001hey what are you doing now you got any time oh [Music] uh what [Music] degrees fish [Music] is that the battery level next to the batteries yep went back trump those are impressive gary [Music] why didn't you wear that on st patrick's day did you yes yeah uh yes [Music] allegiance [Music] there might be something called a virtual cell number [Music] so um communications and recognition does anyone yeah i just like to uh it's been a long year right i mean i think about last summer um i would just like to acknowledge parents students the teachers the administration the board of ed i know we're not totally there yet but as a next friday we'll be there and uh you know we say we made it i think there were disagreements along the way um
002i think different interests but at the heart of it was about the kids and i think i think we as a community accomplish that so i just think i just want to recognize our community for uh for getting through a very very challenging year and everybody while having differences um focus on the kids and got it done yeah can i add something i would just like to recognize this foreign i'm doing this because we also do recognitions with back school um we every month we send the teachers out during their meetings sometimes email we use together in person um almost every month um youtube have been on our recognition list so just as a follow-up and continuation of that i would like to thank them for everything they've done with the voice program because it
003is so much more than had last year so [Music] thank you i would like to continue to build on this recognition by recognizing all of our uh administrators teachers and everybody in the southern public school system who helped uh through this very difficult year and supporting our our kids and our community so dr riley please convey our my and our appreciation to everybody thank you [Music] there are there any other communications and recognition would you like to take place [Music] um [Music] um [Music] um maybe you could speak to those two yeah [Music] okay let me go down the line and we can certainly generate a letter so i'd like to move on to the student government recognition really are willing to have you as the representation from your school you have been dedicated and
004really so important to the involvement of the board of samples for our next student leader to come on board and i really appreciate that this is you have enough to do than to come here in the evening and spend two hours and we really appreciate the best time that you have and just a little appreciation [Music] yes i will thank you we have a number of staff retiring this year and we will be providing a resolution of thanks to each one of them signed by the board members we'll also be delivering them the retirement that will clock each year so that will be happening after after this board meeting but we do have a number of retirements i'd like to invite our principals to share a few words about each one let's start with stonington
005high school [Music] we have six retirees at the high school this year and i was told that i couldn't have one just a couple of sentences on each but that's going to be possible to start this so i'm going to give you if i can first starting off with carol arbor which has been a part professional for 19 years at high school she has been primarily our iss coordinator and met role she has become our mama bear for so many kids and she has a doctor's football team over the years friday was cooking day during football season she has just become she loves starting high school when she is the face is going to high school in so many different ways so we're going to miss her very much next is dave lewis he is
006a pe health teacher a fan favorite if you will from all the students he has been with us since 1995 so 26 years and uh he will still continue to see danny from cactus going in high school as the voice during many of our athletic events [Music] deb smith is our paraprofessional in the health clinic and her job is probably one of the most difficult because she is the one who is trying to make sure we get all of our physicals and everything all the information updates so uh seven percent of the students who participate sports can all participate in those sports so she is an endless cat she does with great skills evelyn bridges is our school social worker been with us for 23 years since 1998 uh she's been on the back you
007don't see what she does every day but she's not in front of kids but she is that one that's in the back behind closed doors helping so many kids navigate through various trials and tribulations of life and she is it's just that she's going to be tearing this uh candace wood has been with us for the last six years but just to emphasize this she came back to us six years ago and resurrected our foods program prior to that she was with us for many many years she was her school nurse at the high school as a student at high school she was a special ed teacher she was a driver as a teacher she has her 0.92 rn she is she has done everything in education it was great having her back and starting
008the program off again a little bit of time secretary the jack of all trades knows everything that is happening in starrington high school getting things done it's probably the prominent guru of our school and that really frightens you but i do have friends [Music] the incredible staffing after high school you let's move on to dean's smell okay i've had district novels so i i would like to honor two specific people today so i want to say congratulations to peyton romeo she's a speech pathologist and scholarship for 20 years and she's announced her retirement very happy she's worked at mississippi middle school technical school currently surveying our students at best science from school um those will be unfamiliar with speech paths that are teaching the children how to pronounce words how to use their language also
