lank. >> Yes. >> M. Schustster. >> Yes. >> And Mr. Young. >> Yes. >> And the last transfer is for um using an agency to cover um pre-administrative assistants who are on leave of absence. Uh we have one position in the district that is um structured so that they have some time to cover and so they are covering one of the positions but uh all three of these people uh are out at the same time. So we contracted with an agency to get at least some coverage

090part-time in two of the other offices. Um and they're all right now expected back after the first of the year. >> Okay. Uh and once again uh approval by the FC. >> Yes. >> Recommend it that we pass that. So looking for a motion move to approve this transfer for coverage for administrative assistance on leaves of absences uh from classified salaries uh 29,237 to professional services for that same amount. Uh can we have that uh motion please? Megan and Donna second. Uh any discussion, further discussion? If not, can we call >> question or observation? Just that we have three full-time people who are out and their positions are being covered by two part-time people. >> Um three people. So that we have one position that is a full-time our employee who uh does part half-time

091work in special ed, half time to threequarters time in special ed, but it was carved out that they would cover leaves when we had them. So they are covering one leave. Um, but there's three at the same time. So, the other two are being covered by an outside agency. >> Got two covering for the three that are out, right? Essentially for >> there's one in house covering half >> because the professional services are more expensive than >> Absolutely. Understood. See if two people could do the job. Three. >> Okay. Uh, can we call the role, please? >> Miss Bradley? >> Yes. >> Miss Cloud Ingram? >> Yes. >> Mr. J? Yes, >> Dr. Kunron. >> Yes, >> Miss Lombardi. >> Yes, >> Mr. Reed. >> Yes, >> Mr. Davis. >> Yes, >> Mr. McDa. >>

092Yes, >> Dr. Villa Delay. >> Yes, >> Miss Reuse. >> Yes, >> M. Link. >> Yes, >> Miss Schuster. >> Yes, >> Mr. Yug. >> Yes. >> Okay. And >> lastly, we'll talk a little bit about calf negative balance update. Wow. >> So, um, as of this week, it was, uh, the negative, uh, balance total is $7,011, which is coming from 173 student accounts. Um, we send out notices when their balance is under $10 by email and by text messages, and then we start making phone calls when their balance is over $50. Um, this public has made many phone calls in the past several weeks. Um, heard many promises of payment yet to come. >> Okay. Uh, that's unfortunate. And so, if any of you have kids here, uh, make sure that we won't mention

093any names. >> I was just, uh, confessing that I got an email saying that there were $43. I have no idea what my daughter is having, but like, you know, we'll make sure we make it to school or >> is some of this due to the new program? Wasn't there a new program introduced this year? >> Do you think it's you? >> I don't think so. It's it's been growing every year. Last year, at the end of the year, we had 6,500, which was the highest we had ever seen. Um, I I think it's just a one, people may get around to paying it. Two, they also know there's nothing I can do. we still have to keep serving their children even if they have a negative balance. So, >> and it's not unique to

094AMD. This is seen across school districts across the state pretty much universally. >> Yeah, there there was an article in the local newspaper uh about that other school districts that are having same type of problem >> and there's no consequences. Uh was there I'm trying to remember was there a recent change in state law, federal policy or state fa uh policy that this didn't happen? >> We used to have a little more teeth in holding things back from kids so that they couldn't participate in graduation or they wouldn't get report cards. Um and that has been a policy change. So we don't have the carrot so to speak that we can use to motivate >> families >> because of law. >> Yes. >> Uh no no idea uh of what specifics might be contributing this

095increase to the cost of food or is this primarily think well you know we'll do it when we can type payment. Uh any any >> is there any incentives we can do instead? >> You know, like um >> I mean that we looked at of the 173 students only 17 are unreduced and those 17 only account for $223 of the 7,000. >> But I do think overall like socio socioeconomic dynamics are changing a bit. Like even if you just look at our school data on free and reduced lunch, that's increased significantly over the last 5 to 10 years. >> I mean, one of the things that I'm you've been advocating at at the state legislator level and certainly a place where any of you could do that is free and reduced lunch um uh thresholds

