001all right so we are going to call the meeting to order at 6 30. and I'm going to start with a roll call uh Mary kachefsky Joe Coletti Joe Colette Hebron Mike Sharon Mike Sharon Hebron Kirsten erlinson Carrie ferlino she is okay uh game Mark Steven uh Mike Mike Morris even Eric Eric uh soon Heather Heather summer Hebron thanks um I think we could stand for the play I pledge allegiance of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice all right the first item on our agenda for tonight's meeting is the election of board officers in accordance with policy 9130 we will start with the election of the board chair I will now open the floor for nominations for chair do
002I have any nominations can nominate Mike Sue is nominating Mike 's your owner please be clear [Laughter] Mike Morris the Community member all right any other nominations for chair I'll second that motion all right second fly Mike and any discussion not seeing any other nominations and not seeing any other uh not having any discussion uh we'll do a a roll call vote um Mary he's not here Joe yes uh Mike Sharon yes Kirsten erlenson Carrie yes Gabe yes uh Eric yes Sue yes Heather yes and Mike Morris I'm staying interesting uh all right Mike more sir is our chair and I will pass the meeting off to you sir thank you I appreciate it and I appreciate your vote and I appreciate your confidence everyone um all right that being said I think one of
003the things that I remember being productive in some of these elections in the past is to especially with some of the the with the with the secretary and the treasury but might as well for the vice chair too I'm aware of at least one one member who's interested is there are there any other members that are interested in serving all right so I'll accept um nominations for vice chair and with that I'll nominate Sue as our vice chair okay Mary beat you to that one Eric sorry I'm sorry Carrie uh is that somebody chiming in or is that a Community member no I I seconded it okay we got you thank you Carrie are there any other nominations hearing none will do a roll call vote I'm sorry any other any other discussion actually I'm
004going to throw a piece of discussion out my nomination is based on one very key piece uh over the course of my last year serving as the superintendent I think it's important to point out that we've had to make some difficult decisions there's been some times where there were very different opposing opposing views and a couple of key circumstances one of the things you would hope from a very seasoned board member is for them to be the voice of uh of um uh uh what's the what's right there it's well experienced but also of of compromise which is what we needed and I think that is a extremely important part of being the vice chair is to to be that voice of compromise and be able to to help lead in that circumstance and and
005Sue definitely did that over the course of the last year so I'm very happy to be able to nominate her and I'm I'm glad that uh I'm hopeful that everybody else will see that as well so with that being in case is there any other discussion all right a roll call vote uh Carey yes thank you Joe yes Mary's not here soup Heather yes Mike yes okay yes Eric yes I vote Yes and Kirsten yes great thank you all right so that carries unanimously congratulations and thank you for volunteering uh nominations for secretary anybody interested in serving as a secretary I've done it before I can do it again okay that being said uh I knew there was at least one uh person available um so I nominate Mike uh Sharon as our secretary their
006second last second Sue got that one all right uh is there any other nominations for secretary any discussion on the nomination for secretary Mike Jerome hearing no discussion we'll have a Voice vote I'm sorry uh a roll call vote Carrie yes Joe yes Barry's not here soon Heather yes Mike yes Gabe yes Eric I vote Yes Kirsten great thank you all right that motion carries unanimously Mike is our secretary we'll move on to Treasurer again I am aware of at least one interested party is there any other anybody else that is interested near the party I was aware of okay I want to make sure all right I would like to nominate Joe uh colletti as our treasury is our second second there Gabe got that one was there any other nominations for Treasury Treasurer
007sorry any discussion on Joe Colletti's uh nomination as a treasurer hearing no discussion we'll have a roll call vote Carrie yes Joe yes Mary not here sorry Sue yes Heather yes Mike yes Gabe yes Eric yes I vote Yes Kirsten great thank you all right that carries no actually as well congratulations I appreciate all three of you again volunteering to serve in that capacity we also appreciate you my phenomenal job thank you appreciate that all right uh that is uh uh our uh first order of business um we uh there are Elections office elections move on to public comment item number four you'll bear with me for a moment even Andover and Marlboro Community engagement and attendance at Board of Education public meetings is welcome the public comment segment of the meeting agenda is set
008aside so the Board of Education may receive public comments procedurally public remarks will be limited to three minutes and citizens will be asked to identify themselves because the board of education is limited by the Freedom of Information Act to discussing only matters on the agenda the board of education is not permitted to engage in a discussion of the comments presented so in anticipation of potentially a number of um people wanting to present tonight I'll just refresh everybody that generally we hold the comments to three minutes but it is within the chair's authority to extend a discussion and uh I guess what I would really like to just maybe get a feel for is within the room how many people plan on presenting comment to okay and then online could you show us on with a
009digital hand anybody that's interested in presenting comments this one I just see one okay all right look so I think we have a significant reasonable amount of time to be able to accommodate everybody so great so uh what I'll first do is open it up I'm sorry Dave do you think I should close the door uh you know what it's a public meeting and unless it gets real noisy um because the game all right so I would ask in within the report within the room if you could please identify yourself and then step up the podium and uh please present sorry if you'd like to go first okay my name is David Olia I live at 37 out of wine at Trey I've lived in the grand district for 33 years with my wife and
010I raised two kids uh we're now since out of the house and I teach at the University of Connecticut and I'm in the first year writing program there and I'm very passionate about education as a means for growth for students walk and I think though an explicit act receives more public attention such as this racist news than the underlying problem itself that problem is neither adequately nor fully impressed justices apply to the ACT uh my heart breaks for students color and their families as they deal not only with this specific act but with the ongoing sense of Injustice I understand your faculty is built talented and motivated teachers and I urge you to unleash their experience to address these students needs one teacher in the district told me recently look at what we accomplished when
011we pivoted to the pandemic imagine what we can do with pivoting to this issue your teachers are professional practitioners and they are ready to partner at the board you too have tools to address the problem in just one you may direct your superintendent to immediately Empower and engage your talent fact I'm concerned though I'd like to say this in the kindest way possible I believe we need to be nice to each other I believe that we need to listen to each other then we need to speak our truths and we need to collaborate in ways to promote equitable uh and syllabus Force but I'm deeply concerned this superintendent does not conceptualize teachers as partners and even holds hostility towards conversation about social justice as the board's aware that superintendent's professional experience is rooted in personnel
012I witnessed its framework of teachers as an employee at South Windsor High School 19 years um rather than seeing teachers as partners who are practitioners with expertise in their academic disciplines in which they have earned degrees certifications and build experience I'd like to share a specific personal experience that informs my concern that he lacks commitment and capacity to critical conversation about inclusion 2015 at South Windsor I had a conversation with him about a poem by Alan Ginsburg which had themes of sexual identity at its core I offered multiple interpretations which included Harvard's literary critic Helen bendler's reading all which challenged common knowledge he replied and I quote I don't understand hidden meaning he was either unwilling or unable at the time to process multiple perspectives about identity and literature maybe you remember this incident when
013I was teaching at South Windsor in 2015 I'd allowed the reading of an Alec Ginsburg poem which a student had brought to our AP dance placement UConn BCE senior literature class two parents complained about I offered to speak with the parents parents no interest in conversation indeed he and his administration said to me and people we just want to get this behind us so we moved to farming I negotiated a separation package instead of going to arbitration what would be the point really of teaching under such hostility towards inclusion a rejection of conversation about the diverse perspectives of literature and the lack of good faith and discussion about teaching and learning immediately after then UConn hired I've taught this same course many iterations for the past seven years the ECE program early college education program
014which I'm sure the board is familiar with addresses immediately issues of inequity and in fact I include anti-racist teaching statements from UConn ECE and the National Council of teachers of English in my written remarks that I shared with the board prior ity in conclusion I stand before you with a professional and personal experience to respectfully ask for an honest rendering in this District I ask that you respond to the needs of the students of color knows whose identity in some way has been marginalized I call for us to be kind to those who've historically been made to feel other I ask that this board commission it's teaching staff to partner in collaborate with their administrative colleagues to do the difficult work of addressing the challenges of equity that's Central to democratic Civic life thank you
015for listening okay is there anyone else for public comment that's present please sir thank you you see me in different times presentation explaining it was a statement that I've alluded to a couple times we've been discussed the budget that is common in this budget this presentation all the other boards in town the trash uh obligations of budget contractually so excuse me the same time as many hundreds of Thousand Steps is agreed to be negotiated three years ago and previously about changes I went to reading listening to the presentations did not understand the obligations until we copied contract was able to project out what the cost would be pretty much there are very large increase budget was agreed to 10 years ago as a citizen this is the language here is I want to understand what
016we're agreeing to as a community this line track contractually allocated thoughts always confused the boards are forming their function and to the stature that codified state law and I had to plot what I'm going to ask you as a citizen you present your budget Community the rest of the citizens next year that you do so no matter understanding whatever you agree to tonight can fall under that lineup issue not even sure if there's any cost I wanted to say this having said that appreciate everything thank you sir is anyone else present present for public comment okay hearing none will move on to online uh if you could raise a digital hand I'll ask Eric to let me know who's online I would like to present Joanne Ebert please hello thank you for um giving me
017this opportunity to just make a quick statement I also wanted to comment on the recent situation of the unfortunate um The Noose being hung in the boys locker room I do want to commend that the investigation took place and you know the student has been located and that's a whole separate issue that will be dealt with you know as a personal situation but I am hoping that Ram will take this opportunity as a learning and teaching event as the gentleman had said earlier um I had um I work for a school district that has undertaken this work for the last couple of years we've really dove in after the you know the social injustice events that happened in our country um I feel like our district could really be a model for others um I
018don't want to mention them I will send a letter to all of you um referencing them but they do a terrific job I find that it seems like Ram is defensive and I could be wrong this is from the outside looking in you know very defensive to you know put things aside or you know defend different things or that things aren't happening there or it's not you know it's one isolated incident but truthfully that's that I would hope that people could look at it as an opportunity to learn and grow like I said I've always been welcoming and and kind to everyone but with undertaking the work that we took extensively as a district we learned so much in the shoes of some of the people that presented to you last meeting I guess I'm
019a little bit behind the times you really don't fully understand everything so you know Rand being such a you know I I have three children that went through the ram school system they're all doing excellent academically I think Ram is at the Forefront I'd like to see some of these you know to make well-rounded students to you know talk about things head on in the social justice world we want to raise well-equipped students to go out there into the world and to face all kinds of things so again until you can can walk you know instead of Defending maybe just learn something from it you know between letters I've read people saying that they don't want to undertake any kind of any kind of lessons or why should they have to do it because it
020was one isolated incident that's really not what you've learned when you really commit yourself to learning and and and having open workshops and forums and really devoting they're hard conversations to have I mean it's not something you want to do and you never want to say the wrong thing but you really need to be able to listen to the people who it has offended you know and I'm thinking the majority of RAM is not of that you know is not in that demographic so we need to open ourselves to all community members everybody that comes forward and I hope William takes the opportunity to learn from this and just do um whatever and and to include the students I think I've read in the minutes that the students feel like they're left out and your
021students are the brightest Minds there so why not engage them and get them involved as well thank you thank you so anyone else online that would like to present public comment raise a digital hand for Eric and he'll let me know no one okay thank you very much everyone all right that uh moves us on to item five when I look at your yeah so the there's one um a piece that would like to um entertain a motion to add uh to our letter of intent to retire um portion of the agenda which is item uh 9.2 um if we could add the letter of intent to retire from Linda Thurber Lund uh to the consent agenda she uh we got that notice uh just a little bit later than uh when we had sent
