001you [Music] at 6 31 i'd like to call the stonington board of education uh regular meeting on march 10th to order and i'll ask mr kelly to lead us in the pledge of allegiance please with liberty thank you i'd like to start with communication and recognition turn the floor to dr riley yes just to remind everyone once upon a mattress the high school play is this weekend i hope to see you there it's always a wonderful experience i also would like to thank our maintenance group they resurrected the sign up here from the old district office and fixed it all up and it's beautiful so peter please thank them for us they did a great job that's it thank you um kevin [Music] thank you um i have three um first uh to the rest
002of the board um i'd like to say thank you and great work um over the past we got three months or so um as we worked our way through the superintendent search we had basically weekly meetings for a handful of weeks we dedicated a lot of hours and a lot of time we went through a couple of tough discussions and i really appreciate everyone's preparedness in coming to all of those meetings and workshops i appreciate everyone leaning in to a lot of difficult discussions i really appreciated the opportunity to learn everyone's strengths and to learn from all of you i thought everyone brought a lot to the table asked great questions and the process ran really smoothly so i'd like to thank my other board members for handling that whole process really well and and
003just doing a great job and sticking with it throughout secondly um the part of the reason why the superintendent search ran so well uh was the consultant that we ended up um choosing to to lead us through it uh we were tasked uh with choosing a new superintendent which is of course the most if not uh one of the most um important decisions that a board can make when we were we received three proposals for a consultant um all three of them had great qualifications but one really stood out to me um and that's to dr uh betty osga who is here with us tonight um her qualifications really stood out on paper they blew my hair back she was on paper she was unbelievable but what really was the icing on the cake for
004me was her connection to stonington uh she was a former teacher and sonnington principal and sonnington assistant superintendent of stonington um plus all of the reviews from the other uh districts that had used her as a superintendent search consultant and just her fantastic and outstanding credentials uh i had incredibly high expectations for her as a consultant and she blew every single one of them out of the water i lost count of how many people uh community members parents teachers you name it that reached out to me after that they participated in a focus group or an interview with dr osga throughout the process saying how amazing she was how professional she was how it was so obvious that she was listening uh to everyone's concerns um and i i really took that to took that
005to heart was so happy to hear that um and then on the back side of that uh just for any community member out there or parent out there that have any questions about how we went through this process just let me assure you that under dr osner's leadership and knowledge she took great care for every step of the way of that process and i am 100 confident that we did our due diligence uh through her leadership and really led us uh just just so greatly um and and helped us out every step of the way and i really appreciate her work and just so unbelievably happy with how she handled the whole situation in a difficult situation um and again it really uh i feel fortunate to learn um about all my board members through
006all of that um all of the the research that she did in putting together our needs assessment um which will we can use beyond even the superintendent's election i'm just very grateful for all of your work and help for us and and thank you very much i believe i can speak for other board members when i say thank you very much and just a little token of our appreciation if i may again thank you very very much uh and one more if i may um [Music] uh there's one other individual who i'd like to recognize uh in relation to the superintendent search uh specifically but also just more generally because she is always awesome um but that's uh anna the oliveria she's sitting back there trying to hide um um it's uh so the former
007teacher in me was one of the first things i ever taught when i entered a school building as a teacher was it's not the superintendent or a principal that runs the place it's your secretary and administrative assistants um because they know where everything is and they know everyone and they typically have all the keys um and we got we have a good district administrator back there uh uh in in anna and throughout the the superintendent search i had to make constant requests of honor for documents to help me book space for our meetings and workshops and the interviews um i had to we had to ask her to stay late a couple times to help us with the interviews she acted as a greeter for the candidates that came in made them feel comfortable uh
008water and coffee magically appeared um she her email response time and person response was always so quick and so gracious so it's just so smooth um she was just so knowledgeable about everything and so accommodating and i i usually don't like or i'm i'm really never comfortable asking uh anything of anyone but um because i don't like to be annoying or a pain but anna anna never made me feel that way and she was just just so easy to work with so fantastic um and i really appreciate her work as it relates to the superintendent search but also just in general everything you do for us anna is very much appreciated and thank you for your help over the last couple weeks and staying late and all of your uh all of your assistance to
009everything so again as a token of our appreciation thank you [Applause] that's all thank you so yes i have two things um kevin's also being modest about his role in this process as well he was our leader working with anna working with betty um doing so much behind the scenes for us so um i hope i didn't steal my other board members thunder on this but we would like to thank you for all of your time and energy and your commitment and your professionalism to this entire process you brought rigor and thoughtfulness to the table and helped guide us to where we are tonight so thank you so much for that we wouldn't be here without you thank you thank you second thing i wanted to recognize is stonington high school art teacher sally moteeka
010and her students leah diamonte tansy mancini lauren vossler olivia fuller abigail whalen lily kwan rory reisley hayley allard fiona fulton and haley bassett they're all presenting artwork this month and next as part of the lagrua center's emerging arts exhibition the exhibit features works in various styles and medias of our region's young and emerging artists from area high schools including fitch stonington westerly and wheeler i encourage you to check it out the gallery hours are wednesday friday and sunday afternoons 1 to 4 p.m through april 29th thank you mr simon yeah um [Music] tuesday night as i sat listening to the board of finance meeting i had a lot of time to reflect on and listen to the expertise of all of our administrators and i realized and really appreciate really the very creative and competent
