001live. And can I remind you to turn off your cell phones as this meeting is being recorded. Ellen, can you please do our roll call? Yes. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Miss Callen Carson, >> present. >> Mr. Kerry, >> here. >> Mrs. D Roberts >> here. >> Ms. Hernandez Williams >> here. >> Mr. Riley >> here. >> Miss Walters >> present. >> Mr. Winer >> here. >> Vice Chair Mr. Lacavoli >> here. >> Chairperson Mrs. Granado >> present and Weathersfield High School student representative Anushka Gandhi >> here. >> All present. Great. Um can I have Mazaka stand and lead us in the pledge of >> allegiance? 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. Thank
002you, Matt. Okay. Do we have student and staff recognition tonight? We'll move on. >> Okay. >> All right. So, next on tonight's agenda is the approval of the minutes for our regular board of ed meeting on September 9th, 2025. May I have a motion to approve those minutes? So, moved. A >> second. >> Okay. Any discussion? Any corrections? All right, we'll vote. All in favor? >> I opposed. >> Any abstensions? Those minutes are approved. Now, if there's anyone wishing to come up and make a public comment at the podium, please state your name and address. And may I remind you that you have five minutes. And another reminder, board members do not make comments immediately following a resident speaking. So thank you for understanding. >> Good evening. My name is Ben Fzini Kendrick. Uh my
003family resides at 467 Church Street. Um thank you very much for letting me address you this evening. Um I was a special education teacher for a long time. uh went to law school after which unsurprisingly I represented lots of boards of education. Um I've been at the meetings that are get very heated. I've been at the contract negotiations. So I know that you guys do um so much uh for so little and I really appreciate everything you do from the from the bottom of my heart. Um I have a couple things I'd like to talk about real fast. One is an anecdote and the second is a request. So here's the anecdote. Um one day my wife and I were at home. She works from home. I'm currently uh disabled and we heard from outside
004a man yelling, "Help, help, help." So we went outside, we discovered a gentleman had driven his pickup truck onto our lawn, gotten out and fallen in our driveway. And so my wife, you know, dropped her work. We run out and we tried to render aid to this gentleman. Um not because he he was anyone special, not because we had some obligation to do so, but just because he was a member of our community and we were in a position to help. So we spent about an hour with him calling the police, calling, you know, ambulance services, etc. to get him taken care of. So, we were very happy that we could help that person in his moment of need. Um, and now I come to you with my moment of need and I'm hoping that
005you can help. Um, not for any special reason other than we're all part of the same community and I need assistance and hopefully you're in a position to help provide it. Um, an issue that I've been having or or that our neighborhood has been having at least uh relates to noise coming from the high school athletic fields. Uh we've lived in our house for about 10 years or so and I don't remember a point that it was so loud so often than it has been in the last 12 months or so. The biggest problem from my perspective at least is uh warm-up music for lack of a better term. Um teams go on the field, they play whatever music and I can literally hear just like it was on the radio inside my bedroom. Um
006I know that people in my neighborhood bothers some people more than others. For me, it's particularly distressing. Um, I have a number of medical conditions that require me to keep my uh nervous system like deescalated. Otherwise, my symptoms get worse. Um, and exposure to chronic uh noise pollution actually does the opposite. It can put you in a sort of continued state of fight orflight response, which for me is very bad and makes my recovery process that much longer. So, um I'm just here to ask um hopefully we can work together to try to bring this um under control a little bit so we can kind of get back to the point where, you know, we enjoyed hearing the marching band, you know, every few nights, the high school football games every once in a while
007and not like the complete collection of Kanye's albums, you know, on a nightly basis over the uh the PA system. Um so that's, you know, all I have for this evening. Um I have four kids who've uh gone through the school system. my son graduated last year. Um, it's been a hugely um, positive experience in all their lives and I think that you all here have something to do with that. So, thank you again and and I look forward to trying to resolve this noise issue together. Thank you so much. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Mindy Gold, 405 Ridge Road. Um, I didn't write anything, but uh, I just want to say thank you to everyone who spoke out in support of and helped pass the referendum last Tuesday. Um, as a member of the
008win it pack, I am so excited for my children who may or may not get new schools, but the idea that this is for everyone in our community. Um, I'm so proud of Weathersfield for coming together in this way, I think it was such a unifying experience. Um, especially for me working on the pack. Um I saw so many people from different walks of life who had different values, different reasons for being invested and engaged. Um whether they had young children, whether they had benefit benefit from the schools just at some point um or whether they didn't have kids at all, everyone was able to find a reason to come out and support the schools. Um and I'm just really excited about the work ahead of us. I know that that was just step one,
009if not step zero. Um the work still lies ahead and I should say that you all have been doing incredible work to get us to this point. Um but I'm just very excited and grateful and wanted to express that to you guys today. Thanks. >> Hey, thank you. >> Hey, anyone else? All right, so Mr. Whby, you have some communications to share. I do, Madam Chair. Um, starting with the, uh, superintendent's monthlyformational update, I just want to bring to everyone's attention that my, um, my entry visits are commencing uh, shortly. Web Elementary will be the first school that I'll be visiting. So, as part of my 100 day entry plan, I'll be visiting all seven of our schools uh, for the full day. It's an opportunity for me to meet with staff members, teachers, parents,
010kids. I'll be conducting focus groups, um, with all of those stakeholders at each building. Um, just trying to listen and learn directly from from folks, um, and of course at the end of every day, I'll be conducting um, be conducting an a entry interview with the building principal as well. And I'm really excited uh to have this opportunity to hear particularly from the kids. I've been interviewing parents and staff members since I started in July, but this will be the first opportunity that I'll actually get to formally talk to the kids um in from different grade levels uh kindergarten all the way up to 12th grade. So very excited about that. Just wanted to shifting gears. Um, we're excited the uh leadership team across the district. We're excited to uh be coming next month with
