RHAM Board of Education Meeting; April 21, 2025

001Roll call. Michael Bolier. Michael Buller. He Michael Sharon. Michael Sharon Hein. Joseph Kleti. Joe Kleti. He Kirstston Erlandson. Kirstston Erson. Pam Ferington. Pam Farington. Marbor. Carrie Forino. Drew Gin. Drew Gin. Marbor. Gabe Marks, Gabe Marks, Heburn, Amy Romanchuk, Amy Romanuk, Mar Scott Soya, Scotty, Andover, Heather Summer, Oliver Siraj, Briana Adupacu, and Samantha Maxwell, Grand Middle School. Uh, please rise for the pledge of allegiance. 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. All right, perfect. So, we're going to head to public comments. Um Hein Andover and Marvel community engagement and attendance at board public meetings is welcomed. The public comment se segment of the meeting agenda is set aside so the board may

002receive public comments. Procedurally public remarks will be limited to three minutes and citizens will be asked to identify themselves. Because the board is limited by the Freedom of Information Act to discussing only matters on the agenda, the board is not permitted to engage in discussion of the comments presented. Is there anyone present that like to speak? Thank you. Good evening. Ethan Spinelli, 22 mro, area president. Ethan, would you mind going? Oh, that'd be great. Appreciate that. Oh, sorry. Uh, Ethan Spanelli, 22 ribbon del Malro, REA President. Um, coming back from April break. Teachers are ready to get back to work. Everyone's excited. We also know the rest of the year will be flying by rapidly. Um, and I hope all of you enjoyed your April vacation yourselves and we are looking forward to the rest

003of the year. Um, I also do want to recognize um, some of you may have heard we lost Scott Butson today, our IT coordinator. Um, we got an email about his resignation. We would just like to say that we are sorry. He was a great asset to the RAM faculty and he was there anytime and anywhere we needed him and is certainly going to be a loss to the Ram community and I just want to publicly thank him for all his work that he done for Ram. So, thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else in person or anyone online? No. All right. Next is add delete agenda items. Is there anything to add? All right. We'll go ahead to the student representative report. Welcome back from April break. I know that the middle school

004students enjoyed their time off from school last week. Towards the end of March, any middle school Eastern regional musicians had their concert. I know I had a great time meeting new people and preparing the music to be performed. Everyone who participated enjoyed the experience. The last week of March, the student council held a food drive and a school dance. The food drive was very successful and I heard that the dance was a fun event to attend. Eighth graders fundraising efforts for the upcoming Boston field trip finished in late March and permission slips were sent home prior before April vacation. The eighth graders are looking forward to this year's end of the year school field trip. At the beginning of April, the sixth grade students from all three towns visited Ram Middle School to get tours

005of the school and got to ask eighth graders questions um who were on the question and answer panel. The Wednesday before April break, the Ram Middle School jazz band participated in a jazz festival in Glastonbury. Four of our musicians received awards and the jazz band saxophone section received an award for being the best saxophone section of the night. And finally, the Thursday before April break, many music and art students participated in Ram Middle School's annual coffee house. There were many music music performances and there was an art show where many students artworks was displayed. It was a fun night for everyone who attended. Thank you. Um I don't have anything to report. So I could jump in. I uh I also want to just say uh u we are in an exciting part of the

006school year. Um spring break has uh passed us. Um I said to Amy right before the meeting started, I said we've got about two months left. She said 38 days and that's a future for you. She she has it down. I'm that's good. So 38 days of school left um before summer. So there is a lot to do as Mr. Spinelli said uh prior to prior to the June 13th graduation, um I want to Oh, the first thing I want to say is I'm going to just pass these out. Uh we have the latest edition of the Rambler, which is the student um created uh magazine periodical that comes out several times throughout the school year. And I just want to make sure that board members have copy of the Rambler to peruse through at

007their leisure. Um Miss Clifton and Miss Ozwiki do an awesome job with the Rambler. and uh it's always good to highlight um the great work that they're doing with their students. Uh I want to congratulate Ram High School students Tyler Fitzgibbons and Pippy Thompson who were recently recognized at the Connecticut Association of Schools awards banquet held at Aquaturf. Cass uh the Connecticut Association of Schools annually honors two outstanding seniors from member schools who excel in the performing or visual arts and demonstrate strong scholarship and leadership qualities. Uh joining Tyler and Pippy at the banquet was uh Penny the principal at the high school, Beth Fischer, our arts uh curriculum coordinator, Shelley Aswiki, our one of our art teachers, and Chris Robinson uh one of our music staff, music teaching staff. Um Graham High School band

008and choir also recently showcased their talents on several occasions over the a very truncated short period of time. Uh the spring concert was held on Thursday, April 3rd. It was a phenomenal show. Um the following day they performed um we had students from uh Hein, Andover, and Marorrow actually come to the auditorium and and they performed an in-house concert for the sixth graders. Uh it showcases the talents and it also was an opportunity for our music teachers to start recruiting future RAM musicians, which is always a good thing to do. Um that weekend they traveled to Boston where they participated in what is called an adjudication. I am not a musician but I had to look up. It's where you are judged by a panel of experts um in in your field. And uh not

009surprisingly, our students performed phenomenally. Uh the band students placed first in their division and the uh choir uh placed second in their division uh up at the uh the event. And I think this um as great as that is, one of the things that I think I was most proud about um as and I think you will join me in this as well is the entire music department was recognized with the Aspree Decor good citizen award which is given to the group who shows kindness in addition to musicianship. So that is a a really cool um acknowledgement of how great our students are. Um the board may recall that earlier this year Sherry Pelleter who runs our future problem solver group came and did a presentation at our student program spotlight and talked about the

010work that she does with our students and the students talked about what they do uh during future problem solver competitions. Um Sherry recently sent us an email and informed us that the state awards were announced uh at the end of March and our students not surprisingly did exceptionally well. Um, some of the students participating were Trevor Hooker, Stella Bulleteer, Izzy Kramer, Patrick Wolf Gang, um, uh, um, Ben Kramer, um, Ben Seir, Elizabeth, I might be mispronouncing that, I apologize, uh, Juliet Manthorne, uh, Willow Darcy, Winston Griev, Llaya Hassan, Cenne Hurley, and Alia Quinto. Uh that's a range of students from seventh grade to 12th grade because the middle school and um and high school students um uh will compete uh at the same time. They won several awards. Trevor Hooker won first place for the

011global issues individual award. Um and so he's been invited to internationals as a result of that win. Uh we we had a team of students get second place for global issues in the senior division. We had a team of students get um second place for global issues uh in the middle division. third place for global issues in the middle division. Um and first place for art in the senior division and first place presentation of ideas uh of a presentation of action plan in the senior division like basically swept the competition that sounds like to me. So again super um exciting to share those students success and we congratulate them. Um uh just piggybacking off of what Samantha said, the middle school coffee house was uh on Thursday the 10th of April. It was a great

012uh night showcasing our middle school students um fine and performing arts skills. Um it's a it's a leadup and a little bit of a precursor to another great night celebrating the arts here in our community, which is our evening of the arts. Um, uh, ticket order forms have been sent out to the community. Uh, board members, if you desire to go, I think I sent a communication out last week saying if you're interested in going, just let us know. Um, and, uh, we can make sure that we get a ticket for you. And also, uh, make sure we get you down for the team of choice that you have. I would, if you've never had a chance to come, I would highly encourage you to, uh, try and make that event. That is going to

013be held on May 29th. And that concludes my uh, report. Thank you. Um, now we'll do the student and program spotlight. So, uh, I'm thrilled that, uh, Tresa Girardano from, uh, AHM is here this evening. Um, as the board knows, we have a long-standing, uh, partnership with AHM who provides tremendous resources, um, not only to to RAM, but to the larger community of Haver and Handover, and Marorrow. Um and Tresa is the executive director and she's going to talk a little bit about some of the work that AHM does and also talk specifically about one of the programs um which is our sewer program. So thanks Tresa for being here. Thank you for having me. It's been a little bit since I've been to a board of ed meeting. Um so I wanted to first

014just give a quick overview of AHM. If if you're not familiar with us, we are a nonprofit but we serve as the youth service bureau for Andover Hein Marorrow Burough in Colombia. Um we've been in operation for um over 40 years and have had great relationships with the schools through that time. Um I did bring some of our brochures and cataloges so you can kind of peruse that and see the whole scope of programming and services that we offer the community. Um we do a lot around clinical work. We have an outpatient therapeutic program at our office, a lot around prevention, which we'll talk about in a couple of seconds. Um, we also have a family resource center. We have a preschool right here on the Ram campus, which is amazing. We also have a

015space over at Gilead Hill. Um, we coordinate the project graduation event that we host for your seniors every year. We also host the juvenile review board for the region. So, we are very busy. We have a staff of about 30 and on average we um we reach about 12,000 residents a year. Uh, we have HM staff at all schools. So, we have two full-timers here, um, one at the middle school and one at the high school. And then we also have a fairly new but a really exciting internship program where we have interns from the University of Connecticut. So, we're very proud of the work we do and are honored to continue um to do that work for our community. Um, today I brought along Emma here. Emma is a a student here at RAM.

016She is part of our Soore youth group and she's also a board member at AHM representing the youth. Um, we also have Carol Ro online. I know that um she wasn't feeling so great today, but she is online. Carol along with Ashley Parks, our prevention coordinator, overseas our sore youth group. And this year we had an opportunity through CRE as well as the state department of mental health and addiction services dee um to apply for a $5,000 grant for students to create a media project around youth gambling awareness. So we were really excited the the students put together a proposal. I'm sure Emma will tell you a little bit about that process. Um but we were one of 10 schools um chosen to do that and they did an amazing job and so you'll get

017to see the video in a in a moment. Um the process at which they had to go through to present they had to uh put together a a pitch and a script and present that um before it was approved before that they could actually make their video. Um, and then they decided to host a Kids Versus Cops event here at RAM, and that's where they premiered the video. So, they worked very hard. Um, and so I guess Are we able to watch the video? We'll watch the video first. I heard this supposed to be a close game. Where did you hear that? I thought it was supposed to be a blowout. It's all over our Insta. Like all the sports analysts are talking about it. I can't believe they're up by six and there's only

018like 30 seconds left the game. That was crazy. My parents are going to be so mad. What? I didn't know your parents were that big a sports fan. No, you don't understand what I just did. I thought this game was a thing. What do you mean? I just lost $500 on that game. How? I used my parents card to place an online bet on the game. I thought it was a guarantee. It's illegal to bet on our age. Yeah, it says right here. I think you're uh you have to be 21 or older to do that. And it's also illegal to misrepresent yourself at your age when creating online sports betting accounts. I'm just going to have to bet on tomorrow night's game and try and get my parents' money back. You shouldn't do that.

