001yep [Music] something at the very beginning maybe just one little tiny second hello good times good evening i'd like to call the stonington board of education a regular meeting to order it's may 12 6 32 pm and uh first thing we have is pledge of allegiance and i'd like to ask mr donahue to lead us [Music] indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] thank you um we'll move on to communication recognitions and uh before we move to retirement recognition i just want to open the floor if there are any other recognitions that dr riley do you have any no chris do you have any sir recognitions yeah i just wanted to uh congratulate the new assistant superintendent that just got hired and the new finance director and i also want to acknowledge everyone here
002tonight that's uh retiring congratulations on long distinguished careers thank you well um this last week on friday i was invited for lunch at west vine and it was totally lovely i did misinterpret the noted lunch stop hero day on the calendar as a celebration of superheroes and so i wore my grandson's superhero batman cape and mask to the school and um but it was kindness week so the student leadership practiced their kindness and they did not make me feel out of place so that was the beginning was very very nice and then they turned me toward me all around to music class the art class um their library and several classrooms in session and all the students were great broad smiles and acted very kindly um that so i i did leave west vine regretting
003that i could not pass as a second grader because i would have applied immediately but then i thought maybe what kathy might do is add elder hostile as a line item to your budget for next year then i can consider it so thank you very much it was lovely sir um i'd like to mention sally and our wonderful art department at stonington high school there is another exhibit going on we have two students who are part of an exhibit at the mystic museum of art and that is going on through the end of the month so if you're over on the groton side come check out our students artwork i'd like to recognize our national honor society who had a blood drive with the american red cross today with um 30 student and staff donors
004yeah nice nice chris also said welcome alicia's new principal at the high school so oh absolutely yeah so we have a new uh tradition that we're starting tonight in retirement recognition uh we have um quite a few retirees with quite a few number of years of service um so i'm gonna take up to the podium and i'm asking each one of you to please come up to accept a certificate and a bell and maybe we if you can bring it as a [Music] school bell uh signalizing uh your retirement that would be fantastic so please allow me a second thank you so uh the first retiree has been with us for 18 years it's a privilege to ask mrs paula higgins to come up to here here we go it rank on its own no
005you're supposed [Music] wow not the second or the third most ten yard here and retiring tonight uh great friend mr flanagan tim flanagan congratulations uh 19 years of service the great mark freeze [Music] 16 years of service angelo jito did i get that that's fine we'll miss you angela 15 years of service vicky mccourt these spells just work on their own 22 years of service susan mcveigh uh 40 1 41 years of service thank you very much to andrea nardon [Applause] that's incredible so you know labor laws were different 41 years ago so andrea was hired at the age of nine nine years of service dr van reilly uh 21 years of service i'm not sure sharon reilly is here she's not here okay oh and three years of service teresa rausch uh six years
006of service gary shell [Music] and last but not least 21 years of service alisa whitman thank you and congratulations we wanted to all ring our bills together so do it so it's it's never recommended that you eat cake before dinner but we're going to eat cake before dinner tonight so we have a cake here to celebrate all the retirees and we're going to take just a quick break that'll allow them to uh enjoy some cake and if because if they choose to go home that that will be wonderful so i didn't mean it that way so i'll bring the cake up here no where's [Music] take it out [Music] yeah but i i'm going to be really interested in how we feel about just watching i think several times my three-year-old grandson last year just
007turning two was really interested in how he was different from girls and he talked about it a lot and was constantly um asking to take showers with his mother not because it was lovely lovely i see that and then it's well if you want you can change those parts sort of like liquids and that's is um so you know what's interesting this is just to all the retirees uh great moment 12th celebration so now item four on our agenda is comments from citizens regarding items on this agenda thank you um first i would like to say i know most from left but congratulations i mean definitely an exciting time in their lives to be hitting retirement and i'm sure hearing the many years um that they've spent in this district that they've definitely left an
008imprint on many of the students who have come through these halls um and i think that this is a great tradition to set up i think this was really cute and um i definitely enjoyed watching that so um i also wanted to uh take the opportunity to say congratulations to tim and alicia and alicia i pronounced that right um i look forward to seeing what you guys do with the district in your new roles i know you guys have spent some time here and i just as a parent i look forward to some of these fresh faces and positions also in looking at the agenda the enrollment was kind of concerning to me i looked at last year's agenda around this time and the enrollment since 2020 is just steadily dropping um so i mean