009think so their role in school is teaching social skills and peggy's uh has a particular knack for working with their students who have resources for challenges so she can be incredibly missed and know she's just become a grandmother such a great time for her the next person that i want to honor is uh has been a lifesaver for me personally and professionally is here and that's gloria dimigassi she is our health services supervisor she's been incredible support throughout this pandemic i'm not sure if she ever signed up to be the school nurse supervisor go through the year that we've been through in terms of the amount um support she has provided to all of us to try to advocate this as well as supporting our nurses our healthcare professionals all the initiatives and she's also
010been a school nurse previously at restaurant to miss school terribly but she's certainly going out i'm pleased to recognize kathy crowley for those of you who don't know kathy she has been a paraprofessional in our district for 21 years and i believe spent at least her last 18 minutes in school so it's rarely a day that you don't see kathy in the hallways she just has such a calm disposition she's so very patient she's helped hundreds of children be successful in her role as a paraprofessional she's i think probably works in every grade level in most classrooms in our school um and even this year's um we're virtually supporting all of our distance learners and i'm not sure that many of our students would have made it to the year without her support so we're
011incredibly happy for her but it's a huge loss for us at the eastern school we wish her the very best thank you for at west side watching school shannon she's a special educator and she's been was doing two public schools for 21 years shannon started her career at west broad she was actually the only special ed teacher in the building at the time she went to west line then she also went to transitional k at dean's mill she worked in many other grade levels she went back to west broad and then finally returned to west vine where she has really taught from kindergarten to grade five what makes shannon so special is her ability to connect with her students she would work very hard to meet their needs off and being one of the first
012ones to arrive in school the last to leave and was really dedicated to their success and being able to move them forward and they also made some positive connections with their families and above all shannon is a wonderful colleague she was a great mentor to other uh special ed teachers um a great a friend and a consummate professional and she can't be replaced we will necessarily wish her the best thank you and gary can you say a few words another entirely from our payroll position very important yes michelle malia she just retired last week she started in 2007 as the continuing education administrative assistant she became the substitute secretary and then he was deducted become the special ed secretary and then she really become the fiscal administrative secretary then in 2014 became the table process
013michelle did a very good job as a payroll processor this is a high stress position because as one knows any employee's paycheck is above most importance employees realize how complicated thank you all i would also like to recognize our educator of the year we were able to hold a little ceremony over middle school for norman elliot sixth grade teacher invited her family to show up and if we were all waiting outside the whole sixth grade class and the sixth grade team and her family were there and she walks out and was very surprised so congratulations to noreen and the parent educator of the year lynn prince of beans middle school a wonderful area educator did the same thing infection held a fire drill and so everybody was out on the field all the students from
014the staff and we surprised with a standing ovation by although everyone up for the fire that was really fun and i would also like to again thank the students who submitted uh artwork for the superintendent's uh art show this year so the award from the superintendent's excellence and video art winners all of our pastors act from stonington middle school and jalen leaves at west vine street school so thanks to all of them and their art workers at the stovington library this summer there is plus all the other winners so that takes care of our communications and reputations thank you so now move on [Music] um no no wait wait good evening everybody my name is i started my career in london and spent 26 years in legend and i was at my school and i
015am here today because i want to know if um the critical race theory is being taught in stoned i have grandchildren that are coming up into the system and i'm very very concerned about um the critical race theory being taught in schools around the country so i'm wondering if you can answer that question is the critical race theory being taught in stones we need the board and the administration doesn't answer or respond to public comments if you'd like to send me a note email or call i'd be happy to talk to you about it i think it's more complicated than just saying yes or no because the critical race series pretty complex philosophy and so i know that there are questions about it and when you as a citizen come and speak to us it
016really helps us because then we realize what's concerning people out in the public and then we realize that that's something that we need to communicate out there [Music] okay so if you would like to as as dr reilly said you could begin by sending email because we can't just have an interaction that's not in the bylaws but we take notes for what you've said and then we will discuss it and meet about it and what i see immediately is that we haven't communicated enough to the community about what we're doing with critical race theory and i think it's critical race theory has to be defined first and then um talk about it because well it's it's very it's been very defined in a town in california first graders were told to deconstruct their racial and