011our district continuous improvement plan which we developed as an an basically we developed it with the board strategic operating plan as kind of our our guide uh to to to this work and it's it's been going on uh throughout the summer. Shifting over to department updates over in finance, we're really excited that parent square pay is live uh with Windham High School AP exams as the first billing events and 42% of our families uh that received the link for the invoice submitted a credit card payment within 24-hour notice. So, this is a great way to make paying for events and uh various items uh more convenient for our parents and our families. Um shifting down a couple of pages. Um taking a look at the teaching and learning office. We're excited this year. We're welcoming
01214 student teachers to Weathersfield Public Schools to be getting trained under our outstanding teachers across the district. And these are matched up with our team certified teachers over at the high school. We we just met uh we just met athletic director Sterling SK Scanland last month. He's already paying great dividends for us. Sterling has been named uh or appointed to the CIA board of control. So, this is like the board of education for athletics across the entire state of Connecticut. So, Sterling just started with us and he's in a statewide leadership role uh for state athletics. Uh so, this is a real honor uh for the town of Weathersfield, Weathersfield High School. uh our influence will grow across the state now in athletics. So, this is just a a great honor for both the high
013school and uh for for Sterling. Um just want to note over at Hanmer this month on September 12th, we say we said farewell to our longtime administrative secretary, Lisa McGovern. She's been with Weathersfield Public Schools for 25 years. most of her time was at at Hanmer. Um Lisa is retiring to spend more time with her growing family. And we wish Lisa all the best and a long and happy retirement. And I tried to talk her into it at least four or five times on behalf of Principal Conn, but um she she said she's she's got a higher calling with with grandchildren. So, we're very excited for Lisa. I told her I was going to come back and try to talk her into it again next year, but we'll see. Uh yeah, Madam Chair, at the
014end of the report, I just wanted to note we included some social media posts. So, we're starting for Weathersfield Public Schools to put out into the um into the whatever you call it, the internet, social media posts for some of the really nice things that are going on in Weathersfield's public schools. So, we put four social media posts out there. I believe this is like our first four as a district and next month I anticipate to do 14. So we're hoping to do about 14 or 15 social media posts per month. Um just all the positive things that are going on in the school just so folks can kind of see what we're up to. So that concludes the superintendent'sformational update for the month. >> Okay. Thank you. All right. We'll move on. We have
015no recommended motions tonight, but those are coming. Um, this evening we have two district reports. One is a graduation report. So, we come on up. Thank you. >> Okay, Madam Chair, let me just kind of introduce this. The attached graduation report provides a comprehensive overview of of graduation outcomes for the class of 2025. And um it's it's designed to inform the board of ed about the culmination of our students K through 12 journey and to highlight the impact of our district-wide instructional and counseling efforts. Really impressive work that's done at the high school uh across the board. This is a great measure of transparency and accountability. It offers the board and the community clear data on graduation rates, college metriculation, career readiness. It's a real tribute to what a a gem of a high school
016that we have here in high school uh in Weathersfield. Um and and again, I put this in as an ongoing board workflow. This will be a report that uh the board can anticipate to have every September once the uh the principal um has some time to kind of put it together. Before she begins, I really want to acknowledge and commend Principal O'Conor and the the Weathersfield High School guidance team for their thoughtful and thorough preparation of this report, their commitment to student success, datainformed decisionmaking, and transparent communication. and it was evident throughout the document. Their leadership continues to elevate the high school's culture of excellence and postsecary readiness. So, with that, I'm going to let uh Principal Okconor and um her her outstanding um department head, Miss Brian, kind of take us through this graduation
017report. So, turn it over to you, Siobhan. Thank you. >> Sure. Thank you, Superintendent Woody, and welcome. Thank you for having me and welcome to the board of education. I hope you enjoyed perusing it. We're going to go over our report for you. I'm really really excited to be able to present um our 20 first kind of annual 2025 graduate report to you um to really celebrate the accomplishments of our graduates, but then also discuss the trends that we're seeing and show you how we're responding to those trends in real time on behalf of the Weathersfield community at large because we do know that we are here to serve and we take that role very seriously. And so we do um appreciate the work that our school counseling department has done to be responsive to
018those needs. And so I do want to take a moment to just really publicly thank Miss Cindy Brian who um does more work than anyone knows. Uh she is our department leazison in the school counseling department which means she does have a full case load of students but she does support um everything within the school counseling department. She also just has tremendous institutional knowledge that really helps guide our future work because she can help um really inform us from our past. Um she might know some of our our board rep over there who's a guidance counselor for her. She is just a phenomenal resource to Weathersfield High School. And so I just want to take a moment to say thank you to her for her work and she's very happy that I did that. Um,
019so one of the things that's very interesting about really this year's data in comparison to our past year's data is we have had some different trends and Mrs. um Brian's going to explain some some of the things that we've seen and then we're going to while we go through this report discuss how we've really reacted to that trend that we have we have started to see. >> Sure. Thank you. >> Thank you very much for having me. I thank you for Mrs. So Connor for saying that I'm old and been here a long time without saying that I'm old and been here a long time with my institutional memory and knowledge. Uh so again what you see in front of you we have a comparison chart to the class of 2024 and the class of
