001um good morning everyone we are still missing a couple of board members uh but because it's it's 8 45 and it's a long day we will begin and hopefully they will join us Dr de Silva will you text to make sure okay thank you um I call to order this board of education special meeting for today Saturday January 21st everyone please unmute or arise for the Pledge of Allegiance foreign again good morning again to everyone and thank you to everyone who are joining us today for the Saturday or as I've started calling it Super Saturday for a day-long budget presentation um for anyone who's it's this is their first time or joining us for the first time and wondering why we have this day-long presentation because it gives the board the community to hear all
002the call centers that make up the proposed superintendent or the superintendent's proposed budget present together and hopefully give us an idea how these connect uh this budget process started with a grant or with a quick overview by the superintendent um on January 9th I wanted to get the date right because I messed up last time and the superintendent proposed a 3.79 increase from the last year today is the first time that all cost centers will present that and the board will get a chance to ask questions uh just for everyone who's listening please uh remember that all the questions that are asked will be noted in a document and that will be made available for the public the next uh as we go through this budget process today is the first meeting in which we
003ask the questions of course but we will have public hearings for the Board of Ed in which we've welcome feedback from all Community uh the next the first public hearing is on Monday the upcoming Monday and public comment starts at seven o'clock and the meeting after that will be on February on a Saturday February 4th we welcome you to come and speak and share what your thoughts are about the budget but in case you can make a make it please feel free to email the board anytime with all your thoughts about this budget and we want to make it easy not only for the board but also the building leaders who are sharing you know it's a Saturday they're at home but also the community to be able to be part of this process from
004the comfort of their homes or at least most of them so yes while we ask you to give up your Saturday we hope it's somewhat eased that you're in the comfort of your homes again I'll add for most of us because I see cabinet is at office most of the cabinet is at work uh the uh the board and the community has the agenda we will follow the agenda as close as possible uh I will share that all cost centers will have or they have proposed times listed against them and the reason I say them proposed is because the cost center will present and I'll use the curriculum committee that goes first as an example they will present and after that the board will ask questions I want to be we want to be very
005we want to be sure that all board members have an opportunity to ask the questions so once the cost centers present I will open it up for the board to ask questions because we're doing it virtually I want to be sure that everybody has every board member is an equal opportunity to have their questions asked I would request you please stay muted while they're presenting and after the cost center has finished presenting raise your hand and only when I call upon you to unmute yourself we will only move on to the next car center when I'm asked all the board to be sure that every board member has an opportunity to ask their questions these are all proposed times they can be tweaked we will try to keep as close to possible to the time
006but in case we're not we're just going to do our best you will also see in the agenda we have built-in breaks and lunch period as we get closer to that depending on where we are the agenda I will refer back to the board and Dr de Silva to see if those breaks need to be tweaked or not um any questions I think I covered I think I covered it most did I miss anything no I think I think you did [Music] um okay here we go here we go so just to take a quick look at the um agenda um Tina that you refer to just so everybody can see thank you where we are for the day and as you um as we did last year actually sometimes a particular presentation may run
007over and another one may um maybe a little bit shorter okay so welcome everybody and and not much more than what um Tina just shared but we're excited for the day you may notice that the agenda does not follow the same the same um outline as the budget book and that was intentional because we identified cost centers that connect to the others in the broader way first so that's why curriculum is first and then subsequently technology special ed and then you see the cost centers that feed into those after that so that is intentional so you may have to if you're watching at home you may have to go back and forth also just for the Public's knowledge we did make some adjustments in the budget book so as a result our board received a
008new uh budget book yesterday afternoon not much was different other than we reflected budget to budget rather budget with transfers to budget so you may notice some um changes there and we've updated our website with the budget book that we're actually all looking at today again not much is different other than one includes transfers and the other one does not um we also and if I yep here we go we also have a little QR code there along with a live link where community members and families can write their questions um for us that we will make every effort to answer hopefully by Monday but if not Monday shortly or thereafter so what I would encourage families to either use the QR code and or the link that's shared here which is also going to
009be in the descriptors in the YouTube page so you'll be able to find in this Google form along with the QR code in the descriptors in the YouTube page by Monday we'll actually have this up on the website as well so that that can the Q a can really be ongoing during the budget process and as I shared before we will work very hard to get the answers back to you all as quickly as possible recognizing we have a board meeting on Monday and a full work day on Monday so sometimes that can be difficult but we will work as expeditiously as we can um the board knows as Tina shared also we have public hearings but that doesn't limit you from reaching out to the board of education and or myself with any questions
010comments something that you'd like answered in one capacity or another if we can't answer it in a public meeting because we didn't get to it in time then at minimum you can have it answered on the public q a page around the budget and I think I've captured all of it if there's anything that I remember across the day I will be sure to share it again I'd like to thank the Board of Education and the cabinet members and all of our team who are working this Saturday you know a pretty significant long significantly long day but it's an important one and we have to get through all the cost centers today um so thank you and thank you again to our town partners both the board of selectman and the board of Finance who
011are either listening in today or will likely be listening in in the in the coming days so big thank you to everyone and I think we can get started good morning everyone and thank you for spending part of your weekend with us I'll start off by giving everyone an overview of our budget book and review its layout how to read the accounts within each of the cost centers next slide please the budget Focus comprised of six sections the first section is the introduction and it consists of a listing of the Board of Education members the district's mission statement the vision of The Graduate table of contents and the superintendent's transmittal letter the second session section is an orientation of our account structure it begins with a tab labeled user guide that's a listing of our
012account structure by account element which I'll detail shortly included is also a glossary of terms and common abbreviations so please feel free to refer back to these two tabs as support and understanding the rest of the budget book the third section is the proposed budget itself this section includes a calendar for the budget process a tab with a summary of budget history and prior approved budgets and a tab with the proposed budget drivers the fourth section details the individual cost centers for the proposed budget here you'll find the tabs for our schools and programs followed by district-wide operation cost centers you'll be hearing presentations from each cost center today and finally the last section is an appendix which offers a tab for an overall budget summary by object along with object descriptions just behind it
013a tab for overall Staffing and enrollment and a sheet to show the revenue the Ridgefield public schools has received and goes directly to the town so I'll now take you through each section with a little more detail the user guide includes definitions that are organized in specific categories and this is meant to target areas of interest for the reader and support and understanding of the financial details don't forget the user Tab and the glossary of the budget book is a great source to refer back to when you're trying to understand the account structure as it relates to an expenditure the account structure is comprised of seven element sections first the fund then the function then the object the location the goal the program and lastly the objective each of the seven elements are based on
014standards that are provided to us by the U.S Department of Education and all school districts conform to this same uniform chart of accounts for all of our expenditure reporting next slide here you see an example of an account string for this example I'm using the expenditure office supplies which are present in every school the first part of the account is the fund the 100 fund is our general fund and that's going to be what you see throughout your budget book the next section of the account element is function and in my example I'm using 2400 which represents principal office services it's followed by the element object and here I'm showing you the six one grouping which is for supplies and materials next is the location and in this example is the Barlow Mountain location the
015next element is not used so it's merely a placeholder for us and then the program element is 96 that refers back to offices and the final element is the objective and that's where you see the four string of zeros budget is the label of the third section of the book here you'll find the tentative budget calendar followed by a budget summary which shows a multi-year view of previous budget totals and percentage changes throughout the year years next is the budget drivers tab which offers a high level view of the major categories and accompanying graphs and recommended FTE editions and reductions the fourth section of the book contains the individual schools and program cost centers here you'll find an overview of Staffing and a high-level budget overview for both the all elementary and all Middle School
016fundings there's a tab for each school and they each include a narrative description a staffing and enrollment sheet and a financial sheet you'll also find the Athletics program detailed here in this section foreign section of the book contains two district-wide operations and cost centers you'll find a similar setup for these cost centers that is a narrative followed by a staffing sheet and concluding with the cost centers proposed budget accounts you'll see a tab for each of the following cost centers curriculum facilities General services pupil Personnel Services special education and Technology the final section is the appendix this section has a financial tab that is an overall high level summary Group by object and there's a description of each object number behind the summary there's a staffing and enrollment section detailing groupings of all individual cost
017center Staffing and enrollment sheets as one report and then the final tab showing the revenue that's collected by Ridgefield public schools and turned over to the town foreign Center has prepared a presentation to guide you through their budget preparations and requests you'll have an opportunity to ask questions of each class Center following their presentations and as mentioned our team will record all the questions asked and create a document with respective answers to be shared at a later date so again thank you for joining us today as we present the details of the superintendent's proposed budget for the 2023-24 school year thank you um if I if I may Tina I just want to let the Board of Education know that each of these presentations will be sent to you by way of PDF so that
018you can have for later reference as well so as we go through the day know that Cheryl will be sending you all of our cost center presentations so that you can have them to go back and review it also if there are any questions that we can't answer today because we don't have the information in front of us or don't want to delay the day further you can expect that that answer would come to you on Monday foreign thank you anything else Dr de Silva Miss Brown okay we can move on to the first presentation that's Miss Gillette and team thank you John can you go to the first slide and presentation please good morning everybody my name is Corey Gillette I'm the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction and I'm honored and excited to
019be here today with my colleagues to explain the curriculum Department budget for fiscal year 24. uh that's still not the first slide before I begin I'd like to take a minute to introduce my team to actually let my team introduce themselves good morning everyone I'm Linda Johnson the director of Elementary education hey good morning everyone I'm Jeff corbishly the 612 Math and Science supervisor good morning everyone I'm Dr Annie Tucci 612 Humanities supervisor John can move to slide two we're still ahead in the presentation I think okay perfect slide oh perfect next slide please before we begin our presentation today we want to take a moment to share the RPS mission and vision of The Graduate as you know they both serve as our North Star as we set priorities a set assess current programming
020and continue to foster a culture and climate of joy and learning they serve as the threads of the fabric that make RPS what it is now and what we are working to grow it into in the future when you hear the priorities today from fiscal year 24 and you hear us talk about the work of the current year thanks to the current budget that we're implementing now you will be able to identify these elements in our work specifically the fostering of academic social and emotional growth for all students the promotion of Wellness the building of inclusive climates the value of diversity and cultivating Global competencies and especially always the work on attracting supporting and retaining our talented Educators who Embrace continuous learning next slide please here's the vision of The Graduate next slide so our
021so for our presentation today we're going to divide it into three parts teaching and learning RPS fiscal year 24 priorities and then finally the fiscal year 24 budget drivers and reductions so that's really getting into the numbers we begin with an overview of teaching and learning at RPS we break down the components of the curriculum budget and then update the board on the priority areas from fiscal year 23's budget and the realized outcomes of those goals as of January 2023. in the priorities section we lay out our priorities for this budget which really you know drove the creation of of all the factors and then finally in the final part we get into the numbers and really break down the drivers and the reductions next slide please the curriculum budget impacts every single student educator
022administrator and family in the RPS Community next slide the Ridgefield Public Schools is a learning Organization for our students to reach their full potential all members of RPS engage in study reflection provide feedback attend professional learning opportunities both inside and outside of our community professional learning has a direct connection to learning for our students here in RPS in the picture on the screen you can see middle school students working in collaborative teams to solve complex math student math problems District mathematics teachers have been taking part in targeted professional learning of research-based instructional routines to make sure we're cultivating student thinking to provide Mastery of mathematics content standards and to provide growth along those mathematics practice standards students and teachers are learning next slide please at RPS as we have said and will continue to say
023our teachers are our best asset we invest in our teachers a few of us recently attended a workshop by Margie Gillis from literacy Howe she began her presentation with a part of their mission and it's listed here on the slide we could not agree more she said we believe that teachers not programs or products teach students to read write and spell a skilled teacher with a variety of tools in his or her toolbox is more effective than any one resource we have seen this time and time again at RPS we know that we have students with a diversity of learning styles and needs one resource will never be sufficient to address every student therefore you'll see in this budget and in past budgets and in future budgets investments in providing skilled teachers with a variety
024of tools for his or her toolbox again in the pictures here on the screen you can see examples of mathematics professional learnings example of how building based professional learnings where teachers get to see content Specialists teach their own students so the picture on the right is a group of elementary teachers with Jeff corbishly going to visit Middle School teachers so seeing their former fifth grade students in sixth grade with their new teachers we are always learning here next slide please so as we continue forward it is important to understand the components that make up the curriculum budget first of all as we talked about professional learning all professional learning is included in our budget for teachers and administrators K-12 curriculum resources this budget pays for initial purchase of all new curriculum resources K-12 we continue
025to pay for new consumable resources connected to those new resources through initial purchase we paid for K5 and digital excuse me we pay for digital curriculum and resources K-12 in addition this budget pays for all assessments including Universal screeners and standardized assessments across all levels this budget also supports curriculum writing which we use to continually develop all of our departments across all of the levels and then finally there is a portion of this budget that covers the salaries for the staff as for the assistant superintendent for the supervisor of humanities supervisor of math Elementary director and an executive secretary next slide please so before getting into fiscal year 24 we wanted you to see the impact of the budget that you passed for us for fiscal year 23. when you look at the goals that
026were presented to you last year during the budgeting process this exact presentation last year you can see that our central office and building based teams are already hard at work realizing the outcomes outcomes connected to learning loss from the pandemic and outcomes connected to alignment across levels of teaching and learning and intervention and enrichment we want to give a big thank you to the board and the community and the other Town boards as you see that we've already begun to realize outcomes from your approval of our budget for this school year so to highlight a few we are implementing a new phonics and Mathematics Curriculum resource and providing professional learning and best practices in those areas we're implementing our RPS reboot of the mtss process we have a new structure the K-12 mtss committee and
027this committee responds to feedback and supports the alignment of the implementation it is a wonderful Collaborative Learning process in addition for the first time since our team has been here both teachers and administrators have had the opportunity to attend professional conferences in their content area or desired growth areas both inside and outside of the district and this has happened across departments and buildings and some of that is due to the fact that during the pandemic we just weren't able to get out of buildings for example our middle all of our departments have engaged in curriculum writing our middle school art teachers are currently working with a Content specialist to redesign their curriculum across the middle school years so that students can try out different Focus areas each semester as they move through middle school so
028when they go into high school they have had exposure to the all diff all the different kinds of Visual Arts finally we're continuing to work on fostering social and emotional growth for all of our students across all of the levels this year we're using the castle model to help us evaluate the current tools and strategies we have in place while at the same time providing additional implementation for support as identified during the survey that we discussed last year during a Board of Education meeting for example an elementary school based on an inventory recognized that many teachers did not have a responsive classroom training due to turnover so in response this year's budget has supported that training to those identified teachers so before moving on talking about fiscal year 23 even though we know this is
029an operating budget conversation we do have to take a moment to give a big thank you to the board the board of finance and the board of Selectmen for passing the capital budget for this year for the music instruments this allowed our K-12 Department to purchase all the instruments based on the identified inventory of need ask any student who plays an instrument any music teacher and any audience member of our recent performances this has had a huge impact now moving forward we can Institute a more Equitable replacement system so that is a really big thank you next slide okay so now we're moving into fiscal year 24 our Focus areas next slide please so as part of this next portion of the presentation we're going to elaborate on each of these main priorities the priorities
030are as follows implementation of curriculum and curriculum resources k-a-m-t-s-ss intervision intervention and school-wide sports literacy instruction K-12 mathematics instruction K-12 the continued development of all departments and continued work in Social and emotional learning so I'm going to take a few minutes to break down each of these priorities for you next slide please implementation of curriculum and curriculum resources is a high high priority for fiscal year 24. a focus on implementation means providing teachers with targeted professional learning and support over time not a one-time not a One-Stop but over time for example in the fall of 23 we will have new math resources K-5 a new phonics resource pk3 a new vocabulary resource in grades four and five full implementation of these resources or the revised curriculums that we have across our Department's K-12 requires long-term
031dedication this includes a continuous cycle of feedback assessment and revision this is real commitment that's what implementation is we recognize that this may not seem as exciting or as as flashy as the announcement of a new program however full implementation is actually what impacts our students in real time every single day this is the work this is actually getting the work done and this is what unfortunately often is not done in school districts because of too many changes so this is a huge priority for us this year next slide please K8 mtss and school-wide support systems will continue to be a priority this year just as it is during fiscal year 23. we continue to revise these structures and systems collaborative collaboratively together as a K-12 team as we work through our intervention process this
032year we look towards studying the ways that we also respond to behavior and support enrichment we will continue to improve our practices and structures around the analysis of data in order to best impact our students an updated comprehensive digital system to manage all mtss related data documents and reports in one system will be adopted and fully implemented this fall teachers and administrators will receive professional development on how to import and also how to continue to get better at analyzing the student data that we're collecting next slide please another huge priority huge priority is literacy instruction K-12 we will continue to provide professional learning to our teachers around the science of reading if you look at this slide you can see a definition of the science of reading from the reading League the science of reading
033is a vast interdisciplinary body of scientifically based research about reading and issues related to reading and writing we would also add to that definition and so do others that it is also an unfinished and continuously evolving body of research which is why in Ridgefield Public Schools being a learning new organization our plan is to always stay up to date on what that learning is so for example here on the slide are the five pillars of literacy phonemic awareness phonics fluency vocabulary and comprehension and really the Bedrock of all these pillars is the oral language development and that oral language development really begins at home and in the preschool years in Ridgefield Public Schools we have always known the importance of these pillars however as a part of our work in the last two years we
034have updated our instruction in some of these areas for example let's take a look at phonemic awareness we have always known the importance of phonemic awareness teachers created their own materials and oftentimes the emphasis was on rhyming we know though through the science of reading the phonemic awareness needs to be taught in a much more explicit and systematic way in order to be effective therefore in Richfield we provide a professional learning to our teachers and interventionists and implemented the resource Hagerty to support the daily aligned instruction across the district all six schools doing the same thing to the same specificity the same is true in phonics hence the implementation of the resource foundations and the professional learning that came around it for our teachers this work of studying new resources and best practices and looking
035for the highest quality curriculum resources will is and will continue across the other pillars next slide please there's of course budget impact to this work we categorized it into three different areas one we need continued professional learning again our teachers are our greatest asset some examples and of the requested PD include writing Revolution K-12 this is something the special education department has looked into now we're sending general education teachers our lead teachers in Literacy for that professional learning to see how we can impact our Core curriculum science of reading workshops where all the pillars are addressed together instead of going to workshops where only one pillar is addressed at a time we have requests for attendance at dyslexia con workshops to see current in the most recent reading research specifically now we're looking into the
036areas of vocabulary and comprehension as we went through the process of requests building this budget we wanted to note that Teachers College was not a requested vendor for professional learning for fiscal year 24 so you will not find it represented in this budget another impact budget impact is student materials we need to continue to build our libraries with decodable texts digital materials are needed to support students who need extra practice and again you'll also see the impact of the cost of yearly consumables that comes with the purchase of a new resource so for example foundations comes with a cost there are yearly consumables that provide that practice work for all of our students and finally instructional resource materials for teachers that includes foundations pk3 hegarty and then the new curriculum resourceful for vocabulary that fourth
037and fifth grade teachers are working through to decide which resource they're going to pick next slide please in addition to literacy math s instruction K-12 is also a priority for fiscal year 24. similar to literacy we follow a comprehensive approach to teaching mathematics this is represented on this slide our curriculum weaves together conceptual understandings procedural fluency and real life applications with the eight mathematical practices embedded in teaching and learning both the content and the practice standards help students grow and become more refined in order to support this comprehensive approach the budget includes resources both print and digital tools as well as continued professional learning for teachers around quality teaching practices and content knowledge this professional learning is on the ground professional learning in classrooms with kids and with teachers student achievement is the common thread
038between the comprehensive approaches and literacy and Mathematics next slide please as stated in our mission that we looked at at the beginning of this presentation another priority is to continue to work to Foster social and emotional growth for all students so that we can build a climate that is inclusive and has trust safety and respect while there are other areas of our fabric that also contribute to an inclusive climate curriculum revisions classroom Library development where students can see themselves and learn about others who are not like themselves and a committee to increase the hiring of diverse teachers the social emotional tools and strategies that are available to our teachers in order to create these inclusive classrooms continue to be an essential component this budget contains the programming that the buildings across the levels have requested
039for example the elementary level will be working next year with no place for hate in their initial training for adults in the building that's stage one next slide please now we get into the numbers fiscal year 24 budget drivers and reductions next slide please the slide here refers to the overall proposed budget for fiscal year 24. 2 million 50 857 that is a 1.85 of the total budget requested for fiscal year 24. this represents an increase of 242 876 dollars as a reminder last year at the end of the budgeting process the curriculum Department was reduced by approximately two hundred thousand dollars that came off two lines a hundred and thirty thousand dollars from purchase Services line initial purchase Services lines and seventy thousand dollars from the digital instructional materials therefore when you look at
040our request for this year in comparison to last year the increase is closer to forty two thousand dollars next slide so when we think about the drivers in this budget one of the big drivers is purchase Services K-12 purchase Services means professional learning as a part of our implementation plan our big priority this year we've increased the budget for on-site professional learning at the middle and high school levels this type of professional learning has typically taken place at the elementary level and we are expanding it into the middle and high school levels if you look at this graphic you can see the impact site-based professional learning at this at the secondary level so you can see the increase at the high school level and you can also see the increase district-wide that represents the fact
041that we do a lot of this work 6 12. that's why we have our supervisors Dr Tucci and Jeff corbishly who helped support that work I just want to note that in addition in our proposed budget you will see an increase in our conference and training line this year we've received incredible feedback from teachers who went out so conference and training is when you go out the Professional Services is when we bring Specialists from the field into our schools and into our classroom so we had and again partly it's because we haven't been able to go out to conferences for so long in person and interact with the experts in our field so we had such an outpouring of interest from our teachers and from our administrators to attend all of these conferences and learning
042opportunities that we did want to increase that line as well this really supports again that we are learning organization this budget continues to support system-wide learning next slide please so I wanted to specifically take a minute to talk about these two lines digital instructional materials and resources which was a new line last year and assessments standardized materials so if you remember digital instructional materials and resources was a line that was created last year due to the work between the curriculum department and the technology department we found in looking at where different costs were located that it wasn't clear which things technology was paying for and which things curriculum were paying for in terms of digital resources so we did a humongous sort if you remember where we divided up platforms that went to technology and
043then any digital resource that included content was paid for by the curriculum Department I also want to point your attention to the fact that there is an increase here that there's a difference from last year to this year and again I want to remind you that that came because we had a seventy thousand dollar reduction at the end of the budgeting process so really what we're asking for is only a slight increase which just which represents the fact that the companies are continuing despite our best efforts to negotiate with them to get a little bit more expensive so if you add back in the 70 000 to our request from last year you see that those two lines actually are not that different the assessments and standardized materials if you look over time you will
044see that since last year that line has has continued to increase the reason again was we moved those lines out of Technology assessment belongs in curriculum so this there's a slight increase and that just represents the slight increase of the different assessments that we use for Universal screening PSAT 89 all of those different Apple for World Language there's a slight increase there in just the cost of each of those assessments but it's really all the same as last year next slide please so we did want to point out some budget reductions in being new and getting to understand these lines more more intimately we realized that there were some um lines that were some some areas that were put on lines that did not belong there so when you look at the line district-wide Professional
045Service a professional service is not professional development so we did move and and that's there is an increase at the high school and the district-wide line that you saw earlier we did reduce this line by making sure it was only representing district-wide Professional Services and let me give you an example of what that is one at the district level we are paying for piano repairs piano tuning um making sure that there are humidifiers and pianos if you want to talk more about that feel free any day I'm happy to tell you what I've learned about humidity and pianos and keeping them tuned and all the uh different ways pianos can get broken but that is a professional service that is our piano person the other professional service that we are very excited to have on
046this line is a data analyst that comes as part is connected to our digital Warehouse system so we have access to support for analyzing our data which has become more and more complex and as much as Jeff and and Annie can do a ton of this work it will be time saving to help us have a partner in going through that work I do want to mention that that you know helping us prepare our waiver for the state of Connecticut looking at our reading data is exactly where you need someone um who only does that work who can really help and guide us through that finally another reduction that we talked a lot about last year comes in the social studies textbook line Dr Tucci can talk more about this after we complete this presentation
047if you have questions but if you remember we ended up buying a six-year subscription to the digital social studies resource because most things are digital these days not not hard copy though we do I believe have some hard copy textbooks as well and we were able to reduce this line that does mean and and Dr Tucci can talk a little bit more if you have questions that in when the six years run out we're going to have to anticipate paying again but you can see that due to her hard work and really wrangling and talking down she's a very good negotiator she really got that price down very low and that does give us some positive reductions for this year that we're excited about next slide please sewing conclusion we believe that this proposed curriculum
048budget will have a positive impact on all of our stakeholders we hope that it is evident that this budget will continue to build on our priorities of the last two years aligning and specific excuse me aligning instruction across all levels assured experiences for all of our students continuing to address learning loss continuing to shore up our systems and structures to support students and of course to always continue to invest in our teachers our District's greatest assets thank you for listening and we are happy to answer any questions thank you uh I just want to make sure that I can see all the board thank you Mr Lett thank you the team for this presentation um can I just um have Jill jump in here there's just one little shift from Miss gillette's presentation today in
049the budget book that I just think it's important that we clarify that number um Jill the budget book is accurate but just in terms of Cory's presentation the budget book is absolutely accurate but I had um included an incorrect number on one of the salaries in college department so I corrected that with the new distribution so her her end total is just um a little bit off and that's just one of the slides so I think it's off about four thousand dollars on the slide because it just wasn't corrected from that first budget book to the second but your budget book is accurate okay thank you thank you all right board can you raise your hands that I can I can see everyone okay yes Selena Selena first and then Amy Selena I you just
050said raise your hand so sorry no I I just wanted to make sure Amy raised her too so I said you go first and then she can go oh I don't have any questions oh I'm sorry I I think you missed the beginning I'm sorry Allah said because you missed it just gonna repeat if you have questions after the presentations are done raise your hands and I can and make sure that every question is asked that you can have an opportunity to ask your questions all right uh if Selena who is Emmy you were next no I'm with Selena I thought you were asking us to raise your hands okay both of you missed both of you missed that so I heard you then I just thought right now you wanted to see us on
051your screen my bad okay um Rachel yes Rachel thank you Tina um so first I just want to thank you know Miss Gillette Mr corbishly Dr Tucci and Miss Johnson I think you're part of our budget is very easy to support I think your Effectiveness as a team to cultivate an environment of learning and growth is really something to Rally behind um you have communicated and I think it's good for the community to understand on a regular basis the updates of new programs their integration you always ask for feedback and to my knowledge we have also shared those with the board of selectman the board of Finance because these are really vital presentations that make up the why right behind our numbers and I just want to throw out there for example on November 14th
052the board had a wonderful K-12 mathematics update in which the team shared a comprehensive approach to mathematics instruction you had an update to the new resource think mathematics you had an overview of the sixth grade curriculum revisions to align grade level standards you had an introduction to the rhs math Pathways collaborative team and student support so I would encourage the community if interested to take a look at our meeting and presentation online I think it helps to build that clear picture of where the dollars are going and need to continue to go I think there's still work to be done but we need to build upon what has been started so of course I will support our curriculum budget I think it's also an important point to communicate that any cut I feel to this
053increase in my professional point of view will diminish the work that has been started and just derail the results um and our children our families definitely deserve the best education that we can provide as a school system um with that I do have three questions um my first question is just on the budget line himself I was wondering about the math textbook and resource line and literacy book and resource line perhaps and if you don't have this information now it's fine what what fraction of those lines is consumables so that we could expect next year reoccurring cost and then my other question is specific to how we deliver instruction to kids with literacy and the KA mtss and school-wide support system you know if you were asked to increase that budget is there anything that
054you would add to those specific areas of focus okay thank you Rachel so before we answer I just do want to put in a plug that the Monday night Board of Education meeting will include an RPS literacy update K-12 so I talked a little bit tonight today I talked a little bit today about that I tried not to get too much into the details but just enough that there was context for the professional development that we're doing but there is a full comprehensive K-12 presentation on Monday night as well so if anyone just wants to know more that's the place to go and also remember we did a PR presentation earlier in the year that's on our YouTube channel that parents can also refer to so Jeff why don't you start talking about the math
055resource line increased and Linda then you can do the same for for literacy and then we'll we'll come back to your final question thank you absolutely so there are very some very specific costs um some of them are recurring so I think that was mainly what your question was getting at um so just looking at our different light items they include things like three five think math student uh books right remember this year they implemented the program for the first time but there is a consumable cost each year um and that's it at about the cost of thirty four thousand we also have a math intervention resource that also was a recurring cost that we use in grades six through nine actually we use that for our MTS tiered intervention system for math 6A at
