001[Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Good evening. Today is April 3rd. We are at Wilson School. This is a regular meeting, a workshop meeting. Hendrick, turn it off. Could you hear me? Can we have a silent prayer? Hey. Hi. Who's this person? Are we starting drinks? It's John's son. Commissioner Serno Duno, can you lead us in the pledge? I think we have kids. We have kids. Where you have kids? Yes. I have some students who are coming in to do it. Let us know. [Music] Sorry. Can my Wilson Wolves step on up? Sure. She can do it regularly. [Music] [Applause] Ready? So, we're going to do the pledge. Ready? [Music] To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible,
002with liberty and justice for all. Nice job. Very good. Good job. Thank you so much. They should introduce themselves. Yeah. Mr. Thorough, can you have your students introduce themselves that did the pledge? Sure. Can my Wilson Wolves who just came up here want to come up and introduce yourselves? Come on up. Are they going to do something? Can I hear? What's going on? I just My name is Graci. My name is Nicholas. My name is Cecilia. She's My name is Amelia. Thank you for coming here. Thank you for being here. Oh, thank you. My name is Jacob. My name is Alina. My name is Leah. Leah. My name is Amaya. Say it. My name is Kisia. My name is Elias. My name is Giovanni. Second grade. Come on. No. Come on. Come on. Thank you
003so much. I feel the same way, by the way. So, okay. Principal's report. Okay. So, um well, greetings and good evening. Uh, welcome Mayor Peruski, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Secretary Serrano Adorno, uh, Board of Ed Commissioners, Board of Ed, uh, student representatives, and interimm superintendent, Dr. Schwarz. Thank you for being here tonight. So, as most of you know, this is my second year here at Wilson. Uh it's been an exciting journey and really the uh the biggest feat was conquering the culture here at Wilson School and um we have uh we're making some nice gains in that in that uh direction. So right starting with the building and we have um as you can see the walls have been painted. Uh there's been a lot of um safety measures put into place. Thank you.
004Uh on the right hand side there, you'll see a safety lock, a pool plunge lock I think they call it, for our gates outside at recess. Um we have a water, we have two water bubblers coming our way for installation. Uh the bubblers that we have now don't have a bubbler. They just are filling stations. So, a lot of times we find students spilling water cuz they're putting them in little paper cups and we run out of cups. So, we're uh we're going to have a double duty type of uh resource for that to and it also increases their instructional time. Um and other beautifification, the walls have been painted, the stairwells are being painted. Basically, the whole building is going to be painted. This gym is also on the list to get painted as
005well. Um so basically the format of our school we have uh four prek classrooms, four kindergarten, three uh first and second grades and third grades, two fourth and fifth. Our fourth and fifth grade classrooms are departmentalized for ELA and math uh programs. We have a co-taught pre kindergarten uh one co-taught pre kindergarten, one co-taught kindergarten. And then we have the two behavioral classrooms, one for K1 and one for one two. Click. So one of the measures that we use here, we are looking at some of the survey results that we received so far. Um we're getting a lot of family support as you can see behind me. The support has been amazing. They're buying into the school and what we are doing here. and um you know I say something they're following and uh they're
006they're entrusting me with a lot of things that are going on here at the school. Uh so I feel like the data up there uh represents very clearly that we are starting to get in sync with in sync with our families in our community here at uh Wilson in the Wilson community. So the engagement part of this has been Sorry about that. I'll step back a little bit. Uh has been amazing. Uh, our science night, we filled the gym. Math night, we filled the gym. Uh, if you look at the far right, there's a picture of me getting silly stringed. Um, and that was after I took off a lot of it. Uh, the the the event was for um, a lot of times the information that's in power school is not up to date.
007So the classrooms that had their uh their information sheets filled out 100% they got the chance to silly string me um that was just one event. The gathering I find that this is a great indicator as well. My very first year I was the only person from Wilson school family staff etc. I basically was going to hold the banner by myself except Miss Hunter from State Street joined me. And then this year happened. If you look behind the sign, there are 50 plus people there representing Wilson School, which uh was an amazing feeling. We had a great time. Um so Wilson's very much getting embedded right within our community. Another fun thing that we have here is that the now building reached out to us asking if we would like to have grandparents in the
008building. So, we have two foster grandparents. And I tell you, we couldn't ask for two better foster grandparents. They are just so much fun. And you know, when they're here, their personalities are larger than life. So, we have Miss Mimi on the left and uh Grandpa Bud on the right. Uh they've embedded themselves in the culture. the students walk by them, high-fiving them, fist bumping them just as much as uh they do uh me or the teachers. So, they're a great addition to our our school community. So, we have ambassadors. If you saw this uh the students that came up here with the blue um vest on, there's an application process. They also have to get endorsed by three students and they have to demonstrate role models and expectations of our pause our pause expectations
009and they become ambassadors. They help us with our events. They support us at the events and they also act as role models. A lot of times uh we will ask them to support uh operations in the school that within child uh reasonleness and they also mentor the younger students. We have some going into other classrooms to support students who might just need a little bit of attention. Um, and then they could be in there without missing any instructional time. We'll do it uh strategically when the students could get in there and support other students. So, kind of on the same on the same topic of building student leadership, we've also partnered with Waterberry Career Academy. They have an amazing group of students and we basically share the same soil. So, uh what an amazing way
010to get more students involved and and become a part of our community. So, we have some students from Waterberry Career Academy who come over here every day. Uh they are serving in various capacities. The two most uh most prevalent are our recess buddies where we have students who give up their study hall time and they come over and they play with our young kids during their recess time. They facilitate healthy games. They do word puzzles with them. They have positive talk um and encouraging moments together. They play indoors, they play outdoors. We also have our Waterberry Career Academy teaching mentors. These are students who are looking into being educators in their future. So they come and they push into classrooms. They support students in learning centers. They support students through their pay ba playbased learning
011activities. Um they might help a student who needs a little support with an academic task and um they basically become a part of our school like we've said with our grandparents and uh they they've become a part of our community and like the kids are excited to see them and like I like Mr. with Ariel said, you're you're going to see a lot of high-fiving when you walk the walls of Woodro Wilson School. I also joke with them. I call them the Bulldogs when they ring the doorbell. So, celebrations is another way that we've really kind of amped up. So, we have student of the quarter. So, to reduce the amount of time out of the classroom and setting up every month, we do it every quarter. uh but we also thought about it's like
012the students are only one stakeholder in this. So what we've done is we actually included uh the families. So when we call the child up for their recognition, we also call up the entire family because truthfully they're the first teachers. They're the ones who we should also be celebrating and that's been an amazing response. Um you know they just parents don't get recognized enough. We want their support, but then we don't recognize them. And I feel like we we owe it to them for their good work as parents to come in here and teach their students right from wrong, how to behave in school, how to behave in the community. Um, we also were promoting acceptable attendance. Uh, acceptable attendance as we know is uh, you know, 5% or less. Uh, we can't expect perfect
013attendance. Uh, but we do have incentives uh, quarterly for that as well. uh paw patches is something. So if a student gets recognized for uh kindness, doing something above beyond or you know maybe a student who showed some recent success academically or behaviorally, we will also recognize them with the paw pledge. We put their faces up on the uh the wall of fame and uh then they get little little trinket for a gift. Uh but they get to wear that pause patch uh with honor for the rest of the day. Also at Wilson, we have a family resource center. This has been an amazing um uh element to our school. This year we've had 93 playgroups for students who are younger than school school age. Um so that and there's 35 different families and this