022out the initial uh agenda so um uh like I said I'll under hit a motion to add that okay any uh Second One Second all right thank you do a Voice vote all in favor any opposed okay hearing you and that carries you anonymously so we'll go ahead and add that if you could discipline me to remember to to do that thank you all right that moves us on is there any other additions or deletions to the agenda item okay hearing none we'll move on to the student representative reports Rowan you are up all right so I just first I just wanted to I congratulate the ram music department for another successful uh Winter concert and this was kind of I I want to say this is the first one at least from my perspective
023that was kind of like really back to normal like you know less mess where mess wearing everybody was you know crowding together you know to celebrate the holiday season in the form of uh the excellent music that both the chorus and the band uh performed and um so yeah I just wanted to congratulate them on that and then I also just wanted to uh kind of uh cover like the uh spirit week that's happening this week because obviously with it with it being the holiday season a lot of kids are you know excited to express their holiday spirit uh so we had a successful holiday headwear day today uh tomorrow's holiday movie character today day um Wednesday's final day uh Thursday is uh holiday ugly sweater day and Friday's holiday PJ day so that there
024will be a lot of uh holiday uh spirit throughout the week oh it's exciting where's your headwear I did nope I did not I would have wore my Yankee caps I mean a lot of people ask me to wear my buddy of the elf costume tomorrow that I have so I will be participating in that one but maybe joined by my son so but not this one no I don't really have a lot of following I had to wear so all right thank you um definitely I was going to highlight on that too everyone's very confused about that uh also in the winter sports everyone the sports I've heard a lot of people talking about indoor track swim team hockey uh also I would also like to point out there are a lot of tests
025happening a lot of students are feeling very anxious about that um definitely this year because of covid the midterms um our back and everyone's definitely feeling that uh air of anxiety about that for after which it breaks so we'll see how that goes a good point great okay thank you very much all right having concluded student representative reports and move on to the uh chair report so our last meeting included some clear feedback from a variety of stakeholders as part of the public comment regarding concerns of the culture here at RAM and that carries through this evening you know concerns have been voiced publicly uh both in the you know the River East and I think in just in general conversations that I've heard you know that potentially the events being swept under the rug
026our superintendent can provide you all and I'm confident you will with a much more detailed accounting of the action items and and next steps that have been taken to date but what I can tell you is that Mr McNamara and the administration take this very seriously they've engaged with multiple resources and organizations at every opportunity in the very short time since the events have unfolded they've met with the town leaders and organized to strategize community-based approaches and will pursue the facts and follow through on the needs of our students and staff this is not a small task and it will take time but they are committed to doing what is necessary as is the board tonight we also held our Board of Education officers elections and as a parent of this kids in this school
027system I'd like to thank the members who selflessly volunteered to accept additional duties on top of the significant time and energy sacrifices all of our members already make between regular means additional budget meetings professional development subcommittee meetings what we've come to understand is something called a non-meeting which we've also participated in um volunteering to be on the board is not a small commitment and I'm very honored to serve with all the members of this board well there's always work to do it's also important that we take time to recognize and applaud achievement and so it's my pleasure on behalf of the board and Rowan almost stole some of my thunder but I think I have a little bit of info I can throw out there to kind of capitalize on what he was saying but
028to congratulate the 11 Ram middle school students who are recently accepted into the Eastern Connecticut honors music ensemble the students were selected for the Ensemble after auditioning for a judge and one of the students that I'm just going to apologize because names I am terrible with him I'm embarrassed by it but I'm going to try my best I believe her the name is Amaya Ramos attended the high honor attain the high honor achievement of a perfect score which is just incredible it's awesome so uh leading the way for Ram and music as usual and I think I think there's we gotta update that there's Insignia all over the place just uh attesting to the awesome music program we have here I'm really glad to see that it's carrying on um it's also my honor to
029on behalf of the board to apply to our brand music department Ram has been recognized again as a district that is one of the best communities from music education in 2022. this award uh recognizes outstanding efforts by teachers administrators parents students Community leaders who have made music part of a well-rounded education Ram is just one of 738 districts across the country across the country to receive this recognition this year last week's winter contest concert is Roland alluded to showcased the talents of our high school musicians and we look forward to the middle school concert which I anticipate is in January is that right yeah so if everybody gets a chance to participate in that as well uh RAM football hit a milestone this year and that they qualified for the State Playoff competition for the
030first time in Ram football history which is pretty uh significant achievement especially for school our size uh exceptional hard work and it's congratulate the coaching staff on the team on their hard work and their Stellar performance on the football field this year finally it's also my honor on behalf of the board of recognize and congratulate the ram volleyball team for winning their second consecutive state championship we wanted to recognize the team tonight at the board meeting but um all those estellar athletes are all involved in other Athletics now and so there was enough of a conflict that we wouldn't have had the majority of the team here and so it wasn't a very good option we hope to have them join us at our January meeting and hopefully that'll work out so that we can
031recognize and applaud them in person and finally I'd be remiss as a retired army officer if I didn't uh include a safety brief it's just something we do as the holiday season and the winter break is upon us the Ram Board of Education asks the students staff and the community to have a safe restful happy holidays and come back to us in the new year are ready to get after it all right uh that is item seven which moves us on to item eight the report of the superintendent thank you very much uh just in the in the theme of music recognition one thing that didn't get mentioned was Friday night was I think it was the first of a uh it was a karaoke fundraiser I think by the music Honor Society bro when
032you know it's coming right yeah I know and um so I was here there was a it was a busy evening so there was the karaoke uh karaoke for students in the cafeteria and staff as well um we had a dance at the middle school which was always it brought me down memory lane going back to a middle school dance and maybe not in a good place down memory lane um we also had a girls basketball game that night but uh Rowan not once Taylor Swift song not two three great job great job it was fantastic thank you appreciate it yeah he I think you really appreciate you bringing it up yeah you did yes told him I said Rowan that's why I kind of did it when I'm pregnant after him I think because
033like it was it was a great night to be here there's a lot of activity and it's just it's great to have the energy in the building but um in in all seriousness I want to begin tonight by providing Insight um and you alluded to uh chair Morris to the work that's been happening in response to the incident on November 18th there's this has been an extremely challenging time for the ram community and I want to be sure that the board and the community are aware of what has been taking place over the past few weeks in the wake of the incident there have been several reports of other things experienced by Ram students that have been investigated using the lens of the board's non-discrimination policy in each case School administration is Thoroughly investigated what
034has been reported and taken appropriate action based on their findings this will continue to be the response if new information is brought to the attention of the administration what we are experiencing here at Ram is not uncommon as significant widely publicized events also often serve as a catalyst for others to come forward and share their experiences we have also been considering a long-term response that will help ensure Ram is a place where all students and families feel welcome accepted and valued to that end I have engaged with several organizations and individuals who focus on this work participated in meetings with representatives from the State Department of Education leaders from local and state organizations and other Consultants to discuss a well-planned thoughtful and appropriate approach to responding one consistent recommendation stemming from these meetings has been
035to engage both students and staff and focus groups that will help better identify areas of need information from these conversations will enable the district to make more informed decisions and develop long-term plans the other recommendation I've consistently heard is to implement a program for students that focuses on the poor the importance of an inclusive School environment to that end an agenda item for tonight's meeting is to introduce Joel Merchants Miss Murchison has been a tremendous resource for the district over the past several weeks she has a wealth of experience helping school districts and organizations navigate the challenges that can be associated with recognizing and valuing the diverse perspectives and creating a more inclusive School environment I look forward to having this merchants and speak later this evening with the board about the work that she
036does and can do for us today I had the Good Fortune to attend the high school staff meeting Dr brijelle invited me to come to the staff meeting this afternoon and it was it could have been one of the best experiences I've had here at Ram it was alumni it was 12 alumni I believe it was 12. who who spoke about their experiences here in the district and and how their experiences have prepared them for Life Beyond High School while each School while each student had their own or while each alumni should say had their own unique experience as a students there were consistent themes the alumni spoke about how their experiences at ran prepared them for Life After High School they explained how they learned the value of hard work while being students here
037at Ram and that they knew their teachers cared about them and one thing that I'll mention just based off your comment about the anxiety you're feeling about midterms a couple of them said they wished early on when during their High School career they had just relaxed a little bit because they realized that they brought too much stress and too much anxiety and too much tension on them so take those words of advice absolutely they'll get to it um I know the teachers and staff and attendants appreciated hearing from these alumni as much as I did and I appreciate being invited and this concludes my report okay who's assigned to item number nine the consent agenda uh approval of the minutes from the November 21st 2022 meeting which is uh labeled as enclosure number 9.1 is
038there a motion to approve the minutes from the November crony first meeting I'll make a motion Hey Joe thank you for a second oh second thank you heather is there any discussion regarding the minutes hearing none do a Voice vote all in favor of a motion to approve the minutes from the November 21st meeting uh all in favor aye aye any opposed what I'm saying okay got it so thank you okay all right that brings us to item nine point I'm sorry that the vote carries um it moves on to item 9.2 the retirement notifications and this is where uh we'll add to based on the the item four I'm sorry uh five Edition that was voted on by the board we will add to the names uh Linda Thurber Lund Thurber one okay so
039uh as part of item 9.2 uh is there a motion to accept the upcoming retirements of and I apologize for names again Joyce lack of Valley and Paul Bancroft and uh Linda Thurber Lund thank you is there a second okay thank you uh is there any discussion I do have one question yes unfold that says January 2024. that's correct but that is correct so Mr brancroft was kind enough to give us the ample notification on his retirement even though he's not really required to give it to us so early his position is going to be a very his position is very unique he manages and oversees a very unique program and I will tell the board it's going to be challenging to replace Mr Bancroft because of the unique certifications he has and the programs
040that he teaches so he's been communicating with Dr agile and I about about his upcoming retirement that he wanted to provide us which we appreciate very much yes big boss first but 2024 is accurate I think correct thank you any other discussion I'll just take this opportunity as I read through those notes to identify that those are 20 plus year veteran um Educators that have spent the majority or all of their career here at RAM and uh I can't thank them enough I've I've had got three kids now that have once already gone through so I'm sure has had uh been the beneficiary of the beneficiary of one of those three or all three and uh I think that you know hitting that 20-year Mark and especially being able to provide all that time here
041to Ram can't thank you enough and really appreciate all of your service to our community um let's have a quick question yeah Linda Thurber Lund was also a long-serving uh teacher here at random okay thank you um all right that being said uh there's no other discussion do a Voice vote uh motion to accept the upcoming retirements of Joyce one more time Locka Valley Paul Bancroft Linda and Linda Thurber Lund all in favor aye aye any opposed you're not in that carries unanimously which moves us on to item 10 old business I don't have anything on the agenda is there anything that we need okay which moves us on to item number 11 new business and 11.1 um the Joelle Murchison consultant from EMG sure so I I would again like to thank Joelle Murchison
042for joining us tonight she is the founder of EMG a Consulting Group for business education and non-profits Miss Murchison as I said has proven to be a valuable resource to myself the administrative team in the district over the past several weeks and I feel that she can help us navigate the challenges that we're currently facing and I appreciate you taking the time tomorrow thank you so much Dr McNamara invitation thank you this evening it's interesting as I shared with Dr McNamara probably 20-ish years ago as a much younger person I actually came to Ram to facilitate a program an assembly that the anti-definition lead used to run called names can really hurt us and I understand that Ram adapted that program and created something very similar to allow students the opportunity to really have their
