BOE Meeting

001first we have our student representatives anna and alex so we first like to start on the high school level with bonfire high school on thursday may 5th compromise recognized um their southwest conference students and leadership procedures so we're proud of alexander scaglio sadie blackwell timothy regan and lindsay neal for the athletic prowess that are at top run we would also like to recognize sean young and emily clark for being awarded the 2021-2022 doberty and mike savage teammate award in recognition for their outstanding dedication and sportsmanship in the connecticut interscholastic athlete conference unified sports program they were recognized that the ancient annual unified sports awards banquet on april 25th at the aquifer and we would also like to um talk a little bit about the border drive effort that was recently done at hong kong high

002school um me and hannah ran it with our career center um person this is our first central person mrs randallot we successfully registered over 90 ombre students and we'd also like to talk about the fact that our sprint concerts are beginning and we are proud to share in this amazing experience as our students show their family and friends all of their amazing tactics on the middle school level we'd like to start with memorial middle school as part of their end of year rituals that we look forward to to welcoming their new sixth graders um to the middle school and we'd also like to talk about the smarter balanced and nwe intestine that'd be getting at the middle school level and that the pto would also like to give out and get a shout out to

003all the wonderful teachers at memorial and beyond for teacher appreciation week and then also on the middle school level at rochambeau rms had a host staff of appreciation week of this week to recognize teachers and school nurses they'd like to give a special thanks to the support of parents for spirit this daily this week this week-long event that had daily treats for the staff break room um teachers are also in the process of moving into their last month of the school year so they're trying to keep their students energized and engaged in the learning process just for those of us here and we'd also like to give a shout out to the student council for planning a successful sixth grade social and their seventh and eighth grade call and roshambo also kicked off the smarter

004balance testing and will soon be administering the spring and ap assessments all right for our elementary schools with ges and ps they both honored their teachers this week for student appreciation and both those schools their fourth and fifth graders are waiting to hear for their concerts for fire fire band and orchestra and um i would also like to thank the pto for sponsoring assemblies for author ryan celangelo diana angelo author phil fiddler and the culture enrichment program called gus goes green performed by bright shark theater the students love the performances that they put on and then at memorial or at middlebury elementary school um grade 4 students completed their passion products fashion projects and presented at genius hour the parents and students were able to learn about a variety of different topics the whole mes

005community completed a school garden project for earth day they worked as the school team to weed mulch and plant flowers to our to their beautiful community space on may 4th they hosted a successful donuts with grownups event at mes many of the families headed to mes before school to socialize eat donuts and shop the um plant safe and we love that our that their families are coming back to school to support all the events that are happening there so i would like to thank everyone that is participating um also thank you to the students and families for donating to their wear purple and positive day that raised five hundred dollars towards um becky chef lindsay the bestie champlain scholarship uh students and families honored our staff with a variety of staff appreciation victimized the staff

006enjoyed a luncheon from frankie's with long games they also celebrated uh their bus drivers with yummy treats and personalized um and they would like to thank the pto for sponsoring assemblies for author ryan sancho and the other author of uh bildner and it was a very busy time at the royal our uh thank you so much i'm alex and hannah i just want to thank you especially for doing that voter registration at the high school i think it's really impressive that you did that and you felt strongly about the budget really put your money in your mouth is making an effort to get students to exercise their right to vote and i even ran into hannah in the parking lot um i thought really following through you know so i just want to say thank

007you um you know for all your effort to help um with the referendum and making sure kids exercise their right to vote next we have the middlebury and southberry equity council update so reading matters chair superintendent smith members of the board of education members of the community and members of the south ferry and middlebury equity inclusion council some who are in the audience this evening i'm honored to be here tonight to share the work and give an update on the middlebury and salisbury equity inclusion council here at mint's evening and the colors were not evening is planned rosen she is the community liaison for the equity and inclusion council she'll be co-presenting the updates with me this evening and um michelle is here because we talked a lot about how the school district can't do

008this work alone and we need the partnership with the community so she's maybe really co-presented so for this evening's presentation we thought we'd kind of keep it simple and go over the who the where the hell the why and the what of the middle variants out there and so first we thought we'd start off with who so who are the members of the academy including council and for those who are in our community and don't know about the council we thought that we'd let one of our members actually explain who it is through this video this picture the video doesn't work i know that dr shaw's here probably disastrous i'm kidding thank you dr shaw mentioned the name of um changed to the middlebury and southbury after members voted on a name that would show

009partic partnership among the district and among the two communities of middlebury and southberry and it was a name that was more transparent in the work that we were doing the council is made up of various stakeholders and so some of those were mentioned in the video from dr shaw from middle school and um middle school and high school teachers we have um um middle school and high school students we have paraprofessionals and assistants from region 15 our administrators we have some board of education members and we have parents of region 15 students on the community side you've got community members you've got currency members you have business people you have region 15 graduates you have former parents of region 15 graduates you have selected you've got a group of smart you've got educators or community

010members who work in other school districts that want to remain faithful to version 13. so i want to just make sure that you understand all these people are volunteering their time and this includes your teachers in region 15. not one of the teachers that are here to get content for this they're not getting a bonus they're here because they choose to be they're just like our parents the parents of the students they're like the board of it they're volunteers and we really need to be grateful for them to thank them for their dedication and i really appreciate what they're giving to middlebury staffers because they're here supporting us they're not in their own towns which says something so the next slide um where and how is the work of the middlebury and south great equity

011inclusion council happening and so um members of the town of middlebury and john perry and the region um the purpose is really to honor diversity fostering inclusivity advancing equity and the fair and just treatment of all so in the region 15 schools we play an important role in this work as the community's public education system we're committed to supporting and valuing all students and their families and the communities of middlebury and south maryland play an equally important role as the towns where residents need to experience a sense of belonging where all are and feel respected and welcome and what the committee did was actually put together an action plan which helps guide our work so if we go to the next slide um we have equity inclusion council meetings almost monthly and so the past

012few years um we've been doing this over zoom um including the summer months actually and the meetings structured and are structured in a similar way where we haven't welcomed um sometimes we have people put uh we ask a question people enter things into a chat sometimes we play some music we celebrate national or international days or months we do some updates about the work that's happening uh sometimes we do some breakout groups where we break out and we plan some of the work that we're doing we have discussion topics we've had some book study and we do some discussions about the books that we're reading and then we end with our upcoming meetings in addition there are subcommittees that actually have broken off from the larger company and inclusion council and uh those subcommittees actually

013meet on their own time in addition to our monthly leaders one of the things that we did this year when we structured our equity and inclusion council meetings is we celebrated national international days or months and some examples are up there on the screen and this is one way so that we continued our learning of the different um celebrations and the different groups that are out there so it's things like world teachers day um which is international day of tolerance we did the international commemoration of victims of the holocaust the international transgender day of visibility international pink day where we all worked in um and the un day for cultural diversity and dialogue and development is actually in may and so one of the things i wanted to spend some time on is why so

014why is the middlebury southberry equity inclusion council even necessary so the first reason is our world is changing so according to the 2020 u.s census the united states is becoming more diverse the chance that two people chosen at random are different races or ethnicities have changed and have increased since 2010. and so one other thing that i want to talk about was the diversity index and so here's the mathematician in me that really likes um this whole this slide the diversity index actually is something used in the census and it's a way to measure the probability that two people chosen at random would be of different races or different ethnic groups that diversity index for the united states is 61 so that actually means that there's a 61 chance that if you take two people

015at random you choose two people at random that they will be of different racial or ethnic groups in the state of connecticut that's 55.7 and in uh new haven county where we're in it's almost 60 and so it's important to realize that the probability of interacting with others who are different races and different ethnicities is increasing and we need to be able to positively interact with one another we interact with people all the time when we do things such as go shopping or go on vacation or go get a job or go off to college move to a different part of the u.s play sports with other schools or other tablets and so it's important to be able to interact with different people another reason to do this work is because the demographics of the

016student population in region 15 is also changing and so if you look here at the slide um we went back to 2007 because the original equity inclusion council which is called the world citizenship uh started in 2017 so we went back 10 years and so each year we update our demographic information and as you can see the the population that is not white here in region 15 is actually increasing if we go to the next slide it takes up and we'll take a look at the number of students where english is not their first language or the percent of students who receive free and reduced punch or the percent of students that receive special education services again that's increasing um and all of these increases are meaning that region 15 student population is becoming more

017diverse but there's also another reason to do this so another reason to do this work is because the various educational organizations have said that we as educators in the state of connecticut have made a commitment to this war and so the connecticut association of public schools superintendents the connecticut association of boards of education the american federation of teachers in connecticut and the connecticut education association have said that they're committed to the connecticut state board of education's goal which is improving the academic lives of connecticut's increasing diverse student body this includes sustaining equitable and welcoming learning environments in which all students feel valued respected and safe to learn and grow but there's more reasons to do this work another reason we do this work is because there's a direct connection between the risk and rate of

018suicide and self-harm among lgbtqia plus youth and the communities schools peers and adults that surround them inclusive safe spaces and gender affirming adults and peers can significantly reduce the risk of suicide and self-harm among lgbtqia plus children and so i wanted to share with you some some statistics these data points come from the trevor project which is an lgbtqia youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention group they pulled over 34 000 lgbtqia people ages 13 to 24. and some of those are small so i'll read some of them um it says more than 1.8 million lgbtqia youth ages 13 to 24 seriously consider suicide each year in the u.s that's at least one attempt suicide every 45 seconds lgbtqia youth who have reported having at least one lgbtq reforming space had a 35 reduced odds of

019reporting the suicide attempt in the past year the strongest association being with lgbtqia plus a farming schools lgbtq youth live in a community that is accepting of lgbtq people reportedly significant reported significantly lower rates of attempting suicide than those who do not so we do this work not only for the mental health of our lgbtqia students but also for their lives another reason to do this work is to ensure positive childhood experiences there's growing attention being paid to positive childhood experiences because they help students build a sense of belonging and connection focusing on these positive childhood experiences is from a strength based model what kids can do and they actually if you uh have positive childhood experiences those positive outcomes are predictors of success in school and they're actually predictors of good health not only