014is not just Wilson people. This is all of city of Waterberry. So anyone in Waterberry uh can participate in this event. and uh Kyle Cressetto and uh Mary Rose Avala had a big part of getting these families in. Um I also have to take note a lot of the family engagement with family night and science night and the gathering. We have to thank uh Esther our um parent lays on for really rallying the families in and get them here. I can't forget to do that. So here's some data for us. our chronic. So, what I did is I took four years, the the most recent four years. Uh, right now, our chronic absism is not exactly where I would want it. Uh, I'm still trying to find out what's going to work for Wilson. What
015worked at Driggs has not really worked for me as well here, but we are increasing um our incentives on strategic days. The half day Wednesdays uh tend to have a a lot of students absent. So we give incentive. We might have like a sport day, character day, something along that lines just so the students actually want to come to school and have some type of reason to come here and just make it a little bit more fun for them to come in. Uh so on the right hand side is our behavior. This is our these are total suspensions in school and out of school suspensions for the last year. And this is something I'm very happy to see where we were close to 60 suspensions in 2122. Um and last year we finished out somewhere
016in the 30s. Uh and this year we're on track to beating that. And I'm going to, you know, we're going to keep on um keep on tackling that battle with the behavior. Uh and it's much improved. uh the events that we hold during the school day have much improved. Um so the students are getting it. Uh we have we use a lot of restorative practice. Uh we teaching we're part of our pause pledge is teaching students for self-acountability. when they make a mistake, have them own it and then we work from there outward towards that social emotional part and the restorative practices. For our I Ready data, these are the total number of students who are in the green. Uh in 202122, we had somewhere in the low 20s and as you see a gradual
017increase. uh the this is the middle of the year scores, not the end of the year scores, but for the middle of the middle of the year for 2425, we've already surpassed uh our 23 24 uh by what about 10? Yeah, 10 or so. So, uh we're making some academic gains. Right now, our reading data is very flat. Uh it's I was just taking another look at it. there's some improvements with the reading uh but still there's there's a lot of work to to do to move forward. Um I think it might be worth mentioning too with our teaching staff and it's I we have 13 new teachers to Waterberry or new to teaching altogether uh that we hired last year. Uh, and it was pretty exciting to see with the clean openings that there
018was zero at Wilson outside of the art that we can't fill. So, that was pretty exciting to see see that that point. Uh, we've been blessed with some great people from the community. Again, uh, Esther Brown was able to get uh, Mr. Name who's been very generous to school. He'll bring his ice cream truck on field days. Uh, new opportunities actually funded a pizza party for one of our attendants. uh incentives. We have Clingberg Family Centers. They It's actually an external group that comes in and they provide counseling to students who may not fall under what we do with our IEPs with our social worker, but maybe some students that might just have some things to work through. They provide them some support. Macy's has been support. They give us clothing. Um, every fall they'll
019come with a a nice supply of clothing and school uh school supplies and the fun zone trampoline park. Uh, I can't even tell you how many stacks of free passes that he has given. Uh, but he also offers fundraisers over the April break. If students go there and say that they're from Wilson, he some of that money will come back to us for a um for our student activity account. So, it's like we pay you, he pays us back. So that's awesome. Um, okay. I I just spoke more in the last five minutes than if it was only five minutes. Uh, so shared leadership. Uh, one of the things that Mrs. Breto and I really believe is that everyone, every stakeholder should have a voice and have some choice as well. And in this we
020have school safety, social emotional learning, community engagement, equity, instructional leadership team, and the positive uh climate team. And they work separately, but then we bring it together. Um, and they do an amazing job uh coming up with ideas that actually have some type of impact on the school climate, academics, um, safety, uh, and equity. So they're thinking through this lens pretty much uh throughout the school day throughout the school year and um this the school the school has been much improved. I mean it's it's been a real pleasure coming up here and seeing the transformation happen daily. Um it's it's really been exciting and seeing the community the families showing up here. They don't have to show up but they did. and uh it just really shows the um the support and the need that
021our community needs. One of our one of our professional shared leadership teams actually uh played a huge role in getting these beautiful posters from around the world. If you were able to walk in uh down our hallways, you would see them hanging up. These posters represent children from all different cult cultures all over the world. Um and they were given to us through an outreach program from our equity team. They reached out to Gary Basherat who actually um free of charge donates these images to schools. And so our equity team was able to make that happen and get them here at Wilson. So I just wanted to share that. Uh at this time if I could have my my Wilson staff just take a quick stand uh so I could thank you publicly for being
022here. and how about my Wilson families? Can I just Can I have them stand for a quick moment? They don't want to be associated with me. So, um, so, um, one last thing, if if it's okay with the board, I have, uh, Mr. Kuruk, our music teacher, and Mr. Mudri, one of our first grade teachers, who would like our students to sing a song if that's if we have the time. Yes. Okay. All right. Mr. Krook, Mr. and students get the meeting. I'm show you whatever. Oh, they're right up to the stage. Darren, stand up here. [Applause] I'm asking you all questions. Okay, we have a representation of the Woodro Wilson chorus. We have students from first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, and fifth grade here. So we have all different levels. We
023have Mr. Ludrey accompanying on his guitar. Uh he's playing in it even if you don't hear. Um and we have one student Alina in the middle here. She will be singing a solo in the middle of the song. So she will need a mic. [Music] We we did this song in our Black History concert in February. Elena sang the the solo back then. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] I will let it shine everywhere I go. I'm going to let it shine everywhere I go. Let it shine. Shine. Shine. Let it [Music] shine. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Yeah. Heat. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Thank you guys so much. [Applause] questions. Does anyone have any questions? Commissioner
024Van Stone. Thank you, Madam President. Through you, well, where Mr. Theoriel goes, improvement follows. Uh, wherever we place you, just things just rise up. So, I want to thank you, but it sounds like you're very appreciative of your staff and the parents, your uh community partners, and it seems like you're really bringing things together. Uh we it never fails when we come to Wilson School, we do get a stage show. So I'm very glad we got another one this year. Um but I want to talk a little bit about you know your eye scores. Um that's those are not easy metrics to change. Well, they're easy to go down, but to move them forward is a very difficult thing. And that's that's amazing improvement. U that that's a great job that's showing things are going
025falling into place. Uh this one of the better parent crowds I think we've seen in a while. So I appreciate the parents for coming out tonight. Uh and I appreciate the teachers, too, because I know the last thing you guys wanted to do at 4 or 5:00 this afternoon was come listen to us. But so I thank the teachers for uh coming out tonight. But uh great job and and like I said, it seems like you just have this magic wand that you bring people together and and things change. So, I really appreciate you. So, thank you. Thanks a lot. Thank you. I appreciate that. Well said, Commissioner Latoya Arley. Thank you, Madam President. Again, um I echo with my colleague. Um I thank you for the presentation and I also appreciate how you do
026want to hear from the parents. And just one question, how often are the surveys sent out to the parents? uh quarterly. We we'll send them out. Awesome. Thank you. You're welcome. Are there any other questions? All right, Commissioner Lopez. I could tell you a long story, but I'll keep it short. Um, I think being allowing me to be me, um, the biggest concern about me becoming a principal was if I was too nice or not. And, uh, the truth is leading with love, leading with kindness, and having people, uh, like the staff that's behind me, the staff that couldn't make it tonight, following that lead. they've already had it anyway, you know, and Miss Breurto as well. Uh just just leading with love. Not everything has to be um what was the word you said?