0202025 and just looking at the statistics of their future plans. So kids going on to college, four-year college, two-year colleges, trades, military tech schools, those kinds of things. Uh I think what we're seeing is an influence of the economy for students. um an influence of the opportunity for free community college for two years and then the transfer ticket to finish a bachelor's degree. A lot of students are doing that because it's a lot of money to save. So we have a lot of students that are again taking opportunities. We spend a lot of time working with students on looking at all of their options. Um and I'll say and and maybe our board of ed student rep recognized this, but I'll say I don't care what you do in the future. I want you to
021be happy and productive in your future and I want to help you get there. So looking at the pathways and having our kids having opportunities to look at the different pathways, looking at our increase in trades. Um that's something that we did focus on last year as a department knowing that students were looking at that more and more. Looking at kids actually going into the workforce a little bit more because sometimes they want to take that time to say, you know, I'm going to work a little bit and then I'm going to decide what I want to do. So I just was telling Mrs. Okconor, I got an email from one of my students that went to the workforce and he emailed me. He's like, okay, I want to start college in January. I want
022to do free community college. can you walk me through it? Sent him a really long email and I said, "Come and see me if you want to because even when the kids graduate, we're still there for them." So, we work with the kids to help them any way we can. And so, if you have any questions about any of the data that we have in front of you as we move forward, please let us know. I'm going to turn it back over to Mrs. Okconor. Yeah. >> So, overall, we really have seen a rise in students pursuing other um nonfor-year college second post-secary options. Um, as Mrs. Brian said, we want to honor whatever the path is for a student and ensure that every door is open to them and that really has been a
023focus. We started that work through our internship program and through our career advisory council where we um this year will hopefully have 40 students who are going through that program this year which is an exponential increase and we continue to do that. We've had students who have had wonderful opportunities that open doors that they never knew. We had one student who college was off the table. you you had the the meeting with the parents and no I am not going I I don't see myself in that role. We got him connected with a construction management firm. He did an internship. He then did a summer work program and now he's enrolled in a university pursuing project management and construction. And so I think just really honoring where a student is in their path is incredibly
024important because you never want to close a door. You want to ensure everything is open to them. And so it might not be right now. It might be in a year from now. It might be in two years, but we want to make sure that no one is closing doors on themselves. And we really do encourage students to consider those decisions that might close a door. And we work very, very hard with the school counseling team um and our administrative team to make sure that we're very transparent in those communications with both parents and students about what decisions you might be making and what might be closing that door for you. So, I think that's just very important to me that those are options because we're probably not the same exact selves as we are
025at 17 as we are later in life. So, let's not make sure that we're making those life choices that could have a lot of impact. Um, another piece that we did that I really want to thank our school counseling department is they recognized that we were starting to see this trend towards the trades and other kind of what we would used to call non-traditional post-secary options. And so, they really spent a lot of time digging into this. Um, and Mrs. Brian's going to give you some examples, but they spent all of their professional learning last year around those non4 and two-year programs, going out to visit, working as a department really gathering all the information in our geographic area to make sure that students had those connections. We found ways that they could do, you
026know, electrical school at much much lower reduced rates. Um, so we're going to continue with all of those conversations because just opening the doors and to local businesses or local um, you know, cosmetology schools, etc. We wanted to be able to and they wanted to be able to answer the questions really with authority, right? We don't want to be guessing. We don't want to say, well, I think we want to say, "No, these are the paths. These are things that we know are in the area. This is how much it's going to cost. This is what you're going to have to be able to do." And they spent a lot a lot of time. And so I want to honor that time that they did take with our new professional learning plan. They took it
027very seriously and they were able to ensure that every single student at least had the options in front of them that they could exercise. I also want to commend um Miss Jennifer Lindseay who is our afterchool credit attainment counselor. She ensured that every single student who graduated out of our afterchool program was connected with a post-secary plan. So, every single student who graduated from our alternative ed program did have a connection to either a trade program or a college or university. So, that's exciting because that does not usually happen in all of those programs. So, kudos to her and her work within that program. Um, Miss Brian, do you want to talk about some examples from >> Sure., so one of the opportunities that we had I we worked in tandem with Mr. Danaher, our
028career counselor, to look at some of the different programs. So, I have a student that went to MDC, did an exposure with MDC, and is actually now going to school to become an electrician. Um, I was able to go visit the eCamp program at Goodwin University to talk about that as a program that students can do through the uh school choice program. Went down to Gateway Community College and look at their automotive program. And they had a Corvette C8 sitting in the in the I'm like, I I want to drive that. Where'd you guys get that? And they're like, no, like Chevy and GMC just drops off vehicles for us randomly. I'm like, I want to work here then and drive those vehicles. So, there's really great opportunities, really great certifications that the kids can