043voices heard around the community so the little ironic that 20 plus years later I stand here in front of you again as we as a society sort of reimagine some of these issues that are in front of us in a very different way in a way where we communicate across social media lines without sitting in front of one another we learn a lot about people or what we think we know about people and we use that to inform the way we behave or we don't know enough about people and we act and respond in ways that may not be accurate we have a real opportunity certainly here in this District more broadly and Society to begin talking to one another to take opportunities to learn from one another to hear individuals from their voices I've
044been in this work for most of my career it was not intended in fact when I was in high school I said I wanted to be the Secretary of Education of the United States because at that time I grew up in a district where the high school was about about half the size of ram actually about 520 students but it was made up of similar similarly to Ram three distinct communities two communities who are predominantly white and one community that was predominantly black at the time in New York state it was considered the most racially balanced School District in the state and yet it's interesting because as I reflect back in any of my classmates with me to the fact that we had deep um intentional engagement with one another visiting each other's homes understanding
045each other's cultures and so as we grew um into adults we oftentimes reflect on those experiences things are different now right we don't necessarily visit people in their homes we visit people on social media we visit people through articles that we read or through documentaries and things of that nature we don't have the capacity to really engage in meaningful diet that's where I think some of the work that I've done over time with a number of different districts private and public sector institutions and higher education would really be helpful here at Ram you heard earlier um Dr McNamara talk about the importance of focus groups um and I think one of the public comments talked about leveraging the teachers the students the school Community here um what we've seen right even in those people moments
046is that they're folks who have something to say right um and so had it not been for this incident which I know I'm sure none of you would have liked to have the um the the public um on you in the way that it has it really has created an opportunity to leverage those here who have a voice who want something want to see the school Community impacted um those students and teachers so we're really suggesting an opportunity to conduct some focus groups with students and teachers to understand get a better understanding some of what Dr McNamara and his colleagues have been hearing from students because they are now coming forward or even teachers who are coming forward about different incidents that they have either been a part of or that they've witnessed to really
047get a sense of what's going on here what are not only the challenges but what are the strengths within this district and to use that information to really help shape a plan to allow the district to move forward really intentionally creating space for everyone within the school Community to be involved we also would recommend um some programming um for students right because I think there are students and teachers and families who are saying so what's happening when are you going to tell us what's going to happen next you know will there be another incident how do we get ahead of it so really creating a space for students to begin the learning now we talked about actually even how might we make that available to the broader Community right um we want to be deliberate
048and start very intentionally one step at a time and so there are organizations fortunately here in the community that have stepped up and said they want to partner and that they can provide some of those Community spaces but as we talk about this district and RAM I think the focus is really here and what you'll do within this particular School Community to provide opportunities for folks to learn from one another I've been doing since um 2020 really the result of George Floyd and all of the sort of awareness around Injustice in this country a series of sessions that are entitled a courageous conversation on Race what have I learned in the past two almost three years well what I've learned is that many of us actually have no idea what race really means most of
049us don't even know what diversity Equity or inclusion be instead they respond based upon what we think they need and we fill in the blanks they deposit what we've heard or perhaps what we don't know as opposed to really taking the opportunity to uncover some of the facts how do we get here why is it that we don't know much about individuals who might have a different skin complexion than us or other dimensions of diversity that have impact within our society and certain within our district so really beginning with the concept of what are the facts what do we need to know where are there opportunities for us to learn and then let's talk about feelings because not everybody feels the same not everyone has the same experience experiences in fact many of us have
050not had proximity to be able to have quite frankly a really informed opinion about some of the things that happen in our world and we're expected to react to right away so moving from the facts of thinking about our feelings what does that look like how does that play out and then our future stuff so what do we do now where do we go from here um what are deliberate actions that can be taken in this District not one size fits all the work that I've done has always been very customized with districts to really partner with them to understand what makes sense here I said to another the other day oh you know when we try to you know put photos on our website with people who you know look different than us and
051I said well why Force something if that's not who you are let's uncover the diversity that exists within your community right so let's listen to talk about that and and think about what implications that had broadly um that session really has created a space for people to use as a launching pad right then how do we create more and more opportunities for that product um this is not really something that can happen overnight oftentimes as someone who I've spent most of my careers Chief diversity officer Travelers for a decade I was the inaugural Chief diversity officer at Uconn and oftentimes both think that you can wave a magic wand and everything will be fixed overnight we'll all be friends and we can hold a hands and things come by yeah and it doesn't work right
052because we all have spent some time in this game and it takes some time to unlearn what we have been taught or what we've embraced on our own in many instances because we just don't know what we don't know and so it really is I think personally about one-on-one relationships dialogue between individuals and literally one step at a time and so that's really what I would suggest for Ram I don't think that in terms of you know there are clearly others out there who would tell you that if you do this and check the box that this will you know sort of make this the the most diverse and into the district on Earth I don't know that I could promise you that right by tomorrow or by next year even by you know um
053next year next week next year right um which will be here shortly but I think the important piece is really being delivered about starting and starting somewhere and acknowledging that you don't know everything and then guess what along the way you actually might even make some mistakes but that's all a part of the learning process you talk about that in your mission statement for the district um so I'm really pleased that actually um Dr McNamara and I got to know each other on a Saturday morning really really early when I answered the phone not realizing that it was Saturday and I didn't have to answer my business line but that's when we talked and engaged for the first time um and so when I made the connection to Ram to me um it was really
054worth the the work right um and being able to challenge we've had you know some conversations where I'll say no I don't know and they'll say to me well I'm like I don't know let's push a little further and I think that's what this is about so I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have there is a proposal that um Dr McNamara received from us which really is a little bit more detail about what I just described there are lots of other things that we could do but for me at this point I think it really does make sense to really get some information from folks who are in this whole community and then take delivery stuff to figure out what makes sense so I'm happy to answer any questions you might have
055um for this so if there's anything I can answer for you classic um you brought up feelings and she is really to ensure that everyone is allowed to share their feelings in a safe environment how would you ensure that that happens while they're in these groups together or you know that means feelings are different on this talk absolutely so one of the things that we do in all of our sessions is we start out in two ways one doing a check-in just getting a sense of how people are feeling one more how are you feeling in this moment right because realistically even as you walk into this room whatever was happening before you came in present in your mind so whatever you're hearing you're hearing through the lens of whatever you're feeling so getting a
056sense of how people are feeling initially that we also lead with a set of group guidelines or round rules which you're probably going to be familiar more familiar with that term that really set the framework for how the discussion will operate one of those things is about using I statements now one of the things that I think really kind of disarms a lot of when people will Express a feeling they'll talk about it as we always or this is what we've always done in this District what I've always you know and really encourage people to use that right one that means you have to think about do you really feel that thing as you're saying it but also allowing others to really think and reflect about how they feel right so not speaking for everyone
057speaking just for you right um and sometimes that's harder but it also means that you can only talk about the experiences you've had and not working with her right so that brings it down to how you're really feeling um with those ground rules we'll constantly refer back to them and then should we particularly in the the focus group they'll be relatively small groups really well staffed when we do a broader student assembly there will always be a partnership with you which probably will look something like you've done um with the program that's done at the middle school where there are problems where students can exit staff can exit um be able to take a moment right and have someone that sort of helped them process through something that might be particularly painful for them at
058um so we really do try to work very intentionally um certainly we will look to to have students who partner um with their cotton with their peers um in the in the student assembly component um but that's really important is really ensuring that there's safety and really setting an expectation for it in the larger group set for sure thank you I I have a question about the execution you're talking primarily about focus groups which I think are a great format for open discussion honest discussion are you talking about students and staff are teachers mixed in together do the students get an opportunity maybe just to join groups that are mostly just students so for some reason yeah either in your own experiences with this work or as they've you know tenure here in the district
059who want to hear from them student is absolutely in a separate um we're hoping that there's some students that may have responded to the note that went out from the principal saying you know hey we're working on this and raise their hand and said you know I count me in um but certainly giving an opportunity to additional students to do that thank you hello any questions no sure um okay person okay so the only thing I would say is I don't want to embarrass uh um uh um this person uh but I did take an opportunity to read through your your website and uh your education is uh is intimidating to say the least um but the so the one thing I would just say is that as listening to what you presented one of
060the things that I think I've heard in our community is uh you know people uh certainly concerned about an under reaction and uh I think you know there's also people are worried about an overreaction and I thought some of what you discussed about Taylor approaches and uh doing factual assessments and I think that all is very important to you know kind of number one is swaging everybody's kind of concerns and fears look it'd be remiss if we didn't look around the country and say that these are some subjects that are Board of Education and communities in general are are facing you know everywhere and so there's and there's you know there's some fight between boards of Education who maybe don't recognize parents you know rights to the extent that uh communities expect them to and
061they're you know suspicious of anybody that frankly wants to talk about diversity equity and inclusion because they're in some circumstances are trigger words and like I said it would just be disingenuous not to not to open that put you know add that to the discussion but I I do appreciate you coming here and talking to us about you know the the proposal that you've provided and your approach to it and I think one individual board member right I feel I feel I feel I feel better so anyway thank you very much thank you all right that takes us to item 11.2 the strategic planning presentation by iscon Diane Deuce so as the board knows the district must engage in uh the strategic planning process this year to have a three-year plan for the start of
062the 23-24 school year uh there are individuals and organizations that help districts with this process with the process of developing this strategic plan and I met with the finance subcommittee meeting last week to review some of these options that I've explored ultimately the subcommittee felt that the best option for Ram was to work directly with our local rest eastcon on this process and we are joined tonight by Diane Dugas director of K-12 and leading and learning for Easton who will briefly explain the process eastcon utilizes and can use with the district in an anticipated timeline of the work thank you Diane for joining us forward to embarking on this journey with you and it really is an iterative process in terms of taking a look at Grimm's current values your mission your vision your portrait
063of a graduate that really is the foundational work for moving forward and grounding every decision that's made as you know well as a board really the purpose of a strategic plan is to serve as a road map is said in terms of moving forward it should guide your decisions as a board goals as a board moving forward that guides superintendent for influence teachers there's a through line the Strategic advancement plan as a North star we are ultimately do you want to go so in that process we do a variety of activities it really starts first of all with working collaboratively with the superintendent to think about a steering committee a small representative of various stakeholders to really guide the process in that guiding part of that is planning on what data will be looked at
