001I do have some quick athletic acknowledgements if that's okay just to start off. Um so we had a very exciting week from the point of view athletics as we do in many other cases. There's all kinds of amazing student achievements. um some of the athletic achievements that are very recent. Um Rebecca Langlay finished 12th at the cross country open and qualified to run in the New England Championship um in Vermont and she finished 31st out of 250 runners. She was amazing. >> Um the boys soccer, as you know, won the Class Mate Championship for the second straight year. Von Combmes was named the most valuable player and he and his team and the team will be here next uh next meeting on December 3rd. Um Bruce and Rita Mayor, I just want to do a
002shout out and a thank you for a $600 donation they made to the boys soccer team. Their foundation uh will also be sending an additional $1,800. So, we're deeply thankful for that. So just a couple couple of quick recognitions for our athletic program and thank you guys very deeply appreciated program. Also tonight we have a very exciting group of people. We're just uh I do want to just highlight that we have so many great organizations in talent. Um and some of these organizations are parent teacher organizations our PTO's TPTO booster club. Uh this partnership with the community helps every aspect of our school system. Uh they enrich student experiences. They support our staff. They help us build strong connected uh community, a strong connected community that really uplifts Tones children in the countless ways and
003hours that they spend on events and initiatives. Um it just makes it possible for this school system and this town to be able to do the wonderful things that we can do for the kids. So, um, without further ado, I'd like to hand it over to chair chairwoman to do our recognition. And when we're done doing our full recognition, we do have chachki for you. We have two kinds of chachki. And by the way, with the tariffs, these are worth a tremendous amount. We have the aluminum chi and the plastic chi. All you can put your beverages in. I want to make sure we give one to each of you. >> Thank you, Dr. Bullet. >> Well, I am honored to recognize our amazing parent teacher organizations and our booster clubs tonight. These organizations are
004essential to the success, strength, and vitality, and most importantly, the heart of our school district. We are incredibly grateful to every single volunteer for your immense time and effort. And we thank you for your continued hard work and dedication and for simply being true champions for our students and our staff. So now I'd like to highlight some specifics for each organization. TPTO is dedicated to our youngest students at Birch Grove and TIS. Their recent large contributions include Gaga ball pits for both schools which provide a flexible indoor and outdoor space for Gaga ball, a popular dodgeball like game. They also installed and ma maintain really cool book vending machines at both schools where students can be rewarded with a token to choose one free book every year. And they sponsor the one book one school
005initiative at Birch Grow, a shared reading experience across the entire school. They have taken over the fourth and fifth grade dances events both parents and students look forward to every year. Teto emphasizes community building and social emotional opportunities with activities like the display of student made kindness signs at both schools. Sponsoring the mileage club to encourage physical activity at recess and organizing my personal favorite book fairs that truly bring excitement for reading for reading twice a year to our students. They strengthen our school community by hosting large zerocost fun family events like Frosty Fest, the Trail of Treats, and the Spring Social, which offer families free fun while also providing opportunities to raise funds for our schools within them. The middle school PTO has significantly invested in supporting both staff and students. This year, they
006allocated grade level and UA stipens this year to provide staff with dedicated funds towards enhancing sore days and other exciting enrichment opportunities for students. They are focusing on building their school community spirit by planning a highly anticipated schoolwide assembly for our middle schoolers this year. They also planned fun and memorable events that unite our staff and students like the popular hoops challenge where staff members compete against the middle school basketball team. They also hosted a fun community building Falcons fitness fundraiser this year. They create and organize the eighth grade promotion science fundraiser and the eighth grade promotion dance which is such a milestone event for our kids and families as they finish their middle school career. Our boosters club has provided large contributions the past few years to elevate our athletic programs, support student well-being,
007and foster community within our high school community. This includes the baseball and softball field scoreboards, a basketball and volleyball scorekeepers table, and a muchneeded sound system upgraded for the Turkfield. That's right. >> They also worked with one of our science teachers to provide costly recycle bins to upgrade our recycling program within the school. The large welcome back and graduation banners they procured and display of the high school entrance celebrate the experience and excitement of being a high schooler and the hard work our kids have done to get there. They also organize and staff exciting family and community building events like the yearly cornhole tournament and the Eagle Scramble Golf Tournament in partnership with Project Graduation. One of the most heartwarming traditions they sponsor are the individual student made graduation banners that beautifully line the high
008school driveway in celebration of every student's unique experience and accomplishments leading up to their graduation. And we are extremely grateful for your help this year with funds donated towards our clubs. All of our parent teacher organizations find memorable ways to value our incredible staff members throughout the school year. Our booster club highlights a high school staff member each month for their efforts to go above and beyond for students every day. Each organization plans staff appreciation events through the year filled with breakfast, snack, or dessert goodies as well as larger events that provide full meals and raffle prizes. They also come together every year to organize a bus driver appreciation event for our bus drivers to show how much we appreciate our drivers who safely transport our kids to and from school every day. We are
009so fortunate for the love and dedication of our parent teacher organizations. Your continuous efforts are absolutely indispensable in creating a positive and supportive environment for all of our students and staff every single day. You truly make our schools a better place and we thank you so much. >> Thank you. Everyone doing their chat. >> All right. So this is like all products without >> the other [laughter] slow Thank you. >> You got some on the other side. Dr. >> You want more? I will. >> It's all right. It's all right. >> Would you guys like to take a picture? >> Thank you. It's a big strong thing. >> Come on. Let me give you a hug for the lovely bird. >> I know. >> I want I'm gonna go around, but I don't want to
010climb over. Hi. [laughter] >> Ready? Do it on three. One, two, three. >> Good. >> Thank you guys. Thank you. >> Thank you for coming. [laughter] They don't feel this is where you tell them, >> right? Just uh [clears throat] we love having you here. You don't have to stay. [laughter] So, don't feel like you're gonna hurt a families. Lots of volunteering. >> Thank you guys. Thank you for coming. >> Thank you. >> That was great. >> Okay, moving on. Do we have any additions to the agenda? >> Seeing none, we have no minutes to approve. So, we can jump to public participation. The members of the Colin Board of Education welcome members of the public to share their thoughts and ideas at this time. When appropriate to do so, members of the board and
011the administration may respond to comments during points of information. However, in consideration of those in attendance and in an effort to proceed in a timely manner, follow-up discussion may need to take place outside of the meeting setting. If you decide to speak, please give your name and address and you will have two minutes. Do I have anyone in the room who would like to speak >> their Zoom hand up? >> Do I have anyone online? If so, please put your Zoom hand up at this time. Okay, back to the room. Back to online. Okay, Dr. Will, you can close out public participation. Okay, next we have correspondence. Dana is going to be a little late, but she asked me to relay that we have had no new correspondence at this time since the last meeting.
012Next is points of information. Would any of our board members like to speak at this time? >> I would um first of all like I think last week kind of the nerves got the best of me so I didn't really get to speak and I don't I think we're kind of rushed last week. So I'd like to just extend my uh hearty thanks to the town of Talon for putting me in this seat. I'm extremely humbled and proud to be seeing you and representing your students, your teachers, your staff, and of course, Dr. Willlet. Um to Jen and and uh Bill, I look forward to your leadership. I look forward to working with each and every one of you. I take this um position here just as as important. I take this position with just
013I took my career in my 30 years in the military. So, I'm extremely proud to be here. I look forward to working with with everyone and I look forward to seeing the great things our students and teachers do. Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> No. >> Moving on to the student representatives report. Camila and Angela. >> So this week at Tolland High School, we've had our penny wars that now it's been changed to dollar worth since they've stopped making the penny. >> Um most kids my age don't really keep change on them. Um, but fund dollar worth so far this week, Monday, Tuesday, and today, Wednesday, we've raised $28,128, which is a large improvement from last year where we like barely made $200. We've also had the Smith pop of events going on, but we're
014unsure on that amount. I have to get contact with them. And we Smith also hosted a Badman tournament last Friday, which raised $28. And all this money is going towards us buying goods for the Cornerstone Foundation and Brennan Rockville. >> I knew I wasn't here last week, but my name is Camila. Hi. Um, on top of that with the Smith, they also had a pop-up event that was successful that many students came. Smith also had been running games to raise money as well, like mini basketball and mini golf. Student Council and Smith are also going on a trip to the Cornerstone Foundation to bring our donations to the food pantry on Monday. And Angela and I have been also also have a meeting of Mr. Poland early December to discuss smart pass data and new
015AP classes. >> Great. Thank you. We have questions. Do >> you know who won the bad mint tournament? >> I'm not sure. >> I do. So do I. Who you have? are my flag football guys. >> Who that? >> That would be Is it okay to say? I don't know. Right. Charlie, Charlie and Ivan. Ivan, Lennox, and Ryan. De so we had to throw some decaled out. So, congratulations. >> I only asked because I just heard there's a lot of trash going. >> Yeah. So, was the stuff in high school, you know, it looks like it still lives. So, it was awesome. Penny's out. Bad mint in >> bad in there in pennies out. Bad mint in. There you go. >> All right. Thank you very much. Okay. So, next are the committee and liaison
016reports. We do not have any committees yet, but we're about to. So, next is the chairperson's report. So, first up, I will uh discuss the committees. So, I've already provided the committee assignments in writing as is required by board policy 9190, but I'd like to present them publicly tonight. I was able to give everyone their first choice and then either your second or third um and reviewed it with Bill. So, if you have any concerns, just let me know and we'll work it out. So, for policy, our chair will be Jaden and our members will be McKenzie and JP. For finance and facilities, our chair will be Dana. And our members will be McKenzie, Brian, and JP. Communications chair will be Brian. Members will be Joelle and Elaine. Our negotiations chair will be Bill. Members
017will be Mckenzie and Dana. Finally, our curriculum chair will be Joelle with members Jaden and Ellie. Other than that, I just wanted to say that I think tonight is a great first working meeting for our experienced and new members. Uh we're going to take a look at the financial report which will be presented by Dr. Willlet monthly here as an overview, but our FFC committee will uh regularly explore it deeper in their monthly meeting. We have an opportunity to assist our nursing department who were heavily impacted by last year's budget reductions and are in need of additional support. And last, we'll have a first read of the 2627 school year calendar, which our previous policy committee worked on and approved for board review. So, I look forward to the discussions. Moving on to the superintendent
018report. Dr. Willlet K1. >> Yep. So, uh for the board members who've been here, you know that um we have the monthly financial report typically on the first board meeting of the month. Um, and in this case, because the first board meeting was taken up with the transition, we're having it on the second. Um, but we will have the next one right up at the first board meeting of the month. And we typically will do that all the way along. Uh, the board of education has typically provided information through the board packet. And um, and in that board packet, there is a letter from the finance director that gives us an idea of approximately where we are right now. So at this point in the year 83% $3 367,748 are currently the budget balance is
