001so good evening everybody happy uh St Patrick's Day I did not wear my green today but I know but you're wearing it for all of us so thank you so much appreciate that uh Justin can you please take Joe abdella Greg Cava Victoria Salon Stephanie KCK Angela matcho Alex mnon here Justin Angley here Jen py here Jane sergeant Pete Tagle Mary Weber Christine W IG can I have a motion to go into executive session second thank you okay all in favor okay we're gonna go in Dian is your um office unlocked thank you app okay hi okay so be it resolved that the Board of Education in accordance with the conate general statute section 10-1 157 hereby elects um Donald shells Dr Donald shells to serve as the superintendent for the shog Valley Regional School
002District number commencing on July 1st 20125 May I have a motion second all in favor I this this is very exciting B it further resoled that the board chairman be authorized to execute the employment contract on behalf of the board with respect to Dr Donald Shell's employment as superintendent of schools second all in favor I and lastly be it finally resolve that the Board of Education terminates the search process for superintendent of schools and dis dismisses the superintendent search committee we have a motion second all in favor okay so with all of the um technicalities are done the uh region 12 board of education is proud to announce the appointment of Dr Donald shells as the new superintendent of schools Dr shells has served as principal of shog Valley school for the past four years
003throughout his leadership he has demonstrated a deep commitment to our students staff and the entire region 12 Community he is a strong advocate for students and brings a clear understanding of the unique culture and needs of our district Don leads with Integrity dedication and a steadfast focus on what is best for students the board is confident that under his leadership region 12 will continue to to thrive and grow as it begins his next chapter please welcome me in joining Dr Shel to his new role please would you like to come up and say a few words thank you so much members of the board community members students faculty staff friends I'm humbled and honored to be connected to a place that literally has the finest teachers staff students parents administrators I've ever seen in 26
004years in this field and also the most supportive and highly functional board these are all blessings thanks also of course to my family some of who might be zooming in from Vermont New Jersey I hope their cies are off no I'm just kidding the Kimberly my my better half and to the many trusted colleagues um I see here um I couldn't do much without the help and support of friends and family when I was young and a student I read history of course that continued through my career as a teacher and continues to this day historical thinking is one of the lenses and I think it's a helpful one I've always used to make sense of what's going on one theme or pattern that emerges in historical analysis is the perhaps paradoxical concept of continuity
005and change continuity refers to elements or aspects of a system that persist or remain relatively stable over time but change of course refers to elements or aspects that evolve transform or are altered over time I've been thinking about continuity and change here in region 12 in some places the forces of continuity are constantly at odds with forces of change people cannot agree over what should stay the same and what should change but in luckier places and I'll suggest we're one of those lucky places change coexists with continuity and at times change may even again this seems paradoxical may even support rather than supplant cherished Traditions from the past when I was talking with our board about the superintendency I shared a few stories when I became the principal at chog I heard from two or
006three people from my past people I knew when I was younger then lost touch with who reached out after seeing a press release and they said not sure I ever told you this but I graduated from region 12 you better take care of that place when I'm at concerts or athletic events or musicals I inevitably meet people who tell me at some point during the interaction I went through these schools and I wanted my kids in region 12 schools so many of our local dignitaries board members First Responders and public servants also report longtime ties with our schools when I attend our Reich ceremony I sense a solemn awareness of and reverence for tradition I see Steven reich's father sitting next to the Dugout at our baseball games I see our senior citizens watching the
007game from their cars and beeping horns when we score a run or strike someone out I see seniors attending our musicals and planetarium shows and they tell me our schools have always been an important jewel in the crown of the community I see our students playing together in Unified sports and living a model of inclusion in our instruction that is the Envy of the county and the state I hear about the Aloha ceremonies at booth bernam and WPS celebrating the r of Passage into sixth grade I see the passion projects elementary students complete and the invention conventions they develop helping them begin the process of finding out who they are and what they love I watch our K5 students cheer graduating seniors when those seniors visit the elementary schools during the week of graduation I
