001all right Balto order rise for the pledge allegiance well this is the last session for for the year and we're gonna try to make this an efficient one since the schedule versus what we're faced in January and February is going to be relatively light so maybe with that we can get started with the the minutes can we have a motion to approve the minutes move that the West and Board of Education approved the executive session and regular session minutes from November 18 2019 second any discussion amendments comments on the minutes all in favor all opposed okay motion passed I guess there's no public to comment this evening is there alright we'll move past public comment and let's hear from our student representatives this evening hello so we wanted to start off by talking about the
00226 days of kindness and just kind of recapping that so we had our assembly recently and it was really really nice it was very uplifting and paid nice homage to the event but also was very centralized around the theme of kindness mark Barden and his daughter Natalie came and they had a really wonderful speech about the different things that you could do in your community in your school community in your town community even within just your close immediate friends and family to spread this idea of kindness which was really really wonderful we also had a musical performance by our teachers there are a few mishaps with the mics but at the end it worked out great and everyone loved it everyone loved it everyone had their little phone flashlights up and we're singing along which
003was really sweet and then mr. Durand who's an English teacher at the high school had a mindfulness activity which got everyone out of their seats and on to the gym floor which was really cool and then on Friday which was the last day of our schools participation in 2060s of kind of sweet a phone free day which was kind of cool because if you decided to put your phone away for the day you'd get a little sticker that had a X through the phone and that was really awesome to see how many people actually did participate in that and then we also had a food drive that lasted the entirety of the 26 days of kindness and we got a lot of different items it wasn't just food drive for food it was also different
004holiday items toiletries things like that and it was overall really successful [Music] oops alright so the next thing that we have to talk about was the football game on Saturday morning and I'm sure you have all heard but we won the Class M state championship and that was very fun to see and as student government representatives I think we have a lot of thanks to say for the football team because they definitely played a huge part in making us or enabling us to generate such an environment of heavy school spirit where everyone's involved at having fun with that and I mean now we have an assembly that is planned for Wednesday morning where we're going to honor all the state championship winning teams which is football and girls swim and dive and should be fun
005and we plan to make it a tradition so every year we have teams that win state championships they will be recognized it was the first time ever that the football team became state champions so in addition to football winning our Mock Trial teams two out of three of them advanced on Friday of last week we had a competition I went with one of the teams and we competed at Stanford Superior Court which was really awesome it was a beautiful courthouse so that was really fun and then in addition we had all the senior classes had different meetings with Miss Randy green and different counselors guidance counselor's from the school to meet about college decisions because we've all pretty much applied at this point it's just a matter of getting decisions back which can be very
006nerve-racking so they talked to us in small groups about how to approach getting these different decisions acceptances denials referrals etc and what to do when you're faced with these decisions along the lines of financial aid or different scholarships all things that could kind of prepare for different stressors that have come with the decisions of college which was really nice and kind of made a lot of us relax a little bit the next thing that we had in the past week was the Chinese delegates came and these were not the students that we had previously had but this was rather a board of administrators from all over China or near our sister schools I believe but they they came they toured the high school we I I spoke to them for a bit in Chinese that's
007kind of fun and we showed them individual classes had them sit down on in like government science classes Mandarin which was interesting for them and presentations were given about our schools they seemed to love it as funny they're taking a ton of pictures with me and the last thing on our agenda is that I discussed with a lot of students about the recent award ceremony that we had here last week last Monday night and it was definitely very well received and all the students seems to love it that was awesome thank you well thank you and also once again on behalf of the board I want to congratulate the football team on an incredible season incredible win this weekend then sure would be talking a little bit more about it and the next recognition ceremony
008that we have you're welcome to stay but as always if you guys are busy with other things you can you're excused thank you dr. McCarthy next next on the agenda is notice of resignations we have the formal material from Angela cocoa who's moved on to another high school in the region he actually has been here a good while and he left with very mixed emotions actually quite emotional about the reason for shifting but it was something that for his own personal family reasons was the right move we've merely posted that position and will look quickly to replace him we did a bit of an exit interview with him and it came back all very positive but also some important insights in terms of what we can continue to support students from the school psychologists standpoint
009I don't know Louis if you want to anything or Mike want to add anything because we have resignations but this is a significant one okay no absolutely Angelo has been with us just got here before I did and he has served at for all four of our schools at some point he wasn't formally a twist until this year but he has worked across the district and done a lot of good I think you're correct these very much were personal reasons very legitimate ones for the particular school he's going to I think it's a great school and we're really happy for him but he will it will be a loss replacing a school psychologist especially one with the experience of dr. de cocoa is is not going to be easy but we will get someone and
010hopefully they will eventually fill those shoes did you want anything or I'll just I'll just say for the record that Angela's done a great job in getting to know him over the past couple of years it's been really a pleasure we wish him well it is with very much with mixed emotions that he is leaving but we wish him the best and as one would expect with Angelo he offered to make any transition needs that the district has as he departs he would help us any way he could so that's very typical of how he has always conducted himself and it's much appreciated and I just want underscore we're moving with this great speed to replace that position that's posted it's a critical area supports for our students Patti father is very concerned that we
011replace as fast as we can but obviously we'll bring somebody in of high caliber but it's a critical area of need that we're able to provide here in Weston so that that's that update for you we have a motion second well in favor opposed motion approved now the highlight of the evening the calendar committee yeah this process this is scintillating it's incredibly exciting so I'm going to hand it over to dr. crawl I'm sorry we'll give it to mr. ring well I'll try to get your engagement here in this process calendar committee each year very important he that looks at the upcoming year's calendar that has already been approved by the board the 2021 calendar but also then builds the next the next calendar out so we have a representative group that will get together