064very similar to what we just heard when we take a look at focus groups who needs to be what voices need to be heard we certainly look at students and community members and parents and staff as well as the board Administration comprising all of those stakeholders together timeline we look at is that in the evening is that during the day we've been like multiple opportunities for Voice through survey as well as on-site focus groups for that work we also take a look at the data that needs to be reviewed we've collect a variety of data the strategic planning team actually then utilizes that so A broader group of stakeholders anywhere from 18 to 25 folks again broad representation are brought together over the course again determined by the steering committee whether that's Saturday or several
065evenings coming together and through Protocols of looking at really a swap what are the district strengths what are the weaknesses what are the threats what are the opportunities through those protocols and analyzing data both internal and external we put that together and it is a very smooth process of how we draft goals forward and then it really results in an action plan what's the timeline for those goals small chunks we really look at 30 60 90 days it should be a really workable document not something that sits on the Shelf we do something a little bit unique in Creative communication points who needs to be communicated really thinking again there's a difference between what students need to know their parents what community members and their role in the plan because everyone does have a stake
066in that so our timeline for those activities as you would have provided is starting in January and completing by April by the April vacation so that it actually makes more goal setting moving forward and the budgetary process I've seen it and ready for communication out to start happy to answer any questions so just to Circle back because I think again just to refresh the board's my memory so we're operating off of what is now a three-year plan that uh landed for renewal in the middle of covid and we extended that strategic plan for two additional years just to get us on the other side so it's really somewhat of a elongated three-year plan that is stretched into a five-year plan and so you know as part of our our uh edict wouldn't hire in our
067new superintendent was at the same time coming on board with the responsibility of working towards developing our next three year strategic plan uh which is you know centered on what uh what Diane came to talk to us about and that a lot of the belka network if I'm correct is the next six months four times four to five months yeah January yes so um I think well I had a couple other comments but I'll just kind of go around the room first just to give the board an opportunity to ask me questions anybody um it works very well with the community members and who we had involved will you be looking at that and who we involved in comparing what we're doing what we've did and what we're doing what we're going to do so
068one of the pieces will be the dad of your lab strategic plan in terms of taking a look at that but then the community and stakeholders will be determined by a steering committee so that committee will be comprised of who you choose that to be and who you think is important for that as well as strategic planning team which is a larger group that do go through the process and again that's based on the Dynamics communities that's great because I believe everyone felt heard when we went through this process before and that's really important just to pick up on a question you've asked of the previous um presenter interest we use protocols around consensus building and we also use codes of collaboration so when we start the process we identify our working Norms together and
069then also do a consensus protocol so that again every voice thank you anybody else questions no so I don't necessarily have a question but more of a comment and just kind of piggybacking off of Sue talking about stakeholders I have a you know what one of my backgrounds is planning and I think the best plans that I ever put together was responsible for executing were um centered in developing buy-in from the you know we say stakeholders but frankly the key stakeholders and I'm really glad that Mr Spinelli is here as the teacher's rep because I you know I know that we talk about all the stakeholders the community the parents board administrators but in in my opinion the The Faculty will be as probably is in almost all circumstances carrying the Lion's Share of the
070load of actually making or breaking any strategic plan that we might put together and so I think what I would just ask you and also Mr snowy and I know this is this you know something you would want to do but to really encourage the teachers to dig in um not only to you know volunteer and participate but also hold your ground I mean come in and say because what I the tragedy of it would be for us to go through this effort frankly spend the money because it's always in the back of my mind and uh and then and then come out would plan that doesn't necessarily it you know we don't have you know the majority or a consensus of those key stakeholders specifically The Faculty really walking into first year one year
071two year three feeling really good about not only what are we supposed to accomplish but you know how can we continuously improve it and things of that nature if we don't have that buy-in then it's it's almost a wasted exercise and I would hate for that to be the case so uh I'm really looking forward to all the community members participating but specifically the faculty any other questions comments I think you love the communication plan I love the community plan I can feel that coming to that side of the table our resident Communications experts so I'm sure she'll be able to provide some some feedback on that thank you very much for your time looking forward to working appreciate it all right so as part of um that is that we do that presentation now
072um sorry okay so as part of that uh presentation and uh our strategic planning um uh preparation uh we need to entertain a motion to have the superintendent enter into a contract with eastcon to facilitate the development of the Region 8 strategic plan can we ask how much yeah absolutely why don't we when we get the motion on the board and Eric you second okay Sue you're recognized for questions uh a little over 17 000 is like me what the cost is I had sent in my week uh it's okay I sent out the different contracts that were uh eastcon one was one and then the two other organizations of Excellency [Music] of their timeliness of being available being able to start right away and also our long-standing relationship with them also coming in reasonable
073they you know it was kind of the trifecta and um any other questions you know they just got home hearing none do a Voice vote all in favor aye any opposed hearing none of that motion carries unanimously thank you um right okay yeah I got that uh yeah all right 11.3 uh review and approve the 2023 2024 school year calendar and closing 11 enclosure 11.3 call anything that happens yeah so just the proposed calendar of your board packet is the result of a collaborative effort between continuity to fix the compromise uh the comprise region eight I worked closely with the uh the superintendents of the other districts and I would recommend the adoption of this calendar uh and I could certainly understand the questions open the floor for questions on the calendar I'll just I'll
074say it pretty much it mirrors the it does it and here's the calendar that we've used in fact in speaking with um the superintendent Hebron he said this is probably the most instant calendar that we've had with the other districts that that we've had in a while we try to do that for you know that there's a lot of family uh uh you know obviously with children in multiple districts we know that their staff members that live within the community that this has an impact on so we really made a concentrated effort to sync it up best it's great they're early dismissal with books so much better than coming in later so it works okay any other discussion can I just out of curiosity yeah why do we do that with Labor Day weekend go
075back to so we go to school for two days and then we and then it's a long weekend it's a question that I've had for a year it's just that's that's the way that generally the calendars in the United States in in this area start is starting prior to Labor Day and then having that long weekend it's just the calendar what we're trying to do is we try to sync up with the other districts that are within our community that's just historically what's been done not just in this area across the state I mean it's it's a very typical way of approaching um anecdotally I think that there's a lot of people that appreciate having a couple of days in having Rowan as a student I think is acknowledging it too you start off with
076a couple of days and then you have a long weekend and hit the ground running after I'll be honest Heather I looked into this before and some research and I think I brought it up to Scott years ago because the calendar is isn't the same the state of Connecticut it's different but in our area it is the thing but I always felt like why do we do this in some districts outside of our area start after but you know um when Scott tells me so it's a losing battle I try to think in my head to a lot of places yes and this is this isn't one that I try to take further but I have really did some homework and research this and um our area sticks with this and if we were if
077we were to say as a board to change this it would literally impact you know all of our three towns right yeah it's not something I would fall on the sword for I but I just I find it completely irritating but it's you know it's fine again it's not something I was just curious if there was some sort of urban lore behind it or I think the thing that I will say is um some districts have actually gone down the route of starting actually earlier so they get it uh just this past year I think Glastonbury is a district and Christine's not in your head I know she's a resident there and some other districts I believe more so in the Hartford area actually started they did a full week so they did their professional
078development days in the week leading up to the week before Labor Day weekend and then the full day of full week of school in then they have a three-day weekend and there's a big part of it too I think for that for the movement in that direction is because of the fact that there have been some years where we've had so much snow and so much cancellation so I think the idea of starting it that weekend before Labor Day is also to accomplish the idea of not eeking into you know getting up to the end of June yeah and this and I'll say this I have no problem saying this in a public recorded meeting the state doesn't waver on their 180-day requirement in any way we we've actually had I know of districts that
079have literally gone to June 30th and not accomplish their 180 days and their school districts have been forced it doesn't oh nope that's only 179 you've got to do another day in order for it to count as a school year the state is archaic in their thinking with regards to their requirement to like oh 180 days is this magical number I'm not saying there's not a value to having obviously a set number of school days but respectfully there's not a lot of work being done in schools on June 30th if school's actually there just is not you know but there are there are more options today than there were four you know now that we have experienced covet and we have gone remote you know if we were ever getting down to that down to
080the wire you know we could think about oh a snow day could we do it remotely or you know I know none of the parents I think we were up against one year possibly eating into April vacation and that turned into a big nightmare thank God we didn't have to do that but that was a discussion that I had we had a faith as a board too as well but there are other options but it's not a store it was a curiosity question conversation though and I what you're saying the idea of saying Hey listen we did hybrid and we did this that is oh oh you should be the commissioner of Education I know Joelle talked about aspirations in that but but that is not permissible that is they have said to us it
081needs to be days in school so after doing virtual learning for uh uh and I'm not saying virtual learning is an ideal platform but after doing virtual learning for a four-month period at the end of 2020 and then doing in a hybrid fashion for a substantial portion of the year of the 20 20 21 school year that's not permissible it's which just is my advice yeah that is fine and I would I wouldn't want that no yeah if we were getting down to the end of June that's crazy right I totally I would just say that the Morris boys it's not the worst thing in the world for them to get a taste of two days and then have a weekend to re-acclimate is there any other questions or concerns about the schedule yeah good
082oh I'm sorry I'll go out and then I'll come back um just the one data stands up is December 6th all the other professional development days are on Fridays are about days off why is that one uh just a one yeah that's a great question and I'm going to be honest with you the first iteration of of this we actually had it on a Friday one of the things that I was really trying to accomplish was to have it be as aligned as possible with the elementary schools and elementary schools um for that particular month had it on the sixth I spoke with the administrative team and it really they said you know we've done them before on not on a Friday um and there's actually if if the elementary school has an early closing
083on a day where we do don't have an early closing and vice versa it creates um a transportation issue on both of those days so to me a Friday versus doing it on Wednesday but it negate Transportation issue it made the most sense to do it on that Wednesday I think some of those professional days teachers travel across different schools and don't they for particularly sometimes for particular professionals subjects topics I think there's been some discussion about that I thought that came up last year anyway okay I'm sorry Kristen my observation was also about the professional dates and I understand the sentiment about covering the acronyms versus the mornings what's the backstory and discussion regarding budding those Friday afternoon up to typically long weekends three day weekends because and has there been any Research into
084absenteeism on those days because families were the coach to take boarding events and those days become less academic because of student anticipation of the three weekends I can't answer that backstory portion of it I could tell you that I certainly can understand somebody expressing my concerned I haven't looked at the data for this year to see what the level of absenteeism is that might be something that might be interesting I'm afraid that those days don't end up very interesting okay um so I don't have that much left so 11.3 if there is there any other discussion about calendar [Music] I'm sorry the last day of school is showing the 11th tonight and also I remember from last year that we kept vote at some point about what day is graduation day because once the seniors
085go to graduation they were not from school after that so there's a little painsmanship involved across that bridge I'm sorry Gabe did you have a question oh no okay all right if there's no other discussion about the calendar are there any concerns uh entertain a motion to approve the 2023-2024 school year calendar as enclosed in 11.3 so thank you heather is there a second oh second thank you Joe any other discussion hearing none we'll do a Voice vote all in favor aye aye any opposed hearing none of that motion here thank you very much all right which brings us to 11.5 uh the annual review of policy 4180 so I'm sorry 11.4 uh the proposed 2023 Board of Education meeting dates so uh staying in the casino calendars uh the in your packet is the