027It doesn't always have to be policy. I know I probably shouldn't say that right here, but um but you know, but but allowing the flexibility of just being human being first and allowing us to be who we are in inside and let that beauty shine. Uh I feel like the students uh really respond to that. when you have a student that's uh looking at me knowing that something's not right and then he or she actually admits to what they've done so we could go ahead and take accountability for our actions and working with them instead of say okay you're done you're out that's not how we are we teach them okay we made a mistake what's next how are we going to move forward so and and that's pretty much consistent throughout our our day
028our day, year, month, week, name it. That's how we are. Um, and that's why I'm very proud of the staff because they they've uh they have accepted that that part of me and and which makes it easier for me to go forward with that same type of um lens. Yeah. The staff has taken on beautiful people. That's why I call my staff beautiful people. Yeah. All right. Any other questions? Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you for coming. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Item number one, multilingual report. There are no public speakers today. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Pernki, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Secretary Srano Adorno, Commissioners, Student Representatives, and Interim Superintendent Dr. Schwarz. It gives me great pleasure today to come before you to give you an insight into
029the multilingual department and what I have learned from it and where I think we should go in the next uh few years. Uh in the last three months uh I have spent a lot of time learning a lot about uh current practices within our school district and taking a um and doing a an assessment of where we are and where we could we could go. Uh let me just start by uh reminding all of us the vision and mission of our department and that is for us to be able to uh provide an arrange of services for our student multilingual uh students so that they can not only achieve linguistic skills but they can also have access to academics and perform at a uh at a similar level or if not above level of their
030uh peers within their classrooms. in the different programs. And we recognize that we cannot do that alone by a department that we need to create strong relationships not only with uh parents uh the community but we also need to build strong relationship with those who are in front of our students which are are the teachers and administrators. Um this not work here. Here is the current uh offerings that uh Waterberry has in place to support our multilingual learners. Uh we have bilingual classrooms programs uh different elementary schools, four of them, uh Hopeville, Chase, uh Walsh and Chase. Uh we also have bilingual programs in the three um uh middle schools. We have ESL support services in all kind uh schools from uh kindergarten through A schools. Um we also have a dual language program at
031the international school. Um in addition to that uh just so you know once a student has exited services from bilingual uh from the bilingual services uh we um label them as uh LTSS that still is a program that is being addressed by our district um uh but it's just a continuation of the bilingual program in a different format. Uh and also to the right you will see that we have the LEP students. Those are the students a group of students whose parents have not consented for us to provide them services. Um and on the far right left uh far right corner um you will see that it's the exit criteria. We are mandated to pro uh assess our students linguistics uh every year to make a determination if students are making progress. Um and the
032state give us a specific criteria to determine if students can exit multilingual services. It is only when they meet this uh criteria that we stop all types of services for our students. Uh something that I want to bring your attention to is the enrollment threats that you see over the last 10 years. Uh it seems that we have almost doubled the amount of students who require our multilingual services. Um the the increase over the last three years has not been drastic drastic. Um but I have to tell you since I took over disposition I do get a report every uh Friday and the number continues to go up one week down next week up again. Um but it's always within has been between the ranges of 4,040 students to 460 which is what we currently
033have as of last Friday. Um these are the numbers broken down into the different programs that the district has to offer. Um we have uh one of one number that I want to call your attention to is the ESL programs. Um we do have the majority of our our parents are choosing uh ESL services as a program uh for their students. Um and it is uh as you can see one has the highest numbers across the whole um uh district. The K through five you see it. It says bilingual and DL. DL stands for dual language. Only the K through five number includes bilingual students and the students currently enroll at the international school. Uh for 6A 9 and 12. We do not offer dual language program at at at this time. uh uh though
034we know that the um the Corvettto Clemente International School will hopefully grow all the way to 8th grade in the future. Um just so you all know um there are 57 languages spoken across the from students across the uh Waterberry public school system. Uh out of those 57, 47 of those languages are spoken by English language learners. Uh, Spanish continued to be the top uh, language, followed by Portuguese and then Albanian. Um, not so far behind, we now have Haitian Creole with uh, 53. Um, and then we have also Arabic and Ordo uh, uh, but with is not an a substantial amount as you can see for the top three that we have um, there. And in the spirit of of having students uh with so many different languages, the state department of education created
035what we call the seal of biiteracy. Um and this is a seal that is given to students who have demonstrated proficiency in reading, writing, math, I'm sorry, listening and speaking in other language than English. Uh we have metrics that we need to follow. Students are choose to take this assessment. If they uh show that they're proficient, then our district will award them with the seal of biiteracy. Um which is uh not only a recognition of them knowing another language, but it's also uh a a recognition to the culture that they bring into our um uh uh school system as well. Um, and it also empowers them to um uh place this within their their um resume so that when they go and and try to apply for a job, it is part of their their
036their their uh um resume. Um and um it's it's given to any student from 10th grade to 12th grade. Um the seal and the and the ceremony is uh is is only held for our senior uh uh students, but we begin testing on grade 10th. Uh if you can see the esotistics, the seal by literacy has become quite popular uh here at Waterberry. Uh back in 2023, we had um 193 students. Then that dropped down to 178. And I have to say that the committee has done a phenomenal job. uh actually going out there and spreading the word about the seal of by literacy. Um and as you can see and I said we're expecting more than uh students to receive the seal. Uh and I only said plus because we still working on some
037students completing their assessments to make a determination as to how many we will have. Um we have uh 15 plus uh languages that they will be given. Some of our students have taken the assessment not only in one language but two languages and so they will receive the seal by literacy not only on one language but could receive it in in two and even three if they choose to. I want to also give you an insight into the curriculum framework that we are uh utilizing here in waterberry to support our students. Uh at the top you'll see the dual language international magnet school and the bilingual programs use similar uh instruction uh curriculum which is benchmark advanced and benchmark adilante. um the there's a version in English and Spanish and our hope is that students
038are able to transfer um their skills from one language to the to the other in the bilingual programs where in the dual language program we want the students to become bilit biliteral which means we want them to have uh um uh uh uh be able to read, write, speak and and and comprehend in both languages by the time they uh leave the dual language program for our ESL services and the K through 5, we're using Benchmark Express. And then for our middle school and high school, we're using I uh SABA's eyelet 20 and my perspective. Uh there are many embedded uh shelter instruction uh strategies within these programs that support our students. Um and so we we we truly believe that by having this framework to work with, we will be able to support our