009by severe percentages and i like double checked my math because i was like i think i'm doing this wrong and i i wasn't so i just want to say that i hope that we are heading in a new direction and creating bonds with parents that they have um that they feel safe with staying with stonington schools and that some of the comments i've heard from the past i won't be hearing as our kids move up through the school system and i think from going to teach and learn there are some awesome courses and some new courses coming up that are going to be great and i think opening up into the trades will not lose as many students um and just i think if we head on this path and create this environment i'm hoping
010that those enrollment numbers will start to trend up instead of downward um as a parent heading out of the covid world we've been living in life has been great at the elementary school level we've had field trips we've had basket raffles we're planning for field day it's a lot cramming into the end of these last couple months as the weather's kind of getting nice but it's been really invigorating and i can't think of something that's more beneficial to our children's actual social and emotional learning than being able to engage in these things seeing their smiles on those field trips as they're digging through spelman pond um you know at the basket raffle when they're running through the halls with their friends and doing these things this is what's bringing them back to life and um
011so i just want to say thank you to jen because it's been going great at um dean's mill and i'm sure at the other schools as well and i think this is where we really need to focus on these type of community things and this engagement for our children a concern i have is obviously some curriculum things and just things coming down from the state a requirement of schools to participate in surveys that might be coming out of the department of public health and i just as a board i just want you guys to be alert and aware if there's a way that we can start as parents as community members teachers staff and boards to kind of push back on the state and say enough's enough your hands are in our school systems enough
012let's not keep allowing them to infringe on this to put on greater restrictions to require more in our schools that doesn't benefit the education of our children spending time on a survey for their statistical analysis does not benefit my child's time in that building so i'm just hoping that um you guys can be aware and alert to these things and as a board representing stonington that you guys can kind of push back and i you know i've seen other boards start to do that over the last couple years with things coming from the state um you know reaching out to the state saying you know as a board where you know we're not looking to implement these types of things in our school district so i'm hoping that we can kind of come together as
013a community to push back um for the benefit of our teachers burdensome our staff members our administrators and our children and then just one last note i know it was brought up last meeting and i know it's kind of been one of those things that we've talked about and haven't really talked about and um i've just had some parents come to me with a concern over columbus day on the calendar and i think that i was at the meeting where we thought it was not removed from the calendar so it was very confusing i think everybody in the room that day thought it was back on the calendar and many thought it was until the new calendar came out and it was like oh oh no that was removed the day even wrote a paper
014article about how stonington didn't remove it from the calendar so i don't think that we need to be choosing or cancelling one for the other i think that anybody who's sitting here and trying to do the dei approach we need to we need to look at both we need to celebrate both it's all part of our history you don't cancel one and put the other one in so i just ask that maybe we have an opportunity um to kind of just look that over again and see if there's a way that we do we do both we don't cancel one for the other and i think that both are very important indigenous people saying columbus day to our history to our area to our community members i'm not italian i'm portuguese but i know that
015there's a lot of people that are really hurt by this because that day meant something to them and i don't want to mitigate their feelings for somebody else's and that's what we shouldn't be teaching our children to do we should say okay we have two people here and here's how we celebrate and teach about both of them so i just would like to maybe look into doing something like that or i don't know how that could be approached or community members could come together and kind of talk this through but i know that there are still some people who are really bothered by this so i just wanted to bring that to everyone's attention thank you thank you ashley any other comments [Music] all right juniors you ready all right the floor is yours let's
016go okay hi i'm etta um and for our junior project we worked on we worked together and came up with the idea of designing and implementing a mural for the courtyard in our school the junior project allows the juniors in student government to demonstrate that we are able to organize student government as seniors the following year hi i'm sergio um during the fall and spring teachers and students love to go outside and take advantage of the nice weather by eating lunch or holding class in the courtyard but right now the courtyard is very bare and empty so our mission and goal is to put a courtyard i put a mural in the courtyard to make the courtyard more welcoming better looking and overall promote school spirit hello hello my name is kelsey anderson and i'm
017going to be discussing the design process and location of our mural so the design that you see closest to me was a first design that talented student government member helen gross created and after some discussions with mr anderson we found that all the different colors and designs are going to be extremely expensive so again helen went back to work and really made a fantastic design which really embraces the school spirit of sewing in high school with all colors brown and gold and white and she really did a good job at embracing the school and making it very community so our first location was going to be on the ground and paint but we did but after discussing mr anderson again we found that having it be on the on the building within the courtyard would