011tools that they have and that is what makes this school work and i am really appreciative and um was made very just reminded of how lucky and fortunate we are thank you okay [Music] uh yeah i think kevin summed it up about dr betty oscar she did a fantastic job and made it such a smooth process and we could just all tell her how authentic she was when we first interviewed her and that kind of and her love for stonington so it really helped the process and kevin just stepped up big time you know helping her out and the whole it was a good team effort um i'm very proud of uh i also want to give a shout out to the ecc uh champ stoneton bears boys team that's fantastic another championship we're turning
012into title town here in stonington and then i wanted to also acknowledge a couple of uh local local people michael and jenny everyone who are have been talking to the guidance counselors here at school about setting up potential internships for uh students that want to go into the trades after school i think it's going to be a fantastic thing i think it would be great if a lot of other places around here got on board and you know set up into or got into uh seeing what we could do for internship for kids that want to get involved for people that maybe don't want to go to college after high school and want to get into the trades [Music] thank you sir kelly thank you mr chairman um i had the enjoyment of going to
013the mohigan sun arena for the second half of the basketball game the other night and what a venue it was great to see our boys play there give a shout out to cam hinchey the um mvp or the tournament player the of the player of the tournament um award i was just and then one of the things that really shocked me because we were there and we were playing windom we'd be in stonington and i wasn't out there our student section was phenomenal i mean if you paid any attention to i don't want to bad mouth bryant but what happened at bryant the other night or what you've read about in other towns with their student section the number of kids that we showed up there in the student section and their behavior and the
014way they cheered on our team uh was something to be proud of was i was just as proud of them as i was with the players on the court um and then when we left the waterford and these line fans were showing up and i didn't stick around for that but they've had their fun over the time um dr riley what show are you going to this weekend once upon a mattress because i don't want to get into the auction bidding with you with uh with the sign program so i don't want sunday sunday i'll be there sunday too so i'll bring i'll bring an extra credit card um i'd like to uh thank the two principals of the elementary schools for their monthly newsletters which i always find uh informative on the 27th the
01517th annual irish mystic irish parade has taken place and it'll be the second to last time that our marching band well it's probably the first time our marching band has marched in a while or at least my son um but he'll be there and the rest of the band will be marching on the in the parade uh when we do uh sit down for dinner it was nice to hear about the voice program the other day at the high school it was an extended dinner the other night with uh talking about our 9 11 class that is offered at the high school and all the all that he's learning from that and the fact that they'll be going on a field trip to the 911 museum uh kyle has a nice report talking about the
016how the mass choice has uh started and been implemented and uh the boys track boys and girls track team did very well i think they won the states for that and a couple of students went on to race in the new englands and of course kudos to betty kevin and anna for all you did for our superintendent search thank you mr chairman kyle i'm all set thank you thank you and uh it's called the communication recognition i'd like to recognize all the pairs sitting to my left we see you and i want to recognize the entire stonington public school staff members uh it's been a long journey and a tough journey and uh today is the first official meeting without masks i think so we're very excited about it i'm very excited about it i
017know some of you they're very excited about um but i want to recognize your commitment the community commitment uh to getting us here together i think we got here together uh you're part of the process we're part of the process and you are part of the process so i i see you and i appreciate you and i want to say thank you for all you do and your hard work and commitment to our children it's very much appreciated thank you uh i think a lot of people here are not here to see me tonight they're here to hear the announcement of our new superintendent and i think uh my my fellow board members shared a lot of this journey and how we got here tonight and uh but i want to just uh quickly uh
018i really very rarely uh prepare anything to read i usually just speak but i'm gonna read a few things tonight but we your board met in december to organize our thought process and the process to hiring new superintendent schools we developed content with the help of dr berry osga who's been our compass and i very much appreciate her and her guidance we launched an advertising campaign before january 5th i think it was till end of december we developed the candidate profile by her interviewing 200 almost 275 community members from various areas we set an application deadline and we received many applications your board had two lengthy uh community committee workshops one was february 9th and on february 16th i shouldn't say you're bored the hiring committee had those meetings and we we interviewed uh the
019top five candidates and then we interviewed top two candidates and then uh we made this election that i'm announcing now uh so your uh your hiring committee in the stonington board of education announced that maryam butler has been selected as the next superintendent of schools ms butler has been the assistant superintendent of schools in stonington since 2017. miss butler emerged from a pool of 24 applicants with her impressive resume and experience and i'd like to point that dr oscar shared with me that it was one of the top two resumes that she's ever read and academic credentials an outstanding interview uh her vision commitment stonington public school confirmed that the most promising candidate was indeed within the district she has been credited with leading the development of curriculum that is in both pragmatic and innovative
020establishing forward thinking diversity equity and inclusion initiatives and working on policy renewal with a career in education that has spanned over 25 years she has an extensive experience in classroom teachings curriculum development and district level administration in addition she served within the connecticut state department of education for over six years in a variety of roles including chief academic officer miss butler is the chairperson of the ncaa high school review committee the freelance writer for penguin random house a national presenter on science education for the bureau of education and research and alumni of the fulbright finland leaders of global schools locally she also proudly serves on the board of directors for ligria center she earned her bachelor's degree in biology from st mary college notre dame and a juris doctor degree at western new england school