017sexual identities and that's critical race hearing in a town in california and springfield missouri a middle school teacher teachers were forced to locate themselves on an oppressive oppression matrix in philadelphia elementary school fifth graders were told to celebrate a black communism and simulate a black power rally to free a 1960s angela davis from prison and in seattle the district told white teachers that they were guilty of spirit murder this is critical race theory and i'm very concerned about its infiltration in a hidden and implanted way um in our very beautiful connecticut town of stonington and sometimes they get excused but sometimes it gets camouflaged and you can call it something else like [Music] at the sir time can't engage in conversation like this just state your comments if you have i don't know i don't
018know speaking okay thank you [Music] we don't engage in conversations service take your comments and then you have a seat and we appreciate if you communicate with the superintendent like we advise you send him an email he'll respond to your question thank you [Music] but we you know that there's one thing that happens here is we really try to follow protocol and following bylaws and also it's pretty discipline the way it's attacked so the public can't just jump into our circle of communication so again okay yeah so um you know i think we must all be on the same page you know we want the best of our children and our grandchildren and um my concern for stonington is that critical race theory will slip in through national standards state standards into our stone engine
019standards and we may not even know it so so i think i think what should happen first is that you communicate with ben and then also dr riley and then also those who are responsible for our diversity education and that's one of those implanted words diversity education well it's like is it it isn't okay that's that's important and i think we should start off first with what is the definition the critical risk theory and that move on but we can't do that here we would have to have a specific discussion so i really appreciate you coming and bringing this up because i know that many other states are concerning themselves with this and we will have to concern ourselves yes and as a citizen um can i be involved in um reviewing curriculum if that's
020a question include that under email if you haven't answered any questions okay so i have to send you a question okay all right well i appreciate you listening to me today and i will definitely follow through this is a very important topic for our future absolutely thank you thank you it was important i can't understand we got your name we also need your address i'm at six school street [Music] thank you thank you yes please uh nicholas toole t-e-w-e-l-l-113 whitaker dragon uh so uh i just have a couple questions comments that can probably be addressed or not first i saw the newly released calendar for 2122 release today and i went back in time and i compared it to the 19 to 20 calendar because especially last year's calendar was all over the place and
021i noticed that next year we have 16 early release days essentially almost every other wednesday there's an early release throughout the school district of those 16 10 of those are for professional development days uh which equate to six and a half total professional development days of the year and i'm just curious why the increase in early release amounts um total because again in 19 and 20 there was a total of six of them stays three and a half of those were professional development days so i'm not sure where the change is or why the change is happening where we're increasing the amount of early release days but we're just starting getting back into five days a week starting in the fall and what is constituting what's being taught on those added professional development days because
022i'm not sure where you're going to double it why um just looking for clarification on that again i'm not sure if that's an email or if we can clear that up again it's just i mean not for nothing 16 is a lot you know um and and you know of those like i said 10 or professional development days so that's only six early release days that lead into a vacation which uh you know in past practice i've noticed has happened um which is okay but i'm just curious why we added professional development i'm not sure if that's making up for what was lost over the past year and then spreading it out into next year that's something i'm curious about and then also um i'm looking for i'm not sure if this is the time
023because i'm not sure later we're going to bring it up now in regards to the american rescue plan funding that's being administered and being discussed later [Music] should i talk now about it or should i wait until the 45 you should make all your comments now and then i will answering those during the presentation both of those two languages [Music] go ahead and give your comments and then um dr rail will have an opportunity to be able to respond to those at that time okay so i'm just looking for clarification if there are any conditions that we must adhere to in order to receive the funding from the american rescue plan uh the safe return plan that was just posted today i worked last night so i was able to look and it wasn't there
024but it was just posted today states that the plan that we currently have which is a plan that we have set for the height of the pandemic uh is the plan we're carrying into next school year so that's the mass mandate of social distancing and everything else and which it confuses me a little because we're on our decline we've had 0.7 0.7 of 560 testing cases that's our positivity rate that's the fact that just came out from ledge light on just today um and so i'm curious that we're going to continue with this mass mandate and will funding be denied if the board chooses to not have that mass mandate because i'm aware of another school district who's submitting their plan uh and in quotes quotations the school will only require masks for all students