096are set nationally and our cost of living in Connecticut is significantly different than the average cost of living for the nation. And so we've been advocating that the state not just give free breakfast or free lunch like they've been doing, but come up with some sort of differential that would accommodate our state cost of living and sort of create a buffer um that I think would address that it just is much more expensive to live here in Connecticut. And a family in poverty in Connecticut may be making a lot more money than a family in poverty someplace else in the state. So, if you ever want to bend the ear of your state legislators, this is a a way that I think we could potentially address needs of many families without um kind of going

097too far um in terms of giving free lunches and breakfast to everybody, which Miss Lumis and I know would come at a significant cost to the district. Um and it's something that superintendent have at times been pushing when we can. Okay. Yes, Jen. >> Um, sorry if this question is a little bit like off topic. >> Can you speak up, Janet, please? Sorry if this question is just a little bit off topic, but I was wondering like if the school takes into consideration like that the cost of living in Connecticut is higher because I know that like qualifying for free and reduced lunch can be a way that a student is and um be able to access other um sort of things for example like fee wavers or SAT waivers um like sometimes they use

098do you qualify for free and reduced lunch nationally as a benchmark for that. So I was wondering like if the school provides like additional support even if a student like maybe doesn't qualify for free and reduced lunch but like still has financial. >> Well, we don't have a metric to determine that. So no, we use the free and reduced lunch calculation in those cases. >> Yep. >> Uh just one followup on this. Uh how does how does it look at the end of the year as compared with the middle of the year like last year? >> Well, this is more than we had at the end of the last year. we ended up uh with 60 about 6,500. So having $7,000 already is >> right >> is you know we could be double which so

099it's >> so we're going through the year and we don't seem to be able to collect >> and it gets worse as the year goes on. >> I mean we certainly have um some things like prom um that comes up where we're able to say that's like one of the ones where we can say you don't get a prom ticket if you have a a balance, right? We can't do that one. >> Can't do that one. >> You are you I mean obviously you feed everybody but do you limit like if somebody has a negative balance do you limit their ability to buy like chips and ice cream and they can't charge alle cart you can only get a a lunch and that's per the law but you >> we don't allow them to charge

100any alle cart items. It's not already. >> Thank you for that. And if any of you board members have some thoughts or suggestions, see if you can get that to us. Uh we move on to the next section on policy. Uh first reads for those of you who are new here. Uh first read comes before the board. Um uh just as a introduction to the policy change and we examine it and uh you're welcome to uh make look at what the policy is, make suggestions uh changes or um thoughts uh consideration of changes, get that back to the policy committee and then with the second read they'll bring it before us and then we will vote on it. >> The blue and the red, what is that? >> That's that's my color coding. So um

101so the black is typically the existing policy language. The red is usually what we have changed. In the case of the school calendar, we changed it then a third time. So I just added the blue color to show where the third set of changes came. Um because we've been working on this particular policy for a while. Most of the time it's just going to be black, red, and strikeouts. Good question and good answer. Uh any comments on the school calendar first? >> And if I can just mention the school calendar policy also has a regulation behind it and I think the regulation um gave the the board um at least the policy committee members more of sort of parameters that they were looking for. Um the regulation was included in the policy packet. So, if

102somebody's looking for that, um, the board doesn't typically write, develop, or approve regulations, but every once in a while, if I'm working with policy, I might slip it into a policy committee meeting so that they can at least see what it's going to look like. So, it is there if somebody wanted to to see that. Um the only other thing I would say on um the first read for 2151, the recruitment and selection of administrative staff. Um there's no color coding on this one because this one is a complete rewrite of our existing policy. Um so I guess if I was going to be really true to form, the whole thing would be in red. Um and the reason being is that um it's a a significant shift from how we've approved administrative staff by

103policy to begin with. Uh it came at the request of the board members who wanted to look at a policy where it resided with the superintendent um solely. Um and it's essentially language modeled after um Greenwich um just as a reference point for another district in the state that had that type of language. Um so um that that's why it doesn't look like there's any changes. It's because it's complete. >> What was the policy before? >> The policy you'll remember I um it required the superintendent to bring one candidate before the board. Um and I think if I can sort of paraphrase it felt very prefuncter for the board like they didn't have really a say when that one person came to them. This policy allows um the superintendent to make that final decision and

