001everyone and welcome to the Waterberry Board of Educ. ations workshop and a special welcome to the new members of the uh board of education. Let's give them a round of applause. We won't do that every week. No. Okay. Um so we'll start our uh meeting with a silent prayer. Okay, we'll have uh our new vice president, Latoya, lead us in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I did want you. Did you want to say a few words about uh Donna's sister? Oh, sure. Yeah, we've got that. Uh just uh thank you uh President uh Brown. Just to know, usually we have a principal's report. Uh principal comes
002up and um gives us an overview of the school and how it's been going so far this year. Unfortunately, Principal Cullen had a death in the family and she couldn't be here tonight. So, we'll have a little bit of an adjustment tonight. We'll still have a principal's report and um I think Mr. Brooks is going to help lead the way with that. So, at this time, we'll u Mr. Brooks, if you can make your way up. Uh principal's report. uh uh will be will be led by him as the assistant superintendent of the building with our vice principal uh Ray Herrera. Thank you. And before we begin, I'd like to welcome our two uh student representatives uh from Crosby High School. We have Aiden Mahia, right? Aiden and Han Ismali. Welcome. Good evening, President Brown,
003commissioners, student representatives, and superintendent. It is my pleasure to represent Principal Cullen along with Vice Principal Herrera to share some of the exciting things happening at Wendell Cross. To begin, Wendle Cross has made incredible strides in reducing chronic absenteeism. At the end of last year, about 22% of Wendle Cross students were chronically absent. This year, however, is a different story. Attendance this year is currently at an all-time high. Chronic absenteeism, the the chronic absenteeism rate is currently 10.2%, meaning that about 90% of our students attend school every day. We believe this is the result of some of the great events we've planned every single month this year for students with perfect attendance, including a Thanksgiving raffle, Urban Air tickets, free time in the gym, bike raffles, March Madness, and certificates to Texas Roadhouse. Recently, we
004celebrated 194 students that attended our perfect attendance brunch. All invited students had perfect attendance for the entire first marking period. Wendler Cross adopted a Harry Potter theme this year. Our students represent four houses including Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw. Houses engage in friendly but spirited competition with each other, too. uh attend school every day and earn attendance points and bragging rights. We've raffled two bikes so far and recently had a popular dress down day for all students with two or less absences. We've also introduced a goal setting tool for students with moderately chronic uh absence. Students earn a treat when they've attended five consecutive days of school. We also want to celebrate the positive direction and growth of our culture and climate data. This chart compares totals of inschool suspensions, out of school suspensions, and
005detentions through December of last year to the totals through December this year. This year is represented in dark blue. Last year is represented in light blue. While detentions are equal, we're extremely proud of the work everyone at our school is doing to significantly reduce these suspensions, leading to more students engaging in instruction and relationship building in our classrooms. And then there's the inaugural Best Buddies program. We're also proud of our inaugural Best Buddies program. Our middle school students applied applied to partner with an elementary classroom. They demonstrate leadership by assisting once each week supporting our elementary students. Students who applied and are accepted are assigned as a classroom tutor uh to read a book or help the teacher. And this month, students will be announced and introduced to our student leadership council. Students from grades
006four through eight are chosen to serve our student body. They will participate in decision-making, organizing school events, promoting school spirit, and representing their peers ideas. The student application process consisted of several components including a questionnaire, teacher recommendation, and parent signatures reflecting real world college and career experiences. And finally, we have to recognize that all of this is made possible by our tremendous staff. So, if I may, I'd like to ask the Wendler staff in attendance to please stand and be recognized and give a special shout out as well to our band director, Mr. Matthew Gambardella. Thank you. Uh just a minute. Can't get away. Uh do commissioners have any questions for uh our guests this evening? Commissioner Van Stone. Thank you, new Madame President. as or old we've served list way before uh your suspension
007chart yes sir and you have certain numbers I think it was 10 were before and after detentions there was 25 out of school I think was the number doing it from memory how many students make up that number are those 25 students who received at least one are those 25 total and if so how many students got you to 25 or whatever the numbers were in the chart That's an excellent question. I don't have those exact numbers. I wouldn't want to misspeak on that. Um really the chart was meant to highlight the the change over time, but uh sometime we see that big bar of 25, but if it's only five students, it would five each. Then it's even a better uh story for the rest of your student population. Excellent point. That's an excellent
008point. I'm sure the the team here would be happy to provide that information. I think it's good data for you because if it is a small group of students, my 95 percenters, right, President Brown, it's amazing. Uh I always like to say 95% of our students are doing the right thing and that chart could help us show just that. Yes, sir. uh if it's only a few students and it's also that means that there's that many less students we need to sp spend some time with to see what is maybe driving the fact that they have more than one suspension. So it's good data but I think a little deep dive on it would be um even more helpful. Absolutely. Thank you Madam President. Thank you commissioner. Any other questions? Commissioner Oro quick question. How
009many how many students are at school across? Approximately 631 if you like. Approximately 631. Wow. Thank you. Any other questions? Well, thank you very much and keep up the great work and thank you to the staff for really moving forward. This school is doing amazing work. Thank you. Thank you. Next number two, transfer of a portion of property located Oh, I'm sorry. We're still public speaking. Not used to have public speaking. Um, okay. Uh, Mr. Paul Kandash, I'm saying that name correctly. Concl. Good evening, Madam President, members of the board, superintendent. My name is Paul Kondesh. resided 413 Harper's Ferry Road. I normally don't find myself at uh a loss of words, but for what I'm going to ask and what I'm going to present, I I had a difficult time in formulating how I
010was going to present it. I'm sure everybody in this room is aware that the Kennedy High School marching band has been picked to represent this city in Honolulu on March 29th in the National Vietnam Memorial Days parade. That's a wonderful honor. Um, the only thing is it comes with a cost. It's about $250,000 to get that band out to Honolulu. And I don't see anywhere that we're funding it. And I think that's wrong. Over the years, we spent hundreds of millions of dollars in Waterberry on fields, municipal stadium, all the equipment we use for football, soccer, basketball, baseball, and you know what? It's all money well spent, okay? Because it's for our youth. All right? And it helps formulate them into their adulthood. So, I have no problem with that. I have a problem with
011no one stepping forward and finding $250,000 to send these students to represent our city in Honolulu. They shouldn't have to be having bake sales and having things online to donate GoFund accounts. Okay? Right now, they've got $3,661 in the GoFund account. They're going in 90 days. Anyone here who's been on vacation knows you normally make your vacation plan six months in advance to make sure you can get a flight. So time is of the essence. I actually was going to come to your normal regular meeting, but I looked at the calendar and we're talking weeks here. I'm not talking years. This is in March. Okay. So I'm here today to ask why we can't fund this project. I spoke to a high ranking member of the education department and my questions were two. one, is
012there a reason why we can't? And he told me that there wasn't. So then my next question was, then we won't. And that's wrong. That's wrong. And there's no better way for this board to start their new term than to find a way to fund this trip to Honolulu. A once in a-lifetime opportunity for our students. Okay? They go to school every day. They go to band practice every day. On the weekends, they go to competitions just like any athlete in our city. Okay? And I believe that it's it's this board's duty to find the $250,000 in the budget somewhere somehow to send these students to represent our city in Honolulu in March. Thank you. Are there any other members of the public who wish to speak? Seeing none, we'll continue with the uh agenda.
013Number one, request approval of a project authorization letter PL to allow WDC to manage administer school rooftop solar photovalactic projects at five Waterbury public school scope of services. Uh Jim Nardozi WDC and Ron Pella WDC. Please join us and please speak into the microphone. Good evening. Jim Nardozi, Waterberry Development Corporation, and I'm joined by my colleague, Miss Emily Zhao, project manager, Waterberry Development Corporation. Um we are seeking a project authorization letter um from the board uh allowing Waterberry Development Corporation on behalf of the city to manage the installation of a solar photovalttaic system at Tinker Sprag General Alley Westside and here at Wendel Uh could you uh just explain a little bit more where the financing is coming from, the time frame, some of the benefits? Um sure. We also have here um Mr. Robert
014Cle who is the city's consultant uh for solar projects. Rob, if you would come up, but the project overall cost is $2.45 million and that money will be coming from the state of Connecticut Department of Administrative Services. Good evening. Thank you for being with us. Hello. Thank you everyone. Um, good to be back here again. Robert Cle of Cle Sustainability Adviserss. As uh Jim Nardosi said, um I'm part of a team that are the city's clean energy consultants, and we've been helping the city and the board of education and Waterberry public schools go through the various state grant processes and federal uh tax incentive processes and Eversource clean energy incentives for the rooftop solar systems at the five schools. So, as Mr. Nardozi said this will be funded uh by a DAS school construction grant
015with reimbursement at about 80% plus um the potential to go uh and have the federal tax incentives as a direct payment to the city that might fill up the rest of the cost of the construction. But the um the team at WDC along with us as the outside consultants would be managing the construction projects for an item that's later on your agenda once uh that we've gone out to select a contractor um to do the actual work through a competitive process. But that's later on your agenda. Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions? Uh I know there are no members. We we do have several schools already that do have uh solar roofs. So uh we've always embraced the concept in Waterberry. Commissioner Van Stone. Thank you, Madam President. Through you. So we will
016install these uh collect solar energy. Uh will it be directly back to either effort source or somebody else? and will we get a a credit on our electric bill? Do we have to buy it back? How is it exactly going to work? Um, thank you, Commissioner. Excellent question. Um, these solar arrays will participate in the non uh residential um clean energy solutions program from Eversource. They're what's called a buy all sell all solar array. So they sit on the roof of the five schools, but they're directly connected to the grid. And every bit of electricity that those solar arrays generate, create a credit on a special meter that is only for the solar arrays. Those credits accumulate and the city will realize payments, I believe, quarterly throughout the year at a rate that is a
017standard rate for these size of solar arrays. Um, so I believe it's about uh 19 cents or so per kilowatt hour produced positive to to the city. Um, and that is estimated to generate um in the first year of their operation approximately um $230,000 a year for all five systems and will generate about $4.6 $6 million over the 20-year life of that contract with Eversource to buy all the power that's being produced by the solar arrays. Okay. So, what are we looking at bottom line savings on our electric bills? So, that is the the general savings per year of $230,000 a year for direct back to us. What to the city? Well, to the city. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Commissioner L. Thank you, Madam President. Um, yes. For the
018schools, the five schools, how are they selected and what schools already have solar panels because I know four of the buildings are relatively older. Winds being a brand new school, which I mean is a perfect candidate, but how will the selection process go for the building? Um, excellent question. Thank you, Commissioner. Um these law school these schools have all recently had um re- roofs done also through the Connecticut Department of Administrative Services um uh school construction grant process. So when you're putting solar up on a roof, it's very much preferable to put it on a relatively new roof because the solar panels want to stay there for 20 years or more. And the roofs generally speaking um and we we'll Nick Albini and his team could talk about that later. They have um the roofs
019have lifespans of 2530 years in them. So it's that sweet spot of you want a new roof um in order to put solar on so the solar just sits there and doesn't disturb the roof. Okay, another question. Um so with these schools here, are we at a point where we're not doing any renovations to these buildings anymore? Because I'm understanding if you do do anything with the schools or anything was to happen to add on or whatever the case may be, you would have to take the solar panels off the roof, do the business, and then add them on. Is that already in the plans or are those schools at a point where we're not doing any type of big improvements or enhancements on the building itself? So, I I believe that these were chosen
020specifically these schools that the areas where the solar is going is where the new roofs went. So, those are the core parts of those schools that are not likely to change because you're right, if you're going to move, change, adjust things. Um, you're the goal was to ensure you're putting the solar on the places that aren't going to go anywhere or be altered for 20 years or more. Okay. And and I was looking at the the notes here and it said in one of the um the letters there, it said that the WDC will make requests to the Germany bodies on behalf of the city requesting more money if needed. Is the proposal not really set in stone or we kind of thinking that there may be a problem that arise down the road? We
021may have to request more money or is everything already set where you know we don't want to say yes to this project. We start spend the money and then we come down 5 months in and oh we arise a problem. We need to get more funds and then now we're looking at possibly having to come out of pocket more and continue doing you know more repairs. Um commissioner so what again excellent question. Um, so what we're asking for WDC, we're asking for the authorization to manage the project. We have yet to go out to a public competitive bid for all of these. So the bids could come in lower. We have sorry I stand correct. Rob, do you want reverse that? Do you want to take apologies, Jim? Um, yes. So we were here before
022the um the board of education I believe uh about two months ago to go out to uh to bid. That was bid 8595. It went out and we have a selection of a uh qualified solar electric contractor that is one of the um contractors who have qualified under the DAS rules to do these types of solar installations. They had a competitive bid that came in well under what we had bonded for. Um so we are later on your agenda um going to ask for your um approval to contract with all electric um uh as that selected contractor. But the the core of your your question goes to through that process. This is a bid design build um process where they have been selected. They will go through a final design process. In that process, they