025staff and visitors should public health measures dictate such a need absent the necessity for such no mask will be required and that is quoted from a plan so i'm curious on when that will be finalized if there's if this if the district can be punished if we say hey we're not going to comply because i have a sheet in front of me and the cdc guy who should be considered when we're submitting these plans um it's not a mandate it's just a consideration uh as we as we're aware now uh because i'm also aware that the plan once a minute should be reviewed every six months until 2023 so my suggestion and i'm sure there's lots of parents in this town who suggested hey let's start the tone like we did six months ago where
026we were slow to get schools back open let's set the tone now and say hey let's make next up to the parents if i want to send my kid to school with a mask that's fine if that's the parent's decision it should be up to the state it should be up to the school district it should be a recommended one um you know because in six months the pandemic could come back we don't know but right now we're on a decline vaccinations are up and so forth but let's let's be a leader in this task mandate um and again it should be up to the parents but i'm just curious if there is if the district will be punished and funds will be removed if we do not comply with the exact guidelines set by
027cdc and the department of education um and also i see the example i haven't tested you i'm not sure if you're all aware of this when will this be released is that because this is the official form that was submitted to the state is that correct the report that we're going to be talking about under number 10 includes all those items we think of the template that is that some intent in the powerpoint correct okay so so this is this is already typed up and ready to go okay i must not see so that was my big concern you know i think we should really be the leader of this last thing set this school district in the right course we do it every six months as a mandate it's not a mandate but let's
028let's set the tone early and go based on consideration because again we're down to point seven that's point seven it's eighteen thousand people this is seven right move on to the consent agenda beginning with the minutes the past may through the nations make work in may 27th with anybody like to make a motion that so the [Music] so i'd like to make a motion to uh um [Music] uh [Music] i was surprised to not see the paraprofessional contract on the issue with that yes we have been in negotiations uh with all the uh classified associations we are able to come to agreement on all of them except errors that still is continuing i believe with a meeting scheduled in either late july or august that was the only thing we don't have agreement thank you
029for that [Music] is um the second new approval elimination of board bylaws policies for approval please what we want to discuss line 139 31 914 9210 [Music] to 9140 first um 9140 the chairperson shall appoint representative of the board of education downloads committees for commission such appointments shall be for one year or until it is chartered assigned function officer to work with your permission i'd like to amend that to say the chairperson shall recognize the board of education the appointment to time towards communities [Music] because we don't have the power point to downgrade that motion um i have many motions i meant 9140 to change from a point to recommend that i've texted the children uh the vasculitis and humans i said that i can feel using something that too so we have agreed to
030accept our season i think the motion is to uh commend 911 [Music] the approval of the school district medical advisor contract and i'm very pleased to offer this for approval i've given you the background check this is a medical advisor for a number of districts but this is those who suppose in his resume we're very fortunate to have someone with his caliber and i would recommend the approval of the attached contract [Music] um so gordon would you tell us about the bears most recently absolutely yes we are just about two weeks ago now um and basically the most of the time was spent which dr riley is about to cover uh was about the arp funding so we had a few uh citizens come and ask dr reilly took us through um through the recommended
031plan there were some updates that were coming from the state lots of questions questions amongst the advisory council um which can't like rise about it we did uh we are going to have another meeting next wednesday so we have further public comment um and we'll also have our july meeting so um [Music] moving on to um yes they published input prior to opening this up for further input there is the packet presented to you that includes all of the areas required by the federal and state program to include in your arp funding it was a little concerning that they have been making changes excuse me on this recently but require us to turn in the initial proposal an initial application by june 23rd so you can see in here we included answers to everything that
032we feel is is required there the question about conditions and if we don't do something as long as we follow what's in our plan we'll be fine this is what's required we have to address certain situations and we are saying that we're going to follow the health department on on these various items we also will continue to provide um schools for vaccination sites if needed ledge line and they have both used our school sites for voluntary vaccinations we'll continue to do that um we do expect in response to earlier questions about fasts things seem to change a lot with the guidance that we're getting at this point we're following what's been from the fleshlight in the department of public health as far as uh masks and disinfecting and everything else it's included in this in