012representing all bargaining units administration board will have representation on that committee as well and you know we look at you know the current calendar what are the pros and cons how can we help there and so a lot of but each of those groups we also have the the PTO is a part of that go to their their their representative groups between the two meetings that we typically have to elicit additional feedback and then we come to the board with recommendations for the March Board of Ed meeting and then I believe it's ultimately voted on on the April meeting yeah so there you have it I assure you and actually if you are the board member on that committee it's it's it's it's I think well-functioning efficient and those two meetings we work ourselves out
013of a job after two meetings yeah I might add one reason we've started putting this in the December as a heads up is so you as board members can be thinking about any calendar items or issue that you would want to make sure your representative on that committee is bringing to the table you might even have one now to sheriff not at least when the chair identifies who your representative will be typically it's been Dan McNeil but obviously he's known the board anymore rumor has it he would fly in for this he would definitely fly in to be part of this you know what it but but if you do have any you know comments thoughts in the past at this point some board members have brought up how we structure early release for teacher
014conferences other things but I but in general the feedback we're getting is that people are satisfied with the overall design of the calendar the way we handle the February break that sometimes been a point of discussion we do the 180 days some districts will schedule hundred eighty two so you get a safety valve for days like maybe tomorrow you know things like that but these are all things to be thinking about the erling is that Weston very much wants to be fully done by the start of the last week of June so that does shape pretty dramatically what we do some districts aren't don't have prom if they end up in school some in June it seems Weston does not want that so that affects us a great deal but these are could be any
015number of the issues you as a board should think through even ahead of the the couple opportunities you have to engage in this process I think the first order of business is just having someone on the committee someone represented from the board on the committee so any any volunteers okay Larry yes great okay so we'll get that in the record and Mareth will make sure Hilary gets all the notices I think we'll move now to school start den time okay I'm gonna ask if Lisa and Laura lease would move up to the table here so we can have a little more of a discussion I'll set this up a little bit but then I really was wanting Ken Lisa and Laura were part of the task force to provide some updates you had an in
016your packet and thus in the public record for the community compliation of the updates I've been doing for you on behalf of the task force that but while you've been receiving those through the super notes they had not yet been put into the formal public record here for the board the task force thought that was very important to do that I agree completely so this is that sort of first document for you and what you have in there is a portion of the introduction that went out with the survey that's now underway you then also have three time specific updates 2/3 of the task force meeting showing what we went through and where we are there's an mo here and the task force met Quinn stantly today we talked about today's presentation we also talked
017about a recommendation I'll make here in a second because when we bring the recommendation to you we want that to be holistic and be able to have all pieces fit together we're not giving you parts of it now in terms of what we're finding and thinking we can give some suggestions some ideas but if we start digging into particular pieces until we have the whole figured out it won't be won't be productive the recommendation I'm asking you to think about and actually endorse at least could be consensus today is that we as a task force I on behalf the task force would bring you in February our recommendation not January there are a couple reasons for that one is we want to allow enough time for inquiry we've had two very good focus groups with
018parents the survey is now out we think that may spark more interest and feedback on the issue which may lead to more focus groups for parents we also restoring the focus groups for staff now we want to in addition the students are now being surveyed starting today that's they're gonna both at the middle school and the high school they're being surveyed we're not surveying the elementary students they're gonna make time during the day in both buildings this week to try and encourage students to complete the survey I don't care what the answer is as I told the principal's I just would like people to use the the power of their voice to tell us what they think about this we want that additional time as a task force it then brings you in in February
019the recommendation that would give you that meeting to engage in the recommendation the March meeting to engage in the recommendation the April meeting I also think you'll be wanting to use at least a couple of your committees to dig into this and actually starting very soon Ken's going to be bringing into the curriculum committee some of the scheduling topics and issues that we've been digging into in general and in some this task force has been working very very well and when you get the recommendation it'll be quite thorough the parents have been excellent reaching out the town representative has been excellent reaching out administrators have done the same the WTA representatives have done the same out to both levels of buildings and are asking representative has also been active there so once we're done with
020the discussions with Ken Lisa and Laura I would like at least a consensus indication from the board that you support the idea of us bringing you the recommendation in February because the task force would like that time to really bring you a robust thoughtful recommendation so I know Ken if you want to and then so the task force has been very much process oriented we are essentially gathering data talking about pros and cons of various options we with Laura and lisas help we've been gathering information regarding schedules with Phil Phil's also a part of the task force gathering information regarding transportation athletics mark Berkowitz is part of the process so we are looking at this issue from all angles and pulling together all that information to make an informed recommendation and the board will have
021that information available as part of the recommendation and certainly you know our goal is to be able to you know essentially try to you know anticipate many of the questions ahead of time and see if we can for example we were looking at recently in the last couple committee meetings the length of the school day and the SWC schools as well as the Derg a schools and so that's leading us back to curriculum committee for some discussion this Thursday at 9:00 a.m. regarding our school schedules and our we have a six hour and 45 minute day and there is a range of length of school days and is that another variable that we want to look at and so Laura and Lisa have crafted schedules for each of the five options option obviously we have
022our current option is a current schedule is one of the options but we're even tinkering with a six hour and 30-minute day so we try to address some of the issues on the back end of the day we're very difficult for co-curricular zatt times too but in terms of logistical ii get to where they need to go for for events so we're kind of we're looking at all variables all options and it's it's really prompting the principal's to think about their current schedules even if no change is made at all it's it's prompting that kind of discussion could we address some structural issues through our schedules so you know Lisa and Laura can can add from an instructional standpoint and also from you know what they've experienced on the committee a few just one jump