018be a lot easier so more people could see and we are also going to do the design in vinyl so that it's more sustainable and will last longer and it's easier to take down and refurnish and put back up as well as a cheaper alternative alternative and more people will be able to see it uh for our resource i'm i'm we'll fight by the way um for our resources and advisors we have mrs dench who is the student government advisor she got us through the process kind of met with us to organize show us what the whole project entails um and mr anderson who is the sony public schools facilities director he assisted us in getting a quote for the project and showing us the whole you know parameters of the project um kristin king
019of humans who is the human services youth and family administrator uh she helped us find out about potential grant opportunities uh and also julie holland of human services was also an important link between us and human services hi everyone my name is anders dahl and i'm going to talk about our plan to accomplish first we received approval from ms daw mr freeze and mr mcdonald for our mural designed to go on the courtyard wall then we met with mr anderson to figure out the location and size and slash material of the mural and then we had once we figured out the design we had mr anderson send the design for a mural to printing plus for a quote on how much it would cost to print then we applied for a grant from something human
020services and found our means of fundraising to pay for it and then we presented to student government on april 28th we then presented to the stonington high school staff and right now we're presenting to you guys the board of education and after we receive approval from this we are going to print the mural and have our maintenance crew at the school hang it up in the courtyard hi i'm martha bella and i'm going to be talking about our funding and um yeah so we worked closely with mr anderson um thank you uh and he we worked together with him to get a quote from printing plus which is in westerly so it's a local business um we received the quote today and the final design it's going to be two 1152. for pvc and one
021thousand two hundred ninety six dollars for aluminum um we did find out that aluminum is going to last longer um and we've also looked into some other options online um because this is a little bit pricey for us but we also have fundraising that we're looking into so our current fundraiser that we're doing right now is on an apparel shop called bonfire.com and um right now we have three designs we have i don't know if you can see it but there's one that says don't poke the bear on the back and shs on the front and then we have go bears and then we have stonington bears on the front and those are in all different colors and like shirts sweatshirts um we also have mugs which actually have our design of the mural on
022the mug so if you're interested in getting any of that you can contact kyle or us for the link to our website but also we're looking at alternative ways to fund such as a bake sale in the community so yeah thank you so for connection to the four c's um for convince why is this project beneficial to stonington high school so we decided that putting up a mural in the courtyard will promote a creative and positive environment in our school both in and out of the classroom for communicate what does this project involve it involves us working collaboratively to choose a location the school that'll be best fit for a mural finalizing a design and opting for implementation option that encourages longevity as this mirror will be made so a vinyl sign can be resistant
023against weather conditions and then for consider what is a purpose of our project so we hope to beautify our school to make lunch and classes outdoors more enjoyable during warm weather as it will promote school spirit among our student body and then lastly for connect how has technology helped us become an active participant in our community helen a member in our group used an online program to create a design and we also use technology to gather info on the logistics of the design process and contacting people for a project as well including administration teachers estimating high school and human services okay i'm sarah thank you guys so much for listening to us does anyone have any questions about the project well um the vinyl would be like on the side of the row if you
024ever seen like campaign signs it would be that type of material but that won't last as long as the aluminum which is more of like a street sign material and with that if the design starts to like wear or the weather starts to get to it they can peel off the original like designed printed knot and reprinted on there for a lot less than just replacing the whole entire design so we can keep the mural around for longer uh it's six feet by six feet we're going to have the maintenance crew bolted directly into the brick on the wall so it's going to be locked in insecure um well it's very durable so that's something further down the line but we do uh but other student government members i'm sure can find a means of
025fundraising that will be able to cover the less expensive costs of replacing it for the downline yes definitely awesome [Music] thank you anybody else okay any other questions thank you for your time thank you for our juniors for the thoughtful project and the great presentation all right we have item six on our agenda is the consent agenda anything you'd like to move or may i have a motion to approve i have a motion to approve the consent agenda do i have a second second by mrs simmons and uh all in favor please indicate by saying aye that was unanimous um item seven on our agenda is the second read and approval of the curriculum for the stonington history and patterns and designs any comments or suggestions or emotion to approve i have a motion to
