001Oh, good. Good. [Music] Much better. [Music] >> JT is on his running. He's >> the fastest runner I've seen him before. So, Beautiful. Yes. Right. >> I didn't hear. >> I don't know. I can get him an extra copy. >> I feel like text me about something. Here he comes. >> I don't think he is going to be here. I think so. Okay. Good evening. Welcome to the board of education meeting Monday, September 22nd. And please rise for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [Music] Okay. So, we'll have approval of minutes. We'll need a motion for approval for September 8th minute >> from Kim and
002a second. >> Second >> from Shane. Okay. All those in favor of the minutes of September 8th. We have a couple bring. So that's unanimous. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> I understand. >> And one abstension from Ed. >> All right. I'll turn it over to you. >> Thank you and good evening. Um, I'd like to start my update uh with briefing the board and community about uh the specialized programs that we have currently in district. Um, I'll talk about the special uh education programs at our three schools. And I'll start off with uh laying the foundation of reading the mission. The mission of the Summers Public Schools alternative special education program is to provide identified exceptional learners with an opportunity to achieve their individual goals through individualized programming with their least restrictive environment. I did
003ask Director Hargraves to attend tonight and I want to commend her and her staff publicly for the fine job that they do in providing educational programming to keep our students in district. So to continue, we have two programs that run through our three schools. Uh the first one is called the RISE program. The acronym is reaching independence through specialized education. It's at SCES, MBA, and also the high school. And the mission of the RISE program is to provide a multidisciplinary approach for our exceptional learners that embeds life skills into their everyday school experience to grow independence throughout all developmental stages. The other program that runs through our three schools is called the SORE program. The acronym for the SORE program is social, emotional, occupational, academic readiness. So that is a more intensive program where uh
004our scholars in these programs require uh complex support sometimes involving social emotional and behavioral supports. So those are the two programs that we have running through our three schools. Our total population in all three schools about 35 students. uh at the elementary school roughly 10, MBA roughly 10 and at the high school uh like 15 students in these programs. The prevalence rate for special ed students statewide is 17.8. The percentage of of special ed students in our district, the prevalence rate is 14.8. there just under 200 students uh in our district that require special ed support services. I want to just uh briefly talk about at the high school they do have two types of sore programs. uh one uh is a regular sore program and one is called a sore intensive program and that's
005a even a higher level of support uh provided by our teachers and par educators uh but we're able to keep our students in in district. So that concludes my report about the special ed programs that we have in district. We have rise, we have soore, they run in all three schools. uh student population. It's about just over 30 students in these programs. That pens end p ends my update on that. Penny, any questions? >> Anyone have questions for Caroline or >> No, but we will extend our rise middle school program does open houses regularly and it's part of the transition skills. Dr. Galloway and I have been to several of their It's really It's really adorable actually. They put together little lunches and they have little stations, drinks and things like that. will extend invites
006to you um because the kids really enjoy hosting um and showing some of the skills that they're working on in their classes um and they do that regularly as part of their curriculum. Um and we use a unique learning curriculum for our rise programs which is a modified curriculum. It really focuses on transition skills for the state of Connecticut. Um and we're really looking to embed independence as as well as you know vocational occupational soft skills um that allow them to either go to the transition 18 through 22 age group or whatever they decide to do postsecary um and also resources from the state and different programs that they have at the state level once they hit adult age. So um that's our goal for the rise program and our sword intensive program at the
007high school. We do have an option for being fully self-contained. It's a very unique program um where we really just individualize every single program based on the needs and how a student is presenting. Um so I'm very proud of the teams and the work that they do in in all three schools. >> So Caroline, how are the kids get into these different programs? Is this >> teacher recommend? Can a parent request this or >> um it is brought to a PBT where then the PBT makes a determination based on several different factors, but you're looking at various data points usually and then just the profile of the student as well. >> Anybody else have any questions? It's not my uh next uh update is is just to reiterate uh the amazing event that happened uh