029get. We had two kids go into welding. Uh, one male, one female. Um, electric boat is starving for people in welding. I was just doing a little reading before I came in and they're anticipating by 2030, 270 million baby boomers are going to retire from the trades. And for every five people leaving the trades, only one is entering. So, that workforce development when I go in the classrooms and and I pay attention to what comes out of my wallet when I pay bills. So, when the plumber comes to my house and charges me $176 an hour and he charges me from the time he leaves his last job before he gets to my house, I will say to the kids, "Become an electrician. Become a plumber. Make more money than I do." Like, do those
030things. Especially for those kids that are like always going, I don't want to sit in an office. I don't want to do that. Okay, let's explore things. Again, I want to make sure that the kids have their options, know their options, and have an informed decision. That's my goal. Make an informed decision. So again, with our kids and the different opportunities that they've had, the places that they're going, we're really excited. I actually had a student that wanted to be a lineman. So he signed up through Capitol Community College to be a lineman, which is working for Eversource. They have a training program. Then he came into my office. He's like, "No, that's bad weather. I don't think I want to do that." He's a senior this year. He's like, "I think I want to
031become an elevator mechanic." And I'm like, "I don't know about that one. We didn't research that." So I get online with him. We're looking for him, find a program down in Warwick, add it to our guide. So, we developed a living document that we have linked in our website in the school counseling website that is a guide to trades and programs that don't involve a 4-year college degree or even a two-year college degree. So, we've been working very hard in keeping that document updated as well. >> Yeah. So, while we also continue that work, we also are continuing our work with our two and four-year graduates and ensuring that they have the most robust opportunities. Um, we've really seen, um, I know that we've had a lot of discussions here at the board level around
032our increase in our early college experience classes, our AP classes. We continue to add more of those offerings and we have more students taking advantage of that. And what we've really seen is they really then feel very prepared and we think that is really shows in the level of colleges that we're seeing students apply to. We're seeing them more trend towards more selective colleges as we move through the years, which is I think a really good sign that people feel confident in their applications because they're not only applying to more, but they're being accepted to more selective universities. And so we really that's also something that we take pride in because every student who walks across those doors and Weathersfield High School, we should be supporting whatever their future holds and not determining what their
033future holds. And so we need to have a really robust and comprehensive program for our students. Um speaking of that, she Mrs. Brian's going to talk about our application trends which have changed significantly in the last decade. So if you look at the next page, um page four where it has the data for the 10 years, the past 10 years, and you look at the number of applications that kids have sent out, uh we went from an average of around 4.25 applications to 7.6 applications per student. So what students are doing is taking a look and saying, "Okay, so honestly, it's gotten a little harder to navigate with some colleges not using SAT scores, being test optional, and those kinds of things to have a true predictor of where am I going to get in?
034How do I know what I'm where I'm going to get in?" And looking at working with the students so that they have an idea of what their target schools are, what their reach schools are, what their safety schools are so that they can have an informed decision again when they're applying. Um, so what we are seeing is kids like branching out a little bit more. They're like, I'm going to apply to these schools and like, okay, let's look at that range of schools. Let's see where you're going to fall with that range of schools. Let's do it. Let's make sure your essay is good. Let's make sure we got your teacher teacher recommendations going. Let's make sure we've got these things going on to help support your application. Um, and then we also meet with
035college reps, which we didn't even talk about really. We meet with college representatives that come to the high school. We ask them the questions. What are you looking for? How do you know? like what are we trying to help support the students? One of the things example Yukon said students don't focus enough on their leadership. So when I have students coming in we reply oh Yukon you might want to focus more on your leadership. Oh did you do the self-reported academic record and they're like what's that? There's a lot of little nuances that kids aren't aware of. So we're helping support them with those. But looking at our trends looking at where students are. Um and again if you look at the class of 2015 very being being a very similar size to our class
036of 2025 and you know almost doubling in applications. It's interesting to see that. Um so I I think it's interest I think it's good that kids are actually broadening looking at schools. Mothersfield's known to put a pin in the map draw a 2-hour circle and apply in that range and some kids are willing to look a little farther and look a little bit differently. So the next few pages just really detail for the class of 2025 where students have chosen to attend and the following two pages is where they were accepted to. So we're still seeing um with a class almost 300 students in our graduating class last year, we still only represented 66 different schools. So we still have students who are kind of trending on the same um the same universities and colleges,
037but at the same time that economic um climate we we felt anecdotally was also a major factor in in this year's application pool too. So I think that's just something that we're going to be looking at in in the future um to see if that is a continuing trend. Page eight is just an explanation of how we determined selective schools and and how people rank that. So, it's really more of a FYI for the board um so they can understand that. Um and then the last page is really our our highlights. And I think this is something that we continue to see, we continue to celebrate. I know two years ago we started our class um top 10 scholar breakfast which is just a fan favorite uh every year where we bring our top 10
038students in with their families and we also bring we have them invite a educator from their past um who really helped guide their path and got them to where they are. Um and so they get up and they give a little speech about how that person impacted them. Um, and it's one of the most moving really events that we do and I think really elevating what that means to be a top 10 scholar within the Weathersfield public schools and also pays back all of those teachers who put in those long hours because we don't always get the thank yous right away. Um, just to watch that interaction is just priceless. So, in our next breakfast, you will all be receiving invitations if you would like to attend. But it really is it's something that has
