001I'd like to start this meeting of the Region 15 Board of Education. Um I'll call to order for Monday, April 27th. Will you please stand 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 Welcome everyone, and thank you for being here tonight. The mission of Region 15, a collaborative community committed to excellence, is to educate every student to be productive, ethical, and engaged in the global society through proven and innovative learning experiences supported by a strong community whose decision-making is based on the best interests of all students. We'll start with our student representatives, Ms. Victoria Zatlow and Ms. Liza Murphy. Let's start with Avalon ES. Aubrey made a pine
002needle braiding a symbol of kindness and strength for culture and pride. And then, um for Autism Awareness Month, they uh the school had read-aloud sessions next week about inclusion and and understanding student body. And for Elm ES, the kindergarten information welcome incoming families and helps students transition. So, at Pembroke Elementary School, the fifth graders students enjoyed a meaningful, um field trip to the Catherine Violet Animal Sanctuary, and they also hosted their kindergarten information night, um for incoming families, and that was very exciting. And here at Pembroke High School, we are in the midst of our school spirit week, and we love to see everyone participating in the fun themes we have. And since nearing the end of the school year, we're hosting our spring pep rally, and we are looking forward to seeing all the
003classes come together um as a school body and participating in the various activities we have selected. Um and the most anticipated one, pie in the teacher. What's like a part of that? Pie in the teacher, can you explain more about that one? Yes. So, there's going to be um four students from each class and selected by the class presidents, and they're going to go through a relay race, and then the last person in the line gets to pie um the selected teacher for that represented grade. And then whoever pies the teachers first get to pie Dr. Durham and Officer Mercurio as like the big final prize. Fair enough. That's an incentive. I have one question. What are the themes for the week? So, starting from today Yes. So, today we had pajama day. Tomorrow we
004have fancy flamingo, which is kids around the school can find um these little like flamingo um toys and then bring them to the office to receive a prize. Uh that could be like a gift card or candy. And then we have white lies, camo versus tie-dye day on Thursday, and then Friday our pep rally. Um classes have to wear their color, so all wear their corresponding colors. And then seniors wear, you know, distinction uh colleges or Well, and get to All right, thank you very much for watching. Uh next we have uh student recognition of merit. I'd like to uh permit Well, um a special treat tonight. So, you're going to meet some of our work pool players, and you'll recognize their name cuz they were weak. Oh. And luckily Well, he's been weak for
005a week. My name is next year somebody else had a chance. So, it's hard to do the hat trick. I'm going to invite you to start talking a little bit about the football and we'll have them announce and invite our students up. So, yeah. We're very excited that the second year in a row that we won the football, but this is a different group. Last year it was the Yeah. Yeah. So, this is all right. But, it's very exciting here. I thought it was the week of No, it's all the three of you. Oh, I thought it was the same team. No. of us are there. We have We have a new team, but yeah. Third time in 5 years, I think. Yes. Eight practices inside. So, we're we're very proud of our Besty Book
006Brunch. Good. I know. I so First, do you want to stand? Unfortunately, I let Demi coach tonight, but we've got Ashley and Dealmore, Charlotte and Penny there. Do you want to stand? Unfortunately, I let Demi coach tonight. Okay. Um so, Besty Book Brunch read 10 out of four winning books and they were read books and they had to identify the book and the box. So, good job. Really nice costume. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Well, it was but it's always good. Thank you all. Congratulations. >> You can you guys can leave. You don't have to stay for this. We're really in exciting meetings, but All right, next may I have a motion for approval of the minutes of April 6th, 2026 regular meeting minutes? Thank you, Heather. Second. Seconded by Ashleigh. Any questions or comments? All those
007in favor? Aye. Carries. Um next um item on the agenda is the um Southbury strategic plan. Um I was contacted by um our Southbury Board of Selectmen member, Hal Sullivan, that the town of Southbury is asking each board um to share two topics that we believe should be considered for inclusion in the Southbury strategic plan. Um these These issues are opportunities with meaningful impact on the community. Examples um could include unmet or emerging needs of Southbury residents, anticipated impacts of new state laws or federal laws um concerning trends that could affect services or quality of life, um opportunities such as grants or partnerships that could expand some programs or facility infrastructure or capital needs to improve service delivery. Um I thought I would present it to the board to get um your feedback on what,
008if anything, that you would like us to respond regarding the Southbury strategic plan. They're just asking for like one or two sentences. I think that's a fair point because the two new schools will be in Southbury. What about the varying deep impact of adding multiple additional housing locations, what that would do to the school population? Cuz you could build two new schools, build a few other things that aren't here to crowd. From a strategic lens, how are we doing? So, I'm just lost. Good point cuz they are apartments. Make sure you have possibly additional housing over the small It's not like our school has a ton of extra space. And we were talking about it the whole time. They put 100 units uh place up and all of a sudden MES and MMS are even
009more crowded and more on more portables. So, we have to think about that long term. Not that I'm saying you should or shouldn't, that just needs to be considered. That's the same area you just talked about. Yeah, that's what we've heard from the community that there's a reliance on the high school fields. So, that it would be nice to have the town to be partners in that as opposed to just relying on to kind of provide us with facilities. Right. So, you're you're talking about the community request for a second turf field. We would like chefs from each town. Yeah. You can verify the seven figures. Yeah. Let's get this field built. Maybe not even just that, but just in general, a community need for athletic Yes. in general and space. Um Well, we need