008yesterday, 41 school street. And I did send out a message earlier for for uh folks who were unable to be there yesterday um when they had the ribbon cutting for the new playground. And it was just a culminating event uh that just showed the strength of this uh community. Uh I was there I went back this morning uh to look at it to really walk around and there were families already there using that space. So, um you know the company who did the program or or actually um built this uh playground Where Angels Play foundation, it's pretty amazing uh group of folks. They uh a lot of firefighters from all over the country. They volunteer to give back to different communities. I stated this was the 71st playground that they have built. And I think
009what's noteworthy and the guy wasn't blowing smoke. He's a retired firefighter from New Jersey. So he doesn't have to put any spin on anything and and he stated that the support that he got from this community was uncharacteristic on what they normally experience. So I just wanted that to be known uh publicly and I thank them and uh public works first selectman and the board of finance for their support of this project. And and lastly, I just want to highlight on the 24th SCS is having a open house from 5:30 to 7:00, MBA on 9:25 from 6:30 to 8:00. That concludes my update pending any further questions. >> Okay. So, I want to introduce Kevin Nichols from Morgan Stanley. >> Thank you. So, my name is Kevin Nichols. I work with Morgan Stanley Institute Consulting
010Services. We uh advise around 35 different municipalities in Connecticut. Um just for you know uh education want to reiterate you know it's the board's duty really to oversee the you know the pension funds funds my duty future duty to pick the managers asset allocation report that to you on a you know semiannual basis. um you know try to keep my comments brief but we have the kind of the market perspectives in the first part after tab one is the pension after tab two is the oped uh just want to go over a few things going on in the market right now uh if we want to turn to page eight in the market perspective that's before tab one you can see that you know there's been a big recovery obviously since April in the market
011a lot of that though has to do if you look on the right hand side with multiple expans expansion. So, a lot of the things that are going on right now is that the earnings are growing, but the multiples that or the prices that people are willing to pay are growing faster than the earnings. Uh, and that's one of the issues that we are worried about, I think, kind of going forward is that the valuations in the US are pretty high. You'll kind of see that as we kind of move forward. Uh, if you want to go to page 10, uh, one of the things that a lot of people talk about is cash on the sidelines. The cash on the side has actually decreased a lot. money market funds are actually, you know, getting
012lower and lower and lower in terms of their balances. So, people are putting a little bit more money into the market. Uh if you want to go to page um uh 16, 16 is really important. It's the uh the it's called the equity risk premium. And basically what it is is the earnings yield of the S&P 500 minus the 10-year bond yield. And it just basically tries to tell you is it is it better you getting paid to take risk in stocks? Are you better off taking risk in bonds? And right now they're they're basically equal. So basically, you know, the the uh you're not getting paid a premium to to take risk in stocks right now. And that's one of the reasons one of the reasons that we've uh have our 6040 allocation in
013the pension right now and have decided to become more conservative. Uh and then lastly, if you look on page 40, it's like towards the end, you can see this is the multiple phase situation that we're talking about where the US uh relative to the rest of the world has a extreme premium on it in terms of the again the priced earnings. Um and so that's something that is is basically in the 98th percentile of valuations all time. So we've been more conservative on the stock side for a while. Uh, and we only invest in high quality bonds and that's one of the reasons because we're really worried about, you know, the the multiples that people are paying right now in the stock market. Any questions before I move forward to the performance? Okay. After tab,
014uh, why don't you go to page four? Okay. The good news, here's the good news is that uh, last fiscal year the pension was up 7.7%. Okay, that was ending in uh, June 30th, 2025. Okay, so another year that we were ahead of the actual assumed rate of return of 6%. The pension is as of the 2024 valuation was over 92% funded. So because we've now made more than the assumed rate of return, I'd expect for the 2025 valuation, we're going to probably be 93 to 94% funded going forward. So this is another reason that we're a little bit more conservative in the asset allocation, more traditional with the 6040 is that you don't have to take the risk of a pension fund that is 50% funded or 60% funded. You guys are right knocking
015at the doorstep of being 100% funded being able to pay out all those liabilities and that's why we've been de-risking the portfolio. Uh yearto date up 3.3%. uh you can see last five years again higher than the assumed rate of return of 6% of it's 23 last seven years basically since we started uh almost 7%. upper left hand side. One thing I want to point out, this is a spending portfolio. Okay, so in the uh middle column on the upper left hand side on page 4, if you look at the net contributions withdrawals, okay, about 633,637,000 has come out of the fund over the last uh you know 5 years. We've gotten $75,000 in income. That means just dividends and interest. That's not even growth of the portfolio. Dividends interest to to pay for those