104to kind of present the candidate to the board, but it also is explicit in saying board members are part of the interview and selection process. So, um there's still a role for board members. Um that language actually I I borrowed from the orange policy. Um, but it just doesn't it sort of eliminates that kind of weird formality that we had in the other in the previous policy. >> Got it. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Any other questions on the two first reads >> on the holidays? I thought we when we did the last two holidays adding in, we were going to do some kind of like is there a petition? Is there like who has to show >> that's in the regulation? that's in the regulation that we're not seeing here. >> Yeah. >> Okay.

105>> And for for some of our new members, once again, the policy is the standard for the school district directs all staff members to follow those policies. the superintendent is charged with following uh with establishing or doing something and the superintendent or the administration would write a regulation so that everybody would understand how it's going to be enforced. >> And where could we see that regulation? >> Um in the policy uh committee packet from November. >> Was a hard copy or was it on? >> It's it's online >> policy committee packet. >> Yes. So I'm a little confused about PA2247 being part of the school calendar, the act concerning children's mental health. >> Um I am sure that there is something in that particular act that addressed um one of our school holidays. I I

106don't know which what exactly it was, but I'm sure again that that if it's in red, it was updated from CABE. So they there was clearly a holiday somewhere built into that or some reference to that. >> Do the kids get Junth off now? >> Um we typically aren't in school on that day, >> right? >> Oh, okay. That would be the white. Yeah, you were like, "Wait a minute." And and and and actually that might be 2247. There are or no, that's 22128. Um school districts in that statute have two options. you either have to take it as a holiday or you have to be in school and recognize it like do some sort of educational um instruction about it. Um like I said, normally we wouldn't be in school and if we were

107it'd be exam period. So we'd figure something out. question about the recruitment um policy and you know I haven't read it from A to Z but um can you explain the role of the board in that process and in terms of >> so it says in the middle paragraph when conducting a search the superintendent shall keep the board of education informed and may solicit advice regarding the leadership qualities or district needs and when appropriate members of the board shall be invited to participate in the interviewer selection process >> when appropriate a little vague. >> Seems it leaves it open, but I guess that's on purpose. >> Yes. >> Seems to be an entire delegation of the uh recruiting and hiring responsibility to the superintendent where there's input that could be welcomed or solicited by uh

108the superintendent, but the any ultimate uh if you want to use the term authority to make a decision as to hiring or not has been completely abdicated by the board and delegated to the superintendent. That's what that's what it's saying. >> Yeah. Yeah. I read it the same way. >> Was there a problem before where there was uh just a presentation of one person, you know, in the hiring process such that as you said, it was almost more of like a rubber stamping process. I mean, it would be absurd. Well, this is our only one candidate. So, I suppose the board could either say yay or nay. Uh, and if they said nay, it would be back to the drawing board and you know, the whole hiring process would just be very involved. Would have

109to start all over again and you'd be left with the vacancy that you were intending to fill for a much greater period of time. Was it just that there was one candidate presented to the board over years or that there were multiple candidates for some reason? >> No, that the board's policy read that there was one candidate presented to the board and exactly what you said. It was a yay or nay. And if it was a nay, then you're literally back to the drawing board starting the entire process all over again, >> which has got its own negatives to weigh against the thought about, well, we might find a better candidate, but it's the lesser of evils, namely going along with somebody who might not be fully endorsing, but rather that better than having a

110vacancy for the remainder of a >> school. And I think and I think it was aligned statutoily that I am the only employee that the board hires and all the other employees by statute are those that I hire. Um I I I would suspect and again I don't know. I've only just sort of worked in districts for 20 some odd years. It was offered more as a courtesy to the board for administrative positions to sort of have that one candidate presented when in practicality it ultimately is still the decision rest of the superintendent. So that's that's where I'm thinking that kind of policy came from. Um, and then yes, and I think members of this board were here. Um, unfortunately Shannon was the recipient, but uh, it it felt I I don't know you it