019what's available. Um I generally try to keep it concise but at the end of this if anyone has any questions throw them out there. If I can't give you a direct answer right now I'll get the information um and bring it back to you next time or provide it on the dashboard. I'll go over some of the uh larger lines here and then in FFC typically finance and facilities we dive even deeper. So um this is going to just kind of be a general overview. Um you know I'll collect any questions that you have. Also included in the board packet for you and for the public. There is the one page of budget document. finance and facilities as more more even a more extensive one, but this one is your one pager that gives you
020most of the major budget lines and conferences, the balances and so on at this point in the year. So, as you might imagine, we're not too far into the school year yet, 110, line 110 or the code 110. Uh we're currently under budget at 64,272. That will obviously continue to change as we go throughout the year. um 150 which is stipens. Those are over budget currently but we are still collecting the pay to participate funds. Um we have as you know uh had private or parent parent guardian funding of our clubs and activities this year which is different from previous years. So we're still in the process of collecting for that as well. Um but most of the clubs were able to run. We do have about four or five clubs that are still on
021the hold status until we can get enough of the funds. And so, um, you know, at this point, as we continue to collect those funds, there's a slight overbudget of 18,248, which will be rectified as we continue throughout the year. 320 professional education service is over budget by 67,000. Um this is because of three new out placements. For some of you who are aware of special ed, we can come in they the students you know come out sometimes they have to go out to an out placement when that occurs. Um you know we do budget for it but it's hard to predict. So at this time um that overage is due to these three outplacements that hit right at the same time. Uh so that's that's where that is. But uh we do get some
022funds from the state of Connecticut in February and in May and that does tend to help us a bit. We do account for that, but sometimes it's it can be a little bit more from the state than is expected. So things tend to balance out at the end, but um we do sometimes run a negative balance along the way. And that's what's going on here for line 320. Um 560 is tuition. uh tuition. Um there's two there's different kinds of um outplacement services. 320 is really services and 560 can be um the actual placement of a student outside the district. Um and that's over as well due to those additional outplacements. Um so we're we're working through that. There is one possible outplacement that could cost $400,000 that possibly would be coming. Um that's something
023we're trying to plan for. It's one of the largest that we've ever seen. Um but that might happen. And if that does, you'll see this line significantly impacted by that. >> That's an annual cost. >> So yeah. Yeah. And so, um, you know, again, like I said, we do do get some funds back in excess cost, but, um, we we're not sure until until February and May, the two those two months where you get those contributions from the state where things fall. So, we just have to kind of keep an eye on that line as we go through the rest of the year. So, those are the biggest things right now that we're looking at. The rest of it is your typical ins and outs as we go through the year. But like I said,
024if you have any questions um you can ask now, I can answer it. We'll come back with an answer or uh you can always any board member is uh always invited to come to the FFC and we do a similar thing in FFC. We'll do a monthly financial but that monthly is is a deeper dive because there's more time. >> Great. Thank you. Does anyone else have any questions at this time? I do Jaden >> just go first. back. >> Um just a few curiosity questions. So you mentioned the stipens and how uh they're over because we haven't collected all the payments for clubs. What was the process for, you know, say I want to participate in a club? >> How do [clears throat] I as a parent, you know, never mind student as parent,
025how do I pay for that club this school year? Is it different from previous years? >> Well, it's um it's different in that central office collected most of the money. schools, >> but um and it's different in that we could not really start most of the clubs until we collected the vast majority of those funds, which you know to give you an example, the total amount is about 68,000. So there's sort of when we have an overage because we haven't collected the total amount yet. But what happens in there too is students who are classified as FRL or RL which is free and reduced lunch or reduced lunch don't pay anything at all. >> Um and so then sometimes we go a little over negative because we're not collecting money from some groups you know
026certain percentage of students and then we backfill that with either grant funds or some other things. So it takes a little while to reconcile it. For instance, the academic and social support grant is a grant that I write and use to sometimes cover some of the kids who are unable to pay themselves. And so we run a little deficit until we get that all balanced out. But um the way it ran this year is parents um kids had to select their clubs in September. Parents had to pay by the end of October. Um and then if a student could not pay for a club or was not classified as a you know FRL or or RL um then they couldn't join the club. >> Okay. So >> most clubs are were placed and going by
027November you know the month in November they weren't in. >> Gotcha. Okay. So if the clubs wanted to I mean to and I'll speak for a deca for example that's just you get you student reps that's that's that's you know that's my world. Um a deca for example I mean they start an average year basically right away typically. So if a deca a club of you know let's say 65 70 kids or so are they going through September and October without club that's >> basically they're going through September at the least and some of October with not not starting >> and paying the same rate that they would have even if they participated from September to October. >> Yeah. The rate under article 38 for the contract provides for about 20 or so depending on
028the club classification meetings. So they're still going to get in most of their meetings. And clubs can differ in level of engagement. So the person that's running it gets a certain kind of stipen and um if they spend 40 hours planning and 20 hours executing because they are doing something that requires a massive amount of planning then you might have fewer meetings on one club than you might have on another that requires almost no planning. So for instance if there's a programming club that requires no real planning. You go into the computer rooms and do some programming. >> You'll probably have x number of meetings. But if you have um something like a volleyball or something that requires a tremendous amount of setup, a lot of planning and certain things, then that might actually there
029might be fewer fewer times they get together. So there's no it's really based on article 38 and the stipens and what can expect of a person running the club reasonably for the amount of money they're paid. And under article 38, there's multiple classifications. So for instance, the drama kind of uh plays, theatrical performances require a massive amount of time. So they're at a certain percentage of compensation and time that's way above your standard club bet, you know, like a model United Nations. >> So it's a scale and it's all over the place, but it's based on how much time it takes to execute that particular club. Um so some will run more than others but um starting in October it's possible to get all of the you know the ones in it more or less
030roll I mean all to the you know to the extent of what can be executed and planned based on the time and requires the prep that thing. >> Okay. So yeah, even though it runs, you know, in that October through June time span, um the amount of money we charged was fixed was 50 for TIS, 75 for TMS, 85 for Yeah, it's fascinating because again, you're losing September. I mean, those, you know, you got practice competition coming up in December. Now you got half of October, some of November because of that Thanksgiving break. Now you got I mean so again I'm just thinking through the brain of a DECA student which expands into just about every club you know in that in that in that school of we want to we want to go we
031want to I want to start I want to start student council I want to start photography or a yearbook or whatever it might be. So um interesting to note that again they're losing two months worth and I know you just sort of said it's a case by case basis losing two months worth of club no matter sort of how we >> will the uh look at it. That's your um opportunity cost of funding clubs in this way. >> Correct. >> Uh the you know in the past the board um had the budget for funds or funds in the budget for clubs in the operating budget. >> Sure. So um the last cycle of reductions eliminated all of that or the vast majority of that which is why the clubs were being funded by parent guardians
032entirely and you can't in that scenario one can't run it until you collect it. So that's why say you're at a shortage and then you know you that then you don't have money you know and you have to pay the teachers >> right um and it's it's in their bargaining the unit how that gets allocated and to whom and so uh for instance the teacher would not necessarily start unless you knew you had the money and it's not it's not the teacher's fault it's just the way >> it's just how it's set up if >> you can't compensate them you can't ask them to do the task >> correct correct What's going on? >> Something to note. Can I bring it back up? He actually stole my question. That's all good. Fair enough. Um, so
033how many clubs have not are are still in standby and not gone, you know, got on their feet yet? >> There are number three right now they're on standby >> and how how big of a impact is that for kids? How many kids are we looking at with those three clubs that you're mentioning? >> Well, something like the kindness club, I think more kids will join if it actually gets off the ground. exact catch 22, but I would say 20 to 30. I bet it would grow if they actually got off the ground. You know, Model United Nations has like 10 or 12. Kindness club has about five or six. Um, I don't think that Oh, the mountain biking club has about five. But like if it were to get going, more kids. And we
034did get, thank you to the community, uh, lots of donations. people really got out there and donated and uh helped the clubs uh many of the clubs get off the ground but we did have those three or four I mean and that includes some of the folks that we had tonight some of those PTO's um making donations as well it is interesting to note that you know we've received donations we've we've sort of centralized the payment process within the last year and all these things and yet I don't see the student experience improving anything we've done in the last year and so Um, I'm concerned with that stipen line because that sort of tells me we're we're a little delayed in the clubs. And again, that's just the world. I I you know, that's that's
035I was a student who who went to school looking forward to all the co-curricular stuff he could get himself involved in. And so this would have u this would have ripped me apart. So, you know, something to consider heading into um this budget cycle. Um, and then the other the other deal, are there updated costs with tuition? So, you know, whyever whatever reasons tuition might increase, are there updated costs with that? You mentioned a $400,000 outplacement. >> Yeah. The um it is the single biggest challenge school districts in Connecticut and probably across the country have that there's massively increasing cost for placements and there's not a lot of options. um you know, everyone's working there are very good quality programs, but um that's something the state of Connecticut and many people know we have to
036get worked out for communities because it's it's very hard to manage. So, um that one that I mentioned is probably one of the highest we've ever seen, but it's possible that it would become the most of them are in the range of, you know, 100 130,000, you know, 200 some thousand. This one is 400,000. And so it's just these are the kinds of things Connecticut school districts are dealing with and it is very impactful. So there have been some state initiatives to try to help with that. Um some task forces and we're looking forward to to that very thankfully. Um we do if you get a chance and you will get this when we do our budget booklets for this year. I do a page on special education and it explains how excess cost works
037because you won't take you won't pay the full 400,000 but you'll pay a very you know a reasonably large chunk of that. >> Um so u you know that explain that page explains it pretty well because there's a threshold and the Connecticut sets the threshold and you pay up to that threshold and then it pays a percentage back of an amount above the threshold. So, you know, roughly you'll pay 70,000 right away and then you'll pay, you know, a percentage of the cost beyond 70,000. The state won't take 100% of it beyond 70,000. You'll pay a percentage of it and so you end up paying about 100. So, for many of them, >> thank you, Jane. You're all set. >> Yep. Thank you, >> thank you for that. >> Okay. Um, also a question with
038the stipens and stuff. Why did they centralize the the payment collection to the central office? >> Well, so part of the issue is um in the past because the board funded it. Um if a parent guardian guided it in that was great, but if something happened, you know, um the board had backed off. It's like an FDIC for the parents, you know, >> because the club cannot run until the funds are collected. It was extremely important to make sure there was a central location where a parent could get a receipt or there was something you know because other before it was just bring it in people take it mark it off but if they aren't being very careful and which they they do a great job but there's 100 things going on um if we're