020for students but as they become adults we need to do this work in the region as community and in the communities so that we ensure that we have healthy and resilient students who then grow up to be healthy and resilient adults on the right hand side are the seven childhood positive childhood experiences and so those things are like enjoying and participating in community traditions feeling a sense of belonging in your high school feeling supported by your friends having at least two non-parent adults who generally care about you and feeling safe and protected by an adult at home last year in the presentation that i did about this i mentioned that her kids hurt kids if we help students have a sense of belonging and connection they don't hurt one another and they grow up to

021be healthy adults both physically and mentally still another reason to do this work is because it's grounded in the region 15 years of action especially theory one where we talk about welcoming and inclusive schools and theory two where we talk about a collaborative relationship with the community to support students we do this work for the reasons that i mentioned last year so i talked about colleges and universities putting an importance on diversity and inclusion talked about colleges and universities um and they're looking for their staff and students who are culturally competent we talked about the admission essays and how those are included to write about diversity and inclusivity and we talked about how some higher education institutions are actually including course work on human diversity and ways to collaborate and work among diverse environments companies

022also are expecting um culturally competent people too i shared information with you last year about what companies were looking for in their employees and i mentioned the mckinsey report and if you look at that last sentence it does say that those companies that says those companies in the top quartile for both gender and ethnic diversity are 12 more likely to outperform other companies in the dataset if you just google the benefits of diversity in the workplace this comes up so um this is actually from um an online recruiting software company called talentlift and they they lived or they list 10 different reasons or 10 different benefits for diversity in the workplace which includes variety of perspectives increased creativity higher innovation faster problem solving better decision making increased profits than we just learned before higher employee

023engagements reduced employee turnover better company reputation and improved hiring results but to me this is the biggest reason we need to do this work in region 15 and as a community while i shared this my presentation last year i feel it's important to share it again after the murder of george floyd josh and i received numerous emails from region 15 graduates who said that they entered a diverse world that they were not prepared for here's a copy of the letter that we received and i feel it's worth reading because it's really small to see here in the back so it says my name is and students put their name it said i am a pomp rock high school high school class of 2016 alumni i am extremely grateful for the education that region 15 schools

024have given me however i feel it failed to teach me the rest of my community about racism intersectionality and privilege in the united states i am writing to you to demand the implementation of programs that promote race awareness learning and anti-racism in our schools and districts including one add diversity compassion and anti-racism to the core curriculum of region 15 school district as of course or otherwise two increase diversity training for and the diversity of teaching staff administration and disciplinary figures three hold students who say or do discriminatory or offensive things accountable for the actions for their actions please do your part in creating a better educated more compassionate community we met with these students we assumed because it was the spring of 2020 where um everything was shut down and the only time was through

025and josh and i explained to them the work that we're doing um and they were happy with the war and even some of them joined our equity inclusion council since they were able to be virtual the feedback from students and what they felt that they weren't prepared to enter a diverse world is the reason why we do this work and we owe it to the students to make sure that they are prepared for whatever world they enter once they move here and so what is the salary equity inclusion council and what do they do so i mentioned before that we have an action plan and uh michelle will talk about the goals and the commitments that the community have for our action plan the role for members of the middlebury staffer means to have respect

026have compassion for all aspects of diversity race ethnicity gender social class ability religion appearance and sexual orientation we have a commitment we provide community members opportunities to participate in activities around diversity cultural competency equity anti-bias education anti-racist education and social justice our commitment is to communicate clearly with the community we have 10 community working groups you have a list in front of you 10. our group one is to organize establish and host panel discussions and or affinity groups group two which is a heart of mind is the communities of south very middle theory intergenerational course we have 63 people who are registered for that it was absolutely fabulous it's unfortunate we had to expand a little bit but we are called cosmic and we do have a facebook page if you want to join us

027marion it's up to you the whole course will go down miss frozen you want this guy [Laughter] development of one pager reflecting the equity and inclusion council to share with businesses and communities our group four is to establish groups to connect families new to middlebury and south american community and to build a structure for sharing and valuing their perspectives route 5 is the lgbtqia plus working group our sixth group is to develop a need for professionals to share expertise and knowledge about particular fields and the importance and value of diversity group seven develop lists of businesses industry leaders community organizations community members who can partner with specific projects group eight is to develop an intensively guide for the community group nine is to update the equity and inclusion website to include a list of resources

028for all of our members to use as well as our communities and group 10 is strawberry leaves together so um last march via zoom we actually had a stem professionals panel which goes back to group number six where we said that we wanted to have professionals share their expertise and their knowledge about a particular field and the importance of diversity in that field until we were able to host um virtually a panel of community members instead so science technology engineering and math and they collaborated with the region to do this so that's just one example our community input is that we need your help there was a survey distributed and we're hoping that everybody will take it um we came in on josh's update on sunday just a little promo for it the surveys talked

029about including region 15 staff and the members of the middlebury and south ferry equity inclusion website you can find it on the website and we hope that you'll take it and give us some information about what format you'd like to see our group continue to work and perhaps be part of it and we're working on being responsive to what our community needs so i received an email from someone who's looking to buy a house turns out she chose to buy a house in our town versus another town because of our community and because of this council she was so impressed with it and thrilled to see that we had it so it's increasing our home values and people wanting to live here upon speaking with dr burton i learned that she also heard from some

030of the newer families that they were thrilled to see this equity and inclusion council as part of our district and it made them here so there's a lot of great stuff going on because of us and just wanted to share that so the next is uh both of 15 students and it's similar to the one for the community so for region 15 students to respect have compassion for all aspects of diversity we list them there and we've written some commitments to ensure opportunities for students to regularly share their voices needs and aspirations to attend to the region 15 students well-being and inclusivity students will have multiple opportunities to learn about different perspectives across the pre-k-12 curriculum here in region 15. and if we go to the next slide that slide is similar that we have

031the goal for staff so again respecting compassion for all aspects of diversity we missed them there and then we also share some commitments there to build capacity in region 15 staff on diversity cultural competency equity anti-vice education into racist education social justice to increase the diversity and region 15 workforce to ensure inclusivity of different perspectives across our curriculum to establish equity anti-anti-bias anti-racist and gender inclusivity policies and practices and to be able to communicate theory clearly in the region 15 community but before we go any further i want to talk to you a little bit about what the work is not and so um i think it's important to explain this so this work is not about critical race theory um which uh if you if you go online and look up some things about

032critical base theory what you'll find is that it's taught in higher ed in some courses and in some majors it's not taught in a 3k 12 level um this is not about pushing a liberal agenda or about pushing any sort of politics this is not about trying to get people to change their religion their sexuality their gender their family unit unfortunately the history of enslaved people segregation anti-semitism hate crimes etc are all part of national and international history we teach this to our students who do not make the same mistakes as as we have in the past and simply talking about these topics related to diversity and inclusivity won't turn people but when they are aware that everyone is not the same and that's okay it's important for students and the community members to be

033aware that we have diversity in region 15. we have a community where people are of different religions of different beliefs where people have a different family structure whether that be two mothers two fathers or where students are being raised by their grandmother it's not for anyone to judge but we do need to be aware so that we ensure that all residents and students feel welcome and included and so with that i want to share with you what we mean when we do this work and so what we mean is it's about cultural competency and being culturally confident means the ability to understand and effectively be in a community with people across cultures and so that's positive attitudes towards cultural differences that's having a knowledge of different cultures it's about developing cross-cultural skills and being aware

034of the world view and so i wanted to share some examples in region 15 with you about so this year our preschool program teachers and related services providers are engaged in a year-long book study and monthly session grounded in the text antivirus education for young children and ourselves through this study staff developed a collective understanding of four core goals identity diversity justice and action and what having such a framework means when we're working with our youngest learners and our staff in region 15. as part of their informational writing unit second grade students focused on incorporating text features into their writing so text features are structures that writers use to direct their readers attention to key information such as using captions bold prints subheadings titles in order to practice these skills in a way that addresses

035the content standards and supports the work on building positive classroom community and relationships students use family photos and in this lessons in this lesson students created text features that elaborate on the information in their photos such as adding some captions or labels or a title and they have the opportunity to share their work and practice of the art of receiving feedback and affirmations from peers and small groups and then display their work in the classroom so how can local history be used to engage students in practicing informed action lotus story a young girl's inspiration to stop hate and fear by south query author ed edelson who's here tonight um is one such story that's been used to explore this question the text was actually a finalist for the connecticut book award this year in grade

036four our students study a historical fiction curriculum unit in english language arts and in doing so they need to practice reading analytically synthesize complicated narratives compare and contrast themes and incorporate non-fiction research into their reading lotus's story is a fictional story based on real events that happened in south berlin in 1937. this book tells the story of how lois her father reverend lindsey of the south britain congregational church and other community members in south bury took action and stood against hate specifically anti-semitism when the german american won purchased land in south ferry and wanted to build a youth training camp here most the story has been used in region 15 fourth grade classrooms in a variety of ways so whole group read alouds and discussing the setting as well as during small group form instruction

037implemented around the text as an example of the ways in which we can teach important principles in developmentally appropriate ways such as the danger of present prejudice as well as how people can educate themselves and one another and take collective action to make a positive change and to make our communities more welcoming inclusive and diverse region 15 was also invited by the social studies department of the connecticut state department of education to share this work around most historic educators from across the state in a conference that's going to be held this summer so i just mentioned that part of the work with moses story is how can a local how can local history be used to engage students in practicing informed action and so after reading this story at longmeadow at longmeadow elementary school um