023will um create that final design that then will come back again in front of the board of education and the board of alderman and then go to DAS for final approval. Then once you have a final design, you go to construction. So we're we're at a a an important step of engaging that contractor after the competitive procurement process, but we're still going to continue through to final design on all five of these projects. And that's where WDC's oversight and um project management will be um crucial for engaging with that contractor along with uh the team here at Waterberry Public Schools. Okay. So, pretty much if we were to approve this, you would come down and answer again and then we would do another approval. So, we're not locked in at any point for the 2.4
024million. Well, the 2.4 million is actually um been bonded already by the city um as part of a 3.6 6 million bond authorization that occurred in se in 2024 I believe. So the city's on on the it it it is still Waterberry with a capital W waterberry. Everyone is is part of it but the city is already bonded for that initial bonding. That's a requirement for the DAS grant process that you need to as the city have the funds to pay the contractor as you go and then you get reimbursed by the state at the 80% 78.9%. So what will be out I'm sorry what will be out after the 80% what's the 20% of that? So the selected contractor was um I believe the rough number the total cost of the contract is about
0252 um 45 million 78.93% from the um DAS is about 2.1 million um so roughly 300 or 400,000 is the city's um remainder but um we're moving expedition iciously because there are right now available federal tax incentives that have not yet expired that could make up even that difference. So there is an opportunity for these five solar arrays to actually be constructed at no cost but for the you've bonded for it. There's some you know you at a negligible cost if the federal incentives Yes. And the federal incentives if they stop because that is a the top of the discussion there. Are we looking at still having to front that bill or are we locked in once we kind of put it forward before everything shuts down or they miss the program? So again, the
026that difference between the the two um would be the cities and yet at as we I was discussing earlier with um Commissioner Stone, the solar arrays themselves in year one will generate about $230,000 of revenue. So your payback period um even without the federal incentives will be under you know 3 years on these solar arrays. With the federal incentives you're basically paid for within the first year and then it's just positive revenue for the 20 years after that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your questions. Thank you commissioner. Any other questions for the panel? Thank you very much. I think you're up for number two. You're up for I'm not. Number two, transfer of a portion of property located on Pier Pont Road to the city of Waterberry for the intended purpose of relocation of
027firehouse 5. Yes. Thank you again, commissioners. Chief, would you like to join us at the table? Good evening. Oh, I'm sorry. For the record on this item again, Jim Nardozi, Waterberry Development Corporation, Javier Lopez, Fire Chief. Thank you. Um, Madame Chairwoman, um, in my transmitt letter, um, to the board and to, uh, Superintendent Schwarz, uh, I had appeared before this board on October 8th and gave a presentation, um, to the board regarding the proposal to use a portion of city-owned property um, on the Rotella Interdist Magnet School campus for the construction of a new proposed new firehouse. House number five. Uh the board had made two requests of me at that meeting. Um one was a concern uh regarding the decibel levels of the fire apparatus sound uh in the school. And the second concern
028um that the board had was that because the state of Connecticut had paid the majority uh of funding for the construction of Rotella school that if we used any part of it that the state could come back and ask us to repay the entire the entire price of the school. um in my transmitt uh to the board uh dated 26th November um you'll find that the fire department and I'll let the chief speak on that if there's any questions did conduct a fire engine siren sound impact study um as requested and then also uh assistant corporation councel Dan Foster uh did uh provide a legal memo uh in that memo Uh the city did own uh the property. The state did not pay for the property. The state did not reimburse the city uh for
029any of the the land. Uh there is no change to the school itself. We're not making any alterations or taking anything from um from the school. And there are no uh deed restrictions um that were located that would have a negative impact or preclude this proposal from being approved by this honorable board. Thank you. Any questions from the board? Commissioner Orso, I just uh want to thank you both WDC and the chief's office for a answer answering the questions that I asked for and and I appreciate your your answers. Thank you. You're welcome. And I also want to thank you because I think there's some enhancements to actually the Rotella complex that are going to happen. So if you can mention those. Sure. Um so we before we conduct any construction of the new firehouse
030number five as proposed, we would build a new playing field, a new playscape, and a new basketball court. Um, I think if you've been there, I think we can all agree they at least need a refresh. So, instead of a refresh, let's just build a brand new um sports area for the students and then we will we will occupy um the area that that currently takes up now. And for the new members, I think one of the questions also was the uh the way the fire trucks would go in and out. It wouldn't be they'd be new roads. It wouldn't impact the current road. So, if you just want to mention that. Correct. The uh there would be a driveway um on the left side of the fire station. If you're looking out, that would
031um be an entrance to the fire station, only for fire apparatus, and only for personal vehicles for the firefighters. The fire apparatus would come into that entrance and loop around the back and enter the the fire station through the rear. So, it would be it would be like a drive-thru. Okay. Thank you. And lastly, Commissioner, if I could just add, it it will be landscaped as proposed so that there would be a complete visual barrier between the school and and the firehouse. Okay. And then as well as the firehouse and Per Road with the exception of the driveway. Okay. Any other questions? Commissioner Lopez. Yeah. Hello. I was wondering what the benefits would be for our for our kids. Um would they be able to utilize the firehouse somehow? You know, absolutely. Um we always
032welcome students to visit the firehouse and uh with us being right on campus, it would make that a lot easier. I think it's always uh I think it's always good to have positive role models for the students right there on campus. Um we respond to many emergencies at schools where we would be right there whether it's uh you know um a diabetic emergency or somebody having an allergic reaction we would be right there. So we will be in close proximity to four schools being at that location. One more and this one's for you actually. Um yes commissioner. Will the kids be able to help with the design of the new playscape? Uh never thought about that but certainly uh certainly so it would be nice if they had a voice. So the the the plan
033is how we would proceed is if this honorable board uh approves the use of the land. Um we would we would obtain a uh a PAL again project authorization letter. We go to the board of alderman. we we'd approve that and then once we went out uh to bid for an architectural and design firm, then we would hold a series of public forums to get the the public's input. What should it look like? What should the outside look like? How do you like the landscaping, etc. that would be a perfect time uh to come back and certainly to invite the students or or any other interested party and and give all their thoughts on what they would like to see with the new uh with the new recreation area for the students. Thank you. You're
034welcome. Commissioner L. Thank you, Madam President. Um yes. So, quick question about um has there been a traffic study done up that way? because you do have a bunch of schools. You have Easter in the back, Wallace in the front. Um you have DCF back there. So there's a lot of the heavy flow of traffic around certain times of the day. Now as fire fire departments do what firefighters do, they respond to everything. You guys do a great job. Your response time is faster than 80 half the time. So would that cause any type of issue with commute? I mean coming to school, going to school, pickup, drop off, anything like that with, you know, cars being in the road because fire trucks do need a lot of space to maneuver. So before I turn
035over to the chief, if I could just say we have not engaged in any traffic studies because I don't want to spend any money if there if this board rejected the the idea. Plus I don't have at this oper until I have a project authorization letter I don't have access to funding to conduct those those studies. So if if the project if first of all if the board approves the site for use and then we obtain a PAL through this board as well as the board of alderman then one of the things on the due diligence list is a traffic study and what about a geot track because I remember one of the alderman um had mentioned something about possible flooding way back went up in that area so that wouldn't be an issue as
036far as the building there and the structure on the ground. No. Well, we would do a geotechnical survey, but we did pull out all the information we could find historically on on the site, and we have no data that that there's a flooding issue there or there's a high water table there. Okay. And then you're relocating. So, what is the original site or the site location now? The current site is uh 1956 East Main Street at the intersection of South Maid Road and East Main Street. Okay. that I don't know if you're familiar with that fire station. Yes. Yes. Okay. And would this change response time at all with any type of critical incidents or I mean is this a kind of a new building because the building is older or what is the bas
037of moving that? What's the reason to move in? That building if you've and I invite you to come visit it is in complete dis disrepair. It is too small for modern fire apparatus. Uh we've tried to make alterations but um it's it's not cost effective. the the most cost-effective uh measure to take now is a complete rebuild. As far as response times, um the response times will certainly get better for this area of the city. Um and we have uh fire station number two, which probably about a mile away from the current fire station 5, which will pick up the slack for that that area. Okay. All right. And I see I remember someone just mentioned about the noise study. Um, and I saw the decibb there and so like obviously if there's a fence
038up there we can't control as far as the sirens going and interrupting anything and kids outside playing around having fun or even graduation some things band practice band things going on football games like that obviously I pretty much I guess what I'm asking is are there any other fires that are that closest to school like in the city? Yes. Um Bunker Hill Schools directly across from Bunker Hill Fire Station. Okay. Tinker School is almost across the street from engine 11. Um Washington School is about a block away from station number four on Ballwin Street. Okay. All right. Thank you, sir. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner. No other questions. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. We go number three. Uh Mr. Albini request approval of a temporary area taking and limited construction easement. State Department of
039Transportation. Good evening, President Brown, Board of Education Commissioners, Board of Education Student Representatives, and Superintendent Dr. Schwarz. Uh, please give kindly favorable consideration by approving the temporary area taking and limited construction easement requested by the state of Connecticut, DOT, for consideration of $500. This temporary area is taking of about uh 180 square feet on East Clay Street and South Elm Street. And um the to construct a sidewalk within limited construction easement of approximately 86 square feet. And this constructing of the sidewalk would provide uh ADA accessible sidewalk on both ends of the sidewalk. Um they're coming off of South Main Street coming up East Clay Street. The first entrance is South Elm Street. The second one is um the entrance um to um the parking lot and then there's another one that goes for buses.
040This is just creating an ADA compliant on both sides. Uh they are not taking any of the property. They are just temporarily using some of the property to make it ADA accessible. I met out there with uh DOT um Mike Kapka and Kevin Daly, the attorney for corporation council. Um, and we made sure that uh the the uh construction would not impede any uh cars getting into the parking lot, any buses getting by or any students walking until the project was completed and then they would be out of there and it would just be right back to where we were where we are now except with ADA compliant sidewalks. Um um I really wish they had taken a little bit more and went up the street a little bit more and did a couple more
041blocks for us, but uh I couldn't talk them into it, but um they initially I thought they were taking parking spaces, but they are not taking any parking spaces. They're just creating an ADA compliant sidewalk. Commissioner Lopez, um what are the dates on that? it. They want to get this started this year. Now, um this project is part of, believe it or not, the larger project of closing off one of the exits on 84 eastbound. Believe it or not, that far away around to where Home Depot is. So they are addressing many other areas because of that exit closure creating some other areas that are conducive to uh pedestrian traffic. That is the reason at the time I met was a month and a half ago. It was going to be 2026. Okay. So we
042don't really have a set date. No, we don't. Okay. Commissioner Jackson. Thank you, Madam President. Threeu. Um, I was just looking at the area and I understand they have to have that little ramp to get onto the sidewalk, but it looks like I didn't measure, but it looks like there's a when they get there's a pretty sizable like utility pole kind of there. How are they to get around it? I don't Yeah. Yeah, they're not moving those. That was a question I had asked. They are not moving those. They're going around it. So that's creating that area and that grassy area for for traffic for pedestrian traffic. Okay. So they're adding more sidewalk kind. Okay. Thank you. We don't want to go into the poll. Right. It it really is. I I thought that was
043an obvious thing. They were going to when I asked that I thought it was an obvious answer of yes, we're going to move those. There's two obstructions there and they're not moving either. Okay. Commissioner Latoya Ireland. Thank you, Madam President. Through you. Thank you. Uh Mr. Albini, just just a a quick clarification. So during the taking of this construction site, there will be no um necessary or distractions of dropping off or picking up with this schools or buses. Correct. Okay. They'll they'll be working off drop off or pickup time. Okay. For students and staff. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Albini. Thank you. Uh I think you're up for the next one, too. Yes. Thank you. Uh commissioners, um we have a proposal in front of you for the 2026 2027 school
044year. I just wanted to go over some of the highlights uh as we've done in past years. Uh the first day of school would be Tuesday, August 25th, 2026. Winter recess would be Thursday, December 24th, 2026 to f Friday, January 1, 2027. And school would resume on Monday, January 4th, 2027. Spring recess is Monday, April 12th to Friday, April 26th. Um, and school would resume on Monday, April 19th. Uh, on that note, I'll stop there for a minute. I checked for surrounding towns. Um, spring breaks, uh, Meridan would be the same as ours. Plymouth, Terryville would be the same as ours. Wulkit would be the same as ours. Region 15 would be the same of our as ours. Thomas is a week earlier. April 5 through 9ine. Uh, no tuck's not posted. Southernington's not posted.