019Let's go talk to your parents. Figure this out. A bet you might regret. Online sports betting is everywhere we look. It's on commercials during the games we watch and advertised on social media. But online sports betting isn't for everyone and doesn't come without risk. In CT, you need to be 21 years or older to legally place an online sports bet and 18 and older to participate in fantasy sports [Music] contests. Um, so Emma, do you want to talk about why you chose that topic? Yeah. So, we had chosen that topic because we thought it would was really important to talk about the problems of youth gambling and how it could and how it could affect you and like how it's like bad for you. and we all came together and thought of that idea and

020did the script and we made sweatshirts that said, "I bet you might regret." And we think this is a good thing because it shows you how it could like affect you or how it could be bad for you and how you shouldn't do it and learn from it. And if you do do it, you can also get help. Yeah, I was really proud of them because they chose a topic in the time frame of when this um premiered was in March around March Madness when there's, you know, everybody's talking about their um different pets that they might be making for March Madness and their brackets. And so I think in a time um you know, of year when it was was super relevant, they were pretty brilliant in in picking that topic. Um at the

021end of March there was um over a hundred people in attendance. They they had a virtual youth gambling awareness project showcase. So all 10 videos were shown. We had our RAM students online during that. So it was really fun just to see what other schools had created as well. And it could be any type of medium. Most people did go with the video, but it could be um graphic, it could be a website, um anything within the graphic arts. So um I don't know. It looks like Carol, I don't know if she has anything she wants to add. She's got the sweatshirt on, too. Yep. Proud a proud uh sponsor of Soore. Um, it was just a a great experience having all the kids work together, come up with the script, um, and, uh, you

022know, go to practice and and do this video and be so dedicated, um, and to go out and, uh, go to the basketball game and, um, you know, really, uh, represent Soore in such a positive way. And we're, we're always looking for new members and people to, um, come join us. Um, so if any of the uh students in the middle school or the high school want to um try out Soar at the remainder of this year or next year, we're looking for more members uh to do great things for our Ram community and the community of Hebrin Marboro and anybody have any questions? I have a question. Yeah. So the event with a hundred people that showed up was that people from around the community or was it mostly students that So for that

023virtual showcase it was members from Deeus and CRE who funded the event and then um students that had made the videos as well as their advisors. So that wasn't a meeting open to the public per se, but um it was really cool to see everybody's videos and I believe on the Deus website you can go and look at our video as well as the others that that were created. Is there any way to get the word out to to families to parents that for their awareness as well? I think it's a Yeah. So now that we've passed the showcase portion of it, we'll be able to share the video on AHM's um media channels. we you know we have all of the permissions from the students parents to do that um I believe to the

024video has been or will be shown in some of the health classes as well right um so yeah I think it's a really powerful project to have students teaching other students and maybe even other adults that you know might be tempted or or struggling with you know gambling addiction it you know it is a real thing and I I think we've noticed at the state level you know especially with online betting fantasy sports you there has been an increase especially in youth um it is unfortunately pretty easy just to take your parents credit card and create a um a profile and sometimes you know that can be a very slippery slope you know you make a bet they give you incentives to put more money down all of a sudden things don't go your way

025it it can be a really scary situation so just making that aware and and teaching kids you know you have some supports around you that can help you if you get into a bad situation yeah I think it's a great topic great idea Yeah, thanks. Right. Very good. I'll leave these for you all. Some light reading tonight after meeting. I'm sure you'll want to. But thank you. Thank you guys so much. Thank you both. Thank you. [Applause] Next on the agenda is the consent portion of the So on the consent agenda, there's um a few different things. Um the the first three things are just approval of minutes from different meetings that we've had and the public hearing that we've had in uh recently. Uh another item under the consent agenda is enclosure 9.4 which

026is um approval of a request for an extended leave of absence. And I explained this in the um in the memo uh to the board. Uh we have a a staff member at the high school who is requesting an unpaid leave of absence for the duration of the 20252026 school year following the birth of her child. Um accord in accordance with the contract that the district has with the teachers union. Um this leave of absence needs to be approved by the board of education so it can be approved in the consent agenda. And then finally the last um proof of items is approval of policies re uh being revised and or deleted. Um this is the second reading of these policies. uh they present they were presented to the board as first readings at our

027last meeting. I did not have any questions, comments, concerns, or requests for changes. Um so my recommendation is to approve the consent agenda as uh presented. Perfect. Do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Move. Scott. Any second? Second. Gabe Marks. Um any discussion? All in favor? I I opposed abstain. Motion passes. And now we're on to new and unfinished business. Great. So the first thing on our agenda for new and unfinished business is we're going to do a transition to a presentation. Uh and so I'm going to ask Dr. Serusi, Dr. Vizdale and uh Miss Me to come up to the podium and we're going to kind of tag team this with um and and as Erin is transitioning over the PowerPoint slideshow kind of speak to this a little bit. So

028uh last year um the district participated in um and and distributed climate surveys to students, staff and families within the district. Uh we received a lot of feedback from that survey which has been very helpful for us in um trying to make efforts to address uh any issues related to school climate and uh it was requested by the board to have a follow-up presentation on the steps that uh bless you that the district and administration has been making um throughout the course of this school year. So, uh, great Erin, you got the Can you make that whole screen just, uh, from down on the thing, Eric, so people can see it? They don't have computer in front of it. There we go. That's better. Thank you, sir. Um, so Erin, if you can go to

029the next slide, it' be great. So, we I wanted to start off just by um addressing the fact and and and highlighting the fact that um the district and the board of education adopted a a three-year strategic school plan um or strategic plan um and and identified four areas where we wanted to target making and seeing improvements. We want to see obviously see improvements in all areas but obviously um through the strategic planning process which was inclusive of students, staff, um community members, um elected officials, board of education members, um the group ultimately landed on these four item uh four areas of instruction, talent management, culture and climate and organizational systems. So the reason that we're highlighting this is because of the fact that the climate data gave us great information for things that we

030could really focus on. It was very helpful for us to have that information. But to be honest with you, we knew that we needed to address school climate even in advance of having that survey data. This has been something that I've we've talked about at board meetings. Um, we've discussed things and and the board, we'll get into it in the presentation about things like having more competitive salary and benefits, which this board has obviously been extremely supportive of. Um, and and the the the the thing that's interesting about school climate is all four of these things relate to school climate. If you have more consistent instruction, if you have more um specific things that you're working towards as a district with regards to improving instructional practices, you're going to increase and improve your your your

031your climate for students and staff. Talent management, obviously taking care of of of the people that work for us and take care of the students. That obviously pertains to culture and climate. Culture and climate pertains to culture and climate. And then organizational systems. If you put systems in place um that uh help the district function at a higher level, well, that's going to improve culture and climate. So really, I I I I we thought it was important to highlight the fact that our strategic plan in general is is working towards improving the climate in the district for students, staff, and families. Um with that being said, obviously we we did get that survey data and we're going to have a well I could start off. So if we go to the next slide please. Um

032so once the climate survey data was provided to us as as as the board knows we utilized uh eastcon to facilitate the process. They distributed um the the the links to us. We gave them to families. We gave them to students. We gave them to staff and then the data was compiled by um and disagregated by Eastcon staff and shared then with the district. When we received the data uh from Eastcon, we started off by reviewing and going over the data as an administrative team during the summer. Um we it was extremely helpful for us to sit down during the relatively quiet months of the summer and really get into a a good weighty conversation about what are some areas that we need to address, what are some things that we think we need to

033look at um focusing on. We then took that conversation um to our FAC team. our fact team is our coordinators and department leaders of the different content areas and really had a facilitated conversation that was very much under the same uh idea of let's talk about what are some areas and not surprisingly um there was a lot of similarities in the conversation the the the the coordinators and the administrators really identified very similar things that that that we felt it was important to focus on and then I know that um Penny and Michael are going to talk about it but we didn't stop there we took the data to the faculty of both the middle school and the high school. The principles facilitated conversations with their staff uh at each at each respective building and

034each respective building identified priorities based off of data that was specific to their school. So uh uh Penny and Michael are going to talk a little bit about um those priorities and and and some work that has been done toward to address those issues. As Dr. M said basically what we did was is we we took a we took an approach very similar approach is we took our faculty on a little bit of a data journey. We started off looking at the school climate data by schools and so at the middle school we used one of our PD days a couple hours we broke up into groups. We looked at different pieces of the data. What did they tell us? Um based on that information, we consolidated it down to I guess a group of

035priorities that we all agreed on and we came up with these four priorities. Initially there were four questions. We've actually have four statements and the four statements sort of led us to continue this journey into developing I guess what you would call strategies that we currently use or we would like to use with our students to meet the identified priorities. The first one is building social skills with students in a mediated driven world that they live in. Um we've all seen this, we've all heard this, you know, it's no joke you can walk into a wall or you can walk into a student. You can almost walk into some adults on the street, they won't even look. They won't even look at you. They're looking at their phones or they're looking at their computers. Um,

036how do we help them be a little bit more social, a little more interactive? Building student engagement and trust between peers was one that came out middle school survey is how do we do that? Um, empowering students to stand up for each other being upstanders versus bystanders when something happens. including include diversity, equity in the classroom. What are we currently doing? What could we be doing? And I know Mary Rose will be talking a little bit more about that piece of it, but there's a lot that we do. And so when our faculty sat down and looked at these four priorities and made lists of the strategies that they're currently using, um I would we'd be here all night if I tried to show you some of those strategies, but we created sort of like

