Board of Education Meeting

001[Music] you are live great thank you very much uh good evening and welcome to the meeting of the region 15 board of education for Monday February 22nd 2021 um may we all please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of Amer America and two Republic for which stand One Nation on the God indivisible Li and justice for all right the mission of region 15 a collaborative Community committed to Excellence is to educate every student to be productive ethical and engaged in a global Society through proven and Innovative learning experiences supported by its strong Community whose decision-making is based on the best interest of all students um first we'll have our student Representatives uh Zoe and will uh good evening everyone I hope our pass long weekend

002was enjoyable to all of you uh this long weekend myself and another student from our unified team here at pomaro received books from the Special Olympics organization as awards for being a part of the unified generation digital Summit this Summit allowed for the representation of pomog students to chat with other unified teams all over the country and put together other ideas to get started on upcoming events uh for the team also in regards to unified our team here is fundraising for our Special Olympics participation uh and the annual Penguin Plunge this event really helps the team not only raise money for it but it also helps members of our team uh cooperate to make group building activities overall the student body is definitely eager to see how our new schedules are going to play out

003unfortunately we were not able to do the academic check-in today but once we do we will definitely look forward to sharing the student body ideas with all of you and thoughts thank you Zoe and good evening everyone I agree that it'll certainly be interesting to see how the new schedule will work but I think for AP classes and those types of classes it may actually be quite helpful to have academic check-ins to fit in more material and study time as we have had a restricted schedule to begin with um this past Thursday pomak hosted the second round of Co vaccinations for those over the age of 65 along with teachers and other faculty members although it was cut short sadly at 1:00 or so due to the snowy weather many individuals were able to get

004vaccinations and later appointments were pushed up to the morning which ensured a comprehensive vaccination clinic which is great said it ran smoothly once again and they were very happy to lend any in all help this year definitely has made fundraisers and drives quite difficult but the Spanish and French honor societies are teaming up to hold a hygiene drive for battered women and children through Safe Haven in the month to come so we certainly extend the invitation to All Region 15 faculty [Music] I'm sorry Ling and it's probably not even possible um I I had been wondering if um you know maybe if if there's any value in flipping you know like having the academic check-ins first and the the classes later maybe there might be scheduling reasons why that can't be done but I don't

005know if that's if I don't know just curious if that shows up on anyone's radar as well I'd be interested to hear it thank you all right thank you very much zoen well appreciate input we'll see you in a couple weeks thank you have a great evening next we have a presentation of the 2021 22 region 15 budget with h superintendent Smith evening everybody and welcome to yet another new covid experience we going to do a uh a budget presentation um hope everybody can hear me okay I'm going to share out my screen um and then we're going to see how this works remotely so I believe you're seeing the wrong screen so if you could just uh I can't we see the presentation do you see the whole presentation or do you see the

006next slide view no we got the full thing all right perfect thank you um so welcome everybody here we go um I can't see any of your faces so I would uh trust that maybe U Dr chapeta or Mr Martino if you can uh clue me in if anybody raises their hand or or ask a question um so before I begin this process um is complicated during a normal year um this year in the world of everything's a little different um it was increasingly complicated on a lot of different levels um I really do appreciate the people that contributed to this um this presentation is a fundamental shift in how we track present and communicate our uh budget to the community uh I'm really proud of the work that went into providing you with the

007new look that you're going to see tonight um our finances um have been organized and reorganized over the last uh eight months and I'm really appreciative of everybody that worked so hard to bring it into this process um won't read the mission statement again because Miss Manzo does so at the beginning of each meeting but I think it's important that that mission drives the work of building this budget that while this is a financial exercise at some level um this budget is developed with an idea of this mission that we have to preserve the community's expectation of a quality education and the trust that they put in all of us uh tonight I'm going to share with you my proposed budget and overview of the resources and services that I believe we need to deliver

008Upon This Promise to the community and the families of region 15 and then over the next several weeks you'll have an opportunity to really dig through it and explore our proposal uh and I hope that this process will provide you confidence uh in the process that went into developing it and the product that you have in front of you um the overview of tonight will have the major budget drivers some of the significant realignment of resources and the measures the district is taking to create efficiencies over the next few budget presentations you'll hear from our building and District administrators about the specific ific budgetary requirements uh as we move through this process I welcome any questions that you may have and like we did uh the past two years we'll have a running list that

009we will post onto the website along with these presentations as they are completed um there's a lot of information uh that you're going to be receiving and I expect that most nights you'll get um some questions as we go through it but as you digest you'll have more questions and uh we welcome those questions either at uh at the meeting meetings themselves or afterwards you can share them with me and we will try to answer them prior to the next meetings uh the beginning of the next meeting uh for tonight I will review with you these areas we'll walk through some of the quality results uh the return on investment that we provide to the community some of the challenges that we've had this year uh the priorities for next year's budget uh a summary

010of those changes the budget totals um and our next steps um while it's not normally my Habit to read from slides or to put um lots of information on every slide I prefer to to talk to them uh the idea is that this presentation will live on our website um and as a standalone document and so there is more uh information we're breaking a lot of PowerPoint presentation rules through this process um but I do want people from the community to be able to access this and if they don't watch the entire uh presentation they'll have the slides um to go from um our priority is always to provide the community with a school system that empowers our students we are um thankfully and appreciative uh of the community support for our schools it's a

011main driver of why people move to our community and our priority is to give them a good return on their investment um we need to provide our teachers with the resources they need to support that goal uh we need to hopefully provide you tonight with a transparent budget and uh to inform the decision that you're going to need to make uh and to respect the fiscal impact that it has to the residents uh of both of our communities we have fourth theas of action in the uh region 15 School District uh through the lens of a global pandemic some of these theories of action take on some new meaning I think that the idea that students feel valued and welcomed in our schools is uh always important but again through the crisis that we're Curr

012currently living in um it's only enhanced the need that students have for that um aligning our curriculum uh making sure that we use data to analyze uh our students learning and know who our students are uh as we come out of this pandemic that's going to be uh more important than it ever has uh communication and transparency we've tried to run this school year in a communicative and transparent way I hope that the changes we've made in tonight's budget uh presentation and to the whole budget process will help improve some of that transparency um and it's interesting that as a lot of our students look past uh high school and what they will do in their years that follow uh I think that this year we saw some of those changes already taking place and

013it's important that we prepare our students uh for whatever world they're going to move into um that mission and vision that we read is is a um High View as we move through the vision to our [Music] learning not remediate and that idea of bouncing forward uh requires our teachers to have professional development and curriculum time as we talked about the budget cycle it's important to recognize that uh we are all contributing factors to the learner that's at the center of what we do and although we're discussing the financing of our Public Schools those are just the means in which we meet our goal and not the goal itself our role is to educate the learner uh the of our work and the generational promise that we make to the students who live here I'll

014start a little bit with some quality results uh we spent a lot of time talking about all the challenges of the pandemic and probably not enough time celebrating the things that that are happening um there's a long list here uh I think there's some pieces that um there's plenty of things that are left off this list umj my screen here um but car or Joe did that change what you guys see on your end no we're good y you're um but I think there's a lot to celebrate uh in region 15 and this is just a small list of some of the things happening here um even in a global pandemic last spring our student students did participate in AP exams and uh the SAT you'll see that our math scores uh substantially outpaced our

015durg while our English scores uh were different uh close but not quite as uh at the district average um it's hard to know what uh the global impact was because things like AP and SAT exams uh you don't have a cohort analysis so you don't know year after year how this group would have done in a non-co year um I think what's important on the AP side is that when you look at the total number of AP students and the number of exams um and the students who scored a three or higher all of those things increased again even in the middle of a global pandemic so this year we transitioned our financial system uh this budget process really started last spring when we started to migrate away from our Legacy system that was 25

016years old and being sunset uh converting that process uh is a massive undertaking we we converted the entire Financial structure of the region 15 Public Schools um about 2010 or so the state of Connecticut adopted a standard chart of accounts uh we had not made that conversion here in region 15 in part because of that Legacy system and the work it would be to go back and recode everything but the opportunity existed when we migrated to the new system to go and um move everything to that standard chart of accounts uh we also went back and migrated all of the account codes for last year's budget so that you could do a budget to- budget comparison of all those new accounts through that process there are a few large shifts now they didn't have an

017impact to the overall uh bottom line of the budget uh we'll talk about a couple of those pieces and you'll see them when you get your budget books um but that large one large example was our copy release for example was in our instructional Supply account we've now moved that to a non-instructional supply account so um the overall impact to the bottom line of the budget is um zero it's Net Zero shift however you'll see the instructional and non-instructional lines kind of uh jump one way and the other um one of the things that we needed to do was complete this process by July 1 so that we could start this fiscal year completely in the new system the challenge that posed was that the um tax year is in a calendar year and so

018from July through January we had to run both systems uh so we could do payroll uh for staff in the 2020 uh tax or Finance year but still run our school system in the July 1 fiscal year um the other piece that happened is that in the past the budget that you saw kind of netted out all of the revenue collected by the school district so starting tonight you will now see the school district's budget kind of in Gross terms um which means that we've put all of the actual costs in the budget and the revenue is listed separately and I'll talk about that a couple of different times because it's going to be something uh that you haven't seen before uh and that we'll need to just make sure everybody understands um so now

019all of our Revenue sources the amounts the projections that made are listed separately in the budget um and then we went back and we had to then gross up there's nothing you know ugly about them but we had to go and then adjust all of last year's budget lines because last year you saw a net budget which again took Revenue projections and applied them to certain Lines within the budget so we needed to kind of pull those um Revenue uh projections out of those lines and hold them separate so that you could do an apple app's comparison of last year's to this year's budget that was a massive undertaking uh and so I want to just make sure to acknowledge the work of our finance department that went into this they spent a lot of

020hours uh between April and today basically making sure all of those things worked um and I appreciate their patience with me as um we work through some of the pieces of this to give you what you what we have in front of you tonight um in addition there are three different uh state and federal uh covid relief grants kind of circulating within the district two of them are federal grants one of them is a state Grant uh one from last year one for this year and one that will span the next two years um there are specific categories that those funds have to be used to support um and they can't supplant your budget which means that we can't take costs that we would normally have pull them out of our budget uh and put

021them into those covid relief budgets the two federal grants are here in front of you there's the element Elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund we call it Esser um that was 118,000 uh that we applied to Chromebooks for the elementary school students this year uh the second one is Esser 2 uh that one has just been released uh some of that we will be able be used for the remainder of this year uh I'm sorry some of it will be going towards next year but then the rest of it will uh we can save and use the year after um both of them go for those really those costs that are listed there um neither one of them can be used to supplant our budget and the other piece to keep in mind is