026approve the curriculum may i have a second second sorry sir any discussion all right all those in favor please indicate by saying aye aye aye anyone against abstentions motion passes and we have a first read for vocational math and entrepreneurship i hope you'll have the chance to review those curriculums so we can bring them back into our june meeting item nine on our agenda is superintendent report dr riley yes just very briefly you all have a list of the end of the year all the different events and we encourage you to participate lots of things going on between now and the end of school also each meeting talk about our covid where we are we have had a few um positive tests with covert with staff members and some students as you hear from the
027national news the whole northeast section including new york new jersey massachusetts at least those three are moving up in the serious realm where there are some recommendations to be wearing masks again and i can confirm we have not uh our health department has not suggested that yet so i know we've had some questions about that so hopefully we can get through this this school year without any changes in our covered protocols that's it thank you dr ali any question dr riley about his report [Music] all right thank you item 10 on our agenda is a budget discussion direction and uh i'll i'll give dr reilly the floor yes thank you um as you know um then we brought i brought um recommendations and some options to the finance committee right before this meeting and i'd
028like to just summarize those you have a spreadsheet in front of you and some of those things have changed based on the direction from the uh the finance committee there is no need this evening for the board to take action on this we'll be bringing these back um some some items will have some clarification in the june meeting and again these are uh my recommendations but they're between now and june and even after that into the summer the board can consider one when and how to implement some of these the first one is to eliminate the new knight custodian position that's that would be a savings of 79809 and again as you know the board of finance cut your budget by 308 000 so we need to have a plan to make that up during
029the year one of the options was to look at the athletic trainer at the high school it's an increase of 51 350. i recommend that we do not reduce that that person would become a district employee the current status of the athletic trainer they're consultants basically outside people and we've had different not only us but other districts have had difficulty making sure that we have the right number of people at the at the games and practices etc so this would be an a an employee so that is not a reduction one of the uh considerations what as you know we have in our budget to increase four para positions to full time and the we we're looking at going to eight a total of eight by next year and the finance committee suggested that we
030keep all eight and we not reduce that at all the other item is the elementary instrumental music teacher the amount of that is around fifty thousand dollars and the recommendation from the finance committee is to keep that position in the budget for now then we have three positions um the middle school music high school science and are retiring these are all retirees social worker and these all three of these individuals are in the top steps and by replacing them at the masters level we would be saving approximately 26 000 for each position the next one is maintenance repair to reduce that by just a little over nine thousand dollars the maintenance repair budget is over three hundred thousand so it's not a big reduction but it would help then at the high school we uh
031with alicia dog moving to the principal she is in the associate principal level we will be hiring an assistant instead of the associate and that's a savings of thirteen thousand two oh one on the list of options is to redo eliminate magnet transportation and you can see that that's an option it's something you might want to think about but i would suggest not doing that those are our students going to magnet schools and as far as i know most if not all other districts provide transportation for their magnet students but that is one run and it could save fifty six thousand dollars if you ever need to to look at that we always talk about the health reserve and at this point we're projecting a minimum uh ending balance of basically zero and so having
032something come into the health reserve at this point is not feasible we'll have more on that in june the next two positions are part-time these are uh two periods of chemistry two periods of english and these are vacant positions for next year and they're not needed with our decreasing enrollment this doesn't affect anyone any students uh options for programs but we would just not fill those and then the next one is the hr director um as you know we've had a lot of discussion about the importance of this and the finance committee in order to keep some of these other positions um suggested that we change that to hiring that person mid-year next year rather than at the beginning and then there's a vacancy in the business office then we my suggestion is that we
033fill that we need that position so with all those reductions and moving that hr director to hiring mid-year you're going to be able to save the 308 000 that the board of finance cut from your proposed budget and again i'll be happy to answer any questions also this is something for you to think about if you have any questions between now and june give me a call or let me know and uh because we can add things or you know move things around there's no uh immediate hurry to approve this it's just i wanted to give you some options and then some of my recommendations and then again the finance committee made three changes uh just during the meeting before this board meeting um so the other item under this before we get to questions