021of law her six-year sixth year certificate of education leadership at central connecticut state university ms butler and her husband john [Music] who flew here today or made it live in noah and they have two adult sons she also has a family of eighteen hundred children and a branding she has a family of four hundred staff members wonderful staff members i'm again rounding 18 000 community members that will look up to her and hold her accountable on her next mission so i am very proud of the hiring committee selection and i'd like to ask for a motion to approve the contract that were presented to the board members motion to approve the contract may ask for a second please second any discussion on the contract hearing none all those in favor of approving the new superintendent
022contract please say aye hi hi [Music] anyone against any abstain that was the anonymous vote congratulations miss butler and i recognize you to give us a couple words please i can never resist a microphone um i just wanted to take a few minutes to thank the board of education who doesn't seem to ever have enough evenings to fill up they needed some more time away on doing their volunteer service looking at 24 candidates and and really doing a thoughtful job that's not easy and it's going to be very impactful on the district over the next few years so thank you very much for your faith in me i'm super excited to get the work underway and i want to thank dr reilly for leaving the ship in good shape and we're going to set sail
023and do some more fabulous things for the children of our of our district i want to thank the families and the community members and i can't wait to sit and listen to what your dreams and hopes are for your children um and make stonington an even better place than it already is for our our kids and i want to thank our our teachers our staff members and i know that we're all going to work together with the board to to move things forward for the betterment of the of the whole i feel that energy and synergy in the room um and i'm very very appreciative of that and i also want to given that the world's most fantastic leadership team with with them i can do anything and move mountains so with heartfelt appreciation i
024i thank you and i look forward to partnering with all of you the doctor i'll turn it to you for the board presentation [Music] yes thank you march is a board of education appreciation month and in front of you you have four items that we have put together the first one is from cabe it's a thank you notepad next to that is the cave the thank you chocolate bars that i know that that craig was very anxious to make sure that those were there the third thing is the the one thing that i really like the best thing and that's the the thank you for card from our kids each classroom was a great levels uh took the time to individually thank every board member and i know that's something that you'll you'll cherish and
025the last item is something that our leadership team um with marianne's help put together that's the in the card and marianne were you gonna introduce what's in there so they know [Music] [Laughter] it came with [Music] actually it's your salary for working on the board what'd you say i got lunch at dean all right [Music] mine says i have to be the next assistant superintendent uh no i got a building tour i'm actually really excited for that i love a building tour i have a building tour and i hope that means i get to check out like boilers and stuff like that yeah get peter on that one thank you very very thoughtful comments from citizens regarding items on the agenda [Music] hi my name is rachel o'dell i live at 94 stoneman avenue in
026waukatuk and i was looking through the agenda and i noticed on the personnel report that we have another para educator who's resigning i'd like to speak to um stoning in public schools honestly stonington public schools has always held this standard of excellence people move here and choose this district so their children can attend stonington schools my husband and i are two of those people we didn't grow up here but we chose to buy our house in pocket tuck because we wanted our kids to go to the schools in stonington because we had heard how incredible they were i have three children one graduated in 2019 and he is currently a junior at uh university of rochester which is ranked 34th in the country and um i have two that are graduating this year as their
027twins that are graduating graduating seniors we have stonington high school has three graduates who are attending cornell university right now i remember when i first started working at swinton high school we had a young lady who was just a beautiful young lady who had to choose between going to yale and harvard i mean i don't know how you choose that but these are the students that we produce we we have incredible students that that go on to tremendous careers as electricians we have um you know accomplished students and that's because we are stonington public schools we have a standard of excellence that we expect one of those cornell university students has a younger sister who attends duke in order to maintain this expectation of excellence every staff member is important and valuable you can't get
028the students to school safely without the bus company we have a clean and safe environment because of the maintenance custodial staff the secretaries make the entire day run smoothly as you all know and federal iep requirements get met because of the para educators our bathrooms and hallways are safe because of the diligence of our hall monitors we all play an invaluable role every single day and every single staff member is important we are short-handed when it comes to paraeducators and we have we have more resigning all the time instead of incentives for current staff members make the job a better draw offer a better benefits package more paid holidays more competitive pay scale we are stonington public schools we need to do better we need to be better every staff member should be respected and
029appreciated i would like to politely challenge each and every one of you to contact the teachers and secretaries and administrators in each of the buildings and ask them if they can be as effective in their jobs without their para educators to lean on and to assist them we have lost too many good paras to other departments and other and other jobs outside of the district our first para of the year left and went to work in the custodial department another exceptional pair from dean's mill who had been there for a very long time also transferred to the custodial department we need to do better we are stonington public schools let's do better for the kids thank you [Music] thank you feel the comments [Music] hi mike evering 19 cedar grove lane uh so happy to
030not be speaking on masking tonight thank you very much moving on to constructive and positive things uh here in the future uh my wife and i jen were very very fortunate enough to be able to have some face time certainly with the administration and staff at the high school to speak on the importance of of uh trade education and and being able to offer that here in district uh for me it's it's very uh personal because you know i was one of those students who did pretty well uh you know as a traditional uh education path i didn't choose to go to the trade school um some parental uh push in that but also wanted to keep my options open uh i graduated stonington public schools uh class of 99 um went on to try