039students not only linguistically but also academically. Uh some of the highlights as I mentioned before the international dual language school now is a prek through fourth will be adding a fifth grade next school year. Uh there was uh we added a bilingual site at Walsh currently kindergarten through to second grade. The number of students earned in the seal by literacy continues to increase. Um as part of the needs assessment I have visited and met with all principles in 31 schools. I have heard from them. I have visited uh the teachers as well. Met with groups of of teachers already. Uh there's 55 classrooms. I just recently visited three more classroom at Crossby High School uh this past Wednesday. So those uh that would be a uh classrooms at this point. uh I believe that is
040very important from for uh myself to hear straight from the from the not only the principal from the students and also the the teachers so that I know exactly what we need to do and have a better understanding of what we need to do to continue to support our our students. Our last links proficiency achievement threats continue to go up as well. uh the 2021 2022 that was right after the pandemic 89 students met the extra criteria meaning they do not receive any more services because they were able to show proficiency in uh uh in English and as you can see last year was 152 at this point we still do not have the uh numbers the state has not released them yet uh and until we we have sort of like an idea of
041where we are but we're not able to publicly say uh share those numbers until they're officially released by the state department. Uh before I move on into my last slide which is what I'm going to talk a little bit about where I see the the our uh department going I want to bring to your attention that um but literacy is a very important um it's it's a very it's one of the programs that has shown uh every every uh time in time that students are able to close the achievement gap between themselves meaning multilingual learners and the peers whose whose primary language is English. Uh we always talked about closing the achievement gap and by literacy has been one of the programs that supports and has shown tremendous growth for students and the achievement gap
042for them continues to shrinken uh as they are in this biiteracy programs such as a uh dual language program or a one-way um uh dual language program. With that being said, I have set uh short-term goals and long-term goals for for our department. And one of the long-term goals is to actually explore uh the possibility of looking our bilingual transitional programs and see how we how can we transform them into more of a biiteracy program so that we can accelerate our students uh linguistic and and um skills but also help them attain grade level uh um standards by the end of the their their their schooling. Uh but this is uh a huge undertaking because it takes planning, takes a lot of research. So this is not something that it will happen within the next
043few months, within the next uh year. It's something that it needs to be implemented appropriately. So therefore, we really need to look at all factors to make sure that we effectively implement something like this. And at this point it's just something that we want to explore and we will continue uh uh discussing you know uh moving forward if that would be a good fit for the current services that we provided here in Warberry. Uh going back to the long-term goals one of the things that I uh discover as I had conversations with principles and teachers there were a lot of misconceptions about students uh who uh need uh u um multilingual services. And so our department has been working on identifying those procedures and those systems that we already have in place to either rewrite
044them or write them to make to ensure that we are providing our students with the best access to academics and that they're placed in the appropriate programs. And I'm talking about from the uh from the moment a student walks into our district and we have to identify them as a a multilingual learner or not. speaking to the parents about what programs we have uh available so that they can make an educational decision about what program best fits the needs uh of their of their students. So, we're looking at all of it and we're trying to uh uh go through them one by one. Um and we are also in uh uh we have a consultant from the state department of education uh working with us and looking at all of those uh protocols and all
045of those systems that we already have in place to make sure that we are uh in alignment with everything that is required from the state department as well. Uh we want to review our grants. We want to make sure that we are using our grants in a very purposeful way and in an intentional way as as well so that we are uh being uh fiscally responsible and that we are actually utilizing the money to support our students uh at at every single one of the sites where we provide services. Uh we are working on we're waiting to get the projections for next school year in terms of multilingual learners uh to create a plan to so that we can lessen the case load for ESL teachers and bilingual teachers. Um we want to also look
046at what are some of our parents' needs um so that we can create a series of workshops to deliver at different school sites to inform our parents. And it might be that we just start with just talking to them about the different programs that that um waterberry has to offer so that we can so that they can continue to make uh the right decisions for them. Um we are in the works with human capital about re uh recruiting uh bilingual teachers. As a matter of fact, we're going uh next Monday to Southern uh Connecticut State University to uh job fair in the evening to talk to some of these teachers to attract them to come to um to to Waterberry. And then going back to the long-term goals, we also uh you know in the
047spirit of working with uh Connecticut State University, the human capital already has a plan in place to create a partnership with them so that we can give uh our students who are seniors um uh an opportunity to do an internship here in Waterberry. uh we have hit some walls because um this program has been piloted in another in other districts and they're still waiting for the results of those. So the state is not approving any partnership at this point. They want to wait for the results to then begin to move uh to move it forward, but we are in contact with them and they know that we're interested in doing something like this um in our district. And then last but not least, which I think would be one of the biggest uh undertakings, we'll
048be shifting our mind for all instructional staff from um uh that the shelter instruction is for everyone and not only for multilingual learners. We we need to all understand that shelter instruction benefits every single one of the students you have in front of you. Uh shelter instruction strategies are high quality instructional practices that you can use that would help reach all your students in the class in your classroom and therefore uh you will be able to attain and get the outcomes that you want for all your students in your classrooms. And with that um um any questions for our department? Does anybody have any questions? No, Commissioner Lopez, the last piece that you were just mentioning about the you saw the graph of the so was that comparison to other are public school students or
049was that just general na nationwide um numbers? That is general. It's just a study that was done uh um that has been done and has been repeated a couple times. So what they have done is nationally they have compared the different programs that we have available for multilingual learners and they're measured the outcomes for all of them and they have determined that time and time when they do the the um study the uh biiteracy programs are the ones that come on top in terms of closing the achievement gap between uh multilingual learners and those who uh English is their first language. Thank you. Sure. Any other questions? Vice President Brown. Thank you, Madam President. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you for the very detailed presentation. Um I think I met you at the reading. Yes.