016liabilities, which means that the principal balance has been unencumbered, right? You haven't had to sell a stock. You haven't had to sell a bond in order to pay the liabilities. And that's important because in times of high volatility, right? You don't have to sell stocks at a market bottom to pay your liabilities. We can let that principle grow over time. And the principal balance, as you can see, is over $7 million. That's an all-time high. Uh upper right hand side, you can see the kind of a chart that shows this, right? The dark blue line is uh going up into the right. Uh and the light blue line is basically going down into the right, which is the net contributions, withdrawals, we want that to diverge as much as possible, right? Because we want to
017make sure that the fund balance is growing even though cash is coming out. Uh if we go to page 15, we've got our fixed income portfolio. Okay. So, one of the things that another reason that we decided to become more conservative is fixed income is actually paying you a yield. Now, pre-COVID, we're talking about 1% yields basically in the fixed income market. Now, we're getting over four and a quarter. You look at the yield to maturity column, which I think is like the third or fourth from the from the right. Um, you can see we're getting about yeah 4 uh 28% our yield to maturity. So, that means that our bonds regardless of where they go, we're going to get we're getting 4.28% 28% just from our bond portfolio, which is important because we have
018about 40% in bonds. So, we're thinking we're going to get about 1.6% at least from our bond portfolio. If you take that off of the 6% that we need to get from the assumed rate of return, that gives us 4.4%. So, 60 to 60% of stocks only has to get us 4.4%. That's about a 7% return that we need from our stocks, which is 2% lower than the average that we usually have, which is 9% that stocks give us on a on an annual basis uh throughout time. So, we need less from the stocks um because we're getting more from the bonds. Uh if you look on page uh 19, this gets into our managers that we've talked about. We made a change uh we added a small cap manager uh you know last uh
019last time we met uh the two best performing asset classes right now in the in the pension portfolio are small caps which are up over 9.63%. And the international which is up about uh over 19%. Um and so you know diversification is really important. Small caps international have actually lagged the market for a very very long time. They're finally leading the market. Uh and so you know even though there are times where international or small caps or big caps or large caps may lag uh we want to be diversified across all the different asset classes so that when one is lagging another one could be leading and vice versa. Um any questions comments uh on the bond? >> Yeah. What's the annual or average duration? Was that down here? This mod? >> Yeah. Modified duration.
020>> Modified duration. Average of 3.72. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, we have a barbell approach right now. We basically half the money in short-term a short-term bond manager and half the money in intermediate term bond manager. >> Uh we decided to stay short-term because the volatility in the fixed income markets has been actually higher than the equity markets. And so even though rates have come down a teeny bit uh on the long end of the curve recently because the Fed just cut 25 basis points uh they've actually increased after the Fed cut which is the exact same thing that happened last time. And so we feel like you're not getting a huge premium for going out further along the curve than you are being shortterm. So that's why we're under four years right now. >> Yeah.
021But if the yield curve continues to normalize and the 10 year goes to let's say five or six or something like that, we might make extend that duration. >> So the ones that are coming to maturity within like the next year or two, you thinking about going longer with them or you're going to make that call? >> It's it's well right now the two managers basically have their own kind of duration um you know uh target I guess you could say. >> And so they they make those calls >> as they come. >> Yeah. >> But the short-term manager I believe like their maximum maturity can be like 3 years. Mhm. >> And intermediate return is going to be anywhere from, you know, 3 to 10 years. >> Got it. >> Thanks. >> I I
022had two questions. One along those lines with the rate cuts, you know, and how you think those will affect this. >> So, in the market perspectives, there is a great page in there that looks at the uh Fed funds futures, okay, and where the market is expecting rate cuts to be. The market's been begging for rate cuts for the last three years, okay? And just hasn't gotten any really. We got four last year essentially cuz we got 150 base point rate cut and 225 basis point rate cuts. We just got one uh just the other week and we think that we're going to get probably two more as we go into year end here depending on how the data sort of you know looks right. Um what we've seen is when the Fed goes into
023cutting rates the rates will come down. after they cut rates, rates continue to go up. Okay. So, I think that there's still some nervousness, I would say, around the US Treasury market because our debt is still very very large and so international investors have have pulled away a lot of money from the US Treasury market, right? Um, and so we feel like that rates are still going to be volatile. We're not looking at, you know, rates going back to 2% or something like that anytime soon. So we'd expect everything to be sort of in the four to 5% range uh as we sort of go forward here. >> Yeah. >> And then the next question or comment was with the the money markets and the money leaving money markets and going into the market. >>