045Watertown's not posted. and region 16 is not posted as of this morning. Okay. So, four of those five are the same as ours and of those with our magnet schools, uh, Plymouth, Terryville, Wil, and Region 15. They would coincide with our spring recess. Great. Um, we have the last day of school right now scheduled for Thursday, June 10th, 2027. We have early dismissal for professional days. On your chart, on your calendar, that's in green. It's seven days um for each teacher encompasses 10 days. uh full day professional development in light blue is five days, holidays and recesses re excuse me recess days in pink which is 25 days. The Muslim holiday which is a floating holiday uh Eid is on Tuesday March 9th and the Jewish holidays are Rashana on Friday September 11th 2026 and
046Yam Kapour on Monday September 21st 2026. Okay, any questions? Commissioner La. Yes, thank you Madam President. Um, yeah. So, I'm looking at the calendar here and I see the the Wednesdays that have early dismissal for professional development. Is that been positive as far as the teachers go? I mean, are they really able to get a lot of things done really, you know, do what they have to do? Um, and for the the parents, are they having trouble with having to find child care, after school programs, getting their kids to and from wherever they need to be? Has that been kind of questioned or brought up to them and kind of had their input? So on the first note, has it been uh productive? It's been very productive on if you look at the three middle
047schools that were a part of the commissioner's network, Wallace, North End, and Westside were part of the commissioner's network, participated in this uh u uh professional development on the early release days, and they have now all exited from there. Uh so that same part is being carried through on Crosby and uh Kennedy right now. This will be their first year uh and this will be Wilbury's final year. So it's been very productive. Teachers are getting a lot of strategies on best practices for instruction. Their dedication is always there but professional development on new strategies is always welcome. Um we always make the analogy to medicine. You became a doctor but ongoing professional development is warranted. So teachers really welcome that. Um we haven't had the input of uh parents but there has been um now
048this is we're in our fifth year of this so it's been pretty much established and they can plan for it. Uh unfortunately in some situations it is it is a problem for some parents if they don't have coverage for their elementary school kids child care there. That is one of the downfalls but uh but the um the benefits of it are uh really showing in school uh student scores. So me talking about student student scores, I mean is it really productive in their education, right? A teacher has to do a lesson plan now that Wednesday is kind of rushed because it's a half day. They really can't get into things, you know, with snowstorms. We can't control any type of weather incidents. We can't control things happen like I don't know. Uh looking back prior
049to that 2018 calendar, I seen we have the calendar for the stores for the students and the student body when we didn't have those Wednesdays involved or incorporated the the calendar there. Is it the same or consistent or are we moving towards that or I don't I don't know how productive it is for a student right in school system to kind of go to school on a Wednesday kind of it's half day you're quit in and out in and out in and out and then you know you have a snow day Thursday Friday or whatever and it kind of throws everything off. So those those are some of the the downfalls to uh an early release day is if it's next to a a snow day. Uh but we do manage to uh get a
050lot of teacher input and lesson planning. It's very deliberate, very intentional. Um we have consultants coming in from the state. We have consultants that we have um um gone into contract with that are really meeting with teachers and showing effective practices and showing better ways of doing something. So, um, while it shows in less, um, shortened days, we're still getting our 900 hours. We're still getting our 180 school days. So, we're still meeting the requirements, uh, set by the state. If I could jump in. Um, I was going to say, uh, appreciate, thank you, uh, President and, uh, great questions. You know, it's something that, uh, we get asked, uh, especially in the beginning before we started this, uh, Wednesday half days. Um the good news is is for the high schools that have the
051half days on a weekly basis, you know, the childcare really isn't much of an issue for for high school students. Obviously, the once a monthish for the elementary students because it's planned out. We really haven't heard that feedback. Uh because we've been doing it for so long, it's it's been expected. But I would uh um good question because I would I would point out two things. Number one, the way our education system is created specifically in not just Waterberry or Connecticut or more in America is um we have one of the least amount of collaborative times amongst teachers in the whole entire world. uh you go to places that um are uh heads and shoulders above us in national uh testing and teachers actually teach less and they collaborate much more often. So that's when
052uh maybe two decades ago you started seeing more time where teachers were dedicated to have professional learning communities during school time. So uh right now we have professional learning community that teachers take part in once a week. Uh that movement started around that understanding that um although it would seem intuitive that the more seat time you get the more learning you get but if you get more seat time and you don't have time to become more effective, you're getting more of less effective teaching. And so what the teachers are able to do is to collaborate, get on the same page, make sure they're um uh reflecting on lessons that went well, reflecting on how we can do better moving forward. And it also gives us gives them time to break down into committees because there's
053more than than just teaching the lesson that goes on in schools with teachers. It's also about uh the different committees that they serve to be able to serve students in a variety of ways. And so um all of that time uh being dedicated and it's a timely question because the next presentation is about the scores just to to be able to put that in perspective. Yeah. And um just to respond to that like I understand that teacher improvement anywhere in professional environment improvement is is all it's it's you need it right. I as police officer we training yearly. That's what we do. We just train we train we train until we get it right. But I'm just looking at I'm thinking about you know students being in the classroom. The best place for them to
054learn is inside of the classroom. So maybe once a week having that half day. I don't know how well that you know every student responds to that. Maybe if it was like the first Friday of the month or every other Friday and kind of just in that middle of the the week it kind of just seems h counterproductive. I can address why it's Wednesdays. I think the concern with the the the Friday or Monday is the the absences. So, it's easier to take a Friday off or a Monday off, whether it be um student adult, you know, it just it makes it for uh kind of lend itself towards that. And because we started this about six years ago now with the middle schools, uh you know, the result is three of our the middle
055schools, Wallace, North End, and Westside, were all in turnaround and they were going to school full day every day. You know, five years later, they're off the turnaround lists. Um not only has to do with money only goes so far. you can't use it during professional learning time. And so, um, a big part of that if all three principles were here, I know they would say, was that time to meet and to work together. So, the the every every Wednesday is really for those turnaround schools. It's to get them on the same page, focus on the new strategies they're trying to implement as a school. So, um, I agree with you, the more seat time the better, but um, I think it's what we're trying to do is maximize the time that they do have.
056And so getting those half days in for teachers and administrators to get on the same page, work together, um has benefited and the results aren't and what I'm saying it's in the scores and coming off the turnaround list. Thank you. Okay. Uh moving on to number five. Uh academic officer Jan Frenis and Deputy Mendoza, State Department of Education Accountability, Smarter Balanced. And just as an introduction because we have many new members, if you could just explain what this accountability index is. We plan to do that through the station. But of course, good evening, President Brown, commissioners, student representatives, and superintendent. Tonight, we'll be presenting the 2425 accountability index. Good evening. Every year, school districts get an accountability index. um that is kind of a holistic look at um the district and school level performance and
057it's based on the indicators you see listed here academic achievement, academic growth, participation rates and so on. Each of those categories are rated separately. they're worth a certain number of points and um you get an overall accountability index which is a number at the end. When we talk about academic achievement and what impacts this accountability measure for grades three through eight in math and language arts, that would be the smarter balanced assessment. For grade 11, it would English and math would be SAT scores. And in science, they're tested with the NGSS assessment, but only in grades five, 8, and 11. This is our newest accountability index. This is for the 2425 school year. So what you see is a list of each separate line is called an indicator. And this is showing our historical ratings
058from 2018-19 which was the preandemic year and where we are now. Um we are improving and for some indicators we've exceeded where we were pre- pandemic several indicators are still not back to the 1819 levels. If you notice um for example 1A you see ELA performance all students 1B is E ELA performance students with high needs for your background students with high needs are multilingual learners special education students and students who qualify for free and reduced lunch in Waterberry approximately 87% of of our students qualify as high need students as opposed to the state which is at 56%. So our high need students really have a a large impact on our performance indicators. This year we've improved in nearly all indicators uh compared to the 23 24 school year. You can see the list where
059we have shown improvement. Um again are we where we um would like to be? No. We know we still have a lot of work to do and we continue to um have improvement strategies to increase um our performance in these areas. than in the case of chronic absenteeism to decrease those numbers. Local public school districts were previously organized by the Connecticut State Department of Education into districts reference groups which group districts of comparable socioeconomic status and levels of need. Water's urban comparisons include Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford, New London, New Britain, and Windham. Compared to non-urban districts with fewer needs, Waterberry Public Schools is outperforming many peers across key indicators. The packet includes several examples including stronger grade nine on track rates than Danbury, Torington, East Harford, Stanford, and Hampton. A higher four-year graduation rate than
060Meridan, Hampton, Derby, Torington, and Danbury. And a six-year graduation rate that exceeds the state average, as well as Ngatuck, Bristol, Hampton, Watertown, Plymouth, Ansonia, Torington, Danbury, and Shelton. Participant rates exceed the state average. ELA academically surpasses Plymouth, Shelton, Derby, Bristol, and Watertown. In college and career and coursework outperforms Watertown, Derby, Canton, Bloomfield, and East Harford. In addition to the district accountability index we just reviewed, each school also has its own accountability index indicating how its students population performed and where improvement is needed. Highlights for the 2425 school year include Westside Middle School being removed from the state turnaround list. It was one of only eight schools in the state to exit turnaround status in 2425 out of 41 turnaround schools. As you know, both North End and Wallace had previously exited turnaround status. Additionally, Waterberry
061Career Cavary improved from a category 3 school to a category 2 school. Additional highlights include three schools, Clementa inter Clementa International, Kingsbury and Washington being named schools of distinction. Clemente International and Kingsbury earned recognition for academic growth in math for highnee students. While Washington was recognized for growth in math for both all students and highnee students, Waterbury remains the only district in our urban peer group to have three schools of distinction for the second consecutive year. So this graphic shows um schools are ranked as cate category 1 through five. Um and this shows where all of our schools are falling and what the district average is. We have had schools improve. But of note this past year, we just found out a few weeks ago, Reed has now become a turnaround school. We have our
062first meeting with the state tomorrow. Um to see what that means. If I can give you a little bit of background, our uh willby and Crosby became turnaround schools last year and last year was their planning year and they were able to apply to go into the commissioner's network which would provide funding for three years. When we went to that meeting and it was announced that uh Crosby and um Kennedy were approved, they told us that it was more than likely the last Commissioner Network cohort. So, we have a school right now that's gone into turnaround and unless something changes, they will not be able to apply for Commissioner Network because they're saying there will not be another cohort. We have had a couple meetings already with the principal, the assistant superintendent brainstorming ideas on
063how we can use the resources that we have in district to support Reed starting now, not waiting until next year. Had they been able to apply for commissioners network, this would have been their planning year. And if they were accepted, they would have started uh next school year. We want to get started now. And so we're not sure what that meeting with the state will bring tomorrow, but I we want you to know that uh Reed Elementary School is on our radar. Every year when we look at our accountability index as well as the internal measures that we have for math and ELA and science performance, we develop improvement strategies based on that data. This year we have a renewed increased focus on reducing chronic absenteeism. I don't want to imply that we weren't focused
064on it before, but we realize that this has a significant impact on student performance. We now have a director of climate and student supports. Uh we have a district attendance coordinator who works with all of the schools to make sure that we're we're doing the same things. last year. Well, it used to be that we would talk about, well, it makes sense if students are in school, they will learn better. Our uh supervisor of research and testing ran her magic, ran her stats, and we're able to quantify that now. And so last year, we know that chronically absent students were outperformed by their not chronically absent peers in all subjects on state assessments. On the SAT, students who were not chronically absent tended to earn about 100 raw score points more than students who were
065chronically absent. On the Smarter Balanced Assessment, which is administered grades 3 through eight, there was between a 70 and 95 point difference between the students who were chronically absent and not chronically absent. And on the NGSS assessment, it was between 10 and 20 points. So, we can now quantify that. And we know that chronic absenteeism is really the thing in that accountability measure that impacts every indicator, not just chronic absenteeism. One more. In addition, in the last two years, we have new K through 12 English language arts programs and math programs as well. They're either in year one or year two implementation. Um, next year we're going to move towards um a new science curriculum. We've improved the test measures um that we've been administering as our checks throughout the year. And so we don't
066wait for the next round of testing to see how students are doing in math and ELA and science. We have BOI MOI EOI testing that h has proved to be reliable and so we have those checkpoints during the year so that we can provide intervention for students and not wait for a year to go by. Um, we have defined what highquality instruction looks like in Waterberry and we're expanding that to include what highquality instructional leadership will look like in order to support that highquality instruction. This year we're focusing in all uh subjects on task so that we can we are putting rigorous um and relevant tasks in front of students so that they can um grow their problem solving critical thinking and they can construct arguments. Lastly, um we have reconfigured the role of the
067assistant superintendent to keep our focus on our schools, strengthen leadership support, and ensure we are using our time and data effectively. As part of this shift, we have significantly reduced standing meetings and reallocated time for direct work with schools and principles. Assistant superintendents now conduct a minimum of eight school visits per week with each visit centered on instructional practices and leadership support. During every visit, the assistant superintendent uses the principal support and collaboration tool, which we created to guide purposeful conversations with school leaders. This tool provides a shared framework for reflecting on progress, recognizing successes, addressing challenges, and ensuring district initiatives are implemented with fidelity. Its purpose is to support the principal in their leadership, and to promote consistent effective practices across our schools. This concludes our presentation. Dr. Schwarz. Yes. If I may say
068a few words to to to add on to that, I want to thank Deputy uh Mendoza and Chief Academic Officer Frenis for all of your tireless work uh over the last uh few months to get us up there off the ground and running especially with that reconfiguration and for the assistant superintendent who have really uh change the model of how they go out and approach our schoolwork. It's really what we have found in the district is you could create the best program uh the best idea uh but if you what we what we end up having is what's called a uh uh implementation gap and there's not a fidelity to implementation. And so if you don't have fidelity to implementation as you can imagine with over 30 schools fidelity to that implementation can be difficult.