023in so in terms of the schedules I could speak to a Patti Faber and I've been in communication to talk about what that the different options might look like at each one of our schools and there certainly are some options what it they're very individual by grade level because what a kindergarten day looks like it's very different than what a 5th grade day looks like so we've talked about possibilities to look at for where we might find time should we go to the shortened school day it's a six hour 30 minutes school day rather than the 6:45 in terms of shifting the times the options for just shifting the times or flipping with the schools is less of an impact to us because it's just moving taking the schedule and moving that time around a
024little bit but we have some focus groups coming up at our schools to talk to the teachers both on the impact for the school day and also for their you know their personal lives as well so we'll be having that information coming forward it's been I have found the meetings are highly productive there's been some really good conversations and everybody's really trying to look at all the different angles all the impacts all the possibilities I don't know if you want to speak about the busing a little bit has really been we give Lisa a chance on the and then we can talk about transportation and pull fill in as Laura was saying I mean the difference between a Elementary scheduled just within the elementary grade just and then you look at the impact on the
025middle school high school there are a lot of sometimes unintended consequences that can come about from certain changes what we looked at was we looked at the current schedule we looked at schools in this area that have adopted different time changes and looked at for me the most important thing is the instructional minutes and how the instructional minutes are delivered within the school day because you know you can change the time and move the hours and things but at the same time we have to look at you know we run for example the high school 6-8 periods but we dropped to each day which everyone really likes because it keeps things reduces the stress it keeps things calmer and so what are the consequences if we start playing around with the different times and the
026rotations the big thing with the rotation is currently we have an option in rotation that you have to look at how many times with those classes begin for sports leaving early - for our athletes to drive and you know so then do you rotate through the day and which certainly is an option but when you do that and you have shared staff there are other complications so it's a pretty complicated scenario if you will when you look at it and then here at the middle school when you have 6th 7th and 8th grade the different lunch shifts the way they do their PF is everything else their extended learning time it's I would say that we just have to be really clear about understanding the impact instructionally on you know the changes that that we
027we could make because some high schools you know they they change and then they change their schedule and they went to a block schedule or something like that which is not you know that that is all other implications on the delivery of instruction especially with AP exams and things so I think I'm probably rambling too much I will stop but but those are kind of the the factors that we have been looking at and getting feedback about I mean pretty much any high school student is gonna say yeah I'd like to sleep later but there are other things yeah you sleep later but you're staying up later doing homework or what are you doing in the morning if you're coming in because you have jazz like there's just so many different factors that that we
028have to at least I think present so people have a really clear overview of what the implications are is there one one issue or two issues that you're probably spending more time than others because they're the kind of gating factors or haven't really gotten to that yet no we're really digging into all of the issues and whether it's and I would have anticipated this in terms of looking at the instruction as deeply I would I didn't necessarily anticipate us going as deep but since there are so many options we've had to so I think lease has given a good preview of what we're gonna be talking about at curriculum committee but in terms of you know things like transportation we found that there are certainly parameters we have to stay in within so for example
029the 45 minutes between routes we can't given the layout of Weston shrink our routes without incurring significant costs due to busing so once you know once we've learned things like that we found out where you know we don't really have as much opportunities which by the way one of the constraints is that we're trying to keep this cost cost neutral yes yeah I mean I can and we have I mean the task force is working wonderfully and and as many know I've lived this our superintendent grants one this recommendation was May and I've lived it for a couple years and I'm apparently district and and we're lapping how grants did this in ways and you as a board or working wonderfully on this unlike the board did there when I was superintendent frankly I'm happy
030to put that in a public record I mean you all are really approaching this in a good way they let themselves a couple members get too politicized on it and it really affected things and and we're avoiding that here so I think one thing we're avoiding specific is that what I think the scheduling thing is we are really digging into the scheduling thing and that that's really important because a couple meetings ago and you can check me on this I played the role of what I really want I'm playing multiple roles as facilitator was frankly is which is I kept saying okay well you're saying it may not work but then change the schedule you're saying it's not going to work change the schedule so the three here backed up by assistant principals have dug
031into can we change the schedule and very detailed so even if the recommendation is not to proceed I'm not I'm not hinting anything today the task force said may that may be something we bring forward let me be very specific the things you will see from what the task force said today is for sure a tight research summary on the medical issues we may borrow the Norwalk report and footnote like crazy because their report on recommending the change was very good on that we want to make sure you have the faculty perspective particularly at the high school but also at the elementary schools very important this would be the January work to the task forces whether this is a recommended change or not what are the other critical issues to think about for the well-being
032of students as it relates to this issue surveys underway right now we're beginning understand what that survey is telling us but it's too early to share those results in a meaningful way because it's in the middle of it we do know that people are going through the survey at a high rate we want to kick the responses up but but those who start at eighty eight percent complete which is a marker that is a good survey well-designed but we need to get but we want to bring you that survey research in context because we may recommend something counter to what the survey research says we'll see we want to share the focus-group findings we want to share all the deliberations of the committee some of the notes you've now seen we want to share each
033element of task force so for example mark Berkowitz has work on the athletics I've shared that with other superintendents and they've been very very impressed the thing that today was interesting is the recommendation may come to you with what that we then go out things so it sits there the group is working very hard very thoroughly hoping that we would have that grace to at least you know come to you in February with a recommendation as opposed to next month well I just well just a clarifying question maybe just to get it out into the public when we're talking about you know the concern about the impact on athletics I just think that the public should be aware of the large percentage of our high school students who are participating in our athletics it's a