037a bank of them now so staff can go look at them if they want to pull one from here, one from there. Group work came up in terms of socialization. There's different modes or different strategies that we're using currently at the middle school that teachers use in their classrooms every day to try to address these priorities. By sharing them, we create a bank not just for our current teachers, but for new teachers coming on board. So you don't have to reinvent the wheel. So at the high school, we did essentially what Dr. Cersei explained in a um in our approach to analyzing the data um staff was broken up into three groups looking at or really six groups but two groups looking at student data, two groups looking at staff data and two groups looking

038at parent data. Um, out of all of that, uh, I took everything that, um, came up through through that experience, um, and also sort of cross-referenced it with the, um, data analysis that we did as a staff in the summer with our, um, leadership group. And just, you know, so there's we had we have 10 areas here as opposed to his four. um because you know I was looking at sort of more big picture and trying to put it all together into um you know one um big overview. So basically you'll see a lot of the things that we identified here as areas to um improve upon. Um some of them had you know overlapped as Dr. McNamera had said previously with the strategic plan that was created and adopted by the board. Um, so

039it really just did again kind of capture the essence of what you know our community collectively was looking to um address and improve in our district. So some of the things that um rose to the top really experiences experiences and perceptions of our diverse students as our demographics continue to grow. Um student choice and the learning process which has been captured a lot that came up over and over again within the work for the instructional framework which is part of the district plan as well that uh Mary Rose will um also talk about later. Obviously staff morale um both I think you know as Dr. McNamera uh referenced, you know, obviously wanting to show our teachers that they feel value valued not only um obviously in the ways that we can in their day-to-day uh

040living here, but also by recognizing that uh you know the um the paycheck doesn't hurt either. Uh so thank you for that part of your part in that. Um obviously looking at ways to recognize staff, communication, um you know clarity around the school and district vision. So that came out like before the district vision came out. So obviously we've done a lot of work there. Um also looking at um growing our information around and possibilities and opportunities for our students who are not necessarily collegebound. Um actually our manufacturing teacher is here with us in the audience tonight who provides uh one of the greatest opportunities that we have which is our um youth manufacturing pipeline initiative. um which has also helped us to grow other initiatives like our educational pipeline which we're um starting to

041implement next year and then um communication with parents obviously is always key um and then also opportunities for parents to get involved. So the this was collectively coming from um all the different work that we did diving into this data as a district and I guess I'll keep going because we're Dr. isters and I will tag team back and forth because it's about the different things that we've done um collectively and individually within uh the school year so far or have what we have been doing as well. Um but one of the things that I implemented this year was a monthly check-in with staff at faculty meetings. And so it's the same questions every month. We just did it today where it's like what's going well? What's not going so well? Are there ideas for

042improvements? um do are are there you know questions that you have or concerns that you're having um or ideas in which we can always um try to improve our quality of experience here for our staff and our students. Um so that's been kind of an opportunity for people to be able to just you know casually bring up some of the things that that are on their minds. Um we also instituted admin office hours this year for the first time where we had scheduled times during the day and after school where we provided some light refreshments and had some great conversations. Um and uh had just you know time for people to be able to come in and just talk with myself and um Chris and Bethany who are the assistant principles and just to be

043able to to have that one-on-one time. And then of course um well not of course actually the additional piece that we instituted this year was u meeting with each department. So Chris Be Chris Beth Chris Chris Bethany and myself I'll um have have been and will continue to um take some of the department um time after school to have uh meeting with us to just talk about the things that are you know most important to them as a department and the questions and concerns or ideas um that they have um good and bad and indifferent. And so that's been really um I think a great opportunity for there to be continued voice for staff um and their and their input. And then also just as always an open door policy of you know anytime any

044day have something in your mind come and see us and we always try to fit them right in and you know be able to address needs in the moment. Very similar obviously you can see it up there. The biggest one of the biggest differences is we also have our coordinators who do provide us a lot of input. Um at the middle school because most a lot of coordinators are high school. We also have team leaders and we have five actually seven different I would say seven team leaders. One for each of the core teams. We have one for unified arts and one for our guidance. This way we get we get to hear everybody's voice and it's bi-weekly. It's a sort of you they help create the agenda. We put it down and we meet

045as a group and we discuss current relevant issues for the middle school. Um so those are the bi-weekly team leader meetings. The monthly check-in and faculty meetings we do very similar. We have a open-ended questions at the end of the meeting. If there are rumor control or anything we need to address, we'll address that. A lot of times trigger the open door policy is very similar. Um, our door is never closed. Staff are always welcome to drop in whether whichever staff want to come in and just chitchat or give give me their two cents. I'll have staff come in just to occasionally tell me something great that happened or some priority or some need that they need or they they feel the school needs that we've missed. [Music] Go ahead. Next is we wanted um

046to recognize and celebrate staff um and their accomplishments. And so um at monthly faculty meetings also just trying to highlight um to the faculty and having a moment to clap and celebrate and enjoy the moment with each other. Um so that's been a nice uh addition. Also, um I know it doesn't sound like a big deal, but providing snacks at every faculty meeting, which some of it we purchase, some of it we um bake with our own loving hands and uh you know, just trying to show again like an appreciation and sort of just uh showing that you know um that we care about our staff. Uh we also recently did um a mobile coffee cart where um Chris Mater, Bethany Pomerance and myself walked around with a cart as of coffee as it sounds

047um that the um Witson's provided for us and walked around to every classroom and it took about two hours. Um, but it was great because not only did we get to go around and offer free coffee and tea, but also chitchat with each of the teachers and students that they might have had in their classroom and just I think it was a nice moment to um to have with them, but also for the students to see that we were recognizing celebrating the staff here as well. So, that was a lot of fun and we will definitely do that again. Um, obviously providing snacks again. Um this was more targeted towards the after after staff were here for like late like late night late night conferences um and recognizing the fact that that does extend their

048day um and that you know it can be um a little bit more added stress for preparing for them. Um so we thank them with putting treats uh in the department offices the following days. And then um we have staff appreciation week coming up in the second week of May I think. Um so we actually have um a number of parents and staff who have uh donated uh gift cards or gifts gift baskets and we will have um giveaways during the that during that week along with there's a lot of other things going on here. Dr. Ricker is doing a um a Cinco deayo lunch um and then uh having the Kona ice truck again that we've had the last few years. Um just again uh our student uh uh student union uh student council

049I should say also prepare um all kinds of treats and and I think they're doing a coffee cart that week and doing some other things to recognize the staff as well. So that will be a great week. um everybody will be well fed and appreciated hopefully. And then um we also have what we call our sunshine lunches which is a group of uh staff members who volunteer their time to put together uh really fun lunches like during um early release days where we have professional development and we have an opportunity to all sit in the cafeteria together and we'll bring um like we did uh baked potatoes the last time we baked all the potatoes and uh we everybody brought all the different fixings and we all eat and you know really got slow and

050and and full for the afternoon. It set us up uh for not such a productive PD afternoon. No, I'm just kidding. It was actually great and it we shared it with our um with our presenters who came from out of district as well, which is really nice. And we do things like walking tacos and desserts and all that kind of stuff. So, it's something that happens, you know, pretty subtly throughout the school year. So, we do I've got the next one. Oh, he's got middle school. I got middle school. We didn't finish middle school for this. Oh, my apologies. I let I let go first. I'll steal her I'll steal the clip. You're good. You're good. Um at each of our practically meetings, we give out what's called a Bravo award. We used to have

051a Bravo parking spot that's now disappeared only because it wasn't actually was in a better spot than it is now. But the awardee gets uh is recognized. So, a staff member will nominate somebody to replace them every month and they come up and they give an award and they give a little speech about why they want this person to win it. I can tell you that uh this month was Kim Kaine, last month was Beth Walsh and both are actually REA reps for middle school and high school and it was kind it was kind of interesting. They passed one pass the torch along to the other. the advice any advice of I don't know if Kim Kane is online but the advice is if Kim Kane tells you to do it follow her direction advice

052so the bravo award is one of them the other is we always do good news we love to celebrate when a when a student gets to go to college um or students go off on their own and get jobs the faculty will share with us or share it during our meetings beginning of each meeting it's a nice way to start it off we also do snacks we doing for conferences. Um, we've ordered pizzas or things we'll come up with interesting ways of one year I think we did a deli style. I went out and got deli meat myself and we had sort of sandwiches and stuff just for a little snack before parent teacher conferences or our open house. We do have food days at the middle school. Hospitality likes to run food days once

053a month. Um, usually February is dedicated to chocolate day. Uh, spring was I think uh we did we didn't do corn beef this year, but we've done in the past different things like on the holidays, Thanksgiving, we roast a couple turkeys and we share it with faculty and staff during a school day. Staff appreciation week is coming up on the week of May 5th. We do uh we ourselves do a sort of a not a potluck dinner but parents will come in give bring us bring in food supply some food for lunchon sort of a mini lunchon along with giveaways gifts things area just to celebrate the whole staff all of our staff are invited and it's one it's it's a fun thing to do uh the last thing is it's not actually up there

054but I need to mention that ahm and the flower girl town are providing us with a couple of healthy breakfasts both believe in March and coming up in May. Middle school's May 14th, I'm going to guess somewhere around there. But it's nice to have the community come in and recognize what you do. And also, to be honest, a lot of times food goes a long way for people. There there's lots of stories about food and you can tell good stories right around a good meal. So, moving along. So, you're sensing a theme and you're also recognizing you're also recognizing why I think I put on 15 pounds in the past two and a half years since I started working here at Ram. Um, you know, at the district level, you know, to recognize and celebrate

055staff. And the other thing, too, it's not just recognize and celebrating staff, but it's it's an opportunity to come together. That that's a big part of a lot of what, you know, Michael and Penny and and I'm talking about. It's it's it's an opportunity to come together as a community because when you work in a school community, you're in your own little FIFA, right? You're in your classroom, you're doing your thing, you know, if you have a free period, you're grading papers, you're you're you're lesson planning and or you're running, you you have literally two minutes to run down the hallway or go back and go to, you know, go to the bathroom. So, opportunities to to to come together, a group are really important and that's one of the things that obviously, you know,