038a fourth grader started an upstanding club and so 54 out of the 84th graders at longmeadow decided to join this club and they signed the following pledge it says i pledge to be an upstander when i see something wrong happening to someone i will say something or help in any way i can so switching subjects i wanted to talk a little bit a lot about my favorite mathematics um there's been a push for about a decade to have more americans work in stem fields and so stem stands for science technology engineering and math and so this is actually some quotes from a report from the pentagon where they said that there is a deficit um in stem education and it's actually weakening america and so according to admiral mcraven he says unless we are giving

039opportunity and a quality education to young men and women of the united states then we won't have the right people to be able to make the right decisions about our national security they won't have an understanding of different cultures they won't have an understanding of different ideas they won't be critical thinkers the report reveals that the united states is graduating fewer students with stem degrees as a percentage of population compared to china and the trend continues to worsen the population of china is four times that of the united states but it's producing eight times the number of stem graduates the united states no longer has the most stem graduates worldwide as being rapidly outpaced by china in 2016 the united states had one-third most stem graduates worldwide with 67 million compared to china with 78

040million the bottom line is we need to get more students interested in stem fields this slide there's just a few more headlines so if you google stem crisis in the united states or stem in the united states you'll find that um find some of these titles and i think that it's particularly showing that there's a lack of women and people of color in these areas but historically there's been diversity in mathematics and we may not even have been aware of it and so i think this slide is important and i'll just summarize some of it um but for example the development of zero the first reported zero appeared in mesopotamia around three bc the mayans invented it independently around 4 a.d in india it was in the mid 5th century and spread to cambodia near

041the end of the seventh century and into china and islamic countries at the end of the eighth century zero reached western europe in the 12th century the father of algebra was actually a muslim mathematician and the hindu arabic neural system that we use originated in india in the 6th or 7th century and was introduced in europe about the 12th century and so the reason i share all of that with you is because we do a mathematician project in elementary school in grades two through four and i wanted to make sure that that the reasons we do this is to help understand that diversity is in mathematics it's an important field it's important for students to go into some of the math fields this mathematician project is a project that has been around since the 1990s

042and actually was listed in the national council of teachers of mathematics as an activity that people could do this is a way to show students that everybody could be a mathematician in hopes to get more students about excited about its beauty and the uses of it the association of mathematics teacher education educators said that all students are doers and creators of mathematics and so there are four sessions with this map this mathematician project the first one you actually have students draw a picture of what a mathematician is and usually what happens not always but usually what happens is students will draw a man and we ask them to draw from what they would be doing and usually they're doing a bunch of math problems in a lab coat by themselves and so we want students

043to to know that mathematicians don't always just sit by themselves and do math problems there are a lot of other things that happen the second session is really about math identity um students will develop their math identities in their autobiography and in the second session students build on their drawings and now consider how they see themselves as mathematicians we encourage them to talk about their identity with a with a partner their math their math identity with a partner to dig into their attitudes their self perceptions their preferences and interests with interests related to math in the third session students select and research a historical mathematician and in that fourth session the objective really is for students to revise their thinking about what a mathematician is who a mathematician is and what a mathematician does and

044after researching sharing their learning with classmates students then reflect on how their thinking has shifted and evolved over the course of the series i used to think this but now i think this and so i just spent about 10 minutes explaining this but this student sums it up in a few seconds that i should have just played this video for you in the first place be able to see themselves themselves as being a mathematician so the eighth grade unit entitled power perspective and positioning and this unix is designed to strengthen students abilities to take a stance on of reading critically and writing analytically instruction is centered around ways readers consider the rules of power perspective and positioning and the relationship between these in the text they analyze perspectives and its relationships to the distribution of

045power and critically read through when foster's independent paths towards higher proficiency relatedly writing instruction pushes students to examine and write about texts in a more sophisticated way than it did in 6th or 7th grade by focusing on the means by which authors forward themes through craftsmanship students deconstruct test texts and examine authors and some of the standards that are listed here is being able to cite contextual evidence determine the theme or essential idea analyze how a particular line of dialogue or incidences in the story or drama compelled to action maybe you'll ask a certain character or provoke a decision compare and contrast the structure of two or more texts introduce a claim uh distinguish the claims from alternative or opposite claims and organize the reasoning and evidence logically the high school students enrolled in conversations

046on race for their final project were asked to act as global citizens to advocate for a selected issue or topic students selected a topic developed an action plan to either raise awareness or create change regarding that topic and ultimately carry out their plan to an authentic audience in the pictures here high school students planned an age-appropriate lesson for second grade students in mrs angle's class at ges the high school students prepared and implemented a mini lesson and hands-on activity focus on knowing liking and naming what makes them who they are and sharing that with one another in a way that fosters understanding and acceptance [Music] in ninth grade english a focus of the second unit is on studying text in different lenses to alter and expand one's view one of the assured experiences for this

047course is the reading of john steinbeck's of mice and net teachers launched the reading of this text through a lesson where students moved around the classroom and analyzed images together in groups students studied mainstream advertisements that they had recently seen and were asked to observe a notice what did you see the question and wonder what questions do you have based on the image and to think and discuss what message does this image send what does it lead you to think and why after students had a discussion about applying the critical lens when approaching text as readers students then watched a portion of the widely claimed ted talk called the danger of a single story this talk helped frame the idea that every story is one story not the only story that stories are powerful it's

048important to think about who is giving power through stories that are told one of the commitments in the action plan was to have a place for students to share their voices and to learn from one another here's an example of this students of asian descent established an asian student union at phs these are pictures from the asian student union where they took informed action in planning and hosting a fundraiser event open to all phs students on april 7th elected student officers carefully researched and selected forwarding nonprofit organizations to consider focusing their efforts on and pose the organizations to the asian student union club members members selected part of dinner as the organization they'd like to focus on the mission of part of dinner is to combat food insecurity and isolation within new york city's elderly

049asian community they do this by delivering care packages about lunches and fresh produce every wednesday paired with a handwritten illustrated letter in their native language to bring warmth and comfort the asian student union students wrote handwritten letters in a variety of languages decorated bags and held a potluck event in video game tournament to raise money for the organization many students make asian dishes that are cherished by their family to offer to the event attendees the students raised over 300 and over spring break the asian student vice president and deliver the notes fats and funds to the heart of dinner organization in new york city so here's a list of other union clubs that either have started or are in the midst of starting and i just want to be clear that in all cases students

050have asked to create these were not created by by the adults they were created by the students so that they have a place to share their voices and meet with their allies so part of the region 15 theory of action and part of the work of the equity inclusion council is about communication and so each month reason region 15 sends out an equity inclusion newsletter to both staff and the community both editions from the inception of the newsletters are housed on the region 15 website these newsletters were created to showcase the work of provision 15 students and staff to inform about a variety of national recognized days or months to build an awareness of the learning opportunities that are available to educate us on a variety of topics related to welcoming inclusive schools and communities

051through books and videos et cetera learning opportunities for all staff is a part of the equity inclusion action plan as well these opportunities may occur before school during school during rap time in the classroom during the school day et cetera the opportunities may be provided by our staff by outside consultants by different organizations etc here are some of these opportunities so daily work with our teacher and residents and i'll share a little bit more information about that in a few minutes this year on our full professional development days um mr nelson's department the arts have had an outside consultant work with them together for students a community of learners professional development and implicit bias we've had purposeful planning uh this year which we talked a lot about at these board meetings and that's really about

052meeting the needs of all of our students we have professional development for elementary math and literacy during rap time that professional development on scaffolding and differentiation which again gets to meeting the needs of all of our students we've sent some staff and and some people to the nccj anti-bias training into the dismantling racism conference and we're contracting rise to work with our high school athletes our students and our staff beginning this summer rice is a national non-profit that educates and empowers the sports community to eliminate racial discrimination champion social justice and improve race relationships through partnerships and programs they inspire leaders in sports to create positive change on the matter of racing equality rise started in 2015 and their programming is in more than 40 states and so i wanted to show just a quick

053video about about rise what's up of the rise board of directors so if you look um on there there are four registers of current commissioners of the nfl commissioners of baseball um the pga nascar and those are just a few of the people that are the board of directors on rise and so our teacher in residence works with staff in region 15 in a variety of ways which is part of our professional learning opportunities and so this is her work at a glance and so today when josh and i were in the kinder art of class we learned that today was the 152nd day of school so if we take that into account um at the bottom um uh the teacher in residence has had 457 total engagements with stakeholders and it's only 150 second

054date of school so that's pretty impressive um she's been um she's collaborating with 126 staff members 150 classes she's done more than 20 professional development sessions which has touched more than 300 staff members and so um this is some of the work that she has been doing this year and so in region 15 we're working to ensure that the curriculum includes mirrors windows and sliding glass doors and this phrase was cloned by dr rodin sims bishop in 1990 a window through which students examine and learn from the perspectives of others a mirror showing students their own experiences and cultures validated and a sliding glass door through which students are able to enter into and experience the lives and perspectives as others and so while the words are on the screen i feel it's important to

055read them when children cannot find themselves reflected in the books they read or when the images they see are distorted negative or laughable they learn a powerful lesson about how they are devaluing the society of which they are apart here are some wonderful quotes about curriculum and why the mirrors windows and sliding glass doors are important and again while the words are on the screen i think it's important to read them out loud we are all beautifully different so it is important for children to see themselves and others portrayed positively on the page of picture books when our learners see themselves reflected in our curriculum and learning environments it says to them i see you you belong here you have a place in math science and literature in all learning spaces and all learning opportunities

056the same story creates stereotypes and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue but that they are incomplete they make one story become the only store another part of the work of region 15 and written in our equity inclusion council plan is increased staff diversity in region 15. as mentioned in previous presentations about the work it was said that both the state of connecticut and the nation are working to diversify the teaching force in region 15 we too are doing are working towards that last year the equity inclusion council developed interview questions on diversity and inclusivity um for teachers and fair professionals and also for administrators we used some of those questions this past summer when we interviewed for the different positions and we'll continue to use those this coming school year in