024Y uh do you have an indication of where that's going? Is it >> uh most is going into stocks? Yeah. >> Because stocks have been obviously a very very you know uh good portion of return of the last few years, right? Um, and that's one of the reasons I think that valuations are also going up as well, but that's starting to dry up a lot. Um, and so that's that's that gives us actually a little bit more pause about where the market can go. Morgan to student Morgan sings S&P 500 target is 6,500 on the S&P 500, which is basically where we are right now. Uh, that's in the next 12 months. So, we're expecting volatility, but really the market not to go uh too far from where it is right now. Um and you
025know I think our bare case is you know 5700 and our bull case is 72. >> Um do you think any of the money's leaving money markets because people are running out of money like the economy is slowing down and that's possibility. I mean I think it was maybe even a year or two ago that a lot of the stimulus from uh co you know had like kind of run out right um and so that's just another cause for concern. you are seeing sort of inflation starting to tick higher. I mean one, you know, the Fed didn't cut rates because inflation was going down. The Fed cut rates because of weakness in the labor market and they were worried about that. Um and uh yeah, we think that, you know, the economy is going to
026slow down a teeny bit. Uh but we don't think it's going to be any sort of, you know, disaster or recession or anything like that. And if it is a recession, it's going to be a very shortlived one. Thank thank you for your presentation. I appreciate you explaining at a level that I can understand. I know there's a couple experts from the board here. Um but certainly appreciate that. I think just a couple of things to note like on some of the title pages later on starts with Stephanie Lemon as the I she's the pointy or whatever, but then later it changes to our previous we have on here. >> Yeah, I know. We need to change that. We've been working on little typo by extent that's just yeah >> that's all but no thank
027you very much for tonight. So, one of the things I wanted to bring up is so we have the board of ed has responsibility for the pension fund, but I just wanted to explain because we have both candidates here tonight for the board of ed. And I don't want them to think, oh my gosh, we now have to be financial experts and decide what we're going to buy and sell. And so, can you just kind of explain? You're not the one that makes that. >> Sorry, I wanted to make sure distinction. So I hire managers that have you know expertise and are spending their full day looking at stocks and bonds and things like that and picking those stocks and bonds. So it's my job to do the asset allocation and to you know um
028uh allocate to the managers that have been approved on Morgan s platform and and that that we've done the due diligence on s platform. I'm not buying and selling stocks and doing things just because of how I feel. We're we're hiring professionals to do that. uh I'm the professional that uh oversees you know the impact of so >> right so we have kind of mutually agreed with Morgan Stanley the parameters that they take of the risk factor and what they're actually going to do so our responsibility as a board is we need to meet with Kevin twice a year to get an update on the pension fund so we had set up a meeting with Kevin in July and then we ended up canceling the July meeting, which is why he's here tonight. So now
029I'd kind of like to get back on track because we should get two reports a year, and suggest to the board that we now instead get a report in January and in June, and that would be six months apart because it doesn't it we don't have to get a certain figure that we put in our budget. that has nothing to do with the actual budget, but it fits in with um Stephanie's schedule with getting her report in the fall. So, we t talked about that earlier. So, thoughts on just putting it in our regular calendar now for January and June, >> like first meeting January, last meeting June. I would do I would do second meeting on both. >> Second meeting on both. That will give Morgan Stanley enough time to finish up the calendar
030year reports that you may need to do in December and get those over to me. And then in June, the closer to the end of June, the more information Kevin may have for us as far as how we're going to end it here. >> That's a good question. >> All right. So, it' be the second meeting in January and the second meeting in June. That fits into your schedule. >> Okay. >> Is it that I You're coming from where? Stanford. >> Yeah. >> Is it something that has to be done in person? >> Um I mean >> I'm up here so we have clients up here. It's not a problem at all. >> Yeah. >> If there's ever a conflict or any of that, obviously let you guys know beforehand, but yeah, happy to come
031in person. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> All right. I don't think we need a motion. I think we're just kind of This is the consensus and we're all on board with this. >> Okay. Does anyone have any other questions for Kevin? Did we go through the second part? >> The OPEs. Did we go through that? >> So, OPED's you know, invested similarly. It's uh 40.1% funded. It was up 7.55% for the fiscal year end. Uh and it's up uh 3 I think it was 325 for the year. >> I'm not familiar with that the term OPED. >> It's other post-employment benefits. Basically, it's the healthcare trust fund. >> Okay. So when you have a retiree that you know uh you know from the board of ed uh they get their pension based upon their