034crazy high percentage so I don't want people thinking oh you're only thinking about athletes because athletes make up 75 80 percent of your student body Lisa something like that so I mean it's a significant portion of our student body I just did want people to do and norwalk it's us maybe 60 percent New Canaan tonight their board will be voting on whether to include this in their budget process they've been working very actively on again their proportion of athletes would be comprable or so it's a real issue but it's not the only issue it's not just the athletes as far as the students involved in our theater program those students went especially when they're producing on the plays and everything are there even later than the athletes some of them don't leave that school until
03511 o'clock at night so that although they will be missing their classes and the afternoons they are there very late and we have about a hundred students in that program as well just a question about the February recommendation date or and I don't want to don't need a exact date but we are talking about the beginning of February or the end of February it would be the board meeting the board meeting okay and the reason I'm asking is just I want to know is this with the intention of you know having from march on to implement said if you were to go in that direction for a 22 September 2020 start date yeah you know there's concern that was a discussion day we focused today's task force on if the board agrees it's a February
036presentation wanted to be at that board meeting so it's very much the public meeting but there'll be work of some of the committees ahead of that the curriculum committee yes it be right now aiming towards fall 2020 some communities the boards have made the commitment in that spring and said we're voting to do this but now let's do it for that following school year say the 21st to allow enough lead time in that that has come up in most places that is actually been fairly common that's not necessary what we might do here you know I think that with we are keeping a budget neutral and all the reason for the timing we are unable to make shorter the the bus cycles the two tiers and now some of that is just the layout of
037our campuses right now we're pretty confident that we can keep this budget neutral New Canaan knows it can it's going to be looking over maybe six to eight hundred thousand dollars in its budget Greenwich it's a good 1.2 1.3 million they've added to their budget you know for this Norwalk's adding about five hundred thousand to its budget for this I mean one advantage we have of not having flexibility on our busing tiers is it that we can that's what's driving the cost in the other towns I know we've been working on this for several years now as you state in your report so it would seem that we didn't we wouldn't need to delay it yet another year but I reckon I appreciate what you're what you're saying as far as doing it right this
038this is a tiny question but I did notice and I heard from you earlier also bill that the parent focus group for the uppers fools there was a bad weather and so you only ended up having six people in that focus group as opposed to the 15 you were hoping for and he thought to try that again are you just gonna do another round of them after the survey comes in anyway yeah it's a good question and it's not as it's a good question a small and um it was the lower school snow day and what what the administrators on the on the task force are doing is letting the parents fully run all of that work so it can't be and I'm just so it can't be seen that we were trying to modify
039it or direct it right the two parent leaders on that or they make a decision to do an SJ Walsh and Kristin Anika are leading that they've done a superb job from soup to nuts designing everything and and we're watching carefully they are does the does the survey will stir up stuff and in fact one reason the task for us to get the survey out and do it lean and mean and I think it is a mean survey was in in the least it will stir and so that's one reason we're looking for more time because opposed to January break we might have parents saying well I want to come to a focus group so that and and we they have the design they could do that I just had a question when I went
040through there was the dummy route from first students and then the new Kane and update are we gonna get access to that before February two which to the dummy bus routes and to the update from New Canaan I can give you the update from New Canaan the dummy bus routes that was the idea and we don't have that option on the table at this point that was collapsing runs down and that would cost us more money and we just logistically can't handle all of you come onto campus trying to move cars and people on and off about that 45 50 minute cushion would be a real issue so we think there five viable options here you know you can dice these down even smaller but it starts to become common productive I think so I
041we we still can get those times from first student but that that's what we like that was that the condensing him down we but we set that aside and her and a taskforce meeting about a month ago I mean okay and what they're doing which is interesting is that they are having there are three elementary start at 7:45 they're having the high school started well this is what's in the plan so let's what the high schools at 8:30 they're having is you may know they have the largest middle school in the state so one part of the middle school will start at 9:15 and the other I'm looking at my notes will start at 8:35 what's important there is there three elementary our neighborhood schools so there will be no pick up earlier than 706
042and well store at 7:20 so they've been very thoughtful in it at issue for us if we were to go to the 745 start time that would still be about a 650 pick up for the first run on buses so that's that's something to consider if they started at 7:45 the first pick up would be at 650 for us when that means someone's on a bus for yes 55 minutes yeah we have some runs that it's that long here currently I thought no kid was supposed to be on a bus longer than 20 minutes no that's not the policy is about 45 yeah so one thing new Canaan's done in other towns of doing I mean I mean if there's one or two issues transportation is really really the biggest issue and and we'd like
043and one of the parent focus groups asked was there a way to make the the bus more efficient we really can't these are as efficient as that ones can get buses aren't stopping for phantom students and things like that so we don't we're not losing time there you mentioned a 9:15 middle school start that's yeah that's that's okay that's out of the well nor Norwalk's also gonna have some in that right realm so you know what new cane will do they're also they're not we'll see what happens tonight the board is not voting on school start end time I put that in quotes they're voting on asking the superintendent put it in the budget process and through the budget process determine if they can afford it and then that would be how they determine to
044go ahead you know so you know we'll see the conversations in Westport I don't know how far they'll move their conversations at the state levels you've heard from you in a couple updates not clear whether that'll actually amount the legislation and if it does it's not clear if there would be a mandate or encouraged so we'll see any more questions I just want to say thank you bill and and the others who are on the committee because this is not light work I know this is really heavy work and but really really important work for the health of the kids and and I really appreciate the deep dive I know it's not simple yep look forward to hearing the recommendation of February yeah I think the last thing I'll say and I it's a lot