057the interview we use a variety of platforms for job postings including nemnet and so um um then that actually serves over 350 educational institutions and assists thousands of job seekers in their in their search for professional development and employment in fact it's a firm committed to assisting schools and organizations in the recruitment and retention of diverse teachers administrators and coaches we've gone to many recruitment fairs and so those either have been in person and sometimes they've been virtual and this year we're participating in the connecticut teacher residency program it's supporting connecticut um teacher program which actually is a more diverse teaching staff in schools in connecticut and helps support that the teacher residency program is an alternative group to elementary certification that embraces a different approach approach to attract entertain teachers of color industry provides

058hands-on training the resident participates in courses for 18 months and works with a mentor teacher for one school year and residents are guaranteed a full-time teaching position upon successful completion of the program and the certification for certification requirements we also actually have a region 15 math coach who teaches math in the evenings to the residents through this program and so i know that you're all familiar with the region 15 statement it's read at the beginning of every board meeting it's on our website and something that we say we all believe if we as a school district and as a community of middlebury and southbury truly believe this that we are committed to educate every student and that each student needs to be prepared to be productive ethical and part of a global society that we

059have to talk about as the graduates have told us and we need to continue this work some of which we share this evening only when we work together the school district and the communities can be ensured this mission statement and so i end this uh this evening's presentation with a quote from claudia ryan woody who is the vice president and managing director of global intellectual property licensing at ibm she worked at ibm since the 1990s and she spent her tenure there emphasizing how fostering an inclusive corporate work environment is good for business and first positive societal change she said that inclusivity means not just we're allowed to be there but we are valued i've only said smart teams will do amazing things but truly diverse teams will do impossible things region 15 and the communities

060of middlebury and south korea are strong in the support of this work as shown by this evening's presentation the action steps mentioned this evening by the membership in the middlebury and southern equity inclusion council and by the members of the council that are here this evening the team has been working together over the past years to do amazing things but also to do the things that we may have once thought were impossible and i would just like to thank them again opportunity tonight to share this wonderful work thank you so much um so uh again thank you very much for the presentation and um i uh i guess around slide 31 or 32 when you're talking about the raising 14 goals um i was looking so as a board member i mean i can appreciate

061that work in the community and the work of the school district and i feel i believe that the school reflects the community more so than the other way around and when this you know maybe reflect on the letter that the alumni wrote um you know the criticisms of the time would be you know why isn't the school doing more to combat racism and then other people might say well that's the community's job if you're learning that at home what's the school gonna do so i feel like this what was presented was a nice smashing of stuff that's been on the community stuff that's going on in school but when i when i get to slide 31 i thought oh like the goals first of the board we're concerned with our goals for the district and

062i thought oh like are we doing this oh this is a big heavy lifting and then then you gave all these other examples so um i was really impressed so thank you thank you very much i mean i feel not that i really had anything to do with it wow region 15 is is really doing a lot um so i guess my questions would be um how so how do you as a district how as a district are we talked a lot about trying to make sure that every student has the same experiences like in math and english and social studies no matter what school they're in and so yeah how how do you ensure that that's happening now um and i would also um ask as well for the teacher in residence um you

063know there's no there's no maybe there is but you know like i know there's math standards there's science standards um [Music] how is there consistency there how does that how does that work so if there's 450 interactions how do we know that they're say the same type of interactions or that they're spread across fully among the schools so this second part of your question so the teacher in residence she doesn't have a caribbean so she works with the region 15 curriculum one time after i kill them our ela curriculum our social studies curriculum and so um it goes back to the windows the mirrors and the sliding glass doors and it's helping make sure that our curriculum is accessible to all students and that students can see themselves in the books that they that we

064read that we have diverse perspectives so it is working within the region 15 curriculum it's not it's not its own separate framework how do you make sure that that happens across all the schools i think um i think lois's story is a perfect example of that um last year we started with maybe one school that wanted to read it and now we worked you know um the teacher in residence worked along with that school that wanted to do it and then share it outside here's something we did in fourth grade in one of the schools and shared about another great teachers in the district and they're like oh yeah i want to do that i want to do that um the same thing like the mathematician project so sharing outlook here are some things that

065we're doing um and giving and offering that up to the to the other teachers in in the district um a lot of teachers have actually asked the teacher in residence to come in and work with them because they want to do this work and so i think that that that's helpful too um the other question that you asked about consistency across the district i think one of the things we've talked about for the last how many other years is um that we're not a district of schools in the school district and so how do we make sure that students have the same opportunity whether they go to gainfield or middlebury elementary and a lot of that comes with having clear curriculum documents but a lot of that also comes with the purposeful planning and working

066with teachers either in your building who teach that same grade level or teachers across the district that teach that same content area as you do or teachers that are in your department that you finally have time to sit down with and plan so i think a lot of the a lot of it's time and having time to meet with your colleagues to be able to do that i'm sad that model so you do have a person so that's why the teachers can that can share the newsletter or the lessons that are happening and kind of not only celebrate what happens in some classrooms would then be that transfer of knowledge to other places or facilitate the meeting of the grade level to make sure that things that are happening are spreading you realize [Laughter] um

067um so i would say like we're not done with this work i think this work that's in our actual plan needs to continue i do think um one of the things we talked about last monday at our special pnc meeting was some of the wording in our policies and how to make that wording more inclusive so i think like that part of the work that you're all doing which you're thanking for that so so i do think there we need to continue some of the stuff we started and i think just taking a look as we're doing our policy review um we've done a lot of work in the last four years two of those two pandemic where we [Music] but [Music] but as we kind of emerge from this pandemic and we can return

068to more communities more grade the professional development will shift a little bit um some of that curriculum or some of the the teacher voice driving more of this conversation foster just more consistency and growth if i may so as a parent who moved here in 2013 and has been involved in this work since the day i moved here there's been more work done on diversity inclusion in the past four years than i have seen in the past eight and i'm quite impressed by that and i stayed involved my third school principal my third superintendent and this is the most i've seen of anything and i think it's pretty wonderful and every teacher and every community member who's involved in this should be very proud of themselves all of the volunteers how much of the community

069has taken part in this council and promised they've done a good not just for the meetings themselves but for the subcommittees and the work that goes on in the background and then you know get some time in the spotlight and then keeps going um so thank you but also that i i do think it's very important that um you know when there's change that it comes from students and it's um there's so much in here but i did just i did just also want to mention um in terms of the stem crisis and this is something that's very dear to my heart as well i think it was a stem career and i had an opportunity to see the stem professionals panel that was done and i just thought it was so wonderful and so

070informative and all of this work has been that i just hope things like that aren't the one-off because i do think that that was very valuable um gave some really good information to students about you know opportunities they would not have considered before so no and i think that's part of the reason why one of the um the community groups is to to have either some presentations or panels put together to show expertise that we have in our in our community to share with our students and with the members of our staff and communities so that is one of our subgroups out hopefully we won't be able to continue some of that um recognizing that time is always a limiting factor in resource and we reflect on what may be our biggest challenges that we're

071closing what do you think is kind of what kind of what steve was kind of getting to when you see you as really what you need from a health perspective to kind of continue to go through this work um you know maybe what are some of the top challenges that we see and what do you kind of maybe it's already built into that action plan but but how do you see um kind of building some type of plan to make sure this continues so i'm smiling i was finally hit josh because one of the things we talk about often having more coaches so um to do some of that curriculum work so that's why i'm smiling but i do think it is about um working the next few years on our curriculum to make sure

072that we have um those opportunities for students to see themselves in the curriculum but also to see others in the curriculum to build that perspective and to build um the understanding of differences um i think we've started that work for the last couple years but we've just started it so i think that would be one of the things that that i would like to be able to focus on but again that comes with time that comes with planning that comes with um you know some resources um and making sure that we're doing it in a responsible way um not just everybody kind of like picking and choosing different books but that we're doing it as a cohesive group and i'm sure that if anybody on the committee who asked that question to probably old would

073have different things that come to the that are the most important but um in this role you know with curriculum and instruction i would say that that would be that would be um thank you so much uh dr jeff head and mrs for joining this presentation um dr chief you've been doing this presentation for an update on the work that's been done um every year at this time now for the last few years and it's funny um since the last time you did it last year there's been a real change in the national discourse on many of these issues um it's it's it was interesting last fall i had the opportunity to go back and look at many of your presentations to update myself on all the work that you've been doing and it's funny

074how what was okay to say a few years ago um was it's not okay to say now and i'll say one word social emotional learning i never thought that was a problem right but apparently now it got taken up at a national level as an issue and i was always so grateful to be able to say look at the presentation on social emotional learning on such and such a date and that shows the work that region 15 is doing and i can't tell you how many times i've directed people to your presentations at board of ed meetings so that they have an understanding of what is actually happening in region 15. um i think that there's been a big erosion of public trust um especially in this last year and um i would never say

075to anyone trust me that that's not happening um i think something that you didn't mention in your presentation is your transparency and how you talk about the work that happens at meetings and frankly how you're willing to sit down and talk to anyone who has questions about what's in our curriculum what's not in our curriculum what books we have what books what why we have these books why we don't have those books um because it seems like we get attacked from both sides um and i just want to say how much i appreciate your transparency because not only do you show the word but you're not afraid to ask or answer questions that people have that board members have and we have asked questions because every once in a while people come up and say

076things are like wow okay and i feel very comfortable talk to you or talk to josh or and have a better understanding of what's happening and that kind of openness to conversation and to speak about what's happening in region builds a trust that's really lacking nationally so just want to say thank you for that and thank you for these presentations and i i keep track of them because i just shoot i text it to people like look at this this is what we we region 15 so thank you all right next may have approval of the minutes of april 18 2022. questions of the april 18 2022 regular meeting thank you john any discussion changes all those in favor and next we have information and photos board committee reports policy curriculum committee mr steve ceriano

077so pnc met um on monday um here i think easily now more than halfway through the policies on the week probably late black coming through um the next quarter that meeting uh hopefully we get those approved in june um tonight we have files in 35 41 just for the first three um might be a question on that to what i understand um and then also um we also spent a pnc meeting um discussing pnc's role in curriculum oversight sort of where you know the board is technically charged with overseas curriculum but of course experts so sort of in line with what mrs manzo was saying where it is where does the committee's boards roll and oversight and where does the district begin and what you know where is that line how is it as a