069It's hard enough in one school alone when you're a principal never mind as a district trying to monitor implementation of any strategy at 30 schools. So really reconfiguring that support system and accountability system for the the schools was really some of the work we res resurrected from a long time ago uh under uh formal uh leadership directors. Uh I might have known something a little bit about that uh when uh it was actually superintendent who kind of had this model with the University of Washington um really focused on school-based support because in the end the work happens in the schools. So it's not central office and it's not even in the principal's office it's in the classroom and we know that and so working with uh the principles who are leading and in those schools
070every day um you know rather than just go and visit on the important things their visits are really specific on the imple fidelity of implementation. So I really appreciate all the work um specifically you two have done and and the and the and the team has done with that. And I I just want to say not all the data is great. I mean, we we showed you all of the data, but um we have a ways to go, but it's moving in the right direction. Um you could see where we are uh in our peer group. I would like to to focus us on a different peer group. Um I want us to shoot for a peer group that doesn't necessarily compare us to uh uh and and this isn't this I'm not trying to
071be disrespectful, but the New Havens and Hartfords and Bridgeports, I think we're we're 0.1 points away from Windham. And when I when we started this accountability, Windham was like six, seven, they were like in a whole another world compared to us. We're like, we'll never catch them. 0.1. We actually were above Craig schools. If you're familiar with the Craig schools, Craig schools are phenomenal, Magna schools across the D. And so, you know, we are moving the right direction. I think we have a different peer group. I want to be compared to like the Danberries and the Middletowns and all those that are a little ahead of us, right? And and have been historically ahead of us. But I want to start thinking that mindset of of where we're going to go. So we have a
072lot of work to do. Uh by no means are we uh um taking victory laps or satisfied. Uh we are encouraged uh by the data. We're encouraged with the new initiatives. And I want to just find uh finally end this with just want to thank all of those that have worked in the curriculum committee. And you know, Commissioner Ve Stone, your work over the last, you know, 12 years. When we got here, when I got here, you know, there was there was I mean there was I would say very very very little common curriculum across the district. US history one course did not look like US history. not only in the the room next door but this school next door, the school across the city and the amount of curriculum uh that we have brought
073in to be able to develop in collaboration with our teachers uh through the curriculum committee all the programs and using the science of reading and the science of teaching mathematics has really changed the trajectory of this district. I really feel like that is the biggest difference in what we've done here is we have a common curriculum. teachers have had professional learning over time and we've been able to keep some of our most dedicated teachers here um um who really make the difference in what you're seeing tonight. So, I just wanted to end the presentation um pointing out the the major changes in curriculum over time as well. Great. Any other questions uh for our panel? Commissioner Van Stone. It's Thank you, Madam President. It's more of a statement than a a question. it the summertime
074curriculum teams that you let me know who's out there and I try to visit each one every year. Those teachers are so committed to bringing it out to roll it out to their fellow teachers. Uh they're not looking to say here's the electronic version, go to town. They are going through every little piece of that. And that's uh Dr. sports who needs to get uh a real pat on the back because those teams do such a great job of the roll out. That's it. That's that's the biggest part of the battle is the roll out. Uh we could buy curriculum off the shelf all day long, but the teachers that have been so committed over the years to come in in the summertime and and put this together so it's it's waterberry ready is what
075I tell them. and uh they do a great job. So a a lot of the matter in fact I'm going to give them all the credit because uh we put it in front of them and they make it so they know how their peers are going to want to accept it. And I think the um you know the science of reading was a major roll out that actually began here in Waterberry uh before the state took it on and stole it and brought it out and said they they invented it but they did not. Right. Um It was it was put together here in Waterberry and now it's a statewide mandate actually. And uh I'm interested to see how our numbers look next year for the the lower grades that are they're really getting into
076the science of reading where it needs to start. Um so I'm anxious to see the numbers next year and and I actually uh when Dr. Schwarz got the job, he'll I believe he'll remember. I said just beat Windom. That was the only comment I had for him. Well, I think I had a couple other comments, but I did say go beat Wind because I'm so tired of seeing them up above us. So, uh, good job. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions, Commissioner Orso? Good evening. I wanted to uh thank you for this positive report. Um, it aggravates me personally being a Waterberry resident and being on this board. when you look at the Waterberry paper and there's always negative headlines. Why don't they just come in here? I don't see any reporter here tonight
077with all the positive results. So, it just it just aggravates me that they do a good job. We have dedicated teachers in this in this city, dedicated office staff, and then we get the headlines that we're last in something. And, you know, after the first paragraph, I want to throw up, you know, but I just want to thank you. Thank you for all your hard work and thank all the teachers for all their hard work and all the positive and beat Windom. Are they playing football or that's it. That's my soap box for tonight. Thank you for that. Well said. Um I do want to say that we're always aware that we need to move the needle more, that we need to do better, but we're also aware that we need to celebrate those wins.
078You have no idea how hard teachers, students have to work to move three or four percentage points in a year. That's a lot. And they need to understand and be acknowledged that their hard work is is moving the needle. It's important um to honor, celebrate the wins, but you know, don't become complacent. And I think in the 13 years I've been at central office, that's been very constant. And just one other thing and just just the the attendance report of this school is amazing. You know, the percentage of the the absenteeism is just fantastic. I don't see that, you know, broadcast any place, but you know, they should get a patented back just for that. Yep. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Uh I I know how hard everyone is working to be focused on the
079academic achievement and the chronic absenteeism and uh I I think that we're seeing the hard work pay off. So thank you so much. Okay. Um I guess Jan, you're up again. Number five. Uh update state department of education. Oh, we did that one. Number six, uh, request approval of a data access request agreement with Connecticut State Department of Education. Good evening again. The academic office respectfully requests approval of a data sharing agreement between the city of Waterberry and the state department of education. As you may recall, MClass is the kindergarten through third grade universal screening assessment we administer three times per year, which is mandated by the Connecticut State Department of Education. The data sharing agreement will ensure that Waterway Public Schools complies with the state requirements by providing the Connecticut State Department of Education
080with the necessary information to monitor student reading progress while adhering to federal and state student data privacy laws. And we've done this in the past, correct? Yes. Um, so they've been making some changes to the student data privacy laws and some of the people that we've been working for with for a very long time are we require you know the data sharing agreements now they're asking us um to sign as well so that it's a a mutual situation and when they do put this we share this data with the state when the data does appear on edite Um it is it is they take away all identifying information and so we can get data on or the public can see data on how third graders are doing on the universal screener but not by student
081name. Okay. Thank you. Any questions? Uh Commissioner Jackson. Thank you. Through you. Um, how are we currently sharing data with the state? Um, for for the MC class, we've been sharing it for years and 12 years. Yeah, about 12 years. And so that it's a data management system where when we test the students, the data is stored there. And I believe we just share that with secured members from the state. So it's not just anybody who can get access to that. Okay. So I guess my follow-up question would be what is different about the request you're making now versus what we are already doing? I I'm kind of fuzzy on that. So we have requested it of them in the past. They're requesting it in the other direction. It's really just more of a safety.
082Uh I think the state wants to cover themselves. Okay. So, are you saying that they currently do not have access to this information? No, they do. They do have access to the information. Um because we we do have in our contract with them, but it was we have companies now asking for us to do it the other way. I I brought one of them a couple of weeks ago um with a vendor that we use that provides us um reading um professional learning. Okay. Right. And just to clarify too, I mean the state has access to everything. So every single student ID with every infraction, every every good thing, bad thing, report card, grade, they they produce massive you should see these files from Will Zuda's office. They have everything and anything that comes in
083and out of our schools. Uh so I think almost to your point like they already have every access to everything, right? But I think the G I think they're also trying to cover themselves to say we have a data sharing agreement that allows it to go back and forth. I don't I don't know exactly the origins of that. Why? Because we already are like mandated to send them everything. We have to uh they wouldn't be able to produce their reports up into the federal government unless they got our numbers. Um so the origins of that we could try to do some more research and try to get that to you, but I don't I don't know exactly what spawn this from. Right. And that's that would be my question. If we're already doing it, they
084didn't ask for no reason. So, what's different about this ask than what we're already doing? I it seems a little murky. That's a great question, but it just obligates them even more to make sure that they're securing our student data. Okay. And what we can do is uh let's just do some research. We can reach out. Somebody passed a law or something. Well, it could be it could be as simple as that, but we can have Tara Badison and her office reach out to AI at the at the State Department. We'll get an answer before the voting meeting and we'll get it out to you. Appreciate it. Good question. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Jan, are you up the next one? No. We have We're on number seven. Request permission be granted to Cynthia ML
085Waterberry Arts Magnet School and four chaperones to take 40 students to England, United Kingdom from April 8th, through April 15, 2028. Uh good evening. Um Jennifer, one of the vice principles at Water Bears Mag School. Miss Mel has class tonight. She's uh going for 92 and Dr. Cocida. She's at one of our dance concerts this evening. So that I'm I'm here on behalf of Wars Bang School. All right. Okay. Um I do have plenty of pamphlets here about the trip. Um I can pass these out later. Um but uh but thank you Dr. Schwarz, President Brown, Vice Principal Ireland, Secretary Lopez, and all boards of education commissioners. I am here on behalf of Miss Mayall, ELA teacher at Water Bear Magna School who has proposed an international field trip to London for the 2028 school
086year. She has prepared an informative presentation for the board. And I would now like to play for you the video. Well, while they're figuring that out, um, can you just give us a little information of how much the cost is pursuing or is this in here? Sure. Um, so, so alto together now we're looking at 5,400 and change, but we do have fundraising. We have several years that and payment plans that parents can pay towards plus fundraising. So, it's over $200,000 basically to for 40 students to go um if Yeah. So, um, is the city or district paying for any of that for the students to go? This would be selfunded through selfunded through sponsorship. Well, we'll also reach out to the communities for sponsorship, fundraising, and then payment plans to the parents. And so,
087um, so looks like we have it ready to go. So, I'll ask my questions after. Yeah. Is there is there vocal? No, no, it's a video. See if I can Oh, they PowerPoint. Okay. There was narration from Miss Mayold. Um I just Oh. Oh, sorry. Sorry. And just for your information, this is before us because we have a policy that the board approves out of country country field trips. Um, when I first got on the board, we were approving every field trip to, you know, Hamilton Park or Fulton Park or, you know, so I think we decided that the schools had uh the uh wherewithal to decide where where they were going to go. So, we only look at outofcountry uh field trips. Okay, there's any other questions while we're waiting for the tech people.