111just felt like it was a rubber stamp. >> It felt like it was a rubber stamping and whether we ate it or made it didn't really matter. And uh the other part of course is that we were all aware of this very uh very comprehensive process where uh many many many people were involved in bringing the selection down to I think the superintendent was given two people at the end or uh to right >> by the time we hit the last round. Yes. Yes. Well, I think well over 28 people were involved in the original selection process. So that's the other They were board members. They were board members at each uh particular uh step of the process. So >> those board members are chosen by you. >> Uh they serve on the personnel committee

112>> and are available to come to participate in interviews during the daytime. The personnel committee members are chosen by you to be on the board by the board chair and by your volunt. >> The whole personnel committee is not part of the process of >> not as a not as a whole but every member of the personnel committee was offered an opportunity to participate in any one of the various rounds. >> Where was that opportunity offered? I I just put out an email and said if you're on the personnel committee, these are the nights that these are when we're doing interviews and if you're available to attend, you'll be part of that. >> I don't remember receiving that, but I'll look for it next time. >> Now, we're talking about a relatively small number of

113positions. >> Yes. >> Uh the these are the >> They're important positions. >> Yeah. They're they're important that leadership >> roles. Well, hopefully we won't have any vacancies for a long time. Right. >> Actually, and Dana, you weren't serving on the board yet when we went through the interview process. I don't think >> but we were here when she was presented. Yes. And finally, you were just commenting. >> Chairman Davis, the the observation that there's a relatively small number of positions I think is an apt one and I think it goes if you want to call it both ways, you know, in the analysis and discussion that we're having now. Whereas, you know, the hiring process is certainly very involved, very laborious, very time consuming. Uh, and what are the other options other than to

114have a subcommittee created by the the board to then participate in and have some directive authority in the selection and hiring process. Uh, and unless we have a board that doesn't want to do that, then it would make sense to delegate all the authority in selecting selecting and hiring to the position of superintendent. And this is not a critique of, you know, superintendent buyers by any means. This is just simply positional. is, you know, should this board uh relinquish all of its authority in hiring a very small number of the most important uh you know uh administrators or aspects not the most I don't want to denigrate anybody else but a very important segment of our educational system right yeah I think that bears >> there's nothing against looking at right this is why we're

115having the discussion now with >> it's it's both it's both a legal issue uh and it's uh a philosophical issue and uh >> two options right one you play a role or the others we don't and we delegate it all to uh our >> second and play I think we hire the uh I think we hire the lawyer too so it's technically two we hire but uh right point um yeah right and the policy now reads the board shall present or there shall be presented one which almost predetermines the whole role I mean if you're only going to have one presented then perhaps we should look at that policy >> uh and determine whether or not it should read that we present because I multip >> the fact that the personal committee people are involved.

116>> Yeah. >> Harold. >> Um so I just want to make sure I I understand how this is written and how things should go. >> The superintendent hires everybody in a role that reports to the superintendent. Um you know as a board member would I like to be invited to participate in the interview process? I mean I have before for um the principal role and that was great and I appreciated and I'm sure others who have participated appreciated that opportunity. So there is a what I hear you saying is there is a role for board members to be part of that uh process and it it's primarily the personnel committee and they're invited to participate in the process and have a voice in sort of voting and choosing throughout the process. >> Yes. And we

117actually deliberately changed the word um the members of the board shall be invited so that there's no ambiguity. >> Okay. >> To that >> and it's no longer the personal committee. It is the entire board. Is that what you're saying? Well, it's it says members of the board shall be I mean and we have traditionally and it's not carved out here but traditionally we've turned to the personnel committee because there's five members and that's >> very much related to the work of the committee and we've asked them first and when they've usually have filled the need and then we haven't had to ask anybody else. So >> should the policy reflect that like so that in the future somebody doesn't say I was not asked why wasn't I asked >> so we have a new