010space. One of the things that makes the high school field so in demand is there's a real turf fields in town. Right, lit fields. We have a community house, but the lighting is inadequate. right and they're looking at their in South like you have community but there's only facilities there but as you have kids to go to the basketball kids to play tennis kids to play you know, baseball, softball up top and you have soccer and uh football on that bottom field all dirt, all gets destroyed, but there's no facilities there's no lighting and there's utilize like the restrooms at community pickleball yeah, there's not a I think there's not at community center Valentine community house has all of those facilities there no bathrooms, they have three porta-potties that are disgusting if Valentine's is one
011porta-potty yeah, and they're usually full up they have a building, that's always nice, yeah but so I think the message is we would love to be partners, but bear the entire load right well, I think they're like the I've heard the PTO school at the high school that second turf field is not enough that they want the towns also to have you know, additional fields, like it's just not enough fields for all this stuff that's going on I think that's how I think that's how they added the fourth field today today because there weren't enough recreational spaces for sports and sports in general so maybe they have to take a look at that again. Were you going to talk about I mean, it's actually even for people to walk, right? Because it's not just about
012our children, it's about our seniors and members of the community, right? There should be walking trails where you would take your dog. I mean, right? Like at South Berry, they have the space and it's like no dogs are allowed. Right? So, like what like at some of these places, why are there not walking trails on the outside for all members of the community to enjoy, right? This is This is about youth sports, but it's also about like what do we have for all of our citizens? I see all the time on all the Facebook groups about people wanting to use the track, right? But that's taken by all the sports that happen here and that field is probably the most utilized field in the space. If there was a walking track or trail for people
013of South Berry to utilize, that would be a walking track. >> a walking track. It was put in kind of to kind of Yeah, there's a walking track at Ewald's and the Dogs allowed? I don't think dogs are allowed. It starts to try Settlers, too. Yeah, no. Middlebury Middlebury allows dogs at But in South End Veterans Park, it's They don't allow dogs at Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But everyone's like a dog owner. We do have a dog park. I would never take my dog My cats. My cats. All right, these are good suggestions. Anyone want to go ahead, Heather? Um I just another thing that I hear running late is the need for teens a lot of um teens attending, you know, gather on uh the property The plaza. Plaza. Plaza. There you go. Which
014one? Um On the other Um But it's topic that comes up running. I would like to see a community space where you can invite the older generations and the younger generations to come together and kind of bridge that gap as well. This is fun. We certainly have a certain else want to I will take these suggestions and I will put them in an email to Polly and just let's see. Just so that I'm not giving the person incorrect information. Dogs are allowed at Settlers on the trail if they're on a leash. Okay. Just so we all know. Yeah, it's on their website, town website. Just on the trail, but walk on nature trail. Thank you everyone. I will get this um I'll just a brief report back to uh Polly and first select so thank
015you. Next we have information and proposals finding facilities by Shana Zabala. We met this evening Monday April 27th at 6:30. Fairly short agenda, but we just discussed no no action occurred this evening, but we discussed some future items that we'll be talking about including food service mention breakfast prices, the Palm Brook High School HVAC system getting quotes on science labs and then where we are in the summer project situation. We're kind of in a wait and follow to see where we land over the next month where we can make some decisions about doing some much needed repair. Any questions for Right, next we have a PDS GS building update by Superintendent Phil. So um just want to tell you the tech talk was. So, I just put together a brief overview of kind of some
016of the things happening and what we talk a lot about what education specs are and that's something that we have to submit uh to uh when we move with our application uh and our friends at Tech Talk put together a more comprehensive uh presentation for you tonight with some nice graphics that I did. Uh A lot of this obviously is uh kind of redundant information, but I don't want to get over communicate. So, just kind of a map where the schools are and the ages, um the existing buildings. Some of these uh will show up in our our grant application to the state. Um some of the topography. Uh these are the signs that many of you've seen before. The kind of the piecemeal nature of um the DES um and the different sections. Uh
017In case we get questions in the next week or two about renovate and new, uh remember that some of these sections were built uh in the '60s and renovate to new becomes a much more challenging piece. Uh Our Greenfield site uh as it exists today. Uh the sections of when the original building was as well as the additions over time. Uh Sorry. In 1941 was an actual school there? What? Yeah, this section, the blue section here is the 1941 school. That was South Park Consolidated. See if I can work Um all of that was some background put in here, but these are um the slides that I wanted to focus on a little bit because this is where we are starting. Um education look like like probably when uh Hand Field was built. Uh So,