008meet local artists and musicians at our concerts local trades people at our bizaar they always tell me about their affinity for the region I listen to members of our shog senior project fund committee who are keepers of memory around our senior project program many of them graduated from are taught in our schools retired employees are seen on campus and the school events all the time and each of our towns take Fierce and justifiable pride in their wonderful schools and in local autonomy over those schools local autonomy has always been Central to American political B we should celebrate all these connections and traditions over time take on an air of nostalgia and pass into our Collective Consciousness they speak to continuity and they help ground us at the same time we know that one not need
009be an alumni or resident of the region to be an incredibly important member of our community much of our current might derives from forces of Change Change should also be welcomed and supported when it builds on the values that Define the organization we are so lucky under the aices of that change to have so many incredible beautiful children and parents joining our Learning Community coming to us from surrounding towns whose students and families want to be part of the region magic some pay tuition some join through Agra science all are part of our tribe when I watch all our children learning to playing and creating and problem solving and growing together I see a complete and Powerful synergy between continuity and change our Agro Science Center has already turned into a new tradition that merges
010with our past and Heralds our future we now have little Brites on campus working with agroscience students to deliver equine therapy sessions that enrich the lives of the clients they serve on another front the shog valley partnership connects young people who constitute the workforce of tomorrow with venerable institutions and Merchants across our towns linking the past with the future and with all the change the future may BR we have new Cooperative sports teams that create fresh incarnations of a very old icon the Spartan instructional change is heralded by a shift towards more student Choice richer student discourse and Project based learning my elementary colleagues defitely navigated the changing and at times complicated landscape of K5 reading programs and implemented a brand new reading program called Arc that will move our young readers forward forward we
011have a link crew program representing change in the name of enhanced belonging and inclusion our three primary schools are pivoting towards more joint activities to enrich student experiences like Flock theater and our primary partners program we do also face some daunting but exciting challenges and changes in the form of disruptive technology like artificial intelligence technology we should embrace and employ for the good of our project which is in the words of Ron berer last year's keynote speaker to develop good people who do beautiful work we're in the process of taking one of our proudest Traditions senior project and paying its innovative promise forward by adapting its structure to Modern needs and together as a community we will engage each other in discussions that respect each Town's autonomy while finding ways to deploy that auton for
012the collective welfare of our students here in our region continuity and change merge into our mission our mission is to grow together into a future that respects its past while it stimulates growth andak so finally what I'm driving at is I want to suggest a big part of my job is to create conditions that allow continuity and change to merge into a vision we can all support our strategic plan is a powerful blueprint for where we are going the pr promises glow growth and development to all within its reach so I'm not starting from scratch and I inherit a wonderful team and a vision upon which we can build Visions must be built in inclusive ways together Visions start with listening please consider me your listener and chief I want to talk to the wise
013orac oracles from all our towns I want to talk to teachers and students and parents and staff and administrators from every building I want to benefit from their wisdom I want to find the things we can all support and that are best for kids and turn them into our moral imperatives vision is essential and growth is non-negotiable as we respect change but the stability of the region and respect for all stakeholders is important too because we also respect continuity think of this metaphor when we want to jump high and we certainly do here in our region we need our feet firmly planted on Solid Ground our Solid Ground is our continuity and our leap or jump is our change if the jump is done wisely it will create higher levels of new Solid Ground which
014adds to our foundation completing a symbiotic surle in closing whenever I talk with students about our schools I like to reference some Bruce Springsteen lyrics from the song Long Walk Home you're lucky in the these towns they're a beautiful place to be born that's the lyric for us it would be a beautiful place to learn grow work play or live they wrap their arms around you nobody goes it alone thank you for entrusting me with the superintendency I promise to maintain a culture where no one has to go it alone I promise to love and respect our kids parents faculty staff and communities I promise to take accountabil for what happens I promise to communicate clearly and with transparency with board I promise to stand by my charge when we going gets tough let's see