056both middle schools as well as at the high school as part of our algebra lab and that is about a ten thousand dollar uh recurring costs um and then there's also um you know other manipulatives uh as part of the think math program at the 305 level which is about another six thousand dollars um so all together if you add those to um up it's about fifty thousand dollars um Linda did I miss anything um on the elementary side I'll add on to the mtss piece at the elementary level we also have a need for um consumable materials that we purchase on a yearly basis um that students engage in practicing skills that they learn during that targeted instruction time so for example one of the resources that we use is um Bridges another one
057is do the math and there are consumable pieces to those as well as manipulatives for our Intervention Program um as you as you mentioned Rachel we have given presentations around that comprehensive approach to teaching mathematics and that includes the concrete pictorial abstract approach to teaching and learning so that concrete piece really does focus in on how we need manipulatives for those that Hands-On learning um I can give you like an average cost of our Math workbooks um which we also have a textbook that complements the workbook and on average the Math workbooks cost around 20 20 to 25 dollars per student and again that's for the workbook and then a shared a textbook um and those you know those components uh really do come in come into play during either guided practice or independent practice
058so that students do have that common resource to practice the skills that teachers taught um during a lesson and if I can just add on the reason you didn't see this in the past was because teachers were using all kinds of different resources and a lot of that included teachers having to make photocopies so they were looking for practice materials and making photocopies so as much as there's an expense here it's offset in other areas and the power of everybody having the same materials the same practice it is uh is in measure immeasurable it is incredibly incredibly important and valuable it supports our teachers and their day-to-day planning and instruction and it's there for our students so again our teachers are smarter than any resource we're continuing to work on how to get the most
059out of those those workbooks and we're trying to not just do 10 000 problems that are exactly the same um we're working on all those parts but having that that similar everybody's practicing in the same materials is invaluable so Linda can you answer the um literacy question because it's very similar yes yes I'm happy so I'm happy to do that there's there's a couple reasons why you see that increase um as you know Corey's mentioned we adopted our new resource foundations and there is that um consumable that goes along with the program it's called a journal and that's an opportunity for students to practice their skills so for example during dictation um they go into their journals practice word dictation sentence dictation which is an important part of that decoding and encoding learning um so
060in terms of numbers let me just jump to that screen so approximately for foundation student books kindergarten through second grade because there's not a journal at the preschool level we came in around about thirty thousand dollars and then in addition to the resource for foundations we also would like to expand the decodable texts that are in our classroom libraries across the six schools and we estimated around twelve thousand five hundred dollars for that thank you and I believe the last question Rachel is there something that we want that we didn't ask for am I correct yes correct around literacy or you know K8 mtss and the school-wide support system I I don't think so I I feel like the work that we did across all of our levels um and uh all all the work
061that we did working with our vendors and cleaning up our digital resources again making sure we don't have duplicates and and maximizing what we have um I I believe and I I know that my team can speak that we have what we need implementation does have some monetary um impacts of course the professional learning that you see increased at the school-based level that's really important for us um but also it's it's our part in it is making sure we keep the attention on it that we continue to provide times for teachers that we continue to take feedback and insights and and learn and grow together so that that is something actually that is um again not represented in the budget it really is represented in the determination of the team to do what's best for
062students and really really make this happen and not be an example of a resource that was fancy and implemented you know brought to schools and never actually implemented you know the plastic State on the box that is not going to happen and that's because of our team and our our principles too our principles our instructional leaders that that are part of all this work and really in all the districts that I've worked in and really the work I've done across the country this is the best team that I've ever worked with so I think that that's also part of why you don't see it in the money part but um I think you can see it in the work that we're doing and I I know you're going to see it in the results that
063we're going to get thank you so much thanks thank you and Sean uh thanks again I've said it before I'll say it again I'm glad we're investing in curriculum again I think we put a lot of this back on the right track after years of neglect um this is probably the the best place to ask the question anomaly throughout the district we're looking to add a head count somewhere you know one or two throughout the whole District uh overall um and the noise is back the the Perpetual noise from the same crew about our teachers and our art curriculum being substandard blah blah um I'd like to you know we didn't really touch deeply on the the uh Arts curriculum I heard about the music curriculum but um can you speak briefly on resourcing for
064the Arts curriculum um are we right-sized do you think that we are right-sized and is the program uh really truly fit for a purpose especially at the elementary level and the development of the art curriculum that I see and I know Linda Johnson is in classrooms every day as well it is a strong art curriculum um that our teachers are doing and I actually I think a lot of you saw at the last Board of Education meeting when we looked inside farming bills art work the the sophisticated work that they're doing studying real artists and then trying out the different techniques of those artists that is due to the work and the talent of our teachers um that Linda Johnson has done with them we also have contracted we've found a um a staff developer
065who is an expert in writing art curriculum Mike McNamara was part of of course his new role that 612 role has really really supported our vpa program and has allowed a lot of things to come to fruition because we have somebody besides me working on that um and we are excited to begin working with her to really do that work at the middle school level so that we can improve middle school students access to the different kinds of Visual Arts that are available to them and really updating our art experience at the middle school level with the hope that this will engage our students more at the high school level because our high school students are not picking art as often as we would hope they would pick when they're looking at their electives so
066to me that's a sign that we need to improve what we're offering to them and in addition we've worked really hard in our eighth to ninth transition this year to help our eighth graders see that if you're interested in web design which is Artistic that there are a variety of Pathways that don't just include the art Department that are in fact art and so allowing that digital art new new ways of of engaging in art that our students are actually very interested in beyond the traditional ones which we still of course love and support it has been a big a big push of ours so I hope that answers the question on that and it does okay I can add on just a little bit so Corey if that's okay yes um so just just
067in terms of professional learning um you've heard us talk about professional learning in terms of of classroom teachers Specialists we've also invested professional learning for our K-12 art Department um an example of that is our the team had selected members go to a conference on teaching artistic Behavior they brought back their learning and shared it out with other art teachers we've really made an effort to have K-12 professional learning sessions where teachers are working collectively around the vision work that they would like to see take place from elementary all the way up through our through our high school we've established our partnership with the Aldrich Museum again teachers have gone either to the Aldritch Museum as a department or in smaller groups to um to study what's available to us in our local community so
068we've also invested in their professional learning as a Department I guess I would add that as part of the work that we're doing K-12 to continue to improve the department improve access to the department which I feel like you heard during the high school New course proposals um at this point we haven't recommended additional Staffing not to say that might not happen in the future but at this point that that is not a recommendation from the group that has continued to study this Selena so just to clarify um our our little ones get our once every six days is that correct I just just for purification yes all schools run on a six day cycle so yes yes all right and we have okay thanks and I would I would also just encourage you um
069to recognize that there's art also outside of our um I'm looking at Farmingville right now and they are creating a whole set for their school play so there's other ways that we engage in art also through integrated studies that's not just in the art classroom and that's something that we're also continuing to do and work on as an elementary team as we look at the integrated studies curriculum which includes social studies and art is a huge part studying art and engaging in the work of different artists over time is part of the work of learning about history okay Selena no anyone else no one okay I have a few questions if that's okay oh thank you so much for the presentation and I agree with Sean and Rachel when they say I think we're very
070happy with the work that you're all doing the hard work that you put in um thank you for everything I will I'm sure I heard it right you did mention a K-12 mtss committee right yes okay perfect I look forward to understanding and what that means at the next presentation um you talked very quickly and I know you mentioned about a writing resolution you talked about the professional development that is part of the increased purchase services and Conference and training lines could you talk a little bit more about that that's my first question and the second one was um I know you again briefly touched about the reduction in the social studies textbooks and the resources line if you can explain how that affects into or how what that means for future budgets and how
071just you know understanding it with the line item so conferences in training versus purchase Services right that was the first part and then Annie you can do the social studies one after this so so really it's thinking about the difference between um a professional going outside the district and working with people in their field so that's conferences and training conferences in training also includes the AP training for any teacher that's new to an AP course so that's that's going out out of out of out of Ridgefield meeting with people in your field um both Jeff and Annie have been able to this year again so excited to actually go it does make a difference to go um they've both attached attended national conferences for Math and I think Annie's about to go to social studies
072um or she already won okay with a big with a big group of teachers so so conferences in training is outside the purchase Services work is inside it's when we bring leaders in the field to work with our teachers you saw yesterday on the RPS update uh conversation about a specialist that we've had working with our health and PE teachers and actually she was you know over the moon about the quality again of our our health teachers which we very much agree um so that's that's an example of that purchase services and and the value of the purchase Services is its on site okay so many times those opportunities mean that teachers get to see an expert in their content so so for example at the elementary level we had Sarah Schaefer from think mathematics
073she is an exceptional teacher and researcher so we got to watch her teach all the teachers got to stand around watch her teach with real kids our kids which is very different than going to a workshop and hearing about it we actually got to see her do it so that kind of professional learning has shown through research and it makes sense again over time not a One-Stop but an overtime with continued support from those instructional leaders and those coaches and teacher leaders in your building that has had the biggest impact on actual instruction because the thing that the thing that is so true about teaching is that there is an art to it um you know you one less you can't just read a lesson and deliver it to students there's an art to how
074a teacher reads the room modifies recognizes students who need additional help recognizes students who need more from that lesson that's the real art and that that kind of training really can't happen at an outside conference an outside conference you learn about the new things that are coming you get to see what other districts are doing super important very very smart but that on the ground work is really where that art comes in that art of teaching and learning um and and that's what we want to make sure that our teachers get that um so that again so that we can make sure we have full implementation and the teachers have the tools and the confidence to address whoever's sitting in front of them but thank you so Annie do you want to talk about that
075um social studies resource sure and what that means in five years when we have to re-up yes The Re-Up um so this past year we we were in preparation for last year's budget um I was negotiating with National Geographic because we used we had been using their resource in a yearly subscription and the investment in how in a resource like that one is social studies is also has a science component to it if you think of like a science lab right inquiry Works similarly in social studies and their resource provides yearly updates into all those digital resources so we do have hard copy textbooks for each class set right for each classroom so that way the our students have prints available to them but they have the most up-to-date the world is ever changing and
076our we have a very robust geography curriculum in our sixth and seventh grade um so that needs to stay up to date so that investment um does give us the opportunity for discounts and negotiating that price so in the next probably five years you'll be hearing me talk about okay it's time to review that resource make sure it is the one that we want again right that they have stayed up to date with our standards and what we expect um and I'm and so we will have a potential cost of approximately probably a hundred and forty thousand dollars I don't know what that cost will be in five years but that is typically about what a six-year purchase is able to is going to cost um I will do my best to negotiate um discounts
077um and and all those things that um they seem to like to give customers who are nice to them um and so we we do expect a cost now I do need a maintain to maintain funding in the social studies textbooks and resources line between those years because just like science social studies as consumables inquiry um requires that our students have access to things that that are supplemental to their learning continuing Partnerships similar to witness Stones future Partnerships that may become available to us so um I I do need that funding to maintain resources um in between those years thank you thank you and just just before we move on to the next cost center presentation I want to do another no other questions by the board okay thank you thank you everyone thank you
078for answering our questions and we look forward to your presentation on Monday yep moving on to the next technology Dr DeSantis you're up all right great thank you all right so uh this is the uh 2023-24 technology budget presentation so uh if you want to go to the next slide uh before I get into the actual nitty-gritty of our budget this year I want to remind the veteran board members and also the new board members how far we've come over the past two years so during what we like to call the distance learning experience of covid uh we started out a little over two years ago being one of the lowest deployed technology districts probably in this state especially for a district of our size we couldn't support one-to-one and at the time we could
079barely even support giving the state standard test and then covet happened and we had to do distance learning during that time with the investment from the Board of Education we were able to not only get through it but become a leader an example of how to do hybrid learning to the state of Connecticut uh we also since then have created and implemented new onboarding processes and product Cycles in the district where we no longer have to lease items and you'll see that later in the presentation but beyond that we've also used these opportunities to create a cost-effective method of implementing one-to-one meaning that our uh K through 12 students have the ability to have a one-to-one device to uh um um induct all their academic Endeavors and whatnot but you'll see a little bit later
080in how we do it but I just want people to know how far we've come in the past two years it's been a huge huge Improvement and when I talk to community members Educators teachers administrators they have seen a huge difference in the amount of Technology we've been able to deploy but the robustness of that technology as well as training curriculum and integration of that technology into our educational lessons so we'll go to next slide please if you look at this year's budget it is pretty much unchanged from this current year or next year's budget and uh the reason why is we've been very good at implementing our one-to-one program uh our technology replacement cycle and we've been able to uh prevent any unnecessary waste and with that the retirement of the hardware lease line
081which you'll see in the next slide we've been able to help cover any minor increases in other lines does that mean that you know as the year goes on well we might need transfers because unaccepted plus might pop up absolutely and we'll get to that a little later in the presentation but we can see that um we didn't really need much this year because of last year's amazing investment and and this is kind of like a thank you I want to thank the Board of Education the board of selectman and the board of Finance for believing in our technology department for last year's budget we've greatly expanded it only because we needed to support initiatives like one to one uh fill gaps and Perkins and you'll see a little bit later uh all the amazing
082things we've been able to do with that support So a big thank you and I like to say that this budget is a stewardship of that trust so if we go to the next slide please um these are my operational lines and nice thing about my budget is usually the lines tell you what it's for so uh Ed Tech subscriptions those are technology platforms Google we use a service called we video where students can uh edit their own videos on Chromebooks stuff like that um internet services uh equipment repair line uh lease copier agreement so they're all basically what they are if you notice we put a strikethrough line through the hardware lease line if people have been paying attention over the past few years uh prior to uh me coming into this role the
083district had a policy of leasing technology for incredibly long periods of time to pay off that technology to the point where that technology was obsolete while we were still paying on the lease and I felt in the leadership here when I brought it to Susie and everyone felt that that was just not the best way to spend our money so we no longer lease most of our technology we own it we have warranty services is on those products so they can get repaired for little to no cost and of course we have an amazing team here who will also repair those lines so we retired the hardware lease line which contained about a hundred and six thousand dollars and what that does is it kind of uh buffers the minor increases in the other line
084so uh as you know in the world of technology there are shortages there's price increases and what I was able to do is get best guess quotes and understanding of those Services by the time we re-up on them in July uh so there's some minor increases in some of the lines but by removing that hundred and six thousand dollar line or retiring it we actually came out with a budget that is negative 2.5 percent give a few small percentage points after that uh so we feel that this is a uh stewardship of that wonderful trust from last year I will say in this presentation I am going to be dropping hints of next year's budget so next year's budget will have I would say a reasonable normal style increase but for this year because we
085want to focus on other improvements in the district I feel that our current budget is sufficient so if we can go to the next slide please so uh this is where I want to highlight the current progress that we've made with their current expanded budget and the progress that will come in next year's budget uh next slide please so first one of the biggest technological budget drivers in the district is our one-to-one program uh and as we know things are just getting more and more expensive when I took on this role a Chromebook that we would deploy to a student cost a little over three hundred dollars and then last year the price increased up to 394 dollars and I'm assuming for some best guess quotes and these are from suppliers that are the state
086lowest contract bidders so uh there's no deals better than I can get these prices at I also want to get a decent Chromebook that is robust rugged that can take the punishment that a fourth grader can can give a Chromebook at any given time uh that unit price is probably going to increase to about 425 dollars we purchase about 1200 Chromebooks a year that means that fourth graders will get deployed Chromebook 6 and 9th graders and then they will keep that Chromebook for the duration of that uh grade level so fourth graders keep it for two years sixth graders keep it for 3 years and ninth graders can keep it for up to four years but at the high school level we get a huge cost savings week because we also allow BYOD bring your
087own device and usually a student in high school they get a Macbook they get a Windows machine some of them are running around Linux laptops so that's really really cool thumbs up there for those cool nerds uh and they usually get back to the Chromebook and then that Chromebook is reintroduced into k-3 extra Chromebooks or replacement Chromebooks but that Hardware line that we expanded last year to do these uh really cool upgrades and upgrade Cycles uh the Chromebooks are going to keep eating into that so this year we still have a good amount of money that we're going to be focusing on finishing up some jobs at the high school and really focusing on the middle school and then next year we'll be focusing on the elementary school so uh let's go into the other
088other budget drivers go to the next slide thank you John uh if you've noticed we've been doing a huge ViewSonic rollout that's replacing the now almost 15 year old old smart boards that have been deployed in the district these viewsonics are higher resolution they use less electricity they have very little down times they don't need bulb replacement so it's a kind of a win-win-win I love this photo I'm showing right here uh the view sounds can do multiple inputs so at the elementary levels I'm seeing really amazing things with kids coming up to the board and doing really cool interactive things uh we are about 95 done with this deployment and I also want to get a good shout out to uh Jill Brown and Nick Harris who we were able to secure these viewsonics
089at a very good price in July and the price skyrocketed by September so we were able to get these at a very good price and um I didn't plan on deploying to 95 of the district this year but because of like I said good stewardship with the budget we were able to make some really good calls uh right now Farmingville is currently being upgraded fun story when I first took this position many teachers from Veterans Park came to me and they go can we be the last can we stop being the last of being deployed because of alphabetical order so the reason why farming feels last is now anytime I do a big deployment we randomize the schools and sadly Farmingville came last so just so people know why Farm evils last it's random next
090time they won't be but actually they should be done at the end of next week so we're very excited about that if we can go to the next slide uh we have some examples of some uh text Cycles which I'll get into a little bit but uh if you've walked around at the high school recently we've upgraded the digital art lab to brand new IMAX we've upgraded the engineering department with brand new laptops we've been able to support the robotics team with some of their software needs we've been able to support family consumer science business with all of those really robust experiences that you would expect from a uh you know a school of our caliber another thing that we've been able to do successfully this past year or last year into this year is
091implementation multi-factor authentication it was a huge push from the state of Connecticut last year to do this and I believe that our district has done this deployment in such a way that it's been relatively painless uh compared to some of these stories I've been hearing in other districts and other municipalities and that also increases our level of security in the district uh next slide please I would say one of the other feathers in our cap is our amazing data team working with the curriculum department and specialized Department in coming up with innovative ways to in-house a lot of our data services while also connecting with some supporting data services that uh Corey has connected us with which has been wonderful we're also implementing some really neat stuff because of our great talent here like the
092Adaptive scheduler which by the way if you listen to this week's podcast we talk about very cool we are also currently working on a system where parents can log into a portal and do all of the attendance stuff so they might not have to call schools all the time that's not up yet but we are currently working on that and that's an in-house system that we are using through the PowerSchool app that we were designing uh and we're working with the curriculum Department to set up that data warehouse that Corey mentioned earlier which I think is going to immensely help our ability to engage with mtss needs and of course we're uh where I got a story you'll hear in a little bit where we collaborate very close with the business department the town and
093other municipality needs in the town because like we say it takes a village and here at the technology department we're here to help so we go to the next slide uh what this slide is a slide I actually showed a few months ago at the very beginning of the school year and then originally I showed it last spring this is our deployment of our digital citizenship curriculum uh you might have heard that I've moved Kim Moran our amazing Middle School integrator into a new position of District uh integrator and we have a teacher teaching the teacher approach so uh she is training the LMS and other teacher leaders in the buildings in the district to deploy digital citizenship curriculum and the reason why I'm showing this slide we don't have to go into all the
094little text there but I want to say that we have checked all the boxes we have done a wonderful job in deploying the Chromebooks and deploying uh lessons about how to use uh technology both physical Hardware especially at the elementary level and the beginnings of digital citizenship I think in today's day and age is incredibly important and it's not just that it's also how to use technology as a tool middle school has been doing amazing things with coding and right now we are uh working with the high school in creating robust ways of interacting with media you'll see we're creating some new courses as well as using the library as a hub for not only the students to learn about technology digital citizenship but our employees we've been having great interactions with our teachers our
095staff it's become like a really cool hub for all of that information a quick example is just yesterday we were using the library uh and interacting with our digital citizenship curriculum to start wrestling with AI chat right and that's kind of becoming a huge topic well now we can address it head-on because we have the infrastructure and the team together to do it rather than uh be reactive now we can finally be proactive integrate with the leadership from Kim Moran it has been amazing uh next slide please so a current future projects if you remember uh we had that wonderful presentation from Katie Blake and Jake Greenwood talking about the creation of the media production class I felt that not only a school of our caliber or District very caliber not offering any type of
096video audio product true like media production forces was sad seeing how we have a full TV station at the high school so uh over from Christmas break the entire TV station was gutted and part of my next year's budget goals is to populate that space with current technology and turning into a actual media production course tiger TV some really really cool stuff uh also we're going to be working with the curriculum department and leaders at the high school to figure out what sort of those Pathways can lead into media production I don't even think Corey was talking about that with the art or how can we connect digital art to these types of um Endeavors so if we go to the next slide please uh during all this we're working with core subject areas math
097science English History we're working with these subject areas in connecting with their hardware and software needs and that is a great relationship we have the curriculum Department we literally work hand in hand whether it's a curriculum deployment or it's an a platform deployment uh and I've seen great feedback from the core subject areas we're also working with all of those areas that rely on Perkins grants and the nice thing about having that flexibility in my budget is every year I can close those gaps that we have when Perkins does not give us money for certain things as we know Perkins is usually used as a startup cost mitigator but it rarely helps us for continual costs uh on top of that we have really great teachers that have reached out to the state and now
098there are members of the state Perkins board because we ran into some issues a great example is we wanted to start media production but Perkins stopped really giving money to Media production for courses almost 20 years ago which kind of shows we were really behind on that so can a school who may be behind on something that wants to get into it are we denied that funding well currently uh we are but we are sending teachers to kind of advocate for us to the state so it's really cool Community interaction we're having there if we go to the next slide please so earlier I said next year we're going to be finishing up some of the projects at the high school and then focusing on upgrading things at the middle school so the high school
099if you remember some some presentations I did back in the fall we upgraded with more powerful computers of course everyone got the new viewsonics but the middle school will be getting those upgraded more powerful computers that should last them for at least six seven more years that Hardware will also be focused on subject needs so we're going to talk to the art Department the music department making sure that that technology that's deployed to those subject areas is connected of course this course subjects Math and Science will will be in there too uh and then of course we are upgrading building just needs in general every building has its very individual needs as you know all of our buildings were built in different times different centuries almost and uh deploying technology at you know East Ridge
100is a lot different than deploying it at Scotland Elementary it's just they're they're completely different buildings and uh you know we work with those leaders and last but not least uh for this slide we have the create more uh media creation opportunities from the LLC uh for both teachers and students again we are making the LLC of every school this really cool technology hub for students to learn for teachers to learn to administrators to learn and uh we're gonna just make sure that we really focus and make sure those spaces are are a real uh pillar where we can see our technology deployment uh next slide please last but not least in this uh vein is if budget allows depending if we find efficiencies and whatnot we will begin the uh deployment of new technology
101at the elementary school level too my view is the if we could find efficiencies cost centers uh I would like to upgrade things as soon as possible if we have to wait a little bit longer we'll wait a little bit longer but again the elementary schools will get computer upgrades subject our grades again for art music and whatnot and of course the llc's uh Tech in their LLC space of course we are looking to also expand our services so next year we're looking to expand our Wii video which has been an amazing success for all teachers to uh we'd like to expand into fourth and fifth graders so that's a next year ass even though it's not considered the Middle School we feel it's so important curriculum wise to have those Advanced tools for our
102older elementary school children I want to go to the next slide so this is the the part where I want to talk about uh our amazing talent and leveraging the brain power we have in the technology department to save the district money uh when we began this new District Chromebook rollout a lot of services let's say you buy them from we'll say uh Cisco or Lenovo they'll do onboarding services for you because to onboard 1200 Chromebooks can be of monumental tasks doesn't matter how many people you have but we've came up with our own in-house open source solution to do so uh uh and that saves us about six thousand dollars per year just because we have people in the district who are knowledgeable enough to do these kinds of things uh if you've walked
103around our schools we are slowly deploying a new signage system in all nine schools uh and because we didn't go with an off-the-shelf product we did it in-house with our own hardware and uh a one bought piece of software but we customized it for ourselves because again great people and with a big thanks to the uh facilities crew on helping us install all of these we've not only saved five thousand dollars or twenty five thousand dollars in startup costs but we saved five thousand dollars a year in yearly running costs and the cool thing about this deployment system uh if you look in that little middle picture there we can use it for all sorts of things this was the big robotics competition that we host at the high school and what we did is
104we had live feeds up on the screen so the uh teams can see like what was happening we're doing that with like certain basketball games now and other stuff so the stuff that we're able to do with that is really really great and again all in-house uh one other way that we save money is just having people in the district that know how to do things so recently we had a fiber fail between Scotts Ridge Middle School and the high school it was over 20 years old and it just it just went and uh the nice thing is we have amazing crew on both my team and the facilities team who are able to do exploratory uh troubleshooting on this that saved us about 10 to 15 000 of having a third party come in
105and diagnose these things now again we had to repair we had to have a company coming opticom to to repair it and uh you might be seeing a transfer for that in the not too distant future because you know you can't uh plan for something like this happening but we were able to save money by able to diagnosing and and tell Opticon exactly what to do to fix the problem and that saved us some money there if you can go to the next slide please a lot of our Network Design This is more for Capital costs but again costs are saved everywhere uh a lot of our Network design work is done in-house depending on the scenario I've seen this save around thirty thousand dollars per project so that could be let's say we're doing
106a project at Barlow mountain and then at Branchville by doing the designs ourselves we could save like thirty thousand dollars here or ten thousand dollars there because we have the Mind share in the district to do these sort of designs and deployments ourselves uh in the middle you can see our data data specialist Custom Creations I talked about earlier uh we are able to leverage our talent in the district to save money from having third-party companies come in often to do these sort of data crunching reports sending um to the state and just customizations that we might need in our district because everything's changing every year uh last but not least uh then again these are just some some examples we've worked recently I think uh Jill told the story uh with the uh actual
107Town business department and the RPS business department in a joint venture to save fifty thousand dollars a year and then twenty five thousand dollars a year every year after that in plus savings for the town uh by bringing the check printing system in-house uh there's things I'm not going to mention here just because of uh time constraints but another thing that we saved a lot of money on was the security deployment this year it was really rough uh when we wanted to increase security cameras because of just of course supply shortages but just people shortages so a lot of these security companies just didn't have the text to come out to send up our services so what happened is my guys they learned they trained themselves on how to upgrade these actual camera systems and
108they did it themselves and that not only saved us money but it saved us time so we were able to get these systems up and running a lot quicker than relying on that third party to come and do and again another shout out to the great facilities department for helping us with that uh it's been it's been a great team effort here so we can go to the next slide please uh I put a little uh aspers thing up in the corner this is the exact same slide from last year so if you might have noticed I'm still asking for that extra network technician uh I always say uh pre-coded we had a little bit over 2 000 devices deployed in the district now we have well over five thousand that is not including classroom
109technology office technology uh Network Technology and sped technology I also want people to know that our technicians may be different from other technicians in either other Industries or even other districts all of our technicians are highly trained and highly qualified not only can they fix all the classroom technology but they can fix network switches and access points and they're really high level stuff and it's great to have those people in the buildings and accessible at all times uh as you can see a single Tech cover three buildings uh we have that one Tech in the corner that's covered two because the high school is so large so they go there to the Alternative High School at times but we feel that we need need a technician an extra technician to a lighten this load a
110little bit where we redistribute the schools a little bit but on top of that what's happening is it's hard for us to put out the fires that happen during a week or a day without doing the needed maintenance so the maintenance always gets kind of pushed back replacing those Network switches replacing the access points because it may not be an imperative so we want to have that extra set of hands in the district to say like yes we're going to take care of these fires over here but your job for the next like three weeks is to go through and upgrade all these Network switches uh no matter what so those are the kinds of improvements in this uh in our technology deploy Department that we want to make and this is again to create
111lower times for help desk ticket requests and remember we're not just for the staff we're for the community parents students send us help us tickets all the time and even once in a while we've you know met with parents to to help them out with their technology needs because again we're here to serve the community if we can go to the next slide I just want to say uh a huge thank you to my amazing staff they have done a yeoman's task over the past two years especially getting us through covet and now through all the new technology deployments as you can see we like to have fun uh but not only are we doing our job but we are a really cool presence in the schools a great example is the the person who
112is running this presentation right now John Mansfield he runs all of our Board of Education meetings and a few days ago he was at Farmingville teaching students how to use GarageBand uh band another one of my tech was just meeting with some parents on how to use some uh special software for a student with special needs uh I know we had uh one of my other techs was at the high school recently helping out with foreign language testing it's not just they're fixing stuff they're part of the community the kids know who they are they go to games they're helping out it's a really cool thing and um it's great to have such a great team to to rely on not only to just get the jobs needed to get done but to be a