056what we're describing talk about. So, they've noted this before. We do a staff holiday lunchon as a district. Uh we do have staff appreciation week coming up. Um a little uh a little uh letting the cat out of the bag this year. Uh staff appreciation week. Um falls on uh we're we're doing it during the week of May 5th. Um so with May 5th being Cinco de Mayo, it's going to be a little Cinco deio themed Mexican meal for our staff. Uh, one of the things that we're doing also this year is we are implementing the Connecticut Teacher of the Year program here in the district. Um, this is something that I had talked about doing um, uh, in my first year coming into the district. Um, but was, you know, it just was told

057that it wasn't something that the district uh, did, but we have a 140 staff members and we have some, not some, we have a lot of phenomenal teachers in this district. And and to me, I just think we're we're missing an opportunity to recognize uh some of the great things that are being done in this school community. Um it's a it's a program where um teachers can be nominated by other staff members within the district and um basically there's a process that you go through to identify and select a winner. It is a committee process. It is not driven by administrators. It will be a committee that is comprised primarily of teachers. I've asked Mary Rose to facilitate this process. Um, and and we're super excited to to to bring it out this year. I

058just communicated with our uh staff right before vacation to let them know this is something we're doing um and uh to to start thinking about who's a person they'd want to want to nominate. winners at the district level. Those identified as the teacher of the year for a school district have the opportunity to um uh they'll be recognized at a statewide event um which happens in the fall. And if they choose to do so as a district-wide winner, they have an opportunity kind of throw their hat in the ring to be considered the state teacher of the year. And uh if you ever win the state teacher of the year, you have the opportunity to move forward and advance and be considered as the national teacher of the year. I think it was probably about

05910 years ago where a Connecticut teacher of the year won the national teacher of the year. It's Johanna Hayes. She's now a a congress uh congresswoman. She was a teacher in Waterberry public schools, I believe, is is where Johanna taught. Um and and so, you know, I'm excited about bringing this program into the district. Um and then I talked about this before, but I don't think it could be said enough, which is the positive movement that we've made with regards to salary and benefits. Um I I I you know this board was supportive and recognized that um we needed to make adjustments and not just the adjustments uh for salaries uh for for for our bargaining units um you know of the the the typical percentage increase that that is given out um because we

060would still be below the market if that's what the increases were and and we heard about this from teachers. this board has heard about that it being an issue uh in board meetings on numerous occasions by by members of uh by members of the public who come to comment on that. And so I I'm really excited that that you know with all of our bargaining that we did this year and and last year with our bargaining unit groups uh we made positive progress with with all of those. So um we wanted to make sure that we we did highlight that. Uh we go to the next slide please. So providing a platform for student input. One of the things we do at the middle school is our student council sort of gives us a lot

061of input. Um they're the ones that bring concerns to administration. Actually, they're responsible for some of the shelves that we have in bathrooms because kids were saying, "We can't leave our agenda books anywhere. If we take them out, we get signed out. Where do we put them?" They don't want to put them on the sink wet. So, they came up with an idea. Could we put something like a shelf in there? That was instituted about three or four years ago. Um, but that was a direct result of having that discussion with students. We use them anytime we need a focus group. They love to volunteer to do like the taste testing for the cafeteria. It's always a big one. Um, but whenever we need a focus group, we go to our student counseling and we

062ask them we ask them the questions. The other thing that we do is our school counseling staff do periodic check-ins with our students through our advisories. They'll fill out a quick survey to see how they're doing. Um, and sort of a brief check-in just to see what take the pulse of the student body. And we have a similar a similar approach at the high school. Although we do have student council who also will um periodically meet with me, administration to talk about their ideas. They've done a this our student council really um on behalf of Teresa Kelly and Laura Schnitman who are two uh social studies teachers who lead that group have done a tremendous job and really um building uh the school spirit uh having uh the Raptor Cup uh competition throughout the year

063and having an ice cream social at the end of the year for the the grade level that um wins that. And it it does they do a lot of like food drives, uh clothing drives, um spirit weeks, and you name it, it goes on and on. So that that is something that has been very robust um for the past several years. Um and also we do have a principal's advisory which we we've had for since I've been here in the district 2013. It's uh probably started way before that where um monthly there's a lunch period and it does rotate so that all students and students don't have to be in their lunch period. they can leave a classroom um and just uh come meet with us and they're you know being accounted for uh where

064they get to just come and talk about any of their questions, concerns, ideas um you know a lot of things have have come out of those meetings. It's really great to see like each month who are the students that are going to show up and what are the things that are going to be on their mind. Um you know it's interesting sometimes to hear what what's important to them. Um there was one time this year where where students were saying we want more um opportunities to sort of explore what we can do outside of college which was showed up on the student survey last year. So there was an echo of that um and other different ideas and things that we can be doing um as a school just to kind of you know continue

065to broaden their experiences here and to open them up to all the possibilities that they have in front of them after they leave high school. And one of the the really consistent um messages that we have been getting for the last several years is this idea of RAM respect. And I don't know if you noticed at all when there are sweatshirts and t-shirts and things around the school that refer to RAM respect. And then we had a respect day a few years ago and sort of celebrated the idea of respecting each other and each other's um differences and similarities. Um, and one of our students, uh, a senior student this year wanted to paint a respect mural in the school, which, uh, she started be sometime before break. And I went by it today, and

066it's not completed. I was going to try to take a picture and share that with you tonight. Um, but I didn't want to do that prematurely um, before her unveiling. So, when that is completed, uh, which is looking great so far, um, I will take a picture of that and share that with Dr. McNamera so he can share that out with all of you too. So it just it really shows the student driven efforts to wanting to create a community of respect. Before you move on, how is the student council selected at each level? They are voted in by their peers every year for the grade levels, presidents, assist vice, vice president, secretary, treasurer. For for us it's uh they're selected by the teachers on team. They come up with a list of names and

067then they go through them and they talk with the kids. I I I I'll just jump in for a second. Um, you know, and there's routine and regular things that each school does to make sure that students voice is a part of the conversation, but really we look at every opportunity that we can to make sure that student voice. So, so you have your your unique situations, your one of we'll be talking as a as a leadership team and we'll say, well, let's talk to the kids about it. You know, Mary Rose uh two months ago discussed the development of the instructional framework. And I think one of the most powerful parts of that process was actually having Samantha and some of her her her classmates and and students from the high school, uh, Briana

068and um and Oliver being a part of that, you know, come and weigh in on that. That was it was a really great experience. When we did our um when we did the uh strategic plan process, we had students as a part of that process. Um and even prior to having them be part of the the the the strategic planning committee, we wanted to make sure that students were also we had focus groups with students. So, we had student focus groups to provide input to the committee about things that they felt were important to be a part of the strategic plan. I I say this just because what Penny and Michael are doing is great. It's it's it's ongoing. It's it's it's regular. It's routine. So, they're constantly hearing input from students, but involving students

069and hearing their voice in in really as much as in every aspect of the the you know, the management of the building and ideas that come to come to mind. Um, it's a really important part of what we try to do. Well, and also we should highlight our board representatives as well and the addition of the middle school representative who is doing a fantastic job. Thank you. Um, you know, it's just I think there are so many ways that we try to incorporate student voice because that's what we do. That's what we're here for all day every day. It's hard for us to sit down and be like, what are the things that we do to listen to students? Because we feel like we're just the door is always open. Like, you know, the open

070door policy is for students as well. Um, I have students who come and make appointments with me. I have students who reach out through email regularly. And, you know, I feel like there's this nice eb and flow of, you know, students who just walk into the office and say, "I have a question or, you know, I'd like to talk about X, Y, and Z." So, even though we have the more structured formal ways to get their voice, it just occurs every day. It's just part of why it's why we're here. So, that's why we're here. Um, recognizing celebrating students. We do a lot. This is just also well it's a shorter list a short list. Um teams each team has students of the month that they'll designate a couple students each month. Uh we have

071daily announcement of students or student achievements and student accomplishments. I know Dr. Mame talked about the future problem solvers that ma that made its way into our daily announcements. Sports makes its way into the announcements on occasion. We have come coming up uh the cave award, board of ed award which will be given out in May. I won't surprise who they won't tell you who they are. The scholar leader award unfortunately is the same night. So we're splitting duty administratively going to two different places. Um myself and Miss Bell, but I won't spoil that award either. I'll tell you on May 19th who who those two students are. No hints to the present company. And then we also have the art and music coffee house which was fantastic last week or I should say two

072weeks ago. Um we have a great bunch of artists and great musicians at at the school. The team awards are given out every year. Those of you who've had students come through here, you know that you know the kids are nominated for it and they see it. Um yes, not everybody gets them, but we all we tell them all the time it's a way to earn something. And in high school, it it means a little bit more at the high school level. We try to share this with them. Sometimes you get a little bit of money at the high school level. Doesn't hurt. I mean, I had my own kids go through another school in another district. They got a little scholarship here and there and paid for some books. Books I didn't have to

073pay for. But, you know, those are nice things that happen. We That's the path, the trajectory you're on, or you could be on. It's your choice. But those team awards are given out. uh usually the first week or two. So, one of the new ways that we've been celebrating student success this year is through our Raptor spotlight. You might have been seeing it in the Rambler every week. Um we also have them um that same spotlight on the our screens in the office and in the um atrium and other places in the building just so that students can see the good things that their peers are doing. and it's not always school related, which is a nice thing because I've learned some things about students and things that they're doing outside of school and it's

074like blows me away sometimes. I'm like, how is it that you're doing this at this age? Um, but it, you know, however we find out, we have a form that teachers and staff and everybody else can fill out, but then it's sometimes just finding out from a parent and saying, "Hey, this is something my child's doing outside of school, but obviously is something that we should highlight um to sort of just be able to share the collective experience." And so that's been a really great new addition. Obviously we have our daily announcements as well. Um every year we have our honors breakfast which we have two um two times in May usually in May, end of May um where we honor students who have u met honor roll um for um several quarters or all