088Uh, Commissioner Bowen, thank you, Madam President. Um, so how are the students picked? because this is saying in 2028. So, how is that? So, we're currently using eighth and ninth grade as as a pilot program. Uh they went to the New York trip last year, so Miss Mau, it was her eighth grade class that are currently ninth graders. So, she just wanted to continue that tradition. Of course, we've expanded even further down the road, but we had to start somewhere. So, it was a student that went to New York City last year. Figured it since she was their former teacher, she's just continuing that pathway since she knows them. Yeah. Um and then my next question would be um um are the students required to make a payment as well like as far as passports,
089things like that? So, everything is inclusive in the uh again I don't have the total. I know it's about 5,000 CH, but that's passports, airfare, visas, um most meals, so it's all inclusive. And are parents able to attend with their children as well or? Yes, they are. Yeah. Um that's all I have for right now. You want to be a chaperel? Um listen, and they do have a deal. One out of every seven can get a free trip out of it of the chaperone. So listen, I'm all for taking kids out of the country and anywhere else they can go besides seeing our city. That's how they grow and develop, right? And and that that was a big thing too with the curriculum tying in with our English curriculum. Waterberry arts magnet school being a
090you know an arts magnet school going to Shakespeare theater where Shakespeare actually wrote and performed plays and uh just you know great experience being out there. So you know it's definitely an enrichment in continuation with our curriculum at Whams. So yes, I see it all the time in college students when they go abroad. So that sounds like wow. Thank you. Yes, Commissioner K. Thank you. Um through the president. Um thank you for showing us this presentation. I guess my question goes to for those who cannot afford even this low rate. What are what options are there for them if any? Well, we are doing you know we will be doing they have a couple years to fund raise. we are going to reach out to our partners in the community for sponsorship and donations as
091well. Um, so that's the idea to give them plenty of leeway. There are payment plans that parents can do as well as they're going through, but we're really trying to make this affordable for all of our students. So, given a couple years, if we start now, the idea is that over the next couple years, we we can accumulate funds for these students. So to understand um what you're saying here is that you currently have a list going on to outreach to your sponsors and therefore to for whoever is struggling to afford to go to this um trip they they would receive some sort of subsidy. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Ready. Good evening members of the board. My name is Cindy Mhall and I'm in my second year teaching eighth grade reading at Waterberry Arts Magnet
092School. Over the past two years, I've been grateful for the opportunity to help expand our enrichment experiences, beginning with our inaugural eighth grade trip to New York City. That experience was so impactful that 50 of our current eighth graders will be returning to New York City this spring. In addition, our eighth and 12th graders will take part in their traditional class trips to Holiday Hill, and our seniors will have the opportunity for a one-day excursion to Boston later this year. The success of last year's New York City trip sparked something important. It inspired our now 9th graders to dream beyond a single city and imagine a global learning experience. That excitement has led us to propose a London trip for April 2028 open to our current 9th and tth graders as well as interested parents
093and staff members. This leads to a key question, why London? London allows our students to take what began with the New York City trip and elevate it to a true global learning experience. Students shared with me again and again how transformative that New York City trip was, how it deepened their understanding, strengthened their confidence, and broadened their perspectives. Building on that momentum, London offers an international extension of the same meaningful learning. This trip directly supports their studies in English, history, and the arts, immersing them in the very settings, texts, and cultural touchstones they encounter in class. It gives students access to experiences, museums, theater, architecture, landmarks that simply cannot be replicated in Waterberry. For many, it may be a once in a-lifetime opportunity before they graduate. And importantly, there's strong past president for experiences of
094this kind. Prior to 2020, WHAM successfully received board approval for several international learning trips, including programs in Italy, Poland, and France, demonstrating the school's long-standing commitment to global education. World Strides brings more than 55 years of experience in educational travel, offering comprehensive safety measures, efficient logistics, and expert on the ground guidance. Their support allows us as educators to stay fully focused on the students learning and well-being throughout the trip. In addition to World Stride's 247 emergency response team, we will maintain a low chaperone to student ratio with all chaperons being vetted staff members. Students are supervised at all times and parent participants add an additional layer of community support and adult presence. The trip is scheduled for April 8th to April 15th, 2028 with the understanding that these dates reflect the anticipated spring break. Should
095the finalized school calendar differ, the itinerary can be adjusted accordingly. The trip is open to our current 9th and 10th graders who will be juniors and seniors at that time, as well as interested parents and staff members, strengthening both safety and the sense of shared community in the travel experience. The program price is comprehensive. It includes roundtrip airfare, hotel accommodations, most meals, a professional tour director, entrance to all scheduled attractions, and local transportation, including a daily tube pass. Every detail is arranged so students can fully engage with the academic and cultural immersion without needing to navigate logistics. This itinerary intentionally blends London's most iconic landmarks with experiences that deepen students academic learning. The trip begins with a guided citywalk featuring the Tempame's River, Trafalgar Square, and the National Gallery, giving students an immediate sense of
096London's historical foundations and its vibrant contemporary culture. Throughout the week, students will explore key sites tied directly to world history and government, including Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and Windsor Castle. At the Tower of London, they will step into nearly a thousand years of political intrigue and cultural transformation. An experience that brings classroom learning to life. West End theater performances add a dynamic contrast, allowing students to experience London's worldrenowned art scene firsthand. The itinerary includes experiences that deeply enrich students understanding of literature. A workshop at Shakespeare's Globe Theater allows them to engage with drama in the very place his plays were originally performed, reinforcing content they study in schools. The water the Warner Brothers Harry Potter studio tour provides a rare behind-the-scenes look at how literature is adapted into film, giving students insight into storytelling, production,
097and the creative process. The British Museum further enriches their learning, offering access to globally significant artifacts such as the Rosetta Stone and pieces that span thousands of years of human history. For those who choose the optional extension, the academic depth expands even further with visits to Oxford University, the picturesque Cotswald, and Stratzford upon Ivon, Shakespeare's birthplace. These locations immerse students in environments that have shaped some of the world's greatest thinkers, writers, and traditions. Together, these experiences provide students with a meaningful blend of cultural, historical, and literary learning, an educational journey they will carry with them long after they return home. The total cost for students is $4,421 and $4,816 for adults over 23 based on a group of 40 or more. and a 6:1 chaperon ratio. If we adjust to a 10:1 ratio, the price
098decreases to $4,243 per student and $4,638 per adult over 23. These prices include the optional excursions, Oxford, Stratford upon Avon, and the London Eye. Families who prefer not to participate in the optional activities will see a reduction of approximately $280 in the total cost. World Strides also provides one free chaperone for every six students up to seven free chaperones. Or if using a 10:1 ratio, one free chaperone for every 10 students. Planning this trip several years in advance gives families the benefits of time. Time to save, time to fund raise, and time to make use of cost reducing options. Early enrollment offers price incentives and World Strides provides flexible monthly payment plans that spread the cost out in manageable installments. For added peace of mind, families can choose from several travel protection plans that cover
099cancellations, medical needs, and unexpected travel disruptions. At the school level, we will coordinate fundraising efforts similar to those for the New York City trip, including sponsorship opportunities to help reduce the financial burden for students. All of these structures, payment flexibility, optional discounts, travel protection, and school-based fundraising are designed to make the trip as accessible and equitable as possible while ensuring parents feel confident in both financial planning and the overall safety of the experience. Families will have multiple flexible payment options to accommodate different financial needs. They may choose to pay in full at the time of enrollment, or they can enroll in a monthly automated plan that begins with a $50 deposit and divides the remaining balance into equal installments up to 35 days before departure. For families who prefer fewer larger payments, Worlds Rides also
100offers a four-step manual plan, a $99 deposit at enrollment, $500 due within 30 days, 75% of the balance due 110 days before departure, and the remainder due 65 days out. Payments can be made by credit card, debit card, or bank transfer, and families receive automatic reminders along the way. To ensure accounts remain in good standing, late or missed payments may result in part in a participant being moved to the manual plan and cancellations follow standard gold strides policies. Together, these options provide families with the flexibility they need while maintaining the financial structure required to support a safe, wellorganized travel program. In closing, this trip provides our students, parents, and faculty with a meaningful and enriching opportunity to experience London's history, literature, and culture in ways that extend beyond the classroom. It deepens academic learning, broadens
101perspectives, and strengthens our school community through shared experiences. I'm sorry that I was not able to be with you in person this evening, but I truly appreciate your time, support, and thoughtful consideration of this proposal. Thank you. Any questions? Commissioners, Commissioner Lopez, will the kids will the kids come back and tell us about their experience? Will they do a presentation for us because I know that that was part of their uh objective. That would definitely be on. Yes, indeed. All right. And then um since it's going to be 2028, do you think we need to worry at all about re-entry back into the country for some of the students? I mean, I I don't anticipate that because we'll have the visas and everything even before leaving the United States. We'd have that all set to
102go. So, all right. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner La. Yes. I have more of a opinion. I think this is a wonderful experience. I know me and the boys want to drove the Harry Potter thing. You got me. So, um, but I made a request. I seen that you guys did international trip in 2020 and y in 2028. I just request that you try to do this more often if you can. I understand the funds, money, like odd woman said, everybody just doesn't have the finances to do this, but if you can, please try to make this uh a thing for those students that they can experience, you know, a trip like this. Yeah, that's appreciated. Thank you. um again before co you know we were traveling more so now we're slowly trying to get back
103into traveling and you know making the norms again so that is a good point and and if I may there was a time too where there was we don't have to rehash it but there was a private school in Connecticut there was a international trip u major there was a you know major lawsuits things that happened so that also kind of put a damper derailed us for a little while uh based on these international trips commissioner lot um the newer on the same page with this. I actually had a conversation with principal stitis because I said you know obviously them having this idea for the eighth ninth grade now you know how are the sixth graders going to feel the seventh graders how the seniors and we heard that feedback and so I see some
104additional trips that some of those students are getting now which is good but uh I agree that if it's going to be something that we work towards I hope that you know I know this was the the and a lot of times our field trips our teacher initiatives but if it's something that you can make as a a common place for students of that grade level to go. I also think it could be a great recruiting tactic when you're trying to get students to apply to WAMS to say, "Hey, we culminate in a London trip um and we've been doing it for x money or so." I agree with that wholeheartedly. I think every grade level moving forward should have something if not the same or similar uh just to be fair to the other
105students. Agreed. Yes. Roco. No, I just I just wanted to say I just think it's a great it's a great thing and a great experience because like I say in college kids they go to Europe for you know for for a semester or whatever. But if the next trips to Italy I can volunteer as a chef. Thank you. And and the video kept you off the you know got you off the hook a little bit with the questions. Thank you for that. Very informative. Commissioner Anthony Ireland. Thank you Madam President. Um, first, I mean, I'm a huge advocate for traveling and and what that can do for our kids and, you know, just exposing them to different different information, different cultures, you know, that's that's huge. Um, and I would love to connect with your
106team and if and if we can do anything at the Waterberry YMCA to, you know, assist in in those fundraising efforts, you know, we we'd be open to that. Thank you. That's much appreciated. Thank you. Okay. through the chair. Um will there be like anformational session for the kiddos uh and their parents for how to attain their passport um and so on and so forth those little minor details. Yeah. So through the company they handle mo you know most if not all of that but we definitely obviously waiting for approval first and then once that we definitely have the plan A, B and C and you know for information and letting parents know what they got to do to go through that. But the company does take care of 99.9% of all that. So, so
107they take care of theformational sessions or they apply for the passports for the parents. So, as they're paying Yeah. they they will Yeah, they'll take that over for the parents. Okay. Understood. Thank you. Mhm. That's good to know. Yeah. Yeah. It's really all in one. It's a great package. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Maybe you could do a blog day by day, you know. Okay. We'll do. Did you want some? Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. And uh before I leave, I just want to pass out some flags. We have several shows coming up at at the palace and we have free tickets for everybody. Um I have to say kudos. I was able to go to see Chicago last Sunday. Phenomenal. Phenomenal. I thought it was on Broadway. Wow. I just kudos to if you
108could give them to the clerk, she could pass them out. Thank you. Okay. Next up is um Wendy John's request approval of the 2026 2027 tuition rate schedule which has gone up. Huh. Good evening, President Brown, commissioners, student representatives, and superintendent. The People Service Department in collaboration with the business office will continue to notify our surrounding towns and school districts of the ongoing need to raise special education tuition rates for students attending Waterbury public schools. As you know, our district's magnet schools serve students from neighboring towns and districts and the cost of delivering highquality special education services continues to rise. Um, so what the chart shows you in your board backup is the proposed increase for the 202627 school year. So upon approval at the regular education um board meeting, memos to surrounding towns and
109school districts will be sent via email and mail the week of January 5th after the holiday. Are any questions for Wendy? Maybe for the for the newcomers, we can explain uh the tuition reimbursement and and and how this works. Sure. So, we have uh magnet schools within our city and we have students that attend those magnet schools um from surrounding towns that receive special education services. In Waterberry Public Schools, we have the right to bill those surrounding towns for the services that we provide them. The rates that we bill those surrounding towns are listed on the chart for the 202627 school year. Last year, uh, Miss Biola and myself came in front of the board to notify the board that we were increasing the rates, um, for the first time, I believe, in 15 years.