032salary but they also get healthcare benefits as well. So that's the healthcare benefits and that was started about 7 years ago. >> So that has increased as well. The funded ratio went from I think just under 30% uh as of 2020 to just over 41. So it should be around like I think 45% or something like that probably the next valuation. >> When was the um pension started? Good question. A long time ago. >> A long time ago. Yeah. >> Now you explain those my next questions like why is there different funding wise have a lot more time to run >> and we don't even at this point we're not tapping into the OPED because it is underfunded essentially. So we're still continuing to build it up um in the next this year and next
033year. Um USI is our um actuary services. They're not recommending even because the the fund is growing at a substantial rate. They're not requiring or requesting that the board put any money into it. So, it's not in our budget for this year or next year. That will change as we go. It's it'll change every year whether we have to fund it or not. >> That market perform part of that and then part of it's a liability you have to pay, right? So, if you get more retirees and you have to pay more money out, then you'll probably have to put more money, >> right? And as we go the the people that can participate in the retirement benefits becomes less because as we negotiate union contracts >> we change the parameters around participate. So the
034liability is just decreasing as well. >> Cool. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay. Opportunity to add or delete agenda items. >> Okay. So, we'll take a motion to approve the consent agenda. >> Yep. >> And a second from Mike. All right. Any questions? Five items on the consent agenda. Okay. All those in favor? That's unanimous. Okay. New business the first posting of our meeting schedule for 2026. Then we added um in the parentheses for the July meeting if needed. So, in the past, um, we didn't really used to have the July meeting. There was nothing that couldn't wait till August. Um, so we'll just leave that as an optional meeting. Otherwise, it's pretty much the same schedule. Okay. No questions? >> All right. Um, curriculum reports. Next meeting is October
03514th from 6:00 to 7:00. >> Okay. Uh policy, we met tonight. Uh we'll have three policies we'll post at the next meeting and our next meeting will be October 20, what did we say 22nd? Cuz the 14th is a Tuesday, so that's throwing me off. October 27th. >> Yeah. >> Okay. And we're going to meet at 6:15. Okay. Uh planning and finance. >> We have no meeting scheduled yet at this time. >> Okay. And sour negotiations. Um Carl is not here. Um so building committee. Um I think I sent an update out to the board. we met last week. So, we're meeting um the first and third Tuesdays, so we're moving ahead um slowly. Um but I think we had already agreed at the previous meeting. There's no way that we can get the project
036finished before the extension of December 31st, 2026. So, we're moving ahead with the split units. Um, we still need to get more detail on how much less this is going to cost and then applying for the possibility of new funding, which basically comes more out of the construction fund um than the money that's available from the state right now. Um, two advantages to that. If we can get that money, we would find out supposedly within 30 days of applying for the fund. The biggest advantage is if we get the money, there's no deadline on when it has to be used. There's also some thought of um we still need to I think really figure out when can we actually go out to bid on this part of the project. Do we have to wait until
037after we see if we get the funding or can we go ahead and go out for bid? So, we we kind of keep adding to the list of kind of unanswered questions. Um, which again, you know, all takes time. There's thought to going out to bid and having the project done during two different summers. Okay. So, what will the bids look like when we go out and ask people to bid 12 months ahead and 24 months ahead? How how do you do that with the uncertainty that's out there? So, we're going to kind of discuss that more. So CES is doing the new kind of design and because now we have that extra Tuesday in the month, we're not meeting, we're going to have three weeks between meetings. So the hope is by the next
038meeting we get the um information that we need from CES. So that's So who is passed? You guys come up with questions and they seem to keep growing. Who answers the questions? >> Well, uh, that's a good question in itself. Um, >> like it feels like we're just >> right. That's that's part of the frustration. >> So, the committee in Hartford with a big acronym is the one that supposedly is the one that will answer the questions. So part of the part of the frustration is you've got other schools in the district going through the same thing that we're going through where the project came in way more expensive. So, you've got other districts also looking into split units and they're trying to get answers from this one committee in Hartford. And about two weeks
039ago, I guess there was an email sent out to all these HVAC committees saying, "Please stop sending us emails. We're we're backed up and we'll respond to you as quickly as we can." So, you know, here we're meeting two weeks later and we we didn't get any we didn't really move forward. So, >> best case scenario on the 2027 if I understand that right. >> I think so. Yeah. So, um, we're going to continue to meet even though >> who at the building committee is responsible for disseminating all the questions you guys come up with to the right party and then putting the answers, >> right? And then Angela, the one that we're the building committee is paying to help us with this. Okay. is is Angela is is the one who's getting the information.