039not handing out receipts and logging it when it comes in it's possible that Mr. Willlet Mrs. and so on might give somebody cash and no one ever gave them a receipt for it and now bill you know young Nicholas wants to start the club and can't because there's no record that they ever did it and they handed cash in and you know not having it centralized um increased the probability of error um and and because we didn't want it to go forever because in the past if you handed it in in May it was fine but because we had to have the money to pay the people up front. We had to make sure by a certain date it was collected so that we knew exactly what was running and exactly what you know what
040would have to be on hold. So even though we did do it in a centralized manner all the way up to the 31st, it still got you know people still gave it to the schools and we still pulled it in from the schools. So we did both but we encouraged it more to be provided to the central office because we wanted to make sure there was very good bookkeeping on it. And it's not that there wasn't in the ascending schools, it's just not what they were used to. And it used to be be able to be collected for months and if someone hands them cash, you know, the issues sometimes can arise. Um, you know, someone might think they gave them 75, but they gave them 55. And what happened to that extra 20? And
041who's, you know, is that the secretary? you know it can it can create a situation where if there wasn't a receipt >> then there will be issues. So it was one way of doing sort of quality control to make sure a the money was all received by a certain date and b there was a certain process by which we logged it when it came in and that the parent would get some kind of receipt for it. >> I asked as a working parent with two kids in clubs and had to pay. My problem was finding the time to get the check to you guys. >> Yeah. >> Within the hours that you're open. So maybe just for next year just kind of as a as a fortunately one of my son's drives so he was
042able to and I appreciated getting the receipt. I love that I have a receipt so I know that I paid for ski club, >> right? >> But it was it just hard. Yeah. >> So I don't know, you know, like I said, just kind of as a thought for future, maybe we could come up with either maybe a dropbox option at the central office or some way for parents who do work, >> you know, to to get that money in. Maybe, you know, we would have had more participation. Well, then there's a box there. But um one of the things I'm looking to do now is this school system has electronic payments for um sports. >> So what I did is we didn't have time to do this between the end of the last season
043and this one, you know, because it takes time to you have to meet with the company, expand the forms, change it. So what I'm hoping to do next time, next round is make it electronic payments if possible. That'll make it a lot easier. Um so there there'll be that um at least that option as well. a parent can scan a QR code and then you know they may may be that you can hand cash in and scan a QR code and that'll log a receipt at that exact moment and you'll also be able to pay with a debit card or a credit card um make an electronic payment from a bank. So that's what I hope to have set up for the next round so parents don't have to come to a centralized location. But
044yeah, I I realized that and it it's it's just it was new and the impetus was we have to collect the money >> and um you know to fund it. >> So you know what I'm thinking >> but we actually as time goes on people did just drop it at the school and then we just collected it from the school but we were trying to get it you know in one place but we took it from anywhere. I'm thinking considering, you know, this is this is a brand new process this year. We don't know what budget season will bring us, but if this process in some way continues, maybe we should do maybe we should have it just put it on the agenda later in the term to just have a bigger discussion about, you
045know, how it went, what we did, what we could possibly do better. >> Yeah. I mean, these are internal operational things, so we'll be doing that internally. I'm I'm sure that what some people feel like would make it better is for the board to put it back in the budget is probably and then it'll lower the cost right down because what what happened historically was whether someone got it in or not. People were asked to do the due diligence and do their part, but if they didn't, it ran anyway, right? >> You know, um that's probably the single biggest thing under the authority of the board that you if you want to revisit it, you could do. If you add it back to the budget, it starts right away. there's no collection process, you know,
046that type of thing. Otherwise, operationally, yeah, it's just we have article 38 and you know, maybe that'd be a good FFC item, you know, and then we can go through it because the constraints, it is what it is. You'll have to collect it before you can run it and that's going to be the biggest thing >> electronically. I think we'll be able to accommodate people more widely. Um, but the biggest challenge is can't run it till you collect it. I get it and people don't always they're not able to get it in right away either. So, >> okay. Any other questions? Yeah. I'm sorry. So then um the energy line item >> sure >> is that oil electricity like what what does that encompass? >> 620. Turn it up here. [clears throat] So um get
047to yeah that's that's primarily on that line mostly electricity um and we have a trans I when we get into FFC we can disagregate it. It is a roll up of a couple of things. Um but we do have um you know we do have a um lower amount now than we have even though electricity is going up um because of an agreement that shifted over um the town where the board was paying debt for a long time that you're not paying now. So that's a good thing. Um the solar options too. We do have a solar plan that we're hoping to move forward with that would put more solar panels in the schools that would also lower the energy cost overall. So um it's a rollup line and I can disagregate and break that
048out but um one of the biggest driving costs of it is the electrical costs um at this time. So, um I can pull what I'll do is on the dashboard I'll publish a breakdown of that line because it's a rollup line though. >> Okay. Because my question really then comes back to if we budgeted $718,000 we're a quarter of the way into the year and 600,000 has already been spent. Yeah, that's the that's the encumbrance, I think. >> 620. >> Yeah, that's the year to date. So, it's like so >> well, it's probably a function of how we've been budgeting in the past where we transfer that entire amount over at the beginning. >> Oh, okay. So, so it's not something that like you know two months from now we're going to run out. No,
049no, no, no, no. It's not like that at all. It's just with these lines we've traditionally that has been a transfer early in the year. It's it's how it gets booked, but we're not going to run out. Okay. No, we're not we're not like in October and then going way negative on that. No. >> No. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Yes. I have a couple of questions and stop me. Maybe we should dig into some of these more in FCC. Um my my first question about this the stipens and the clubs are those clubs that are impacted because there's not enough student interest or because there's not pay payments that have been made. >> Um so I was writing the question. So for the clubs you're asking the overage because of what hasn't come
050in payments. Well, no. I'm asking the the clubs that aren't running right now. Are they um because there's not enough student interest or not enough paid students? >> Well, it's it ends up being both. So, in order to run it, I need at least 15. >> So, we were doing sort of the the accounting of it. Uh it used to be that you needed at least 25 when it was sort run a certain way. now or try to lower that but that means higher cost but you know you don't get 25 kids in clubs a lot right >> so if we did it that way no many of the clubs wouldn't run at all so it's that fixed amount and 15 have to it has to be at least 15 to run it in most
051cases unless someone donated the money to make up the difference >> okay >> so it's both so there might be a club that's close like Model United Nations but then there's also a club like um you know like We're dirt biking. That's pretty far away. >> Okay. >> So, you know, model United Nations needs only five more people or a donation that would match up to that. >> Okay. >> Mountain biking would need at least 10 or a donation that would match up to that. >> Okay. >> Something like the school store, you might run with a very small number of kids, but it will require a donation because a school store may serve four children, you know, four students. They may provide a store in the building but only four kids are in the
052club or so. So you end up what happens is a club like that might not run but one like meanwhile the United Nations might you know have a better shot. >> Um it's just how those things got funded over time. So using the smoke school store example that was funded under the club model because um it was beyond it has some elements of work beyond the contractual day for a teacher and then under that article. You have to stipen for that and that's how it became a club because it's actually more efficient and more cost effective than paying a contractual rate >> for a person to run it if that makes sense. So it became a club but then on the downside of that >> only four kids right >> not a good not a
053high chance that will run in a in a parent guardian payment paradigm >> right >> um yeah so >> okay and then my my other question is how did we set the cost of clubs we take the cost and divide it by the minimum of 15 or >> so what we tried to do is um instead of taking the cost of the club and dividing it. Um because some clubs would be massively expensive, >> right? >> Most of the smaller clubs that a lot of kids engage in that we call affinity kind of clubs like games, >> um they would not raise it would be a very large cost, like $250 or something for, you know, someone to go play in games club. And I think most parents at that point would be like, we
054got games and all, you know. Um but the the purpose isn't the games themselves. It's the socialization. It's getting together with your friends and having a group of kids, you can get together, right? So that's why you we want one. >> So we chose figures that were most likely to raise the appropriate amount of money, you know, when looking at the broad picture of all the clubs, all the clubs together >> and and um chose a number that was more likely to help the club run. So, you know, a minimum of 15 at $85 at the high school would help fund most of them if uh you know, if we got the return to those clubs that we expected. >> Okay. So, there's there is a scenario where if we continued with the same model
055that if there was more participation than expected that that line would be over. >> Well, we run paytoplay sports in a similar way. For instance, um your cross country has way more student participation than your basketball team because your basketball team has a fixed number of players. >> Absolutely. >> Right. So in any district that does pay to play, your cross country money helps the program. This, you know, or clubs that if it was by themselves would run and basketball for instance >> may never run. football might run, you know, with X number of players and varsity and all junior varsity and cross country might run, you know, run, no pun intended, but anything that has a small number of players, um, would have almost no chance of running if it were a full paytoplay
056scenario like that. The clubs run the same way. It's set up so that, you know, if you have 60 members, it it's it's not money coming in to the club per se. is coming into the you know the system and then the system then sustains the clubs with the bundes receive. So something like the bigger clubs would help keep the smaller clubs alive. >> Okay. >> And it's not more costly for a student who does a more costly activity like participating in the play or thing versus like the games, >> right? They pay the same thing. Now the the only caveat to that is some clubs might do things like a ski club. Ski club goes on go skiing and we all know how much that costs. >> Yeah. >> The club stipens pay for
057the human beings that you run them, >> right? >> Not for anything else associated. >> Not for the bus, not >> for the additional buses, not for the the ski tickets, not for any of that. without the collection of this um the club money, we wouldn't be able to pay the staff. >> Yeah. >> So that's what that is designed to do is pay staff. So there are people who want something. Um, and then on this the the outplace that you were talking about, I I assume that there's not a lot of choice once the decision's been made that that is the appropriate out placement for that student, >> right? It's based on a student on the student's need. Yeah. >> Um there is a a statutory process in Connecticut where if there's a disagreement
058about something, a parent has the right to a due process kind of >> and hearings and so on. So there can be challenges and then there can ultimately be a um arbitration and an agreement. Um so there's two ways it happens. It's a placement and everybody's copathetic with it or somebody's unhappy and there's you know a hearing in a process. Either way, there's only a certain number in the state anyway. And so it's based on the students needs and then whatever the PPTE process final determination is under the statutory regulations. >> Those costs will flow regardless of what our budget is. >> They Yeah, there's no We try to predict as best we can and we're pretty good at it, but um yeah, you you just never really know. That's what's so hard about it.