118policy chair it's Mr. Mcdana and so please send any recommendations and suggestions to Mr. Mcdana, >> I got when you said that Dana wasn't on the board yet. >> I kind of remember your predecessor tendering his resignation while we were on the board. Did you guys know prior? >> Yes. >> For for how long prior? I guess we wouldn't have known for like I remember there was privacy issues. You you had a position elsewhere. You couldn't kind of like announce. >> You've only been here for a year. I would like to make a suggestion that we the instead making it a little more clearer about instead when appropriate like put something in that actually says that members of the board of the if you want to say personnel committee but we'll have opportunity to or

119you know be invited you know whatever it is that you were going to do like when that time frame is but >> I think if we if the first part of that sentence goes then it would just say members of board shall be invited to participate in the interview. >> And I think and again there may be ways I can look at this. We have never traditionally involved board members as a board in the selection of associate principles, assistant principles, um coordinator positions, department chair positions because those are not those are at a lower tier within the hierarchy. um if again the old policy um addressed specifically principles and central office level staff. So I think that's where the when and again I was borrowing this from orange. I'm assuming the when appropriate was really

120kind of referencing the idea that it was the senior most administrative staff but we could probably put some kind of clarification in for that. like to see something like that maybe and um I >> think clarification would be better because in the future somebody else will not know the background of what happened and they will ask the same questions. >> All right everyone um the purpose of uh this is just to get update and information. Uh it is a first read. Uh you've heard some of the discussion and some of the arguments. If anybody has a specific suggestion about what it should say or shouldn't say, please get it to superintendent, myself, the policy chair, so that the policy committee, which is a working committee on this particular issue, will have time to consider it

121and work on it and comes back to us to be presented again and maybe more discussion and maybe uh additional changes. So, uh we don't have to just get it back one more time and say that's it. Okay. If it comes back next time, we're voting essentially secondary. >> Not necessarily. >> But it could >> it could it could be a >> vote where we have the discussion that really impacts how we direct our questions. I >> I can I can tell you that uh there are many many many occasions where it's come back for second read and we sent it back to >> I did have one it says it says second read but >> still has to be approved by the board. >> Um I did have an initial question. uh yes that

122would be that does this also include salary so when we uh delegate the you know authority entirely to the superintendent does is that who decides what the salary would be or the length of contract >> Dr. buyers can answer. >> Um that's in the AMD administrators group contract. >> So the answer would be that >> the board does an assessence by the approval of the contract. Um so yes position on the budget and >> and the board the board members are involved in the negotiations uh on all of these uh contractual uh uh u issues. Uh we sit and we have our attorney, our representative and board members are there. >> Yep. So yeah, >> seems like the fundamental difference is going to be really one of total transparency shall be invited to participate and

123observe versus one of more directional will have some ability to direct the outcome or the seems to be the fundamental difference. >> We we could always use some help with language. >> It's also philosophical. >> Yep. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. So um we move on and um second read policy 6141.101 student nutrition and physical activity school wellness policy. This is on page 73. >> So this uh came to the board as a first read last month. Um we did not receive any um feedback uh to my knowledge at least not prior to the policy committee meeting. and I don't think there's been any uh since then. Um I will say that this has been uh sitting in my inbox since the last time we had our school lunch audit and any

124of the changes that we made were at the recommendation of those individuals who do our school lunch audit. Um and uh yes >> uh now I I can't speak to the new members of the board. I don't know whether you had an opportunity to examine this policy uh in a way that would feel you feel comfortable voting on it. Uh we have four new people here that uh you know o have seen this over the weekend probably uh but uh it hasn't had any challenges from any of the other board members in general. So if uh we look at it that way can we have a motion to approve uh policy 6141.101 >> 42.1101 at least it says here. >> Yes. 6142 >> 6142 Yes. >> Okay. Carol made the motion. >> I'm sorry I

125missed the motion. >> Carol Patrick second. >> Any further comments? >> Yes, sir. >> You're right. I didn't Some of us didn't get a chance to uh you know participate uh yet just based upon the timely election. uh observations that I made was there was a reference to um social emotional wellness and I'm just not less than clear as to how that ties into uh meal plan or food plan. The other two things that I noticed was that there wasn't any uh talk about portion sizing uh or timing of meals. And I think about our student athletes particularly some of whom are you know hierarchal uh burners and when they eat before uh whatever they may be uh engaging in by way of athletics. And the other thing that was lacking was access to water