040So, what is this application? The new application. So, she's supposed to be, you know, getting this so we can get going cuz I said, so I'm assuming it's going to be up to Stephanie and Dr. Galloway to put all this information together. She's not doing it. So, it's it's kind of >> How many months have we lost at this point? Seven. >> Oh, more than that because we we had the announcement that the building committee was illegal and it had to stop meeting. >> What month was that? >> That was February. >> Is that late spring? >> Yeah, it was >> around February. >> And so then there was and the new committee had to be appointed, but the selectman didn't appoint the committee till June. So we lost those months right there. And now
041we had our first meeting in July. So >> So I did I did have finally got um a person on the phone. >> Oh. Oh. >> And well the office of school construction is under duress from previous scandal. Right. So for a while we were getting emails saying that you have to they will only respond via email and the responses to our questions were very short and truncated. So I I had a productive uh conversation uh with someone in the office. I sent forward a few questions. uh they responded and I sent another clarifying questions uh question and the representatives stated that there'll be a webinar uh in the beginning of October and I think they're probably loosening up um and starting to communicate. They did say that they would would be communicating with directly
042with superintendent andor a designate. So, I think that that scandal probably locked everything down, slowed everything down. Um, but I did have a a conversation somewhere and that took some duel. So, um, hopefully by the next time I can say, "Okay, we we've got the information. They're working on the application and when can we go out to bid and start locking things in and then come up with a plan." So, we'll keep going, but if you have any questions, just, you know, pop me an email. I'm trying to learn patience. So, we'll get there. >> Okay. Um, anything from SCF? Okay. >> Next meeting is October 1st. >> Okay. >> All right. Nothing from CIP. Carl is in here for correct. All right. Advanced calendar was in your red folder. Um so it's basically the
043open houses that are coming up. [Music] >> Okay. Audience the citizen staff students questions comments. >> Yes. >> Lisa. >> Um I had a couple questions. Um, first, uh, regarding the special ed program, I'm just wondering, I I don't know anything about them and I'm so grateful for your work on behalf of our students. Um, what types of metrics are used to evaluate success? You know, for nonsp special ed students, we most people know, you know, you have your graduation or whatever it is. How how do you measure success of a special ed program? Does it have to be highly highly individualized? Because you said each program is vary email. Each student has an individualized education program. an IEP that has goals and objectives that are created and re, you know, kind of put together
044through the PBT process based on areas of deficit that are found either through evaluation, progress monitoring data, um, parent student feedback is really important. Um, day-to-day classroom progress as well. And through those goals and objectives, weekly progress monitoring or depending on the progress monitoring schedule, information and data is collected to let me know if the IEP is is basically effective and if the students are making achievements towards those goals are effective. Um, in my specialized programs, they had highly specialized IEPs. Um or we're tracking very specific data either in the area of life skills, vocation, transition goals, um post-secondary employment, executive functioning, social emotional goals, reading, math, writing, occupational therapy, sometimes you know physical therapy goals, speech language goals, um assisted technology, something like we have it's a whole it's a very comprehensive very multi-um
045faceted approach. And so that's what we do. But it's highly efficient for any student within Thank you very I don't want to monopolize. >> No, go ahead. I'll go after um regarding uh Kevin Nichols. I was wondering if um he and Morgan Stanley handle the schools or the school systems advising on a fee only basis or is it a commission basis? >> Fee only. >> It is. Yeah. >> Okay. And then on the building committee, um, do it's it sounds like it everything's quite up in the air from the state, but do you do you have any sense of and maybe Stephanie is talking with people, any sense of the likelihood of getting the funding from the office of school construction and how will the state dis decide? Will it be first come, first served
046or some other? >> We have no idea. >> Um, I just had a follow-up question. Um, so you roughly 35 students in the specialized programs. Just wondering if there's any data on outcomes. Are they making it to graduation? How many years? Four, five. Once they do make it that transition out, do they have the support as in going to Bureau of Rehabilitative Services, the connection with Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services or Nunchuk or that sort of thing. Um, I think it's great that we have the programs, but are we getting them over the hump to where they need to be in a timely manner is is kind of the next question. Well, transition services over the past few years in the state of Connecticut have really expanded um as have the eligibility criteria.