113positive member of society with the RPS community so it's just been a wonderful pleasure to work with this great team um next slide please and uh that is the end of my little presentation and it's time for questions thank you very much thank you Dr DeSantis opening up to all right Miss Vogel thank you uh Dr DeSantis um so first and foremost I want to compliment you it's always a balancing act to buy things versus build them and make them as we all know and so you've done a really great job with your team to not only build your internal expertise to avoid costs but also just to help these kids learn which is fantastic I want to reiterate something you said about Midway through your presentation you know there's been a bit of feedback
114around our art curriculum and one of the things that I think people tend to focus on is art in its classroom setting versus art across the curriculum and digital media production computer-based art graphic design are all very real components out of a creative art program that weaves itself through the other curriculum items and that to me is the magic of rps's focus on the whole child and the the vision of The Graduate um and so I just want to reiterate that I'm glad you brought that up I think it's something the community really needs to understand that art doesn't happen just in the art classroom it happens throughout the creative process of a student some kids want to do digital they spend a lot of their time with screens and they use them as a
115creative Outlet not just off screen and it's part of the ethos of a child now they are digital Natives and so I just I really appreciate what you've done both operationally from an I.T perspective we all know how hard it is to balance Legacy Solutions in the last two years you've proven not only that you've got a road map that makes a heck of a lot of sense financially and technologically you've made improvements where it made sense I think the Investments that we've made you've stewarded Beyond well um and there's a component of this that you didn't focus on but I do want to applaud you on is the security components around our data which is student privacy and a whole bunch of things that you also have Within in your purview that you've done
116a great job and maybe haven't focused on as much in this presentation but with what you have have really woven that through as well so um I just want to Echo support for what you've done for the last and you and your team have done for the last couple of years um you've certainly pivoted in an amazing environment and time and taken on a new role during that time um so thank you for everything you're doing and and I just really appreciate the presentation today thank you thank you so much yeah and as for your security is always tough to talk about because you don't want to talk about it too much publicly because it's like these are the the following products I use yeah but absolutely it has been at the Forefront of a
117lot of things are doing and again it's also tough because we have users you know how do you deploy security to a third grader you know who might have trouble spelling things you know and it's like how come you don't have a 72 digit uh password thank you Sean you had your hand ah thank you Wes um you already know I'm a big fan I I think you've done a great job of um let's say uh stop playing defense and go on offense things are are uh technology is not a hindrance to our education it's now uh more of an add-on and a you know it definitely furthers the the process which is great um Liz talked about some of the scary stuff you're doing uh my concern is more about audit requirements coming from
118the insurance companies from the state things like that how how's our posture how are we looking is there anything on the horizon that's gonna um be a problem budget wise or otherwise uh it I I would say the you'll be seeing a transfer soon uh back into technology because we we are expanding our license with Duo which is our multi-factor authentication and we want to just really Gussy that up and make sure that uh we have that in perpetuity for a very long time uh as you know dealing with companies like Cisco for deployment uh not a lot of discounts right now in the tech World things are just costing what they're costing and I don't really have a choice especially through these deployments it's hard to uh have I'll have let's see there's two
119different products Duo and OCTA these are the two big like multi-factor they both cost the same there's no savings if you go with a or b it you know pick whichever one you want um I would say actually Jill and I and my cycling command Dave Moran were going to a casbo training uh in a few weeks on that exact subject because uh it's funny the state gives us guidance sometimes they were very clear about the multi-factor but there are certain things on sending encrypted emails and they have no guidance on that and like what do you mean by it and we do mean like an encrypted like Word document our full encryption between and I know Google's not too friendly with that and then the state says use Google but then it doesn't have
120plugins for that so we're constantly waiting for clarifications from State mandates on that uh but yeah whatever comes down the pipe we are very aware and we try to get it as soon as possible uh even beforehand sometimes I reach out to people at the state and I go what's happening soon so I can be ready uh but yeah that's kind of like one of the things we're looking into currently cool thank you thank you anyone else Rachel thank you so much Wes and I Echo what Liz and Sean have said I mean just an incredible job um I want to thank you for your your thoroughness and transparency as always I definitely need to put out my appreciation to those students who have come to our Board of Ed meetings from the robotics team
121um this is something that is on my mind and I want to make sure programs like robotics continue and are funded so my question there is where are we on the Perkins Grant um lapse and any future support for them that's my first question my second one is I and I know you've touched upon it is where could I find in the lines where assistive technology is being represented um and my third question is one of the lines at the end and you've definitely gone over this um the hardware equipment line that's our phase-in of one to one I was just wondering why this year it's separated out um I thought it might have been the hardware lease but the hardware release is another line that we um deleted so uh the if you look
122on my line list uh and um John if you want to put up my slide again the slide number four on my presentation just think it'd be easier for us to say I don't have the numbers on that slide but I could just explain it I think it'll be clear thank you there we go um so anything that has eight we have two lines so we have at software and subscription so that is the budget line for a specialized software so if a student needs a an expensive app on let's say a uh an iPad that's a talker or some other service that's the the line that comes out so assistive technology software and subscriptions and then if you go down at instructional supplies are the actual Hardware purchases so if a student needs uh
123let's say they need two iPads they need an iPad for this with this type of software on it and then when they go to another part of the building for a day for maybe therapy or whatnot they need that device there and that's that budget line um I believe last year we might have done a transfer into a t it all depends on you know what comes down the pipe so that budget line can uh you know get exhausted very quickly at the beginning of the year then we have to transfer into it uh or it can last the entire year it all depends on what might be coming into the district or developing needs of a student in there um the the hardware Equipment Technology line that was the line I know we changed
124because it was kind of misrepresented in previous in the previous budget so that one is it's basically just a name change uh in terms of how we look at it but the actual series number had to be changed because it was just like in the incorrect series number again that was a eagle-eyed Jill found that and I I don't know that I just see my budget lines as they are as we deploy throughout the year and um I don't know if I answered all the questions was I believe there's one more the Perkins Grant oh the Perkins Grant oh John you could take down the slide now uh per you know Perkins weird right and this is why we're actually having teachers become part of the State Board because it's hard to know what's going
125to be accepted and denied uh the business department is kind of running at the end of their Perkins uh luckily we've been able to support their technology this year so they should be fine uh some really cool stuff already going on there of the school store where they can now accept Apple pay which is really cool some of the new deployments we've done there and Google pay uh robot is doing their they I think they have about two-ish years left of Perkins support where they don't have to really fight for it and then after that uh I and if you notice I've kind of have like the elementary schools are going to be done getting their deployment so by the time Perkins is exhausted for the robotics team and other stuff at the high school
126I will have that Headroom in my Hardware line to support those uh um uh uh I would say elective classes that rely on Perkins there's a method to my madness there um so yeah one thing they're West about Perkins yes um just like any typical typical Grant there are several lines on Perkins and you can adjust the funding across the different lines one of the things that we have done very deliberately is we are no longer using Perkins to fund curriculum writing it is now represented in my budget it needs to to be part of my budget because we have a whole system and process for writing curriculum structures for writing curriculum deliverables memorialization where it goes and unfortunately what was happening through best intentions was when it was coming through Perkins we weren't getting
127we were losing track of some of that that curriculum so I just want to so now we're just using Perkins for those other lines not curriculum writing which I think will continue to allow that money really to go to what Wes is talking about that initial startup for all those new Innovations Technology based instead of curriculum based so we're we're excited about that and again that does explain another reason why our curriculum writing is a little bit higher this year thank you so much anyone else yes Tom uh thank you Dr DeSantis um you and I first met years ago when you were a classroom teacher so it's it's really impressive to see you develop into a franchise quarterback if I may you and your staff are so so impressive and I I agree with
128Miss flogel and Mr McAvoy they I couldn't say it any better than they did but I but I did have a question uh how do you feel about where the district is in terms of protection from Cyber attack or those who may be inclined to interfere with their Infiltrate The District's technology protections what's your view of that and and how safe is the district uh again you know it's tough to talk about Security in a public forum but I will say that we have many many items in place to to make a secure so a lot of our data is our all of our data is encrypted a another layer we have is backups to backups to backups to back we have physical backups we have Cloud backups we have backups in places that we
129don't tell anyone where they are and they're all timed back up so like let's say let's say the worst case scenario happens right where we've heard of districts Susie who knows because she lives in a in a town that it happened to them and also it's happened to the state where something gets hacked it gets locked down you know give us 50 Bitcoin and we'll unlock your we'll unlock all your databases uh we have time to backups that are always hours behind many many hours behind many hours behind that uh recently we did actually have a failure and it wasn't a hacking it was just a uh our financial software did an update so it wasn't our fault they did an update it destroyed the whole entire uh Financial system luckily we had all of
130these perfect backups that went back many months that we could go and go and just pull out of cold storage and just put it into the server and then boom we were back in business in like a day but those are the types of things that you have to do and you have to build for when you look at my capital budget it's like why do you need so many servers because it's redundancy I you know I don't like to buy this many things but uh we want to have all those backups one of the future projects we're looking into is turning East Ridge into a Dr site what does that mean cloning everything we have in our our server cluster in a full other site we're not just protecting student David this is Town
131data and also you know in an event of disasters or other issues people are going to go to our school buildings for safety and for information or connectivity we need to make sure that we can supply them with that there might be a time where our data may be the only accessible data to get in a crisis scenario so we need to make sure that we can pull that data any given time whether it's hard drives or from a cloud service so we actually have multiple things in in process so but security is always good as your weakest link all the time you know we have created a culture in the buildings of if you see sniff anything weird an email or a student acting weird with technology through US helped us to get and
132we will we will engage in it immediately we have found many things we have many students who are wonderful very start smart children who are very good at figuring out our vulnerabilities uh and uh we learn from those immensely and uh but we're always kind of in that in that realm of keeping security at the Forefront thank you no problem thank you anyone else well I I agree with everything that was said um Tom that was a great question too um I'm just going to read I mean thank you Dr DeSantis your passion shines through your all your hard work shines through not to take it away from the other departments you know but we know how hard you worked and how what the big shift has happened in technology so thank you thank you
133thank you just I wanted to reiterate I know we asked for a network Tech technician last year and that was cut because of the budget reduction I'm glad you brought up the importance of it and why we need it um is there anything else you wanted to add before we move on to the knocks next I I would just say uh other people have realized how great Richfield is with our technology deployment and uh it is becoming an issue of making sure that we can retain our talent so that it's something I'm going to be working with the leadership in the district on that subject uh whether we get the the tech or not uh we have amazing talent in-house and as we know technology and education is expanding and that that mind that I
134would say that Talent stack where a lot of people go to technology but not everyone is good at educational technology and we really kind of have the triple threat here everyone here is not only amazingly Talent with technology but they understand its educational deployment purposes and use cases and they're just great people in the community like everyone just likes to interact with them they're very friendly they're approachable uh we actually have you know you've seen all the silly videos that we send out we have a lot of fun uh but we want to make sure that we can protect that investment and I just want to make sure that we can focus on employer retention in that uh line because uh times are getting tough out there and uh we are getting uh in in
135our our employees are getting in invites to apply elsewhere and I understand it's just it's the nature of the beast but that is something that is definitely under consideration um Tina if I can just add please is the reality what Wes didn't say um that I will is that our our tech department is spread really thin you saw that in the graphic where you have um you know one individual covering three buildings so when you think about the community that we serve which is teachers kids and their families and their family sometimes get stuck on you know on on the their end but sometimes they're just trying to help their student and so having one individual cover three schools is a lot and that if that's just their only role but it's not so in
136addition to the to the students the teachers and the family members you also have them covering meetings like this right and that's every Monday meeting and making sure that we have zoom ready for the public Zoom ready for board members that need to be on Zoom versus those that are in person so all of those other pieces central office technology one of our computers goes down it could take an hour or two or whatever else so not to mention the phone lines which West didn't talk about and in the world but the reality is it is you know we did make a reduction and that was one of the the reductions that we made last year and it's back in the budget this year because we believe it's important and we really want to be
137careful of how how far and wide we do spread our staff you know we always work and we can always work harder of course um but at the same time What goes by the wayside and I think you said it well um Wes is just service you can't get to them when you get to them and there's some back end work that just doesn't get done there's only so many hours in a day absolutely thank you thank you and just last call no one else no other board questions all right thank you so much thank you Santa's moving on to the special education budget Dr hanaway oh there sorry I couldn't see you for a minute I'm here all right well good morning um I am very excited to be here my name is Liz
138hanaway I'm the assistant superintendent of special services for the district and I'd like to introduce joining me today is Dr Anthony showa who is our assistant director of special education and he will be um sharing the responsibility of of uh presenting this morning I um last year I presented pretty early on um in the in the budget presentations and this year um having gone after Corey and then after Wes I really feel like it's it's well designed because um special education is not necessarily something separate altogether and those two departments curriculum and instruction and Technology are so interconnected with the work that we do within special education and people Personnel that I would encourage you to consider our presentation today to be an extension and uh add-on um to the information that Corey Corey and
139was shared because we have a high high amount of collaboration with each other okay next slide please so I I won't belabor the point around the vision of The Graduate um if I uh couldn't invite you all to consider anyone you know who might have a special need and how they have to navigate the world and think about what we value for our vision of The Graduate and how important these things are from their experience and their perspective whoever that person is to you um and so for for Tony and me the vision of The Graduate is important in a way that you can't always find in an IEP or in a service plan or a goal and objective but it's really cultivating the qualities for students who do have an added level of challenge
140when they face the world next slide please so it's important that we continue to communicate to the community what our beliefs are as Leaders of this department um and and why we believe that um this work is is critical for the health of the entire Community not just for students who receive special services um so I'm going to take a brief moment just to remind everybody of what we've communicated already but um what our foundations are when we make recommendations and and do the work for this community that we do um one is that um we believe that children with exceptionalities require robust highly engaging specialized programming we believe that our programs have to be dynamic and flexible to our average aging student population and I would also say to the world the research um
141that continues to evolve and to best practices in our field which also continue to evolve um we believe that only the most highly qualified and trained special Educators and related service providers will be able to meet our students needs and you'll hear later this morning our investment in that belief we believe that collaboration and communication with families and Community providers is critical for Student Success and it is a huge part of what our weekly work is with all schools we also believe that our students are General ed students first their kids first and they are integral members of their classroom and school communities and dependent and that doesn't matter how much time they spend in hours or minutes in a certain setting and then the last thing I would communicate about our beliefs is that
142we believe our para educators are vital valued Partners in supporting our students and we couldn't do it without them next slide please good morning everybody it's a pleasure to be back with you and to present our budget this morning uh so this slide is just a quick guide to the structure within Dr hannaway's special services department uh chiefly distinguishes there's two branches uh that being pupil personnel and special education services uh the special education brand represents direct specially designed instructional services and the people Personnel Branch represents ancillary services to support student access to instruction uh what I loved for this slide to become is more of like an old school 80s transparency where uh to Dr hanoway's point you know special education and people Personnel Services really do touch just about every other department within
143Richfield Public Schools transportation safety and operations uh and especially our curriculum Partners so uh what what doesn't fit in this diagram is the critical connection between special services and our our curriculum Partners through uh Corey's office the work of our teams across the Continuum of instructional interventions spans every classroom and every educator in the district from tier one General instruction to pull out Specialized Service okay next slide so here more specifically you can see how special education breaks out into specific storage provision by the roles and titles of our providers within their disciplines as a reminder students are made eligible through an evaluation process and a planning and placement team determines the appropriate services for each student individually under state and federal law students may be eligible for Stu for services as young as three
144years old and all the way up to their 22nd birthday and so you'll see from this graphic that that Sly this slide breaks those Services into six uh Chief support area categories special education teacher Services which are all those direct instructional services from a student's IEP including their academic and study skills Behavior uh instruction behavioral instructions social emotional behavioral instruction um uh daily living scales for students who need adaptive skills um related Services which are are wonderful related service providers occupational therapists speech therapists physical therapists uh our Mental Health Providers which spans our school counselors um our school psychologists um and all the other folks who even in the classroom work with students on developing their executive functioning and social emotional skills our Behavioral Services so chiefly our board certified Behavior analysts who supported our
145rice programs and other cases across the district students who required that level of functional behavior intervention are contracted Services which for the students who are really demonstrating a very specific need either because they have a hearing or visual impairment that requires specific and tailored intervention and then our transition services for students who are moving beyond High School age and to Adult Services and need adaptive skills uh executive function skills daily living skills to be successful in the community Beyond uh High School yeah okay so what we're gonna uh now that we've given you an organization of what special services includes between special education and separately people Personnel we're going to start with a special education budget for next year next slide please so on November 14th uh we provided an update to the board which
146we plant again to do in I believe March um in which uh we presented an update on our student population um because this time last year when we presented this slide and we talked about our special education budget Focus uh it said growth because we experienced a a really significant growth um in the uh between essentially the 2021 school year and um the 21-22 school year will be presented in November was data that we believe showed that um we are not experiencing the same type of growth across all domains this school year as we had in others um some continue to grow such as our preschool but on the whole not as much so that we are shifting our special education budget Focus this year to student performance um instead of growth and the the
147four Investments that we would like to make in our proposed budget towards improving student performance is investment in our professional learning investment in our instructional tools uh and resources and expansion of our programming and our extended school year or esy program next slide please so I'll break down each one of these so as far as investment in professional learning I Echo what Corey said earlier we are alerting a learning organization in the Richfield public schools and that's no different for uh staff who work within special education um we are uh going to make a significant investment next year in professional learning for co-teaching at the secondary level we've done a study this year and have had a good amount of time spent with our middle and high schools analyzing the effectiveness and design of our
148co-teaching at the secondary level this is the method of service that touches the most students with IEPs and also includes the highest Staffing proportion um so so it's a it's a huge bang for buck Service delivery model and we want to make sure that it is achieving the outcomes that we want to and so we will be making a uh or requesting an increase in that in our professional learning so that we can accommodate for that training we would like to similar we've learned a lot from the models that the curriculum instruction department has used with a lot of their professional learning Corey was describing workers there Shafer and people coming in sight and so we'd like to do a similar model for secondary co-teaching by partnering with a consultant for a coaching model of
149individual large group and professional learning sessions uh the second area we'd like to invest in to support our student performance is in resources and tools we have done it in a a multi-session analysis that's going to continue all year long with our partners in the curriculum and instruction office around the performance Gap um that exists between students with IEPs and their peers who do not have Services um and we find that math to be the area of of greatest Gap um and so for next year what we would like to do is focus on elementary math which we believe leads to a larger Gap at the secondary level within mathematics um we would like to invest in the bridges math intervention resource which is something that um is being used elsewhere in the district right
150now for intervention for our special Educators heavily focusing on on operations number sense and place value next slide please the third area of investment we'd like to make with this proposed budget to support our student performance is in the expansion of our programming uh we are we communicate Dr Da Silva communicated the last board meeting is that we are expanding um our rise cohorts at the elementary level for next year to include for a new cohort at Branchville Elementary School we are very excited about that we have been able to accommodate for much of what will be needed for that programming Staffing wise within our current resources however we will require uh additional para Educators to support this cohort at Branchville Elementary School um so we we are making that request in our current budget
151um and then we are also requesting um support for halftime special education teacher at Scotts Ridge Middle School due to the growing rates of students with learning differences at Scott's Ridge which is proportionate to their overall growth in student population and then the last area of investment that we'd like to make in this proposed budget to support student performance is within our extended school year program um similar to what Wes was talking about in terms of investment and talent and maintenance of talent the quality of the program hinges on a few things um one of them I will say is Tony because he is the organizer of the program and does a tremendous job at it however another important facet of the quality of the program is depends on the staff who are working and
152we believe it is best when the vast majority of that staff are our own folks who are working either with the students during the year or working within the district so that they know our models they know our practices they know our expectations our hourly rate for uh paying special education related service providers for extended school year has not changed as far back as I've been able to look in in six years I've been here for but looking I could back go back six years it hasn't changed changed and it's not necessarily competitive enough for veteran staff they can go to a district down the road and get paid a significant more hourly rate so what we are proposing to ensure that our extended school year is staffed with high quality RPS employees to the
153best extent possible is that we'd like to increase our hourly rate um for those esy certified employees who have been in the district 10 years or more next slide please okay uh here's some highlights of other cost intensive Services uh these cost drivers which to some degree we depend on as external supports for professional learning and programming are often prone to price increases more acutely as of late and sometimes unexpectedly um our goal however is to continuously fortify the professional capacity of our faculty and programs making our instructional programming more robust for all Learners this is essential especially as research and experience teach us more and more about instructing students with emotional disabilities autism dyslexia and other complex needs so you'll you can see a few examples here we do have team talk counselors that
154we use to augment our ability to work with kiddos at the secondary level who have social emotional needs we do uh occasionally I have to send students to uh private programs whose needs are are beyond what we can program for in District and we're compelled to pay those tuition increases when those happen like I said sometimes expectedly and acutely um our legal services to uh [Music] engage in more complex uh procedural matters as they pertain to student IEPs or otherwise require us to maintain a communication with our attorneys and then professional development like I said as we increase our ability to more robustly instruct our students means that we need to Avail the services of external providers to to teach us the best practices in many of these areas okay next slide please all right
155so moving into uh the growth trajectory of Dr Henley's departments uh this slide is brief recap of data we reviewed with the Board of Education in November showing the increasing prevalence rate of students requiring IEP Services over a six-year span as compared with the state average showing the same uh in that second row uh this demonstrates in a naturally low historical prevalence in Richfield up until about three years ago um and the next slide we'll talk a bit about how this this growth breaks out and where it came from but so uh taking an expanded historical perspective of our students who are eligible for IEPs um starting with that top section A significant growth and referrals to preschool from our community uh are from Community programs in Richfield um providers and family referrals for pre-k
156services for students that are suspected of having disability even at that young age that has increased as you can see over that five-year span um uh more than 100 percent um uh K-12 referrals uh from school teams and from families that middle uh middle row has also increased significantly um and the rate at which students are exited from special education eligibility has maintained roughly steady so putting all three of those together you can see that our ability to assess for find eligible for and program for students who have disabilities has increased however our variative exit of those students has remained steady so that that creates an overall increase in our students who are continuing to be eligible for IEPs um we asked just I'm not sure if that's a an adjective but we'll just say
157we asterisk uh the 1920 uh school year to remind us all the closure uh the pandemic closure from the state had paused all child find activities uh during that uh those early days of the pandemic and subsequently a higher referral rate uh to preschool uh as a result of isolation during quarantine when those little ones were not socializing and learning directly with their peers and providers next slide so a bit more in terms of our growth by data these other important numbers that have a significant significant Personnel cost implication are uh as Dr Hannah mentioned our extended school year program whose eligibility rates have risen sharply as you can see since we returned from quarantine in summer 2020 so whether that's in large part due to the pandemic closure and trying to close some of
158the learning Gap as a result uh maybe part of it I think additionally as we've grown in our ability to assess for eligibility that we've found in our data practices that more students are eligible for esy however that number does continue to grow pretty sharply um and uh it's it's too soon I think this year to to start comparing for the summer 2023 but um I anticipate that that's going to continue at least in a steady way to either stabilize or grow more uh we're seeing a a drop or a blip perhaps if you will in our homebound Services which could possibly be due to the gradual uh return to in-person learning that that happened in 2021 um uh and then stabilized uh hopefully coming into this current calendar year and then finally uh rise
159which um in case we we failed to Define that specifically earlier is just the original intensive special education program for our most complex Learners uh has grown and more recently uh remains stable in terms of uh students who are found by their planning and placement teams to be eligible and require that level of service although we do anticipate a rising bubble from local Trend uh transition kindergarten programs uh students who we know are in those programs that have historically required a rise level uh uh program uh coming back to K or possibly even coming back to first grade in the fall of 2023 could affects uh our numbers for our rice programs next year all right and then finally um a little bit more data here um other factors could include a recent churn in
160local real estate uh again possibly as a byproduct of the pandemic closure and folks moving around uh thereafter um we've noticed uh several students requiring a specialized School of uh recently exited graduated we returned to District which is uh reassuring and exciting for us as we are always looking to have students educated in the least restrictive environment um it's also a cost saving Factor if we can work with kiddos in District as opposed to sending them to a more expensive private tuition programs and then uh finally that last row our students requiring residential programs have remained stable as we've moved students back to less restrictive settings while we also have received newly enrolled students that require that level of service from an existing IEP which were Bound by law to implement if I could just
161add a color to that let last residentially placed slide in August um I thought we had two residential students uh two students move into District already in residential placement within a three-week span in August um so you know these these things ebb and flow and um you know I don't anticipate I've anticipate maybe I I don't know if the number is going to change into next year I think the students who might be in residential placement will change after July because it's not intended to be a long-term solution um in terms of an appropriate placement unless it's a very rare circumstance so usually we see one year two year placements uh at most um so you know it's it's a it's a huge huge impact on the family as well um so um just giving
162some some color to um what goes into that residential placement slide next slide please so the um the bottom line for special education at least with what we have included and proposed um and I'm going to speak to you in a minute excess cost that impacts this number is a proposed budget increase or proposed budget a 15 million nine hundred fifty nine thousand nine hundred six dollars which is an increase of 4.75 percent um and the entire special education spending if you also include Transportation which is in the general Services budget and assistive technology in the technology budget it represents 16.4 percent of the superintendent's proposed budget so our population just being under 15 of the whole of the whole district and our spending uh about 16 and a half next slide please so um
163the operating budget is not the only way that we fund our special education services we also receive federal and state Grant monies that I'm going to briefly review now next slide please okay the idea Grant is the Federal grant that goes to all public school districts um there are actually two sub-grants within the idea Grant one for school age children they would say which is 5 through 22 years of age and then one for preschool age students this is a reliable Grant in terms of the cost and the amount that districts get so we feel confident putting the district has well before my and Tony's time put the vast majority of efforts in this grant funding wise towards certified staff which you can see in this chart that is um we believe it's a safe
164thing to do it's a very common practice across districts because this funding is uh secure with that said the change in how much we get has not moved in proportion although we gotta we have gotten a nice bump um in the last few years which I did not expect um especially uh last year they they gave us a Reconciliation of about 35 Grand which was great um but the vast majority of this is towards certified staff about 10 towards non-certified a little bit towards in service and a little bit towards contracted services so this supplements um not supplants but supplements are operational budget next slide please okay excess cost always a big source of conversation this is a state Grant um and just a brief reminder around what is the excess cost reimbursement Grant um
165it is a state reimbursement that is um provided when the district spends uh over four and a half times per pupil on a student with an IEP um just for reference the average cost per IEP for a student is two to two and a half times per pupil um so the state of Connecticut if we can follow this state of Connecticut reimburses a percentage of the amount that is spent over the 4.5 per pupil reimbursement um and I'm gonna actually get to what is that number for Richfield in a second um so we expect next year that we are going to get a 70 reimbursement of what we spend for kids with IEPs that we claim over four and a half times per pupil um the process in my office in our office for tracking
166and Reporting is very serious uh it is a huge part of our uh two bookkeepers positions um and something that um we take a lot of pride in and we are very grateful that um Jill and Nick in the business office support us with because um it is a huge part of how we factor in our budget next slide please so um the excess cost threshold goes up as our per pupil goes up you know so there's like a a tentative balance there and also in order to get reimbursement you got to spend money so we're always kind of walking this line of of um obviously always prioritizing meeting student needs um but the uh you know you got to spend money to get money back essentially so um the excess cost threshold for this
167year based on our current per pupil is a hundred thousand seven hundred seventy three dollars so we have to spend that much before we're eligible for reimbursement so if we spent a hundred ten thousand dollars we'll get reimbursed um you know 70 of that for fiscal year 24 next year we have reduced our expected SS cost reimbursement from 1.3 this year to 1.135 because we're dropping to that 70 typically when we have budgeted for our excess costs we've been between 75 and 80 reimbursement we have like a really uh anomaly as a result of the pandemic for one year where they gave us 83 but it hasn't been that high in a while um and so when you reduce your budgeted reimbursement it increases your budget so that is a factor of our four point
168uh I think I said it was 4.75 a good portion of that is due to our drop in the uh excess cost reimbursement projection and this is just for reference sake um you know this is uh the percent the number of students in District right now who who the green are the students who qualify right now we track uh 20 grand before um but this 80 to 100 000 range is really kind of uh financially uh a tough spot for us because it's not uh it's a high cost uh but it's not reimbursable and excess cost includes literally everything that we provide through the IEP for the student evaluations Services tuition transportation we itemize all of that okay okay so uh as I mentioned previously our aim is always to reduce our depends on external
169providers is our instructional and program capacity grows uh so to highlight a couple of those is some of our Cost Containment strategies um we're currently testing out a model in one of our elementary schools that's a variation on our current uh pull out learning service model excuse me Learning Center service model uh to supplement and broaden the service Continuum that we have available to our Elementary programs in the absence of a co-teach model that we don't currently have at K5 but to be able to robustly program for all students within the K5 model who are presenting with more complex needs that are captured within the traditional Learning Center model we're trying that trailing that we'll say one of our elementary schools in the hopes of seeing how that would possibly be implemented more broadly in