034is the ending balance and um again gary confirmed that right now the projection is really to have no ending balance this year there could be some with no more in june there have been two big uh recent costs for the district one of them was an increase in uh non-public school tuition to the tune of 175 i think it was here around that 175 thousand and again we as we explained we we don't control those that we have we get the bill and we have to pay it and the other was an increase in the current year's health costs um that had that was increased by another 200 000 so any potential and i think that's why we keep getting these messages let us know what the ending balance is and the ending balance last
035month could have been 300 400 000 more than it is today because we had these two big expenses so if you start talking it before the end of the year you know next year and in the future just realize that things can happen and will happen towards the end but right now the projected ending balance is basically nothing zero and the last item is the cip and this is the middle school's hvac system as you know the the board put in 1.4 million of the arp funds that would fund approximately half of the air conditioning system we asked the the board of finance to approve the other half they did not they approved 500 000 and uh at the finance committee's uh suggestion to peter he'll he'll see if there is a way to phase
036this in uh in my experience doing this for many many years uh it may that may not be possible if you don't have the funding you really shouldn't bid it out and you don't want to split bids and have two different contractors but we'll get some more information on that probably by july i think peter when we get the the engineering study done it was interesting that lin young the board of finance liaison to the board of ed made the suggestion that since we don't have enough money to fund the whole air conditioning project that the board of ed consider that 500 000 that has been approved for other capital needs if necessary i think that's something you'll have to talk with the board of finance about obviously because if there is a need you'll
037need to transfer that money from the 500 000 if you needed you know something for more hvac or a roof or something else you'd have to get their permission to do that but that was her suggestion but you'll need to to look seriously next fall probably and before the the next budget cycle if the board of finance is not going to fund half of the air conditioning then you'll need to consider what you do the third year out with that with your 1.4 million dollars of our funds it can't if it can't go towards a start towards the air conditioning then you can use it for students for the the kinds of things that we're doing right now that are being very successful such as the additional math math teachers and social workers and counselors
038and and reading specialists and even regular classroom teachers um you've seen that list that we have about a dozen employees that are really helping our students get back on track with with academics so that would you want to make sure you spend the money before the deadline or at least encumber it otherwise you'll lose it so if it can't be air conditioning that it should be first for the students and academics i would suggest that's something again by i would say by mid-year by you know next december somewhere you should have the plan you should know by then what the board of finance is going to do if anything to help fund the air conditioning so those are the three budget items be happy to answer any questions if not we'll bring them back all
039these in june anyway for updates [Music] on the athletic trainer increase is that the full-time position salary or is there uh um taking the fact that we're not going to be paying the consultants now and then saving money or is it that's on top currently the consultants i think it's around 35 000 and this is in addition to that to hire a full-time trainer that would be an employee so that's the salary and the benefits for that full-time position and all the items on the left really is just um it's not part of the proposal just items on the right and the by the comments is what you know what carries over to the reduction line is what is proposed these other ones are here every year um i know some of you are new
040but i put options on here in case for instance if you thought you know the athletic trainer was not important as something else then you could you have other options on here these are the ones that we thought could be possible for you like magnet transportation i didn't recommend you do that but it is something you could do um so again my recommendations are in the right column and i'll redo this with the with the changes from the finance committee um because that was those were unanimous decisions in there for the eight full-time pair as the music teacher and they're holding on the hr director until mid-year if we don't provide magnet transportation where does that leave the students and the parents on their own they have to provide their own transportation or attend our
041schools i don't think we should cut that i don't either but it's not you know it is an option is there is there any contracted agreement between the parent and magnet school it it seems as if we are really making a statement about magnet schools say if you want to go find a way to get there and they they have to enroll in the magnet school no no i understand that but i thought that the transportation came along no that's up to the local district but i know gary we talked as far as we know everybody every other district provides transportation for their banking students it's just yeah i know that you say magnet schools we're talking the marine science and groton we're talking the magnet school at london high school or next to northern
042high school we're talking ledger volag grosso tech the tech school we have yeah we have to that's not in here just those three schools in or there's uh there's two there's actually three it's [Music] maybe get some more information do we have do we the number of kids that go there is it a 30 we have around 60 students in magnet schools and we transport 39. the other 21 are okay they get there some other way they drive or on the um the hvac system wasn't there something with the state doing with the grant program or something is that in the are we in the process of applying for that there are no no applications or parameters yet that would be something that we will certainly follow and look at there's not enough money to