059and transportation. Um people don't realize for instance if a student gets expelled um that student doesn't isn't basically that student becomes an outplacement because the talent is responsible for the program of a student. So that would become an outplacement you would pay for that and then you pay for the transportation to the outplacement which is in the tens to 20,000 just for transport. It is um that that type of thing in Connecticut is the thing that is most difficult for all school districts, not just ours. And because you can't predict it, these fluctuations are hundreds of thousands and they center around small numbers of children. >> Yeah. >> So it's it's the most challenging thing. So when we get into budget season, is that something that FCC looks into at how we estimate those kinds
060of costs? >> Yep. We do a one of the things we do in FFC is a special education of funding deep dive. Um and every month we have a bulky depending on what the chair wants to do. There's a chronology of things that will hit each in certain months. That is one of them is the special education funding [snorts] and we will go deeply into um excess costs and all of those things. Um but uh you'll notice that the state of Connecticut um and there's is really I think trying to address this uh Connecticut school finance project has some really good information about special education in the state of Connecticut. uh and they also tried to create a con like a concept of a consortium or at least conceptually we're thinking of creating a kind
061of a consortium and controlling costs but that never that really hasn't gotten a lot of traction. So um it's a great conversation for FFC because we could spend a lot of time on it and it's very educational for people if they do a deep dive about you know the challenges >> and just the one last question. Sorry the the total budget reflects everything that we've allocated and grants that we've gotten and parent contributions. Correct. Those things are separate. >> Yeah. And and in the budget booklet, you'll see um that there's a section for grants, federal, state, all of that. And you'll see how it all falls in. >> And that all rolls up in the view that we're we're >> Yeah. I mean, yes, it offsets you get the grants, they offset it, but it
062is all part of the the budget itself, our told. >> Um >> you know, we when you do do look at the grants, there are hundreds of thousands of grants and so without them, that would be higher though, right? You know what I'm saying? So, okay. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Let me be clear, your office is always looking grants, right? >> Yeah. And one of the things we talked about in FC are the grants. >> Um but if you go to one of the budget booklets, either board of ed or superintendent from last time, those are still up there, there's a grant page and it'll it has all the grants. >> Yeah. And FFC also um if you get into that folder on the dashboard, there's one of the dates when grants were covered
063and there's also a report for that, too. Okay. >> Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, Dr. Willlet A2. >> That's And I just um just want to answer one more question on that budget. 620 that rolls um it's electrical ever source, but it rolls lines five different lines. So, I'll I'll explain more about that later, but there's 620, 352, 353, 354. There's a whole bunch of lines in the larger report that roll into that. Okay. The next Sorry. >> We are at the WFPA. >> Yes. So, the WFPA I like acronyms. Everybody knows that I was talking just a little bit about this. WFPA is within fiscal year position addition. So I created these forms to um to bring to the board to keep the board informed when we're considering adding some kind of position
064during the school year that was not part of the original budget, right? And these things come up. So sometimes uh an example of this would be if you a student comes into the district who needs a feeding tube or needs assistance uh eating and there's a feeding tube involved and you you have to have specialized staff for that. You might have to hire someone to be able to administer the the feeding tube. Um that would be an example of a WFPA and I might come to the board and I would say there's WFPA but it's not an option. I have to hire. So it becomes moreformational. would be I can't not hire someone for a repeating table or if there's something as part of an IEP or if I you know something coming in that's
065required someone moving into the district we may have to provide a onetoone so in those cases it's a hire that I have to make that I am going to inform the board of but I I won't always be able to say do you want me to do this or not because I would have to or you'd be out of compliance right or well worse um then you can get all kinds of issues and complaints and lawsuits so um there are times s though that I will bring this in front of the board uh for the boards to to tell me what they want to do or you know let me know if they want to do something different than what we have here. So we created this sheet to do that with the board. In
066this case um the person requesting is our coordinator nurse coordinator Lord Chelly also they'll need um this request is coming in as a request for assistance to add an LPN. Um the reason that this would make financial sense at this point is uh you in the last budget cycle we lost two. we've had to eliminate two. Um what's been happening is our coverage has been greatly strained due to that and you heard some students coming up and giving um you know their statements about how that impacted them. And so what's been uh [clears throat] what we've had to do is pull in subs to address those shortages. and the subs. When I looked at how much we were paying in the subs, we're going to pay more if we project out to the end of
067the year in a sub than if we just brought back one of the LPNs. So, you know, that's something that we weren't expecting when we went through the budget season. As you know, I think two fail referendas. So, it was something the board was trying to grapple with how to get to that number. That's why we had reductions. But when I'm, you know, now looking at this, this reduction is not working out. Um, so the sub coverage needed is going to cost us at the end of the year more than if we just brought back an LPN. And if we bring back the LPN, we can split that LPN between those two buildings there. Um, you see the LPN deployment, but have the PMSTHs get this, you know, this position. Um, that would cover it
068so we don't have to use the subs. Otherwise, we'll be using subs. Um, it'll cost us 38 36,900 for this fiscal year and if it carries over into next fiscal year, which we will probably do because I would add it back into the budget, it would be 48. So, the real impact for you to make a decision about is the 36. And um, we will probably spend more in the sub coverage the way it's going. If we're here in October, November, and we're already burning it at this level, I am pretty sure we're going to be at that figure or higher by the end. So, we might as well bring some back. If we're not bringing both back, will we be bringing one back? Will we be funding it through the sub? >> I have
069a clarification. Didn't we actually reduce 2.7? Yeah, but uh the seven was some earlier in the process and that was that was that was like an example I gave of feeding two and then someone left that didn't need it anymore. >> So yes, technically that was a went down by 2.7 but the other sounds just beyond the reach. >> And by the way, when I give examples I I can't I would never give an example of a person who's in the system. might be from the past or the future, but I'm not giving you an example of something that a child has now because I wouldn't do that as a series. >> Any questions or discussion? >> Just a point of clarification. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. I was just going to clarify when you
070say when we say 2.7 >> positions. It's really three positions. that 7 was covered by a grant or some some sort of funding that came from wherever that other.3 was covered by >> or I'm sorry the opposite right so that.3 was covered by a grant the other 7 was covered by the board so what you know we get into these 2.7s and when in doubt it was three three people total just 2.7 to be specific to what the board was responsible for fiscally financially so I I feel like that was confused when I first started. I'm driving all sorts of stuff. >> It could also be hours, correct? But one, just full-time hours. >> I mean, I will say right now this though, just uh to the core of it, there's probably I Everyone in
071your district is hardworking, but the nurses are probably among the hardest working people I've seen. And um they're just getting overrun. I I I think we we were in a tough spot when we did this. Uh I don't think we would do this again. It was just we had you know when people were asking why do you take from this group? Why do you take from this group? Why do you take from this group >> from every group >> every group got hit just about every group. And um in this case though this uh has not turned out to be turned out to provide the offset that we thought because this because of the coverage issues. the subs are being brought in at a level that offsets any kind of you know um financial benefit
072of that. But I hate to use the word benefit a situation where we're talking about people but it just did not work out and we probably if if we were going through a budget cycle and someone were to ask about this again or want to do this again I would say this is not a good thing because it doesn't work out the way that we think. January 07. >> Yeah, that gave you something. >> So, yeah, I apologize. A few questions since I wasn't involved in this last year. I'm curious. Um, so you say we had um four originally the district had four. Is that just prior to the budget stuff last year? I mean, is is four the number that we've historically had when they're veterans, they're hitting on all cylinders or what? Yeah,
073you usually have a so if you had the ideal arrangement, you have RNs at every school and then LPNs as a backup. Um, so at one point in our time, we had the RNs and the LPNs. Then we reduced the positions and thought we'd split LPN. The problem is when we reduce the positions, now you only have two LPNs for four schools. And if an RN is out or anything's going on, you've got we've got to cover them. And those two that are left can't cover it. It just it's just not working. So that's how it work was. You know, we used to have that full coverage and then we reduced and reduced and now we only had the four and then two. So we're looking at adding one of the two we reduced back.