033this program um we have opened up this for uh various input from the community and there you can go to our our website and uh it's under public comments there's an email you can send me an email personally it will include all your comments in the final draft we're also meeting this coming wednesday the 16th i'm here at six o'clock with this bears group that they've ordered an attention and anyone's welcome to come you'll see all the comments that have been submitted so far by the community by staff members and students and we'll be looking at that with our return to school committee we'll then take all that information and update or do whatever we need to do with this this is the plan that needs to be submitted to the state by the 23rd
034so at that point what we would do at this point is open this up for any public comment we'll take a transcript of what is offered tonight we've had a number of written emails and other statements provided to us we've got an email site i know that mr freeze met with some students today we're having uh again the bears meeting is a really good time to take a look at this and provide comment but all all public comment will be included in our packet they're presenting to our affairs group and we'll be considered when we finalize the the plan to be sent to the state on the 23rd so i would suggest that you open this up for calling inventory here if [Music] so you're following cdc legislative state guidelines for right now correct yes
035so what you said i just want to clarify who said that there's no penalty as long as you stick it to the plant correct okay so my suggestion if you think we should not follow the guideline we should not like the other district they'll just include that in the public comments email or send me an email or a letter and we'll make sure recommendation is considered yeah no that's that's fine i'll just i just understand i'm just clarifying your problem yeah you're saying so we submit the plan june 23rd yes and if that plan says hey you have to wear a mask in your school and then on june and then kids show up to september 1st and you change the plan or then we get penalized they'll take the funding from us that's my
036understanding no what would happen we're saying we're going to follow the department of public health god if public health says you need to wear masks in classrooms and we will have massive classrooms right if they if we have our plan our plan says we're going to follow their guidelines so their guidelines change on august 30th but we'll follow the new guidelines we're not saying we're going to follow the current guidelines whatever is current at the time so even if they change on september 10th or october 1st until we get to that next review we will change and follow the guidelines that are given by the health department okay so and that's my follow-up so if september first this year the cdc comes out to say masters are not mutated in schools in class are we
037not able to then adjust this until june 23rd of 2020 we would address right there because we're saying we're following we'll see these ph recommendations so if they're if they change the weight we'll still fall well that's what i'm saying because it's saying here you have to review it every six months we review the whole plan every six months okay but you can make modifications to that plan throughout in the plan it doesn't follow it's changing okay we're still plumbing but we'll do another full community review every six months or whatever just three but there's no penalty if you stick to the plan you submit your point that's correct apparently there are other communities that are making a choice to do something on their own and not [Music] before the guidelines come out to spend
038100 of their money on facilities issue and nothing on student learning and they they're going to have to go back because the federal government as far as keeps 20 so you know there's been a lot of discussion a lot of you move by various districts we're following the federal and state guidelines and soliciting is by the public input as we can so dr riley more input no that's it that was just to open that up to the to the public so we should move on to the school calendar okay and you can see um we've gone back and forth with the school calendar um there are a couple uh really are two major changes on this one of them is we are changing the name of columbus day to indigenous peoples day that's at the
039request of our ddi committee and that's been uh happening in many other areas the other thing is like was mentioned earlier this number of early release days we typically have early release days prior to prior to holidays or days off there are more early release days this year than there have been in the past for professional development and the reason for that is we had you know i mentioned this at our last meeting there are two things going on here one of them is there's there's a lot of professional development that needs to happen that we were not able to do this past year there's a new special education iep mandates that are coming there's things that are our staff need to have to make sure that we're meeting uh requirements that's that's one part
040the other part that's probably to me it's as or more important is to allow our teachers time to work on the social emotional needs of students to give our our staff members uh the second grade teachers can be together with the social workers and the psychologists etc and deal with students who are coming back to their facing difficulties with their emotional uh issues the other thing we'll be doing is analyzing the academic data more often than we have in the past we've always had a professional development days in early release days there's more this year because the needs are more this year you know that i originally was looking at even more days during the year but in talking with some of you and and with uh [Music] the leadership team principles we thought this