086proposed 2023 board meeting dates uh and essentially what we've done is we've followed the same format that we are using for the 2022 years so uh I could certainly take your questions I just know last year when we came to this discussion it was I think a couple of the old old school board members came up and said hey pushing the June meeting as early as it can be and pushing the August meeting as far back as can be and obviously we don't have a July meeting was uh something that was um beneficial to many supporting especially supporting people's uh vacation plans and things of that nature so I did mention to Colin as part of the framework for that we'd like to try and especially could accomplish that so any other questions or concerns
087about the schedule I think frankly it's almost the exact same footprint as the year before all right budget Workshop yeah except yeah with the exception of the District budget meeting from May 1st it's it's Juneteenth was identified as a state holiday it was not the board would have to make a decision if it's not identified as a day that we wouldn't have school it's ultimately up to districts to make a determination whether they want June teens to be something that would they be recognized as a holiday even if it was recognized as a holiday it wouldn't necessarily prevent us from having the board meeting it might be a school which right school's correct yeah yeah okay I don't know is there is there a concern for the June 19th meeting um Optics I I think
088it's appropriate I think it's a reasonable discussion I mean what's the what's the previous Saturday I mean I'm sorry the previous Monday I mean all right the 12th oh I'm looking at it sorry yeah it would be the the wait that's not even the 19th as well since the previous Monday yeah 2024 I'm sorry that's why so it would be well yeah Windsor winds supposedly on the last day 16. we just would have to know we'd have to be cautious about uh potential graduation dates I'm seeing my high school friends without her head and then in our Middle School we have Middle School ceremonies so you know it's just it's just something we'd have to be be conscientious so but but I agree with the object and I think as we're going into this whole
089experience of you know what are we going to look like as a community yeah said I mean look I'm all for the earlier in June does anybody have any significant emotion about moving it back or moving it up I guess is the right way to say that what's that what is the previous state I mean then so you have the fifth or the well which you're saying from the 12's perspective that would complicate things at the school [Music] would we do it on a Monday yeah to be the last day of school right I have the 13th is that accurate though I have I have that as well I have the 13th as the last day of the finals oh yeah for the last days so we could right so the 12th would be safe
090I like to fall Center because I don't want to do it without the financials especially heading into a summer where we're going to skip a meeting one month okay so we'll maybe make the adjustment so let's adjust the motion then uh motion to um approve the 2023 meeting dates for the Board of Education with the one per viso that we moved the January of the June 19th meeting to the June to the date of June 12. is there a motion for that thank you is there a second thank you any further discussion all in favor uh can you post you're known that motion carries all right thank you all right five the annual review of policy 4180 plan for minority staff recruitment exposure 11.5 so policy 4180 focuses on minority staff recruitment one aspect of
091the policy is that did you reviewed manually by the board it's you there is no action that needs to be taken tonight regarding this policy we did have a policy subcommittee meeting we went we went through this policy we discussed this policy there was no recommended changes that were made for this policy but again it it's a provision of the policy that it be reviewed annually by the board um I could certainly take any questions if board members have it one thing I would throw in there is that while we're engaging potentially EMG with uh some feedback that certainly wouldn't be the worst thing in the world asking them to take a look at that provide any feedback without any additional terms any other uh questions you don't use that recruiting firm do we don't
092no no posting yeah we post their their job there's that do come up and and they're certainly um so there's something called the rest Alliance which specifically focuses on they have uh minority well pre-pandemic they had very robust uh minority recruitment job fairs which I attended annually in my previous position and certainly if they bring them back uh to to life uh post pandemic then I certainly would uh plan on doing those but no it's basically it would be myself other administrators going out to recruiting opportunities okay there's no item no accent item on that so if there's any other discussion on it we'll move on to 11.6 the first reading of policy 6156 which is addressing enrollment in an advanced course uh or program and challenging curriculum so as chairman Morris alluded so there's
093a LLC 60 6156 for a first read this is one something good we wouldn't take any action on this evening as a first read of a policy it's just an opportunity to review it see if there's any questions any concerns about it um this policy is another new requirement resulting from recent legislative changes and follows the model policy provided to us by shipping a Goodwin it was reviewed by the middle school and high school administration as well as the guidance Department's coordinators and this is a policy that whatever you discussed uh by the board's policy subcommittee meeting at its lap subcommittee at its last meeting and I can certainly take any questions that I'll just say anecdotally this is a this is really kind of uh setting play some things that were already in existence
094here within the district we're very fortunate being so interconnected that our students at all levels middle school students have opportunities to take very challenging courses both in the middle school and if if the needs arise to come up to the high school and take some take some challenging questions if it sits within their um within their aptitude and and this just really memorializes something that again was in existence here in the district probably wasn't existed it was not in existence in other school districts but it's legislatively required now that we have any comments from the policy committee any anything that came up that okay great um okay so there is no um on that tonight either uh so we'll move on to 11.7 the ratification of the administrator's Union contract so earlier this evening the
095board had a chance to review or discuss the tentative agreement through the negotiations process between the Board of Education uh the subject of the negotiation subcommittee and the ram administrators Association the agreement has been ratified by the administrators group and I recommend it before do the same thank you um okay so I would just ask is there an opportunity would somebody entertain a motion to approve the administrator's Union contract Sarah thank you is there a second a second thank you heather uh is there any discussion yeah I just want to make sure we open up the opportunity I'll get the evil eye from Sue uh hearing no none the uh we'll have a Voice vote all in favor any opposed you know none that motion carries unanimously which brings us to item 11.8 the overview
096of items likely to impact at 2023-2024 FY budget closure 11.8 I'm just going to give Eric a moment to open up on the screen for those attending virtually so I'll just say I'll start by saying that this has been an educational experience going through the budget process in my first years as superintendent I want to thank um uh Eva who has been incredibly patient with a myriad of of really really um probably stupid questions that I've asked her on almost a daily basis for the past several months I also want to thank the administrative team for for showing the same patients on many many occasions and spending lots of time with me and discussing budget the budget process um you know this is obviously a big undertaking and in my first years and I want
097to make sure that I do it um to the to the standard that the board is used to and the district deserves you go to the next slide please so uh just a set of context we do a board of education policy that identifies that uh at this meeting um the the board and superintendent shall we'll go over uh some budget the things that are going to impact the budget to discuss any new programs or items that should be included to be included in the proposed budget um as well as items that may be deleted um I won't read it word for word until you go to the next slide Eric please this just provides the the mission the vision and theory of action it's identified in our current strategic plan go to the next
098slide please similarly these are just the commitments as a part of the Strategic plan and we I don't read these for people I find that's insulting when that happens I'll give you a moment Eric if you go to the next slide for me please this I I will just take a moment to highlight um so this I wanted to provide our enrollment projections kind of where we were actually um and I didn't do a significant look back I would anticipate sharing a deeper look back when I do the presentation to board members in January but I wanted to provide people with uh the context of where it was where we were last October of 2021 where our Roman uh October 20th October 1st of each uh year is a big uh enrollment number it's when
099the state we provide the state with our own enrollment numbers for the current year we were 1 202 students in October of 2021 and then October 1st of 2022 we were down um to 1188 I I provide this context to people because I know that there is a long-standing narrative that Rand has declining enrollment and I'm certainly not arguing that that is not accurate um I just think it's important for the public to know that that enrollment is not a significant drop-off in our current uh in our current climate um I also want to point out the enrollment projections these are provided to us annually by NASDAQ and I think it's important to note that while we will continue to see declining enrollment over the next few years the upswing does start back up or
100is projected uh to start back up in 20 in the 2027-2028 school year um we get as low as 1070 students and then the projections start to swing back up and you can see that over the course of the next five to six years it goes back to numbers where we'll be higher than where we are currently and I just think that's a really important context for us to keep in mind as we go through this budget process and also future budget processes over the next several years next slide please here so just um the budget timeline to date again it has just been fantastic you know she's done a lot to develop the timeline the timeline that we filed this year is it's it's I know that I'm coming to you with it in
101the middle of December but please understand that our our our uh staff our department coordinators our building Administration our District administration special education have been living this budget for the past several months um and and certainly something that has been on the Forefront of their minds we started this process back in October when the disc uh when the budget manual is given out at a fact meeting which is our department coordinators our administrative team we review the process and go through that process one of the things um that I did here uh when I came in new to the district is was that the the process was the department coordinators would sit and collaborate with building Administration where they would discuss the needs and the wants of individual departments and I think that's an excellent
102process the one thing that I wanted to do is I actually wanted not not enough effort to micromanage but just to be as educated as I can about the process I wanted to be a part of those meetings and conversations and so I had those meetings with the building Administration and the department coordinators scheduled with Eva and I and we sat down as a collective group and I got to hear from each one of the department coordinator so I I was hearing firsthand what their needs what their wants what their desires were um for their particular Department uh at a similar time period I was having conversations with athletic director the director of people Services director of technology and communication our facilities director to review their Department budget and discuss these Etc we worked on
103updating the Personnel budget um and then uh where uh we are to the point where we are right now which is uh sharing new or major items to be considered for the proposed budget so that's currently where we are that's what we've done to date moving forward um we do have some next steps uh this coming Wednesday we do have a facility subcommittee meeting so that we can review and prioritize the capital uh budget um for for next year I anticipate that the finance subcommittee meeting I'm hoping um we can work to maybe have that be a joint Finance slash facility subcommittee meeting so that we can have a lengthy conversation between the facility subcommittee and the finance subcommittee and discuss the needs of the capital funding um on the 23rd of course I'll present
104the the administrative budget to the Board of Education for the the next three items in the budget uh timeline are to be determined I know historically that there's been a budget Workshop done obviously for for the ram budget Workshop kind of covers the Hebrew needs or or covers presenting to the Hebron Community um but my understanding is there's historically been a we take the show on the road and I think that's been done up until the pandemic hit and and I I wanted to get an understanding from the board what the desire of the board was because I think last year that those meetings were done virtually and people were allowed to um they were held here and people were allowed to virtually join those meetings and I just need to get some direction from
105the board as far as do we want to do those meetings virtually again this year um kind of what we were talking about earlier with regards to you know if you could do it digitally is that something that we're Desiring doing um or is it something that we want to actually say no we want to again go back to the towns because we'd have to have some scheduling conversations which I'm happy to to organize facilitate but I just need to get some direction from the board on that um again we have our our date identified for our public budget hearing and region eight meaning to set the budget amount for referendum annual budget meeting for about per policy 3121 is going to be on May 1st and then the budget referendum would be would be
106May 2nd so priorities in budget planning um you know I when we looked at the prioritization of needs for the district we thought it was important to make sure that we support academic and social more social emotional learning needs of all students to maintain a program of studies with a variety of course offerings and career Pathways that ensure Ram graduates are College and Career ready upon graduation that certainly is something that obviously really resonated with me particularly after the presentation that I heard today from our Ram alumni um ensure curriculum and instruction utilized in the district are current and aligned with best practices you'll see uh and if you had a chance to look through this PowerPoint already it would uh when you receive the agenda you'll see that um I'm recommending that a new