043do the number of air conditioning systems in the state not even close so it will be on a point system of some sort probably yeah it just got approved correct in the budget correct so that's something we can look into oh yeah we on we're on that and hopefully by having at least 50 or right you know two-thirds almost uh that'll help you would think but you never know to the group that's here the five of us we can either vote on what the finance committee has recommended or take it and wait until we don't have to vote today but we can wait until june and vote in june and have the other two board members present it's it's totally up to us right here right now this moment if you choose to vote of
044uh between what it's the blend of what dr riley and the administration is recommending and what the finance committee is recommending god wait say we wait if we choose to wait um the assist the um high school administration position is that not able to move forward in the hiring process no we're already there yeah great we decided early on it would be the assistant i mean if when we brought it to the board for the associate it was a special situation because the candidate was a current principal um so there was that thinking so definitely this is the uh the assistant it's already out and it's already to the so we're not going to hold you up oh no great so there's no adverse effects to pushing it to next month no not at all
045i would recommend it except there are some if we were interested in hiring some of these teachers that are right here the sooner that we get it out i then we have more choice of of teachers so i think for example the um the music the instrumental i know we've dragged our heels before our music and then that caused a problem so i'd like to see that out as as soon as possible um maybe you hold some back but i i don't know what our our conundrum is and i don't know what we're we're really trying to work out and the other two people push i don't know why we're we're waiting the only position in here at all that would we're filling the ones that say retiring and replacing at that level the only
046one would be the elementary music and if you just give me the knot tonight we can move forward with that that's the only item on here that really is time sensitive that's a good point guys was that a nod heidi yeah she giving you the nod [Laughter] not away i think everybody's nodding here that we are we would like the board would like to see uh the administration moving forward with hiring instrumental teacher for elementary schools yes before the time we will do that thank you i think we need you some more information and some more deliberation on all these other recommendations such as the magnet school transportation or the half a year the business office um personnel or holding off on that it was it wasn't a recommendation by the administration or the finance
047committee to cut the magnet i think dr reilly is just saying sharing with us what we are obligated or not obligated to do and some of the items that were are either added to the budget next year or can be cut from the budget next year but the magnet transportation he he left it here because it can be eliminated however he's not recommending to eliminate magnet school transportation nor is the finance committee it will have an adverse effect on 39 families in the communities and i'm not sure we and every other community provides it as well so i just want to clarify that point um [Music] what would be helpful i think dr riley if you take out the items that were not you know not recommended by you not passed by the finance committee
048and and resend it out to the board yes just so we can all review it and then um you know we have a strong nod here for to hire the um the elementary instrumental music teacher and we'll move forward on on voting for it in june fair sounds good all right excellent thank you very good um where's our incoming superintendent report she wants to cut magnet transportation [Music] good evening i wanted to just give you um the board some updates on my transition plan and how things are going and i'm going to start with some updates on some community partnership work uh yesterday i had the um the privilege of meeting with our new police chief and our first select woman we explored some ways that we can support each other's goals the team's going
049to meet again in june we had many interesting ideas exchanged on potential collaborations and i want you to stay tuned for more updates because i'm not cleared yet to give any specifics so that's a teaser we also met or i also met with the educational leadership team at mystic seaport who's very interested in collaborating with us on our diversity equity and inclusion work and also exploring some ideas of how they can include in their grant they have a large grant with the dalio foundation our work with the witness stone project that the eighth graders will be embarking on next year at the middle school so i'm very very open to working with them they're even asking for maybe some potential partnerships with them working with our staffs together this morning the ceo eric eisenhart of
050nes was at district office today and he was addressing our principles and inviting us to participate in a free profession professional development opportunity he invited 20 he's inviting us for to have 20 of our teachers participate in an 18-hour professional development uh opportunity free of charge on expedition expeditionary learning and that what that is is basically teaching our teachers how to teach any content um with the kids doing the the work doing the learning and aligns very closely with our student engagement efforts that we've been in working with you east con on we're going to start probably primarily with our elementary and middle school science teachers but we already have one high school teacher that's um has expressed interest in doing that uh the idea is that we're helping out our community partner ness in