078board or as a committee do we keep an eye on the oversight but but don't get started so um enc will be spending the next couple of movies uh remaining two years discussing discussing that at the curriculum um so i just want to know if we changed the distance for i don't think she did for elementary school but i thought it was changing middle school in the league we had last week so that seems very far for a middle school child to have to go to a bus stop so i thought it was like half mile half mile one mile but in this one it says half mile a month or even now one through three is a mile which i think has changed actually [Music] just seems very far and i don't want this

079to become like that like okay with my figure if it doesn't get picked up miles like a first grader i think joe can speak to that i don't i don't think it necessarily means that if you're with mile yeah it depends sidewalks depends what conditions are on their own typically walking that far that's not a standard um yeah i'll tell you i'm trying to scan it fast but yeah i don't i don't see it i don't see anything spelled out normal it's in there somewhere in fact i know the walking we've tried a mirror but we have very few walkers well there is no report tonight because we have a meeting uh may 17th at six o'clock uh next we have pto inspire and any questions from mr clemson all right so when do we

080talk sorry another question so our portable leader or okay all right yeah um next we have pto advisory um the pto advisory council met on may 5th which was the day after requirement day so there was a reflection um there was some discussion about your activities the council will meet again on june 2nd manners and may is also from as well please be on the lookout for a postcard about gizmo's awesome guide to mental health that went out to all elementary students and families and please join us for read-alongs and activities at the south very public library on may 12th 17th and 31st you can register at the offering public library i want to start by thanking there's a lot of really good work happening in this district i think she understands the fact that

081she is a powerhouse and one of the best things i can do is support her and get out of her way and so i just you know a lot of this work wouldn't happen uh with part of the part of them here and so i just appreciate everyone she's as an advocate for the students of this district and for the community we've talked before that her and i had the opportunity to be in nashville a couple of months ago and talk about the work happening here with business across the country and it is not just by accident uh it's not just the work that her and i do work with this committee before it is the fact that not every community has a board of ed or a population that supports this one so it

082is a partnership between school and community and it is as much as mr siriani asked what more the board could do um the comments of the chair and the board members to support this work and help separate noise from reality um as an extension of that i would tell you that future repair of the year nominations are open and on our website all of the work that happens in this district is because of the staff that's here for the past two years especially the paraprofessionals the teachers the administrators they showed up to support with the students in this community and while only one um from each of those categories can and can be i feel like the 80s uh reference if you know that um but uh all of them are very deserving but please

083go ahead and um actually have the privilege of escort uh our past two teachers of the year tomorrow night in the uh celebration and professional uh that will be a person that hasn't happened in the last few years so i'm looking forward to that and congratulate our teachers up here um i want to point out dr presentation referenced the 1937 uh event where salisbury said no activity is fully formed yet there's going to be something every day all day it sounds like uh where we can recognize the work that happened um i recognize the volunteers i want to thank the jazz band for being here tonight if you came late i'm sorry that you missed them they're pretty amazing uh i mean i think we need a bigger space next year so they can really

084let it fly but it was really good to hear uh the jazz band i know they have a show coming up uh if you missed tonight and want to see them in person or if you've got that will taste like one single person please show up and i just want to thank all of our volunteers we shifted kind of a little bit of our volunteer recognition i think there's so many ways that people in this community volunteer in our schools and support what happens here uh but there's not a big enough recognition for all the work they do but we just want to thank all the folks that volunteer in some ways you perform as for the education that happens here um i want to thank mr tesla for showing up too it's nice to

085have him out and about and playing some music um i want to thank the voters of both of these communities that showed up now it's a good thing that in the regional school district both communities supported the school budget uh it makes the message clearer it helps our board it helps to work here but i can tell you that the idea of having a budget passed isn't just about remembering the financing it means that the work of everybody in this room will focus on ending the school year starting next year so we can start the hiring practice when there's certainty what's going to happen next it makes the wheels of education continue to move forward and not stop to reevaluate what took us seven months to build so i just want to thank the opportunity

086for everything they do and i just want to talk a little bit about um last week i had the opportunity to set up a panel of educators across the state to talk about kind of the long-term lessons uh from the pandemic and it was interesting that on a panel that was there to talk about technology and kind of the whole future really what we focused around was on the social and emotional health of students about the state of education and about how we support and that supports our educators is a really special thing so um if you have board member comments um i'd also like to echo what mr smith said about the voters supporting our budget um it's always a nail fighter um and uh just appreciate the efforts of pto advisory um for

087how they try to get out the vote doing participation um who goes through a lot of effort to get people to remember it's a lot of times people just don't even remember so just want to say thank you to everyone who supported our budget i think um it's a strong indication of how our community values our schools so um just appreciate that thank you very much next we have comments from citizens the board of education will recognize citizens of middlebury and south ferry and citizens are asked to state their name their town of residence and to limit their comments to three minutes in accordance with region 15 um board of education bylaw 93-25a speakers are asked to express themselves in a civil manner with due respect for the dignity and privacy of others who may

088be affected by their comments while it is not the board's intent to stifle public comment speakers should be aware that if their statements violate the rights of others under the law of defamation or invasion of privacy the speaker may be held legally responsible so i've got my my timer up here on my phone and you just make sure mr edelson sign your name and tell us who you are and where you live first did this or you could do that and i won't start the time until you start talking my name is ed edelson and i'm a citizen of south korea and i'm a very proud author i was asked by dr burton to come here tonight to support the work of the equity and inclusion council and i had no idea that you guys

089would be talking about lois's story so as a first-time author it's i say it's really thrilling but a lot of the credit if not all really goes to dr burton that i had no idea about i mean when we sat down and explained this educator's guide i said i didn't know that was in the book but she not only brought that out but she conveyed that to the students and one of the real thrills for me was because of covid i was actually able to sit at home and watch the class use the book now in the back of the book if you ever look at it you see their photographs of the real places in south prairie where a lot of these events took place but prior to publishing my son said to me

090do you know where those photographs came from who owns those i have no idea like i think many of you i have photographs on my computer that i have no idea how they ever got away so i went over to south britain and i took a few photos we fast forward and here we are aaron asked me or invited me to be in the class on the last day of the curriculum for the students to ask me questions and this young girl got up and she came up to the microphone and she said i saw you outside my window now as a recovering politician that did not sound good i saw headlines across what i was being accused of doing but then she went on to say that she actually lives in the house that

091lois lindsay lived in when lois lindsay was 10 years old and she was 10 years old her father was at that time still is the minister of the church so as far as she was concerned i wrote this book about her more foreign so that was a real thrill so i want to appreciate what burden aaron has done what i think is going to continue to happen with this story and i have to say there is such a difference here tonight than what i've seen something that michelle said you know we've had that documentary out for a long time back in 2012. but very often was just shown without any educational curriculum to go with it so telling a story is important like writing a book or a documentary but it really needs a skilled

092professional to communicate that and get it to the students where they really incorporate the meeting the lessons and how they can make that a part of their life and uh we just need to appreciate that and chairman manzo a little older than you but i gotta say it's been almost my whole adult life that i've seen public education under siege starting in 1968 when my brother-in-law was fired from ridgeview because he taught arthur miller's play the crucible the john birch society said we don't want that kind of teaching to go on it's important that professionals like you all of the volunteers here stand up for public education thank you very much mr addison your time is up that you're welcome to submit more comments to the board of ed for our emails good evening everyone

093my name i've been living in is bay for the last 22 years and i wanted to thank you for the opportunity to speak here tonight i'm speaking as a parent of two girls who both went through a region 15 school one graduating in 2011 and one graduating in 2015. i'm also speaking as a region 15 employee for the last 16 and a half years as well as an original member of the active university council i believe i have a unique perspective from which to speak as a mom it was important to me that my children left region 15 ready to go out into the world to face and as a staff and council member it's still just as important upon my youngest daughter returning from college in north carolina she shared with me how different

094the cult and social culture was because of the diverse amount of opportunities that were offered there for her in college compared to the narrow perspective that region 15 offers to its students as a staff member i have daily interactions with students who are dealing with not feeling included on many levels as a community and council member based on my experience it improves me to speak up so that we can ensure that every student and staff member of region 15 feels included the equity inclusion council has made much progress in these areas but we still have a long way to go we must do much better to equip our children thank you very much good evening everyone my name is erin burden and i'm a resident of south ferry um additionally i have the honor of

095tripping as an educator in this district and i come to you tonight as a future mom um as our babies do in august so over spring break i used my free time to tour early childhood centers in our area and it was my very first glimpse into what um it will feel like to look at education from the perspective of a parent a student to be a parent so as i walked into classroom spaces i work filled with infants and young children i tried to picture what it would be like to drop our baby off there each day and i was flooded with lots of questions so um i felt a sense of astonishment to get in there at both the beauty and the challenge that lies ahead um and bringing a child into this

096complex world and i share these reflections with you tonight because um while my journey to being a parent in this district has just begun something that i spend a lot of time thinking about with what kind of education um i want for our student to arrive baby and the community that i wish to live in so both this and the honor i feel in serving in my current role compelled me to speak tonight after the presentation about diversity equity and inclusion in our district it takes modesty humility and courage to figure out what this work means and how we can improve in our local context so that each of our students and families experience a deep sense of belonging which is different than just fitting in we have to truly seek to deepen our understanding

097all the time at the vastness of the human experience and have the capacity to hold multiple truths at the same time this is a rigorous and rich ask and it sets high expectations for all of us so what does this look like and sound like in practice for children and adults it looks like nurturing confidence pride self and social awareness of the many aspects of who our students and our families are it sounds like empathetic and knowledgeable interactions between individuals from diverse backgrounds where they feel at ease with one another it also sounds like people using accurate and respectful language for human differences so that caring and deep connections can be formed this work means that children's innate propensity for understanding fairness and unfairness is deepened and further and only then can we develop the