022that if we were to pull costs reoccurring costs out of our budget and supplement them um with these covid funds uh we run the risk of having to put those costs back in our budget a year or two down the road creating a compounded effect when you have to put the kind of initial costs back into the budget plus any costs that have occurred uh since we've removed it so we've been very careful to not put things into these grants that will um come back to to create a compound effect in the next couple years in our budget uh the other covid Grant is uh State Grant this one was primarily from last year and we could only apply it against um expenses through December of the 2020 uh calendar year and so most of

023this grant went to the reopening costs uh and this is part of the reason that we were able to fund um some of the PPE and uh the tents and some of the other things that we had out in as school started this year um but none of this can be applied to um anything spent after the December 31st of 2020 uh every year this is continued ongoing work we don't do this because of the budget we do this um every day we look for cost efficiencies within our budget whether they be uh energy efficiencies like the lighting projects uh that have taken place in our schools uh We've renegotiated our outof District busing contracts for some significant savings uh in next year's budget um we continue to manage our health care costs and the

024idea of leveraging lease dollars like we did this year to help bring in some of the uh Chromebooks that we um did earlier in the year um reoccurring assumptions uh these are things that every school year as we go into build a budget things that we keep in mind cost efficiencies every year we have review Cycles curriculum Cycles uh health and safety concerns class size practices collective bargaining agreements uh state and federal mandates I'm not going to go into lots of detail on those tonight but we can as people have questions uh maintenance and Technology plans I and U you can use the chat Feer I think I I can't see any of these Zoom calls so I'm just uh assuming you're all with me unless somebody tells me you're not uh budget challenges so

025in the short term we have a few things that we look at right now one of the challenges for us is what are we going to face when we reopen School in August um I don't know how much PPE we're going to continue to need to fund uh how long to what extent can we bring students back in are we going to need Outdoor Classroom spaces uh ventilation some of the things that we did at the beginning of this school year um what are the future Financial liabilities are there new things uh related to Hope y the exit of this pandemic that we need to plan for um what will the economy be like as we come out of this what type of uh local and um Federal supports will there be uh or other

026implications to communities uh how do we manage budget costs so we don't create these Financial Clips one of the challenges is again with these grants out there how do we invest them smartly how do we um bring down the taxpayers burden of the school budget without creating an environment where a year or two from now those funds have to be put back in again creating that kind of uh funding Spike uh delayed two or three years out um we have an increasing need of large capital projects we've been talking about them uh through our Capital plan and at the uh Finance subcommittee uh some of our projects are large and expensive they're really hard to fund through a regular operating budget um we have a three-year teachers contract entering year three of the contract uh

027year one uh there was a step increase year two there was a general wage increase and in year three uh both of those things happen uh we have increasingly some of the federal mandates around minimum wage laws have to be met and so there's some uh contract adjustments that uh will have to be made through the um secretaries and para contract and through our nurses contract to make sure that these things uh are addressed long-term medical costs are always a concern fixed costs such as our transportation our workers compensation costs and then the uh risk uh potent potential increased risk of the shifting financial burden as the feder the state and federal governments are going to push some of the these funding mandates down to local uh school districts to fund and again those Capital

028items that have been created over um the deferral of other projects over time whether they be roofs or parking lots are going to start to catch up with us if we don't put a plan in place to start to address them what this budget doesn't do uh we're going to spend a lot of time with it does but what it doesn't do is it doesn't address the changing graduation requirements we've talked about them uh this year and next year not the years to put a additional requirements on students our our job now is to help students graduate with the current requirements so this budget does not build in the Capone experience or some co uh so I'm getting there Mr speo um we don't increase fees to families however the um Aster is there because

029we do anticipate the state is going to mandate us to raise lunch fees now lunch fees are not in this budget uh school lunch operates as its own independent funding source um but that will technically be a a potential raise in cost to families that aren't represented in this budget um we're not putting in the furniture or updates needed at both of our middle schools library media centers um I do think we'll come up with a plan with that in the future but that wasn't something we can do for now um this budget does not include a math coach for each Elementary building it does include one math coach that I'll talk about as we talk about uh as we plan to um accelerate learning but going forward in future years a math coach at

030each Elementary School uh is something that I think we'd like to talk more about um and classroom libraries are starting to become dated again this budget doesn't include funding for those things what this budget does do is IT addresses staffing needs and the post-pandemic and structural needs of our schools uh we're making adjustments to historically underfunded energy and maintenance accounts one of the questions that I know you're going to ask is why energy costs might be going up when we've done so much Energy Efficiency and solar projects and part of that is adjusting our energy line so that we have enough in them to cover our energy budgets and historically they've been uh underfunded uh we are beginning to address some major Capital items in this budget and starting a plan so that we can

031continue to address them going forward we're going to manage some of those these cost savings through those covid grants so that you don't create a compounded uh impact future years this budget does maintain programs and class sizes there are no cuts to either of those uh we do provide for the instructional audit this is one of the items that we reduced out of last year's budget knowing that this was going to be a complicated instructional year for everyone that it probably wasn't a good time to do an instructional audit I think Dr Cheta would agree that that was a good decision um that none of us can imagine trying to go through that during the current year um but it is something that we need to do as a district and so it's back in

032for next year uh we continue to increase the pension contribution I'll talk a little bit about that in a few slides and uh the Board of Ed has been talking about an internal audit process so there are funds in here to kind of start to seed that process it's an expensive process to do all at once but to build in um some funding every year so that we can do that um and we're going to fund a systemic replacement cycle for technology we've increased a lot of technology in the district if we wait until all of it ages and try to replace all of it again that creates a a massive spike in a any one funding year and so we want to create a cycle so that that um EB and flow or or

033Peak and Valley structure doesn't happen um Staffing so Staffing makes up 75% of our budget um we're a school district we have teachers that's what we most of our funds go to Staffing uh everything that we do depends on the quality of the teachers the uh administrators the par professionals the support staff uh that we have in our district uh we're going to have questions around why in declining enrollment don't you have greater Staffing cuts and so um just to help everybody uh work through this scenario that we're projected to lose 63 students those students are spread across seven schools and two towns and 14 grades so while there are some staffing offici IES um there's you can't draw correlation between those 63 students so that's automatically three teachers it depends more uh on where

034those students are than the actual number of students um and while class siiz practices do have a lot to do with our staffing numbers uh in addition to that there are therapeutic services we offer there are content area Specialists there are specific concentrations of students there are individual learning needs um there are mandated supports that we have to provide for students all of those things factor into our staffing more than just kind of raw number of students and how big our classes are um here's our enrollment chart you'll see that um actually our K5 actuals that purple line at the top are outpacing the projected numbers uh although the projected numbers are uh scheduled to start start to tick up excuse me over the next couple years um um our high school and middle school

035are almost right on our projections and while the high school is still going to show the decline the middle school is starting to flatten um at roshambo we've reduced the staff to one team per grade that's the minimum staff that we can probably have in that building with the um students that we have so there's no more Staffing reductions at the middle school level uh in the near future so this is a really complicated slide so I'm going to take you through it again ask questions if you have on this one here but I'm going to try to walk you through each Elementary School uh on the left side are the 2020 actuals on the right side are the 2122 projected and so if you look in the red numbers that's where the changes are

036so grade three you'll see we're moving from 59 students to a projected 81 students uh and so we're going to move from the need for the current three classrooms to a need of four class rooms that being said at gainfield uh at grade two we're going to drop from six 62 students to 51 students so we can move from four sections down to three I'm going to leave kindergarten and I'm going to come back to kindergarten at gainfield but the one addition at PES and the one subtraction at GES uh mean there's no net change at those two southberry schools on the middleberry side um you'll see that Long Meadow in grade two two is going to drop from uh an current level of 80 students to a projected number of 62 students so we

037can drop two sections there and at middleburry elementary the grade one remember we budgeted expecting a higher kindergarten class that class didn't materialize so the 36 students that we have currently in kindergarten will move into um grade one and we can drop from four sections down to two sections now if I can return to gainfield um next year they're projected to have 65 kindergarten students coming in we have not seen 65 kindergarteners at gainfield in four or five years while that might be happening um it would be an outlier of what the trend has shown the last four or five years kindergarten registration uh starts soon and we're going to be able to watch that over the spring so when you tally these things together um you'll see that there are really four positions that

038we can reduce out of the elementary schools um what I'm project or what I'm proposing is that we only realize three of those cuts in the budget and leave the fourth one as a contingency um this way if that kindergarten um number does appear at gainfield we have a teacher that we can apply there if you follow these numbers here become your 2021 class size averages and the projected class size averages by grade and by School uh and across the district year-to year uh they're identical and even within grades they're pretty close with a couple of uh shifts from one grade to another to summarize some staffing increases and decreases I'm going to walk through some of these so tonight I'm going to propose to you that we add an assistant principal at log Meadow

039Elementary School that we add an instructional math coach K5 that we add a special education teacher and an art teacher those additions will be offset by the three Elementary uh reductions that I just showed you uh there's a0 6 English position at Memorial uh that we will not need due to some of those enrollment projections the 0.5 Elementary Ed physical education teacher uh will not be needed because we'll add the art teacher and the shift uh right now you share art teachers between buildings which creates some inefficiencies and some challenges for the elementary schools um and then that reduction of the FTE helding contingency um so let's talk about the assistant principle at Long Meadow I really wish I could see see all your faces right now because I know that um this may we

040have talked about this in this is my third year third budget and this has been on The Cutting Room floor for the last two years um currently there are 448 elementary schools in the state of Connecticut the average of those elementary schools is one administrator to students currently Long Meadow has 532 students or more than double um the rate the the average for the state of the 448 elementary schools in the state of Connecticut Long Meadow has the the fifth highest student to administrator ratio even within our district Long Meadow has a administrator to staff ratio that's between 20 and 60% higher than the other schools in our district um if we add an assistant principle to Long Meadow that moves them basically to the state average that one that one uh sorry one to

041264 back in the early 2000s obviously I was not here at the time um and this is a little bit of District lore so there may be people in the community or um on on the board that can speak to this but we did apparently post um and come close to hiring an assistant principle but in the uh in the end that position was never filled Long Meadow is the second element second largest school in our district the only School larger than Long Meadow is the high school long has the largest span of students between preschool and grade five you have students ranging from really three to probably 11 years old it has the most Transportation needs because we do have a whole separate uh preschool Transportation structure for um both before the morning run