107position be created my biggest concern is that without having uh somebody in the district with a very uh with a very specific and Hyper focus on curriculum instruction practices um that students will have a different experience here at RAM and different in that a positive way in this sense I I just think that a district that offers the program of studies that we offer I think it's really important that we have somebody focusing on curriculum and instruction and you have that with other department coordinators but our department coordinators also are teaching uh a portion of their day and and so we'll talk more about that but I think that's critically important for the district um another priority is to improve or maintain facilities and grounds and last but certainly not least Insurance safe and secure
108School environment for students staff and community um as everyone knows there's there's a lot that is factoring um there's there are many factors that are influencing the budget for 23.24 um this is something that I think that we're going to see in budgets uh local and Municipal and School District budgets across the state as other districts go in a budget season we just inflation in general I think we're at seven and a half we were talking about this earlier we're around seven and a half percent inflation um and that's that's just gonna have a significant impact you have things of anticipated increase for diesel fuel costs you have anticipated increase for ever Source delivery fees I'm sure that many of you are tracking that in the news and some that they're looking to double their
109uh charges for delivery fees not the fee for the electricity itself but just the just the delivery fees we're looking at anticipated increases for natural gas and we know that we're we already have uh increases for our software prices that we utilize in the district on a regular basis and we really need to be a functioning District unfunded legislative mandates uh it's not uncommon that we get those they they um they're coming with a fairly Hefty price back they're good things certainly don't want to negate their importance they're they're good that we have them but they're they they have an impact on the budget uh aging equipment and Technology um it's one of the amazing things about coming to this district is how often I'm people oh my gosh that building is so beautiful that
110building is so beautiful it's such a beautiful facility it's so beautiful and you know it's oh it's so brand new and I think that there's a lot of people that think of this building as brand new when in fact it's it's getting on 20 years old and when you get on 20 years old there's aging equipment and Technology we know that uh capital budget is going to include things like you know boilers Chillers um moving project coolings actually um but but those types of things are are obviously significantly Big Ticket items that are going to fall under Capital but there are also things that fall under just our regular operating budget um and I just highlight two of them it sounds so silly to say this but a baby grand piano we the baby the
111grand piano that we utilize and it's normally in this building or in this room it's normally is going to get moved out for meetings I think when it was purchased for the building 20 some odd years ago I think it was already it had been used for 10 years they've actually got it used so it's a we're talking about a 35 year old piano that is aging and warping and starting to show signs so things like that and then we have you know things like smart board technology which again is is being out is becoming outdated rather quickly and so we're looking to replace things like that with touch from screens so those are just a couple of examples of Aging equipment and Technology special education certainly is always a driver of a budget um
112and and it's no different for for next full year we do know sharing of good news we we're looking and anticipating at a decrease in magnet agriscience tuition student transfers or returning to Ram which is fantastic we love it when our students are coming back and we love it even more when our students are returning and it has the opportunity to save some some funding uh decreasing and outplacement tuition and Professional Services for students exiting the district but we do we are looking at an in-police and trans increase in transportation cost due to driver shortage and Diesel um that's the driver shortage is as real as the teacher should or the employee shortage in just about every business in Industry um and so what we're finding we have to do is transportation services that we
113typically utilize whether it's special education or whether it's Athletics we're having to use people that we've never used before because we call one company that say we can't help you so we have to go to companies that are more costly but we don't have a choice in the matter because if we don't utilize those companies we're not going to be able to transport our students to school on a daily basis or to athletic events and that's just not something we could do so those are things that obviously we're contending with health insurance I will tell you that uh it said what your PowerPoints shows is currently budgeted for a six percent increase the day after this went to publish and was pushed out to everybody um the insurance Consortium met and it was actually identified
114to move to a five percent increase still could code and likely will go down um uh this this current year that we're working under it was a zero percent increase so so but there's still a a little bit of trepidation with the insurance Consortium to move lower um because it's easier to explain to taxpayers the ability to move down as opposed to hey we budgeted for one percent but guess what it's really going to be three or four so where we are right now is because of the Consortium of five percent and just general overall contractual increases certainly have an impact um so those are the factors influencing the budget for next year proposed changes for um for current school year to next school year for the budget we have some Grant funded programs or
115positions uh that we are anticipating moving into the operating budget for next year so we've Run summer school uh summer school or credit recovery program for middle school and high school students over the past couple of Summers that has been covered by grant funding uh that grant funding is no longer going to be available in the districts and we're into State and moving that it's the operating budget because the administration is still in support of running those programs for students um we have an LPN that we hired I think two years ago uh who has been under a special education grant that can uh Christine uh manages but uh that obviously takes away opportunities for us to utilize that funding in a different way so the idea would be to move that LPN into our
116operating budget as well uh there's a currently in our budget there is a family consumer science physician that is that has not been not been filled I know that there was a lot of conversation around this position to the board it was a position that was advertised was posted it was it was uh basically it was not able to be filled and therefore the current school year doesn't have that position um I I Envision the same challenges moving into next year if we try to fill that position particularly a a part-time position and so to me it just makes the most sense to say Hey listen it's just going to be something we're gonna we're gonna move away from um with that being said that FTE could be utilized for what I was talking about
117earlier which is the addition of an instructional coach slash curriculum coordinator um it's a position that is uh titled many different things in different districts it depends on who it is that you talk to um or the district that you're in um several years ago this District had somebody who was a director of curriculum and instruction it was an administrative level position I'm not looking for an administrative level position do I think there'd be benefit to a 12-month administrative position absolutely but I think that this is a good first step for us to make to getting somebody back into the district to be focused on the idea of improving our instructional practices working directly with our teachers our department coordinators with our building uh building leadership to talk about what we need to do to
118stay current in our in our approach to utilization instructional practices the position would also have a responsibility of of having a level of curriculum oversight working very closely with Department coordinators building Administration to make sure that our our curriculum is staying current because if we don't have somebody with that Focus to to to make sure it's staying current that it's just going to become Obsolete and that's not good for anybody most importantly students um the the again that position I would see would be uh again a a full-time teaching position and similar to the structure of our department coordinators there's stipend associated with it which would bring additional uh additional responsibilities outside of the the contractual workday as well as some summertime uh some summertime work where they'd work with uh Department coordinators as well
119um so those are the proposed changes from this year to next year and just real briefly I on the next slide Eric um if as I said the facility subcommittee uh in myself Ava Ava Michael the building Administration we're going to meet on uh Wednesday of this week we're gonna have a virtual meeting and I certainly sent the link to everybody in the board if you'd like to attend it'd be great um where uh to discuss and prioritize the capital uh budget for next year our current capital budget is 504 000 and uh 619 619 um our identified categories per the 10-year plan are currently hovering around 2.7 million dollars um so we've got a lot of talk to do um so our our uh Capital non-recurring balance as of November 30th 2022 is just
120short of uh six hundred thousand dollars these are the funds that the board may recall have been specifically earmarked for um funding to help improve our athletic fields and uh again that's another thing that's going to be discussed at our facility subcommittee meeting as well um and our Capital Improvement plan balance as of number November 30th 2022 is is just uh just above twenty thousand dollars um and that money would be available at the closeout of the locker room HVAC project I mean that might even go in the cabinet unless the board chooses to allocate okay so she does that for me like all day all day um so and then the finally just regarding the capital Improvement uh funds is the specific amount of the 2122 surplus funds from the operating budget is anticipated
121to be known after the final audit that concludes my presentation and I can certainly try to answer any questions that board members may have I'm gonna go around the room okay first um to answer your question again that's uh so we I believe that we've used outdated so so initially we purchased one I think two years ago to try the new technology and and we used operating funds and so you see one right over there so we used operating funds to purchase that one just as a test time I believe then the following year which was last year we were able to purchase 12 of them through funding we're anticipating we're certainly applying for grant funding to try to pick up the cost of another 12 to 15 depending how much grant funding is made
122available to the district so uh hopefully that's going to be more that we are able to purchase through the grant but we're still looking at the Shore by a fairly substantial amount and we we're looking at needing some local operating budgets in order to move us to the end quicker now the board could ultimately decide hey we'd rather do this in case we want to do it a little bit over time incremental and that's certainly something that the board can discuss and give us some guidance and Direction on I will tell you that our director of Technology would love to just rip the Band-Aid off and move in that direction because he thinks the technology and I certainly can understand this it's better for students and better for staff are they um how much are
123um and um the life fans of them and then the the instructional coach it's not a 12-month position right yeah you said that okay those are all my questions right now Eric educated guess at this point percentage I would be very of giving an educated guess up because once I give it and I don't it's not going to dismiss it with your question once I put an educated guess out there that becomes the number and and we're still trying to you know figure some stuff out okay yeah um for Andrew [Music] I think it would be worth seeing the folks that's what I did [Music] electronic administrator the board of selectman board of Finance I think that the budget Workshop is typically done one of the book findings and if if that could be working
124every step and unexpected will be if you wanted to go I would certainly come with you um just as a comment you know I anticipate that the child budgets on their owner just as inflation is is hitting us it's got to be hitting them and to to an extent you know I think there'll be understanding that that um okay it's just real but on the other hand particularly with a board of finance and of course I was Sue and I were joking about this before that now I'm on this side of the table I used to be on the board of Finance where you know something but differently and uh and so you're gonna be under a lot fresher and I'm sure if it's true and handling what's going to be true so just their
125their own operating and their their own capital is going to be um a lot for them to handle and so when we come in with what is for the three towns their biggest lineup or running the entire town um that uh will read and mentioned that Colin and I discussed this Society too will need a pretty detailed story of exactly what happened so much how we're trying to get grants to cover what we can in fact that we're we're only our decreasing students it's just 14 students over six grades so it's not like um we could have some adjustment based on a fewer number of students if it doesn't work that way um and uh and let them know that we're sincerely feeling the pain that they're feeling and we're doing the best that we
126can um although you know it seems to me it's been a for for Boards of Finance in three towns this is going to be a bad new story it's going to be bad news for their own budget and it's going to be bad news from us so why my belief is that we'll have to handle it carefully and with maximum communication I just want to clarify something that Eric said and something nice something normally does go to all three towns to present the budget well I believe and maybe I'm wrong what I believe and hear the question that I answered normally before coven just went to Marlboro and held a meeting there not to present the entire budget but to have some of the administration go through their pieces and we also went to Andover
127and squished in a little uh Library I don't even know what elementary the elementary school we switched in there just to go over a bunch of items so I agree Colin going to all of our three towns to present the entire budget is extremely important but to go over you know just budget topics and have our meeting at every location I don't see why we don't do it here and they can tell anyone and Colin going to report a finance meetings is extremely important for that for this this other thing if you had it remotely that all three times yeah I'm with you right so that's that's the difference I don't know if anyone here even remembers us doing that because no one has been there yeah I think that that's I think that's good