075quarters that school year. And then as seniors if they um got honoral for all 15 quarters, which we do have a couple every year. We do have a couple this year so far which is also really exciting. Um and then families come and participate in that ceremony and then also um join us for a little breakfast. Um we have an awards night where not only do we present some of the book awards and things that where students can get money from from different colleges um but also recognition from our different department leaders. Um identifying not only students who are excelling but students who have shown growth or have shown a skill in a particular area. Um, obviously senior scholarships is a big one. That's where the big money is and I get to announce those

076on the um during graduation uh rehearsals and I feel like I don't know like whoever people like give away money. I just like call out names and tell them about the thousands of dollars that they're getting. It's pretty it's really fun. It's exciting. I'm like oh man I would love to um you know been able to have that available to me when I was a high school student. Um but it's it's not just it's not just coming ob it's not coming from us but it is coming from the community and u various organizations including and you know all the all the people and and places that that support our students. We also have the evening of the arts which I which I know um many of you have been hearing about may have been at

077where we recognize the students not only just in the high school but also the middle school and elementary schools and um staff can put in award I mean uh put in artwork and all that. So, it's a really it's a great community experience. And then we have several honor societies which you know I think um obviously we have our national honor society where we have a lot of our students who do qualify for that through their GPA and going through the application process and all that but there are several others departmental level you know business music um I'm trying to think uh other random ones but it's like literally technical honor society is a new one students honor society um so we tried to and and schools don't have to do that. It's really comes

078down to the departments and the members of that department who want to invest the time and energy into recognizing their students and and and you know providing the um the criteria from whatever organization that they're working with and to be able to have a special evening in which they get to celebrate each one of those inductions. Um world language I mean we can go on and on. under so many. And then of course the cast student awards which is also um you know we have the um scholar athlete which we get to go to the aqua tour for. We also have um as Dr. McNamera mentioned previously with our arts and music or uh visual and performing arts as well. And then we also have the cave award which is presented by the board of

079education obviously um and you'll be doing next month with um several of our students. Oh, here's the example of a raptor spotlight. So, you might have seen this already, but three of our students are part of um the World Affairs Council of Connecticut and they served as student officers and um they were selected based on their model UN expertise and um their leadership qualities and that you know they're responsible for leading debates on different topics um and you know they really get to kind of have this realworld experience um as leaders as student leaders um and so we have Trevor Hooker and Eliza Rammy and uh Cam Jax who are in that picture in that photo proudly smiling. And so this is just an example of what we do showcased in on our screens and

080in the Rambler. And we have several other like actual physical boards and presentations, not technical which uh this one's from middle school. Yep. So sort of like women's history month, we will celebrate different months as part of our social emotional learning process on committees. Um we've come up with monthly themes. So this just happens to be celebrating the women's history month and I believe that the green team is looking at the black history month which this past January. Um as a district um our leadership, our faculty, we continue to work to build our capacity to help Oh, sorry. We continue to work to build our capacity to help um faculty and administration know how to best support the students and to support the growing diversity of our community. Um we have um a book study

081group. We have professional development offerings that are presented districtwide and faculty and leadership also go and visit different schools either through a NEAS process or the different councils that are held at the state of Connecticut or among the rests. And all of this work is that capacity building for us that we're invested in to ensure that district faculty and that leadership are are doing their work to help support the diversity of our students as well. So, one one of the things we've started doing in both schools is we started celebrating um and recognizing not just student diversity but also the different themes that go along with each month and you can almost go wild with this. You really can. I mean, you can go all in all sorts of places. So, at the middle school,

082we adopted sort of a two-year calendar. We sort of separated things out. Um, just to give you some ideas are out there like Hispanic Heritage Month is in September. Hitting December was the month of giving for us. The month of giving was all about basically giving back to the community, collecting toys for maybe decals, collecting toys, did a toy drive or collecting food for the food banks. Um, you can go into February Black History Month and March was Ramadan. And I'll give you a little story about that a little bit later with a picture. But we go through each month and each had themes and they're recognized nationally as different themes for whatever. I mean, I don't know how they came up with the months. Maybe it was around the holiday or something like that

083because May is Asian-American and Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Most of us don't think about these things on a day-to-day basis, but it does have a huge impact on our students. So, this is just an example of one of the bulletin boards that our community committee put together for Native American Heritage Month. um this is showcased in the main hallway of our high school so that it gets as much exposure and and it just really gives an opportunity for us to to show that we um you know are are trying to celebrate and recognize and uh be able to give voice to various um diverse groups. Uh this was uh the current one actually for April um American Heritage Month and Autism Acceptance Month. So this was a middle school. One of the things

084we celebrated this year was Ramadan. And each of you could see it green team and and gold team. They each had each team sort of adopted their own little theme, but they put different things up about the holiday. Um, we actually got a a wonderful comment from a parent who said that their child had actually felt seen and heard because before this no one had ever celebrated their holidays or made any any to-do about anything about it. It was just your regular holidays going through the year. The fact that we did this as a whole school was extremely impressive and the parents themselves recognized it. their child felt not only heard and seen but was asked about the holiday themselves. Whereas previous years in other districts where where they came from, no no one ever

085noticed or knew about it. And the fact that we even talked about not being able to eat or you had to eat meals before sunrise and you couldn't eat eat or drink until after sundown. And so what did that mean? What did it mean for some of our students? And I know at the high school, what does it mean for our student athletes? Um, you do have to take this into account. I understand at the high school that one of the teams, they all got together and ate breakfast with one of their teammates prior to sunrise. And so whereas the young woman who was celebrating Ramadan, she felt seen um by seeing her holiday recognized in her school. But it's also given our other students an opportunity to learn about the world around them. they're

086going to leave this community and go somewhere where their colleagues and their co-workers are fasting and they're going to understand what that means and it gave them a chance to share in the holiday with them and to show empathy and compassion and kindness to their teammate. I think that was that was a wonderful so staying within the student experience um one of the areas uh identified was improving peer-to-peer relationships. Um there's obviously this is an ongoing effort that is done in every day in every classroom all the time um in all the little ways that we can't even probably put into words. But um some of the ways in which we have really tried to sort of set the stage for that is one of the the changes that we made earlier this school year

087or right before this school year started where at the high school um we have students who you know they they have to put their phone in usually it's a shoe rack but it could be some other kind of receptacle um where they're just dropping their phone off as they walk through the door. That way they're sitting in the classroom ready to listen most of the time. Right, Mr. Miller? Most of the time they're listening even though they don't have their phones in front of you. No, it really has honestly I I joke about that but the feedback that we have consistently received from students, from staff, and from parents is that um our students are much more focused in the classroom and they're much more engaged and ready for the learning. And actually, I remember

088a student telling me at the beginning of the school year that um they were relieved to not have their phone in their hands or in their bag or on their desk um because they didn't have to worry about what was happening on social media or who was texting them because everyone's phone is put away, right? And that they can actually get a break from that. So I think in a lot of ways even though we anticipated some student push back um they embraced it and were excited about it and I think we're just waiting for us to do that and say put the phones away right um so it didn't it's not the fixer of all things but I certainly think it has projected us into a space in which students are um not only

089more engaged in the learning process but more engaged with each other and speaking with each other. You know, it's fascinating when you see, unfortunately, sometimes in the cafeteria where they're all sitting around the table and they're all on their phones, yet they're all sitting next to each other. But in the classroom, you see a lot more back and forth in person talking and collaborating. And that's been a lot that's been a focus for a lot of teachers and their um goals this year, which has capitalized on the no phone policy. So, the middle school, I I don't want to steal your thunder, but they have they have, you know, they have a no phone policy that has been in existence for very many probably, well, I guess forever. Um, they have to have them in

090their lockers. So, the phone is supposed to be in their lockers. I say supposed to be. Um, and then we also had this year um Scott Driscoll who came in um not only for our district but also for some of the sending schools, sixth graders as well. Um, that Dr. McNamera um put together and also there was an opportunity um at at night for parents and community members to come in and learn about the you know the ills of social media and the ways in which unfortunately students can be um you know they can there's there are a lot of things for them to steer away from to be smart about to know about to understand and to know that everything they're doing online is permanent and that you know they need to think about

091their future selves as well as their current selves um before posting something online. Public and permanent. You choose if you were public and permanent. Public and permanent. I think he used it once before he came the first time around. Oh, so I mean there's a couple others on there. Drama United and Unified Basketball. We talk about peer-to-peer relationships. It's wonderful to go those to go to Drama United and watch a play for like these kids and the supporting cast and how they celebrate each other. Um, I would say the same thing for Unified Basketball. You You go and watch a game and you're and sort of warms your heart, especially on a cold winter day. If you want something nice and warm, just walk into the gym and watch these kids play. A lot of

092fun. Um, raptor recreation day. Yeah. So, the middle school um has always done something at the beginning of the year where they have team building outside. Um but when the governor um a few years back said uh we need to have a get outside and play day uh it really put into action something that students had been voicing they wanted at the high school was something similar to the middle school getting getting outside having fun being in the fresh air interacting with each other in a playful and fun and positive and kind way. Um and so we really capitalized on that last year and we had our first Raptor Recreation Day. It's May 23rd this year. Um it's on our half day. So um it really provides a really great time um for students to

093be able to to get outside and literally play. Um and it's a technology free day because literally nobody has their phones in front of them because they're outside having fun which kind of brings me back to my my days of being a youth in which you know without without technology we spent so much time outside right and our students now unfortunately don't get that experience um per se. I mean, some of them do, some of them don't, but um one of the things that I love about Raptor Recreation Day is also our partnership with AHM. And uh well, not only uh does stress do her own Zumba during that day, which is the was the most popular student activity that we had last year. Amazingly, like I never would have ever ever believed, but they