042the afternoon run but there's also a midday run for preschool that gets factored into the responsibilities of Long Meadow um because of the wide ranging supports and lack of administrative uh support there uh we often have other issues that arise that that arise that require administrators from across the district to um shelf some of their responsibilities and and go help long meow also hosts our summer school program um right now we've built in a placeholder in the budget these specific salaries would need to be negotiated should uh the board uh support this and should the referendum support this add to our schools um the second piece is the idea that I mentioned before about acceleration versus remediation uh there's no way for us to go back and fix all of the holes that are created

043and even the holes that are created are very different uh and different students at different grades uh different learning styles not everybody's facing the same thing so we can't go back and recreate everything that's been lost over this school year um we have to just move faster um you you can't win a race from behind unless you run faster than the person in front and I don't know exactly who's in front and who's winning this race but I know that again we can't stop and try to go back we have to move forward and we do that through IND visualizing student learning we do that by providing additional instructional support to teachers so that our tier one our classroom instruction uh is more differentiated is more tailored to the students who are in front of

044them is based on core standards uh that we've gone through our curriculum and taking out things that we can move faster through or that students may already know we we compact that curriculum so that we get the core learning standards of each grade uh and we provide intervention and and targeted supports students that need them when they need them as opposed to a pullout structure and that's where these supports come in that contingency teacher allows us that position that should we need it can move to whatever grade level uh experiences a spike uh again I think that right now is that kindergarten at gainfield is the potential risk area um that we would look at um the special ed addition of the one teacher to elementary school it me contains that contingency funding in the

045special education budget that we've used each year uh that curriculum audit that will help us compact the curriculum to be more specific about the standards that we should be teaching to help us separate some of the standards that may be less important or that we should no longer be teaching um that we want to inform our curriculum again with that outside structure and we don't want it to fall just on uh District Intuition or District research we want a broader comparison of State and National Best Practices the additional math coach so math right now and I'm sure that you'll get a deeper dive into this in the weeks ahead but math instruction nationally and math performance um shows a greater Gap over the last 10 months than language arts instruction and right now we have

046a um reading specialist in each building but we only have one math coach spread across Four elementary schools and six grades so an additional math coach at the elementary level will double the amount of support we'll be able to provide for our elementary teachers and for our elementary students uh technology so this year um the district moved to a one to one program I know we've been talking about it since 2010 and um between July and September um we did that um we added more than 2400 Computing devices to a district so we now have more than 4,500 across the district um we can't wait until those machines age out and try to replace 4,500 machines in a year or even 2,000 in a year we need to move to a cycle where each uh

047each year we're replacing somewhere between 25 and um sorry 10 to 25% of those machines so that there's a um depending on the type of device core switches routers things like on the edge they can go longer um and then are consumable type devices or Chromebooks that students are using on a regular basis really need to have a four or five year cycle of replacement so uh the budget proposal you have in front of you tonight builds in enough funding to um put that replacement cycle uh in place um this budget will replace everything that's seven years old in the district or more and then again that tiered lease structure that we began last year creates that structure so that every year the technology department knows there's a certain level of funding that's in the

048budget and they can create a consistent replacement cycle if we don't replace somewhere between 800 um and 900 devices a year you're going to get to a place as a school district where all of a sudden things are broken um and we need large amounts of funding to do that in a year which again creates a spike in the budget process that's just not healthy for towns or um the community uh and we're also at a place now where students can't just make do with old broken technology we had issues uh we're asking teachers to stream and hold classrooms online with six and seven year old computers uh and it it's not good for teachers it's not good for students uh Building Maintenance we've been talking about this again at um the finance subcommittee for

049a couple of months now uh the gain sorry the memorial sorry the mees Middlebury elementary school parking lot um is uh Beyond repair we're estimating it's between 300 and 400,000 to replace that Park block high school locker rooms have been uh a part of this conversation for a couple of years now the estimates that we have to replace those are between 150 and 200,000 um the roof at the the back section of the roof of the central office building is leaking that estimate is 200,000 we do think that project uh will be eligible for some State Grant offsets of about 50,000 uh so originally we had talked about some um funding opportunities for this the more we research it it may not be um available to us we're building 200,000 into this budget for Capital

050Improvement it's obviously not going to pay for the $700,000 uh or more projects that are listed above um but we're hoping that uh through efficiencies this year that some of our year inbalance can go into our uh non reoccurring Capital fund and help subsidize the 200,000 in the budget the reason 200,000 was chosen is that at the end of this year the lease for the turf field will be complete the payment on that is 200,000 um if we take that 200,000 uh and realize it in savings it's going to create one of those funding Clips two or three years from now that we're going to have to build it back into the budget and it doesn't address any of the capital improvements that are currently uh facing us so that keeps that line level funded

051it has no net increase to the budget but allows some of these projects to uh begin uh last year we been we began to increase our pension contribution our current pens pension contribution is uh 930,000 this budget puts another 20,000 into that um the goal of that uh pension was to reach 80 % currently we're about 63 to 65% funded um the extra 20,000 put in there will make sure that our pension contribution outpaces our uh distribution which means that all the money in our pension fund continues to grow we don't draw down on that uh at any point the pension Committee just changed vendors and over time will provide some policy guidance in this direction uh the Board of Ed also again started talking about an internal Financial audit structure so this budget puts

05215,000 towards um at least as seed money to begin that multi-year process we're out for bid right now so it's hard to say exactly what $155,000 get you but it does get you a placeholder in our budget to start that work um collective bargaining contracts this is kind of how the budget works out about 75% of our budget goes to salary and benefits uh 25 is everything else that 75 % for the most part is outlined in uh obligated contracts so there's not a lot of flexibility in how we fund those um the um insurance claims have been lower than expected and so one of the advantages we have in the 2122 budget is that we can keep our insurance uh projections and our insurance contributions flat um the overline is going up slightly but

053that's mostly um by liability and property claims and not by health insurance claims so here's how your total benefit line will increase by about 510 of a percent uh and that is driven by the things you see here the pension increase uh the life insurance um and the custodial Health Plan here's an outline of uh um the Staffing changes that have already been introduced in the budget this is just a summary on one chart to our certified non-certified line there are no changes and then the um certified changes you see outlined here again I've already spoken to them earlier in the budget here's how that 75 um and 25 break out so supplies instructional non-instructional 4% tuition that's um in uh public and private special education tuition that the district is obligated to fund Transportation

054that's both special ed in general transportation is about 7% of our budget and then everything else about seven and a half all right so here's the complicated part I can't see your faces so I hope you're staying with me um here's our Revenue sources so in the past all of these revenues were baked into specific object lines we've now taken them all out um and broken them out line by line so you can see what our estimates are for each of those uh Revenue lines I can't go back before the 1920 year because pulling these out is pretty complicated um for example I know that in the past um there was a narrative like Po rag high school parking fees pay for security so in that security line is our actual security costs um our

055projected security costs our projected revenue and our actual Revenue so there's a the exercise of breaking that all apart is uh a little complicated and we did it for last year but we can't go back and do that for the previous years going forward you now have a new starting point that we'll be able to add each of these on um so as a Regional School District basically each Town's contribution to us is a re Vue line and so you'll see that the town of middlebury's uh adopted budget the last few years uh the proposed for next year um and if you do quick math you can see on the far right that Delta is the change and the impact to each Community for next year that Delta and change does take into account the

056ADM shift and then as you move down I'm going to go into that on the next slide anyway but as you go down you'll see that um our uh prek tuition we take in about 100 $70,000 a year uh pay to play The District takes in 180,000 um the middle school music programs take in 15,000 parking accounts for 55,000 so that $420,000 for next year regardless of what line you put it against in the budget has a net effect of lowering the school budget by 420,000 in addition to that we have uh grants from the state state that bring it down further so the magnet Transportation Grant is worth 27,000 excess costs now excess costs a little different because it's a projection we're not sure what we're going to get next year um and you'll

057see that this is one of the nuances um happening in the 2122 budget in that in this year's adopted budget we have 1.8 million in expected revenue from excess cost next year that number is going to go down to 1.5 million so there's a loss there of approx imately $300,000 in some ways that's a good thing because it means that we have other special ed costs that are also dropping the downside of that is the reimbursement that we get from the state for those costs is also dropping so there is a revenue loss in that excess cost grant that you're going to see later on in the budget process how that manifests um the agency placed Grant those are like DCF students that are are responsibility but the state has ownership in uh paying for

058some of that um Adult Ed big Grant there for $900 um so we are collecting next year an anticipated 1.7 million from state grants again down from2 200,000 this year so the overall um budget next year you can see the difference on that bottom line there um when I go to the next slide this is how that all rolls up so you'll see the salary line the benefit line um and if you walk through so you'll see the 2021 adopted budget the 2122 proposed budget the year-to-year change in actual dollars the percent change on that line the percent of our total budget that that line um comprises of and then the impact or the percent of next year's budget contained in that line so of the 2.58 proposed increase next year 2.38% of that is

059in salaries uh one tenth of that is in uh benefits there's a drop in instructional now before when you started remember there's a realignment so that drop in instructional is mostly due to moving the copiers out of instructional and into non-instructional uh there's some other reductions in non-instructional and that's why the increase in the non-instructional line um is not totally the 322,000 um but there's not we didn't reduce instruction in the district by $300,000 you'll see that the transportation line dropped by four 440,000 again that's the renegotiation of those outof District contracts that saved us a lot of money the facilities line goes up by 247,000 200,000 of that is um the facilities Improvement money that comes out of the debt line uh and again so that those are the ins and outs so you'll

060see that our total gross budget before revenue is factored in is increasing 2 point just about 2% 2.08% when you factor in a revenue loss based on that excess cost of $300,000 that has a uh an impact to the overall budget that increases the revenue uh needs from other sources so as one Revenue Source goes down others have to compensate and that's where the reduction in excess cost projections next year actually has um an increase in the school budget and that's where you see a 2.58% now that's the school budget when you apply that to the towns here's how that works out so the school budget gross on the top of 2.08 the revenue loss of a half a percent the school budget of 2.58% when you apply that to the ADM um the average