128to get the clarity around this because I interact with Vermont my understanding of it is um a couple of departments and kind of making stuff a couple of departments might go to Andover and present just you know uh Athletics and special education and then a couple of other departments would go to Hebron I'm sorry not Hebrew would go to Marlboro and present uh social studies facilities and Science and it it just seemed disjointed to me because what I'm hearing you say is and I agree with I think it's important for each town to get a live presentation of what our District budget is and then afford everybody an opportunity to have a a single meeting that could be held here where all of the different departments and coordinators present their particular budget because that way
129everybody's getting the same message versus Andover is getting one message Marvel's getting another and a complete message it's not a single Meeting those are done over multiple sure sure we would be here until 12 but yeah absolutely absolutely so so yeah I mean I can work to to schedule it and I can communicate with the us committee chairs and that also allows the uh especially streams three times to commissary they're all limited together so that the sooner the better to get those budget updates okay yes sure I have no questions correct um do we have a history on like what did we do as a matter of process when the budget passed and when the budget failed like I know everybody's new here but we're you know exactly what Zeus is saying historically we've done
130these smaller meetings you go um and present to each of the each of the communities you know I'm always going to go back to to what's the comms plan that you want to get your story out and you want to tell people why things are changing and there needs to be to me some transparency you know and there's again different ways you can do that but um I think having a plan like that will help support the budget when it does come up for referendum and and for voting because I think a lot of people just have a knee-jerk reaction oh you've increased the budget I'm just voting no on that no no you gotta we have to really figure out how we communicate wising increasing so it wasn't really a question just that do
131we know our history on how we've done this and was it successful and certainly certainly couldn't hurt the pool maybe some of the history and ask me things got you know on his yacht wherever he is playing golf or whatever reason there is a bunch of flyer that's very helpful yes it's a one-page budget choir that's shared with us that we can share it with you know on social media tomorrow even on our Facebook pages because I know we have one I don't I don't know if we use it intensely but it's important to share that budget flyer in the past we have done um a workshop where the public can join and we can answer questions very different than the public comments not well attended at all um but I am not for one
132to just drop something just because it wasn't well attended before um especially if our budget is going to be higher than normal um but a workshop allows us to communicate to the community if they come and we can have conversations back and forth obviously Colin doing the majority of the talking and the answering of questions like so that was another thing that we've done in the past um may be worth looking into if the budget is going to be much higher and definitely going to the three towns the board of Finance column going and you know myself from Marlboro the Marlboro Representatives going with Colin to Marlboro Hebrew and Hebron Andover Andover I think that's also extremely important because the board of finances they can't tell us go caught twenty thousand dollars like they can
133that they do locally to us they could send us a letter strongly recommending that we lower it and that has happened in the past but that's all the board of Finance you know really getting in front of them and then if it fails it's a nightmare it's it's truly a nightmare we all have to come back to the table Colin presents items that uh his suggestions on where we could come at that point because when it fails we really don't know why like only the chit chatter but it's not like you write on the ballot I'm not passing this because of this so it's very hard to decipher um but community members will start be coming out and they'll start vocalizing some items once they hear the bottom line number Eric used to be one
134of them in the audience and then we have to really go with our God and really um ensure that we get it to pass those workshops available online wasn't available back in the day [Music] we did I think we did something like that last year but it wasn't I think to Sue's point it was it wasn't well attended I was thinking but I'm not sure it was well promoted either to be truthful about it encourage more attendance yeah so that so that parents can multitask yeah one other thing I mention about the one page sheet is that it reminds people that there's a book coming out of one of the continuing challenges threat these budget votes are done at a very awkward time of the year May 2nd it's easy for people to forget it's
135even there yeah there will be a certain family of no votes that will always show up in a certain family and yes folks that show up and anything that we can do to communicate to people that [Music] um that there is a vote coming and we and recommend that they vote against I think that's that's really that get out the vote game kind of comes down to what Sue was saying it's the Marlboro folks really need to motivate the Marlboro folks the and over vote similarly in the Hebron people really have to communicate pretty strong post something on their Facebook page and say oh yes the school cannot do that school could just provide the information um I normally don't say vote Yes either I normally just post here's the flyer if you have any
136questions let me know please remember to vote those are some of the things that we've done in the past and I'm thinking maybe the workshop is something we should consider especially going to be a higher number yeah we're here some folks are here hybrid it gives the parents the opportunity not to have to come out I know parents who are listening from assignments oh yeah absolutely yeah the only other thing I would say is that to um Collins point about and and I think to your point too was that kind of the disjointed presentation in the past I feel like if we frame this properly where we're doing you know a series of the presentations where we break down but people have an opportunity to get a full face of what we're also experiencing um
137and I think uh that builds a little better than that just didn't justify or without the workshop or so is the fire going the River East uh it does not go in the road race it's a front and back plier might be important to stream some some of the most critical talking points to to we could put a press release like a website because I'm sure on the website the flyer will be there making it easy accessible on the website too I know in Marlborough I talked to the superintendent and when you sign into the page the flyer immediately pops up on your face and I think we do that here yeah so it's so you can't miss it basically you go and it pops up and you have to exit out if you don't
138want to see the fly yeah all right anything else hello bye is it possible to share the capital proposed items prior to Wednesday's uh meeting with uh the subcommittee and or the entire board okay thank you so I'll Circle back with um with uh Colin about the kind of the proposals for how we schedule this out and lay this out and work to try and get us some scheduling options out everybody as quickly as we can one more thing just to add we normally had um a cut off date so say our meeting our Mondays right we wanted to decide another day um you would tell us well if you have questions can you send them to me the Wednesday before the meeting so we the board would give you all the questions and you
139would have all of the answers for that meeting so you come prepared and have the answer so that was another thing that worked very well because I know I have lots of questions most of the time so I would rather send them to you so you have answers instead of say oh I'll get back to you absolutely okay so you picked that date okay there's nothing else I don't think there's anything else I'm sorry Carrie I keep forgetting you're up there did uh do you have any questions sorry I didn't know my hand was raised no it wasn't I'm just checking just making sure we include you an opportunity to ask any questions oh no I'm also thank you okay all right that was a good discussion it's painful but a good one um all
140right so I moved us on to uh 119 the financials foreign forty three thousand seven hundred and forty five dollars that's approximately six thousand eight hundred fifty dollars less than reported in November in November's board meeting um the operating fund you'll note is having some staff turnover so you're seeing some savings there we've also had a slight uptick in um getting substitute teaching applicants which is a positive um and our Magnet School tuitions were still being reviewed because there seems to be a delay in getting some of the invoices from our threat partners the capital Improvement fund we're focusing on the retention Bond the retention fund unfortunately needed an additional review um that is at no additional cost to the district um one that is completed we're gonna have to survey go and be flag
141picture for the wetlands commission and to make sure that the project reviewed that we have the plans interviewed for the end of December so almost here so the irrigation well replacement has been approved by the planning and zoning committee the contractor has completed being out of the underground tank which is all absolute materials and they've confirm the Integrity of all existing wiring and the next steps will be to begin the removal of the publicly existing well and drilling of the new pump should take place in January positive news for the capital non recurring funds the town of Hebron received some questions from the state indicating that the dot project is being hopefully processed for closure from their standpoint that I have not received any final confirmation cable services is doing a great job of monitoring
142their movements with their students and encumbering anything new or releasing any funds that are not being utilized for that student are there any questions business requires some action from the Board of Education so basically the IRS we have flexible spending accounts so every employer from the IRS is allowed to have places where um physically you can put three tax dollars in if you prefer out of pocket Health costs for their baby care to talk um in this situation that IRS has increased the limit for employees to be able to contribute the calendar year 2023 to three thousand fifty dollars from the current amount of which is two thousand eight hundred and fifty dollars we've worked with Progressive benefits uh helps us monitor the flexible spending accounts on our behalf um and in order for us
143to be able to offer the higher increased IRS limit to our employees the board of education has to um page 31 of the document and follow the solution and add your Instagram to sign off on your behalf um you guys are so in trying to increase so um to some thermos that the bottom line is we're just giving them the opportunity to put more through there's really no reason not to do this yeah okay so if that's the case at this point if you appropriate entertain the motion for that all right so is there a motion uh to um increase the amount uh employees are allowed to contribute uh to their flexible spending accounts from the current limit of 28.50 to the new limit of 30 or 3050 in 2023. Eric thank you sir suck
144it second second thank you Father six second is there any discussion hearing no discussion with voice all in favor aye aye any opposed none that motion carries unanimous that covers yourself for um and we have communicated with families to let them know that our free meals will be coming meals will be paid on January 11th um we've also received the money for our second allotment of the supply chain so we've received 24 899.83 and if you look at page two of the packet you'll notice that because of that or because of how we're Contracting we actually have a net income of six thousand five dollars and 13 cents per month are there any questions that I could answer we're going to make it to the finish line of the 10th with the food money yeah
145okay good I hate to have to go back and communicate something different any other questions that's a good thing that's fun and as requested in this month before I actually went on a website so I didn't have to do without everything um they do a lovely job of providing all that information they do um I downloaded that and put that as part of the packet um and as you can see for the month of October we reinvested our dividends about 1059.93 are there any questions that the board may have a mess so where does that put us for our capital and your Capital plan now we're 2 million 200 and 59 000 okay versus 70 000. great okay 11.9 we have to allow for us now that the board um to allow us to pay
146for the Strategic plan um so I'm supposed to take money from the unallocated Personnel line that is um that I reported on that there's money available professional Technical Services okay so uh any questions so go ahead and throw out a motion so uh is there a motion to uh move 17 000 from the unallocated Personnel fund to these uh to the system-wide Board of Education purchase professional tech services fund is there a second Eric thank you is there any discussion oh yeah hearing none I have a Voice vote all in favor any opposed hearing none that passage unanimously um which moved us to the committee reports I believe right yeah so why don't we uh go around the room I know there's been some companies have met I'll just rely on the uh with the
147members to give us some feedback so facility safety and transportation we're meeting Wednesday this week uh six o'clock virtual uh discussion will include uh latest proposal from Tom Irwin Associates on the 316 field which is the entire length of the field uh North and South I believe or perhaps it's east and west and the other most important portion of that discussion will include those items to be under consideration for the capital budget for 23.24 um I said one one thing we we had this that's capital budget plan has been around for how long yeah so and I know it's a 10-year plan of February right is there any discussion amongst the facility about potentially revisiting the items on that or the prioritization yes it's something that that we've talked about with uh Michael schlay offer
148in the past and I think it's something that we need to pursue once again especially with some sizable uh projects coming up in the coming years yeah yeah and the other thing is I'd hate for us to be I mean conditions change so yeah some things become more of a priority some may be you know bump to a less priority so I just paid for us to continue to work off of that especially since we're sort of sparingly allocating money that took a long time to gather you know oh yeah absolutely yeah all right anyways that was something that I know when I first came into the board was a couple of the previous board members who've since rotated out super high priority to maintain that 10-year plan but also keep it up to date
149so um okay anything else any questions for the facilities folks here none I'll just show you before I was on the board of finances do you know a nice clean plan and these items just keep rolling in thank you you're all set with the fire department and then it's another piece of equipment just coming right down so I think it's a great idea take a look and look I mean it's a lot of work so I mean obviously we've got to prioritize what you know from the facilities perspective you've got a lot of things going on over there too so yeah it's not the committee doing the work it's hiring an engineering firm to come in and do the analysis so it's a topic for discussion we'll need to go out for proposals and we'll