041was enough we front loaded some of them so they really in the next first two months we have extra time for teachers to recognize students that are struggling academically or emotionally and to deal with if we wait until what we did in the past but we have less of these these opportunities we may lose students we don't want to do that it's it's a tough decision because there are two important things here one of them is to have as many many instructional events in a time in classroom as possible and the other part is to allow teachers time to deal with the academic and emotional needs that are absolutely going to be coming up based on students returning full time so those are this is the best balance that we could come up with this
042is struggling coming strongly from teachers asking for this extra time and uh it seems reasonable again we've adjusted it down it seemed too much when we were looking at more days this still is more than usual and i know there would be issues with child care etc but it gives our teachers and emotional mental health staff additional times to address some of those important needs to look at assessment data where are we behind with concern with an individual student and what can we do to help we're hiring a specialists coaches interventionist tutors and they need to get on hit the ground running and know what students they need to work with at the beginning of the year we don't want to wait until december to find out a student struggling so that's why the extra
043the extra days this year and i'd be happy to answer any questions when we met um two weeks ago how many how many um earlier release days were there this seems like more than what we had at our last meeting i thought it was like nine or ten out of 16. you know i'll have to look at that calendar i know that our discussion was to have more with the administrative team and if if you're not comfortable with this you can reduce that i just worry the teacher you know we don't want to lose some kids because they haven't had time to work with our mental health staff and let teachers know what to do so if you're not comfortable with this we could go back and we can consider fewer but this this is
044our recommendation from our principals that really came from our teachers and particularly our kb teachers because they're the ones you know that's when in particular you're a number of primary agents when you know the student comes back and they're really struggling we need to be on that right away and give them the supports they need but i also understand that yeah for me it definitely seems excessive but you know i know it's the same number of hours for professional development year every year but um i'd like to see a better balance of you know full days you know a full day off i think i think that helps parents from playing perspective you know i could understand one month but um 16 seems successful i would mention there's actually academic research that shows that better
045student outcomes when teachers are the release time to do collaborative work and professional development so i don't think we should just automatically assume that professional development time or collaboration times necessarily it gets detrimental well just as important like clarification that is not involved what i just said what i mean is a better balance of the full days but you're saying would you like to see there are holidays [Music] and she has used for wednesdays this year and i realize it's a different situation but there are some students in her class that need the extra attention that little extra time and give them the help that they need so they don't feel like they're falling behind part of this is you know some of these kids are really they really are they need that extra attention
046for those kids that aren't falling behind and they're lucky enough to you know go through uh you know not quite sure we're trying to balance the teacher's time it feels like it's a good use of the teachers time to have that extra time to meet with those kids so just my two cents for what i've literally seen in front of me this year thank you jack other comments concerning that can we do this follow the calendar up to december and then we assess and maybe we would like we find that the teachers don't as as many that their um their equity concentrations actually impressed the students enough so you don't see christian development has to um if you would like me to combine actually i think we might be able to do this you know
047looking at more at full days rather than half days to see if that can even work but also providing as much time as possible and taking heidi's idea of because it may be the other way around maybe we need more things in december but we can assess it bring it back to you and we can do something with the calendar here that says he's a tentative or something like that so if you like um work on all those ideas bring back maybe a couple different options we need to get this out yeah exactly right because i agree i want the teachers to have what they need but it's just 16 i mean the half days are um i wonder the frequency of it right so um we have the committee of the whole meeting coming
048up why don't i work on a couple different options to kind of address on this i think it's important for parents to know soon so they would be looking at you know [Music] december thank you thank you so uh next is the discussion of the music program yes um i've sent you a memo outlining kind of where where we are with this i would like to thank our music teachers several times a number of times with principals and administrators i also like to thank mr morehouse he's interested in music and we've been talking about this this is important for us to come up with the plan to re-energize our our music program it was i mentioned something last time that has been withdrawn from the from the high school teacher and that was to not