045of work and that's why there was an important ohad today that there could be aspects of this that we try and take into our practice through discussions with the board either way and again I'm not hinting that we're going one way or the other but I would hope you'd hear that we're trying to learn from this not just for school start end time but for other aspects of how we do our work here in Weston all right thanks let's move to and thank you and principals you can head home unless you want to talk graduation graduation date yeah yeah it the slight update on what you received I hope I assumed you had a chance to read it but I'll be quick as to what's here you may know the state passed a new law
046giving districts the flat well the boards you all the ones who pick the graduation date historically could not do that any sermon sooner than roughly April 1 and typically you would vote as a board February or so to authorized the superintendent once April 1 came to set a date and that timing is probably logical because then you know what snow is done to your school schedule the state passed a law giving flexibility for boards to set that firm graduation date at any point of our area districts 10 who responded to my outreach I now know what six are staying with the old method including darienne who came in the other day and told me since I sent you the information for in the area are though and have set an early date you saw that
047listed most locally is Wilton which i think is what prompted some interest here the high school administration Lisa Julie Matt and Mark met with me a couple weeks ago and we came upon a critical issue for us in Weston which is and thus were not rated but the key issue is we cannot session at least you might be to speak to that a little bit we feel very very good about how graduations have been run here yep people on the mountain the Jim dear worked very very well we can run graduation while running exams and all the rest so I know if you want to speak to you know part of our concern is that we have certain days of exams and yes the day of graduation is makeup makeup however you know if we
048set it and then you know you would hope that the exam schedule if there were delays or cancellations moved appropriately but there could be a day where we have two exams you have to worry about the students taking the exams the you know students that need the extra time different things like that you have to worry about getting them dismissed the buses all of that it's just a lot that goes on and we are very particular about our graduation probably obsessively so we are in there we are making sure everything is perfect perfect perfect and our concern would be that we would that would take away from that time to do that and to make it as lovely as frankly the community expects I mean from the time that we start that morning at 7:30
049until we have graduation that day we are basically in that gym making sure everything is perfect and it just stretches us really thin if on top of that we're having to you know the exams and everything else and making sure that that all goes smoothly yeah it's it's a concern of ours so what we think we may come back in January and I have to talk a little more over the high school about it but definitely wide your input tonight was we might come back in January say we would set the date specific but then say every time we lose a day due to inclement weather the graduation moves one day and which gives some certainty but it's not as precise as four of our area districts have done but we are then trying to
050take advantage of the flexibility that six of the area districts have not so again to be very clear and this was really Lisa's idea and I endorse it but when you talk about we come back in January is today if tomorrow's a perfect day our graduation would be June 11 Thursday 13th June 11th and then if we tomorrow's a snow day then we'd know the graduations June 12th we'd have to factor in the weekend days that appear but that makes it a not set but at least people can tell what we're doing and if you want to add to that Lisa well the other point is oh well you know I think it's will turn right will turn already said it is it will turn that it's having it on a Sunday I believe I'm
051sorry yeah they they have it on the weekend now I've been here 34 years I remember having it on the weekends and we could do that but again there is something very special I think of having the entire faculty they are walking in with the gowns and realistically are they all going to come back on a Saturday or a Sunday summer I'm sure well but I would just I would not want to see it on the weekend maybe that's just my own opinion I would like to see it as we always have it starting sharply at 6 o'clock on whatever weekday it falls and if the community knows it just keeps you know moving up to a certain date and then we can set it that I think that that would work best well what's
052the latest going in you know starting in January kind of moving from January on what's the latest that still gives us some flexible for us to set a date like meaning so you know January you know where where does it become I guess if we how long can we wait for this to still be something that you know we how much earlier are you feeling comfortable that you could set a date I guess then then how we use them how we currently do it you know I like setting it on April 1st because we have had things happen in March with weather and things like that and you know just getting the news getting the dates at as soon as we can and because I understand people are flying in you know they have to
053make arrangements family I think is important but I wouldn't want to do it at the expense of not making it as I mean I think our graduation is you know no one can compare to our graduation and I've heard people tell us that what are the views you're setting it earlier than April first I mean I mean I know some families you know because of travel they want as much notice as possible to make plans but you know we also have to deal with the realistic logistical issues of putting on a graduation and if our staff you know needs time without having a full cadre of students in for almost three-quarters of a day in order to put on a graduation I I would think our parents could understand that and could be willing to
054wait I mean April 1st you're still you know two and a half months out from when the graduation is happening I would just say we need to make sure it's on an agenda there was one year we forgot to endow the superintendent with the power to set the date and so we were a little late so we didn't have graduation we were a little late getting it out but I mean I think I think people have to realize there there's reasons behind the way things happen yeah I guess I'm a little bit puzzled on how this became a two-page memo well that because yeah well I actually nice well I guess one because it's a it's an issue that has caught the one it's a new law right to Welton moved on it and just
055so we know I mean Bridgeport New Canaan Stratford and wilt and so far I've set early dates darienne will not Fairfield or not mom Roe will not Norwalk will not regional and will not in Westport will not and there others still figuring out I think because of the change in the state law because this is a very visible topic and issue you know we have been asked and so just wanted to look at it there's a legal question the memo speaks to this not answered that's almost in material right now it's more for us to logistics what I could recommend is that we could come back in January just to say we can think about a little more you can think about but the recommendation would be you know authorize the superintendent to set the
056date effective April 1 so then we don't then it's locked in we know we're gonna do we can tell people at that point you might decide no we'd rather have you do the set it now and keep moving it every day what gives you hold time to think about it you know but you know what as we typically with the board bring you a topic bring you an issue then come back the next month to have you vote on it I mean based on what I'm hearing let's like you unless someone I think we probably do what we've always done and if there's something else I mean between now and January February March if you want to do something different come back to the board but other than that you know just status quo right