047A lot of the students in the RISE program are looking at the 18 through 22 transition. Um that's a PPT decision whether they are 18 and they've completed high school requirements even if it's a heavily modified program. They'll get a certificate of completion until they and then move into a transition program at which time yes they are connected we'll have representatives at CPTs when applicable um help with autism waiver things like that to make sure they're connected to outside services. In terms of our sore program, which is more the social emotional piece, um, a lot of our students, I would say majority of them are absolutely graduating. Um, some of them are on a 5-year track just because 25 credits when you're dealing with pretty extreme trauma in some cases or social emotional need is
048is challenging. Um, so we have a really close level programming, a lot of intensive support. There are some students, it's been just a very small number that we help receive, you know, between 15 to 18 credits who are looking like it will take longer than the five years or the parent wishes to um kind of pursue alternative education options and so some of them will go into we have a partnership with Enfield so they'll go into the adult diploma program >> um and or the GED program. Okay. >> Um so yes, they leave with a plan. >> Yeah, that's good. Yeah. >> Yeah. I mean, five five years for students who may not make it at all, I think is great. >> It is. And that's an accomplishment. >> When I started, we had three
049programs in district. We now have seven um with a goal of keeping our students in district and also on a road to success for postsecary whatever that may be depending on the individual. How many are placed out of district? Um we have that's a complicated question. So, um we have eight through PBT. We have three in transition right now. Um and you know a couple of other scenarios but um >> mostly but we've had less and less especially for rise developmental need. Yeah. >> Um and even social emotional you know and unless there's a a real reason where we're looking at a a you know agree with a family on an out placement for some reason. Um we do try to keep keep our our kids in the district. So a lot of progress in
050those areas. Um, first of all, I just want to say I think the work that you do in summer is just personal experience. I'm so proud to be a member of this community and um that I know the wonderful work that you do personally. think so I want to say that um I think that I don't know about you but I think that as um in the work that I do as well I think that we're always constantly looking for better progress monitoring postgraduation cuz we're like what happened right you know and I think that I'm looking forward to speaking out to you about that just saying I totally understand um at some point we'll we'll revisit and and probably talk about transition steps because that will be my next thing to try to put
051into place for um we we've done everything else and working on those but really proud of those um and transition to the next focus for whatever our kids to make sure they they are successful. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> And then I would assume in October will be the assessment data presentation for ESPback scores um AP SAT all of that stuff. >> That's the target date. >> I only say that because we just did ours so I know it's got to be knocking around the corner. Okay. So, it goes through the curriculum committee and then to the board. So, I assume that probably the target for October. >> Sorry, curriculum be 14th, the next month. >> Yeah. >> So, then it wouldn't >> probably like the next meeting >> probably. Okay. So, probably not till
052like the end of October, beginning >> possibly the the next 14. >> Okay. Um I guess it's not already considered. I'm just wondering in the results um when looking at comparisons um across their um in neighboring towns if next steps aren't identified. It would be really helpful to hear what the next steps are. Um you know, there's always work to be done even when we have growth, but to know what the next steps are in place. Um it's helpful um when looking and hoping to see continued growth, >> right? And some of those kind of next steps is what we've addressed the last two years with the new reading program last year and now this year the new math program K through eight. >> Yeah. But every year we implement those we learn more things,
053right? And so what can we do like what are the next steps learned from that that help us catch them sooner, >> right? Um because just looking at some of the scores I mean I know we'll talk more with the supports we have there's I'm sure you're all doing the same there's a missing something there right like I would expect to see us continue to climb looking at that so just curious as to we got all the ingredients what's that >> right if I may just just comment on that you know I've been working really closely with SCES leadership and teachers as well you know we We are really focused on what happens in K one and two leading up to grade three. You know, I've been here 2.5 years or so and just little
054things. You know, third graders were taking that first assessment on iPads. That's that's a thing we we got to change that, right? The cooperation of the board now gives us the tools that a K5 reading program that is aligned to standards. >> Y >> that's new, >> right? There's a partnership with Eastcon now about the data team process. You know, I I worked with Doug Reeves and Larry Ainsworth in my school. >> So, I'm very a stickler about that process and and now the staff is receiving professional development with how to run that process. Now, we have the curriculum that's aligned to standards. That's SCES. Now, at MBA, we now have this K8 math program. Now we're talking about align to standards, priority standards, which >> is new learning for some people. And you know
055what was it's been interesting work in my 2.5 years because as as an outsider looking at the data coming in, I was wondering like why are we outperforming the the neighbors, right? And part of it is a curricular issue. >> Yeah. >> Right. And and the next part of it is focusing on the right thing. the right thing is the priority standards, right? And then having that data team process in place so adults meet, discuss, come up with a plan and it becomes this recursive process. And interestingly enough, at at the high school, if you just look at the school performance index score, that is the highest performing school in the district right now. >> So So we have, you know, the the prelude to all of this is we have what I would say