074>> Okay. Oh, so you had four eight and then you're splitting the, you know, the remaining. >> Okay. >> Those two LPNs now are split between four schools and they just can't help with that. Even if you have the RNs, the RNs are out or some child is having an incident or somebody else is having an incident and your LPN isn't there because your LPN's in the other school and you know then we've had to do sub cover. >> So I guess so is the sub coverage running higher than you predicted last year? Like did you make did you look at actuals and then how did you arrive at that prediction? We didn't anticipate that um all of the issues that would arise um by not having that staff that LBN as the secondary backup
075of the AR. Um we thought we could split it along schools and we thought there was a layoff for hours that would work and we had made some rejections and worked with them on that. It just isn't panning out that way. Um and then lunches, you know, um technically people have to eat lunch and that also was impacted, you know, imagine that. So it it it just was a we were trying a new thing and I would not try it again because of the way it panned out. I guess what I'm part of what I'm trying to understand here is if we're if we're just running higher on on subs now, partly because we've got two newer folks, right? and what we currently have will be fine once those newer people come up to speed,
076right? That would be that would be one path versus um if we add somebody new, then that's obviously going to be on our baseline going forward in perpetuity, right? So, you know, are we going with something that's a longer term excess cost because of something we're seeing that's a special cause that's going to go away once they come up to speed? >> Yeah, it's a great question. I don't it's not a question of capacity, it's a question of coverage. So you know the even though we have new people now and they're coming online fast it's just that the nature of what's happening in the schools right now whether it's postco or something else um they just can't the two um LPNs for the four buildings if an RN is out or someone else is out
077they just there's just not enough spread so we have to bring in a sub to cover it anyway not because they're inexperienced but because somebody's not there. You know, um and medical needs are um the we don't always have a good handle on exactly what the 504s and the IEPs are going to say. We have a very large number of 504s and a very large, you know, impact of that. So there's lots of things that the nurses have to attend to that we weren't expecting. Meaning their time is drawn out of their offices, meaning the only person as a backup will be the LPN, but there's no LPN. >> Yeah. >> So then you split it, you know. So it's not capacity as much as it is coverage and that's our going to look to
078put two back, but we are trying to at least put one back. So we have somebody stationed 0.5, you know, one one.5. Okay. >> And Dr. Willlet, just a quick point. 504s and PS are special education plans for special needs students. >> Well, right. Special education are mainly IEPS and then 504s are under IDEA, sort of the same category. But yes, you have you must comply with those. Um, so and there's all kinds of new rules, too. Um, you know, uh, we do have to handle field trips in a way we never had to before. Um, there has to be authorizations that were never required this way before. Used to be able to I mean, I know probably Laura's going to throw something at me virtually, but you know, it used to be when my
079kids were going, you get on Tylenol, right? I don't trip. Now, it has to be completely done a completely different. And it requires more than we anticipated and that's part of the problem, you know. Thank you. >> Um, Dr. Will, as you know, as I mentioned today, during our meeting, I love the data. I love this. I love the statistics. Um, I love the facts. Um, so do you have a breakdown of like where our nurses to me there's no doubt that they need the help, but do you have a breakdown on how many students they see per day per school? >> Yeah, we do. We do those reports quarterly. Okay. I And what I was doing um was updating FSC's on that. Uh but that I think Jeff FC has its own thing it
080wants to see but absolutely I can bring that kind of that data in that data will show you know if you take my word for it in this case how how overwhelmed they are but yeah I and I used to do this and then people wanted to see other things more than that. >> Yeah. >> So I'll um I'll get that and post it to the dashboard. >> Okay. >> But um usually we do it quarterly too. >> Yeah. >> Okay. you. Um, so you mentioned uh that this would be funded out of the subline. I just want to understand what that that means. Does does that mean we actually transfer budget between the lines or is it cost avoidance because the subline would go over? >> Yeah, we in this district we don't do
081transfers. >> Okay. >> So what you'll see and that's whether you know boards some want that some don't. The advantage of not doing transfers is a line gets overrun and you can see it was overrun. Yeah. >> Versus if you can do transfers sometimes the the theory in not doing it is you know um if somebody's doing transfers are hiding hiding balances like oh this this would have run over but we transferred money here we transfer money there. So this line never really ran over. So what will happen is the subline um will probably run negative because we didn't have it in the in the salary line. Right? So, but um we would run I'm sorry the salary line will run negative but the subline won't and it'll be offset by the sub line. >>
082Whereas if we keep the current paradigm the subline will run negative but it'll run more than we would expect. >> You know we'll run negative on one line or the other but probably run a less of a negative on the you know this scenario. >> Thank you. Well, how we have one RN at each school right now and the district currently has two LPNs and we're looking to bring on a third LPM. >> Yeah. To split. >> Okay. To split between >> because it's a it's a way of getting it's it's the medium. >> Yep. Yeah. Um, I I see the dollar impact this year, 36,900 with salary and benefits. But when I go up to our our finance report, I see salaries, I see employee benefits, I see pensions, I see health insurance, I
083see retirement, I see social security. All of those have to do with what we what we pay people. Correct. >> Right. That's >> So, is that going to change? Is is that 36,900 actually a little bit higher than that? >> What will happen is depending on on how the year pins out because there's certified and non-certified staff um and those are different you know lines in there. So what would happen is um the doing it this way we may overrun that salary line but we you know the subline would be less likely you know to be overrun and there would be a balance that then would offset it. If we do it right now the way we're doing it the subline could go very negative and it would have gone negative beyond what this would
084have cost us anyway. But won't we have, you know, added into this dollar amount, won't we have those other categories? >> Well, you have health insurance that we have to that we offer. >> Well, it's that's what those other figures are and they don't always take it. >> You know, you don't do we don't do that that way because they don't always take it. >> All right. So, >> but it's budgeted in case >> predict to me worst case scenario if they take benefits, what additional would that be that 369? It probably wouldn't be much more than five or whatever at this point in the year. >> All right. So potentially we What's that? >> The benefits themselves are there at 432. It's roughly five. >> See how those that's what's wrapped up in there
085with the Benny. >> Yep. I see that. But >> but um we are self-funded for insurance which is a whole another FFC conversation. So it doesn't hit us to it would hit us in other ways. Yeah. It's much we there's a great benefit to the way we do health insurance. >> Um whether that's something that continues or not is a very good FFC conversation because there's a state plan now and they're trying to push everybody to the state plan. But we've been self-funded for insurance for a long time. So there won't be a very big impact on there. It's we're self-insured. >> Is there any state mandate of what we have to have for nurses in our schools? >> Uh we're we we are above any mandate. It's just function and operation. married. >> Okay.
086>> And it's it's kind of like um how DCF handles a 12-year-old. Um if you have a 12-year-old in a house by themselves, uh and there's no parent, generally if the 12-year-old gets hurt, now you got a problem. But if the 12-year-old never gets hurt, you never have a problem. And it's kind of like that. You know, you if you're running it and you're not running it in a way that creates harm, then you don't have a problem. And you can use a number of different paradigms to achieve that end. But as soon as there is a problem, you're on on the hook for it. Does that make sense? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So then, you know, looking at looking in February and March when we're talking budget, um, are we going to,
087in your opinion, be able to keep this position? I'm going to add it back and it'll ultimately be your decision. But I would recommend keeping it. >> Yeah. >> Because we tried it and it >> right >> did not work. Uh, you know, we had to cut a lot of different groups, >> right? Well, we cut from a lot of areas, >> right? >> This was this has turned out to be probably not favorable. >> The worst one. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yep. This was Yeah. Did not work out. >> Dr. Will, can you check the waiting? >> Sorry. Thank you. >> Um, yes. Um, so [clears throat] to clarify Bill's question, the 44432 when you're equating it to the F our financial lines, that is all the entire benefits package lumped into one
088with the salary. Correct. Dr. up. >> Yeah. >> So there's not any we're not looking at So it's the 32416 Iowa salary plus the total benefits package which could be what they take or don't take. But the what we're looking at is 44432 if they took the full package. Correct. >> Yeah. >> But secondly, >> what you're looking at for next year 48142. >> Sorry. >> Uh for next year it would be 48142, >> right? Okay. And then but this but the dollar pack is 36. Sorry, but this year would be 44 432 and then next year 5783. >> Thank you for clarity. >> Perfect. I did I thought I heard what you were saying but I I wanted to make sure because excellent question because it's not just the one it's all the other
089add-ons. Um >> well it's social security, Medicare, all right. Um the other question that I had well so so we have four in RNs in the school and two LPNs in the school. We've already clarified that. Now the RNs are not only in the nursur's office. Um they're on field trips because you have to sign if someone needs to administer medication to your student if they're on the field trip. Um they're in the IEPs. they're in the the the legality the legal meetings if you will. Um so oftent times they're not in the office and we heard from some of our students that spoke in the town council meeting and the board of ed meeting that there aren't nurses necessarily available just in the high school alone. So they've said that um we talk a
090lot about our students safety in a safety capacity when it comes to sec uh security measures and um law enforcement measures. But this is this is like the first line of defense that I talk about like in PPE like this is your first line of defense is your your nursing staff uh and having them readily available. So understanding that they're not just sitting in the office waiting for someone to get hurt or waiting for someone to have allergic reaction or waiting for someone to have be ill or different things. They're taken in all different capacities in educational capacity as well as in a um safety security capacity as well as in just I hate to say straight up nursing but sick ill injury capacity. So having six in the school I think is a disservice.
091six nurses overall no matter what their their level is, right? Um so obviously I would be in the it it's we did have to cut across the board. So I will reiterate, you know, what Bill said and what Dr. W said at one point. Um I think that this would be a step one. I think obviously we need to look in other areas when it comes to financial needs when we come into FFC. It's going to be some strong conversations we're going to have. Um, I think that we'd be doing a disservice if we didn't fill this position. We're already doing a disservice to our students. We've heard it over and over, us last term and then just with over these last two meetings. Um, I definitely think we need to to look deeper to
092see if we can even bring the eventual two back. Um, I know I might be putting the cart before the horse, but I just want our our newer teammates to see what it is. And I mean I several of us have students in the school so we see what it is and some of us get more calls from the nurse than others. Um but those nurses are very busy in a lot of different roles they definitely wear many hats. Um, so one is I wanted to clarify that and I just wanted to make sure everybody knew that the different hats these these folks are wearing in that office and in the school and sharing I think was also a disservice. >> I this was a mistake. I'll admit that. You know, I think we do
093our best, but if I had to do it again, I would. I think, you know, it's just there. Um to to um I was looking up something because I try to get people in and all that. It's about 80 visits a day on average. Um and it's been higher and higher and I don't know that any of us can completely explain why. It's just it just is, man. You know, they're getting crushed. I don't think any of us knew that it would be like this. Um, I would not do this again. If the board did want to cut nurses at any point, like a future board four years from now, I am going to say kind of like I do with bus contracts, you know, some title, nope, you know, here's a certain line in
094the sand we don't want to pass. Um, and if we do pass it, here's what happens. I think now we know here's what happens. So, I don't think we we haven't been in this bill before. Um, but this was a mistake. So, I just we need to get it rectified before it becomes a safety problem, which I would imagine people people may already feel like it is. And I just want to rectify that. >> Yeah. And I just like to add, you know, thank you Dana for for what you just spelled out. You know, also something I thought of is, you know, our nurses are really in charge of our most vulnerable population as well. So, we have, you know, several students who they they are monitored throughout the day. They come in regularly for
095medication. Um there's a lot of time that our nurses, you know, understandably spend with these students. Also, you know, they're they are doing things like responding to students who are having physical symptoms from anxiety and whatnot and, you know, handling those students until they can possibly get seen by a guidance counselor and picked up. So, you know, that and much much more and everything Dana said, um is really what's going on. And um I also think that's part of why we're seeing it increase. And as Dr. Willlet said and others said, you know, we were in a really difficult spot this budget year. It has been the most difficult spot I've been in um on the board of four years. We really did have to make decisions that honestly none of us felt good about.