049have a marching band she has reconsidered and does want to continue that for this year anyway so that's you see that's not in here the strong recommendation is to hire that 1.0 music teacher at the middle school level this will allow us to provide lessons and encore classes to those 6th and 7th graders with educated with the intent of moving lessons in the fifth grade as soon as possible i know they've been talking with music teachers with um administrators um jack i would like breathing focusing on that 567 time space is what we're all trying to do here and i think this can do it so i would like the nod approval from the board to move forward with hiring one more full-time teacher to be at the middle school it sounded very exciting getting
050those encore classes back is what boosted the enrollment the interest in music classes at the high school and when those went away because of and we couldn't offer because of the pandemic it really hurt things so we could offer the lessons which were blessings and awkward classes for the priorities so we can do that if we hire this teacher i would suggest we hire out of the general fund as you know each year we do things during the year to reduce expenditures you know we don't throw positions as often as you know we have kind of hold off if we need to have a need we would hire this out of the general fund and use savings throughout the year to help fund us but i would like the nod from the approval of the
051board to move forward with this that's the recommendation of all the music teachers all the principals and me and i'd like to get this advertised tomorrow so i put a motion to approve the recommendation of the superintendent's donation public school how does that how does that work for for subsequent years is that an additional account it's like we talked about this before or next spring we'll be looking at the following year and we'll look at priorities so it may be additional budget money or we may be down in enrollment in kindergarten so we don't need to have that position i mean it's a big package deal this would be a regular general funded position the following year depends on what happens within our funding some of that to cover some of these positions also but
052we'll know that in the year so at this point it would be just a general funded teaching position so right now it's not incremental spending for the budget yeah it would be an additional 75 000 or so for our position and benefits that we would have to throughout the year when we have energy savings so we don't buy this there's ways that we you know if we have something that's immediate then we deal with it and we try to make those savings so we would look at saving 75 um middle [Music] september has always been differentiated um all three of my [Music] side uh you know the students it was a very vibrant program as an example uh [Music] students would go up to stone bridge this [Music] years old and uh you have these
053kids that were born probably two thousand several years ago uh and they'd be playing actually remember the song broken you [Music] music he's probably someone from world war ii building people dancing in the aisle and around the room and it was just truly remarkable and it stuck with me what caused me to be so adamant about trying to keep our programs as good as it was you know it was back then there was also three couple years ago we got jazz that something that community members participate in uh parents i actually participated in that monday mornings uh we got a chance to play with uh kids in middle school um we had a concert [Music] it's just you talk about the hours it was incredible and it produced a lot of interest advantage so he'll
054be the director of time to send you know 100 kids after the high school only lunches you know it's just perfect so the point i'm trying to make is you don't have a really robust program fifth six seven eight can you create sorry fifth six seven and you know i think the mary hawkins last now i called this weekend it's my busy season but i took the time to speak with a few of the dance before um and also a retired uh inspired being director and also without generally and i've become pretty close and they all say the same thing and that is the start of fourth grade these lessons paid off and that continues on six concerns but you know we need something better they all collectively they all have interestingly enough they all
055said that by the eighth grade program just let them go and uh so and they all agree um all three of them so i i i would like to see you know as a town we take great pride in our program and you know whether it's the pops summer pops high school it's an opportunity for parents to see you know kindergarten but singing playing an instrument you see this going to public schools so i would like to see that halftime system store if we already slide the attic discussion because as i said this line asset that that fifth graders have so we a couple years ago really changed the program and see um quite frankly central money we have to spend on we need to keep a little bit more great find a way to
056try to find faith yeah into fifth grade really quickly i'm sorry i'm i know we spent a lot of time on this and [Music] um and like she said i think the biggest thing for me was um somebody really prioritized um the lessons so we had um every friday and it gave us something to be proud of and so i think that the issue right now is that there's not a lot of um positive reinforcement amongst the students who are in band because there's not a lot to look back on to have those moments where you see their final product or they're kind of working towards something that they're not really sure if it's a problem that we're also having at the high school um where there's not a strong enough foundation in middle school
057to produce something that high school levels um they're proud of and um i i've been talking to this guy um she sent out a survey with the parade marching band that kind of thing um and over and over i'm telling her that you know the community outreach developers mentioned is why i want to ban it's how i know your community it's also something to be proud of so i don't really know where the funds are coming from for this halftime position but if it's anything to consider i think that it should be a um at least for me thank you sorry i would suggest that you approve the motions and i'd like to um is getting filled up but i'd like to bring back some suggestions about fifth grade and fourth grade because there are