050Uh Read Across America. Correct. So it's nice to meet you. Nice to see you. Um I'm just a curious in terms of the um you know working with the parents I think is critical. And do we do that now for every for every student who is in these programs? Is there an assessment for them to go into the program? Correct. Yes, there is a protocol that we follow that that um that the state actually has given us all the guidelines for it. So when our parents show up our welcome centers, our assessors do the language assessment for them and depending on the result of it, then a student gets uh I don't like saying label, but the student gets labeled as a multilingual learner or not. And then it's up to the parent to decide
051what type of program they want to go into. So we're working with our assessors to make sure they have a good uh um a well knowledge of all the programs so that when they are having those conversations with our parents, our parents can make the best uh decision for their for the children. Does that apply to the preschool program as well? It is apply it is not. So the state doesn't require us to do uh assessments in preschool. They're they're kind of optional. And the thinking behind that is the fact that students do need to go through some schooling. And when you are still in prek, um you're still developing a lot of your oral language and you're still developing a lot of those uh English skills that you need to be able to be
052functioning in a kindergarten. But for uh but once they leave their preks and they go into a kindergarten uh classrooms, we do the assessments and then we begin to provide services then. Okay. Thank you. You're very welcome. Any other questions? Commissioner Lopez. Sorry. No. All right. Um, so the numbers for the kids that are looking to have that seal has increased. What do you accredit to that increase? So, and in the meetings I have had with the committee. Uh, it seems like students are talking to each other and we have had a lot of lastm minute students trying to uh do the assessment. I do think also that the commit we have a representative of each one of our high schools and I think that they have been done a tremendous job getting the word
053out through announcements uh talking to parents talking during their classes going into other classes uh to to advertise the program. Uh we do uh uh have during the month of March information sessions that the students are invited to and where we explain what the program is all about. Um and this program is not only for multilingual learners. Any student in this in in in the district of Waterberry could take this assessment. Uh we reach out to you know to uh WS we reach out to Career Academy to many other uh schools to make sure that everyone has the information they need to ensure that students uh want to uh uh pursue the the seal of literacy. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. That's it. Thank you very much. I greatly greatly appreciate the opportunity to
054talk to all of you and we'll uh we'll look forward to continue to work together. Thank you. Request approval of a travel agreement with Educational Tours Incorporated for a field trip to Washington DC for Wallace Middle School. Mr. Albini. Greetings and good evening, Mayor Pernooki, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Secretary Serrano, Board of Education Commissioners, and interim superintendent Dr. Schwarz. The education department respectfully requests your review and approval of a travel agreement with educational tours to provide Wallace Middle School Academic Academy students to a 3-day field trip for 35 students and accompanying chaperones to Washington DC which includes transportation motor coach transportation hotel lodging all meals and missions to the sites through the tours and the activity. ities. The trip will be a 3-day trip from June 11th, 2025 to June 13, 2025. And all
055expenses are covered by uh inind support of the Student Youth Travel Association, the Youth Foundation, and American Experience Foundation. Are there any questions? Commissioner Anthony Arland. What uh what program? What program is this? This is the academic academy which begins with grades four and five. That is part of the Wallace Middle School. Okay. Four, five, six, seven, eight before they go into Crosby. But this is the academic academy. The Wallace academic academy. Wow. Okay. Thank you. Y how they're getting Nick. I I think he also may have been asking, but this could be just me chiming in. Is the how how are they getting it for free? I guess is this is completely uh inind donations by these three organizations. They completely fund this uh part of educational tours. As I said, it's the student
056youth travel association, the youth foundation, American experience foundation. They completely fund this as part of uh the DC right of passage they call it. So it gives an opportunity for these students to get to Washington DC who might not have a chance to get there and see all the wonderful uh historical sites that they have and they have free admission to all those locations. Commissioner Orso, hi. I think Hello. I think this is a great program. Um the only thing how did they did they apply for a grant or something to these organizations? How did they uh that I don't know I I believe um Supervisor Melinda Gro is here who can add a little bit to that to answer your question. Yes. It's a great opportunity for the students. You look at the chaperon.
057You need any extra chaperones? I'll be available. All right. I might give you a call. Hi. Um, yeah, this was part of our long-term plan. Um, and over the summer, we happened to be searching for other things and we came across this opportunity. It sounded like a perfect fit for our program. So, we've been in contact um, you know, since the summer with the student youth travel organization. It's a national organization that um, uh, works with all sorts of tour companies across the country. and they give out this DC right of passage to one lucky school um in the entire country. Um and so we applied um and we were just very lucky to get it. Um so we're we're thrilled to give our students this opportunity. Um it's something that we did not anticipate
058being able to do so quickly. The cost per student is approximately $1,000 per student, which was um you know cost prohibitive at this point. Um, and so this is providing an opportunity that was, you know, beyond our wildest dreams this year. That's great. Happy for the students. Thanks. Me, too. I have a question. So, is this a mixture of all the grades? Fourth, fifth, sixth, seven, eighth, or is it a specific grade level? Only eighth grade. So, it's kind of a culminating middle school experience for them. Yeah. Any other questions? Commissioner Arley, I just have a quick question. Is this the Washington trip that was happening before CO when the eighth graders were going to Washington at one time but it had stopped? I know some um I believe North End had gone um I
059don't remember our other groups. I don't know if it was the same program but there are various schools that went to Washington DC. Now whether they were part of this I'm not sure. Yeah, I believe that this is the first time that Waterberry is participating with this particular organization. Okay. Thank you. I had a break for myself. Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you. Number five, request approval of amendment one to the professional service agreement with positive coaching alliance for leadership support for accelerating learning. Jan four got removed. Item number three, you skipped. I apologize, Mr. Albini. Approve. Approval of an educa. I was wondering why you were sitting there. Educational specification for the proposed Bergen education complex roof replacement, partial roof replacement project. Beanie. Thank you. Uh, all this is is a name correction.
060When this application first went in, it went in as Crosby High School roof replacement. It is more the Bergen complex. So, this is just a name change for correction for our Department of Administrative Services application. It is the roof replacement for both Crosby and Wallace. So, it's the Bergen Complex. Any questions? Thank you. Thank you. I got to stop. Mark it. Okay. Item number four is being removed from the agenda for further review. We're moving to item number five. Request approval of amendment one to the professional service agreement with positive coaching alliance for its leadership support for accelerating learning. Jan, good evening, Mayor Penerooki, uh, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Secretary Serrano Adorno, Commissioners, and interim superintendent Dr. Schwarz, the Waterberry Public Schools Department of Health and Physical Education respectfully requests an amendment to the
061agreement between the city of Waterberry and Positive Coaching Alliance. The purpose of the amendment is to extend the end date of the contract from August 15, 2025 to September 15, 2025. There's no additional cost associated with this amendment. Commissioner Van Snow. Thank you, Madam President. Through you, I see that it was originally funded under SR3. So, did we pay the full amount already? Yes. Okay. because there's a lot of and I believe what happened was that trying to schedule the professional learning didn't always work out and so they pushed the date forward so that we could use their services for the August PDS and um August and September PD so it's not it's no additional cost so whatever it costs we've already paid it we're just moving forward a new end date it's just a
062change in end date got it thank you thank you Are there any other questions? Thank you, Jan. Item number six, request approve approval of amendment one to the agreement with New Opportunities Incorporated Mirror Moore Child Development Center for Subgrantee Services under the school readiness program. Uh, good evening, Mayor Perurki, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Secretary Srano Dorno, Commissioners, and Interim Superintendent Dr. Schwarz. Um, I am here tonight on behalf of the school readiness council requesting an amendment um to a subtreement between the city and New Opportunities of Waterberry's Muriel Moore Child Development Center. Um, Muriel Moore has been a longtime partner through the school readiness grant. Uh, late last year, the state was asking partner programs to expand their funded infant toddler spaces in the city and um, Muriel Moore was awarded four additional infant
063toddler slots. Um, the reimbursement amount for care for those children um, from January to June is an additional $27,000. They were also granted a small increase in their private provider payment, that's not easy to say, funding, um, which covers costs associated with running a childare program. So, the total cost of this amendment is $27,689. Um, I apologize for my omission. It should have been indicated in my executive summary. There is no cost to the city for this amendment. Um, these are state grant dollars coming through the city in from the school readiness grant program. So, if there are any questions, I'd be happy to. Commissioner Van Snow. Hi, Madam President. Through you, I think I just need a little clarification. It's an additional 27689 and it's the child readiness grant, right? Uh, school readiness grant.