051a pilot program with this professional learning opportunity that they want to roll out nationally so we'll be one of three districts that are participating um and it's a huge nod to us to be leaders in a program that will get rolled out at that level so very exciting to do that all of that it will also open up all of the lessons that ness has developed that are standards based it will open up those lessons to our teachers free of charge so it's an amazing nod and confidence and um you know an extent of a a wonderful opportunity for our teachers so when we have that roster um you know compiled i'll give you an update on that but the professional development won't happen until the fall and it will be during our normal professional
052development calendar for those teachers we also have been invited by electric boat to become a partner in a cte project that they have designed for elementary kids and again the rachel and barakas i don't know how they found her but it's because of our stem program at the elementary schools they thought it was a natural bridge for the the children at the elementary level to have a stem class that would introduce kids to of the field of manufacturing and so kindergarten all the way up through grade five at both elementary schools will have a career opportunity um delivered by the folks at electric boat the other piece of that is once we see that curriculum and see that model it may very well be a model chris that we can use to introduce other career
053opportunities to the elementary school kids and then take a look at our encore offerings at the middle school and tweak those as well so that we'll have a thread all the way up to the high school so that's pretty exciting finally some events of interest i had the honor of accompanying our current teacher of the year nori elliott at the hartford ceremony for all of the teachers of the year statewide as well as the state connecticut connecticut state representative for all the teachers of the year and it was a lovely ceremony they celebrated two years of teachers of the year because of the pandemic and it was a lot of joy in the in the house celebrating the opportunity to be together and and honoring the vocation of education uh and i just like to
054send out a self self promoting uh reminder that i have a meet and greet uh the pocket talk firehouse saturday fruik is going to accompany me and we'll be there from 10 to 11 30. i hear from byron stillman that there's going to be some wonderful food and refreshments offered as well so we'd love to see you there um that is going out to the public as well we'd love to have you come out and i just want to informally meet you and listen to what your hopes and dreams are for your students and for the the school district um finally the assistant principal interviews at the high school for the high school have con have near concluded um so we'll be wrapping that process up in the near future so stay tuned for more
055information on that and the interviews for the um stonington middle school principal are scheduled for the 17th and 19th of next week uh we've reviewed the the applications that are in thus far but it closes tomorrow so we expect a last-minute flurry of activity um so we'll we'll be proceeding with that and you'll be hearing about that announcement for not too long as well so that's what i've been up to any questions [Music] thank you so much [Music] monthly reports any questions or comments on monthly rewards [Music] i just wanted to ask kyle about how do we do this would you do a b and d and then hold off the student government and then just ask how to elaborate on that because we do that yeah we don't have to go in order kyle
056what questions you have for all right i just i just thought it was really interesting what you were doing with all of the areas but particularly voice um where the students were actually creating um activities focusing on empowerment and i just wondered how how were the activities presented was was it interactive with skits and and kids watched it um just a little bit more elaboration on one of the like example of women in leadership or peer pressure how is that done it sounds really interesting um so not all of the activities were student-led um student-led ones for peer pressure and suicide prevention i believe i may be leaving one out others were led by staff members for example microaggressions the women in leadership was led by miss butler mrs dawe and danielle cheeseburg am i
057missing someone okay [Music] and it kind of depended on the activity what they were some were more of a presentation watching videos others were more roundtable um everyone really enjoyed this month that was one of the most popular months we've had so far um does that answer your question yes i mean i thought it was it was great i just wanted more visual and more hands-on because i thought that it was a kind of really and the wellness week was very fun and that's a tease they probably want fun weeks like that now every week in a month so nice nice going thank you any other questions on the reports right any items for future agendas um i don't have the proper way to touch on it without trying not to say the wrong thing
058or think i'm saying something i'm not um but it's a concern about evaluations of the athletic coaches um i know it was talked about at the um pack at the high school um and i just think it should be brought before the board to talk about some more um and also too to learn from some of our surrounding communities mistakes on communications between coaches and athletes and i guess that would it would go across the board it would go towards all teachers and in communications whether it's um any extracurricular activity maybe we already have the safeguards in place that i'm not aware of but other towns have recent spats of uh concerns and they've instituted new policies where um i think we should take a look at so if we could maybe get a report