015what good we can do together advancing my favorite slogan region 12 existing for a better world thank you br thank you so much Don I just want to um offer an opportunity for any of our board members to say anything if they would like to I want to be the only one about the excitement Dr sh's joining us Mary go for it microphone hold on I've been on the board for 21 years not record and I've been so I how many superint but U I think very well with the staff and U you've been principal so you have gooded here what the goals are and I think you'll be a profit for all of us you're here so much Pete before we we end with a little set we're not ending before we about that
016before we take a little break Lori wanted to um say something okay so we have one more thing to celebrate congratulations again to Don MH but March as you know is board appreciation month as well um and on behalf of the staff and administration students and the entire region 12 Community we want to recognize each of you all you do for our our schools our students or staff voluntarily I might add and as the Irish would say this evening we are as lucky as charms to have you all here supporting us in our schools so we know how you all appreciate the wonderful Artistry of our students when we recognize them so we have a special gift for you this year we had student works of art reproduced from students from each of your towns
017um that you represent we hope you like them you've probably seen them as you went around there's some uh candies in there and a card but I think you will really like the Artistry that is fr named welcome they're all different and unique so so the artist's name is somewhere we labeled the artist's name on the back so you didn't have to pull it apart to look good we're glad you like it we really appreciate all that you do thank you thank you so much I don't want before we end um not we're not ending the meeting but before we break for um for celebration I do want to just take a quick moment to acknowledge our uh boys basketball team for winning the state championship it was really an amazing season I know look
018at the big grin over there um but they're we're so proud of their all of their efforts and so proud of the hard work that they have done and to see so many people at Mohan son was really kind of amazing um so I just want to give a a shout out to the boys and uh coach lefave for a job well done and our amazing athletic director Matt thank you you juggle a lot of balls in the air Matt and so you always do an amazing job it's always seamless and thank you very much after his soccer field hockey and basketball when he's going to be looking to renegotiate his contract sometimes sooner um but having been a part of the basketball season so and I'm sure that soccer and field hockey and baseball
019and track I'm sure it's all the same but I didn't get a close-up look at that um we've gotten a lot of press coverage and if you notice every single time our basketball players spoke this weekend they didn't tout themselves they touted each other and they said I knew this kid would come through and I knew that kid had it in him and we're so proud of this one but they also each said I'm so proud to be a part of this community and it's just so true we had a fan bus that went up and it had students on it it had teachers on it it had senior citizens on it um and I think they were probably those those students all very respectful or we might have heard that they weren't from some
020of the adults we always hear some of the fans of the other uh of the other teams get um inappropriate and make inappropriate comments and Matt is always right there uh making sure that our kids cheer and are into it but don't get inappropriate when you go to the semifinals um Mike EPS was there Rich may have been there I didn't see him but you know certainly we are not paying him to you know Mike EPS to go up there so it's Rich was there so it's just a great Community see there you go well that's really big thank you so I think it just you know from our perspective it it just shows and I think it shows these kids as as one of the kids said our community comes out they clap loud
021and they cheer loud and I think that's thank you Angela for saying that um I will also just piggyback that um one of the uh senior adults who took the bus I saw this morning and she said to me I cannot believe what an amazing person kids uh were on that bus so respectful but had fun and were just really amazing so it does make us so proud and feel like all of them are a little bit of ours even though yours literally is yours um but it he's ours too we share them all and all of them are so appreciative whenever we come they thank us for cheering them on they're just really so thank you for saying appr okay let's have some so let's take a few moments [Music] you that's what we
022did okay moving on fing the next meeting to order budget Workshop it is 7 o'clock um well Justin's I here but Stephanie is stepping in to take attendance all right Joe abdella here Greg Cava Victoria Salem I'm here and Angela Mako Alex mcon Justin Angley is not here Jen pod here Jane Sergeant Pete Tagle Mary Weber and Christine weig okay thank you budget Workshop so we're just going to go through this I think Alex well I just know if there's anything you had to say B when we met with the Bridgewater uh finance committee uh they sort of implied this anybody reviewed these numbers and I honestly had not at the time um well yes um so I've got a couple question questions about things U both positive and question I mean I've got a