064Yes. Did we have to ask the state for that additional funding and they okayed it or No, there was no application process. The only thing that Muriel Moore had to do was attest that they had licensed capacity to take on these additional four children and they did. Okay. So, we there's something we must do with the state though to right get reimbursed or get the funding really. So the city is the fiduciary for the school readiness grant and so the the money comes in through the city as a pass through and we reimburse the programs for the services that they provide. The rate of reimbursement is determined by the state. It doesn't and and we don't get to choose that reimbursement. So um an infant toddler space is reimbursed at 135 a year but they
065are only providing services for half of the year. Half the year. Yeah. So, we don't have an action to go to the state, but over on the city side, I'm not sure what department would do that, but somewhere in the city side, they have to go at least notify the state and get this money that these spaces were awarded. The state is aware the money is already here. Getting more seats is great. I wish we can get 20 more, never mind. Right. What's the backlog now with kids that we can't get in? Is there a big backlog? um particularly for infant toddler spaces, right? Um the school readiness program, I can't remember exactly what year, but legislation changed to allow for infant toddlers to be part of the program. Um these four spaces are actually
066the only four that the city has through school readiness. Um we do have some through other funding sources, the child daycare contract, state head start. Um but the financial model is a difficult one for programs. um it costs about two and a half times what it costs to run a preschool classroom and the reimbursement is not two and a half times for but my question is do we have a waiting list for students that we haven't been able to bring in yet? We we could use a lot more funded infant toddler spaces but we do have students that we weren't able to accommodate for infant toddler spaces. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. Are there any other questions? Thank you. You're very welcome. Item number seven, request approval of an agreement with Clingberg
067Comprehensive Program Service Incorporated, Raymond Hill School for Special Education, Mr. Jobs. Good evening, Mayor Perinooki, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Secretary Srono Adorno, Commissioners, and Dr. Schwarz. Good evening. Um the special education department requests the approval of the agreement between the city of Waterberry and Clingberg family centers um aka Raymond Hill School which is an outofd district special education placement. The agreement shall commence on July 1st, 2024. Um obviously we're now um in April. Uh we had to do some negotiating and we'll terminate on June 30th, 2027. The agreement is at a cost of $943,822 for a three-year term. Um, and the um amount comes out of the general funds and I'm open to any questions. Vice President Brown. Uh, good evening. Good evening. Uh, I just had a question. I I scrolled down to
068the rates and um how many students are participating in this program? So this is for up to three students. Three students for almost a million dollars. Okay. So part of this program is to replace one of our current contracts that we are no longer going to be going through that was experiencing some difficulty. and they provide the supports and services, mostly mental health supports and services for some of our students that are experiencing a lot of clinical needs that are coming out of hospitalization and it's very specific needs that they specialize in. Um, a lot of related services are provided and it's all built into the cost of tuition. Okay. And, uh, is this a boarding place where they sleep over and so forth? Is it year round? No, this is just a day placement.
069It's a day program. Okay. And what age group are we talking about? So, they accept students in grades 6 through 12, but they also can go through the transition age of 22 if needed um to help them finish their um high school experience. And what kind of a reimbursement do we anticipate from the state with the excess cost reimbursement? So this I mean last year we were about 2.5 million in excess cost total for the city. Um so I'm hoping to be able to be in that ballpark as well. Um they haven't changed the rates. I know that we're really pushing with our legislators. That's the goal. Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you. Wow. Commissioner Orsel. Hi Wendy. Hi. Did you say that this started July 1st of last year? Yes, but we currently don't
070have any students there. So, we're still in the negotiation process until board approval, board alderman approval. Okay. Commissioner Van Stone. Thank you, Madam President. Through you, thank Wendy for this uh presentation for this and and the cost are just amazing. I um and I don't even get surprised anymore. Uh unfortunately, the only thing is is it a couple of things on this are it says approval between the city of Waterberry and the facility. Is that is it facilitated on the city side like the previous conversation we had or is that board of education city of Waterberry? So that is just how our contracts read traditionally. It's directly from the top of the I just want to check because when we were talking about the uh early childhood, it's facilitated across the street. So I just
071want to check. Last thing is on this $943,000 really 944. Um do we have a breakdown of what they are charging us for? Because that's the big thing right now is the equitable cost. You know, with these facilities coming to us, you know, we're paying, you know, further garbage to get picked up um faces. But you know what I'm saying, right? They're correct. We we need to know a breakdown of what that 944 is. Correct. Because they've really taken us for a ride on some of these facilities. So, I've personally visited this facility, met with um director Jane. She's wonder Jane Morris. She's a wonderful person. I've been out twice to see the facility to ensure not only that they have certified staff but their clinicians are certified as well. The related service providers have
072the proper credentials. So we've been visiting our out of district providers. Um we do have a current rate sheet. Unfortunately we have to cushion each year because um as we know the state of Connecticut has not yet um cap tuition costs. That's correct. So, we have to make sure that each year we are provided um a little bit of a cushion in our contracts. Okay. You you actually were working on the state uh when they were discussing the cap, right? You you participated. Yes. I know that Dr. Schwarz facilitated um a meeting with other um superintendent um in an attempt to be able to you know speak to legislators to be able to um and you know get um caps and tuition costs because currently right now once a state approved facility is approved um
073they are approved for 5 years and that does not include caps and tuition. Okay. Thank you for doing that work with the state. I hope we get get it all straightened out soon. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. And Commissioner Vanstone, I just want to add too that I've uh I've taken part in a few work groups with superintendent uh the alliance uh uh group that we we work with. Uh but also I've met personally with Representative Khan who's leading up the special ed task force in uh Hartford and I've had some uh great conversations with her. She is actually a teacher of special education and she's a representative who's leading this work. So, she gets it. She understands it intimately uh everything from the the rate hikes to um to reimbursement and and so
074I have faith whether it's in this session or the next that it's it's it's going to happen. Um but she's a great advocate for this and we are making headway down there. Commissioner Lopez. Yeah. Um, you mentioned that this would replace another contract. Is that contract about the same price? I would have to get that information back to you. Um, but those students were currently in the process of finding um returning to district and or not or already have returned to district, but I can get you that um information and provide that to you. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Johns. Committee on Finance February 2025 monthly expenditure report A and B. Approval of a capital fund transfer. Dorine. Good evening, Mayor Perooki, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Secretary Serrano Adorno, Board of Education Commissioners,
075interimm superintendent Dr. Schwarz. Um this is month report through February. This is the eighth month of the fiscal year. Um you know, the the budget is meeting some challenges. Um it's getting tighter as we go on. Um but we are focused you know on managing the budget very closely uh my staff um as well as cabinet members uh we are doing necessary things to make sure we're curbing spending at this point in time of you know what's necessary and or urgent in nature. Um you know there's things like the well you can just hear you know after um Mrs. John's left special education costs busing busing associated with that utilities even though we have uh put in you know new boilers and chillers we are seeing the usage reducing but we're getting additional fees so
076it's costing our utilities to rise especially on the electricity side. So, but we are monitoring closely to make sure that we remain in the black. And so, if anybody has any questions on this monthly report, Commissioner Van Stone, thank you, Mson. Through you, this is the month I started to get nervous. Yeah. You've been uh getting a free ride till now. Um busing. I can't believe we're approaching $20,000 for busing. Oh, it's Yeah, I've been on this board when it was 88 million. Or did I say thousand? N 20 million. Y uh I remember nine eight nine million. This is incredible that it's gone up this high. Um and then there's a couple of the outside tuition. I know it's impossible to project that. But one thing that worries me is uh an extra 210,000
077for projected deficit on u overtime. What overtime is that? So the overtime I mean uh the majority of that is for operation and maintenance. Um it's clerical. There's a lot of clerical overtime on the school level. Um we have put out memos uh just this week to make sure that there's only necessary and approved overtime. Um it has to go through a process and making sure that it goes either to Mr. Albini uh to myself to make sure we know um the principles have to sign off on it. So we are um you know kind of clamping down on that at the moment. I mean that that number is bordering on shutting down overtime and and let let it fall where it falls. Yeah. I mean, it's it's always a line item that exceeds cuz
078we never really budget for that um fully because we'd like to curb it. I mean, it's, you know, it's hard when this is $158 million budget. Um so, we have to just more control it. But obviously between you got to watch every penny these days. Every penny is important. Everything. Every single That's a 30% increase. Yeah. Yeah. I I'm telling you I also in that line item you should shut it down and and see what happens. Yeah, there's a lot of overtime going on at the school level and I think a lot of it is just um it just seems to be like a pattern that you know if this person gets overtime they're getting overtime all the time. So, like I said, memos went out this week um from the HR department to the
079schools to also the various departments that are non-school-based and as well as to the maintenance and I don't know their union rules, but sometime with overtime when you give it to one, you got to give it to others. So, we got to be careful of that, too. Yeah. Well, that's why we we need explanations. Okay. I I truly believe we should be shutting it down and see what happens because for $210,000 I'd rather go hire a couple more people. We could hire two, three people including their bennies. That's a lot. I mean it's it's small compared to the rest of his budget like you said. No, you know it's not the 20 million that I brought up for transportation and busing but u the wrong direction. I agree. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President.