058some other things going on the western chorus and private lessons that we're offering so if i can give a report on that and let's see how or if or is it a half time position need or what what else so if we can move forward with the one point if we're all in agreement with that we want to get that right away then we'll consider the half time and the other the elementary in the next two weeks we had something what breaks and i just i just want that commitment that you know we look at or fund something that's like this down the road that we're not cutting other things um because i actually support this idea i just get concerned with the environment larger and we are so there is some economies of scale
059let's say these participation grades that make some things more feasible that are more difficult [Music] but [Music] my daughter was in the band program two years ago and at summer cops i mean it was hard to pick advantage so we had a high participation rate despite declining enrollment which is something that's very impressive [Music] up to speed to is certain point it's like when i'm on the line tight surfing i took three lessons and i just didn't shake through it my friend who kept going with us and ends up loving it and i'm frustrated so i quit it's just if our program is not robust in the beginning and they don't they don't see the the benefit of a strong program they're not going to continue on with it their numbers are it's a lot
060to put on a high school band director so you know we can do better and and everyone it's we we we're the best we just need to get back to that we don't need that to be all i know i'm good friends with someone that's at western forest that that program is really in the beginning stages um i i'm hoping for something in your future so these kids lose that wonderful experience [Music] i just think that we need to consider that it was one of our more goals was to focus on signature programs and i think one of the signature programs in our school is music and drama and so we need to stoke that and build it and if the robust foundation begins in the middle of school i think that's what we begin
061to need to look at so i would go with a suggestion that dr reilly gave passing what we have and really seriously talk about that cacao meaning about putting in some professional help that will help the middle school because that sounds to be the foundation of music starting in 10th grade as kindergarten is foundation to the rest of education it sounds like waves too so would we i'll make a motion except um [Music] let's make sure that that's on the [Music] a month reports do we want to look at any of those individually i would like to hear the student government finance group services global doesn't even have a comment on that so what's some likely promotion for you know operations and disorders no [Music] yes yeah i was just going through each one um
062and enrollment is there any comment on that so i like to make motion a [Music] um i would just like to basically say what i said um in order for it as a closing team last meeting um my only comments were regarding um [Music] it's fresh in everyone's memory especially to have some issues with our school and in our report which i hope came across i'm really really happy with what the voice program has done with what administration has done and what the board of education has done looking at re-evaluating our policy procedures my only concern is as i've said in this whole interior this is a starting point is not the end um and my only fear is that it will be neglected it will be left behind it will be prioritized just because
063there's nothing uh to provoke that so i think i'm hoping that the voice program does carry that through because that is their sole purpose um in moving forward and they don't really know how to get everyone's attention just to be clear i think it was in november one of my first meetings um and we were talking about um one of the first voice programs of what they had the students sit down at nine o'clock with the new youth officer and we talked about um child human sex trafficking that kind of thing it was very very early but um it did catch our attention it is completely different from what we had before and that constant change um and moving forward and readdressing reassessing that kind of thing i really want to emphasize not being lost
064in the next couple years on behalf of the board of education as well as the students within the school so [Music] a really good checklist for assessment and future considerations so that's something that's there and thank you for summarizing the concerns of the students that you represent i hope that that's a model for our our next representative to bring in comments and representation you could pass that on to him to say make follow-up ask questions that's that's important so um i learned in the comments from to lily so lily thank you again for your dedication to the stonington schools and for serving as you have yes um any other comments on that items for future agenda i don't think we we're gonna have to use the program so we don't have to put it on
065can we have it on the next [Music] and concerns [Music] that and i wonder if that's you know i mean obviously it's it's this could just totally be involved it doesn't go anywhere but have you heard anything with regards [Music] certainly we you know the whole demolition and conditioning issue for us is paranormal we do have some other issues but not those are the those are the big ones so it would be wonderful if somehow [Music] i just want to thank our citizens for coming forward please help us to hear from you what is needed and what concerns people have there so please return and share your ideas um so do we have to wait till 35 okay adjourn i think we can enjoy