023couple things underline that uh I think looked great uh particularly The Debt Service dropping almost 30% um uh why did benefits go up 8% when salaries only went up four so that's where our medical and dental and vision insurance are budgeted and we get a renewal every year from Anthem that dictates how much a percentage they go up so our actual percentage in our Anthem policy that is still not finalized yet but they gave us at budget time 12% it was increasing the premiums so that 12% is why that category one of 8% was because of the biggest expenditure in the benefits category is your medical dental Invision and we're expecting a 12% increase and they went up 12% in one year yeah we expected it after no matter how hard I tried to make
024them give me the ceiling number two days after we presented this they say we may be looking at 19.9% yeah well and and I Nicole knows the whole time I was saying are we sure it's 12% because if you just talked to any other district there was some that went 30% yeah absolutely just I I had our agent one of the things we're doing now is working with other insurance companies to see what other kind of rates we can get from other places so the benefit offerings are puru to Union agreement so I can't change what we offer but we can change carriers um and so they're shopping it and so far we've gotten back one response which is the state partnership plan which a lot of people question us all the time why are
025we not in the state partnership plan um and we just got that offer to move to the state partnership plan back and it's a 27.5% increase if we were have for use Connecticut doctor for so it's not necessarily a Connecticut doctor but the the partnership plan actually changes also carriers so one year it maybe Anthem the next maybe Sigma um the network is smaller so with our Anthem benefits that we currently provide our employees to the anthem Network the network runs from New York to Massachusetts and those are all in network doctors there's very few doctors that don't participate with the eal program that we're in if we were to move to the partnership plan there would be a loss of some in network providers so that would be you know it be dependent person
026to person to check to see if your providers are in par participate in the partnership plan and if not you would have to change doers if we were to make that change um I don't see a reason to make the change when it's more costly because I know that um just from the from staff that I have interacted with specifically about benefits um I think that our staff values The Anthem plan um and that they have the coverage that were provided they uh people experience seamless Health Care without a lot of push back when they need you know when you need to access your healthcare plan it's usually a time of um Stress and Anxiety anyway so to not have to jump through a lot of Hoops with the services the Ean provides I think
027is value you go to 19% what will that do to this 8% number so I budgeted 12% in the in the medical there's more lines than just that in the benefits right so I did budget the 12% um we also budget uh for a couple extra um categories because we'll hire new staff and they may it may change you know a teacher May who's not on our benefits may come under our benefits a teacher who is on our benefits may come off we could hire new staff that needs a family benefit opposed to a two% benefit so until I get the final renewal from Anthem and I see who enrolls during open enrollment in May I still won't know what our benefit costs are until that point but one thing you might remember is last
028year the legislature changed our 2% fund so that you can use it for any educational expenditures not just capital reserve so for some reason I couldn't close the gap in this budget then I would ask the board to be able to dip into that bunch to close the gap but I've looked at the numbers and I um we're not going to accept the 19.9 from Anthem we're going to negotiate um so that's our worst case scenario with Anthem and and it's possible another CH will come in and offer us something better but I think that I can get Anthem down off of that 199 uh custodio went up but is that because adding another person so our custodial went up 11 a half% so we're in a new contract here with the custodians we went
029through negotiations and we made several marget rate increases um that's right remember that yep and Alex just so you know this is not just for our district here this happened the the the benefits increase is happening everywhere I know that in Danbury our paychecks or are lower because of the benefit increase and it's just so so significant everywhere um the next number I want to talk about is Staff training uh classified um it went down of 38% that is something I think that we should consider maybe spending as much as we can on I think training our staff and giving them the option is a good thing so what that line specifically is for that's not for when you think about training um a PA professional to in ha educator skills or uh providing professional