056pockets of excellence. Right. And and it's our charge now to to maintain a high level of student achievement and be able to maintain that over time. So So that's the work we're engaged in. I would be happy to talk about that uh when we do the data presentation. It's it's not perfect. You know, we we we've seen huge gains in decrease in chronic absenteeism, right? Uh a year ago, I said that's lowhanging fruit for us to go after that we could immediately impact. Uh it may not sound like a lot, but the physical education scores mean something when you talk about comparing DUR to DUR. Th those things matter. And you know, they've hit the marks that I've asked them to with with regard to this lowhanging fruit. Now, moving the needle with student performance
057is going to be that that persistent work to get us to incremental change that sustains over time. >> Yeah. So just like that type of thing I think sharing that in the presentation helps to give I mean in education you live it every day right but when you're just looking at some of the numbers I'm just hearing it as you're sitting in games and you're hearing those things and I just think so just a snapshot of kind of like what you just shared in that I think is really helpful um because we see peaks and valleys like you can definitely see trends in SCS and then you go into the middle school and you'll have one that's here like you're seeing those And those are the things I think that if if we can share
058more of what's going to be next >> will help change those conversations at the gates, right? Because there's way more going on >> and way more work not just with our students but professional development for our educators which is essential to keep that going >> that people don't know about. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I'll be happy happy to talk about that. You know, there's been amazing community support from SCF. I have over 20 teachers who who are trained. They now have uh the Looker Studio platform. When I sat there and interviewed for the job, I said, "Well, how do teachers and leaders actually analyze student performance data?" They didn't have a platform to do that. >> I know. >> So, you know, the you know, right? So these things as an outsider coming in I
059was like oh this piece is missing and this piece is missing and and to your point we have the pieces in place and now our our job is to make sure we have the ability to monitor student progress over time and change course instructionally when necessary. >> Right. I think you have I think we have all the ingredients and I think just sharing that especially as families make decisions about private schools versus public I think it the more we can get that out there >> the better it is for all of us >> y >> I think there's also other things outside of just education and curriculum that play into it like access to summer school during elementary years is I think you know so I don't have an education background I'm just a you
060know former parent obviously my kids go to a different school now, but when they were in elementary school, the only time they were able to go to extended school year was when we had CO funding and we didn't have to pay for it and they qualify for it. Okay? So, you're talking about checking these kids in grades 3, four, and five, yet you make it hard for the kids to go to extended school year or make it palatable for kids to want to go. Cost prohibited for maybe some kids. You know, if they made that more attractive, you would get the constant like learning throughout the summer for some of the kids that are struggling. And I feel like that's lowhanging fruit, you know. Then you talk about the change going into middle school and
061then we had the nurse here, right? Kids are hungry, right? So there's other pieces that factor into the the education and kids taking tests and and how they, you know, present in in it's not just always curriculum in the school and in the classrooms. I think there's more to the student that we sometimes forget about when we're in the education field all the time is that we're not seeing some of those outlying other factors that the kids deal with. >> So, correct. And and to that point, um I asked our our leaders to focus on the accountability indicators which highlights where the deficits are with regard to and and that's a weakness for us closing the gaps for for students who have have needs. But now that's been illuminated like if you can't fix a
062problem if you had not identified that to be the problem. >> Yeah. >> So >> I just don't think it should always only be open to kids who have the need, right? Like why why do you have to qualify for summer school to get extra reading help? Why do we not have more tutoring opportunities for kids when they're younger? You know, if you get them when they're younger. >> Well, I understand. I'm saying access, right? You need to have access to these for the kids. Why do they have to qualify or have bad scores and then you have the oh, you're going to summer school? It can't just be like extended learning for anybody who wants it. I'll make sure that when I brief I talk about summer school a little bit. That hasn't been
063a focus in my 2.5 years here. I'll be happy to talk about that. >> Yeah. >> You know, because part part of our our charge, what I'm asking our our leaders and teachers to do is to meet kids exactly where where they are >> using solid data and and then we plan from that point forward. Okay. So, I'll just add a postcript here with our special ed, you know, kind of presentation tonight. So, this is a new mandate from the state that annually the superintendent has got to report on special ed and what we're doing and what the numbers are. So, this we will do the same time um next year. This will now be an annual um update. So, this wasn't just by chance. It's something that they're saying you got to do and
064it's good to get everybody on the same page. So, thank you, Dr. Pal. >> Sure. >> Okay. Um I think I think we're we're all set. >> Yes. Sorry. >> Okay. So, we will take a motion to adjurnn. >> I'll make a motion to adjurnn. >> Okay. Second from Jan. All those in favor? >> All right. We are adjourned at 7:54. Thank you for coming. [Music]