031college just knew knowing that it wasn't the proper fit for me um and then went on uh in a path in the trades um served an apprenticeship uh and now own an electrical contracting company here in town um i have seen a tremendous absolute shortage of qualified uh people coming into the trades we've all seen it if you've called us uh to come to your house to work it's because of the the trade shortage that we can't get there for a month two months three months you know it we are booked out that far um and that goes across the board plumbers hvac uh you know whatever it may be um i implore the board to continue as you know we've also been in contact with chris and thank you uh for for that conversation
032as well we need to look into what we need to do budget wise uh to be able to support this here in stonington uh there is one trade and technology teacher covering all aspects of trade and technology in district we have i believe four or five music educators in district not to downplay the importance of music music education that was very very near and dear to my heart while i was a student here at stonington however we need to offer more opportunities in the trades here in district we don't want to lose our students to grosso norwich tech what have you we need to keep them here in district we need to offer those opportunities to the students so thank you very much thank you ashley tool 113 whitaker drive i am very excited to
033see everybody smiling faces tonight it has been very exciting for our kids it has been a great start um they have enjoyed every day my kids joke with each other like did you grab your mask oh we don't need it it's like a morning routine right now um so thank you guys for affording the community the opportunity to come and speak out about something that so many were so passionate about um i've seen some other districts that haven't done that and it's created a very negative feeling in their community so i appreciate the board making that opportunity for the parents to be heard and i really look forward to further instances of that in the future and congratulations on your new role we really look forward i think one of the things that came out
034from parents is we're really looking for two-way communication we really want to be our voices to be heard um in the education of our children so i look forward to and i know that you know that was an expectation it was a big look for um in our superintendent search so i look forward to having that um and being part of that um you guys definitely matter i don't know the inner workings of your contracts or anything like that but as a parent i want to say thank you to you guys our educators our teachers i know in the elementary schools pairs are very important to our little kids um so thank you guys i don't know what's going on but i want you guys to know that from a parent you guys are very
035much appreciated um and i know the teachers appreciate you guys as well um on a daily basis um i just wanted to i know one of the items tonight is the seventh grade um ela curriculum and i just wanted to i hadn't get a chance to go through all of it it's quite um a presentation but one of the things was there was a list of books and it said that the list should be shared with parents i try to make sure these things it's not it shouldn't be an option these things must be shared with parents like this book list has some controversial books in it understand that that is a choice for a child to make but the word should i just think should be must like these it shouldn't be a teacher's
036decision uh which year it's going to be shared and what year it's not parents should definitely be a part of this process and know what's being presented to their kids so they can have communication with their children um so i just ask that as we make decisions like this and include some controversial topics and books that we offer opposing um opinions as well with some of it i know one of the books has already come up because it is it's anti-cop rhetoric and as a wife of a trooper and my children who have a father as a trooper i just hope that we also afford the children opportunity to read positive interactions with law enforcement and i just hope that we can make in our curriculum that we can make sure parents are included and
037knowledgeable because i know that that's been an issue with some of our health topics that parents are not made aware explicitly and i know that's one of the things being worked on but um and i just will be one of your agenda things but just that we make sure that the communication is really forward and open with parents so that they can help their children and guide them how they feel best need for their education thank you any other comments next item on our agenda is consent agenda consent agenda ask for approval for the consent agenda items a through c unless you'd like to remove any second second all in favor please indicate we're saying aye aye hi how's he um the tonight uh next item on our agenda is the uh second read or
038approval of curriculum the algebra ii text book so i'll need a motion to approve the algebra 2 textbook motion to approve second any discussion all in favor please say aye aye next item on our agenda is a grade seventh ela this is the first read it's on your agenda so you can have it uh next month you'll come back for a vote for a second read thank you all right uh next item on our agenda is suspension of policy 5141.8 and 4118.237 which related to masks any comments from you dr reilly on that well last time uh last minute your direction was to make the mass optional and so we would recommend that you suspend this policy so there's no conflict between the policy and your previous direction thank you dr riley so i'd like
039to ask for a motion to suspend both policies motion to suspend both policies second any discussion on that motion [Music] all in favor please indicate by saying aye aye aye it was announced the eyes have it next item on our agenda is the report of the superintendent's school dr riley turn it over to you thank you there's two items of importance this evening one of them is the graduation date this year as you know we've had one school one day of school closure due to staffing related to covid and two snow days at this point our we are legally required 180 days of instruction moves graduation from friday june 17th to tuesday june 21st we will then have a pd day professional development day on that next day on that wednesday so if and we
040need to finalize our graduation date by april 1st by connecticut law so if there are no more snow days if there's no other interference or cancellation we will be having graduation on tuesday june 21st i wanted you to be aware of that and see if you had any questions the other item is my weekly or my monthly covet update um i appreciate peter's work on these buses i know he spends several hours every day when he sees big yellow things going down the road he goes the other way but he's done a great job and there were some suggestions or ideas about the pm routes at the elementary could we add some more uh bus stops and peter working with first student um and it only works for the elementary because they're the last ones
041so we could push it push out the drop-offs a little bit last week we were able to add just over new bus stops and those primarily for the areas that are in the outer edges of the of the district but that made quite a bit of difference for some of those parents who had those long travels from their home to a bus stop and i'm pleased to say that first student is is hiring a another bus driver finally that will begin i think next week sometime and we'll be able to add 40 more bus the stops between all the different levels so that's and i just want to make a real clear there are no other bus drivers in line applying being trained so this will be it that's about 100 new bus stops since