080Are there any other questions? Approval of a capital fund transfer. Uh, thank you. We request the approval um to transfer funds from the capital account Crosby High School roof replacement 1.5 million into the Bergen complex roof replacement 1.5 million. This transfer is not really monetarian based. It's just really a name change. Any questions? Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Committee on building and school facilities, use of school facilities by school organizations and or city departments. Mr. Albini. Good evening, commissioners. With the approval of the committee on school facilities and grounds, the superintendent of schools recommends approval of the use of school facilities at no charge by the following 11 school organizations and/or city departments as listed. Any questions? I have a question. Thanks, President Brown. Thank you, Madam President. Good evening, Nick. I
081just had a question looking why do the booth schools need permission to use the classrooms because isn't that part of their program? I'm looking at uh Bridge to Success. They want use the classrooms at Gil Martin. Why do they need permission? Isn't it part of their contract as a booth school? Maybe Dr. Schwarz wants to respond to that. Yeah. So, uh, they they still have to use the the permissions because it's um it's not it's not our employees in the rooms in the buildings with them and there is no we don't have a contract necessarily with boost to do that. So whenever they use the uh the programs, they still have to abide unless the policy changes about um uh usage. Even though they're part of our community schools, it still goes through the RFI
082process and uh but they're it's technically not our employees using the buildings. I think it's worth looking at because they are part they are a community school. There are community partners. So I I'm just surprised that they have to fill out these forms that that they're there every day. So maybe it's something to look at unless there's a safety issue or an insurance issue or something. Well, sometimes vice president is just so we have it on the they have access to it and no one else could book it. That's part of it. So it it keeps from double booking that when it comes into uh Sandy McCassen who books these, she looks at it and says somebody has already rented that for that afternoon for something and then it prevents it from having two parties
083there at the same time. So it's not necessarily just permission, but it it just clarity for so that everybody has exclusive right for that. Nobody can tread on that, especially the auditoriums and the gymnasiums. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Item number 10, use of school facilities by outside organizations and or waiver requests. Mr. Albini, thank you once again. With the approval of the committee on school facilities and grounds, the superintendent of schools recommends approval of the use of school facilities by three groups and organizations subject to fees and insurance as required and listed below. Any questions? Thank you. Thank you. Interim superintendent update Dr. Schwarz. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Perooki, President Hernandez, Vice President Brown, Secretary Serrano Odono, and board of ed commissioners. Um, I had the uh honor and
084privilege to be invited to uh the women's history month celebration by Madre Latina, who hosted this at Yukon Waterberry on March 25th. State Representative uh Jerry Reyes uh was there to also show support and it was a great night. uh the room was packed and full and we talked about not only FASA but also admissions into college and specifically uh Yukon Waterbury and what they have to offer. So that was a that was a nice event. So thank you to Madre Latina uh for putting that on for our students. Um the next slide I also uh was uh happy to to uh recognize our students at the Dr. Lawrence Sheay recognition awards banquet. Uh we had some amazing students there receive awards. Sakora Richardson from Williams received the accepting the challenge of the year award.
085Diana Perez Castro from Crosby got the youth of the year award. And then u uh we had uh Mail Issacs from WCA and Subash Harrap from Kennedy that uh they they were able to receive the attorney Eugene Defrono Marathon Man Memorial Scholarship. So congratulations to our students. Uh it was another wonderful night of events and if you look closely you see some former educators in that picture. Wishfest 25 uh it was a great event on March 28th. We uh we uh uh several speakers uh that day that were able to engage students and the and the theme for this year was uh wish to ignite passion, resilience and boundless possibilities. We heard from some amazing neurode divergent learners. Uh we were able to hear from Jack her who was the paleontologist from Jurassic Park that
086the uh Jurassic Park was uh that paleontologist in Jurassic Park was basically mimicked off this guy and he told the story of how he was dyslexic uh going through school, how he basically he put up his report cards. They were basically all Fs and so the kids got a kick out of that. Um uh but then he was winning the science fairs and he was uh really just you couldn't pull him out of the library because he was so interested in dinosaurs that he eventually worked his way up to getting an honorary doctorate degree from Princeton because he was so amazing at what he did. And it was just this tale of that in his 30s he realized and he was diagnosed with dyslexia and he he had a funny quip where he said you
087know they told me you know you have dyslexia so you you probably have a hard time reading and he was like yeah no duh. He's like I couldn't he hasn't read his whole life basically but he talked about how he used that for his creativity and his passion. um and that there's when there's a will there's a way and it really resonated uh he did with other speakers resonated with a lot of students and then it was great for the students to go to Yukon Waterberry afterwards uh where uh they were able to go to small group sessions and uh learn about um not just Yukon Waterberry but learn from industry professionals in collaboration with the Northwest Regional Workforce Investment Board. We had about a thousand students attend on April 2nd. Uh we wore blue
088for autism for autism awareness. And you can see our picture there. Obviously our district supports uh not just uh students with autism but all of our students but on these days we like to show up and uh support our students with autism. uh on uh I want to thank uh Na Tuset and the College and Career Readiness uh department for working with again the Northwest Regional Workforce Investment Board to get our name out there to more industry partners uh so that we can boost our internship and mentoring opportunities. And this is just one of those flyers that we're sending out to industry partners to try to grab them and get them in to to work more with our students. And so we're we're on that path and that initiative to get more uh industry partners
089in the Waterberry public schools. I want to point out uh Choices Coaches of the Year award ceremony. For the first time in Waterberry, the nonprofit organization Hangtime will be hosting the choice choices coaches of the year Cody award ceremony to recognize coaches who serve as mentors, role models, and community leaders. The event will be held on June 7th at Rotella Magnet School from 5:30 to 8:30. Uh the community will be able to nominate deserving coaches through a public nomination form located on hangtimerealtalk.org. And this is per specifically dedicated to coaches in Waterberry. I think robotics have made the most highlights this year. So we're going to keep talking about it because we'll be uh robotics has been invited to the Big E. uh not just to ride the rides or eat the corn dogs, but
090uh in West Springfield, Massachusetts, apple pie, you get all that. The competition is being held uh right it's it's actually, you know, we're in the middle of it, but the best of the best in New England were asked to compete uh here in front of over 5,000 spectators. Uh in 2025, New England First welcomes 96 teams in all of New England, competing in two divisions. Uh only six teams that qualified for this are newer to robotics than Roi. So that's pretty that's pretty impressive. They rank 84th in New England. Their robot name is Poseidon and we're wishing them the best of luck. That's great. Waterberry Career Academy celebrates. The mayor was nice enough to host a pizza party celebration for the career academy boys basketball team for being the NVL champions uh not just for