126uh which is a USDA fundamental. So those are things that I would have uh enjoyed participating in if I had come in a little sooner. >> Okay. Question. I mean we we do meet all those guidelines for the state the the national school lunch program specifies this the portion size >> but it doesn't mean that we um oh that for the portion size but some of the other things that he was talking about I think we can >> seem validated you know >> so I can say that the goals for social emotional wellness um was one of the recommended changes from the um school lunch audit my assumption is that they're looking at this as school wellness wellness and so they're addressing mental health wellness for students under that umbrella um and ensuring that we

127have some um both comprehensive school as well as more individualized supports for students who are experiencing uh mental health crises and issues. Um that is that's where I'm I am assuming that uh request for change came from. Um, water I don't believe I've ever seen included in anything from free and from the federal lunch program. Other >> we have to have water fountains in the cafeteria. >> Okay, >> that's the requirement. But that's the only requirement about water that there has to be free water available in the cafeteria. So you don't have to buy bottled water >> one period of time whenever it might be that they are in the in the cafeteria. I gotcha. All right. >> And then the athletes >> and I right. And then to the extent that we're talking about

128an individualized, you know, consideration for people with the social emotional uh aspects that may or may not overlap with uh food and water. Um the other aspect would be for our student athletes, you know, who have a higher caloric intake. Understand that there's a minimum uh requirement. Sometimes that minimum standard could be adhere applied to uh individuals who require more for uh their health, well-being, and social uh emotional I suppose welfare. Um I just didn't see any um consideration of that in this policy and that's something I would have wanted to talk about and address. To the extent that we can look at individuals on on an individual basis as you were just um you know suggesting why couldn't we then look at uh you know all our student athletes in the three different seasons

129of the year and make sure that they are getting the appropriate uh meals um on particularly on days when they have competitions. I mean, we certainly don't limit students from purchasing a second lunch or alle cart items or any additional foods. We do not have the discretion to serve a meal proportion size that varies from what is required by the federal food federal lunch program. So, we won't >> we can't do a larger >> portion. You have to >> you have to have >> that is determined by the federal >> by the amount. >> Absolutely. >> That's a minimum, right? That's the least you can offer. >> They every recipe has to be turned in to them and they they scrutinize that you are serving according to that recipe for nutrition guidelines. They want to

130make sure you're meeting nutrition guidelines >> based upon a standard that's factored on an averaging of the students. So, you're going to have some students that by way of their own health need more than that. uh and I just didn't see any ability to provide here. >> Um may I make a a comment and suggestion? Uh item number one, this is based on standards that are partially required by the school district uh are required by the school district. uh uh if we have additional things that go beyond what the federal government or the state government uh requires us to do uh and still doesn't eliminate uh us from qualifying for what we need to qualify for on this uh governmental level, that's something we can add and consider. And uh one of the nice things

131about the policy committee that I chaired at one point was that we had the opportunity to look at a policy uh that we needed to approve and then come back and look at it again if they want to see additions or changes in the future. Uh so what we do is have this uh in front of us uh and uh rather than sitting here and talking about and talking about it, it should either uh not pass and you we we have a motion we're going to vote on. You either vote no uh or you vote yes and uh then if it passes uh somebody can raise the issue again with the policy committee that they want to see something additional uh go to it or you can abstain and uh do the same thing. So

132whether you vote for it against it or abstain you can always ask the policy committee to reconsider. One simple clarification I noticed that uh this says as the district school nutrition and athletic departments and PTSO reviews existing contract. So what's the role of the athletic department especially given what you you are talking a lot about athletics. I just was curious as to what is that >> this is on page 74 the first paragraph. I think that's for vending machines or marketing. Yes, >> that's all related in the marketing because and again it's not how we have traditionally operated but there are school districts whose PTSO may run a vending machine in the school to get money to support their PTSO. So, it's broad language, I guess, probably from the federal um lunch program to sort