042uh last week uh till through next week and that should make a make a big difference um it's not back to where we want but it's something that uh i think will will help a lot of a lot of families according to first student the whole issue with bus driver shortage statewide and nationwide is beginning to ease a little bit and we're encouraged that by next fall we'll hopefully be back to close to where we were at least but this will be at adding these hundred stops will be it for the rest of this year there are no other drivers at first student that are in the works um for the next next couple months so i wanted to give you that to give you that update the other question i had was from a
043board member about masks where are we with the masking and i've sent some information out the masking and also positive uh covid tests we've had i believe it was 11 in the past couple weeks 11 positive cases students and staff as far as masks i asked our principals to just give me an estimate of the percent of students and staff members that i have have decided to continue wearing masks at the high school mark and alicia believe it's around 20 maybe up to 25 at the middle school it's about 10 at west vine it's around 13 or 14 for students and less than that under 10 maybe eight or nine percent for staff and at dean's mill it's 10 to 15 percent for both so basically we're somewhere in the 10 to range of our
044staff and our students who have decided to for the option of keeping their mass and i believe i haven't heard any issues with that either which i know we were wondering are people gonna say something or is there any teasing going on and we just i think our students respect each other if someone else has a mass or doesn't have a mass and it's different to them it's it's worked out just fine so those were my covet updates yeah dr ryan there was a question on the number of referrals were you able to get us the answer on that uh as far as i know we've we've paid one and i think there were a couple others that could be in the works that's that's where we are the real increase in our number of
045applicants was the increase in pay uh going up to that 150 level for our substitute teachers uh made a big difference i did i think i sent you that number where we're we're not exactly where we want to be we're so much better than we were in january so i think those two uh certainly the the pay increase more than the the referral reward but that there was at least that little one so far that's right gary wasn't it was one once that we've actually paid so far but there were a couple others who we haven't hired them yet so we'll see any questions dr roy yeah um so it's really good to hear that there's been a lot of harmony with the you know with the mass mandate coming off and you know everyone's
046getting along at school uh my question is actually about the bus company um so you said we've added a bunch more stops how close are we back to being to full blast for bus stops i'll have to get you i don't want to answer correctly so let me yeah i know we're not back to where we were but uh i'll get you that information to share with the whole board i appreciate it thank you all right next item on our agenda is [Music] related to a giant in our community officer desmond jerry desmond who passed away recently and the board has approved a memorial at the high school tomorrow jerry and you know that the committee that was raising funds had preached out to the board of education to see uh if we are you
047know we would support uh the erection of that memorial and because we will also continue to maintain it for years to come i look at these things as you know um i want i want my my grandchildren my children graduated so i want my grandchildren to look up there and see jerry's name and ask the question who was that man and they know he was a beloved police officer in our community who served our community i have fond memories of jerry he was one of the kindest humans i've ever met in my life and he was the first people to welcome me to stonington 20 years ago and um you know the reason we're supporting it is not just this it's just that we want to leave our children and grandchildren [Music] and some name
048to look up to and you know what i'm uh i spoke to uh mr lewis uh you all know mr lewis of the high school who's leading this effort um they're going to continue to raise funds until march 31st they're about uh six thousand dollars shy to their goal um i feel that we are as the school uh public uh public school system we're responsible for uh uh that memorial but they're they want to raise the funds and and we encourage them to do that um i put it on the agenda to have a discussion about it and maybe we come back in our april meeting and and vote on the exact amount to support um that memorial and i i shared with mr lewis that we'll wait uh to hear from him before our
049next meeting but i wanted to have that conversation if you're open to supporting it if you're open to uh you know coming back here with a number and dollars i spoke to the administration team uh dr riley shared with me that in their maintenance budget there's some money they're in their budget there's some money to uh to support the project at the high school so uh we have the money you know the question to the board if you're if you want to wait until april and just uh you know give that money when when they whatever the delta between what they raise and what they need we want to to make it up yeah i'm in support to for uh wait until april i would like to go ahead as soon as possible i think
050that um i i like the idea that a way will be named after him the desmond way because um both my kids went through the dare program and it proved foundational to some very important choices about the about drugs um and so to think of the desmond way really helped to give foundation to the thinking and was the way of thinking for my children so i'm very supportive of it and i don't know why we're waiting to april but it's fine as long as we continue to push forward with it just to find out the dollar amount right if i understand it correctly i'm sorry we'll wait until april just to find out how much we'd be um yeah mr lewis is going to continue to raise funds we can you know i originally i
051had thoughts about approving up to six thousand dollars because that was what they're short right now i know when i was on the agenda many questions uh came about like what what is the support how is the support um you know i get questions sometimes when things come on the agenda so i thought um it's appropriate to wait you know he's he wasn't in a mr lewis wasn't in a hurry to get us to approve it tonight but you know it's uh i want us to uh you know continue i want to keep this conversation going and i want to make sure that uh the board members support it uh if if their support will will i'll continue to engage and and and you know raise the you know raise that issue to a vote
052and uh but i want to make sure that i'm you're all in rowing in the same direction i think i shared some of the concern that dan raised about um appropriateness not that it isn't deserving but just uh should the school funds essentially be expended in this manner and i do think at the very least we should have a policy uh which i don't believe we have at this point um so uh um regardless of what happens with this on this particular decision i do think we should uh uh if if we think we'll do be doing something like this again we should come up with a policy to address it um so then it'll be officially accepted board policy and we'll have parameters and everything it's probably a good idea i think that dr