061daily membership you'll you'll remember back in October last year middleburry had a huge influx of students and Southbury saved from their um contribution to the region 15 budget approximately a million dollars as that shift this year the shift went back not as extreme but it went back so the shift to South B equates to almost 1% um of the overall budget about 700,000 of that dollar increase to southberry is due to that ADM shift that ADM shift also helps middle Berry's budget um so of the 2.58% increase only 0.13 of that is a middleberry obligation and 2.38 of that is a southberry so on that bottom you'll see the adopted budget from this current year the proposed budget the distribution based on the ADM numbers uh from the October enrollment report what that means in

062a dollar increase and then what that means in a percent increase and then um this is the average daily membership if you can see my cursor here um but you'll see that last year there was an extreme shift this year that shift is a little more typical um of the year-to-year flow of um students between the two towns so we have four theories of action one about communication uh trust transparency there's a restructured budget format again I can't underscore the amount of work that went in to give you a budget uh as clean and transparent as you have tonight um we also include that curriculum and instruction audit that's designed to help uh improve trust it actually shows up at a couple of places um achievement and engagement some of the things in this budget

063would be to fully fund those instructional materials needed by schools that technology replacement cycle the assistant principal and the math coach uh the this budget maintains that teacher and residency position when we talk about inclusive schools um and it also creates a capital Project funding Stream So that our schools not only are welcoming inclusive but parking lots like the one at Mees are not swallowing small cars and children on a regular basis um and then the high school uh preparation piece is that that Throne program that we've approved there's $122,000 in here uh to fund that program uh and this Pro budget funds that acceleration of learning we tried to acknowledge the financial pressures that we anticipate the pandemic is going to place on um the community as well as the state mandates and the

064federal mandates things like um a $15 minimum wage it expands the educational opportunities for students we provide all the necessary materials and equipment that principles requested um it ensures that curriculum professional development will continue it provides Staffing to our schools we address those Capital repairs and again there's nothing in here that is going to create a Compound Effect uh a year two or three years out here's how uh the propos proposal of a 2.8 58 falls into um your historical budget uh approved numbers some of the things board members are going to get their budget books tomorrow they look like this feel like Vanna um the entire budget document will be online this evening uh so that every single line in our budget all of these tabs that are here all of these object codes

065that are here um is in a PDF form that will be on our district website some things to keep in mind as you look at the budget that there have been some pretty significant shifts as we align to that standard chart of accounts uh but they didn't have a net impact to the budget we just simply took the dollars that were there and shifted them to the new account codes there's some um examples uh and places to see that happen uh listed here that revenue is stand loone we can uh take questions and spend some time on that if people want uh the link is there and um here is the budget schedule so next meeting for the budget is March 3D you'll see and here from um the elementary principles the Middle School principles

066uh and Dr chiaa uh March 17th you'll see the high school the Athletics uh special education and Technology uh uh we will all also the 24th is the public hearing uh and to that we've invited the boards of Finance so that they can have an opportunity to ask us some questions and we can share with them maybe some more specifics about uh areas that they're interested in and then um the Board of Ed will meet on the 26th of April uh and they're scheduled to adopt at least some form of a budget on that night um you can submit questions to me we're going to take some questions now if you have them uh and then we'll put those questions on the website as well with that any questions thank you so much Josh um

067for that uh the budget presentation I'm sure a lot of time and effort went into uh putting that together for us so thank you uh very much um to you and everyone who helped you uh put that together um so do we have does anyone have any questions uh preliminary questions for Josh right now yep Steve go ahead uh Josh can you reshare I just need this slide to go to slide 12 these are all just like just for understanding they're not detailed questions so that's totally fine um can you see my screen now uh yeah yes it's got the slide reel on the left if that that doesn't bother me I'm just saying I can see that one there yeah which one of these is um if or or none of these like the

068governor has recently been talking about money that he was just that was just dled out I notice southberry and middleberry got zero it's a and it's a vague question but are you familiar with like his most recent announcement do you can you yeah so the short answer is it's none of these okay um that he's talking about the educational cost sharing Grant oh okay and that money goes right to the town that doesn't come to the school district okay H and then so if if you are talking about um essr 2 that's going to be spent like through the next couple years like how I I mean how's it really a relief to spend it on custodial over time I mean what is the Assumption there that like we're still going to have extra cleanup

069costs because of we need more substitutes because of people being out because of covid yeah so some of that for example even um in the second part of this year so we're going to spend a lot more on substitutes than we would in a normal school year um and so what this allows us to do we spend in front of you we can dig it out specific but about 620,000 in substitutes uh in a given school year so under covid we might spend $800,000 on substitutes so this this grant allows us to spend that difference on those substitutes and not pass that cost on to the taxpayer or cut other programs from the budget the the kind of dangerous thing is to spend more so let's say next year we budgeted um what we our

070normal uh year is for substitutes and the extra we put here but if we kind of overshot that and said oh you know next year let's buy down extra 100,000 in substitutes the following year when this grant goes away we're going to have to adjust back up and now that's a cost that gets past so that fiscal cliff that I kind of talked about before that's like the attractive nuisance of some of this is kind of using this money to go beyond the covid impact and to really start um funding the average or the normal typical budget lines um at a higher rate out of these grants but then that's going to create an we're just passing that cost down to Future years which will not only have to restore those costs but then any

071you know salary increases or things that get compounded like those become um really difficult hurdles in future years so we're trying to balance those things but you do have to tie it to a covid related expense is that yes okay uh and then could you move to page 17 or slide 17 please and there um oh yeah so if you're if we have these new graduation requirements like how can we not fund them I guess like I guess I just feel like you know all of a sudden everyone's going to need to take a Capstone experience to meet their requirements the board's already passed and then we haven't funded it oring yeah we're gonna phase that in over time so it's not like the seniors have to take it um whatever year we implement it

072we're going to put it like for the graduating class of 2024 um 2025 and so we we just pushing that Capstone experience out a little bit again there's some costs that are going to be incurred to create that um and I don't know that next year anybody's going to have the bandwidth to start a new initiative of that size so that's where we push it off that's I just thought all the requirements were kind of All or Nothing so that's but you're saying that we can peace meal them is what I'm hear you okay and then page slide um so you can like how like if we look at Long Meadow uh grade two it's going from 80 to 62 like you actually have a projection that we're losing eight like that just seems I

073know I mean I just like wow like you know you're losing 18 people so can you see my cursor on the screen yes all right so if so if you look at first grade this year okay there's 60 students those those students and again this is where demographers come in they look at Trends over time but for the most part our student population's pretty stable so they know that next year's second grade is going to look a lot like this year's first oh I'm sorry I was just not reading that it's the SL over and down one okay so that's kind of how the so that's where like the 86 and grade three show up yes it's not that grade two you know all the all these kids move in it's this cohort that moves

074up a year I was reading AC C yep nope fine thank you um and then slide 24 I'm almost done um actually uh you know what we can um that's uh you know the only other question I have it's not about this slide is um teacher and residence when does that title like just become teacher or when you know I don't I just like at what you know what like I guess that implies to me something temporary like whether you know one two or five years or teacher which means you know it's teacher because we've just we're gonna it's permanent so as a school district there's not a lot of like R&D that we do so this is a position that we're not sure what the long-term impact of it is we know we need

075this position now to help see new learning for staff so the difference is and why it's a teacher and residency is there's no position in the district uh that's a full-time teacher equivalent the teacher that's there is still technically a teacher at Long Meadow it's a second grade teaching position at Long Meadow the person has been removed from the classroom and there's a long-term substitute that's put in that class for one year at some point what we may say is that's a standing position that it exists every year as a position in the district when that should when if should that happen then it would no longer be a teacher in residency it would be um whatever we decide to call that position okay um in the school budget but right now that that exists

076outside of the traditional structure um of the teacher there's no teacher role that that has that in there it's a temporary role uh and we're saying that next year we should continue with that as we learn and and as we see the impact uh but the person that backfills that position is a temporary kind of position paid out of the long-term substitute account okay okay thank you that's my last question thank you any other questions Aran I have John whatever okay how about if we do Richard and then John okay okay thank you Marian Josh I have a request for you please I would like you to send out to all the board members the actual cost per student for this year the actual cost per student for the projected new budget and the percent

077increase between the actual across this year and the projected across next year and I would like that sent out to all the board members before the next meeting we can do that is that possible so I know Mr spirito we're gonna talk I'm talking the actual cost in other words the number of students divided by the total amount we spent this year right so that's that's where our challenge is Mr spirito is that how you define the purp I'm ask you to Define it that way right so we Define it based on the state formula for per no not the state formula on the actual amount of dollars spent by region 15 divided by the number of students in the system right and I appreciate that that that is your interpretation of how Pro student

078cost is calculated but things like heat for example isn't amortized all students but that's the State playing games with funding and that's all it is we have we the the towns of Middlebury and Southbury fund this uh region 15 so we have to put the cost the dollar cost into it please send the exact amount that region 15 spends per student that is the dollar amount total dollar amount divided by the number of students thank you Josh I am happy to provide that that is a math problem that we can do I just hesitate when you say per pupil cost that there are multiple ways to Define that and there is I'm tell you the cost that I would like to see the ones the community is interested in the actual dollar amounts I understand

079that and we can do that very easily thank you Richard any other question or should we move on to John no that's fine okay go ahead John I just have uh three things you asked the question Josh in reference to the assistant principal at lmes okay when did it start I know it started in 2015 16 17 it was there it was put because we knew where the growth was and the taxation on the existing principle or whatever reason it always got put aside okay and I think we knew about it before this is the first year when we see it and what's going on and the struggle that you have at lmes with one person trying to control a school of that size and what's going on and I'm glad it's in this year's

080budget um and we got into trouble a couple years with math when the parents were complaining that they had to go out and hire math tutors and all of this other stuff because of the problems that were going on will the math uh coach and stuff like that that keep us at the level we're at and where we need to go well I answer that a little I'm sure that Dr Cheta will will talk to it uh when she presents I think that um she would tell you we need one at each building I will agree you know again we're trying to balance uh needs and fiscal responsibility part of it is to give you a budget and help uh you understand what's in there and let you decide what you think is uh f

081prudent for the communities um we do know that math is what's showing up as the the biggest challenge that covid has created for students um that the regression or lack of progress um has been documented uh in lots of different student assessments over the past 10 months our own started happening well if we get through the weather ever I think it started happening this week um but our winter map assessment um is scheduled to start this week and we'll have some actual comparative student data of our own students um and we'll be able to see if our Trend data matches that of what we're seeing nationally but we know that math um is a bigger challenge right now and so that's where uh that resource uh is put we also already have uh reading specialists