018these are some of the things that came about both from our meetings with the schools and the towns as well as uh the work that Tech Town and research uh and Bear Field has uh uncovered that will inform some of those educational specs that uh are going to be generated. The idea that we do a lot in our buildings in addition to teaching reading, writing, and math that our spaces should reflect that. Uh here's the piece that uh I wanted to focus on a little bit. So, uh we had some of these kickoff meetings already. Um some of the visioning happened uh when we started down this path last fall. Um some of those workshops uh we will continue to have some of this over the next 6 weeks. Uh this document has been shared
019uh with the building committee. Uh this is the work where we started looking at what space do we need for a school of primary our students for the pre-K-5, all the square feet, um all the detailed pieces. These again will inform those Ed Specs that will be part of that grant application. Uh Here's kind of how that breaks out as far as your your areas. Uh and then this is what Ed Specs will contain. Now, the Ed Specs are not um detailed from a what type of furniture, what kind of uh elements will go into the construction building, but kind of an overall, this is what the building is going to do, this is what the rationale for it is, These are the educational spaces. Some of them will have options like we will build
020either this space or that space. But they will have kind of this overall comprehensive you can take things out once the state approves the grant but you can't add things in. So you do tend to build kind of the overall idea and then we'll continue to refine. There's no design work in this. This is all just what it's going to do and what it's going to include. And then the design of the schools and those spaces will take place over that year while we're waiting for the state to approve the grant project. All of that was really the builder here. So we kind of wanted to give you a little bit of an update of what the ed specs are and they're being worked on now. Our goal is to start to circulate some drafts
021to the schools, to some teacher representatives, administrators, Dr. and members in her office. Uh Then to come back to the board to give you some pre-read of what that looks like. It's a pretty thick comprehensive document. Uh we'll do a high-level summary. Right now we anticipate that will happen on the 11th May and then you'll come down to uh the 26th of May would be our goal to get the ed specs in front of you for approval because what we really need for the grant application are the minutes from the meeting that you approved. So there's a two-step process and that if we can hit that 6/8 um or at least gear for that, gear up for that, we do get a little bit of margin of error in that we have to have those
022minutes approved before we get the submission date. We really don't want to do it on June 28th. We'd like to be a little before the June 30th deadline. Uh but that's the timeline that we're working on. Yeah. Um Can we approve the minutes before that? Just a phone thing. We could set a special meeting if we needed to. We could approve the minutes. Um thank you um for for putting this together. Um I know you've been um stressing about what the next couple months are going to look like because we can't look into a crystal ball. Um but I can I know what you're going to ask this question. What happens if the school construction project referendum fails? Do we still do this? Yes. Okay. Why? So the short answer is uh we are going
023to gear and plan submitted application by June 30th of this year. That does two things. It puts us uh in the hopper for state approval next grant next legislative cycle. Uh it also solidifies our application and any undercurrent existing legislation. So any legislative changes take place take place starting July 1. Um those don't apply to this application. We then have a year we actually have a little less than a year before the session starts uh to make a decision on whether or not we're going to try another referendum and and run a school project or change the school project or change the scope. We have options. Sending this application in preserves our options. If we don't send it in then it means that we are we still have options to go build a school but
024you start the process all over. And any legislation that starts July 1 uh applies to the next. And so we are worried about some of the potential legislative changes as it applies to our grant application and some of the square footage uh and whether or not the the preschool language I believe will remain. I don't think there's no talk about stripping that but some of the other language around square feet and reimbursement uh and maybe capping some of that square footage uh is potentially in place for We won't know that until May 6th and the legislative legislative session ends. But, by submitting the grant application, we we don't have to do anything. You could say, you know what, we don't want to. But, by submitting it preserves all the options for Thank you. That's good.
025So, um as you say a different meeting that uh in order to get the reimbursements like the state doesn't guarantee the reimbursement first. You have to submit everything to get the reimbursement including the fact that the referendum is has passed. So, how does the passing of the referendum tie into the application to actually get your money? Like I'm So, I believe that we could actually submit and put in our next referendum date. They will not review your application without a approved referendum. The community is going through their process. The community is not going to approve it and the state's not going to back it up, right? Like they're not going to do something that the community's not going to do. But, there are opportunities to say that we're submitting the grant now. Our expected referendum
026date is X in the future and as long as before the legislative session begins, that referendum is passed. Then, I'm just going to go. So, we're just going to keep pushing to pass it. I would say that is going to be the board's decision. You know, my I'm I'm optimistic Do you think we look like we gave up? that we're going to pass on May 6th, but that will be, you know, should we not prevail, that will be a conversation that will come back to the board. But, submitting the application preserves your ability to have that conversation and that's going to work for Hold on. Let me say your name. John, then Heather and then both go to you. So, I'm all for submitting the for this project. But, if I'm thinking about worst-case scenario