039been very well received by both the public but also the teachers because it right at the end of the year it fills your cup and so that's always a positive. Um but we also really have to celebrate our AP program has grown and look at the number of AP scholars that we have. 16 within this graduating class were designated as AP scholars. 11 were AP scholars with honors and seven were AP scholars with with distinction. Every single year that I've been at the high school, this number has continued to grow and grow. And that's a testament to our course offerings, but also the work that our students and our staff are doing every day within the classrooms at Weathersfield High School. Um, so that's very exciting. We also have um offered more opportunities to celebrate
040students through both our honor society expansion. So we added French honor society several years ago. Last year was our first year with English honor society. So, another way to recognize the the efforts that students are putting in, um, two years ago, as you may recall, we put in NGSS scholars. So, students who perform um to standard on the NGSS do get to wear their cords and they get pins. That will also be now extended with the work of our department heads to both English and mathematics for for SATs as well. So, constantly looking for ways to reinforce all the those positive things that we know happen every day. um in addition to the seal of biiteracy which that number also continues to grow and grow year after year with the number of students who are
041leaving with an official document that says that they are truly bilingual um in sometimes one but also sometimes more languages other than English. So really exciting. I'm really really proud to be the the principal of Weathersfield High School. Um but really proud of all the accomplishment the students and staff have done because it's it's really about them. So if there's any questions be more than happy to try to answer. >> Thank you. Anyone with questions or comments, Liz? >> Sure. So, um I'm really happy um it's amazing um what Weathersfield High School is providing to the students of Weathersfield and I thank you very very much for that. You really seem to be working with the entire child, the child that walks in the school and the child that leaves the school. Um I am
042involved in the career advisory board. So, I'm super passionate and very happy to hear about all the additional opportunities. I think you said 40 intern opportunities this year. That's very exciting. Um, in addition to that, I love that our AP offering is growing. Um, at Yukon, it could be a savings of up to $10,000 a semester. I think it's about 36 37. Trying to think of I just made my last payments a few months ago. Um, and I'm thinking, yeah. Um, and that that's phenomenal. And I also am glad that we are celebrating our top 10 scholars. I know that has been a discussion in the past. It's so competitive and it's, you know, within a hundth of a point or if not more. But I think it's important to celebrate those achievements and I'm
043happy that we're continuing to do that. >> Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. >> Jim, >> so thank you. Thank you both. I'm on the career advisory board and both Siobhan and Cindy are at all of those events. So, thank you so much for attending those. And, you know, a good education is is key, but what's more critical is what happens afterwards. So, I you know, I thank you for all your um your hard work. And as you both um stated, you know, someone can go and they can make a mistake, you know, in their freshman year. And you know, it's not an issue. I mean, if someone goes to the wrong school for four years, then that's, you know, that's time and effort wasted. So, thank you both. >> Welcome, Janice. Um, I also
044just want to mention that I think that um, you seem to be doing a really good job with um, the tools that you're giving them because I do know as having children who are a bit older in their 30s that they do have friends who have switched gears after few years of working in one area and changed their minds and it doesn't seem like the transition has been difficult for them. So they really seem to have come away from Weathersfield High School with the ability to um be lifetime learners and to accept that well maybe it's time to move on to something else and do it pretty comfortably. So that's a really big part of it too. So thank you. Absolutely. Um, I would just like to say that uh whenever people will come up
045to me and ask me about Weathersfield Public Schools or Weathersfield High Schools, they'll ask me about it in general. And one of the things that I lead with is it's a good school good it's a great school system. We send kids everywhere, whether you want to go to a high uh a very selective college or you want to go to work or you want to go to a state school or you want to go to the trades. Um, but I had always been saying that without data to back it up. But is I'm glad that you came and you gave this report tonight because it's actually true. So, um, I was not lying to them. Um, and basically, thank you. Thank you for coming and presenting this report and for your work on a day-to-day
046basis, helping our students get wherever it wherever it is that they may want to go or or have to go. Thank you. Thank you. >> Um, I also want to thank you for the report and it's such a great way to like kind of put all information in one packet just to kind of show also maybe not just this past graduating year, but the year before and seeing trends and kind of giving the town and and residents and understanding what's happening at the high school right now and where the trends are. Um, it's just a great it's a great document to have and and just both sides of it. like there's like the the AP side of it, there's the trade side of it, there's so many class off offerings at the high school that
047I'm always like I I have my last child, my youngest is the senior and it was painful for him to pick his last classes because he you know there's so many things he wish he had already had time to take, right? Um but he did the gamut of a trade class and then like you know higher level um like English and um so um it just there's a lot of variety at the high school. I think people don't realize that until they actually see something like this and they realize all the different uh class offerings there. Um I would also say that as a person who works at Manchester Community College, it's um I always encourage people to look at all the things that community colleges um provide and as uh possible not even like