082at each Elementary School and while we have a very tremendous math coach who does a very good job and if you read her um slice a pie it's impressive what's in there but it's one person spread across four buildings and it's it's a Monumental Challenge and uh that's where we think that the the biggest return on investment uh instructionally or one of the biggest returns is in that math Coach position of course we have to find the person that can deliver that quality of instruction but we're not going to have a tutor or an interventionist be able to work with 3,000 students we have to help teachers in the classroom teach to the students in front of them that's that's the magnifier and that's what an instructional coach does is it magnifies um the their

083impact to if they work with 20 teachers we've now just started working with 200 students and and that's that kind of it's a math coach so I guess a multiplier effect is an appropriate comment you know but um that's kind of how that that works I put it to you this way and to the board one is better than none one is better than none that will at least help um the other thing is the cycle and Tech equipment we had started a program I figure about seven years ago based on the way we were bringing in starting to bring in computers and stuff like that did that fall by the wayside to get us into this seven-year cycle again yeah so my understanding is at some point in the past you started down this

084latter Le structure where you cre 2014 um but then didn't put in the other the in order to have a latter lease you need to have a structure where every three years one lease falls off and one lease comes on and what that does is it gives you a a consistent budget structure um while you put in the first year you never did the second or third years of that so there was no cycle so again you created a structure where and this isn't I'm just explaining what happened I don't know all the pieces but you create a structure where we brought in kind of a balloon of equipment um that is all coming off line at the same time what we want to get to that was kind of exacerbated through federal grants and

085covid where we brought in another 2500 machines so if we don't start creating a a cyclical process we're going to get into that kind of peak and Valley structure again and you know I don't want to come to you and say I need a million dollars with the technology or all good stuff's gonna be broken so what you're telling me is we have fallen back into the same rut as where we were before we put it in place and it never got followed up on it we should have been placing three years and then the next cycle then the next cycle now we're back to where we were before and I know that was terrible but I I think you know again when we we took an influx of you know 2,000 devices like that's

086okay as long as we're able to maintain that over time but if we don't put that process in place we're going to get you know four years three years down the road where there is this kind of Crisis and we're almost back there again that's it that's all I've got to say thank you John um anyone else with questions I see Heather Rogers has her hand up hi Josh I was just hoping that you could share the presentation with us either email um my tired eyes I'm having a hard time reading some of the smaller slides um even with glasses so if you could email that out to us I would appreciate it and also thank you so much for offering to get us the budget books tomorrow that's much appreciated so we that's a

087good question actually so we can either deliver them or if you want to pick them up you can you can pick them up just let Jen megleo know which you'd prefer and actually Joe if while we're answering questions here can you just email the board this presentation sure yep thank you so much sure all right anyone else have questions oh I see Sharon has her hand up hi thank you so much for the presentation and all the work that went into um providing that information to us this evening just two items I'm very interested to understand what that curriculum audit like the details around that you don't necessarily need to speak to that tonight but what I'm really interested to understand is not is how that audit of the curriculum will it touch or evaluate

088what we're actually assessing our children on so um you spoke earlier and it did start the map assessments today um um so you know will that audit also evaluate the testing assessments to ensure that we are not only um implementing the appropriate styles to support learning to the children but also you know the types of information and and that they're actually being assessed on um I don't know if people know but I mean having a remote child I've seen some of those those map assessments and the questions but I've also sat in um remote on you know with my child you know in the classroom being taught to and there seems to be a very big uh disproportion or disproportionate relative to what's being taught versus what's being tested and so I would like to

089understand would the audit address that and maybe that's the purpose of the assessment um but um that's one area I'm very very interested in um the second area um when you talked about the math coach you know really trying to understand um how that certainly there's a benefit uh and I'm in support of having a math coach and it clearly sounds like we need more of them you spoke a little bit about the fact that there um is a projected increase that would result in a potential additional teacher I think it was at gainfield you said and that you'd like to bookmark that if that doesn't come to fruition would you ever consider using that bookmark position for a second math coach if the need is there I'm just it's an idea I just wanted

090to put out there I think that's I think that's a great idea I think you can see Dr Chipeta I don't know if you can see her on screen um and I think you know I appreciate the questions that's really what I hope tonight does is to kind of give you um you know a 50,000 foot view of what's in this budget and then if you can seed questions about what you want us to focus on over the next few nights as principles and um other administrators kind of go deeper into this um part of this whole process is to help you understand what's in there and be able to ask questions and answer them so you know if you have questions like that let us know and we'll build them into uh the presentations

091and then yeah the short answer is having that contingency teacher if that gain field doesn't materialize and if that there's no spike in another grade level that we're not anticip that I think the question comes uh through the board I mean that's where transfers of funds start to occur is that if we don't need something in the budget what are we going to do with the those funds um and there is kind of a a risk vers reward you know and I I I joke I never joke about other people's money but um the idea of a contingency teacher you know we could build that into the budget as a teacher um we could not build it into the budget which creates a different risk where we come to you you know in June after

092the budget's been voted on and we say Hey you know this Spike happened and now we need to either cut something so that we can reallocate it um or do some other type of funding structure so that's kind of part of what being part of a transparent process is is I want to point out to you what our thinking is and then have you either understand our thinking and agree with it or say you know what that's either uh we need that 65,000 that's what we budgeted for a contingency um Elementary School teacher we need that money for something else um or uh some other piece last year the conversation was that's too much risk and we we built in um more staff so that's really I want this to be a partnership where we're

093sharing our thinking and then either validate it question it um and and we can change it as we go through this process thank you and can you speak a little bit if about the additional information about the audit and I and I totally appreciate um you know that that's going to be taking place but does it evaluate the assessment as well to ensure that the instruction is aligned or or I just I this is not an area where I have a lot of insight or knowledge so um perhaps that can be just kind of addressed uh if not tonight at another time yeah so um on when when um Carrie presents her budget she'll go into some some deeper pieces I think um that within that curriculum audit there are certain things we want them

094to focus on they're going to give us kind of a broad brush on a lot of things um but that we have certain areas that we want them to drill a lot deeper into and and you're touching on kind of things that we're thinking about like what's what's the written curriculum versus The Talk curriculum versus the assess standards exact those are things that like I have ideas based on how I come about information and and analyze it uh Dr Chipeta has kind of thoughts but what we want is somebody who does professionally as an outsider kind of unattached to my own bias or car's own bias around what's happening in our curriculum and either challenge kind of our current assumptions or validate our current assumptions and give us um maybe a broader spectrum of data

095to stand upon and um help us drive that work forward that would really be great because it's it seems like such talking about math it seems like such a complex equation when you think about all the different variables and then we we seem to always go to this quantitative measure of Assessments and growth and I think those tools are great and I think this the teachers and staff are great I mean I've witnessed it firsthand how dedicated and how just how how well they effectively work and with each child but um I I I am very interested to understand what that will look like and from a third party's perspective where there could be opportunities particular when we start talking about you know the math coach or the reading instruction or those types of things

096because that's exactly what it's supposed to do right fill any potential Gap so um thank you for taking that into consideration and I look forward to that additional information thank you Sharon um anyone else have any questions trying to scroll scroll through board members here Shannon Heather Tom it just emailed out the presentation to everyone so you should have a copy oh is that why everyone's distracted Joe about that but thank you very much for doing that um ifan I just have one question sure John go ahead with the assistant principal going to lmes how much does that relieve the principle of some of his duties that he's been so taxed with out there so I think we can give you numbers um of of ratios and time but I think what happens when you

097have a building that's underst staffed the support comes so if there's a problem with element or with h preschool dismissal while lunch is happening the principal can't say well there's no one here to deal with it so you know we're just going to let it happen people in that building have to adjust and so um it means that the cafeteria is underst staffed or OB teaching observations or instructional supports or School psychologists or reading Specialists instead of doing their job kind of pivot to the the crisis at hand and I think that's some of what um we're witnessing there and so like it's hard to say 12% 30% 60% of someone's job but in the day-to-day operations there's a lot of folks at Long Meadow uh kind of and I I mean this in a

098in a very empathetic way that that have comprom their own role to take on whatever need of the moment there is um and and what's happening is the the staff there um don't have access to the principal for example or um teacher observations get rescheduled because there's a crisis and there's only one person to deal with whatever that crisis is and those all create additional stressors on the building uh they all create extra liabilities in the building um and like that's the challenge and so you know again when an administrator's out or uh when the administrator and the Lead Teacher are out there's just it's a really big building with a lot of pieces and moving Parts uh and I think what we're witnessing is uh fracturing at times of just a lot of people

099trying to hold things together and we wouldn't ask any other school district or any other school in our district to manage as many pieces as we as that building to manage and so um you know it's really hard to say like what percentage of the principal's time or how much like is he running at 110% 130% you know those are hard pieces to quantify but we have lots of examples of things that aren't happening the way we would want them because there's there's just a um a lack of resource in that building so the assistant principle we bring into there okay becomes an equalizer to balance the workload that is there at L Mees that we've always needed out there yeah and I mean the the preschool is an example it's a program with a

100almost a hundred students um that runs within that building um that requires administrative support with some of our neediest three and four year olds in the district um and so you know when um Mr Rano or Dr shto end up interfacing in that building or outside resources again it further weakens the supports within that building um and that's a really important program in our schools uh it's a federally mandated program and as you see on the revenue page it also brings in $170,000 in Revenue um and yet we have no administrator on a day-to-day basis that's there um to help support that and so I think th those are the kinds of fractures that we see within that building okay no it's been a problem for years and there never been straightened out and now

101is the time to do it no doubt about it thank you um Sharon I see you have another question or just one more question about assistant principles is would Long Meadow then other than the high school be the only other school that has an assistant principal and the reason why I ask is just for secession planning particularly with the the change that was just recently announced at PES I think that you know building these types of positions in at different levels actually helps when those types of changes happen so I'm just interested is um you know are they typically assistant principles outside the high school of the different schools uh each middle school has one assistant principal okay but no elementary school has an assistant principal at this time okay so yeah for secession planning

102that would be nice okay thanks it is um it is interesting there there really isn't any opportunity for internal growth for a lot of our teacher leaders at the elementary level and so you're right I mean that's not a driver of this but there is there is a um an opportunity for growth inside the district if an administrative like an entry level administrative position so that's an excellent thought thank you thank you um I see Heather DWI has a question hi um and again thank you for for all of this and for everybody's effort um that went into this um and I just kind of thought of a question as as John was was asking about kind of quantifying the need for an assistant principal at Long Meadow and and I I appreciate um that