027for the referendum does not pass, if we use that application to have another referendum, is there Is everything the same like two schools, the square footage, these aspects for if the community says, "No, we're not doing this project." Uh is there Should we wish to take Is there Would we be able to make it a smaller project in the hopes of getting it passed? My response to you would be we should begin that conversation on May 7th if it's relevant. Okay. One more time. I I remember I question on schools and one on the budget. One One new school and one on the budget. So, there's no two different ones on the This is all to give you guys a heads-up that we're going to have a lot of reading to do in May either
028way. Whether the referendum or not, we're still going to do this and hopefully turn it around in a couple Will that be at any of those meetings? They could be at any of the ones that My intention would be to have them at 5:00 and 11:00 meetings. Um and maybe the 4:00 and 6:00, but uh we can decide based on And you'll get a pre-read of of document. Um and a high-level Again, these are high-level specs. They're going big picture uh some of the design of the board doesn't need to get the details on some of this. Uh and at this point when you look we're going to have to authorize a building committee. So the board's going to take a motion that authorizes the creation of a Building committee is going to go do
029a lot of that detail work. We do not have to make motion of who's on them. Except that make motion to create. Uh and the same thing with schematic design. We have to make get schematic design uh and we have to authorize me to submit the grant. Those are the three things that we have to do. They don't have to be in two places but you need the minutes so whatever we do I need to submit the minutes the approved minutes. You'll remember the approved minutes from this meeting will be uh the meeting minutes from tonight won't be approved until the next meeting. So it's really that approved document that we need to submit as part of the grant. It's a two-step uh but we need those three those are the three motions. That's truly
030the work that you have to do. Uh and how much detail you want and if that's nice just getting you thinking about it so that if people want to have like schematic design if you want to have a long meeting and a lot of detail again if you want a short meeting or if you want to have general questions like we can we can move in a few directions and I think that's what I would have to take out of here. That's true. All right. Any other questions? Okay, we can move on. Um next we have board board member comments. Any comments that go along with Question. Thanks for that. But uh board members received two invitations this week. One for field day and one for top 10 breakfast. I don't think we've ever been
031invited to these things so share a little Yeah, share our thoughts. Field day is the unified day, right? So, uh oh, thanks for the question. So, uh the first time in the history of Region 15, we're hosting a unified field day. Uh our unified program is to uh incorporate students that many times have mobility issues or other types of challenges they face. Often, uh our field days, sometimes those students feel left out, you know, we work really hard to some schools. Uh We've also worked hard to have students see themselves in our schools. So, there's a few high schools in the state that we model our program after, uh but it's still unique and we are going to bring students from all across the district up to the high school. Uh It's really challenging cuz
032they're all on different start and end times, so we get a small window uh and have a comprehensive field day at high school all or as many of our unified students as we can accommodate. Um so, we're really proud of the work that's been happening of late too and want to celebrate that and um want to come and see some of the culmination of a lot of people spending a lot of years that really invested in this. Um our PE department is really progressive. They're really um invested in students and took this on as a as a project that they thought was really important. So, uh you know, you know, hope to make it. Again, we have we're limited. I think it's 12 to 12. Uh we're going to host the TA High School in
033the gym. Make sure that May 15th. And then the other piece, so every year, you know, I don't know when we started this, but uh at least for the last seven or eight years, we do a top 10 breakfast. So, we bring together the top 10 academic students of the graduating class. We ask each of those students to identify an adult um on their journey to being a senior at Conard High School that they wanted to recognize. They do a little write a speech. It doesn't have to be that long, but it explains why they invited this person to the breakfast and how they helped them navigate high school or inspired them. It could be a lot of different avenues for why they chose that person. We'd like to recognize the accomplishments of our students
034but also the adults in this district that were part of that journey and have helped them. Last year we got to hear what our students had to say. It's a pretty special morning. Lots of tears usually, pride, and work of our students. And one of the things that we talked about before about what makes a district successful and how you measure success. There's a lot that happens that morning that's contained. We talked about life-changing events or relationships and and the path of the students that arguably are among the most academically successful in our class and how their journey after high school. We just thought it was something that more people should have witnessed to. As people that kind of shepherd a lot of the work that happens in the district, don't know that those have
035that weight as what happens in the life of our students. So if you can make it, they usually put on a pretty good spread as well. But it's it's a it's a good hour or so worthwhile if you can. So this one is the same day? No. Top 10 might be the one I want to say. It's the 8th of May. It's the 8th of May. 8th of June, you said? June. Sorry. Sorry. Uh Are elementary students doing that breakfast? Um I don't think we're geared for that this year, but that might be part of the future piece. Our our catering is uh Getting impressive. is yeah, on that trajectory. Yeah, I don't know if we're there at that point yet. Yeah, the board members coming. Um I've got two comments. Um one, I would