053reilly has given us precedent to move quickly into policy because there were so many that he listed for us so as if that's been done before and i think uh appropriate to you know there's always a first and and i think uh you know there was a question have we ever done this before well there's always a first and i can't find anybody more fitting than jerry desmond to be a first uh so you know we can set a policy and bring it back to the board for april to vote on and we'll know an exact amount by then as well sounds good i expressed a couple concerns and um which craig highlighted was we need to have a policy um and a lot of the memorials and dedications that have been established over the
054years named after people were were basically putting a sign or a plaque and what have you up and it was to um have a pre-existing place such as the tennis courts or the football field or the um soccer field the gym or what have you were named after people but it was a it was a functional place already this we're asking to um i think it's more than at first i think it's um you're asking to spend money to build a memorial that outside of you know desmond way you know doesn't have a function um we're using some of the money from mr nausic who passed away last year to rebuild the ticket booth at the high school and they'll put a plaque with his name on it and explain what he did um pocket
055tuck little league they named a long time volunteer the road down there to vern gibson way to to highlight you know the dedication in the years and hours that he put in but it was an existing road and all they put up was a street sign that said vern gibson way in a plaque that explained it and um you know like you said hopefully the children are learning who vern gibson was to put a plaque at a tree a memorial tree or what have you that they did at dean's mill i know um i'm sure other places but this one is is different and it's it's okay to be to do something for the first time but we also have to reflect the fact that we're spending taxpayer dollars school dollars um to erect something
056or help direct something uh you know and where should they they seek their funding from um the people that are raising the money for this i was at the um athletic boosters at the high school the other night and they came forward and and requested 500.00 uh the obituary [Music] for mr desmond the donations were i think one of i know one of them was to donate to the boosters at the high school which a lot of people did so and then as as well as mr gnosic from last year um so that is more you know and they came looking for 500 i made the motion give him a thousand um more money was donated in his name than what we awarded so i just need to one i had a concern about whether
057we're using school money and taxpayers money to build a non-student athletic type of memorial as opposed to just naming something after somebody to recognize them and to educate that way and then what other funding are they getting and you know i heard they might not even be seeking more money and that even the um if they do raise more than they needed the athletic boosters will be the recipient of if there's an overflow of that so um i appreciate the fact that you're going to postpone this and um until next month and we can move forward or take a look at it better then thank you you're welcome i just wanted to comment on the if you know the comment about it serving your purpose i think it's educational in my opinion um we're just
058teaching them what um people in the community and services they do and and the value of that and and hopefully they'll grow up to be that just you know just the thought um but we'll we'll table it until next month and hopefully we'll have a policy for you to entertain and uh and if we'll see maybe like you said they don't need any any money so next item on our agenda is the monthly reports any questions or comments on the monthly reports all right any items for a future agenda yes i have one please um so uh in response to um actually i might have two i'll start with the first one i had prepared but uh uh in response to some of the themes uh and comments that uh primarily came through on the
059needs assessment through the information that was gathered by dr ozgud to the superintendent search in addition to comments that have been stated at some of our meetings from concerned parents and community members in response to comments that i've received personally outside of boardman board meetings uh and even comments that i've heard from the administration the other direction uh i'd like to discuss i'm hoping for the in addition to the april agenda just for timing purposes but i'd like to discuss uh revisiting our school-based improvement teams um to sort of create that on-ramp for direct parent access or increase parent access to building um principals uh administrators teachers uh and board members um i remember sbits being uh really robust committees back in the 90s and 2000s my dad was heavily involved with him i heard
060a lot about them i still remember him going to sbits and coming back so energized with ideas to bring back to the board um and i i think they're a i think they'd be very useful and i'd be very um intrigued to have that closer connection with the parents and community members that we're here to represent um and i know we already have uh our bylaw 9400 to kind of speak to this so there's already framework for it so at least we have a jumping off point um so i'd like to discuss what what happened to them over the years maybe what worked and what didn't work and see how we can move forward to sort of revamp that idea and and and create that on-ramp of feedback um from people that we're here to
061represent and um work more closely with parents community members our building principles and kind of as like an idea generation tool that we could all bring back uh to board meetings um so i'd like to discuss that hopefully on the april agenda um and i i'm not sure if this is a an item for a future agenda or perhaps i could just request some feedback from the administration um regarding the career in tech ed um i understand there's obvious budget responsibilities to kind of to go to some of that in the needs of teachers and materials and whatnot but i wonder if there's other things that we can do in the meantime until because we just kind of finished our budget process a little bit um i i wonder if there's other things that we
062can do between now and the next time we revisit our budgets to kind of speak to that career and tech ed uh sort of career paths for our students um this is something that i've uh chris has brought it up a couple of times and i really appreciate his his input on this and it kind of reminded me that i have a personal connection to uh the whole career in tech ed avenue because my my nephew was a stonington public school student until eighth grade um and then he went over to grosso nothing against grosso that's a great school and he loved it there um but i think as a family we would have preferred to keep him in-house and i think stonington would have preferred to keep him in-house um and he thrived he