096And this nursing one was one that we discussed because we were very concerned about it across the board. And I appreciate Dr. Willlet saying, you know, best the best laid plans, you know, did what did what he could do. The schools did what they could do. I'm quite sure knowing these people personally that they have gone over and over and over and beyond. But it was a mistake. Lesson learned. This is our opportunity. Um, this is really an area, there are certain areas that we just should not ignore. And I think that this is definitely one of those areas. So Bill, I think you said you did you have your hand up. >> Yeah, I did. Um I just would like to understand uh the the rationale for an RN versus an LPN. Um >>
097well, you have to have RNs. Yeah. State of Connecticut. Um the RNs, I mean from a point of view of degree and cap capability type of thing. The RNs are um I'm going to be rudimentary about this because I they have a degree and they are like you might come out of college at Yukon as an RN and LPN you can get LPN at a 22-month program month program type of thing. Y >> the RNs are required in the buildings. The LPNs are people that support in the buildings. Um so you can't go without the RNs. you have to, but the LPNs are in that role of supporting the RN. An LPN can't function alone without an RN in most cases. >> Okay. I guess I'm I'm asking >> for long periods of time. >>
098Yeah. I if if we should be considering either at this juncture or in the budget cycle if we should be looking at more RNs. >> You could. The RNs are the higher training and more expense. >> Yeah. But uh sure the board I serve at the behest of the board. If you guys want to make a you know that a priority we we could do that. Yeah. What happens there is just wherever you're going to if one would spend in one place, you're not spending in the other. That's the >> right. I guess I'm trying to understand what what the need in the schools is is dictating, right? Is is it coverage for a short enough period of time that the the LPN is is the reasonable solution or are we creating a a longer
099term issue where we really need to have more RNs in our school system? Yeah, I I think um I think if it were possible to have, you know, RNs everywhere and multiple ones definitely people would want that. I think in this district the um RN as you know your main point in the building and your LPN as that support is a reasonable model um given all your other needs. Uh but having said that even this action here is meeting in the middle because we still won't have an opinion for every school, right? So it's a compromise sort of between the two worlds of reducing call. Both of them are just one of them and this would rewind time a little and make it one reduction. Um, but no, RNs are very well trained and can
100do a lot of things and so like if that was an option I think people would that would be great but it probably would be more costly for you. >> Sure. >> Yeah. >> And I want to say we have excellent staff. The LPNs are amazing. The RNs are amazing. It's just a different classification and skill level and certification. >> We bring this position on. We vote to do that. We'll have four RNs, three LPMs. Would you say that this is probably the the minimum level we should be at at this level knowing what [clears throat] we've gone through for the first time? >> Knowing what we know now, bare minimum, I wouldn't go any other I would not do this >> any further. I'm sorry. This Yeah. >> Yeah. And um just as a
101a point of ordered over time the next 10 years your enrollment will be going up in K5 it plateaued basically now in the last few years and it's going up. So probably in the next few years you might be looking to add you know more but right now I would say this is the bare minimum. >> Anybody else? Um, so given what what I believe is the urgency for this, I would um I would entertain a a motion to move this to board action. >> I'll second that. >> Do we need a uh specific motion, Dr. Willlet? >> Usually. >> Do you have anything? >> Well, this would be moving this K2 to board action. And when you get there, I'll have a motion. >> Perfect. Thank you. So let's one. >> Yeah. >> So
102let's go around. Jaden, >> hi >> McKenzie. >> Hi >> Elaine. >> Hi. >> Bill. >> Hi. >> Dana. >> Hi. >> JP. >> Hi. >> Joelle. >> Hi. >> And I am an I. So Dr. Go ahead. Dr. Willlet, please go ahead and move this down to N1. All right. [clears throat] Next up is new business L1, the 2627 school calendar. >> Okay, it's that time of year again and um uh Spilman has helped guide the calendars through the earlier stages of the process. Um the school calendar comes up to the policy committee to the board of education each year. There are typically two reads to the school calendar at the time that this is being brought to the board of education. The other groups are looking at it too. The bargaining units are
103looking at it. TA looks at it. admin look at it. Um, you'll notice that in your packet and at home, and I'm putting it up there for people to see here, um, that draft calendar is available to the public if you want to take a look at it. Um, the board will usually deliberate twice and then vote on it. So, those of you in the public that are interested, you should have a calendar to look at by January, maybe February at the latest, so you can make your plan for the coming year. Um some of the highlights of this calendar, parent teacher conferences, grades K through 12. Um a full day off November 25th and November 26th. Um generally, uh that has been something that the community has wanted. It's the day roughly before Thanksgiving.
104Um and so that's that's been something that in the past we've had. It changed in this last year and we are hearing about it. Um, so this is something that returns that full day off on November 25th. And if you look at the draft calendar for next year, November 25th is that day before um the Thanksgiving holiday. So that's been valued by the community and seems like people want that back and it's up to the board to decide. It adheres to the Eastcon calendar. For some of you that are not aware, we are bound to follow the region calendar or our education region. We are in place called the eastcon education region. So there is a calendar that we are bound to generally follow for this region. That's why you see April break for instance
105following where April break falls. It's because the eastcon schools are supposed to fall in that zone. Um full uh it fulfills all contractual obligations. And by that I mean when we put this calendar together um kind of looks like a Jackson Poll I kind of threw up on it with all the colors and everything but there's a reason why it's that way. You know, for instance, the uh the union bargaining unit contract, we can't start staff prior to we can't start teaching staff prior to the 24th of August. There are four mandatory days of training um that have to happen after that first day. So that's 24, 25, 26, 27 at the minimum. So at the very minimum, we would have to start school. say if you wanted it to start earlier, it could not
106start earlier than the 28th. Um, having said that, there's been feedback over the years and it's up to the board to decide when do you want that first day of school to be? Do you want it to be on the Friday, you know, within a weekend and then they're back or do you just want to start um, you know, that 31st and go from there? So that's um that's up to the board's discretion, but this this generally ends up being something that people feel either strongly about or not. But why we can't start earlier like in August is because of our community agreements. So there's there's contractual just to give you an example, there are contractual constraints to some of these things in school inservice days. There are contractually set number of inservice days. Um
107those are required. Uh you you do have some flexibility with your ER days. Um there's been as many as 14 and as few as eight. And generally this number is what we've settled on for the last few years because it's been important to have at least this many. To give you an idea, if you don't have the ER days, you may end up spending more because any kind of curriculum work or training would have to happen with sub coverage and that cost you money too. Subs are about $125 a day or something, you know, $120 a day. So it's it we get hit either one way or the other. So that's why we have er days that way. >> Stands for >> early ruins. >> Yeah. Uh one why are they Wednesdays? There are there
108is some there there's obviously trade-offs on everything. Some in the past distant past they've been around a long time. Some people may not remember this but I do. There was er days on Fridays at one point. U from a point of continuity um there's a point to be made that kids you know it's more continuity if there isn't a Wednesday where there's a lurch in it or a shorter day on the other side of that attendance was shown to drop massively on those Fridays so that was both I mean it was students and families also some staff so it it just creates a a hard thing um because if staff not around for PD what's the point. And um on the student side, uh understandably families, a lot of pressures, a lot of things going
109on. If that Friday is an early release day, that's the day that we take the long weekend and go to see grandma. But what happens is um the state of Connecticut will uh identify any child who has three or more absences in a span of time as chronically absent. And um the parent will never know that, but the the district gets dinged on your accountability scores for chronic absence. And chronic absence is for any reason. Any reason. So if they were sick um and then they they left that Friday for a little long weekend and then you know they were sick another day in that 30-day period, they're chronically absent as far as the state of Connecticut is concerned. And then it dings you on your accountability scores and then your district scores are lower
110than other people's scores. circumstances. So Friday's uh you know continuity wise better but from the point of view of um uh attendance not and that's kind of what happened there. How how they got to be on Wednesdays. Um so then um let's see what else. Calendar was reviewed by policy. Miss Bogen may be able to speak to that if she wants and um T and admin are looking at it now as well. Okay. Any questions or discussions? Yeah. >> Um Dana, do you remember offhand the um the email that we got in concerning the calendar? What was it referencing? >> Um it was referencing well the first one was the first day of school. That was the big one. Um I can pull it up. Hang on. >> Yeah. Is that >> specifically because examples
111of before starting before >> before Labor Day that's been there's been a few that have been specific before Labor Day because Labor Day is so late it's seventh >> so um that was specifically one of the second one of the issues let's say >> maybe you want one second I got the email right here the most recent email So the most the first two emails were specifically Labor Day period. Nobody wanted to start after the 7th. That was the big deal because then we were going into and then >> I hate to say it this way. Daycare camps are closed at that point. They've kind of since the rest of the schools. So that was the big thing. Um the most recent email again Labor Day with camps blah blah blah. And then uh consideration
112of half days. Um their suggestion was to limit some the one in November specifically. Um and then because of the PD the conferences and then obviously Thanksgiving break. So that was the suggestion that we sent out. >> So the Dr. Will the PD days are kind of mandates from the state. We really don't have an option. >> Yeah. In service you have certain expectations of the state and you have contractual obligations both of those right. >> So for instance um to give an example the state requires that these mandatory trainings so bloodborne pathogens um how to I'm going to I'm not getting the names exactly right but how to spot a predator you know there's a series of trainings you have to have. They're increasing and so there's two things driving it. you ha you
113have no choice but to make sure your entire staff are trained in these core things and there's more of them than ever and at least six come to mind. Um and in your contract on your contract in your bargaining unit contract it says you will have this number of inservice days and they'll call XYZ and you know that's you'll have this many days before the beginning of the year this many inservice days and so on. So you're fixed with the number. So the the ones on here meet both the state requirements and our contractual requirement. So if we were to say, well, we're not going to have that one on November 18th, we've got to put another one in this calendar. >> You can move where it falls quantity that we have. >> Right. >>
114Okay. >> The ones that you actually have the most um authority over here are the ERS. >> The what? >> The early release. I'm sorry. savings purple there'll be 100 >> purple so those are early release I'm sorry I should actually say there's so many of these so yeah the ERS are the thing that you have among of the things that you have influence over those things you have the ability to say we want fewer or more I'd recommend keeping the number you have um because we do a lot of things in that time that we will not be able to do without it you know but the the early release days are all professional development days. >> Yes, they they are um >> the purple the purple utilize those or I call them you
115know they're PD but they're also like CIA their curriculum instruction and assessment days they they cover a lot of things. >> So it's not like we can say we're getting rid of that one in November 18th. We can say we're getting rid of it but we've got to put it someplace else. Well, for an ER day, you can say we're getting rid of it and we're not adding another one. But then what happens is whether you do that or not. I we have to make sure that the interreading training happens. You know, we have to make sure that those those six state required trainings happen and the teachers have enough for that. We have to make sure that the paras have at least 18 hours of training. You know what I'm saying? And if we