059on what our current practices are as far as coaches evaluations and communications between coaches extracurricular activities and and students and athletes and you know maybe we already got those safeguards in place i just want to make sure i just know some surrounding towns did not have those safeguards in place and i put people on administrative leave left and right so no i i appreciate the the thought behind it and and maybe it's a an opportunity to connect with dr reilly and understand what the process currently and then if you see um holes in it or you have suggestions i'm happy to sit down one-on-one and discuss it or after you is that you have you know let's dedicate some time between you and dr riley to to have a converse on this issue i think
060it's important and then poke holes in it and then we can talk after that and if you feel we need to bring it back to the board we were happy to do that after that i'm sure it should be a report that the whole board should be brought up to snuff on yeah i don't know why [Music] well like i said some surrounding community or communities have had those issues come up and it seemed like it was pretty rampant in that and i just want to make sure that you know we have the proper safeguards like like communications like there's a um policy for communications and i think some of you know instead of just texting kids you know like there's a practice smart five o'clock or something from one person's phone to their their
061phone you know there's no um record of it or anything else like that and there should be you know the idea is to learn from others mistakes to be prepared if some issue comes up yeah just yeah [Music] other thoughts board concerns comments did i miss the initial communications and recognitions by board members i walked in during the yes retirement do you mind i was at i was at a uh stonington high school function i was at what we'll let you go out of order i was at the baseball game at in lime old lime and um it didn't happen it didn't end on a positive note they had a walk-off uh hit that the other team won two to one in the bottom of the seventh so um i just wanted to pass on
062that um one i wanted to thank the voters for passing the budget um like they did although i wish more people had come out the vote and there was more on participation i'm glad they it passed i attended the spring band concert it was so nice to get up into the auditorium and um listen to the great music put on by our our uh band students all levels right will i missed a meeting because i was some place last month and i just wanted to take this opportunity to congratulate tim smith being the new assistant superintendent and principal dawg being the new principal at the um high school i'm looking for looking forward to great things from both of them mystic middle school or stone into middle school will will be uh not the same
063without tim at the helm but i'm sure they'll have a proper replacement for him uh [Music] i guess a question or concern i had we i saw we had decision day at the high school for i think it was just student athletes i don't know if that was true and i was just wondering if we do it if we spread that out to if that's just run by the athletic department or do we have uh like something that we do for the students that have joined decided to join the armed services i know they get to wear their special things but um i was just wondering if we had something like that or for those that aren't going on to um the military or college if they're going to a tech school or just going
064out i just think that we should make sure that we recognize all of them especially our kyle lowry over there going to uconn on a full plus ride go huskies at the dinner table last night i heard about the program chasing the dragon it was very impactful on my son and i'm sure it was um i heard it was impactful on a lot of students it was a presentation if my son was on heroin and fentanyl and i heard it was quite impactful um stirred a lot of discussion and uh emotions as ashley said earlier it's great to see all the pto activities going on although there are too many text messages and emails about these things it's like i think we should have have the teachers or the principals cut back on because a
065lot of times those notices are for like you know you would think they're for emergency purposes oh fun run oh basket raffle i don't know um going to the high school behind the high school with all the fields being full every day is just great to see and just a point of personal privilege i just wanted to recognize three people that um i was able i didn't have them as teachers like chris might have but um miss f men at the middle school and wanted to congratulate her on her retirement one things i learned from her outside of her her voice and the kids voices coming down the hallways at the middle school was the fact that sometimes choir is overlooked by some and not held to the same standards as a band and one
066of the things i'll remember is that your voice is an instrument as well and it's not just the instrument that um the student plays but it's the one that they were born with mr flanagan left uh just his presence in the school was um was phenomenal the kids loved them paris loved them and then miss vicki who was one of the lunch ladies and the cafeteria workers at the middle school i was just shocked that um when she came over i think she came over from here right i think she talked to talk and went over there um that she made a point even with mask on to learn all the kids names and to entice them and to you know do what they could she could to get them to eat a a healthy
067meal every day with some of the kids i don't want that i don't want that she put on their plate and they had to do a no-no bite or something but um so i just wanted to recognize those three that um i thought were special not that they all weren't but thank you any other uh sports comments i hear none so i ask for a motion to join the meeting motion to adjourn second second oh i gotta say i can't i don't know so i have a motion on the floor from mr donahue a second seriously i want a second second again thank you [Music] all favors cci