063was certainly not your typical college student but he thrived uh and he has a full-time job at eb um and he's probably the only you know 19 year old with a retirement account that i know of and so i i i think the michael who spoke earlier made it a lot of great points chris has made a lot of great points i think that's something that we should pursue uh and i wonder what we can pursue sooner rather than later um so um i'd like maybe some feedback i don't know if that would be an agenda item or what we can do there to at least begin that discussion because i think that's a really really important point for a solid proportion of our students for their careers maybe can you tech can i don't
064know if it fits under teaching and learning uh but maybe it's a conversation for one of the committees um just so we can you share it yeah no that's a good point yeah i've thrown out some things to uh to marianne about that but yeah that's a good point i can keep those conversations going with her i think if you if it's teaching when learning can come to us come to the board with a solid suggestion it would be i think that makes sense i'm all for it okay thanks ask your point thanks all right um next is any word comments um i just actually to follow up with what you were saying with an emphasis on um career tech education but also thinking about our pera's um as kevin mentioned our budget has been
065passed off to the board of finance and there will be public comment available at the end of the month and i encourage folks to write their concerns into the board of finance as well show up to public comment that is another board where you can very very strongly make your case for what you would like to see the future of stonington public schools to look like so while it's great come talk to us and absolutely talk to your board of finance as well basically just echoing what uh what kevin said the cte i thought mike made some great points tonight um about you know maybe budgeting for the future uh bringing some of those classes back because it's great that we have grasso tech but a lot of kids want to stay with the people
066they've been in school with the whole time and i think you know giving children like that a purpose uh to aim towards is going to be uh very important to the future of stonington and i think a lot of great points were made tonight by mike and kevin and and i'm glad it's going to be going to the uh teaching and learning uh subcommittee i also agree with what what kevin and chris are saying i i think you have an opportunity not only with teaching and learning but i know this board now that you have a new superintendent you're going to have a meeting about your your goals and i i hear that the kinds of things that are are being presented uh both your ideas kevin could be uh they're they're ways to accomplish
067certain goals so if if this board decides that they want to have more opportunities for students in this particular areas that would be your goal and then marianne and the staff would figure out how to do that and it is something that would need to be discussed soon because we start putting budgets together really almost now or in the summer for next year because there's there's staffing and there's everything else is going into this so again i i think having your your goal retreat and looking at here here's the you know four or five this is really what we want to accomplish this next year would give the staff then some direction they could start working on these things both staffing and facilities and budget and curriculum and everything else i think dr riley just
068suggested one more meeting for us um and speaking you could miss yeah that's your free one but speaking speaking of very important topic and i really appreciate it we're here to listen to you but sarah brings up a very good point we can listen all you want to tell us we presented a budget we sat here until 11 o'clock was it yesterday or tuesday yesterday was a zoom meeting we sat here until 11 o'clock trying to play our case through the board of finance and i left the meeting uh confused on on like because we we invest a lot of time in researching this budget and working on it and discussing it and then we go to the board of finance and then we're discussing it and we're researching it again we actually are going
069to adjourn this meeting and run down to the police department to meet with the board of finance to plea our case again but then we have no control and funds get cut and you know we're asking for two and a half percent we're cutting many positions in teaching and you know we're because you know we're moving into using other funds but it's it's good to let them know your opinion i wish my parents were here i would have taken them down in my car down to the police station because budgets are budgets we only have this much money to spend so we can develop all the budgets but we really you know if we go to the board of finance with all these grandiose ideas the money has to come from somewhere so yes we
070are spending our tax money right and and we need if you if you want all these ideas to happen we're happy to research them develop them and present them but we need you just like you come here to go there and support the school system and and and the budget so i'd like to ask for a motion of a german so we all can get in our cars and drive down before they cut the budget right into a journey oh i still had i haven't gotten this into the table yet oh sorry cut them off i didn't take it back don't turn my mic off anna chris or steve um well part of it was the budget process being that most of us are rookies up here can you or the superintendent explain what the
071next steps are on the budget process like they're deliberating our budget tonight and we're going there will it be another meeting will they be where they will be deliberating it and then will it be like you said when is those meetings scheduled for uh for public input and then the other part the other half of that is can you also explain to us and the public with the we don't have a new superintendent yet so i don't want people to to think that dr riley is gone tomorrow and marianne is on board um if we could explain the with the transition process to a point of the fact that she'll be the superintendent on july 1st but sure i'll take uh i'll take the second question first and i'll defer to you dr riley for
072the first so this butler will start date based on her contract is july 1st dr riley continues to be our superintendent until the end of june i spoke to uh dr oscar who's gonna be also supporting in that transition process and uh lending a a hand she's i spoke to her [Music] someday monday about that process and in between now and uh you know july 1st there will be a transition plan and transition of guards um i wanna you know you all need to remember that we are in the process of hiring a high school principal we are in the process of hiring now an assistant superintendent and we are in the you know so there's a lot of hiring and a lot of you know there's there's so much we can put on the
073district and on the team of pressure so we have to make sure and i had a conversation with dr reilly and i appreciate him here you know uh sticking around with us uh but there's there's more there's more like there's domino effect after dominar effect after dominar effect and and those things we have to continue to support our field you know we have to continue to support our kids we have to continue to support you know i don't know today at 3 3 20 we you know the board gets an email it was flying street you know alarm went off and you know so that those things you know um it was a false alarm but but it's not an easy thing you know i think the entire police department was down at west flying