103type of question and and I recognize that it's really hard to come up with a number um but something that you know I'm noticing when you're talking about um the demographics of the region is that we're expecting more growth in our elementary schools would you say that's fair it is yeah and it's it's in the enrollment projections yes um so this this issue that we're trying to address it it's something we've known about for a while and it's something that gets worse um each year as we see this growth and so if we don't address it we are kicking a can down the road that we need to eventually address is what it sounds like to me is that fair yeah again I I think that you know the opportunity tonight is for me to

104present to you a budget that I feel um moves us forward as a district and one based on where I'm at is one that um is sustainable by the local economy I think the 10 of you have to decide where you fall on that and ask questions to help answer that um you know this is my third budget that I've presented um each of those budgets has had the uh Long Meadow assistant principal on The Cutting Room floor slide um had last year not been a global pandemic I don't know that it would have stayed on The Cutting Room floor last year um I think there's some other things that um are fortuitous our transportation negotiations um you know there I I very much understand the um challenge of adding administrative positions to a school

105budget uh if this was a a three and a half percent budget increase I don't think I would have that in there you know um I think that if we're going to do it uh we've been talking about it I believe since 97 um that that building was designed to have an assistant principal in it a building of that size again when you compare it to other schools of that size across the state um I don't think there's um any other category that we would want to be fifth from the bottom in um and so I mean I think that that's not necessarily how we would want to staff a building um I think that things align to the point this year where I felt confident that we could bring it forward and at least

106have a conversation about it um so yeah I mean I do think there's a liability there that this um fixes uh I think that that that's a a really big building for one person to be um you know alone and I think what ends up happening is a lot of other folks get tapped to help support those things which then weakens some of the the fabric and C culture in the building all right anyone else have questions I'm trying to yep did I hear you Steve I'm trying to scroll through everyone yes she did okay may ask the question yeah go ahead yeah so it's two things one I just would say um it regardless it's it's still a very very very very very difficult cell um in that um you know we've been operating

107this way probably when there was even more people in Long Meadow than there are now in terms of students um yes and you're right like to add an administrative position um is just a challenging thing to do I think I would be interested in uh you know my and again it's sort of an anecdotal understand it could be completely flawed but um you know if you mentioned you know Dr scetta and Mr aano I mean if if you know we're short circleing if they could be elsewhere right I mean they're they have districtwide needs and if you know that might be something to highlight for the board at a future meeting about how there might be gains in um their efficiencies elsewhere because they are not tied to this building as as much that might

108be something um that maybe you know you could highlight or uh you know if if there's a certain area like let's and again I don't know but like if the prescho School say is the cause of a lot you know of uh taking a a disproportionate amount of the principal's time you know can we do a um you know is there a way to hire someone there just to assist with that like if 50% of the problem is X like can we just hire someone to deal with 50% of the problem and maybe not have an administrator um you know hiring that that just those are the types of things that I additional things that I think I would be we' be looking for um as we try to justify the need uh you know

109for the new position and then also uh something else totally unrelated when you talk about the decrease in Revenue that was added approximately a half a percent to the budget so if I'm following you you were saying that because we are efficient elsewhere um we you know we're we're we're not able to say charge as much so we are not able to submit as much for the the reimbursement um and that's why we have that extra half a percent tacked on is that yeah I can speak a little to both so one piece I just want to be clear um we're extremely thankful for our preschool program and I'm really happy that it's at Long Meadow and I don't want any way want to confuse even if you control for our large preschool program and

110take out the 100 students Long Meadow is still um substantially bigger than any other school um in our district and so that's where you know the addition of the preschool adds complexity um and I would say that we wouldn't want to add an administrator for preschool um for a couple reasons one the idea is to make that a prek-5 building and adding an administrator just further fractionalize but also I'm talking about adding an administrator for all 5 almost 50 uh students not just for the hundred so kind of your return on investment for an administrative position is you want that person to also be um connected to the entire School population and not just um that preschool um the excess cost piece or that that Revenue reduction is tied to excess cost so while um

111we're not getting a onetoone reimbursement so we we have to pay for the first 60,000 approximately um of every uh cost related to a child and then over that we get somewhere between a 65 and 70% reimbursement so by losing the 300,000 in Revenue we also gain a lot of savings in our special education tuition costs in most cases um that outpace that 300,000 so you know although we lose the 300,000 that's better than paying 600,000 get 300 more you know so but but when we before you didn't see it that way because when we gave kind of that net budget number um to the towns those costs were already assumed in there so you couldn't you couldn't tease them out to that kind of macro level you were you were almost looking at the

112tuition line after those dollars were applied to it so you didn't see that Revenue um like you're seeing it now and so those losses or gains for that matter wouldn't show up in those lines I I think the towns I I mean not that we're not but the towns I believe were should be very happy to see this this way or am I again mistaken um because it's more like you say it's more transparent um and I feel like I don't know I just have a feel but we can ask them when we see them the boards of Finance but um I feel like this is something they've been after for a while I could be wrong no and I think because if you want to have the conversation that we it's hard for us

113to do now other than what you have in your um monthly Financial reports but going forward if you want to say pick a line in the budget and what was the total cost the actual cost that you spent on that line before when we applied these costs to that line there were a lot of um overlapping variables how much did you budget how much did you actually spend um how much did you anticipate in Revenue how much actual Revenue did you get did you apply all that Revenue to that line so it's really hard to tease out what the actual cost is for anything in the budget by doing it this way you can see next year for example with excess cost we're estimating 1,551 724 in excess cost next June we're going to come

114to you and we're going to say here's how much we got in excess cost were we exact were we too high were we too low and then over the next two to three years you're going to be able to say here's what we are estimating here's what we actually get here's um the the math behind why Joe and I and other Financial people in public school pick that number and then is our math right and is our like three-year Trend data is how I would look at it what's our three-year average and how close are we to that Mark and then we should either adjust up or down if we're not at that Mark you couldn't have those conversations before we did this so I I do think that this is this is a very

115transparent way to look at our budget and give you the ability to ask those questions um and all of us now to look at any line and I I would say that like three to five years how much do we spend on electricity does it go up 3% a year and if so then we should be budgeting at a 3% increase um or what are we doing to like our solar is that having an impact well it's hard to have that question until you have all of these things kind of baked into the budget process so so 1.55 1724 yep so we'll we'll allow you and Joe like $100 in either direction how do that sounds well I know you'll owe us like a $100 below you know you want to give us a you

116want us to be a little conservative on that number you don't want us to be way off but if they fund us it you know we we we uh we projected that if they fund us it you know 20% more than we projected you should be really happy okay all right got it stead thank you right thank you I have one more one more comment go ahead John in reference to this assistant principal at lmes we have always pushed since Josh got here transparency so I think we need transparency here why we need an assistant principal at long medal Elementary School some of the things that this assistant principal can help out with with what's been going on there since 2015 we had transparency in 2015 why we needed it we do nothing about it

117and it has only grown since then so if it's possible some of the reasoning behind it all right thank you anyone else um I I just had a a a few questions on myself um Josh um first um when you talk about how um math has been really impacted by the pandemic does that only apply to elementary school or is that also for middle school and high school too it does apply across um although when it'll be a little interesting so the high school one's a little more nuanced just because we don't have the same type of annualized data for like sophomore through seniors um and I was just jumping up to our Roi slide like last year our SAT scores um did not show that um but again like it's hard like so we

118took the SAT kind of right at the beginning of kind of that covid piece um going forward like it'll be interesting to see what story this year's sat data tells uh we just have more consistent data sets K8 um but I think and and Dr chapeta can can talk to it um I think she's next meeting anyway um you can talk to it now if you want I was just going to say a lot of the research that we looked at looked at how kids did um you know year to year and so they compared um students from certain points of the school year so they looked at last the beginning of last school year to the beginning of this school year and saw that there wasn't as much of a decline in reading and

119language arts as there was in in mathematics and so that's why this next set of map testing um is important for us as a district to look into can see um if you know the growth that has has happened but um the national research took a look at what kids were able to do at the beginning of last school year compared to what students could do at the beginning of this school year and they saw a big decline in the area of mathematics for what what students uh were able to do at the different levels but there's fewer districts I would say that like use the map or star or some type of um progress monitoring once you get to like your sophomore year of high school so like when we talk about it like

120we have pretty good data sets elementary middle I think you find a little less consistent data when you get especially to sophomores and higher um so while we do think that there's um some continued Trend there um the data like the National Data research at least I and we can maybe touch a little more on it when Carrie presents in a week or so but the the there's there's conclusive data I would say like for first second grade through 8th grade when you start getting into to 10th grade it gets a little again we think the trend points to that but it's not quite as consistent right thank you um I guess what I'd like to see either when Dr chiaa presents or um whoever you think is appropriate is I I like I hear

121a plan a little bit for elementary school I'd love to know what the plan is to address um you know math and middle school or math in high school or like what's your plan of attack and then will you get those map results in time for us to you know if you if there has to be a budget impact like if you find out something from those results that are really going to impact the budget will we get those in time before we pass our budget yeah I think so okay um another question I had is about the um the internal audit not the curriculum audit but the internal audit I was hoping that at some point um in the future you could address what does the $155,000 get us and what can we do

122with that um and what wiggle room is there um so right now I can't speak to it right now that is a placeholder dollar amount um I know that we're at we're um out for bid right now with our kind of mandated procedural audit um the um the internal specific audit I think is a separate process so um it's hard for us to tell you what you get for that 15,000 that 15,000 puts a placeholder in there um again you can turn that dial up or down based on what's available or what um the scope the finance committee is going to have to look at um in the research that that Joe and I have done have done if you wanted to do like all the account codes you're probably talking a sixf figure number

123you know where that number again I'm speaking a little bit um loose here but we're estimating that that would probably get you depending on the series that you took you know like a 600 series audit um like instructional supplies pick one of those uh account codes in the budget book and the 15,000 probably get you one of those uh if you want to do more we could talk about adding budget uh dollars to do that um but at this point we wanted to put something in there so we could have a conversation uh and then how much that is whether that's a one year we see how it goes I think again I think when I I said to Sharon this is about a conversation as to where the board wants to put resources um

124so we wanted to give you the opportunity to have that conversation uh with a placeholder but I don't know before the board's going to have to vote to send this budget to referendum if you're going to have a real solid kind of quote uh and document as to what you get you'll probably have some uh ballpark pieces um I'm looking at Joe a little bit but I don't think we're going to have like an RFP process with a scope and sequence and a specific dollar amount in time for this oh we we should once we get the our external audit nail down which again those bids actually close in two days um we should have at least more of some kind of guide post out there I think know we do at the moment um