170the future years um and as Dr Hanway mentioned before and Dr DeSilva mentioned before that uh we're very excited to welcome our 11th baby into the district as our newest rise class at Branchville Elementary opens in the fall um this allows us to be able to service students with complex uh service needs um on the south side of town as we continue to see our pipeline if you will for pre-k continue to grow uh this further increases our ability program for more students in District and keeps them in their Home Zone as much as possible which also alleviates some Transportation costs uh and so just to touch on a couple more our uh dialectical behavior therapy training um broadens and deepens our ability to work with kids who have uh distinct social emotional needs um
171instead of uh having those students programmed for and out of District settings um are sort of uh spheres if you will of training of our school counselors our psychologists even some of our teachers I'm in specific programs across the district who are able to use those skills to coach students through social emotional uh difficulties uh allows us to be able to make sure that those needs are met within the school and then uh in addition to our industry tutors we're using outside agencies uh as a cost competitive strategy who's uh hourly rates are low um and and allow us to um make sure that those tutoring hours are met without um uh bringing on more cost intensive model okay next slide all right now looking ahead we anticipate our Pre-K referrals and eligibility will continue
172to grow based on the trend from The Last Five Years um even with that postcode bump I think uh that may have given us a maybe a false sense of a higher trajectory than maybe we anticipated but um we do still continue to see a growth in that model uh year over year um even you know uh coming farther and farther away from the pandemic closure this may include more sections of pre-K more Pre-K Services a longer day for students whose needs are appropriate for it and expanding to additional spaces possibly even to our other schools um inevitably we'll also need to continue diversifying and broadening our sort of Continuum uh in District to program for students with complex needs moving to transition services from high school and specific program for students grades 6 to
17312 who have intensive social emotional needs more than just what uh those who are trained in DBT can provide all right then finally uh switching over to our people Personnel Services um the other branch of Dr henway's department and we'll address some updates to those services in the following slides um in PPS we're focusing on some efficiencies to make our services more specific to changing needs and we'll highlight some changes that have cost implications including our nursing and English or you can call it English and multi-language learning Department um for our leadership models uh in nursing and our El need to shift to establish the proper fit for their implementation and we'll also talk further about the core of our yield departments uh the tutors who work across all of our schools to build the
174fluency of our English Learners and how we maintain the quality of that department uh so just a quick overview um a reminder of our students that uh our pupil Personnel Services departments serve so you see our students eligible for Section 504 plans is uh nearly 500 so if you couple that with uh the near 800 students who are eligible for a Section 504 plan excuse me IEPs that makes up a very significant uh portion of our whole school population in Richmond Public Schools so about 1300 out of the about 4 500 so that's roughly you know more than 33 percent of uh our our whole uh District population requires a special service of some kind either through PPS or through special education but you can see Section 504 plan eligible students make up uh about
17510 and a half percent of our whole school population our English Learners even though we don't have a historical view has that number has increased we were steady at about 60 uh students who were English learners for several years and most recently that increased to over 80. oh well still just two percent of our population those students do often times depending on their proficiency level in English require some intensive uh Services um to uh to bring up their proficiency level for access to instruction and you can see our school counselors even though the their caseloads are uh divided up amongst many they still do have to serve the entire School population so 190 students per counselor is uh no uh no small feat that's a lot of students per counselor and finally nursing obviously those
176nurses in each of our schools work with all students okay uh so I want to First Spotlight for our pupil Personnel uh budget design for next school year or requested budget um our English learner Services um so this year not only we increase the number of services I'm sorry students who require service getting all jumbled um we have also increased in the number of students who are either very new to English or non-english speaking at all um and that is that is different for us um you know so a lot of far more uh recently arrived families to the country um there are 22 native language spoken native languages spoken by students who receive El services within the district um and so we have a greater need for training to our general Educators to support
177students who are new to the country and if I could just give you a scenario that is not uncommon um you know student um May register for school on a Friday and be here on a Monday and be very limited English speaking and we have an orientation process in which we pair students as best we can with uh peers who we think will be able to support their acclimation and terms of being like a buddy or a shadow and then we have a whole series of supports that we put in place but as you can imagine for those gen Ed teachers um you know who might be mid-curriculum midway um you know they they definitely need more training in terms of how to support their needs but also as do our El tutors they need
178support with the instructional strategies and the approaches that should be different for students who are newer to requiring English than those who maybe are conversationally fluent but haven't gotten to an academic level of proficiency in English yet so for next year um to that end we are proposing an increase to our El tutor hourly pay it has not increased in the last five years and we've had an incredible high level of commitment from these tutors um I I can't I can't express that enough that um these instructors are incredibly committed to the community and to their students and their families um and in addition to that Susie had alluded to this in her presentation at the last board meeting we're proposing a redesign of the Yale coordinator position it is a halftime position that has
179been incredibly difficult to fill so I have been doing my best to um to support those responsibilities directly with the tutors and um across all the schools and providing training when necessary um but the redesign of the position would combine the El coordinator position um with the Veterans Park Elementary School halftime supervisor this would provide provide for more consistency and availability for our English learner Services it provides more administrative support as well um it's not just consistency availability but support that's at the administrative level and it also will no doubt improve and increase attention to professional learning that's provided to everyone the tutors and the general education teachers um because of the uh the organization of the role next slide please so the other uh main uh Focus that Tony had hit on the beginning
180of the pupil Personnel section of this presentation is also a transition we'd like to make with our director of nursing services and redesigning that to consider as a director of health and wellness and this is a cost mitigation strategy actually um so the director of nursing Services was transitioned um uh due to the the high responsibility that was included because of covid now that it covid you know I'm knocking on my desk in my office has shifted to be a lesser priority we'd like to redesign this leadership role to include a focus on Wellness our Wellness initiatives um Wellness initiatives shift our districts practices and efforts to being proactive and an integrated approach and serve as a greater resources to parents in the community that is something that we get a lot of questions and
181requests for is supporting parents as they navigate a series of needs for their families physical wellness mental wellness and accessing community-based supports um the the shift in this role would focus on supports that help students to be optimally available for Learning and the educational experience that is the point is to keep kids in school keep them healthy and keep them focused on learning um and it's the reason it's a cost mitigation effort is because the there's new legislation um that requires all districts to have something called a family care coordinator um and the family care coordinator really acts as a liaison for um our in-district providers and families with community-based supports um heavily within the mental health domain and given that the director of Health and Wellness falls under me and our department and we
182oversee the provision of our Mental Health Service Providers we thought this design made sense next slide please so additional drivers that impact our people Personnel budget that are predictable that always are the case um is our evaluations and consultations so these are private specialized evaluations that we don't have industry providers for and they're they're pretty costly psychiatric neuropsychological evaluations typically within the realm plus or minus you know could go about five thousand dollars to six thousand dollars a piece our Homebound and hospitalized instruction which can be temporary or long term that is a a budget driver for us and a constant um our evaluation protocols and materials for our school psychologists and some of our other therapists we pay for out of pupil personnel and these are the norm reference evaluation tools that are research-based
183and best practice in the field for evaluation to determine eligibility eligibility for services and they are costly um and then our medical supplies for our health offices which not only includes our nine schools but also includes Richfield Academy and St Mary School which we also uh support just a little FYI we also support the nursing Services uh the nurses who work at the private schools as well all right so the net result here for pupil Personnel budget is a requested increase of or I'm sorry a requested budget rather of 163 dollars and a proposed increase of 4.13 I will note that um while I hit many um requests there um really the vast majority of the increase you see here in this percentage of our pupil Personnel budget is due to contractual obligations okay last
184slide so just a thank you um I Tony and I feel incredibly fortunate to work in Richfield this is a a wonderfully inclusive community supportive Community um you know we um we legitimately like coming to work every day um and uh we feel lucky to be a part of it and um I'll say in my four years my experience here has changed pretty significantly and I think it is because very much of the investment that the town and the board has made in Dr Silva's leadership design because our our collaboration with curriculum instruction transportation technology uh business and Personnel offices really kind of make so many of the hard situations we're dealing with um easier so all right with that we'll end and take questions thank you all right Liz you were first thanks I
185actually have a couple questions so I'm going to help you a little bit so my apologies but um so you mentioned and I may have missed it you mentioned co-teaching going into the middle schools this year is there also a plan to begin that program at the elementary level for earlier intervention so for this coming budget you're now um the board will remember a couple years ago right before the pandemic hit um we really were communicating that we'd like that to be a priority for future budgets yeah um and our plan was to start at the fifth grade level and incrementally roll back grade levels and and not necessarily go all the way down to K we would have determined how far back you got to go um but that would have been a very
186significant you know five-year investment by the district known in advance um and then pandemic hit the impacts were felt and we had over a million dollar I think it was a 1.2 million dollar request last year and so we put it on hold and frankly we didn't think that it was the right time to ask for it again this year and so when Tony talked about that expansion of the um this year at one of the elementary schools we're doing a um a variation on a Learning Center model the purpose of that is not necessarily to replace co-teaching but part of what co-teaching struggle what part of what we were struggling with that we're looking for co-teaching for is more time for our special education teachers to be working close to grade level standards and
187so if I'm an elementary special education teacher and my caseload is too diverse there's no way that I can do that I'm working across too many grade levels kids who are close to grade level to very uh maybe far below grade level and so we created this intensive Learning Center as a way to not only meet those students needs but maybe reimagine our normal Learning Center that could do more work closer to the classroom so I um I I've learned the lesson to uh not over promise and under deliver and so I'm not ready to say that next year we're proposing an elementary co-teaching and to be fair we have preschool expansion on the on the horizon our vast majority of outplacements and coming back in are 7 12 kids with mental health needs um
188it's going to be very competitive and Rise continues to to expand and we can't do all those things at once so I don't have a specific plan right now okay thank you for that um it kind of goes to my second question or it's more of a request for future not necessarily for the Monday FAQs but it would be good to see the effectiveness for the students of the various strategies we're putting in place maybe a little more clearly in the data we talk about how many people are output how many of our students are outplaced Etc or coming back in and I know we can't get into ferpro related information but just maybe broad Strokes about you know how many of those kids our interventions have been successful for or where we're struggling from
189a for for my content and personalized application perspective that was more of a sort of request for information but not necessarily as part of the budget cycle just going forward as part of our overall review of special education yeah so we have a we have a March update and then Susie was there a third one that we was going to plan before the end of the year too like May it's probably towards the late May or early yeah so so Liz between one of those two will make a specific effort I will say this what you saw us communicate earlier in the budget about math being the performance learning Gap I can tell you right now that that is one of those areas that we're struggling um and you can see it in the aspect
190data yeah for sure so then my third point and last so thank you for the form of floor um one of the things I'd just like to point out and this is as much for the rest of the the public that's watching and and the board is you know when we get to the capital budget we're going to talk about the Alternative High School and you guys mentioned it as an explicit call out of the special ed and it's not related however I do want to say that our facilities and where they are and the lack there of space of appropriate facilities is something to really think about when we start to measure out the numbers of not only outplaced students and fully residential students but the overall need Continuum that continues to grow within
191the Ridgefield community and our lack of ability to hold that internally because we don't have not only you know there's there's differences in Staffing and all of that we also don't have the facilities to support that kind of thing right now we have buildings that are inadequate particularly for the AHS but in other areas I would argue as well and so it's just more of a point of uh for later um and I was I was actually kind of pleased that you guys called it out here because I already had that question queued up for myself but um I do think that recognizing that if we don't make the appropriate Capital investments in one area other areas are dramatically impacted and our ability to control both the the area our student Goes to School in
192it's not it's a student impact when they have to travel long distances to get to their their educational facility day to day so just something to note it's more of a rhetorical but um point that I wanted to make there so thank you thank you Sean you have yes um yeah I know uh it's it's us between uh this and the next break but um thank you both it was uh fantastic good information one thing that you know the the general population doesn't dig into these numbers typically doesn't get then I'll underscored again uh 16.4 percent of the budget uh brings additional supports for 15 of our staff that's not an outsized uh use of funds but what I would be interested in I'm not looking to give you a ton of homework but if
193we could get a five-year uh graph of what that looks like how many kids this program touches uh and and what the budget impact is of the program um five years will take us back before covid um and I'd like to see the same thing for the 10.5 percent of the IEP students I'm just personally for peer information purposes did kova do something weird here but also how are we trending yeah we have we have um we already have the population data so that won't be hard and we can pair it with the percentage of the overall budget component um just remembering that you have to actually go into the general services and Technology budgets as well to accurately do that of course um the the um the 504 rates I think I I don't
194I don't have them memorized I actually think they've increased it a high at a faster uh percentage rate than uh students with IEPs and that's and that's and I can also talk a little bit about like what is 504 what does that mean so for the last two updates I can include that terrific thank you thank you Rachel uh thank you Tina so first thank you for your presentation and reviewing back to last year your presentation um again was very detailed and clear where you talk about um recovery of academic Services required you talked about specialized evaluations you talked about um expansion of related services and this year again you have my full support for the investment in professional learning investment and instructional tools expansion of programming esy um as I said last year as
195a community it is important to recognize that while there are costs associated with educating any child this part of our budget we are legally responsible under idea again a very thin budget for the amount of students that require Services um cutting this minor increase in my opinion would hurt our children and our families um it does appear that any increase in this section directly impacts a child's education you have conference and training instructional materials equipment teachers power educators jobs therapists esy professional ed services um and then just one more comment I am really just elated that the investment is being made in professional learning specifically co-teaching at the secondary level um it's something that I've talked about before this is something that's very near to my heart I've seen the benefits and I also want
196to thank our teachers because the implementation of co-teaching is another layer and sometimes it's not easy but the return on investment for our children can be in Leaps and Bounds my question was actually took it was about the elementary co-teaching um so thank you for your response I would like us to continue that conversation I would like to see that you know how is the model that we're going to be implementing compared to possibly a co-teaching model at the elementary school and the pluses and minuses um it's definitely a benefit for all children in General Ed and the students who receive services so thank you again thank you Amy sorry I know my connection is terrible and I keep freezing so hopefully I can get this out um thank you Dr Hanoi and Dr showa
197I know that professional learning is a main focus for this upcoming year and I know that one of the areas of your professional development is DBT and I'm just wondering if you could just explain what that is to everyone and then why that's so important in today's climate sure so I'm going to do my best to be succinct um and and you know if the board wishes we could always follow up with with something more more um extensive uh so dialectic behavior therapy is uh um uh we have designed or we've partnered to design a modified approach to that for the school setting there's also a clinical model so we we have a modified approach with school setting and what it is it's it's an approach that supports students with developing skills within four main
198areas distress tolerance emotional regulation interpersonal relationships uh and mindfulness Tony is that the fourth no missing correct right um so really what it does is it picks up very nicely with ruler so ruler is a whole school initiative that supports kids with recognizing their emotions and finding space between an event and their response DBT picks up from there by coaching into skills once you've found a place where you uh can recognize where you're at so that you can more appropriately manage yourself in a situation so that you can stay involved in class DBT is is very much foundational in the concept of um uh acceptance and change so you'll hear a lot of Administrators in the district say and not but because the concept is I'm doing the best I can and I can do
199better it moves away from black and white thinking and supports students with recognizing that um you know Perfection is not something that anybody expects or that they should aim for and that they can learn skills to advocate for themselves maintain their self-respect and also build their relationships and their own self-confidence um so it is a we believe a very relevant and and um important program because it's one of the few we've seen out there that has a curriculum that is very skill oriented very concrete within those four domains I described there are isolated specific skills that kids learn and of course they don't need to use all the ones who figure out the ones that work for you and then you you learn to apply them in the moment and so that is really different
200than a lot of other ones that we've seen that's been a little bit more holistic and in some cases frankly vague it's a skill oriented curriculum and approach thank you anyone else okay I have questions and I know it's about break time so I apologize in advance but I think um I just want to ask them so that you know people who are wondering about in the community I think first I want to thank you all I Echo Rachel when I say that you are you're attending to a need that you can't predict you know kids needs keep changing you talk about mental health it keeps evolving we are still experiencing the impacts of covet and whatever and mental health is obviously all it's organic it keeps evolving up and down so my first question
201is why you know I know you're asking for um your budget is comparatively to the needs very responsible so I really thank you for all the work that you've done in this but I also want to ask um if you could would you ask for more mental health support uh that's my first a bunch of other questions so I can go one at a time but if you want to address that first uh if you could would you want more mental health support well if if we needed more mental health support to meet IEP and 504 needs we would have asked for it okay so let me be clear on that um also so first the the lowest bar unfortunately that we start with is compliance and so if we and that's really where you
202saw our request last year they were heavily compliance driven we just physically couldn't have enough people to meet the hours so for our ability to meet needs we have uh we're not requesting new staff um I I had talked and not just me but multiple um people at the high school specifically had talked about that one more person to support the varying needs that may come up in a school um is is not as practical as we would want it to be um as far as being responsive to kids uh another provider helped me complete evaluations or to pick up specific service hours um that would be one thing but really for an entire general education population the investment we believe that is important is supporting all Educators to be responsive to kids um so
203right now we are supporting the expansion of all SEL supports like Corey was describing um because you know we'll take the high school for example with 1500 kids um yes if we had a service Gap and we didn't have enough staff to meet the IEP or 504 service needs and I would be asking for more staff I don't have that situation right now and one more part-time psychologist or counselor it spread across a 1500 student population I don't see the impact in the same way as supporting Department chairs with supporting their teachers with their um you know their ability to support kids in the classroom um so uh it's not to say that um a lack of requests for adults means that we're loosening or not taking seriously um the investment that's needed for mental
204health at all um but it's also recognizing that sometimes one person across the school isn't physically available to meet all the needs right now right now thank you I know that Sean and um Liz already asked this so I'm glad you're going to come back and talk about you know or if if I mean we don't need the details but if students with IEPs disproportionately make up the S back lower performance you know we want to save the performance uh Gap is increasing or decreasing and how we can help you know somewhat lessen that performance Gap so I'm glad they brought it up uh my other question is more about Pre-K you know because you talk about the needs that are rising um and I know the parents have talked about there have been conversations
205about it is there a reason where we're not moving and I know Tony quickly alluded to it or is there a reason we're not moving to a full day uh pre-k program to you know ensure that we meet the needs of these kids as they're Rising um it's it's sections in space frankly um we would have to increase uh a good amount of teachers we increase preschool since I've started we've increased preschool by two teachers um in a four-year period of time um we have two sections that are what we call our extended day program which is just over five hours and then we have um three sections that are half day and so the half day do meet more student needs and I I also think until we make a decision or um rather
206than make a decision until we have more conversations around spacing I don't know where they would go um and I think putting a random preschool in a class in a building that doesn't have preschool because they have a classroom available um is not beneficial to to the students in that program or the staff they're not able to collaborate and to do and frankly inefficient for related Services because there's a lot of efficiency that's gained for them being in one place um so you know we're trying to keep up with the the space and we were trying to keep up with the growing need but since we started here we had three preschool half day classes we now have uh five Preschool teachers great Tony five Preschool teachers and a lot more sections in that and
207a lot more of a footprint inside of Barlow including the related service providers I believe that there are 17 Susie 17 staff associated with preschool and I think there were 12 when we started 17. yeah so it's it's really like a just physically being able to keep up yep thank you and I and I wanted to bring that to point because we did do this doors facility tours and I know this is a question that's come up um and then it leads me to my other question we are talking about um I did you know I went through the we're talking about El tutors and I see that our tutors um my it's a comment and you can correct me if I'm wrong I went through the elementary and I know that uh one bmes
208has one tutor a sign and the others are split part-time is that correct and that's I'm assuming that's because of the needs of the kids right all the tutors El tutors are divided depending on the news proportionally based on hours okay yeah is there a reason where um and maybe I didn't see this or I did not you said their paid per hour is there a reason we don't have certified teachers for El Tutors or it's just it's a budget thing or it's just the way it is um well partially budget for sure that would be a very dramatic change but something that I I am interested in have been in conversations with Corey about this coming year is is to um really do an analysis next year um and if we are able to
209um you know if the budget does support the reorganization the coordinator position um that might be an optimal time to do it to do a study of what model makes best sense for us um and I don't think that and I don't want to be reactionary About It by moving quickly to um certified staff as providing that um I have a lot of evidence that our El services are meeting students needs and the reason is kids are not staying in El for the vast majority of the time or at the at the level of services they get for many many years they are transitioning out meaning they have at they have access and benefited and learned enough English I know the Yale tutors are not the only ones who help them do that um it's
210their families it's their teachers it's you know lots of things TV music social media lots of stuff um but I uh I'm I'd like to propose a comprehensive approach to a model um which I'm not prepared to do and frankly I do think that I I need the um the thinking of somebody who's more expert in this field to do that than I am thank you and it's more for you know information information and just understanding especially there are new people who are listening it uh I know that a preschool model is not one-to-one ratio of uh Norm you know disabled peers or special needs or how does that work I just Just for information sake so our preschool our com it also depends on the class okay and the section so they're not all
211the same our preschool invites students without Services um to to be um uh students in the class uh to serve as communication social and behavioral you know I'm Gonna Save for lack for better word models I'm sure some parents would say better on some days than others to serve as a model when you're four uh but for students who may have those challenges um one of the biggest facets that impacts our ratios in the preschool classrooms is that our students with IEPs grow as the year goes on we have not had a practice because of how fast that growth rate has been to increase our students without need population mid-year which is what would keep everything totally balanced and it also depends on the makeup of the class and the needs of the class so
212there may be times in the year where you are not at a 50 50 Ratio or uh and and for good and for good reason because there um there's a lot of information in the field that balances makeup of the class with size of the class and what I don't want is a 20 student class of three-year-olds or three and a half and four-year-olds um when a much smaller class that maybe wasn't a 50 50 ratio still would have been more appropriate for everybody involved including the students without needs further if I could just add in terms of your um your peer group it is not that easy to invite peers to join a preschool program mid-year right because most families need to establish whatever they're going to establish right at this at this before
213the start of the school year so that they can plan their lives appropriately so it is harder to bring in students in the mid-year um just on on the topic of budget so I just as a reminder for our peer group that is a tuition-based model not obviously for our students with learning differences but for our peer group that is a tuition-based model so we receive that funding and then certainly the town um receives it that that tuition-based model has to be better than competitive because for those that are joining us you know they can join another preschool also and perhaps have a longer day program or you know something that might meet the family's needs in a better way and so that tuition has to remain really better better than competitive with other with
214other preschool programs that's just another added piece we haven't reviewed that tuition um at least in the time that I've been here that I can remember but I wouldn't necessarily suggest doing so because we don't have a huge waiting list of of um peers that need to that want to join at least not at this time not not a long list no no that was actually one of my questions who establishes the tuition you know how do we get to that cost so thank you um I I know we're way past the break so are there any other questions okay uh yes Tom sorry go ahead just a brief comment it's not really a question but thank you Dr hanaway and your team for this presentation and my comment is just this my experience with
215the Ridgefield Public School System special education department began probably in 2000 2001. and so the what's happened over the last 20 plus years is an incredible change for the better in terms of philosophy and the scope and depth of services that are provided to see where we've come from 20 plus years ago to now is incredibly impressive and I just want to thank you and your team for for doing this thank you um I just wanted to ask the board hum um this is break time how many minutes would you all like is 10 minutes okay so that we can go back and then get a lunch break hopefully on time is that okay Dr de Silva and cabinet that's okay yeah all right all right so it's 11 45 we will be back at
21611 55 thank you hi team okay I think everyone except Jonathan is here all right just to be cognizant of time and then you know we can get to lunch um welcome to all the elementary building leaders thank you for being here uh we look forward to hearing from you all right okay thank you so much um good morning almost afternoon I'm Mary scalise the principal of ridgebury elementary school I want to take a moment to thank you for the opportunity to discuss some of the priorities and work that make our elementary schools a place where students want to come every day and experience meaningful personalized and joyful learning we believe that the designed learning activities implemented by our teachers connect to Readiness levels and interests while also preparing students for Life academically and socially
217we would like to take a moment to recognize the support of our director of Elementary education Linda Johnson in her role she provides oversight guidance and a lens to ensure Equity across our six elementary schools additionally in collaboration with our elementary administrative team and her work with curriculum leadership at the secondary level we are able to participate in ongoing dialogue to support students transitioning from grade 5 to grade 6 across the district we are truly grateful for this leadership position and the many ways our students benefit from the experience and level of expertise in curriculum and instruction that help guide us in leading each of our schools as an elementary leadership team we are going to present our budget recommendations for the 2023-2024 school year you are going to hear us speak about what we
218value in our work with elementary students how our budget is supported by other department budgets and recommendations for how we would like to continue providing our students with what they need to be successful lifelong learners before we do that the rest of our team would like to introduce themselves hi I'm Becky loss I'm the principal of Barlow Mountain Elementary School good morning or almost afternoon Keith Margolis Prince principal of Branchville Elementary School good morning Nancy Karen Farmingville good morning I'm Jill catcosen principal at Scotland Elementary School good morning I'm Sheri Prendergast I'm interim principal at Veterans Park and hello everyone Elementary director Linda Johnson all right so I'm going to continue John next slide please so similar to what you've heard from my colleagues today when preparing our budget proposal we also kept the mission
219statement and the vision of the graduate in mind because they act as anchors to the work all of our work that we do with our very Young Learners and our elementary schools our mission statement represents the values and the purpose of the district our commitment to this mission is evident in our work with Young Learners when working toward developing purposeful and personalized learning experiences while keeping their physical and emotional well-being in mind to accomplish this we believe in partnering with fellow Educators community members and family members the vision of The Graduate is also important to our work with all of our students at the preschool and Elementary levels it provides a context for learning outcomes and brings meaning to what we expect from our graduates of the high school at a starting at a very
220very young age we may get great efforts to intentionally connect our work and priorities with the qualities and outcomes of both the mission and the vision of The Graduate on the next slide we're going to talk a little bit about elementary students and learning best so in addition to the building budget that we are going to talk about this morning the elementary budget is supported by various parts of the budget which is what is represented on this slide this visual may look familiar to some of you as we have referred to it in past budget presentations it shows how different cost centers contribute to the highest level of achievement for all students academically socially emotionally and physically for example you heard us talk during the curriculum department presentation about requests for curriculum resources for our
221teachers and students you also heard us stress the importance of professional learning to continuously grow the capacity of our teachers in terms of their content knowledge and their pedagogy during the special education presentation you heard about the request for student supports academically as well as socially and emotionally and this morning you will hear from my colleagues talk about line items and the elementary budget but also contribute to the success of our student achievement in all six schools and before we do that I'm going to turn it back over to Mary who will talk about specific highlights some celebrations that we have in terms of our current operating budget okay next slide please thank you Linda we have so much to celebrate this year thanks to the support of the Board of Education the board of
222finance and the Ridgefield Community who supported the budget last year this provided our elementary schools with the benefits of consistent support from elementary supervisors at ridgeberry Scotland and Branchville elementary schools new student instruments and investment in curricular resources to support literacy and math instruction the addition of safety structures and the current review of the elementary security model the extremely valuable support of the district math coach and the repair and replacement plan for New playground equipment again we are so thankful for your support in these areas I will now turn over the next portion of our presentation to Becky who will review our elementary supply budget allocation thank you next slide thank you Mary so as we allocated our supply budget we took into consideration the achievement and best practices that Linda was speaking to the
223supply budget includes instructional materials and books which are aligned to the curriculum and they provide students with everything they need in their classrooms and in their Essentials in our library media center this year you might notice some shifts in our line items from last year and one of our district priorities is to provide an insured experience for kids across all of our schools so together we looked at a multi-year history and created a formula per pupil expenditure across each line item so in some instances if a school needed to increase one line based on our additional needs we adjusted another line item to compensate one of our district priorities is like like I said one of our district priorities is to provide an Ensure experience and we want to make sure that our resources are
224distributed equitably to all of our kids next slide please so this visual is a representation of our current budget it may appear that our budget is substantial however as you can see here um it really is minimal in comparison to the entire District budget next slide please and again this is part of our current budget when you take into consideration salaries our entire budget makes up close to 10 of the district's operating budget and I will turn it over to Sherry thank you Becky Ridgefield elementary schools are home to nearly 2 000 students in kindergarten through fifth grade this slide highlights the makeup of our current School Staffing as we move forward in our presentation you will see how our requests for increased staff support what we value in the work with our elementary students
225as well as the vision and the mission of RPS Staffing is based on enrollment at the elementary level where the Board of Education guidelines State a maximum of 21 students in grades kindergarten and first grade 24 students in grades 2 and 25 students in grades three to five it is important to note that for the 2022-2023 school year we projected the need for 103 teachers at the elementary level based on enrollment numbers we are currently employing 102 teachers at the elementary level we are projecting the need for 102 teachers for the upcoming 2022-2023 2024 school year a few highlights around our support staff that we are currently have one literacy coach one literacy interventionist one math specialist and 1.5 School psychologists per School the addition of the district math coach grades 3-5 has an integral
226to our success of the implementation of the new math program to the right you will see all of our essential staff I'll give you a few more seconds to review this slide and then I will pass it over to Jill okay thank you you can move on John thank you Sherry increasing our elementary supervisors this past year has had a direct positive impact on student learning within our buildings not only has it supported our special education population it has also allowed us to support the growing mtss and El populations within our building as well as their families it is that has allowed us to actively engage in the work to support the physical and emotional well-being of our students by providing a variety of student-related services inclusive of conflict resolution and restorative practices attendance monitoring