091this year but for the past three years. Uh I was accompanied by President Hernandez there to uh give the the the students some encouragement but uh uh also serve some pizza and I think there was a box was there a box per kid? I think they they ate it all. So yeah, that was that was good. last few. Uh I want to uh recognize that on Monday the district uh uh recognized Aid Alar and uh that commemorates the uh the end of the holy month of Ramadan and I know some of our schools were able to be able to have a big feast on Tuesday with students and so uh you know we had school off but we headed off to celebrate and to recognize uh Eid. And uh uh two last things. Uh on
092uh April 2nd, we uh celebrated pair of professional appreciation day. So if you have a pair of professional that's in your life or that you know of that you didn't get to on April 2nd, it's not too late to let them know that we appreciate uh them and I sent out a nice uh message to all our pair of professionals on that day. And then just lastly, I just want to uh I sent an email to the board regarding this uh earlier in the week uh just to recap and uh not sure if if we have any questions on this. Maybe Dorene might have to come up, but uh last year in 2024, we had contracts uh aligned to Esser ARP specifically about our cooling centers and our schools. And uh um um we had
093those contracts in place. Work had begun last year. Uh that was all in time for the uh the the the deadline of September 30th, 2024 when Esser ARF was uh to have everything uh allocated. Uh in February, we were approved by the federal government to continue uh on with our projects using about 1.45 million left to finish those cooling centers which are um which are close to being completed. Uh uh but then on March 28, we we breathe a sight of relief when we got that approval. Uh but on March 28th, 2025, uh we had uh suddenly been um received word that that approval was no longer and they were stopping all future payments. Uh which means that that 1.45 45 million uh for those cooling projects which uh needed to be tested in the
094springtime as it got hotter out in the in the schools to make sure that they were working. Um unfortunately uh uh uh we're right now we're in limbo for that. The Connecticut State Department is advocating to honor the extension for all schools especially uh school districts including Waterberry. So we're not sure how that's going to go yet. They're in contain conversations with the federal uh government about that. Um if if they are not successful, um this would have to come from our capital fund because the work has already been done and almost completed at this point. And so um it was an unfortunate news to get uh on that Friday. But we are uh we have communicated with the state uh and uh I've had many reporters contact me regarding this uh because that's a
095lot of money for a district like ours to to to take on especially when we were under the impression we had approval. Um but I wanted to be transparent with the board that we're continuing to advocate for this money uh because it's just $1.5 million that would come from our capital that would let us do less projects in the future for our kids. So, um, I don't know if you have anything else, Dorian, to add to that kind of timeline. I mean, these funds were committed, you know, prior to September 30th. Um, and then this was to just liquidate out, um, these remaining HVAC projects and the commissioning on it. Um and really uh when we were applied for the extension and the state sent it in as a whole and then we were approved
096in February with along with other districts um we had till like fe we had till March of 2026. We weren't going to take that long really. Everything should be completed by the end of May. That would be with the commissioning. Um so you know pretty much we have this money spent. So, and right now we can't draw down the funds, the remaining funds. Commissioner Van Stone. Thank Thank you, Madam President. Through you, uh, we always know we're gambling with any sort of grants that could disappear at any point in time. U, it's always a gamble. Now, we look at this and yeah, it sounds like a lot of money, but we also received and spent about 200 million. So, it's a pretty small piece when I look at that. Not that I want to spend
097it out of our own pocket, but it's the world of grants and funds like this. Um, you know, so, you know, it kind of is what it is. I mean, we turned around and we did throw $250,000 over uh, you know, to the our city scholarship fund. That's that's a quarter of what we're talking about. Um, you know, so in my book, it is what it is and we'll have to deal with it. I don't know what, you know, I don't see it being turned back on. I really don't. I'd be shocked. So, we're going to just have to figure out a way to deal with it. I don't know what else to say. Yeah. I mean, we, you know, we have a a plan, our worst case scenario plan. I mean, it's not something
098that, you know, we wanted to we would want to dip into. We'd have to go into our board of unallocated. We're going to have to come back to the board to transfer the funds if, you know, need be so we can get the vendors paid. Um, it's unfortunate. Um, but we're going to do what we I think we need to start preparing that it's not coming and figure out what we're going to do. Yeah. I mean, and then get a nice pleasant surprise if they turn it back on. Yeah. I don't know what else I could say. So, thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Dorine. Thank you, Madam President. Oh, I'm sorry, Vice President Brown. I could ask a question, Dorene. Do we have a legal document from the federal government saying that we had
099the extension? Um, the state provided us the information. So, the state is the one that applied for it. Okay. We had to submit to the state. So, is the wording of that contract saying within available appropes or is it was it definite? The the amount of money was definite because it seems to me this is a break of a contract. It's it's negating on a funding stream that was allocated and was authorized and now they're just saying, "Oh, too bad you can't have it." It something doesn't sound right. It's outrageous. as a matter of fact that they could act this way. How could we trust the federal government at this point if they could at will seem to just deny money? It's it's really outrageous. So, I was just wondering if there is a legal
100binding contract somewhere that would disallow this uh type of uh activity. I mean, that's between really the the state of Connecticut and and the US Department of Education. So the contract is not with the city of Waterberry. We're a subcontractor, right? The we were fl the money is flowed from the US Department of Education to the state department of education and then we apply for it in the EGMS system. Okay. The state's EGMS system. So the state is probably the state is the one the case that that money was authorized. Okay. Thank you. Yep. You're welcome. Any other questions? Thank you. Thanks. Um interim superintendent notification to the board. There is no executive session. Can I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries. We're going to go
101right into the special meeting. Good evening. This is a special meeting of the Waterberry Board of Education, Thursday, April 3rd, 2025. Silent pair. Dr. Schwarz, do you have any remembrances? Not at this time. Commissioner Srano Dorno, can 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. Vice President Brown, present. Commissioner Anthony Ireland, present. Commissioner McCoy Ireland, here. Commissioner Jackson Commissioner Lopez present. Commissioner O'Brien here. Commissioner here. Man. President Hernandez here. Here. Does anyone wish to remove an item from the consent calendar? Item 4.1. Committee of the whole request approval of a travel agreement with Educational Tours Incorporated for a field trip to Washington DC for Wallace Middle
102School. Second. No. No. I'm going to read them all. Yeah. 4.2 Two, committee of the whole request approval of the educational specification for the proposed Bergen Education Complex partial roof replacement project. 4.3 Committee on Finance request approval of a transfer in the 202425 capital improvement budget. Vice President Brown, may I have a motion? Motion to accept the consent calendar as written items 1 4.1 through 4.3. Second. All in favor? I oppose. Motion carries. May I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. All in favor? I oppose. Motion carries. A quick meeting of the personnel search committee really quick.