074today because the alarm was pulled off by mistake by you know so mistakes happen but this the administration team has more than that you know to to to to two weeks ago one of the boilers uh had a problem that peter had to jump on and and and save the day so these things happen we appreciate you we understand you're supposed to but there's more dominant steps so july 1st and and so that's the start date and the transition plan i'm we're working through it we're going to have meetings to kind of like have a smooth transition so we can continue to provide the proper support to our schools administration team teachers parents and students students are our priority right we wake up every morning for that and we go to bed you know feeling
075good about that so that's the transition um and so so no dr reilly is our superintendent until the end of june and ms butler is july 1st so and we're working on a transition plan and i appreciate dr osga's assistance in that transition dr riley you want to talk about the board of finance the way this has worked for the new board members the uh after the presentations which were this week the board of finance has public deliberations they just talk about everything that's happened in the last here's the here's the board of ed here's the police here's this and then they come up with their tentative what they think they're going to be doing and there's a public hearing at the high school on march 29th and that's when any any comment and we've
076been there i don't know if you remember seven years ago we had standing room only 500 parents came because there was some reductions being made that a lot of people didn't like [Music] but after that meeting that evening the board of finance will adjourn and go into the commons and then do their final deliberations to decide what goes on the referendum and then the referendum is i forget the data that april something but if the if the referendum fails i learned this when i first came here from the board of ed and the board of finance if the referendum does not pass there will be further reductions if you if say the whole community says wait a minute we don't we need to have more this more whatever it is more music we'll use that
077okay we want to do this we want to have um add a bunch of uh you know tech shop kinds of programs it's gonna cost us another six percent so we'll vote down the the two and a half or whatever that they do because we want them to put in more they will not do that they will only reduce so if for if we have a two and a half percent for us and it's not passed it'll go down and it'll keep going down until until it's eventually passed this is my 10th budgets and they've all passed on the first on the first ballot even when there's been some discussion controversy about some things so that's that's the way it works um the other thing that's important is the board of finance there's two they're
078looking at two education budgets our regular general budget and then the cip the sip budget they have line item authority over the sip they can say well i don't we don't like whatever it is take off this take off this and they sometimes they put a line down to one dollar and they do that so they can add back onto that line later peter mentioned several of those that they did last year if they zero it out then they have to wait another year to put anything in but if it's something that boilers seem to be a topic these days so if we say okay we have fifty thousand dollars in for a boiler and they say we just can't afford that they'll put that down to one dollar so when the boiler fails in
079december they can add it back in on that line because if they're just increasing they're not starting all the way over again but they have line item authority they can go through the sip and say well take out these five lines and zero them out or change the amounts they can do whatever they want to with the 2.5 general operating budget they have no line of item authority they could say well i don't like the utility costs we don't like the you know the number of sports or what they can say all those things they want but they can't directly affect that budget that's your call so if they uh well this hr director has been that was brought up the other night if they take out with the if they don't like something they'll
080say well we're we don't like that so we're going to take that amount out of your budget that does not tie your hands to uh taking that action they'll give you a number two and a hopefully it's two and a half percent but if it's 2.2 percent then you come back together afterwards and we talk about okay we have to reduce by whatever it is here's some options here's my recommendation how you're going to reduce 50 000 and then you talk about it and then we do it and that's just that's a total board of ed decision at that point and then whatever you decide that's where we you know july one we start with that so that's the way that networks anna just told me that april 13th is the town meeting at 7
081p.m and april 26 is a referendum vote so march 29th is the town is the is the hearing the public hearing at the high school the town meeting on april 13th that's the way that works they could actually have a town meeting invite everybody and vote on the budget that night they've never done that in this town because what they do is they just pull they just assign that to the referendum so it becomes a public vote what would happen if they voted that night and you say we all showed up and we go oh we like it there could be a petition then to go to a referendum and that's what would happen so in this town the town meeting is really uh who forget his name he gets up every time and reads
082the proclamation and then they move it to the referendum it takes about eight minutes so the town meeting is not a big deal the referendum is and certainly march 29th that's when you have the public hearing and if we want you know other people board members all of us could certainly come because we'll know by then what where they're headed with this thing and if they're going to cut a certain amount we need to say how important that is to keep our two and a half percent so that was a long way to around it but that's that's the way it works [Music] part of uh going to tonight's meeting is just to understand where they're heading with it so you know and we only can speak if they ask us but that's that's really
083the you'll start to get a feel if they're gonna cut it and what what they thinking of why they're thinking they're cutting it that doesn't mean we if they cut it we go back with the budget that uh to the to what they're worried about or they're concerned because we have to do what is right for the children that is not not what the half a percent they think you should get out of the budget is from any other comments i have one really quick one i can't believe i forgot um but i do see some building principles here maybe you could share my message thank you to the kids um for our cards i can't wait to read all the little names and comments and there's a poem in here and there's even maybe
084because they knew i was a math teacher but there's like a there's like a math problem in mind and i like i'm gonna go home and grade it i think i don't know um but it's making me it's making me miss my former students and i it's it's cool to to see some student work um so uh if you could share my message building principles i would appreciate that and um uh thank you to the administration as well of our little tokens appreciate it motion threat journal meeting what's your new adjourn second second all in favor please try hi