030development teachers or providing administrative staff with computer training that's not what that line is for that line is specific to a company that we Outsource uh trainings that are mandated by the state that the staff has to take online so for instance one of the trainings we take is um blood born pathogens and every year every staff member has to sign on and take a training on bloodborne pathogens so that line is specifically to fund that outside company that manages that online training for us that's the GCM U my next question is about utilities um I see electric has gone way up but propane and heating oil have gone down uh is that because we've switched our what we're how we're heating or cooling or why is that so electricity is up because electricity Market
031is up um specifically the eversource portion because we are locked into a five-year contract on the supplier side of installation um and I think that's just a Statewide reality that the electricity Market is up um the propane Market is down so we had two years ago we had under budgeted significantly for propane and last year was a correction where we correct we overcorrected so now we're bringing it back to where we're bringing usage back a little bit but the cost of propane itself as in the propane Market is much less expensive than the Year we're in so that's why there's a 27% drop that's that's great I mean I'm happy about that and the heating oil is down 4% so the heating oil we we negotiate those rates yeah in January so we already lacked
032for next year and we lacked lower for next year than we did the Year we're currently sitting in um I just on Revenue side I just have a question because I didn't quite understand on page 19 um tuition non-resident students tuition agriculture Town tuition Agriculture state um the amount by the state I know there's a footnote here that I should probably read more carefully but can you sort of explain how those numbers shift around why one has gone to zero next year and the others have increased so what the legislature did coming into the year we're sitting in the 2425 year they passed the bill right at the end of the year that we were unsure how that bill was going to come into legislation so the legislation that came when we what we knew
033when we budgeted this year they said we know we're going to get the 5,200 per student we've always gotten from the state and we think we're going to get this extra piece that the towns used to pay us so last year we broke those amounts out so we called it tuition Agri science state that was the piece of the town that the towns used to pick up and then the ASC operating Grant was the 5200 so now that we it's been in practice for a year what we have what we have realized is that the state is calling it all the as Opera EST operating Grant and they're not separating it so when the payment comes in it comes in as one payment of the 5200 plus the excess from the towns so instead of
034breaking out again now we've budgeted it all on the as as operating Grant Line okay I see okay yeah because I only have been looking at the top three lines and it looked to me like we were dropping or dropping our income radically now that I see the the full picture I see that we're going up slightly okay um in the p p pupil expenditures I noticed that we didn't have the year 2425 is there a reason for that page uh 24 we had the 2324 and then the 2526 projected there's no reason for it and then I just forgot to keep it there but I can tell you what it is okay sorry that CCH Alex you actually read this St had a wonderful week someone does have their eyes on this uh 2425
035was 9,487 so I did have it there I didn't change the year so the 29487 is the 2425 year so then 24 2324 is something different then to push them all down they all they all move up one gotcha I'm coming to a close here fix that once this becomes the board's budget I think that is it I did not go through the exhibits well I'm sorry uh that's those are my questions thank you B speak I just had a question on on page uh two it said I noticed the the increase U the town cost share increase was quite extensive for bridge what unless I just missed something what is what caused that large increase in number of students or that so so the number of students that are from Bridgewater in our region
036as of October one went up while the number from rocking Washington bullet point down okay so they now have to pick up a larger share budget now is that local or is that everybody they pull in from inside and outside the region pardon local only local only okay just was it's certainly an eye-catcher we're telling all people with kids to move to roxburry from now on right if you don't have kids you're allowed to move to Bridge Water right that all the question well I have one other question it said you have 500 560 students total I thought it was more like 580 or 90 is it 560 the number of local students from the three towns local students this year is 566 okay so it went down a little anybody else have any questions
037to bring up about budget I just want to commend you you the people that worked on this budget it's a a very good budget and uh Kudos um for coming in with these numbers and I don't know except for Bridgewater how anybody could be un the number they're getting this year yeah and Bridgewater it's it's a trade off they going to have more kids in the classroom and the Synergy among the kids will be better um so it's know either that or we have to start building more mega mansions and Bridgewater to raise our our grand list it's the nature of the Beast yep yeah for sure yeah okay so we don't have any other questions about the budget very short budget Workshop I'd like to call a motion to adjourn I think the original