098skill sets needed to stand up for one's health and others in the face of unfairness it means that together we grow our problem solving and our critical thinking skills in a world that desperately needs healing a robust body of research is clear that a focus on this work benefits everyone so as a resident educator and student to be modernist district i asked us to continuously do our part to collectively lead in the tireless pursuit of this question how are we working in solidarity together so that our schools and community are able to actualize their vision of being welcoming and inclusive places for all people thank you timings hi everybody i'm christine probation from south ferry i would just like to say how grateful i am that the budget passed when it did last week um

099it was so refreshing to see the community come together again um and i'm appreciative especially of the board of ed members who went over beyond and above to help get the word out there many of you held signs on the day to remind voters to vote you know who you are i appreciate it and all the parents and all the citizens of this community appreciate it as well i held a sign as well that day many times and i can't tell you how many people stopped to ask me what are we voting for um they stopped to ask me where do i vote and what time they're close close um it's just really important and my husband had to be reminded too as much as involved as i am he was working in the er

100that day he gets out at seven o'clock and i know the polls close at eight i had to remind him at 6 45 don't forget to stop and vote on the war at home and he did forget you know it's just it's just normal you know we're all busy we all forget what's going on unless you're really living it as much as a lot of us are we're just not aware and so to be there holding signs physically is is so important because it did remind a lot of people to vote when we thought the word out there so thank you for everybody who did that and i also want to say i think a lot of the reason why the budget passed is because of the work that we're all doing um i feel

101very strongly that i think the community feels very happy with the work that um our current administration is doing and the board that's supporting them i think that there is a new level of trust there and um i just feel that people have a new sense of appreciation and trust with what's going on with the education and i think and that is resulting from that is people supporting a budget that was higher than usual um and and supporting it well i mean it wasn't even a close vote it passed in both towns the past well so congratulations and kudos to all of you and finally i just would like to say thank you for lowering the cost of parking for us i'm so grateful and as i told um dr mr smith i said now

102i can retire after next year in peace knowing that our kids are being treated fairly with their parking fees and they're back to where they need to be so thank you thank you be careful we might raise the fees to get not going that far regular business requiring board action may have approval of the policy three five four one transportation is that oil okay do you want to um do you want to table it for now have a second by shayna um any questions or discussion all those in favor aye any mates questions we took the vote richard um can you talk to steve or um it's just an informative question about the bus okay so then can you talk to them after the meetings because there's nothing right here to to but i i

103see where you're i understand and we'll make sure that you get your question answered okay um actually i wasn't we've had an eyes any nays on that motion i need sentience it passed so thank you um it's tabled and we will discuss it at a future meeting um next emotion uh for approval transfer entry uh 2 [Music] 259 000. i will make the motion however before i make this motion i'm going to say one statement okay this is when we finish with the motion okay we're going to open this up to the discussion of what this motion up and give you transparency of where you're at and so ask all your questions okay we are prepared to answer them in a very truthful and meaningful way the way we're doing it okay i have made

104sure of that believe me anybody have questions before i read it no no no i'll do them and then we'll have a discussion do the board of education approve the transfer of 259 000 from the capital non-reoccurring account for the inclusion of two bathrooms as part of the lmes portables project in accordance with policy 3292 investing capital and non-recurring expenses as presented thank you john go ahead sorry thank you steve um so i'll turn this over to you yeah i'll take it through the journey so we're out to bid for four portable classrooms with an alternate two bathrooms um i don't receive one bid with another event that's going to bid but had a used option which we don't want to entertain um so the base bid for the four portable classrooms about the bathroom

105was 947 the additional motion i did before you tonight is for the bathroom portion of the addition so the 259 000 is the cost of the bathrooms challenge with them is we have to go to the street for um sewage and a lot of other things that make them complicated to install at that location so this is just the portables in a sense the base portables are going to come out of the presser two and so three grants um we did original eight hundred thousand dollars here mark there um we do think we can identify the other 147 000 which will come out of essay two and so frequently so the motion for you is for the poor class of factories so any questions for joe or josh on this so what so i'll just

106kind of say them all and then right because i want to be transparent and fair and this has come up a lot in the community where i've been asked about these portables so i guess the question with this increased cost now we're right almost at 1.2 million dollars that we're spending on this so i guess of the 147 of the sr what are we losing in place of that even if we shift it is this a point where we because now 700 i think was the first one it went to 800. now we're at 1.2 is there a better alternative and no one wants to hear this word but i have had parents ask me why are we redistricting or is there a better place that we can spend with some of that money because

1071.2 is a lot bigger than the 700 000 or if there's another place for an alternative that we can take that money and make better or like have better space for this so i know there was a lot yeah yeah but i just want to kind of put the thoughts i want to make sure that we look at every avenue before we go and spend 1.2 million dollars i mean i can tell you rewind back i did a similar set of portables in another district for like half this cost so if you look at where dollars have changed in last four or five years the cost has changed significantly um joshua kind of ping pong in this but today if you look at the middlebury side as far as available classroom space we have very

108little again between mes and metal um the only available space which is still limited is really dangerous so there's not a lot of flex space all that exists inside the district as a whole this kind of bridge is something bigger i think in time but this forward does give us some space to just kind of get some folks out of the teacher's room along meadow and to the items that system out there um the cost is definitely higher than we thought i mean again i thought the 800 originally going out was somewhat reasonable um i was surprised the basement came at 9.49 um that was that was surprising i wear that that sound um so you take some of that so there are two spaces at whichever like so game field has very minimal wire

109if you want to get about you'd have to work with a 5 8 model or something even then you have to move everybody in the district and what you gain uh maybe you can import classrooms but not the challenge because there are no other spaces whether it's a look at brick and mortar 147 uh in the esser grant there was one that set aside for uh three versions of substitute teachers right now we've been able to cover that in our operating budget and there was money for competing [Music] 000 in space was already improved by the state so we know that adding classroom space is one of the qualified reasons and shifting it you know doesn't already have so it's not so much whether or not you're going to add portables there i feel like

110that's already been a conversation before it's not going to approve but that's when we just did based on that the question really is do we want to add water to those rivers now not having water in portables doesn't mean we wouldn't have the space but remember that the space in the portables is a long walk through the gym and so by adding bathrooms out in this portal allows them to function kind of self-sustaining and the question isn't so much about the portables but how functional they'll be and i guess the question that joe and i want to ask for i don't want to be in a position where four years from now someone says well why didn't you do this when you built them that would have been the smart thing to do um i

111don't know if it is or not i think there's a cost benefit of that 200 000 but i do know that once we move forward with this we can't retrofit so the conversation really is you find the funds now you do this now the last portables many of the portables we have in this district we call them portables but they've been here for 15 years right so this space that we're adding isn't about a two-year space that we're going to replace with brick and mortar we're building them as if we're going to have this space for a significant amount of time and adding backwards to make them much more self-sustaining so that's really the conversation of what i have is that it's not so much about taking 1.2 million it's really about the 250 000

112um about adding backwards or not adding backwards if that makes sense yeah i mean i see it differently right because the district is spending we've proved to be a hundred even it's the 147. sure and like this is an extra cost that i hear different opinions in my community about feet so i just wanted to make sure they were asking the questions and we're thinking right this is a in the same way you say with the bathrooms like i don't want to i also don't want to be in a short break fix now where if we're doing something but then we still have like right so because they do think wholeheartedly we have a space problem holistically and it's probably going to get worse because people keep moving in which is an amazing thing and

113all the work that everyone's doing people want to be there but i don't want to you know i just want to think like everything through right we're doing this and then i think there's a bigger conversation around space that this is to some extent you know to stay short term uh knowing full well that we've had portables in the distance for 20 years that we've never added brick and mortar space to memorial portables shortly after and we haven't had the conversation before we convert those the difference in those spaces is that there's existing space that we converted someday into the mortar or some other building challenge now is the other buildings are either close to we haven't we haven't taken the same measure so this is to some extent like a temporary release uh it's

114the advantage of it is we have 800 000 and already approved federal grant money that doesn't reform the taxpayer so when we talk about a building project the brick and mortar there's referendums there's bond payments there's construction and lead times and buildings all that's going to take much longer and it isn't going to help any of our classrooms next year that's kind of you're not wrong there's a bigger conversation to be had this just allowed us to do some a little bit of a pressure release short time and not have to wait for that every study of the buildings we've done here it's kind of resulted in portables look at the studies of longmeadow there was a full brick edition on one side that became affordable so kind of every every major study of facilities

115kind of resulted in a temporary classroom which would become a lifelong item not a fan of having them walking through the gym it's disruptive but when you said four years you don't want to sit back in four years and say we should have done this not even four years ago we had a space news committee i was on it the sky is falling we have too much room we need to close the school that was like kind of the tenor of the room when we walked in before they were even done with that it was well this kindergarten class has a lot of kids coming up i don't really think we ever were in that bubble of you need to close a school but in the community that might still be out there because it

116was sold that way for so long we are busting at the sinks the elementary schools are busting itself that bubble will continue to move up i would rather do something with the money that we have and add and do the bathrooms correctly so that those would continue to fix the issue that we have right now but i think we do things quickly because we have to and it'd be nice to do the bathroom because we shouldn't at this point so um there's not a lot of portable manufacturers that exist in the market and it's not it's not a huge space to begin with um the two that bid i would say the larger the two bit washes in the one that digitally does a lot of work the second one is is a larger vendor

117um they were they were not they said with timer space um again you could bid things kind of however you want and i was mindful that if the bid came in astronomical including the bathrooms [Music] at that point then i have to re-bid because i can't just take the bathrooms off so that's why i did it as as a separate one i was a little worried about construction costs um this is the issue also that remember we have other portables not at longmeadow i'm assuming there's not necessarily in some places it's a really long walk yeah someone you have yesterday's wing and that may change so currently in capitals 325 000 um there is a as we close our audit there's an additional approximately 625 000 to go into capital as well so it's not