227and preventative measures monitoring student engagement and nurturing the culture and climate of the individual school buildings by engaging with students and Families having a full-time Elementary supervisor has enabled us to provide increased professional learning opportunities for our staff in the areas of mtss assessment Administration and respond to crisis within the building as needed the additional administrative report support within our buildings has allowed us to meet the increased demands of the role of the elementary school administrators inclusive of being educational Visionaries engaging with staff is instructional and curriculum leaders analyzing assessment and data responding to the conflict with restorative measures building Community acting as special program administrators and overseeing of legal and policy mandates and initiatives the increase to a full-time Elementary supervisor has had direct impact on our student learning within the building over the
228past year my colleague Nancy is now going to share about our budget request for the coming school year good morning thank you Jill so our sole budget request at the elementary level this year is to increase our elementary supervisor at Farmingville from 0.5 to 1.0 FTE for the 2324 school year as you heard Dr hanoway say this will also result in a full-time administrator being at Veterans Park who will not only support VP but also oversee our English language Learners and tutors this is similar to the model at Barlow Mountain where the 0.6 preschool supervisor also serves as a point for elementary supervisor in an Ideal World we would have requested 1.6 Elementary supervisors though at this time we are only requesting the 0.5 increase we eventually hope to increase Elementary supervisors in each Elementary
229building but we took into consideration the needs of the pk-12 budget and the needs of the district and feel that this ask is fiscally responsible the current Farmingville and VP Elementary supervisor spends approximately 20 weeks per I'm sorry 20 hours per week at each School as we noted last year and continue to observe over 75 percent of our shared supervisors time each week about 15 hours are spent solely supporting special education PPT meetings and related issues such as student meetings teacher meetings parent meetings phone calls Etc this leaves an insufficient amount of time less than five hours per week for their additional responsibilities increasing our elementary supervisors would also closer align us to the other durg a elementary schools as they all have at least one full-time assistant principal in each of their buildings it's
230also important to note that enrollment at Farmingville has caught up to my colleagues who who also have full-time supervisors additionally Farmingville is home to a specialized program the Ridgefield intensive special education program also known as rise we thank you very much for the consideration of this request and I will now pass the presentation on to my colleague Keith who will discuss professional learning thank you Nancy the most important factor in a student's success is the teacher investing in professional development therefore is perhaps the most important investment a learning institution can make when we are in need of medical advice what we want we want the professional who's the most trained the most up-to-date that too is what we want for our students I'm going to share some of the professional learning in this proposed budget
231this year's professional learning commitment at the elementary level is primarily in four areas as you can see in the slide deib diversity Equity inclusion belonging specifically anti-bias staff training the science of reading instruction and support for think mathematics as well as training for leadership you may know that the Ridgefield Public Schools middle schools and rhs has invested in various anti-bias training programs with success with this budget we will roll out anti-bias training for Elementary staff over the last two years with the support of the board of education budget and and thank you we have adopted district-wide programs aligned with the science of teaching reading to support the learning of phonic phonemic awareness and phonics the hegarty program and the and K2 fundations program respectively the continued support of professional learning in these areas and others
232support students acquisition of reading and written language using the science of reading additionally in this year's budget we are requesting the funding for professional learning for the phonics resource Foundations at grade three as was as was provided this year and we are also requesting to continue that type of professional learning at K2 last year the board of education budget and again thank you invested in a new math program at grades three through five to meet our students learning needs and the curriculum the program think mathematics was introduced the Elementary District math coach a position supported by last year's board of education budget spread across the six elementary schools has been instrumental in the adoption of the new math program and to support the overall math curriculum this year's budget expands the think mathematics program to
233K2 and the ongoing professional learning for K2 teachers as well as the continued learning for colleagues at grades three through five and finally as the leaders of the district the evaluators and supervisors of student learning our professional learning goes hand in hand with a successful implementation of a program and or approach and this budget has investments in training for school leaders thank you and I now pass it back to Mary next slide thank you Keith as we wrap up our presentation we wanted to share a quote from researchers at the Center for Applied research and educational Improvement they have compiled Decades of research that supports the notion that those who seek to improve schools should focus not just on teachers but also on principals and administrators approving the 2023-2024 budget will ensure that students and
234teachers are supported with leadership that they need and grow to their Highest Potential the students will benefit from allocations which will provide them with personalized resources for instruction students will have access to highly qualified staff to ensure an equitable experience for all students across all elementary schools students have access to leadership that can effectively support both their academic and social emotional needs students and families will continue to have close relationships with their school administrator students will have teachers and administrators who have experienced meaningful professional learning and are well versed in the current research-based best practices we want to again thank you for the opportunity to articulate what we value how it relates to the budget and how approving the superintendent's budget will have a positive impact on all students families and staff at the elementary
235level we look forward to answering your questions at this point thank you thank you team thank you everyone opening up to board questions Rachel thank you so much for your presentation um you know listen minimal combined increase across the six schools two I'm going to use your words to ensure that students grow to their Highest Potential that's why we're here this is a learning organization I heard that from Miss Gillette today as well um you know the elementary supervisor position is a position that I strongly support I think by walking through our elementary schools on our facility tours you can definitely understand and see why that position is so important it not only helps in meeting the needs of our students but also to support our families our teachers our staff and from monitoring student
236engagement as you said today to helping families through PPT process which absolutely has that direct impact on the child's learning in the classroom um it is such a vital role navigating through Discipline matters at the elementary level the individual could also find themselves in the role of safe School climate coordinator so and I also would like to respectfully bring up that I think having an elementary supervisor could create a more balanced day possibly for our principals um you have many responsibilities and have a critical part in the growth of our children and the connection to our families which is vital I also want to take this opportunity to thank you for the work that you do for the leadership that you all exhibit and for the nurturing of our children you have my full support
237for an elementary supervisor and your prospective cost centers at each school so thank you and thank you for your afternoon on a Saturday thank you Rachel anyone yes Selena um thank you for that great um presentation I really appreciate it um this is a minimal request um I do have a question I'm not really sure who to direct it to maybe Dr de Silva so um we're at 34 administrators right now does anybody know um how many administrators we had 10 years ago five years ago and how it correlates possibly with test scores and because you know and and student achievement that sort of thing I'm I'm trying to get a feeling for how this is impacting our our children in the classroom and also um if I could find out how many literacy coaches
238and math coaches we had five years ago that would be helpful as well as opposed to how many we have now are you looking Selena just at the elementary I'm well right now I'm looking at the um administrative organizational chart so I'm looking at the the administrative chart across the district so I would actually like to know the in like what the increase is at the district level as well just for later sure sure so we can we can get you that because some of it I'll let me just jump in and then my colleagues can answer um probably the second part of your question so with respect to the um the administrative changes we can look back five years I think you asked in 10 years and give that to you part of it
239may be the number of individuals and part of it probably is going to be a little bit of restructure so for example in the past three years um while we have added supervisory staff at the elementary level the supervisory assistant supervisors we've also restructured some of our other roles so um we can get that information to you for sure the second part of your question which is how it relates to test scores I think that that's a more challenging um data set because I would think about the number of variables that we would have to um a line up and I you know I think any data that we would provide you um with would would probably not be accurate what I would I know the team can speak to is how those supports have
240changed other more qualitative um measures so for example I could I could assure you that they could speak to the number of um proactive measure or the different proactive measures they put in around discipline right or structures like that curriculum initiatives that move forward curriculum items that have you know shifted and I think Miss Gillette spoke to that early on in her presentation when we're looking at administrators as a whole try to draw the relationship to test scores I think it would be irresponsible of me because I don't think that we could draw that relationship clearly with respect to the math coaches and the literacy coaches if we look back five years I'll look to Keith because I think he's our most seasoned member here so we're going to answer that question thanks Susie so
241this is my eighth year here and so when I arrived eight years ago we did have um a literacy intervention and a literacy coach we added the math specialist don't quote me on this seven years ago there was originally maybe six there was a model in which that predated me of a math tutor math tutor was very much what it what it sounds like uh somebody who wasn't per se a certified teacher maybe in some um one or two two cases um who would uh Implement a very generic if you will Intervention Program for students who are having uh experiencing hardships we we recognize and you know I I believe even this fall when there was a broader conversation about math it was highlighted about how technical the intervention and support can be in this
242area so that was that math specialist was at it like six seven eight years ago do we have any way of asking teachers anonymously because I know some teachers I think are maybe might be hesitant to answer a question that they think might impact them you know employment-wise I don't know but how they feel some of these positions are actually impacting them in the classroom I'm trying to gauge you know what the impact of some of the added positions in the last few years um are actually how they're impacting the actual student and I think teachers it's their sandbox they probably can gauge it really really well um do we how do we ask them so I'll just jump in and and Karen doing can can add on but as part of our administrator evaluation
243system we created a survey a leadership survey that goes out to teachers asking them to give us individual feedback on the different elements of our leadership and the impact on their ability to teach and to learn and to grow and it includes questions about how often um administrators are in their classrooms and how they feel about their administrator in terms of is it a supportive relationship um so we we get data from that and it is our goal and and this is an exceptional administrator team as I said earlier this morning and we are responsive to that so Karen I don't know if there's anything else you want to add on about that about that specific survey uh yes no I will Echo what Corey said um we do have a mechanism in place to
244to gather that information um as you know the full-time Elementary supervisor this is the first a year of implementation for that model and three of our schools um I just want to go back to um Keith's point two so we did have a para educator model at each school um so there was an offset of those six pairs to get the combined math specialist which is the math coach and uh interventionist combined into one role um so they're outside of the elementary supervisor positions there have been relatively few if any um new Staffing um requests at the elementary level and I just provide a different lens that might you know just another piece of the puzzle um I don't think you can look at that question Selena that you're asking without looking at the increases
245of students with IEPs in the district at the same time it has to be looked at as part of the picture and I'll give you an example as to why one of our elementary school administrators shared with me that we are at the Midway point of the Year and that school has hit 100 ppts this year already if they did not have an elementary supervisor and that principal which is legally mandated was the administrator in those meetings teachers need help teachers need observations that includes quality feedback students need intervention school nurse needs consultation on a complex situation for a kid with a medical need none of those things are happening because it well they may happen and that PPT is figuring it out so I think that I think it's a I think it's a
246worthwhile question to say what is he how is the school Community benefited for sure but I think um to Susie's point it has to you have to pull in as much information that's relevant to what the rules are themselves and I don't I'm not saying that every school is at that 100 point mark and I'm not saying that there are other things that we could do to kind of mitigate the volume of meetings but it's just an example one of the greatest um one of the most significant arguments that I think our principals have had over the past few years with supervisors has been just what Dr hannaway described because yes there's the the legal meeting of the PPT but that's just one very small part of it we really want to be a part
247of a student's program so then when we enter into that PPT I can be a part of that team alongside the parent alongside the teacher and when you are running a school building on your own or on your own um 20 you know 50 of the time it is nearly impossible um to do that so you you really can't be engaged with your students with your teachers in the same way and then be a part of that team it has changed significantly special education in particular but not just that I would say other mandates whether that's Sr mtss I'm supposed to call it srbi mtss which is also another legal requirement and by the one by the way one that's good because it's really focused on on being responsive early on so that you may
248mitigate the risk for students and and reduce that achievement Gap but administrators have to be a part of that process literacy intervention interventionists and coaches are a part of that process and so just that in and of itself is without the special ed piece would be a a strong enough reason where we say it is not possible to do it well is it possible to be a physical presence and come to work each day and move in and out of the compliance maybe but that's in terms of the investment the engagement that students and families deserve it is not possible with just one person in a school um and I you know I I would argue that even in the smallest School in this particular situation which is VP we have looked at a um
249a different model knowing that we had to come into a budget being really really thoughtful about our request you know in also considering Town factors economic factors you know what's happening in in the family's lives but the team rightfully argued for a full-time supervisor a VP separate from the El coordinator but knowing that we had this other problem with the El coordinator in a position that was very difficult to fill with a growing population and by the way that's a growing population within all of durge I think we're at 84 students at this point somewhere around there across our K-12 Continuum but it is a growing population that needs to be served and it's a position that's been challenging to fill and it's 0.5 capacity so that was a creative solution to get to get
250at another challenge that we're having um with just having one one o 92 individual in the school Tom sorry Celine are you done well I did have one more question absolutely Han away um because I do I I understand that IEP processed fairly well and I understand your concerns about special education for sure would you say then that the increase of administrative positions has has risen percentage-wise with the increase of special education students I mean just just approximately I don't need you know um you know I ha I I don't know I I I don't know the answer to that I know I know our special education population change acutely because I've studied it I haven't studied our administrative structures over 10 years enough I we can as a leadership team to answer you more
251specifically I know that it is an impact um we'll just take central office for example it's me and Tony for a district of our size of students with IEPs you're not going to find any District around that has two administrators and that's it but the truth of the matter is we'd rather have people supporting at the building level then it's no different than my argument with the psychologist than one more District person who can't split themselves into four places so um I we can work on that specific question I know that it is a a driving variable that um is important to note I think Susie's Point around mtss is also a huge variable um because it's it's a state mandate that has really shifted a lot of the practices in the school level and
252has impacted Staffing designs as well um so I I don't know if it's a one for one like the number of Administrators is proportionate to the increase if you could create some kind of calculation like that but I know the special education population has been a has been a large a large driver of it thank you um just one I'm sorry to throw one more out there and I know you know we're um we're tight on time but School climate is another one Selena that is also another mandate from the state department of Ed but with respect to um let's just say a bullying investigation principals can attest that that can take an investigation like any even a small one by the way you know something that doesn't seem like it's this major challenge can
253take two to three full days of the administrator's time to investigate if not more um and then ultimately come to a solution with um with both parties or three or four parties depending upon the circumstances so even that added variable and then we haven't even talked about teaching and learning right and being a part of that process and being really the instructional leader which is which is key and and as much as we we really looked and I think the principals know that we looked to not add staff in particular the supervisors this year um the principles felt incredibly incredibly passionately about this particular topic even those principles that have a full-time supervisor they felt strongly for the other schools and when you look at some of the intensity in terms of the programs that
254we have for example at Farmingville with a Rise program in the number of meetings and the time in which it takes it's just not reasonable come on yeah a follow-up to that I don't know who this is directed to so whoever whoever thinks is the appropriate person to answer but um in my in my day job I often see uh the end result of these IEPs and ppts in terms of documentation uh courtroom things with Witnesses and teachers and administrators so my question is sort of a practical question uh I see how in-depth these IEPs are so you have to prepare for the meeting you have to ha you have to schedule the meeting you have to have the meeting and then after the meeting you have to write all this documentation up so my
255practical question is when does that all get written up are you are people doing that on nights and on weekends uh because I can't imagine you can do it during the school day when you have other things to do so when are the staff and teachers actually writing up all the documentation that now I often see on the back end in the courtroom and whatnot um so I I think I think that it would be disingenuous for me to say that special education teachers and case managers who are the main people responsible for writing those documents somebody who provides service to a student um are not spending time outside of the workday to do that I would I would um also venture to say that it's not dissimilar from a teacher at the high school
256level who has a lot of tests to grade or papers to review um however that what that special education teacher also has to do is plan her lessons she has to collect data to analyze student performance um so you sometimes it happens during the school day they have prep periods in which it could be possible that could be done during the school day and sometimes it's not sometimes it is done outside the school day um and so like something I didn't um emphasize in my presentation was and I'm glad you brought it up was our special education teachers whole team have now adjusted to a brand new life AP and IEP system for writing it this year that they wouldn't have been able to do if their building administrators weren't supporting them and doing it
257so that they didn't lose even more time away from doing planning and analyzing student assessment for their time when they're not with students and so these administrators alongside their teachers have had to learn the database system so that they can accurately write IEPs and by the way it's not just that you have to write them the state regulations require that you write them within a very tight time frame parents have to have it within five school days after the PPT meeting um so there's there's a lot involved and it is a well-honed um you know well-oiled machine at the school levels from scheduling to IEP implementation they have it down pat and there are a lot of people involved in cogs in the wheel but at the same time there's there is a lot going
258on and the building administrator is a step in that process thank you so typically how many students does a case manager have at the elementary school level and it can be aired around 15 50 is our average District why profile caseload like a rise uh teacher might you're probably looking closer around eight or nine um it could be seven or teacher could have 18 uh depending on you know the the size and and we don't have a cap there's no regulation because it's really not kids it's ours and groupings um so we balance the schedule more so around groupings and hours and we do a number of students but I would say on average 15 thank you anyone else okay I have some questions oh sorry uh first of all thank you thank you for
259the presentation thank you for sharing all that um I do um I want to take bits of what Rachel said and what Selena said I do understand Selena's question you know it is we're adding administrators so are we taking away from the teachers who have a direct impact and I go back to what Rachel said and you can correct me if I'm wrong if I'm summing this up wrong but when we're adding the elementary supervisor we are having direct impact on all kids because it helps so we are helping all our kids I think that's very uh that's something I wanted to reiterate because we are helping our principals and we are helping all our kids because at the end of the day as a board we have to talk about all our kids and
260the best we can do so thank you for bringing that up and also this is um I know that we have talked about elementary supervisors for a few years now and I truly value that you brought up again all the advantages and all the positives that they bring uh thank you for that my questions are you know just just first is the broadweight one if you could ask for anything else what would it be that was just a dream thing uh and then I have you know logistic things my other question is I know you talked very quickly about the deib training what kind of anti-bias training is that um is this something new are we will that more information be shared um then I have a question about the math coach I know we
261added you know Mr Palladino shifted to that role how is that has that made a difference how has that impacted is that made a difference in math because I know we've talked about math learning I know Dr hanaway in her presentation have talked about you know the um Matt seems to be an area for growth has adding that math District white math coach made a difference uh they're all like broader questions I'm sorry and I know I'm adding to it but I think it's important we talk about then because as we go through this budget process and if my colleagues online I'll jump in on what really I guess would be your first and third question and maybe on the first question you know my colleagues have other contributions and not not to to bring
262us right back to the to the topic we um we're kind of just addressed in that being Elementary supervisors you know when Nancy discussed the addition of a 0.5 Elementary supervisor she said I ideally I believe she said we would be asking for for 1.6 which really would bring Barlow Mountain Elementary Schools as well as well as VP um up to to uh having two administrators or a full-time Elementary supervisor uh we recognize the larger landscape the financial um uh challenge with making that that full request so if this was you could you could dream it yes that that would be the addition um for all the reasons we we discussed and I just want to punctuate right for the the support for uh rise programs right that that that is um when we're talking
263about special education and that is a uh something that does need uh administrative uh attention and oversight that all students do with IEPs but but certainly a program like that and you your third question about the district math coach um that's also I think something my colleagues would say um has had has had a huge impact so much so that we would ask for addition if we could you know write a blank check so to speak because the district math coaches I know was discussed a little bit at a fall in Board of Education meeting um this year is has touch points at K2 but primarily the work is at three five with the implementation of think mathematics and General overall curriculum support so next year we'll be implementing uh think mathematics right K2 and
264just you know second year three three five um so uh the district math coach originally spread across six buildings three grade levels will be six buildings right six six grid levels um so given the impact that they've had which is participating in grade level um in you know with teachers planning when they're when you're when he's here he's at each building once every six days as you may know its sleeves rolled up planning lessons executing lessons we did a lesson study I know when many of my colleagues did a lesson study on like how do we best um uh execute a lesson what is the impact on student learning this is teaching in rooms with kids this is how to not just a big impact on professional learning uh for teachers but professional but student
265based learning too so you know I'm I'm I've taken up a lot of air time here so I'm going to pass it to my colleagues to see you know if they if they had a dream what else might it be Keith I'll add on to what you shared I think another area that we may have included an additional request for a budget increase would be in our facilities many of you had the opportunity to come take walks through our buildings um you were able to see that some of us have learning spaces right in the hallways where kids are passing and it's loud and it's um you know enclosing one of those or a couple of those hallway spaces would really make sure that some of our neediest Learners had a quiet private learning space
266so an investment in our facilities in different ways um that might be something that we would have asked for I think thinking about Progressive Innovative Furniture different ways that we could enhance student discourse student-centered learning within our classrooms that might have been an area that we also asked for um I think working with our town again during your walks with us I know many of us walked with you through our playgrounds and our outside areas where students spend some of their time in the day as well so um really looking at safety and engagement learning spaces outside I think those are all areas that we may have asked for again really considering the greater needs of the district making sure that we were being fiscally responsible but um you know Tina to your question you
267know if we were to kind of have that wish list of anything we could we could have I think those would be some additional areas that we might have asked for in this year thank you I think it is important that the community has a large uh hear of this too you know you're doing a great job I really support this I think you're doing you're being fiscally responsible so I thank you for everything you're doing and I also know you know facilities keeps coming up uh I go back to when I was talking about the Pre-K you know I know parents would like it to be expanded there is a need that is growing so we have to have these conversations and we have to you know as we go forward the next year
268we should have these conversations sorry last question and um I just wanted to make sure we do talk about what kind of training we're using for the div um just so that everybody can hear that yeah sorry sorry I said I've come back to that um so they're they're high school middle school have worked um you know with a particular vendor to provide anti-bias training it's directly with staff it's over a number of hours so we're currently working with that that vendor to see how we can shape that across six schools because it's it's quite an undertaking logistically to kind of get that together so it's um is that the ADL it is yeah the vendor thank you also working with the the ADL okay thank you I don't want to ask more questions because
269you know I'm saying it's lunchtime so um does anybody else on the board have any more questions okay um we're gonna take I know we were supposed to go for lunch at 12 15 and it's already 12 45 so it's half an hour okay for a lunch break with everyone or would you like longer I want to make sure the board is okay with this is 30 minutes okay okay so we will be back at 1 15. thank you everyone thank you everybody we can start uh welcome Mr Salem miss fosteli and miss freeze and Mr Grace I just saw them sorry you all rearranged on my Square so I'm just trying to find you uh thank you for joining us we look forward to the Middle School call center presentation hi everyone hi Susie
270hello morning afternoon [Music] thank you we just wanted first to take the opportunity to thank you all for sharing this time and I know it's a long day for you but allowing us to bring to life uh the middle school budget and just to more formally introduce um Jen fostoli the principal at Eastridge Lisa freeze the assistant principal at Scotts Ridge Tom Grace the assistant principal at Eastridge and I'm Tim Salem the principal at Scotts Ridge so certainly we we thank you and we look forward to your feedback and your questions at the end [Music] Jen did you want to review the outline yes I just was not and now I see it okay sorry about that I was waiting for the presentation to pop up could you please go to the next slide foreign
271so here is the outline for our presentation today the purpose of the first two components is to set the context for our budget we will begin with a glimpse into who the middle middle school student is and the vision we have for all arms and serm students as they move through their three years with us we will then share context for our school culture from the development of critical thinking skills to sel support as we move into the main focus of our presentation today the 2023-24 budget we hope the context we provide will better support you in understanding why all of our allocations are needed and essential as we educate and support the whole Middle School child we will close our presentation by sharing some considerations for the future and at the end you will
272have the opportunity to ask some questions so what's it like to be in Middle School um we say this line a lot the shortest timeline in education so that brings its share of challenges but before we begin uh we just like to to highlight specifics of our budget requests for this year um it's important to highlight what your what this budget supports it's no secret that Student Success is grounded in a supportive School culture you'll notice that our social emotional budget requests support our Collective goals of the building um for a vibrant School community and culture where students are working on developing stamina strong study skills that are Essentials for Success both now and in the future helping middle school students develop deeper social emotional understanding is a focal point that you will see throughout
273the middle school budget in multiple contexts it is a need to increase our tier one capacity this year's budget supports habits that are synonymous with vision of The Graduate characteristics as you've heard so often in previous presentations Innovation creativity reflection revision and problem solving are all reflected this year we can continue we continue an emphasis on the collaborative process between both middle schools the Middle School admin team is scheduled for monthly meetings but most of the time we check in throughout the week to ensure equity and alignment for all students the budget process this year used that same approach our Focus was on aligning per-pupil expenditures for departmental lines and school-wide expenditures you will notice that there are still some differences in the line items for each school and between the budgets for individual line
274items however the per pupil expenditures for departments and school-wide requests are very similar across both schools collaboratively we took the time to analyze our budget and we will be able to articulate differences between school-based line items based on the unique needs and responsibilities of our specific School foreign so in this specific slide that we're on now um you've heard previously through assistant superintendent Corey gillette's presentation regarding the vast curriculum work being done at the district level uh we value professional learning opportunities that the budget provides to support all of the incredible work of our staff the middle schools are focused on creating cultures of thinking in our classrooms through well-designed differentiated units focused on students carrying the cognitive load and demonstrating understanding through metacognition many units of study require consumable consumable materials that you will
275see reflected in the instructional supplies budget in each line for each each school's lines you will see that the Middle School budgets are consistently lean and efficient the majority of our budget is Staffing there are no extras in any of our budget lines our wonderfully talented staff are our greatest asset our human capital and the implementers of this great work to support the instruction there is a very small percentage of our budget that is spent on instructional materials that include lab materials consumables office supplies online instructional memberships Etc we spread these monies across all content areas so that teachers and students have what they need in order to maintain the course yeah engage in authentic relevant and personalized learning personalization of learning is based on skill student interests and need in fact the very first
276step of our budget process is to work with the individual departments to analyze their needs in order to provide this learning experience this past year we increased access for Middle School teachers to access training based on their content we are looking to increase this and have more opportunities for on-site PD for each department similar to our expectations for our students to have a growth mindset we ask the same of our teachers next slide Mr Mansfield thank you thank you Jeff speaking to social emotional learning at both middle schools we have in place a math A literacy and a behavioral interventionist behavioral intervention this has been an ongoing focus in the middle school education especially in light of challenges faced as a result of the pandemic and other factors such as an increase in student interactions
277on social media our budget requests include monies that support this focus with the addition of our mtss behavioral lead this year along with our math and literacy interventionist we have been able to provide the right interventions for the whole child since the mtss behavioral lead is a new position we are still collecting on data on how the intervention is suspending their time in reference to the expectations and requirements of the position currently the position is split between Scott's Ridge and East Ridge and while this is definitely helpful it is not ideal the MTS ASP process requires us to deeply understand how our students are doing academically socially and emotionally so we can deliver the right intervention at the right time we are proud of the progress we have made this year and with our interventions
278in line with our K-8 mtss alignment work that's been completed this year and will continue to be ongoing in addition to mtss interventions we also budget in our school-wide line items materials and awards that are used for our PBIS programs and our advisory programs I just wanted to take the opportunity to briefly highlight some items that do not necessarily have direct budgetary impact but are part of our approach to servicing the whole child collaboratively they ensure that our students will meet their intervention goals and grow as Learners over their three years in middle school we offer both intervention and acceleration opportunities for students through learning lab we also offer student support and enrichment in before and after school programs we have a wonderful collaboration with the high school and their terrific National Honor Society tutors
279that come down to the middle school we have a before and after school in Richmond that's reflected in each school's budget the monies which are used to compensate teachers that supervise extracurricular clubs such as track cross-country our morning music ensembles Debate Club and our math teams to mention just a few teacher Wellness is also an important focus in both middle schools while it is not necessarily a budget impact we do dedicate time to teacher Wellness we recognize that happy adults equal happy children each school is facilitating different activities for Teacher offerings wellness and social opportunities frequently throughout the year no component of the Middle School experience is done in isolation we understand the need to approach curriculum intervention social emotional Wellness for both students staff and teacher development as a part of a holistic view
280when making decisions about our schools for the purposes of this presentation decisions on the budget are made through the same lens okay next slide thank you and this is quite frankly one of my favorite slides because this is what we hope to to achieve um I'm sorry sometimes I tend to go off script um this is the output of the tremendous work by our respective staff it's reflected right in these attributes problem solving and complex thinking deep connections to the school and Community empathy and kindness are foundational to the Middle School experience for all Learners as you all know we have fantastic teachers that we are so proud to work alongside of who support all of this incredible work though our budgets are lean we are able to maintain our strong instructional practices and plan
281to innovate in the future both schools are committed to supporting their students and achieving the district's mission to provide highly engaging relevant and personalized learning experiences so that all students can pursue their interests and prepare for Life Learning and work as Global Citizens we will now transition to sharing some specifics of our 23-24 budget next slot next slide please so we just wanted to point out and highlight some of those areas for you um reflected in the next the next few slides um Staffing requests reflected uh reflect an increased population at Scott's Ridge unfortunately the lack of available space um does not permit much flexibility in terms of scheduling to offset that increased population and there's also been an uptick in popularity for students requesting orchestra that could be as a byproduct of the pandemic