116don't have the ERS to do it in, then I got to do it in the the standard school day, which means we have to find coverage for those people while they get it during the contractual day versus getting it in the RD. >> We can eliminate these ER days and these professional development days, but that just puts it back on you to find substitutes or coverage to come in to have the teachers do the trainings. you I'll work I you know you got me here for the hours you got me anyway so you know you can tell me to do it either way however what happens to to the district is you now will be spending more in sub coverage um people think well we have the R days they're impacting the classroom yes but
117what will happen is it'll impact the classroom anyway because you have to yank those teachers out of the classroom to give them the inter reading train or you have to pull the paras out of their assignments to give them now onetoone para very hard to pull that one to out of an assignment because they're IEP designated. So, you can see how it gets you're going to pay money to make that happen. Your ER days, you're not paying as >> I'm just I'm just trying to get it out there that we we really don't have much say so in these or >> I would not recommend removing. Yeah, you have you have the ability, but I I don't operationally it will cost you more to do that and it's um yeah, it's it's more problematic even
118from a logistics if you're from a financial and a logistics point of view. >> I know as a parent, you know, it's it's sometimes difficult where it just is like it just seems like the kids are always out of school early. It happens frequently and you know [clears throat] fortunately we're in a situation where my wife's home but I know that's not the case with with all families. So I I know you know some of these early release days you know the volume that we have of them you know are are troublesome to to some families. Um but it doesn't sound like we have a whole lot of whole lot of uh leeway with them. You know it's just something that's got to get done based on mandates and and teacher contracts. Yeah. Yeah. I
119would say that given everything that a school district has to do today, it just there's no way to do it without that time being available. There's no way to cross the tees, dot the eyes. There's just too much. And at some point in curriculum, if you want, um, whoever is char, you know, the chair of that at that time, but we can go through every one of the state mandated trainings and you'll see how many there are. There's so many and there's so many hours. >> Sounds like a great meeting. Yeah. >> And that's before we do any of our own in district stuff, you know. So, >> could any of these things be combined with parent teacher conferences? >> I know that it's an option to have I get the email, my wife gets
120the email, an option for us to schedule a parent teacher conference. Is there is there an opportunity there? I mean, what's the history say of parents that are taking advantage of the parent teacher conferences? >> Well, the thing is there's there's [clears throat] enough who take advantage of it. Plus, there are ones that, you know, are more you could there's some that um it's kind of like come in if you'd like, but there's others where it's got. >> So, um what happens is your teachers, let's say you have I'm just going to give a round number. Let's just use a small number. Let's say you had 10 ELA teachers and you have an interreading program that is required by the state of Connecticut. It's one of the six required programs and you have to and
121you have to train them on that. Um it doesn't work as a day for training if half your people are doing this and the other half are doing that. You're not getting the maximal amount for the trainer and all that. Now you got to do two days of training because you could only do half your workforce and you have to do it over a year for the other half. So it just costs more. It's logistically difficult. Yeah. That's what it creates. So that's why a day where there's staff deployed to do other things like the um like teacher conferences. There may be some that are open this period or that or this block or that but it's not long enough or universal enough. You wouldn't get the maximum for the return for the training trainer
122training. >> Good. Thank you >> JP. So, um, just trying to help understand the how what percentage of those would you say are are being driven by state mandates of these ERS? >> It's hard. Um, I mean, I'm going to go with 50%, 60%. Because the the other piece is um part of a school systems uh required kind of vision mission even though there's no like say law in Connecticut for instance about a certain number of curriculum hours you're going to get evaluated every 10 years by NEASK you New England Association of Schools and Colleges and they'll come back and say you don't have anywhere near enough curriculum developed and then your high school is on the on the line for losing probation and that's not a state of Connecticut thing but that's a quality
123of education thing that gets rated through NEAS. So let's just use a number like 50%. I think it's actually more but I'm going more conservative on it. Um the rest of that time you should be doing the curriculum work or specialized training work or safety care training work which is um physical it's a deescalation for difficult situations with kids and then physical management of something goes very south. Um these are all trainings that they have to have but um isn't mandatory for the entire staff but groups of staff. the 18 hours repairs, you know, that's something that's required. But um so what [clears throat] ends up happening is there's the the stuff you do for the state and then there's the plazy kind of thing. And I'd say curriculum if you're not doing it and
124you don't have curriculum done. Um you'll notice in the previous board we'll notice one of the things that we got a priority notification on was curriculum like needing to develop more curriculum and that's because we didn't have time. you know, they're they're working their contractual day and then your teams you either pay them afterwards or you do it during ERS. We have made massive massive um progress and I think um the last board saw that and you know in the curriculum meetings we had and so on but we've been doing what's called CIA work during the ER times and that's where that progress has been coming. >> And CIA work is >> it's a curriculum instruction and assessment development. >> So it's not national intelligence. No, [laughter] that's another acronym. I gota be careful. So,
125it's um but this is work that when we look at NEAS and if the curriculum committee wants to look at NAS, which I'm sure they will, we'll see that this was a priority area and we've been addressing it. That's one of the places we've been addressing it. So, we can say to the NAS team when they come in March and they're going to be coming to talk to you too. Yep, we're covering that and we're covering it through these, you know, and so it's both the state training plus the things we're expected to do to maintain certifications and then there's everything else and the everything else is, you know, you can do a poor implementation of phonics or a good implementation of phonics. And the way the poor implementation happens is if you don't train
126any of your people in phonics. And so there's not I don't mean I'm just saying like so that's not a state of Connecticut thing but it's a quality of education type of thing and that's another piece to it too. >> Well to your point too you know you will lose efficiency if you aren't for certain types of things if you don't have everyone in the room at the same time and that's the biggest ch that is one of the single biggest challenges. >> So how does this number of ER days um compare with last year? >> Same. >> Yeah. And we've had as many as 14 and as few as eight. So this has been the standard for a few years and it's worked. It's worked. >> Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> I was
127trying to speak to two things. One of them being the Wednesday before Thanksgiving be off. And I think from a student perspective that's helpful because already for next week that Wednesday currently it's a half day this year. And I know a lot of my peers are already planning on going out of town or even seeing it as well. We're not doing anything. Well, we are doing assignments but we're not having a test. We're not studying for test. We're not learning new material. So I don't see it as important. So, I can see where like those attendants would drop like it would if we had half days Fridays, which you spoke about. So, I think it'd be honestly more beneficial just have the day off if you're already going to have so many students out no
128matter what. Um, and then also starting school with a full week with no half days, no days off. I think the first week of school is extremely exhausting and pretty overwhelming. And I think having a full week of school can be pretty tough. Um, just overall, I mean, you're getting new syllabus, you're meeting new teachers, you're starting to get back into the flow of things, and I think having a full week could be helpful, but at the same time, I know by that Friday, I'm going to be just like dead on my feet. >> Thank you, Dana. >> Um, so, as Dr. Will it um mention we did go over this in policy um and everything that people are asking is really where we tried to focus because we know like early release days things
129um so I'll start with the first day of school and I appreciate your cander because hearing it from a students perspective and understanding that we have a students perspective we have parents perspective we have our educators and administration perspective so obvious Obviously, the Labor Day scenario was a huge concern. So, I'm glad that we're we're looking at the week at the 31stish. Um, we floated starting the 28th, 31st, or the 1st was conversations and what that looked like uh with the end of school year and where that pushes us in June. Um, when it came to um the early release days, um the focus, and I don't want to put words in Dr. what it's about, but the the focus was to spread those out so they weren't back to back to back to back.
130Um October was an area of concern. So this year, this calendar year, we had two and up two early releases and a PD in October. So that's three days that families were having this struggle, if you will. Um, and I believe we moved that, well, I don't want to say we moved it, but we removed one early release in October, next year's calendar and added an early release, not added, but moved that one to May. We were talking about like the November one. Where could we move that? Move the October. So, I have this the calendar for this year. O this year, October, we had 101 PD, 108, 1029 ER, 108, and 1029 ERS. So it was three days in October. So right now in this new calendar suggestion is to have two professional development
131opportunities one full day and half in an ER early release and then have that early release in May whereas this this coming we have the one in May this count this current year that we're in with students. Um, so that was balancing and when I did get the email regarding nove November, although I empathize and sympathize and I'm in a myself included, we're in a two full-time out of the house working parents. Um, I don't know where we would put it other than in January and you already have a ton of days off in January in a different capacity. Maybe not an early release or a PD, but we have days off in different capacities because things going on. Um I think that this um gives us a quality a balance. Um I think the
132big the big thing that we're going to try to figure out as a team is what works for the start of school. Um the early release and professional development is paramount for um contractual obligations. Um development on curriculum as we'll learn with our MA like our math programs. even at the earliest levels, they're they're constantly getting new updates and teaching our educators how to teach those that curriculum. Um, so making sure that they're up with the the latest and greatest of that curriculum to teach our students. Um, and we talk about students in front of teachers and I want to reiterate and Bill had a great question. What did it look like, right? and are we bringing in substitutes or what have you and that although their substitutes are fantastic and God bless them bless
133them for what they do it's not the same as having your respected educator in front of you so I think if we utilize uh our early release days at this full capacity that we can that would be we would be doing uh you know we'd be serving our educators and our students in that in that way and then I think you said about working I think Dr. what you said about working in groups. You know, sometimes some of that training you really need to bounce stuff off of your your teammates and your your peers to really absorb that content and how that impacts the classroom. Um, and then obviously Thanksgiving break was a big one because um, you know, a lot of families do travel and I hate to say going through New York or
134going out towards Boston if that's where we're going here in New England. It's it's a bear. Um and then we can have attendance attendance concerns. Um so those were all different areas um that we discussed um in policy. And Jaden, I'll I'll ask you to to to pull in I think the only other thing like you said was the October situation we talked about into May. Um I is there anything else that we didn't already tack on or have answers to that they already asked? No. Really? >> No. other than no, not specific to the conversations we had in policy or specific to how how you guys um sort of map this out. I would just say again, you know, for the new members, um in the district I work in, they have a half
135day every Wednesday. And so these half days once a month they take up our primary space to hold uh professional development trainings. A lot of the times they will uh partner with each other in their teams. So there's fifth grade, sixth grade teams and whatnot that that have to work with one another. Um, and many of them would probably still tell you they still don't have enough time and they have half days every Wednesday. And so, um, I'm on board for it. You want to do every Wednesday, make it consistent for people, let's go. But no, it's it's I think this format of I think doing the two per month. Um, trying to keep it as consistent as possible, I think, is the best case scenario for at least the circumstances we're under right now