094loved it. Um that, you know, they provided a drummer for us last year. they um provide all kinds of additional um resources and um and actual just like big yard games and all kinds of stuff like that. So I thank HM for their willingness to um participate their own time and also their resources for that. So if you want to see what that looks like, come on May 23rd. It's fabulous. You'll see every student smiling. It's a great day. And they'll be smiling down at the middle school. They do something very similar. Um, so yes, we have team building day. Beginning of the year, it's great for our seventh graders coming in. They get to meet each other and learn a little bit more about each other along with learning more about the teachers. At

095the end of the year to get out on Playdate was the governor's enactment. And so we we tried to figure out how we would do this. And so our two student our student council decided to take it over. They actually planned it, organized it, and they run it. They've asked different faculty members. We have everything from activities from like an escape room to Tai Chi. And so it's just it's a fun day. It's like the high school. We have organized different events and the kids enjoy it. The feedback we've gotten is could we do this like once a month? And the answer is no. They would love recess but that won't fit in the schedule either at the moment. But that it's a it's just a nice way to connect especially at the end of

096the year. It's a nice way also to get out and run around. Really do need it on a nice day. And it's actually pretty amazing to see high schoolers getting back into the play mood. You know, not only are they playing like kickball and you know um uh yard cornhole and yard games, but basketball, tennis, and cornhole. I mean all the can what is it? Can jam. like there's so many games out there that you don't even know exists. Um, and we've got water activities this year. Spoiler alert. Well, our high schoolers aren't here, so that's good. Um, but we we got a lot of feedback from our student and staff students and staff last year and we've incorporated and snacks because snacks. So, that's new this year, too. Snacks. Um, just some things about

097I won't go over the whole list extensively. I know we're running on a little bit, but for middle school, when you talk about parent communication, it's always a topic that comes up on almost every survey. What can you do more? Sometimes you you can tweak things or you can change things. We went to a weekly raptor report. I started it out few years ago as sort of a a blast from the principal once a month, then it became once every other week. Now become weekly and it got a name. when we became the Ram Raptors, it became the Raptor Report. Um, email blasts are sent out on a regular basis to parents about important things separate from the newsletter conferences at the beginning of the year and then the student led conferences in the spring.

098People have asked why we did a survey about the student led conferences and parents do do like them. Um, the survey came back with positive results from staff and parents. Basically, if you ever if you've had a child and you sit at home and you ask them, "How was school today?" And you're all laughing because they say, "Fine." Sam over here. That's fine. Yeah. So, it was a way to get students to engage a little bit more because now they had to explain how they're doing at school. So, if you don't come here to do your student life conference, if they want, you don't have to. it gets sent home and so you can open it up on the Chromebook and you can go, can you tell me can you tell me about this and

099it's a nice conversation starter and it's also a good lead into the high school portfolio process because they'll they'll have that whether they're seventh or eighth grade coming up in ninth grade they'll start that process. Um, we do do this incoming seventh grade orientation. We had that last two weeks ago. We had 40 about 50 uh parents there. They were a little little timid at first because they were all most of them I would say 95% were new parents in middle school and it's just one of those intimidating things. It's you know it's very different up here. So we went through that orientation and the teams themselves will send out emails about important events or things that are going on on each team. We try constant communication this process. I filled any call any parent

100that calls me. I've had parents call me anything from you know bus routes to the cost of a meal in the cafeteria. You know how does that get determined? if it's above me, I try to I can figure out who can answer that question for me. But we always get back to obviously we have all the the same um ways that we communicate regularly with parents. Um but we also have the collaboration with eighth grade night where we have um every year you know there's something for like junior planning and um all the different big events and and moments that happen which you know we can't capture on a slide but um one of the new things this year uh that I think has been a a a work in progress and something that is

101really overdue was having um some consistent practices around grading and and updating grades and communicating with parents. So um you know stu teachers and not that this wasn't happening but it it wasn't necessarily consistently happening and it and it just could it just gives us sort of this structure and framework that everybody can work from and that parents, students and teachers can all be on the same page and understand and know what to expect in terms of when will their grades be updated. So, um, grade book should be bi-weekly updated, not just meaning that they've added grades, um, but that their grade is current at that moment, so that a student knows if they're passing or failing or in jeopardy of starting to, um, slip or, um, whatever the case might be. And also um

102having a a consistent uh time frame in which grades, papers or um projects and tests and or any other kind of formative or summitive assessments are um graded within either formative within a week or summitative within a couple of weeks. Um obviously there can be um extenduating circumstances depending on um particulars but that that's the overall expectation and also um that a a teacher will communicate with a parent and a counselor and obviously the student um when a grade drops a letter grade so that there's no surprises um at the end of the quarter or end of the semester or the end of the school year. um everybody's forewarned, everybody knows what needs to be done for the student, have an opportunity to improve um and then you know have that time to do so

103so that we know our students have every opportunity to show what they understand and what they can do. So Penny and Michael have been speaking about what they're doing in their schools. I'm going to speak briefly about what we're doing as a district. Um, one thing that happened this year, this board voted to pass our new um, uh, evaluation and support plan for teachers um, and to formalize it and send it to the state, which we did last year. We surveyed um, every year we sent out a survey to faculty in the spring and we look for input around what they would like to see happen in professional development opportunities um, and things that they'd like our district to consider. And this year we included a question about how faculty felt about this new system

104that is in place. Um some of it was dictated by the state and we made we put our own um pre-imprint on it. Um and we our our survey has only been out for two days um two school days. So but we had about 85 respondents and 70% reported that they um felt that this new teacher evaluation system was excellent or very good. Um people felt very supported. um it's really a coaching a coaching people towards a goal and so that's been a real win for us um I think in terms of um faculty feeling like they're being valued because they're being supported they're being to coached towards growth um oh next oh that's it you got it um so this slide shows a few examples of the kind of professional development that we've supported

105this year we have had district faculty engage in over 140 different off-site workshops or short courses ES or council meetings. Um, some of the professional learning has been department focused. Some of it has been geared towards the faculty's individual goals that they identified, the things that they wanted to grow towards under the new teacher evaluation and support system. Um, some of the teachers have taken their own time outside of their contractual day. For example, some of the Harvard short courses, they may have a few hours on an early closing PD and a little bit of time at a department meeting time, but by and large they may be using a lot of their own offc contract time because they want to grow and they want to learn. And when we talk about this practice in

106the context of school climate, uh the simple truth is that professional learning matters. It improves the teacher skills. It strengthens their problem solving. It encourages new innovative practices, revitalizes their teaching, their growth mindset, and just as important, I believe, um, and I appreciate Colin's support for the kinds of PD that we have had our teachers engage in, it shows the teachers that we're really invested in them and in their growth. Um, research also shows that supporting faculty professional development can um, help with teacher retention as well. um the uh individual workshops, conferences that people have gone to. In addition to that, our district has provided professional development. Um if you recall the the climate survey, um there was some feedback on um experiences and perceptions of diverse students. And so we really worked to try

107and the faculty identified this as wanting to become more culturally responsive educators. So we have really put a lot of time and effort into providing uh professional learning uh for people to have growth in that area. Um as I mentioned our PDX survey um we get input from teachers. Um we also have a very vibrant professional development and evaluation committee. So um I would say over the last five years there's been a tremendous amount of teacher voice in what teachers want to engage with in professional development. Um and so we have um about 14 faculty teachers on the professional development and educa um evaluation committee. They offer input suggestions. They bring requests from the faculty to our monthly meetings and they ultimately shape much of what we have for learning opportunities in the district. Um

108our thinking is the voice of the faculty is the voice of what they see identified as student need and then we can be responsive to that as much as possible. Um we support staff through coaching. Um in the 22 23 24 school year the district committed to providing literacy coaching, math coaching at the middle school and some instructional coaching. and this practice is a little more invigorated, expanding the scope of literacy coaching. Um, as director of curriculum and instruction, I've been able to go in and do some de demonstrations of different pedagogical practices with teachers while also supporting some of their own growth in trying some new things. Again, it speaks to that supporting faculty, helping them feel a sense of efficacy. And um we know from research that collective efficacy amongst your faculty um

109not only is it fantastic for the climate and culture of a building, it also leads to student learning, which is ultimately why we're here. Um we also support staff through common planning time and collaboration. It looks different in each building. Both the middle school and the high school use scheduling to ensure that uh faculty have time to collaborate. Um this is especially important with the teacher evaluation um and support plan because many of the faculty have collaborative goals. So they can actually meet together with colleagues and they can work together to build their capacity to be stronger in either an area of content or an area of pedagogy. Um the research about the value on the importance of collaboration um really supports this practice. It's been a really important part of our positive school climate

110within both schools. Um, a study that was conducted by Linda Darling Hammond, I don't know if that name means anything, she's one of those gurus of educational research, revealed that teachers who engage in regular collaborative activities report higher levels of job satisfaction. They also tend to stay in their jobs longer. And teachers who feel supported, appreciated, and connected to their colleagues are more likely to remain committed to the profession. And finally, um we have extended our collaboration, and this brings this back full circle. Um with our sending districts, I didn't think we were going to get here this year, but we we've gotten here. Um, we've extended our collaboration with the districts and it's really allowed us to build stronger networks and more transactional relationships between the sending districts that are coming into our school.