110Um so this year we are notifying you that our intent is to increase as well due to uh increases in the costs for our agencies as well as increases in contract costs um for our bargaining units. Um so our intent is to notify our surrounding town partners of that um via email and mail. Any questions? Okay. Thank you, Wendy. Thank you. Okay. Uh Dorene Biola, number nine, our monthly expenditure report. Thank you. Good evening, President Brown, commissioners, student representatives, superintendent. So, I'm here um tonight, which I will be here every month to go over um the status of the operating budgets um expenditure report. Um this is the fourth month of the fiscal year. So, for any of our our new board commissioners, our fiscal year runs from July through uh through June. So, it's
111a through the like school year. Um, being that this is the fourth month, I do want to emphasize that really like the bulk of um, salaries for teachers really do not start hitting until September. So, this is really just kind of two months of what we're looking at for the salaries on the teachers. So, being that this is still very new into the fiscal year, um, because this is just October, I'll be starting the November report next week. Obviously some of these numbers will change especially on the salary level just because of if there's um positions that get hired or somebody leaves attrition there's just you know a lot of moving parts um so I just want to go through so the first page is just the salaries and these are all our accounts for
112the different salaries uh so the original budget um for the operating budget total 94.9 million um and what we're projecting to uh expense is the second to the last column. So right now just based on what we are looking at through October, it looks like we will surplus at 173, but that can change well throughout the year. The second page we're showing purchase service line as well as supplies. So purchase services we're totaling original budget of 57.5 million and in that this is a very variable line because we have our special education outplacement um special ed services uh we have professional services which is outsourcing for our um substitutes um and we also have pupil transportation as well as the utilities in this line. So this is a very variable um account category uh that
113we monitor extremely close because this can change one way or the other that can affect this overall budget. And then we have our supply lines um that totaled 4 million4.9 million. The third page we're showing property line uh at 225,000 and other miscellaneous at 765. So this totals what our total operating budget is 158,375,000 that was approved by border board of alderman for to the board of education. Um additional funding that offsets an operating budget that I I have to explain to the board and I don't really want to confuse you but I think with our new members I should explain this. We also receive an alliance grant. So that is part of an education cost sharing grant that the state provides to the local public schools or to the local district. Um so we
114get the 158.4 4 million that the city provides to us in our operating budget. And then we receive 87 well for this year 87 million for the alliance grant which we have received for 14 years because we were an alliance district that started at 4.9 million that went to 87 million. What I want to explain to everyone and and other commissioners as you may know Waterberry was severely underfunded close to $60 million in our ECS funds. Um we finally are getting to a point now where we received we went from the 4 million now we're getting 87 million in alliance. So any increase to ECS was coming to the Department of Education and Alliance, but we were $60 million underfunded. Okay. So there was a 10-in phase in period to bring us to where we
115should be. This current fiscal year is where we should be. Okay. next fiscal year, fiscal year 27 in the governor's budget, we don't have an increase because we met the the 10-year phase in. But I just want to point out that that 10-year phase in, yes, it's getting us to where we were underfunded, but it's not really looking at the future. So, if we are flat next year, it's going to cause, you know, a major hit on our budget for next year. and what we have to look at to meet what we have and that's going to cause us to make some serious decisions and cuts. And just so you know, in this budget here, our board, we worked with the superintendent um Schwarz, our board, we've met several times, we have finance committee meetings,
116we cut $5 million. So what I want to say is this budget in this year is the first time we are just looking at what the the city gives us along with that alliance grant. Prior years we had benefit of having the ESSER funding. Okay, that really helped ease some of the costs here. So this year we are really trying to cost contain every every line item that we can. We are looking at everything because we wouldn't be doing well if we are not being financially responsible and keeping a stable budget because without a stable budget, you can only imagine how devastating that would be to the schools and to the district. So, we're doing our best to maintain what we have. So, it's hard to do a lot of little extras at the moment.
117We're doing all the necessities that we need and keeping a close eye on on these line items. um you know looking at things um you know necessities looking at the attrition class sizes different ways of busing to to ease some of the costs uh so we're just monitoring and controlling and doing the best so I will keep coming here every month I will update you every month please do not ever hesitate to ask me for any questions even beyond the board meeting if you want to go through uh President Brown or Carrie Dr. Schwarz. Um, you know, if anything that you need, I can try to provide for you. So, with that, does anybody have any questions? Uh, Dr. Schwarz wanted to comment. I just wanted to say a few things. Uh, thank you, Dorene.
118Um, you know, I don't even want to go into the history of what being underfunded, $60 million for decades did to the city. uh we won't we won't go there. But if you think about it, it this is the first year they're actually funding us at the level they should have been funding us for decades. But this is based on a 2012 number. And I don't know what your grocery bills or costs look like right now, but if you look at inflation, it's actually exactly 41% since 2012. So this is funding us at the 60 million at the 2012 level. It's 2000 close to 26. And if you do the do the math, it's closer to 90 millionish now. And to to to Miss Ba's point, there's been no escalator. There's been no increase over
119time. So it's like what's 3% a year keeping up with inflation. And so now you're right back to being underfunded even though we're funded back to where we were. and there's no escalator in sight. And just so you know, so a lot of the time that I've spent over the last month or two is preparing these arguments. Um I've met with superintendents across the state, we are preparing, we've prepared letters, we prepared testimony. We've prepared we've worked with uh CE and CAPS uh about this information. Um I'm meeting going to be meeting we were supposed to meet but uh it got delayed. But I'm meeting with local representatives so that they also have a very keen understanding of what we're up against. I'll be meeting with uh speaker of the house Ritter next week to
120talk about this as well. Um I've been meeting regularly with the mayor and we have m really three major funding sources for this for the for for water public schools. city, federal, state. And you know, city the only way to get more money is typically to either reduce some sort of service or raise taxes. State is the fight that I want to fight because I feel like that's a that's a place where we can do it. And you know, I don't have much leverage with the federal government. Um, however, uh, just hoping to stay even with the federal government in terms of those. So, a lot of the time I've spent will continue to spend is I think it's worthwhile because I think as you as you heard, millions of dollars cut this year. It
121will be millions more next year unless we have some relief or escalator put into our budget uh from the from the state. And so, it's um it's definitely worth a fight because our kids deserve it. Our kids deserve to be fully funded. Um our teachers deserve it, our staff, our community, our families deserve it. And so, um, you know, that's a big fight that I'm prepared to to to do, but I also have to do my due diligence to Miss Viola's point. And I also have to prepare a list of what happens if we don't get it. Um, it's not a list because that's the priority is that's what we believe in. We're going to start prioritizing that list is what's the least impact on students. I can tell you everything we do impacts students.
122There is there's one thing we don't like we don't spend money not to impact students, right? And so that is it's going to be an interesting conversation over the next three to six months. But I do want to let you know I've been proactive and we also met today actually with Lisa Hammersley from the Connecticut School Finance Project. Highly recommend anybody listening or anybody on the board to go to that website. very very um a a very very productive um meeting today about what will the impact be and they're getting that information from across the state to deliver to the legislators and to the state department about the collective impact of this on students and so we are being proactive. We're not sitting on our hands. We are going to take the that fight uh
123to to to where we need to because we we deserve it. Okay. And just note that commissioners uh every year prior to the session, the session begins the first Wednesday in February, uh we have a a dinner with our legislators. Uh so we will be planning on that uh in sometime in January and that's really an opportunity for for us and the staff to really present this information. And so it's kind of the first bite at the apple. And then uh Commissioner Van Stone as the area director for CABE has been uh in the past uh create you know setting up legislative breakfast with the whole area and the legislators. So it's not just Waterberry legislators but boards of eds from the district as well as legislators which has been very effective. So we will
124be having two two of those gatherings to try to make our case. Thank you, Dorine. Okay. Thank you. Unless there's any questions. Any more questions? Commissioner L. Thank you, Madam President. Um just quick question. Tuition outside is that for the kids that we outsource like the students that go elsewhere for So tuition outside, that's um that line item is actually for special education. Okay. Students that get outplaced, but also regular ed students for school choice. So if kids that want to attend maybe uh like ACES um that's where that line item comes out. Okay. And then people transportation is obviously school buses. Correct. All the schools. Yeah. All the transportation to and from school after school. It's a big it's a big item. Yeah. Yes, it is. It's gone up. I'm telling you. Yeah. And
125just a just a you know those are the two biggest items that have escalated over the last you know when I talk about 2012 to now. M but more importantly I do want to point out and we have historically done very well if you look at our similar towns we have a very low outplacement rate believe it or not so you see that line yeah and we're we hover around 3% we used to be around 2 and a half but we hover around 3% of our special ed students being outplaced there are districts that look similar to us that are above 10%. Mhm. So I can't even imagine that line of what it looks like, but because of the programs we have in district, we're able to keep more of our students. I just wanted
126to point that out to the new members. We do have a low placement rate even though the number is high. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Dorene. Thank you. Uh number 10, uh Mr. Albini, you have 10, 11, and 12. All right. Good evening once again, President Brown, Board of Education Commissioners, Board of Education, student representatives, and Dr. Schwarz, kindly give favorable consideration by approving the construction contract for the design and build of rooftop solar photovoltaic systems at the five schools previously mentioned. Uh the construction contract value is $2,450,000. Some of this information came out previously uh by Mr. Cle. Um the estimated uh we thought was going to be much higher. We're very happy that it came in much lower than our uh bond authorization of 3.6 million. Um the uh the contractor of
127choice here is all electric who has substantial experience with uh photovotayaic solar panels, schools, municipalities uh throughout the district uh excuse me throughout the state. Um they came uh highly recommended uh and with a lot of references uh when we interviewed them. Um uh these would be uh partially funded by DAS and we're hoping that we can meet our deadlines is the reason why we're we have a special meeting. One of the reasons why we have a special meeting afterwards so we can meet some of the deadlines that are in place. So there would be little to no cost in the end uh with some uh federal uh incentives as as well the um harboring federal tax federal investment tax credit which we're hoping to get. Is that correct Mr. Cle? So that's where we
128are with this. So, we're hoping that we can get these uh five uh started um in first half of 2026 so we meet all those deadlines uh that are put on us so that we can reduce our cost. That's the whole purpose of it is to try to reduce our installation cost as well. Thank you, Commissioner Oro. Your lucky day, Nick. Okay, just a clarification for everybody. I think like before when WDC was here for the uh request for being a project manager. Now, this is a design and build, which means these people are going to design it and they're going to build it. So, we need a watchdog and that WDC is going to be the watchdog because see when I was my previous I I never liked this design and build because who
129the fox was watching the house. So that's why we need WDC to be the watchdog for the city. So that that is abs absolutely correct, commissioner, if I may. Uh so they're going to do the design. Um they have to make sure these roofs can support these solar panels. So you have to have a structural engineer. You have to have uh wind tests done. I mean this is like a giant giant kites on a roof. You don't want wind to come and pull it away. So, uh, they're they're obviously going to be on our new roofs. We want to make sure that they don't void our warranty, 30-year warranty. There's a 20-year project of return money here, but we want to make sure that we are uh made whole with our roof projects that I
130come in front of you with for approval. So, WDC will be uh watching this project as it goes on. Uh, one of the things that All Electric did um speak to us about that they don't penetrate our roof. They use weights. They use a ballasted system if I remember correctly. So, um, that's great for penetrating the roof, but you have to make sure that the weight that's put on it, the roof can hold that. So, that's what they have, they're obligated in this contract to do that test. So they have to perform that structural test. Great. I have a question. Commissioner L and then commissioner. Thank you madam president. Um for that test after the test is done let's say something happens are they liable or have any type of responsibility to repair that or
131fix that or how does that work once it's all said and done because I know you're the watch dog and another installation but once that's is it their insurance as far as these panels go? So that's that would be their warranty that the test they So when these structural engineers stamp a plan they're they're putting their their name on the line. So when they say it's going to hold 10,000 lbs they have done the test on what that roof is made out of before they go forward. And yes, they would they would be obligated for this. Now we don't want anything like that happening obviously. So, um, they're going to do a structural test and a wind test. Those would be the two first things they would do. Probably electrical load test, too, to make
132sure that we have enough electrical power going there to um well, eventually it's not going to Yeah. use that much, but Yeah. And you said um we have schools that already have pend how many schools and how much are we just saving? So, that Okay, so we have two. Okay. uh kind of one is a sad story if I may. I hate to say it like that, but uh Waterberry Career Academy when it was built and opened in 2013, uh there wasn't a check on it. Those solar panels never worked to be truthful. They never generated any solar uh electricity. So, we are getting prices. We received some prices for repair. We're trying to find a way to fund that right now. Uh the other one is Gil Martin did function, did produce electricity, but