282where students picked up different instruments but we have seen an increase in certainly the lessons model has shown us that yeah as a result of the increased population at Scott's Ridge um we create classes based on the population and what the students do request so what you may see in this budget once we've done all of the balancing is that overages in certain areas may occur as a result of this our budget expenditures reflect resources needed to support our students at both schools there is a need to increase Orchestra FTE to a 1.0 at each school it would be a total increase of a 0.9 to the budget we implemented the mod the lessons model in sixth grade during the 21-22 school year and added seventh grade this current school year in alignment with other
283durg a schools we will be adding the lessons model in eighth grade for the 23-24 school year in order to ensure that all students receive an equitable Equitable experience during their lesson lesson groups need to remain small challenges we have faced this year with the part-time Orchestra teacher between serms and arms and increased class size numbers lesson group size increased and general education classes that students were missing were being impacted next year the challenges will only increase with the addition of the eighth grade lesson lessons model having a full-time teacher at each school would allow us to balance the numbers and the challenges without the additional Staffing it would limit our ability to implement the lessons model and we would need to hire a part-time teacher anyway because our Orchestra FTE is predicted to be
284at or above 1.6 foreign both Middle School budgets are mindful of our per pupil Supply allocations as described previously both middle schools are budgetarily aligned for people departmental and school-based expenditures at Eastridge and scotsridge is 205 dollars per student this is based on an increased enrollment predictions at Scott's Ridge and it predicted decrease in enrollment at Eastridge next slide please foreign this year's budget allocations for both schools continue to prioritize facilitating a school Community where all students and Staff feel valued respected connected and supported we have four programs we Implement that complement one another to achieve this goal classroom teachers administrators and other staff members integrate these principles into every facet of our school community it is our expectation that students aspire to do the same these programs are used to help students learn and
285grow into well-rounded young people the four programs used are PBIS positive behavior interventions and supports the Yale Center for emotional intelligence the ruler program the ADLs no place for hate program advice and the advisory program all to service our the social emotional needs of our students these programs complement our tiered intervention through mtss students continue to demonstrate a tremendous increase in social emotional deficiencies and needs as a result of the long-term impact of the pandemic as well as the increased access to social media platforms it is imperative that we focus on these measures to support all students so that they are ready and available for learning both social emotional learning and mtss are grounded in the ideas of supporting the whole child SEL and mtss require extensive planning and programming as well as the resources
286to support more complex students and family needs for the 23-24 budget funds are allocated for the expansion of our PBIS program and our advisory program to include more voice and choice for our students through the advisory activity block and our PBIS Rewards program this is found in the light lion item instructional materials PBIS foreign next slide please thank you John here are some examples of how curricular shifts impact the middle school budget requests Middle School administration and department leaders meet regularly to collaborate in order to plan curriculum and instructional priorities professional learning and Order consumable materials based on enrollment though we have these goals in common there are still individual building differences that are represented in our budgets some of these are due to enrollment student choice and the sharing of Staff between buildings our
287overall expenditures are in full alignment and reflect the enrollment of both middle schools the monies are distributed across all content areas based on units of study listed here for you are some of the content areas that have implications reflected in this year's budget in World Language there is no one textbook that meets the needs of our world language programming specifically specifically implementing a proficiency-based curriculum the monies in this area are used to support supplemental materials that will support more opportunities for speaking and listening in the target language 95 of the time specifically readers for each proficiency level for both French and Spanish monies from this line are used to purchase these readers and and other authentic materials the ongoing work and utilizing ngss model of instruction and science continues to be responsive to student need
288and students support phenomena explanation as well as student collaboration due to the personalized nature of the bundles which are based on student curiosity and questions our budget reflects the teachers continue need to purchase Hands-On materials and consumable supplies such as lab materials that support the work in the classroom ongoing throughout the year in addition it includes monies for supporting our purchasing of probes such as collecting data for temperature pH acceleration and force equipment repair such as our microscopes and balances require servicing every other year and is a recurring expense for literacy the budget rentals Focus hiring differentiated materials for our students primarily reading materials that are written at multiple levels of difficulty and accessibility these resources will be used to supplement instruction in science and social studies as well as literacy this also supports our
289co-teaching and inclusion classes that are aligned with our special education priorities the LLC is constantly culling through their collection and genres to meet the needs of our students and voices and choice you'll see a decrease in the erm's reading line that reflects the purchase of resources that occurred over the last two years in addition it reflects a partnering with the library and English Department budget for resources to support differentiated literacy in both schools in math we continue with our curriculum writing and that curriculum writing reflects chips in six eight math and requires resources to meet the needs of all students and to support collaboration and the use of manipulatives to engage in that instruction resources to resources to support Target interventions through our mtss process are also included in the budget request in art and
290facts the creative nature of both classes necessitates the person purchase of consumables and is impacted by price increases for supplies to support both courses next slide Mr Mansfield thank you and we just wanted to share this slide with an eye towards the future as enrollment as you know um in the next few several years we'll continue to rise it at Scott's Ridge in the correlate corollary impacts of that may include larger class sizes um continued space challenges and Staffing impacts with potential overages in both the academic and specialist areas and it's just it's just something that we just all need to pay attention to and with that next slide we can I think we are if you're done I am as you can see um our Focus this year has been on collaboration alignment and
291Equity Equity between both schools our budgets reflect consistency per people pupil Equity collaboration in all decisions were made focusing on the best interests of our students to support them in reaching their full potential thank you for allowing us to share with you today we appreciate your consideration of our requests and for this opportunity we will now open the floor to questions thank you thank you so much for your presentation um I'm opening up to the board for questions Amy hi thank you so much for your presentation I just have a quick question I see that your request that there's an increase in Orchestra this year and I'm just wondering what about band is that something that we might expect to see in the future is that also increasing or is there just an increase in
292Orchestra well the the challenge Amy is that there's only right now presently one Orchestra teacher that's shared between the two schools and with the just the even the slightest increase in that um sharing that person between the buildings is already a challenge as those numbers start to grow it becomes more of a challenge for that person to cover two buildings we each have a band teacher so we're able to cover that currently internally um with our band teacher here and ERM span teacher at their building we'll certainly keep an eye if we see those band numbers growing but it is an interesting byproduct of the the pandemic that it seems as though kids may have turned to different instruments uh which is a actually a wonderful thing I think so how much percentage would you
293say has the student population increased for the orchestra that we need one more teacher well for instance at Scott's Ridge the outgoing class of eighth graders is 28 and we predict the incoming class of sixth graders although they haven't made their choice yet but we have surveyed them is going to be 56 students and the and the prediction is if if um we're asking for the 1.0 at every school so increase it to a 1.0 1.0 at every school so that we can um respond to the lessons model which is going to expand to eighth grade and then the slide that went over this it said if we don't incr if we don't have a 1.0 at every school to meet the needs of the lessons model we're predicted to at least need and I'll
294say at least need a 1.6 between both schools so we probably would need to hire an FTE anyway um but we don't know where that's going to Land Based on student enrollment and the other the other Challenge and I know that you know just maybe getting into weeds a little bit but just to just to give you the the picture anytime we share staff we have to remember that the buildings are about 15 minutes apart so you have to schedule travel time and that travel time is always at least one period so if that person is traveling here that's one period we have to give them to travel and then the same on the Reversed end so it that that also creates some some challenges when it comes to scheduling also the lessons being scheduled
295if you have two full-time staff you can schedule the lessons throughout the week exactly it makes it a lot easier that's exactly right yeah I think otherwise in all honesty with the numbers I don't see that the lessons model would be effective because lesson group would be larger than 20 which would sort of repeat model yep thank you anyone else yes Rachel thank you Tina so first of all you know thank you so much I think first of all we are fortunate to have you all as Leaders on our Middle School level I think you create just a great bridge between Elementary and that High School experience for our students um even though our budgets are lean and I want to be very thoughtful of that word um it's our teachers their professionalism content knowledge
296and your leadership that still create those engaging classrooms for students um I would hope that other boards are seeing that there is really nothing to cut from the increases and which we have reviewed today if not I would actually argue that we need more um which leads me to my question if you are asked to increase your budget is there anything that you would add to these specific areas of focus thank you one one area that we're looking we mentioned this in the in the presentation um because then we had the new New Edition of the mtss behavioral lead that was split between the both schools this year um we right now are collecting data to see how how that time is used um and we didn't feel we had enough data to put that
297to request an increase at each school for a 1.0 but I would um I don't want to make a prediction yet we need the data but we are looking at that uh that perhaps in the future maybe next year's budget we would be asking for a 1.0 at every school just to add to what Miss fostoli said is that remember when this process begins for the team so for Tim Jen and Tom and Lisa somewhere in October they're asked to start planning so it's not like it's the month of January now or almost at the end of January where they do have a lot more data so while Jen is looking not to predict or to have a crystal ball they've been able to collect more information than they would have let's just say in
298October when we put this presentation together and I think the reality of what Tom mentioned in in his portion of the presentation is that um and naturally I think this goes with any any role that's split but I think um even more so in the in the support staff role is that you're a part of that school and a part of that culture and when kids need support whether in a responsive way behaviorally or in a proactive way but specifically in that responsive way you want somebody there at that moment right they can't wait oh it happens Tuesday they can't wait till Thursday for the extra help so then certainly the principals and their teams are there to do that work but but the having somebody the benefit of having somebody there every single day
299um I know is one that qualitatively they've already noticed as a as a need and Rachel thank you for those those compliments but I I would be remiss if I didn't mention that it's wonderful for us to have the support out of Corey's office from both Annie and Jeff um they've been incredibly helpful lifting learning in multiple aspects in our buildings uh we have really talented department leaders and teachers and those two come in and they really augment learning for us with different eyes on what's happening in the classroom so um it's important to highlight that because their roles have been significantly have significantly impacted the buildings Ashley so Tim if you don't mind Selena if I can just revert back to one of the questions we were asked during the I think was the
300elementary presentation was around the roles of our administrators and these are actually two Selena before your time and just after I arrived that got shifted a little bit where the roles were a little bit more targeted in the content areas so not as wide and I think that that's where we're seeing the greatest benefit so when you asked about data around the administrators and the impact you know this is a a nice opportunity to jump in because while it's not you know you can't measure it perfectly but you can certainly see how the impact on teacher learning and and support for administrators in one specific content area could benefit for as much as I'm you know Jen and Tim and Ethel are very talented you know to know every content area with that level of
301expertise and depth that is required when you're at a middle school where you're teaching math English science social studies there's a great strength to having some someone like Jeff that has a very keen eye into mathematics and science or Annie and social in the humanities area social studies in English yep thank you anyone else I'm just gonna um Rachel said it I mean that was my question I keep asking what else could we add but I just want to reiterate I think Mr Salem you've said it enough you get our kids for the shortest amount of time and he got to prepare them for the rigors of high school so I truly thank all of you you do a great job and that includes Annie and Mr carvishly I mean and thank you for that
302I also think if and correct me if I'm wrong Dr de Silva adding those two administrators six to twelve it has helped and I know it's an edgy word but the vertical articulation right from six onwards to 12 the connection of the topics and the learning the way these kids were doing so this is all connected what you're learning in sixth grade does translate to what the kids can do in ninth tenth and so on yeah and I you know I think um absolutely in that vertical articulation that happens from Linda Johnson's office let's just say as the Director of Elementary education and then um in combination with Annie and Jeff that look between fifth and sixth and then eighth and Ninth can't be understated and it was really a gap that we felt I
303definitely felt and I think I would I would think that my agreed my colleagues would agree with me 100 that that was just missing here and again that really specific lens um so you know I think when we start thinking about data or the you know return on investment this is really where we can we can see it and that data is easier to collect for sure thank you and so yes thank you to the middle school and everyone and I'm just I'm glad that you brought up the new structured mtss we look forward to how you can and how that's shifted how that's impacted our kids and learning in the middle schools and I also want to reiterate thank you for bringing up the enrollment at Scotts Ridge Middle School you know we've had
304these conversations for some time and I just want to repeat that whenever you feel that there's a point in time that the enrollment is too much just with the physical capacity of the building we hope you will Comfort to the board and we can discuss this it's I know it's an important topic I know how it's structured just wanted to highlight that thank you okay before I move on to the next Call Center presentation just want to make sure no more questions by the board all right thank you so much thank you for presenting thank you so much thank you all thank you thank you for your time and attention we appreciate it very much thank you we have the high school they're not here yet over early for a change um we're right on
305time so I think we consider them late Jake I was so excited to ask if you were coming and here they come we're back on time right back on time hi Dr Greenwood you're muted you're on mute uh what a novice move that was sorry about that first one of the day that's one of the day Jake oh so novice oh man sorry about that I have welcome thank you thank you all right good to go yes you are all right beautiful well thank you all for being here I appreciate the opportunity to present my 2324 budget I've been sitting in the office watching online and realized that I watched the sun come up and move over the high school to start to move towards the fields now so I know it's been a long
306day for everyone so I definitely appreciate the opportunity for you know to present this and for you all to to give me a chance to talk a little bit about what's going on at the high school moving forward so so thank you for that so go ahead John all right I'm starting where I know many of my colleagues have started and that's just looking at the um mission statement division of The Graduate I won't read it to you because I think you've heard it four or five times already today but I will definitely say that the high school um you know is the flagship of our of our buildings it is the end point for our graduates and it's where the vision of The Graduate uh The Graduate comes with us uh and that's the
307end point and so you can see on here these core values of communication and knowledge resilience collaboration Innovation and mindfulness and with the addition of the Mastery based credit uh for the class of 2023 that's our current graduates they now get a credit for displaying their knowledge uh and uh application of these core values and so you'll see in a budget uh this this Budget moving forward that will really still continue to work professional development uh with our teachers and also relating that all the way down to our students to be sure that they can show us on an annual basis their growth uh with each of the core values and then also uh their connection to to the senior internship and then post secondary go ahead John so we take a look at those
308core values in the mission the mission and vision of The Graduate and develop our goals and so here's my 22-23 goals it's important to take a look at these because they do help Drive the budget for 23.24 and so the first goal that we developed as a school was that teachers or research Implement teaching strategies addressing effective use of time when teaching in the block I'll give a presentation just a few weeks ago to the Board of Education where we took a look at where we are with our progress with student engagement specifically teaching in Block periods and with the addition of the flex period this year and so that is a focus of primary focus is teaching in the block and teaching strategies that our teachers can use for that a secondary goal we
309have is using available data to identify content areas and skills in need of reinforcement and probably the more important piece is the second sentence teachers addressing these areas of relative weakness with specific classroom-based strategies again these are Department level goals so a school goal that that trickles down to the Departments and you can see the focus on the word teachers our teachers are collecting data specifically I just heard Tim say thank you to um to Jeff and Annie and I would definitely relate that same thank you they've really been working hard with the Departments across the board to be sure that we're collecting the right data and then able to get it into PowerSchool and get it directly into our teachers hands a third goal is to continue to cultivate a positive School climate for
310students and staff lots of opportunities throughout the year to take a look at this really important not just academics but socially and emotionally that we're being sure we're caring for our students and our staff and last developing and maintaining strong lines of communication very important using more traditional means obviously phone calls and emails but you'll see the addition of many other uh other areas of communication over the years newsletters our teachers are reaching out uh through newsletters for their departments but also we have things like the use of Twitter social media and of course the Sunday phone call go ahead John so take a second step back so last year's budget A lot's happened since then I just wanted to share with you some of the important bullet points of what we did with the
311budget that you supported for me last year uh and so yeah we maintained our excellent uh programs last year and with that here's all the value added we got from that budget the first first is that we have continued our move towards flexible Furniture various departments areas of the building if you look at the top right of your screen you can see these Chevron shaped desks we've been moving towards um really we're talking about student-centered learning put students at the core of what we're doing to do that we need to move away from traditional classroom Furniture that's a seat attached to a desk so we can move them around put them in different pods really letting kids collaborate and work together in an 80 minute period you can't simply have kids sitting in rows and
312to do that we need to keep moving towards this flexible Furniture the second is a refinement of a developmental counseling program um we've spoken about this many times at the Board of Education that we added uh our as our counselors are actually teaching courses um to our students every single quarter to be sure that we're working on post-secondary transition right from the moment they come through the door each year they have at least five classes with their peers with their school counselors working in Naviance and working towards meeting their needs for post-secondary planning of course we changed our schedule and this year added the flex period so with the addition of the flex period there were materials that needed to be added there's ongoing professional development and psych visits to other schools with a block
313schedule and using a flex to be sure that we're implementing best practices we expanded our math Labs model last year we added algebra algebra labs this year we added in Geometry labs and this again is in communication with Jeff and uh and and looking at the data we're getting from S8 from our SAT and PSAT data meeting kids exactly where they are and intervening early and often for any of our struggling learners we added the grade 10 PSAT we were collecting we've been for three years now I've been giving the eight nine PSAT we also and that is in the fall we've been giving the 11th grade sat what we found is that we weren't collecting any standardized data from the fall of ninth grade until the spring of 11th grade and so with your
314support last year we added in for every single 10th grader a fall PSAT we're now annually collecting whole school data on grades 9 10 and 11 and then getting that data directly into PowerSchool and getting it directly to our teachers with student names and with strands so we're intervening directly on the student's behalf uh leadership calibration coaching and PD that's for my leadership team including my assistant principals uh supervisors and uh department leaders as we moved out of the pandemic and back into classrooms with block periods with a focus on student engagement very important that we're calibrating amongst ourselves and for that we've been doing site visits in the building and actually had consultants in working with my administrative team to be sure that we're going in the classroom we have a common understanding of
315what student engagement looks like what kind of feedback we're going to give our teachers we also have been continuing to work with DBT I know Liz and Tony uh spoke about that earlier today so I won't spend a lot of time on that but really important for you to know that we've trickled that from special education down into the counseling department so we have best strategies for communicating with students and teacher PD on block scheduling and student engagement has also been a focus this year we've sent teachers to other schools implementing the block and we've also bought Professional Resources uh textbooks and we have shared readings in the building teachers have been doing on the professional development time and also they've been working together and last in terms of culture and climate we added several
316activities this year that were just fun and good for kids because High School is supposed to be fun so midterm Brain Breaks is uh obviously requires resources and those are activities we're doing with our students between the midterm periods uh things like Comfort dogs make your own slime cookies with the administrative team hallway door decorating or the holiday week we decorated all 200 Doors in the building I say we all I didn't do any that was student government and National Honor Society working together again uh going towards a positive School climate and last year we had a conversation about the fact that our seniors after they took their last AP exam at AP exams trickled out of the building and onto senior internship they never came together and so we added a senior Field Day
317last year after the first week of midterms where every single senior they played games we had food trucks we had t-shirts you can see some pictures there of me making cotton candy or the uh the the pie eating contest our opportunity for our kids to get together to be kids to be a class together before those important steps of senior internship and then transitioning on to graduation so I I just want to take a moment and and just say that with budgets you're with supporting budgets not only are we doing what we you know the day-to-day things that we have to do this is the value added you get by supporting our budget so a thank you and then now on to what that looks like as we transition into 23-24. so taking a look
318at 2324 I'm starting with my individual departments um and so you can see a school and Department request I have plus ten thousand dollars over a central office projected number worked with Jill this year this is the first time that many of my department leaders have had to develop Department budgets with a decreasing enrollment so in order to do that we took a look at the last three years and said what were our actuals per Department what roughly would be a number we would use so that we could relay that down to the Departments with a decreasing enrollment so thank you to Jill and her department for that because that really gave us a guide post When developing this budget you'll see that where ten thousand dollars over what that projection might have been I
319just want to point take you right to the first bullet point 25 000 increase in our graduation line and did a presentation on that at the board a few weeks ago Westcon no longer is holding graduations meanwhile there's been a desire for a few years to bring graduation back home to bring it back to Tiger Hollow in order to do that there is an increase of about twenty five thousand dollars for rentals of things like stages and chairs and also for things like security staff so you can see that there were that's a 25 000 increase right there that means my Department's to come in at 10 000 over the projection really did a nice job but we would have come in a slightly under it had it not been for adding in this money
320for graduation so very proud of that work and again a thank you to Joe's department for that uh Transportation seats um some uh some lowering a world language but some increases with Alternative High School science and SLO I mean it's no secret that bus drivers are hard to find right now transportation and gas prices continue to uh be uh something that we look at we really scrutinized our numbers to say with a decreasing enrollment what do we actually need so you see some savings there and some additions to be sure that we're meeting our curriculum needs for transportation magnet schools largely go towards RCA that's a regional center for Arts at the high school so this is an actual they raised what it cost us to send a student to RCA to twenty seven hundred
321dollars so this is based on the actual number of 9th 10th and 11th graders they're availing themselves of this Magnet School opportunity that's an increase of three thousand dollars for next year some savings and mileage and that's for administrative team and for staff largely that comes for traveling back and forth to our Alternative High School when we went from an eight days eight period schedule to four periods a day that's half as much travel time for our staff so we're going to be able to realize some savings and travel time just based on having a block schedule the other is virtual meetings for my administrative team things like Fairfield County Fairfield County principals there are gay principals meetings those have now moved to Virtual so their savings are not driving all around Fairfield County to
322have those important meetings when we're talking with our colleagues you'll see a increase in FCS that's my family consumer science that's for perishables that's for food prices up 1600. if you've tried to buy eggs in the last two weeks you'd understand why that dollar amount is going up probably don't have to say much more on that like that's understandable uh and the instruction materials and math World Language Health and Social Studies that's about 11 000 decrease again what do we actually need when we projections looking at numbers of kids actually in classes lower enrollment less needs for actual materials in those classes you'll see a pretty large increase in terms of savings on textbooks I'll start by reminding you that last year you supported a 15 000 purchase of all brand new AP Physics textbooks
323so there's a forty thousand dollar savings fifteen thousand comes from the fact that we're not repurchasing those textbooks the rest comes from largely a decrease in materials for enrollment but largely a move towards online resources many departments specifically World Language I've actually heard Miss fostoli talk about this in the last presentation World Language is using many many more online resources because they're easier for the students meets them where they want to be in terms of online and more culturally response responsive for our students and so you see about a forty thousand dollar savings there scheduling materials um a lot most of our scheduling now is done through PowerSchool PowerSchool plugins there just isn't the need for day-to-day materials when it comes to scheduling equipment and FCS and music there's a 3 500 savings and that's
324because we had a large replacement of a washing machine this year and secondarily Corey I know worked really hard to get the instrument replacement schedule over into capital and so because of that moved into Capital there's a savings at the high school level and there is an increase of twelve hundred dollars on our student assemblies line frankly our speakers that come uh their transportation costs in order to get here they've pushed back onto the consumer that's us but we'll say I find these assemblies to be extremely important for our students they talk about things like of substance abuse social media healthy choices and we always sort of have the adage that you know Mom and Dad can tell you about these things over and over again at some point the children don't listen when you
325bring in speakers it tends to have a value added for the kids it is a little bit more expensive moving into this next fiscal year go ahead John so those items that you looked at before were coming directly from my school and directly to the Departments this page here talks a little bit more holistically about some of the drivers in the other departments the first is I put in a Furniture line for seventy thousand dollars at the high school level I maintained my number of forty thousand dollars my furniture line is basically just to maintain what I currently have um it cost anywhere from ten to twelve thousand dollars a year just to maintain for instance our tables in the cafeteria you can imagine that they have 1500 kids sitting on them every single day
326180 days and so just maintaining that you know cost several you know tens of thousands of dollars plus you add in what it takes classroom furniture all the tables all the chairs we have here beyond that I've asked for seventy thousand dollars that comes through the facilities budget working with Joe that's to do five more classrooms uh with flexible Furniture I have a three year plan on my math department to turn all of their classrooms over into flexible Furniture so that's seventy thousand dollars will support five classrooms in one work room if you come into the teacher's workrooms uh that furniture was purchased in 2002 with the addition um and so the arms of the chairs are are missing uh the desks are really beat up and so it's just time it's been 20 years
327we have to do it we have to keep our teachers feeling good about the environment they're working in and we have to support uh you know student-centered learning for our students seventy thousand dollars will simply give you five classrooms in one workroom I'm asking for an addition of a stipend of ten thousand dollars for ongoing niask work the niask model for accreditation has shifted instead of a heavy burden on years 9 10 and then one because it's a decennial visit there's now work to do every single year so this work was supported by adding a 0.1 FTE on year 10 that's the accreditation year and then year one after for a review and revise so that comes to the tune of the figure teachers making about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars there's twelve thousand
328dollars for two teachers for four years there's roughly anywhere from forty five to fifty thousand dollars I'd rather take that money and do ten thousand dollars per year and split it up a little bit every year because a new accreditation process has something to do every single year and so this is the same amount of money over 10 years but split up a little bit every year instead of a heavy burden on years ten and one offered technology I worked with Wes we're coming to a number about forty thousand dollars um so for that sort of visual Performing Arts they need new iPads Apple pencils and some cameras and that's to support the work that we're doing in those classrooms just like every other piece of technology the iPads and apple pencils we currently have
329it uh in vpa they're outdated and they need to be replaced uh and then in tech ed we're asking for some equipment audio and video editing equipment that's the support we're doing with video production with our new course and our expanding programming for curriculum work working with Corey for curriculum and PD um you can see curriculum revisions and ongoing projects for completion I've got over 600 courses that means every year there's a large push annually to review and revise and write curriculum so we got to keep those projects those are ongoing projects secondarily both ape AP and ECE that's early college experience for UConn have mandatory annual trainings I've got to send my AP teachers for trainings and for uh to the UConn also has mandatory annual trainings for teachers many of those are done
330on site in stores uh World Language and vpa and also I would I would want mapping here too for conferences and Regional competitions important they're communicating and collaborating and getting best practices in both visual performing arts and World Language we also like our students doing Regional competitions we're highly decorated when it comes to things like the World Language Department Music Arts and it takes money to support those uh the moving to other areas in order to do those competitions uh curriculum work annual advisory developmental counseling these both these programs work only by being responsive to your students every single year we do a lot of surveying of our students in terms of what do they need right now with advisory so that they have someone in the building other than a classroom teacher or school
331counselor that they connect with in developmental counseling that's post-secondary transition always talking to our reps as they come in and talk to our students and saying what do we need how can we improve our 9-12 programming for getting our kids ready for post-secondary work uh for the Alternative High School continuing to work around project-based learning um that's that's a move towards making sure that we're not only meeting the 25 credit requirements for our students at the Alternative High School but also that they're getting hands-on experience based learning and last spoken about a number of times uh continuing the work for the DDT training for not only School counseling special education we're starting to transition that back down to the actual classroom teachers go ahead John new courses again I've been to the Board of Education
332spoke about the new courses uh AP Computer Science principles technical Drafting and CAD media production graphic design and unified art I'll just point out I think the bullet point is important to know we're doing things like addressing Pathways making sure there's multiple ways for students to not only meet the 25 credit requirement but also that they can find courses of interest and passion so not only are they getting through the courses they need for graduation but we're developing passions that they can take on with them as they move towards College secondaries application courses that give you a technical application like CAD like media production where they're learning how to actually film and edit and also Equity um so you look at a course like unified art that's a collaborative course between special education and vpa
333that's addressing areas of equity in our building so to do that with a decreasing enrollment I will not need FTE but of course this curriculum writing there's textbooks there's materials and then there'll be ongoing trainings the next is ftes um it just wouldn't be fiscally responsible for me to sit in front of you and say that we're going to have a decreasing enrollment and then I'm not going to adjust ftes accordingly so uh currently we're at about 114.3 next year we'll move to 112.8 that's 1.5 FTE reduction that'll be a generalized reduction across many areas you can see there's a few listed out there so what happens is we look at our current elective courses largely because certain courses we have to run the numbers are like not likely to go down particularly in English
334and math but your elective courses will see a decrease we will not be cutting any programming I want to be clear this is not a loss of programming it just means where you may have run three sections of a course you'll now run two sections of course we'll maintain every course that students sign up for we just probably will not need as many sections across the board and that's a you can reduce ftes that way also important to note that does not mean that we'll be letting teachers go 1.5 ftes means we can simply look at retirements and we can look at resignations we will have retirements we will have resignations and if we simply don't backfill we can easily realize that what that 1.5 ftes I also have various maintenance uh maintenance and repair
335projects working with Joe and his Department these are included in large all through Joe's budget of course ongoing security projects the guard shack security vestibules uh upgrade additional cameras working with Joe on that uh just generalized painting again I've got 300 000 square feet in this building every single summer we need there's painting that needs to be done we just completed a large painting of of our gyms classrooms hallways and of course roof repairs again it's a continual piece of work it's a large building there's always repairs that need to be done uh replace them some outdoor storage containers that needs to be done to house some of our graduation materials a g-wing bathroom I know Joe's going to speak about that's for our special education students uh largely in The Rise program on the
336first floor uh and last at the Alternative High School just some more modifications is that a one-room schoolhouse I know many of you have seen it and just working on some more room dividers there and some security needed security upgrades bad job so uh the next is just any questions that you might have I really appreciate the opportunity to present that budget uh and happy to answer any questions I can for you foreign thank you Dr Greenwood opening up to the board for questions Jonathan hi thank you Dr Greenway there's a good presentation um you talked about uh classroom staff going down due to declining enrollments down by 1.5 ftes and it looks like 1.1 of the 1.5 is in in the vpa department yeah can you speak to and it looks like mostly an