048just kind of high school but even like a midlife change. um there's so many certificates there's so many skills skill things you could do for just a year and suddenly you're doing a completely different thing. So, um, and some some of the, uh, offerings if you look at a catalog, you don't really understand what it says. Like, it says a certain thing, you don't know what it means. Like machine this or, you know, um, and you just have to ask, you know, just have to, um, get kids to ask and understand and and learn more about who does what out there, right? Um, and I have just anecdotally, I have two students in a class that I teach at like for C-OP and they're in their 40s. They work at an insurance company for many
049years and they're both looking at culinary and one's looking to do an internship as a pastry chef. And so learning never ends. You know, you're not always going to choose your career right away. And and so it's like these are great opportunities to show them like all the different things. And I would like finally say um I'm so excited to go to the breakfast this year at the end, the top scholar breakfast because I was just like what a great idea. And I remember just hearing from teachers that got picked like how how heavy it was for them like wow this was amazing just for someone like that to pick them that they of all the teachers they had their whole life they picked them to have this breakfast with it was really really you
050rewarding thing for teachers to see. So I'm really excited you guys have that now >> and I can't wait to go this year >> and it's hosted by anyone else. >> Oh I thank you. This was a lot of work. Plus, I loved reading it at home. I mean, you kept and then you go back and check another um chart. It was wonderful. I do have one question. Where do SAT stand now? I mean, are they valuable? Are they middle of the road? Where are they? >> We are seeing a resurgence in SAT. >> So, some colleges are bringing it back. Um, I was on a webinar with with Yukon. I'm actually on the Yukon school counselor advisory board now and talking to Yukon about what it means to be a school counselor and how
051to work with the admissions office and continually learning things. Uh but Yukon is saying for the foreseeable future right now, not sure what that means, but for the foreseeable future right now, which means now and next year they'll remain test optional. The uh most competitive schools are tending to bring it back. Um, some schools are allowing students to submit AP scores and not submit SAT scores, which is an interesting uh circumstance. Um, and then if they do have like a test optional circumstance, then you look at the percentage of students that are actually accepted who use their tests. So, Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale, those guys, you know, the ones are kind of easy to get into. um they might say that they're test optional, but if 40% of their accepted students submitted SAT scores, you got
052to wonder how test optional they really are. So, it's doing some more diving into and actually trying to communicate with like what does it mean for you? So, you can be but what does it mean for you? Holy Cross been test optional loves test optional. They say it makes them do their jobs better in the admissions process. Different schools looking at it a little bit differently. So, it's it's starting to come back for some schools. Um it'll be interesting to see over the years over the next like five to 10 years what will happen with those scores. >> Thank you. Thank you for this whole evening and this report. This is wonderful. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Welcome. >> Anyone else? Okay. Thanks. >> Okay. We also have another report on our referendum. >>
053Thanks, Madam Chair. just wanted to uh put together kind of like a what's next timeline that's specific to to the board and and uh the building committee moving forward. Um and it's it's specific to High Crest. And as you can kind of see, I'll just walk you through the timeline a little bit and give an opportunity for the board to have some discussion. um you know with the successful passage of the of the referendum our administrative timeline begins at the at the end of this month. So at this point in time applications for high crest and web will be finalized for October 1st with the state of Connecticut. And it at this point the town can start to solicit uh requests for for services to get a design team on board, a construction manager, which
054you'll hear a lot is a CM, and a program manager, which is known as a PM moving forward. And this all is done in accordance with the Connecticut Department of Administrative Services School Construction Guidelines in January through the following December. So it takes about a year. This will be known as the design phase. So this is when we'll be working on ed specs, architectural design for connected to programming, stakeholder engagement. This is very exciting time when uh you know staff members, board members, community members are are uh and and most importantly the building committee will be working to kind of start to see the vision coming together. Um and and what these architects will provide whoever is selected uh will really excite the community. You'll start to see uh building schematics, pictures, designs. It'll really
055be a fun time. After that, from January 2026 through concurrently through February is when the bid awards will be happening and the the approval timeline. And then March 2027 will be when you can anticipate construction execution to begin. And it should go through to about August 2028. A new build can be anywhere from 12 months on the really fast end to 18 months on the uh the the slower end. So that would be about when you would, you know, anticipate that. So, August 2028 would be a great time to to open up High Crest uh for the first time to to students into that new building. And we put put together just a little bit of a visual with with everything that we kind of just walked through. And at the end, I just included
056the Connecticut Department of Administrative Services aligned board responsibility. So these are the things that have to happen according to state statute from the building committee level and some things that will require board of education action. So this is just a little bit of a reference guide for the board uh over the course of the next couple of years. >> Thank you. >> Okay, we can discuss this too, right? >> That's what it's for. Yeah. And John's committee has been working hard on this too. So >> any questions for Mr. Wimpby? Okay. All right. So, we'll move on. So, our meetings held um we just came out of finance and operation committee. Matt, would you address that? >> Yep. Thank you, Bobby. So, as usual, prior to tonight's board meeting, uh we met as the finance
057and operations committee. Uh we discussed a number of items. One of the items we discussed was our uh surplus balance that we are carrying over from last school year. We are trying to decide what to do with do with it. We have multiple options. We have to do a little bit of homework um to verify what exactly all of our options are, but once we figure out what they are, we will decide upon that hopefully in the next finance meeting. Um we discussed this year's current budget, uh which is it's very early to be discussing this budget. Um this year's budget, we are currently 60,000 under budget, but it's only September. Um, we are taking a really hard fresh look at all of the line items in our budget. Looking for any savings possible and