038purpose for these workshops was to make sure that we didn't have other things that people had priorities on they wanted to address or discuss and I'm assuming that no one on the board has them or or they would have said something and I'm assuming that nobody um no members of the public or anyone that brought anything to the attention of the district as to things they'd like to do yeah no I appreciate I understand the point of the budget Workshop because we don't want to have those surprises at the budget meeting where then all of a sudden we change our mind which which is what we don't want to do which we don't want to do but you know you avoid it and hope for the best but I think it's a smart idea so
039I appreciate that Craig okay so can I shoot yeah do you need a microphone you need a microphone I'm just wondering how much money do we get for special ed at this point mean in federal and state gr special ed um So currently our we get two special ed grants one is known as IB e611 um this year's funding for that is $348,000 and then we get Iva 619 which is special education specific to pre and this year's funding was 13,780 um I have seen next year's priliminary numbers and they're about the same um what you do see in the news about cutting um special education specifically in the state for the bill that um just at the governor's desk which I believe he signed for $40 million that's specific to the excess cost Grant
040and we rarely get any excess cost grant funding the excess cost Grant is paid to districts whose um special education costs for a specific student is in excess of three and a half times the districts per people expenditure so in order for us to receive any excess cost cost grant funding you have to spend um about $120,000 for a student in particular before the state will come in and and fund the balance of that student so we very rarely see any funding from the excess cost Grant um last year we received $113,000 toward one student good question thank you for asking Mary all of the federal funding should disappear do you have any idea what the number would be altogether of federal F the federal funds that we get right now about 500,000 how much
041about 500,000 and that includes the special education funny we were talking about the the numbers that I gave on the idea grants those are federal grants that are passed through the state of Connecticut so though they're funded through the state of Connecticut it's federally backed money the excess cost Grant is State money the one that they're talking about in the News That's specifically State money so the federal funding that we would lose is just about all special education we get um a few extra federal grants they on page 20 if you want to look through the list but it's $500,000 thanks just ask I guess maybe piggybacking on that um are we doing any scenario planning in the event that we see Cuts in federal um no not not immediately um I think that were
042very fortunate um if you look at other District's budgets um the federal Cuts would are a much larger part of their budgets um we could close the gap on $500,000 in a various ways um and then we would plan for the following year differently but if it were pulled out from under us we could close the G fairly easily for instance the 2% educational expenditures fund that we currently have has over 5 $100,000 in it um and we also have capital reserve funds some of the beauty of the capital reserve fund is that and and the reason we continue to plan Capital expenditures in our regular budget so if we plan Capital expenditures in our regular budget this year it's 272,000 and for some reason um we came up short because a source of funding
043were to dry up or um be taken away we can shift those Capital expenditures that are in our budget to one of our capital reserve funds so I could come to the board and say I want to take these out of operting budget I want to fund them with these capital reserve funds that still gets the Capital Improvements done but that also opens up $172,000 in our operating budget to cover whatever shortfalls come so that's why um if you go back a few years when I first got here um one of my priorities was to make sure that we had good balances in our capital reserve funds um and that's something that I stressed that I asked that board to help build up so we do have a good Reserve balance and that's what protects
044us that's what be if we didn't have those Reserve funds I don't know that we could bring in a 2.44% budget because I need to build in more contingency than we have but those capital reserve funds that we've been able to build up that is our contingency it's also why a few years back on our different superintendent the capital uh improvements in the budget were cut way back to $90,000 and that was a decision I didn't agree with that only gave me $90,000 worth of legal room so I do like to carry Capital facilities in a budget so that we have that contingency should we need it really maybe I was just saying that maybe something that Bridgewater and Roxbury should do right and I say that why we are not yeah but can they
045so when you receive a check right which sometimes you do can you put that somewhere in an account and use that in case you get hit the following year yeah or if they get hit with by the district because you have extra students that wouldn't work yep yeah no I understand that yeah okay thank you any other questions all really good questions tonight so thank you motion to adjourn second thank you