125thank you and then another question I had is about the referendum um so you know last year we had a really tough process where the governor did an executive order and the Board of Ed had to pass the budget itself without a referendum can you speak to that a little bit about this year and what you see happening or what you've heard that's going to be happening for this coming year so um I'm not a weatherman and I can't speculate on what the politics of our state will be however um I do think that the conversations that I've been a part of the um the governor and the executive orders and his staff recogniz is the challenge that it placed on communities to not have a referendum process um I also think that we in

126November under more extreme uh pandemic conditions than we have now ran a national election where uh 150 million people voted so I think the idea that um we can run a a referendum in town is extremely plausible um and like as of now I think that the um that process is going to be kind of restored and we be able to hold I don't know if it'll be quite a normal referendum but um more typical than what you had last year all right any other questions before we move on so G to scroll through everyone all right um again thank you very much Josh um for putting this budget presentation together I know that um more questions will be flowing to you as we think about this and as we process it and as we

127get the budget books and take another look at that slideshow um so thank you very much and we have many more meetings coming up about the budget all right next approval of minutes may I have a motion to approve the February 8th 2021 regular meeting minutes motion to approve the minutes of the February 8th 20 2021 regular meeting thank you yep any second this is Sharon adct I'm happy to Second thank you Sharon any discussion or questions all right all those in favor hi passes unanimously thank you um next we have information and proposals uh board committee reports finance and Facilities Mr John cookson I'm really there is no report because the main Report with everything that was discussed tonight with Josh and the budget is pretty much what came before the board of Finance

128when we had their meeting we did go over the uh the audit the account numbers and everything but I mean we are running uh still in in the positive note and we're in fairly decent shape as we're going along right now so uh but the essence of the meeting that we had on finance facility you saw all in Josh's report tonight all right great thank you very much um and next is policy and curriculum um Steve was here but he had to step away it's his uh son's birthday tonight so he was went to go have birthday cake with his son and I told him he could go so we will hear um more from Steve about policy and curriculum at our next Board of Ed meeting and happy birthday to Steve St um next

129we have the superintendent report Mr Josh Smith like I just talked to you guys so couple the only I'll keep it short um I think I I said two weeks ago that the next two weeks were going to be um challenging weeks um I think that the last two weeks have been challenging weeks I'm hopeful that with today's storm we're through um kind of this messy weather pattern um I do appreciate kind of will speaking to the clinic the only thing I would say is on Thursday um we did stay there till 4 as did a lot of our volunteers um and to the credit of the staff and the students we had to physically like kick them out because they wanted to stay um you know we did a pretty impressive job with vaccinating

130a lot of the seniors in our community and um kudos to the the poppr health department our students and and the staff that did everything to make that happen um and uh I don't understand my note here so I will just say um that is all I got for you all right any questions for any more questions for Josh all right um next we have um something new on the agenda I wanted to to put in their Board of Education professional development updates um we've never haven't done anything like this before but I know a number of board members have been uh doing professional development taking webinars or workshops and I just thought it would be nice if um uh board me if board members wanted they could share uh what workshops or webinars they've

131gone to and a couple takeaways from it um to you know let the board know what you're doing and if there's any further interest I know sometimes you'll get like a follow-up email with the with a a video of the webinar and if someone was interested we could pass that along so would anyone like to talk about professional development we've done in the last few months yep go ahead Heather Rogers go ahead thank you um throughout January and February I had the opportunity to participate in four cave workshops um promoting civility around the board table and Beyond relationships matter the equity on online Symposium and Cab's diversity equity and inclusion 2021 series there's a lot I could say about each of the workshops and the experience and value from each of them but I will

132focus on one in particular tonight before I do I just want to thank Jennifer megleo for always helping me to get registered so thank you Jen uh this month I attended the national school board association's 2021 Equity Symposium it was attended by thousands of leaders committed to educational Equity inspirational stories were shared we heard from peers who offered advice and we received guidance on how we can provide support to equalize and improve the educational experience of every student I did share this with the equity and inclusion Council last week but I wanted to share with my fellow board members as well one of the most experience most of the moving experiences for me was hearing from the keynote speaker Dr Brandon P Fleming who is the founder and CEO of the Harvard diversity project and

133the assistant debate coach at Harvard University he recruits and trains underserved students of color to become Champion debaters and Future Leaders Brandon was an atrisk youth in College Dropout he spoke of his turbulent and Meandering Journey on his path to becoming an educator he recalled feeling that he was the hot potato as a student his behaviors were negative and yet nobody took the time to question why or to understand he went home every day to a stepfather who was a Baptist preacher by day and a cocaine addict By Night by age 13 the only place he felt accepted and valued was on the streets with gangs and drug dealers at one point he overdosed thankfully a basketball coach took him under his wing and tried to show him that he had a future he got

134into college and had dreams of being a professional basketball player until an injury prevented him from playing he found himself with only School ahead of him something he had never felt success with he was in college on the equivalent of a middle school education and felt defeated and dropped out he talked about his Journey back to college and how difficult it was but what stuck with me was his recollection of a college professor flagging him for cheating on a paper and how that experience with her changed the trajectory of his life he said he was cheating to survive College he would steal pure reviewed essays his Professor called him into her office sat across the table from him and said tell me about you your background your aspirations he had never had a teacher that

135emotionally available to him he assumed that was getting expelled she said to him you are safe here now did you write did you write this paper he admitted that he had not and told her all of the reasons he felt he didn't deserve to be here she handed him the paper and said don't worry we are going to fix this we will redo it over the next six months she took time out of her own life outside of office hours to teach him to read and write at age 20 he found himself for the first time in his life excited about education it's struck me that not one teacher up until then had been able to excite him about learning he said there are a lot of teachers who love the subject they teach more

136than they love their students but here he was with this older white female Professor who had him reading about Malcolm X Frederick Douglas and was showing him examples of black Scholars examples of black success like the CEO of Chase Bank and he recognized that they looked like him and he was seeing them in a space he did not think he had belonged this professor had gotten in the trenches with him she taught him that black Scholars existed because he hadn't known that he saw the representation is the lens through which we dream and Aspire she showed him by her actions and her commitment to him that diversity is I see you and inclusion is I hear you he said cultural awareness is not enough because you can be aware of something you don't respond to

137we need to graduate to cultural responsiveness I don't just see you but I respond to your needs Dr said the Crux of the conversation is in what ways are be we being culturally competent the most important thing he said was to meet students where they are put their Humanity at the center of their needs before we can teach their minds we have to reach their hearts we have to meet them where we are making the connection with the student making yourself emotionally available to them meeting them where they are is greater than any policy we can come up with listening to Dr Fleming I was able to recall region 15's dedication to encouraging students to find someone they have a connection with here in the region we see the effort made to give students the

138opportunity to see themselves represented in their learning a new curriculum Personnel student groups such as the gay straight Alliance and embrace diversity clubs and in the pathways to their future I encourage all of you to look up Dr Brandon Fleming's story I pre-ordered and I am so looking forward to his book miseducated A Memoir which is coming out in June I think he would be a fantastic speaker for professional development or even for students and I just want to say it is great to have Partners in this work I confident that region 15 will continue to find a way to meet every student where they are and I want to thank our board for recognizing the value of our C membership in terms of assisting us with our policy review but also for giving us

139opportunities to grow as board members and as a whole board for giving us the opportunity to participate in board member professional development to ensure that we are an informed board current in our knowledge before we make decisions I think every opportunity to engage in our own education makes us better stewards of education so thank you thank you heather um I don't want to put other board members on the spot but if I know there are board members who took other webinars if you want to say something great if not we could you know catch it another time I know this is a new thing that I've asked you to do go ahead Sharon thank you so I this is Sharon adct I would just like to thank um the region for the opportunity to provide

140professional development to the board um having just had my one-year anniversary in December it was very very welcomed uh to me personally that I could attend and learn through these sessions I've taken two um one last November and one just recently in January um one was related to roles and responsibilities of board members and the other was relationships matter and I think both uh have provided um you know some fundamental basic information but I think that what is really very gleaming is the diversity of the questions um that are asked and the information shared because it's attended so broadly by so many people um so I've really valued um the information that's been shared and again thank you to Jennifer and to the entire uh region for allowing um board members to to join so

141thank you thank you Sharon I'm looking at you Tom all right let's go well I didn't want to have to follow those but if I'm the last one to go uh thank you Sharon Heather for sharing your reports and uh I Echo those comments thank you to the region uh and to the board for allowing us to do this professional development especially for a new guy like me um you know anything I can get my hands on to help me be a better board member I'm certainly interested in so so uh I also attended um a workshop in November uh which was about board communication and um it it took uh it was uh the focus was actually more about how boards uh should communicate with their communities um which was a little different I

142think than the topic I was expecting going in I was expecting more I think interboard communication but regardless uh there was still some helpful content there I think more than anything else um what it really Force to me is how good a job we're doing in in region 15 um they conducted some informal polls uh of the people who are attending and questions like how many of your districts are using social media to communicate with the community um it was like 30% right so um there were some key points I think that we're doing very well on in terms of having a consistent voice making sure you know the people addressing the Comm Community you know appointing spokespeople and whether that's your superintendent or your board chair or both um so I commend both Marian

143and and Josh for being those spokes people and for conveying that consistent message thank you and uh thank you for you know leading us in our communication strategy to this point it seems that we're uh in very good shape compared to some of our peers and that will continue to that's a professional uh interest of mine obviously communication so that's going to be an area where I continue to look to add some improvement to the process if I can but uh otherwise we're we're already in some great shape so thank you for your efforts in that space thank you very much Tom um I've also attended a few um workshops and webinars I went to a legal issues Workshop in November all the legal stuff changes all the time so it's not even worth it

144to report on what I had learned because it seems to have changed um I also attended along with Heather Rogers um a workshop over two days that was done by cir um that Dr chiaa had recommended an offered to us called courageous conversations um which was a very um a thorough and I would say Tough Workshop to attend um talking about learning how to be comfortable talking about very difficult issues surrounding diversity um it was a personally enriching uh workshop for me um and part of the homework we had to do talk to friends um that are people of minority was really I was really unhappy that I had to do that but ended up being a really great tool um and really has deepened um some friendships of mine so um I attended the