036like to thank um Superintendent Smith and Mr. Martino um for attending an event at Heritage Village last week. Um we were invited by the Heritage Village Association to come and talk about our budget and the school construction and they also invited um First Selectman Tim O'Neil. Uh and got to go first. And uh you know Josh did a presentation. Um it was a packed room. It was you know probably about 80 people which was fantastic. Um and I think um and Heather Rogers and Steve Serino were also there in attendance um as well as Evan the reporter. Um and I you know so it was a really interesting night I thought. Um our budgets were our budget and our project were very well received. They asked some very good questions. Um so I thought it
037was a really great night. Um very much appreciate that you know Josh and Joe going out there to to talk about that. Um the other thing I wanted to talk about is that I've been um uh and um uh I was picked to participate in a committee. Um CABE and CAPSS have hired um Richard Lemmon. And you recall that name who this guy is supposed to our um retreat. Um our professional development which he will still be hopefully doing in the summer but um so they hired him to help do a white paper on doing superintendent evaluations. Um and I've been chosen to pick uh I'm beyond this committee with other um board chairs and other superintendents and try to work out you know, a a good format for boards to use moving forward. We're
038hoping to have something in place for next year. I don't know if that's going to happen. Everyone's all over the place. It's amazing to me how people different boards do things so differently. Some don't even do evaluations. Um it's just uh made me again very grateful to be here in Region 15. Um we have a great board. Um we have I think I've done a lot of good work and I'm really excited to be on this committee and hopefully, you know, we'll be able to come up with something and to move forward and there's a survey is going out to all superintendents throughout the whole state and all board chairs. Um if you would like me to report anything on that survey, which is just generally like what do you do, how do you like
039it, what areas for improvement, I'm always happy to listen and report that back. Um in that survey, so. Is the goal purely advisory or is the goal legislative? It's purely advisory. They currently have like APAS a white paper on superintendent evaluations and it's just not practical. It's just too too casey. Maybe, I don't know. I'm excited about this Richard Lemons guy. He's very impressive. Um and I'm excited about what he might be able to do um to kind of herd all the cats together, so. Um and Josh and I have been talking about having him come for a retreat one evening in the summer, so stay tuned for Great. Are there any more Are there any more road shows planned on the school uh Alamo Heights Yeah, that's it. You know, so thank you for
040asking that question. We have not received any other invitations. Um we did um Sally was invited to come to the Southbury Democrat uh Town Committee. Um she asked me to come, so we came and talked to we went and talked to them. Um we also spoke to the Southbury Republican Town Committee. Um we spoke to the Southbury Board of Finance. We spoke to the Heritage Village Association. Democrat general Yeah. Oh, and you did and you went to the Heritage Village and I I went to the Heritage Village Republican Committee one month, then you went another month. They just couldn't get enough of us. Um and as far as I know, there's no other invitations. We've We've been happy to go anywhere that we've been asked. Something more not Republican group or Democrat group before. Town
041She loves this stuff. Invite her. I think Southbury I'm back. We've been in one of the nice clubs. I don't think they want us. Yeah. No, and any group that asked us, we went. So, I I do appreciate that Heritage Village asked us. That was not a partisan Um It was a It was a nice crowd, too. Any other comments? Okay. Uh next, we have comments from citizens. The Board of Education will recognize citizens from Middlebury and Southbury, and citizens are asked to state their name, their town of residence, and to limit their comments to 3 minutes. No? Um All right, next, we have regular business requiring Board action. May I have a motion for approval of the international field trip to Italy? Move that the Board of Education approve an international field trip to
042Italy January 9th, 2017 to July 8th, 2027 per Board Policy 61. Second. Second, Shannon. Okay, Josh, can you talk about the or Carrie is You probably talk about all Yeah. Okay. If that If that makes sense. Okay. We did get some questions over the weekend, too, so in front of you you have some of this history of where we've gone. Um and I think we also put in there some of the chaperone Yeah. Yep. Yep. So, everybody got a copy of that today. Yep. The good stuff. The dates The dates of the trip, which trips you've gone on since um right after COVID and then from there chaperone or But in front of you are pre-proposed field trips for the summer of 2027. It's a It's a little unique to us to put three in
043front of you. We We've usually done two. Um but you'll notice on top of them they're they have priority one listed on two of them and then priority two listed on the third. And so, the reason that we did that is that first priority one, the trip to Italy, um while these are like uh enrichment opportunities, that one to Italy really is like an extension of like our Italian class. So, if if kids want more exposure to Italy, like they can they can apply to go on this. That also means that kids that don't take Italian have the opportunity to go, too, but um we listed that as a priority one cuz it is um connected to our curriculum. That other priority one uh field trip is listed there because students keep asking for that
044trip and so, it's been a few years that they're like, "You know, can we have one that goes to Australia and New Zealand?" So, we put that as a another priority one. If those two get filled up and there actually is um quite uh uh opportunity that those will get filled because we have a lot of students asking for international opportunities. That's where that um priority two uh field trip came in. So, the way that that priority two field trip would run is if the other two get filled up, which there is probably a possibility that they will get filled. And so, we thought then to be able to provide all of the kids that keep asking for um a summer experience that we would bring three forward to you um to be um approved.