337art based on the the budget line going down by 17 can you speak to uh how that's going to go down by 17 without reducing the the class options in vpa yep sure so the way that we I should just if I could back up one second just let you know how we come up with an FTE number so so we look at a three-year average and that's based on actuals kids what courses kids actually signed up for so we take those actuals then we look at projections what's our projected number for next year so we have two things that we have to be sure that we need for our students one is courses that they have to take and then it's courses that they want to take the elective courses so we weigh all
338that information together and come up with a record recommended FTE allotment which we present you know through uh to Karen to look at our ftes possible and that brings us to about uh where my number was at something 112.8 for next year so that one point uh 1.1 cotton in FTE and art says if we didn't have any students take the new courses in art and you saw we added two new courses and we had no retirements and we had no resignations and no kids were interested in taking art where would it hit that's the line it would hit however I am a hundred percent confident that's not going to happen students are going to take the new art courses I will have a retirement or a resignation that will not be an actualized 1.1
339cut that is a prediction based on where we are today it will not be actualized I'm confident of that it will fall across many different electives so when it's not actualized in art that means for instance instead of running let's just say four sections of a particular uh course in business I'll run three instead of running um several sections of tech ed of course I'll run one less so I'll I because those kids are gonna have to come from somewhere that take those art courses no I don't just interrupt but just there's another concept that um is very confusing here that I just want to make sure is is clear as well because what you're talking about are all the what-ifs that could happen um next year which obviously we don't have a crystal ball
340but what you see before you is what we budgeted and anticipated for FTE for the 22-23 school year compared to what we now budget and anticipate for the 23-24 school year so last year at this time we um using the same formula that Jake just talked about looking at three year Trends and things like that um expected to need 5.9 vpa teachers um but then we're responsive to course selection and student registration so for this current school year we only needed to staff 4.6 FTE in the vpa department so when we now look and think that we're going to need 4.8 next year it's actually an increase of what's our actuals but what you're seeing is budget to budget or projection to projections and um things have changed based upon course registration for this year
341so I just wanted to throw that out there as well and then everything else that Jake was saying about the what if next year also play a factor that helps yeah that's what I was going to say as well thank you Karen so the reality is well it looks right now at this moment in time that it would be art based on what we budgeted versus again what we're projecting it it very well in fact is unlikely to be because even as it stands right now we're projecting 4.8 and just as Jake mentioned we have new new courses being offered so it's likely that that excitement of those new courses will probably lift that number up you never know you never know where kids are going to end up but likely lift that number up
342and something else may actually go down and so there's bits and pieces of different positions and just as Jake also said retirement's resignations and teachers that may already be teaching overages May shift as well so all those little variables come into play but overall we expect to go down to 1.5 actually up from actual it is [Music] well across all departments speaking specifically to the vpa department with that phrase thanks John can I just I just want to add one point too that you know and I said it during the presentation I want to be clear there's going to be no cut to programming so you know I just thought there's we're going to have physically less kids in the building so that doesn't mean we're losing any courses I want to be really clear
343clear with the community that even if there was a reduction in an FTE for instance in vpa every kid still should be able to get every course that we offer we're not going to cut any programming I'm just gonna have less kids so need less people to teach those classes so I just think it's important to add on to that piece too appreciate it thank you thank you thank you that was actually my follow-up to Jonathan so we the kids can have their first choice whenever we as far as possible yeah I mean listen we had my I should give a shout out to Jared Pepe my scheduler I mean he hits he's hit at 99 every year that I can that he's been doing it for for eight years now so I am very
344very confident that even with a reduction he's going to hit that number um otherwise I'll have I'll have a mean meeting with him but I don't think it's gonna happen I have some more questions but I'll wait I'll ask about if there are more questions first Rachel sorry I just had to unmute um thank you for your presentation Dr Greenwood I think you know we've seen so many examples on our Board of Education meetings over the past year where our students have come to definitely share what's important to them and also how it's impacted their life whether it's music art shared experiences from the debate team theater robotics cooking and I think we are definitely very fortunate to have students that want to engage with us and at the same time they're engaging with the
345community and showing them just a mere glimpse of what is happening at rhs and where our budget dollars are going um I also love hearing from our rhs student representative my questions that I'm supportive my questions are more just line item specific so um in looking at the budget and this is really just for my learning so I understand completely then what you have explained in and represented today so the first line item is teacher and then Saturday slash ISS can you just explain what what that one is or the increase sure so that line is used specifically for started detentions um for students who have in-school suspension um and then there is a stipend in there that's related to summer school as well so credit recovery so that's actually a payroll line that we
346use and so that money is uh transferred over to payroll in order to backfill the need for those really specialized uh areas in the building so where they could be used sub lines or we could be using we want to make sure we know exactly what that money is used for a few years ago there was a push to move from out of school suspension the in-school suspension and it's it's highly across the board but it just becomes highly specialized at the high school and so my understanding is that's where that line was was built in for and that's why we've maintained it and used it for that and I also add to that Jake if you don't mind um in our scrutiny of all the lines in the budget Rachel one of the things
347that we uncovered was um often the timesheets that come in for that are paid through the sub line and so the actuals that you see there aren't really reflective of what's truly happened there and so we've accounted for uh the current expenditure there and moving forward thank you and then the next line the Paris science I see an increase there uh yeah I'm not looking um which I'm not sure I'd have to look at it but we didn't we're not increasing our Total Staffing at all in terms we can come back to it that's why I just I just was wondering why the increase I'm supportive I just wanted to understand it might be actually we do have the answer to that question because we threw that out as well Karen wait Karen and Jill
348I think if I remember correctly there was one individual that was split between a pair that was split between this particular position we have a person who's in math and science correct and so I think they are now reallocated if I'm remember correctly to science we will double check as Jill is going to take another quick look but I believe that that is the case exactly the case that that properly uh reporting where that expenditure remember the chart of accounts when we started the the meeting this morning those numbers actually mean something with our expenditure reporting so it's really really important that we code Personnel where they where they're serving and so that is US correcting where a paraprofessional is actually serving thank you so much and then the next one is the transportation the
349alternate High School yeah yep so there was no so that uh I talked a little bit about the professional development opportunities that the um teachers have been engaging in towards project-based learning and so in order to do that they've asked to add in a transportation line to get the kids out of the Alternative High School and out into the community so if they're doing project-based learning with something related to for instance art they've had to go to the Aldridge Museum and do some things related to that so they um she gave me she being Kate Collins my wonderful director Alternative High School proposed three trips for next year at a cost of about five hundred dollars for each trip and so I added that line in for them because I think it's an important part
350of the Alternative High School absolutely thank you so much I really appreciate the explanation because then it just you know Paints the whole picture right um and then on page four for scheduling materials it went down to zero yep so last year we moved my uh I have a data specialist here who basically Works in PowerSchool all day long um and we moved him from the district I.T budget over to the high school and so in making that move over to the high school there was a line added for scheduling materials what we realized over the year is that it was not necessary and that his needs were met through Wes's I.T budget so I'm making that reduction and I'm confident that we'll also be able to support whatever his needs are great thank you
351and then just just one more um on page five it says equipment school-wide and then equipment Library I know you talked about the different desks that are definitely better for more collaborative um engaging classroom and then you talked about cafeteria it it is the cafeteria in there the school-wide equipment that's in school ad equipment and right and the library has their own equipment line um because of the frankly they have almost as many chairs in there as we do in 20 classrooms so they have their own replacement lines so we got I have a school-wide and then the library has their own okay thank you so much I really appreciate that thank you uh anyone else um I just I mean maybe I'm wrong I know you've talked about the Alternative High School budget is
352there a separate line item for that no right it's all built into the high school no actually it's it's across a few cost centers and other people can chime in but um Joe takes out of Joe's budget you'll see the facilities so that's maintaining the Alternative High School off-site and the building itself he also um I believe uh you know is the one who officially pays for the for the space when it comes to a special education teacher and a paraprofessional that goes through the special education budget through Liz's budget uh the classroom teachers that go down there and the director are in my budget and then instructional materials are in my budget if there's specialized instructional materials those would go fall back to Liz's budget so frankly we all work together there's no one
353place um it's no different than any of the other schools as it relates to special education got it but I just wanted to make sure that we all understood and everybody who if they had a question got where this was coming from I think Dr Greenwood have already talked about why flexible learning for furniture is so important to the student-centered learning and I know when we did a School tours it was brought up many multiple times by you so I just wanted to reiterate that uh we talked I'm sorry I have a bunch of questions just making sure I went through all of them and the line items I think there was just one bear with me oh the I just saw the science and World Language textbooks they're reduced by a bit is that
354because they're going digital yeah so the science textbook there was a large purchase last year yes last year that's what I remember yeah just want to make sure yep that's more language you're exactly correct and actually Jen talked about in her presentation at the middle school as a department they made a decision to move towards these online resources got it and Rachel already asked the line items that I'd identified so thank you for that Rachel um anyone else Thomas yeah just just one it's not really a question Dr Greenwood but an observation that I I think we all know so the Alternative High School facility uh is really obviously not adequate for some of the most uh challenging students and their needs so there's a just talking in there is difficult when you have that
355wall separator there so I think we should all be mindful in the community as well that we're going to need a more permanent resolution to that situation we need a temporary resolution just to make it better for those students there now to learn but we also need to think bigger and I know it's been a topic in past meetings of how we're going to address that Alternative High School going forward although it's not a lot of students it's very important that all students are handled appropriately so I just wanted to mention that I don't know if you have any thoughts on that but I wanted to make sure I mean the main thought I would offer to you is that both Dr de Silva and Joe Moritz have been extremely uh and I should say
356and listen to the extremely supportive of exactly what you're saying I know they worked really really hard to find a different space last year heading into this year and Joe through his department has been awesome about any of the renovations and again added in you know adding in lines into his budget for dividers and securities until we can figure it out so everything you're saying I believe that the you know the central office is uh aware of on top of and we're continuing continuing that work uh we're not there yet but I don't think it's falling off anybody's radar and and can I just add one thing to that is that it um if we could think of it as like a larger um concept also that connects to our 18 to 22 transition program
357as well um because that's that's the other program that needs a more appropriate space that's connected to the high school so if we're putting out sound bites on facilities um three maybe four we have preschool we have the Alternative High School and we have the 18 to 22 program and if there's a three and a half I guess the is some of our schools and as we heard our elementary principal share the appropriate learning space um given the Dynamics of our student population how education has changed a hallway is not an appropriate learning space um and so it you know uh as we move into next school year and thinking about our priorities as a as a Administration facilities has to be at the top of our list not to mention the Scotts Ridge East
358Ridge always keeping an eye on peace thank you thank you Tom anyone else before we move on to the Knox next cost center yes Rachel I'm so sorry I forgot one thing I think Dr Greenwood you mentioned um the gym was has the gym been painted yeah thank you for asking thank you thank you any other questions okay moving on Dan and we're on time so thank you Dr Greenwood thank you very much everyone appreciate it Rachel the gym is painted and it looks phenomenal so I'm thrilled to report that you know uh Jake and I worked with Joe to to make it happen and and in between the the conclusion of The Fall season and really the end of the calendar year we're able to get that done so I would say don't go
359in just yet if you're looking for the grand unveiling we're waiting for our banners to come back all updated and ready to go but um it's come a long way and and really excited about the progress in there so excellent thanks everyone I appreciate your time this afternoon um I know it's been a long day and and so we'll we'll try to keep everybody right on track here as we work through uh I like to refer to our department as the one that never rests so we've got eight teams in competition today uh there's always something going on within the athletics department and so the budget that I'm going to present to you here is to support the ongoing work that happens every single day within the rhs athletics department go ahead John the mission
360statement you've seen it a number of times today we'll throw it up one more time because as I talk at the beginning of each season with my coaches at our preseason coaches meeting what we do in athletics we really feel is an extension of the classroom we know that the work that we do is important um and and while it might not show up on a on an academic transcript it certainly uh helps kids have a well-rounded experiences they work their way through the high school for some kids it is really important to them it's what gets them through the building into the building every day and as you look at the mission statement in particular I would I would point out the promote the wellness of body and mind you know for a lot
361of our kids high school can be a stressful time whether they're freshmen sophomores Junior seniors there's always some sort of stress involved whether it's the transition in or the you know college choices and all sorts of things that are that that they deal with on a day-to-day basis I'd like to believe that that participation in athletics helps to alleviate that they get their physical exercise they get to be a part of a different community within a community at the high school and um and it's really something special for a lot of our students along with that is the vision of The Graduate and as I point out annually in this budget presentation there's not many ways better than Athletics to really get at some of these you know we want our students to be collaborative
362you have to learn how to collaborate when you are working as part of a team communicate not just with their teammates but with their coaches and and maybe as captains taking on that leadership role and being able to communicate in a different way with their peers and we talk about resilience you know resilience shows up any number of ways not just in competition against an opposing school but sometimes in tough ways like if they don't make a team right for some times it's that first setback for them that they learn how to overcome maybe it forces them into into a different uncomfortable area that helps them find a different passion or something that they really enjoy over the course of their High School career so um definitely something else that we talk about with our
363coaches all the time and really try to promote is the development of these core values within our student athletes a quick overview the rhs athletics department as I've said is is a really important part for the majority of students about 55 percent of our students each year participate in athletics and some on on some team a lot of those students are multiple sport athletes and so when you actually take up the the um you know the athlete who placed all three seasons and count him as three we actually have more participants than we do students so it really is a huge part of the high school we've got 37 Sports across three different seasons and 78 teams between Varsity JV and freshmen we do have a high level of success annually you know I feel
364like every year I come on here and I talk about how many all league and All-State and all New England athletes yesterday we just celebrated another All-American athlete and so it really is something that gives kids an opportunity to shine and and helps them connect to to what comes next for them whether that's participation at the college level or for some of them just having that experience that that develops them and they're ready to tackle what comes after RH chess and the vast majority of our teams qualify for postseason play annually the bottom section there that's that's my own personal highlight section I like to feel because that's what's happened since I came to Ridgefield uh and you could see we we do have a high level of success 32 FC act divisional titles 24
365FCI championships 15 state championships over the last six years and and won New England Championship um and so it is annual that we are pulling down those banners in the gym and get sending them out to be updated um in addition you know it's not just about the wins and losses but certainly other things we've been twice recognized by our league for overall program excellence and each year we receive sportsmanship recognition from different officials organizations uh based off of their interactions with our our coaches and our athletes and even our Spectators during the course of the year so an overview of the Athletics budget um I know I feel like most people have seen this slide before but I do want to take a little time on it to bring some of the newer people
366up to speed so this is the overall breakdown of the Athletics budget um it's comprised of several different funding sources but by far the biggest chunk is what the board of education budget contributes each year this year um that number is about 78 percent of the current Athletics budget the remaining 22 23 percent comes from external sources which are gate receipts and pay to participate fees that we've collected if you go back a few years you could see in the 1920 and 20 20 21 school years we also had facility and field rentals and fund balance transfers those are soon going to work their way off of this slide because those are a thing of the past the fund balance transfer was back when the athletics department was was separate from the overall athletic from
367the overall board of education budget and so now the athletics department is back into the overall budget just like every other department so there's no longer a fund balance that you know basically becomes a Dumping Ground or or a spot where we could supplement the budget as needed if there were funds left over from a prior year that doesn't exist anymore likewise the facility and field rentals as of the 2122 school year those pieces went over to Joe's budget it just like the the Rentals of All the Other buildings within the district um actually if you could back up there a second thank you so looking down you know this year you can see the 22-23 the year that we're currently in our approved Athletics budget was 1.7 million 1703.043 of that 1-339043 what came
368directly from the Board of Ed budget and the additional pieces three hundred and twelve thousand dollars of pay to participate fees and gate receipts are expected to come in over the course of the year and one of the things that I decided to do this year is actually put in the actuals that you would see um you know it because I think it's really important to put a spotlight on how challenging it can be sometimes you know we if we look at the gate receipts for instance uh go back to the 1920 school year we hit our Mark just fine and then 20 20 21 school year was a mess right for many of us the the covid pandemic affected everything and so the numbers are just all over the place and it makes it
369difficult to predict right now if our participation numbers have continued there were times during the course of the last couple of years where um teams weren't allowed to participate we had a season that was completely canceled for indoor track one that was completely canceled for um wrestling and we had an entire spring wiped out and so you know as we're working through it you know it's it seems like the pandemic is is a long time ago now and it is in some ways but we are still working through kind of getting back to normal and being able to really project uh what our participation rates are like and and where they're going to be as we go from one year to the next so I thought it was important to put those actuals up there
370so that you could just get a feel for that um I am confident when I look at this year's numbers we're a little bit lower than I'd like to be on our pay to participate uh so far you can see the year to date we're only at about 161 so we still have a ways to go on that one out of the 312 that we expected to come in our gate receipts I'm confident that we'll be hitting the mark As far as what we need to bring in there to round out the Athletics budget um but those are again just wanted to point out the some of the flexibility and some of the challenge in in terms of relying on those external source sources to know what we have as we work our way through
371a year and then the bottom line of that chart is obviously what I'm looking for for next year so uh overall the the Athletics budget that I've built and presenting to you today is a little over 1.8 million 100 1 million 831 953 of which one million 500 953 would come directly from the Board of Ed Bud budget and the remaining pieces would be again the pay to participate fees and the gate receipts and you can see that there is a reduction there in the pay to participate fees that I've expected um some of you who have been on the board for a while will remember that I I presented in December of 2021 on a a plan to reduce and eliminate pay to participate fees over the course of five years um last year
372we included you know basically step one of that plan as part of the budget but it did not make it all the way through the process and so that's where I am again this year is I will pitch it again as a as the first step of a five-year plan to reduce and and we hope that we're able to do that yes this is the overall breakdown of what what is comprised in that budget that 1.83 that that I'm looking for the primary drivers you can see overall is salaries they make up about 56 percent of the overall budgets that includes myself our full-time secretary two athletic trainers and our facility manager it also includes a halftime para that's in in the athletics department as well as our 103 coaching stipends um and like I
373said overall that's about 56 percent of the budget and that'll increase about 17 000 next year when we look at all those contractual increases the next big chunk is purchase services that includes all of our facility rentals and officials payments and that makes about up about 18 of the overall budget going for next year that will be um increasing from this year to next year about seventeen thousand dollars um and again that is uh you know officials all of our officials fees are negotiated through the ciac which is the governing body for most of our Sports so we're seeing a little bit of an uptick in those and then our facility rentals we have contracts for the Barlow Mountain Pool we have contract with the ice rink and those C incremental increases as well the
374next big chunk is the materials dues and fees and that includes all of our supplies our uniforms our reconditioning and that is about 12.8 percent of the overall budget uh that's the as far as an increase is concerned that's where we'll see the largest increase for next year and that's about 50 000 and I'll speak to what some of those pieces are here in just a moment and then transportation makes up about 11.1 percent overall we continue to look at ways to be creative with our transportation we do have a couple of coaches now who actually have the uh certifications they need to transport students and so sometimes we're able to find some cost savings there where if it's a small enough team we don't schedule a bus we can get a vehicle from Enterprise
375and have our coach Drive the team and so trying to be creative with ways to uh to keep our transportation numbers in check and then the last chunk is the support personnel and going into next year a little bit of an increase there um about ten thousand dollars and again I'll explain that here in a second but that makes up the last 2.1 percent of the overall Athletics budget so in the bottom right of that slide you'll see the primary increases the first one I should clarify would not be an increase it would just be a change in where that funding is coming from so that pay to participate reduction plan essentially what it would do is it would uh shift from expecting 36 you know about thirty six thousand dollars would be the impact
376to take that first step in the reduction plan of pay to participate and so if we were decreasing 36 000 in revenue from from users then that would shift over to the board of ed side of things uh some of the other primary increases weight room supervision again not unlike pay to participate right now we are charging fees for the users of that program um what we've found and certainly um now that we've got our two full-time athletic trainers we really feel as though strength and conditioning is a key piece for high school athletes it can certainly reduce the number of injuries it can help our kids recover more quickly when they do get injured and overall it does help with the competitiveness as well and so the more we look at that weight room
377supervision we would like to be able to incorporate that more for all of our athletes both in season and out of season without placing an additional financial burden on the families themselves so that would be a change of about eighteen thousand dollars um included in this budget is also thirty thousand dollars to repair the wall at Tiger Hollow uh some of you who took the tour may recall there is a stone wall that is down there it's the original one from 2000 and so you know over time it's just begun to deteriorate a bit and so uh working with Joe you know he we we've got thirty thousand dollars built into my budget to hopefully um replace the the big section of the wall that is starting to uh starting to crumble a bit the
378next big chunk is about fifty thousand dollars and as I said that is in the materials lines and so that includes new uniforms for seven programs we do have a uniform rotation um last year we actually held off on a couple of uniform purchases primarily because they didn't have the same amount of wear and tear there were a couple of Seasons that didn't happen and so we were able to push off a little bit some of those uniform Replacements but we do have seven teams that are due for new uniforms next year so that's about twenty five thousand dollars for that and then one big change that uh the basketball fans of in the state are thrilled about is the addition of a shot clock for high school basketball and so that's been talked about
379for a long time as of next basketball season it is a requirement and so each district is in the process of of purchasing shot clocks and installing those shot clocks so that we are so that we have those in place and they can be used in Varsity level games for next year and then the last piece is as I've mentioned it's just the contractual increases whether it's facilities or for our staff can go next slide there Jonathan a little bit of a flavor of the durg a so these are current year Numbers 22 23 years with the exception of Staples who's at the bottom of that list that's uh 2122 data they actually have a brand new Athletics director down there who's starting in March so I was not able to track down their data
380from this year but I'll leave this up for just a minute if you want to take a look at some of the differences I do want to point out a few things and that is you know when you look at the number of students that are serviced in these different departments obviously we are are the second largest school in durge right behind Staples and so um we do have you know almost 1500 students at the high school this year we think that that may drop a little bit next year but I don't anticipate that that's really going to negatively impact our participation rates or our participation numbers in our different teams it remains to be seen but you know it's not unlike the classes kids are going to go where they're going to go and
381so we want to be prepared to support them whichever way they decide to go and you know the second column speaks to that as well the number of teams you know we've got 78 teams which is more than any other other school or any other department that's listed there I mean we have things like rugby now for the for the boys and and I'll give you a little a little sneak peek I I did meet with a group of students this week about potentially starting Club rugby for girls and so that may be another visit that I come to the board with in the not too distant future but our students interests are always changing and that's a good thing you know the the fact that we have a club sport procedure in place that
382we're able to support them in their their interests and and what they like to do with their extracurricular time um you know that it speaks highly of our department and the fact that we are are there to support all the interests of our student athletes I think the next piece that I would highlight on this chart is just the the two columns over towards the right the Board of Ed expenditures per student so this year we are towards the bottom of that you know we're at when you take our over the Board of Ed funding divided by the number of students we are at about 8.96 and the total Athletics budget per student um again we are near the bottom of our durg in terms of what we're spending per student on on um Athletics
383but we are we are in a good spot you know I I remember Fielding the question at one point do we think that this is going to continue to go up and up and up and of course we're always going to have slight increases inflation and contractual things and stuff like that but we are getting to a very good point where we are able to operate and do all the things that we need to do without having too many additional challenges and the last thing I'd mention is just the notes on the far right when you have an opportunity to go back and look at some of those notes because it does give a little bit of a glimpse to the fact that Athletics budgets are built in a number of different ways and so
384if you look at you know if you look at New Canaan for instance they they take a very large donation from an all sports booster club each year that helps to pay for some of their coaches and it helps to pay for some of the ice time um you know the numbers for the the Staples um budget in the 21-22 year does not include about a hundred thousand dollars in Gate receipts and parking fees that goes to the athletics department but they don't include it in their official numbers so you know they're constantly districts get creative in how they want to supplement or or finish out the athletics department and so um you know it's just important to see what everybody else is doing we are one of a couple of districts uh well you
385can see there are a handful of districts that do charge pay to participate fees we do charge more than anyone else you could see some of those pay-to-participate fees on the right-hand side Weston is a hundred dollars per sport 400 of family cap Wilton is 125 Bradley per season we're at 225 we've been at 225 for a long time now um and so that reduction plan that I've talked about would take that pay to participate fee from 225 per athlete per season this year down to 200 next year uh per athlete per season and so you know it's only 25 dollars you said overall you look at the big picture is it really that bad to keep it where it is maybe not but then you also think about the the family that has three
386student athletes who play multiple seasons and it really does start to add up so um just some things to keep in mind as we continue that conversation about funding in general and the pay to participate piece of it lastly we'll mention the The Five-Year Capital so as I said this this budget does include a thirty thousand dollar line item to to repair the stone wall down at Tiger Hollow um and then the other piece is really go to highlight our collaborative approach with with different organizations in town and so I've been in touch with Dennis depinto at parks and rec and we've talked about post-tension concrete replacement of the tennis courts you know we don't have a lot of tennis courts in our town uh by comparison to some other towns we've got the six
387at the high school and the three at Unity um and tennis courts in New England are expensive they crack every year you know we're constantly making repairs and so um you know post-tension concrete courts are expensive to install but then they're guaranteed to last much longer and you're not spending money year after year after year to to repair cracks and so I know that's something that that Dennis and I have both looked at as a as a long-term cost savings um and it doesn't come out of our budget directly but it is something that's used by US it's used by the town and so it is that collaborative approach to saying is this something that we should be looking at a lot of you know that we went through the replacement of the turf and
388track down at Tiger Hollow Last Summer the turf on tiger Hollow 2 is due probably in the 24-25 year we're looking at some options to extend that out another year but we do have a good progress toward the expenses for that between the town sinking funds tiger Hollow Inc is always fundraising for for that type of stuff and so is the AAC and so we I I believe that we're going to be in good shape when we are due to replace tiger Hollow 2 that the funding will be there and then the last piece is just the highlight of of something that you'll hear in Joe's budget is in regards to air conditioning in the rhs gymnasiums something that I think is is pretty long overdue if any of you have ever dropped your son
389or daughter off at a summer camp and the high school gym it can be uh it can be a bit balmy in there and even during the school year as well certainly the beginning part in the ending part of the school year it can be a challenge in the gym and so that's in the 24-25 year uh to the tune of about 200 ten thousand dollars in my last slide again just the highlights of this continued Partnerships with tiger Hollow Inc and the individual booster clubs the AAC the Athletics advisory council is going through a transition in their leadership so I'm looking forward to some initiatives with them likely that I'll be updating the board on in the not too distant future and that we continue to collaborate with the town on different things you
390know some things that I've I've worked with within my budget to support at the end of last school year some repairs at the Barlow Mountain Pool um that you know benefits both our boys and girls swim programs things that needed to be done and so trying to work with the town to make those things happen uh but overall our we do have one of the largest most diverse interscholastic departments athletic departments in the states um our kids have lots of opportunities to compete at the league level the state level um this budget does include that first step of a plan to reduce and eliminate pay to participate fees I mentioned the required shot clock purchases that we've already begun getting quotes for as it is a requirement for next year this budget will continue to
391provide athletes with safe playing environments and all the adequate equipment and uniforms that we need it meets all of our contractual obligations with our coaching staff and helps to ensure our compliance with Title IX and lastly it's just it's the support that we need in order to continue the work of our department that is a source of Pride for our community on the the very last slide I feel like I've said last slide three or four times now but on the very last slide it's just the celebration right these are are some of our championship teams over the past year and you may note that there's a couple of uh dual dual uh pictures up there our girls swim team made history this fall they were not only the FCI Champs but the class Double
392L Champs and the first state open Champs in the history of the of the school so congratulations to them a couple of different photos and then the second two are are the dance team who made history last year with their first State title and first New England title and they're actually competing in their first competition of the season right now down at Woodland High School so we're excited about that and along the bottom are three of our FCX championship teams from last year uh including right in the middle our boys basketball team who has won four in a row so um you know High Hopes as we continue through the school year and uh hopefully next year when I prepare for this one I'll need to use smaller photos so that we can get more
393teams on there so but that's all I've got for you in terms of the overview happy to answer any questions that you have thank you Dan any questions from the board Selena so I just have a comment Dane that was a wonderful wonderful presentation and um I really appreciate your numbers on showing that we we bring in almost I think more money if I memorize that that slide correctly we bring in three hundred and twelve thousand dollars in PTP funds and yet where we spend less per student in the Athletics program so I I commend you for staying with it because I really you have my support in reducing that the PTP monies I really I appreciate that you are very aware of you know what's going on in the world and everything and and
394and want to reduce that money yeah and I will say one of the things that we deal with behind the scenes is um families who need support for those pay to participates and so I know it's a public meeting here and so I would just say this to community if you are struggling don't let it be a barrier to participation right reach out to our department we do have a waiver process in place for those who who have needs and so we're happy to support that because at the end of the day I do think I I don't know how drastically I think this but I do think that part of the reason why our participation numbers stick around 55 percent and it isn't higher is because of that pay to participate number you know
395if there were if that didn't exist I think kids would give Sports a try and maybe would stick with them more um but the idea of shell out 225 dollars for something that maybe you've never tried before maybe you're not sure about it I I do think it's a barrier so I I know that that is a barrier I have had Parents reach out to me so I I commend you and I appreciate it and great presentation great graphics too thank you so thank you so much for being here on a Saturday I appreciate it oh I'm no stranger to working on a Saturday thank you Rachel yeah thank you so much you know I absolutely I agree with Selena I'm absolutely in support of decreasing the pay to play I think with 78 teams