136heading into next year. So, so just to point that out of um these professional development days, I mean they are they are I'm not going to say drafting the curriculum for their students, but they are shaping their curriculum to sort of fit their their classrooms. And so, um these are I mean, these are crucial days and and not to mention there's, you know, there's and I had a question about, you know, throughout the year, when do you I should have asked this in policy, but policies and procedures, new hires, you know, when do you get those mandated reporting trainings done, but I'll get to that in just a second. you know, last year they had a professional development day, you know, again in Manchester, fifth and sixth grade on I want to say it was
137the final Wednesday of the school year. Um, they can do that because every Wednesday is a half day as as it exists. Um, if it was not normal that that was a half day, every Wednesday, attendance problems definitely would have been a concern. But because there's a half day Wednesday, people fell into that routine regularly. So, as much of a routine, I'd say, as we can get into, and I think you guys did a phenomenal job just sort of trying to map out where that is. Um, as much of a routine as we can get in and as early as we can get this out to families, I think the better. And so, nothing to add specific to what was discussed in committee, but just adding my two cents of, and these guys have heard
138of it a million times before, but and I'm sorry to repeat it again, but um just to add my two cents into sort of, you know, the importance of these days, and they're they're extremely helpful for for for staff especially. So, That's really really all I got on that day. >> I can give you a little bit of um one thing about Thanksgiving. If you have a half day on that day before Thanksgiving, you actually potentially lose more time because you that day is still going to happen later. So if you have that be a full day, you are still having 180 days. It's just that that 180th day is happening in June. So it's you you're trading a day, half of a day for a full day that you would have had anyway. You
139know, it it's you're losing time by doing that half day versus just having a day off. You're actually losing something because as I had said, there's not a lot of engagement. People leave anyway. The whole thing's a mess. You might as well just have a full day somewhere else. Um and that's somewhere else to June. But at least you have a full day. Yeah. And then I will show you one quick thing. There are questions about the mandates. Here's this is the first part required technical trainings. This is an example of what the staff was doing this year. And they don't they can't finish it in this two and a half hours. There's no way. So a lot of it goes over into the other days. Bloodborne pathogens, Title N, seizure and epilepsy, mandated reporting,
140prevention of sexual misconduct against children, introduction of child trafficking. These are all required and that's just some. So just to give you a mental picture of like what some of these are these are just some you know but I just as we were going along I thought I would just throw that out there so you have a sense of like what some of them are. >> Yeah sure it's a question I can ask in policy but we'll hear >> yeah I'm not sure if this is a question for policy or or you Dr. Will Corfam is is there some logic to the tradeoff between whether you choose to do an early release day or whether you choose to do two early release days or one in service day? What what drives that? Uh contracts. [clears
141throat] So there's a certain specified number in the contract that are a minimum number. Um, and you uh you don't push your ear farther out with an ER day, but every inservice day you push your >> That's what I I had had the >> viewing gets later and later. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. I've just, you know, and I don't even know what works best for everybody. I personally would have preferred fewer the early release days in exchange for another, you know, an extra day added to a vacation day or whatever. But, you know, I don't know if that's necessarily true with everybody, but if it pushes the school year out, then, you know, >> yeah, we can technically do, you know, some things to change it, especially in negotiations. But, um, yeah, then, and the only
142other caveat is we can't go beyond the last day of June. That is one of the other rules. >> So, thank you. One more. >> Um, you said earlier that we've had as few as eight and as many as 14 days. How long ago was it that we were at eight? >> I've been around too long. >> I know. Yeah. That's >> I'd say the 14 was five or plus years ago. And the I mean it was all in the last like 10 years between we cycled from the eight to the 15. I have to go back and look, >> but I remember as few as eight and then I remember as many I remember the 14 or so. >> So, how long have we been around 11? >> I'd say the last couple of
143years it's been around this. Yeah, pretty much. This >> could you Okay, go ahead, John. >> Um, I just like to say that um I like the schedule. I like the 31st. Uh I'm not a big fan of school starting on a Thursday or Friday. To me, that's a lot of distractions and just getting acclimated. >> Um sometimes I don't think it's very beneficial. Um, I like I know the day the week might be long, all right, but it's kind of like, well, this is what you're getting into in your school year, you know? And to me, it gives the teachers that opportunity to break in a little easy and then you got the rest of the week to wrap it up if need be. You know, I know I I would send my kids
144to school and I'm like, "Oh my god, you got a day off already. You just started last week. What are you gonna do?" You know, I I I like the schedule. I will say when it comes to the ERS, uh, I'm a fan of it. I I I think it gives, you know, it's a necessary evil to make sure the teachers are getting their their required training done. And I also look at the fact that, you know, that midweek sometimes the students have a lot of homework by Wednesday. And I think it gives them a good little break to be able to come home, whether they participate in sports to kind of get a few hours, you know, um, ahead of the game and get some get some good quality homework done. So, I'm a
145fan of this. I like it. I like putting that Wednesday back in for for November. Um I know my daughter's been complaining about it since she saw it. So I I I like the schedule. That's all I want to say. >> Thanks. >> I just have a quick question. Um on days where there is an early release, are there no after school activities? >> Generally there are varies. >> Yeah, might be some sports. There are some practice games but generally they're >> Yeah. >> No clubs but the sports will still >> Yeah. Yeah. See because of this way it's scheduled. >> Yeah. >> Good. >> And then I did want to just say to the parent teacher because I I like that I like the I like the functionality of that thinking of the parent
146teacher conferences. if we can turn some of these going back to the every Wednesday format and I'm not saying apply here by by including some more of those early release days. Um they actually it was a surprise to Mr. Jane today. Um they're doing they're able to do parent teacher conferences on three early release Wednesdays in a row. So scheduling parents having them come in I mean is a is is a is a phenomenal process compared to you know when the availability is limited like we're facing in town. Um, and so I I I wanted to make a point to that earlier because you made a good point of can we somehow tie this in in this format? Maybe not. If we added some more, maybe so. Um, you know, but um those early release
147dates do allow for parent teacher conferences to take place sort of as needed, you know, throughout the year. So there sort of three weeks designated last week, the week before that, and this week where they're doing parent teacher conferences and they're walking through the buildings and etc. So, um, if we had more ER days, we could possibly do something like that and maybe open up the availability for conferences, but that's just a little that's just a little nugget. I don't know. I I just found interesting. So, it was a good it was a good mode of thinking. I liked it, but I forgot to comment on. So, there's that. >> Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> Oh, go ahead, D. >> Sorry. And I wrote ER because I'm like why did I write ER? And
148it's because of what Bill had asked about. So I'm glad you said that because I'm like why did I >> um I will say as a parent that gets the email that says we want one we want to meet with your student and then I get the other email that says it's your option. So as a parent uh I like to sign up for it all because no matter what however your student is doing I like to be engaged and find out what's going on. um much to my students dismay sometimes. Um but I will say I did struggle at TIS and TMS to get in that schedule. They do fill up and I can only speak intelligently as of late in TIS and TMS it gets filled very quickly and those one and a
149half days for those educators having those conferences are full quickly. I like I well I've been a fan of Manchester's setup um in being able to tack that on because what a great way to have conferences throughout the year in a in a less congested like pump pump your meetings are what 15 minutes long 20 minutes long depending and sometimes you're you're really having a minimal short conversation on that but I I like where the conversation was flowing so I appreciate Paul for bring up and Jaden's ideas but I also do know that I think their teachers just might want more time to do those that really if they really had in in a perfect world they'd ask for more time to do that so they can have realistic conver longer conversations and that that's
150it. Sorry, John. Okay, we're good. All right, let's move on. Uh we have no old business, so we can move on to board action and one. Do you have a motion for us, Dr. Willlet? Motion to recommend to the superintendent the hiring of one. LPN for the town public schools. Second. >> Great. Any discussion? No. All right. I'm going to start on this side of the room this time. Joel's ready. JP. >> Hi. Dana. Hi. Bill. >> Hi, >> Elaine. >> Hi, >> McKenzie. >> Hi, Jaden. Hi. >> And I am an I. That passes. Thank you. >> Moving on to public participation. Uh, if anyone in the room or online would like to speak, uh, please give your name and address and we will have a twominut limit. Anyone in the room? Anyone online?
151room. Sure. Takes it shot. Hi, Mary Rose Duber, 37 Ryan Road. Um, I I'm going to speak at this moment as the uh vice president of the high school boosters. I want to thank you for your recognition. Um, it means a lot to us. I just want to put a plug out there for anyone watching. We always need volunteers. So, thank you. Um, now just speak me as a parent. Um, I appreciate your conversations tonight. I appreciate how how well everyone um works together. And um the talk about the nurse is really important as we're looking toward the budget and her discussing the budget. Budget discussions start today, right? If you really think about it. Um so I think it's an opportunity to know that as Dr. Wil said that was a mistake. think we
152owe it to our public and our our families to identify those as we go along. So when it comes down to the time for budget, people will have heard what happened with the decisions that had to be made. Um they'll understand what the implications were later on. So I think that's really key. I think tonight's discussion was wonderful. I appreciate all you do. I'm really looking forward to um you know having this board and thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone online room? Online. Okay, we can close out public participation. Moving on to points of information. Would anyone from the board like to speak at this time? Go ahead. >> I'm making up for lost time today. Sorry, I'm just kidding. Uh, first of all, I apologize for my retardiness. I I was at a a
153function for the seventh grade boys versus girls annual soccer match um where my daughter was able to participate. So I had to weigh the pros and cons of attending late or seeing something with my kids and we're all here for our students whether they're are they're our personal students or our students in town. So, um, and I just wanted to make sure and I I reached out individually to our Tepto partners and our booster partners, but I definitely think that our relationship can only continue to grow and um, flourish. I think we have phenomenal phenomenal leaders in our TT bill and our PTO and our boosters and what they do for our schools is indescribable. So, I thank you for what you did and I apologize for missing it because, you know, I just just
154a fan of what they do. It's it our schools wouldn't be able to run without those folks working so hard and dedicated to our students. So, thank you very much. And then I'm looking forward to seeing our soccer boys, young men. Um, phenomenal. And I just I I I'm just so proud of him and I wanted to I don't know if anybody else congratulated me gave Mahoot hower at the points of information, but man are those boys something special. And there's I'm trying to think about how I'm going to say it when they're here in front of me because there's some of them that I've watched since they were middle schoolers and such and younger. Um, but there's so many young kiddos at Birch Grove and TIS and TMS and even the younger kids at
155THS that look at those those boys and even our ladies for the soccer team as idols and mentors and heroes and they were absolutely spectacular and phenomenal. And we have four of four of our seniors that are chosen for the senior um is it the senior bowl? I'm saying the wrong word. The senior bowl. Um so just a really proud display for Tand over the last several week always but big week for Tand over our last two weeks and I just want to congratulate anybody else. Okay, I learned something from the town council. So are there any objections to adjournment? >> We it [laughter] hearing >> learn something. Hearing none, >> I will adjourn our meeting at 9:07