045And again, first you would have to fill out first for that third party to even apply. And I can answer some of the questions that were proposed. So some of the questions were about like behaviors, their behavior policy. And so in speaking to the chaperones, whatever behaviors we have identified as like positive or negative in our current field trips are ones that still go forward into the international trip. So anything that is acceptable behavior, you know, when we take kids on field trips are acceptable behaviors there. Things that weren't acceptable for our field trips aren't acceptable there. Parents and students are given you know a contract that are signed that say you know, these are the behaviors that are expected. You know, you're listening to your chaperone or you're listening to the EF tour guide
046that follows the group around the entire time that they're abroad. And if anything happens that contract is broken and a student has to go home for any reason because of behavior or because they get sick or something happens in that contract that parent sign. It does say that it's the parent's responsibility financially to to get the student home. If something happens an adult brings that student to the airport, make sure they get they get on the airplane so they'll be able to fly back here. So that is something that is going over at the meetings that are have had that they have. It's something that both the student and the and the parent and or the guardian sign. With regards to training, EF has a really good training program for their guides. And so when
047you look on these proposals, the main leader has been already has already either gone on the trips and has been trained. So there are there are training videos that they go through to be able to do these trips. Okay. Do they take insurance if somebody gets sick? Yeah. Yeah, we make they have to take insurance. Yeah. Do they know that this winter in Australia is coming? I know, I hope they do. I We made that mistake when I took kids there. Yes, it was a little chilly. Hello. Gosh, are we all set with the policy of not upsetting people being chaperones? Um so, the the difference um is those are school trips. >> Okay. Um these are school adjacent trips. >> Okay. So, while these run through EF Tours, they do not run like directly.
048So, like um like the Washington D.C. trip with the Oh, the Quebec Yeah, those are the ones that The Quebec trip, those are run by us. Um so, that's where like Okay, so we have no liability. This is during the summer, you're on your own. You follow the rules of EF. Um yeah. Okay. So, cuz I with EF, as it's changed, I know I believe that insurance something like yeah, obviously got to break a leg, you know, that's just you and I guess there was some compensation which you can't get. I'm assuming that's one part of the insurance. The other part might be um like with COVID, I know cuz we had the insurance and the insurance was like, well, we'll apply the money to like another trip. Like you could you could you could
049push it out. Um to the point where like my daughter could have gone like in college because it just no one went anywhere for a couple of years. So, do you know do you know if the insurance covers that still? I'm wondering. Matt, you got money I just want to make sure parents understand. You said there's a meeting. You know if the kid gets sick, if the kid has to come. Do they know if something globally goes down, this could get pushed out. And lastly, like if for some reason the trip is canceled and there is no compensation that we are not responsible to compensate them. Yeah, I think well all that's going to work in the the parent meetings where they talk about like if if EF cancels as opposed to like if a
050parent cancels. Like there was there was two different things. Um and so like if EF cancels like they might like say like I guess it's up to the group to determine do you want to push that off a year or is it is it refundable where if something like internationally drastic is happening like everything's canceled and that's a different scenario. And I It's a very short meeting so I want to keep it short and I just want to just when we approve we're approving we're approving the trip, right? So we're approving what are we we're approving The three, yeah. We're approving We we just approved the field trip. Um I don't want to keep this like ever but in theory like you could I don't know if I like that that we're not um we
051still reserve that right. Like I don't I would never want to do that. I'm just saying technically cuz we had a problem with that in the past and technically that's still still like this could be in theory could be rescinded although I don't would never want to do that. But in theory. I think that yes, the only thing I continued that there's there's two tiers of field trips, right? So these are definitely adjacent ones. Yes. Other cities that are like Washington Um and this one again what your approval of this trip means is that our teachers can use this as email addresses that we can that we can have meetings on site that we can kind of talk about this in schools. It's is by the district. This is not a recreation trip. So, um
052I think that you know, should we want to make decisions, you also have some covering this and that. This is being run by an outside organization outside of kind of the confines This happened in the summer. It's not during the school year. Um these are necessarily While there might be some teachers that go on these trips, it's all volunteer. Uh I guess technically teachers are volunteer when they go to DC, but it's sep- separate than that. We're not running it. We're not organizing it. It's run and organized by the app. So, the short answer is yes. The longer answer is yes, and you have kind of some additional statistics. Thank you for and thank you for explaining the the nuance of sort of before and and what it is now. So, I appreciate that. I
053I come back to you later. Thank you. Let's dive into that just a little bit more because that was my first thought in seeing this. It's like what is our this level, you know, with something like this? Like what would we be held liable Or are you saying this is completely like love when I you know, we don't bear any responsibility on what happens on this trip, or is there still a standard of care that we're responsible? So, is it sponsored by the school or our teachers? >> Yeah, I would say like there's maybe more more of the standard of care, for example, that we acknowledge that these are our students and that for the most part the trips are organized by our teachers. Uh and so, there is kind of a a standard of