396as you said um we also have booster and parent donations and I you know I think about that and without their generosity you know our budget could be higher you know recently we had hockey jerseys um approved at the board level and I think so asking for our community to support decreasing our pay to play is also part of that partnership where families may have already contributed in different ways and definitely having multiple children athletes can be costly mine are younger but definitely a cost um I do remember that last year there was some aging equipment that needed repair I think it was at Tiger Hollow like an ice machine electric heat um is that in this budget or is that is it something that has been mitigated already we do have an equipment repairs
397line annually and so we were able to address some of those needs are ice machine down at Tiger Hollow was refurbished and is still operating so we're hoping to get a little bit more time out of that and the heaters down there are functioning okay at the moment so able to address those I think longer term you know tiger Hollow Inc is a tremendous organization they've always been supportive of of initiatives down at Tiger Hollow as well and so in working with them there are a couple things that we've talked about one of them being you know team rooms and maybe a little bit of upgrades to the the weight room and stuff like that so you know there are other sources that when we have a need I'm not always coming to the board
398asking for more money right there are Partnerships that we have that we're able to tap into from time to time especially when it comes to an immediate need you know the AAC if you go back you know I'm just as an example you go back a handful of years uh the Barlow Mountain Pool the sound quality in there was very poor and it was hard to hear what was happening during a meet and so the AAC chipped in a few thousand dollars in conjunction with rack and we were able to put up some soundproofing stuff that really helps so you know little projects like that that come up from time to time that that we hope to be able to dress to address within our within our budget each year and that's why you know
399there are a few Lines within my budget that I really haven't bumped up but they are ample to address those things you know equipment repairs of tiger Hollow um you know just little things like that that we're able to address because we can't always predict when those things are going to go or when they need to be addressed so it does give us the flexibility to do that thank you thank you Dom uh yeah thank you Mr Street just one quick question my own curiosity why the big reduction in the girls soccer coach in the girls soccer what coach it says coaches girls soccer reduced one of the biggest reductions in your budget was that line yes so that is and I believe it was spoken about at the beginning of the presentation here um
400that is a reflection of actuals and so this year we actually had one of our coaches was volunteering and so we did not get paid out of stipend and then as a result we use that remaining lines to transfer to a different need within the The Fall season and I don't have it in front of me but I'd be willing to guess it was a transportation need as we know our transportation budget has been a challenge this fall and so most of our transportation lines if you look at those those again are the actuals for what we see after transfers in this year and so in some cases we've had to scrape a little bit you know you'll see as you look through the budget lines uh some of the materials lines are showing that
401that they are are big increases because we've transferred some of those monies out to to be able to handle the um the Overflow in our transportation costs for this year when we go to next year I really expect to be back to normal you know one of the biggest challenges we had this fall with Transportation was the lack of drivers and so what that means for us in particular in athletics is I couldn't get a bus between 2 30 and 4 P.M unless I was Contracting with ECS or a different company and getting a coach bus and so we tried to avoid that when possible if we could shift the game later we would do that but there are some sports you know primarily sports like Golf and swimming where we are at the mercy
402of those facilities and so if the Wilton y says Hey the meet starts at 3 30 we got to get our kids there for 3 30 right some of the other sports we were able to shift a little bit later in the day especially at the beginning of the season um during the end of the season it gets a little more challenging challenging because you run out of daylight but you know just constantly shifting things around so that that's what you're seeing there is is it's not a reduction in last year's budget request or this current Year's budget request to next year's budget request that is flat and in fact I don't think there's a single change in terms of our coaching stipends when you go from last year or our current Year's request to
403next year's request so Dane can I just ask that a different way because that I think I'm seeing um what Mr Colin is seeing is so for the boys soccer our approved budget last year was twenty thousand eight two four and our girls soccer was the same the prior year 21-22 actuals were pretty close they were similar and then this this proposed budget for this curtain here knowing that I'm hearing about the volunteer coach but is that volunteer coach still around not getting paid or is there somebody else that you know what now now that you say that again and I look at it a little more closely I'm gonna have to look at that number um because I do not expect that to be the case going forward into next year so I'm gonna
404have to check that number okay so we'll come um Mr column we'll come back to you with an answer on that one did I did I reframe that correctly Thomas is that what you were looking looking at that line exactly yeah we were losing it coach yes I gotcha yeah let me let me take a closer look at that and we'll get some information back to you thank you um anyone else okay the advantage of me going less is that I can I don't have to I can just you know agree with Celine I completely agree with what Selena and Rachel said I I do Dan thank you you've been very passionate about pay to play I know you brought it up last year because of the unfortunate budget cuts that was one of the
405first things to go um I think it's such a thoughtful plan the fact that you're bringing it over multi-years and you know it's slowly it's not a whole huge burden the boat has to take but it's a multi-year process I really applaud that I do understand that this is a burden for multiple families you know besides paying it's also booster clubs uniforms and everything so uh it makes sense so I I just like Rachel and Selena said I support this um and I understand the need for it and I do applaud that it's a very thoughtfully multi-air process so thank you and thank you for your passion and advocacy about this process yeah thank you I think um it is important you know again the history of it some people may be aware or may
406not but it started as a 25 fee and it's just something that over time it's like oh where where can we grab an extra 50 Grand well let's just Jack pay to participate up until so you get to that point where it's constantly going back to those same families over and over again the Statewide data does show that we are in the minority I believe it's somewhere around 15 percent of schools are using a pay to participate model um and so again it's it's I think it's a step in the right direction if we're able to to work it into the budget absolutely thank you hopefully hopefully it all but you have our support I mean I'm sorry I'm speaking for all the boat but I'm hopeful that I think if nobody else said I
407I can say that um anyone else before we move on we're actually Tina I just want to remind the board that this did this um both the pay to participate and the weight room fees did get through our Board of Education last year um actually you know naturally the board of selectman or the board of Finance have the ability to make online my line reductions but it was one that the administrative Administration ultimately made the decision to reduce but we are very hopeful as Dane is that this step in the right direction can happen this year absolutely yes thank you for clarifying that I forgot to add that but that's what I meant the board was did support this it was like unfortunate the cuts that were beyond our control if there's no other questions
408by the board we're actually ahead from the proposed 15-minute break so can we take a half an hour break or do you want to do a 15 minute break and then hopefully we can wrap this up early I'll ask the board because you're all being part it's been a long day Selena sorry I said wrap up early wrap up early okay so let's go to college class you just give the look to all your teammates make sure they feel the pressure well as long as Susie your team is ready to come in a little early yes I don't know okay bring it up okay so we all got the look okay so let's let's be back at 3 15. it's 3 15. I think I'm just saying there's Tivia okay Tina um May before we
409jump into general service and Transportation uh Mr Collins Eagle Eye oh okay Mr Mr Collins Eagle Eye this time did catch an error so I don't want any of the soccer families out there thinking we're reducing a coach so we are going to need to find um 71.91 in the budget and we'll try to Circle back and have that cleaned up for Monday okay okay so just want to make sure that we're cleared up on that and don't spread any alarm thank you Mr Colin okay okay so hello again and welcome back from our short break um Johnny go right on to the next Slide the general Services budget includes the central office departments that are responsible for the district-wide administration of the school system and the Board of Education the three departments that make
410up the general Services budget are the superintendent of schools the Personnel department and business services our offices are here to serve the district and to ensure that our staff has all the tools needed to meet the district's Mission and the vision of The Graduate next slide oh there you go here we see a closer look at the individual departments within the general service area the superintendent of schools is our top executive who implements the board of education's vision admission and works with the school leaders to support the needs of students and meets the district goals the Personnel department handles the needs of districts facility and staff and is responsible for the recruiting hiring evaluation certification mentoring negotiations managing the substitutes fingerprinting and any family medical leave requests and the business department handles district-wide purchasing payroll
411general ledger recording and reconciling accounts payable all employee benefits workers compensation Unemployment Insurance liability coverage we oversee the cafeteria program the transportation program and we are responsible for all student registrations the general service budget has all the normal expenses as other cost centers such as salaries and supplies in addition the general service budget houses the funding for district legal expenses with the exception of course of special services District general liability coverage all employee fringe benefits all recruitment costs the general membership District wise and covers the cost of free and reduced lunch students district-wide I've included some detail about what employee fringe benefits consist of these are of course health benefits such as medical dental vision as well as long-term and short-term disability also included in this category are the employer's contributions to the non-certified town
412pension and other post-employment benefits expenses French benefit benefits also include payroll taxes as well as employee work and compensation and unemployment expenses this chart shows and at a glance breakdown of the components of the general Services budget detailed by object without a doubt the main driver in this section is the increase in salary the salary increases this year are attributed to the addition of our director of security and school security officers together this adds just over five hundred thousand dollars to the general service budget without this addition the increase here would be just under two percent with the change in the model of security programming we're also going to see a significant offset in the facilities budget which is just over three hundred and eight thousand but it's important to note that that 308 000
413reduction is what you see budget to budget the fees for services of our current security model were set to increase over 30 percent if continued so that would have driven the potential cost well over four hundred thousand so although we see an increase in general Services budget for security the offset is also significant and the district will have a more robust model for district-wide security our employee benefits collectively will increase by 2.37 but our health insurance renewal is flat this is a direct result of our favorable claims experienced by our employees and it's helped us to achieve a modest overall budget increase next slide please here I've highlighted some major budget drivers within the general Services budget those salary increases collectively within the general Services budget is 522 218 or a 41 increase and remember
414it's the security Personnel that is driving that our pension contributions this year are 321 865 which is also a considerable percentage increase and that number is given to us from the town actuary and we are directed by the town offices what we need to put in our budget there workers compensation will increase just under 57 000 or nine and a half percent and we're adding the employee assistance plan there's twenty five thousand dollars and there was not a line to support the employee assistance plan so that is relatively new again another budget driver is that the fact that the health benefits are flat funded um I think that's important to highlight because we see other districts who create a budget where that's a major budget driver because it's several hundred thousand dollars of an increase
415um our opeb again this is a number that is dictated To Us by the town actuary we see a pretty marked decrease here of 152 658 that's a 67 decrease and then the liability insurance is going down 17 881 or just under six and a half percent now I can take some questions here if you'd like or I can roll right into the transportation budget and you can do questions overall so I'll let you decide I can't see but does anybody on the board have questions or we can roll on Jill let's go on okay perfect so John you can just keep the slides going they connect and here's the transportation budget one more slide down here you can see the transportation budget at a glance as you know we're moving into the first year
416of our five-year contract extension at a contractual increase of four and a half percent during year one and four and a quarter percent each year thereafter the proposed budget covers transportation for students to and from school each day that covers the transportation of our special needs students both in District and out of District as well as transportation for our summer extended year program our contract our new contract extension will expire in June of 2028. next slide transportation is provided for approximately four 400 students and the extended year program as well as mentioned we also provide special education to approximately 15 out of District special education programs and also to our non-public in-town schools that is St Mary's and Ridgefield Academy our transportation providers our main providers First Student we run 31 full-size school buses 19
417Vans 9 Vans over the summer school program and two wheelchair bus programs through First Student in addition we do use a number of private transportation providers for various special education needs our goal of course is to use for a student whenever possible however we do have some situations that require special transport beyond what first student can provide here you see a chart showing the breakdown of components of transportation that are detailed by object you can see the addition of part-time van drivers these are drivers for the student Vans we purchased and began running this current year we've also included funds for service and repair of the vehicles the next few lines detail the funding for First Student busing here we increase Lines by the contractual four and a half percent then we decreased where we
418believe we can gain efficiencies I'm sure you'll recall during Dr desilva's presentation at the January 9th board meeting she explained that we reduced the AM PM contract line by two hundred thousand dollars and that's an estimate of the efficiencies we believe we can realize not only by running our vans but also by recreating bus routes more strategically over the summer other lines for special education and other transports have been estimated and some have been increased to reflect our current expenditure and also past expenditures and then we've increased the fuel budget line by 21 percent overall you see if oops sorry overall you see a 5.68 percentage increase in transportation budget in addition to the general service part of Transportation there are two other cost centers that have transportation expenses Athletics transport is largely flat on
419the transportation is up slightly for field trips at the high school and that's due to oceanography AP biology AP environmental science and the science research Fair research fair and Robotics competitions so when you look at the transportation as a whole it's just over a five and a half percent increase foreign and that details both General services and transportation and if you do have questions I'm happy to hopefully answer sorry now I can see everyone um does the board have questions no okay um just quickly I know you talked about this um when you talk about the director of security and the school safety officers would you talk about that Jill quickly just so that anybody is listening in or would that come in later because we're adding FTE right and I just want to make
420sure that everybody understands that even though we're adding FTE it's not a added huge expenditure So the plan is to change the model of security um and that does um include one director position and then nine school security officers one at each School and with that we will be um changing what we currently have in place which is service through a vendor and we will reduce 11 and a half guards that we currently have through that vendor so there's there's new employees coming up but the reduction of a service vendor it doesn't it's not equivalent but it's pretty close for a far more robust um safe and secure model throughout the schools if I can just add though um while it's not equivalent especially when you look at it budget to budget the reality is
421is that the vendor that we were using where Inc was increasing our rates this year this current year by 33 percent and expected to increase again next year um probably a similar amount so um while looking at a budget to budget no it's not exactly the amount the savings amount by the time that they increased our rate it likely would have been if not actually more than so I you know I think that that's an important element and and while not the only reason I think the impetus to get us started on really reviewing the model and its effectiveness foreign thank you guys for for those playing the home version of the game the present security model where would that be found in the the budget reductions you'll see in the facilities um budget and
422I think it is continued Professional Services and it says Dash security but I think your coffee a little bit yeah it's contracted building security got it and that you remember that that number is offset as well by the parking fees at the high school which are 200 a student thank you any other questions okay moving on Joe oh I'm waiting on the where's the presentation John there we go well good afternoon and is the anchor leg for today it is my pleasure to close out the day and share the facility's operating budget with you uh this afternoon it's been a long day so I promise to respect that time and move my presentation along as quick as possible next Slide John the following the uh the following slides and discussion will bring the development of
423my budget to light by focusing on our commitment to the district's mission that grounds itself in our work our challenges and the key budgetary themes that drive the funding that we require for the Operational Support for the 2324 school year on the right is the breakdown of the facilities Department and as a service driven component of the district it tight it takes a number of skilled resources and dedicated individuals to maintain over a million square feet of educational and support space as part of our current operating model we utilize as much in-source trade work whenever possible to help lessen the Reliance on Outsourcing for costly repairs and to date that has made had made a huge impact um at this time I need to acknowledge the incredible work and commitment of my team of Brett
424matters and Nancy gerna who not only keep the chaos under control every day but continually expand the scope of their work to strengthen the impact and reach of our efforts within the district and finally the foundation of our work is anchored by the dedication and efforts of my front line staff the 51 men and women the clean maintain and support our buildings and grounds on a day-to-day basis their combined efforts truly embody our Effectiveness as a team next slide so as a service delivery support department the true measurement of our success and value add is found in the accomplishments that that Encompass our day-to-day work as well as the various building specific projects and infrastructure improvements that we perform and manage throughout the school year as a side note each school year the facilities Department
425process over 1 000 work order requests of varying scope and complexity in the interest of time I won't go through the specifics of each project listed here but as you can see it covers a multitude of projects for peers and asset renewals throughout the district as discussed during my five-year Capital plan presentation back in November uh we still have a number of large projects in the queue with completion targets slated for this spring uh and uh early early summer next Slide John so when it comes to defining our planning and budgeting we look to our mission and priorities to help guide those efforts our mission is simple it underscores our commitment to the to support the district's Mission and the vision of The Graduate we do that with our resources our work and our forward
426planning our work continues to be guided by the four priorities I've listed here it's these four tenants that help map the guidance we need to manage and address the overall scope and scale of our maintenance and repair needs along with that the strengthening of our strong collaborations and shared resources that are key to moving our work forward our guiding priorities Also Serve to help balance our core services with the appropriate Outsourcing and insourcing required to address unexpected failures and the new challenges that we face on a daily basis John so exactly who are we well we are a group uh of many disciplines many trades and our core operations and essential Services span a broad range of responsibilities and functions beyond the cleaning and maintenance of the district's real property our charge is multifaceted with
427work that encompasses environmental compliancy reporting and testing continuity of school operations through Emergency Management project management security support and a number of other essential Support Services not included on the slide but immensely noteworthy is the understanding that the work of the district facilities department operates in a unique multi-layered responsibility model with Town departments as highlighted on our various School tours the lines that Define our main areas of responsibility are complex and oftentimes very confusing especially when it comes to the maintenance outside of the school building footprint we work in partnership with the town's facilities Department Public Works Parks and Rec to navigate around these lines and over time I have developed a strong collaborative relationship with all of these groups facilities and town school facilities and town departments work as a unified resource in matters
428of safety and emergencies that could potentially impact the safety of our students and staff that was never more evident than this past week at Barlow Elementary School we value our partnership with the town departments and continue to find ways to strengthen and Define those shared resources and responsibilities okay so when planning develop so the plant and planning and developing the budget every expense string is carefully reviewed and discussed with the lens on ensuring that our core services are delivered in the most efficient effective and physical fiscally responsible way as possible as part of the budget build it is important that our planning assumptions and guiding priorities are properly supported by a budget that operationalizes those critical elements and evaluating the potential challenges to the budget what emerged over the past months are the four major
429themes and key drivers that have listed on this slide as expected energy and utilities Drive the main narrative for this budget along with the continued Investments and improving and renewing our infrastructure through projects and requested District equipment purchases contractual increases and Associated costs from collective bargaining are always a key driver each year and as Jill just spoke to in the general Services budget the forward planning around our revised security model has resulted in a major budget reduction in my contracted building security line done so I am pleased to present for the 23-24 school year a budget of 10 million 78 702 that represents nine point one one percent of Dr de Silva's proposed budget for the district at nine percent this budget rep uh this budget presents comparably to previous years facilities budgets in all
430this is an activity-based budget that reflects the appropriate funding to support all of our priorities and contractual obligations and based on our planning assumptions it accounts for the forecasted pricing models for our electricity and fuel oil demands going forward and more importantly my budget supports our maintenance and planning assumptions for the nine major building cost centers and the associated operational maintenance related cost centers that make up the facilities areas of support all right so departing from my usual pie chart my my budget distribution is now organized into six major categories designed to provide a more streamlined overview of how my budget is broken down overall the facility's budget represents an increase of 5.18 percent or 409 a little over 496 thousand dollars and that's over the current approved budget of nine million five hundred eighty
431two thousand five seventy nine from the categories displayed 38 of the operating budget reflects all of the Department's salaries shift differentials and Associated compensations 35 is the all-in for electricity and solar component all in for electricity and solar components our number two heating oil our natural gas supplies our propane supplies uh and the charges for our wells public water and related waste charges 9.5 represents all budget objects relative to our maintenance operations and support resources our projects materials and supplies security at 4.8 percent reflects the adjusted building security guard model our security infrastructure and monitoring and the various supplies to support our overall security footprint all our service contracts for Fire and Life Safety elevators testing and inspections Etc comprise 4.4 percent of my budget and all other accounts and services represent the remaining 7.3
432percent and they include a field agreement insurances permits fees and the like next Slide John so reflected in this slide just kind of gives you a snapshot of the major objects that are the greatest movement in the budget and ultimately Drive the final number and the increase as you can see the largest pressure on the budget comp uh comprises our two main energy sources electricity and heating oil our recent energy planning strategy around electricity Contracting will carry us through the first half of 23 of the 23 uh 24 school year working in collaboration with our energy resources the budget reflects a slight increase in the remainder of our supply costs we do not lock in on future heating oil gallonage until the budget is approved and underway from our December 2022 forecast for future uh
433oil prices oil is projected to move very little from a 390 per gallon price point I monitor future oil prices weekly and as we get out of the heating season I will start to look at those on a daily basis and as we get closer to the referendum and the 2324 school year every effort on my part and every strategy will will be in play to hopefully secure an oil contract under the forecasted price range district-wide equipment purchases small scope building projects custodial maintenance salaries and our water sewer and septic expenses complete the remaining object increases collectively the positive and negative movements in this budget net out at 374 394 dollars which reflects roughly 75.5 percent of the total budget increase John again this is another app shot it just shows you the movement on
434the two uh positive uh reductions uh one is the building security as Jill alluded to and the second one is and you'll find in the budget book under building checks uh and that's a reduction of 57 703 and that's a shift in strategy uh and the performance of these building checks now to only include uh cold weather uh weekends uh and eliminating building checks throughout the summer and the warmer weather uh and then once again all of this movement uh is roughly Nets out at 75 of the my total uh budget increase next Slide John next one there we go solar so there's been a lot of discussion later around the impact the solar installations and our schools have had on our electricity usage footprint we currently have seven schools uh with very varying sizes
435of solar arrays with two more projects in the planning and design stages one is the the solar canopy at the high school and the second one is at Branchville Elementary School we work in collaboration with the town to oversee and manage these installations and once they are commissioned the management of those systems becomes part of the facilities Department all accounts are financed through Power purchase agreements or ppas and those monthly charges are built into the electricity lines for the respective schools and they each carry a 20-year payment term to date Scotland Elementary School continues to run off solar production to run off of solar production excuse me for four to five months during the peak season months and a farming mill our oldest system it's it's production while not meat not off the meter continually
436makes a notice noticeable decrease in the school's demand I look forward to the the solar canopy at the high school which is scheduled for uh this summer and to early fall and all indications are that the output and gen uh the production of that canopy will decrease the high school electricity Demand by a third last slide next slide nope not the last side the one before that John thank you uh so the most significant investment support for the maintenance and renewal of our district infrastructure is the funding required for our direct maintenance costs our capital projects our operating projects and District equipment Replacements in the interest of time I'll skip over the list of Board of Ed approved capital projects uh that I that you voted on in December and approved and moved forward and
437will focus on the operating projects and direct maintenance costs reflected in this budget this slide highlights the selected operating projects for each School based on principal requests and may end its evaluations this list does not include selected building specific projects that surface from our school tours and principles requests certain projects like the glass partition walls for Scotland's Solarium learning space are being designed and planned out for inclusion in this year's project line there are also a number of improvements and Furnishings that are not included in the 2024 planning but are included in our planning for this year's budget I won't go through I won't go through each project but based on the request received and the maintenance reviews the list of plan projects has been prioritized and represents the work that we feel will address
438the building-based needs for the next school year our direct maintenance costs that are listed here at 355 thousand dollars reflect certain identified mechanical repairs and Replacements and materials and the materials that we need to carry out our preventive maintenance program last night and on that note I would like to bring the proceedings to a close I want to thank the board and the district leadership for their continued support for facilities and I look forward to any questions that you may have Joe I think we all want to know who's creating those beautiful PowerPoint president for you does ours look like like compared me you dare ask all right amazing thank you thank you sorry I thought my dogs were barking and nobody can hear it after they start uh does the board have any questions
439yes Amy thank you so much just a quick question I'm just wondering um if you could speak about why we don't see any line items on your budget regarding playgrounds I understand it but I think that there have been a lot of questions recently about it and I'm just hoping you could explain the relationship with the town and parks and recs regarding it that's a lot uh anyways um in the past I always did carry on the capital side uh additions or you know um overall installations for the playgrounds uh some years back that was removed from the Board of Ed Capital plan and that began a long history of finger pointing and who does what and who owns what and who's paying for this uh this year in my district district-wide equipment line I
440do carry um some money I think in the 25 000 range uh for repairs uh that Sprout up during the year so we don't run into the same issues that we did at Farmingville where we had to wait and figure out who's paying for what um other than that um you know it's very as I said it's it's a very uh complex and and confusing model uh that we work with uh when it comes to who owns what um and basically uh I own everything from the walls in my crew takes care of snow removal on the sidewalks um I own everything that goes through the roofs but I don't own the roofs uh and basically um that's it in a nutshell I mean but over the years I mean the collaboration with the town
441um has strengthened um and we've really kind of unblurred those lines quite a bit um and we do work very cohesively together uh between uh my counterpart with the town uh and Parks and Rec so it's a work in progress but it is those like I say those lines are getting a lot clearer Amy if I could just add the I I believe in the town's Capital project their I mean Capital plan they're looking at um investing in a continuous replacement process for the playgrounds and to Echo what Joe just said is the partnership um specifically around the playgrounds is becoming clearer and clearer and so I think that having those be a part of a continuous plan on the town side and then of course on our side looking at the repair piece as
442we are the ones that notice the needs um you know day to day for our students um is probably the best the best model at this moment in time and I think it's the cleanest and again with the support of Dr hannaway and and the town the town social worker who has been involved in looking at the accessibility piece and Joe Moritz and a lot of other people that I didn't mention I think we're in a pretty good place with that um just because we are uh talking about Playgrounds and and Joe I I think you highlighted it we have to be very very grateful to all of the staff at Barlow Mountain Elementary School along with um EMT who rapidly responded to the playground event this week with that being said that playground has
443now been removed and will actually be replaced as well and within just a very short number of days we're engaged we're a part of that process alongside the town and hopefully actually a small parent group at Barlow mountain and then another one as we approach ridgebury so we're definitely in a in a better place than we've been and I think both the town and the Board of Ed should be proud of that foreign to go with that thank you Suzanne I think it is a and Joe it's a it's a really great demonstration of the collaboration across the town I know we're not talking about the capital budget today um but I do want to just address one thing that I think is really critical as we go forward with that collaboration is you know
444it we have talked throughout today around some of the constraints of our operating budget and our operating model as a result of facilities that either no longer or potentially in the next few years will no longer meet our needs and I know the capital budget is a different conversation but you know I would just encourage the other boards that are listening to this and ours and the tri board as a whole to start to look at the longer range plans for our facilities and the impact of doing nothing um from a you know the AHS is a prime example um where it no longer meets the needs of our diverse education body you know we talk about diversity equity and inclusion quite a bit and then in our own Community um we don't have that
445kind of equity in the facility that our Alternative High School sits and that's just one example of many that have come up today um Scott's Ridge and the volume of students is another one and so I do think that it is something that we need to start addressing as a town there is legislation that makes this more urgent right now that's on the table that may or may not pass this legislative session around the state grants for construction and things like that changing very dramatically the legislation allows for if you're not part of a Regional School District you will not get the same level of funding now that may or may not pass through the legislative session but it creates a sense of urgency to put our proposals in for a long-range plan for our
446facility needs as because that will only go down from there right any funding we could potentially get from the state would only go down we're already seeing it go down in special ed we're seeing it go down in other areas as a consistent pattern so this is something to be very aware of and I would just like to to plea with the boards across Ridgefield to start to really think about how do we start a plan that's beyond Joe's operating budget and really thinks about the evolution of students you know we you guys the town of Ridgefield did it when we built Scott's Ridge that was prior to my tenure here but um certainly I think it's time to do that again and and Joe I appreciate your operating budget and I know that capex
447is not for Capital expenses excuse me is not on today's discussion topic but I would just like to put it out there for the public to start to think about what you heard today and what that looks like three or two three four years from now for our student population yeah and to your point Liz um that's really centers on on the master plan that's in the capital um and the support that we need to push that forward because that's going to be a very critical if not the most critical part of what you just said Selena yeah that was so well said Liz I cannot Echo for sentiments enough I think our Alternative High School is it's I hate to say it but it's almost disgraceful so I really appreciate that you brought that
448up and and I really appreciate that you're looking out for the population of that school so I I stand with you 100 on what you said thank you so much for bringing that up like that yes and Joe fantastic and if you you know ever want to do a side gig and do some proposal for me I'd really appreciate it anytime foreign well thank you Joe that was really great and Liz I know you said it before even when the capital project was presented um it's true we have to keep this in mind and I think you're right as this conversation has developed and we've talked a bit about the preschool right we're talking about the preschool kids and the need for the kids of the rice program and how the needs are expanding so
449it's not only the alternate yes absolutely the Alternative High School but we're also talking about the early kids who are coming in so this is a need that is expanding all our kids and it affects our community by and large so absolutely we need to have these conversations and I hope all the other votes that are listening and do understand the need to have this sooner rather than later because then we're just playing catch up because then it's too late uh and the needs keep evolving we cannot predict the needs for all these kids um so I appreciate everyone I truly want to thank each and every board member who has been part of this long day thank you for all your input your questions I also realized there was a lot of information today
450shared you know so you obviously you will sleep on it you'll probably go through the presentations that were shared you can you can absolutely come back with questions on Monday uh Dr de Silva already shared the QR code this is for the community that is listening in if you have questions that you want to be sent please feel free to use that and send it to the administrative administrative team and for all the community that is listening in and saw the presentation we welcome your feedback you may have questions you may have thoughts about this budget please come at Monday our public comment starts at seven o'clock and if you cannot make that meeting and if you rather send an email you can send it to the full Board of Ed that's Board of Ed
451richfieldps.net the entire Board gets it or you can individually email each board member if you so choose that is the first opportunity and the next one I will keep bringing I will highlight more meetings that will come up and right now I'll just reiterate it is the superintendent's proposed budget the board will still ask questions at the next meeting and we still have a few meetings to go through before the board adopts this as the board budget however the board sees fit did I miss anything you got it all okay uh anything else before we adjourn before time I might add well thank you and thank you to all the team that have worked for this every one of you thank you so much and thank you again to the board and every if there
452was anyone who listened to us from 8 45 onwards thank you we will see you Monday