057let's let's I'm missing something right so then what I would I I mean Lisa and I unite up a little more but then we would have on the agenda for the January meeting just so it's done and out of the way is that you would be authorizing the superintendent effective April 1 to make that decision on the graduation date yeah so we avoid missing that yeah okay so Meredith we can make sure we update the January agenda all right thank you work the financial update Phil this is the fifth of international update for the fiscal year that for 24 the year-to-date ended November 31st 30th sorry expended 31% for budget or 16 million for 5588 we have encumbrances of 64 percent or 33 million nine fifteen to 76 and we have additional anticipated spend a
0585.5 percent or two million 943 to 56 we're projected to end a year with a deficit which has remained unchanged from last month a 506 five million or 6 thousand 101 as we mentioned last month we we do have an ongoing process of reveal and any possible service to mitigate this over expenditure if I might just emphasize one point that the overage we currently have is substantially driven by individual student needs within the special ed realm and as those students join us those needs are identified so some of that was necessary personnel some of that was necessary transportation and we are looking regularly at how to address that in past years we've had as much as a 1.3 1.4 million dollar overage related to these types of needs that that's critical we address those needs
059for students who are in a very different place now with this number but again it's substantially focused on as these students have joined us those needs are then identified and become clear to us when and these are not ongoing students but new students so these are things we're managing know if you want to add any more to that or now young said it last time and I think we should just make sure I know that typically we deal with some of these overages come spring I just want to make sure that we're pretty diligent now in terms of identifying those areas of savings where we basically can get we'll start dragging us into third quarter okay for the period ended we had transfers totaling 28,000 807 and 49 cents we had two of those transfers
060in excess of 5,000 which will need board approval the first was for 6000 546 which was to cover previous transfer for a lunch power at house second 7000 442 and 49 cents the curve at the cause of his substitute library Parra had the high school moving on internal services Insurance Service Fund the year-to-date expenditure of 188,000 529 which would leave a current balance of 1 million 348 828 and that is the end of the financial reports any questions we have a motion move that the Western Board of Education approved its sixth fiscal year 20 financial update as presented by mr. Kraus second all in favor opposed motion passed okay where do we go from here policy yep we've got a bunch yeah they're not it's not quite as long as it looks a couple of
061them we listed them separately because of the titles but they really are related so the first item is your sexual discrimination and sexual harassment policy for personnel that has been changed the recommendations by the way all the changes you see here we're all recommended by your Shivan and Goodwin which is your outside counsel through their policy service they are incorporated and brought to the policy committee obviously but nothing here is from scratch there is something in here coming up like that so that's why I'm kind of differentiating it so the primary change here is to reflect the a new regulation which will incorporate the complaint policy itself is a separate document from the policy the right used to be that the policy had the complaint form attached and so forth but it was expanded to
062reflect a whole new regulation which is why if you look at the regulation there's no blue and red on there or underlining because it's all new it actually specifically lists all of the title 9 coordinators sexual harassment falls under title 9 as well as title 7 but specifically any gender issue fall under tighter of mind for personnel or for students and it lists the coordinators I am the district wide title 9 coordinator and my roles HR director but the each school has one or two Hurlbutt has the assistant principal the Wyss has the assistant principal and then what we did is we last year added one person from each a male and a female assistant principal or other administrator to act as that person because some not everyone's comfortable going to a person of the
063opposite gender or even the same gender it gives people a choice essentially of who they want to go to and then of course everyone has the option to just to come directly to me with complaints of this type so the changes here are technical in nature there is one typo that we caught in the policy committee that it's not really a typo but it was language that we put in ourselves a while back if you look at page 2 of 6 it says such conduct constitutes sexual harassment regardless of the sex of the victim of the harasser we had discussed putting that back in and there was just my type of graphical error not doing so that's a technical change that you can carry forward to a second reading so my recommendation would be to
064do that if there any questions and just as on not for vote tonight as you know you have information and then we have a second reading at the next meeting keep going go keep going yeah sure so the next policy and regulation that you have before you is the confidential confidentiality excuse me an access to student records and the related regulation which is classification of educational records these are also are all technical updates recommended legal updates recommended by your outside counsel the some of the you know interesting ones that have been added here with regard to the regulation or you know things along the lines of when we can expunge an expulsion record for instance it updates it to reflect current law which you we must expunge a expulsion upon graduating from high school unless
065it involves a student between the grades of nine and twelve possessing a deadly weapon in which case we can no longer expunge and haven't been able to for a few years but cannot expunge such a record it used to be that we couldn't expunge it for anybody but the law was changed to reflect younger students who may for some reason possess a deadly weapon but again we may not if it's between nine and grades nine and twelve deadly weapon just so you know I don't want to go off on a tangent but it's a wide range of things they don't just think gun or knife it can be a lot of different things fortunately not something we frequently face in this district but it is a major legal change that you should be aware of
066the others the other items here are mostly technical in nature and really you know just bringing you in to update with current law it's been a few years since we updated it so we just incorporated all the changes okay okay the next one that we have this one is parent/teacher communications now this one is also was recommended by your counsel it's an entirely new your outside counsel it's an entirely new policy and really it's intended to encourage communications between parents and teachers now I want I have a technical suggestion which I didn't bring up in policy that I'd like to do here is normally when we refer to parents our policies we usually say parent guardian so I would suggest that making that technical change both in the name of the policy and in the