118a case of uh the 259 is going to complete our capital fund um it just earmarks the money into a place for the moment but yeah the capital fund will still have probably six hundred some of the thousands um i also have a few questions and uh i wanna start just by taking a big step back and i apologize in advance because i understand what you mean but if i go back to the conversation and challenge his head i want to be clear this was never i can't remember who said that someone brought up it was already approved for eight hundred thousand did we actually take a vote as a board we did have before we went to bed we asked the board okay um so with that being said you know putting back on

119what shannon suggested i think it would be helpful to see kind of how i would like an update on like where we're deploying lesser buttons like knowing that that's changed since the last presentation we've had as of now nothing's changed from the last presentation the only question that has come up is that there's a hundred and seventy thousand hundred thousand of that was performed for uh reimbursement for so that difference then you know price would not come out of the funding or you're just rearranging or rearranging there's a difference between the 800 000 and the 947 000 and the driver right so that's where that 259 000 difference is really the cost of that in the background so there is a difference in that originally we had that difference from the 8 to 9 yes

120to change that completely and move to some other type of project um so going back to the actual structure itself um how are the portables going to be accessed by students through main entry and then walking down that long hallway um right so is there any direct access into those portable units outside access yeah these fire doors and those sorts of things okay but not not doors that students they would enter through the same buildings all the correct same down yeah that'll all be in close yes um the final question i had is i know we've talked about expanding pre-k which is housed so this spacing is this already existed and how does expanding our prepay program which would bring potentially more students in is that is this a legal the overflow since we have

121in our pre-pay or how are we addressing so do we have room even with this edition of four portables to expand our pre-paper uh the short answer i would say is there are potentially maybe one you might be able to move to a full day like some of the half day program but remember we took the teachers and turned that into a second grade classroom they took their music and turned that into a pto team we made that teacher's lounge in the basement i mean we've kind of we've pushed along the envelope as far as so you want to reclaim those spaces again there may be some some ability to perfect some of those half-day programs full day preschool typical programs are the highest demand so if we can create space it would really be

122just growing a number of spaces in our full day program we're not talking about major expansion these four rooms you know three of them are basically already taken um but it's not like we're adding a ton of space i think but it doesn't fully realize that space uh final question understanding there's a lot of urgency uh given the way the supply chain is right now um if you were to get a vote as soon as tonight um and we had our plan set do we know with 100 percent certainty that we would have this ready inside the next minute 100 percent for construction how about a high degree okay [Music] but there are and as of now and they would also be doing the same contract modifications to the existing buildings yes heather johnson um

123so i i do i do kind of i'm going off on something [Music] how do we spend this money to add to any of the structures that we have in the district that longmeadow is a good quality because even if we do over years come into the scenario where reduces we do have a lot of unmet community plans for prepaid that this space potentially be refurbished to expand that program so i i think in terms of just looking forward for how this space continues to be used is this a good investment now for the future i think one minimus place for it um so i just wanted to make that point and i think also adding the bathrooms means that that space is more flexible for people to think about it although i know like

124there's you know we can play tetris with those classes but i think you know having those spaces important i'm feeling like you know we have been trying to build so i want to ask if we do take this month knowing that we're about to make a deposit but if we do take this money out are we potentially exposing ourselves to a situation where and maybe do we have enough money in capital funding where we're going to build similar posting those applications i mean we're still obviously in the current year budget as well and what what we'll wind up with as we close out this year um i mean obviously california should always be bigger i mean the finance person's office um that being said i mean it's no secret there's bigger project and verizon here

125is going to involve way more than a capital account or a capital reserve account i mean they're going to come in the form of bond packages whether that's grooves or brick and mortar i mean there's a lot bigger than surprise this is a small step to some i think much bigger things that we're going to have to grapple with all this together so you know there's things in our horizon here we all are going to have to kind of wrangle it and figure out where we want to go um you know when it's a little bit ps and all the things that are on the list um but yeah i mean it's not you know our choice wasn't really to go to capital but i mean in a sense i need to just allocate the

126money to somewhere and josh's point not to the bathrooms does make them more limited to what they are um and then it kind of changes where putting fifth grade maybe isn't the best option at that time and those sorts of things um yeah it's not ideal but at the same point i don't want to earmark a promise of the current year's budget and then have a challenge insider it has enough challenges already and you know have an issue as we close out so hanging the one inside apple is a good place to park it for the moment i took a tour of lmes and looking at everything that is there when you walk through that building okay and i saw it when it was built when it was all put together and it was there

127for a reason we didn't put it there but now what's happening is our enrollment is definitely growing and the enrollment is coming both times it's just not one time it's coming from both towns so it will benefit both towns like say pre-k and benefit blueberry this way and all the other ways to do it if you were to go to lmes and you see where the bathrooms are and where they are relationship to the portables okay it's a long way to go there's no way there's no doubt about it would be difficult so as you said if you have pre-k you don't have the bathrooms in there and we're gonna need it for three days somewhere along the line the bathrooms are gonna have to go in there i can't see any other way of

128changing all right so we got ourselves a predicament that was created before it may have happened and now with its surface okay and i've seen it believe me i've seen it um so when i look at it and you know chairman of the finance and we've discussed all of the portables and our finance meetings and we're there and you saw that this is an additional thing that came onto it with the bathrooms and it was in one of our meetings when we were discussing it and shannon participated i participated will participate in the bathroom party i think bathrooms are a very very important part of the school and where we've got to do it and for the benefit okay of our students and everything that's going on by taking the money out of capital to

129cover the rents um what other taco products are potentially for the stockholder pushed out does it impact the contingency teacher that we just got through no this this has nothing to do with next year's capital budget of the 275 000 at this board of the 75 that leaves that connector's capital so there's another account the non-recurring capital account so one of the options would be to try to reallocate money from this year's current operating fund the problem with that so we could potentially be reimbursing that account at the end of this year's closeout it's just may and we don't want to necessarily take that risk when we can allocate money that we know is there and can be used for this kind of monitoring right now so that none of that is not tagged for

130a project it's those projects on there but we haven't said these are the projects that are going out of that next year for example the parking lot in middleweight elementary if for example that it came in simply higher and we couldn't navigate that in last year's budget and we probably may have gone to capital for example to finish that let's say more short 75 more projects done maybe we've gone to capitalism um but the other side of that is this is the opportunity and if we don't do it now you can't go back and reference it so even though the capital is not where we want it to be lots of projects competing this one has to be done at point of inception and if we don't do it but that's where this this opportunity

131causes conversation before is to do it now and draw down that capital letter that you may have running at the end of this year or further i enhance that part but you can't wait till july my question is why did this promotion bypass the finance committee they go directly to the board of the financial studies normally usually all the time discusses all transfers let's do this let's not take the dollar from this account and put it here because we feel like it now this is a tarantus a big trade for a four billion dollars i think it should have went to the finance committee first we could have discussed it and then bring it to the board if it passed i personally am not in favor of it because i'm not in favor of adding

132four classrooms to a system that lost over a thousand that's my main objective secondly this money is not this year's money it's last year's money correct deal it's actually last last year's money in a sense 325 so we we don't even know for sure because our order hasn't been completed if it's sitting there ready for us the 325 is let's put this way we tell the public we're buying one thing and we buy another there's no mention of portable classrooms or bathrooms affordable classrooms in last year's budget there's no mention of bathrooms with affordable classrooms and this year's budget for dollar wise why are you not telling the public what's going on oh i i i disagree with that connotation are um we're very transparent and open with public and explaining what's going on there's

133a reason for a capital refund and we're able to use that money and make a transfer for legitimate capital purposes so we are having a conversation right now so i don't like the implication that we're not being transferred i know you don't like certain things but you have to listen please why didn't we go to the finance committee first i'm happy to answer that question i was waiting for you to finish talking i did talk to mr cookson about whether we should do a financing facilities meeting on this specific question however because the finance and facility meeting was going to be after this meeting and then we would have to talk as a board about it again at the next meeting that was going to cause us a delay of two or three weeks which

134they felt and john felt and i agreed with him that it was best just to come straight to the board we've discussed this in finance we've discussed the portables we have had consensus on the portables so john and i made the decision not to do a special finance facility meeting but rather just take it to the board so we can address this issue together and then make a decision tonight so we can hit the ground running if that's what the board decides so that was a decision made by me and with with mr cooper you have to realize that we had already passed the hundred thousand dollars okay that was already a big discussion in the finance we had done that now we're in a situation okay we're running out of time where we've got

135to do things in order to get us ready okay for the next school year we knew where the money was and how we could use it part of that is what we have however to wait another let's say two or three weeks to bring it before the board okay we'd be sitting here two weeks down the road again and we're going to lose time okay and going out there to get what we need and we're going to lose the time on what we need to get the portables in here for next year the obvious thing is we're going to call a special day that would have solved the problem a special meeting first of all the finance committee done a special meeting on the board of education but it should have went to the finance

136committee first because that is the normal operating procedure of marion and i discussed it okay where we're at and we discussed what we had to do okay with josh okay with joe and our determined there isn't something we just said let's go do it okay we sat there and we discussed it okay as part of the executive board of what we were doing they decided to bring it here to do tonight okay to bring before the full board to make the decision that was our conclusion and it's a legitimate use of the capital fund richard i want to make that very much clear the board the only way that that money gets used is by a board vote of a transfer to whatever it needs to get used for this is the discussion we're having

137it tonight whether the board wants to drive okay so i mean the board has already had consensus for doing the portables with using the esser money okay and so that what the issue is before the board is do we do the portables with the bathroom or without the bathroom and i do appreciate that you know finance typically would have a first fight at the apple with this however john and i agreed that time was of essence so we just took it straight to the board which was ultimately going to be the one who's going to make the decision anyway there's nothing that was maybe before finance and facilities that was not going to be before the sport so again the issue that the board has to decide tonight is whether we want those portables to