133um I believe it's an inverter has to be replaced. So we have to do a repair on that. Once that's repaired, that will be back up and up. We will get those two back up and running uh hopefully in this next year. And was the WDC any involvement in those two plans? The WDC were there any was there any involvement by them in those two schools? No, no, that was during construction. That was unfortunately I I don't think we received the oversight that we should have had. Uh to your point about the uh the engineer here, I don't think we had the oversight that looked out for our best interest. It was try to hurry up and get it done to open for 2013 and some of the some of the things were were not
134watched. Okay. And what is your proposal deadline and what is the construction uh the finish overall finish of the project? When is that said to be done with? So the uh it's a 270 consecutive calendar deer calendar days uh to reach uh final um completion in one year 365 substantial in 270 and final completion 365. Now uh can't hold them to it but they did say that they didn't need nearly that much time to get this done. This is a pretty much straightforward project. They would have two teams. If I remember correctly, they would have two teams, one on two schools and one on three schools. And um good evening again, Robert Cle sustainability advisors, part of your um clean energy team uh helping the city. In addition on the timing, um if they don't
135meet those, there's a delay damages of $500 a day if they aren't meeting the milestones that are in the contract. So they have incentive to to move promptly. As um Nick uh mentioned, um we're moving quickly to also take advantage of those um federal incentives. So the goal would be to have them under contract um as soon as the board of alderman uh hopefully if this is favorably voted on tonight by the board of education, it goes to the board of alderman. Then they're under contract and then they are going to that process. um Commissioner Orso of the creation of the final design. That final design then comes back through your fire marshal, your building inspector, this board, the board of alderman, then it goes to the Department of Administrative Services. Our goal would be
136to have that happening in the winter and early spring and hopefully getting DAS approval to then go to construction um into the um summer um late spring, early summer um and have the bulk of the construction hopefully happening in the summer. Yeah. And then careers been open for a few years now, so obviously once they're up, it's kind of a hassle to get them back down or take them off or repair them. It takes some time and effort to do all that. Correct. We're expecting a 20-year expectancy on this. So, we're hoping that doesn't come um until time to do the roof again. Okay. All right. But but to Mr. Cle's point and uh once uh to um Commissioner Van Stone, there is liquidated damages here. If they don't complete on time, they pay. All
137right. Thank you. Thank you. I think uh K had it through the president. Um just a clarification on the LLC, the all electric construction and communication. Um do they have teams who are unionized? Yeah. Do you want you go ahead? It's good jobs. Uh and um thank you very much. This is an excellent question. Because these are DAS funded um grant-f funded projects, they have to be prevailing wage um contracts. They have to go through all the um commissions of human rights and opportunities requirements as well. So DAS has dictated all of the the rules and you're only allowed to pick from DAS approved um solar electric contractors. Thank you. and commissioner, we also have the good jobs ordinance in Waterberry that requires local hiring on all projects and um that is a it's been
138a benefit to our residents in Waterberry. Yeah, you were going to say that, Nick. Yeah. Okay, one more. Okay, Commissioner Lopez, thank you. Um quick question on the warranty. How how long is the warranty on the solar panels? You know that um the warranty on the solar panels um the panels the inverters the different parts have a a a a variety of warranties. The panels I believe are the longest. Um the inverters are usually 10-year warranty. Um those are all items that are going to be part of an operations and maintenance contract which is going to be a separate contract that the city is going to go out to competitive procurement. So you'll have a longterm uh contract with a uh a provider that will be doing that routine annual maintenance on the city's behalf
139and we'll be doing any replacements at those intervals as needed um of those um electrical components. The other key part and on warranties and this is critical for DAS um because they funded your roofs is that they have lots of requirements in to the contractor to make sure that the solar panels aren't going to void your roof warranties which are those um 30 plus year warranties on these roofs. And then um the contractor that you're selected, they didn't work on the other two roofs that you were talking about. Um, madam president. Um, so back to that question. I think how many schools have po solar? Two. Two schools. Only two and they haven't worked, right? You're saying those are No, one one was fully functional. Um, it needs to be repaired right now. So, that's
140what we're working on getting. We did an RFP to get some quotes. They were more a little more than what we were hoping for. So, that may go back out for a bit again. Uh it's the Career Academy one back in 2013 that it was just uh just didn't function. And so if these five don't work, then what happens? Do you want So um Commissioner, it's a really great question and that's why we're going to um work with the city to do that RFP for that operations and maintenance um uh contractor. So that'll be an entity that will be there monitoring 24/7 to get the alerts when something is doesn't work right or isn't producing as much. They're going to be the the eyes and ears on the health and the um the of the
141system. So it wouldn't go more than a day or so without knowing oh there is a problem. Then they're on contract. They go out and figure out if what type of problem it is. then it's a time and materials type of contract if there's anything that needs to be replaced or updated. So with that outside contractor, you're constantly getting the real-time notifications of how the system is performing and you can not have the unfortunate situation where something went off and it never got back on. Thank you. Okay, Commissioner Jackson. Thank you. um what type of inverters do we use for these um solar panels? Um I will do my best. I I'm actually a lawyer, not the engineer in the in the team, but um so but it's it it's a wonderful question. So the
142solar panels operate in direct current um and the grid operates in alternating current. So you need the inverter does its magic of turning the straight line into a wavy line that is then acceptable to go onto the grid. And that's the lawyer's version of how that works, right? Because there's um I mean I guess that's a question for for later, but there's you know string inverters like I don't do we know? Okay. Well, no it's no it's an excellent question. So part of the um RFP process, my colleagues are um who couldn't be here tonight are part of the team that the city has who are those engineers and those solar technical people who reviewed all of the um everything that came in and it created a preliminary design for the biders to react to
143and required a series of um minimum standard for all of the key equipment that it meets all the highest standards of the industry. So they are tier one equipment. So they had to bid in with certain equipment that was deemed the best in the solar business and there's a handful of of companies that make those. Commissioner Van Stone. Thank you, Madam President. Through you uh Nick, these two field items, one part one system, they're not part of this what we're talking about. So we put just put for reference there. Let it let everyone know that what we've learned over the years is these 20year warranties we find are couldn't be further from bumper to bumper. Well, and that's why you hear about things like inverters because the inverter is not on a 20-y old school.
144So, I don't think it's up to 20 yet. I I don't think so. Well, I can't speak to the career one because I we don't know what the issue is at this point. We need we need to find out what that is. I think the Gil Martin situation needs a replacement part, but that's what I mean. Parts like that could very well be expensive to install. They can, but they're not going to be on this 20-year warranty we're talking about. Just so everyone understands that. And and some things are going to be out of warranty. That's correct. But we are hoping to get on a maintenance plan where they're not waiting for them to break, you know, same same with our HVAC systems. Once we put all that money in, we started doing routines with
145that uh and that's going to help them get our longevity out of it. Yeah. Rather than waiting for it to break. And the other side of it too is what we could find in WHAMS is somewhat what we found at Kennedy this past year. Correct. And that is that parts are obsolete. Correct. So that happens also for folks that are new to the board. the things we've seen firsthand. There are some things u you know just take your car it you know just it just happens sometimes and it's out of warranty or very expensive u but I I think the return in money here far outweighs uh the risk that we're taking here right there's there's return on investment etc that we have to consider but um as far as a career building I'll leave
146we had a watchdog at least we paid a watchdog I'll rephrase probably we made a watchdog. Correct. And actually, I you know, I really I'd liked you until I heard you were a lawyer. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Thank you very much for the information. Uh okay. Um thank you. Next is the committee on um 11, Mr. Albini. Yep. 11:12 The education department has received received 12 requests for building and school facilities use by schools, school organizations, andor city departments as listed in your packet and they and they request board of education approval. Number 12. The education department has received one request uh for uh requesting a waiver. That's Countrywood Hills Condo Association uh requesting Crosby Media Center. I will say right now uh we haven't been able to get in touch with them.
147That location will move. Uh the Crosby light media center is under construction right now. So it will be in another location because uh Countrywood Hills is in the east end. We'll probably we're asking if they can move to Wallace, but that's coming uh at a later date. Uh we received one request for uh a waiver for use of the Crosby gym lockers and calf by the Greater Waterberry YMCA. And we received two requests for waiver fees um fees fee waiver because of uh prior waivers granted. That's the Waterberry Bridge to Success for the Dugen Gym, Dugen Calf, and Hoops for Life, the Driggs Gym, and the Westside School Gym. Thank you. Any questions? Okay, next on the agenda is the superintendent's update. Thank Thank you. Good evening, President Brown, commissioners, and student representatives. I will
148be brief in my remarks tonight. Uh I just want to uh chronologically go through uh the last two weeks. I want to thank the uh AF Foundation and SNK Petroleum Wholesalers who helped us deliver 400 turkey dinners with families on November 20th. I want to specifically thank Sandra Romero and Jackie Davis who helped organize this event for our students and also assistant superintendent Brooks and Johnson's for supporting the uh effort and handing out the the 400 turkeys. We also celebrated on November 21st substitute educators day. As you know, we rely heavily with over 1,400 educa educators in the city. We um we we rely on our substitutes and we want to thank them for their service here. We also on November 26th had a virtual job fair. Uh Marissa and Carly are talent supervisors and
149some of the new board members. You'll get to know them well. They've done a heck of a job of recruiting. U after pandemic we had over 200 vacancies in the district. We've gotten that down closer to 50. Um obviously making huge progress there. And so I want to thank them for everything that they do for us. Uh think speaking of Thanksgiving, there was a little bit of turkey and Santa going on up at Gil Martin and just wanted to show you some pictures there of the Gil Martin Thanksgiving parade. Something that they do every year, but a lot of our schools had celebrations, did things with students to just celebrate the the ringing of the holidays. And so, um, and you can see Principal Lanza there in her turkey outfit. It's fun to be an
150elementary principal. The holiday season has begun as we just said and so you can see the pictures of Rotella students coming down. They made ornaments uh many of them clay ornaments and they decorated them and they adorned our tree down at uh not just central office but at city hall. So I want to thank all the students at Rotella for coming. Um you heard some bike giveaways earlier from Wendell Cross. A lot of that is connected. We we did receive a grant, if you recall, um a few months back from the Connecticut DOT, uh $5,000 per school, uh to be able to provide bikes and also um um provide some opportunities for students to learn the rules of the road and to be safe as they're on our roads. Um and so we're using that
151grant wisely. And you can see uh you heard it earlier today from Wendell, but you could see um students learning at uh North End the Middle School I believe of um as a result of this grant. And want to echo what uh President Brown said earlier about Chicago. That was one of the most amazing uh musicals. I think it is, you know, the most amazing musical I've seen since I've been here uh for over 13 years now. Uh it was just absolutely phenomenal. Um, we really thoroughly enjoyed it and the students were just, you know, I would have I would have I don't want to tell them, but I would have paid twice as much to to go see it. Three times. Three. Yeah. Yeah. That's okay. Um, they were just absolutely phenomenal. Um, and
152maybe we can at one of our board meetings have them come up and do a little number for us to just get a for those that weren't able to see it, get a little taste of what it was. So, just congratulations to the WHAMS uh staff and students for that amazing performance. On December 2nd, we also uh celebrated the 50th anniversary of National Special Education Day. Obviously, our special education students are not um not just identified as special education students. They're just many times the heart and soul of many of our buildings and and classrooms and uh just want to celebrate them and celebrate not only them but also their parents and the teachers that support uh our students here in Waterberry. So, happy National Special Education Day. Uh, I also want to announce if
153you follow us on some of our social media, you would have seen this uh already. That's a little plug, but we did receive almost a $50,000 grant for the Connecticut grown for uh Connecticut kids grant program to be able to expand our will be high culinary program and the greenhouse there. So much needed uh because they have a phenomenal uh service there. though uh they do offer uh to to expand to the the the the um farm to school initiative here in the uh and this is supposed to impact over 58,000 students, not this $50,000, but 58,000 students across the state uh through all of the grants they were able to deliver to our school. So, we're look forward to to expanding that with Wilby High School. And this is a very vague vague uh
154plug here, but it's vague on purpose because I can't release all the details, but I wanted to give you uh maybe just the teaser is that we are uh we have been collaborating with a very um important local higher education uh institution in Waterberry to strengthen our health pathways uh via a multi-million dollar grant. Uh the potential partnership would provide students um it says 18 additional credits, but really we're looking at um 30 total credits by the time that they exit um high school. And uh they would uh be in opportunities to have the college experience at the um at the higher education institution um but also uh be able to incorporate maybe some of our local um future hospitals as well here. So, um, more information to follow. I apologize for being vague, but
155I it's not technically released yet, but I I wanted to I didn't want you to see something and then say, why was why didn't I know about that huge grant? So, the timing isn't really on us. It's around a foundation and the higher inst higher education institution, but out of respect for the board, I wanted to give you some sort of teaser there. Nice. And, uh, very excited about that. And just a reminder to follow us on social media and take any questions you have at this time. Um you madam president. Are you guys ever going to bring back I think it was called run for relay. Um I think when co happened I think it kind of um went out where the kids were doing the miles working and then they would come downtown.