133of sort of address that. >> I was curious about the athletic department contracts. >> Will it think of like um concession stands for athletic events? >> Thank you. >> Or even signage and like I was in a gym yesterday. They had signs all like advertising signs all over the front of like the scoreboard like the scoring. >> Yeah. >> The coach was like, "We really need Gatorade, right? I want to have a Gatorade contract. >> We could probably bring that up. We have that up. >> Okay. >> Do we I'm sorry. Do we have a wellness committee in this? >> Yes. >> Donna is the board representative on the wellness committ. >> She reports each month. >> That committee. Okay. >> Okay. Uh >> just one other question. Based on our conversation before about um

134free and reduced lunch and those who have a balance, are they allowed to get a second meal? I know they're only allowed to get a meal and not extras. Are they allowed to get a second meal? >> They are not. >> Free and reduced lunch as well. >> So, correct. Free and reduced lunch provides one meal. >> Yes. >> They could technically get another one. It would just not be subsidized. >> We don't have to give the second meal >> for free, but they pay for it. >> They could pay for the second. >> That's what I mean. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> All right. Can we call the role, please? >> Miss Bradley? >> No. >> Miss Cloud Ingram? >> Yes. Miss Shay, >> yes. >> Dr. Krunicron, >> yes. >> Miss Lombardi, >>

135no. >> Mr. Reed, >> yes. >> Mr. Davis, >> yes. >> Mr. Mcdana, >> I'm going to say no. >> Dr. Elli, >> no. >> Mr. Reuse, >> no. >> Miss Lank, >> no. >> Miss Schustster, >> no. >> Mr. Yuck. >> No. >> The M motion does not carry. Eight. >> No. >> Okay. did not carry. Uh send that back to the policy committee and uh please over the next few >> to send it back or do we want to just maintain our current policy which is out of compliance with what the school lunch program recommended. >> I'd like to send it back. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> I mean you guys have done a lot of work on it. I don't want it just to to lie dormant. We I think we just

136want a fresh look at it >> with new people on the board and everything else. Um, >> I think we can make something very workable out of that. >> Feasible to get like the marked up version. So, we >> it's in the policy packet from October. So, you could probably go back and see that. >> And what I was about to say is uh you know over look look this over uh determine what your major concerns are. Send it to the policy committee. Uh Dr. buyers. Uh you could send a copy to myself and the policy chair and uh we'll look at it and it's up to the policy committee to decide what they think should be done. Okay. And with that, uh personnel, you saw the personnel report page 78. Uh okay, any questions?

137Very good. Uh new business and announcements. Uh our next meeting is a uh our next >> uh it is December 22nd, >> right? um special meeting and um it will be >> uh the bulk of it will be the presentation of last year's school climate data along with the school climate improvement plans that are due on December 31st. >> Okay. >> And uh if uh as a bit of a notification and reminder for everyone, if you can't make a meeting, uh please try and let me know as early as possible because we do have to determine a quorum. We've never failed a quorum for a meeting. So, uh uh we we do very well and you guys are super. Uh I just want you to be aware uh consideration that uh uh pretty much last

138year when the board decided to go to two meetings a month uh we set a goal of uh keeping our meetings to about two hours and uh so we're about two hours and five minutes right now. So we're doing pretty well. We accomplished a lot. Appreciate everybody's uh cooperation, consideration. Michael, >> I have just one bizarre question. Any reason why we lost all three assistant lacrosse coaches in one shot? >> Why we lost what? >> We lost. So, we lost two girls and one boys. I can tell you that the girls lacrosse coach uh was hired as a head coach. One of them was hired as a head coach at another school and then I would assume >> and some people >> I would assume he tried to bring somebody with him. >> Yeah. >>

139Okay. I I was just like all three of them like Okay. >> One one boy and two. >> Okay. Good question. And I do want to make a comment that the two meetings really do work because we're in our we're at our best. After 8:30, we're not really at our best. We don't really make good choices. >> D, I remember you and I having that conversation because you get too late. All you want to do is get out of there. >> Coming back twice a month is is a lot, but it's better than staying here till 11. >> Thank you. >> Okay, everyone. Um uh with that it is uh 8:41 and uh if there's no objection we are adjourned at 8:41. >> Thank you all. >> Student reports coming. >> Oh okay. >> Special

140meeting that they were like sitting here for nothing.