111So, we're talking about blending of professional learning opportunities um evolving relationships uh between the sixth and seventh grade teachers as well um so that we can learn how to best welcome the students from the sending districts into RAM. Um really looking to create a seamless transition. I'm particularly excited about this work this year as it really marks a shift in the cooperation between the sending districts. So, we had a wonderful um math collaborative meeting in February, I believe, um before vacation and over sixth grade teachers came and spent a day here. Um on Thursday, a team from Hebrin is coming. The following Thursday, another team from Hebrin is coming. And then, um I'm hoping that Marlboro, I can't remember if they wanted to do this year or wait till the fall. But building these relationships

112again lets us connect to each other both within and beyond our building and uh and knowing very much that positive climate is really going to translate into stronger learning experiences for our students. And we've got somebody because we might win the award for Yeah. Well, so as you you know I appreciate all the work that um where's the food? Yeah, honestly. Oh, that's all right. We walked into that. We walked into that. Again, remember I've gained 15 or 20 pounds. Uh so, so as you know, as you can see, this has been a a significant focus of the work that we have been u you know, the collective administrative team has been focused on. You know, we've one thing I didn't even mention, but I I I feel it's important to do it is one

113of the outcomes of our negotiations with our teachers bargaining unit was a restructuring of our stipens. um the the club advisors, coaches, and and not only was a market adjustment made to those positions, but the board gave some latitude for restructuring those and and we actually I that's been a process I've been collaborating with uh one of the REA members that um led the negotiations process and one of the things that we did said was let's create a climate like a stipen that focuses on like for both students and staff that focus on like climate activities like what are some other things that we could do as well. So, like again, this is a huge focus for us as you could see from the 45m minute presentation. Um, but we can do our best to

114answer any questions that you might have. I don't want to make this go any longer you guys any longer. I just had uh just too quick. Um, you had mentioned uh your PDAC committee. So, did you always This is kind of a few. Did you always meet monthly? Is this every month? Um it was always your change of the tea bell every month we we've met um we I think we added a few new members not we have the rea members are elected and but we also like if you want to come please come but they also know that they can bring that voice to that representative but yes we meet every single month there were um a few years I would say in the late 201 vibrant we didn't have um I was a

115teacher then there was a limited teacher voice. Um and then around 2020 2021 um teacher voice came back in more vigorously and we really honored that um as as much as possible because honestly teachers are in the classroom. They know where the needs are and we really want to make sure that we're meeting those needs. I just wasn't sure if it had changed just because of a new tea valve. No, no, this has been in fact I think you know one of the things that um I I think we can pride ourselves in is that we have had a robust PDC um committee for many years and although there has been a renewed um requirement for that in terms of obviously the new evaluation system but we had that in place already. In fact, even

116before the new evaluation system, um we brought in a pair of professional representatives as well. Um and and every year open it up to teachers who want to be on that committee and we cover their classes to meet with us during that first period every month. So yeah, it's been a it's been it's grown tremendously, but it's existed and very for a very long time. Any other questions? Yeah. So, um, obviously there's a lot of work here and yeah, I'm very glad you've embraced the action that army travels on its stomach, but this this is a lot of this is ongoing, right? You just mentioned some stuff from 2021. So, when I looked at the climate survey results, page after page of comments and stuff, I was very pleased to see a lot of positive

117and a lot of good things. But as Colin says, we always try to get better. And so what I'd like you to think about or if you can even say anything tonight is was there anything in the 2324 survey that stood out to you as surprising given all the work you do here and that you as a consequence of that survey want to do differently? I mean, I think I'll speak for myself in that it just gave us a renewed focus um because I do think that um sometimes you we I mean we have the climate surveys every two years as something that's existed and it's required um for a long time and I don't you know I think you're always just getting a quick snapshot in a brief moment of time and I I

118think we can u recognize that the last several years of teaching you know due to all sorts of variables and including an awful pandmic that I can't really remember. So, um, but you know, I think that it just, you know, gave us that renewed energy, that renewed perspective of reminding ourselves how important it is to be able to interact with one another, communicate, um, share accolades, um, and be able to, uh, be able to, uh, show value and appreciation for not only our students and, um, our staff, but just the community as a whole. and just providing opportunities um that may be needed to be you know rethought. I mean I think this is an evolution that will continue to evolve over time and we'll continue like a lot of the stuff that we presented

119tonight isn't just all new stuff like there's a lot of it that we've been doing but then of course some renewed ideas and approaches. I I wasn't surprised. I I guess I wasn't so I was What really I guess caught me was some of the comments the students had that felt that they weren't seen, that they felt uh not like part of the community. And that's been uh that's been a lot of the new work that we started doing. Um uh that it's really hard even if it's just two or three kids to hear that they don't feel because you know they're speaking for many others. And I think that I think we kind of knew it, but to have to read those comments was really difficult. And so I would say the faculty um

120are very committed to make sure that every single student feels valued, seen um for who they are um and and really keeping expectations high for everyone and creating a culture and a climate where every student feels like they're part of this family. And so that that was really that was hard to see. I don't think I was really surprised, but to have to see the words written by the student, that was hard to see. So, we've really renewed our our commitment to each and every student in our district. So, so what I would I wasn't surprised I there's a couple of things. Number one, you know, when Andy De Palma from Eastcon came and presented, it's important to talk and say like he basically said what you're seeing for feedback at RAM is consistently being

121seen by the other districts that they work with. I also have insider information from the context of my wife has been a my wife's a teacher and I hear every day about the challenges that she faces the the the the lack of time to do anything. I see how much time she spends on the weekends doing lesson plans, grading. It is a difficult job. Oh, yeah. And and as as I think even our board members who are educators um could could attest to, it's a different job than it was 25 years ago when when probably several of us got into the career. It's, you know, I I've been in education for 30 years and it's it's a different job. the expectations, you know, get piled on, but nobody ever says, "Well, don't worry about doing

122that anymore." Right? And so, when you see that type of thing coupled with the challenges associated that that we all faced during the pandemic and still are facing in the wake of the pandemic, like it's exacerbated those challenges and I think it is it has really impacted how people not just feel about RAM but also feel about the profession. Like I I I I've talked to teachers who have said, "I'm questioning whether or not I'm going to stay in this profession." We've had teachers leave here and say I'm going to go be an actuary. Right. and and and you know um but to to to Penny's point and it it is it is something that it's it's a good reminder number one and I also would say prior to the reminder and I'll just reiterate

123what I said at the very beginning of this we knew that this was something that we need to focus on right like we knew based off of the fact that we went through this very very comprehensive strategic planning process and we said this has to be one of the things that we individually usually focus on but we also know that all load all loads of working towards improvement improve morale improve climate um it's a it's a huge thing and um you know it's something that we are working on now we're going to continue to work on and um you know there are a lot of things that we have implemented this year um I think part of it too is you know they did cover a lot of things that have been in existence for

124a period of time we wanted to make sure that we included some of those things because it goes to show you that it's not just been like we haven't been paying attention. So, any other questions? All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Sorry about the length, but we wanted to make sure that we were comprehensive in covering it. Keep going. Yeah. So, um the next agenda item is just an update on the proposed 2526 budget. Uh again, we we had our meeting right before break, the week before break, uh where the board adopted the budget and we're uh going to be moving it to referendum. What I wanted to provide everybody with is a copy of our uh it's just a one-page sheet that we have created over the past several years. um uh feedback that

125we've gotten from from members of the community, members of the board, staff is it's very helpful to have this this type of a cheat sheet that just provides a highlevel overview about where we currently are, what our budget increase are, what are our priorities, how we're working to reduce um the budget increase. And we've we've kind of come up with this format a couple years ago when we felt that it was very informative, simple, and easy to read. Um, and so this has all the key information. It's very similar to the one that we put together last year. And, uh, the intention with this is just document is we're going to do a few different things. We're going to make multiple copies of it, deliver it to each of the, uh, town halls of our

126three sending towns. We're also going to make sure that it gets into the hands of uh and gets into the buildings of our elementary districts that feed into region 8 so that parents and families who are um members of those communities can can be aware of what it is that we're looking to do and and and uh the financial aspect of that. And then the last thing too is we're going to work uh we are going to make sure that this uh document uh gets published in the River East. um we felt it's important to make sure that it's as as widely publicized as we possibly can can get it. Um and certainly uh just wanted to make sure that we provided it to you. Uh we're excited about where we are. Uh we have

127our meeting coming up in the beginning of May uh the night before the referendum. And again, just wanted to to share those documents with y'all. I can certainly take any questions if people have them. All right. Not hearing any. I will move on to the next item which is 10.3 which is a personnel report. Um is that the next one? Yes. Personnel report. So uh Kelsey um Gamble who is a special education teacher at Ram High School uh has resigned effective June 30th, 2025. Uh she's been employed by the district since August of 2015. Uh we certainly will miss Kelsey and I wish her nothing but the best as she moves into her uh leadership position uh that she has been seeking for quite some time. So um that concludes my personnel report. Well, we

128learned about Scott Butson. What's that? Scott Butson as well. It was a very recent resignation which wasn't in the report. Correct. Correct. Um the next one is discussion and possible action regarding middle school baseball field ADA compliance project. Michael Schlayhoffer is online. He's joined us online and he can speak to this a little bit more, but I'll just give a a quick reminder. Uh I think it was last year the board decided to address uh some um accessibility issues that we had with the middle school baseball field. This was not something that was mandated um but rather something that was noted when a high school an evaluation was done of the high school softball field I think several years ago. Um but since the inspection was only high school specific, it didn't we weren't mandated

129to make the change, but this board is being very proactive and we're saying if we have the funds and we want to make that change. Um so we went out to bid and I'll let Michael talk a little bit about where we are right now in the process. Thank you. So um we received four bids um that were received on April 2nd. Um we reviewed them. We also had Lorero Lorero Engineering review them. We also had legal review them. Um, out of the four bids, um, I believe you guys have the, do they have the enclosure, Colin? Closure 10.4. Okay. I don't I don't want to read it word for word if they actually have it. Um, so four bids ranging from 187 all the way up to 300,000. And after the review, um, the

130first bid was out. Um, they were missing information. The second bid came in at 237800. Um they have all the necessary paperwork. Um so they would be deemed the most reasonable qualified lowest bidder. Um and then the third in line would have been um at 264 and then uh the last one was at 300,000 um that did not have all the information that we requested. Um so at this point um the board would need to approve the superintendent of schools to enter into contract um with it. I believe it's um Wise Construction Incorporated out of Norwich, Connecticut. And um if anybody has any questions regarding any additional steps or I'd be happy to answer them. Any questions about the bidding process or No, I mean we Michael, we've been talking about this project for a

131couple years now. Um, if at any time did we go out for any quotes earlier in the in the in the process when we started discussing it or is this the first time that we've gotten any? Uh we we we received a construction budget through Lorero based on what they've been seeing and that's what we put together as our budget for this. So our budget with contingency was 250,000. So this came in under budget thankfully. Okay. That's really what I was getting at. Thanks, Mike. Yep. All right. Is this is this spread typical almost 60% higher for the largest bid? It is not unc I'll let Michael say I don't know if there's a typical. It is not uncommon to see a significant spread. Believe it or not, there are some companies that will bid