067language that we just put that in there for the second reading but otherwise what this policy is intended to do is to demonstrate the community into our staff that we want to encourage various ways of communicating you know by you know back-to-school nights for instance through websites through social media so forth teachers directly communicating by phone and by email with teeth with parents and guardians and we just didn't have a policy on this so we wanted to put something in place it's intended as a positive measure the only thing in it that we really added to the recommendation from shipping Goodwin was that the board referencing the civility policy that the board has and recently updated any interactions between our staff and parents be in compliance with that policy both for the staff and for
068the parents to protect the staff and also so that parents are treated properly as well so that was added Louis yes I'm just a quick question um in the last part of the second paragraph it says such policies and procedures that require the district to conduct two flexible parent-teacher conferences for each school year we only do that k-25 as far as set conferences do we need to yes thank you for pointing that out yeah I mean it really should just reflect what are you know if that's not something that it's gonna happen that we should reflect to say k5 so that would be a technical change as well thank you for pointing that out gee follow up on that should we not to overly complicate it should we have language about availability of conferences in
069the middle school as needed I mean I just don't want it to make it seem like you can only have a conference K to five and I know that we sometimes go down the rabbit hole when we start trying to address every nuance and a policy but well we generally encourage meetings there was some language in here which we removed that was about home visits we don't do home visits and that's not something that I would encourage there's all kinds of problems associated with that but I think we do encourage our staff to meet with parents and guardians and so forth when when there are concerns in-person meetings are always preferable to email because email it's hard to read tone it's hard to read intention can lead to email email email email we encourage staff
070if there is an issue regarding the student to reach out by phone or to bring the person in for meeting and sometimes with include and include the administrator for reaches that level so I can take a look at it but I do think that that's built into our culture in general keep going okay last one okay the last policy that we have on here and this is our language administration's recommendation policy committee reviewed it and this is your contract policy so who signs your contracts we wanted to bring it in line with your actual practice as opposed to you know what it said here which was the contracts are signed by the superintendent or their designee with review by legal advisors that that of course is true for the bulk of your contracts but there
071are certain contracts that have to go to the board in which we bring to the board so your big contracts your Chartwells your bus company your cleaning service things like that the solar agreement you know the solar power purchase agreement all of those contracts have language in them which requires board approval and generally the kind of clause you'll see is that we're representing that the bodies have have issued all appropriate approvals superintendent can't act in that sense so if they're your the body on the other hand the bulk of your contracts can be signed by the superintendent nor our process for years has been or the director of finance and operations depending on the contract so we signed a lot of contracts I don't think you want us to bring every contract to you but
072the big ones and the ones that require either a board approval in the body of the language of the contract or the chair to sign so let's say we want the chair to sign we'll bring it to you sure it's not going to sign the bylaws allow for the chair to sign on behalf of the board the motion we normally bring to you is that the board approves and authorizes the chair decide but that's there's only a handful of your contract so the intention of this policy is merely to reflect current practice we did discuss in policy committee the issue of financial thresholds of should we have a number of how much the value is or not and we decided the committee decided at this stage to go forward codifying current practice in the moderate
073right and if they were our contracts that the board would prefer to review which you may be discussed and go you know facilities our Finance Committee or so forth we can always amend this the other change you'll see here is the addition of numerous areas of protected classes we don't allow our contractors to discriminate we build into our contracts language to that effect especially the ones that are working directly with kids or around kids or who employ people who work on our campus but generally have anti discrimination language but we've built more and more complex language into there a lot of these areas are specific to Connecticut things like transgender status gender identity and so forth and we added them in the recommendation of your outside counsel along with references to all of these various
074laws so it's really intended to bring you into compliance and also to reflect your current practice any questions sure I'll I'll be I'll be brief let me first underscore a couple things that our student government our student government or student board members mentioned this past week we had the kindness assembly at the high school I was fortunate enough to attend and Mike was there as well you might want to add a comment to this it was an incredibly powerful gathering in a variety of ways obviously the the father of one of the victims spoke and the daughter was a senior at Newtown I will be writing to the superintendent to just you know say what an incredible young woman she is and she had just been down in Washington as she said she's doesn't want
075to be an activist but isn't activist now in memory of her brother Daniel and and and handled herself so incredibly well as did her father and the music was a band playing some mix of soul and there was a little sound problem but that nothing major poetry read by students you know created for that that day and at the end as I mentioned a couple of you walter Durand took a step that in most high schools you wouldn't even think about much less try but at the end of the program for a moment of peace if you will or together this moment he had all eight hundred students plus all the faculty come down out of the bleachers into the gym floor and anyone who knows high schools and adolescents who've been sitting for a
076while the last thing you do is put them in a floor unguided on you know other than through Walter to aunt Diane's voice over the microphone and he wanted dead silence he didn't get there but he got to a low murmur and everyone behaved themselves incredibly well and in this Mason like a small thing for but for those of us who spent years upon years around high schools I mean that was a very powerful moment that our students fully understood it and got it the other thing underscore then Mike maybe come back to the kind of speech because it was important you were there is the delegation from China and I apologize to the board we didn't find a way to connect you in but but this is from glad dong province it's about thirty
077educators it's incredible honor they're picking Weston after us they were headed up to Loomis Chaffee which is an independent school of high regard there were a school public too in New Jersey and they were headed to Sacred Heart University to study teacher ed but they were here to understand how we support teachers in their developmental process interesting enough I was with them when we went into a drill lockdown so that prompted through translation discussion with some thirty Chinese educators about what it means to be an administrator in American public education now when you spend time having to worry about the highly unlikely event but that we ought to be ready for and so is just a fascinating moment about a very challenging topic but Mike I know if you want to share anything on this