058we discussed going out to bid for legal services which we haven't done in quite some while haven't done in quite a while in the district. Um, we're hoping to save some money. If anybody has any questions, I'm willing to ask. >> Okay. Thank you, Matt. All right. Meeting scheduled. Um the wet meeting was rescheduled for um this yesterday and I was not able to come but Oh, I'm sorry. >> I was just going to say Christina was nice enough to substitute >> board comments, >> but I'm ready. >> Can you talk to us? >> Yeah, I'm ready to go. But I I figured I would do board comments. I'm trying to be, you know, better listener. I'm good. I'm ready. I'm always prepared. But thank you, Janice. I know we worked we worked hard. So,
059she asked me to fill in and I filled in and and then I sent her the report. You're awesome. Okay, so the meeting on Monday was next steps to follow on the anxious generation. So the meeting focused on following up with actionable steps from last summer's summer book. Uh many community members, Witherfield educators, board of education members and parents read the book. One parent named Sarah Rubbleman, I hope I didn't say your name corre incorrectly from the book club reached out to the leader of the founder of the balance project. The balance project comes out of a little silver New Jersey community. That's the name of the the community. The small community wanted children to bike to school, get outside, and rebuild communities to encourage childhood independence and get kids off screen. So during this
060meeting, she encouraged parents, families to um sign up for the balance project signup. So I actually signed up on Monday as a parent and board member. Um so you know, Monday before I went to the meeting and checked it out. Um so the meeting explained what that project was and also divided the many participants. The room was filled into two groups. One group focused on how to support schools to encourage students to use their phones less and especially to educate parents on the importance of promoting a screen screen-f free environment at home. The second group was planning an event for the Weathersfield families to attend and to investigate smartphone alternatives. Uh this means electronic devices that have boundaries for students so that they don't have access to the entire website. And it's like tracking phones
061and or tracking watches and it's like this entire it's almost like shopping for a device that's not open to the internet so that they still can keep touch with their students and children but they're not out there searching the internet. So the event will be January 15, 2026 with a snow date of Thursday, January 22nd, 2026. Um they're looking for some monetary donations to um feed the families and have some refreshments. It was impressive to see so many parents but especially our wonderful educators that are supporting their childrens and families. Um these administrators Reanila Tur the Emerson Williams principal Don Campbell Elizabeth Fredas and the point person between Wack and the schools of Mr. Don Kersar. So thank you so much for being there. These educators want to work with families and parents to create
062a safer and healthier environment from for students especially when they're little. Um, and I'm just going to bring this information to the community and comm or the communications and public relations committee to kind of, you know, spread the word about this event. And I think that's it. Sorry, that was a lot. I was trying to talk fast, but I wanted to give you like the good points. It's such an awesome event. And also all the families that really wanted to be there. >> Their annual meeting is coming up next month, too, right? Yep. Thank you. All right. And we also have, if I can go over here and find this, um, we have meetings scheduled. Communications and public relations is September 24th at 6:00. Human resources and personnel committee in o on October 6th at
0636:00 and student program and services was cancelled. This is what it says. >> One meeting later in the month of the 21st. >> Thank you. Okay. So, is there anyone wishing to make a public comment? Come on up to the podium and state your name and address. And may I remind you that there's a fiveinut limit. >> Okay. Are there any board comments, John? >> Yeah. Um, so first I'd like to obviously congratulate our town, uh, Weathersfield for passing the referendum last week. Um, the overwhelming support by our town to let this transformation begin. Um, it's incredible. Uh, but I think uh, like our first public comment with Mindy said, that really was step zero. And I want to thank Superintendent Wibby for putting together and working on getting that tentative timeline together because I
064think it's kind of informational as to, you know, of course everybody's question the next day is when does everything start? Um, and it really does begin right away. So, um, the building committee that I chair will be meeting tenatively right now. Now, we have a first date set for October 8th, and that's not finalized, but that's what we're aiming at to meet and start talking about some of the things that Superintendent Whibby talked about. Um, the soft costs around architecture and design, etc., project management, all of those things need to go out in the form of RFQS, and we're going to be looking to as a committee to talk about that as the first step. Um, so again, congratulations to everyone on that. Um, the other piece of this that I wanted to talk about
065was uh maintenance and bu bringing a maintenance plan to the town. Um, one of the things that a lot of feedback we got during the process was, you know, maintaining schools. What does that look like? And I think we heard in the last meeting, Superintendent Whibby put together a list um of of items that we continue to need and work on for our buildings. Um, one of the things that I really want to do and and work, you know, in conjunction with obviously the building committee, town council, board of ed, all of us is to look at the prioritize and plan what the maintenance looks like for schools and and not just the 20 years of the bond for the new schools, but everything in general. And I think we need to be really transparent
066with the public um as to what needs to happen with these buildings. I think, you know, we've talked about how them there are community buildings. They're not just schools. They're used throughout the town. Um, so I'm I'm I'm really happy that Superintendent Whibby has put an emphasis on sharing uh with the board as well as everybody else some of those maintenance uh items. So I'm looking forward to doing that. That's one of the things that I want to do now that we have passed the referendum. Um so yeah um that is all I had for today. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Anyone else for comments? Matt? >> Yeah. So um also on the topic of the referendum, I would just like to thank everybody that showed up to the polls and voted in