156Um I thought that was great. Um it was nice to see all the schools. Oh I know. It's the the kids marathon. Yes, that's it. Yep. Kids marathon. Yeah, we can. Um, you know, it's funny that you said that because uh I may or may not uh depending on um where this next year takes me, but may or may not be entering into a marathon myself. But the um I was just thinking as I was debating that of like, you know, ever since COVID happened, we haven't had that ability to do it. One thing that I do remember that is that we did have a grant I believe to help pay because PE teachers would stay after school and help the students do it. So it probably was a mix of COVID and then um
157um no specific that grant drying up. We probably could have done it under esser. So the key here would be if it's a priority, we would have to find the funding for next year as we budget go through the budgeting um cycle for next year. So we could certainly look into that and uh as we talk about budgets for next year, kind of get a sense of how much it cost to do something like that. I thought it was a great event. I always ran it every year with the kids. I And so I could certainly look into that. Would that help if you had the 21st century? Is that still activating where that could might be incorporated in Yeah. So those those two would be very uh 21st century uh we only get um
158awarded four of those uh per uh for our city and so um it wouldn't be able to access all of the schools. We might be able to use some of our extended school hours grant to do something with that. uh we we we we could definitely look at that, but I think at first uh first things first, we probably want to go look at how much was the total cost of the program first. And then we could probably, you know, identify a funding source if possible for next year. Uh whether or not we're facing a multi-million dollar budget deficit would be something that we'd have to debate what's value to bring back and what's extra. Um if it's between that and a teacher, you know, obviously we're going to keep a teacher. Um, but I
159certainly will look for opportunities to to identify that in the budget and maybe there is a grant out there that could help us get this. Thank you, Commissioner Orso. Good evening. Um, I need I need a little clarification if you don't mind. Sure. Uh, first of all, I want to start out with that I'm a proud alumni of Kennedy High School, class of River Road. Um um and I'm very proud of the of the band and it was brought up tonight. Yeah. But I'm hearing mixed mixed signals and I just know if you could clarify this that people are saying that they were picked from Connecticut to be the band to go. Then I'm hearing that this people in Hawaii sent out letters to every time they can Harry and whoever accepted accepted. So I
160don't know if you know what it is. I mean, there's there's a big distinction about being picked as a band and they're fantastic. I mean, I'm not saying anything about them and I hope they end up going, but it's a difference if they're picked and it's very an honorable thing or they just accepted a letter and we're going to go. Uh, it's a good question. So, um, from what I understand there, it wasn't as if they like won a certain event and were selected to be able to go. They do send out um um selected letters across the country to bands that are interested in going. Uh from my research that I've done, uh I think the last two years, I could only find maybe two or three schools that were able to take the
161trip to Hawaii from across the country after they've after the letters they I don't know exactly how many letters they send out, but out of the letters they sent out, uh both of those those schools that I found, I did tremendous amount of uh either fundraising or booster programs already in place. Some if you're familiar with marching bands in the south, they're much more developed than the marching bands in the north. So they have huge booster programs, lots of alumni, they've been around for, you know, um, you know, decades. And so, uh, I think to your point, uh, being, um, many of these events, uh, whether it's Washington or Hawaii, they send out letters to see who's interested in going and who's not. And it's usually a hit or miss. It's not necessarily you've been
162selected because you've been um identified uh based on some sort of performance or because you've won an event because they do compete. Um it wasn't it wasn't because of a competition that they won that they were able to to go. Um but to to to go even further than that, I just want to highlight for for everyone tonight a few things. Number one, over the last three years, we spent $300,000 on the Kennedy Kennedy Marching Band, which is probably about um $220,000 more than any other club sport that we have in the city. So, we've spent about $300,000 over the last three years. They are a phenomenal uh band director, Nick Traby, does an excellent job. Uh they are an amazing uh band. And so, um I don't think that anyone can say that we
163don't support the Kennedy band. I know every board member here whether you're new or nobody has an objection obviously to supporting Kennedy band just like we wouldn't object to whams going across uh you know the seas to experience something the question is is you know if uh 40 students are going to go to for example um Great Britain and it's $5,000 a kid it's $200,000 for those students to go. you can see why the district wouldn't be able to support that type of event, every school, every single opportunity for all the students. It's not that we don't value it. It's just about simple dollars and cents. Again, being an underfunded district. The question is is um and the difference is is that when you're selected, for example, in this this event, um you know, you
164you have a very short amount of time to raise the money, whereas you could see it's going to take years to be able to pull this off. One of the things that I do want to point out is that I did have a conversation um I believe the the speaker tonight I from my understanding spoke to the chief operating officer uh about when he said he spoke to a high ranking official which he spoke to me uh because um myself and the chief operating officer and the chief academic officer actually met with Nick Jick uh we met with Rob Johnston and we talked about what they need to be able to um perform this in a very short amount of time. The district has committed uh um over $10,000 for the students to go. Uh
165we're um working on uh getting making sure that the um chaperrons are able to go, specifically the ones that are employed by the Waterberry Public Schools students are also um getting new uniforms for the performance. But there's about um there's a there's a little bit of a discrepancy too because actually uh the number that was said tonight, $250,000 was the number I was going off of until I actually met with the band director and that number shrank down to approximately $90,000 for the band to go. So I know there's some information I was able to talk to Mr. Yes. So be able to talk to Mr. Kesh in between uh some of the presentations. And so he was going off a number that I think a lot of us were cuz that was put out
166there on the internet and I don't think it's been updated since then. But I have been able to speak to the band director. We think it's an important event. I made it a point to go to Kennedy and meet with him and principal Johnston to say what else can we do um in this short amount of time and and they've already have identified the number of students who can commit to go but the fundraising is going to be we've committed funding to it. So they've already selected students that are able to go and the band is pretty large. It's over, you know, almost 100 students. So, not all of them can go. Not all of them can commit. But, I do think it's good that they are fundraising. I think it is shows that you're
167going to have to work for it. Things aren't always going to be handed to you, especially very large trips to Hawaii. But, um, I I don't want it to be go without saying that we we have all met. Um, I've met with the band director. He seems very happy with the direction that we're going. He was um he was he was he was happy that we were able to dedicate some of that funding to help reduce the cost per student. they do have plans in place kind of similar to what you saw today um in terms of a payment plan and that's reduced if every cost that we take on has reduced the student cost um every every cost that um they're able to reduce through the fundraising reduces the cost for parents as well
168and so um one of the thing that was driving up the price by the way was when I did meet with the band director it was about 30 students going with 11 chaperones and like being paid and so the the cost was including the 11 chaperones. I was like, "Yeah, that's not what we're that's not how we're going to do this." So, we were able to cover the chaperones that are employed by the Waterberry public schools. I thought that was important. That's about $10,000 for to cover that. And then we can cover the uniforms and and things like that. But students that are commit, they're going to have to be able to pay for their meals while they're over there. There's no easy way for Waterberry to to just send money to Hawaii to be
169able to pay for meals or to have to have checks going. And so, um, and then there is some skin in the game for parents that is going to be, um, lessened by all of the fundraising that they're doing and the and the amounts of money that we put for it. And I asked the band director to reduce that number of chaperones that were being included in the student costs. And if parents want to go, then there's a way for them to go, but they would have to pay to go. We need uh, we have a 1 to 10 chaperone ratio here in Waterberry public schools. You got to stick to that 1 to 10 because it's a long trip. I said, you know, three or four makes sense, but not 11 uh included in
170the student cost. So, again, we've met with the band director. They have a plan in place. Uh they seem to be happy. And I do think um and I do appreciate all the support and everybody willing to to to get in there and and and do those things. And so, I'd be happy to share any of those fundraising opportunities for everybody here to see if anybody is interested in going. But, um according to the band directory, he hasn't reached out back since since that meeting about a month ago. So, um, they seem to be in a good place to to be able to go with the students they've that have been selected and, uh, the chaperones, uh, as well. Great. Thank you for clarification. Thank you. Appreciate it. Commissioner Jackson, do you currently have a
171number, um, for the like per student cost at this time? Yeah. So, the per student cost, if I recall correctly, because I did the math on the piece of paper, it was like um um I think it's about 4,000ish. Not bad. And then as far as not just transportation, but obviously like the instruments and the covering insurance, right? So, some Yeah. Some of the So, we we talked about every single possible concept here. Um the co cost you can see very similar to this. It's through a company. They do get some tours. They get to go see Pearl Harbor. They get to do a lot while they're there. Um, one of the costs includes them renting some of the instruments from University of Hawaii because it costs less to rent it from the University of
172Hawaii than than to bring like a tuba across the country. So, there's like some of the smaller instruments that are going to be brought on like with carryons, some of the larger ones. So everywhere we could, we found ways to save a little bit. And that's really uh kudos to the band director to really think hard about ways to to save that uh to to try to get that money out. So um yeah, thank you for that question, but yeah, it's Yeah, we weren't going to bring Tubos all the way there. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Um thank you, Superintendent. Oh, Commissioner L. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. Uh just quick question. You had mentioned the obviously the bands down south how it's just kind of you know head shoulders above like what we do
173because they're just it's just down there the culture is now um the Berkeley nights the apparatill they sometimes perform and compete in those competitions is that something that's on the bulletin board for maybe an alternative to the marching band. So we do have like drum lines similar to Berkeley night we career academy has a very robust um you know drum line that they have. Uh I know North End also has a um you know one. So we have every school has kind of one different Kennedy has gotten a lot of press and and um we've spent a lot of money over the last few years to be able to support them. Um because don't it's not just the band it's a color guard too if you recall. So they've got it's a great program. It's
174amazing. Um, but when we were looking uh during Esser times and when we were able to use some extra Title 4 money, we really upgraded a lot of the different high schools bands and they may not be a they may not be a marching band, but they do have drum lines and they do have different types of bands at the schools. I think the difference about Kennedy is they have the uniforms and the outfits and the color guard and they're a marching band, which is different than the drum lines and other other opportunities, but we do offer opportunities at all the schools. Not not just but it's not a marching band. Only at Kenny has that. Thank you. Okay. All right. Next on the agenda is superintendent notification to the board. Any questions? Could I
175have a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? I opposed. Abstain. Motion carries. We'll go right into our special meeting. Uh good evening uh ladies and gentlemen. This is a special meeting of the Waterberry Board of Education. We will begin with a silent prayer. Okay. Okay. Commissioner Lopez, would you lead us in the pledge? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Commissioner Haywood Bowen, present. Commissioner Anthony Ireland, present. Vice President Latoya Ireland here. Commissioner Jackson, present. Commissioner Lopez, present. Here. Commissioner Mun here. Commissioner Orso here. Commissioner Van Stone President Brown present. Okay. Next on the agenda is the consent calendar. Does anybody wish to remove anything from the
176consent calendar? No. You want to madam president? Commissioner L. Yes. I'd like to make a motion to uh table the um solar panel project as of now. Which number was it? Number one. Oh, we need to remove I'm sorry. Yeah. What do you want removed? Uh the solar panel project 4.1. Yes. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. So, the consent calendar is as follows. Uh 4.2 2 Committee of the Whole, request approval of a temporary area taking and limited construction easement, State Department of Transportation. 4.3 Committee of the Whole request approval of a data access request agreement with Connecticut State Department of Education. 4.4 4. Committee on finance request approval of a construction contract with all electric construction and communication LLC for design and build rooftop solar photovalactic systems at five schools. And I have
177a motion to approve. Commissioner Lopez. I motion to approve the consent calendar items 4.2 through 4.4. Second. All in favor? Opposed? Abstain. Motion carries. I'm sorry, what? No. Oh, okay. We have uh item 4.1 uh request approval of a project authorization letter PL to allow WDC to manage administer school rooftop solar photovalactic projects at five Waterberry public schools scope of services. Okay. Okay. Latoya, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Ladies and gentlemen, I move to approve a project authorization letter to allow the Waterberry Development Corporation to manage administer school rooftop solar photovoltaic projects at five Waterberry public schools scope of services. Can we have a second please? Second. Second. Thank you. discussion. Commissioner L. Thank you, Madam President. Yes. Uh, I move to make a motion to table this item just because um with all the information
178with the WCA and what we found out about Deal Martin, I kind of want to give us some more time to really read over, read through, and be sure about the decision we're making. This is a 20-year plan that's going to be we're locked in for the most part. Once we started, I mean, and we commit to going somewhere, you know, I don't see us backing out and then, you know, we're kind of stuck for 20 years. And with me being on the board, I would like to give myself some time to really read through before I vote on something so um timely. Thank you. Any other discussion? Commissioner Orso, what I said before, we already just approved the contract for the people to do it. Point of order. I'm sorry. What? Go ahead, Terry.
179I thought we had a second. No, nobody discuss. Okay. Can we have a second? Second. Okay. Now we're continuing the discussion. Go ahead. Discussion. Commissioner. Okay. I thought we had a second. Okay. Well, he would make a motion to table. We really can't table this because we already approved the contract with the company. What WDC is doing is they're overseeing what that contractor is doing. So without them, you're just giving them an okay to do whatever they want to do. You need somebody to protect the city. And this is what WDC's role would be in this. They're not be designing it. They're not going to be doing anything that uh other than to protect our interest and almost like what they used to call the clerk of the works, but you know, so um we
180really have to pass this. We cannot table it because we just approved the the contract for the for the construction of them. So we need somebody to we have nobody in the city of Waterberry that could do that. There's nobody that could work in education department or even have the time to oversee this project. It's a giant project. So you just can't table this. You just I'm sorry. You just have to approve it. I mean that's that's my opinion. There is a motion I on the table to table it. So uh are you what is your recommendation? Madam President Madam President Madam President there can't be any discussion on a motion until there's a second. So is there a second called out? Okay. I was trying to explain to new commission. I don't think there
181is a second. There is there was a second and communication can then the vote is now on the motion. Yeah, that well motion table. Okay. So, can we have a roll call vote please to table this uh 4.1? So, you better just clarify what a no and a yes would be. Uh a yes would be to table it. A no would be not to table it. Thank you. And then we go back to the main motion. Then we go back to the main motion. Commissioner Haywood Bowen. Yes. Commissioner Anthony Ireland. No. Vice President Latoya Ireland. No. Commissioner Jackson. No. Commissioner Lopez. No. Commissioner L. Yes. Commissioner Munz. No. Commissioner Orso. No. Commissioner Van Stone. No. President Brown. No. Motion to table fails. Now we're on the main motion. Discussion. All those in favor? Opposed. Okay.
182Motion carries. Thank you. Okay. Can I have a motion to adjurnn? Second. Discussion. All in favor? Okay. Thank you all. Is the Is the