054care in that uh you know, what some other districts might do is make this open to anybody in the area. And the chaperones could be anybody in the area. Like we kind of keep this as a as a school-based community. So, there's a lot of overlap. Um and why we're even here is that at one point in the past, the district said we want to have zero connection. That also meant that our teachers couldn't use their district email. They couldn't have meetings on the site. And so, there was this kind of weird piece where like looks like it got blocked like that blocked like that. So, we wanted to make that transparent and say like we approve of these. But when it comes to kind of the liability piece, we wouldn't necessarily grant uh but
055it's not our trip, right? I mean, there is this unlike some of the other trips that are more direct Correct, New York. Yeah. This has kind of some um assumed distance in it, uh but we're choosing to to make it connected because we do want like we we want to encourage our teachers like take our Italian students. Again, we can't just send them to our trip. You know, uh Paris is a whole different conversation that maybe we're going to revisit as a potential like high school French trip now that we have the French trip. But that would be in this school year. We're trying to make this very clear that if it happens between September and June, that is kind of the ownership. And ownership is tight. And if it happened in June to August,
056the June ownership is more secondary or tertiary in that uh direct oversight where the ones that happen in September and June are primary. Well, so practically speaking, we're disciplined by Discipline falls under the guidance of the EF Tours. Okay. So, we're not responsible for So, like a very practical question might be the drinking age in all these countries is 18. Not if you're on a trip. >> No. Yeah. According to According to the EF Tours and my trip. >> I know that. We're on the same >> Well, that's what I'm asking. So, if one of our students goes out and has a drink, it's in it's in the uh Yes, they sign for. They get sent home. Yeah. You can buy it. Yeah. And and that's the high school bears no responsibility Right. if our
057students That's not our code they're breaking. That's SEF's code of conduct. Yes. How can the parents break? Yeah, yeah. I mean, like right Well, Can the guy drink? I don't think they're going to They're They're not. I'm not worried about the chef. Yeah. Not with Not with the kids there. Not Not with the kids are in their They have to be in their rooms by a certain time. And They're not saying they're like drinking in front of the kids. I get I get what I'm headed since here. Uh I think it's a wonderful opportunity. I think offering this number of trips puts us in like the top 5% of schools in the state giving these opportunities to kids. I don't think there's many high schools doing free summer trips to Spain. Um but if we
058are going to start scaling up this this partnership, that sounds like these are exclusive to SEF, but we want to create a framework where others might be involved. I think we want to revisit policy and maybe tighten some of that code. It's like, the policy right now only really talks about getting submissions in. But like if there's a code of conduct, does this board want to support Like someone's got to sign a code of conduct somewhere, right? Are we completely comfortable that it's not ours if we're sponsoring this? So at least with these, the way we put that in is it provides distance. If the discipline code student the company and the parents A, parents sign up for and parents Like in some ways provides us additional space to say you can don't have much
059to do with You as parent agreed send your child on this trip. You and your child will sign this contract. Um we We've read it once and twice. If the child is violating the contract, the child's flying home and you're paying for this. You know, that's how it works, you know? And And that's kind of cut and dry. So um it makes And And if anything, that supersedes us any Yeah, so now I think your question is if you started to look at procedures that move outside of the specific core company, that might be different. So far, that's not something that we've explored or kind of are interested, mostly because experience and that is to the company. Even the third one isn't something that we've been that comfortable. We were starting to look at two.
060Uh I think last summer we kind of ran into this, an overwhelming demand. And so, what do you say if you have 40 students? So, one of the challenges with these trips is they fill up like an hour and a half. I remember we started I couldn't get to Penn towards straight, right? We thought that you'd be lucky to run this. And it was like standing room only. And we're in a position of telling students and families don't have an option. So, we started to like Like again, I don't know if we have seven. You know, but like do we start to at least put one in the hopper to say, you know, for families and students what is expected of some of these trips are? For a family that wants their child to have
061an international experience, this is far more accessible than taking like a whole family to to Australia. I mean, like that's a that's a pretty huge We We talk about creating global citizens. You talk about perspective. It's hard for us to recreate the same perspective as it is travel and experience global citizenship. You know, if this is a way to provide accessibility to families, students, uh you know, from a from a district's standpoint, there's no elective There's no There's no cost. There's no impact on the taxpayer. Uh And we've been able to provide some pretty amazing experiences that might change and then a lot of you know, our own students will change their majors and travel to some of these countries uh as college students. So, you know, I I I think that you we try
062and continue to look for ways to insulate, make sure there's Again, there's no impact on the district. In the summer, you know, I don't I don't sleep at night when we have students like, you know, on a bus to to go back from DC and we want to make sure everybody gets there okay and you know, here, like while, you know, we pay attention to it, it's like, have a good trip and tell us about it when you get back, you know, because they're not necessarily if the logistics go sideways, there'll be problems. You know, like Frankfurt Airport has a problem, like EF figures that out. here, so there is kind of that distance on these trips. How many kids going on these trips? It depends. Somewhere like 30 to 40, yeah. Somewhere around here.