067the referendum. Um, I'm happy that it passed, but I will say that uh to those of you who voted yes, to those of you who voted no, we hear both sides. Like you're you're all considered. We consider you in every decision that we make, especially during budget season. Um, it's not as black as black and white as in just because I voted yes doesn't mean I don't care about paying more in taxes to pay for schools or just because I voted no doesn't mean I'm anti-education. Um, there's a lot of different reasons that people voted yes or no, but the bottom line is I'm happy that as many as many people showed up and voiced their opinion as did. I'm happy it passed and whether you voted or not, we hear you. So, thank you
068for voting. >> Thank you, Matt. Hi Marjorie. >> Um I just want to plug um the trivia night for the Weathersfield Education Foundation um which is October 3rd, Friday, October 3rd. And grab some friends, get a table. Um they're on Facebook and they have a website as well and um it's $20 per person when you bring your own food and drink, I think. But then they have really good prizes and it's a great way to just give back to the Weathersfield Education Foundation and have fun while you're doing it. Um, and also upcoming on October 8th is walk and roll day um, for the schools and um, so you're going to be seeing a lot of kids out on that day. And I hope we can keep more. There's there's actually an interest in doing
069more of these days, not just on the national day, but more these days to kind of coincide with the balance project, anxious generation, and other things where you can just get more kids confident to walk to school, bike to school, do whatever, just get get out there, right? Um, and I just want to also thank Lisa McGovern for all her years of service. She happened to be the school secretary when the school my kids went to. Um, you know, every year I thought, "Oh my god, is this the last year? Is this the last year for Lisa?" Cuz she's just been such an institution there. And she's always just so kind and she knows what where everything is and what every, you know, how to do everything and just the most patient person and a
070welcoming person at that school. So, they're really going to miss her. But I really um I congratulate her on her retirement and um that's it. >> Hey, thank you. Anyone else? Right. I have two um extra meetings that are not board committee meetings. The first one is the Weathersville Education Foundation. We met on Wednesday, September 17th. And the mission of our foundation is to enrich and enhance our school's curriculum. So, this group has had many successful fundraisers and will continue with them this year. Please follow and support these fundraisers as they work for a direct impact on classrooms and schools. So, the latest fundraiser, as Marjorie was mentioning, is scheduled for Friday, October 3rd, and is a trivia night. You can compete to be the smartest team in Weathersfield. Tickets are 20 bucks, and they
071are fabulous raffle prizes, too, which is separate from the trivia contest. So, please create a trivia team and impress us all with your trivia brilliance. Hope to see you there. Um, another important committee is Keen for Kids and they met on Thursday, September 18th. Caroline Fisena spoke to the afterchool enrichment program. They already have 826 signups for activities with 53% of the programs already filled. There are 71 programs with six new instructors which are adding more teachers working with our kids after school. A very popular class, which we're all so pleased, is a screenfree class that is a product of the town's reading of the anxious generation. The kids are enjoying board games and other non-screen activities. Yes. And the fifth year of Keen's hands-on learning in science starts in mid November in the classrooms.
072The sixth grade classes start first and all classes, including kindergarten, are involved. The kids often take a newfound interest home, including sign language that is being taught as part of the classes. A big thank you to teacher Andrea Angelico for her energy and expertise for this program. And last, the middle school will have an expanded encore program with a site coordinator. This program starts in mid November with PAL, physical activities, homework help, and enrichment activities. And as always, thank you, Judy Keane. Um, in my last comments, I too want to thank all those who helped make our referendum a successful one. There were citizens campaigning for weeks to have voters understand the importance of new and renovated as new schools. I do take note of those who expressed their concerns by voting no. Your voices
073matter and we have taken note of your apprehensions regarding the cost and the ongoing maintenance. So now together we'll build a brighter future for our schools and our towns. So thank you. Now our high school student, Anushka Gandhi. You have some words on life at the high school for us? >> I do. Um so good evening everyone. Um here's a quick update on what's been happening these past two weeks at the high school. Starting off strong, the high school is having their pep rally this Friday, consisting of numerous games and activities to spread some Eagle spirit. Uh this Saturday, we have our annual homecoming, serving as the perfect way to end our spirit week, which is currently going on. On the academic scale, many students have signed up for a AP registration and we are
074hoping to surpass registration numbers from last year like you talked about in this pamphlet. Um on the athletic side, there have been many positives for the high school. The Athletic Leadership Conference consisting of athletes that partake in a variety of sports, won the CIA Michaels Cup, an award that recognizes exemplary athletic programs that take action to improve sports in their respective community. Um, members of the athletic conference will accept this award on October 7th at the sportsmanship conference at the Aquaturf. Um, additionally, girls cross country won the Blue Dragon invite in Middletown and finished second at the Cromwell invite. Um, junior Alexa Nunees Won both races and girls cross country is currently ranked first in class L. Um, finally, boys golf placed second in division 2 and senior Justin Crossen has reached number five in
075the state. And that's what's going on at the high school. So, thank you for your time. >> Okay, thank you so much. Anybody have any questions? as we'll put her on the spot. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Is there any unfinished business tonight? I know of. All right. But tonight, I move to enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing and approving the recommendation of the superintendent regarding the hiring of the assistant superintendent and to invite into the session superintendent, Dr. Patty Foot, and the candidate. Um, we'll vote on that. Can I have um a vote? >> I made a second. >> Oh, I need a second. >> All in favor? >> The second? >> I I >> I >> um any abstensions? Any objections? That motion passes and I'm going
076to say good night to everyone else. Thank you. in