138have bathrooms or whether we do not want that to have bathrooms i do empathize a little bit with though because i do feel like we're being pulled out of a conversation because it's not just 259 147 like conceptually we said you know but this has nothing so i i feel a little bit that there's not transparency number 147 that's why i asked what the opportunity cost on that 147 okay we're not using it for subs but is there something else we could use it for right that we're then being kind of i feel like our hands are being tied right on that money to do the portables like i'm just saying i understand bridget's point because i don't feel like that 147 is clearly laid off times point earlier too like now i don't know

139where that money came from like like you're saying okay conceptually we got i don't remember what the money let's say it's 1.6 million 1.2 so now almost a million of that almost is going to a portable when we say 800. so there's some other items in there that i don't know if i feel the same or with both so i get some great answers the [Music] to another than expected cost i think that's a pretty easy shift shifted something else through the accuracy process again um it would just have to fall within one of the agreed-upon categories of which there are really just four it's not like we put in anything that's where the critical infrastructure learning laws substitutes uh space science one of the things that was important to us when we came up

140with the original customer allocation was not just from the fiscal clinic we're putting forth very clear costs when you put that land on top of the bonds it further reduces the category but i mean that's a real electrical piece i want you to feel that you you know boxed in that you could realize 147 to one of those other categories i would argue that we shouldn't deal with the one that's going to create real current costs and then you get it pretty limited one of the challenges from the beginning with our sr money is that to do real like additional air conditioning there's not enough of it so [Music] and that's just out of space like ray would be the same place where in this year or against like i guess like depending on current

141projections what's coming in that's worse there's like are there extra ads right now based on where we think projections are i guess but if there's an enrollment update there's just no place to go there at all right right now we reduce the section of the kindergarten back to four sentences for next year uh if that were to flex over the summer if there's a real place and that'll be a whole nother problem obviously if we truly can't fit them inside one metal there's there's no then we're after your class size high and not divide the class that's incredible i emphasize with all the issues with the cost and i didn't expect to be this this far north even with where the bidding environment was so um i don't i hate i think the other issue

142too is that we are questioning the scenes there i remember at one point and we didn't have any extra room middlebury elementary school had class in the library which i thought was not not i didn't like that i didn't think it was a good environment for kids the kids lost space in a library um i don't want to see that happen we've already taken away the music room you've taken the teacher's room you walk around that building when it's busting at the seams and it only takes a couple more you know kids i don't know when richard says a thousand students lost a thousand students i can't figure out where they disappeared to because when you walk around you see these classrooms full and that's i think what we have to consider and the bathrooms

143again not even four years ago it was close to school close to school now we're looking at adding the space because it's very needed if we don't put the bathrooms in two years from now we can't even have the conversation of maybe we can put the pre-k there there's no bathrooms okay forget that um i keep the idea of redistricting i just didn't say one of them when that we needed for kindergarten across the district so like that that reduction of the thousand students was absorbed mostly [Music] that was something that i guess i didn't offer before yeah maybe we would not be transparent i was just thinking that when we talk about allocating capital that if we could put more of this in a federal brand that was better than losing taxpayer dollars for

144using some of that but i mean a lot of cheaper items are falling off and now we're kind of left with a lot of really big really big stuff that's out there um we could also look back at the sr conversation at least look inside the current budget as well i mean it's hard to get my clothes obviously [Music] is it like i remember you know trying to figure out what's the best um use of that money do you still feel that that is that this is the best use of this money things are um to cost more now so you know i think that it's dangerous to use that money for things that are going to create services or expectations um i also think that we have space constraints of that building that we're

145gonna have to do something so if we don't use this one important uh there's brick and mortar conversations that are gonna come then we're gonna have the weather two or three years sure this type of environment while we build something else and that's going to come at a significant cost and a significant conversation because we also have multiple portals across the district that are aging and old and we're gonna have to have you know conversation about how we either place portables or well whether we tear them down replace them with other temporary structures and put in full engineered structures that's a conversation that's coming um and we can't like i didn't choose the time that i live in the time that i'm here uh but those portables have been there for 20 years my brother-in-law

146and you need those four classes for the flex space just to make women assign that score this is the one that makes kind of the most return on investment that has a site that's already cracked you know there's like some pointer plate features here that if we were having this conversation about other schools and site work that would add significant costs um so that's kind of where when you look at the sites the pressures some of the long-term flexibility this gives you about like that's where i stand on that but so like that because it would be very bad to not do with the bathrooms like he said that in the finance committee but the cost has gone more so that's kind of where i'm a little bit more cautious yeah so i know we

147said before when we buy the portables like are they still like say we need it four years from now we said okay we have space on the s but um ms is busting up the scene because you said okay we could move them right theoretically theoretically we could move them we owned them could you move them with one what does that mean if we ever needed to have the plumbing yeah i mean it's not the bathroom's gonna be built inside the structure i mean right like for the record like we're doing this we should do it right yeah i mean they literally come with like almost like tires underneath them and they do get kind of almost dragged into place i mean there is a and they sit on pylons and they are um yeah

148i mean it's that they know it's almost like a deck on your house but obviously with the structure above it they are airport not cheap to move um but they could they could it could be cheaper than buying portable yes definitely without a doubt yes which is why for example like a used portal that's 10 plus years old it's not exactly a great option the roof is old like it's got a lot of lists on why you wouldn't go near a used portal at times those always offered it's one thing if we all know that we're moving them from one school to another it's another thing if they've been at another school for 10 years but just in theory yeah like if we went down drastically and someplace else needed them just we do it's

149how we write this color yeah i very much appreciate the fact that you're trying to minimize the current class social media irrigation lesser funds yeah and i also appreciate even though we did present another option about you know using the delta capital i would not be the favorite complaining capital right if you have to tap into it a little bit i get it and then i also just want to um say that wholeheartedly agree that we're going to deportables we should have bathrooms we should be able to use them for the full range of whatever it is we need and again i i've said this in the past i think we still need to have those conversations longer term over how we're going to manage the enrollment because we look at everything that's coming you

150know the trades already left the station and i think that clearly if we can use some federal money to offset the verdict for the taxpayer imminently that's great but clearly there's a whole other conversation from an infrastructure perspective you know we have engaging schools with the high enrollment um i welcome this conversation i know they're not easy conversations um but again i think that we need this and we have to do it sooner rather than later if we wouldn't be ready for the fall so thank you for bringing it forward and thank you for the golden dialogue when we had well um did redistricting we did it at the same time kindergarten so it was a bigger sort of bring more of the cards up in the air that was able to settle um so

151i agree we should we're gonna do it like there's opportunity to do it right you know free space okay which would be fantastic but what will happen is we'll have a bunch of free space over here and over there and over here and over there so we're never probably gonna have a bunch of free space in longmeadow enough to grow at least organically over time enough to grow so um i know you hate that way it makes me nervous but um to your point just to point to um sharon's point um i think like so we have the enrollment um presentation we've had when we had the enrollment and space civilization committee for sure people showed up like that could have really been called i want to close dart school now like that's what it

152should have been called but i think we need to we like if we're gonna we have all you know all these huge projects coming up and if you know when schools are getting old at some point we're gonna use like i i think we need a recurring community this is what are our long-term goals like do we wanna have a bigger pre-k program in five years because if we do and let's plan for that and maybe redistricting is something we need to do you know for that goal or you know what is the life expectancy of the portals that we have like are we can we plan for that and are we going to build a new school or do we need to redistrict like i really so i completely agree with you but i

153want it like it should be focused on you need to reason every district right and so that would be kind of i would say it should be like a recurring presentation on our nice schedule you know funny you should say that because it'll be a subject in our summer retreat not of redistricting [Applause] but it will be like we are going to we are planning on even in terms of redistricting there really isn't that much space so i mean what are we in here it's at school it's at school it should be at school is which creates a different dynamic of just kind of redistributing the chairs if one of our elementary schools was disproportionately small and shifting that would work now you're talking about shifting not just one score but six and creating a

154potential restructuring of our philosophy as you would like to identify before about consistency with the building which again we can have that conversation it's just not a let's do it next week and in the end it doesn't get us what we need there's not enough space like walmart for a lot of some space it's not enough to take it's saying the fifth grade across the district and this is what the spatialization people looked at and at the end walked away uh remember we want to be at eighty percent all of our schools are over five percent past that exceptional of two uh high school and uh and we're saying well and so like that's the case that you can't shift the structure now there may be a longer conversation about a bigger plan and fixing

155some of these brick and mortar pieces uh i would argue that that's what the finance facility really can do and have that kind of ongoing update you these haven't structured that and that is a conversation um this is in fact this is a mandate that it's an opportunity mandate because we have some federal funds that we can apply here that as josh and i go through the budget it pulls up this year we're going to work to try to preserve as much but if we can this will give us a place to hang a bird sword against as we close out which is a way to protect someone's capital funds take out of the gentleman and absolutely towards that is our bigger goal just remember too don't forget we we never had before with us

156a five-year capital plan that five-year capital plan when you look at it tells us a lot of where we're at and where we're going it's it's an element that is there that we can keep doing it's not something that's been pushed aside i look at it all the time and we're much much better right well we're talking money right now where we're at at least we've got an element that we can look at and see what we can do and where we're going and like i said as history has taught us we've never had the capital like we have it now and it's something that is greatly improved in this region right now and it is helping us i can watch it i can watch what it's doing for us we can do this and

157still not have to worry about that that's right how do you vaporize this morning so all those in favor aye thank you richard all right so it passes thank you very much and thank you everyone for the open discussion of the questions um next we have announcement of future meetings may 17th is a financial facility that's been changed from this coming wednesdays next tuesday um at the central office monday may 23rd pmc's meeting at the high school media center at 6 30 also monday um may 23rd we have our regular board event meeting at 7 30 and then june 13th pnc's meeting at the high school at 6 30 and june 13th is our regular meeting of the quarterback at uh 7 30 and that's going to be our last motion to adjourn