078kindness because it was quite a substantial moment for us I would just say it was it was a wonderful assembly and gathering both remembering the tragedy at Sandy Hook and also celebrating all the good work that goes on at the high school and in the district it was I I think the takeaway that I had was really from it was really about me just being kind to everybody and not knowing that this meant this may be the last time you talk to that person for one reason or another and how would you want that to be remembered how would you want that exchange to go how would you want that to be if that was really what it was and I think that that struck a chord I mean as as the two were talking
079it struck a chord with the entire auditorium it was very powerful the music was wonderful the poetry was wonderful and mr. Dorrance mindfulness exercise at the end really encouraged kids to step out of their comfort zone and and have a conversation and literally bump into somebody that you may not have known before so it was really a great celebration and very indicative I think of the work that that we do here in Weston and certainly the community that they build at the high school and the quick sort of on that is the Sandy Hook promise you may know an organization founded out of that tragedy the parent is one of the founders of those and he complimented Weston for in a sense growing its own here is having an approach to insisting on unkindness you
080know being persistent with kindness was so instead of importing it's a wonderful program Sandy Hook promise you know Rudin tragedy but trying to bring life out of that but he said you've grown your own here in Weston and he was here five years ago and was back and and through his brown the law was close close to us Matt Rizzo is his brother-in-law so it was that that was very important now does something different in January we start the budget process we will have out to the community the dates on the budget process we start on the six with all of you you is the budget presentation and there's a series of things that I'll make sure that in very brief clear terms parents have that I'm debating whether to send that this week and
081though it's a busy week but at least it's there before right when people get back and then resend it in that first week annually because you as a board put in a couple additional workshops which is all public public forum you've added some things I want I want the community to have that so I'm thinking we will blast that out tight lean even though it's people are distracted they have it and then they'll get it again right when they get back that basically the second or third of January I think that's important to do given that we've added a few names that I think will it's I think it's important for the community to know that there's a couple of dates there that we want to have that opportunity to engage on the on the
082budget and so if we could get the calendar out a few times so that people are aware of all the dates because there's a lot of them and and so I think if you we do it a few times you know at least hopefully we'll be comfortable that the word got out there and just to be clear it's not that long free pager but it's just I would yeah five or six january dates right don't worry it's not the three pager yeah and then just board members if in your technology are not seeing the budget dates we can fix that for you there in the google calendar you just have to load in if you haven't that particular link we can help you with that Craig don't laugh I even helped us some people today
083with that so those dates are there they're in Google Calendar and we can we can help you pull those up to make them visible so that that's my super intense report I worded or did you read the principal's reports because those are every a month and this is a month anything from our committees we would like to just say a couple things from the Communications Committee if we may ruby our colleague ruby hedge is not here tonight but she did a lot of heavy lifting on this we have spent some time working on a western public school yearly marketing material plan which really is you know the shortest version is how do we talk about our schools out in the world how do we recruit interested families to Weston and how do we talk about
084the schools as a lever for bringing them here and not so much the language we use although we feel that some of the documents that we already have in hand the brochure the the statistics on accomplishments the graduating year statistics each year that we publish a really excellent documents and we took them in hand bill asked us if we would take a hard look at them see if there was some editing we needed to do but more importantly I think it was the committee's interest in making sure that those get out there because some of us hadn't seen some of these documents before and we think that they're really valuable so we're gonna make sure that they are disseminated widely and shared widely and and also that there is the in-house capacity to maintain them
085and and and make sure that they're distributed properly right okay anything else from any of the other committees yeah from the policy committee in addition to all the policies Louis so excellently we went through today we had a rather you know useful and interesting discussion with the school nurses from high school on vaping and we're starting to look at you know what the district can do with respect to cessation education discipline related to what we've all been hearing about in the news related to the increase in vaping among population so it was really impressive to see the information that our staff brought brought to the committee and we had a really robust discussion so we're looking at that policy and more to come I think from from facilities one of the things that I think
086we need to work on and start it down the road in terms of being more explicit about how the district and the building committee worked together on our capital projects in terms of really drawing the line and exactly who is responsible for one what it once we pick projects I think that right now it's a little bit more at hawked and I would like and hopefully we can nail down a very specific process that will steer us in terms of how we manage these products projects going forward and a little bit more tightly than we than we have before that's it for committees oh one more thing curriculum we would have reported on but we had a snow day so the curriculum meeting will be on Thursday in terms of committee reassignments we're waiting for
087the 7th board member to be to be appointed that should be in the next week or so there's a number of candidates that have raised their hands and I think the Board of Selectmen is finishing up their interview process the one thing once the new board member is is a sign then we reassigned the committee's one of the things that I'd like to do is probably work with each of the committee chairs to come up with some goals for each of the committee's so that are consistent with the overall goes of the district for the year so we basically each committee will have some strategic deliverables that they're working on in addition to the ticking and tying that we do you know every month yes that's it for committees anything else yeah just typical point
088of meeting we have that way excuse me we have a chart that lists what's likely in the next meeting and I have updated so in January in addition to any retirements resignations I don't hope I hope there will be none but we'll be we'll do a school start end time task force update we'll just a discussion and vote on the graduation day as we've discussed there'll be the policy updates and some second readings that but that's the main business obviously January's substantially of a month for budgets and predating January 27th meeting you will have a budget session yeah it's already in your schedule great well I'd like to wish my fellow board members administration and staff wonderful holiday and we all look forward to getting back together in January and rolling up our sleeves and
089digging into the budget with that meeting adjourned you know you're gonna start getting other boards in the region very jealous with that end time so you have a start and end time model here thanks Ken