150bring it back to the board and vote on yeah okay um anything for finance and audit compliance and insurance Finance um okay okay any questions for finance uh negotiations all right we're good Colin thank you everybody for hard work I mean that without going into the Gory details it was clearly a good negotiation for both sides and uh so that's a good good result policy carry anything for policy um yeah we went over three policies two of them we brought up during the business section of the agenda um scheduled meetings on Tuesday January okay yeah that's great thank you very much any questions for policy okay go to program and communication I don't think with time yeah we haven't had that um so facilitators so uh Dr Benson Clark uh has uh moved on uh
151and so we have vacancies for both our eastcon rep and our K Brett um so I didn't really frankly want to uh appoint a new rep as the previous chair because we're going to have elections in two weeks so I did specifically didn't you know provide an appointment to that with all the Committees and to include the facilitators for those two entities um what I would like to do is similar to what we did last year was just you know pull the field what are your interests and as far as as far as committees that subcommittees are concerned giving your feedback and then hopefully we can kind of work out something where it entertains everybody's uh ideal circumstance and then certainly talk to everybody if that's not the case but we would throw the econ
152and the cape positions into that mix again definitely get your feedback anybody that's interested in participating in that part or serving as our rep or Reps for that uh for those two entities would also be helpful and I'll I'll send out an email that that gives everybody kind of the what I'd like to get from you from feedback and try to get that done pretty quickly and then once we establish who those uh those sub those subcommittee leaders are uh our subcommittee members are it'll be incumbent upon you as you're part of your first meeting to identify who's going to be serve as your lead for the year uh believe it or not there's a pretty explicit and extensive policy that explains how you go about that um so is there anything from East counter
153cave that anybody felt like they wanted to share you know that occasionally people participate in stuff that not everybody goes to I don't think we've had to understand what the obligation is there's really no obligation we use Cabe as a opportunity to you know they're a resource the Connecticut Association of boards of Education uh they're they're actually a great information resource I mean I've certainly gone to a couple of their their uh offerings they sometimes it's themed sometimes it's just uh the general um annual meeting where they present a lot of information they bring in some pretty good speakers and I rely on them for just rudimentary stuff like uh like I think Colin reach out to him to make sure that we had the process for the board election officers election correct today and
154uh something for our executive committee I got some feedback from Nick Caruso to specifically make sure how it's the board what's the cave recommendation for how to frame that just that that discussion that we'll move forward to um so that's really all it is it's not really any requirement I think and it's the same thing with eastcon we you know we we act as sort of we send a liaison or a representative to it to provide both our feedback and also kind of bring back what what they are discussing or things that are relevant that you know impact us I think with the easecon uh Dr Benson Clark served on and forgive me if I don't know the technical name but they're essentially what a question they are right so so they have a they
155have an organizational framework that's not on like a board of education where it's the members of their board are from districts that are within the rest and so Dr Benson Clark was on our board of education but she was also on their executive board or board or whatever it's called and so she would attend board meetings much in the same way that board members would attend these meetings and you know act in a similarly so so there is a little bit of a difference with that so there's a probably a bit more of a formal time commitment with these kind um Eric batula is the eastcon executive director had reached out to me in the wake of Dr Benson Clark's resignation and I shared this with with Mike and said you know we've had a
156long-standing history of having active involvement of somebody from the Ram Board event would love to continue that if it's possible so yeah they specifically reached out to ask us to have somebody participate so uh anyway so well like I said I'll I'll throw that out to everybody gather everybody's interests and then try to Circle back with everybody and do the best we can to try and shape the best circumstance for everybody it would be helpful to know what night time time commitment and all of that yeah there's much to do with cave I reach out to Cape a lot too for questions um we all could reach out we paid in service Caruso is awesome they all are awesome there but he's kind of sitting that's a time commitment I can get that specifically yeah
157there's a there's a there's a bunch of offerings in the there's a budget within the school to pay for that so uh if you know you see things okay that you'd like to participate in you just communicate with Colin and he'll work with the staff to make sure that they reserve a spot for you and all that kind of thing so okay I don't know but it's it's very good yeah I've attended years ago it might be worth looking into I think now it's right around the time they offer new board members come in because of November and stuff yep all right uh why don't we move on to item 13 public comment um so just bear with me for the second round of reading Hebron Andover Marvel Community engagement and attendance at Board of
158Education public meetings is welcome the public comments segment of the meeting agenda is set aside so the Board of Education may receive public comments procedurally public remarks will be limited to three minutes and citizens will be asked to identify themselves because the board of education is limited by the Freedom of Information Act to discussing only matters on the agenda the board of education is not permitted to engage in a discussion of the comments presented at this time is there anybody present that would like to present please one part of my process as a citizen is to continue to employ myself questions and brought that up knowing that you would have a discussion what I learned tonight is that it was a negotiation and that the board approved the citizen no idea what else has happened
159with that negotiation had an impact under doctors and twins to influence in the budget under contractual obligation this negotiation have an influencer this year's budget next year's budget in some past times but it's three or four degrees down the road I said earlier that this is a hard job as a citizen I want to let you know that I am totally unemployed decisions if there's any financial implications it will be noted next year as contractual populations so I'm an uninformed citizen I don't have any say in that I don't think that should one thing that this floor just did is they gave up the ability to discussion the budget comes up next to me we'll be talking in this town a multi-million dollar facility you put the budget Auto Works we mentioned inflation you mentioned
160pressures at all three times you talked about boards I'm trying to remember what we're talking about movie and you will be putting a great deal of energy rightly settled into the minutiae uh the minor part of the budget whereas the contractual obligations I have a great material in over a decade you have to hear any discussion about people come to that decision I don't think it's wrong I just don't know what it is with that in mind I wonder if I can ask a question do I have to Citizen will this board present this negotiation product to this kind of respect and when this negotiation being posted in time last week and that next question and it is difficulty we're on the board of Stockton Avenue committing to say they object I researched things earlier
161I realized that in fact the division I read some of the past Publications I understood that this negotiation posted and that's the public can be a comment to the second in the segment can stay tuned I'm not objecting anything that's been checking them I don't understand and understand what responsibility I have as a citizen to give feedback I should conductive so as a question and if you haven't answered that's fine we don't just say it you know will we be posting the negotiating product messages I apologize but we can engage in a discussion or question and answer period as part of the public comment that's part of the previous piece but but we understand we we've gathered your feedback okay but if it was on the agenda okay and again that's that's the case that
162a public document is to be posted and it can be done anyways I must say I'm tired I'm gone wish you all happy holidays and happy New Year thank you sir thank you anyone else present for public comment please oh good evening you can smell like 22 Riverdale Road I just want to say it was it was great to have speakers here tonight that we had come in talk about some of the things that we're going to work on this District it's good to know that teachers will be happy to know that we're moving in a Direction make things better at Ram I did want to mention uh I was a little disheartened there's there's three more resignations tonight um for personal and family reasons I'm not gonna insinuate any reasons for them leaving uh
163people retired it's the life cycle of a faculty we want to mention them again and just have respect for for the years they expect that Ram Joyce lack bowling has worked forever at Ram sure did the high school to middle school I got to work with her at the middle school she's one of the most funniest and creative teachers who have been lucky to have her for a long time um and I want she should be recognized for that Paul Bancroft is exactly the kind of teacher you want to keep in this District uh teachers that go out of their way to create new curricula new programs for students Beyond his his educational certificates his professional responsibilities that he had he's brought that passion into the high school he's taking kids uh who didn't know
164what they wanted to do with their lives brought them to the cert program giving them Avenues and opportunities that that they never thought they had uh lastly I do want to mention Linda Thurber Lund she is probably the biggest unsung hero at Ram she works with some of the most special kids at Ram some of the most difficult in terms of their special needs she works tirelessly to make them feel included and welcome um and just as much as part of a brand Community as they as they they ought to be I mean she's done that for many years tirelessly and with such Grace when the board makes comments about you know we won't be able to replace them that the truth has been wrote and I that's the board to start some conversations about
165how are we going to start attracting teachers period to Ram um there seems to be a shortage of teachers if you haven't heard it doesn't seem to be a profession people are willing to stick around or come I know Rams had its own troubles filling positions for people that have left in recent years and I think it would really help the board to start having those conversations now um because we will start losing prospective teachers to other districts their their profession is selfish changing uh what teachers want is changing the types of districts that they're looking at applying to is changing um and I think it would be helpful if the board really started having some conversations about what can we do to to start recruiting teachers to Graham teachers affect curriculum programming we we've
166heard from recent graduates today the fact that they got to hear from Lisa graduates they talked about their experiences and not just their core classes but all the all the other electives that they get to take at RAM and we've done a great job in providing them with such a wide scope of of Education here at Ram but without teachers you won't be able to offer those things anymore that's just the reality of it if you cannot get teachers here but you you cannot fill a certification program without somebody with qualifications that Mr Bancroft happened they're just not out there finding someone to do the things that Linda Thurber Lodge has done for the past 30 some years it'll be hard just to get somebody into that position and just let alone do the job
167that you did but there doesn't seem to be people out there that want to come and fill that position and so I think Graham really needs to look as a community what do we want to do to try to bring teachers into this into this community and keep it keep it expanding programming um curriculum that all takes teachers for those positions and as we lose teachers and we can't fill them that that that just shrinks it gets smaller and smaller due to scheduling due to teachers through the um certifications and so I think a conversation sooner rather than later is going to be really important to keeping this District uh keeping this District really doing what we're doing right now that's providing top-notch quality education for all of our kids here so oh I meant
168to mention two Sue was talking about why do we have those meetings in the free account I believe that was there was some concern from uh the three communities that the elderly population about being able to get to these meetings that was in the past and we used to do the Andover even the model of budget meetings I think that was one of the reasons why I'm not sure if that's the same sentiment where people had you know trying to get to those meetings but I know that's one of the reasons I hope everyone has been holding a bit of a restful time with your family and friends appreciate the work that you've been doing so thank you thank you anyone else present for public comment okay seeing none anybody online for public comment please
169raise your digital hand careful let us know okay hearing none for the digital the digital hand um move on to informational items anything from the uh calendar of events or the uh for 4.14.2 student in school out of school action yeah actually the only thing I did actually have one question on 14.2 is um one of the things I guess in my mind when I look at this and I say to myself I and it doesn't even need to be necessarily specific to the report but maybe just be back are we trending the same like is there going to spike or you know some some feedback whether or not we something changed we need to Zone in on that a little bit some some level of work sort of operating in sort of the same
170Zone that we normally are seeing the same things or if there's some sort of significant difference and again that could just be some verbal feedback or whatever it is um any other questions for 14.1 or 14.2 okay there are none that moves us on to item 15 uh executive session and the discussion of the superintendent's evaluation uh entertain a motion to move to go into executive session for the purposes of discussing the superintendent's evaluation further move to invite the superintendent Colin McNamara into the executive section at a point that we uh determine so moved thank you thank you uh The Voice vote all in favor can you post hearing none that that passes unlessly and we'll move into executive sessions