063Like yeah. Japan, they ended up doubling it so many kids wanted to go. They It's like they can't get in. Shouldn't have like two separate Yes. Like separate for this. >> Yeah. How do you determine priority? Student or priority trip? It is students. Like if there are more students. I think they just sign up, so there's like a QR code. First come, first served. So it's not first come Yeah, there's a switch counter. I don't understand. They're they're already in the Fire drill. That's first thing to go. Yes. I think that I think these trips are fantastic. Um and you know, Mr. Belvedere, if you're listening, I'm happy to be a chaperone for the culinary part of all of that going to Italy. I think it's fabulous. I think it's such a wonderful opportunity um
064for kids that want to go and so grateful that teachers are willing to take them. Oh, I'm sorry. Whoever was talking. Um No, I think one of the things checking is that they're all very big trips and I and I wonder if that's the that reason that we're not looking at spring break. So we if you look at the list of previous trips, we did try and do them sometimes for our spring break. was uh the time, right? So, when spring break is only 5 days, but you have the weekends in there, sometimes these trips are 10 days or longer, or they're coming back late at night before they had to come to school the next day. If there was a delay, then they weren't able to be in school, so then the kids aren't
065in school, the teachers aren't in school. So, one of the things we talked about was to kind of like alleviate like all of that pressure to be back within that time frame of spring break to to push these to the summer where if your flight is delayed, it's okay because it's summer vacation. So, we moved these to the summer. That further establishes that demarcation between routine trips happens between September and June, and students selected out of school adjacent trips happen in June. We do think, you know, like Costa Rica trips, Greenland National Parks trip. We we are very conscious. I mean, I took part in I probably went around the world on that Australia, New Zealand trip a couple of times. Uh and that could have been more. We kind of worked out some of
066the pricing. Uh we do need Again, our goal is to get students back in and offer opportunities. We recognize that we need to respect the opportunities, and that that opportunity costs aren't $1,000. That's that's a heavy lift, you know? And so, are there things that we can do for like that Costa Rica trip I think it was like $2,000 or something. You know, something that's more more accessible. You know, at least try to offer like small opportunities that's also closer and shorter. You know, like we got a flight. Like these are pretty flight intensive stuff, you know? You don't want to be in an airplane for 7 hours. >> It's 7 hours. You know, yeah. Australia It's 5 hours. Yeah. Um and you know, not on a Concorde flight, correct? So, you know, um I
067think some of these uh opportunities for these different types of students like we're going to talk about the Galapagos Islands trip tomorrow. It's also pretty, you know, like empty in areas. So, that national power forward is pretty cool to think. So, we'll think as we move forward how do we balance some of that. Yeah. This is near and a half down the road, but just saw that news today they were saying on how the airlines are starting to charge more because of the gas. Are these prices set or can they go up? I think as as soon as we open it up, we can we can lock it and kids can start paying towards that. Um, because they can do like a payment plan. So, yeah, that's why they were saying uh the group was
068saying if for the future when they want to submit international trips, can we submit them sooner than the spring? So, if they have the the if they have everything by like January, they submit it to the board in January so they can picture that prices are locked in earlier. Any other questions? All right, so we have a motion on the table for approval of the field trip to Italy that was done by Heather, seconded by Shannon. Any other questions or discussion? All those in favor, say "Aye." Any nays? Any abstentions? All right, it carries. Next, may I have a motion for approval of the international field trip to Australia and New Zealand? Move that the Board of Education approve an international field trip to Australia and New Zealand July 8th to July 19th, 2027 per
069board policy 6153. Second. Seconded by Shannon. Any questions or comments? All those in favor, say "Aye." Any nays? Any abstentions? All right, it carries. Um, next, may I have a motion for approval of international field trip to Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, and Switzerland? Move that the Board of Education approve an international field trip to Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, and Switzerland July 2nd to July 26th, 2027 per board policy 6153. Second. Any discussion or comments? Yes, I'm sorry. This isn't both dates, I think. They're not going to approve it. July 2nd to July 26th. Uh 26th through August 4th. Oh, July 27th. Well, Okay, let me rephrase it. I'll withdraw that. I withdraw it. Mr. Reading, yeah. I just amended it. Move that the Board of Education approve an international field trip to Austria, Czech Republic,
070Germany, and Switzerland, July 26th, 2027 to August 4th, 2027. Second. Board policy 6153. Okay. All right, thank you. Thanks, hon. Any other questions or comments? All those in favor? Aye. Any nays? Any abstentions? All right, it carries. Vote for you, Iris, you're running. Thank you. Um Here, I'll make you vote for me. I know, right? Tuesday, May 5th, we have our district meeting at 6:00. I only need one other board member to come to that. So, if someone is willing to do that, um come here for that day. It's a really brief meeting, pro forma, 15 minutes. Um let me know. I appreciate it. Okay. You? Sure. Okay. Um Monday, May 11th, P&C meets at 6:00. Um also Monday, May 11th, we have our regular Board of Ed meeting at 7:30. Um right now, May
07126th, finance facilities meeting at 6:30, but they might changing that. Um Tuesday, May 26th, we have our regular board meeting at 7:30. Monday, June 8th, P&C meets at 6:00. And also Monday, June 8th, we have our regular Board of Ed meeting at 7:30. May I have a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. Second. Should I second? That should be it. All those in favor? Aye. All right, we are adjourned. Thank you. We get margaritas and tacos after our Cinco de Mayo. I'm going to bring the district to Okay, so when do these Cuba trips like they start to go to all the schools for the visual trips? They also look totally Go to a parent meeting to go to a meeting of all the kids and all the No, it's like So like but I
072have an incoming high schooler who I'm sure will want to do one of these trips. >> I was told So like how does like how does that get notified? I don't know if it's all automatic But it'll be a high schooler, right? Yes. Yeah. Um yeah.