132so astronomically high because they're they're busy enough themselves. They have enough work and they're just it's kind of the attitude that they take is just like let's just throw a number out there and see if anybody bites on it, right? they could end up being the lowest bidder, but they're still making an astronomical amount of money. So to see this type of a spread is not an uncommon thing. Yeah, I would add that it was similar uh spread when we were looking at the emergency generator quotes, they vary greatly. Um so yeah, I would say at least in my experience since I've been on facility subcommittee, that's been pretty common. All right. Do I have a motion to authorize the superintendent, Dr. Colin Mcamera to finalize and execute a contract with police construction, Inc. for

133the Ram Middle School baseball field ADA compliance project. I'll make motion. Scott second. Okay. Mark second. Um any discussion? All in favor? I oppose abstain. All right. Wonderful. So, um, we wanted to also provide the board with an update on, uh, a project that has been, um, three years almost, two years, two and a half years in the making. So, um, I think it was my first year working in the district going through the budget process. One of the things that we put into the capital budget was a materials containment center. Um it was it's to to to basically in a neat uh opt visually pleasing way to store landscaping materials which are currently stored in between the competition field and the baseball field. Um the board the it went through the budget. Um and

134we have been in a holding pattern for about two years now. Um and I don't mean this in a disparaging way but it's largely just been held up and it has it's been held up by by the planning and zoning commission. And again I don't think it's anything intentional. I think they just have a lot of things going on. I'm political when I say this. So, um, uh, but I'm really happy because, uh, we, uh, this actually came up at board meeting a couple months ago. Um, and, uh, it it poked us, Eva, Michael, and I, we reached out to the town planner and the town engineer. We met with them, um, a few weeks ago, actually, over at the, um, maintenance garage. We reviewed our plan, had some conversation, discussed some things that we

135they had some recommendations and uh the I won't bore you with details, but the good news is is that led to them putting the the plan to the planning and zoning commission. I then attended a couple of days later, about a week and a half later, I attended the planning and zoning commission meeting um and uh was able to provide some context and details to the planning and zoning commission. The outcome was it was approved and uh we are moving forward with with the project. Um I I I think we had like landscapers in here the next day like cutting down trees and and whatnot. The the the good news is um it also is going to actually enable us doing the project now the way that we're going to do it. Um one of

136the things that we had talked about doing was putting a fence up that would have masked a dumpster that currently sits next to the um maintenance garage. Uh but with the plan now that we have actually that dumpster is going to go behind the maintenance garage which means we don't have to spend 10 to$15,000 on a fence um for that area. Um so really excited as soon as they approved us. I think you know again we we started ordering things. Um I I don't want to misspeak but Eva can correct me because she likes to do that when I'm wrong. Um but I think that the prices are going to be a little bit higher now than what we had initially budgeted two years ago. Shocking. Um, but I think we have money in our

137current budget and uh that's part of the conversation. There was a cost overrun of almost $9,000, right, Michael? Great. Uh, correct. Yep. So, um, so anyways, but but the good news is is moving ahead, which is which is where we wanted to be for the past couple years. So, I just wanted to provide the board with an update on that. There's no action that needs to be taken. Uh, moving on to 10.6 Six is the first read of several policies. Um I'll just go through them. Uh the f I'm going to go through the first three and group them together. Um uh it's bylaw 9342 time and place of meetings for revision. Policy 934A agenda for revision policy or bylaw 9341 minutes for revision. The reason that we're updating these policies and advising or these

138bylaws is because of the fact that uh to reflect remote meetings. The fact that we obviously now have the ability to do remote meetings or hybrid meetings, remote and in person. So all of the changes that are being um made are specifically for that purpose. Uh the next policy or bylaw is 9141 committees. This is a board bylaw that needs to be updated to also reflect remote meetings. But by adopting these changes, it will enable us to delete two other policies which are further down the line 9150 and 9160. Uh the next one is policy 3561 which is code of conduct governing governing procurements. This is a new polic or a new policy that is being recommended uh for adoption by legal council. plus one that we current currently don't have, but our attorneys at

139Shipment or Goodwin are recommending that we do adopt this policy. Uh the next one is policy 9131, removal of board officers. Similarly, this is a new bylaw that is being recommended for adoption by legal counsel. Again, currently don't have existence, but we should. The next two are ones that I had previously mentioned, 9150 subcommittees and 90 9160 temporary committees. These of course can both be deleted with the uh revision of 9141 which I'd already spoken about. Uh the next one is 9325 email communication. Uh it is an outdated and not required policy and my and our recommendation is to delete this policy. And then finally the last one is 9225A investments for the deletion. It is an outdated uh bylaw. Um it it it talks about the superintendent of schools investing the district's money without

140anybody's permission. I will tell you I would never consider I just wouldn't be a good thing for me to do. So and I and I would not do that. So it's an outdated uh policy or bylaw that is unnecessary and I'm recommending deleting uh that one. Um these uh policies and bylaws all went to the policy subcommittee a couple weeks ago. We had good good conversation on all of them and uh there was uh no feedback that uh any changes were needed. So they're all coming to you guys now as a first read. I can do my best to entertain any questions that board members may have about any of them. Again, no action needs to be done in this particular meeting. If there is anything that people think needs to be changed or any

141concerns, they can reach out to me directly um and we can have an offline conversation. But they uh not having any changes, they'll come to the consent agenda for the next meeting for a second read and approval. I think we might need to discuss 9131. We we talked about that in policy committee. I thought we were going to add something about what we meant by officers. Uh I I I'll go back to my notes, Scott. I I'll take a look. Yeah, I had assumed that was just going to be chair, vice chair, secretary, treasurer, right? But did it also include subcommittee chairs? That was that was the Oh, okay. So, yeah, I don't think you were that meeting, but that I wasn't, but I've read the so I'm getting the the ambiguity there. Okay. Um,

142we are now at the part where I get to stop talking. I will turn it over to Eva for financials. All right. So, in your handouts, you have 10.7A, which is the expenditure and revenue report as of March 31st, 2025. There's an projected net favorable position of $55,352. Um the revenue um state of Connecticut has approved $40 million in additional excess funding um for fiscal year 2025, the year that we're in. Unfortunately, um no more information is received at this time and the funding for the additional funds is not going to show up till June. So unfortunately I have no way of projecting what the estimate is for our district. If I hear any more I will definitely update everyone. Um as you are aware the capital improvement fund um middle school baseball field ADA

143compliance uh project um you basically just approved the superintendent to enter into contract um the material containment center. You just heard about that as well. So, we're moving forward with that and everything should be all finalized before June 30th. So, that's a plus. And the pupil services department is still monitoring their um spending and um changing purchase orders to capture any changes with the IEP process. Are there any questions that the board may have at this time? Okay, thank you. So, moving on. 10.7B which is the food service monthly sales and expenditure. Um so we have currently reflecting a loss of $48,1328 for this fiscal year. However, we made gains two months in a row. So that's a plus. Um are there any questions that the board may have? Nope. Thank you. Keep going. Um

14410.7c is the um student activity count. So, we balance to the bank. So, are there any questions that the board may have on that? Hearing none. Is the short-term investment fund account, which is 10.7D, we reinvested $1,986.71 as of March 31st, 2025. Are there any questions that the board may have at this time? Thank you very much. Back to you. All right, that was a quick hand off. So, we'll go to the committee reports on facilities. Uh facilities, we did not meet on April 8th. Our next meeting is May 13th and finance and audit. We did not meet. Everybody's running for the hill and uh we have a meeting scheduled May 13th. We'll see what happens. All right. Uh policy. Well, we did meet and you see the results. Yep. Perfect. Um any program and

145communication? We did not meet. Next meeting is the seven and Carrie is not here. Um informationational items. So there's uh the calendar events are closures 12.1 uh A and 12.1B. Um I I've already mentioned the Evening of the Arts on May 29th. Another great musical production that I would uh encourage uh people to attend is the AllTown Jazz Concert, which is um an opportunity for students from our three elementary sending districts. They send uh their some of their musicians over to us. Um and and really all three of the towns perform plus uh the middle school band, the high school band. Uh it's it's a it's a really great event. Um we actually um they have members of the community that also will get up and play. The the conductors of the different bands from

146the different schools and just members of the community uh will get up and and join and and singing songs. So it's it's just a it's a really it's a it's a good thing. Um have to figure out how to get Claudia involved. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Believe me, my my marketing brain is clicking all the time about I I want to try to get them involved with the Evening of the Arts, too, because one of the things that we do with the Evening of the Arts, it's not we're not just showcasing um the the artwork of RAM students. We're also showcasing we we recognize and showcase elementary students. Uh they'll come and they'll uh provide us with their their artwork and and they'll it's it's really cool. Like I've seen some of the elementary

147kids are coming around, they're like showing off their artwork that's hanging up in the atrium. It's just it's a great thing. Um, and then just I mean as far as the calendar events, the big thing is is like all the craziness that happens at the end of the school year, you know, with regards to like proms and senior trips and rapid recreation day. Um, and and I would echo Penny's sentiment if if you're interested in seeing it. It is it is I think this district has taken that get out and play day. The administration knows that they've heard me say this. We've taken it to like a level that is like beyond I I tell my colleagues and just like, "Oh yeah, we do this, we do this, we like, oh my gosh, my they

148they went all in." It is It is a fun day. So, a lot of good stuff going on. Um the uh the next one is just uh the student discipline report for 12 um two, there was a a typo that Drew pointed out. Drew, thank you for catching that. We appreciate it. It was fixed. So, if you have an online version, you see the corrected version. Um but there was just a couple of numbers that were incorrect with regards to the high school inschool suspension uh numbers. But again uh it was caught, we fixed it and the numbers now are uh accurately reflected. Um and that concludes byformational items. Is there a motion to adjurnn? So move Drew. Um second chair. Chair second. Um, any discussion? No. All in favor? Opposed? Abstain. No. Okay, we're

149good. Thank you everybody. That's short as you thought.