145relationships matter uh webinar along with Sharon and I also went to a promoting civility around the board and table and Beyond and that was I Lov that one I thought that was a great webinar and it was just nice to have reminder that um in our on our board um that everyone gets a chance to say their Viewpoint um and it's best not to make it personal between each other and to keep everyone mindful that everyone has a Viewpoint and we debate ideas and not people um so I thought that was a nice reminder to have um so uh again thank you to the region for supporting um this professional development and you know Dr chiaa for you know chiming in when you see something that might be interest interesting to us I do appreciate

146that um I do think it makes us better board members and I'm sure there'll be a number of other opportunities coming up over the next few months in case you know you're Board of the budget um and looking for something else to do um so thank you very much and hopefully we could do something like this again in a few months and have board members report back um to us um next we have a smart update uh with Miss Heather Rogers try not to make this too long since I talked so much before um smart has been very busy the Middle School mailing should have arrived to everyone by now uh there is one final webinar in the four P four-part series by Dr Ferell this Wednesday night February 24th at 7M it's called boots

147on the ground parenting I had the opportunity to participate in one of the four web webinars from Dr frell called the pressure to be perfect it was fantastic if anyone would like more information there is a post on Smart's Facebook page if you find and follow Smart's Facebook page there are links to upcoming events workshops you can find a link to the boots on the ground webinar this Wednesday once the webinars are completed there will be some opportunities to share some resources that we've gathered from them as well and they will likely be on the Facebook page smartt is planning to have QPR training on Wednesday March 31st from 6:30 to 8:00 pm by Zoom QPR stands for question persuade refer Suicide Prevention and intervention training much like training Society to react to a Health

148crisis like CPR QPR also strives to educate and give tools to as many people in the community as possible like CPR you want someone at the ready if there is a crisis smart would like to give region 15 the first opportunity to fill this first training with school staff and administration they plan to discuss it further at their LPC meeting tomorrow night once it is filled with any anyone from region 15 who wants to participate they will open up any remaining spots to others I have taken the QPR training recently and do plan to take it with two of my high schoolers um May is for manners is a campaign that smart has done over the years with the elementary schools and I should have some more information um coming up soon about what to

149expect from Mays for maners thank you thank you very much next we have board member comments anyone have any comments yep um and thank you thank you I apologize to the board I had to step out for um something with my family I told them oh you did tell them yeah we had a very nice dinner but then but then but then PNC came along and I'm like well the cake will have to wait um which of course everyone understood um I just wanted to uh I appreciate the administration looking into um making changes with the high school schedule and I I really look forward to feedback I mean I really hope this um you know does something maybe gets more kids back into school uh you know I just um I just feel very

150I think we really need a change I think you know it's just one of those things where it just it was was it was and I know we're limited by the space in the building and you know just certain things are um unchangeable and certain things are just going to the way they are um and so we kind of revert back to normal whatever that is but if we can make any kind of modifications at all to get more kids back in the building um I think it'd be a good thing so I look forward to kind of getting feedback from any and all people that will provide it to see if the change is for the better thank you great thank you very much any other comments All Right Next we have uh comments

151from citizens the Board of Education will recogn Rec iiz citizens of middleberry and southberry and citizens are asked to State their name their town of residence and to limit their comments to three minutes for public comment you could dial 1312 626 6799 webinar ID 8114 passcode is 366 959 that information is on our agenda and just uh as you as we generally do board members do not respond to public comment but we do appreciate people who do uh speak up in public comment um and Mr Nelson I think I saw that there is one person here for public comment yes we have one um one caller so we'll allow them to call talk caller number six or the last four digits of your number are 6954 um you have been uh you're able to talk

152now if you unmute yourself you do need to identify yourself and your town of residence so there's caller there's a caller in with the last four digits 6954 you just need to unmute yourself so that you can participate and make your comment I think it it's star six might oh there we go can you hear me yes we could hear you if you could just state your name and your town of residence and then you could go off on your three minutes okay great my name is John Bowser and I am a southberry resident for a little over 24 years and um I have three sons uh 14 15 and 20 and at some point uh We've uh had participated from kindergarten in graduating of high school here in region first of all I want

153to start off by saying uh congratulations really for doing a terrific job and uh under extremely challenging circumstances with the covid-19 situation and adapting and uh getting uh my middle schooler to to get into school and and and and uh do his uh in-class work has really been a impressive effort by all those that that are getting that done within the region so thank you for that and the primary reason reason for my uh call tonight is that I wanted to discuss the budget as it relates to some initiatives that are currently going on in region 15 and uh I guess it should me I should uh uh say also that I've been participating in what's currently called the equity and inclusion Council for about three years it was called something else on its initiation

154but uh it pretty much uh the title kind of speaks to what the council is about and it was heartening to hear some of the training and some of the conversations during the Board of Education professional updates uh as it related to diversity equity and inclusion and specifically the programs that I wanted to speak about was the position of teacher and residency for diversity and cultural competency that's a mouthful isn't it but but uh anyway the the that position uh was actually discussed earlier and how it's financed um I guess the the the my thought is is that I'm not as much concerned about how it's financed because you folks kind of do a good job with that but uh the person that's currently doing that job Dr Burton is doing a fantastic a fantastic

155job in regards to her efforts with students teachers in the community and I think the the the results speaks for themselves in regards to the investment has has really paid off in regards to uh providing her that platform and the other thing that I want to touch on is uh an initiative that has come up during the council which is called the Connecticut teacher Residency program and essentially what I want to say about that program as my time runs out here is that uh I would really appreciate it during the consideration of this budget of whether or not it's done through the normal budget operating budget that is or grants that you consider this program and utilize uh uh your resources to get behind this program and kind of let the community know whether or

156not you're committed to two or at least one of these positions going forward in CL I'm so sorry to to stop you I um you you've reached your three minutes um unfortunately Public's only allowed to do three minutes of comments um but thank you so much for um submitting your comments and you of course welcome to email uh board members if you want to finish what you um wanted to say thank you thank you for your time thank you very much Mr Bowser bye now yep take care are there any other um participants Mr Nelson this time no there are not all right thank you very much all right seeing that there's no other public comment we'll move on on to new business requiring board action may I have a motion for approval of policy

1579126 Treasurer this is Steve serani I move at the Board of Education approve policy 9126 Treasures presented by PNC do you have a second I'll second that Tom Marks is the second uh do we have any uh questions discussion comments on policy 9126 all right we'll put it to vote then all those in favor I I I I any Nays any extenstions it passes unanimously thank you next we have approval of transfer entry A1 A2 and A3 for February Mar Sean I'm read them separately and do you want to vote on them separately or together um I think we could vote on them all together okay A1 move that the Board of Education approve the transfer entry for the additional student placement in public schools in the amount of $300,000 as presented by the finance

158committee A2 move that the Board of Education approve the transfer entry for the lunch program subsidy in the amount of10 ,000 as presented by the finance committee A3 moved that the Board of Education to the transfer education for the Key Bank lease in the amount of $51,000 as presented by the finance committee joh cookson great do I have a second second Heather Rogers Heather Rogers um I know this uh was moved through Finance um un unanimously but does Joe or John do you want to speak to either of these Joe you want to speak to them or what sure thank you Maran to to sum up the three transfers the first one with special education is really a just a shift in students between the two accounts we actually had kind of a a surplus

159in the U private side and we did a shift in over of students on the public tuition side the second transfer is the school lunch and we are concerned about some our incre with the his Shi shift in high school schedule as well as just overall participation numbers there's a shift in that that's $120,000 we make a transfer over out of our basic Transportation line and the last is Key Bank that is our our the new technology lease which just set up right at the very end I'd say about June or so our debt service line we did a big refinancing over the summer as Marion knows she signed 8,000 documents when we did a refi and this is the transfer to establish new technology lease so that's a $50,000 Surplus that goes against the

160leasing one Mary just one thing this was a thorough discussion before the board of Finance when we did do it it was just not something we skipped over we did discuss it very thoroughly and look at all the ins and outs of what was going on and an explation by Joe of exactly what was going on that's why we moved it to the board all right and and the finance committee approved it all un unanimously to go forward to the board is that right that is correct okay Richard I have a question John sure go ahead Richard okay uh on A2 the transfer lunch transfer to the lunch program are we anticipating any more transfers into that account uh it's possible Richard I be lying if we we'll know more as we go through the

161year um we did make kind of an additional transfer in this right now we took we took 60,000 and we did an additional 60 right I'm hopeful that is enough for this year we'll know as we kind of factor our revenues going through um Josh I meet with Megan almost daily on where she is on her her year as I said we did kind of hold off some of our filling positions and stuff throughout the year we still under executive order for payment of all employees uh so I am hopeful we won't need additional resources but we be we'll back around to the board if if if need be again as well hopefully thank you Joel y just to say one thing to the other members of the board just so you know this thing

162on the lunch lunch program what's really affecting us is the cost of the the product food products that we're having to buy and the other one you wouldn't even believe it is the paper goods that we're having to buy uh things like Styrofoam trays and cups and all the other stuff to deliver the food in some of it has even doubled styrofoam trays right now have even doubled uh in in the the trays that you go into like stop and Cho and seam and there styrofoam is doubled in cost just for those trayes alone and that's really what's affecting us more in the lunch program not and the product cost um so that's kind of what one of the major discussion was about A2 Yeah we actually have a tray shortage you'll see black trays

163now in cafeteria the styrofoam trays because they're they're basically cutting back production is more the everyone's using that kind of that clam show like looks like a salad salad bowl almost so thank you for clarifying that John any other uh questions or discussion all right we'll go ahead and put this to a vote all those in favor I I I all right any Nays any extensions all right it passes unanimously thank you announcement of future meetings um we have a meeting on Wednesday March 3rd it's our budget workshop at the high school media center at 6:30 we also have a PNC meeting on March 8th at the high school media center at 6:30 also on March 8th is our regular board ofed meeting um at 7:30 as a continuation of our budget presentation on Wednesday

164March 17th we have another budget workshop at the high school media center at 6:30 on Monday March 22nd we have a PNC meeting at the high school media center at 6:30 on Monday March 22nd we we have a regular meeting of the board of education at 7:30 and on Wednesday March 24th we have our Board of Education public hearing and um following that we have our joint meeting with the board of finance of both South Barry and middleberry at the high school media center that starts at 6:30 on March 24th May I have a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn John cookson do I have a second Richard Spiro thank you all those in favor all right we are adjourned thank you everyone appreciate it